Darkest Before The Dawn
By Jeannine Trevizo


J. Edgar Hoover Building
FBI Headquarters
Washington D.C.


Special Agent Dana Scully felt woozy watching the floor indicator 
lights flicker past as the elevator rose. She touched the healing 
scab at her temple and leaned back against the cool metal wall 
for support. You're pushing yourself too hard, too fast, she told 
herself.

"I don't have much choice," she said out loud in the empty 
elevator.

Mulder had disappeared.

Scully strode into Assistant Director Walter Skinner's outer office. 
She brushed roughly past Skinner's assistant and through his 
office door, sending it flying against the interior wall with a 
crashing thud. Skinner's head flew up from the paperwork before 
him to see the agent he had been expecting for some time.

"I want an answer sir," she stated with an authority that he'd 
suspected but never seen in her before as she stalked towards 
his desk and planted herself there, her hands braced on the edge 
of his desk. "Do you know where I can find him?"

Skinner looked her with a neutral expression on his face. He 
assumed that she thought he was clueless to what she wanted, 
but the truth was that he knew *exactly* what she was talking 
about. He had already taken steps to locate Fox Mulder and 
ascertain his "status", but he didn't think Scully quite knew what 
was truly involved in her request.

"Agent Scully," Skinner began, unsure of how he was going to 
say this. As it was, he wasn't sure he should even suggest it to 
her.

"I'm willing to pay whatever price is necessary to get him back," 
she explained with finality.

At that, he had to question his decision and his motives. What he 
was thinking of doing was. . . dangerous to say the least, but he 
knew Sculy wouldn't give up looking for Mulder. It was either 
bring her in or risk her crossing paths with him later on, and that 
could become messy. Yet he didn't think that she knew what she 
was asking for with her request. What the price could *really* be. 

"I believe I have a way to get Agent Mulder back," Skinner stated 
simply, watching her reactions closely.

Scully stepped back. Skinner could see her stand down 
offensively. Yet her fury seemed more than ready to fly again. 
She planned to gauge his words carefully lest he lie to her. She 
anxiously waited for him to tell her what that way was, and as the 
silence deepened, she started to open her mouth to ask the 
question in her head. He stopped her before the words had 
formed on her tongue.

"But I can't give you any details as of yet. Trust me, I will be in 
touch with you before the end of the day with what I know. And 
what you'll have to be willing to do to help Mulder."

Scully let his words weigh in her mind. There was part of her that 
didn't trust him, but she needed to believe that their boss, who'd 
come to their aid in the past, was privy to information that could 
lead her to Mulder.

Finally, she took the hope he was offering.

"Fine. I'll be in the basement office then. Waiting on your call," 
she remarked, heading for the door. Before exiting, she turned 
back and stared at the man behind the heavy wood desk. "But I 
won't wait on you or your plan forever."

Then she was gone.

-  X  -

As Scully made her way back to the basement office, her mind 
repeated the events that had led her to this decision. This 
pathway to certain termination from the Bureau and her sanity's 
slow erosion.

Mulder had disappeared.

Not like he usually did. No, not his routine 'Ditch Scully because 
it's dangerous and could get her fired' kind of disappearance. Not 
even an 'Alien Abduction', as he so often supported. No, this was 
more serious. Infinitely so. He'd been taken off the street. In 
broad daylight and in front of her. 

They'd been leaving the main entrance to the J. Edgar Hoover 
building to get some lunch when the black sedan had driven up 
and the doors had flown open.

The first two men out the back door had grabbed Mulder before 
she could pull her service weapon. By that time, a third man had 
appeared from the driver's side, leveling his own gun and making 
it clear that he was willing to shoot both her and Mulder.

She would have challenged him, chanced it. There wasn't any 
way in hell that she was just going to stand by and let them take 
her partner without a fight. She was more than prepared to go 
down in a hailstorm of bullets to try and save Mulder from the 
unknown fate that lay within the doors to that car.

Except that the decision was taken out of her hands. 

He had refused to let her try and save him.

As she opened the door to their office, she found her mind 
flashing back to the event.

//"Scully, *don't*!" Mulder cried insistently as two black clad men 
pulled him toward the back door of the sedan. 

The surprise and anger in his eyes was replaced with fear in a 
heartbeat as she unwillingly lifted her arms, letting her gun swing 
lifelessly around her finger, coming to rest upside down to show 
the men that she wasn't a threat to them. That she was 
complying.

It wasn't until she broke her eye contact with Mulder that she 
realized that they weren't about to keep up their end of the 
unspoken bargain as the man with the gun took careful aim at 
her head and fired.

A split second later she felt the bullet strike her, and then through 
a fog of pain and blood she heard Mulder screaming her name 
as she twisted with the impact and crashed into the pavement.//

From there, everything had gone black.

The next thing she recalled was being surrounded by a group of 
Bureau agents and A.D. Skinner. Once she was alert enough, 
she tried to make it clear to them that Mulder was gone, that they 
needed to find the sedan and get him back, but she'd lost 
consciousness again. She woke up in the hospital, a minor 
wound at her temple taped up, and a throbbing headache from 
the gun shot and her meeting with the cement that could only 
have been a mild concussion.

That had been nearly five days ago.

Since then, there had been no word, no sign of Mulder or the 
men in the sedan. Every agent in the Bureau had been alerted to 
Mulder's kidnapping and an investigation had been opened. But 
it was as if he'd just vanished off the face of the planet.

Skinner had insisted each time she had called from her 
apartment while on her forced medical leave that everything that 
could be done within the legal system was being done.

Except for Dana Scully, that just wasn't enough. She owed 
Mulder more than this. Just waiting around for some word of his 
whereabouts. Or for his body to show up tossed onto the front 
steps of the Hoover building.

He had gone with them to protect her, and the understanding that 
she now had chilled her blood in her veins. She knew that she 
had to take matters into her own hands. If she had to, she'd 
make a deal with the devil himself to get him back. Because she 
knew he would do the same for her.

So now, as she unlocked the door to *their* office, she prepared 
herself to wait for Skinner's call. To continue to feel her hope slip 
further and further away from her. In its place desperation was 
taking hold. And so was the need for retribution.

-  X  -

In his office, Walter Skinner sat and questioned his position. 
There was nothing in the Assistant Director job description that 
authorized, let alone condoned what he was thinking of. The fact 
that he wanted to take one of his agents into. . . 

He shook his head and reached to pinch the bridge of his nose 
where his glasses rested. God, his head hurt him. There were 
days that he was reminded that he wasn't a young, gung-ho 
Marine anymore, or even a middle-aged agent. He missed them. 
Well, maybe not all of them.

His finger snaked over to the phone and jabbed the button to the 
intercom.

"Kimberly, could you verify that the Federal Express package I 
sent to New Jersey arrived?"

There was rustling of paper and then his assistant's voice came 
over the line.

"Yes sir. It arrived three days ago."

He frowned. Three days should have been enough to either hear 
back or be shot. Yet neither had happened. . .

"Have we received any packages or letters today?"

There was more rustling through heavier sounding papers and 
hard sounds.

"Well, there's a letter envelope here that arrived this morning. 
But it came from Yonkers, rather than Jersey City," she informed 
him.

Of course, he thought. They wouldn't send it from the address he 
had. Hell, he wasn't even sure that the address was the right one 
anymore. But the fact that there was some kind of reply seemed 
to bolster his position. Now he just had to see if they were willing 
to talk.

"Could you bring it in here please?"

A few moments later the door opened, and Kimberly walked in, 
placed the envelope on his desk and exited again.  

Once the door was shut, he reached for the envelope. In a 
minute he had the outer container open, and inside he found a 
sealed letter size envelope, with his name printed on it. 

Ripping open the envelope, he quickly withdrew the one page 
piece of stationary. No blood, he thought as he unfolded the ivory 
sheet. He scanned it for a moment. Then read it. And read it 
again. 

So, Anthony was willing to help him. For the price that only 
Skinner could pay him. He was surprised that his resources 
hadn't found his father for him before now. But then, that was the 
point of putting Carmine where he was. Nice and comfy and 
thousands of miles from his 'Family'. 

"Kimberly. Would you please call American Airlines and get two 
one-way tickets to Newark International Airport from National 
leaving around 8pm tonight in my name and Agent Scully's. And I 
want them expensed to my American Express card, not my 
corporate account. Let me know what the exact time of the flight 
is when you have the confirmation and have them messenger the 
tickets to my apartment before 5pm."

"Yes sir."

With that, Skinner pressed down on the plunger, released it 
quickly and dialed the extension for the basement office phone at 
Mulder's desk. He knew that she'd be sitting there. It rang once 
before it was picked up and he heard her standard greeting.

"Agent Scully. I have the information I've been waiting on. It will 
require us doing some traveling. If you're still willing to do this, 
I'll be at your apartment at 6pm tonight."

There was silence for a moment, then her calm voice replied 
over the line.

"Alright sir. I'll expect you then."

"And one more thing, Scully."

"Yes sir?"

"Don't dress like a Fed."

With that, Skinner hung up the receiver and sat back to wait for 
his past and his future to converge.

-  X  -

Unknown location 
Somewhere in the U.S.


Through the darkness, the sound of pounding still rang through 
the building. 

Mulder had been pounding on the door of the closet-like cell 
since he'd woken up. He'd checked his watch and come to learn 
that he'd lost three days somewhere before he'd woken up here. 
And since he'd begun pounding, he figured another six hours had 
passed, with no one coming to investigate the noise he was 
making. 

He could hear machinery and horns occasionally, while the clack 
of train tracks was easily heard through the walls that parted him 
from the outside world. But not much else. He had no idea of 
where the hell it was he was at, if anyone was coming to get him, 
or if they had just dumped him here to rot.

The only things he did know was that he was in deep shit, and 
that he still needed to know what had happened to Scully.

With that thought, he gave one more half-hearted slam to the 
door with his fist, producing a dull thud that reverberated through 
his hand and into his soul. He stepped back to fall down on his 
ass onto the dirty mattress they'd crammed into the limited 
space. It was at best a six by six room with poor lighting and 
ventilation. He wasn't looking forward to using the toilet mounted 
on the wall, considering those facts. As he sat on the lumpy, 
smelly mattress, he found himself replaying the incident that had 
led him here, the scene burning a hole into his mind and tearing 
at his chest.

He had thought he knew what he was doing. That he was saving 
Scully by sacrificing his chance to escape. Yet he had watched 
in horror as the third goon in the black suit had pulled the trigger 
on his gun, firing at Scully. 

She hadn't had a chance, what with her own gun dangling 
loosely off her finger. The fact that he'd insisted she drop her 
weapon ate at him. He'd thought that they'd leave her be, take 
him and go. Instead they'd shot her anyway, and he was to 
blame for it all.

He'd screamed her name as she twisted with the impact and 
crashed to the ground. The sound of the gunshot and his 
screaming voice still haunted him, filling his thoughts. As it was, 
the scene continued to play out in slow motion in his head: her 
hair flying and her gun dropping from her hand as she went to 
the pavement, blood starting to spill on the concrete; his body 
struggling against the strong arms pulling him into the car as he 
called out to his partner.

Inside the car, he'd heard the door slam shut and he'd started to 
fight back in earnest, his adrenaline racing. He was determined 
that he was going to escape and get back to Scully's side. Finally 
they'd smashed his head into the metal of the door frame, dazing 
him. After that, he'd felt the shove of a hypodermic needle in his 
arm and the world had gone dark.

He'd woken up, days later in this locked room. There was no way 
to know where he was, let alone who had him and if there was a 
way out. 

Suddenly the door flew open and two armed men stood there, 
weapons pointed at him. A third tossed inside the cell door a 
plastic cooler. Warily he started to get up, and they abruptly 
slammed the door shut before he could even get a word out or 
make a foolish rush for them.

The armed guards who had just delivered his food to him were 
the first people he'd seen since he'd been shoved in the car. As 
he made his way to the door, he wondered when he'd be getting 
some answers. Bending down, he picked up the cooler and 
opened it, revealing food - a half dozen bottles of water, some 
sandwiches, granola bars, and dried fruit. The fact that they were 
feeding him at least that meant they planned on keeping him 
alive. For the moment.

Now it was just a matter of time. To wait and find out just why he 
was there, and what was going to happen. To wait and hopefully 
find out what had happened to Scully. To wait and see if he was 
even going to get out of wherever he was alive.

And he didn't like waiting.

-  X  -

Scully's apartment building
3170 W. 53 Rd.
Annapolis, VA


As he walked down the brightly lit hallway of Scully's suburban 
apartment building, Walter Skinner found himself questioning his 
life and how he'd gotten where he was now, ready to come full 
circle.

Damn, thought Skinner, I thought that this was buried in the past, 
never to resurface. Somehow though, he had always known that 
he'd have to deal with his early deeds. 

The old Marine that walked down the hallway towards Scully's 
apartment looked little like and assistant director of the FBI. He 
was dressed for action in his old "narc" clothes: black turtleneck 
shirt, blue jeans that he now realized were tighter than he'd 
thought they were, and a tiger-striped camouflage fatigue shirt 
from his days in the war.

It seemed appropriate somehow that he was wearing this. It was 
how he'd started this path, wasn't it? If he hadn't been in the 
service, gone to 'Nam, he never would have considered the 
Bureau. With the FBI, he'd found himself mixed up in something 
that was more involved than even the war had been. 

Skinner knocked at Scully's door at 6pm as agreed. He felt a bit 
silly, decked out like a cat burglar at the end of the work day. But 
the fact was that he knew that once they got to their destination, 
he *needed* to be invisible, blend in. The stakes were just too 
high to just walk into the lion's den dressed as FBI agents, suits 
and ties to make sure everyone knew they didn't belong.

Finally she arrived, opening the door and peering out at him. As 
she looked him over, he felt uncomfortable.

"Okay, Huggy-Bear, let's roll," he joked, trying to ease the 
tension that seems all too palatable as she scrutinized him from 
the door to the apartment.

Finally she opened it fully, letting him inside. Before him, Agent 
Scully stood dressed more for a picnic rather than for covert ops. 

"Is something wrong?" Scully asked.

"I'd hoped you would have dressed a little more. . . " Skinner 
hunted for the words. "A little more street."

"'Street'?"

Somewhere in the back of his mind he realized that he hadn't 
mentioned where exactly they were going. Skinner couldn't help 
but have a moment of doubt about his decision. Was he right in 
bringing her along? Shaking his head slightly, he reminded 
himself that he didn't really have a choice. He could either take 
her with him, or she'd find some other, possibly more dangerous 
way to find Mulder. Although he was hard pressed to come up 
with one at the moment.

"Scully, you're going to need something a little less. . . 
conspicuous. Maybe some of your off-duty clothes?"

"These are my off-duty clothes."

Skinner sighed, and said, "Don't you have anything darker? 
Maybe in leather?"

Her eyebrow raised at that, giving him a feeling of uneasiness, 
until she looked down and realized she did look like a yuppie.

"Sorry. Let me go change and repack."

Leaving the room, she heard Skinner shut the front door as she 
made her way to the bedroom.

Standing in front of her closet and looking in, Dana Scully viewed 
a wall of matched suits and blouses, ready for a day at the FBI. 
As she looked at them, she thought about Skinner in her living 
room, decked out for a undercover assignment, and she realized 
that she really didn't own any ass-kicking clothes.

She was certain that Mulder's closet was filled with them. From 
the Armani suits that could make him look like a gangster to the 
dark turtlenecks and jeans to go with that black leather jacket of 
his that made him look tough and no-nonsense. 

And then there was Skinner again, dressed for combat. . .

The fact that he was there, helping her and Mulder had taken her 
by surprise. Why he was doing this she still didn't have a clue. 
Her reasons were obvious. Her partner was out there, and she 
knew that if it was her, he wouldn't give up. How could she look 
herself in the mirror every morning if she didn't do everything she 
could to get him back?

Sorting through what she owned, she pulled out several sets of 
items that she figured would be ok. Her "off duty" clothes, as 
Skinner had so eloquently put it, as well as one black suit that 
she thought might come in handy if she had to look "official" for 
anything. She dumped out her bag and repacked, stuffing in the 
new clothes and replacing her necessary gear. Then she 
redressed in the less conspicuous clothes from her closet.

Stopping at the closed door, she reached up and hauled down 
her black trenchcoat from the hook there. It was a necessity. The 
fact that it was black and could conceal her gun was a big plus. 
And, if she needed to, she could discard it with a minimum of 
fuss. Throwing it over her shoulder, she opened the door into the 
living room.

Hauling the plain brown shoulder tote out with her, she stood 
there so Skinner could look her over and hopefully give his 
approval of the blue jeans that were almost the same color as his 
and a white turtleneck. Scully had thrown over the shirt her 
brother Bill's worn brown leather bomber jacket that he'd wanted 
to toss out. It nearly matched her hiking boots, ones that she'd 
worn on a trip too many to the forest with Mulder. 

She continued to stand there, waiting for his approval like a 
schoolgirl. Finally he nodded his acceptance. He noted the 
trenchcoat and her bag and hoped the rest of her clothes were 
equally as inconspicuous and multi-purpose.

"I hope you don't mind that I drive," he stated without preamble 
as he turned and headed for her door, opening it and stepping 
outside as she quickly followed.

With a slight concern, Scully closed and then dead bolted the 
door, realizing that she wasn't going to be back for a while, and 
wondering just where she was going to end up. They made their 
way downstairs and she followed him to his car. Getting in, she 
saw his military-style duffle in the back seat.

"We'll be traveling off and on for a while. We've got a couple of 
places to go before we get to our final destination," he said as he 
turned over the car engine and started for the Interstate heading 
to National airport. "Oh, and here's your ticket, in case we get 
split up."

Scully took the airline ticket Skinner handed to her and looked at 
it.

National to Newark.

And there wasn't a return ticket to be found.

-  X  -

Unknown location
New York City, NY


The reports from his men sprawled across the business-like 
desk. They all said the same thing, acknowledging the fact that 
his orders had been carried out and that the 'subject' was stored 
away until further notice.

The heavy set Italian man rubbed his thick hands together as he 
considered just what he was putting into motion, and how it 
would effect everything.

It was a simple plan really. There had been a point in time when 
everyone had been out for their own interests, playing the game 
like it was personal. Not now. Not since he'd subverted the 
private agenda of the Smoking Man and caused the shake-up 
within the Organization. He was in the position of power now, 
and no one was prepared to cross him.

And that left him open to play his own game.

Mulder was part of it. For his many uses to the 'plan', he had 
gotten tired of the agent's consistent meddling in the affairs of 
the council. It had been time to make a decision in his future, 
and there was no one willing or able to counter his orders now.

The daylight kidnapping had been bold, but he wanted Mulder's 
associates to realize that the time of kid gloves was over. 

For everyone to realize that.

-  X  -

Flight 1079  
American Airlines
En route to Newark Intl.


The plane ride to New Jersey seemed to take forever. Of course, 
the fact that Scully had no idea what Skinner's plan was even at 
this late date in the game gnawed at her frayed nerves.

And there was the well-established fact that she really disliked 
airline travel, packed like sardines in coach on a small plane that 
shouldn't even be able to defy the laws of gravity and lift off the 
tarmac. She had done it hundreds of times on cases, but she still 
wasn't totally comfortable with flying.

Without conscious thought, her hand wound up pushing down 
the collar of her turtleneck, then her fingers floated over to hold, 
then twist her gold cross between her fingers. Somehow it made 
her feel better. Even without faith in the object grasped between 
the pads of her fingers, she found some solace in the memory of 
every time Mulder had held or touched that small piece of metal 
over the years. He had faith in *her*. And she was going to live 
up to that faith.

She let go of a breath she didn't know she had been holding, the 
result was soft sigh that caught Skinner's attention. He looked up 
from the airline magazine that he'd been reading, although Scully 
had caught him rereading the same page for the last 10 minutes, 
and appraised her demeanor through his wire-rimmed glasses.

She gave him a half nod to assure him she was ok. Of course, 
she knew that he knew better. But it was a small gesture to keep 
the situation from snowballing into something she didn't want to 
even consider.

Yet she knew instinctively that whatever lay ahead of them, she 
was already out of her depth. But on the other hand, she knew 
that she would do whatever it took to get Mulder back. His 
survival depended on her ability to get him out of wherever they 
had him. There was too much at stake for her to give more than 
everything she had.

So much so that she didn't even want to ponder the real reasons 
she was willing to go to such lengths for her partner. The man 
who was more than just that. . .

- X -

The Fig Leaf
10 43rd. St.
Newark, NJ


When the yellow cab had stopped in front of the strip club, Scully 
and Skinner had both looked out the car windows with surprise 
and some shock. Bolted to the brick wall of the exterior of the 
building, neon figures of a naked woman with an apple and a 
snake beneath the name of the place - The Fig Leaf.

Skinner then spent five minutes arguing with the cab driver over 
the address, but it seemed that there was no mistake. Whomever 
Skinner had dragged her to see was inside.

Unless, of course, this was all just one big joke on her. But one 
look at Skinner's serious face maintained that he wasn't 
laughing.

Finally, Skinner paid the man and climbed out of the cab, Scully 
following. The cab driver pulled their bags from the trunk and 
dropped them on the cement curb before he got in again and 
drove off. 

After staring at the building for another long minute, Skinner 
reached down and slung his duffle over his shoulder, then picked 
up Scully's bag and headed for the door. The second he'd 
opened the door a crack, the night air was filled with the brutal 
rhythmic pounding of the music inside.

Squaring his shoulders, he pressed through, leaving Scully to 
follow in his wake.

Inside, the club reeked of sweat, liquor and smoke. There was 
enough light to see the barely dressed women gyrating on the 
stage across from the bar. There were tables surrounding the 
stage, half filled with men of varying degrees of age. The women, 
of course, couldn't be more than 25, and Scully guessed a few 
might be under the legal drinking age as well.

Black panels covered the walls, making what light there was 
stark and almost harsh. The pounding music was there simply to 
provide the women something to concentrate on as they 
performed for the lewd crowd.

Skinner glanced at the stage show for only a moment before his 
eyes went directly to the bar. As he approached, he looked over 
the men sitting at the bar. They were a collection of local 
riff-raff and some made guys. Nothing that he couldn't handle. 
Stopping at a large empty space between patrons, Skinner leaned 
in and signaled the bartender.

"Beer."

Halfway down the bar, the heavy-set man in a grimy white dress 
shirt with the sleeved rolled up turned and noted Skinner's hand 
and verbal order. The large man made his way to Skinner, his 
receding black hair a match for Skinner's, but his eyes were cold. 
He picked up a glass and proceeded to shove it under the spigot, 
filling it with whatever the house beer was. 

"Three bucks," said the bartender, glancing from Skinner to 
Scully and back again. Skinner pulled three ones from his 
pocket, along with a twenty and shoved them across the bar.

"I'm looking for Anthony DiMerra. Is he here?" Skinner asked, 
dropping the bags on the floor as he reached for the glass in 
front of him.

"Maybe. But I can tell you, he ain't interested in sharin' any 
profits for the girls here. Sure, your whore is pretty and probably 
fucks great, but we don't need any girls with an owner that ain't 
us," the bartender stated sharply, pocketing the twenty and 
starting to turn away from Skinner to go shove the three bucks 
into the cash register. 

Behind him, Scully's temper was ablaze, shocked at the man's 
insinuation that Skinner was trying to pimp her to the club. She 
couldn't believe. . .

Suddenly Skinner's hand flashed over the bar and gripped the 
bartender's arm. The man turned to face him, and at the same 
moment, Skinner heard the sound of safety snaps being popped 
and weapons being drawn.

Shit, he thought. He had wanted to avoid this, but he wasn't 
letting this prick take his money without giving him the 
information he wanted. The fact that he'd insulted Scully hadn't 
really entered into his decision. 

Of course he was sure that one of the weapons he'd heard come 
flying free was his agent's. Unless things cooled down fast, he 
might have to protect this guy from Scully's wrath. But the big 
problem seemed to be the five or so guns surrounding him and 
pointed at the back of his head.

Easing up on his grip, Skinner allowed the bartender to slip from 
his grasp. One of the men from near the end of the bar got up 
from his stool and moved towards Scully and Skinner's position. 
Skinner slowly turned and got a good look at the man with the 
Beretta 9mm auto pointed in his and Scully's direction.

"Vincent Penella. I figured you'd be dead by now," Skinner said, 
his hand slowly moving to his back, as Scully moved forward 
with her Sig, covering for her boss.

"You *should* be Walt," spat Vincent, his gun now directly trained 
on Scully, as she was the looming threat, but keeping his eyes 
on Skinner. "After what you did to our boss, you should have 
ended up fish food. Some of the guys thought you had. What'd 
you do, skip the country or did you turn? How'd you stay hidden 
all this time, huh?"

Gripping the butt of his gun, Skinner started to move away from 
the bar, forcing Vincent to make a choice on who to follow, him 
or Scully. At the same time, Scully started to move the opposite 
way, almost directly across from Skinner's position. 

"I had nothing to do with Carmine's situation, Vinnie. But I am 
here to help Anthony. I've got information on what really 
happened to Carmine, and I know he'll want to hear it. He asked 
me here."

"You fucking liar! You're the Judas who got Anthony's old man, 
our *chief* whacked!"

Skinner saw Vinnie's hand start to swing his way, the look in the 
man's eyes telling him he had two second before his insides 
were about to become ventilated. With reflexes born on the rice 
paddies half a world away and honed during his time in the 
Bureau, he pulled his Smith & Wesson 9mm auto and sent a 
round through Vinnie's shoulder, making the man drop his gun.

Scully fired a second round into the wall, and spun to aim at the 
advancing mobsters, suggesting they keep their distance. On the 
stage, the girls screamed and ran for cover, as some of the 
patrons ran for the door.

"You fuck! You shot me!" screamed Vinnie, as he clutched his 
injured shoulder.

From the back area, a young wiseguy appeared and moved 
through the other armed men to Vinnie's side. He whispered 
something in the man's ear, and Vinnie's eyebrows shot up, as if 
in surprise.

"Mr. Skinner," the young man said, and Skinner nodded in his 
direction, "I'm Benny Alberti. Mr. DiMerra is expecting you. If 
you'll follow me."

Slowly the gangsters lowered their weapons, and Skinner and 
Scully did the same. Reaching down, Skinner grabbed their bags 
and followed Benny as he moved to the back area. Scully 
glanced over her shoulder as the men helped Vinnie out the 
door, hopefully taking him to get his shoulder taken care of, and 
then continued after Skinner and their 'guide'.

Benny ushered Skinner and Scully past the velvet curtain leading 
to the back rooms of the club. Here, obviously was the rest of the 
operation - storerooms most likely downstairs, dressing or 
undressing rooms for the dancers, private rooms for 'special' 
performances' and what looked to be the manager's office.

They took a sharp right and were soon before a dark wood door. 
Benny knocked and waited for as response within.

"Come," announced a disembodied voice on the other side.

At that, Benny turned the handle and nearly pushed Skinner in, 
leaving Scully to follow. She was starting to get annoyed by this 
whole "macho" attitude and everyone treating her like an after-
thought. But she knew she didn't have much choice in the matter. 
This was Skinner's deal, and she couldn't afford to get angry and 
piss them off, especially if they really could help them, help *her* 
find Mulder.

Behind the tacky glass and chrome desk at the center of the dark 
room sat a young man, about 25, dressed in a stylish suit that 
was too big for him. Obviously, this was the person that Skinner 
had come here to see.

Anthony DiMerra. Mob boss and apparently an acquaintance of 
her boss.

"You realize the only reason you're here Wally, is that I'm curious 
what you think you have that I want," Anthony started off, wasting 
no time in establishing his dominant position and speaking to 
Skinner in such a demeaning way. Yet Skinner seemed to shrug 
it off instantly. He knew Anthony was capo among the North 
Jersey Families, but after the Columbians took their business in 
the eighties and RICO took their freedom in the nineties, that 
didn't mean much. Skinner knew the Family when they made 
presidents die an a whim, and Anthony DiMerra was a long way 
from that.

"You know what I have. Information on where your father is. I 
have to admit, I would have thought you would have tried a bit 
harder to find him in the last 10 years, but that's your business. 
What I'm willing to do is take you and a few of your men to where 
he is, and help you get him out. After that, I just need his help 
with a problem of my own. Then, we're done," Skinner explained 
with a no-nonsense tone of voice.

The young gangster sat there and looked thoughtfully at Skinner, 
his brown eyes flicking from Skinner to Scully and back again.

"You realize that I'd always assumed that someone had whacked 
Carmine, don't you?" Anthony explains, "When he went missing 
before I was born, the Captains at the time thought *you* were 
even responsible."

As he spoke, Anthony let his fingers slide over the nickel-plated 
revolver that sat atop a stack of twenty-dollar bills on his desk. 
Scully snuck her hand toward the Sig at her waist. Skinner was 
stone-cold still.

Then Anthony smiled. It was not comforting in the least. "But I 
remember the day that I received that audiotape that said that a 
man named 'Skinner' would one day contact me and help me 
complete my vendetta, and to help this man anyway I could. I 
understood then that there was more to my father's 
disappearance than I'd been told. Now, here you are, asking for 
my help, offering my father back in return. Why should I trust 
you? You and the woman with you are obviously Feds, or that 
letter I sent you wouldn't have gone to Fibi headquarters, now 
would it? How do I know you're not setting us up?"

"Because your father trusted me. Even if he probably shouldn't," 
Skinner replied, obviously frustrated at the situation. "We have as 
much at stake as you do. We need Carmine alive to help us. So, 
the question is, do you want him back?"

There was a long pause as the dark, curly haired man seemed to 
mull over the situation. Finally he answered, "Yeah."

"Alright then. Call a few of your guys and tell them to get their 
gear ready for a road trip. We're leaving tonight to find your long-
lost father in a lovely little resort north of San Francisco. . . 
in a secret jail block underneath San Quentin Prison," Skinner 
announced.

-  X  -

Newark Intl. Airport (EWR)
Newark, NJ


Skinner stared at his reflection in the cracked mirror of the 
Newark airport restroom. The face he saw looking back was a 
stranger. The lines in his forehead seemed deeper, and his eyes 
seemed cold and dull. It was as if the years since everything had 
happened had disappeared. He looked like a gangster again, 
and God knew he was starting to act like one.

After being reassigned at the Bureau, he'd done everything in his 
power to put behind him the sins of the past. Now he had 
voluntarily brought them forth and brought someone else along 
for the experience.

Of course, Dana Scully was an FBI agent. Trained to handle any 
situation. But he could still remember that nothing he'd been 
taught in the Academy had prepared him for the wholesale 
violence and numbness to that violence that he'd seen in his time 
with the DiMerra family. Still, he couldn't even begin to imagine 
what Scully had already seen, had gone through while she'd 
been with the X-Files.

Yet, he reminded himself, it had been her choice to walk with him 
into the underbelly. She wasn't doing it because she had a past 
she had to settle with these men. She was doing it because she 
had to, if she wanted to get Mulder back.

Mulder. It always seemed to come back to him where Scully was 
concerned. He wouldn't be surprised if she would wrestle naked 
in lime green Jell-o in the bullpen of the Hoover building if it 
would mean that he'd be returned. For a moment, he found 
himself distracted by the image, and then angrily berated himself. 
She was his subordinate. He shouldn't think like that about her. 
Besides, he had a deep suspicion that the only man she was 
interested in had dark hair with hazel eyes and shitty taste in 
neckties.

Of course, the devotion and attraction, if he didn't miss his 
guess, wasn't one sided. Mulder would do anything for Scully. He 
remembered vividly how he'd been after her abduction, during 
the coma, and later during her cancer. Scully was everything to 
him. One day, he was sure that Mulder would have to wake up to 
the fact that *she* was the truth he'd been looking for all this 
time.

Just like Skinner had known that one day he'd have to face his 
past. And it seemed that day had finally come.

He finished up and proceeded back out into the airport terminal 
where Scully, Anthony and three of his men were waiting for him. 
His FBI badge and some forged papers would get them and the 
indiscreet bulges under their shoulders onto the red-eye flight 
that left in twenty minutes. And then he'd have to face the man 
who'd spent the last 25 years in hell, and live up to his part in 
that. 

-  X  -

San Francisco International Airport (SFO)
South San Francisco, CA


Once the flight had landed, they made their way through the 
massive terminal and outside to the rows of taxis, shuttles and 
cars that stopped along the turn-around to the airport. Skinner 
gave Anthony a slip of paper, told them to meet him there at 6pm 
that night and then steered Scully into a waiting cab.

The flight had been long, and Scully hadn't been able to help but 
look between her boss and the Mafia thugs that he somehow 
seemed to have an affiliation with throughout the trip. What she 
had gotten into, she wasn't quite sure, but Mulder was still out 
there and she had to find him. If these 'wiseguys' could help her, 
she'd play along.

For the time being at least.

The cabbie had thrown their bags into the trunk and set off for 
the address Skinner gave him. When the man had heard 
'Oakland', she could almost hear the cash register go off in his 
head. Clearly they were going to be driving for a while.

As the car chugged through what was probably commute traffic, 
she looked out and wondered again just what Carmine DiMerra 
had to do with Mulder's abduction. Surely the Consortium was 
involved, but how that related to these mobsters, she had yet to 
get Skinner to explain to her.

She'd been taking a lot of things on faith with her boss on this 
excursion. How much longer she'd continue to give him that 
slack depended on where they ended up today.

An hour later, they were in one of the more run-down neighborhoods 
that Scully had ever visited. That Skinner was taking them here 
did not bode well for that thinning thread of trust. This whole 
thing seemed like it was taking forever, and for all she knew, 
Mulder didn't *have* forever for Skinner to go sight-seeing.

Finally the cab stopped before an old, dilapidated Victorian and 
announced a wrenching dollar amount for the ride. Without 
blinking, Skinner scraped it up, along with a tip and got out. The 
cab driver hurried out and got their bags, dropping them to the 
pavement before driving off and leaving them there.

Once he had his bag in hand, Skinner was climbing the steps. 
He dropped his bag to the porch floor and rung the doorbell. After 
what seemed too long, the door swung open, and a dark skinned 
black man around Skinner's age opened it.

"Walt!"

"Reggie!"

The two greeted each other with a handshake and hearty hug, an 
obvious camaraderie like that of men who spent months 
together, simply staying alive. Based on the man's age, she 
guessed they'd been in the war together, or possibly even early 
academy at Quantico. It was all supposition, as Skinner had yet 
to introduce them.

"I'm glad you could help me out. I know it's a lot to ask of you," 
Skinner began, as he released his grip on his friend as he pulled 
back. "Like I said when I called, it could be dangerous."

Reggie laughed loudly, a guttural sound that seemed to resonate 
in his chest. With a gesture, he waved of Skinner's concerns.

"Walt, how many times did you haul my ass out of trouble in 
'Nam? Five, six maybe? I think it's the least I can do to help you 
with this little problem of yours. So just haul your sorry ass in 
here, and give me the rest of the story."

At that, Skinner picked up his bag and started in. After a 
moment, he realized that Scully was still outside. Turning, he 
looked out and found her standing at the bottom of the stairs, 
arms crossed against her chest. If she hadn't been wearing the 
dark sunglasses against the morning sun, blocking his view of 
her eyes, he would have been able to confirm his initial 
assessment that she was pissed.

"Be right back Reg," Skinner said, and headed outside down to 
his agent.

"Scully," he began. . .

"What the hell are we doing here Skinner?" she asked harshly, 
her patience gone and her temper flaring. "You have yet to 
explain *one* thing to me of why we're here, what those Mafia 
goons have to with this, and how all of this relates to me finding 
Mulder!"

For a second, he expected her to haul off and hit him. The truth 
was he couldn't blame her if she did. He'd been keeping most of 
the plans and knowledge he had to himself, almost as if to keep 
her innocent a while longer as to exactly what they were going to 
do. Now, he knew he not only didn't have the right to, but he 
couldn't keep her out of it any longer.

"I'm sorry Scully. It's just. . ." he said, faltering under her stare. 
"Look, let's go inside, get some rest, and then we'll talk."

"No. You tell me *now* what's going on, or I'm leaving. For all I 
know, Mulder could be dead by now while you play 'The 
Godfather' with these mobsters," Scully insisted, her tone 
unyielding.

Sighing, Skinner knew that she meant every word she said. The 
time for answers had come.

"Alright. Grab your bag and come inside. I'll explain there."

With that, he turned and walked up the stairs, glancing once over 
his shoulder to see her shoulder her gear and start to follow him 
up. He held the door for her, and then shut it behind her as she 
dropped her stuff by his, took off her sunglasses and looked 
around the place. They stood in the living room, furnished by a 
sofa, loveseat, TV and recliner. At the back she could see a 
kitchen, and assumed that the doors to the right between them 
went to the bedroom and bathroom in the place.

Standing at the kitchen entryway, Skinner's friend Reggie 
watched her and her boss as they came in and she looked 
around. She wondered what he was thinking of, as his gaze went 
back and forth between her and Skinner.

"Reggie, I'd like you to meet one of my agents from the Bureau, 
Dana Scully. Her partner, Agent Fox Mulder was kidnapped last 
week. He's the reason we're here," Skinner informed his friend, 
and Reggie moved to where she stood and shook her hand. 
"Reggie's one of my oldest friends. We served a tour in 'Nam 
together."

"Nice to meet you Agent Scully. I'm sorry it's under these 
circumstances."

"Thank you."

Skinner nodded in Reggie's direction, and the man disappeared, 
leaving Scully and Skinner alone in the living room. He found the 
recliner and sat down, waiting until she was seated to start. She 
sat on the loveseat, her expression anxious.

"When I first started working for the Bureau, I was assigned to an 
undercover mob investigation. That's how I met Anthony's father, 
Carmine. Anyway, when the assignment came to a close, 
Carmine was supposed to go to jail, but someone higher up 
wanted more. They stuck him in a secret jail block until he would 
offer up the information they wanted. It wasn't until later at that 
I came to learn that he was being held there, not for those 
reasons, but because he knew too much about someone within 
the Consortium. And I believe that this man is the person 
responsible for Mulder's abduction. I believe you know him by 
the name The First Elder," Skinner explained at length, watching 
Scully's face go from understanding to shock. "Carmine knows 
things that could expose him, and if we can exploit that 
knowledge, we can get Mulder back."

For what probably was five minutes, Scully sat in stunned 
silence. She'd expected that someone affiliated with the 
Consortium had orchestrated Mulder's kidnapping. First on her 
list had been Cancerman, but that hadn't fit. She didn't know who 
else within the conspiracy would want to take Mulder, so her 
attempts to find a source to tell her something had failed. Now 
here was Skinner, saying he believed he knew who was 
responsible for Mulder's kidnapping, and that this errand was 
about getting someone who they could use against him, for 
leverage in getting Mulder back.

"Alright, for the moment, let's just say that we do find this man 
who knows these secrets about The First Elder. How would we 
let Them know we want to cut a deal?"

Ah, Skinner thought to himself. Cynical, rational Scully was 
making her appearance. She hadn't stopped to ask questions 
about his past or the deal with the gangsters. Her focus was still 
fully rooted in how they were getting Mulder back, and how 
Carmine fit into that.

"As soon as we spring Carmine, I have a feeling that we'll be 
being contacted. But if not, I think we may have some allies who 
are trying to track down Mulder's whereabouts."

"Who," Scully asked, suspiciously.

"I'd rather not say," Skinner began, and as he saw her gearing up 
to demand the person's name, he hurried to explain himself. "I 
have my reasons Scully, and I'll have you remember that I got 
you the location of Mulder when he'd run off to Alaska, didn't I?"

At that she had to concede. She remembered that night when the 
man Mulder called X showed up at his apartment, thinking her 
partner had contacted him, and refused to tell Scully where 
Mulder had gone. Skinner had shown up minutes later, bloody 
and disheveled and gave her the information. If he said he could 
get the information, then she had little choice than to trust him.

"Yes, you did. So, Anthony is here for his father. Once he has 
him, what then?"

"Truthfully, I don't know. I expect that Carmine's vendetta with 
The First Elder will keep him around until we get Mulder back. 
But I can't guarantee it. Anyway, it's almost noon. We should get 
some rest before Anthony and his men get here at 6," he 
remarked, just as Reggie seemed to appear out of no where. 
"Reg, do you have someplace for Scully to sleep for a few 
hours? I can just sleep on the couch. . ."

"I'm not using my room, so after we talk, you can get some rest in 
there. As for agent Scully, I have a spare bedroom that she can 
use. Let me show you," he informed them. Scully reached down, 
picking up her bag and then stood to follow Reggie.

"Here's the spare, and there's a bathroom of its own attached. I'll 
make sure that you and Walt are up by 5, and get you something 
to eat before we storm the castle and all," Reggie said with 
another of his deadly, deep laughs.

Scully entered the sparsely furnished spare bedroom, dropped 
her bag and other items and closed the door behind her. Sitting 
on the bed, she pulled off her hiking boots and then curled up on 
the mattress. 

She was asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.
 
-  X  -

Residence of Reggie Earle
1003 63rd St.
Oakland, CA


With a powerful knock on the front door at 6pm sharp, Anthony 
DiMerra's presence was announced. Reggie let the men in, and 
Scully and Skinner stood nearly side by side like line backers, 
preparing for the round of explanations on just what they were 
about to do.

"Here we are Skinner. So, what are we doing?" Anthony asked 
as he chewed on what might have been a toothpick, his body 
relaxed yet alert as his hands rested in his pants pockets.

"I know how to get into the cell block, and my friend Reggie here 
will help us get in and out of the place as inconspicuously as 
possible. We'll need all the fire power we can get, so everyone 
needs to be packing. I don't know how much opposition we're 
going to come across, but with seven of us, we should be ok."

"You're taking the bitch?" one of Anthony's men, Stan barked 
out, laughter in his tone.

Beside him, Skinner felt Scully bristle, and he almost threw an 
arm out to hold her back. 

"She can take care of herself, so I'd suggest you don't piss her 
off, unless you want to go back to Jersey in a box," Skinner 
retorted. "Anyhow, its an hour drive from here to San Quentin, so 
it'll be dark by the time we get outfitted and leave. Let's get 
moving."

With that, Reggie walked around the room, handing Skinner, 
Scully, Anthony and his boys Pacific Gas & Electric uniforms. 
The utility company provided service to the Bay Area, and no 
one would question a repair truck with workers on site.

"Time to suit up," stated Reggie as he zipped up his blue 
jumpsuit and attached the work belt. Then, as everyone else 
continued to do the same, he walked over to the basement door, 
unlocked it and flipped the light switch. 

Walking down, he stood at the foot of the stairs as Scully, 
Skinner and the rest of the group followed. Scully's jaw dropped 
and Anthony let out a bark of laughter as they walked into the 
basement.

"Fuck! A man after my own heart!" 

Before them was spread out a virtual banquet of weaponry. 
Glassed over tables, wall mounted racks flanked the room. It was 
a literal arsenal.

"You're not dealing this stuff, are you Reg?" asked Skinner with a 
look of concern as he moved to look over the Uzis in the case 
closest to him.

"Nah. Its my own personal collection. Besides, in this 
neighborhood, I wouldn't let anyone know about this, or I'd have 
unexpected visitors that I'd have to dispose of," he replied with a 
look that stated that he wouldn't be adverse to doing whatever it 
took to keep his 'collection' safe.

While Anthony's men quickly pointed at things and Reggie 
unlocked ammo boxes and the cases for them to haul things out, 
Scully simply glanced at everything: the semi-automatic guns, 
the machine pistols, the demolitions equipment. Near the front of 
the basement, there was a small grouping of silent weapons. 
Close quarters armament. One in particular caught her attention.

A British commando dagger. Without conscious thought, she 
reached down and popped the strap from where it trapped the 
pommel and carefully slid the weapon from its black sheath. 

It was heavier than she'd expected, the handle weighing oddly in 
her hand. The blade felt light in comparison, even though it was 
longer than her hand was. The dark steel glinted in the harsh 
light of the florescent tubes overhead.

Finally she reached for the sheath to put the weapon away. 
Before she could slide the tip of the knife into the casing, one of 
Anthony's goons came up beside her. Part of her wanted to 
automatically flinch from the man's presence, but she held her 
ground, turning her eyes towards him in questioning.

"Nice pig-sticker," Dominic commented, giving her a cold look, 
then plucked the blade and sheath from her hands, shoving the 
weapon into place and then quickly finding a spot on his belt for 
the weapon.

Scully felt herself inwardly pale. The words hadn't been lost on 
her. If it wasn't for Skinner's connection with Anthony, his ability 
to help free Anthony's father, these men would be happy to finish 
her and her boss off. 

She wandered back to where the ammo was stacked up, 
searched around and picked up another two clips for her service 
weapon. With allies like these, she thought, the men who had 
Mulder didn't stand a chance.

-  X  -

San Quentin Penitentiary
San Rafael, CA


It was late, and as Reggie flashed the guard at the front gate his 
doctored work order, they just flagged the PG&E utility van 
through. Driving through the gates, they followed an access road 
around the far side of the prison, hugging the water's edge. 
Finally they stopped around the backside of the penitentiary. 

Clamoring out of the back doors, the group followed Skinner 
down a sloping path, leading them to a large iron grate. Reggie 
produced a set of bolt cutters from his belt and cut the lock. 
Skinner then reached forward and pulled the gate open, allowing 
them to walk slowly single file into the dark, narrow tunnel until 
they were stopped by a large metal door with a keypad lock.

Scully leaned against the cement wall and looked at the gathered 
group of invaders while she hoped that Skinner had the access 
code for the door. The last thing they needed, she thought sourly, 
was to have to find another way in. Watching Anthony's 
nervousness covered by a show of bravado made her concerned 
as to what would happen if Skinner couldn't deliver on his 
promise. 

Of course, that would mean that her chances to find Mulder 
would take a turn for the worse too. And she didn't believe that 
her boss would risk the wrath of both the mob and her.

Suddenly, a loud popping sound rang through the cement tunnel, 
and the door opened, swinging inward. At the door, Scully saw 
Skinner pull his weapon and flip off the safety. Around her, she 
heard everyone else do the same, some of the gangsters pulling 
back the slides on their automatic weapons. Once everyone was 
set, Skinner entered, everyone following, split up in two's - Scully 
and Reggie, Anthony and Stan, Dominic and Vincent Jr. 

As they walked into the new area, they began to realize that this 
was the hidden tunnel network that Skinner had mentioned. It 
was supposed to lead down underneath San Quentin, to let 
people that would rather move unseen visit the special set of 
semi-secret isolation cells. As they carefully moved through the 
corridors, they took care to avoid several guards in uniforms that 
were patrolling the passageways. Scully gave Skinner a look of 
shock when she saw the first of the uniformed men, and he came 
to her side. Whispering, he explained that the guards in the 
network and this special ward only look like regular correctional 
guards - in fact, they were hand-picked special ops - Men in 
Black. 

Silently they moved through the corridors, Skinner leading them 
at each intersection until they finally reached a larger, more open 
area where a dozen or so guards were seated and milling 
around. The center of the operation, obviously. With silent 
signals that Scully was sure they'd perfected in 'Nam, Skinner 
and Reggie communicated their plan. From what she could 
guess, it was going to be *lots* of fun.

Skinner turned around the corner and began firing into the crowd 
of guards, hitting chairs and tables, sending coffee and 
paperwork flying as Reggie's guns followed, shooting at the 
guards that were starting to flee towards the walls, support posts 
and any other cover they could find.

With the chaos in front of them, Anthony and his men stormed 
into the room, their guns spraying bullets in all directions. Scully 
stood at the entryway, stunned for a long moment as she 
watched the carnage.

One of Anthony's men, Stan had rushed up on one of the guards 
and shot him point blank in the chest. Not once, but three times 
and then ran off, looking for other men to kill. Skinner and Reggie 
had stopped behind a large pillar and took turns coming out from 
behind the cover to shoot the guards that were using the table as 
a makeshift barricade. Anthony had snuck up behind a couple of 
guards where they were holed up, trying to get a radio working to 
send out an alarm when he shot them both, rapid-fire and ripped 
the cord from the radio.

A shiver went up Scully's spine as her mind grasped what she 
was seeing. It was a indiscriminate war out there. 

And she had to go out there and do this as well.

Scanning the room, she found Skinner and Reggie under heavy 
fire, and she traced the guards who were shooting at them. 
Running in, she fired her Sig, hitting one in the shoulder, another 
in the chest as she dodged Anthony's men and incoming bullets 
that seemed to whiz past her.

She nearly skidded across the room to where Skinner and 
Reggie were still battling it out with a few of the guards. She 
leaned around the large post and fired off a few shots in the 
same direction as her boss and his friend were aiming.

Within what seemed minutes though, the number of gunshots 
ringing out through the room was slowing, then finally came to a 
halt as Scully realized that they'd killed or wounded to the point 
of surrender or unconsciousness all the guards that had opposed 
them.

Once they'd cleared the area, Reggie and Vincent Jr., who had 
been shot in the shoulder and the side secured the door, making 
sure they didn't have any unexpected company before they'd 
gotten Carmine out.

The rest of the force hurried along the side wall of the room 
where a series of isolation cells were located. Who they held was 
uncertain, as each door had a number and no name. Skinner 
moved hurriedly in front, looking at each tag briefly before 
stopping at the second to the last cell. Flipping open the window 
port, Skinner looked inside, and with a nod, he confirmed that 
they had located their objective.

"Open it!" shouted Anthony.

Quickly Stan and Dominic shot the lock off the door in a blinding 
flash of gunfire. Dominic slammed his foot into the dented metal 
of the door, and it fell inward with a crash. 

He sat on his cot, nonchalantly reading the latest issue of 
Playboy, He waived in the air in front of him to clear the dust 
kicked up by the fallen door, readjusted his reading glasses, and 
went back to his magazine. Age had grayed the hair at his 
temples, and some of the muscle had gone to fat, but the old 
man still had the countenance of a swaggering bull that Anthony 
recognized from pictures of his father.

"Are you Carmine DiMerra?" asked Anthony.

The old man set down his magazine and took off his glasses. He 
blinked up at the group of people standing in his cell door, guns 
in hand.

"You fuckers gonna pull those pistols or are you gonna stare me 
to death?" he spat with an equal measure of defiance and 
boredom.

"We ain't here to kill you," smiled Anthony, "We're here to take 
you home."

Carmine sniffed disdainfully, ever the old bull. He picked up his 
magazine and glasses, returning to his reading. "Sorry kid. 
Carmine DiMerra don't fly coach."

"But I'm your son!" Anthony stammered.

Carmine looked over Anthony with a disgust, sneering. "What 
bitch popped you out?" 

Shock turned to anger, and Anthony replied, "My mother and 
your wife, Angelica DiMerra."

"Ah, *that* bitch," said Carmine, never looking up from the skin-
rag. "You don't want me kid. Go spring the milkman down the 
hall."

Scully saw the mobsters shuffling at the door to the cell. She 
sized up the situation quickly.

"The family reunion will have to wait until later. It's time to go," 
Scully announced loudly over the alarm that suddenly pierced 
the room. Shoving herself into the small room, she grabbed the 
Italian man by the arm and dragged him out of the cell.

Hurriedly they made their way across the cell block, carefully 
avoiding the bodies strewn all over. Once they were out of the 
cell block, Skinner started running through the corridors heading 
back out the way they'd come in, hoping that the men behind him 
would shoot anyone who got in their way. Luck was with them 
though as they made their way out the main door, through the 
tunnel and to the PG&E truck before anyone else arrived.

Shoving Carmine and Anthony roughly into the back, Scully 
climbed in, followed by Anthony's goons. In the front, Reggie and 
Skinner got in and they sped towards the gate, barely slowing 
down for Reggie to sign them out and head for the freeway.

Soon they were on the road, and Skinner directed Reggie to 
head across the Golden Gate Bridge to San Francisco, instead 
of going back directly to Oakland. As Reggie drove, Scully did 
what she could for Vinnie Jr. with the limited supplies she had. 
The jarring of the truck as they hit potholes in the road didn't help 
either, but she got him patched up. Those that were in the back 
of the truck were able to strip off their jumpsuits and had them 
piled with the work belts on the floor of the truck.

After what seemed like an eternity, the van stopped and Skinner 
pounded on the metal wall to the back part of the truck to let 
them know that it was ok to get out. Scrambling out, Scully 
looked out to see that they were in a small, grimy street in front 
of an all-night Vietnamese restaurant. Skinner and Reggie were 
at the door, sans their jumpsuits as well, talking animatedly with 
an Asian man in his fifties in a tacky neon-yellow suit.

Behind her, Carmine and Anthony were climbing out of the truck, 
being helped by Anthony's men. They all seemed nonplussed by 
the turn of events, and headed right into the restaurant without a 
second thought. Scully followed them, hesitating at the door until 
Skinner came up beside her.

"It's alright Scully. The place is safe. The owner's an old friend," 
he explained as the small Asian man directed them to a couple 
of tables near the back of the place.

"Seems like you have a lot of *friends* in San Francisco," Scully 
quipped almost sarcastically at Skinner as they sat. Carmine and 
Anthony sat down across from her, while Reggie and her boss 
were on either side of her. Anthony's men sat at another table, 
their eyes focused on the doors and their menus, their 
conversation joking and normal. As if they hadn't blown away a 
dozen men tonight.

"A lot of the guys came through the bases in California, The 
Presidio and Fort Bragg to name a few, after their tours were 
over, or after they'd been medically evacuated to the States," he 
said as one of the waiters brought them some water. "Some of 
them ended up coming back after they got their discharge and 
found that the States didn't particularly want them back."

Scully frowned and then focused her attention to the man whose 
hands Skinner was putting Mulder's life into. Sitting together at 
the table, Anthony was talking quietly with Carmine, trying to 
convince the man that his mother, Carmine's wife had given birth 
to him after Carmine had disappeared. And that in the years 
following his birth, he'd heard stories about the old man, but 
never imagined that he'd ever meet his father.

"I ain't your daddy," Carmine harshly told Anthony, loud enough 
for the whole restaurant to hear if there had been anyone there 
besides them to care. "That slut of a mother of yours was two-
timing me with my best friend, Joe Salvatore. That fucking 
bastard that set me up to take the fall, and because of some 
fucked up sense of loyalty to *him* and the family, I got shut up in 
that hell hole the last 25 years!"

"They call him the First Elder now," Skinner said, interrupting 
their discussion.

"The only time that fat fuck was ever first was getting to the buffet 
table," Carmine replies, laughing hoarsely.

"Well, things have changed," retorted Skinner. At that, Carmine 
glared at Skinner with a deadly stare. "We need your help. We 
need some information on Joe, and you're the only one who 
knows *everything* about him."

"Oh, I know *everything*, alright," Carmine spat, then grabbed 
his water glass and took a large swig. "Can I get something 
fucking stronger than this?"

The waiter came back with a glass of red wine and a carafe, 
placing them on the table before the old man. Grudgingly, 
Carmine took the glass and gulped down a large swallow of the 
wine, then refilled his glass again.

"It's been 25 years since I've had a decent glass of wine. I guess 
I'll have to wait a while longer," he said humorously, then turned 
back to Scully and Anthony. "So, you need me to tell you about 
Joe, this 'First Elder' now, huh? Well, it's a long story. I was 
chief, a made man and a young success in my Family. I'd 
brought Joe in, opened up all the connections that made the fat 
bastard a success. I guess that was *my* fucking mistake. He 
started screwing *my* wife, making his own deals within *my* 
organization. I gave him a chance to confess, to make retribution 
for the crimes against me and the Family. Instead the fucker 
turned on me, going to the Feds and bringing in one of their 
agents to fuck me over. And in case you didn't know it, that 
man's sitting right here."

Carmine pointed a finger across the table at Skinner, causing the 
A.D. to tense as he reached out to scoop up some of the newly 
arrived food that the owner had sent over.  

"This guy lived as one of my men for over a year, and I trusted 
him 'cause Joe vouched for him. I took him under my protection, 
helped him through some rough spots and I told him stuff I 
wouldn't even tell my own priest. So, the next thing I know, Walt 
here is gone, Joe is gone and the Feds are busting my ass. They 
give me some shit about handing over some of the Captains of 
the other Families, so they can get inside the other operations, 
but I didn't tell them shit! So they throw my ass in that hell hole 
under San Quentin pen," Carmine continues, and takes another 
swig of the wine. "After a while, I figured they'd just forgotten I 
was down there, but I never gave up the prospect that one day 
I'd be able to have my revenge on everyone who sold me down 
the river, especially Joe."

Scully looked up from the food on her plate that she was 
stubbornly trying to convince her stomach that she needed to 
eat. Unfortunately the dining conversation was making it difficult. 
She glanced over at Skinner and saw the discomfort in his face 
at Carmine's tale. There was something more that had gone on, 
a long buried secret that seemed to be weighing on him, 
especially now that the story was being aired out, so to speak.

"Anyhow, for some reason I still doesn't have a clue to, Walt 
came and saw me one last time before they shoved me in that 
cell. He offered to give someone in the Family a message. Since 
I didn't know who to trust anymore, and even though I didn't trust 
Walt, I made him a tape, and told him that he should give it to the 
one man he was sure would carry out my vendetta. Walt 
promised he'd give it to that person, though I don't know whom 
he sent it to. . . "

"He sent it to me, when I was sixteen," said Anthony, making 
sure his father knew that Skinner believed his son was the one 
person who would carry out Carmine's orders.

Carmine nodded, finally understanding Walt's reasons for 
offering to take the tape. He'd suspected that Walt might not give 
it to one of the Captains, because they knew Walt to be 
something other than a wiseguy. And he knew full well that 
Skinner probably assumed, and correctly so, that he was one of 
those that were listed on the vendetta tape. 

Skinner had sat there and listened to Carmine, but realized that 
the former mob boss didn't know the real reasons why he'd been 
locked up in San Quentin's secret guest rooms. 

"I had my reasons for waiting until Anthony was old enough to 
help you," Skinner said, and then began to tell his version of the 
story. "The First Elder, Joe Salvatore, had been turned by the 
Bureau and offered to set you up. I got assigned to the case 
because they needed someone with a fresh face, but old 
experience. You probably think that Joe had something to do 
with my coming into the Family, but in truth, a man that I now 
know as the Cancerman had seen to it that I was assigned to the 
case. He wanted me to get close to you, Carmine, and to report 
the dirt I got on you and Joe."

Scully almost gasped as she realized how far back her and 
Mulder's nemesis' had his reach into their situation. Here he'd 
been involved in the early formation of the Consortium, and 
gathering information on all sides to use as he saw fit. 

"But the First Elder realized that Carmine was his weakness, and 
decided to rush the investigation, getting it closed prematurely, 
which lead to them pressuring Carmine into fingering his bosses. 
The First Elder planned to use what Carmine knew to squeeze 
the other Mob bosses into doing what he wanted, allowing him to 
control them and thus consolidating his power, while at the same 
time, getting rid of Carmine."

Carmine was surprised to say the least, as he nearly spit his 
wine back into his glass. The fat fuck had backstabbed him, and 
wanted him dead as well! 

"When Carmine wouldn't give up his Family and the others, the 
First Elder ordered his death, but the Bureau was directed to lock 
him up in that cell under San Quentin. It seemed that someone 
higher up, maybe Cancerman, maybe someone else thought that 
Carmine could be used as a trump card in case they ever had to 
go up against the First Elder," Skinner explained at length, 
watching the faces of Scully, Anthony and Carmine as he relayed 
the story to them. "You were living, breathing proof of the First 
Elder's past, that he had tried to blackmail the Mob. If you ever 
saw the light of day again, what you know about him would be 
more than enough to make the Families break their affiliation 
with him, and he'd have a contract out on him in an hour." 

Finishing the last of the wine, Carmine seemed to have 
processed the new facts that Skinner had given him in cold 
silence. Finally, the old man shrugged and asked the men at the 
other table for a cigar. Dominic stood up and handed the man 
one, which he shoved in his mouth as the made man pulled out a 
lighter and lit the cigar. He puffed on it a few times as Dominic 
sat back down. All this really didn't mean much. He just had to 
add this Cancerman to the list of men he needed to kill in 
addition to Skinner and the Elder. But first the First Elder.

"So, here I am. What now," Carmine asked, pushing himself 
away from the table. At his side, Anthony had lit a cigarette and 
had gotten up to stand beside his father.

"I think Anthony has rooms somewhere in the area, so you 
probably should leave here and get squared away before they 
come looking for the truck. We should meet tomorrow at noon. 
The same place Anthony," Skinner said, getting up himself as he 
turned to look at Scully's stricken face. "Tomorrow I'll tell you 
how you can help us find the First Elder, and Mulder in the 
process."

With that, Carmine shoved his chair back, and Anthony and his 
men walked out with him, leaving Scully, Skinner and Reggie in 
the deserted restaurant. 

"Come on, let's grab a cab and get some rest," Skinner started, 
and when he saw Scully start to protest, he hurried to add, "It's 
just a few more hours Scully. Trust me, we're going to get Mulder 
back."

She started to open her mouth, then bit back her retort. He was 
right. For now, she had to be patient and trust that Skinner knew 
what he was doing. The only problem was that the one person 
she did trust was the same person whom she was looking for.

-  X  -

300 California St.
Tenth floor
San Francisco, CA


The First Elder strode into the Consortium's offices in San 
Francisco early in the morning. He'd had to charter a jet from 
New York when he'd received word of the jailbreak, the news 
that Carmine was still alive and had been the prisoner that had 
been rescued from the underground jail cells. He was angry, and 
had ordered his men to get him something to eat. He always ate 
when he was annoyed, and this fuck-up was making him 
ravenous. 

He had already taken over many of Cancerman and the Well 
Manicured Man's projects, but he hadn't come across a single 
reference to Carmine's continued existence on the planet. He'd 
been sure that his orders had been obeyed, and that the 
dangerous prick had been dealt with. Obviously, that wasn't the 
case, as someone else had tucked him away, most likely to use 
against him.

When he'd been told of the jailbreak, he'd issued orders to make 
sure that anyone who knew of the identity of the man in the cell 
be killed, knowing that if the Consortium found out about any of 
this, they could use it against him. Kick him out of his seat of 
power. 

Moving to sit in the rich padded leather chair, the First Elder ran 
his hands on the finely polished mahogany desk. The San 
Francisco office might be smaller, but it was furnished as befit a 
man of his station. Looking to the phone, he started to consider 
what needed to be done, and who was still a threat.

Picking up the receiver, he dialed a long distance number from 
memory. After what seemed like forever, he heard the Mandarin 
speaking man on the other end answer.

"There's an opportunity that I would like to discuss with you," the 
First Elder stated to the Chinese diplomat, one of the 
knowledgeable in the Consortium. "There will soon be a space 
on the council that will need to be filled. It is a vacuum that could 
be filled by someone who could discreetly take care of a small 
inconvenient problem of mine. I have several people that I need 
disposed of, by someone that cannot be traced back to me. 
There are five people, all in San Francisco, California, in the 
United States. I will give the person whom you send the 
information they'll need."

At the other end of the line, the Chinese diplomat, blinded by the 
promise of power, agreed to send their best assassin, Kwan Hui, 
on the next flight to San Francisco to dispose of the problem.

Hanging up the phone, the First Elder smiled for the first time 
since hearing about the jail break. Then through the door came 
one of his men with a tray of food. His smile got broader. Nothing 
was better than food. Not even killing.

-  X  -


Hong Kong International Airport (HKG)
Chek Lap Kok, Hong Kong


Standing, looking at the departure boards, the handsome Asian 
man subconsciously chewed on his lower lip. He hated the fact 
that he had agreed to this. But there was nothing else to do.

It was a matter of duty and loyalty

And he knew all about loyalty. 

His family was Nung, ethnic Chinese that had lived for 
generations on the mean streets of Vietnam, carving out an 
existence as criminals and mercenaries, outlaws known for being 
as ferocious in loyalty as they were in battle. His father, his 
brothers, and all his uncles had fought alongside the large 
Americans in their green berets, had listened to the smoking men 
in their ill-fitting suits, and had continued to fight for a free 
Vietnam where the Nung were looked down upon as bandit 
scum: a fight for which all the men of his family died, either 
quickly under the treads of NVA tanks as they stormed through 
Saigon, or slowly from the hunger and disease in the Thai 
refugee camps. So he knew all about loyalty. 

He knew even more about betrayal.

The men of his family had lived by the gun for many years: 
against the Viet Cong, and before them the Viet Minh, and before 
them the Japanese. Now he would continue in that legacy, and 
live by the gun for the glory of his Triad, and for the survival of 
his family.

He was the last now; all the family had traveled across the seas 
to a new life in America, where they could make their own path. 

His great-grandmother, the matriarch of the family was the only 
one besides himself who had refused to emigrate. He still 
remembered her words.

"I have walked down enough roads," she had said when faced 
with the possibility of leaving Vietnam. 

After bringing her family through the fall of Saigon and out of the 
death of the camps, no one would begrudge this last wish. When 
she breathed her last words, Kwan was the only one of her 
children to be there to hear them.

"I have no regrets, little one. I chose to live this life, and I chose 
to die this death."

Kwan had tried to display outwardly the honor she deserved, but 
his attempts only caused her to sigh, as if she regretted his 
loyalty. She spoke to him of the hardships she faced, the pain 
spent to see her children live. But he did not see the purpose of 
her words, only feeling the weight of his duty grow heavier.

"You are a strong man to live without hope, little one. But it takes 
even greater strength to hope among death." Reaching out, she 
had found his hand and pressed into the palm her Buddhist 
amulet, curling his fingers over the metal. "You must find that 
hope, my little one. That matters so much more than if you ever 
find a new life."

As the speakers overhead announced his flight, he shook himself 
back into the present. These thoughts did little to ease his mind 
as he shouldered his carry-on and prepared to board the plane to 
America, and continue his family's tradition of death.

-  X  -

San Francisco International Airport (SFO)
South San Francisco, CA


When the plane landed at San Francisco International Airport, 
Kwan disembarked and found a man holding a sign with his 
name on it waiting at the gate. After being shuttled through 
customs, the man took his bags and led him to the exits. At the 
curb sat a dark sedan, and the man opened the back door for 
Kwan, then stowed the bags in the trunk. Once Kwan was in, he 
slammed the door and got into the passenger seat up front as 
the driver started the car, pulling onto the road.

In the back, Kwan looked across the compartment at the First 
Elder, who handed him a folder with photographs of the targets.

As he looked them over, the First Elder explained who they were 
and what priority they were to be eliminated. Kwan listened and 
looked at the photographs as the car sped along, and realized 
that the assignment he'd been sent on wasn't as clean cut as 
he'd been told. The folder he had on his targets included an old 
man and a woman.

He wasn't adverse to killing old men and women on general 
principle, but something seemed wrong about this.

Still, it really didn't matter, because what he liked or didn't like 
had no relevance in the matter. He was here to do a job.

The First Elder then pushed across the limo floor a large duffle 
bag. Kwan seized it by the handles and pulled it into his lap. 
Inside was a high powered rifle and scope, a shotgun, several 
handguns, ammo for all of the weapons and a bulletproof vest 
with a black jumpsuit. On top of it all was the key to a hotel room 
and a key for a rental car. Nodding, he zipped the bag up again 
and looked at the large Italian man before him.

"Scully, Carmine and Skinner are your top priorities. They're to 
be terminated at all costs. The rest are secondary," the First 
Elder explained. "Take the car and wait at the warehouse. If they 
happen to find this location, I want to make sure that you're 
waiting for them."

With that, Kwan nodded again. They sat in relative silence until 
the car finally stopped in front of a small hotel. The man who had 
met Kwan at the gate opened the door and ushered him out. 
From behind him, Kwan heard the First Elder say one last thing.

"If you screw this up, there will be no going back."

And then the door closed, leaving Kwan to figure it out on his 
own.

-  X  -

New York City
Offices of the Consortium


The silver haired man known to Mulder and Scully as the Well 
Manicured Man sat at the head of the table, even though it wasn't 
his seat any longer. The First Elder had moved him aside. First 
by arranging the death of his companion Dr. Benita-Sayers, then 
by going behind his back and creating a new power struggle 
within the group.

Mulder's near suicide and the attempt on his associate's life a 
few days afterward had only made the division more apparent.

Now, Mulder had been taken off the streets and moved to a 
location without the group's authorization. It was a foolish move. 
Not more than a day ago Dana Scully and Assistant Director 
Walter Skinner had left for San Francisco from Newark. After 
tying in the New Jersey connection, he had no doubt that they 
were homing in on the First Elder.

And he was more than willing to do anything that would aid them.

Across the room, he heard the door softly open and the stench of 
burning tobacco waft through, preceding the man smoking the 
cigarette.

"Give them whatever they might need to locate Mr. Mulder before 
our associate does something rash," the Well Manicured Man 
said in a deep voice, sliding across the long table a file with 
Skinner's name on it. "You're to contact me if anything goes 
wrong or the situation changes."

Reaching over, the Cigarette Smoking Man picked up the manila 
folder striped with blue and thumbed through it. 

"San Francisco," he commented in a soft, smoky tone. "I've 
always loved the fog."

With that, he took a long drag on the butt and plucked it from his 
lips. Grinding the remains into the ashtray at the end of the table, 
he gave a slight grin and walked back out the door, closing it 
behind him.

At the table, the Well Manicured Man turned to look out the 
window at the New York skyline, and wondered just how long it 
would be until he had his rightful place back.

-  X  -

Residence of Reggie Earle
1003 63rd St.
Oakland, CA


Scully sat at the kitchen table watching Reggie clean the S&W 
9mm that he'd taken along on their little adventure to San 
Quentin. 

"Reggie," Scully said, getting the man's attention.

He looked up and regarded her seriously, his fingers never 
stopping their slow, even movements as he cleaned the barrel of 
the weapon even as he kept his eyes focused on her as he 
listened.

"I need your help. Skinner said that you could get anything. . . " 
Scully began, sitting on the chair, her arms wrapped over the 
back where her chest pressed against the wood, as her knees 
pushed against the legs. Her eyes dropped as she considered 
her train of thought and where her next words would take her.

After San Quentin, she'd been thinking a lot about her ability to 
protect herself and make a significant contribution in the hunt for 
Mulder. She didn't want to be the helpless female who needed 
the men to protect her. She needed to equalize the playing field 
to her advantage. 

"It seems that I don't stand a chance with just my service weapon 
out there. I need something more."

"Like what?" he asked, curious.

There was a long pause before she lifted her gaze back to 
Reggie's. Within her blue eyes, he saw something that reminded 
him of his year in 'Nam. A change that took over men, letting 
them accept and even revel in the horrors they had to do there. 
And in the FBI agent's eyes, he saw something similar.

"I want to be a god. . . " she replied, as she set her service 
weapon and the matching spare on the table with a loud thud, 
making her request clear.

-  X  -

Scully had never cared much for guns. She always knew how to 
use them, her father and brothers had taught her to shoot, and 
the FBI had honed those skills. But for Scully, the gun was just a 
tool, a necessary part of what sometimes had to be a dirty job. 

The Bureau gave its agents a wider latitude in their personal 
weapons than most law enforcement agencies, but Scully took 
as much interest in her choice of sidearm as she did in the 
manufacture of her scalpels. 

Most agents accepted whatever firearm the Bureau was 
assigning as their "standard issue" that month. The few gun-nuts 
that did carry a personal pistol usually chose hand cannons, but 
Scully had used the freedom to buy a pocket pistol: she had 
wanted a small gun that would least get in the way of her real job 
as a pathologist. Having to use her weapon had seemed as likely 
to Scully as one of her clientele getting up off the table and 
walking out the autopsy room.

Then she had been assigned to the X-Files and Fox Mulder.

It wasn't long before she'd mothballed the pocket pistol and took 
to packing a true service weapon like Mulder. It was even less 
time before she'd taken the pocket pistol out of mothballs and 
took to carrying it as a second carry gun. It was only after she'd 
lost Mulder and her badge to that madness in New Mexico, alone 
facing the very real dangers she couldn't define with just her little 
.380 Sig that she vowed to never feel so naked again. 

So she armed herself well. Faced with an endless array of 
choices with their esoteric arguments for and against, Scully 
went with the devil she knew: a pair of Sig-Sauer P226 9mm 
semi-autos. One she used as her service weapon. The other, 
she kept as a "just in case" gun.

And now "just in case" was here. The only issue was carrying 
them. That was where the request she had made of Reggie 
came in. 

You couldn't go into an unknown situation without enough 
firepower to get out again. So she had to carry both with the least 
amount of difficulty. She'd stopped wearing her shoulder holster 
in favor of the clip waist holster, as that seemed to be the 
smartest and easiest way to carry her gun in the field these days. 
The only problem was she didn't have something that would 
allow her to carry both of her guns at once, and with the odds 
stacked squarely against her, she was going to need that 
firepower. 

Finally Reggie returned to the kitchen with a nondescript black 
nylon duffel bag. He tossed it onto the table and pulled the zipper 
open, exposing the contents.

A rig.

Quickly she reached out and picked up the soft brown leather 
contraption, her fingers nearly caressing the soft, well worn 
material and her nails flicking at the brass buckles. 

The rig held twin holsters which were connected by straps that 
crossed across the back to a set of magazine pouches that 
would fall lower down the wearer's back, packing enough clips to 
supply your average Hong Kong action flick hero. Between the 
pouches, the straps intersected upon another, smaller holster. As 
she looked at it, she realized that her old .380 Sig could easily fit 
inside, giving her an added weapon in a diagonal quick cross-
draw across the back. She hadn't packed it, but she had been 
sure she'd seen one in Reggie's stores downstairs.

Slipping one arm through, she adjusted the strap on her 
shoulder, then slipped her other arm through the opposite strap. 
After tugging the rig into place, she slipped the weapons into 
their respective spots and gauged the weight. The holsters 
rested deep under her arms and close to her sides.

It felt good. Too good, in fact. The thought that she consciously 
knew that she was now more dangerous than ever frightened her 
on some level she hadn't even been aware of. She was crossing 
the threshold now. And there was no going back. It was like the 
door to a darker part of herself was opening, and she didn't know 
how it integrated with the rest of her. She was starting to feel 
different, and she wondered if Mulder would even recognize her 
when he saw her again.

Skinner walked in just then, and stopped cold. The sight of his 
agent stunned him. He had always been aware of her quiet 
strength, fierce determination and consistent expertise, but 
this. . . this was an armed and dangerous 5' 2" of red-headed 
intensity. Shit, now he understood why Mulder always came back from 
every misadventure. He had a Valkyrie in 3 inch heels by his 
side every time he went into the field. 

Hell hath no fury like Scully pissed off, he though with both 
humor and apprehension.

After a minute, he remembered why he was there. He'd gotten a 
call from the smoker. He still didn't know if he could trust him, 
but Cancerman had made it clear that there were people that wanted 
Mulder found. So he didn't have much choice but to take the 
information on faith.

"Scully," he started, and watched his auburn haired agent turn to 
regard him with an intent blue gaze, "I've got an address."

-  X  -

2300 Pier St.
Oakland Naval Shipyards
Oakland, CA


Scully looked at the warehouse as they drove up the road with 
more than a little skepticism. If the information Skinner had 
gotten was real, the MIB's were in there, but they were keeping 
the place dark.

And if Mulder was there, there was no telling where.

On the roof of a building adjacent to the warehouse, Kwan was 
perched and had been watching the group carefully as soon as 
they had started to come down the road, headed to this location 
he'd been told to watch. Supposedly, among them would be his 
targets. He looked through his scope, scanning the group as they 
drove into the areas in two non-descript cars.

When Skinner noted that there was no one in front of the 
building, no guards or anything, he directed Reggie to pull up to 
the front, parking about ten feet away. As soon as Reggie parked 
his vehicle, Anthony's sedan stopped beside them, and everyone 
surged out of the cars, grabbing guns and shifting equipment as 
they moved quickly for the sliding doors of the building.

Her back shoved up against the cold metal of the warehouse, 
Scully leaned over and spoke quietly to Skinner, his hands 
clenching and unclenching around his S&W 9mm.

"You're sure that they're not waiting for us on the other side? 
That this isn't a well constructed trap to kill us?" she questioned, 
her voice slightly above a whisper.

"No, I'm not," he replied as quietly. "But my source said our 
arrival should be a surprise."

Nodding her understanding, Scully reached across herself and 
pulled both of her Sigs from her rig. She looked at herself, 
sunglasses, white t-shirt and jeans. She looked like she'd 
dressed for a trip to the mall on the weekend. Until she added the 
leather of the rig strapped tightly to her upper body and the two 
weapons held in her hands into the equation. No, she was about 
to do something far removed from bargain hunting. Closer, she 
suspected to wholesale slaughter.

There was a crunching noise, and Scully looked up to see Stan 
and Skinner pulling open the metal doors of the warehouse. As 
soon as they were open wide enough, Dominic and Vinnie Jr. 
held their Uzi sub machine guns through the opening and 
sprayed bullets inside. Horridly Skinner and Stan opened the 
door all the way, and they rushed inside, hoping to catch 
whomever might be within either injured from the initial attack or 
still unorganized.

Once through the door, they found the inside of the building an 
expanse of space, cluttered by boxes, barrels and equipment. 
There was an upper level that seemed to be an office and rooms 
in the back of the building.

On the floor, two men lay dead, bleeding from multiple gunshots 
from their first volley. But no one else seemed to be there. 
Skinner looked to Scully, the puzzlement on his face obvious. 

Then suddenly the room erupted in gunfire as men surged from 
behind boxes and equipment, and everyone returned fire, 
running and diving for cover.

Skinner twisted and dove behind a stack of barrels, and yelped 
as he felt a round pierce his upper leg. Dropping to the ground, 
he looked down to see a bullet wound in his thigh, blood staining 
his jeans and seeping onto the floor. Fuck! he thought silently. 
Quickly, he shoved the heel of his hand down on it, putting 
pressure on the wound. It didn't seem bad, hell he'd survived 
worse, he thought resignedly. Then Reggie was kneeling next to 
him, peeking around the barrels to fire at the MiB's who were 
hiding behind some machinery probably a dozen yards away.

"Here," Reggie said quickly, shoving a gauze packet into 
Skinner's hands. Quickly Skinner shoved the cotton-like material 
into the hole in his jeans and turned to look around the barricade 
he and Reggie had to view the rest of the battle.

Anthony and Carmine had set themselves up behind a stack of 
crates while their men worked at mowing down as many of the 
MiB's as their Uzi sub machine guns could before they had to 
reload. The roar inside the building was enormous, and Skinner 
was glad he didn't have to shout orders over the din.

On the other side of the building, Scully had dived forward when 
the shooting had started, firing her Sigs as she sailed through the 
air. When she landed rather ungracefully to the ground, she 
hurriedly started to get up. 

Almost as soon as she was on her feet, Scully flattened to the 
cold cement floor of the warehouse again as a bullet passed just 
where she'd been standing. Behind and to her left, she heard the 
sound of glass breaking as a spray of bullets shattered it. She 
looked up to see gunfire coming through the window from 
outside. They were being attacked from both inside and out!

It had started as soon as they'd moved into the open areas of the 
warehouse. They were under fire, yet from what she could figure 
from the rate and amount of gunfire from the outside, as well as 
the small area that was being blanketed, everything pointed to 
there being only one shooter. And he or she seemed to be 
picking their shots, rather than firing indiscriminately. Strange, 
she thought, then as another volley of gunfire from the men 
inside the warehouse came her way, she shoved the thoughts 
aside to concentrate on the immediate problem at hand.

Crawling across the floor, she found herself behind some large 
wood crates stacked against the wall closest to the shattered 
window. She let herself raise up to her feet, her back to the crate 
that was doing very well as a temporary shield for her. Looking 
around, She noticed Reggie and Skinner still near the door, and 
Anthony and his crew slowly making their way forward. With 
each step, they cut down another MiB in their way.

Suddenly, from the upper level of the warehouse, men started 
appearing from the door to an office, firing into Anthony's 
position. Scully could see them, and leaned out from her position 
to fire on them. She'd emptied the clip in her first gun, so she 
shot her second dry as well before ejecting the clips and 
reloading from the supply at her back. Once she was fully loaded 
again, she looked out into the expanse before her, and decided 
to make a run for it.

Firing at the men above on the walk, Scully sprinted across a 
good portion of the warehouse floor before she skidded to a stop 
behind a forklift. She looked to her left and saw Stan and Vinnie 
Jr. moving her way. While she waited for them, she holstered 
one Sig, and tightened her grip on the weapon still in her hand.

They finally came to a stop near her position, huddled behind a 
few plastic barrels. She pointed to the upper rafters and then at 
them, and then pointed to herself and the lower part of the 
warehouse floor where a few of the MiB's still shot from their 
hiding spots. They nodded, and she counted silently, waiting for 
the inevitable lull in the gunfire.

For a second, there was silence, and the three of them were up 
and moving. Behind her, Scully heard gunfire that she assumed 
was cover fire from Anthony, Carmine and his men. Thankful for 
their timing, she launched herself over a set of low boxes and 
shot the two men who had huddled down behind them to avoid 
the incoming fire from her colleagues. She nearly landed on one 
of the men, who was trying to raise his gun again, so she shot 
him a second time, making sure he was down for good. She 
didn't need him showing up later and shooting her in the back.

On the stairs, she saw a body of one of the MiB's come tumbling 
down, and she heard more gunfire above. When the shots 
slowed, and then stopped, she knew that Anthony's men had 
accomplished their task.

It was finally silent in the warehouse, and Scully stepped out 
from her partial cover cautiously. Across the floor she saw 
bodies, but there didn't seem to be anyone still kicking. Looking 
back to the windows lining the upper walls, she noted that the 
gunfire from outside had ceased as well. She wondered if 
whomever had been shooting at them had left, or was waiting for 
a better shot. 

Behind her, she heard grunting, and she turned swiftly to see 
Skinner being helped by Reggie to sit on a low crate. There was 
a white bandage stuck on his leg, and she realized that he must 
have been wounded somewhere along the lines. Without 
hesitation, she started towards him, but was halted by his voice.

"I'm fine Scully. Go look for Mulder," Skinner called out from 
where he sat when he saw her start towards him.

She nodded, thankful for her boss' consideration. Hurriedly she 
ran towards the back of the warehouse where there seemed to 
be some built-in structures, offices, storage areas ad the like. 
There was a corridor of sorts where the walls created a small 
space between them. Scully cautiously crept down the corridor. 
At the end of the hallway, she found an ajar door of a small 
closet-sized room. Flattening herself to the wall, she turned, Sig 
up and ready as she entered.

Moving into room with the barrel of her gun leading, she looked 
inside, noting the poor conditions and the lingering smell of 
human waste and sweat. There was a filthy mattress and a toilet 
that seemed to be barely functioning. By the wall farthest from 
the toilet, there was an open plastic cooler with shredded 
wrappers and empty water bottles. Beside it, she saw something 
familiar and moved towards it. 

Laying on the floor was Mulder's watch. She recognized it from 
the splatters of white paint he'd gotten on it a few weeks before 
trying to paint his living room.

Bending down, she picked it up and held it tightly, her eyes 
closing as she felt the flood of emotions hit her at once. He had 
been there, but he was gone now.

So close, and yet so far.

Yelling from outside the room made Scully open her eyes and 
turn from her spot within Mulder's former makeshift prison. 
Quickly she headed back to the main area of the warehouse. 
She was in time to see Stan and Vinnie Jr. emerge from one of 
the upstairs rooms with one of the defending goons in tow. From 
the immediate looks of him, he hadn't been hurt - much.

Scully could see the darkening of what would end up being a 
black eye and blood was running from his lip. She could also 
see, as they brought him down the stairs to where she and 
Skinner were that he was clutching an arm around his torso, as if 
he'd been punched in the gut at least once before they started to 
haul him downstairs.

Watching Stan and Vinnie Jr. make their way down the flight of 
stairs, Skinner worked to get up from the crate he'd been resting 
on and carefully made his way to Scully' side. For at least ten 
minutes, there's been no gunfire from their 'mysterious' lone 
gunman outside the warehouse, so he felt safe enough for Scully 
and himself to be out in the open. Obviously the fact that the 
gunfire had stopped meant either the point was to hold them in 
place to allow something or someone to escape, or it had been a 
failed attempt to kill one of them in this room, and whomever it 
was had given up once they'd realized their window of 
opportunity had passed. Truthfully, Skinner didn't like either one 
of those possibilities.

As he moved to stand awkwardly next to Scully, he looked her 
over. He saw something clutched in her left hand, which she 
quickly pocketed. Evidence, he guessed. But the look on her 
face was more disturbing. The mask that he'd seen so many 
times in his office was hard, nearly cemented in place. Beneath 
it, he thought he saw glimpses of pain and a deep distress. 
Whatever she'd found had caused her emotions, usually so 
controlled to come bubbling to the surface, and she was now 
overcompensating to get some kind of control back.

Tearing his gaze from his agent, Skinner looked at the MiB that 
they'd captured. Their best bet at this point was to try to get 
whatever information they could from him about who had taken 
Mulder and where he was. He then glanced over to where 
Carmine stood next to Anthony and Dominic, and then back to 
Vinnie Jr. as he and Stan hauled the MiB down the stairs. 

Stan and Vinnie Jr. finally arrived in the space near Scully and 
Skinner, shoving the man forward. While he stumbled, he kept 
his balance and pulled up just in front of the two FBI agents. 
Then, before Skinner could take possession of their prisoner and 
the situation, Scully surprised him by swiftly reaching out and 
catching the man roughly by his blood-spattered shirt collar.

"It seems like your friends are either dead or gone running for the 
hills," she said in a matter-of-fact tone. "Unless you want to join 
the ones laying all over the floor, I'd suggest you talk to me right 
now, and tell me where they took Mulder."

The MiB gave her a slight, quick assessment with his eyes, 
sizing her up and then proceeded to laugh as he yanked himself 
out of her grasp. He turned his head away and spat some bloody 
saliva to the floor.

"After these two goombahs pound me and I said nothin', you 
expect me to be intimidated by a little girl scout like you?"

A pale auburn eyebrow arched, and Skinner felt the temperature 
in the room drop 50 degrees. Shit, pissing off Scully at this 
moment was not the smartest thing this guy could have done. He 
could only hope that she was rationally thinking about how much 
they needed this guy to tell them what he knew. 

The next few moments went by in a rush of sounds, sights and 
smells. He heard the safety snap off her Sig in the now quiet 
building, and the MIB looked at her with a disbelieving 
expression. Then the warehouse was suddenly filled with the 
crack of a gunshot and the smell of gunpowder.

Oh shit, Skinner thought as his brain had finally processed what 
had just happened.

"Aughhhh!!! You Fucking bitch! You shot me!" screamed the MiB.

Skinner continued to stand there, slack jawed and horrified as he 
watched the man quickly crumple to the floor, his left knee shot 
clean through. In front of him, Scully's gun issued a barely visible 
wisp of smoke from its barrel. Across from him, Carmine, 
Anthony and his men gave what could only be called grudging 
approval of the rogue agent's tactics, their opinion of his agent 
seeming to go up a notch.

"Do you want to answer my question, or go for two," she asked 
harshly, steel lining her voice as she lowered her gun to sight the 
man's other knee.

The MiB tried to scramble to a sitting position, ending up with his 
hand propping him up, his bleeding leg stuck out before him 
while his other was folded up beneath him. It made the shot to 
the knee more difficult, but far from impossible.

"I don't *know*!" he wailed, his voice breaking on the last word. 
"They didn't tell most of us where they were moving him next. All 
I was supposed to do was keep you busy while they got him out. 
That's all I know!"

"That's too bad for you," Scully remarked, her voice deadly 
serious. "Anthony, you can let your men do what they want with 
this piece of shit. I'm done with him."

At that, The MiB looked nervously around, expecting a bullet any 
minute. He wasn't disappointed as Anthony gave his men a 
signal, and Vinnie Jr. fired his gun into the man's head, his body 
falling to the floor.

As soon as two of Anthony's men had helped Skinner up, they 
were on their way out to their cars.

Only to be brought up short by the sight of the handsome Asian 
man dressed in a stylish black suit with the sniper rifle standing 
in front of their cars.

-  X  -

Kwan Hui stood confidently in front of the two American sedans 
as the group of gunmen came out the door of the warehouse. It 
only took seconds before every gun was pointed in his direction.

"Wait!" Scully screamed over the sounds of weapons cocking 
and angry voices shouting. 

Everything seemed to come to a halt as Scully holstered her Sig 
and approached the man with the rifle. She had a feeling this 
was her mystery sniper. But what puzzled her was why he'd 
stopped firing and what he was doing here, standing in the open, 
waiting for them. It was almost as if he wanted them to kill him. 
Or he was leading them into another trap.

"Agent Dana Scully?" Kwan asked as he threw the strap of his 
rifle over his shoulder, and sketching a polite bow in her 
direction.

She looked at him skeptically, her eyebrow raising a bit in 
unconscious gesture. Glancing over her shoulder, she confirmed 
that between Reggie, Skinner and Anthony's men, that this 
mystery man was well covered. Once she had established that, 
she felt willing to talk.

"Yes, I'm Dana Scully. And you are?"

"My name is Kwan Hiu, and I was sent here to kill you, and some 
of these men with you."

There was a sudden shift in the men behind her, and she threw 
her hand up, hoping that they would interpret it correctly as a 
hold signal. If he'd been sent there to kill her, kill some of the 
others with her, he must have been sent by the man who had 
Mulder. And if that was the case, he might know where Mulder 
was, or who specifically had him. But before she could say 
anything, Skinner broke in first.

"If you were sent to kill us, then you probably were sent here by 
the man we believe took someone important to Agent Scully and 
myself, Agent Fox Mulder. Scully found Mulder's watch in the 
warehouse. Do you know where they took him," Skinner asked, 
pulling himself up straighter as his regarded the man before him.

"I don't know who has this Mulder. I was sent here for one job 
only. To follow the orders of someone here in the States to kill 
those of you whom he felt were a threat to his government," 
Kwan replied. 

"You know that's a lie," Scully informed him directly, her arms 
crossing against her chest. "He had Mulder here, and he sent 
you here to keep us from finding him, and exposing his 
indiscretions to the Consortium."

Swiftly, Scully had crossed the ten feet or so to where Kwan 
stood, pulling one of her Sigs in the process and now held it 
beneath the man's chin.

"I want to know who the man was that you met. Who asked you 
to kill us, and keep us from finding Mulder. Was it the First Elder? 
Was it Cancerman? Who?!" she yelled, her finger pressing lightly 
on the trigger as she impatiently waited for an answer.

Seconds later, Scully found her hand whipped back, the gun 
falling from her grasp as Kwan disarmed her. She started to 
reach for her other gun, but he stepped back and held his hands 
up, showing her his non-aggressive stance.

"My apologies Ms. Scully. I just don't like having those pointed so 
close to me. You never know when they might go off," Kwan 
stated almost humorously. "But to answer your question, I 
believe the man I met with is called the First Elder, as you said. 
He did not say he had this Mulder, but did send me to this 
location to see if you found it. If and when you did, I was to 
execute my orders."

"But you didn't," Skinner said suddenly, cutting into the 
conversation again as he forced the goons helping him stand 
forward to Scully's side.

"No," Kwan said, and Scully looked at him, urging him with her 
eyes to continue, to explain himself. 

"I was reluctant to do this thing. While I have killed many people, 
and I come from a line of soldiers, I found myself questioning 
why someone like you," he said, pointing to Scully, "should be 
desired dead. I watched you inside the building, heard reasons 
why you were there. And I found myself wanting to do something 
different. To offer aid to the 'underdog', as it were, rather than be 
the man responsible for killing people who don't deserve the fate 
bestowed upon them by cowards. I wanted to feel what it was 
like to hope for something. Hope like you have, to find your 
friend."

Scully stood there, stunned. She watched the man reach down 
into the dusty ground and retrieve her weapon. He brushed it off 
and held it out to her, grip first. This man had had every chance 
to fulfill his obligation to the First Elder and kill her, kill all of 
them. Instead, here he was, making himself vulnerable, offering 
her a weapon that she could easily take back and shoot him 
dead with.

Moving closer, Scully looked up and swept her eyes over the 
man's face. She took in the spiky black bangs of Kwan's hair, 
then the black bushy eyebrows, simple nose and generous 
mouth. Then she turned her attention to his eyes. Looking 
deeply, she tried to read the piercing dark brown eyes that stared 
at her. She remembered the first time she'd looked into Mulder's 
eyes like this, looked to find the trust that had made them the 
best of partners, best of friends. And, although that level of trust 
wasn't there, she did find enough to accept his answer and his 
help.

"He's coming with us," Scully announced quietly.

"What?!?!" screamed Skinner, Carmine and Anthony at once 
while Kwan looked at her in surprise.

"Shut the fuck up!" she roared back at them. "Do you realize this 
man not *only* chose not to kill us, but came to offer *us* his 
help? He's seen the First Elder. Knows where he's been, knows 
what he's thinking. Fuck, between him and Carmine, we have a 
better shot at getting Mulder back than before. And if he *was* 
going to kill us, he would have done it already!"

They were stunned back into silence at that. She was right. 
There was no reason for this man to have done what he had if he 
just wanted to kill them. 

"So, I may help you?" Kwan asked Scully directly.

With a final silent nod of accent, Scully simply stood there while 
Kwan respectfully bowed to her. Then he turned and opened the 
back seat door of the first sedan, and helped Skinner inside, with 
the help of Dominic and Stan. Once he was in, Kwan slid in 
beside him.

Scully shut the door and started for the passenger side while 
Reggie climbed in the driver's seat. As she slammed her own 
door closed, she wondered just what the hell she was doing.

-  X  -

Residence of Reggie Earle
1003 63rd St.
Oakland, CA


Kwan pushed past Scully as he hauled Skinner through the back 
door of Reggie's house. The irony of her boss being carried by 
the man who probably shot him wasn't lost on her. She still didn't 
know what had possessed her to actually agree to let him join 
them as they left the warehouse.

It was an uneasy alliance. Scully didn't trust this assassin farther 
than she could see him. Yet he knew so much about the man 
who had Mulder. He'd made a compelling case, standing there 
on the railroad tracks outside the warehouse in front of their cars. 
After the hailstorm of gunfire inside the warehouse that she was 
sure he'd been responsible for, she'd accepted his help and even 
let him help Skinner into the car. He'd had every chance to kill 
her, kill *all* of them, but instead he was helping her. She shook 
her head in bewilderment.

Across the room, she noted Carmine, Anthony and one of his 
men had come in and started talking on the sofa and love seat 
set near the front door. Inwardly she shuddered as she realized 
how they had simply sprayed the place during the firefight. While 
they had taken their fair share of the MiB's out and found the one 
man hiding upstairs, they weren't there for the same purpose as 
she was.

She knew that their own agenda outweighed her life, as well as 
Skinner's and Mulder's. They were along for the ride, until they 
met up with the First Elder. It was the whole reason they were 
there - waiting until Scully and Skinner could locate Mulder in the 
hopes that search would bring them to the First Elder.

Scully caught up with her boss, as Kwan laid him out on Reggie's 
bed. A minute later, Reggie appeared with a first aid kit. When 
she opened it, she found more than she'd expected. There 
wouldn't be any need to take Skinner to a hospital with all this 
equipment. Again, she looked at Reggie and wondered just what 
the hell he did for a living, really. 

"Do you want to lose the jeans, or have me cut them off?" she 
asked her boss, scissors from the first aid kit in hand.

He glared at her, but reached down and popped open the buttons 
and then with Reggie and Scully's help, got them pulled off. For 
her boss' sake, she draped the material across his lap as she 
looked over the bullet wound on Skinner's upper thigh. The bullet 
had gone through cleanly, had missed the bone and artery and 
she didn't feel any major damage, so she doused the wound with 
disinfectant and bandaged the holes up, wrapping the whole 
thing with gauze. She found some antibiotics in the first aid kit, 
and handed them to Skinner while Reggie appeared from the 
bathroom with a glass of water.

"Now I know why Mulder keeps you around," joked Skinner. As 
her face went slack, Skinner instantly regretted reminding her of 
her missing partner. "Scully. . . "

"Just get some rest Walter. We'll deal with everything later," she 
said quietly, and got up from where she'd been kneeling by the 
bed, and walked out.

She stood outside the door and forced herself not to think of 
Mulder. Instead she found herself thinking back on what had 
happened at the warehouse. What she'd done. Shaking her head 
violently, trying to get the images out of her mind, she realized 
that she'd wandered into the kitchen. It must have been an 
unconscious move on her part, looking for a comforting place in 
this stranger's house. Kitchens were mostly the same no matter 
where you went - kitchen table and chairs, refrigerator, sink, 
stove. All so simple and uniform.

Pulling out one of the chairs, she settled into it heavily. Looking 
down at her shirt, she noticed the dust and blood that had 
somehow flecked the white t-shirt. She shrugged. It couldn't be 
helped. She'd toss it, or try and get it clean later. Next she noted 
the leather straps and metal buckles of the rig, and worked to 
shrug the thing off, still fully loaded with her Sigs and the spare 
ammo she hadn't used.

She hung it heavily over the post of the chair next to hers and 
then brought her attention back to the one prize she'd found 
tonight.

Mulder's watch.

Digging in her pocket, she fished it out and held it in front of her. 
She'd been so close. Damn it! If she'd only known that they were 
pinning them down in the front of the building while they spirited 
Mulder out the back, she would have planned for that. Instead, 
they'd come close, but had ended up leaving without their 
objective.

Scully turned the watch over in her hands, her mind full of 
memories. The paint splatters from the last crappy job of painting 
his bedroom that he'd wanted her help in doing. The scratches 
on the face from their side trip in Florida when they'd almost 
been consumed by the exotic plant life. The plastic strap that had 
seen better days. She closed her eyes and just grasped the 
plastic tightly, as if trying to feel him through it.

God, she missed him.

Kwan stood in the doorway of the kitchen and observed the red 
haired woman sitting at the table. Her hands held a watch, which 
Skinner had said she had found at the warehouse. And that it 
belonged to the man she was looking for. This Fox Mulder. Over 
and over again, she turned the timepiece in her hands, her 
fingers almost caressing the face, the band. It was obviously 
unconscious on her part, but since it was the only physical link 
she had to where this Mulder had been, she was communing 
with it as if it held a piece of the man's soul.

He knew what this man Mulder looked like. The First Elder had 
given him pictures of the people on his list to kill. While he wasn't 
expected to kill him specifically, the man had explained it might 
be a bonus. Who was on his list were several of the men he'd 
just helped. And the petite woman in the kitchen before him.

Except that after everything he'd seen happen in the warehouse, 
he had found himself questioning his loyalty to the men who had 
sent him here. What kind of threat could *she* be to Them? 
There was no doubting her fire and intelligence, but what could 
she have done to be put down like a dog?

Beyond that, while he'd watched her in the warehouse, and when 
he'd looked into her eyes as he'd explained himself to her, he 
found himself attracted to the object of his assignment. Yet he 
could see that no matter what he believed he was beginning to 
feel for this remarkable woman, she had someone else that 
occupied her thoughts, and if he guessed correctly, her heart as 
well.

"You care for him?" Kwan asked from the doorway, surprising 
Scully and rousing her from her meditation.

His words brought her up short, and she turned in her chair to 
face the man who had spoken, seeing the assassin that she'd 
agreed to trust, if only on a limited basis. Her eyes flicked to her 
guns, less than a foot away, and wondered how she had 
disregarded everything Mulder had taught her over the last five 
years.

Trust no one.

Except that she had to trust someone. And right now, she could 
use this man's skills to get Mulder back.

Kwan walked toward her, and took a seat in the chair next to her, 
yet across from the rig hooked on the chair by her side. She set 
the watch down reluctantly and returned her thoughts to what 
she thought he'd said.

"I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch what you'd asked."

"The man you are looking for," he stated, pointing one long finger 
in the direction of the watch on the table. "Mulder. You care for 
him, yes?"

"Of course. He's my partner," she replied quickly.

"Partner. That is the term Americans use for someone with whom 
they have an. . . intimate relationship with. Is that right?" Kwan 
asked, trying to recall the nuances of the word.

Scully looked at him in shock. Had he misspoken? If he hadn't, 
then he thought. . .

"No, no," she started, her voice insistent and the words almost 
tripping over her tongue in their haste to get out. "Mulder's my 
partner in the FBI. We're not, I mean, he and I, we're not. . . 
involved."

Curiously he stared at her, watching as her cheeks started to 
flush pinkly. In embarrassment, he thought, or something else.

"Pardon me. I just assumed that your relationship was something 
more than business by the way you spoke of him to me and to 
Mr. Skinner. And because of what you seem willing to do to have 
him returned. Such devotion seems to indicate to such a 
relationship, given your partiality for him," Kwan explained at 
length.

Instead of correcting him, Scully found herself having to consider 
his words closely. Certainly both she and Mulder had gone to 
great lengths to aid each other. But they'd always attributed it to 
their partnership, and the friendship that had developed from 
that.

Was it more than that though? On his end, as well as hers? And 
when exactly had begun to realizes that she felt something more 
for Mulder than friendship? Surely it was a recent development, 
maybe just a passing thing, due to his abduction.

Except the longer she thought about it, the more she realized 
that it wasn't something new. It was just her perception of her 
feelings had changed along with her.

When she'd allowed herself to feel the full extent of her baser, 
primal emotions - anger, fear, aggression, she hadn't considered 
that the other base feelings she felt for Mulder would escape as 
well - love, desire, need. And now all the emotions were 
flourishing in the landscape that was Dana Scully unleashed.

The proverbial genie was out of the bottle now, and she didn't 
know if she'd be able to get her emotions for Mulder to go back 
into the box she'd been storing them in and pretend things were 
just like they had been before.

And looking down at the watch in her hand, she was starting to 
recognize the fact that she didn't want to.

-  X  -

Unknown location
Somewhere in the San Francisco Bay Area


Mulder awoke and took in his surroundings. His head, arms and 
ribs hurt from the beating he'd taken when they'd forced their 
way into his room and hauled him out, informing him he was 
moving. He'd tried to make a break for it, realizing it might be his 
only chance, and had taken the punishment for it.

At least, he tried to look on the bright side, they hadn't shot him 
on the spot.

His new prison was very much like an old brig. The stale smell of 
sweat, urine and shit that permeated the cement block floor gave 
it away. Of course the layout was obviously prison style - bunks, 
wash basin, toilet, window with bars and the barred door that 
looked out onto the wall of a corridor made it clear. At least it was 
bigger, he sighed half-heartedly.

The smell of the sea was much stronger than before and the 
outside noise was limited. His new space must be part of a much 
larger building, most likely a prison or police station, not like the 
warehouse he suspected he'd been in before.

Why would they have moved him? And so quickly? It was like. . . 
someone knew he had been at the last place he'd been held at, 
and they had to get him out before they were found.

His heart raced at the thought. He could only imagine one person 
risking themselves for him.

Scully.

She was alive. He knew that now. She was alive and searching 
for him. Obviously she had found him once already, which would 
explain why they'd moved him. But if he was here, where was 
she? Did she know he'd been there? Did she know where they'd 
moved him to?

Stretching, he looked up at his hands and noticed his watch was 
missing. Where had. . . Then he remembered that he'd taken it 
off to rub his wrist when he'd been in the small room in the old 
location. Before he could put it back on, they'd come to get him. 
That meant, if it really was Scully, she would search the place 
and find it. She'd know he'd been there.

He could only hope that she was alright, and that she'd be able 
to find him again.

-  X  -

Residence of Reggie Earle
1003 63rd St.
Oakland, CA


Kwan questioned his motives once again as he sat stock still, 
watching the petite red-headed FBI agent pace back and forth in 
front of him. His duty was supposed to be to kill her, yet he'd 
done everything but.

Well, not everything he reminded himself grudgingly, as she 
turned away from him, and he found himself watching her ass.

This man she was looking for, Fox Mulder was a lucky man.

"Carmine. I need your help," Scully said in a strained diplomatic 
tone. "They've moved Mulder and I need you to tell me if you can 
speculate as to where the First Elder would take him. Did he 
have any property here, or maybe some old connections that he 
would use?"

"What makes you think I can guess where that fuck is taking your 
partner after 25 years of being locked up," Carmine spat, wiping 
his mouth on his tailored shirt sleeve as he sat in Reggie's 
recliner.

"Look, I'm not asking for you give me any assistance other than 
information. If you can just say where they might take him in the 
city on such short notice, I can take care of the rest."

Even without anyone voicing it, there was an obvious sound of 
disapproval to her request.

"Dana, you need help. Even if you don't wish it, you must 
consider the danger and the sacrifice you may be called upon to 
make if you decide wrong," Kwan explained, his tongue slipping 
over a few words as his native language accented his nearly 
flawless English.

Scully turned and glared daggers at the Asian man behind her, 
not just for using her given name to try and sway her, but for the 
audacity of him to believe that she needed help. She knew that 
Carmine and Anthony were in agreement with Kwan's position. 
They were the big, tough men and she was the poor, 
defenseless woman who needed their assistance and protection.

Fuck that *and* them, she inwardly growled. In a sudden 
outburst, she slammed her fist into the closest wall, the sound 
startling everyone. Staring first at Kwan, then Skinner, and finally 
at Carmine, she stalked across the room to look Carmine straight 
in the face.

"Jesus Christ, I've had enough of this bullshit. If you don't want to 
tell me anything, just tell me so, goddammit. Don't use the pansy-
ass excuse of needing to protect me. I don't need anyone to do 
that. Not you Carmine, or your Mafia buddies," she said angrily, 
and she then began to look around her as she spoke, looking 
each man in the eyes as she said their name. "Not you, Kwan, 
not Skinner and his friends and not even Mulder. So unless you 
want to take this outside, I suggest you start being serious with 
me."

The room was silent, and no one knew exactly what to say. 

Suddenly, Skinner's cell phone rang, and all eyes fell on him as 
he answered. He didn't say a word, but when he closed the 
phone, he looked at Scully.

"They have him on Treasure Island."

-  X  -

San Francisco Bay
7 miles from Treasure Island/Yerba Buena Island


They'd put on the wetsuits just in case they had to abandon ship 
and swim at all in the cold bay. Reggie had explained that during 
the winter, especially after dark it was cold enough to cause 
hypothermia in a couple of minutes - almost as fast a frozen lake.

Reggie manned the Zodiac's outboard motor and rudder as the 
rubber craft cut through the water. On board, Skinner, Scully, 
Kwan, Carmine, Anthony and Anthony's three men kept low in 
the boat, heads forward and focused on the shore of the island in 
front of them.

They'd been en route to the island for what seemed like forever 
after leaving a remote part of the Alameda docks. Reggie had 
assured Scully that they'd be on shore within 30 minutes of 
leaving the harbor, so as she huddled down to check the time on 
the watch around her wrist, Mulder's watch to be precise, she 
knew that it shouldn't be much longer. As the boat skipped in the 
water, sending splashes of the cold wet into the boat and onto its 
occupants, Scully turned her attention from the watch to the 
lights of the Bay Bridge above them, winding its way through 
their objective. She wished that they could have just driven onto 
the island, but that route had to be watched.

In what seemed like record speed, they navigated under the 
bridge, turning north towards the sea wall that skirted the island, 
and then west. They stayed low in the boat as they continued 
along, and Reggie suddenly turned them south along the far side 
of the island. Moments later, they were anchored to the sea wall 
that lead up to a small beach and then directly into the streets of 
Treasure Island. Hurriedly, they scrambled in the dark onto the 
rocks, stripping off the wet suits to reveal their street clothes. 
Once done, they passed the equipment up from the Zodiac to the 
beach, where they parceled out the weapons. Scully shrugged 
on her rig while Skinner grabbed the binoculars in the pack and 
scoped out the situation.

From the beach, Scully, Skinner and Kwan passed the 
binoculars back and forth as they looked up into the cluster of 
buildings before them. While most of this end of the island was 
empty, there was one building that has its lights on, and on 
closer inspection, Skinner and Scully noted the four large black 
sedans parked outside.

"That must be it," Skinner said, pitching his voice loud enough to 
be heard, but not too loud. "We'll get within a block, fire in some 
tear gas and then storm the building. Scully, Kwan and Reggie 
are with me going in the front, Carmine, you and Anthony's men 
cover the back."

"Carmine, make sure that they don't get off this island. Or so help 
me, I'll make you sorry we sprung you from your cage," Scully 
growled as she looked at him, her eyes burning like fire in the 
low light.

He replied by making a dismissing sound, and they started 
forwards, creeping along the deserted streets, staying close to 
the walls and in the shadows. A block away, Skinner turned to 
Reggie, who produced a tear gas launcher. Dropping a canister 
into the tube, he aimed for a partially open window and fired. As 
soon as it sailed through, they headed for the front door, 
weapons in hand.

Moments before they reached the door there was a loud 
explosion and grayish colored gas started to issue from the 
windows. The door swung open, and Kwan shot the man trying 
to escape the gas point blank, then grabbed him by the collar 
before he could fall, flinging him out of the doorway. Scully and 
Skinner pushed inside, eyes watering from the smoke while they 
fired at the shadows moving within that had just realized that 
they were being attacked.

Bullets began whizzing in their direction, and Scully and Skinner 
split up at the door, flinging themselves down and to the side as 
Kwan and Reggie leaned around the doorway and fired into the 
room.

Scully leapt to her feet and started shooting, moving towards the 
window and some fresh air. She heard rather than saw Skinner 
and Reggie firing their S&W autos into the left side of the room, 
making sure that anyone in the building firing at them was being 
fired upon.

Bullets zipped back and forth across the room, and Scully knew 
she had just dodged one or two by seconds. Things were ok for 
the moment, she realized, but things were going to change fast.

The gas was starting to dissipate.

At the back of the building's main room there seemed to be what 
looked like a passageway or corridor leading left and right. Scully 
heard scuffling and a clanking noise that sounded metallic 
coming from that direction. Coughing for a second, she tightened 
her grip on her guns and headed into the back of the building, 
firing at anything in her path. From behind, the sound of his 12 
gauge shotgun blasting away alerted her to Kwan's presence 
behind her, following her. 

Skidding to a stop at the doorway into the corridor along the back 
of the room, she flattened to the wall, Kwan shadowing her on 
the opposite side, his shotgun in hand. For a moment, she 
flashed back on the thousands of times she'd been in this same 
pose, except the man on the other wall was Mulder. The thought 
sent another surge of adrenaline though her system, and she 
swung herself into the corridor, firing off half her clip, catching 
one of the MiB's fleeing from their advance in the back, sending 
him sprawling.

Kwan turned down the other corridor going left and fired his 
shotgun. He saw two men laying bleeding when he stopped, but 
no one else. He turned to check on Scully, and saw her taking 
care of herself. He paused and flattened against the wall while he 
pulled shells from the pocket of his black vest and shoved them 
into the shotgun as fast as his fingers would let him.

Scully started running down the hall, looking to both sides as she 
went, looking for doors or windows where either MiB's could be 
hiding, or Mulder could be being held.

Once door to her right appeared ajar, and she fired through it 
before kicking it in. As it flew open, she shot again, moving 
inside. She heard and felt the bullets fly past her, and she 
backed up, throwing herself backward to the floor, shooting at the 
same time. When she hit the wall of the corridor, she groaned at 
the impact at the same time as she heard the groan and thud of 
whomever had shot at her.

Scrambling up, she went back inside and checked to make sure 
that whomever was in there wasn't getting up again. When she 
saw the MiB's body sprawled face up on the floor, bullet wounds 
to his head and chest, she turned back to her task and moved 
hurriedly down the corridor. There was a door at the end of it, 
open to the street she guessed, and headed towards it faster 
than before.

Abruptly she came up short in front of a cell. An empty cell.

She paused briefly at the doorway of the brig-style cell, the iron 
bar door wide open, and she knew in her gut that Mulder had 
been in there, and that they'd spirited him out already, most likely 
they had hurried him out that open door she'd been headed for, 
probably thirty feet away at most. He was that close, she though 
excitedly.

"They're outside!" she yelled loudly as she ran down the hall.

Outside, Scully heard yelling and gunfire, and she continued 
down the corridor and out of the building. She saw Dominic and 
Stan shooting at three MiB's manhandling someone into a 
waiting sedan a block away. She looked in the low light and was 
sure she recognized the lanky figure that they were dragging.

"Mulder!!" she screamed as she headed towards the MiB's who 
were firing and dodging the bullets being fired by Anthony's men. 
She saw the man who was sandwiched between two of the MiB's 
start to jerk around wildly, trying to break from their grip.

"Scully!" Mulder called out, as one of the men holding him 
shoved his hand over Mulder's mouth, silencing him.

Adrenaline rushed through Scully's limbs as she ran faster, 
needing to stop that car. Dominic and Stan were taking shelter 
behind a few trees as they were fired upon, by Scully ignored 
them. She saw the last of the men get in the sedan and while the 
men in back kept firing out their windows, the driver started 
pulling away, gaining speed every second. She fired at them with 
one gun and then another in repetition as she ran, knowing her 
aim had to be shit as her arms were jarred with each step. 

She kept running and shooting until car was out of sight. 

Gone. He was gone again, she cried inwardly as she stood there 
on the street, her weapons still clutched tightly in her hands. 
She'd lost him again!

Part of her wanted to just break down, right there on the asphalt. 
Sink to her knees and cry out in anger and loss. Except that she 
didn't have time for that luxury. She'd seen him, heard him call 
her name. He had been so close, and she knew that she could 
get him back next time.

Slowly she holstered her weapons and turned back towards the 
block house. Walking sluggishly back to the building, she caught 
sight of Dominic and Stan turning the corner and heading into the 
building.

They'd been right there, less than 20 feet away from whatever 
exit the MiB's had come through with Mulder, and they'd let them 
slip past and get to the car. What the fuck had they been doing?

What they had been told to?

Had Carmine or Anthony told the gangsters not to interfere if they 
saw Mulder being taken out? Were they only looking for the First 
Elder, and to hell with the missing agent?

She started walking faster, her fury getting more out of hand the 
closer she got to the block house. By the time she came through 
the door, she had a Sig in her hand and was ready to murder 
Carmine, Anthony or all of them if her suspicions were true. She 
felt her feet crunch shell casings that blanketed the floor of the 
makeshift combat zone as she stormed into the room.

"You *fucking* asshole!" Scully screamed at Carmine as she 
stormed in the open door while he sauntered around the bullet 
ridden room, his Uzi nearly dangling from his hand. "Your men 
lost them! They were *that* close to saving Mulder and they let 
them get away! And why? Did you tell them to? You think I'm not 
capable of making good on my threat? I *will* put you down if I 
find out that you let them go!"

Instantly, Anthony's men are there, and holding their weapons in 
Scully's direction. Skinner, Kwan and Reggie were taken aback 
by the suddenness of both Scully's outburst and the gangster's 
response.

"You think I'm scared?" Scully asked Carmine, her voice 
dropping to a level Skinner had never heard before. "I've faced a 
lot worse than you and your kind, believe me. And I'll let you 
know a little secret. I'll put a bullet through your brain before they 
kill me, so I'd suggest you drop the fucking dramatic stand-off 
now!"

The tension in the air was thick while Carmine seemed to 
consider his options. With a slight gesture, his men stood down.

"Look honey, I got more to gain by helping you than not at this 
point. What you want will help me get what *I* want. Capeche?" 
he explained to her as he reached in his pocket for a cigar.

She stared at him intently as he lit the cigar. He seemed calm 
enough, but she watched the sweat start to bead at his temples. 
Good, she thought inwardly. He needed to be afraid of her. If he 
had lied to her just now, she'd find out and make sure he 
regretted it. For now though, she didn't have any proof that they'd 
let Mulder's captors escape. So, unless she wanted to finish it 
here and now, she knew it was time to back off.

"Fine," she fumed, her eyes closing as she turned away from the 
men around her. "But the fact is that they escaped and now we 
need to find Mulder again."

They had to find him again, she sighed silently. But he had been 
here, she'd heard his voice this time, had seen them spirit him 
away in one of the sedans. While she had missed the tires on the 
sedan, she was sure that she'd cracked the rear glass as the car 
sped away. She tried to console herself that they had gotten 
closer this time. But it was still frustrating and painful to the point 
of collapsing.

The only bright point she could find in it all was the fact that 
Mulder had screamed her name after she'd called out to him. 
He'd heard her, knew she was coming for him. With all her heart 
she hoped that the knowledge that she was coming for him 
would help him hold on until she found him.

Scully opened her eyes and turned to see everyone watching 
her, waiting to see what she was going to do next. With a deep 
breath, she straightened her spine and reconstructed her 
invulnerable, tough exterior. She waded back into the discussion 
that seemed to have continued without her as to their next move.

"Now what?" Scully asked Skinner, her anger and adrenaline 
faded under the fear and failure of their blown rescue attempt. He 
could see, just beneath the surface how the constant near-
misses were affecting her. If there had been no one else in the 
room, he was almost sure that she would have just crumpled to 
the ground and started crying. But she couldn't do that in front of 
everyone. She had to keep control of the situation, even if it 
meant denying how she felt.

"We stop following them, and take this to them. By finding the 
First Elder," Skinner explained simply. "I'll make a call and see if 
we can find out where he is. But at this point, I don't think we'll be 
able to do anything till morning."

At that, Scully only nodded her understanding. Another day. She 
could do that.

-  X  -

300 California St.
Tenth floor
San Francisco, CA


The Well Manicured Man strode into the sun drenched office 
suite and looked around. There were several of the ranking chair 
holders of the Consortium in attendance, including the man who 
had gotten them in such trouble in the first place, the First Elder.

"Mulder's associates have continued to look for him since his 
disappearance. In their efforts to find him, a ghost from the past 
has been retrieved, putting us all in jeopardy if he goes public 
with what he knows. This is part of the reason we have never 
taken direct action against Mulder. Too many people are 
involved in his well being," the Well Manicured Man informed the 
men gathered there, as he took his seat at the far end of the 
table.

At the opposite end, the First Elder glared at his silver haired 
predecessor. He'd had Mulder snatched as part of his power play 
within the council. Now, everything was being undermined, and 
he was certain that his predecessor was behind it. Yet he had no 
proof, and he was also vulnerable, thanks to Carmine DiMerra's 
escape.

"Mulder is a threat to this group and our work. I have taken steps 
to eliminate those who are searching for him, and thus allow us 
to keep Agent Mulder under our control until we decide what to 
do with him. Permanently," the First Elder explained, hoping that 
the board would be satisfied with his management of the 
situation.

"I think you take Mulder's acquaintances too lightly. Even now, 
your assassin has been recruited by Agent Scully to help her 
locate her missing partner."

"I've read Agent Scully's files. She's not a threat," the First Elder 
said in his dull constant monotone.

The table was silent. While most of the council had not dealt 
directly with Mulder or Scully, reports of their cases as well as 
their capabilities were common place within the organization. 

At the First Elder's words, the Well Manicured Man tossed a 
stack of color photos from both the San Quentin cell block and 
the warehouse onto the table. The glossy pictures of bloody, 
shot-up bodies scattered across the finely-polished conference 
table for everyone to see.

"You've obviously underestimated her," the Well Manicured Man 
stated, his thin lips almost curling into a smile. "And now we may 
*all* have to suffer because of your error in judgment."

-  X  -

301 California St.
San Francisco, CA


Scully rested her linen clad arm against the high wall of the roof 
of the building as she peered through the scope.

She was glad now that she had brought her black suit with her on 
this trip. It had made it easier when she'd flashed her badge for a 
fraction of a second and bluffed her way through the lobby and 
onto the roof. Of course, if the security guard had known what 
she had in the large briefcase, he would have been more 
attentive to her credentials.

As it was, she now stood, leaning over the high powered rifle, 
studying the street and the doorway to the building she knew the 
First Elder was meeting his associates in.

On the street below, directly across from her, Kwan was waiting 
for them to walk through the doors and for Scully to drop the first 
of the expected armed retainer/bodyguards. Since he and 
Skinner knew what the First Elder looked like, and she was the 
only one of the group that had met the Well Manicured Man, she 
had been the best choice to take up the sniper position. They 
would radio in when they saw the First Elder and give her a 
description, so she could avoid him, and she would know who 
the Well Manicured Man was by sight, and could avoid shooting 
him as well. What she needed to do was bring down the 
bodyguards and give Kwan and Skinner the chance to grab the 
First Elder. 

Of course the fact that she had nearly perfect scores with rifle 
training when she'd gone through the academy and received a 
marksmanship note in her files had also weighed in the decision 
to perch her 20 stories above the ground.

Skinner was sitting in their 'borrowed' car, less than a block 
away, waiting for it to go down. He had an earpiece like Kwan 
and Scully that was attached to a radio set up on the same 
frequency they were all on. Once Kwan had identified their 
objective, Scully would take out the defenders, Skinner would 
drive up so Kwan could shove the fat fuck into the back seat, and 
then they would have their leverage to get Mulder back.

It all rested on her skill and timing. And she wasn't going to 
screw up what probably was her last shot at getting Mulder back.

Last shot, she thought humorously, as she minutely shifted the 
rifle sight. Oh, that was bad. Jesus, she was as bad as Mulder 
was. At that she felt a cold rush through her limbs as the 
frustration and longing shot through her heart and soul. God, she 
missed him. She *had* to get him back.

Angry at letting herself get distracted, even for a second as she 
thought about Mulder, she chastised herself. She had to 
concentrate on the pavement in front of the building across the 
street, and be ready for Kwan's call. All she had to do was wait.

And wait.

They waited late into morning, and when the streets started to 
get busy with the lunch crowd, she saw movement through the 
scope coming out of the building. At the same second, she heard 
Kwan's voice break onto the radio.

"Just coming through the door, the man with the black hair in the 
black pinstripe suit that looks like he ate too much Dim Sum," 
Kwan said quietly into the mouthpiece that was almost hidden 
against his face.

She looked through the scope, saw the man Kwan had identified, 
counted six men, and the Well Manicured Man hanging towards 
the rear. Four of the six seemed to be guards or foot soldiers. 
And they would be the first to go.

Scully fired four quick, precise shots which rang out in the busy 
area, resulting in people screaming and running for cover. She 
saw Kwan rush past the running, falling bodies and grab the First 
Elder with one hand, a semi-automatic pistol shoved in the fat 
man's stomach. Around him, his men lay dead, bleeding onto the 
pavement.

Dragging the First Elder with him, Kwan got the man to the curb 
where Skinner and the car had arrived. Scully watched as Kwan 
swiftly shoved the fat bastard into the car and they sped away.

Hurriedly, Scully broke down the rifle, threw it in the briefcase, 
and headed to the stairs. She got off on the second to the top 
floor, and caught an elevator to the underground parking lot. 
When the elevator doors opened, she quickly looked around for 
any security that she would have to flash her badge to, but found 
it empty. 

Running up the ramp to the street from the underground parking 
area, she arrived on the sidewalk just as Skinner was pulling up. 
She threw the briefcase in the passenger door, and jumped in. 
As soon as the door closed behind her, Skinner was driving off, 
away from the chaos behind them.

-  X  -

Laurel Motor Inn, Room 4
Presidio Ave. & California St.
San Francisco, CA


Scully stood in front of the man called the First Elder and 
frowned. Why the hell would the rest of the Consortium want this 
guy back?

He writhed in the ropes against the sturdy desk chair. When 
they'd first sat him down, she'd been afraid it would fall apart 
under his weight, but it had held. Kwan had blindfolded him as 
soon as he'd shoved him in the car, and she'd decided to keep it 
that way, at least when she was in the room with him. She 
glanced over to where Skinner stood by the window, and then to 
the door, where Kwan was posted. Anthony and Carmine were 
on their way. She had to get this fat fuck to give her the 
information she wanted or make the deal before they got here.

Because Carmine, she reminded herself inwardly as she 
returned her attention to the man before her, had other plans for 
the man before her. She figured that he'd want her to take off the 
blindfold so the First Elder could see who was blowing his brains 
out as Carmine fired the gun that killed him.

Sigh. She didn't like the idea of having to convince them that 
their vendetta against this man would have to wait until she had 
Mulder back. In the short time she'd been dealing with Anthony 
and his father, they hadn't shown too much in the give-and-take 
department. Still, if she had to shoot them to keep the First Elder 
alive until she got Mulder back, she wouldn't hesitate a minute.

"Tell me where Mulder is," she asked, her voice steely in its 
determination.

"Is that you Agent Scully?" the First Elder asked around his 
blindfold. "I'm surprised. I wouldn't have thought you capable of 
taking up with gangsters and assassins. Perhaps we chose to 
take the wrong person."

The sound of Scully's palm cracking against the First Elder's 
face startled Skinner from where he was checking out the 
window for Carmine and his son. At the door, Kwan looked 
shocked at the violence Scully had just displayed. The First Elder 
himself seemed slack-jawed as well, until he coughed and then 
spat out some pinkish saliva.

"Don't fuck with me," Scully nearly snarled. "I know he was alive 
last night, and I doubt after moving him all these times without 
killing him, you'd all of a sudden decide to kill him now."

He grimaced, and she knew she'd called his bluff. If they'd 
wanted Mulder dead, they would have just shot him on the street, 
like they'd done with her. Of course, they had fucked up, and 
hadn't killed her. And in doing so, they'd screwed themselves.

"Here's the deal. You have two choices. One, you take me where 
you're holding Mulder, and after we're away safe, I let you go. 
Two, you give me a number for your Consortium friends, and I'll 
tell them I'll make a trade - you for Mulder. What's it going to be?"

The First Elder grumbled. His men should have taken care of her 
in D.C., he thought. Then there was that backstabbing slope who 
had broken his agreement to kill Scully and now was helping her. 
He'd read Agent Scully's files and thought he knew her; she was 
the skeptic scientist, a by-the-book agent, a medical doctor who 
was trained to heal. But this woman before him wasn't that 
person. She was ruthless and determined. 

They should have tried to recruit her years ago.

"Fine. Call them and tell them to set up a trade. Me for Mulder," 
he said with difficulty. There was one last shot he could salvage 
this, if his men made Swiss cheese out of the bitch and her 
associates at the exchange, he could keep Mulder and retain his 
position in the Consortium. the more he thought on it, the more 
he found himself warming to the idea.

"Give me the number, and we'll call and schedule a time to make 
the exchange. If you're lucky, you'll be back with the other rats in 
time for dinner," she spat.

It wasn't more than a few seconds before he started rattling off 
the number.

-  X  -

Near Spreckles Lake
Golden Gate Park
San Francisco, CA
11pm


The fact of the matter was that Scully didn't trust the First Elder 
farther than she could throw him, and after seeing how large he 
was, she doubted she could even lift his toes off the ground. But 
the deal was a necessity. It was the only way they would hand 
over Mulder, and she wasn't about to argue over semantics with 
them when they'd chosen this place and time for the trade.

Besides, she still had a few aces up her sleeve. Including Kwan.

It seemed sometimes that he reminded her of Mulder, and then 
at other times, he was exactly the opposite. If the idea of liking 
him hadn't been forced because of the circumstances, she didn't 
think they would have had much in common. Or perhaps too 
much.

Except again, it didn't matter. Her one goal was to get Mulder 
back.

Over the course of the last week and a half, she'd been forced to 
think a lot about her partner and her relationship with him. How 
the 'thing' they had was more than just work related. She was 
willing to lose her job in order to rescue him, and had uncovered 
a dark side of herself that seemed to thrive in this kind of 
situation.

She'd found *it* didn't scare her anymore.

Nothing seemed to scare her. Except for the idea of never seeing 
Mulder again. Of having to live the rest of her life with the ache in 
her chest that had grown exponentially since his capture, and her 
realization of how her feelings for him has grown.

Looking across the shadowed and foggy expanse of the park, 
Scully squinted, searching for a glimpse of headlights. It was 
almost 11:05pm and the other party should have arrived by now.

There was a sudden flash of light from probably fifty feet out, in 
dense shrubs or small trees. The light landed on where she 
stood, just barely in view, her black trenchcoat moving in the 
slight breeze.

Scully glanced next to her where Kwan stood. He'd argued with 
her the whole way from the hotel to the park, insisting that he 
stay by her side. He'd even said he felt guilty enough about his 
role in the plot to kill her, and since he'd found out how badly she 
wanted her partner back, understood what she'd done in pursuit 
of him, he couldn't let her out of his sight and out of his 
protection.

It was like arguing with Mulder, she'd thought, and when she'd 
continued to deny him, he'd only become more pleading, and 
turned to Skinner for support. Once she'd been ganged up on, 
she reluctantly accepted the situation. The most important thing, 
she reminded herself over and over again as they had driven 
here and waited, was getting Mulder back. If she had to have a 
babysitter with her at all times, she'd put up with it. For the 
moment.

Anthony flashed the lights of their car from behind her. For a 
minute or two, the park was almost pitch black. Then several 
sets of car headlights all turned on, aimed their way. Quickly, 
Anthony and Reggie flipped on theirs, trying to even out the 
odds.

Through the near-blinding white beams, a man started to head 
towards them, his trenchcoat making waves in the light as he 
moved. Scully realized that the time had come, and stepped out 
into the open, walking to meet the Consortium goon in the middle 
of the field. When they were a few feet from each other, Scully 
stopped, and watched the man do the same. Warily, she studied 
him, trying to tell if she'd seen him before, if he'd been one of the 
men on Treasure Island, or even in the sedan in D.C.

"Agent Scully," remarked the white man in his thirties, his gray 
trenchcoat and black suit looking very official.

She felt him look her up and down, taking in the black ensemble 
she had on - black turtleneck, black jeans and boots all under her 
trenchcoat. Of course, that trenchcoat covered her real assets. 
The rig and her guns.

"We're here to make the trade, per your request. If we could see 
your captive?" the MiB asked politely, except the nicety never 
reached his eyes, and he wore a half snarl on his face.

Scully nodded, and raised her hand to signal to the men in the 
car with the First Elder that it was time. At her signal, Skinner, 
Dominic and Stan pulled the First Elder from the car parked 
behind the stand of trees. They walked him forward just enough 
so that they could be seen.

"Now, where's Agent Mulder?" she asked in a very aggravated 
way, making the man before her jerk for a moment.

She watched carefully as the MiB before her turned slightly, and 
Scully heard car doors pop open, and then watched in 
anticipation as two armed men shoved and almost dragged the 
form of her partner forward. He drew his head up heavily and 
saw her there as they moved forward, and then they stopped ten 
feet from where she stood.

"Scully!" Mulder called out, and received a reprimand in the form 
of the barrel of one of the guard's guns smacking him across the 
face.

Enraged, Scully felt her hands drift to her waist, pushing the 
sides of the trenchcoat aside as they placed themselves on her 
hips. She stared at the man before her with a menacing look.

"If they do that again, it will be the *last* thing they do. Tell them 
to bring him here, and let's get on with this," she said in a deadly 
whisper.

"We want the First Elder first," he countered.

She didn't like it, but she shrugged. There wasn't much more she 
could bargain with at the moment and keep Mulder alive. Scully 
waved Stan and Dominic forward with the First Elder, moving 
him closer to where she and the negotiator stood. When he'd 
gotten as far as their position, they let him go on his own and she 
looked back at the MiB before her expectantly.

The two men guarding Mulder hauled him up and started moving 
with him towards her. Scully looked away for half a second to 
lock eyes with Kwan. He nodded at her, and she returned her 
gaze to Mulder, his eyes locked now on hers so she couldn't look 
away.

Mulder fell to the ground as the men shoved him forward. Scully 
split her attention to the First Elder walking past her and the man 
who'd pushed Mulder. 

Suddenly, the First Elder ran towards the parked cars, 
screaming, "Kill them *all*!" 

The two men standing over Mulder's semi-prone form reached 
for their guns, and before Scully could reach hers, she heard 
Kwan's 12 gauge fire and the men were falling, screaming in 
pain, blood pouring from gunshot wounds. Behind her, she could 
hear Skinner, Carmine and Kwan all yelling. To her left, she saw 
Dominic and Stan chase after the First Elder, shooting at the 
MiB's coming to his aid, who shot back.

Lunging forward, Scully grabbed the collar of the man who'd 
been designated as the negotiator, and pulled her Sig at the 
same time. It was at his head in a second.

"I guess it's time that you learned that we all can't have 
everything we want," she remarked coldly, and pulled the trigger.

She felt the man go limp in her grasp as blood sprayed from the 
wound. Ignoring the wet liquid that had splattered her face and 
upper limbs, she reached down, wrapped her arm around 
Mulder's chest from behind and forcibly dragged him away from 
the center of the fire zone, calling for cover from anyone who 
could hear her.

Suddenly Kwan was there, helping her haul the much larger and 
heavier Mulder towards some shelter. In moments Scully and 
Kwan had Mulder behind a stand of trees, and once he was sure 
she was able to take over, he moved into a defensive position, 
his 12 gauge making a thunderous sound.

"Hey Scully," said Mulder sleepily as she shoved him down 
behind the downed tree. He stared at her intently, trying to focus 
through the drugs. "So, what did I get myself into this time?"

For a split second, she was torn between checking over her limp 
partner and throwing herself back into the battle. Instead, Kwan, 
and then Skinner had moved in front of her position.

"We will protect you Dana, while you look after Mulder," said 
Kwan as he and Skinner continued to make sure that nothing got 
past them. She nodded in grateful understanding and let them do 
what they felt they had to.

Quickly, she looked him over for injuries, and found more than 
enough cuts and abrasions, but no gaping bullet wounds. 
Shoving up his sleeves revealed bruises at the crook of his arm 
that suggested that they'd probably drugged him intravenously 
more than once, and probably just before the trade had been set 
up, judging from the fresh bruising there.

Once she'd finished her once over, she realized that Mulder had 
been staring at her the whole time, taking in her appearance and 
her battle-weary countenance.

"Hey there partner," she said in quiet tones, almost drowned out 
by the continuing gun fire.

"Hey yourself," he replied. "Thanks for coming to get me."

She smiled, unable to help herself. Then she heard more 
shouting behind her and turned to see that Skinner and Kwan 
had vanished. Looking further across the field, she found that 
they'd had to wade further away from her position, using some 
trees and rocks for cover as the Consortium continued their 
attack from another direction. Realizing that the situation was still 
bad, she knew that she couldn't just sit there, hoping that 
everyone else could deal with it. Finally, after agonizing seconds, 
she reached back behind her, sweeping away the trenchcoat, 
and pulled the spare gun from her spine and pressed it into 
Mulder's hands.

"Nice outfit," he said suddenly as he got his first real good look at 
her, and she gave him her patented Scully-look of annoyance. It 
was wonderful to hear his voice, his humor again, but this wasn't 
the time.

Seeing the black funky poaching clothes clearly for the first time, 
Mulder had been surprised. But then shock had set in as he saw 
both the blood on her face and clothes and the rig strapped to 
her body. Shit, he thought. If her shooting their enemies while 
she'd dragged him over here wasn't impressive enough, he now 
realized that she was packing enough weapons to make him look 
like a lightweight. 

The blood dotting her skin was something that he couldn't 
process at the moment, and he shut his eyes as a wave of 
dizziness struck him. She squeezed his hands tightly and his 
eyes flew open.

"Take this, and shoot anyone in a black suit who comes near 
you. I'll be back as quick as I can," she explained roughly, her 
hand closing the gun in his, and lingering there ever so slightly. 

Once he nodded, she was up, pulling her Sig and its companion 
from the confines of her jacket and ran back into the fight.

Scully made her way to where Kwan and Skinner were pined 
down and fired a few rounds into the blinding lights. She heard 
car engines and started to panic. Were they getting the First 
Elder out of there and leaving the foot soldiers behind to do the 
dirty work? And if the man *did* escape, would there be 
retribution later? 

"Damn it," she cursed as she leaned around the tree she was 
using for cover and fired at the lights. She heard glass break and 
it got a little darker. "Where's Carmine?"

"They went after the First Elder," Skinner replied, ducking his 
head in closer as pieces of bark went flying when a bullet struck 
the tree he was standing behind.

Scully scanned the area and saw Dominic lying face down on the 
ground, obviously wounded badly or dead. Looking farther away 
in that direction, she saw Carmine and Anthony moving as fast 
as the old man could go. They were following Stan and Vinnie Jr. 
as they chased and shot at the First Elder, who's men were 
trying to protect them the best they could. they were getting 
closer to the cars, and she knew that they were loosing their 
chance to kill the fat bastard before he could escape.

And after what that man had had done to Mulder, she wasn't 
about to let that happen.

Before either Kwan or Skinner could react, she had launched 
herself out from her cover and was racing towards the First 
Elder's vehicle. If she could take out the driver before he got to 
the car, Anthony and Carmine had a chance. They deserved the 
chance to get their revenge. If she didn't have some kind of 
understanding of the honor of the thing, she would have headed 
straight for the fat fuck herself and put him out of his misery.

Behind her, she heard Kwan call her name, and the sound of his 
12 gauge. As usual since he'd joined their group, he was 
watching her back. A little part of her knew why, that the Asian 
assassin had a crush on her. Another part of her knew that it was 
deeper than that, and without knowing the details, Kwan had also 
uncovered a side of himself, and, like Dana, *it* no longer scared 
him.

Violently putting that thought out of her mind, she rushed at the 
car, and when she could clearly see the driver, she shot at him 
through the windshield. The third bullet went through the hole 
she'd created in the windshield and then through the man's neck. 
He slumped in the driver's seat.

There was a roar of car engines around them, and Scully looked 
to see that the rest of the MiB's were pulling out. At the same 
time, she saw Stan tackle the First Elder, sending the two men 
sprawling. Vinnie Jr. helped Stan up and they yanked the fat man 
to his knees.

Carmine and Anthony caught up with his men, slowly walking 
now to his hated enemy's side. The First Elder wildly looked 
around and saw that the rest of his troops had scattered, repelled 
by the hail of bullets that had continued to rain on them, even as 
he'd run for his life. Scully and Skinner watched dispassionately 
as Carmine took an offered .45 automatic from Anthony and 
pointed it at the man's head.

"Please *don't* Carmine!" the First Elder begged, his hands 
clenched in front of him.

"I always knew you'd go out squealing like a pig, Joe," Carmine 
said as he brought down the .45 and the huge dark tunnel of the 
barrel all that the First Elder could see. "At least, in that, you did 
not disappoint."

Carmine pulled the trigger, and the First Elder slumped to the 
ground. Anthony muttered something in Italian, and pumped a 
full clip into what was left of the fat man's face. The other two 
wiseguys followed suit, emptying their pistols into the dead man, 
like mourners tossing dirt in an open grave.

Scully watched the grim display. Then she heard a distant voice 
calling from a thousand miles away. It was Mulder calling her 
name. She turned to see Mulder being helped by Reggie, who 
must have convinced Mulder not to shoot him. She smiled at the 
thought, and memories of Mulder's ever-persuasive wit flooded 
her. She couldn't imagine what she would have done if they 
hadn't found him. . .

Mulder wobbled up on shaky legs and took a good look at Scully, 
and then he scanned the scene. His eyebrows shot up and his 
eyes darkened in horror, then shock as they moved on. His eyes 
returned to hers, and their silent communication kicked in. She 
read the warning, the concern in his eyes and turned to see 
Carmine start to move towards Skinner, who was patiently 
standing there, as if waiting for the old man to strike him down.

In the resulting silence, Scully shifted her Sig in her hand, 
tightening her grasp on the grip. It was a subtle shift, but it was 
one neither Carmine, Anthony or his men missed, and the 
tension ratcheted up a notch.

"Scully," Skinner warned, watching Carmine as he tensed. "I 
think Carmine and I can work our problems out on our own."

"Right," Carmine replied as he swung the barrel of the .45 into 
his other hand, holding the weapon close to him.

She shook her head and walked between her boss and the mob 
leader. Mulder started towards her, but Kwan held him back, 
trusting in the warrior he'd fought beside three times now to take 
care of herself.

"You had your revenge. The First Elder is dead. He played *all* 
of you. Skinner made sure you got out, and that you got your 
revenge. Shouldn't that count for something in your world of 
honor and duty?" she pointedly informed him.

Everyone watched as there seemed to be some kind of internal 
debate going on in the old man. Finally, he turned the gun over in 
his hands and handed it back to Anthony.

"Yeah it does. You've got a pass Walt. But I don't ever want to 
see you again. You are dead to me."

With that, he turned and walked back to the cars. Anthony 
followed, while Stan and Vinnie Jr. picked up Dominic's body and 
carried it with them. They loaded up into the car they'd come in 
and drove off into the night, leaving the rest of the group standing 
there, still in shock. Scully turned to look first at her boss, and 
then at Mulder.

"It's over," she said quietly.

Yet part of her knew that some things were far from resolved.

-  X  -

Flight 3020
American Airlines
En Route to Washington D.C.


Mulder sat on the plane, his eyes fixed on the clouds outside his 
window seat. They'd been in the air less than 20 minutes and he 
was already restless. Beside him, Scully sat next to him in the 
center seat, while Skinner, who'd used his leverage as their boss 
had the aisle. He groaned inwardly as he watched his boss 
stretch his legs into the walkway.

Of course, the accommodations on the plane were better than 
where he'd been over the last week, not counting the emergency 
room that Scully had insisted on him visiting after everything had 
cooled down in San Francisco before they got a flight back to 
D.C. For the first time in his life, he'd actually been at ease in an 
ER. Of course, how he'd been living the last week or so had 
made the sanitized white, air conditioned ER seem heavenly.

"So, have I thanked you today for rescuing my ass from the 
Consortium, Scully?" he asked humorously, leaning over to 
interrupt her reading of what seemed to be the most fascinating 
two month old magazine article.

Slowly she let it the magazine slide to her lap, and she turned to 
face him.

"Considering that it all happened at less than six hours ago, and 
you thanked me there, while we were at the hospital, and again 
before we got on the plane, I think so."

Mulder stared at her, then focused his attention on his boss, who 
seemed to be doing his best to ignore the conversation going on 
right next to him. Then from out of the blue, Skinner reached up 
and punched the attendant call button. A few minutes later, one 
of the airline attendants showed up, and Skinner had a quiet 
discussion with her. As she left, Skinner turned to his agents and 
gave them a once-over before he spoke.

"I checked with the airline and they said that since there's room 
on the flight that I could move seats. I'm going to check on Kwan, 
see how he's doing. If I don't come back, I'll see you when we 
land," he explained quickly, then got up and left them alone.

Both of them watched Skinner's retreating form as he headed to 
the back of the cabin. Now, in the mostly empty plane, they had a 
small area around them to themselves.

"He did that on purpose," Scully quickly said, folding her 
magazine open as she tried to retreat into the articles within.

"Yeah. But I think he did it out of the kindness of his heart, Scully. 
That and I don't think he wanted to intrude," Mulder began as he 
wiggled his way past Scully's legs and sat down in the seat on 
the aisle, stretching out his legs. He almost sighed at the relief of 
the movement. But instead he turned to scrutinize his partner.

She continued to re-read the same page for another five minutes 
before she sighed loudly and gave up, shoving the magazine in 
the pouch in the seat in front of her. Turning her head, she found 
Mulder still staring at her, almost as if he was drinking in the sight 
of her.

"What?" she asked suddenly, startling him out of whatever trance 
he'd been in.

"I just," he started, then faltered. "I can't help thinking about how 
relieved I was to see you tonight. I mean, when I first woke up in 
that warehouse, all I could remember was them shooting you, 
and I was terrified that they'd killed you. I thought I'd never see 
you again. And then, after they moved me, I knew that it had to 
be you looking for me. I spent those last two days holding onto 
that thought. That you were coming to find me."

Scully sat there in silence. He had no idea just how much she'd 
tried to hold onto the hope that Mulder would have faith in her. 
That he'd trust her to save him. And that she'd been scared out 
of her mind that she'd fail.

"I know. I was afraid that I'd never find you. Or that when I 
did. . . " she said, and she found her emotions starting to get 
the better of her as she almost choked on the last word.

"Hey," he roughly said, "I'm here and I'm ok. A little banged up, 
but ok."

She couldn't help but smile at that. 

"Hell Mulder, when *don't* you get banged up?" she countered.

He had to shrug at that. It was too close to the truth to deny it. 
But considering the situation, he wasn't quite ready to let Scully 
have the last word.

"Sure Scully, rub it in why don't you," he whined in his sarcastic 
tone. "Next time, I'll let you shoot the guys before they drag me 
into the car, ok?"

"Sounds like a plan to me Mulder," she remarked, feeling better. 
"Oh, by the way, I have something that belongs to you."

At that she reached under her cuff and unbuckled Mulder's watch 
from its place on her wrist. She held it out to him, and he took it 
and her hand in his grasp for a second, then pulled the plastic 
watch from her grasp.

"Thanks."

He settled it back on his wrist and gave her a smile. Everything 
was where it was supposed to be. They settled back into their 
seats, Scully finding herself leaning into Mulder's side as they 
relaxed into their comfortable roles of partners and friends again, 
on their way home to their lives in D.C.

And for now, that was enough. 

-  X  -

Scully's apartment
3170 W. 53 Rd.
Annapolis, VA
1 week later


Over the last week, Scully had found herself having to relearn 
how to conform to civilization, which was proving more difficult 
than she'd expected it to be.

First had been the meeting with the OPR panel in regards to her 
conduct in the recovery of Agent Mulder, as well as A.D. 
Skinner's involvement in the matter. They questioned her at 
length about her association with the DiMerra crime family in 
New Jersey. What had surprised her was the lack of questioning 
on the subject of the dead bodies that had ended up littering 
several locations across the San Francisco Bay Area. The only 
thing she could figure was that either Carmine and Anthony or 
the factions of the Consortium that had helped or hindered her 
had "cleaned up" after them.

The final nail in her coffin, she was sure would be her week long 
absence from the Bureau without requesting the time off or 
calling in. The fact that Skinner was her boss, and he'd been with 
her the whole time, so she didn't need to let him know where she 
was almost came out of her mouth. She barely stopped herself, 
reminding herself that Skinner didn't need her to help get him in 
trouble. 

But they never mentioned the missed work hours. Only later, 
when she'd had the time to speak with her boss did she find out 
that he'd had his assistant draw up the proper forms before they 
left and signed them. She'd allowed her self the impulse of 
kissing him on the cheek in gratitude.

As Scully had sat there, listening to the board members recite 
proper conduct policy and procedures, heard them pronounce 
her one week suspension without pay and found herself 
imagining pulling out her pistol and emptying a clip into the lot of 
them. And it was an almost overwhelming temptation that she 
had gripped her hands tightly in her lap to keep them from itching 
at the thought.

If that hadn't been proof that she'd come back with less self 
control, more willing to act on impulse, she'd found herself 
swearing like a sailor when she'd been talking with her mother 
over lunch. Not that the language was of any shock to Maggie 
Scully, Navy wife and all, but Dana considered the lack of mental 
censoring of the colorful terms in her vocabulary meant that she 
really had allowed herself to change radically, if not even 
fundamentally.

Then there was the Kwan issue. Now, looking back at the past 
ten days, she wondered again what the hell she'd been on at the 
time to have *trusted* the assassin with not just her life, but 
Mulder's as well.

Yet he'd been there for her. Had helped her rescue Mulder, put 
himself between her and harms way, provided her with a 
sounding board and support until the very end. It still surprised 
her when she knew that he could have simply just walked away 
from everything.

Instead he had followed her back to D.C., stopped in more than a 
few times to talk, see how things were. He had spent a lot of the 
time discussing family, his and hers. It seemed that he had family 
in Chicago that had immigrated to the US years ago and he 
thought that maybe it would be good to go there and start over. 
Leave everything else behind, since he really didn't have 
anything left in Hong Kong for him. She'd supported that idea. 
After everything he'd been through, had done for her, Kwan 
deserved whatever happiness he could find.

When the discussion turned to her, she'd found herself 
answering questions about Mulder more often than her mother or 
brothers. Sometimes she felt like he was almost confirming one 
more time that her relationship with Mulder was something 
sacred, serious. 

She had to admit to an initial attraction to the handsome Asian, 
and was sure she'd felt his eyes on her longer than was polite 
more than once. But he'd never said a word, and she knew it was 
because he knew that she was already involved.

With Mulder.

Since Mulder had been kidnapped, she had begun to realize that 
he had never been out of her mind for more than a minute. While 
he was gone, everything had centered on him. Getting him back. 
Finding him alive and ok. Getting the First Elder to trade for him. 
Threatening gunmen to find out his whereabouts. Worrying, 
fearing, crying, missing, loving this man who was out of reach.

But once she had him in her arms, safe and real, she'd found 
that the frequency of thinking of him hadn't changed. Only her 
thoughts about him had. Thoughts of touching, kissing, holding, 
making love to him seeped through her brain without her 
consciously calling on the images. At times, she found an 
overwhelming need just to get on the phone and talk to him, 
invite him or herself over to see him.

Most of all, she'd found that the walls around her emotions were 
still down. Whether it was a conscious decision or not, she 
wasn't sure. But her emotions hadn't been closed back up, like 
she'd worried they might. At the same time, she was scared by 
the vulnerability she felt. Of the unspoken truth about how she 
felt, the one that she was sure Mulder had to have seen in her 
eyes by now.

Yet Mulder had still not done anything in the week since he'd 
been rescued that convinced her that he knew things had 
changed. Had done nothing that he hadn't done before the 
abduction. For all intents and purposes, they were exactly the 
way they had always been. Partners and friends. Nothing more.

She found herself fearing that in doing whatever it took to get 
back what she wanted so desperately, she'd lost her chance to 
have him. That he was troubled by what he'd seen in her, what 
she'd become, and had chosen to avoid their feelings, and 
decided to simply stay her partner.

And the notion of that scenario scared her more than she could 
say.

- X -

J. Edgar Hoover building
FBI Headquarters
Washington D.C.
2 weeks later


Mulder sat at his desk, enjoying the feeling of being back. Of 
course, the comfortable chairs helped to. He almost smiled, but 
stopped when he felt the slight ache at the side of his mouth at 
the movement.

He might be back, but the toll of his ordeal was still fading. The 
bruises and cuts that had been all over his body were either 
totally healed or almost gone by now. 

Not all the damage was on the outside, he reminded himself 
sharply as he looked across the desk to where Scully was absent 
mindedly pushing papers around on her desk. She'd been doing 
that for the last 2 hours.

He'd learned from Skinner and Kwan exactly what Scully had 
done to get him back, and he could even read between the lines 
when the two of them had talked about it as well. Once a person 
went through something that fundamentally changed them or 
challenged their morals to the degree that Scully had been 
through, he knew it was hard to deal with, let alone accept that 
change as a part of them.

Especially someone like Scully.

He shivered inwardly as he recalled specifically what Skinner 
had told him of her ruthless behavior in her search for him. The 
intentional shooting of an unarmed, vulnerable prisoner, her 
language, her single minded pursuit of Mulder's return, no matter 
what scum she had to associate with, her double fisted shooting 
and fiery vengeance.

Of course, he'd seen some of it himself. At the park in San 
Francisco when the trade had gone south and exploded into 
insanity and gunfire. He'd had her snatch him up from the ground 
and haul him to safety, then watched her wade back into the fray, 
guns blazing like an actor in a John Woo flick, blowing away the 
Consortium goons who had been holding him.

But more importantly, in the days following his rescue, he and 
Scully had begun to touch on the feelings that they seemed to 
share. Both good and bad. But most significant were the ones 
that he'd always been afraid of acknowledging; the ones he didn't 
think that she shared. Except that now he knew differently. 
Between the flight back from San Francisco, and the time they'd 
had to talk because she'd been suspended and his forced sick 
leave, they'd ended up spending a lot of time together. They'd 
talked more than they had in the last year, saying a lot of the 
things that they'd neglected to say before the whole thing had 
happened.

And sometimes letting their emotions get the better of them.

Yet during all that time, they were never truly alone. While 
Skinner's Mafia 'friends' had left directly from San Francisco 
back to New Jersey, Skinner had still been in the picture; on the 
flight back, getting them squared away with the Bureau, and 
making a point to see both of them on a formal and informal 
basis. 

But probably the most difficult for Mulder to deal with was Kwan.

Over the last week and a half, the man whom he'd learned had 
been sent to assassinate his partner had nearly been at her beck 
and call. Like a forlorn, lost puppy. He could see the fondness 
that the other man had for Scully. Not only was it written on his 
face whenever he talked to her, but he'd found out the truth about 
Kwan's feelings for his partner almost word for word from the 
man.

Thinking back, Mulder recalled the conversation he'd had with 
Kwan less than two days ago. 

He'd shown up at Scully's apartment, and Mulder had let him in. 
Scully had left hours earlier to go to a meeting at the Bureau 
before she returned from her suspension and she'd asked 
Mulder to stay and wait for a package from her brother. So when 
Kwan had shown up, looking for Scully, Mulder had suggested 
he come in and wait for her to get back, and offered him a beer.

Kwan had almost declined and left, but Mulder had verbally and 
maybe even physically persuaded the man to stay. Besides, 
Mulder had yet to talk privately with the man that Skinner had 
said had been crucial in securing his release. And had made 
himself indispensable with Scully. His gut reaction to that had 
been almost murderous. That Kwan was trying something with 
Scully. . . So he wanted the chance to straighten things out with 
him, and if need be, kick the guy's teeth in.

After finishing off a six pack in under two hours, the men had 
come to a slightly inebriated understanding. Mulder had found 
out that while Kwan did care for Scully, he knew he didn't have a 
snowball's chance in hell with her. When Mulder had asked why, 
the assassin had looked at him like he'd missed seeing an 
elephant walk into the room.

'She's in love with you. You know that, don't you?' Kwan had 
said.

Looking back now, Mulder didn't remember choking on the beer, 
just having Kwan slap him on the back as he started to find the 
air that he usually breathed without problem had disappeared. 
When he'd gotten his breath back and turned to Kwan, he saw 
the surprise and thoughts of recrimination for how stupid he was 
clearly on the man's face.

It reminded him of his conversation with Skinner, which had 
started this fact-finding mission about Scully's affections in the 
first place.

The two of them had been sitting alone waiting for the plane for 
San Francisco to be announced while Scully had searched for a 
pay phone to call her mom. He'd sat there and in no uncertain 
terms been given the obvious approval of their boss to get 'jiggy' 
with his partner.

Actually, the incident had been more like 'What do you mean you 
and she aren't. . .' after Skinner had explained what she'd done 
to get him back, as well as the emotions that he'd witnessed first 
hand at each failure to rescue him, and their final success. He'd 
finally just asked outright what was going on between his agents, 
and Mulder's answer had caused his eyebrows to shoot up, and 
a look of indescribable shock to appear on Skinner's face.

After that, he'd all but been told he was an idiot, and that if he 
cared for Dana at all like Skinner was certain she cared for him, if 
he didn't do something about it, he'd make sure that Mulder 
would be working shit cases for the next twenty years.

He'd almost said something to her on the plane, and then when 
he'd come over the night after they'd returned, he had found 
Kwan already there, sitting on her couch. . . So he'd hesitated, 
unsure of how his partner *really* felt about him. Except Kwan 
had finally put him straight about where Dana Scully's heart lay - 
directly with him.

Skinner was back to being their boss, sending them on 
assignment and chewing out their asses while Kwan had taken 
the red eye out that morning to see some of his family in 
Chicago. Finally though, they were alone again, partners again. 
Yet there was potential for so much more. . .

He'd thought about it almost every minute since Kwan and 
Skinner had confirmed his suspicions. Of course, the truth was 
that he'd been pondering their relationship for longer than that. 
Mulder had sworn to himself while he'd been imprisoned that if 
ever the day came that he knew Scully could be in love with him, 
he'd make his move. Because the truth was that they'd both 
been used against each other so many times without their ever 
being 'intimately' involved made the fear of reprisal based on 
such a change to their relationship just crumble under the weight 
of the facts. 

They'd forced themselves to repress what they both wanted for 
the last five years out of some misguided fear of reprisal, and 
he'd decided he deserved, no, *they* deserved the benefits of a 
more intimate relationship if they were going to suffer the 
disadvantages of one. They loved each other for God's sake! 

Yet he hadn't heard Scully say the words. And he wanted, 
*needed* to hear them. Except right now, they were in the office, 
and he had to be business-like, be her partner. And he still 
needed to help Scully resolve all the aspects of herself that she 
was struggling with before they could take their next step. One 
that he so desperately wanted to take.

Nothing like taking on a simple problem or two, he thought 
almost bitterly.

He was just about to open his mouth and ask her how she was, 
hoping that he'd get an honest answer and not 'I'm fine', when 
the phone rang. Quickly he scooped it up and had it to his ear.

"Mulder."

The sound of his voice brought Scully up short, and her eyes left 
her desk to watch him as he 'yes' and 'no'd his way through the 
call. She couldn't help staring at him, her mind still having 
problems wrapping around the fact that just 2 weeks ago she'd 
been on the other side of the country looking for him. And that 
she'd found out just how far she was willing to go to get him 
back.

Hanging up, Mulder was surprised to find a pair of brilliant blue 
eyes staring at him, and he couldn't suppress the somewhat 
lopsided grin that lit his face.

"Skinner?" Scully asked, her voice a mixture of keen interest and 
dread.

"Yeah. He just wanted to make sure that now that we're back that 
we keep up with the accounting paperwork. He also mentioned 
something about possibly having something later in the week 
that we might need to look into, but no assignments just yet," he 
explained simply.

"Oh, ok."

She turned away from him again, and Mulder felt the strangest 
feeling of being cut off from his partner. Something he hadn't felt 
since that time in Comity. And while he could feel, almost see 
some of the emotions that she was feeling, the fact that she was 
so withdrawn at the moment really concerned him.

"Scully," he finally said, breaking through the silence that had 
descended into the room again. Her head slowly came up, and 
he swore he saw guilt and pain in her eyes. "What happened in 
San Francisco, what you did, what you *had* to do. . . You know 
that I don't think any less of you because of it, don't you?"

His words cut through her like a sword. Of course he'd know how 
she was feeling. He did have a damn degree in Psychology after 
all. And it wasn't like she'd been dealing well with the whole 
thing. Actually, she was more surprised that it had taken him this 
long to discuss it this directly with her.

Especially since, besides how much she wanted Mulder, it was 
all she could think about.

In the last two weeks, it was almost all she had been able to 
think about. What she'd done, what she'd become. How she'd 
been able to associate so easily, on such a base level with these 
people: Kwan the assassin and the Consortium; the mobsters 
Carmine and Anthony; even the military commando mentality of 
Skinner and Reggie. 

She'd delved deeply into her own psyche after rescuing Mulder, 
as she'd found herself struggling to come to terms with who she 
was now, how much she had allowed herself to change in her 
search for Mulder, and whether or not she'd ever be able to go 
back to the way she was before. She'd been trying, and even 
though she'd succeeded to some degree, the knowledge that all 
those emotions, those impulses were just under the surface, 
ready to come out at a moments notice terrified her.

And at the root of all her fears about what she'd done, had 
become in her pursuit of Mulder, she'd been worried about how 
he felt about it, how it would *change* them.

"I. . . Mulder, you have to understand something," she said, her 
voice hesitant as she pressed her hands onto her thighs to keep 
them from trembling, her gaze wavering and then dropping. "I 
found a part of me that's capable of being as cold blooded and 
calculating as the men who took you are. It's not something that's 
easy to live with, and I've been trying to handle it on a day to day 
basis since we got back. But to know what you're capable of, not 
just from thinking that you could be if pressed, but to truly know 
it. . . part of me wishes that I didn't."

Mulder let the words just hang there for a minute. They'd skirted 
around the issue for weeks now, and while his Psychology 
education had trained him to expect her to feel something like 
this, to actually hear the words from Dana Scully: his partner, his 
*strength*, the woman he. . . well, it shook him more than he'd 
imagined it would. In a heartbeat he had gotten up from his chair 
and moved to her side. Turning her in her seat, he tenderly lifted 
her face to his, catching her eyes and let her read them.

"I wish I could give you back what you've lost too Scully: the 
innocence to not know what you're capable of; the knowledge 
that this is a part of you, no matter what you do," he said softly, 
his eyes speaking volumes in unspoken emotion. "But I also 
understand what led you to delve into the part of you that you 
would have rather kept locked away. . . me."

At his words, she wanted to stop him, try and explain herself 
better. But the look in his eyes told her that he wasn't finished.

"You never gave up on me Scully. And I'll always be grateful for 
that. I want you to know that I'd never judge you for what you've 
done. All I want to do is just be here for you, be with you while 
you deal with this. Whatever the price is that I have to pay to help 
you accept all the parts of yourself, I'll pay it. Just please, 
*please* don't shut me out," he finally said, his hands now 
clutching hers as he waited breathlessly for a word, a sign that 
she understood what he was saying. How he felt.

Scully let out a tremulous sigh, and she felt tears start to well up 
in her eyes. The final fear she'd had was gone and it was like a 
weight had lifted from her shoulders. He didn't hate, didn't fear 
what she'd had to do to save him. Instead he was willing to stand 
by her as she sorted out all those issues of her psyche.

"I've never wanted to shut you out Mulder. I was just. . . afraid 
that you wouldn't understand," she started.

"But I do Scully. And I can't say that it going to be easy, but I've 
always known you had it in you," he said, lightening the mood, 
then he put his hand over his shoulder where he proudly carried 
a bullet scar. "Hell, you've kicked my ass enough times to know."

She couldn't help but smile at that, and nodded her head. He 
smiled back, and she knew everything was going to be ok. 

-  X  -

Epilogue
Scully's apartment
3170 W. 53 Rd.
Annapolis, VA


Scully shrugged her shoulders as she felt Mulder's hands come 
down to rest on them. Even through the warm cloth of her flannel 
shirt she could feel the heat of his hands as if they burned. It was 
like that nowadays, since San Francisco and the abduction. His 
touch was like fire as she truly understood what losing Mulder 
would have done to her. And what she would have lost if that had 
happened.

He'd been over most nights since they'd returned, but tonight 
was different. A couple of hours ago, after their talk in the office, 
he'd shown up at her apartment with Chinese take out and beer. 
They'd sat and eaten and talked. In the past, that had always a 
good sign. It was something that lent itself to the pattern of their 
partnership and friendship. It was business as usual.

Except tonight it had just made her feel anxious and 
uncomfortable. She had found herself distracted and giving him 
one word answers to his questions as they talked. Finally she'd 
moved from the couch and sat down in the wing back 
upholstered chair she'd always considered her father's as Mulder 
had taken the leftovers into the kitchen.

That's where he'd found her now, as he waited to see if his touch 
would roust her from her thoughts. Little did he know he was 
doing more than just that. 

She turned under his grasp and looked up at him. He released 
her shoulders and walked around the chair to sit on the coffee 
table before her. She could see the beginnings of something 
dangerous brewing behind his eyes, and sucked in a deep 
breath. It wasn't bad enough that her nerves had been fried after 
she'd admitted just how deep her feelings for Mulder ran during 
her quest to get him back. But since he'd been liberated, he 
always seemed to be near her. In her space and on her mind. It 
was driving her crazy.

"I understand that Kwan left for Chicago this morning," Mulder 
began, trying to ease into the discussion that he had avoided in 
the office. It required a lot more privacy than their basement 
afforded. And the final results, well, he was thinking that they 
might be less than 'friendly'.

"The job he'd been brought here to do seems to have been 
called off," she replied dryly. The man had been hired to kill her, 
what more could she say about that. Except that he'd turned 
against his orders and ended up helping her. She'd come to 
depend on him while she'd been searching for Mulder. And once 
she'd accomplished that goal, Kwan had decided to take his 
leave, since his employer had 'vanished'. "Some of his family is 
there. They immigrated some years back and there was nothing 
keeping him D.C. any longer. He didn't know anyone here, didn't 
have anyone. . . "

"He had you," he said softly. 

Scully looked up into Mulder's usually hazel eyes and found 
them darker than she could remember them ever being. She 
found herself swimming in them, drowning in the complex 
emotions that she found there. And when she found the one 
emotion that she'd longed to see, she found her courage to leap 
into the fire.

There was a long pause as they looked at each other, and 
Mulder was starting to worry that he'd misjudged her reactions. 
That Skinner, Kwan and he were all wrong in what they'd been 
sure they'd seen. Except he was *sure* he saw it now. . .

"No. *You* have me," she explained quietly, the true weight of 
what she meant evident in each syllable that had passed her lips. 
"That is, if you want me. . . "

Mulder was sure his heart had stopped as he finally 
comprehended what she'd just said, just admitted to him. He 
looked at her as if she was insane. Did he want her? Hell yes! 
He'd wanted to hear her say that for five years, and he couldn't 
believe she would even doubt that he could need her, want her, 
love her like he did. He'd spent the days locked in those different 
prisons realizing just how much he cared for her. And now that 
he knew that she felt the same as he did, he wasn't backing 
away.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you how much I want you 
Scully," he replied breathlessly.

Her tongue flicked out of her mouth and wetted her lips, which 
seemed to have gone dry in the seconds that had passed 
between being friends with the man she loved and being told he 
wanted her as much as she wanted him. She watched his eyes 
follow her tongue, and then he gravitated towards the chair.

Without thinking, her hands flew forward and stopped him, the 
palms resting against his chest. He looked at her, confused at 
her blocking him from touching her, when it had been just 
seconds before that she'd said she wanted him.

"I just want you to be sure Mulder," she asked softly, her fingers 
almost burrowing into his soft gray t-shirt. "I spent all that time 
looking for you, and while I was doing that, I came to the 
realization that I needed you more than I knew. That I was in love 
with you."

Mulder was sure he had stopped breathing, and his heart was 
thudding in his chest. She'd finally said the words he'd needed to 
hear, told him that she *loved* him, and now he knew that 
nothing could keep them apart any longer.

Kneeling at her feet, his hands came up and closed over where 
hers still pressed against his chest. The results were electric, as 
he felt a jolt like an electrical shock starting from where their 
hands met. It coursed along his nerve endings and sent his heart 
rate climbing and his blood pooling south. On top of that, he saw 
her eyes widen a bit and knew that she'd felt it too. He couldn't 
help but grin like an idiot.

"I'm sure Scully. I'm sure that I've never needed or trusted 
anyone more than I do you," he started, pulling her hands away 
from his chest so he could lean in closer. "And I'm sure that I've 
never loved anyone like I love you."

His face was inches from hers by the time he stopped speaking, 
and he gazed in her eyes one last time for permission. The spark 
of lust he saw there was invitation enough, and he leaned in the 
final few inches to press his lips warmly to hers. Her lips were 
soft and hot, and he found himself intoxicated by just this simple 
kiss.

Then her mouth opened under his and Scully's tongue ran 
across his lips and he was gone.

Mulder's hands flew to her hair, weaving themselves in her silken 
tresses as he pulled her closer to him, ravishing her mouth with 
his. In turn, Scully tightened her grip on his shirt, her fingers 
kneading both the cloth and his chest as she struggled with the 
onslaught of his lips on hers, feeding back to him the same 
passion he was showing her.

Prying his lips from hers, Mulder leaned back and smiled at her. 
At the same time, he let his hands ease from their grip in her hair 
to brush over her ears, down her neck and to her shoulders. 
Scully shivered at his touch and he grinned wider. Moving back 
in, he drank of her lips only for a second before he let his mouth 
start wandering. He kissed at her forehead, her cheeks and her 
nose, then gravitated to her left ear. All the while, his hands 
stroked up and down her flannel covered arms.

"Tell me Scully," he whispered in her ear, making her shudder. "I need you to tell me too."

"Tell you what? I've said a lot of things tonight," she countered huskily, her head lolling back as his mouth moved down her neck slightly before moving back up to her ear. 

"Tell me that you want me. That you trust me." 

Once the words were out, he headed back to his task, his lips kissing and sucking at her neck, moving towards the neckline of her shirt. 

"Of course I want you Mulder. I think I've always wanted you. And I trust you... you're the only one I trust," she said in a simple yet serious manner as she felt his lips curl against her skin. 

"Oooh Scully, I just got really turned on."

He looked up at her and saw her arch her eyebrow. She was 
smiling though. One of the rare Scully smiles that turned his 
insides to butter. How the hell had he resisted doing this with her 
all this time? Fought the feelings that they had when this was the 
benefit of them? The thoughts running through his head seemed 
to short circuit what he'd been doing, and he was just sitting 
there, watching her.

Mulder suddenly felt Scully's hands at his waist. Then they 
slipped lower and she stroked him through his jeans. His eyes 
slipped shut and he couldn't breathe. Dear God, he was sure that 
he was dead. He must have died in the firefight in San Francisco 
because there was no way in hell that this could be real. Except 
that it felt too good for him to be dead.

"Do you want to take this somewhere more comfortable?" Scully 
said in a smoky whisper that Mulder was sure he'd only heard in 
his fantasies.

Looking at her, seeing her disheveled hair, the passionate look to 
her eyes and her full, well kissed lips, he knew he'd have to take 
it to the bedroom sooner or later, or they'd end up on the floor. 
But for the moment, he still liked where they were.

"Not quite yet," he replied, his lips finding hers and locking to 
them as his hands started at the buttons on her shirt. 

Even with shaking hands, he got the small discs undone in 
record time. Never let it be said that being focused and 
obsessive didn't have its benefits, he thought wickedly to himself 
as he peeled the shirt off her shoulders and pooled it around her 
waist. Scully had to let up on rubbing his erection through his 
jeans when he'd shoved her shirt down her arms, effectively 
pinning her hands nearly to her sides. Now she fought not to 
squirm under his touch and gaze as he reached for her bra.

It wasn't more than a heartbeat before Mulder had the clasp of 
her bra in hand, and looked up to her eyes for any signs of 
dissent. When he saw none, he had it apart and her breasts in 
plain and very appreciative view. She watched as his tongue 
swiped along his lips slowly, and she wondered if it was a 
conscious act or not. 

Then that tongue found its way to the ivory skin between her 
breasts and licked from below the swell of her breasts to her 
throat, and then kissed his way back down, swerving to her left 
breast before he returned to where he's started. She'd closed her 
eyes, the strength of the emotions rolling through her startling 
her and making it near impossible to watch without moaning. 
That was until his lips wrapped around her pink nipple and he 
pulled ever so slightly, his tongue just barely brushing it before 
she felt a groan of pleasure slip from her mouth.

Encouraged even more than before, he lapped at her like a cat, 
his lips occasionally closing tightly on the bud and sucking. Each 
variation produced a different pitch in her moans or groans as he 
felt her arch herself further into him. His right hand grasped her 
right breast and played with the nipple there, alternating pinching 
and rolling it to flicking and rubbing the hard point of flesh. His 
left hand had wrapped around her waist and held her to him as 
he continued to explore her.

"Oh God that's good Mulder," she hissed as his teeth barely 
grated against her skin. He glanced up at her and found himself 
respond with another twinge to his groin as he saw her lolled 
back, her cheeks flushed and her eyelids half closed. She was 
the sexiest thing he'd seen in his life.

He'd wanted to take this slow, draw out the experience, but he 
didn't know if he had it in him. Stubbornly, he shoved aside his 
discomfort and urgency and instead refocused on Scully. The 
hand at her waist found the waistband of her leggings and he 
curled his fingers inside. With a tug, he got them and her panties 
started down her hip, but realized he needed both hands and her 
help to get them off. His mouth and his other hand left her breast 
as he started to concentrate on the problem at hand.

Once she'd felt his hands pull at her waist, Scully had shuddered 
and forced her eyes open to watch Mulder struggle with her 
clothes. With a little grin, she slid her hands beside his and 
helped him get the garments off her hips. As soon as he had 
them to her thighs, he shoved them down with ease. Then before 
she knew what had hit her, he'd put his hands around the backs 
of her knees and pulled her forward on the chair, spreading her 
legs open and her ass halfway off the cushion.

If she hadn't been wet before now, she was certainly getting 
hotter and damper by the second as Scully watched him stare at 
her lower body, now exposed to his view. The smile that graced 
his face was feral, lustful in every way. She felt her excitement 
ratchet up another notch, her insides humming in anticipation of 
his next move.

When it came, it was like lines of fire.

Mulder leaned in and let his long fingers glide past her auburn 
down and over her wet folds, lightly but with enough pressure to 
make sure they both felt every stroke. He went from her clit to 
the bottom of her slick opening and back up again in a leisurely 
fashion as he breathed in her scent, made stronger by his touch. 
There was no reason to rush, he reminded himself over and over 
again. They had eternity, didn't they?

With each stroke, Scully felt the fire coiling low in her belly, 
turning her mind to mush and her inner walls to quivering jelly. 
She was quietly calling out to God, Mulder and all variety of 
deities as he continued his assault. The small part of her brain 
that was still trying to function rationally realized that she was 
almost over the edge, and he had yet to put his lips or tongue to 
her.

Or, as she felt the tips of his fingers push minutely past her outer 
lips, used his finger where she most wanted them - inside her. 
She moaned in pleasure and frustration as he did it over and 
over again, increasing her need with each stroke. Her hands 
clutched at the arms of the chair until she couldn't stand it any 
more.

"Mulder, please," she pleaded beseechingly, her voice raspy in 
its need.

Confused, Mulder stopped and looked at her face. His eyes were 
transfixed by the vision of lust before him. She was biting on her 
lip and had her eyes closed tightly. Her nails were pressed 
deeply into the well upholstered arms of the chair.

Shit, he thought, was he doing something wrong?

"What Scully? Please what?" he asked, concern starting to creep 
into his expression as well as his voice.

The tone of his question popped her eyes open, and she saw the 
fear in his gaze. Inwardly she laughed, he thought he was doing 
something wrong when the truth was he was simply torturing her 
to death with the pleasure of it. But she needed more, and she 
had to tell him so.

"Please *more*," she said throatily, the words dripping from her 
mouth like honey. "Please don't stop. God, it feels so good, 
please don't stop there. . . "

The anxiety was gone from his face in a heartbeat and he 
grinned at her. His fingers stroked along her again, faster this 
time and rubbing slightly at her clit before they started back 
down. He felt her tense and her hips slide forwards a fraction as 
his fingers brushed below the surface of her lower lips. Without 
needing any further instructions, he let his fingers slide to the end 
of her opening, and on the stroke back up, he slid his first two 
fingers deeply inside of her.

Scully cried out. If it had been louder, it would have been a 
scream, but instead it sounded high pitched and more like a wail. 
As he slid his fingers in and out of her hot passage, he felt her 
insides shake around him. It wouldn't take long, and he knew that 
if he was going to take full advantage of his kneeling position 
before her, he had to do it now.

He lowered his head and dropped his mouth to her clit as he 
furiously thrust his fingers in and out of her body. It took only a 
few moments before he felt her tighten around him and quake as 
her orgasm hit. 

"Ohhh God!" she yelled, her head thrown back as the waves of 
release washed through her body, shaking her with the force of 
her climax.

Mulder rode it out with her, his tongue lapping at her juices as his 
fingers moved slowly inside her until she finally came down. 
before long she could open her eyes and look at him. It took a 
little longer for her voice to return.

"Wow," she murmured, her hand unclenching from the chair arm 
and burrowing into Mulder's hair.

"Double wow," he replied, a look of satisfaction plastered on his 
face. "That was amazing."

Scully tried not to blush, but found it impossible. Her emotions 
were too far out of her control for that. Gazing lovingly at the man 
kneeling before her, she noted both the painful looking bulge 
under his jeans, and the fact that he was still wearing clothes.

That would not do at all, she jokingly thought to herself.

Using her grip on his head, Scully pulled Mulder up until his face 
was in front of hers. She paused only for a second before she 
savaged his lips with hers, tasting him and herself on his lips and 
tongue. While her mouth toyed with his, her hands moved to pull 
at his clothes, tugging at the hem of his shirt and struggling with 
the button of his jeans.

Forcing himself not to chuckle, Mulder pulled himself back to 
watch a very aroused Dana Scully frantically try to get him 
undressed with little success.

"You know Scully, you could just ask," he teased as he gently 
moved her hands from him, taking over for her. 

His shirt was gone in a second, and he popped the button and 
unzipped his pants in no time flat. It wasn't until he got to his 
tennis shoes that he realized he had a problem. Scully watched 
with a mixture of lust and humor as she shrugged her shirt and 
bra completely off. When he nearly fell on his ass, trying to pull 
off his shoes, she couldn't help giggling. Quickly she threw her 
hand over her mouth, but it was too late.

"This is *not* funny," he growled lightly as he finally pulled the 
shoe and sock off, their momentum throwing them across the 
living room.

"If you were sitting where I am, you would think it was funny too 
Mulder," she retorted, leaning forward in the chair to lick at his 
now bare chest. 

He started at the touch and fell backward to land ass first on the 
coffee table. 

"Ow!" he yelled, his hand flying to his abused backside.

"Anything injured?" she asked quickly, jumping up from the chair 
to his side.

"My pride is about it," he replied, and with that she reached over 
and pulled his other shoe and sock off. His jeans followed.

She crouched there, looking at his erection straining towards her, 
held back only by the white cotton boxers. Her eyes came back 
to his, and all the humor and hurting were gone. Replaced with 
the love and lust she was becoming used to seeing there.

Standing quickly, she held out her hands to help him up. He took 
them readily and stood in front of her. Gravitating closer, they 
pressed against one another, almost totally flesh against flesh. 

"You ready to go someplace more comfortable?" she asked 
softly, her mouth curling into a soft grin.

"Oh yeah," he replied with a lustful grin and looped his arms 
around her waist. She yelped, and he lifted her from the floor, 
hauling her with him as he moved quickly to her bedroom.

Inside, he laid her on the bed, reluctantly letting her go, his 
hands dragging along her soft skin as he released her. Scully 
looked up at him inquisitively from her reclining position on the 
bed as she tried to gauge his next move. Before he did anything 
else, he reached down and pulled at the bedcovers and Scully 
moved to accommodate him. Now, with nothing but the sheet 
below her, she expected him to come to her.

Instead he just stood there, his cock straining against his boxers 
and a look of utter astonishment on his face. It was as if he was 
finally coming to realize that this was really happening. That they 
were doing this for real.

Scully decided that the only thing that was going to haul Mulder 
out of his analysis was for her to make the next more. Sitting up, 
she reached forward and insinuated her fingers between the 
elastic of Mulder's waistband and his skin. She felt his breath 
catch as her fingers slid down inside the cloth, then he growled 
when she tugged at them forcefully, pulling him to her as his 
knees butted against the side of the bed.

Her other hand came up to join the first, and she drew down his 
boxers in one attempt. Using his feet, he pushed them past his 
calves and onto her bedroom floor. All the while, they watched 
one another, seeing the desires and emotions playing across 
their features. Deliberately she moved her hands back to his 
waist, pulling his pelvis closer to her, and Mulder stared as she 
licked her lips as she came closer to his engorged cock.

As soon as he saw her tongue dart forward, he stepped back, 
nearly unseating her from the bed. Confused, she looked up at 
him, trying to figure out what she'd done wrong. Mulder's hands 
were in her hair in a second and he leaned down to kiss her 
passionately, pushing them both onto the bed, his body 
sprawling on top of hers.

"Not this time love," he said affectionately as he pulled himself 
from her lips. "I want to come with you. If you'd even touched me, 
I don't think I could have held out long enough for this. . . " 

At his words, he positioned himself at her vaginal opening and 
slid inside in one long, slow thrust.

"Oohh God!" Scully moaned as he filled her up beyond her 
wildest imaginings. It was the most incredible sensation.

"Mmm, oh Scully, that feels *so* good. *You* feel so good," he 
panted, feeling his length pulse within the heated sheath of her 
body.

Beneath him, Scully arched up into him, her hands moving along 
his back and to his shoulders. Her body was getting restless as 
he held himself still, embedded deep inside her core. She was on 
the edge already, the sensation of him just being inside her was 
almost enough to make her come. But she needed him to 
*move*.

"So do you Mulder," Scully murmured, her voice passion-filled 
but with a raw edge that surprised him. "But if you don't move 
*soon*, I'm going to have to hurt you."

A lopsided grin spread across his face while his emotions warred 
between humor and lust. His hands slid from her head, one going 
to brace himself over her as the other wrapped around her waist 
as he shifted them further onto the bed, the movement rocking 
him slightly back, then farther insider of her. Scully moaned at 
the shift in their position, and helped him, letting the heels of her 
feet dig into the mattress and her legs push while he moved 
forward. When he settled, she wrapped them around his thighs, 
holding him tightly to her.

"Well?" she started, then gasped as he withdrew suddenly and 
thrust back into her.

His reply was non-verbal as he released her waist and his hand 
flew back to her hair as he gradually started to drive himself in 
and out of her, his mouth closing onto hers as he set up a tempo 
which she quickly countered.

Picking up the pace, Mulder had her writhing under him, words of 
love and cries of pleasure reaching his ears as he strove to bring 
them both to completion. He pounded into her while his mouth 
kissed and sucked at her neck and collarbone, her nails running 
up and down his back.

Mulder knew the pressure within them both was almost ready to 
explode, his balls were on fire and his cock seemed to throb 
almost constantly. He was just about to reach between them 
when he felt her inner walls pulse, and then strongly contract as 
Scully's orgasm hit her suddenly, accompanied by a shrill cry 
that he was sure was his name.

Holding nothing back, Mulder slammed forcefully once, then 
again as he felt his balls clench and his semen shoot out his 
body and into hers as he let loose with a hoarse yell. Wracked 
with the indescribable pleasure of his release, his eyes fell shut 
as he slumped forward, his lower arms holding him above Scully 
as he laid there, gasping for breath.

He felt her hands touch his face, and he opened his eyes to see 
the shinning blue he'd become so dependent on. Even if he 
hadn't seen the smile on her face and the glow that radiated from 
her body, he could have told how much she loved him from just 
the look in her eyes. And now that he'd seen it, he never wanted 
to live without it.

Scully grunted in discomfort as Mulder unconsciously let his 
weight fall on her, and he quickly lifted himself up, dislodging his 
deflating cock from her body as he did so. They both winced at 
the loss, but he quickly rolled to his side, pulling her beside him. 
He watched her as her eyes blinked slowly, tiredly. The toll of 
their lovemaking, he smirked. He'd tired her out.

Sitting up, he searched blindly at the bottom of the bed for the 
covers and finally caught hold of them. Pulling them up over 
them, he settled himself on his side, gazing lovingly at the 
woman tucked against him.

Scully reached over and ran her hand down his bare chest, then 
up to his neck and behind his head. With the lightest pressure, 
she pulled his face to hers and kissed him tenderly on the lips 
and then let him ease from her grasp as her hand found a resting 
place over his heart.

"I love you Mulder," she said with quiet conviction, her eyes 
heavy and glassy with unshed tears of joy. 

He smiled at her, and she reflected it back at him. 

"I love you too Scully," he whispered in her ear, brushing at the 
wisps of auburn that spread across her face as she attempted to 
stifle a yawn. "Get some rest Scully. I'll be here when you wake 
up. I'm not going anywhere anytime in the foreseeable future. 
Except where you are."

Scully smiled and nodded, then curled up against him, exhausted 
and happy. She had everything she wanted. After everything 
she'd been through to get it, she had it. As she felt him stoke her 
hair, she let her eyes slip shut and sleep claim her.

He watched her intently, his heart full and his emotions 
overflowing. She just kept amazing him. Every time he was sure 
he knew all there was to Dana Scully, she surprised him again. 
When he'd been held prisoner, he'd fantasized about this 
moment, but the reality blew the fantasy away. His warrior-like 
defender had come to his rescue, and not only had given him his 
freedom, but her heart as well. And with that, she'd given him a 
future - *their* future.

Mulder smiled warmly, then looked away from the fiery red-head 
pillowed against him in the bed and out the window. It was dark 
outside, pitch black almost. Yet he remembered a quote by 
someone that said that it was always darkest before the dawn. 
But as he turned his gaze back to where Scully lay, he knew that 
no matter what happened to them now, the darkness was over. 

Dawn had finally arrived. 

-End-

Thank you for reading. I have been obsessed with this project on 
and off for the last 4 years now. It was one of the few projects 
that I swore to myself that I would finish. No matter what, and I'm 
glad to say that it's finally done.

At this point, I need to acknowledge the main contributor, 
motivator and support - my husband Gil. When this story idea 
started, it was during a time when I was immersed in several 
things: running an X-Files Mailing List (XFCreative), writing 
fanfic, planning a wedding and living the day to day life of 
someone in a relationship. And while I ended up putting the 
writing and administration duties on hold, I always knew that if I 
ever wanted to pick up either of them again, I'd always have his 
support. I turned to him for technical advice on weaponry and 
foreign history, and he helped write several story sections as well 
as helped me develop the plot line. So, for everything, I thank 
him from the bottom of my heart (which is his anyhow).

Also my thanks to the beta readers for looking this over - you 
know who you are.

So to wrap up, I simply say - I hope you enjoyed this, and if you 
liked it, please drop me a line at jtrevizo@mindspring.com and 
let me know. 

This story and others can be found at Writing Machine Central: 
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Orion/1341/stories.html

Thanks!