Disclaimers, etc. w/ first part.

12/12

I didn't have to force the lock. The window in the back was already broken. Otherwise I think I would've collapsed the minute I walked in at the stagnant gas still in the air, but it had all filtered out into the woods.

That hadn't done anything to help the smell. I immediately put my hand to my mouth and nose. Damn. How many days *had* it been? She was still lying there, stiff where Krycek had pushed her, blood a dark mottled brown on the carpet. Some neighbors, I thought. They hadn't noticed that the woman next door hadn't come outside for...days? I looked around, visually locating the cameras, noting that I hadn't set off the alarm by stepping into the house. Of course the neighbors hadn't noticed. It was Pam Wyeth after all, a woman who had probably gone weeks before without having to leave her home.

I turned to the computer where her monitors had been hooked up, and realized there was a man in the house. A bloody, dirty...oh, it was me. I was the wraith now. I didn't even recognize myself.

Wait. The cameras still worked? I stepped closer to the screen. No, correction, about a third of the cameras still worked. The men who'd gassed the place only destroyed those they could see. Two other views of the living room were gone, but the one at the far end where I was standing was intact. I stepped back, walking around Pam's body, trying to re-enact what had happened here. Jonson and McGrath in Krycek's pocket. Jonson on a plane to North Dakota with Scully. McGrath waiting it out while Krycek killed me. Neither of them expected the gas though, or for the men from NeuroMast to intervene.

It serves you right, McGrath. Good fucking riddance.

But he wasn't in the decon cell with us. So where was he? In a decon cell with my sister? Were they still there then?

Shit. I'd run in the wrong direction.

I had to know what had happened. And the only way to do that was to do what I had told Krycek Scully would do. Trap some of the footage on the computer. Frohike had showed me how this stuff worked once. The drive held so many megabytes of footage before it was full, and then it started saving to an auxiliary drive until a new drive was put in. Something like that. I couldn't remember. Maybe if some of the downstairs cameras had been left in service, some of the upstairs cameras were in service too. All the computer on her desk showed were the lower-level surveillance. The bank of security monitors in her bedroom must've held the others. I walked past Pam and almost tripped over my cell phone, where Krycek had left it. I was going to start holstering the damn things to my side like a gun. I pushed the on button and was shocked to hear a dialtone.

I dialed her number. I don't know why. Talk about shots in the dark and spitting in the wind. "The cell phone customer you are trying to reach --" Yeah, yeah. What about Jonson's number? He'd be a stupid bastard to still have his phone on him. I dialed anyway. "The cell phone customer --" So he was just a bastard, but not a stupid one. McGrath's now --

It rang. No way. I pulled the phone away from my ear.

It was ringing *inside* the house. It was ringing from upstairs.

I started to take the stairs two by two, and found myself on the floor. Then I climbed them with my hand tight on the railing, still letting the cell ring in my hand. I had no gun, no weapon. It's just his phone, I told myself.

I stood on the first landing. I followed the sound into Pam's bedroom. And then under her bed.

Oh god. That smell again. He was under the bed. Like he'd either crawled there or been pushed. He was as dead as Pam Wyeth was downstairs, and the curtains billowed in from the broken window where he'd come come through.

(I'm sorry. Oh shit. I said you were...I'm sorry.)

I thought of that picture hanging from his keychain. His wife, his two kids, posed in spring dresses. Had he told me their names? It's not like I'd ever asked. I kicked at the triptych. No. Because I didn't ask. Because I didn't talk. I took these things for granted. I hadn't cared. Think. Angie...or Amy. I couldn't even remember her name, and I was going to have to tell her...

(Oh god, I'm sorry.)

His arm was outstretched on the other side, his hand inside the duffle bag. The gun. I walked around. They would be coming soon. I'd need a weapon. I pulled the duffle bag away from his hand, gagging, looking away. He was a man who'd been around weapons all his life, and his fingers were locked around the trigger. After a second, they gave. "Sorry." I held the gun, poised halfway, feeling the rage again. I kicked the chair. Hard. I walked over to the triptych and I destroyed it. Little mosaic pieces littered the floor. Behind it, five of the eight security monitors still gathered footage.

I had to calm down. I had to untrap some of that footage, assuming the computer had saved it. I had to know how McGrath died, so I could tell that woman on his keychain and her two kids. So I could answer to whoever asked questions and demanded to know. They would converge around me later, and I didn't think I would stop them. No consolation. The one good thing in life had taken a one-way trip to godforsaken North Dakota. I'd left her alone with a man I thought I could trust. The one I could trust was shot to death under the bed.

I opened the program on the computer. What monitor was this room? I wanted to see the faces of those men. I needed to know where Krycek had kept Samantha, didn't I? I watched some of camera three. Not this room. I thought the footage was foggy and unclear at first until I realized I was crying.

I had to get a hold on myself. I took a deep breath, still holding the gun. Point and click, point and click. Which damn monitor covered this room?

That's when I saw the beginning of the footage logged on camera six. Samantha sitting there against that triptych, wide blue eyes washed pale gray. Her arms were behind her. She was being restrained. There was no audio, but she was looking towards the door, downstairs where we were.

A man walked into the room from the bathroom. I turned to match it to the footage in front of me, to map it out. He was dressed in black, in a gas mask. He covered the width of Pam's bedroom quickly, and he gave Samantha a gas mask as well. Of course, I thought. They didn't want her to be subjected to the gas. Not the woman who'd survived six gauntings, I thought to myself, remembering how skinny she was. Not the woman who was liaison to all their expendable children in the ward. She was a medical commodity.

Then the man dressed in black helped her up. I rubbed at my eyes, and set the timer to go back a few seconds. He helped her up gently. Her arms were not restrained.

I shook my head, not comprehending.

The man in black left the room, heading downstairs by the looks of it. He said something to her. I couldn't see his face through the gas mask and though she hadn't put hers on yet, she was turned away from the lens.

She pulled the strap of it, and a violent shower of glass behind startled her. She bent, in pain. A shard of it had wedged in her eye. McGrath stood there, shaking it off. He had her arm. He said something to her. He said, "Are you alright?" She looked concerned for a moment, towards the downstairs area, and McGrath followed her gaze. He didn't see the gas mask. She wasn't holding it up. He had his back to her now, about to go check out the voices and noise he was hearing down there. There was something on the bed that she was looking at, but the camera wasn't registering it. It was out of range. McGrath turned back slightly and --

She picked up the object and shot him in the back with it. She had a gun.

There was one horrified moment of shock on his face as he fell to the floor at the foot of the bed. She stuffed the gun in the waistband of her pants and held her hand to her eye. She pulled a piece of glass -- visible to the camera -- out of it, and wadded two tissues up under her gas mask to cushion the injury before she walked downstairs.

Miss Maddie. Miss Madeline sticking her head in the door, patch over her eye.

My sister had killed McGrath. No hesitation or remorse.

I walked around the bed, tracing the path of the stain with my feet. He'd crawled with his last breath to get under the bed. I knew McGrath. Death never seemed close to him. Even when he was telling me that Spender had a set on him, back in December, his voice had been calm. Relax, McGrath said. I could hear him saying it to himself as he crawled under that bed and just imagined that he would wait until the men with guns weren't looking and remedy the snafu downstairs. He probably died as soon as he got comfortable under there. His protection towards me was of course extended towards the sister I'd found here, and he'd died for that kindness.

I fixed my eyes on this room's monitor. She was sitting only a few feet from where I sat now, and she shot him. She didn't even flinch.

As I watched it, I heard a sound downstairs, like a loud thump, and one of the monitors went black.

I'd heard that sound before. In east conference room C, on the fifth floor. It was the sound of a gun with a silencer.

They'd found me.

Another loud thump, and now there were only three monitors intact.

The front door was kicked open, and I the metallic clatter of guns and steel- toed boots filled the foyer downstairs.

Dammit, McGrath...how does your stupid gun work? Was the damn thing even loaded? I was afraid if I checked, I'd tear it up in the process. Bluff it, Mulder.

They were checking the lower level rooms. The kitchen was right below the master bedroom, if I could recall the set-up correctly. I heard them trooping downstairs, into the basement. The threat that I would start coughing again almost seemed to *evoke* that sensation in me and I tightened my throat. If I tried to move into the attic, they would shoot me on the stairs. What was I saying? They'd shoot me anyway. One move and they'd be up here. I couldn't run anymore.

That second, the hopelessness dawned on me.

I only hoped McGrath hadn't felt the same thing. I sat on the middle of the bed, like I was guarding him from it.

I watched them in the kitchen, checking closets and cabinets. They wandered into the garage. One of them looked up, drew his rifle, and the monitor evaporated into black. Two were left.

Three of them had wandered back into the living room. One looked over his shoulder, coldly inquisitive, towards the curtained patio door in the shattered window. Another monitor darkened. One down, one to go. The only one left was the one in this room, and if I lived to see it go black, it only meant they shot the camera lens before they shot me.

("Mulder...have you ever thought seriously about dying?")

She had. She was probably thinking about it right now. It was easy for me to be so sarcastic in response. All of my meditations on dying had been done on a deathbed, in the painkiller haze of my subconscious. Sometimes I didn't meditate on it at all. I just put the gun to my head and waited for the boom or my better nature to win out. Now I was thinking about it.

(Don't let it be too late.)

I knew that it was like to know that there wasn't going to be a rescue. There was no way she could help me.

But there was still a chance I could help her.

They were on the stairs. I held the gun. I'd kill everyone of them. Through the door, one two three. Before they knew what hit them, one two three. Here comes the others to see what happened, one two three. I muttered it like a song.

Into the room, they came. Four of the men with guns, and a fifth man, unarmed, wearing a suit. I halfway looked for the cigarette, but his hands were slack at his sides. He was my age, maybe older, gray hair just at the temples. Or it might've been the light. It glittered dully in his red-brown eyes.

"He's got a gun, Doctor."

"I see that," the man said wryly. "Is this the part where I tell him to put it down?"

One of the men abruptly struck me in the head. My fingers went slack around the gun and it was quickly pulled away. All of their faces blended into one, then split into ten. My eyes watered. No, it was blood again, dripping down. Like being on the playground and getting that decoder-ringed fist in the eye again for being named Fox.

"I do want him to hear what I have to say." He parted the four of them. "It won't help if he's unconscious."

"No, Doctor. Sorry."

I swallowed blood. "Whose son are you?"

He laughed. Such an easy sound. "I'm no one's son, Agent Mulder. Actually, I've come to thank you for handling a slight problem for us a few weeks ago."

I raised my gaze at him. I wanted one of them to hit me again, because it felt like I was losing more than my grasp on consciousness. His articulation was studied, his words slow and pre-planned. He resented his youth in a situation like this. If I could stand, I'd be taller. If I could think, I'd be smarter. He had the upper hand tonight.

"The Syndicate has been a thorn in our side from the very beginning. We had an obstacle in our path. It really is time for them to step down. Don't you think?"

I didn't answer. It felt like one of my lungs was on fire.

"They're a round table of old, dying kings. You've killed their leader, and the doctors are taking over." He sat down on the edge of the bed, where Scully had sat before. It seemed poisonous to me, a sacrilege. "You killed the only man with any real power who wanted your partner dead. We found her too important to die. But you also killed the only man who refused to let *you* die. I'm not all that concerned with your 'religion', Agent Mulder. This world grows rapidly godless, except for the doctors."

I shook my head, as if warding off his filth. "If she's so important, then why did you try to kill her?"

"Kill her? *I* tried to kill her?"

"Yes, collectively, you did."

"There is no collective."

I spat the words. "You're all the same to me."

"Oh, now...that's your big mistake. That's why you keep losing. Now, let me be the first to say that if you get in our way, I'll be the first to remove you. I find you surprisingly inconsequential, given the fear and reverence they attached to your name. I finally meet you in person, and I almost have to laugh." He smiled slyly. "The fools are as senile as well as weak."

I held myself tightly together as if I was trying to keep my voice from mistaking. Alarms were going off in my head. Don't let them see it! Don't let them know. I thought of all the medical books on my sister's shelves. Were they his? I just want my partner back. I fight not to say it aloud.

And it was as if he heard me anyway.

"If you remain here, you'll see Agent Scully again." He let the words sink in, just in time to yank them back. "But, if you return to D.C., she may just be *alive* when she turns up. But all you're going to get if you don't leave is a pretty dead girl, like the one downstairs." He shrugged. "No promises, of course. But there's a chance."

A hiss rose in me. "If she shows up any less than alive, I'm coming after you."

He narrowed his dull eyes. "That just ruins my year."

A couple of members of the hit squad laughed.

The doctor stood, smoothing his suit. "If I were you, I'd be back in D.C. within 24 hours. That gives you some time to get some sort of medical attention. Did you know your head was bleeding?" The armed men parted again so he could be the first down the stairs. He turned, and they stopped behind him, backs stiff. "Goddamn." He put his hand lightly to his nose. "It smells like something died in here."

I leaned back on the headboard. Wrong move. I couldn't get up again. Eyes, don't close. They did. I fell asleep to my cell phone ringing incessantly. I couldn't reach it. It was all the way across the room, on the computer desk. Don't close them. It was like McGrath that way. The light grew dimmer as I thought of what I could do about this when I woke up.

The falling dream started, and I hit the ground almost instantly.

*

Lincoln Regional Medical Trauma Unit February 5, 1999

I went through the motions. I let their voices spin around me, and I focused on nothing. I didn't know when I'd gotten here. And likewise, leaving didn't seem to matter.

"Doctor Hadley." Papers flipped in a file. A woman leaned over me. Lights flashed across my eyes. Shapes moved. "Is this man in shock?"

A man's voice now. "That's what I thought at first." More lights. Fucking penlights. My pupils dutifully followed their paths. "Turns out he's just not talking to us."

"Do you know how you got here, Mr. Mulder?"

I let my stare rest on his face. "Do *you*?"

The woman turned away uneasily. Hadley dropped the stare a moment before he answers. "Actually, I do. You came by ambulance. You were found out in the woods by two hikers. If it matters to you. I thought you might be wondering."

My eyes slipped back out of focus. My own voice came out like a paradox, like something anachronistic. "It doesn't matter."

I waited for them to continue talking around me, like my parents referred to He and Fox and Just a Boy when I was sitting at the dinner table with them. I waited for them to say they were surprised to find the pulse in me. Because I would be surprised. I would be fucking astonished.

"You're free to go as soon as you're ready. You'll want to report to your own physicians as soon as possible." She stood as if awaiting a response. "Mr. Mulder?"

Dr. Hadley held the door. "He's not going to chat with you, Connie."

She put her penlight down on the table beside me, sighing angrily. How rude of me. How rude of me to not be grateful for being brought back to life.

It was all the same now. I breathed through the bandages and I limped from the hospital to the shuttle to the airport. Sterile white walls and intercoms. I was just as surprised to find myself at the ticket counter as I was to find myself in a pressurized cell. The clerk stared at me strangely, as if she feared that I was the survivor of some previous plane crash, coming back to haunt her. I just smiled the appropriately threatening smile. The doctor gods could fix any broken thing. The doctor gods ruled now, because I had shot a man. Because I'd trusted the wrong man, they had her now.

It didn't occur to me until I got on the plane that I'd bought two tickets at the counter.

I sat in the aisle seat, like I always do. She preferred the window. The idea of anyone else there sickened me, and made me lose the strong hold I had on my face. The master of reserve. The fucking locked box of composure.

I glanced from the empty seat to the window, from the window to the patchwork scenery 33,000 feet below.

The distances seemed to be the same.

~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^ END.

Thanks go to Rachel and L.A. for wonderful Beta Reading. Gratitude to Lori, Ashlea and Chris for their skillful EER (Emergency Ego Resuscitation). Mazel tov out the wazoo to Becky D. (who's probably going to eviscerate me with a fork for writing a 12-part story) for her masochistic archiving chores. Thanks to all of you who prodded me for a sequel, provided useful feedback and patiently (okay, some *not* so patiently) waiting for the result.

The song quoted in Scene 9 was Metallica's "Precious Cure" (Reload).

This was my first casefic. May your feedback be gentle (or not) at: [email protected]

Next story in the cycle: Out of Reach.

Amanda Finch March 1999

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