Mulder entered the bedroom. Scully was sitting on the edge of the bed against the headboard. She was wearing white satin pyjamas and a loose blue robe. The baby was a bundle of blankets cuddled closely in her arms. Protected from the world by a mother’s love.

“How's everybody doing?” he asked. Still somewhat hesitant, after everything.

“We're doing just fine.” Smiling, Scully rose from the bed and carried the baby to Mulder. He gently pushed the blanket away from the baby's face and looked down into his dark blue eyes.

“Hey, now,” Mulder said. The baby fussed softly. Mulder admonished him with tender authority, “None of that.”

Scully smiled and looked up at him. She transferred the baby to Mulder’s arms, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world. Mulder took the tiny infant, nervous and awed and delighted all at once. The baby calmed, and Mulder beamed. A smile of pride, a smile of joy. A smile that forgot the world, and existed only for this moment, for this child, for this woman.

“Hi,” he said to the baby. His awkwardness of the past few weeks that came from losing his place in the world had disappeared. He looked up at Scully and asked, “What are you going to call him?”

“William.” She paused, then said, “After your father.”

They gazed at each other for a long moment. A smile illuminated Scully’s face. After she had first learned she was pregnant, there had been nothing to smile for. But now, now, the smile came like a sunrise, banishing the night of the past few months, the time without him.

“Well, I don't know,” Mulder said, a teasing tone in his warm voice. “He’s...he's got your colouring and your eyes. But he looks suspiciously like Assistant Director Skinner.”

Scully laughed, but soon grew serious again. “I don't understand, Mulder. They came to take him from us--I don’t know why they didn’t.”

“I don't quite understand that either.” Mulder watched her face and chose his words carefully. “Except that maybe he isn't what they thought he was. That doesn't make him any less of a miracle, though, does it?”

Scully looked at him steadily, wondering how he would take her words. “From the moment I became pregnant, I feared the truth...about how...and why. And I know that you feared it, too.”

Mulder answered, “I think what we feared were the possibilities. The truth we both know.”

“Which is what?”

They were alone. There was no need for secrets, for concealment, for anything other than the honesty they had always given one another. Mulder gave her all the truth he had, a gift to equal the one in his arms. Still holding William between them, he leaned down and kissed her. She reached out to hold his arms and returned the kiss, melting into his touch.

Together they fell, deeper and deeper, into a world Scully hadn’t known for eight years...a world where safety shone like the sunlight of an endless summer day. A world with no conspiracies, no warnings, no predators. Where there were no barriers between dreams and actions. Where a wish could be indulged without consequence. Where a kiss could go on forever...

William, trapped between them, started crying.

Scully stepped back reluctantly. Mulder smiled at her, and shifted William to his shoulder, swaying slightly and humming. Soon the baby grew quiet again, his light breathing slowing into sleep. Mulder turned his head and inhaled the milky scent that clung to William’s skin. He sighed, ruffling the russet fuzz on the baby’s head.

“He’s asleep,” he whispered. Scully reached out and took William. She walked around the bed and laid him in the cradle, then drew the sheet over him. The boy’s mouth was open slightly, and his small fists rested beside his head. Mulder closed the blinds, first checking to make sure the windows were locked. He turned back and stood beside Scully, watching William.

They stood in the room’s semi-darkness, shoulder to shoulder, entranced by the small movements of their sleeping son. Mulder looked at Scully when her hand crept into his. In the reflected streetlight that had found its way into the room, he saw a tear glistening on her cheek.

He turned to face her fully and lifted a finger to brush away the drop. His hands cradled her face until she lifted her eyes to meet his.

“What is it?” he asked, his voice soft.

“I can’t stop wondering,” she said through her tears. “Why? What if...?” She stopped as though the possibilities would become real if she spoke them aloud.

“Don’t,” he said. “Not now. Not tonight.” He slid his arms around her and hugged her close. “It’ll all work out. In the morning you’ll see….”

She burrowed into him, sobs shuddering through her body, silently. Her tears dampened his shirt. He held her closer, tightening his arms around her, murmuring sounds of comfort. “It’s okay, it’s okay. I’m here,” he said, rocking her as he had rocked William. Offering the reassurance of his warmth, his solidity, his presence. “He’s safe, and well, and happy. They won’t hurt him, I promise.”

After a time, she became still, but did not loosen her hold on him. Afraid to lose him once more, or else simply content to feel his body against hers. His body heat seeping through their clothes. His heartbeat measuring their time together. She raised her head and looked up at him, and he smiled gently as he wiped away the last remnants of her tears.

“Better?”

She nodded. He bent to drop a kiss at the corner of her mouth, and she responded fervently. His comforting hug transformed into something more, his gentle rocking becoming more insistent. His lips left hers and travelled along the line of her jaw while his hands reached for the knot holding her bathrobe together. Her hands reached up and explored his back, tracing the outline of muscles beneath his shirt.

There was a soft sigh and they both looked up. “William,” Scully said, and smiled at Mulder. They left his cradle. At the door, Scully paused.

“It’s been so long,” she said.

“Will you be all right?” he asked.

She smiled and answered by taking his hand. She drew him out of the room, leaving the door slightly ajar. He left her for a moment while he knelt to unplug the phone. The jack in his hand, he grinned up at her. It was almost a question; if she had asked him to reconnect it, he would have. But she only leaned back against the doorjamb and smiled, holding out her hand once more. She pulled him up and towards her until his body pressed hers against the wall. Slowly, with the sense of finally completing a long journey, she led him to the guest bedroom.

William’s crying woke her in the night. She slipped out from beneath Mulder’s arm and left the warm sheets at his side. In the golden glow from the bedside lamp, she read the clock. Two sixteen in the morning. She pulled her robe from the floor as she went to comfort her son.

As she was changing the baby’s diaper, Mulder came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, looking at William over her shoulder. “I’m going to have to learn to do that, I suppose,” he said into her ear.

Scully smiled. His words held an implicit promise of forever. William stared up at them both, his arms and legs waving randomly in the air as Scully manoeuvred him back into his onesie. Mulder reached out a pinky for William to grab and pull to his mouth.

She lifted William and carried him back to the warm nest they had created in the sheets of the guest bed. Spreading out a blanket, she placed the baby on it and lay down to offer him her breast. William latched on and suckled vigorously.

Mulder tucked the sheets around them and then lay down behind her, spooning against her back. William’s eyes were tight shut, his skin rosy in the amber lamplight, his fists kneading Scully’s blue-veined breast.

After a time, Scully spoke. “What are you going to do now?” she asked, glad for once that she wasn’t facing him.

“I don’t know.” He shifted against her. “This is the first time I’ve ever felt like there was no urgency attached to my decisions.”

“You’re not going to fight for reinstatement?”

“Do you think it would do any good?”

“No,” she said. “Not now.”

“I don’t know what else is out there for me, Scully. But right now, at this moment, I just want to see what comes.”

Scully looked down at William. He had fallen asleep once more, a trickle of milk running from the corner of his mouth to the blanket below. “So you’re finally going to take my advice,” she said, smiling.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“I always told you to get a life.”

"I always had a life. This one. Now I’m going to find out what I’ve been missing."

Mulder was putting on coffee when a knock came at the door. “I’ll get it,” he called to Scully, who was getting dressed in the master bedroom. He walked to the front door and looked through the peep hole. He stepped back abruptly, a look of astonishment on his face. After a moment, he unlocked the door and slid the chain back, then swung the door open.

It was Marita Covarrubias.

She glanced up and down the hall, then quickly stepped into the apartment. She was dressed in an impeccable business suit, and her fine blonde hair was tucked loosely behind her ears. She looked up at Mulder, holding him with her pale grey eyes.

“I thought you might be here,” she said. “It is imperative that I speak with you both.”

“About what?” he asked. Scully entered the living room and paused at the sight of Marita standing there. Marita eyed her, taking in the large button down shirt and casual jeans.

“I’m here to warn you,” she said. “About Agent Doggett’s investigation of Deputy Director Kersh.”

Mulder nodded. “He told me that he saw this man Noel Rourke and Agent Crane in Kersh’s office the night they chased him. We knew that there had to be someone on the inside to allow them to accomplish what they did.”

“Yes. But what you don’t seem to realise is the impact this might have on you. The Deputy Director isn’t going to lay down just because Doggett has called on Internal Affairs.”

Scully sat down at the kitchen table and watched Marita. “I don’t see how this concerns us. I’m on maternal leave and Mulder isn’t even part of the Bureau anymore.”

“Nevertheless, you both know that this situation isn’t limited to office politics. Rourke and Crane were both human replacements. Their bodies were never recovered--they’re still out there. And Agent Doggett is still asking awkward questions,” she said. “They can’t let him blow the whistle.”

“Well, good for him,” said Mulder. “He’s learned that impertinence is a primary job requirement.”

“This is more serious than you may imagine, Mulder. There was something going on in the Deputy Director’s office that night. Alex knew what it was.”

“Krycek?” Mulder’s voice was full of scorn. “Why didn’t he tell us, then?”

“He tried. You didn’t listen. You and Skinner.” Marita’s face was taut with anger. “Shoot first, ask questions later, isn’t that it? Just because the tape has been taken doesn’t mean the evidence isn’t there.”

“What tape?”

Marita turned to Scully and spat out, “The video surveillance tape of the garage. It didn’t take them long to get to that. But I managed to see it first.”

“How?”

Marita smiled briefly. “I have a contact inside the FBI. A man who prefers the official version of events; a version I provided.”

“Kersh?”

“No.”

Mulder interrupted. “You think I could have trusted Krycek? Then, or any other time? He was a backstabbing son of a bitch, and you of all people should know that.”

Marita turned back to him. “I know he believed in his cause as much as you believed in yours. He thought he could play one side off the other. He thought he could win.”

“Are you saying I should have trusted him to shoot me?”

“No,” she said. “You should have trusted yourself enough not to shoot him.”

“I didn’t--”

“Then you should have stopped Skinner. He acted in anger, for revenge. Alex could have told you more than I can.”

“Krycek never gave information away.”

“And look what happened to every person who ever gave away information to you. Look what happened to me, Mulder. Ask yourself if you would have been so generous, knowing the consequences.”

“Then why are you here now?”

“Perhaps for her sake,” Marita said, looking at Scully. “Perhaps for your child’s safety.”

Scully stood at once. “Are you saying that William is in danger?”

Marita tilted her head, considering the question. “I don’t know. I know that Billy Miles and the others didn’t see in him what they feared. Not immediately. But that isn’t to say that it’s not there. They will come back, of that I’m sure.”

“What do you mean?” Scully demanded. “What do they fear?”

“I can only tell you what Alex told me, the last time we saw each other. He was determined to kill your baby--he was sure that it was something special, something different. Something that, in the wrong hands, could bring the project back to life. But I think he realised he was wrong.”

Mulder asked, “Realised how?”

Marita shrugged. “I can think of only one reason,” she said. “Because you lived. He must have realised that it’s you they want, Mulder, not your son.”

Scully shook her head. “That can’t be right. He was taken once before, and returned. If they wanted him, why did Billy Miles come after me?”

“Mulder has something.” She held up her hand, forestalling their questions. “I don’t know what. The Cancerman knew, but he refused to tell Alex and I. It’s why he was taken. But somehow, he managed to hide it from them. They couldn’t find it, not with all their tests; and that’s why he was returned.”

“Then why did they chase Scully? Why did Krycek want William?”

“They fear you, Mulder. They don’t know whether you understand what you’ve become, and they fear that you have discovered it, this secret. But even more, they feared that you had passed it on.”

“Then it must be some sort of genetic change, a mutation,” Scully said, forcing herself into scientific detachment.

“That is what I believe,” Marita said. “But I have no way of verifying it. All I know is that if William had this thing, they would have taken him. If he begins to show signs of it, they will come back for him. And as long as Mulder remains here, with him, his danger grows.”

Scully and Mulder looked at each other. She could see in his eyes the lurking guilt that had haunted him every time she was inadvertently placed in harm’s way. “No,” she said. “I can’t believe that. Mulder is perfectly normal. When he was in the hospital, I ran the tests myself. He is in perfect health.”

“And that’s exactly what is so strange,” Marita said. “I am sorry, Scully, but you must see that his recovery is in itself peculiar. If he had been normal, as you claim, then they would have been able to turn him into a replacement, just like Billy Miles. And how is it possible that his neurological disorder simply disappeared?”

“I suppose you learned all that from Krycek,” Scully said. “It’s true that we don’t understand his rapid healing. But this leap--to make these assumptions--you said yourself that you can’t verify it.”

“But do you want to take the chance? If I am right, then it won’t be long before they return. Right now they’re disorganised, confused. We must act while there is still time.”

Mulder sat down heavily, his shoulders slumped. “You’re saying that I should run.”

Marita nodded slowly. “Yes. If you want to save your son--from Kersh, from the replacements, from Doggett’s questions--then yes. You must run. You must simply disappear.”

“I can’t do that, Marita.” His eyes were on Scully’s face. “No more disappearances.”

Marita looked at them both, her expression inscrutable. “I can’t force you to do this, of course,” she said. “I am willing to help, despite the risk, or perhaps because of it. Mainly because I fear the consequences if you do not.” She turned away and walked to the door. Opening it, she said over her shoulder, “I will contact you tomorrow. After that it will be too late.” She left, closing the door softly behind her.

In silence, Mulder brought the coffee to the table and poured it into two mugs. Scully watched his every move, seeing denial written in his expression, in his wordlessness. She wrapped her hands around the coffee mug and let the heat ease muscles that had tensed when she had seen Marita Covarrubias. The beginning of forever had been transformed into another ending.

Staring morosely into his coffee, Mulder asked, “Do you believe her?”

He looked up at her then, and the expression in his eyes made her want to deny all Marita’s words, to insist that they had never been spoken. She shook her head, weary, defeated.

“I can’t afford not to believe her,” she said.

Mulder turned away, his hands fisting around his mug. “You think they will return?”

Scully reached out and covered his hand with hers. “I have been robbed of so much in my life. They have taken my memories, my ability to have a child...you. I can’t--I won’t let William be next.”

“If you believe her, then you can’t know that it is William they want,” he said, angry.

Scully didn’t answer. Over the months, it had seemed that her child’s safety was somehow bound up in Mulder’s reappearance…it was as though she had seen them as one and the same. Perhaps she had grown too reliant on the protection he had always offered her, however subtly. Without him, she was vulnerable. But now Marita’s revelations had erased that protection.

Mulder got to his feet and went to the window. For a moment he looked out, then turned back to her, leaning against the sill. “How can running help?” he argued with her silence. “They managed to find you in the middle of nowhere.”

“You know that was because Agent Doggett used an insecure line when he phoned Agent Reyes. Maybe, if you can get away cleanly...”

“You want me to go.” His words were flat, but she saw the hurt in his eyes.

“No,” she said, refusing to let him twist her words. “Mulder, no. I spent months searching for you. The last thing I want is for you to leave.”

“If Marita hadn’t come...”

“Then it would have taken us by surprise,” Scully said, anger in her voice. “What if she hadn’t, and William was taken as your sister was taken? Would that be easier to deal with?” She stared at him, daring him to deny her words. When he said nothing, she turned away and strode back to the bedroom

Mulder was still for a minute, frozen by her words. Finally, he followed her, pausing outside the bedroom door. Scully was speaking on the phone.

“Mom, I’ m sorry I didn’t call earlier. I--I had the baby...Yes, I’m fine. We’re both fine.” There was a long pause, and he pushed open the door. Scully was sitting on the bed with her back to him, resting her elbows on William’s cradle.

“Yes...No, I want you to come.” She stopped. “No, you don’t need to do that. Something’s come up...No. It’s just that...”

She looked over her shoulder and saw him standing there. Her words faltered and she let the phone fall from her ear. His expression seemed so lost, so forlorn, filled with regret. He blamed himself for sending her to Democratic Hot Springs, far from her family, far from safety. Marita’s words hit even closer to home--Scully and William were in danger because of his presence. If he ran, they would be able to get on with their lives...

In the quiet room, they could both hear Margaret Scully’s voice. “Dana? Are you there?”

Scully lifted the phone. “Yes, Mom, I’m here.”

Mulder turned on his heel and left the room.

Margaret Scully arrived, anxious and careworn. When Dana opened the door, she peered into her daughter's face, searching for some clues as to when, how, why.

"Dana," she said, enfolding her daughter in a hug. "How are you? Where's the baby? Are you sure you're all right?"

Dana smiled, though her eyes were brimming. "I'm fine," she said.

Margaret shook her head in disbelief and stared harder at her, as though the answers to all her questions were written in Dana's eyes. "You're not," she said softly. "You can't put me off with that."

She nodded, but composed herself. "I'm sorry I didn't call sooner," she repeated. "Things were..." She stopped, not wanting to burden her mother with the truth.

"But you called. That's what's important." Margaret squeezed Dana's hand in hers, a comforting pressure. She had lived with her daughter's silence about her pregnancy for months, never prying too far. It hurt her that Dana was so unwilling to reveal anything about it, but she was all too familiar with her independent spirit to think she would tell anyone her secrets.

"Now, where's my grandson?" she asked, trying to conjure a smile, though her eyes were still haunted with worry.

"He's right here, Mrs. Scully."

Margaret whirled around to see Mulder stepping into the room. He was dressed casually in his favorite pair of worn jeans and a gray t-shirt, and he carried a bundle of blue-checkerd blankets in his arms. Margaret glanced over her shoulder at Dana, but the younger woman said nothing. She met her mother's gaze, hoping that she could accept this, too.

"Fox," Margaret said, and then hesitated. Despite Dana's strength, there was no way that she could conceal the wrenching grief she had suffered when Mulder had apparently died. For three months, Margaret had known of the wordless sadness that consumed Dana like a fire, leaving behind only the ashes of her proud spirit. Although Margaret had learned of Mulder's return, she was still uneasy in his presence. "I didn't expect to see you here," she finished.

Tentatively, Mulder walked across the living room to offer the baby to her. Margaret forced herself not to flinch at his touch, not to think about the dead flesh reawoken by some science not even Dana fully understood. She did not meet his eyes, but looked instead into the small face peering up through the blanket. A tender smile broke out on her face and she brought a finger to feel the smooth, milky skin of the baby's forehead.

"What's his name?" she whispered, still staring down at her grandson.

"William," Mulder answered, with a hint of pride in his tone.

Margaret looked up, then. She was as close to him as she ever had been, with only the baby's small weight between them. She could see the strain that had left its traces around his eyes, his mouth; but his smile was pure pleasure at the simple act of naming the child. Suddenly he was no longer an unknown quantity to be feared, but the same man she had come to understand when they had shared a vigil over Dana's sickbed so many years ago.

"It's perfect," she said. "A perfect name for a perfect little boy."

"Here, hold him, Mrs. Scully," Mulder said.

Margaret took William into her arms and felt her heart suddenly leap in her chest. It was something more, to hold this child, than it had been with Bill's daughter. There was so much hope that had come together in him; he was more precious for all the danger he'd been in. She turned back to Dana, and was relieved to see her smile. Yet, somehow, sadness still lurked under the surface of her eyes. There was worry there, and tension...and her voice on the phone had been shaky.

"Dana, is there something wrong?" she asked, not fully expecting an answer. Dana quickly shook her head, but Margaret didn't miss the swift glance that passed between her and Mulder. She watched them carefully, but she could see nothing in either of their faces to explain it.

"Can I babysit for a few hours?" she offered. "They don't stay small like this for long, you know." She caught the look on Dana's face: fear, more than any mother's worry about leaving a baby. But it was mingled with a strange eagerness, an eagerness that was mirrored by Mulder. "You two should go, get some breakfast," Margaret said. "Dana, you know you'll be having enough sleepless nights soon enough. Take a break while you can, honey."

Dana nodded, and came over quickly to kiss William. Suddenly, she wrapped her arms around her mother, holding her tightly in a hug. "Thank you," she whispered in her ear. "Oh, Mom, thank you for understanding."

Mulder took her jacket from the stand and opened the door. Dana took one long look at William--as though she doesn't expect to see him again, Margaret thought--and then left the apartment. Mulder nodded to her, another thank-you, and closed the door softly behind him.

A small restaurant not far from the apartment served them a late breakfast. The place was nearly empty, waiting for the lunch crowds that would soon be arriving. They savoured the brief space of privacy, ignoring the demands of the future for as long as possible. They were silent during the meal, each wrapped in their own thoughts. The occasional brushing of their feet under the table, once innocent enough, now caused their eyes to meet, alight with secret smiles.

Afterwards, they drove to Mulder’s apartment. They walked down his hallway hand in hand, trusting the slow weekend afternoon to shield them from prying eyes. Mulder was looking over his shoulder at Scully as he turned the knob and stepped into his apartment. As the door swung wide, her glance went past him. Her eyes widened in shock. “Mulder, look...” He twisted to face the room and stopped.

It was empty.

The hardwood floor shone brightly in the golden light spilling through the windows. The stillness smelt of floorwax and antiseptic. The furniture was simply gone: the sagging leather couch that had served as his bed for so many years; the paper-strewn desk with all its files, folders, and pictures; the green watery light of the fish tank in the corner. An air of abandonment filled the vacant space.

Mulder turned in a complete circle, unable to take in the stark emptiness of the space he had inhabited ever since he’d moved to Washington. He felt incredulous, yet at the same time he was intensely aware of the inevitability of this scene. The magic bullet that had followed him since he had opened the X-files had finally hit home in a most personal way. The afternoon’s peace was shattered.

Scully spoke softly into the silence. “You were only gone for a day...”

Mulder shook his head. “Long enough.” His voice was bitter. “Though somehow I doubt that human replacements meet the staffing requirements of Mini-Maid.”

Scully raised an eyebrow. “Marita?”

“Alone, in the time since we spoke to her this morning? She’s no Martha Stewart.”

“Then who?”

Mulder shrugged. He went through the kitchen, opening the drawers, looking on the shelves. Not a dish was left, not a single pilled sunflower seed answered his search. He opened the door to the bedroom and stepped back, surprised. “Scully, come look at this.”

Scully joined him. The floor had been stripped of its beige carpeting. On the floor, where the enormous four poster waterbed had once been, two suitcases sat, denying the emptiness. Mulder kneeled beside them and snapped the first one open.

“My clothing,” he said. Scully leaned over him to see. The contents were the same as all his packing for their travels together -- suits, mostly, but also some casual outfits, and a pair of running shoes. Mulder pointed to a shirt emblazoned with the word Mosby’s. “That isn’t mine,” he said, taking it out of the suitcase.

“Look at this,” Scully said, reaching past him. A small piece of paper, carefully folded, had been placed just underneath the shirt. It said, simply, ‘seven’. “Recognise the writing?” she asked.

Mulder shook his head. “No. But I do know Mosby’s. It’s a bar downtown.”

“Someone wants to meet with you.”

“They’ve made it pretty clear they can come to me if they want to,” Mulder said.

“Will you go?”

Mulder leaned back and gave Scully a long, searching look. She returned his gaze, trying to maintain an expression of casual curiosity. It was the same professional calmness she’d always used to shoot down his outlandish theories. It hurt to see this detachment replace the tenderness, the passion, of the night before.

“It isn’t my job anymore, is it?” he said. A rhetorical question.

“It was never just a job. For either of us.”

“I know.” He closed his eyes. The life he’d created to hide from an insupportable existence had become her life, too. When he looked up, he saw a single tear slide down her cheek. He brought a finger to her face, catching it, then lifted her chin so he could look into her eyes. “I won’t run,” he said.

Scully shook her head, wordless, and he pulled her close. Touched her lips with his, because he knew he could, because it was the only reassurance he could give. Life had given them no peace, and words were not enough to hold it at bay. In his heart, he knew he would answer the summons.

August had fallen prey to September. A moist wind chased the sultry heat out of town, rushing through the streets erasing memories of summer. Mulder stepped out of the car into the fading afternoon sunlight. He looked across the street to Mosby’s Bar and Grill, feeling the wind’s chill touch against his face. Scully stood beside him. In the end, she would not let him come alone…as he had known she would.

They took a seat at a table near the back of the restaurant. Mulder could still see the entrance if he leaned out slightly, but otherwise they were hidden by the height of the booth. The waitress absently rattled off the day’s specials and took their drink orders, then left them alone. It was five to seven.

Just as Mulder was stretching again to see past the other patrons, the door opened, accompanied by the tinkle of the bell. A tall, burly man stepped inside, shaking off the cold, his back to them for an instant. He turned around and tensed when he saw Mulder. Mulder leaned back, relaxing against the seat back, suddenly feeling a puzzle piece click into place. Scully shot him a questioning look and he smiled reassuringly. The man walked slowly to their table and stood for a moment, staring down at them.

“Deputy Director Kersh,” Mulder said, drawling out the title as though he weren’t sure it was deserved. “Won’t you join us?”

Kersh glared at Mulder. “I had hoped you’d be aware enough of the danger you’re in to be more circumspect,” he said. He slipped into the seat across from them and shrugged out of his coat. “Agent Scully,” he said. “You understand what you’re risking by being here?”

Her eyes were hard as ice as she stared at him, unwilling to admit to her fears. “As I see it, I’d be risking more to ignore the situation.”

“Then you don’t see the circumstances very clearly,” Kersh said impatiently.

Mulder frowned. “Would you care to explain that?”

“What I am trying to say is that this is one instance when ignorance is more helpful than any information I might provide.” Kersh glanced up as the waitress approached. She set down two coffees and turned to him, but he waved her away. He settled his gold-rimmed glasses more firmly on the bridge of his nose. “Thursday night I was approached in my office by Agent Crane and a man named Noel Rourke, a man who claimed he was CIA.”

“You didn’t believe him.”

Kersh ignored Mulder’s comment. “It was made clear to me that my authority had been superseded in this…situation…that you are all a part of.”

“Us all?” Mulder interrupted with a show of innocence. Kersh’s smug face irritated him, and his snide comments reflected his anger at the deputy director’s control over the conversation.

“Let’s not kid ourselves, Mister Mulder. It comes as no surprise to me that Agent Scully has been delivered of her child. Agent Doggett was not careful enough with his phone conversations.”

Mulder’s lips tightened at the implication. “Then you do know what they are?”

“I know enough to understand when not to ask questions.” Kersh held up a hand to forestall Mulder’s objections. “I was told that they plan to find you, no matter what the cost to themselves. Agent Crane made it known that he would not be returning.”

Mulder could see that Kersh was holding something back. Behind the dark eyes was the knowledge of who, and what, Noel Rourke truly was. He asked, “Why are you coming to us with this information?”

Kersh’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t like you, Mulder. I never did. People suffer when an agent doesn’t play by the rules.”

“You aren’t exactly going by the book yourself.”

“No, I’m not. But when one of my best agents comes to me and makes wild accusations against not only you and Agent Scully but A.D. Skinner as well, I sit up and take notice. It’s obvious you’ve made enemies in the Bureau, but this vendetta of Crane’s goes beyond the bounds of reason.”

“He wants to kill me.”

Kersh nodded. “This morning I saw the surveillance tapes of the garage. I have no doubt that he will manage it somehow.”

“We were told that the tapes had been taken.”

Kersh gave a superior smile. “I took them.”

“Why?”

“Agent Doggett believes that I am somehow a part of this mess you’ve gotten yourself into. If he had evidence to back up his claims, then Agent Crane and this man Rourke would be forced to act precipitously.”

Mulder was surprised. “You’re giving me time.”

“Yes, I am.”

“But you still haven’t told us why.”

Kersh raised his eyebrows. “Mr. Mulder, I want you to leave. I don’t want to be hearing about this X-file or that paranormal event. But I won’t be a party to murder…especially when that murder could make fools of many important people.”

“Who are you protecting?”

“That’s not your concern right now, Mr. Mulder. Your days as a ghostbuster are finished. I am giving you this chance to save the names of a few good men and women who you never gave a damn about in all your years at the Bureau.”

Mulder clenched his fists under the table. “You can’t bury the X-Files.”

Kersh gave an ugly chuckle. “I’m not the enemy here, Mulder. You dug too deep and woke something you couldn’t explain away. Personally, I don’t care if you’d rather give your life for this little crusade of yours. Just try not to mess up my parking garage.” With that, he rose from the table, his coat in hand, and left the bar.

By tacit agreement, they said nothing as they made their way to the car. Scully took the keys from her coat pocket and unlocked the driver's side. Mulder walked around behind and reached for the handle. Suddenly, he stopped.

"Do you hear that?" he asked.

Scully, already stepping into the car, looked up. She turned her head, listening. The soft hum of the streetlights was just audible above the music leaking out of Mosby's. In the distance, traffic hissed. "No."

"There's something..." Mulder took two steps away from the curb, his head tilted slightly, his right hand reaching beneath his jacket and fingering the leather of his holster. "In the alley..."

Scully let the door click shut. Eyeing the empty street, she joined Mulder on the sidewalk. "What is it? What do you hear?"

"I don't know. I just--" He shook his head.

"Mulder?"

Mulder brought his hands up to his temples, pressing against the flesh until his knuckles turned white.

"Are you okay?"

"My head." His body curled in on itself, elbows clenched at his sides. His fingers clutched spasmodically at the skin beside his eyes, just under the hairline.

"Mulder, get into the car."

He stumbled to the passenger door and got in, nearly falling into the seat. "Scully...we've got to go."

Scully spared one last look for the alley entrance. It was shadowed, half a block away from Mosby's neon sign. Mulder groaned and she quickly started the car, the revving engine eerily loud. "I'm taking you to a hospital," she said.

"No," Mulder gasped. "It's okay. I'm better. Just...drive."

Scully pressed her foot down on the gas and let in the clutch. The car leapt forward, and in the brief, blinding glare of the headlights, she saw the man lurking in the alley.

It was Billy Miles.

"Scully..."

"I saw him." Scully squeezed the steering wheel, fear lending strength to her grip.

Beside her, Mulder lay sprawled across the seat, his eyes closed. Streetlight shadows ebbed and flowed over his face, pale with remembered pain. He muttered something, and she turned her eyes from the road to look at him.

"What is it?"

"North. Go north."

Scully glanced in the sideview mirror. There were several cars behind her, but none that seemed intent on staying close. She took the next left turn and guided the car onto a main road, heading north. For the moment, [i]why[/i] did not matter; and she knew well enough that hospitals were no safe haven. Mulder's body was lax, the constricting pain no longer tearing at his temples.

"Turn up here." The words slurred from Mulder's mouth, as though he was talking in his sleep, or from some other level of consciousness. Scully drove, staying within the speed limit, watching for signs of pursuit. None of the cars nearby were familiar, but she knew better than to trust to appearances. Every flash of headlights in the rearview was an enemy, every passing car a threat.

"No one is following us," she said, peering back once more. "Can you tell me where we're going? If experience has taught me nothing else, then it's that a few fancy turns aren't going to throw off Billy Miles."

"Industrial park. Foundry." Mulder blinked and pushed himself upright. "Better."

"You mean the smelters? Why?"

Mulder said nothing.

Scully shook her head at the futility of her questions. Mulder seemed as confused as she was. A few minutes later, they passed the sign for Kard's Ironworks. Mulder, eyes shut, waved towards the large gravel yard on the right. Scully turned onto the narrow alley that led through the lanes of train cars filled with ore, ready for processing at the plant. She stopped when she reached a padlocked, chained gate, hung with signs warning against trespassing.

"All right, Mulder, we're here. Now what?" Scully turned off the engine and sat back, crossing her arms across her chest. Her breasts ached with fullness, and she thought of her mother trying to comfort William with a bottle of formula. Wondered if Billy were already there, his fists driving through the flimsy wood of the door, seizing what he could so easily take, and her mother lying broken on the floor after resisting him...She reached for the key in the ignition. Mulder's hand on hers stopped her from turning the car back on.

"Mulder..."

"Wait."

"No one followed us. This is pointless. They know where we live, after all."

"Just wait. Wait."

Minutes ticked by in slow silence. Mulder's eyes were closed, but his head shifted from side to side, as though he sought--what?--some sound, some scent, something beyond her ken. Beneath his lids, his eyes flickered back and forth, dream-sleep motions, tracking some activity out of sight. Scully watched him, impatience coiling in her belly, her worry for William growing stronger, thinking of returning to an empty apartment.

"The last time Billy came after you, you didn't fall down with a blinding headache," she said, her voice jolting in the quiet.

"Not that I had time to," he said, a small frown creasing his brow, "what with being knocked through a plate glass window."

"That's not much of an explanation." Scully twisted around, looking back the way they had come. Fog clouded the roadway, billowing through the faint beams from the lamps above the fence. Water beaded the windows, blurring her sight. The impact of droplets on the roof was the only sound.

"I know. I know." Mulder opened his eyes and looked down at her. His pupils were pinpricks, eaten by the blue discs of his irises. "William's okay."

"How do you know that?" she cried angrily. "You have us sitting out in the middle of nowhere. Tell me what's going on, Mulder!"

"Why was Billy in that alley?" he asked, almost to himself. "After leaving Desolation Hot Springs like we were yesterday's news?"

Scully said, "Nobody knew we were going to be at Mosby's. We didn't even know ourselves until the last minute. Do you suppose Kersh told them? He as much as admitted that he knows what they are."

"Maybe he did tip them off." Mulder's voice was slow, doubtful. "But it wasn't intentional."

"Not intentional? How do you know that?"

"I...I just know...Scully, listen. It's burning, right here." He tapped his temple with his forefinger. "Like the afterimage of a bright flash. I just know."

Scully reached up a hand to cup his cheek, feeling for fever, but beneath her palm his skin was cool, almost clammy. "Mulder, that's just not..."

"Possible?" He laughed softly, covering her hand with his. "Why do I get the feeling you're only arguing out of habit? I'm the one who can feel it. Here -- " He led her seeking fingers to the thin skin of his temple, let her feel the quick throb of his pulse. Her mind automatically catalogued the structures beneath the skin: superficial branch of the carotid artery, musculus temporalis, sphenoid bone.

"Are you saying you know what they're thinking?" Scully whispered, feeling a strange welling of hope and despair, letting her hand drop into her lap. She remembered Marita's words: They fear you, Mulder. They don't know whether you understand what you've become, and they fear that you have discovered it, this secret... This morning, and yet an eternity had passed since then. The night was deepening around them, and Scully pulled her coat more firmly about her.

Mulder draped his arm around her shoulders and drew her close, sharing the warmth of his body. Scully leaned into his chest, and allowed her head to rest on his shoulder. "Is it like what Kritschgau called alien telepathy?" she asked.

"No, it's not like that. Then...I could hear the voices, like conversations behind a closed door, and all I had to do was turn the handle to hear their words."

"And now?"

"Now, it's not overhearing someone, or seeing a vision. It's just: knowing. Awareness. Like a hunch I can't ignore."

Scully smiled briefly. "You've had plenty of those."

Mulder nodded. "Not like this."

"And why now? Why, after seeing Billy, or whatever it is he's become?"

"I think, because he was paying attention to me...and I to him. Just, this flash of understanding, that they are always watching. Or that they have always been watching...but that makes no sense." Mulder frowned. His arms tightened around her.

"Don't think about it if it hurts." Scully turned her head, felt the slow relaxation of his muscles. The patter of rain drops was a steady murmur above their heads, giving the windshield the appearance of weeping. "Why did you tell me to come here?"

Mulder shrugged. "Before, it was as though we were in the open, exposed. But not here...here, it's gone, like a memory no one wants to think about."

"Why this place, though?"

Mulder's lips curved into a half-smile. "I don't know that...yet."

"Yet?"

"Yeah. Yet. I think. If I could just remember more..."

"You want to experience this again? Mulder, you nearly passed out from the pain, as brief as it was. Don't go seeking it out when you can't say with any degree of certainty whether you can trust this knowledge."

"Who am I to trust if I can't believe my own thoughts?"

Scully gripped his hands, hard. "I don't know."

"I'll tell you. Not Marita Covvarubias. Not Kersh. Not even this light behind my eyes. I trust you, Scully. That's all." Mulder dropped a kiss on her forehead, his lips warm against her skin. "You're the only one who's seen everything I have. And you may not have believed, but you didn't shrug it off, either. You're the one who can contain this feeling of mine...however false or true it may be."

"Then you can trust this. My mother's probably worried out of her mind. Let's go home, Mulder."

"All right."

Scully let the engine rumble to life beneath her fingers, turned the car, and headed back to her apartment, wondering as she did so whether it would be the last time she and Mulder would go there together.

They were nearly home when Mulder put a hand on her arm. She looked over, worried, but he was smiling at her, a mischevious glint in his eye.

"Just one more stop," he said. He pointed, and she pulled the car over.

They both got out, and Mulder took her hand in his as he led the way through the wet grass across a small field. He stopped when he reached the baseball diamond, and smiled down at Scully. "If only we had a bat," he said.

Laughing, she let him curl his arms around her. "It's raining," she answered.

"That's never an excuse."

They stood behind the backstop, Scully with her back against Mulder's chest, his arms wrapped around her; they both faced the lush grass of right field. He appeared to like the way the wind whipped her hair back in his face, and neither of them seemed to mind the rain.

For a long while, the simply stood, remembering; until, in the long grass around the edges of the backstop, Mulder saw a hardball. It was scuffed with grass stains and mud, and its red stitching was loosened by weathering. The token of a long-forgotten pickup game, it lay abandoned, left for mothers' calls and momentary excitements greater than baseball. Mulder walked over and picked it up, rubbing the mud away with his thumbs. He took it in his right hand, gripping it hard along its outside seams. He flicked his wrist as though he were about to pitch it out onto the rough red shale of the baseball diamond, but instead he handed it to Scully.

"Scully, promise me something, please?"

"What?"

"I just want to tell you I'll be around to teach the kid to play. When the time comes, it's my job, all right?"

She smiled, and tossed the ball back. "It's yours," she said. But a shadow passed across her face as she led the way back to the car.

Scully rushed to take William from her mother's arms when she came through the door. Margaret smiled at them, and allowed her grandson to be lifted from her lap. "He's hungry," she said. "Good timing."

Scully smiled and sat down on the couch, giving William her breast. "Thank you so much for watching him," she said.

"It's so nice to have a baby around again," Margaret said, looking down tenderly at her daughter. "Now that Bill's little girl is getting older. Dana, any time you need a sitter, you just call me."

"Okay, Mom."

"I'll be getting home, then," Margaret said. She took her wrap from a coat hanger. "Goodnight, Dana. Goodbye, Fox."

"Goodbye, Mrs. Scully." Mulder opened the door for her.

"Don't you worry, now, Fox," Margaret said softly as she passed him. "I'll take care of her. Of both of them."

Mulder stared at her. Scully, in the living room, was oblivious to her mother's quiet words. "What do you mean?" he whispered.

Margaret smiled up at him, her eyes set in lines of sadness. She set her hand on his arm, lightly, reassuringly. "A mother always knows, Fox. I hope you can find your way home." She held him with her eyes, and he could say nothing, his confusion overwhelming him. She turned away slowly, walking down the hall, and was gone.

Scully looked up when Mulder crouched in front of her. Between them, William's cheeks moved rhythmically, and his soft swallowing was the only sound. She watched him watching William, and felt again the chill that had overcome her on the baseball diamond. Mulder's face was peaceful, contented, exactly the look of a proud father. The same look that, hours ago, had sent a wild shiver of joy through her: the look that promised forever. But now, now, she could not simply bask in the quiet ecstasy that had gripped her last night. Danger was snapping at her heels once more.

Mulder denied it. He brushed away the warnings, asked her to trust to his feeling as he trusted to her science. After escaping Billy Miles this evening, he'd been withdrawn, silent. Fear insinuated doubts into her mind, slipping them past her implicit trust for him. What had Billy done to him? Could she believe his words, his knowledge? What effects of his abduction had they yet to discover?

"You look beautiful," he said, "the two of you. You were meant to be a mother."

Scully let out a breath, shook her head slightly. She bent over William, her hair veiling her face. Mulder reached up and tenderly tucked the strands behind her ear. "Truly," he said.

She lifted her chin, met his gaze. Guilt like a shadow clouded his features, and she knew he was remembering the days when she had despaired, knowing that she could never bear children. She, too, remembered: how she had come to him, when her hopes had been raised once more. How she had grasped at her last chance: asking him so haltingly, so nervously, for his help with the in vitro process. Asked him to accept fatherhood on her terms.

She caressed William's face, took his small hand in hers. Counted again each tiny finger, examined his perfect features. Never give up on a miracle.

"Aren't you afraid?" she asked.

"Afraid?"

"That everything we've been told today is true. That the danger exists." Scully occupied her hands buttoning her blouse and settling William against her shoulder. Placing a towel under his head, she rubbed his back gently.

"We've been given half-truths and vague hints," Mulder said. He stood up and turned away from her, watching the door. She shifted on the couch, trying to see what he was looking at. The suitcases they had brought from his apartment sat in the shadows of the closet. "Your mother thought I was leaving," he said, so quietly that she almost missed the words.

"Why?"

"I don't know."

Scully stared at his profile, hearing the lie in his words. He wasn't saying something; he may not know, but he suspected. He brought a hand to his head, closed his eyes. "Is the pain back?" she asked.

"No, not really."

"Mulder--"

"I'm not going to be the man who wears a tinfoil hat to keep the aliens from reading his thoughts," he said, angry. "But I have to know if what I felt was real."

"Mulder, you can't deny what you felt. I understand that. But how can you endanger yourself--all of us--by ignoring the warnings we've been given? This is our chance. Tonight, you learned something, and whatever it is, it could make you a target. You told me yourself that you felt as though we are being watched. Why can't you see the risk you're running by staying?"

Mulder whirled around, his eyes burning, his mouth set. "I lost something, Scully. Something more important than the missing time. I lost this." He flung his arms out, gesturing towards the entire apartment. "I lost living. The chance I've been given, as you call it, is to make up for that loss. I missed being here for you, for William." He came to her, gripped her arms, and looked searchingly into her eyes. He spoke more softly, his voice full of conviction. "I see the risk--but I also see these warnings coming from those we have no reason to trust. Yes, we saw Billy Miles in that alley this evening. But he was not threatening. He didn't follow us. You know far better than I that these human replacements had ample opportunity to take William. But they did not. All those possibilities, all those risks, came to nothing."

"Is that what you felt, tonight? That there is no risk?" Scully caught his arm in one hand. "Mulder, I want to trust you. I want to believe that we can live our lives in peace. I want to know that William is safe in his own home. But do you truly think that they are following us, watching us, without any ulterior purpose?"

Mulder looked at William. The baby was wide awake, his deep blue eyes watching the world in fascination, one round fist shoved into his mouth. He cuddled closely against his mother's shoulder, her hand soft on his back.

"I don't know."

"And that is what I fear," Scully answered. "Certainty is something I rarely had in our years together. I thought that science was my only security, the only constant. You showed me that I could look beyond it, that I could live with the unexplained. But not when it comes to my son. I fear losing you both. If the only protection you can offer him is the uncertainty of your knowledge, then that is simply not enough."

Mulder laid William in his cradle, his hands supporting the small body. William whimpered as Mulder took his hands away. Above the cradle, the mobile of stars creaked into motion, as though pushed by a sluggish wind. Mulder checked the window, but the curtains did not stir and the latch was secure. He returned to the cradle and pulled the coverlet over the baby. Beneath his palm, he could feel the tiny chest rising and falling. William sighed and eased into a deeper sleep. The mobile above him was still. Mulder shivered. William, sleeping, seemed suddenly fragile: his breath coming soft and shallow could be so easily extinguished, his body broken. His life erased from the world, as though he had never been.

Mulder turned his head when he heard Scully enter the room. She smiled at him, though her eyes were sad. Watching her lean over the cradle, her hands soft on William’s face, Mulder understood her fear. If he stayed, and William was taken, she could never forgive him. The empty cradle would be a silent accusation: if they removed it, then its vacant space beneath the window would scream with the absence.

For the first time in many years, Mulder wondered if that was how his father had felt after Samantha’s abduction. He remembered lying in bed, listening to the rise and fall of arguing voices from the next room. Whether Samantha’s clothes and books should be packed up and given to Goodwill. Whether her toys should be kept. Mulder had quietly cleaned up the remnants of the Stratego game and hidden it under his bed. His mother had insisted on keeping Samantha’s favourite doll, and she had wrapped it carefully and placed it in a box in the crawlspace under the basement stairs. How many times had he come down the steps to see her sitting at the bottom, clutching it in her hands? How often, thinking he was alone, had he done the same thing?

After his parents’ divorce, he had not seen that doll again until, after his mother’s death, he had found the box, dust-covered, in the back of her closet. So many years after their separation and his father’s death, she had still kept the toy: a talisman of her hatred for her husband’s choice.

That doll was now placed on the bedside table, watching over William. Mulder stared at it, and its cloth features stared back, expressionless. It seemed to accuse him, even now, of selfishness: he was staying only to exact a petty revenge on Marita, Kersh, even those that chased him. As though, if he could protect his family by staying, then he would have proved himself to his enemies. He thought that the world owed him happiness: owed him this chance with Scully that he had never fought for before because they had been too comfortable with friendship.

Scully turned to him then, and he took her hand in his, gripping hard. The cornflower blue of her eyes read his expression so easily, and looked into his soul, and hers, with such calm clarity. He pulled her from William’s cradle and down the hall to the guestroom, wanting to explain his reasons once more, to justify himself to her.

“Scully…”

“Shh.” She brought her hands up to his face, then slowly ran her fingers down to his lips, stopping his words. He released the guilt that had been building in him, then. He leaned into her, resting his forehead against hers. She was a slight weight in his arms, and yet the source of all his strength.

“Tomorrow--” he said.

She pulled his face down to hers, kissing him with hard and bruising lips. “Don’t speak,” she whispered fiercely against his skin. Her hands slipped around his neck, pulling him closer, demanding a surcease from all their words and arguments. Demanding forgetfulness, at least for the small hours of the night.

Mulder acquiesced to her unspoken desire, crushing her in his arms, let his tension melt away. Let himself feel the shiver of her flesh, warm, yielding beneath his fingers. Let himself fall into the flow of emotions her caresses evoked.

Run.

Beneath her clothes, he outlined her arms, her shoulders. Her muscles were flat and hard under his palms, shaped by the years of their physically demanding work, yet curved to a woman’s softness. She pressed against his touch, a mute plea, and he stroked harder.

Run, and save Scully.

Her hands slid down his back, drawing fire after them. Her fingernails scratched lines of sensation across his belly, and he drew his breath in, hard. Her amused breath in his ear made him smile, and he buried his face in the crook of her neck and shoulder, feeling the jump of her pulse with his tongue. He drew a trail of kisses down to the edge of her blouse, and undid the buttons with impatient fingers. Her breasts were rounded with motherhood, the pale skin overlaid with a tracery of veins.

Run, and save your child.

She kneaded his chest, watched the flex and play of his muscles as he strained against her. Sweat slicked his skin. His hands on her ribs, her belly, searched for and found her sensitive places, making her quiver at his touch, deep and low inside. He felt her soundless gasp against his bare back, felt her hands clutch at his arms. His breath burned in his throat as desire pooled lava with his every heartbeat.

Run: from danger, into danger, pulling danger after you.

She guided him to her, rocked towards him, and pleasure surged through him. He held back, wary of her healing body, but she writhed against him, harder, faster. The pulse in his ears sounded louder, more insistent, mingling with their ragged breaths, with the rough rhythm of their bodies:

Run. Run. Run. RUN--

Hot water in stinging needles scalded Mulder’s flesh, steam clouded his sight. The morning’s golden light shimmered through the frosted glass of the shower door, but it could not erase the shadow of the two suitcases they had brought from his apartment last night. Mulder leaned against the slippery tile, his face turned away from those reminders, but still he felt their presence. There was an addition to their contents: five thousand dollars in small bills, separated among the clothes; a twenty in a pants pocket, a fifty curled into the lining of a suit jacket. Two hundred in each of the shoes. Over half of his savings, including his severance pay. Kersh was good for something, in the end.

He heard William’s plaintive cry from the next room, and he knew it for a wail of hunger. There was a soft click and the cry was muffled: Scully shutting the door. Still going about her life as though Kersh’s words, Marita’s warnings, his own premonitions, had never happened. He had said he would not run. She would not ask again.

But in her eyes he saw the shadow of fear. He saw the way she cuddled William close, the way she felt the small warmth of his body, and the sadness on her face as she watched the aimless waving of his arms and legs. As though she were trying to memorize her solitary son, her last chance, her miracle. Their miracle. As though she knew there would come a day when William was no longer hers to hold, but stolen away from her. As Samantha had been stolen from him.

Mulder turned the taps off and emerged dripping from the shower. Looked down at the suitcases. They sat in silence as he dried himself, shaved, pulled yesterday’s jeans from the linen shelf. He looked at the worn denim, then back at the luggage.

Earlier, he had snuck out in the pre-dawn light, left Scully’s sleeping form alone in the rumpled sheets. He had gone down to the grocer’s a block away, only to stand in front of the ATM for so long that the clerk began to stare at him suspiciously. He had watched as his hand slipped in his card. Transaction after transaction, the money spewed green between the machine’s metal lips, piled up in the tray beneath. Walking out, his hand rested uneasy on the wad of cash. Coming back, his key in Scully’s lock had felt like a trespass. He had unpacked each case, learned their contents, and filled each pocket with the folded bills.

Why had he done it? Just in case, he thought. Carefully avoiding the question, In case of what?

He rested his hands on the brass locks of the first bag. He hesitated, then flicked it open and grabbed fresh clothes. Boxers, socks, pants, shirt, jacket, tie. He eyed his jeans and t-shirt, then tossed them into the laundry hamper. He dressed, closed the suitcase, and carried them both out to the front hall.

And stopped. An envelope lay on the honey-coloured hardwood in front of the door. Mulder crouched down to examine it, then picked it up. It was plain and unsealed. He opened it and looked inside. A train ticket. In the margin, there was a note scrawled in a hasty hand: I hope you make the right decision. SRSG.

He stood up and slapped the envelope in his hand. Turning around, he saw Scully standing behind him. She had found time to dress after feeding William. The baby was propped in her arms, drool moistening his chin, his blue eyes wide and happy. “What did you find?” she asked.

“This,” he said, holding out the envelope to her, and taking William so that she could inspect it. He sat the baby in his chair on the table and wiped away the drool. William’s lips curled up, and he waved a chubby fist. Mulder smiled down at him and let him grab his pinky. Leaning over, he kissed William’s forehead, feeling the downy fuzz of his hair, smelling the milky skin. “Don’t forget,” he whispered. “You can’t let your mom teach you to play baseball. It’s my job.”

He looked back at Scully. The envelope was limp in her hands. He took it back from her and tucked it into the inner pocket of his suit jacket.

“What will you do?” she asked.

“I’ll do what I have to do,” he said quietly, forcing his voice to be steady. He held out a hand to her, taking her into the circle of his arms. “I’m leaving. I can’t fight that any longer.”

“You can’t,” Scully said, speaking into his chest, her voice shaking. “I haven’t come all this way just to--”

“I won’t have you living in fear,” he said. “I won’t let you live each day expecting it to be your last. You know that it’s me. They left you alone when they could have done you the most harm. It’s me, it always has been.”

“It’s not your fault,” she said. “You can’t believe that.”

“Scully, listen,” he whispered, and she raised her eyes to his. “Just tell me this--did you love me?”

“Of course,” she said impatiently. “Mulder, I’ll always love you. I always have loved you.”

He sighed, and the weight settled heavier over him, the grief for what could have been. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I wasted the time we had--and I’m sorry for what that did to you.”

She shook her head. “The time wasn’t wasted,” she said softly. “Better to love a friend than to lose a lover.”

“I see that,” he murmured. “But that speaks better of you thank it does of me.”

“You are what you are.” Her voice was so quiet that, over it, he could hear the faint thread of the traffic beyond the windows, and William’s soft movements in his highchair. Her hands tightened like icy bones around him, deepening the hug. “I wouldn’t have traded it.”

“I was what I was,” he corrected her. “And I wanted you to know.”

“I knew.”

He had never before seen her cry like this, not even when she had lain hurt and broken in the line of duty. Her tears fell without bitterness or weakness, only coursing with the loneliness that he had himself come to understand. He raised his hand to touch the red silk of her hair. Had he the strength, he would have wept. They--whoever ‘they’ were--had won. Even had he been able to find a way to elude Billy Miles and the others, he knew he could never have asked Scully to go into hiding with him. He was alone now as he had been before she came into his life; but more empty than he had ever been. The final futility of all his years of fighting the hidden evil, the devil in the shadows, crashed down upon him.

“There’s a train that comes into the local station every night at one-twelve,” he said. “If it’s safe--if you need me--”

She nodded, understanding. “Yes.”

“I love you, Dana,” he whispered. “I’m sorry I didn’t know it in time.”

And he ran.

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Spring 2002