Mulder went out into the nippy fall air to check his mail. Down the driveway and across the country road to the mailbox on the post. His house wasn't quite rural, but it was far enough outside of the small Virginia town he lived in to make him happy. It was a good hundred yards from his front door to the mailbox, just far enough to have made him stop for his jacket first before walking out the door. The wind was enough of a bully to rip orange and yellow leaves from the trees and toss evergreen boughs mercilessly. Rain soon, he thought, from the ache in an ankle he'd broken when he was young and foolish, playing 'football' when he'd been studying in England. Heavy rain, maybe storms.

He checked inside the big aluminum mailbox. A few bills. Another issue of "The Magic Bullet", the magazine published by his strange friends, the ones that called themselves the Lone Gunmen because of something supposedly said to them by a Black Ops agent when they were uncovering a supposed conspiracy to test Baltimore's asthmatics with a paranoia inducing drug. Great guys, and he liked them tremendously, but you could hardly believe a word they said sometimes. He'd met them at a conference on unusual phenomena that he'd gone to once. Still, he was glad to get another issue. It would provide an evening's entertainment. This issue's cover story was on Teletubby mind control. He chuckled at that. Not that he had anything better to do with his Friday evening anyway. He was theoretically close enough that he could dive into Washington DC for a show or an evening out at the clubs, but in practice, he rarely went. Sometimes, when he did, he satisfied a few of his baser urges in the backrooms at one of the clubs, but the enjoyment was always fleeting, leaving him feeling cheap in the clear light of morning back at home. It was always easier, mentally, physically to remain at home.

He shut the door to the mail box and walked across the street. He thought about skipping his run and heading into town and hitting the cafe owned by his friend Jenn before his afternoon of appointments. That might not be such a bad thing. His ankle was certainly voting for no run.

His was a solitary, but mostly not a lonely life. Except for his patients, he might never see another human in a given day, unless he forced himself. He'd talk on the phone and by convoluted emails to his Gunmen friends, but only rarely saw them in person. Jenn had tried to draw him out, introduce him to others in the small town and most of the time he found himself glad for the contact, but just as glad to get back to his little country house when it was done.

Yes, it was mostly a satisfying life, in his small comfortable house and his small practice that gave him enough to live on while only taking part of his time. He ran a lot and indulged his other hobbies. Yet, the times he sat still, he could feel the loneliness- like a big portion was missing from the very center of his self. He couldn't tell what that might be, but he could sort of feel around the edges of it from the strange compulsions he would get sometimes. The conventions on paranormal events were one. The reason he'd taken up target shooting as a hobby was from some sense that his hand belonged on a gun. He was good at it too, had a real talent for it. And then there were the men. He couldn't explain a certain softening and longing he felt whenever his glance fell on a certain type of man- strong, muscular, bald and wearing glasses. It was a rare combination, but it was a feeling that made him feel utterly lost when he came across one of these types. He couldn't explain it. It was like he was mourning the loss of a man he'd never even met. The most inexplicable were the times when he'd wake up from a dream calling out the name Lovey. He'd even asked his mother about it, whether he'd had a childhood friend by that name or anything. She said he hadn't.

Today, he thought, seemed like one of those days, where the edges around the crater in the middle of his heart started to recede from the comfortable mist that kept them obscured much of the time. If he stood too still, or even if he indulged in the quiet meditation of a good run, he might start to see the true size of it.

He went back inside, put the mail on the little wooden table in the hall. He traded jackets, grabbing a heavier one from the squiggly coat rack by the door and putting the one he'd been wearing back on. He paused to look at the Picasso print that hung over his mail table. It'd been a gift from Richard, a boyfriend of long ago. An important man who'd wanted him to come home from England before his degree at Oxford had been finished. And live more or less as his kept boy, Mulder thought bitterly, even still. He'd told Richard no and hadn't regretted not coming home early. Not once. Even when various people, including the FBI had made him job offers, some of them lucrative, to lure him to DC. He pushed the thought behind him. Richard had been years and years ago. He'd been a young fool. At least he hadn't compounded that foolishness by taking the FBI job, or any of the others.

Mulder turned away from the print and from his small, well built little house. He was about to reach for the door when the phone rang. He picked it up and said, "Hello?"

"Fox!" The person on the other end of the line was his sister Samantha, crying obviously. Uncharitably, he wondered what town's jail she was calling from this time. "You have to help me, Fox. I'm in the Fairfax county jail. They picked me up. They say I was drinking and driving but I wasn't, I swear it. And you have to come help me. Get me out of here. Please!"

Something had happened to Samantha when she was young. She'd been missing for a while, just taken one evening when the whole family was sitting around watching television. No one remembered what really happened. The lights went out. When they went back on again, Samantha was gone and they'd lost several minutes of time. A few months later, she was returned, just found walking down a road not far from their house. It was a miracle to have her returned. But she was never the same after that. She'd grown from a troubled girl to a troubled woman. She drank. All the time, as an obvious kind of self-medication. Yes, Mulder felt for her, even now as he prepared himself to tell her to go to hell, he ached and wished there was something he could do. But he'd learned that hauling her ass out of jail wasn't helping, and that until she decided she was going to make the effort to truly heal her life, the best thing he could do was not to enable her. Still, his instinct was to get in his car, cancel his day's appointments and go rescue her.

"Samantha," he prepared himself to be firm. Not uncaring, but unmoving. "I told you before, when you're in police custody, not to waste your phone call, calling me. I can't come bail you out. Furthermore, I won't bail you out ever again. I will call Mom for you, and she can call a lawyer or something."

"But Fox. I didn't do it. You can't leave me in here. It's not my fault."

"Until you admit accountability for your actions, Samantha, we have nothing to talk about. I'm sorry. Goodbye, sweetie. I know it doesn't seem like it to you right now, but I really do love you."

Tough love was all fine and well to talk about, but to actually do it was hell. He hung up the phone, resting it in its cradle gently when his actual impulse was to throw it against the wall. Then he composed himself and picked up the phone again. His fingers quickly punched in the numbers to his mother's house. Not the house he'd grown up in. That had been sold. After his father died, his mother had sold it. Not that they'd always been on the verge of divorce, but not all their years together had been happy, and his death, though she'd never once said it, seemed to come as a relief to her.

"Mom?" he asked, when the phone was picked up.

"Fox?"

"Mom, I got another call from Sam. She's in Fairfax."

This kind of call had happened often enough that she didn't have to ask "Fairfax what?" Instead, she just was silent for a moment. "Oh, Fox. Can't you just take care of her? She moved there to be with you. She loves you so much and she just needs so much help. Her life has been so hard."

The disappointment was like a knife, the attempted guilt trip twisting it as his mother tried to pinion him with it. He had to be strong, he told himself. If she wanted to enable Sam's behavior, he couldn't control that, but he could stop her from controlling his. The puppet strings were only hers if he gave them to her.

"No, Mom. I told the both of you. No more. I meant it. I told her I would call you. And I did. That's all I'll do. Goodbye, Mom."

Then he hung up before she could haul out any more of her excuses. She was a woman. She just didn't feel comfortable going to bail someone out of jail, that was a man's job. She was so far away. Sam loved him so much, couldn't he see how much he was hurting her?

His life was his own. He liked it that way. He wouldn't let his remaining family sink their hooks into him that way. That was all there was to it. And for Sam's own sake, he had to set clear limits and boundaries.

He decided he had to get out of here before anyone else disturbed him with their crisis. He shut the door behind him and locked it. Probably in a town this small, he didn't need to bother, but better safe than sorry. His pickup was waiting in the driveway.

He arrived at the town square and found himself a parking spot in the diagonal slots around the courthouse. Jenn's place, "Happy Endings," was the one with the dark purple awning, and the big plate glass window. Maybe half a dozen little round tables clustered in the dark, yet inviting cafe. She'd decided on a faux Arabic look, with painted gold arches on the deep purple walls, cluttered with big glass jewels. More sort of an Aladdin and the Magic Lamp kind of look than anything. Oriental carpets were spread all over the dark pine floor and there was even a couple of the oil lamps that stereotypically held a genie, just waiting to be released. Now, that was a dangerous thing, he thought. This came out of the deep blue nowhere, and skittered across his mind like a rat, but was gone in an instant.

He stepped up to the counter and waited for a moment. The shop was almost empty, only a pair of nurses from the local hospital at the table furthest in the corner. Mulder knew them both and suspected they were having an affair. The close way they huddled over their cups of joe didn't do anything to disprove this.

He waited a little longer and finally Jenn emerged from the back. "Mulder!" she said, still wiping her hands on a dishtowel whose other end was tucked under her apron string. "I didn't hear you. I was just trying to get the dishes from the morning rush done."

She didn't bother to ask him what he wanted. It was always the same. In the summer, a big iced tea, no matter the time of day. In the cool parts of the year, plain coffee, black. She drew his cup of Mocha Java which was the regular house brew. As she handed it to him, she said, "Anything else? We've got new kinds of muffins. Frosted lemon poppyseed."

He shook his head and reached out for his coffee.

"You look like somebody kicked your puppy? What's wrong?"

"Sam's in the drunk tank again."

"You have your reasons for not going, Mulder. Stick to them."

"I know, but that doesn't make them easier."

"You know what you need? A date. Let me set you up."

"No, thanks," he said. The only times he'd tried to involve himself in relationships lately had been disasters. The last thing he needed was a blind date.

"Seriously. I think you need to get laid," she said.

Mulder thought it was unnecessary to tell her that he didn't need a date to get laid, if that's what he wanted. He just gave her a look. She continued oblivious, "So, what's your pleasure? Tall, dark and pretty with a wicked disposition? Tall, dark, broody and ruggedly handsome, maybe with an air of tragedy to make him interesting?"

"Give it a rest, Jenn," he said. For some reason, he didn't feel like he could tell her his true type- bald, sexy and muscular. With glasses. Mulder was not quite sure why the glasses were necessary, but they were definitely part of the package.

"I know lots of cute guys," she said.

He just shook his head and collected his coffee and a few sections of the newspaper that someone had abandoned and chose one of the tables near the window. He hadn't sat down for a few moments when the door to the cafe opened again, with a jingle of the camel bells that were tied to it with an elaborate cord.

Oddly, two of his friends walked in. Byers, the normal looking one of the trio, yet the strangest internally speaking. Byers wore suits. Everywhere. Today he was all buttoned up in one of his usual suits, his only concession to the fall was that the suit was a brownish color. And there was Langly, the one who'd perfected a kind of geek cool. He had big thick geek glasses, but they were an odd kind of stylish, almost edgy. His long blond hair was bound back in in a ponytail. He usually affected plain black clothing, giving in occasionally to a Ramones t-shirt.

"Mulder!" Langly said, walking up to Mulder's table without an invitation. "Byers here got a wild hair up his butt about seeing the fall leaves, so we took a drive. Then we realized we were within ten minutes of your place. I hope you don't mind us dropping in. We came looking for you here when you weren't at your house."

"No, no problem," Mulder said. Actually, he'd thought he would mind such an intrusion, but it was welcome instead. "Sit down. I just got the new issue. Haven't had a chance to read it yet. Teletubby mind control. Sounds very deep, very cutting. Where's Frohike?"

Before Langly or Byers could answer, the door to the cafe opened again. An odd couple walked in. He was, strangely, almost exactly one of the men Jenn had just described. Tall, dark, broody and ruggedly handsome. With a definite air of tragedy about him. He wore a nice suit and conservative tie. Still, something about him just reeked of the title "Fed." Beside him was a beautiful, petite woman, dressed in an expensive looking pantsuit. They scanned the cafe briefly and then approached him.

"Are you Dr. Fox Mulder?" the man asked. Mulder nodded and the man continued, "I'm Special Agent John Doggett of the FBI. This is my partner Special Agent Dana Scully. Can we have a few minutes of your time?"

Something inside of Mulder snapped. This pair seemed to him to be dangerous far beyond the normal suspicion anyone would feel when being confronted with the FBI. Yet, there was a strange longing, as if some piece of himself were calling out to him over the distance. It meant something to him, the FBI did. What, Mulder wasn't sure. It seemed to come from some deep place inside.

Mulder nodded, though he wanted more than anything to send the pair away without speaking to them. This was dangerous. It was a threat to the tranquil life he'd established here.

"Alone, if possible," Scully, the woman said. Scully? Why did that name sound familiar. No, not just the baseball announcer.

"No, my friends stay if you want me to talk," he said.

"Okay, but if anything we say ends up in that greasy rag of yours, Langly, we're never talking to you again," Doggett said.

"You know Langly?" Mulder asked.

A strange look passed between Langly and Doggett, actually the second one that the pair had exchanged. Surprise at finding each other here, but something else as well that Mulder couldn't quite read. "Yeah, I know Langly. And Byers, and their buddy Frohike," Doggett said. He pulled up a chair from another table. The little table Mulder had chosen had been hardly big enough for his coffee and the paper. Now it had five people clustered around it. "You probably know that they run a paper called 'The Magic Bullet'. They've tracked us down, tried to get us to talk to them for a couple of stories."

Byers spoke up, "Agent Doggett here and Agent Scully run a little known unit of the FBI called the X-files. They investigate unexplained, unsolved cases. Naturally, it would be within the purview of our paper to try and speak with them."

"Okay, that explains how you know them. But what do you want with me?"

"Just to ask you a few questions, Dr. Mulder," Doggett said. He got an old snapshot out of a file folder. It wasn't the clearest, but Mulder recognized at least one of the men in it immediately. Certain other men in the pictures seemed familiar but he couldn't quite place them.

"Do you recognize that man, there?" Doggett indicated the man with his index finger.

"Yes, that's my father. He died about five years ago. He was shot during a house robbery."

"Do you recognize anyone else in the picture?"

Mulder tried to dredge up names to connect with faces, the near eidetic memory that had served him so well in medical school failed him now. "No. They might have been people he worked with. But none of them are people he ever brought home."

"You mention your father's work," Scully said. "Can you tell us anything about it?"

"No, not really. He worked for the state department. He was gone a lot of the time, out of the country. I imagine a lot of his work was classified, because he never once talked about it at home."

"Nothing? No mention of any Project? Anything called Purity Control?"

"No, I told you, he never talked about work at home. And he's dead now. Is that all?" Mulder was afraid. He was telling the truth, his father never did talk about work, but there was always a kind of hushed secrecy about that, enough so that Mulder had to wonder if it was something his father was not proud of, a grim necessity. His fear made him irritable. He wanted to push these agents away and get on with his life.

Doggett seemed about to start up again, but Scully put a hand on the man's hand and she said, politely, "Thank you for your time. That's all for now."

"My card. Call me if you think of anything else. See ya around, Langly, Byers," Doggett said as he dropped a small, white card on the table near Mulder's coffee. Mulder didn't pick it up.

As soon the door had jangled closed, Mulder turned to his friends. "You know those guys?"

"Sure," Langly said. "We've written about them. Helped 'em out a few times. Frohike's fault really. He thinks Agent Scully is hot."

"And you?"

"Nah, she's not really my type," Langly said, and then was oddly silent. Mulder reviewed his mental movie of how Langly had behaved and where he'd been looking when the pair of agents had been there, and made some interesting conjectures about Langly's sexuality that had never occurred to him to make before.

Byers joined in where Langly left off, delivering his information in his usual monotone. The guy could have made a good living narrating science documentaries or something. "As I said, they run a little known investigative unit of the FBI known as the X-files. They look into the unsolved and unexplained cases that no one else at the Bureau will take on. Agent Doggett is especially interested in UFO and EBE phenomena."

"He doesn't really strike me as the type," Mulder said, thinking back on the stern, almost humorless man. He'd have pegged him as ex-military for sure. Not exactly someone you'd figure would be chasing after little green men.

"He wasn't. He was a model agent. Commendations up the ying-yang," Langly added. "Until 1993. He was off in Wyoming on the trail of some fugitive. His wife and son were at home in Virginia, but on their way to visit family in New York. Lonely, nearly deserted road at night. The car stops. There was a bright light. And then the wife and son were just gone."

"Despite that the road was nearly deserted, there were five eyewitnesses that reported an aircraft hovering nearby that matched typical descriptions of UFOs," Byers added.

"Three months later, Mrs. Doggett returns," Langly picked up the narrative again, "With a memory that's pretty patchy, remembering that she'd been subjected to what she called tests. Routine medical tests found several pieces of metal in her body, that were later determined to look like computer chips. They took them out and six months later, Mrs. Doggett was dead of a rare form of cancer. And Agent Doggett there had started off in search of answers."

"And his boy?"

"Never returned," Byers added. "Agent Doggett is still looking for him."

Mulder grimaced, remembering the tension and anger that had taken siege to his family when Sam had been missing. And she'd come back, damaged, but returned to them. He sympathized. The man must be devastated by what had happened to him. But that didn't give them the right to go digging in Mulder's personal life.

"Any idea why he might be interested in my father?"

"Mulder, you might not have recognized the other men in that photograph, but I do," Byers said. "One of them was Victor Klemper. An infamous Nazi brought over to this country under the auspices of something known as Project Paperclip. Werner Von Braun was the most famous of them, but not the only one. I suspect that Doggett suspects that your father may have been involved in bringing over war criminals even more infamous, something that may be classified."

"Wait!" Mulder said. He wasn't quite surprised. He knew that his father very probably had been involved in things he wouldn't have wanted the family to know. But this was surprising. "My father brought Nazi war criminals to this country? Why would he have done that? My mom. Her family. They're Jewish. She had family that died in Nazi camps."

Mulder was sick to his soul, a twisting, ache at the thought that his father might have done that.

"I don't know for sure Mulder. We only have pieces of the information," Byers said.

"Well, I want to find out," Mulder said. He fingered the little white card that Doggett had dropped. He wasn't sure what he was going to do yet. He doubted that Doggett would volunteer more information if he had it. Mulder would have to think of his next steps carefully.

---

Jenn watched from behind the counter as the melancholy Agent Doggett and Scully walked out of the coffee shop. She covered a big sigh by pulling a shot of espresso for the drink she was making. Try as she might, she could never prevent Mulder from coming into contact with certain people. They seemed to drift towards each other like iron filings to a magnet. If she kept him out of the FBI, then he'd run into Skinner at the grocery store and start up a conversation and before Jenn knew it, they were lovers. Mulder would come across Langly, Frohike and Byers at the most unlikely of circumstances. Other connections seemed to arise no matter how she separated the players in her dance. Connections, once made, did not break easily, it seemed. Doggett found Langly, even the times that Mulder's lover was Doggett, not Skinner, Doggett had had an unrequited, passionate something with Langly. Scully often found Krycek, though more often than not, theirs was a vicious, hateful relationship, full of fire and venom that neither of them could adequately explain.

And there seemed to be some law of the conservation of pain and suffering. This iteration, she had given him Sam back, and for all the troubles he had with her, he was still happy to have her around. Not as tortured as he had been. But despite, or perhaps because of this, Agent Doggett's child had taken Sam's place, in a way. Luke had become the touchstone to an obsession, just like Sam had been to Mulder. It was as if by taking Mulder out of his rightful place in the universe, there had been a vacuum created, one that had pulled Agent Doggett into it. The quest, that seemed to remain the same, only it was Doggett's now.

---

Mulder paused at the front door of his office briefly before daring the rain. He was protected by the same awning that covered Jenn's cafe. The cafe was still open for the night and he considered stopping in for a sandwich before heading home, but he decided against it. Dinner would be whatever he could throw together at home. He turned to make sure his door was locked. He rattled the handle and pushed against it to make sure he'd remembered to throw the deadbolt. Dr. Fox Mulder, specializing in psychiatry and post trauma counseling, the glass read, in gold letters. His office was upstairs from the coffee shop. It was just a few small rooms, a converted apartment really. He couldn't resist having a couch, a thick, tufted leather thing. His patients were always given the option of just sitting in one of the chairs, if that's what made them comfortable. "I'm not much of a Freudian," he'd always said.

As he tested his door, he thought again of Agent Doggett, wondered why the mere thought of him set such a resonance ringing through his whole body, leaving him feel as if he were quivering with excitement. As if they'd met before. But they hadn't. Mulder would have remembered that, wouldn't he? He thought about the tragedy the man had suffered, wife dead, son missing and gone, without any good, clear reason why. Such brutalized, broken souls were the people Mulder helped up in his offices, letting them talk their way through their dark nights of the soul, more often than not those dark nights brought on by others in this hard, often cruel world. Sometimes, when the words weren't enough he had his prescriptions. He could offer drugs to make the days and nights more tolerable. He also could use hypnotherapy, when the stories weren't complete, when it was the memories that weren't clear that caused the problems.

Deciding that the rain wasn't going to slack off any time soon, he pulled his jacket up over his head and decided to make a break for it through the heavily pelting cold rain. He managed to slide behind the wheel of the old pickup with only a few drops of rain finding their way down his collar. The road between town and his house was familiar. Long familiar. He could probably find his way home from town in his sleep. He concentrated on driving carefully through the thick rain, which was beginning to freeze. He hoped Langly and Byers made it back to DC safely. They'd left before his appointments, with promises to find out just what exactly Doggett and Scully were on about, what rocks they were turning over to poke at the unsavory, multi-legged creatures that lived underneath.

Thinking about the Gunmen and the road, he didn't notice the red Ford pull out of its parking space and follow close behind him. Not until he got to his turn off and was about to turn up his driveway. The little road he lived off of was a private road and almost no one who didn't live on the road ever went on it. Technically, the road was his property, so was the field on the other side of it, but practically, the other six houses on the short stretch all got an easement and were allowed passage. Not that he cared much one way or the other. Still, he noticed when strangers were in the area. He drove his truck up the steep grade of his driveway and parked it in front of the garage. He looked down the hill, through trees that were mostly bare already. Yes, there was that red Ford, pulling off to the side of the road, where they could keep his property in easy sight. From up top, it was hard to tell, but it looked like there was a man and a woman in the car.

Okay, this was just past the limit. It was one thing to track him down to his favorite cafe and ask him prying questions about a past he knew nothing about, but this was too much. Following him and staking him out. If he were in a more casually angry mood, he would have been satisfied to let them sit there in the cold, and watch him do nothing of importance. This evening's big plans had been dinner and porn. He had a new Ramrod Stevens vid that looked very promising. But because he was more immediately angry at the intrusion, he decided he was going to roust the Fibbies from his property first.

He contemplated grabbing a shotgun from the downstairs gun safe, for dramatic effect, like he might use when threatening just any trespasser, but he decided that it wouldn't look good to threaten Federal agents with gunfire, no matter if they were trespassing or not. He didn't bring any weapon with him. He did trade his corduroy and fleece jacket for a rainproof slicker and his sneakers for old, sturdy, waterproof work boots. He grabbed his biggest, brightest flashlight. Then he hiked through the woods that surrounded his house, going around the side ways, so he could surprise the occupants of the car. He was able to get within feet of their car before they noticed that the intended object of their stakeout was right there, watching them. Mulder knocked on the driver's side window.

"Do you have a warrant?" he yelled through the glass and metal, shining his flashlight right through the window, so that it shone right into the eyes of whoever was sitting in the driver's seat.

The window rolled down. "What?"

"I said, do you have a warrant?"

"No," Doggett admitted.

"Then get the hell off my property," Mulder yelled. He didn't care that he wasn't being nice.

"I'm parked on the street," Doggett said. "On the shoulder. Public property. I don't need a warrant."

"Wrong. You missed the posted signs, asshole. This is a private drive. I own this patch of gravel you've got your fucking Bucar parked on, so I suggest you present me with a warrant or get your ass off of it. Now. No, wait. I want your badge numbers and the name of your supervisor."

"I don't have to..." Doggett began.

"You do. And you will."

Mulder heard a sigh from within the car. A half a moment later, a small sheet of paper was passed, by a delicate, feminine hand, across Doggett and into Mulder's hand. "Get going, Agent Doggett. The man's well within his rights."

Mulder stuffed the slip of paper into his pocket so it wouldn't get any wetter in the plastering rain, then watched as the Ford backed up and then was quickly gone. Mulder hiked back up the hill to his house. Once inside the cosy, warm hall, he retrieved the slip of paper. He looked at it closely. It was a lined paper with a rough edge, like it was torn out of a small notebook. On it were written two series of numbers and letters. Badge numbers. Then there was a phone number, and a name.

Assistant Director Walter Skinner. That was the name. Presumably the number belonged to him. Something devilish in Mulder decided to speak up and make itself known. It urged him to call that number, to give the man hell, even though it was nearly eight o'clock by now. He was suddenly sure this Walter Skinner was the kind of man who wouldn't fail to give his subordinates hell for not following all the proper procedures and forms. That might be worth it. Get these yahoos off his back for a while. He grabbed the hall phone, not stopping to take off his muddy boots or his dripping rain jacket. He dialed the number, hands nearly shaking angrily as he punched the digits in, one by one.

"Hello?" a warm, deep voice answered.

"Are you Assistant Director Walter Skinner?" Mulder demanded.

The response he got was more formal, tired sounding too, but like the man recognized immediately that business was going on and he'd better get to it. "I am. Who is this?"

Why did Mulder get the distinct impression that he'd reached the man at home. Mulder was flustered for a moment by his reaction to that strong, seductive voice. It penetrated through his whole body like stepping from an air-conditioned plane to a tropical climate, The sensation went right down to the soles of his feet, causing his stomach to liquefy, his hands to tremble. If he had felt some frisson of...familiarity with the pair of agents earlier, this was to that what a lighting bolt was to a lightning bug.

"Yes?" Skinner asked, impatiently.

Then Mulder shook himself, realizing he'd been silent for far too long. "I have a complaint about two of your agents," he said.

Skinner sighed. "This wouldn't happen to be Agents Doggett and Scully you're talking about here, would it?"

"How did..."

"I know? They're the only agents I supervise directly. And they informed me you might be calling. Or at least Agent Scully has the sense to know when she's pissed someone off, Dr. Mulder. But I can't imagine another agent besides Scully who would dare to give out my home phone number. What, exactly, did they do this time? From your point of view."

"Besides tailing me without provocation or probable cause, trespass onto my private property, without a warrant, not much. But that's quite enough. I'm a psychiatrist, Mr. Skinner. I can't afford to be tailed like this. Some of my patients, because of the nature of their traumas are highly suspicious people. If they think I'm being watched by the government they might go into hiding. I wouldn't be able to help some very sick people."

"Would you care to discuss this matter in person? I can have my assistant make time on my schedule for a meeting. Perhaps tomorrow at noon. I'll have had time to get a more accurate accounting of this trespass incident from my agents by then," Skinner said.

It suddenly occurred to Mulder that he would very much like to meet with this Walter Skinner, to see in person what the man who had that steel fist in a velvet glove voice looked liked. Yes, he had to meet this Skinner. Actually, now that he'd made the call, most of his ire had dissipated, like fog faced by the sun. But to meet the man in person, that would be worth the drive into the city. And if, as chances were, that the man was straight and that no spark happened between the pair of him, Mulder would take the opportunity to do a little shopping, maybe take in one of the Smithsonian museums, then get himself laid. He didn't have any appointments tomorrow. He'd been planning to use the day to work on the book he'd been working on perpetually for the last several years.

"Yes, I would appreciate that, Mr. Skinner," Mulder said. "Thank you for addressing this promptly."

"It's not much of a bother. And trust me, my agents will be the only ones feeling any bother from this incident."

They made arrangements for Skinner's personal assistant to contact Mulder on his cell phone once she had an exact appointment time.

He went to bed that night, not masturbating to the Ramrod Stevens video, but to his own personal fantasy of a strong, powerful, bald man. A fantasy who had suddenly a voice that was silk and steel, granite and honey.

---

In the morning, Mulder pulled up to Happy Endings in his second car, the sensible, new compact sedan he kept just for long drives into the city. He loved his truck, but he never quite trusted that it would get him to the city and back. People who had been born the year it was made were now graduating high school.

He walked in and actually had to wait in a small line before he got to the counter. Jenn had her part time help with her, making coffee drinks as fast as Jenn rang them up. The espresso machine was steaming constantly, almost roaring.

"You going somewhere exciting today, Mulder?" she asked when he got to the counter. She took in the suit, one of his best, something he rarely trotted out. She had to have seen him drive up in the Camry too.

"Into the city. I have an appointment. And I thought I'd hit a museum or two," he said. He wasn't going to say much more than that, even if she pressed him. On one hand, Jenn had always been a good friend to him, ever since he'd rented the offices just over her shop. Yet over time, he started feeling a certain suspicion towards her. A reluctance to share the things he held the dearest with her. A reluctance that had no bearing in facts. He had no reason to, but he mistrusted her these days.

"Okay, have a good time," she said as she handed him his drink, his usual coffee in a paper cup this time. She immediately got busy with the next stream of customers and didn't pay any more attention to him.

The drive into the city took longer than he expected, dumping him into the thick of traffic right in the middle of morning rush hour. More like rush hours. He remembered exactly why he didn't live in the city. He'd contemplated stopping by Sam's on the way, to see how she was doing, but by the time he would have been close enough, he just had barely enough to make his scheduled meeting with the Gunmen, who claimed they had more information.

Mulder parked his car, feeling damn lucky to have found a street parking spot so easily. He strolled into the park, looking for the usual park bench overlooking the reflecting pond where he had met the guys before, on the few times he'd met them in person. He knew that they had a place just outside of DC, but had never been there. The magazine's address, of course, was a post office box.

He had a few moments of slack to wait before the guys were scheduled to show up. Yesterday's storm had blown over, and though it was still cold enough to make him glad for both the wool suit and his dress trench coat, the sky was a brilliant blue, unmarred by any clouds. The air, even here in the middle of the city, was fresh, exhilarating. Full of false promises of new things, like fall winds so often were, promising new beginnings when the only thing they could really offer was change, and with winter coming, usually not change for the better. He knew that, first hand from his years at his practice. All change is not a good thing, and all endings are not necessarily new beginnings.

Still, the day was pleasant enough and he was glad for the sun on his face as he crunched sunflower seeds and looked up at the sky, waiting for the guys.

Soon, Frohike, all by himself, slipped onto the bench besides Mulder. He wore a much abused leather jacket and leather gloves, the kind without any fingers. Out of the three Gunmen, it was with Frohike that Mulder had the closest relationship. They exchanged the most and longest emails, the most phone calls. They'd even gone to a baseball game together once. Frohike had not just a lively and inventive mind, keeping Mulder's intellect engaged, but a warm and caring manner, one that always made Mulder feel like his company was welcome, that Frohike was the kind of old, best friend you could call in the middle of the night when the shit is really hitting the fan and he'd show up without complaint in a few minutes, shovel in hand.

"Where's Byers and..."

"Langly?" Frohike asked, shaking his head. Then he snorted and said, "Byers' wife had to work unexpectedly, which means that he had to stay home and baby-sit. And boy howdy did he catch it the one time he brought their girl to meet a contact. Langly spent the night at his boyfriend's and hasn't come back yet. Hence, yours truly, here in lone magnificence."

"Oh," Mulder said. The interesting conjectures about Langly were true, apparently.

"Shocked the hell out of me too," Frohike said. "I'm still reeling from it. Nevermind that I just found out that there is a mystery gentleman caller for the Lone Gunmen's favorite son, I just found out last night that Blondie plays for the other team, so to speak. To have been with us so long and never have even hinted at something so important. What happened yesterday, Mulder?"

"I'm not sure what you mean. Yes, the pair of them showed up, with no explanation for why you weren't there by the way, but we didn't talk about anything so... personal."

Mulder suddenly had the feeling that had the FBI agents not shown up, that they might have. That the excuse of going out to look at fall leaves and then being so close was just that, an excuse. That they'd actually gone looking for him. For advice, possibly in his professional capacity maybe, or just as a gay man. As someone Langly could talk to. Rather than pushing for the information he'd been hoping to get, Mulder let Frohike talk, sensing it was important to his friend. This must have been quite the shock.

"Well, they took off yesterday, with the only explanation that Langly wanted to tell Byers something important and personal. I didn't think much of that. Byers has always been the buffer between Langly and me. Hairboy and I argue a lot. They came back late in the afternoon and before Langly hardly gets in the room, the phone rings. He answers it and then he's gone. Leaving Byers to explain. I guess Langly came out to Byers during their drive, and also asked him to be the one to tell me."

Yes, Frohike was hurting over this one, and overall, it was leaving Mulder feeling like he'd stepped into the middle of some intense, almost familial situation. "He must have been afraid that you'd disapprove, Frohike. Do you?"

"Only that the punk didn't have the courage to tell me face to face and that he kept it secret so damn long. Mulder, I've worked with the two of them for years, lived with both of them until Byers got married. They're family. He should know better than that."

"He must value your good opinion tremendously, Frohike, and probably feels that your disapproval would be devastating to him," Mulder said. The little man looked dejected and he slumped on the bench beside Mulder, not even bothering to pull shut his leather jacket as the wind picked up.

"How do we even know if he can trust this guy he's taken up with? I don't know who it is. Even without the chance of sleeper agents and moles, it's dangerous out there. This guy could have aids, any other STD. I know. I lived through the 70s. I know what's out there."

"Then you'll just have to trust that Langly's a good judge of character and that he has the common sense to use condoms," Mulder said, thinking of some times where he hadn't taken his own advice. He wasn't about to mention that though. Frohike didn't appear much encouraged, not until Mulder punched him lightly on the arm and said, "You do trust him. I know you do, Fro."

"With my life."

"There you go then. So, I take it with all this hoo-hah, no one gathered any more information as to what Agents Doggett and Scully wanted from me."

"Nope, I poked around a little, and Byers promised me that Langly would be working on it, but I figure, he's a little distracted right about now."

Mulder had to agree with that, but wondered at this first sign he'd seen that any of the Gunmen had a life beyond the magazine. He hadn't known that Byers was married much less had a little daughter. "So, how about you, Fro?" he asked. "Langly's gay, Byers is married with child. Do you have any shocking domestic revelations?"

Frohike paused in leering at a passing jogger who was wearing far too little to cover her considerable... assets considering the weather. He shook his head. "No, like a knight of olden days, my heart remains true and pure."

"The lovely Agent Scully?" Mulder asked. Frohike sighed tragically. Mulder slipped an arm around Frohike's shoulder. "Okay, guy, I've got an hour before I have the meeting I came into the city for. Why don't we head that way and stop for a cup of joe or something? And you can tell me all about your admiration for Agent Scully. In the strictly chivalrous sense, of course."

---

Mulder just barely made it in time to the hunkering, massive pile of concrete that was the FBI's J. Edgar Hoover building. Instead of the guest pass he had been expecting, a pretty, pleasant woman with a familiar voice was there to greet him just on the other side of the metal detector.

"Hi, I'm Kim, AD Skinner's personal assistant," she said, holding out her hand for him. In her other hand, she had a guest pass. "AD Skinner wanted to make sure you arrived safely. He's in an unexpectedly long meeting with the Director, but he should be free soon. Let me take you upstairs."

And so Mulder was taken up to a huge office and asked to sit in the ante room. He sat on the leather sofa across from Kim. As she answered the phone and did the usual typing and office work, Mulder felt unaccountably nervous. It was as if part of him was expecting to be called on the carpet as soon as this Skinner character arrived. As if some part of him was expecting to be reamed out, and not in any good way. He played with the packet of sunflower seeds in his pocket nervously, but decided not to start cracking them. He wanted, no, needed, to make a good impression. The last thing he wanted was for Skinner to walk in as he was doing something like spitting out seed shells.

After an impossibly long time, Mulder was about to get up and tell Kim that he had to reschedule, that he couldn't wait any longer. Not because he had anything he had to get to today, but because he could no longer stand the churning anticipation. His stomach twisted at the thought of what the man he was waiting for would look like. Would be like.

Just as he was about to get up, to walk across the room to Kim, a pair of men walked in the room, talking in the way that was so soft Mulder couldn't quite hear, but so intense it skirted the boundaries between conversation and argument. One of the pair was strong, powerful looking, dark skinned with distinguished looking hair that was slowly turning white. This could be the AD. But he looked disagreeable, as if he'd just tasted something bad, and that didn't fit into Mulder's mental picture of the owner of that whiskey and honey voice from the phone last night.

No, it was the other man. It had to be. This man was muscular in a way his perfectly cut suit couldn't disguise. His steel gray hair, the fringe of it that was left, was trimmed close to his head. He wore glasses. And he was so beautiful. His face bore the lines and wrinkles and serious demeanor of someone who has seen much that he wished he hadn't, but was doing the best he could to stay afloat on that sea of sorrow. Not just afloat, but at his best, because his honor would permit him to do nothing less. Mulder felt like he knew this man, even though he had never met him. He could imagine the way he kissed, the softly powerful way his arms would enclose Mulder, the way his lips would be both demanding and receptive.

"Walter," Mulder whispered, not so much saying the word as breathing it out.

The man couldn't have heard him, not as softly as Mulder had spoken. Not as far away as he was. And yet, he turned and looked at Mulder. He narrowed his eyes just a moment, then his expression went blank, neutral, the habitual expression of a man used to hiding his feeling because of how dangerous they could be. Mulder could tell, though, that this was a man with hidden depths, with a wellspring of passion that once tapped, might very well flow forever.

The man turned to his companion and said, "You'll have to excuse me, Alvin, I've been keeping Dr. Mulder here waiting long enough. There's time enough to discuss this further on Monday. Dr. Mulder if you'll step this way..."

Mulder rose, unable to do anything but as he was bidden. Mulder found himself escorted into an impressive office, Skinner's hand a little overly familiar, resting on Mulder's back. Mulder couldn't help but wonder what would happen should that hand drift down to the small of his back, or even further down. As it was, it felt electric, a shockwave travelling down his spine and up it, completing some wild, reckless circuit. Only the veneer of civilized behavior, the prohibitions induced by manners, stopped Mulder from turning around and seeing just what would happen if he were to place his lips on those stern, beautiful lips.

Instead, Mulder focused on the office, the panelled walls, the flags, the portraits of the President and the Attorney General. Instead of leading Mulder to sit at one of the chairs in front of the desk, Skinner led Mulder to a set of chairs in front of a wall to ceiling window.

Mulder sat down at one and Skinner perched on the arm of another. "Dr. Mulder, I'm sorry that you had to make the trip all the way to the city, just to hear this apology."

"I'm not," Mulder said, not even realizing that he was speaking out loud until the words had escaped his lips. "I mean, I'm very pleased to meet you and if your agents leave me alone, that's all the apology I need."

"That's the problem, Dr. Mulder. My agents Doggett and Scully don't suspect you of any wrong doing, but they seem to believe your father's work has some bearing on a very serious investigation of theirs."

"I've told them everything I know about my father's work, which isn't much," Mulder said, very much afraid that this wasn't the end of it, but rather the beginning of something very complex indeed.

"I hate to be having this conversation here," Skinner said. He looked around the room, briefly, furtively. Perhaps he was even more paranoid than Mulder's Gunmen friends, believing himself to be surveilled. "Perhaps we could talk over lunch. There's a quiet place I know, not far from here."

"That'd be fine," Mulder said.

In the elevator on the way down, Skinner said to him, "I took a few minutes last night to look over your monograph on memory recovery with sensitivity to the issues of false memory syndrome. It was a fine piece of work with interesting implications as far as forensic psychology goes. Are you sure you've never studied forensics? I found no mention of it, but you seem to understand the issues implicitly."

"No, never formally," Mulder said. "When people come to me, usually they're at a point where they want to get beyond their trauma, not stir it up further by involving a police investigation. Sometimes it's a trauma that the police won't get involved in. Like abductee syndrome."

"So you're a believer?" Skinner asked.

"On the contrary," Mulder said. For all his informal investigations, his visits with those on the edge of the normal, his looks into the paranormal, he'd never seen one thing that sustained a belief in them. "I believe that those suffering from the syndrome have suffered some great trauma. That it's a dark night of the soul expressing itself as some kind of supernatural encounter, perhaps with the divine. But I find no evidence that these UFOs exist."

Skinner looked at him strangely, almost sadly. Then, just before the elevator door opened, he said, "I have seen things that I cannot explain. Frightening things, Dr. Mulder."

Skinner led the way through the lobby of the J. Edgar Hoover building. People parted around him like waves parted around a massive air craft carrier, partially in deference to his position, but it also seemed like it was part personal power. This man was a kind of force of nature. Mulder followed in his wake, closely. Then they were out on city streets that suddenly seemed gray and lonely, the pure blue of the sky suddenly clouded with a maritime storm that had rolled in from the east in the short time Mulder had been in the building. Mulder was thankful that he kept in shape running, and that his legs were long, because Skinner's fast, impatient strides would have been hard to keep up with otherwise. And Mulder got the impression that had he been in some way not up to Skinner's physical standard, either young or old, or shorter, that the man would have moderated his speed, but that being Skinner's physical equal nearly, there would be no sufferance from that quarter, that he expected Mulder to keep up.

Shortly, they were at a small coffee shop. It was a little too upscale to be merely a diner, not fancy enough to have hooked on to some fancy appellation like a bistro. Its dining room was sunny and pleasant and the furniture dark and inviting. The waitstaff seemed to know Skinner by name, and treated him with full deference.

"Two today, Mr. Skinner?" the waitress said. She seemed surprised to see him there with someone. Mulder got a sudden picture of a lonely man who ate most of his meals alone in restaurants, choosing one regular place because the familiarity was something like a home base. And he had brought Mulder here. This was decidedly more than a business lunch, more than the Assistant Director kissing butt to apologize for misbehaving subordinates. This was very personal.

"Two," Skinner affirmed. As they were led to a table by the window, a comfortable little booth, he asked, "How's the blue plate?"

"It's good today," the waitress promised.

"Then one of those, rare."

Mulder looked at the list of specials taped to the front of the menu, hand written and xeroxed. "Make that two. Medium rare for mine."

"And a carafe of your house red. Unless you don't drink red, Dr. Mulder."

"Please, it's Mulder to my friends. Or," Mulder suddenly felt very emboldened, something that almost never happened. "Or Fox. Please, call me Fox. And no, I don't drink at all very often," Mulder said. But he could down a glass now. It wouldn't do any harm. His heart was unruly, wild, making it's own demands, and one of those was that he not let this man down in any way no matter how slight. "But it's fine."

"I'm sorry," Skinner said after the waitress had gone. "I just felt the need to celebrate."

"Celebrate what?"

Skinner reached over and placed his big, heavy hand on top of Mulder's own. That hand was strong, Mulder could feel tendons like steel cables in it. Skinner's thumb stroked the soft, sensitive flesh on the top of Mulder's hand, between the thumb and forefinger. That touch was like fire.

"Meeting you," Skinner said, softly in that voice, with such restrained power that Mulder shivered.

The words echoed through Mulder's ears again and again. Skinner didn't let go of his hand for what seemed like long, terrifying minutes. It was like every dream of Mulder's was suddenly coming true. Like time had stopped for a petrifying moment. Like he had stepped off the edge of reality into some unknown and frighteningly wonderful place, where all dreams come true, where every wish is granted.

Put off by Mulder's hesitancy, Skinner turned away slightly and said, "I'm sorry. I make assumptions, I just..."

"Felt a connection that you could neither explain nor deny," Mulder said, putting his other hand on top of Skinner's to stop the big man from pulling it away. "Me too. I didn't come today because I wanted to complain about Agent Doggett. I came because of your voice."

"I wouldn't normally have asked someone to meet with me just to apologize for my agents. I would have sent them with their tails between their legs to make their own apologies," Skinner continued. Suddenly, all four of their hands were clasped together and Mulder was wishing he could get up, close the distance of the table between them and kiss the man. "Do you believe in destiny, Fox?"

"No," Mulder said. This was not like him. So very much not like him to let such a welling up of emotion show, but it seemed to overwhelm him unless he gave it some release. To not reach out and touch this man sitting opposite him seemed untenable. Because they were in a public place, their bodies could not express the truths they were feeling, mere words would have to suffice for the moment. "But I believe in fate. That the world hands us connections, curveballs of life that we can neither control nor refuse. And I feel that in some way, I have been looking for you my whole life."

Suddenly, the carafe of wine showed up along with two wine glasses. The waitress set them on the table swiftly then made her retreat just as quickly. She, like all good waitresses, seemed to understand when her presence was undesired.

"It's hardly a fine wine with a cork to smell and all," Skinner said, as he poured for them. "But it's decent and ordinary. And I'm not much of a wine man anyway."

"And it's too early for anything harder," Mulder said. His glass of wine was pushed at him.

Skinner lifted his own glass and said, "To good beginnings and happy endings. May we someday find our own."

Mulder lifted his glass and drank to that. "And may the universes great mysteries someday be revealed as a simple truth that we have only to look at from the right perspective to see."

If Mulder had been all but bouncing with energy before, he could hardly sit still after this exchange. It seemed uncouth to suggest that they skip lunch and get a room, but that's exactly what he wanted to suggest. He suppressed the want of his body to get to know this man in the Biblical sense. Instead, over a well grilled London broil, Mulder tried to get to know the actual man, to stuff his cranium with every bit of knowledge about the man was he could drag out of the questions he managed to wedge in between the questions that the other man asked him. It was awkward at first, more interrogation on both their parts than conversation, but they said one thing, then another and before they knew it, they were talking, easily, as if they had known each other for years. As if this was something that was meant to be.

Then suddenly realizing that lunch and the wine was long gone, Mulder chanced a look at his watch. Their lunch had started at two and it was nearing five already. Indeed, the silvery light of the cloudy day was already starting to dim to gray.

"Your work," Mulder started. "Shouldn't you have been due back long ago? I'm sorry. I know you must be a busy man."

"Not so damn busy that I can't take an afternoon off. But if you have to get going," Walter said. Funny, how in such a short time it had gone from Mr. Skinner to Walter.

"No, not at all. I'm completely free until Monday," Mulder said. What he didn't admit was that he never wanted to leave the side of this man again. He was bold enough to suggest the thing he'd been thinking about earlier. He wanted to see if the way Walter filled out his pristine white shirt was a promise that would be kept. Mulder was all but panting over the thought of getting his hands on those beautiful shoulders and that magnificent ass. "I was just wondering if you'd be interested in. I mean, I was thinking about staying overnight in the city. Getting a hotel room."

Damn it. That didn't come out nearly a tenth as well as he'd wanted it to. He wanted this man. Bad. So badly that he was sounding like a wallflower at the junior high dance.

Thankfully, Walter's hands found their way to Mulder's again. Their gentle strength was all the reassurance that Mulder needed. With eyes that were nearly completely black with arousal, Walter said, his voice even more throaty than usual, "Come home with me, Fox."

Somehow, the way he said it made it sound more like he was asking Mulder to come home again. And never leave.

"Yes," Mulder said. Could his answer be anything else?

---

They couldn't get out of the restaurant fast enough to suit Mulder. Then, it was torture to have to retrieve his car from where he'd left it and follow Walter home, out to suburbia to the expensive looking tower that he lived in.

At last he pulled into the guest parking space in the garage underneath Walter's building. Walter had gotten there just a few moments sooner than Mulder and he rushed up to Mulder's car as soon as it was parked. They hadn't yet kissed, but it seemed a foregone conclusion that they would make love, very likely the instant they had Walter's front door shut behind them.

The instant Mulder opened his door and stepped out of his car, Walter was right there, acting as if he just might reach out and kiss Mulder right there in the parking lot. Their lips were mere inches apart, but someone pulled into the garage, and they reluctantly pulled away from each other as the car drove close.

"Let me get my bag," Mulder said. He hadn't planned on spending the night in the city, but it was just a habit of his, packing a travel bag, even for these short trips to the big city. He pretty much kept one packed in the trunk of this car all the time, to save time.

He grabbed it out of his trunk now, then followed Walter to the elevator. There'd be time to call the Gunmen later, to find out if they'd discovered anything, and perhaps satisfy his curiosity about Langly's mystery boyfriend. This moment was more important than any of that.

---

Walter opened the door and let him into an expansive apartment with white walls and dark furniture. It was impersonal, but luxurious in a way. Walter shut the door behind them, then suddenly Mulder found himself with an armful of eager man. He was pushed up against the door and the plundering started, mouth hard and wonderful on his, fingers surprisingly nimble for their size working to free Mulder's tie and other clothes. Once Mulder was free of his tie, and so far gone that he didn't even notice where it had ended up, he sagged against the door, a puddle of acquiescence. Anything that Walter wanted out of him at this moment, he could have had for the asking.

Walter took this as a reason for hesitation though. He backed off and, touching Mulder's face tenderly, said, "I don't want to rush you."

"For God's sake, rush me already, Walter," Mulder said, then pulled Walter close for a kiss. Then added between desperate kisses, "You could have me right here, right now. On the floor. You could have had me over the hood of my car in the parking garage."

Walter was just as needy, but he found the willpower to push Mulder away and say, "My bedroom. Upstairs. I'm too old for the floor to be very attractive any more. Condoms and lube are up there."

"Right here," Mulder said, reaching into his bag and pulling the objects in question out. Somehow, that led to more kissing, perhaps because Walter was so pleased with him. Then before long, both of their clothes were in disarray, pants down around ankles. Mulder kept his shirt on, but it was unbuttoned all the way down and open from when Walter had been sucking on his nipples. It seemed a natural progression, after all was said and done, to lean Walter against the front door, elbows supporting him. Then to nudge up to him. Mulder slowly eased himself into the tight but lubricated space there. They'd prepared Walter carefully, but still the man groaned a little as Mulder pushed into the place that seemed home to him, as if he had been missing for years and come back to just now.

"Are you okay?" Mulder asked.

"Better than okay," Walter said, and started to squirm, trying to back up against Mulder, wanting more of him. Okay, so maybe that groan had started as pain, but it wasn't pain the man was feeling now. "Or I will be as soon as you start getting busy back there."

Mulder did as he was told.

Eventually, they'd made it to Walter's bed and after another frenzied round of lovemaking, had grabbed a few hours of sleep. Then woken and made love again. And again.

Finally, they separated, so fully sated that for the moment, they had to emerge for breath, and for food. Mulder peeled himself off Walter and said, with a grin, "I think we need a shower."

Between the sweat and the other bodily fluids, that much was true, but Mulder also wanted a good reason to get out of bed. Hunger wasn't quite compelling enough yet.

Walter rolled out of bed. God, what a prime specimen, Mulder thought at the sight of the man's backside. He got out of bed and followed the man into his bathroom.

Later, they were sitting in Walter's kitchen, coffee brewing. Good coffee. It smelled heavenly. Mulder was wearing nothing more than a silk robe borrowed from Walter. It was dark green and made from a thick, sueded silk. Not exactly the sort of thing Mulder would have expected Walter to have around, given the overall feeling of spartan luxury that the man had surrounded himself. The robe was just a little too excessive, too luxurious. Walter had pulled on a pair of plaid pajama bottoms and nothing more. He caught Mulder's approving eye and said, "I hope you can forgive an old man's vanity. But I have to make use of every good point I've got."

"Vanity, hell. You're magnificent, Walter," Mulder said.

As the coffeepot was about to make its last burble, there was a knock on the door. "I'll be just a minute," Walter said as he got up to answer it.

Mulder hung back. It occurred to him that this might be work related, and that Walter probably had worked out some arrangement with the Bureau- they didn't bother him about his personal life if he was discreet about it. Walter didn't seem alarmed, nor had he asked Mulder to stay hidden, but Mulder decided it would be the better part of valor to stay in the little kitchen, with its cherry wood cabinets and immaculate countertops.

Mulder poked around quietly until he found a mug. He poured himself a cup of the fragrant coffee and sat down at the breakfast bar. He didn't try and listen, but he couldn't help hearing. Noise travelled well in the open plan apartment.

"I told you not to bother me at home," Walter said. He sounded angry. "Whatever power you have over me at the Bureau doesn't extend to personal time."

"Oh, come now, Mr. Skinner. You're an awfully important man to believe you can just leave the office at five and be done with your job," the voice was oily, uncutuous. This was obviously the voice of a man used to getting what he wanted. And Mulder fancied, a man used to unsavory dealings. Mulder could hear the strike of a lighter, then smell noxious smoke. "Or should I say, two in the afternoon. When there's so much important work to be done?"

"What is this? What do you want from me? I am not going to serve a federal search warrant on my own agent's house."

Suddenly, Mulder recognized the voice. It was one he'd only heard a few times in his life. The last was at his father's funeral. That man had come to it. Mulder hadn't paid close attention. He'd been pretty much distracted, between his own grief and the simple act of keeping Sam upright through the funeral, he hadn't been able to do much else. But he remembered looking over at his mother at one point after the graveside service, and a man was talking to her. The man had seemed overly familiar with his mother, touching her cheek at one point. It had made Mulder angry, but then Sam had started shaking so badly that it had been all he could do to get her to the car to sit her down. She'd been such a daddy's girl and their father's death had made her downward spiral all that much more precipitous. Mulder was certain, though, this was that man.

He risked getting up from his stool and peeking around the corner, to see if he could get a glimpse of this unpleasant stranger.

"I need you to get the damn tape," the man was saying. Mulder must have made some slight noise, or perhaps the man just knew he was there, because he spoke up, "Ah, it's Dr. Mulder, isn't it?"

Mulder didn't have any choice in the matter then but to walk around the corner, looking, he thought, obviously well-fucked, the both of them were, and wearing only a silk robe. Not exactly the armor he wanted to dressed in to face this old dragon. His sense of the menace emanating from the man was only part instinctual.

"Nice to see you again, Dr. Mulder," the man said. "The last time, the circumstances were so tragic."

"Who are you?" Mulder spat out.

"An, old, old friend of your father. His death was so needlessly tragic," he said, so patently insincere that Mulder could have spit at him. When the only response he got was Mulder's angry stare, the man said, "The tape, Mr. Skinner. I expect to see it in twenty-four hours. Good day."

The man excused himself and showed himself out the door. When it shut, Walter and Mulder were left to stare at each other.

"You know him?" Walter asked, breaking the long silence.

"He came to my father's funeral, other than that, no, I don't even know his name. God, I hate the smell of smoke," Mulder said. Actually, it was a cultivated hate. He'd only managed to quit smoking two years ago, and it was surprising how often the craving for just one more was still there. The remnant smell from the man made Mulder both disgusted and craving. The man even smoked the same brand Mulder had- Morley's. "Who is he?" Mulder asked, sure that Walter had to have some idea, after all, the man had quite casually just shown up and ordered Walter to jump.

"I don't know his name. All I know is I've been ordered to cooperate with him in anything he asks of me. Dammit," Walter said as he threw the piece of paper he'd been handed down on a handy end table. Then he picked up his phone and dialed a number apparently on the speed dial. He waited a while, then spoke, "Agent Scully? Where are you?"

Walter paused and asked, "New Mexico? Where's Agent Doggett? What do you mean?"

Walter listened carefully for some time. "Get home, Agent Scully. If it was the men you think it was, then there's nothing to be done where you are. Yes. I'm sorry, Agent Scully."

When he finally hung up, he turned to Mulder. His face was that closed, stone like expression that existed only to hide emotion. Troubled emotions. "I'm sorry, Fox. I'd hoped to spend the whole weekend with you," Walter said. He started walking to the stairs. "I'm needed at work. One of my agents is probably dead."

"Agent Doggett?" Mulder asked. The conclusion was undeniable considering the half of the conversation that Mulder had heard earlier. He felt a chill right in the center of himself. This was all linked, somehow. The man at his father's funeral, who'd just showed up at Walter's apartment, who knew him even though Mulder didn't know him. The picture of Bill Mulder with Nazi war criminals. And whatever investigation that Doggett and Scully had been conducting. And a tape that the mysterious smoker wanted. It was all linked. Just how much about his father had he been blissfully ignorant about? Quite a lot apparently.

"Yes," Walter said. He bent down and picked up the suit jacket that he'd discarded so hastily the night before. He grabbed a small white card from his pocket and then scrawled two numbers on it quickly by hand. He handed it to Mulder, "I can't say much more, you can understand why. I'm sorry. Here. The first handwritten number is my direct office line. The second is my cell. Either should get me without too much problem."

Mulder took his cue gracefully. It was obvious that Walter hated to do it, but he was being kicked out. Just temporarily. Mulder knew he'd be seeing a lot of this man in the future, but for now, his job was getting in the way. Mulder understood. If there'd been a patient emergency, he wouldn't have hesitated to leave.

Besides, he'd have his chance to check up on the Gunmen. And Sam. He owed her a visit. Mulder took the card and kissed it lightly. Then he started gathering his clothes off the floor. "Do you think you'll be clear of this by next weekend? I figure I can get back to the city by then."

"God, I hope it will be over by then."

Mulder got dressed quickly, then was out the door before the memory of Walter's touch had faded from his body. He slumped against the wall in the elevator. His hair stuck up at all kinds of odd angles, his lips felt as if they were swollen and he decidedly had razor burn. And a good fresh coat of stubble himself as he hadn't taken the time to shave in his hurry to clear out and let Walter get to his work. He never had found his tie either. Well, at least, if nothing else, he had a good excuse to see Walter again. He was much happier to be out of his suit anyway. He preferred the t-shirt and jeans he'd packed in his overnight bag.

His first step, once he'd pulled his car out of the parking garage, was to call the Gunmen. He reached Frohike.

"Any idea yet about what Agent Doggett was looking into?" he asked the little man.

"Not yet," Frohike said.

"Well, I think it may very well just have gotten him killed," Mulder said. Then he relayed an extremely edited version of the events of last night and this morning.

"Damn, Mulder. You always go hunting for the big game, don't you?" Frohike said. "I think you'd better get over here."

And so, for the first time, Mulder was given directions to the Lone Gunmen's hideout. He got there and though he wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, it wasn't what he found. The only sign that he hadn't stumbled across a completely abandoned warehouse was the small print on the door promising that this was the headquarters of the Lone Gunmen, publishers of the Magic Bullet. The door itself was heavily dented and badly painted metal, with more locks than the average bank. He knocked and the door was so secured into place with deadlocks that it hardly made a rattle. That didn't seem to make a difference, because soon Mulder could hear the clicks of locks being turned. Eventually, the door was opened just enough for Mulder to slip himself inside.

Byers stood on the other side, holding a little girl, just over a year old. Little could have been more incongruous than the child, dressed entirely in pink. Pink and lace. She was obviously a girl, and obviously happy, in the grimy, industrial building. The little girl waved her hands at Mulder and smiled, not shy in the slightest around strangers. Mulder felt a strange, melancholy ache at the sight of the child for some reason, as if she reminded him of something, but he couldn't quite place it.

"This is your daughter, Byers?" Mulder asked. The child's hair was the same dark color as her father's.

"The one and only. She wants to say hi. Holly, this is Mulder," Byers said. He held out the girl to Mulder. "She's outgoing, unlike her old dad here."

Mulder apparently wasn't being offered the option of refusing the child, so he took her in his arms. She grabbed at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and holding tightly. At least she didn't pull his hair or ears like he'd been fearing. Carrying the precious burden, Mulder followed Byers down a set a stairs, to a basement. On the other side of another metal door, there was a big room, filled with a multitude of computers, communications equipment, spools of wire, workbenchs filled with circuit boards. In the middle of it all, far away from any hazards, was a pink playpen, filled with toys. Frohike was in front of one of the computers, typing fast, nervously engrossed in it. Langly was doing the same.

Mulder turned to put the child in her playpen, but Holly started to fuss, as if she'd break out screaming if he put her down in there.

"Oh, she never goes in there. We only keep toys in there," Byers explained. "I'll take her if you don't want her."

"The only way Byers could get his wife to agree to let Holly come here was to have the playpen. To keep her safe supposedly," Langly said, looking up from his computer. He held out his arms. "I'll take her, Mulder."

Mulder had the feeling that the little lady's feet never touched the ground, not around this place.

"Byer's wife doesn't like Holly to be here. I don't know why," Frohike said. "Not many men have the chance to bring their daughters to work. Anyway, Mulder, you said that you believe that Agent Doggett was in possession of some kind of tape that may relate to that picture of your father with the Nazis."

"I get the feeling that there are people willing to kill for that tape," Mulder said, thinking back on the smoking man, and the shiver that his presence had sent up and down his spine.

"Langly, you have any idea what was on that tape of Doggett's?" Frohike asked.

Langly got up from his computer. He walked over to Frohike and put Holly onto Frohike's lap. Then he said, "I told you. I was just fucking him. He didn't tell me anything."

Then he walked away. He stopped for a jacket, but stormed up the stairs, and probably out of the building. So, Doggett was the mysterious "gentleman caller." Mulder thought he'd noticed a strange dynamic between the two of them at the coffee shop. And for all that Langly was saying it was just sex, his actions belied that. It definitely had been something more. Or at least Langly had wanted it to be something more.

Holly had held her arms out to Langly as he'd stomped away and started crying as he headed up the stairs. Frohike bounced her on his knees to distract her, but it didn't work. Byers sighed and held out his arms for his daughter. Frohike handed her over and Byers took her. He hugged her close to his chest, gently, doing all the right daddy things to comfort her. Mulder felt a lonely, empty kind of jealousy as he watched.

Frohike said, bringing them back to the tragedy at hand, "Ringo is taking this hard. I feel sorry for the kid."

"I don't think he's dead," Mulder said, not sure why he was saying that, but something in him just knew. Intuition? Some kind of extrasensory knowledge? "I don't think this one ends that way. I think Doggett will be okay."

"I wish I shared your optimism, Mulder," Byers said. "I do know that these people will not hesitate to kill to further their ends. Look."

Byers pushed a newspaper clipping at Mulder. He scanned it quickly, a brief news item, sadly brief, about a murder, from a newspaper from a city big enough that execution style murders got buried in the middle of the metro section. It told the story of one Kenneth Soona, dead in a landfill, a bullet in the back of his head.

"A week or so ago, our friend here, known as the Thinker, I think that's his real name, asked for our help contacting Agents Doggett and Scully. We arranged for a meeting. We don't know much beyond that. Our pal, Kenneth there, would only say that it would be of great interest to Doggett. Whatever he had, it was hot."

Mulder wanted to do more, do something besides just sit there and confabulate about what could possibly be on the tape. But he didn't see how he could. This was, despite his interest, not his story, not his place. He felt, though, like he'd been pushed out of his own life. This should be his story, his place. Today, more than ever, he felt like some stranger was living his life for him, and that he was a stranger in his own life.

"Do you think Langly's going to be okay?" Mulder asked. "Maybe someone should go after him."

"He'll be okay," Frohike said. "He just needs to blow off a little steam. I shouldn't have put my foot in it like that."

"There's nothing more we can do here, really," Byers said. "It's getting late. Did you need a place to spend the night, Mulder? My wife normally doesn't like it when I bring my friends by, but you're considerably more well-heeled than my usual companions."

"No, I'm going home," Mulder decided. "Call me the instant you have any new information. Call my cell. I'm going to go to my mother's house and see if she can tell me anything about my father's work. And I should see my sister while I'm in the area."

Mulder said his farewells. As the heavy metal door shut behind him and the locks started clicking into place, he shivered, a ghost of a memory. He couldn't help looking over his shoulder as he got into his car. You're getting as paranoid as them, he scolded himself, still remembering though something they'd said. No matter how paranoid you are, it's not paranoid enough.

Sam's place first. She lived in a modest place in a big apartment complex. About all she could afford just living off her trust fund. She couldn't hold a job down, not with the drinking that she did. It was a shame, in a way, that trust fund. It kept her from truly hitting bottom. She had enough to keep her pickled pretty much most of the time and still pay her rent.

Mulder had long suspected that someone, maybe one of his father's friends in politics, was looking out for Sam. She'd been hauled in for DUI more times than he could count, yet she never served any time. The charges were always, mysteriously, dropped. Or if they weren't dropped, they were reduced to something insignificant such as "driving too fast for conditions," or even a simple speeding ticket. Well, whoever was doing that wasn't doing her any real favors, Mulder thought. They should really take away her license before she killed someone.

He parked in front of the shingle sided building that her apartment was in. The building management hadn't raked the leaves yet and they cluttered the walk and choked the dying remnants of flowerbeds. Two steps up and he was at the door, pressing the intercom button labelled, "Mulder, S."

There was no answer for a long time, but after a few minutes, the door buzzed, indicating that it was unlocked. He sighed. She should know better. At this time of night, just letting anyone into the building. Still, he pulled the glass and metal door open and stepped into the hallway. Up one flight of shag carpet covered steps, down the hallway and he was at the door of her apartment. She'd left it propped open, thoughtfully, with a vodka bottle. Empty vodka bottle.

"Sam?" he called in through the open door. The apartment was dark beyond. "It's Fox. Sam?"

When he didn't get an immediate reply, he pushed the door open all the way and stepped cautiously into the hall. He reached for the light switch. There was a recycling bin right by the door. He tried not to look at all the empties that were overflowing it. Otherwise, the place was unexpectedly clean for someone of her level of functioning. He heard a minor sign of life, the television, and followed it into the living room. She was lying on the couch, covered up to her chin in a pile of blankets, as if she couldn't get warm. She was lit only by the blue glow of the television. Her eyes were wide open, staring at the screen, but she didn't appear to be watching it.

Mulder took the couch arm closest to her head. It was a sturdy, square arm. The sofa was well-worn leather, the one that had been in his father's study before their mother had sold the house they grew up in. She'd been given it, without question, even though he'd wanted it as well. What Sam wanted from their mother, she got. It was always as if their mother was trying to make up for whatever hideous things had happened to her when she was missing those months. He'd wondered in the insomniac, doubtful hours before dawn, sometimes, if their parents had known where Sam had gone, what had happened to her. And if that's why they tried to hard to soothe their little, wounded bird.

"I hate you," she whispered as he reached down to stroke her hair, though she didn't stop him. "You didn't come for me."

"I said I wouldn't, Sam," he said softly. He kept stroking her hair. The curly, long locks of it were tangled, like she hadn't combed it in some time. Actually, from what he knew of her, with those curls, it might only have been a day or two for it to get that tangled. He wanted to comb it out gently, sooth away the snarls for her. If he couldn't untangle the mess that her life had become, it seemed like he might be able to at least do that for her. "Someone, sometime in their life has to follow through with what they say, and be completely honest. You know that you can always count on the truth from me. Even if it feels like it hurts you, I think you need to know that there is someone who is completely truthful. Someone who won't pretend that you don't have a problem."

He'd told her this before. Maybe someday, she would hear it.

Sam had left the remote on the coffee table. He leaned over to grab it. He turned off the set, then reached behind him to turn on a table lamp that cast the room into warm chiarscuro. Sam stirred, turned onto her side and sighed.

"Sam, I need to ask you something," Mulder said. "Something important."

"What? What can I possibly tell you that's important?" she asked, voice bitter. "After all, I'm just your alcoholic little sister who apparently so dysfunctional that I can't manage my own life. So you always tell me."

"Sam, no, I never said that. Please, I need you to remember something for me," Mulder said. He reached down to touch her hair again. He loved her, but love was such a tangled, dangerous thing. "Sam, you were always closer to Dad than I was. Did he ever tell you about his work, what he did with the State Department?"

"I don't remember," she said, but with such terse finality that he immediately suspected that there was something that she wanted to forget but couldn't.

"Do you remember a man, a friend of Dad's, who always smoked Morley's? He was at the funeral. Do you remember? Do you know his name? He was a really good friend of Dad's."

"No, I don't know!" she said, pulling the blankets up over her ears. "Why are you asking me these things, Fox? I don't know. I don't know anything. You should know. You're older than me."

"But you were close to Dad," Mulder said, more convinced than ever that Samantha knew something. Then, a little demon in his head spoke up, something that demanded that he talk about the big family secret, the thing that no one talked about, the elephant in the middle of their living room that everyone failed to notice by common agreement. Secrets and lies, those were the foundation of a dysfunctional family, and his family had them in spades. "When you were missing, Sam, what happened to you. You remember, don't you?"

She was immediately agitated. She sat up on the sofa, blankets bunching at her waist. She wore a stained, grubby t-shirt. "I told you. I told the doctors. I told everyone. I don't remember. There was a bright light. Then it was a cold and I was walking down a road. And at the hospital, they told me it was October, not July."

"Are you sure, Sam?" he prompted gently. "I think you do remember something. There are people who can help you recover your memories."

At that, Sam put her hands over her ears, crunched her eyes closed tight and said, whispering it in a thready, harsh voice, "I don't remember. Fox, I told you I don't remember anything. I don't remember anything."

He'd pushed too hard. He should have known better. The trauma was just too strong. It was so hard to be objective, to know when and where to push when it was a hurt so close to oneself. He cursed his parents silently, especially his dead father, for putting them into the situation. He was convinced, suddenly, that this was the sins of his father, being visited upon them. The lies, secrets and sorrows travelled from one generation to the next like any other inheritance. To know that his father had brought Nazi war criminals to this country, or perhaps had done things even worse, you only had to look at Samantha, sitting up on her old battered sofa, rocking back and forth like an autistic child. He knelt on the floor by her and pulled her into his arms tightly, holding her against his chest. She didn't fight him, but collapsed against his chest, crying. "I'm sorry, Sam. I'm sorry. It's okay. You don't remember. That's okay."

But it wasn't okay. Hell, he wanted to do some rocking and crying himself. It wasn't that his picture of his father had been pure white innocence, now sullied with filth in one day. He'd always had doubts to his parents' characters, but they were confirmed now like they never had been before.

He held her until she cried herself out and slumped limp against him. While she did, he insinuated himself onto her sofa, more comfortable than kneeling on her floor. When she was cried out, he said, "Have you eaten today, Sam?"

And so it ended with her sitting at her cluttered kitchen table, while he stirred a can of vegetable soup as it heated up. She reached for a partially full bottle of vodka from among the rubble on the table, to add a slug to the orange juice he'd poured for her.

"Sam, no, not while I'm here at least," he told her. She shot him a vicious look, but she took her hand off the bottle and sipped at her juice plain.

Sometime after he'd gotten some of the soup into her, she just put her spoon down, as if in defeat, and said, "Sometimes I think it would have been better if I'd never come back from where they took me."

"No, Sam, don't ever say that," he said. And then, suddenly, for the first time this evening, he was crying. Weeping big, heaving sobs and water running down his cheeks. He couldn't account for the feeling of vertigo, as if he could feel, as if he knew exactly what it would have felt like if she had never come back. And that feeling was a cold, sobering, miserable one. "No, don't say that," he said as Sam took her turn holding him like he had her earlier.

---

He never did get up to see his mother. By the time he left Sam on Sunday, it was too late. He headed back to his comfortable little life in small town Virginia. True, he thought constantly of Walter, but otherwise, he life was uneventful. On Monday, he tried calling Walter and left a message. Tuesday passed by without a return call. On Wednesday morning, he got a call, but it wasn't the one he was hoping for or expecting.

"Mulder," Frohike said. He sounded exhausted and shaken. "Langly's been shot. It's not looking good. If you want to say goodbye to him, I'd suggest you get up here now."

"What?" Mulder asked, in shock. Langly? Shot? He pictured the article again, hacker geek, dead in landfill, the story buried in the metro section. He thought about paranoia and secretive, nameless men who it seemed, could wreck havoc without consequence, order death the way another man would order a steak in a restaurant. He wondered, if Langly died, would it, too, fail to get more than a few paragraphs notice? "Langly? Shot? I'll be up there as soon as I can get there."

And so he left, not so much for Langly's sake, but for Frohike's. The man had called for a reason, because he'd wanted Mulder's support. Even though the three weren't related by blood, this had to be like any family member being hurt. He cancelled his appointments for not just this afternoon, but for the next couple of days, repacked the bag he habitually kept in his car, then took off, not even stopping to tell Jenn where he was going. He drove as fast as he could while balancing the concern of getting stopped by a cop. His hands gripped the wheel tighter and tighter as he drove, thinking of what could be happening to Langly, the long days and nights of his medical internship coming back to him. He wondered, if he asked Walter, would the FBI look into this crime? Would the big man even see the shooting of some paranoid geek as worthy of investigation? Would Walter throw his weight around like that?

He got to the hospital specified by Frohike just after one. He hurried past the front desk. A tough looking man, kind of scruffy and unshaven, wearing a leather jacket, brushed past Mulder on his way to the bank of elevators. The tough turned back to look at Mulder and as their paths crossed for a moment, their eyes met. The man's eyes were the most beautiful deep green Mulder had ever seen. Mulder shivered at the intense stare. Then the man turned away and walked out of the hospital, not in a hurry, and as if he owned the place. Upstairs, one jittery elevator ride later, he walked the halls until he found the right room.

It was empty.

Except for John Doggett, sitting in one of the vinyl chairs endemic to hospitals. The man cradled his head in his hands delicately, as if he were honestly afraid it might split open. His elbows rested on his knees. Mulder cleared his throat, wanting to attract his attention without startling the man. Mulder had a very good idea of what the empty room meant, though he wasn't going to leap to conclusions. Still, the man must be feeling like hell. Doggett looked up. His eyes were rimmed with red, though they were dry at this moment. The quiet clamor of the hospital surrounded them. One thing was for sure, death, in this place, was not peaceful nor easy.

"He's gone," Doggett said. "He coded an hour and a half ago. Worked on him for what seemed like hours. They couldn't do shit for him."

Whatever illusions Langly might have had about him and Doggett just fucking, they were just that- illusions. This was a devastated man. "I'm sorry," Mulder said. "So sorry. I tried to get up here sooner. What happened?"

Mulder put his hand on the man's shoulder, stifling an instinct to embrace him. Probably it would be badly received. Doggett didn't seem like the kind of man who would take kindly to being hugged by a stranger. Yet, Mulder felt for him, in a more intense, immediate way than he could explain. This was more than his usual empathic response to those suffering.

"I was coming home from New Mexico. We were going to meet to talk about this mess. I was supposed to go pick him up after I stopped at my place, but I guess he decided to surprise me. That bullet was meant for me."

Mulder must have failed to suppress his look of surprise, like he usually did, in his usual role of professional listener. Doggett lifted an eyebrow, a move he must have borrowed from his partner, and said, "You do what I do, you're not a real popular kind of guy. It ain't the first time someone's tried to kill me and it won't be the last."

Then he leaned his head down onto this hands again, rubbing his wrinkled forehead as if it hurt. The pain, Mulder knew, was emotional, not any headache.

"Is it worth it?" Mulder asked. "Your quest for the truth, is it worth it, when things like this happen?"

"I don't know," Doggett said. He looked up from the cradle of his hands again. "But I don't see as I can do anything different."

At that, there was a quiet sound from the doorway. They both looked. It had been Walter, clearing his throat slightly to get their attention. He seemed more than a little surprised to see Mulder there. Mulder surmised that Walter had come to find Agent Doggett. The moment over, Mulder walked out of the room, sidling past Walter.

"Later," Mulder said. "I'll wait in the lobby."

Walter nodded, then entered the room, saying, "Agent Doggett..."

Mulder didn't stay to hear any more. It wasn't his place, though he longed to hear Walter's voice again. Now his voice was stern compassion, Contained anger, but not anger at Doggett, anger for him. In a way, Mulder envied Doggett, working for Walter, though, he reflected as he walked down the hallway past the nurses station, he probably had the better part of the deal, having the man as lover.

Mulder settled himself in a vinyl seat in the lobby, turning his attention to an old, old friend- the television. It was some stupid gameshow, but it still captured his attention and before he knew it, Walter was settling down in the seat next to him. Mulder wanted to get up, throw his arms around his new lover and kiss him thoroughly, but he deferred to Walter's obvious sense of public decorum.

"He's not a suspect, is he?" Mulder asked.

Walter thought a moment, then spoke, "I probably shouldn't reveal anything about an on-going investigation, but no, he isn't. He might have been. He and his partner have been acting...erratically this past week. But at the time of the shooting, witnesses place him at the airport still, because of a flight delay. And the weapon was found at the scene with a set of prints that aren't his."

"He was a good friend," Mulder said. "Langly, that is. Will they find who did this?"

"I don't know, Fox," Walter said. He sounded exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with the lack of sleep he must have been facing. He'd been fighting these mysterious forces, the ones who shot Langly, the ones his father had been involved with, the ones who didn't seem to hesitate at anything to enforce their world order. Fighting them a long time, backing up Agents Doggett and Scully, even when it must have been extremely difficult for him, politically, to do so. And he was tired from the fight.

"Are you free for the evening, yet?" Mulder asked.

"I..." Walter began, and Mulder could tell that he was about to say, no, that he had any number of things he still had to get to, reports to read, any number of his normal tasks that must have gotten displaced by this thing, that he would have to make up. Mulder could almost see Walter mentally tick off the things waiting in his in box. Then he made a decision. "I probably should go back and do a few hours of catch-up, but most of those things, another twelve hours won't make a big difference."

"Then let me take you home, Walter," Mulder said.

Home, for Mulder, had become anywhere Walter was. But for right now, he needed to get the man someplace where he could strip that suit off of him and make fierce, tender love to him, give him strength for this fight and make up for the demands that Agent Doggett's quest had placed on the life of his lover.

"Home," Walter said. "I knew I'd get there some time this week."

---

Thursday morning found Jenn wrestling with a big delivery from the food service attempting to get all the perishables put away safely in the fridge or freezer, while trying to cope with the morning rush, and her usual morning help had called off. Still, one coped. As the years had gone by, she found she liked this place, this little coffee shop that, while a few well-placed wishes had brought into existence, was kept open day after day by the labor of her own hands. You couldn't just wink coffee into existence for people. No, you had to pull the shots from the espresso machine yourself. You had to smile at the people and make them happy so that they'd come back the next day and the next.

Mulder hadn't shown up yesterday, and if she'd been any less busy, she might have worried about that. But something about the combination of the weather and the time of year sent people into her shop in droves for hot drinks. She'd been kept busy all day. When Mulder came in, late Thursday morning, she wouldn't have paid him much mind, what with all the things she had to juggle already. But the grief in his eyes was all too obvious. She had to ask him what was wrong, so she did.

"Langly's dead," Mulder said, flatly. "Frohike and Byers are devastated, not to mention his new boyfriend, John Doggett."

Langly? Dead? She'd known the instant the FBI agents had come into her shop the other day that Doggett was sleeping with Langly again. She'd picked Langly for Doggett the first time because he'd been young, handsome enough once you ditched the glasses, and convenient. But the pair were surprisingly good for each other. They seemed to rub the raw edges off of each other. "No, that can't be," she found herself saying. "That's not how it's supposed to work out."

At that moment, Mulder's eyes flashed brightly. Some automatic computation at taken place at lightening speed in his mind. Connnections were made, conclusions drawn. He knew. He knew exactly what she was. He knew what she was doing. He might not have all of the memory pieces. He didn't remember who he had been before she had started with him, but he knew that it was her fault that he didn't know. "Exactly what do you mean," he said, coldly furious, "'That's not how it's supposed to work out?'"

Jenn swallowed, hard. This was not supposed to happen either. He was not supposed to know. How could he? Each time she had changed his life, she had gone back to the very beginning of a particular decision, a particular branching of his fate. His life had changed seamlessly from that point. Mulder truly never had joined the FBI. He had started a psychiatric practice in small town Virginia. That was his life. That was how it had happened. There was no way he could have remembered any of his previous existences, because they didn't happen, not in this life. Scully hated Krycek in this life, Jenn had seen. Just a few days ago, Jenn had seen how Doggett had been forced to shoot Scully in the shoulder to prevent her from shooting Krycek in a drug-addled haze. In this life, she'd never loved the man, never had a daughter with him that Mulder and his lover had adopted. That was reality. The reality that she had shaped.

And yet, he knew. Somehow, he knew.

"You are going to talk to me. And you are going to tell me exactly what you've done to me," he said, flatly. She was, for the first time, afraid of him. Not that he could hurt her, but that somehow he was not entirely subject to the shiftings and machinations that she worked her magic by. And she was suddenly afraid that she had made a very, very large mistake by even attempting to try. That she had failed to the very thing she had counselled people to do again and again- to not worry about what could be, but enjoy the thing that is.

"Yes, we will talk," she said. She looked at the line starting to back up behind him. People and all their little urges, compulsions and addictions were bothersome to her at this moment. Soon, they'd start grumbling, that they had to wait, that their fix of caffeine was even a minute late in coming. Jenn blinked her eyes and wished. The door to the shop opened, the camel bells chimming. "Sorry I'm late," Betsy, her part timer called. "I finally got my car started. Hell of a time for it to crap out on me. I'm sorry."

Then Betsy ducked behind the counter and started work as soon as she could grab an apron. Normally Jenn wouldn't have bothered shaping the will of the universe for such a petty thing, but she needed the help now.

"Bets," Jenn said. "Mulder and I have some important business to discuss. Can you hold down the fort?"

"Sure thing, boss," Betsy said, already hustling to take care of the line.

Mulder followed her through the curtain into the cramped kitchen. From there, she opened up another door, painted purple, glitzed up with glass gems. It would have been a simple matter of snapped fingers to have them be the real thing- emeralds as big as her thumbnail, rubies as big as hen's eggs, the door itself solid gold. But she wasn't stupid or greedy, even though the terms of her powers seemed to allow her endless wishes. She just wanted to see Mulder allowed a happy ending.

Normally, she would have just sat on a chair. She liked to pretend at least that she was just a normal person. But today, because it was time for the truth to be known, she sat herself on the air, floating in the stereotypical genie pose and waited for Mulder to reveal just how much he knew about what she had done to shape his life.

"You're a jenniyah," Mulder said. "In Arabic folklore, a powerful class of spirits, with the power to grant wishes. The terms of the arrangement is usually three wishes, isn't it? What the hell happened? Did I make some kind of fucked up wish, then wished to forget I made the wish? What happened to my life? What did you do to me? What happened to me? I want to remember? Who was I before you started in on me?"

"I really don't think you want to open that can of worms," she told him, wondering how his memory could possibly cope with the multiple branchings that his life time had taken on, the paths that she'd cut off. How could he handle knowing that he had simultaneously gone and not gone to medical school? That he had gone and not gone to the FBI academy? That his sister was and was not still missing? She added, "I really think that's a bad idea. If you want to walk out of here with your sanity intact."

"Then just answer this question. One question. Who is Lovey?" he demanded.

"She would have been your daughter, had I been able to allow the set of circumstances that led to her birth to continue. She was never born. She doesn't exist."

"You killed my daughter?" he asked, stunned. He blindly sought the nearest chair, the shabby leather upholstered one that was her office chair, and sat down heavily.

"No, I didn't kill her. I told you. She never existed. The circumstances such that she was conceived have failed to happen. Her would have been parents hate each other," Jenn explained, realizing that she sounded like she was justifying herself. That no matter how she explained it, he would believe that she had killed his daughter. That, in a way, she had.

He stared at her, eyes full of vicious hatred. He spoke, his tone low, dangerous and deceptively calm, like the eye at the center of the hurricane. "There may be no blood on your hands, but just the same, you killed her. Why? What have I done to you? God. Good God tell me I did not wish her away by mistake."

"No, it was all my doing," she said, shamed. Burning with shame. And sudden heartbreak too. She remembered holding the sweet little thing, how beautiful she'd been. She'd loved the child, been responsible for her creation every bit as much as Scully and Krycek had been.

"No," Jenn said, brushing away sudden tears. She was astounded at the scope of her own hubris. "You didn't wish for that. We had the standard arrangement. Three wishes. You wasted two of them. And the third, you did the thing I had never dared hoped for. You freed me. You gave me a happy ending. But you only freed me from the conditions of the rug. You didn't free me from my power. And you didn't free me from you. I only wanted to give you a happy ending too."

She couldn't quite explain how it had begun, nor how once she had started, it had been a compulsion. She had felt she'd had no choice but to keep changing things until that happy ending was within grasp. She was sure it would happen this time. He was so far removed from the quest that had been his that he would never see that UFO.

"A happy ending?" he asked. "So you take away my daughter? You presumably change my whole life. Was my life really that shitty? Was I so unhappy that you had no choice but to rearrange the universe around me?"

"You don't understand," she pleaded. "Those little green men Doggett chases, they're real. And they would have destroyed you. Every time, no matter what I did, you were abducted by them. And you died at their hands. Until now."

He stood up from his chair and he paced around the room like an animal in one of those small cages at the zoo, obviously thinking furiously, that brilliant mind of his linking up everything she had said with everything he'd already concluded. Finally he said, "Did it not occur to you that if it kept happening, that maybe it was meant to happen? Or that I would want my fate, regardless of what it was."

He was silent again for a long time. When he finally spoke again, he said, "I think maybe the true happy ending here isn't the one you think it is."

"What do you want me to do to make it up to you? What do you think the happy ending is?" she asked. She honestly had no clue.

"Three wishes," he said. "The usual arrangement. The third will be that you and I will be free of each other and that you will never again feel the compulsion to mess with my life. I want you to let my life take whatever messy, dangerous turns it has to take, because it's my life."

"And your first and second wishes?" she asked, her voice quavering.

"My first wish, I want my job back. I know, I can feel somehow that I was FBI. Maybe my job was the one John Doggett has now."

She nodded and said, "That's true. And your second?"

"I want my family back. My daughter Lovey. And Walter. He was my lover, wasn't he?"

"Yes," she said. "Granted. All three."

She reached for the matter of the Universe, that sense that she had, that she could never quite explain, but the one that allowed her to change things, influence casuality. Perhaps on a quantum level. But he interrupted her, with something so Mulder like, she almost had to laugh, "Just one more question, how do you do it?"

"No more questions, Mulder," she said. "Just go home. Go to bed. When you wake up, you won't remember a bit of this."

---

No time like the present, Mulder told himself. Still, he paused before knocking at the door which was down a dimly lit hallway in the basement of the J. Edgar Hoover building. He'd walked past metal shelves of document boxes to get here. The door read, "Agent John Doggett," his new partner, just assigned.

Anything might happen once he knocked on that door. John Doggett had quite the reputation. Relentless in his pursuit of the answers, and undoubtedly one of the most no bullshit kind of guys around, who nevertheless, ended up espousing what most people believed to be the most ridiculous of ideas. He also appeared not to give a damn what people thought of him and that he said exactly what he thought, never hesitating to call a spade a spade. Rumor had it that just before his wife and child had been abducted by person or persons unknown, he'd been given the big promotion to SAC of the Seattle office, and that he'd turned it down to stay in DC and search for them. And eventually ended up here in the basement, searching for his answers in the buried cases known as the X-files, the place where Mulder hoped to find his own answers.

He knocked on the door and was greeted with, "Nobody's here but the FBI's most unwanted."

The door appeared to be unlocked, so Mulder pushed it open. Across the room, looking at slides on a light table was a handsome man, though he seemed much too young for couple of wrinkles that marred his forehead, including the verticle one between his eyebrows. The frown that his mouth took seemed habitual more than particularly directed at Mulder.

The room seemed intensely functional, with little that might indicate a personal point of view. There was one bulletin board covered with a cluster of photographs, pinned up so closely that they resembled wallpaper, albeit wallpaper from the Martha Stewart Psychopath and Sociopath collection. The bulletin board next to it was covered in photos of UFOs, some clipped from magazines, some regular four-by-six snapshots. The one thing that pointed to the man's personal life, or any kind of hobby was a tire, the thick, smooth kind that were used on race cars, was propped against the desk. It was autographed, a big, sprawl of writing from a paint pen, but Mulder didn't recognize the name. Doggett was a car racing fan?

Before Mulder could hold out his hand and introduce himself, Doggett said, "Fox Mulder, right? So you finally pissed off Patterson so much he had your ass kicked out of the BSU and down here?"

"No, believe it or not, I asked for reassignment. I'm actually looking forward to working with you."

"Really?" Doggett said. Amazing how much sarcasm such a dour voice could convey. "I was under the impression they were sending you to spy on me."

"Section Chief Blevins asked me to make regular reports on the cases we work on together, evaluating them for scientific and forensic validity, but believe me, I'm my own man," Mulder said, bristling suddenly at the implication that he'd be anyone's errand boy.

"So the rumors say, Spooky," Doggett said. He dug through a pile of papers on the desk and pulled out a sheaf. "Undergraduate degree in psychology from Oxford, senior thesis, 'The Case for Hypnosis in Memory Recovery Therapy.'"

"Did you read it?" Mulder asked.

"Oh, sure. It wasn't as bad as I would have expected for undergraduate work," Doggett said. He'd been working, loading a carousel full of slides. He popped it onto the slide projector that was waiting, then asked, "Hit the lights?"

Mulder did and Doggett turned on the projector. The picture of a young woman's body appeared on the screen, stretched out on what appeared to be a forest floor. The next slide was a close up. "Well, Dr. Mulder, they make you headshrinkers take the full medical school course, right?"

"Yeah," Mulder said, defensively. People often assumed it was a PhD, not the M.D. he'd worked so hard for after his name. After he got his undergrad in England, he'd been approached by the FBI. They'd tried to recruit him, but he hadn't felt ready. He'd gone home to the states for medical school, hoping to find there the answers that he hadn't found in psychology. When he was through, when he felt ready, he'd approached the Bureau this time. They'd been even more eager to have him than they had been before.

"Well, Dr. Mulder, tell me if you can identify those marks," Doggett said, indicating two close marks on the back of the young woman.

Mulder walked closer to the screen for a better look, "I'm no pathologist, but it could be needle punctures. An animal bite, maybe? I've got a good friend who teaches pathology at Quantico. She could probably give you a better idea than me. "

"Not about this," Doggett said. He advanced the carousel another slide, then another, and other rapidly, "Same thing again, in Sturgis, North Dakota. And New Mexico. And Wyoming. Do you believe in extraterrestrials, Agent Mulder?"

Mulder startled a little, to be asked so directly, even though this was exactly the reason why he'd asked to be posted to the X-files in the first place, because he'd come to believe that the cause for his sister Samantha's disappearance so many years back could only be explained that way. Part of his education in psychology had included being analyzed extensively, and he'd worked intensively for a while with a hypnotherapist. He'd come to remember things. Things that couldn't be explained except by the notion that his sister had been abducted by aliens. He wasn't quite ready to admit that to this man.

"Do you?" Mulder asked.

"I think that's what you headshrinkers call deflection," Doggett said. He moved over to the wall switch and turned on the room lights again. He looked incredibly handsome, slouched slight as he leaned against the wall. "Answer the question, Agent Mulder."

The way he said the name was almost, but not quite grating- Mul-dah. Mulder decided he liked it, and that though he didn't quite trust the man yet, he liked him.

"I have my doubts," Mulder admitted, especially about the validity of hypnotherapy work and memory recovery, despite his college thesis. The things he had remembered under hypnotherapy were so fleeting, insubstantial. They teased him, taunted him as much as they reassured him. He was here, not because he had answers, but because he had questions. "But I don't believe we are alone in this Universe."

"Actually, far as I can tell, the neighborhood is kind of crowded, and our neighbors are real sons of bitches. You got an overnight bag in your car?" Doggett asked.

"Yeah, we going somewhere?" Mulder asked.

"Oregon," Doggett said. He picked up a small paper folder off the desk and handed it to Mulder. Mulder looked inside, reading his airline ticket. A flight for about three hours from the present. Even without stopping at home, they'd have to hustle to get to the airport in time to make their flight.

"You don't waste time, do you, Agent Doggett?" Mulder said.

Already Doggett had been gathering a small stack of files. He handed them to Mulder. "You'll want to read these on the way over. Familiarize yourself with the cases."

"Cases? More than one person died this way?" Mulder asked.

"Four so far," Doggett said. He finished putting some more files into a briefcase, then shut it. "Ready?"

They left the basement office behind and headed for the parking facility. Mulder headed right for his car, to get his bag. This time, he'd let Doggett do the driving without complaint, but he wondered, in the future, would they argue about which one of them drove? He was both apprehensive and excited about actually heading out into the field for a case. So much of his time in the BSU had kept him tied to a desk, analyzing cases, writing profiles. And, as a kindness and attempt to salvage him as an agent, once his relations with Patterson had gotten so strained that they were intolerable, not just for Mulder, but for anyone else they came into contact with, he'd been transferred, teaching at Quantico, where he'd met Scully, the beautiful, intelligent pathology instructor. If only he'd had the slightest stripe of heterosexuality in him, something special might have happened between the pair of them. Lost in his own thoughts, Mulder almost didn't notice when Doggett stopped and why.

"Sir," Doggett said, nodding. Mulder thought there was something about the way he'd said it that almost wanted to be able to salute, too. Mulder looked up to see the cause for the interruption of his thoughts.

And what a cause it was. They'd stopped in front of a big, juicy hunk of manhood. The man in question was about the same height as Mulder's lanky length, but bulked a good thirty, maybe forty pounds more. His shoulders were broad, and Mulder suspected that it was all man, not just a cleverly cut suit, thought admittedly, the suit was perfectly tailored to him. The suit was topped by a face that was stern and serious, but beautiful. Eyeglasses and hair limited to a fringe around the back and ears completed a picture that was as close to his ideal man that Mulder could imagine. Mulder had no idea who this man was, but he wanted to start weeping right at this instant, because Doggett's sir had indicated that whoever it was, he was over them in the chain of command, thus high in the FBI hierarchy, and therefore, totally off limits. Well, off limits if he was playing by the rules.

"Off to Oregon already, Agent Doggett? The ink on the 302 can't even be dry yet," the man asked. His voice was granite and honey, whiskey and velvet. The blues sung on a dark, moonless midnight in Memphis. Even the poor, echoing acoustics of the concrete parking structure couldn't diminish its full rumble. Mulder was in love.

"Soon as we can collect Agent Mulder's bag, sir," Doggett said. "Sir, this is my new partner, Fox Mulder. Agent Mulder, have you met AD Skinner before?"

Skinner? Mulder wondered. It sounded like Skinner had been the one to sign the paperwork for them to be going to Oregon. That meant that somehow, whether through favors called in or sheer exasperation on the part of the hierarchy, Doggett had it arranged so he reported directly to the AD. Mulder's vanity had been massaged recently to find out he'd be reporting directly to a section chief, but compared to an AD, a section chief was just a piker. Oh, hell, this beautiful, wonderful apparition of a man was not only off limits, he was way out of Mulder's league.

"Agent Mulder," the apparition said, and held out his hand.

It took a while, an embarrassing second while Mulder put it together that the man who had him so dumbstruck wanted to shake hands. It took another agonizing eternity to marshall enough control over himself to extend his hand and act like a normal man who hasn't just been thunderstruck. He took the AD's hand into his. It was like nothing he'd ever done before. The skin was a marvelous combination of textures, smooth in places, with calluses that indicated those hands saw plenty of work of some kind, other than pen pushing. Under the skin, muscles moved like cables pulling over hard bones, cushioned with plenty of muscle. The man's grip was plenty firm, yet delicate. One got the definite impression that it would be a simple matter for him to crush one's hand, should he chose not to control his strength.

It was then that Mulder looked directly into the AD's eyes. They were deep brown, hard to see that in the dim overhead lights of the parking structure. The lens of his glasses reflected the harsh florescent light. But the man was staring directly at Mulder so intensely that Mulder couldn't do anything but look away for a moment, over the man's shoulder at bare, gray concrete, until he could gather himself. He couldn't, not at this time, wonder what that stare meant. He could only tuck it away for further examination later.

"Agent Mulder," the AD said. "Good to meet you at last in person. Having heard so much about you."

"Sir?" Mulder asked. At another time, with another person, he might have joked, might have made a crack of some kind.

"We talked about you, even when you were just starting out at the academy," the AD said. "Well, good hunting in Oregon. I'll have to leave you. I'm running late."

And then he was gone, slipped away down the row of prime, executive parking spaces, and into a light blue Lexus.

"You coming, Mulder?" Doggett asked after Mulder stood there, staring after Skinner's tail lights.

Mulder shook himself. "Sure," he said, able to gather himself together, now that the source of distraction was gone. He hurried after Doggett, clutching his files to himself.

Two and a half hours later, they were sitting on a plane, a nearly empty flight to Portland. It looked like Mulder would have the whole row to himself. Doggett was not quite so lucky, but at least he had an empty seat between him and the next person. The plane was still boarding, so Doggett got out his phone from his suit coat pocket and placed a call.

Mulder listened surreptitiously as he pretended to scan a file. "Hi, Ree," Doggett said, in the clear, direct way people use when they're talking to an answering machine. "It's John. Look, I know I'd said I'd be free tonight and you could come over, but it looks like things are moving faster than I thought. I'm on a plane to Oregon. Not sure when I'll be coming back. I'll give you a call soon as I hit the airport on the way back. You think you could take care of my cat again? You've got the number to the pet sitter I use if you can't. Love ya. Gotta go."

Mulder surmised several things from this call. Doggett had a lover, even though talk around the Bureau said that the man had had a wife who'd died of cancer not so many years ago. Doggett's lover, whoever she was, didn't live with him. Their affair seemed to be on the casual side. They must have gotten together only when Doggett's schedule would allow. Doggett's tone hadn't been placating, leading Mulder to believe that she wasn't going to give the man a hard time about breaking their plans, or at least that Doggett didn't anticipate getting raked over the coals for this. They were close enough that Doggett didn't hesitate to ask her to take care of his cat, but not so close that he just expected she would. Must be an interesting woman. Mulder tried to figure out what Ree was short for. Rena? Riane? Marie? Mulder decided it would have to be Marie. He'd even built up a picture of the woman in his mind- sporty, independent, not quite an intellectual, but smart enough to hold her own against Doggett. The kind of woman who gets along best with men, not other woman.

Maybe he'd been caught staring over his papers at Doggett, maybe he wasn't hiding his curiosity as well as he thought he was, but Doggett looked at Mulder across the narrow aisle and said, "Mulder."

Then he got out of his seat and took one of the empty two in Mulder's row. "There's something I want to tell you, straight off the bat. Before this bird gets off the ground. Before you hear it from rumors and hearsay."

"Go ahead," Mulder said, giving up pretense that he was reading the files.

"I was calling my lover, Ree," he said. "Ree is short for Ringo."

Mulder controlled his startle really well. Doggett continued, "Yes, my lover is a man. And if that's a problem, I'd suggest you get right off this plane before it takes off. I could give a crap what you or anyone else thinks of me being a queer, but if you're going to conveniently not be there when you're supposed to be watching my back, that's a problem."

"No, not a problem," Mulder said. Despite this confidence shared, he wasn't quite ready to reveal why it wasn't a problem. Anyway, it was already too late for him to get off the plane if it was a problem. The stewardess announced that the forward was closed and that they were heading for the runway. He and Doggett shared an awkward, uneasy silence as the plane taxied down the runway and finally leaped into the air with the usual lurch of sudden, great force. Mulder was pressed back into his seat slightly as their plane reached for the skies.

When they'd achieved some altitude and the plane wasn't climbing so steeply, Doggett started up again. "It ain't exactly a secret," Doggett said. "But I don't exactly go around telling everyone either."

"'Don't ask, don't tell?'" Mulder said. that was more or less the unofficial Bureau policy, as far as he could tell.

"Something like that," Doggett said.

"Just out of curiousity, you had a wife..."

"Barbara," Doggett affirmed. "Beautiful woman. I'll always miss her. It surprised the hell out of me to find myself in the arms of one of my buddies after she passed, but I like to think she wouldn't want me to be lonely."

---

On the way to Bellefleur from the airport, Mulder noticed Doggett looking at his watch as he drove. Mulder looked at his own watch. Then the rental car started acting funny. The radio suddenly ran through all the stations rapidly, on its own. They lost power for a short while but before the car fully stopped, power was back on. Doggett stopped the car, then checked his watch again, muttering to himself. He didn't seem pleased. Mulder checked his own watch.

Somewhere in the Oregon woods, among the moss covered trees, in a space of time that couldn't have been more than thirty seconds, they'd lost nine minutes. Mulder started to laugh, feeling giddy at the sensation. It was exactly the thing he'd not expected to find, but it was classic. Many of the people who'd experienced a close encounter with a UFO experienced just this- lost time.

"Did what I think just happen just happen?" Mulder asked.

"Well, what's your watch read?" Doggett asked.

"Six-nineteen, local time," Mulder said. "But just before was lost power on the car, it was six-ten. You know I was under the impression that time was a constant."

"Not in this zip code, apparently," Doggett muttered to himself. He got out of the car and took a can of spray paint out of the trunk of the car and painted a big X in the road where their "encounter" had happened.

The corpse they'd dug up wasn't human, and yet, Mulder couldn't have said what it was, not by any stretch. He found himself wishing his pathology skills were a little more up to snuff. They'd gotten little to no cooperation from the local medical examiner.

Mulder snapped tons of pictures, but he told Doggett, "This is beyond my abilities. I think we should see if we could get it wrapped to go and have my pal Scully look at it. I'll want to fax some of these pictures to her and see what she says."

"Do what you can, and I'll try and go sweet talk the locals," Doggett said. "They're not exactly falling for my prince charming act."

Later that night, Mulder sat in his hotel room, looking at the X-rays that Scully had talked him through taking. Then looking at the small metal cylinder he'd removed from the corpse's nasal cavity.

"You know," he'd quipped to Scully on the phone as he'd been starting the autopsy, "Normally I prefer it if my patients are a little more lively. I'm not quite sure what to make of a patient that doesn't talk back to me in some kind of way, whether verbal or not."

"You've done dissection before, Mulder," Scully had said. "This is just like that."

"Nah," he said, cutting through dessicated and decomposing gray tissue to make the y-inscision. "In med school, I slept with my anatomy professor to get my A."

"You'll do fine, Mulder," she said, not taking his bait, not giving him much sympathy.

"Gosh, Scully, you sure know the way to a man's heart," he quipped.

"Of course. Right through the rib cage with a stryker saw. Mulder, I gotta go. Call me later," she said.

It was not so much the queasy factor that put him off, but the strangeness of this and the physicality. He preferred always to take a mental approach to problems, thinking them through. Having to be the one who confronted the physical evidence, who tried to piece together a story from that which had been left behind was an unfamiliar way of thinking to Mulder, who'd been used to his profiles and analysises for so long.

At last, he couldn't stand just sitting and looking a