Part 1 – Chapters 1, 2 & 3


Title: Any Other Name 
Author: Louise Marin
Email: mibosh@earthlink.net
Rating: NC-17 (sexual situations, but not until later)
Category: XSRA
Keywords: M/S UST; Quasi-MSR; Scully/Other?; Character death
Spoilers: whole series through season six
Disclaimer: Dana Scully, Fox Mulder, Walter Skinner, all the 
Scully's, all the Mulder's, CSM, Krycek,  and the Lone Gunmen 
belong to CC, 1013, and Fox.  Uhmmm...don'tsueme.
Archive: Please write me for PERMISSION ONLY. 
Feedback: Yes, please.

Summary:  Scully must transform one Mulder into another while 
struggling to understand loss, love, commitment, herself, and 
those around her.  Through his metamorphosis, and her own, she 
discovers that different dreamers live different dreams.  Will 
they ever be the same again?


Any Other Name
by Louise Marin


ONE:

There were but a few mundane details Scully would allow herself to 
remember from before.  One was that she never used to abhor going up to 
Skinner's office.  Her boss' disdain for stubborn agents, unsolved 
cases, and breaches of protocol had always been directed at another.  
But now he always aimed straight for her.  Of course, Scully couldn't 
really blame him.  He had to rant at someone, and it had been a year 
since she had taken the other's place.  

Resolutely, Scully folded her hands in her lap and met Skinner's eyes 
across his authoritative oak desk.  "Sir, unlike Agent Carr," she said 
with a glance to her left, at the man in question, "I believe that this 
case still has merit and is worthy of our continued attention.  There 
are families in Santa Fe who need answers."

In response, Skinner leaned toward her and pinned her with critical 
eyes.  "Scully, you need to let this go.  All the children have been 
returned and are not terribly worse for wear.  You've done all that you 
can.  The X-files Division is still an important resource, and you and 
Agent Carr are needed elsewhere."

Scully returned Skinner's glare with her own measure of disdain, but 
her throat had tightened and her chest suddenly fluttered with a 
silent, bitter chuckle.  Behind the glare of Skinner's glasses and the 
slick surface membrane of his current contempt, she could see pity and 
concern dancing the Tango like old but hardly forgotten lovers.  
Blindingly bright, the foul sentiments floated through the air over the 
desk to find and push at the hole in Scully's heart.

Give it up, Scully, Skinner's eyes sang.  Get on with your life.  Are 
you ready to give up the X-files, Scully?   It's been a year.   Can't 
you admit just once that you can't do this anymore without…

No.

Scully expelled a deep breath as she pulled herself back to her present 
situation.  "Please, Sir.  They're children," she said evenly.  "And we 
have yet to rule out the possibility of occult involvement."  

Scully also remembered, now, that she had never hated giving up on a 
case quite so much before.  There were unsolvable cases all the time.  
No one ever had a one-hundred percent solve rate.  Not even…  

Before, she would follow him, her other half, until the leads were 
gone, until science could provide no more answers and his brain had 
churned out its last theory.  Then she would give up.  It left a 
sourness in her belly, always.  But she could move on, then, feeling 
secure in the knowledge that the other's subconscious and sometimes her 
own continued to work, to theorize, to search.  The partners would 
write up a report, file the case away, and wait until perhaps one day 
he would come up with a new theory, a wild one, that just might finally 
prove to be right.  Often the answer never came.  But when it did, 
Scully was able to see herself most clearly, and she could remember 
with pride why she had joined and remained with the FBI.  

Now, though, her other half was gone, and Scully would fight to stay on 
a fruitless case until Skinner took it away.  She found herself arguing 
all kinds of outlandish theories, regardless of whether or not she 
believed in what she was saying.  She hardly knew what she was trying 
to prove, but she never allowed herself to wonder.   

When Skinner shook his head, still not releasing his lock on her eyes, 
she tried again.  "Sir, Mul…we…"  

Scully's heart began to race at her near slip.  She swallowed hard and 
licked her lips to find her throat and mouth thick and dry.  She had 
almost said his name.  

With some effort, she cleared her throat and continued.  "We saw 
something similar to this three years ago when some children went 
missing in California.  There was some kind of ritualistic magic or 
shamanism that the kids were involved in.  I'm sure that if we just 
look deeper into the…"

"That's enough, Scully," Skinner cut her off.  He sighed and sat back 
in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest.  Even sitting, he was 
able to look down at her, his jaw set like a bulldog.  "I've read your 
report.  There's nothing left to do on this case.  It's over.  Let it 
go.  There's a new case waiting for your attention."  He picked up the 
inclusive report Scully had written and dropped it on his pile of items 
to file away.

There was a burning in Scully's stomach that began to bubble up into 
her throat.  She carefully, hopefully subtly beat it down.  "Sir, with 
all due respect, I was under the impression that until a case is 
solved, until justice is served, what we've done is never enough.  Will 
you tell me, please, how we can give up on these kids?  Someone harmed 
these children, and their families have a right to know who.  We're 
close, Sir."

A sigh whistled from Agent Carr.  Scully didn't need to look over at 
him to know he was about to agree with Skinner.  That was all the man 
ever did, all he ever wanted - to agree.  Sometimes, when convenient, 
he even agreed with her.  But not today.  

"The Assistant Director is right, Dana," came the drab voice.  "We've 
been over and over the possibilities.  The children are returned and 
there hasn't been another disappearance in months.  It's not going to 
hurt our solve rate to put this in the unresolved bin.  Let's move on."

Scully shook her head.  The man was an uninteresting name, Jon Carr, 
and an uninteresting face.  He had murky eyes, a small, insignificant 
nose, and lips that were pressed into a permanent pucker.  He was the 
partner that had been forced on her as a stipulation to keeping the X-
files after…after.  He lacked the drive and the exuberance of his 
predecessor; he lacked any of the qualities that had impassioned 
Scully, that had drawn her despite herself into the work and into a 
reality in which she was afraid to believe.

Jon Carr was also the reason the Santa Fe case had gone unsolved.  It 
wasn't because he was a poor agent or because he had made some 
irreconcilable error.  He was simply too much like his partner.  His 
thinking was linear.  Using science and known fact, he connected the 
dots from A to B to C with ease.  But if getting from C on to D was a 
little harder, if it required some form of blind, miraculous intuition, 
he would never get there.  And most of the time neither would Scully.  
Not like the other, the partner she had lost.

Scully looked down at her lap.  She had done the unthinkable.  She had 
allowed him to wiggle back into her conscious mind.  Wringing her hands 
together, she tried to squeeze away the memory of that different man, 
the man who made intuitive leaps daily and in the time and effort of a 
heartbeat.  But sitting there in Skinner's big office chair as she had 
done so many times in the past, Scully felt the basement she now shared 
with Jon pulling her back down to it.  In her mind she could almost see 
him, the real believer, sitting at his desk.  He was surrounded by all 
things bizarre, and he was a very comfortable and smug king upon his 
throne.

Scully's shoulders began to quake, and she bit her tongue to keep her 
eyes from committing a teary betrayal.  Get control get control get 
control, she told herself.  Get control before you embarrass yourself.

"Scully," Skinner was calling to her.  "Are you all right? "

She looked up.  The lovers in his eyes had not stopped dancing.  
Silently she thanked her boss for his concern.  Then she willed him to 
give it up.  She could control this.  

Willfully Scully clenched her fists and pulled her face back into her 
usual mask of composure.  "I'm fine," she said.  "I'm sorry, Sir."

Skinner nodded, his face soft, his ire vanished.  "I'm going to close 
the case, then," he said.  "You can pick up your new assignment after 
lunch."

"Thank you, Sir," Jon said.  

Scully could hear the rustle of Carr's clothes as he started to rise 
from his chair.  She was certain he felt relieved that he had been able 
to agree, felt glad that she was going to let him.  Her stomach was on 
fire.  

"Sir, just give us a couple more days," she implored.  "There is an 
indication that the branding on the children's skin may be 
extraterrestrial in origin.  We found some legitimate looking crop 
circles just outside…"

"Dana, give it a rest," Jon snapped, having apparently reached the end 
of his long fuse.  "You're not Spooky Mulder."

Carr's words cut.  Scully closed her eyes, trying to hide the damage.

"Agent Carr, that was out of line," she heard Skinner bark. 

Spooky Mulder.  She wondered whether it was the indignity of the 
moniker or the mere sound of her former partner's name, any of his 
names, that had caused her breathing to grow sharp and painful.  
Whatever the cause, Scully rounded up the pain up and locked it deep 
inside the darkest part of her heart, where it belonged.  When she 
opened her eyes, both men were looking at her.  

You're not Spooky Mulder.

"No, I'm not.  Agent Mulder is dead," she stated, though Skinner and 
Carr already knew.  Everyone knew.  Before either man could speak, 
Scully rose and left the room.


The coffee shop's other customers were phantoms to Scully.  She felt 
their presence around her, but she hardly understood what they were 
about, what it was like to meet a friend for lunch or to help a child 
pay for a pack of gum, counting out change at the counter.  At least 
Dinah's was too many blocks from headquarters for any of the people to 
be from the bureau, Scully thought as she brought her coffee over to 
one of the tall tables by the window, where she could watch the world 
passing by outside.

After the meeting with Skinner, the X-files office had continued to 
call her down to drown herself in the only place she felt whole 
anymore.  But sitting in the office they had shared for so many years, 
looking at his usurped desk, would only stir up more of the past now.  
And that above all things could not be allowed.

Anger was the only emotion Scully would let run through her now.  It 
was not a violent, desperate anger, but the slow-burning, devastating 
anger of self-hatred.  Her ineffectiveness in solving the Santa Fe 
abduction case coupled with her inability to control her emotions in 
Skinner's office pressed heavily on her shoulders, almost pushing tears 
into her eyes.

"Damn you, Jon," she muttered to herself as she warmed her palms on her 
cardboard coffee cup.  The blue veins in the backs of her hands stood 
up in stark relief.  She was older now, but still considered young.  
There were still so many years ahead of the thirty-six she had already 
lived.  But the world and its people moved around her, outside her, 
outside the store, and she saw none of their faces.  She wondered what 
she had become.  She felt old enough to die, or to be dead already.   
"Damn you."  

There hadn't been a Spooky comment in months.  She'd thought the jeers 
were over.  The other agents still whispered, but now they whispered 
about her, and they did it out of pity rather than jealousy or scorn.

Poor Mrs. Spooky.  Had she turned to drugs? they wondered.  How could 
she keep her game face on without her other half?  Did she go home and 
drink herself into a guilty stupor every night?  Her eyes were dark 
enough to suggest it.

Scully shook her head and took a sip of her coffee, wincing as the 
liquid burned her tongue.  Her colleagues didn't know her.  If they 
ever had, they would know that in a time of crisis, she always turned 
to the work.  

Of course, the work was sadly different now.  She used to turn to the 
work and he would be there.  His presence alone was always a comfort, 
in spite of the physical distance they'd kept.  But not now.  Now she 
was alone no matter where she turned.

Scully bit her lip, which had begun to quiver.  No no no no.  She had 
to be quick now.  She could feel her anger about to turn to sadness, 
and that could not be allowed.  Sadness always seemed to lead to self-
pity.  

Automatically, she began her closing-down routine, the one that always 
threw her therapist into fits.  She shut off her emotions, evened out 
her face, slowed her breathing, and unclenched muscles and teeth until 
her mind agreed to be quiet.  

Ten minutes later, she finished off her coffee and told herself that 
she was ready to face the status quo and the remainder of the workday.  
After gathering her purse and double checking her composure, she slid 
from the tall stool that belonged to her little round table.  Then her 
gaze shifted up to the shop's front counter.

She noticed his hair first.  It was a familiar shade of dark brown, 
looking shiny and soft.  He stood with his back to her as he handed the 
cashier some money.  The familiar height of him and the lean body that 
was cloaked in a nicely cut charcoal suit stilled her breath in her 
chest.  

It was not him, she told herself.  It couldn't be.  And this was 
certainly not the first time she'd seen a tall, slim, brown-haired man 
from behind and been reminded of him.

The man ran a hand through his hair while he waited for the cashier to 
pack his order.  Scully felt a fleeting pressure against her palms, a 
tactile memory of his head in her hands swiveling loose, too loose, on 
its axes atop his shoulders.  Her hands turned cold.  

This was the most painful memory she had allowed herself to have in 
months.  But it melted immediately away when the man took his brown 
paper bag from the cashier and turned around.  

Scully felt her throat tighten.  He was no look-alike.  This was the 
man whose face she had tried to banish from her mind every minute of 
every day since his death.  This was him.

"Mulder," she called, but her voice emerged as a hoarse whisper that he 
didn't seem to hear.  He kept his eyes pointed at the ground, not 
looking at her, not looking at anyone.  He hesitated for a moment, as 
though he wasn't sure what to do, and then he headed for the door.  

Scully was frozen in place, shocked.  He was gone, and the door was 
swinging shut before she found enough control to move.  

She hurried out the door and desperately scanned the sidewalk.  He was 
walking briskly toward a black sedan that was parked along the curb 
about a half a block away.  The car's rear passenger side door was open 
and waiting for him.

For a moment, Scully found herself helplessly entranced by his walk.  
The way his long legs moved, the subtle shift of his shoulders with 
each step, was so familiar, so right.  So him.  Scully didn't know if 
she would burst into laughter or into tears.  

Pulling herself together, she trotted after him.  "Mulder!"

Heads around her turned, but not his.  He didn't turn around, did not 
stop.  Scully called again, louder, but his gait didn't even waver.  He 
was almost to the car.  

Running now, she caught up with him and reached out to hook her hand 
through his arm.  She feared her fingers would pass right through him,  
but he was no apparition.  He was flesh and bone, warm and hard beneath 
her hand and the cotton of his suit jacket.  

He startled at her touch, coming to an abrupt stop and then spinning 
around to finally look at her.  Scully's heart swelled with joy.  His 
was indeed the face she had missed for so long.  

Breathless and grinning, she squeezed his arm, waiting for him to 
smile, to speak, to take her into his arms, anything.  She was his best 
friend in the world, but  he only blinked at her, his expression blank.

"Mulder, it's me," she said.  "It's Scully."

He shook his head slightly, and then he began to fidget under her 
scrutiny, looking confused and shy and a little afraid.  

How could he not know her? Scully wondered.  How could he even be 
alive?

"Mulder, do you remember me?  Dana Scully?"

He shook his head again.  "I...I'm sorry.  I am not supposed to speak 
to anyone," he said quietly.  

Before Scully could stop him, he gently pushed her hand from his arm 
and turned to get in the car.  She called to him again, running up to 
the sedan only to have the door slammed shut in her face.  

Scully watched as the car pulled from the curb.  The windows were 
tinted black, and through them she could discern no more than the 
outline of Mulder's form along with those of two others sitting beside 
him..  She half expected to see smoke curling up from a crack in one of 
the windows, but there was none.  

Snapping her attention to the car's Virginia state license plate, 
Scully memorized the numbers and letters and the make of the car before 
it all disappeared down the street.


Twenty minutes later, Scully rushed into the office.  Her skin still 
tingled where Mulder's fingers had brushed across hers when he'd 
slipped her hand from his arm.  Mulder was alive.  He hadn't seemed to 
remember her, not then, but he was alive.  She didn't stop to ponder 
how such a miracle could possibly be.  She simply headed straight for 
her computer to input the information on the sedan.

"Scully," Jon called to her from his desk.  "I got the new case file 
from Skinner on my way back from the cafeteria, so you don't have to 
worry about it."  

Scully knew Jon was trying to apologize for his behavior in Skinner's 
office, but she afforded him little attention.  Her fingers flew over 
her keyboard.  She accessed the bureau's main automotive database and 
punched in the numbers she had been repeating in her head since the 
black sedan had pulled away.  

"Scully, look, I'm sorry," Jon tried again.  "About what I said before.  
About Mulder."

"It's all right, Jon," Scully said dismissively.

"I mean..."

"Jon, it's fine.  Shit!"

"What?"

Scully shook her head and looked away from the computer screen.  
"Nothing.  It's nothing."  

The database indicated the license number worn by the black sedan was 
registered to a white Volkswagon Bug.  Scully punched the power button 
on her computer monitor, disgusted, and picked up the phone.  

In the end, of course, it all checked out.  The owner of the Bug 
verified the existence of his car and the license number; the sedan's 
plate was a fake.  Scully leaned back in her chair, suddenly both 
exhausted and angry at herself for feeling disappointed.  She should 
have known the search wouldn't be so easy. 

After a moment, Jon tapped on his desk to get her attention.  "Dana, 
are you all right?"  He was watching her carefully.  Everyone watched 
her now.  They wondered when old Mrs. Spooky was going to break down, 
give up, snap, quit, whatever.

"Fine.  I'm fine," Scully asserted, and she was only a little surprised 
that part of her truly meant it.  She had seen Mulder.  He was alive.  
Somehow.  

"Dana, we should start on this case."

"Just give me a minute, Jon.  Okay?"  she requested as she closed her 
eyes.  A moment later, she heard Jon sigh and turn back to his desk.

Sighing herself, Scully rubbed her hand across her forehead.  Had she 
really seen him?  She thought hard about the scene at the coffee shop.  
She remembered him standing there at the counter, running his hand 
through his hair.  She remembered the feel of his arm in her hand and 
the softness of his skin on her fingers.  He was real.  He was solid.  

But how could he be alive at all?  

Scully had been there…  She had been there when…  No one could have 
survived.  They'd told her he hadn't survived.  

Without warning, a familiar shock of guilt hit her.  If she let him, he 
would call to her still, in her mind.  His voice was raspy and 
exhausted, dying.  "Scully....  Scully...."  

Scully could feel panic sliding into her chest.  Her stomach tight and 
her jaw clenched, she quickly worked to shut the memory down, turning 
back to good old reliable logic:  

It was possible that the man she'd seen at Dinah's was a shape-shifter 
like the one they'd encountered on a case in the past.  It was possible 
that the demon had taken on her former partner's form to...to what?  To 
drive her crazy?   

There was also the chance the man she saw at Dinah's had been a green-
blooded clone, a hybrid.  They had cloned his sister.  Why not him? 

Scully sighed heavily, feeling a combination of relief and despair.  
These other possibilities weren't possibilities at all, not according 
to her heart.  The shape-shifter hadn't felt like him, and the clones 
had hardly even felt like people at all.  This man did.  This man felt 
like him.  He walked like him.  He smelled like him.  He touched like 
him, gentle, hesitant, not wanting to offend.  It was him, her partner, 
right down to the mole on his right cheek.  

But why would he let her see him only to disappear again?  

The scene at the coffee shop had certainly felt like a setup.  He came 
in, made sure she saw him, then fled without a word to be driven away 
in an unregistered black sedan.  Who had arranged it?  Certainly not 
him.  Certainly he would never knowingly torture her so.

Scully rubbed her eyes.  He could be five minutes away right now and 
she would never know it.  Would he come eventually to find her?  She 
remembered his silky voice from just a fraction of an hour before.  
"I'm not supposed to speak to anyone," he'd claimed.  To come to her, 
he would have to escape whoever seemed to be controlling him, whoever 
was with him in that car.  He would, she thought, if he could, if he 
even remembered her.  Did he?  

Unsure, Scully felt hope crawl back into its hole.  She was trying to 
perform her shutting-down routine when her office phone rang.

Her heart racing, begging for the caller to be him, or to be someone 
who knew something about him, she snatched up the receiver.  "Scully."

"Dana, honey, it's Mom."

Mom.  It seemed like eons had passed since she'd last spoken to her 
mother.  Though they'd been close, before, Scully hardly knew what to 
say now.  She remembered only that the pity and concern danced in her 
mother's eyes more brightly than in anyone's.

"Dana?  Are you all right?"

"Yes.  Fine, Mom.  I just…  I'm sorry.  Don't worry about it."

There was silence for a moment, and then, "Well, if you're sure.  I was 
just calling to tell you your aunt Sylvia is coming through town and 
we're going to have lunch on Wednesday.  Why don't you join us?"

"I don't think so, Mom."

"Dana, please.  You always say no to me, and I know you need to get 
out.  Please come with us." 

Scully closed her eyes again.  Mulder was alive.  Mulder was alive, and 
her mother was asking her to lunch with Aunt Sylvia.  The world was 
spinning around Scully in the darkness, and she was sure that any 
second she was going to end up on the floor.  Mulder was alive.  She 
wondered if she was going insane, if the whole thing had been a 
hallucination.  It was a distinct possibility.  

Her mother continued to plead her case in Scully's ear,  but Scully 
couldn't accept a request for a meeting so inconsequential, no matter 
how close to normalcy it might bring her.  Shame washed through her, 
but there were other things now.  

She opened her eyes.  "I can't, Mom."

Her mother's speech came to an abrupt halt.  "You can't."

"No.  There's somewhere else I have to be."



TWO:

He had slept two times since he had seen her.  Each time, he dreamt of 
her face, her voice, and of her hair that was a color he had never 
known hair could be.  He dreamt that he was a person and that she spoke 
to him again as one.  She called him a name, although it was not his.  
She recognized him, looking into his eyes and expecting him to know her 
too.  

She touched him in the dreams, as she had done that most wonderful day, 
the day they had taken him out into the real world.  But in his dreams 
there was no car there waiting to take him back inside, back to the 
Others.  He wondered if the men would ever take him out again.

"Dana Scully," she had said that day.  He had wanted to tell her his 
name, but he had just recently realized that numbers were not real 
names.  Names were something else, their only purpose to identify, to 
define.  Dana Scully was a name.  Doctor Baker was a name.  But he and 
the Others had no names to tell, and the gray-haired man, whose name he 
did not know, had told him not to speak to Dana Scully at all.

When she had stopped him, he had been startled but also pleased.  He 
had wanted to let her touch him and speak to him more, but he could not 
disobey.  Instead, he had done as he had been instructed, ducking back 
into the car.  

The men had let him turn to look at her as the car moved away.  She did 
not take her eyes from the car, but he knew the windows were too dark 
for her to see him.  When the car turned, she disappeared.  He felt 
empty, then and now, as though he would never see any real person 
again.  

The men had wanted to know what the woman had said to him.  He guessed 
that her speaking to him had not been part of their confusing plan, and 
he told them everything but that she had said her name.  Dana Scully he 
kept for himself, something that was just his own.

"Hold still, please, son.  I'm almost finished," Doctor Baker said now.

He nodded and looked down at his hands, lacing his fingers together in 
his bare lap and trying to keep his legs still as they dangled over the 
edge of the metal examination table.  The temperature was low in the 
small room, and Doctor Baker was dabbing the cold liquid onto his 
shoulder again.  It made his body shake with tingly shivers.  He never 
liked the sensation and waited to put his clothes back on.  

The skin on his shoulder had started to turn pink and tender since 
Doctor Baker had begun the treatments several sleeps ago.  He wondered 
what the doctor were trying to do to the round areas on his shoulder, 
back and thigh.  The Others were not receiving the same treatment.  In 
the past, the doctors would sometimes take one or more of them for 
tests.  It had even happened to him a few times.  But something was 
different now.  He had received more attention recently than all the 
other twelve together.  He had been taken out.  None of them had ever 
been taken out before.

Doctor Baker pressed too hard on his sensitive skin, and he startled 
and bit his lip.  He wondered why the doctor was not being as gentle 
during his examination as he had been all the other times.  There was a 
deep frown behind Doctor Baker's brown beard and the low growl of anger 
colored his voice when he spoke.  He noticed that the doctor was 
reluctant to meet the eyes of the gray-haired man who watched them 
both.

"I assume this treatment will assist in the replication of the scar 
tissue," the gray-haired man said.  

"Yes.  His skin needs to be made receptive to new tissue before 
implantation," Doctor Baker explained.

"Will it heal quickly?"

"Remarkably, according to the surgeon."

"Why isn't the surgeon doing that?"

Doctor Baker grunted.  "This is a simple hydrochloretic wash.  It's not 
rocket science."

He did not understand what the men were discussing.  He focused his 
energy instead on observing the gray-haired man.  He had not seen the 
man since the day they had gone out, but now the man had returned to 
observe his physical examination.  

Slowly, the gray-haired man ran his eyes up and down his body.  The man's gaze made him feel a discomfort in 
his stomach, though he did not understand why.  He knew so few people.  He did not understand them very 
well and was rarely sure of how he should feel about them beyond his initial curiosity.  The gray-haired man, 
though, was easy.  The man had an odor about him.  There was an odor in the eating room once, an 
uncomfortable odor.  One of the teachers had told them it came from some food that had gone spoiled.  The 
gray-haired man smelled like that, dangerous and unpleasant.

He had been content before the gray-haired man had come, before he had 
taken him out.  He had been able to concentrate on his lessons and  the 
company of the Others.  But the gray-haired man had teased him.  He 
took him out of the Clinic and showed him the real world.  The real 
world was beautiful, but the man would not allow him to interact with 
it.  He would ask questions that the gray-haired man refused to answer.  
The man made him do things, but he would not tell him why. 

There was one thing, though, for which he was grateful to the gray-
haired man.  Had the gray-haired man never come to the Clinic and taken 
him out, he would have never spoken with the person Dana Scully.  He 
would remember her always.

"So, the outing went as you had planned?" Doctor Baker asked the gray-
haired man.

"Essentially.  Our little test was quite successful.  I'm sure you're 
glad to hear that, maestro."

"Quite."

The two men began to discuss the events of the outing while Doctor 
Baker continued his examination.  He tuned them out, cycling again 
through his own cherished memories of the experience.  New men, not the 
doctors or the teachers, had taken him from the lesson room and dressed 
him in strange, dark clothes with many pieces, like the ones they and 
the gray-haired man wore.  The new clothes were nothing like the 
comfortable, soft, yellow ones he wore every day.  

Once he was dressed, they had taken him in a car.  He had seen pictures 
of cars before, but he had never ridden in one or seen one move.  It 
had startled him the first time it moved, and the other men in the car 
had laughed.  He did not understand the unpleasant feeling that rose in 
his chest when he had realized he had provoked their laughter.  

The car had moved for several minutes, and then it stopped.  He had 
tried to sit still and quiet, hoping that the gray-haired man would 
tell him he was allowed to get out.  He had been fascinated by the real 
people passing by, the cars, the trees, the animals.  He had wanted to 
touch everything.  

After a long time of waiting, the men's attention had gone to the 
woman, Dana Scully, as she walked toward them.  Before she had reached 
the car, though, she had turned and disappeared inside a building.  
They had called it a shop and told him that a shop is where you go to 
buy things.  They had explained to him money and given him some to 
hold.  Then they had directed him to get out of the car and go inside 
the shop.  He was to buy something called a muffin, to let Dana Scully 
see him, and then he was to leave.  When he saw her in the store, he 
had wanted to talk to her, but that was not allowed.  Then she had 
followed him back out to the street…

Doctor Baker interrupted his thoughts.  "Did you like the woman you 
saw?"

"Of course he liked her," the gray-haired man said.

He said nothing, not sure that he should reveal to the gray-haired man 
how much he had liked Dana Scully, how he could not forget her face or 
her hair or her voice.  He had felt an excitement throughout his body 
when she touched him.  He could have pulled out of her grasp by turning 
away, but he had been unable to keep from returning her touch even as 
he was trying to make the escape that was required of him.  He had 
taken her hand in his as gently as he could, brushing his fingertips 
over her skin in the tiniest caress.  It lasted for a fraction of a 
second before he had to push her away, but the touch was burned into 
his memory like it was something he experienced every day.

"Your work has been very expedient, Baker.  I must say, I was worried 
there for a while.  With the first few having turned out so damaged.  
But we're still right on schedule," the gray-haired man said, nodding.  
The man's eyes swept over his body again.  "Excellent work."

Doctor Baker finally put his cotton swab and the vial of cold solution 
down on the counter, turning to dab at the spots on his shoulder, back, 
and thigh with a dry tissue.  "Should we be talking about this in front 
of him?" Doctor Baker asked the gray-haired man.

The gray-haired man's lips curled into a smile that made him shiver 
even more despite the absence of Doctor Baker's icy cotton swab.  "He 
won't remember soon, anyway," the gray-haired man said.  He tried not 
to startle when the man reached up to touch his cheek.  The gray-haired 
man's comment filled him with alarm.  What did he mean when he said he 
would not remember soon?

"She'll think it's him, then?" Doctor Baker asked.

The gray-haired man smiled again, pinning him with cold eyes.  "She 
already does.  Doesn't she, boy?"  

She already does.  Were they talking about Dana Scully?  Would he get 
to see her again?  But they said he would not remember.  "I don't 
understand," he said quietly.

"I know," the gray-haired man said and then turned to Doctor Baker.  
"You just make sure you do a convincing job on the scars and the dental 
work, understood?"

Doctor Baker's frown deepened.  He nodded slightly and then looked away 
from the gray-haired man to begin filling a syringe with yellow liquid.

He sat quietly on the exam table while Doctor Baker gave him his 
injections, hoping that the men would continue to talk.  The gray-
haired man's intentions were unclear and confusing, and he wanted 
desperately to see the whole picture, to know his future.  The acid he 
had learned about in his lessons began to boil in his stomach, and the 
heavy weight of fear settled in his chest.

"You're certain this is the one you want?" Doctor Baker asked.  "In two 
more weeks we will begin to prep him for surgery."

"He's perfect.  More like the original than I could have imagined.  
I'll take him.  Wrap him to go."  The gray-haired man grinned.

He bit his tongue to keep his discomfort from showing on his face.  The 
man had said that he wanted him, that he would take him.  Take him 
where?  He wanted to go out again, but he hoped Doctor Baker was not 
going to give him to the gray-haired man.  The man was the last person 
he wanted to govern him.  

The men continued to speak.  He looked up into the corner of the room 
and studied the security camera there, trying to appear disinterested 
in their conversation.

"What happens to the others once he's gone?" Doctor Baker asked.

"Nothing, yet.  Carry on with them as you have been."

"Are you going to leave him at headquarters?"

"No.  With the woman.  He's not ready to reappear at work yet, but 
she'll give us exactly what we need.  Her behavior is extremely 
predictable." 

"Is it?"

The gray-haired man nodded.  "Oh, yes.  We've been watching her for the 
better part of a decade, you know.  Even if she were to suspect he is 
not the original, which is not going to happen, by the way, I doubt 
there's anything that would keep her from bringing him back to work in  
Mulder's shoes.  She'll complete his education faster than we could 
ever hope to."

He was fairly sure they were discussing Dana Scully.  It made sense.  
They had arranged for her to see him.  She knew Mulder, the Original, 
and had believed he was him.  The men in the car had wanted to know if 
it made him feel bad that she recognized him as someone else.  It had 
not.  It did not matter.  When she spoke to him, it had felt better 
than anything he had ever experienced.  

Was the gray-haired man planning to give him to Dana Scully?  He was 
afraid to hope for something so wonderful.  Dana Scully was good.  Dana 
Scully lived in the real world.  Dana Scully was a real person and 
treated him as one also.  He would subject himself to Doctor Baker's 
icy solution every day if they would let him go to be with her.

The gray-haired man grinned at him again, pulling him from his 
enjoyable memory.  The gray-haired man had said he had been watching 
her, Dana Scully.  He wondered if she knew.  He wanted to tell her, to 
warn her.  He would, if they sent him to be with her.  He would tell 
her the truth.  The gray-haired man was a dangerous man.

"Are both the tracking devices in place?" the man asked.

Doctor Baker reached for the little bottles that held his pills.  "The 
devices have been in place since before they each were born.  You know 
this.  We'll transfer his tracking frequency to you as soon as he's 
ready."  

He grimaced when the doctor dropped a dozen different pills in his hand 
and poured him a glass of water at the sink.  He hated the pills.  They 
tickled his throat as they went down.

"Doesn't like to swallow pills," the gray-haired man observed.  "Just 
like the original.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised."

"No, you certainly should not."  Doctor Baker handed him the water.  
"Come on, drink up, son."

He swallowed the pills as best he could, peering over the glass at the 
men.  They watched him.  They never stopped watching him.  He had 
suddenly become so important to them, but he hardly understood why.  

He wondered what his future held.  They were planning to send him out 
into the world.  He was to pose as the Original, but he had no idea 
what the Original was like.  They were planning to trick Dana Scully, 
to make her believe an untruth about him.  But he would tell her the 
truth as the teachers had taught him to.

"Do you remember me?" Dana Scully has asked of him.  She spoke as if 
she had not seen the Original in a long time.  He wondered what had 
happened to the Original, wondered if he was out there somewhere.  He 
wondered when he would get to see Dana Scully again.

"The FBI will be glad to have him back.  And so will we," the gray-
haired man said, patting his cheek again. Then he turned to look at 
Doctor Baker.  "Make the memory wipe selective.  Erase everything but 
his lessons.  I'll be back for him in four weeks."

Doctor Baker looked like he would speak in reply to the gray-haired 
man, but then he closed his mouth and simply nodded.

He looked down at his hands, trying not to let the men see his reaction 
to the gray-haired man's words.  The man had said he would not 
remember.  They were planning to erase his memory.

They had wiped Ten's memory not long ago.  Ten had not spoken much 
about it.  They had taken him for tests, and he had returned not 
knowing who he was, where he was, or who the Others were.  Ten had not 
even remembered his own number.  

He did not know why they had erased Ten's memory, but he hoped it was 
not meant as a test of the procedure they planned to use on him.  He 
took another sip of water and tried to shake the fear away.

When he looked up again, the gray-haired nodded to him and then turned 
toward the door.  As the gray-haired man moved to leave, though, Doctor 
Baker reached out quickly and grabbed the man's arm.  It was the first 
time he had ever seen anyone touch the gray-haired man.  "We'll be 
needing that money."  Doctor Baker's voice was very low and rumbling.

"All in good time, I told you, Baker," the gray-haired man said.

"When?"

"Later."

"What about the others?"

"What about them?"  The gray-haired man lifted Doctor Baker's hand from 
his arm, dropped it, and left.  

The door swung shut and Dr. Baker turned back to him, shaking his head.  
The foul air in the room began to clear, but he felt little relief.  He 
wondered if Doctor Baker knew the gray-haired man was dangerous. 

After taking the glass from him,  Doctor Baker helped him back into his 
clothes.  "All done now," the doctor said, his voice sounding more 
gentle now that the gray-haired man was gone.  "Time for you to sleep."

He nodded and followed Doctor Baker back to the sleeping room.  The 
Others were already in their beds, which were lined up evenly next to 
each other.  He moved toward his own bed, but Doctor Baker called to 
him, "Thirteen."  He turned back and the doctor put his hand on his 
shoulder.  "I'm very proud of you, you know.  You're perfect."

He nodded and then left the doctor at the door.  As he walked past all 
the Others, his eyes fell on Ten.  He wondered what it was like to 
forget.  

When he reached his bed at the far end of the room, he climbed under 
the covers, rested his head on his pillow, and closed his eyes.  But 
sleep would not come.  

He wanted to remember who he was and where he came from.  He cherished 
the few memories that he had.  They made him feel real.  More than 
anything, he wanted to remember being touched by Dana Scully.

He felt a sudden need to do something he had never done before; he 
needed to act.  He would sleep, and when he woke he would not rest 
until he had a plan of his own.  He snuggled down into the mattress, 
hoping that he would dream either of Dana Scully or of a solution to 
his troubles.  If he could dream of both, it would be perfect.

When sleep finally found him, he dreamt of nothing.


He had spent many days trying to discover the code that would open the 
doctors' main laboratory.  It was the one room to which he and the 
Others were never allowed entry, and it was the one room that could 
hold the answers that he needed.  It had to be; he had looked 
everywhere else.

He had passed the room a hundred times in the past, each time looking 
in with wonder and curiosity through the large windows at the computers 
and other machinery housed within.  In the days since the gray-haired 
man had gone, however, he had looked into the room feeling only 
desperation.

It had been several weeks since he saw Dana Scully.  They watched him 
more carefully now than they ever had before.  It was difficult to find 
the information he required without catching their observant eye, and 
he feared his time was growing short.  He had met a new doctor who had 
drawn lines in ink over the pink areas on his shoulder, back and thigh.

They had changed his lessons, and he now had precious little time to 
himself.  The Others continued to go for their regular lessons, but the 
moment he awoke in the morning he was now taken alone to a room where 
teachers he had not met before and whose names he did not know told him 
of things called government and psychology and paranormal phenomena.  
They were preparing him to become the Original.  The information the 
teachers offered, though, was no comfort to him.  It had no practical 
application, and it did not change the fact that they were planning to 
send him out knowing nothing of who he really was or where he had come 
from.

He spent little energy on the lessons, giving the teachers just enough 
of his attention to feign interest in their respective subjects.  He 
dedicated himself only to realizing his own plan.  He was determined to 
go out, but he would go on his own.

Throwing the covers back, he slipped quietly from his bed.  Across the 
walking-space that ran down the center of the room was One's bed.  One 
stirred and then sat up, his covers around his chin.  His dark eyes 
were full of worry, but he made no sound.  The first four had not 
received enough brain stimulation in the growing-tanks, and they had 
come out unable to speak.  They had separate lessons of their own, and 
they communicated with their hands.  One was the worst of them.  He 
hardly understood any words at all.

He signed the word for sleep to One and then stepped away from his bed.  
Several beds away, Ten shuffled back and forth in front of his own bed.  
Ten walked differently.  Something had gone wrong with him, like it had 
with the first four.  He went to Ten and put his hand on his shoulder 
to calm him.  "Thank you," he whispered into Ten's his ear.

Ten smiled and shook his head.  "Don't thank me.  If you disappear, 
they'll choose one of us instead," he whispered.  "It might be me."

He looked down at his feet.  "They would take your memory again."

"It doesn't matter.  Let them take it, if it means I can go out."

"I would not let them."

Ten shook his head.  "No.  You wouldn't.  You've already been."

He nodded and squeezed Ten's shoulder, knowing that Ten would never be 
picked to pose as the Original.  Ten walked differently.

"Are you ready?" Ten whispered in his ear.

He nodded and stripped his shirt and pants from his body, tossing them 
onto his empty bed.  He was unsure, but he had to assume that there was 
an alarm in the room he planned to enter.  Ten kept his clothes on, and 
the two headed for the sleeping room's door.  There was a camera on the 
wall in the sleeping room.  He hoped that the security men would assume 
that Ten was leaving to use the toilet and that he was going to use the 
shower.

He took a deep breath and opened the door.  Ten slipped out into the 
dim hallway ahead of him.  He followed, and the door swung shut behind 
him.

"You be careful," he whispered to Ten as they made their way to the 
washroom.

"You be quick," Ten whispered back.  "They'll not punish me severely 
for accidentally triggering an alarm, but your time will be short.  I'm 
not as interesting a distraction to them as you are, but I will stall 
as long as possible."

In the washroom, he stepped into the shower stall closest to the door.  
He waited for Ten to use the toilet and then leave the room.  Then he 
swung the stall door open, slipped out, and pressed his back to wall 
next to the washroom door.  It had taken four days to map the location 
and range of all the security cameras that monitored the rooms and 
hallways.  The cameras watched key areas but ignored many hallways and 
insignificant rooms deep within the Clinic.  There was a camera 
watching the washroom, but no camera inside or out watched the 
washroom's door.  He counted to ten and then slipped out into the hall, 
beginning the slow journey to the lab.  Clinging to the walls and 
hiding in shadows, he was able to stay out of the security men's 
pictures.

Through the windows, he saw that the laboratory was dark and empty.  He 
slipped along the wall until he was across from the lab's locked door.  
He looked up at the single camera above his head.  It was pointed down 
and across the hall at the door.  He closed his eyes and waited, his 
heart racing.

When he heard the distant alarm sound, he counted to ten again and then 
darted across the hall to the door.  He keyed the code Ten had 
discovered by carefully observing Doctor Baker into the door's locking 
mechanism and then reached for its handle.  Relief rushed through him 
when the handle turned and the door opened.

Several seconds went by while his eyes adjusted to the darkness of the 
room.  The hallway's dim light poured in through the windows, but the 
rest of the lab fell under shadow.  In one dark corner, high up near 
the ceiling, he saw the blinking red light of a security camera.  He 
felt his chest tighten with fear.  He hoped desperately that Ten had 
been successful in distracting the guards who watched the video 
pictures.  Focusing again on his goal, he crept around quickly, 
glancing over tables full of strange machines that he was certain he 
would not have been able to identify even in the light.

The main computer had its own table in the center of the room.  He 
pressed the power button, squinting as the screen threw blue-gray light 
onto his face and chest.  Using the keyboard, he pulled up the Clinic's 
database and ran a search on a string of three letters: fbi.

The computer sent him to the FBI central database, where he began 
memorizing information.  FBI, he had learned in his new lessons, stood 
for Federal Bureau of Investigation.  It was a branch of federal law 
enforcement.  He had learned about laws before, when they had talked 
about government.  People who followed the laws were good.  He wondered 
if the people involved with the FBI followed the laws.

There was a search option in the FBI database.  He typed in the name 
Mulder, and the computer returned a small file of information.  While 
the name on the screen seemed to consist of three words, Fox William 
Mulder, there was no mistaking that he had the right file.  Next to the 
name was a picture that displayed the exact likeness of himself and the 
twelve others.  Fox William 

Mulder was certainly the Original.

Quickly, he memorized the file, noting the words Special Agent, which 
seemed to be important, as well as the word deceased.  Deceased, he 
thought.  Dead.  Death.  The teachers had been vague on the topic of 
death.  Death is when our bodies stop working and we cease to be, one 
teacher had told them.  The notion that he could cease to be both 
confused and frightened him, but he had to assume that was what had 
happened to Fox William Mulder.  The file also said that Fox William 
Mulder had been a working partner with Special Agent Dana Scully during 
the years 1994 through 1999.  Dana Scully.

He went back to the search screen and typed in Dana Scully.  He smiled 
when her picture appeared and reached out to run his fingers over the 
likeness of her face.  He desired to take the picture with him back to 
the sleeping room.  But that was impossible.  He shook his head, hoping 
that his plan would work and he would see her again soon with his 
memory of their first meeting intact.

Though the alarm still cried in the distance, he knew he would be 
running out of time.  He memorized Dana Scully's file quickly, thrilled 
to find that, unlike Fox William Mulder's file, hers provided an 
address.  An address, he had learned, told the streets on which people 
lived.  Streets were what the car had driven on when he had gone out.  
He smiled to himself and then used the computer to look up one last 
thing.  Deep inside the Clinic's own database, he found a map of the 
area around Dana Scully's address.  He was not sure about distances, 
but it seemed relatively near to the streets of the Clinic, the names 
of which he had observed when they had taken him out.  He memorized the 
map pages and then shut the computer down.  

The alarm was still sounding and no guards had appeared.  He hoped that 
Ten was not being punished for his part in his plan.  

Turning quickly from the computer, he searched the room for any items 
that might prove useful, careful not to leave anything out of place.  
There were few cupboards or drawers to search, but at the far end of 
the room he saw one tall, metal cupboard.  It stood peculiarly alone 
against the wall.  Curious, he turned the handles on the cupboard's 
doors and pulled.  

When the dim light that spilled in through the windows fell on the 
contents of the cupboard, his body jerked with surprise and fright.  
Trying not to call out, he bit down on his lip hard enough to taste the 
metallic flavor of blood in his mouth; his yelp came out as a soft, 
breathy whimper.  He took a step back away from the cupboard and 
continued to stare at its contents in terrible awe.  

Inside the cupboard sat an enormous glass cylinder filled with green 
liquid.  Behind the glass, inside the liquid, he saw his own face, the 
face of the other twelve, the face of Fox William Mulder, looking back 
at him through open and unmoving eyes.  

The body floated but, like the eyes, did not move.  The skin was pale, 
and the limbs and face were slightly swollen.  The head, he noticed, 
leaned at an odd angle.  He reached up and patted his palm against the 
glass, but the Other inside did not respond.  

A board holding some papers hung from the inside of the cupboard's left 
door.  The top of the first page read 'Fox William Mulder - Died April 
12, 1999.'  He looked back up at the Other.  It was the Original.  It 
was Fox William Mulder, deceased.  He clamped his hand over his mouth, 
the urge to call out overwhelming.  He looked back at the eyes, 
realizing now that there was no life in them.  They would never move, 
or see, or know, or feel ever again.  This was what it meant to cease 
to be.  Tears began to burn at the corners of his eyes, and he looked 
away from the Original.

There were also some photos attached to the inside of the cupboard 
doors.  They all showed some strange markings on what looked like very 
light skin.  Glancing back up at Fox William Mulder's body, he noticed 
the same markings on the shoulder and thigh.  Those were the same 
places Doctor Baker had been treating on him with the icy solution.  
They were planning to put the markings on him, to make him more like 
Fox William Mulder.  His body began to shudder, and he clenched his 
fists, trying to fight the fear running through him.  He had to get 
out.  He had to go soon.

As he reached up to close the cupboard doors, he felt a hand grasp his 
shoulder.  He spun around to face an angry looking guard.  

"You're not supposed to be in here," the guard said, his voice low and 
his teeth pressed together.

He blinked at the guard and then looked past him to the room's only 
exit.  All the blood in his body seemed to charge into his head.  He 
could not think; his plan was useless now.  Now was the time to act.  
Lunging forward, he shoved the guard in the chest hard enough to knock 
him down, and then he ran.



THREE:

Scully had stationed herself inside the coffee shop again.  She was a 
sitting sentinel of hope and desperation, occupying her favored booth, 
the one with the clear view of the door.  

The shop's patrons were all unfamiliar to her, as usual, until the door 
swung open, the little bell rang, and Skinner stepped in.  Until now, 
Scully had not needed to hide her disappointment when a new customer 
arrived while she haunted the area, waiting for another glimpse of 
resurrection.  Now she worked to keep her face smooth in front of her 
boss.

Skinner nodded to her as he approached the counter.  Scully pondered 
his arrival; she had never seen him take his lunch or dinner break at 
Dinah's before.  She wondered if he had followed her this time.  She 
was afraid he wanted to sit with her, wanted to talk.  She did not want 
to talk; she wanted to wait, there at Dinah's, at home, wherever he 
might go to find her.  She had hardly slept since she had seen him.  
Waiting was the only thing.

When she saw Skinner receive his coffee from the cashier and turn 
toward her table, she cast her eyes down at her own half-finished cup 
of latte.  In three long strides, her boss was at her table asking for 
permission to join her for dinner.

"I'm just having the coffee, Sir," she said dryly.

Skinner nodded and settled himself into the seat across from her.  "So 
am I."

Scully looked up at him, into his concerned eyes.  She wondered when 
and if that look would ever go away.  She was fine.  He was alive.  Or 
was he?  She worried that he was never going to come back to her, if 
she had really seen him at all.  It had been weeks.  She shook her 
head, realizing that she was still looking at Skinner. 

"You want to know why I'm here," Skinner stated, his voice low but not 
unkind.

"You don't come here often, Sir," Scully said.

"No.  But you do.  You spend every minute of your free time here, 
Scully."  He chuckled softly.  "Am I missing something about this 
place?  From what I hear the food's not something to write home about."

Scully's mouth went dry.  "I usually just have the coffee.  How did you 
know I've been coming here, Sir?"

"Come on, Scully.  It's my job to know what's going on with my agents," 
he said steadily, professionally.  There was a softness in his face, 
though, that told Scully that his interest was more than just 
professional.  "Unfortunately, it's never been easy figuring out what's 
going on with you."

She knew Skinner cared.  After seven years, she would have been 
offended to find that he did not.  But she did not want his sympathy.  
She had no need of it, especially now, especially since she had seen 
him.  The death had been the most painful experience of her life, but 
now…now if he would just come back.  If he would just come back.  If 
they would just bring him back…

She shook her head.  She had told no one of her encounter with him, 
afraid that people would think she had finally gone over the edge.  
Skinner, though, had not been made an Assistant Director of the FBI for 
no reason.  He had seen that there was a difference, something changed, 
in her.  Why was she surprised?  "There's nothing going on, Sir," she 
told him.

Skinner's chest heaved a silent sigh.  "Why did you stop going to see 
Dr. Koseff two weeks ago, Scully?"

"I didn't feel that I needed to see her anymore, Sir."

"You feel you've talked about everything you need to with her?"

Scully nodded.  "Everything I could.  Yes, Sir."

Skinner looked down into his coffee.  "Is there anything you feel you 
could talk about with me, Agent Scully?" he asked gently.

The question took Scully by surprise.  She wondered where he was going 
with this.  It was certainly not everyday, not ever, really, that 
Skinner decided he wanted to have a little heart to heart chat with 
her.  "I don't think so, Sir.  Thank you for your concern, but really, 
I'm doing fine."

"Karen Koseff told me you have been unable to speak of Agent Mulder's 
death even once since I mandated your sessions with her," Skinner said, 
looking at her with a challenge in his eyes.

Scully clenched her teeth together, her jaw tight.  "So much for 
doctor-patient confidentiality," she grumbled.

Skinner just shrugged.  "You need to talk about this Scully.  You won't 
be able to put it behind you until you do.  I know this from 
experience."

Scully shook her head.  "Maybe I don't want to put it behind me, Sir," 
she said.  

Reaching across the table to put his hand on hers, Skinner pinned her 
eyes with his.  "What happened that day, Scully?" he asked quietly.

Closing her eyes to keep the emotions in and the world out, Scully 
shook her head.  The sound of the shop's door opening drew Scully's 
eyes open and her attention away from Skinner.  Looking over her boss' 
shoulder, she watched a man come in from the cold outside.  It was not 
him.  But she knew what she had seen two weeks ago.  He was out there 
somewhere, somehow.  She thought about Skinner's question.  What had 
happened that day?

The memory was long buried and well hidden.  It took strength and 
patience to dredge it up.  Looking down at Skinner's hand over hers, 
she sighed, dug deep, and began to speak.  "I was driving.  He said he 
had the perp, that I should watch the road…"  She shook her head.  Her 
chest tightened, squeezing her until the past was too close to the 
surface.  Remembering was too much, even now, even though she had seen 
him alive and breathing in that very shop just two weeks ago.  "I saw 
him," she whispered.  "I don't understand."

"Understand what, Scully?" Skinner asked, his voice just as quiet.  He 
squeezed her hand, and she snapped her gaze up to his concerned face.  

She could feel the burning threat of tears creep unwanted but 
unstoppable into her eyes.  She should never have tried to talk about 
it.  She had spent the last year carefully constructing a dam between 
the past and the real world.  The waves were pushing hard against her 
eyes, her chest, her heart now.  That dam was about to break, and she 
was not going to let it happen in front of Skinner.  

Making an extreme effort to breathe evenly and calmly, to keep her face 
composed, she pulled her hand away from Skinner's.  "I have to go, 
Sir," she informed him.  

"Are you all right, Scully?" he asked.

"I'm fine, Sir."  She got up from the table and went to the door.

"Agent Scully, why do you come here everyday?" she heard Skinner call 
from the table behind her.

She turned around and shook her head, looking at him but not really 
seeing anything anymore.  "I don't know," she said.


By the time she got home, Scully had regained some control over her 
emotions.  The heart she worked so hard to keep in check no longer 
screamed its betrayal; it whispered.  

After leaving Skinner in the coffee shop, she had planned to spend a 
minute locking her feelings up inside and then to stop back at the 
office to pick up a file.  But as she had passed the parking garage on 
her walk back to headquarters, she had felt the privacy of her car and 
her home calling to her.

She unlocked the front door with a tight, steady hand.  Inside, she 
entered the code on the keypad by the door, turning off the security 
alarm she had installed after purchasing the small house the previous 
summer.  It had been too much to stay in her old apartment.  He had 
been there one too many times.  Or was it one too few?  Every time she 
had entered the old apartment, her thoughts had snapped back to the 
morning of the accident.  If they had just left a few minutes sooner.  
Or later.  Or if she had not had such a hard time finding her keys.  
Misplacing things was so unlike her.  

She shook her head and pushed the thoughts away, feeling the quiet fist 
of despair squeezing her heart.  With every beat it squeezed just a 
little bit harder, the pain searing her chest and stomach.  She 
swallowed hard, her throat tight and sore, and leaned against the wall 
while she struggled to recompose herself.

A cold wetness pressed into the palm of her hand.  Scully looked down 
to greet Ishmael, the German Shepherd she had adopted from the local 
pound a few weeks after she had bought the house.  He was good 
protection, her own living backup to the alarm system, and it had felt 
so empty in the house before the dog's arrival.

"Hi Ishy," she whispered.  She ran her hand back over the dog's long 
nose and up onto his soft head.  He sat down in front of her, tilting 
his head to the side.

"Bet you want to go outside," she rasped and led the dog over to the 
back door, not bothering to turn on any lights on her way.  The house 
was pleasantly shadowed by the pale gray of dusk dropping in through 
the windows.  

When she opened the back door, Ishy slipped out to his small back yard.  
Scully dumped some food in his bowl, set it outside, and then went into 
the kitchen.  She pulled the dishwasher open and began to unload the 
dishes.  After stacking three or four of them on the counter, she felt 
exhaustion begin to fill her.  The effort of holding her feelings in 
and the memories out, the clenching of muscles and teeth, was taking 
its toll.  Leaving the dishwasher open and half full, she let Ishmael 
back in and then moved into the bedroom.

She kicked her shoes off, set her gun on the night-stand, and crawled 
up onto the bed, resting her head on the pillow.  Moisture began to 
pool in the corners of her eyes, and she dabbed it away, pressing her 
lips together in a thin line of control.  She could almost feel herself 
melting into the bed, becoming one with the object's existence and 
losing her own.  Closing her eyes, she sank into sleep.  

The dream was a common one for Scully.  She was driving in slow motion.  
The world outside the car was a blurry haze of faces and cars and 
buildings.  Metal, brick, flesh, trees and sky blended together into a 
facade of meaningless color.  There was ample white noise, the sound of 
the car's engine, and a rhythmic thudding she could not identify.  Her 
gaze crept to her right and she was suddenly looking at Mulder where he 
sat next to her slumped against the passenger side door.  His head 
lolled to the side, bouncing against the window in time with the car's 
tremulous movements, and his arms hung limp at his sides.  He did not 
turn to look at her.  His eyes were open but perfectly still and 
unblinking.  They held no expression.  His skin was ashen, his lips 
gray, shriveled, and dry.  His mouth hung open and his bottom lip 
bobbed in time with his bouncing head.  

Suddenly the lips alone moved to form words.  "Don't look at me, 
Scully.  Watch the road."

In the dream, she would always hear the crash but never see it, the 
world declining into black.  There was the crashing, screeching of 
metal on metal and the pressure of her foot on the break pedal.  And 
then all she knew was the feel of tumbling and falling and loss of 
control.  

There was darkness and then she was roaming a forested embankment 
searching for Mulder.  She saw him lying face up in the dirt.  He was 
there for a second and then gone, flashing out of existence.  And then 
he was there again, all blood and quivering flesh.  

That was when the dream world would begin to spin like a saucer.  All 
at once she was checking his wounds, hunting frantically through the 
trunk of the wrecked car for her medical bag, holding his head in her 
hands, and hearing him call to her, "Scully…  Scully…wait…"  But the 
voice was not his.  It was dark, and loud, and booming with death and 
ruination.  All at once.

Then she was only at the car.  She spun around and saw his face.  His 
head was turned toward her, his eyes vacant and dead.  She tried to 
take steps toward him, but the more she walked, the further away she 
became.  It was as if the world in front of her was stretching and 
stretching.  She could see the earth reach up to take his body.  His 
flesh fused with dirt and vine.  When he had sunk into the ground and 
disappeared, Scully was able to move forward again.  But she had 
nowhere to go.

It was at this point in the dream that she would always wake.  But this 
time it went on.  She stood there in the dirt, and her only desire was 
to leave the area, to end the dream.  But she was frozen.  The world 
before her cleared away.  The car and forest and highway faded from 
view, and a bitter, gray haze swirled around her.

And then out of the nothingness he appeared.  Mulder.  His presence was 
spectral and dim, but his eyes were shiny and alert as he looked at 
her.  He was a far cry from the dead man in the dream car.  

"You need to wake up now, Scully," he said evenly.  "He needs your 
help."

She could feel his breath on her face.  She wanted to cry, but her eyes 
remained painfully dry.  She wanted to reach out to him, but it was as 
if her body was no longer even there.  In an instant he was gone, and 
Scully awoke to the sound of a loud thud against her front door.

The room was black now; night had fallen in the hours she had slept.  
The front door rattled as Scully slipped from the bed.  She picked up 
her gun and crept into the living room.  Ishmael was there, sniffing at 
the crack beneath the door.  He barked twice when he saw her.

She moved to the door, nudged Ishmael aside, and looked through the 
peephole.  The view was clear; there was no one there.  Not anymore, 
anyway.  She unlocked and opened the door, meaning to take a quick look 
up and down the block, but was startled when a body fell against her 
legs.  

The man was naked and sweaty and huddled in a ball on her doorstep.  
She could feel him shivering against her.  With visible effort, he 
lifted his head to look at her towering above him.  It was him.  His 
face was pale, battered, and so in need of her that it stole her breath 
from her chest.  He had come back.

"Dana Scully," he said.  His voice was raspy and raw.

Scully crouched down, letting him rest against her chest.  "It's me, 
Mulder," she said.  "It's okay."  She placed her hand on his pale 
forehead.  His skin was clammy and cold.  He looked like he had been 
beaten.  There was a swollen, pink bruise on his cheek, and blood ran 
down his chin from a split lip.  

When she lay her hand against his cheek, he pressed his face into her 
palm and closed his eyes.  A blissful, peaceful expression transformed 
his features.  Scully wondered how long he had been trying to get back 
to her from wherever he had been, but she was too frozen to ask.  

"Dana Scully," he whispered again.  Then his head lolled back against 
her shoulder.  His eyelids fluttered and then closed.  

His loss of consciousness roused Scully from her stupor.  Even in sleep 
his body quaked against her.  "Not now, Mulder.  Don't pass out now," 
she said, shaking him gently and then patting his cheek.  

He snapped awake with a start, his head shooting up and fear obvious in 
his large, round eyes.  "It's okay, Mulder," Scully soothed.  "We have 
to get you inside.  You can sleep inside."  She turned him slightly 
until his back pressed against her.  Then slid her arms through his, 
holding him tightly around the chest.  "Okay?  Stand up with me now."

With extreme effort and a little help from him, Scully hauled them both 
to their feet and into the dark house.  Holding him steady, she poked 
her head back out the door and gave the neighborhood a once over.  It 
was quiet and serene, as usual.

"How did you get here, Mulder?" she asked as she pushed the door closed 
and helped him over to the couch.

"R...Ran."  He stood there next to her, his arms wrapped around 
himself, shivering and looking down at the floor, until Scully told him 
to sit.  He collapsed heavily into the couch cushions.  Ishmael slipped 
over and began to sniff his sullied skin.  He shied away at the dog's 
touch, and Scully ordered Ishmael to lie down in front of the TV.

"Ran from where, Mulder?" she asked as she began to touch him, running 
her hands over his soft, cold skin and hard, smooth muscle.  She 
checked him for injuries and for matter.  He was solid.  He was in 
shock.  He had some minor cuts, scrapes, and bruises.  But he was real.

He looked up at her, and instead of her headstrong partner she saw a 
traumatized little boy in the body of a thirty-nine year old man.  His 
face was a conjunction of fear, despair, awe, and exhaustion.  "The 
C...Clinic," he said and then winced as Scully pressed on an apparently 
tender area of his ribcage.

"I'm sorry.  Someone hit you?"

He looked down into his lap.  "A guard," he whispered.    

Scully nodded.  She wondered how far he had run from this Clinic, but 
held her questions for later when he was stronger and the shock had 
worn off.  She was more than content to simply be in the same room with 
him for now.  She took a blanket from the back of the couch and wrapped 
it around his shoulders.  "You have some cuts and scrapes.   I'm going 
to clean them up, okay?"

When he said nothing, Scully stooped down in front of him, took hold of 
his chin, and tilted his face up to hers.  His face was tight, his eyes 
blinking away unshed tears.  One escaped from the corner of his eye and 
found its way down his cheek.

"Mulder," Scully whispered as she reached behind his neck and pulled 
him forward into her embrace.  His body was stiff in her arms.  She 
pressed gently on the back of his head until his forehead leaned on her 
shoulder.  As she rubbed his back comfortingly, his body hitched with 
tiny sobs and he sniffled softly in her ear.  She could feel him 
fighting to hold the tears inside.  Her own tears began to slide 
effortlessly down both her cheeks.  "Mulder, where have you been?" she 
asked quietly.  

He pulled back from her to bathe her face with weepy marvel.  His eyes 
were filled with awe, and she could tell he was not considering her 
question at all.

"Mulder, where?" she asked again, taking both his hands in hers.

Confusion flashed through his eyes.  Then he shook his head, offering 
no answer.  Instead, he began to lick at his swollen lip as if noticing 
the blood for the first time.  

Scully dropped his hands, stood, and went into the kitchen.  She 
dampened a towel and poured a glass of water, then rejoined her partner 
in the living room.  Fresh tears ran down her face as she watched him 
dab at his lip with his fingertips.  Moving back to her spot in front 
of him, she pushed his hand down and wiped the towel gently over his 
mouth.  She saw him clench his jaw as he tried to stay still for her.  
She had forced herself to forget how beautifully obstinate he was, 
though she now remembered well that Mulder never used to be such a 
cooperative patient.  

Telling herself not to complain, she gave him the glass of water.  He 
drank it greedily, focusing on Scully over the rim of the glass.

When he had finished the water, she pulled the blanket from his torso 
and cleaned the scrapes and deep scratches that marred his chest, back, 
and arms.  As she was tucking him back into the blanket, he looked down 
intently at his lap.  "Hurts," he whispered.

Scully flipped the end-table lamp on.  Standing between his knees, she 
tugged the blanket from his lap.  The inside of his right thigh was 
washed in blood.  Scully bent down to inspect him more closely, trying 
to locate the wound.  With the towel, she gently wiped away most of the 
blood to find the skin beneath healthy and unblemished.  She looked up 
at his face to see him staring down at her blankly.  A few seconds 
later, more blood began to seep from between his testicle and his 
thigh.  

"Sorry, Mulder," Scully said as she gently pushed his genitals aside.  
On the inside of his upper thigh, almost where the leg met the pelvis, 
was a bloody hole.  It was round, but the flesh around the opening was 
jagged, like the area had been torn at with a blunt or semi-blunt 
instrument.  His body began to tremble again.

"How did you get this?" she asked.

"I dug it out," he said, his voice raw but emotionless.  

"Dug out what?"

"The…the tracking device."

"With your fingers?"

He nodded.

"This has to be treated, Mulder.  It's going to get infected."  Scully 
left him there to retrieve her first aid kit from the bathroom.  She 
wondered why a tracking device had been placed in his leg, but then 
filed the question away for later discussion.  What did it matter just 
then?  He was alive.  He was not the specter she had been beginning to 
believe she had seen that day weeks before.

As she stood at the sink, fear and a terrible memory tore at her.  A 
frantic cry escaped her lips, and she covered her mouth with her hand.  
Over a year ago, she had left him to get her medical bag.  By the time 
she had made her way back to his side, he had lost consciousness, never 
to wake again.  The next day even his body had disappeared, lost, the 
hospital had said, searched for but never found, dead all the same.  
The impossibility of Mulder's living presence in her house was just 
beginning to sink in, and she was certain she would turn around to find 
him gone again.  She was certain he had never been there at all.  He 
had died many months ago.

She had not gone to the grave site in fifteen months.  Early on, she 
would go there to talk to him.  All she wanted was to talk to him 
again, out loud.  She would sit and lean against his headstone, the 
peaceful one on the hill, and she would spill all the mundane details 
of her life without him.  But truly it was no good and no comfort.  The 
site did not even stimulate grief and release.  There was no body there 
before her, beneath her.  Nobody there.

Screwing up her courage, Scully turned around, the first aid kit tucked 
under her arm, her hand still over her mouth and tears streaming down 
her face.  By some miracle, he was still there, sitting hunched over on 
her couch and clutching the blanket around his shoulders.  She went to 
him quickly before he could disappear.

Crouching down in front of him, she looked up at his face to silently 
ask permission to clean his tender wound.  His face was calm and 
reflective, but he seemed to be paying little attention to Scully.  It 
was as if he was somewhere deep inside himself, searching for an answer 
or a theory that was just emerging along the periphery of his brilliant 
mind.  She had seen that face a thousand times.  He really was back.  
Joy filled her, and she wanted to throw her arms around his neck and 
hold him to her forever.  

Before Scully could move to embrace him, though, his face crumbled.  He 
looked like he had just realized that paradise was over and the world 
was about to end.  He stood suddenly, casting the blanket from his 
shoulders and forcing Scully to take a step back away.  "I am sorry," 
he said.  "I've put you in danger."  And then he headed for the door.



Panicking, seeing him moving to walk out of her life again so quickly, 
Scully ran to him and clamped her hand around his wrist like a vice.  
He tried to shake free, but she only tightened her grasp on him, 
dragging him back over to the couch.  "No way, Mulder.  Not now," she 
said as she settled him back into the cushions and wrapped the blanket 
back around him.  

"They'll come.  They'll track me here."

"You said you dug the device out," Scully said gently as she brushed 
his hair from his face.

"There were two.  The man said there were two tracking devices.  But 
I've only been able to find one.  I had not planned to escape until I 
had found the other.  But..."  He shook his head.

"Who put the devices in?  The men I saw you with at the coffee shop?" 
Scully asked.  She gently pulled a flap of the blanket from his lap, 
hoping he would let her dress his wound.  

"I do not…I don't know."

When Scully turned to the first aid kit for a cotton swab, he tried to 
stand again.  She quickly braced both her hands on his thighs and 
pushed him back down onto the couch.  "No, Mulder.  You're staying.  I 
won't let you leave, so stop it.  If they come, I'll protect you.  I'm 
a trained FBI agent.  Or have you forgotten?" she said directly into 
his startled face.

He looked down at his lap.  "I don't…I don't understand," he mumbled.  
Then his voice grew frantic again as fear lit his eyes.  "They'll 
come," he insisted.  "He's not a good man.  He's not good for you, Dana 
Scully.  Please.  I must go."

"Mulder?"  She tilted his chin up, wanting to see his face.  It was 
him.  The eyes were his, the mouth, the haunted expression.  She 
wondered, though, why his speech was so unlike the Mulder she 
remembered.  What had been done to him?  Where had he been?  How had he 
recovered so fully from his injuries?  "Mulder, what man?  Tell me 
where you've been and how you got here," she requested as she gently 
pushed his genitals aside again to expose his wound.  "Who's chasing 
you?"  He gasped as she swabbed his bleeding thigh with a piece of 
Bactine-soaked cotton.  "I'm sorry, Mulder.  It'll be okay in a 
minute," she soothed, patting his knee.    

When he did not reply to any of her questions, she looked up from her 
ministrations to probe his face.  She had never seen him look so 
frightened.  When her gaze locked with his, he began to swipe self-
consciously at the tears running down his cheeks.  Her heart broke for 
him, for the suffering and terror she saw in his eyes, for the fact 
that it was there even though he was safe in her living room.

When she reached up to stroke his damp cheek, offering comfort, he 
closed his eyes.  More tears escaped him, sliding down his cheeks to 
paint his face with fat tracks of bare emotion.  "I don't want to tell 
you…about me," he whispered, his eyes still shut.

"What?  Mulder, why?  I don't understand."

He opened his eyes, looking straight into her.  There was an 
unexplainable apology in his countenance that made Scully tighten with 
anxiety.  He tried to speak, but then hesitated.  Dread rolling around 
in her stomach, Scully waited patiently for him to find a way to tell 
her whatever it was that he found so unspeakably, regretfully bad.  She 
continued to caress his cheek, hoping to lend him strength through her 
comfort.

"I…I am not the Original," he finally blurted.

"What?"

"Fox William Mulder.  The Original."

Scully blinked up at him, stunned by what he was saying, not wanting it 
to be true.  Her hand grew still on his cheek.

When she said nothing, he went on.  "They made me and the Others from 
him, Fox William Mulder.  The gray-haired man and Doctor Baker were 
planning to erase my memory and put the markings on me.  They were 
going to make me pretend to be him…for you.  F…for the FBI.  I didn't 
want that."

Scully's hand fell from his cheek, numb like the rest of her.  She 
pulled away from him, standing and looking down into his face warily.  
His whole body seemed to crumble under her withdrawal, but she was too 
much in need of comfort herself to offer any to him.  No, she thought.  
It could not be.  She had just gotten him back.

"Let me get this straight," she said.  "You were…created at this Clinic 
that you mentioned.  And the men there were going to erase your memory 
and dump you on my doorstep so that I would think you were Mulder 
suffering from amnesia?"

"I don't understand amnesia," he said quietly, his lips puckering with 
embarrassment.

Scully shook her head, unable to believe what was happening.  "Memory 
loss," she explained a little too harshly.  He looked down at his lap, 
his eyes flashing hurt like she had just kicked him in the gut.  "So 
you escaped," she said more gently.

He nodded but did not lift his gaze back up to her.

Cloning.  She knew it was possible, but refused to believe it had 
happened to her partner.  This man felt so much like her Mulder.  He 
was so him.  "No," she said.  "No.  Look at you."  Stepping between his 
knees, she took his chin in her hand and tilted his face up.  She ran 
her fingers over his cheeks, square jaw, pouty lips, the lines around 
his eyes.  Her thumb caressed the mole on his right cheek like it was a 
long lost friend.  "Look at you."  Again she found herself longing to 
take him in her arms and never let go, longing to lose herself in his 
perfect smell, his perfect warmth, his perfect lost and angst-filled 
eyes.  He was so right.  How could he be so wrong?  "They've taken your 
memory before," she said, "on our second case together.  You're Mulder.  
You just don't remember."

"The markings," he said, his lips moving beneath her roving thumb.

"What?"  Markings…markings…  The scars.  Taking her hand from his face, 
she gently lifted the blanket from his shoulder.  She ran her hand over 
the slope where his shoulder became his chest.  The skin was smooth and 
unbroken.  There was, though, a pink, tender area where the scar should 
have been.  Touching it seemed to cause him discomfort.  

"They were going to do a surgery.  Doctor Baker said that he had to 
prepare the skin," he explained.

Scully moved to inspect his back, finding no exit-wound scar either.  
Flipping the blanket from his lap, she searched for the scar that 
should have been on his thigh from the Luther Boggs case.  There was 
nothing but the same pink discoloration.  She ran her hand over the 
skin there.  It was smooth and soft, the hair shaved away, and there 
were three inch long brackets drawn in faint ink spanning the area.  
No.

Looking back up at his face, she gently touched the cut defacing his 
lower lip.  It was an angry red and still seeped blood that clung to 
her fingertip.  "No.  The clones bleed green, Mulder.  You bleed red.  
Like you always have."

"I don't understand," he said again.

Scully shook her head and took a step back to sit heavily on the coffee 
table.  She rubbed her hand over her face and eyes, pinching the bridge 
of her nose to battle the throbbing in her head.  She wondered when the 
world would stop spinning for her.

"They made me from him," he said with quiet insistence.

"Who's 'they?'"

"I don't know.  I know Doctor Baker, but the others, the gray-haired 
man, I don't know their names."

"What was Doctor Baker's first name?"

He shook his head.  "I don't understand."

Scully sighed, her body tight with frustration.  "How do you know me?"

"You told me your name," he said.  "Outside the coffee shop."  A corner 
of his mouth lifted into a tiny, shy half-smile.  "I searched for you 
in the computer room."

Scully closed her eyes.  This is not happening, she told herself.  He 
had amnesia, or psychosis, or multiple personality disorder, and 
someone had done a hell of a job removing any identifying marks from 
his body.  He was Mulder.  He was back.  He had never lost 
consciousness while she was turned away, never died on an operating 
table.  A tear seeped from the corner of her eye.  She smeared it 
across the back of her hand.

"Dana Scully?" she heard him say, uncertainty and concern in his voice.

"Scully," she snapped.  "You call me Scully."  She opened her eyes to 
see him intently rubbing away his own tears, his fists jammed into his 
eyes.  

"I saw him," he said timidly.

"What?"

He took his hands down to reveal open but unfocused eyes.  "He was 
deceased.  He had the markings.  Like they were going to put on me.  
His head was strange.  It wasn't right."

Scully covered her mouth with her hand, trying to suppress her whimper.  
She did not know whether her distress stemmed from her own pain or from 
the compassion she felt for the man sitting in front of her.  Mulder's 
body had disappeared the day following his death.  But somehow this 
man, this Mulder, had seen the body, seen himself in death, only hours 
before.

"I was not supposed to look in there," he went on.  "He just floated, 
and there was no life.  Then I was caught and I ran.  But it was too 
soon."  Abruptly, he stood and tossed the blanket aside again.  "I 
wanted to tell you.  I must leave now."

"No!"  Scully jumped up and slid her hand into his.  She squeezed his 
fingers tight, noticing again how warm and alive and how like Mulder he 
felt to her.  

He looked down at their joined hands.  Scully could feel him begin to 
tremble again.  "They'll be coming.  I must go," he insisted.

She took a step toward him, trying to catch his downcast eyes.  "Go 
where, Mulder?  Isn't that why you came here?  Whoever you are, whether 
you're him or not, you have nowhere to go.  Where would you go?"

He shook his head, reaching out to delicately touch his fingertips to 
the lock of hair that had fallen in her face.  "It doesn't matter."

"Mulder," she said, squeezing his hand, "if they want you back, if you 
were never meant to get out on your own, why haven't they picked you up 
already?  You said you ran here.  Why didn't they grab you then?"

His face shifted from panicked to perplexed.  "I don't know," he said, 
shaking his head.  "I hid in the shadows and avoided any people 
outside.  But they would have known where I was because…"

"Because of the chip.  Just like they know you're here now.  So why 
haven't they come already?"

"I don't know, Dana Scully."  He tilted his head to the side, suddenly 
lost in thought.  "They did not follow me, Dana Scully.  I escaped the 
guard at the gate and I ran.  When I looked back at the Clinic, Doctor 
Baker was there with the other guards.  But they did not come."

"Maybe they wanted you to escape."

"I don't know."

Scully shook her head.  "Mulder, what happened to your clothes?"  

"The clothes set off alarms inside the Clinic.  I had to remove them."

"You're lucky nobody called the police to come pick you up."  

"The police?"

Scully shook her head.  Not letting go of his hand, she scooped her gun 
up from the coffee table and tucked it into the back of her waistband.  
"Come on," she commanded and dragged him into her spare bedroom.  

After digging around in some of the boxes she had stored there, she 
tossed him one of his old gray sweat suits.  Instead of putting it on, 
he ran his fingers over the material appreciatively.  "Soft," he 
whispered.

"I know.  It was one of your…his favorites.  Put it on, okay?"  She 
waited for him to start dressing and then fished around some more until 
she found a pair of old running shoes.  She deposited the shoes into 
his hands and waited for him to put them on.  He just stood there 
staring at them.

"I don't understand," he said.  

Scully rubbed her head.  She was beginning to feel truly exhausted.  
"I'm sorry, Mulder.  They're shoes.  You put them on your feet," she 
explained as she pushed him down onto the bed.  "You never wore shoes 
at the Clinic?"

"Yes.  One time.  But…"  He tugged at one of the shoelaces.

"Oh, Mulder, those are laces.  I'll tie them for you.  Put them on."

He nodded and awkwardly slid his feet into the shoes.  Scully laced 
them for him.  "Let's go," she said, taking his hand again.

"Where?"

"To see some friends.  I think they can help us decide who you really 
are.  And maybe, if we're lucky, they can locate that other chip.  
Okay?"

Relief washed over his features.  He stood, and together they walked 
through the living room and cautiously slipped out the front door.



(End Chapter 3 – End Part 1)