Spoilers, disclaimer and other information with first part.

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They hadn't changed the locks on the door. How negligent.

A room that had been on fire will always smell burnt. The first breath yielded fresh paint, new carpet and filtered air, but the second one would always register the memory of ashes and smoke. Of course, there might've been other reasons this room smelled like smoke. The ashtray with the lone Morley filter bent into its glass surface was Exhibit A.

No one was here. I sat down in Spender's chair, slapped the two files down on his desk, wishing I could once again have an office without the cold white sunlight to rouse me. It was nice and cool in here, the way I remembered it in the winter. That was all that remained of the room where Scully and I had practically lived our lives for half a decade.

There were surfaces here, clean and dust-free. I don't think I'd seen the top of one of my tables in ten years. Boxes marked IN and OUT, that were actually being used. I snorted. This was Spender's doing. Diana was a slob when it came to organization. I knew from experience. She made me look like the Felix of our particular Odd Couple. I recognized her boxy cursive on the Dilbert (how apropos) desk calendar. The scratchy, pointy print beside it -- which looked like someone telling an outrageous lie to a polygraph machine -- must've belonged to Spender.

I would theorize that there was something about this office that inspired the romantic pairings of its occupants, but my relationship with Scully hadn't started until months after the fire. Hmmm, never underestimate the power of paint fumes.

Curiously, I opened a file drawer. More anal retention. I slammed it back, trying to peg what could be between the two of them besides, roughly, three dog years.

But they had made the office theirs.

There was still only the one desk, and I couldn't imagine it having been used much, as neat as it was. But Diana's three plaques, accolades and commendations for her counter-terrorism work, hung on the wall behind Spender's desk. In the bronze of the engraved plates, my own distended reflection stared back at me. Ten hours of pacing the length of the apartment, alternately talking myself into and out of what would happen today, had aged me. I looked so much older now. I was aging like a player.

I checked my watch. It would be a few minutes now. Two hours before, McGrath had swept the place to make sure the only audio in it was his. Scully thought I was out trying to rent some storage space for all of my stuff I'd packed away, so there was no reason for her to wonder or worry. If she called...if I heard her voice, I would break. We'd be in some restaurant within the hour, talking over breakfast, two more accidents waiting to happen while the truth got farther and farther away from us.

(Don't call, Scully.)

I jumped when it rang. "Mulder."

"McGrath. Spender just walked into the building. He's heading for the elevators as we speak."

I resented how remarkably calm he sounded. "You're not getting any interference."

"No more than usual. Relax. I got you covered."

Relax, he said. He wished me luck and I opened and closed my cell phone, trying to steady myself. I snapped it closed one last time. I had it all rehearsed in my head. Spender would walk in, smugly outraged at my presence. I'd show him the files he'd requested, and then inform him that he'd have to bring down the wrath of the OPR and a dozen armed federal officers upon me if he wanted them so badly.

I was ready to hit him. So ready. The dream was bullshit. I'd punch Spender, and -- as victimized by the laws of physics as any of us -- he'd fall on his ass. I'd tell him to set up the meeting with his Morley-smoking benefactor. I'd wave my gun around if I had to.

I'd loaded it that morning, and was disturbed when my hand didn't shake. I'd wanted it to shake, wanted to show some faint remnant of cowardice to assure myself that I was still human.

Ideally, Spender would set up the meeting. He would set it up, frightened at gunpoint, for exactly two hours and forty-three minutes from now.

Plan B was...well, there wasn't a Plan B. That was what I told myself.

A key turned in the door, and I ran the scenario quickly through my head again. Holster, unsnapped. Gun, loaded. Words, primed. Fists, dying to meet his face.

Spender walked in, some files under his arm. I found three things wrong with the way he categorized X-Files in his labeling system before he'd even turned around.

I entertained the quick scenario where he saw me, dropped his coffee in surprise, and promptly slipped in it and hit the floor with a Gerald Ford-like thud.

No such luck. His expression cracked briefly, that was all, replaced almost momentarily by smug composure. There was no outrage. I would've been. His ass in my chair, feet on my desk? Hell yeah, I'd be pissed. He just put down the files he carried, glanced at the two I'd brought with me and put his coffee on the desk.

I swung my feet to the floor. And waited.

He gestured at Samantha's file, the one on top. "You must not have gotten the memo I sent you."

Sent me. His way of detaching himself from the situation, showing how casual this was to him. He'd brought it down, put it on my desk himself. I read it this morning. Lie number one, if the count started today.

I fished the note out of my pocket. "This one?" I read. "`Call off your man and you can keep your files. The OPR inquiry has been cancelled.' "

He blinked once, twice, looked at the files again. "So you must've misunderstood -- "

"No." I swept the files off his desk blotter and into my hand, flipping them back and forth. "I considered my options. I could call off my man, keep the files and wait for Scully to stand in front of the wrong window at the right time..." I searched for any sign of guilt in his face. None there. "Or I could ruin the point you were trying to make and just give you the damn things. Made my choice."

Wearily, with some sort of silent reproval to himself, he grabbed the other chair -- Diana's probably, and pushed it over to the desk before sinking into it. "I don't *want* the files, Mulder. They do. Keep them, I couldn't care less. Tell them they burned and I'll corroborate it. Just call off your sniper. Put him on someone else."

I pressed one fist to my knee. Now was not the time. I wrapped my fingers around my revolver handle. "I think I understand. You're so clearly apologetic about your previous attempt on Agent Scully's life that I should trust your pinky swear that it will never happen again?"

"You keep saying `your'...`Your previous attempt on -- These aren't *my* attempts, Mulder. They don't belong to me!"

I raised the barrell out of the holster. "Were you there?"

"Was I where?"

"Across the street from apartment 42 in Arlington on December 4th at approximately 8:27 PM?"

He smirked. "Is this an interrogation? Do you think you could ever prosecute *any* of us for a damned thing?"

"I know better." I had the gun in both hands now. "I just want you to answer the question."

"What does it matter if I was there or not?"

I curled the very tip of my finger around the trigger. "Maybe it doesn't matter. So answer."

"Yeah. I was there." He wheeled the chair back a little. He expected me to hit him, which is exactly why I wouldn't. "I was supervising. I hope you don't think my position in the chain of command is of much importance. It isn't. Spender the Expendable. The people you want haven't pulled a trigger in a long time. They're squeamish about it. They speak in platitudes, like `It's done' and 'We took care of it' and -- "

I primed the trigger.

He words stopped like they'd been cut away. "What was that?"

"That's a rhetorical question, right?" I held it there under the desk. "Wanna be a girl?"

All smugness drained from his face, and panic pushed his chair back a foot from the desk. "Look, Mulder...they said for me to knock the wind out of your sails! Hey, I *told* the guy to purposely avoid a kill shot! I said, Hit her in the arm! It wasn't my fault he got her in the lung instead! I didn't want to kill her!" He watched my face as it didn't change. "Fuck. I don't expect you to believe me. But it's the truth, Mulder. I'm damn lucky they didn't catch me on tape, or that it didn't work through the levels that I told them not to kill someone who'd been ordered dead! I didn't want to kill her, and I don't want to now! We're not even watching her now! I want them to return my mother." He swallowed. "You think just because I'm on their side that they don't have something to hold over my head, too? You of *all* people should understand that."

"It's not a good idea to play that card right now, Spender," I said though my teeth. "I'm not feeling particularly empathic."

"Six years moving backwards or in a circle to find your sister." Sweat was breaking between his eyebrows. "And you think your methods are ever going to find her?"

"You think you rack up enough prize points with the men you answer to, and they're going to return your mother to you?" I laughed bitterly. "Is that a method?"

He didn't answer, just sitting there, visibly shaken. The Syndicate would be so proud.

"It's getting to you, isn't it?" I asked quietly. "You turn around, and there he is. A man assigned to shadow you. Wouldn't be so bad if you knew the criteria for what will get you shot, what won't. But you don't know. Like living in the minute, isn't it? Not because you want to, but because you have no choice."

"You have a man on Agent Scully! Why do you need one on me?!"

He knew the words were a mistake the minute he said them.

The words hit me, and I felt suddenly calm, suddenly decided, and raised the gun into view. The soft squeal of the chair's wheels as he whipped back matched the sound he made in his throat.

"How would you know I've got a man on Scully if you're not watching her?" The barrel moved with the tension of my fingers. "You. Fucking. Liar -- "

"I can't just call these things off, Mulder!" He exhaled sharply, and tried a different tact. "I'm not even asking you to call him off for me. It bothers Diana."

I had to suppress the urge to laugh in his face. These were his attempts at negotiations? "You don't get it, do you? You couldn't fall more into their trap if you followed a numbered list! Everything they want you to do, you're doing it. If it's not your mother they use against you, it's going to be Diana. What bothers me more is that you *know* the risks, and you're dragging her along for the ride anyway! They're going to kill her right in front of you, Spender. The first time you misstep, she's going to pay for it. I know. I know it by heart."

He had the decency to not pretend to understand.

"You should know by now what your colleagues like to do to women. Load them on to train cars and...fuck them with machines that leave them barren and half-dead." I positioned the gun so that the barrel seemed to rest between his eyes as I sat there. "Your tactical plans on Scully's life? They were merciful by comparison. I wouldn't expect you to pick up on the irony."

Spender sat almost immobile, afraid to speak. "Okay." He inhaled. "Okay. Then here's the question. What can I do to get your gun off of me right now?"

I lowered my weapon, ignoring the knot of relief in my stomach over not being compromised into using it. "Was that a flash of insight you just had there, Spender?"

His shoulders slumped like my dropped target and he began to breathe regularly again. "What do you want?"

I thumped the small ashtray and it slid across the desk. He barely caught it before it went over the side into his lap. "I want an appointment."

"Why should I?"

I lifted the gun again, still warm from my fingers. "Is your attention span *that* short?"

"You can't kill me. They'd bring you down that much faster."

I primed the trigger again. "You think? If the gun doesn't scare you, I have other ways."

"What other ways?"

"Oh, just blackballing your name to the men you work for." I put my hand in my jacket pocket and pushed the button. "Sound good?"

"You've got nothing on me."

I pulled Scully's Dictaphone out of the pocket, and stopped the rewinding. When I hit play, a slightly higher version of Spender's voice was emitted. "...told the guy to purposely avoid a kill shot! I said, Hit her in the arm! -- " I pushed stop and forwarded it to it's most recent point and hit record again.

He looked stricken. "It's just a matter of...telling them I was lying..."

I laughed. "Hey, the flashing light means it's still running...anything else you'd like them to know?" I waved the Dictaphone under his nose like a microphone. "Maybe a message you could have them give to your mother?"

"Diana," he said vaguely. "She's going to be here any minute."

"I'll be done here just as soon as you make me an appointment." I put the recorder back in my pocket.

He was really watching the door anxiously now. "Fine. When? Where?"

"10:30. Fifth floor, east conference room C." I reholstered my gun. "You make the appointment for yourself. You don't say a word about who's really going to be there. This room is surveilled. If you don't make the call, I'm going to know within minutes. Got it?"

He shook his head. "I don't know what you think this will accomplish."

"That's not your problem." I scooped the files up in my arm. "Make the call."

As I walked out of the door, I couldn't peg what bothered me most: The fact that he dialed out on his cellular the precise moment I was out of the office, or maybe it was the sound of his voice when he spoke to the person on the other end.

He was scared. I liked that he was scared.

Or maybe it was because I felt good about play-acting the kind of tactics that got them heard. The very same tactics that had almost gotten Scully killed.

Even I knew then what was unsettling...the fact that Scully waited for me in the office. Our office, where our lives supposedly continued, unchanged.

I'd have to tell her eventually, wouldn't I?

I'd have to look her in the eye.

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PART ONE === PART TWO === PART THREE === PART FOUR

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