By Amanda Finch
[email protected]

Disclaimers,etc. with the first part.

--------------------------------------

9:32 AM

All I needed was some time to myself. A few moments in our office at the
apartment to put my hands over my ears and *think* would've been just fine.
The drive back from the church had been punctuated with dazes and dozing off,
and every step felt like it was being forced at gunpoint to propel my body
forward.

I opened the door and groaned inwardly. Not just Maggie now, but Charlie,
Charlie's wife, Charlie's two well-meaning but insane children. Wonderful.
Just duck out, I told myself. Just say your hellos and goodbyes in your best
asshole tone and get away from these people. But who in the hell was - ?

The man stood, nodding. "Agent Mulder."

He was vaguely familiar, and my mind wasn't working at even a somnambulistic
speed.

Maggie stood as well. "He said he needed to speak with you. We told him you'd
be right back." Her look said, Is that okay?

I didn't answer. So that's who it was. McGrath. Section Chief McGrath. I
fought to not roll my eyes in frustration. "Sir."

"You're not going to Ray's visitation?" Still standing, he looked pointedly
at his watch.

Torn between giving him my condolences and giving him the kind of
professional hostility that passed for the norm now, I thought about asking
him the same question.

"The NSA told us we could have the body Friday. I went to visitation then."
There was no defense in his voice, but almost a neutrality, as if he were
trying to dissuade a bad dog from biting. "I do, however, want to attend the
funeral mass, so if we could have a word."

NSA got my attention. I dug my fingers into my palms. More wasted time.
Ignoring the looks of Maggie, Charlie, his wife and the kids, I raised my
chin at S. C. McGrath. "The door to your left is the office."

To his credit, he acknowledged he was on my turf now, and didn't take any
seat of superiority once I had closed the door. It didn't matter. I only saw
him as an extension of the bastard at the other end of that long table
anyway, giving me the what-for years ago about how useless it would all be
now. The last five years hadn't been good to him, and his dark hair had gone
completely white, but the laser-quality of his stare hadn't waned - that look
could probably still cut glass with less-seasoned agents. Now I knew where
his son got it.

His impatience was palpable as I scooped the mail that had collected on
Scully's desk over the past week or so, shoved it into my portfolio, and sat
down in a swivel chair, opposite him. "NSA?"

"That's what I came to talk to you about." He matched my posture nervously,
and I suddenly realized that he wasn't going to bite my head off at all.
"When was the last time you saw Ray?"

"Alive?"

The stare dulled by a few watts and I instantly felt like the shithead I was
being. Dammit. I cleared my throat, felt coughing coming on, and forced it
down. "The last time I saw him alive was the evening of January the 27th. I
left him out in the Jeep he and Jonson had rented for the trip. When I
returned to the house on what I believe was the evening of February the 1st,
he was dead. My suspicions are that he died on the 27th."

He nodded slowly, almost imperceptibly. "Jonson... Mike Jonson. Behind this?"

"Behind Ray's death? No, Sir, not to my knowledge."

"But involved in Agent Scully's disappearance?"

It took me longer to answer than I intended. "Yes, Sir. Directly."

He examined the office, as if lifting things up that were none of his
business and peering under them. "She lived here too, didn't she?"

My relaxed posture went south quickly. "She *lives* here, Sir."

"Ray had it down as *your* address."

"It is." I knew where this was going. "Is this important to you?"

"I'm not here to lecture you, Agent Mulder." He paused, as if apologizing
with silence. "The official Sheehan police report, faxed to me by Captain
Bartusiak himself, states that Ray was found on the morning of the second. A
Tuesday. I understand the woman's house was under the jurisdiction of a
federal facility, which only confuses the issue as to why the NSA wouldn't
release Ray's body until Friday morning or what in the hell they were doing
there in the first place."

"What are they ever doing, Sir?"

He ignored that. Probably classified information anyway. "I put two of my
agents on the case immediately. They weren't allowed entry into the house."

Now I was listening.
"In fact, I called Bartusiak about why the report was so...vague. Turns out
his officers didn't get any farther than my men did."

I sat back now, swivelling in quarter-spins. "What's the NSA's official
report?"

He swallowed, angry. "That my son killed Pam Wyeth in cold blood, and that
his accomplice, as of yet unnamed, killed him."

"Pardon me, Sir," I said coldly. "But that's complete bullshit."

"I found out as much this morning." He swept the room with his gaze again.
"How secure is this room, Agent Mulder?"

Considering I'd been away from the apartment for nine days, I picked up a pen
and Scully's steno pad, scrawling, "Not very."

Beneath it, he wrote: "I have received some video footage from the crime
scene."

The words had the same effect as if he had shook me hard by the shoulders,
but he couldn't know, could he? I didn't ask how he'd obtained the footage.
The answer would've been the same as I'd heard before: he had friends,
contacts. I knew fathers could sell out their sons. Knew it like my own last
name, in fact, but the senses I had that could spot insincerity and even the
best-masked malice from miles away were either not going off or no longer
functioning.

"I've received a concerned call," he replied, voice appropriately clipped.

A concerned call from the NSA usually entailed informing one how they were
going to die. They wanted their incriminating footage back, and they wanted
it now.

He dropped his voice so completely that I almost couldn't hear him. "I'd be
interested in speaking with this woman."

My lack of surprise was the reply to his unspoken question. Yes, I'd seen the
footage, and I wasn't going to share information. Why would I? There was no
love lost between me and anyone whose name was currently being prefixed by
Section Chief. I scribbled on the steno pad, preoccupied. He wanted to speak
to that woman on the footage? He didn't know what want was.

Voice still low, he added, "There's something I'd like to offer you."

I didn't speak.

"I'd bump you up from GS-12 pay to GS-13. I'd expunge your personnel file of
reprimands, except for the two most serious ones -- your attack on A.D.
Skinner and your negligence with Roche - but the rest..." He straightened.
"In addition, the X-Files will be re-opened again. I just want you to go back
and investigate, and I'll cover for you here."
I'd been this close to feeling pity for the sorry bastard, and didn't take
note of what was on Scully's desk as I swept it off in his direction, rage
compounded by what felt like the definite taste of blood in the back of my
throat. He didn't jump up startled like I wanted him to, but examined the
notebooks, pens and bits of glass there before mournfully looking up.

After a few moments, I looked up from her cleared workspace. "Agent Scully
is, first, above other things you may have noticed, my partner. *Sir.* Ray
McGrath was my friend. You walk in here and imply that I'd require anything
*you* offered in exchange for finding the truth about what happened to them?"

He stammered. "I was just - "

"Do you know where my partner is?"

Nothing, just stunned silence.

"Can you bring her back to me?"

Again, nothing.

I rose from my chair. "Then I'm not interested in anything you have to
offer." I walked to the door. "I am sorry about your son. I'm angry about
your son. I'm catching a jet plane out of this city as fast as I can to
answer my own questions about what happened out there. But I'm not going to
let you or anyone else buy me in the process. That's what happened to Mike
Jonson, if April hasn't told you."

"She told me." He stood too, and stared at me for a moment. "Your mouth is
bleeding."

Well, *something* was bleeding. I wiped it away, like sudden weakness could
be vanished from his mind so completely.

I opened the door and he walked out ahead, turning slightly, voice still low.
"You'd be clearing him of murder."

I smiled, and the way my smile looked currently, I doubted any friendliness
could be read into the gesture. None was intended. "Seems you and I are now
even on the validity of *official* reports, Sir."

The Scully family pretended not to notice that anything was out of the
ordinary as he lowered his head, all the more plainly to be heard. "You and I
will be even when you bring that woman back to D.C. Got it?"

I cocked my head to one side. "Sure."

He didn't say which woman, and I didn't ask. My agenda was my own.
x

Office of "The Lone Gunmen"
11:19 AM

I heard the voices from outside before anyone moved to come to the door.

Frohike, closest to the monitor by the door: "Who in the hell is that?"

Byers then. "That's... Mulder? It's Mulder."

There was, I thought, a scared pause after that.

"Holy shit," breathed Langly, and I counted the seven lock twists and pulls
before the door opened and the three stood there, aghast.

"Hospitality, boys," I muttered, hands in my pockets.

Byers hustled everyone away and opened the door. I passed through, resenting
the inspection of bruises and stitches and stiff walk. "You find anything?"

I'd called them the minute the flight out of Minot touched down in D.C., woke
them up actually. I put a trace on any activity involving Alex Krycek or Mike
Jonson, or any subsequent credit card or records information. Krycek was
smarter than that, but I hoped Jonson was new enough to the fugitive detail
to fuck up royally any day now.

As if trying to create the illusion that there was something to find, Byers
busied himself at the computer. Frohike, unable to contain himself any
longer, just stared. "You look like you went dancing with a train."

A pain that had been looming inside my head chose that moment to seize
control. God, why couldn't they all shut the hell up?

"We don't have anything," Byers said finally. "We've had the traces running
ever since you first called. We even have traces running on variations of the
names, added an 'h' to both names just in case that's a ploy used. All we
know is that the car signed out to the two of you was found at the airport.
Scully signed it in."

I walked around the table to look at the screen, to read her name on the
terminal. It was the tail end of a very cold trail now. There were records of
her getting on the airplane in Lincoln, but no records of her getting off in
Minot, North Dakota. According to the records, there hadn't been any stopover
flights for her to have gotten lost on, which would've been in the database
too.

I tapped the glass on her name. "Put a trace on hers. Anything comes up with
her name, tell me."

Langly chuckled. "They're gonna kidnap women and use their credit cards?"
Byers glared at him and he shrugged, straight-faced. "I mean, just kinda
seems like a long shot."

"Long shots are all I have right now." A cough I'd been holding back all
morning refused to be stifled and tore through my lungs like a razor. What in
the hell was that?

Frohike backed away, anxiously. "Why don't you let us handle some of this
Mulder?"

"Handle it?" I looked at all three faces in one swing, coughing hard enough
to have to lean on the edge of their table. "I can handle it fine. I just
need your help on this end of it."

Then I saw what they were staring at. When I had coughed, I'd blocked it with
my hands, which were now a bright crimson with blood. My teeth tasted like
copper, and a flood of life was threatening to flow right out.

"What - ?" Byers shook his head. "What happened to you out there?"

I raised my eyes. I couldn't stand the thought of there being blood on my
mouth, and kept my sleeve wadded up over my knuckles to wipe it away. "I
found my sister."

I think I would've split them or myself if they'd asked. I couldn't have told
that sad, sordid story to save my life - not until I knew the ending.

This *couldn't* be the ending. Glancing up at Byers, I asked silently, Could
it?

I stood outside in their hallway, sleeve to my mouth. The yellowed florescent
lights flickered like a dying strobe. The door had been locked behind me
slowly, leaving time for me to change my mind and come back in, if need be.
Giving me an opportunity to take them up on their offer of help.

They should've known better.

The seventh lock snapped into place. Frohike, voice only slightly muffled by
the door, asked, "How's he going to find her if he's dead?"

Byers made an edgy, shushing noise. In my mind I saw him, seeing me outside
still well within the sight of their monitor. "He'll hear you!"

Frohike snorted. "I hope the sonovabitch does."

x

Blue Federal Clinic
1:03 PM

I sat on the edge of what could only pass for a bed in some dark level of
hell and protectively tucked one arm - the one the nurse had just
exsanguinated with her somewhat debatable bloodletting skills - against the
thickness of the bandages.

Fifteen minutes later, the doctor, named Wexford, had walked in, believing
he'd been given some bad information. The form said 'coughing up blood' (what
would *that* be called, Scully?) and when he looked up from the page, he saw
what Frohike saw: a collision. His cursory diagnosis was either a punctured
lung or an infection of the lungs. Either way, I ended up in the hospital.
How bad could it be really? My body coughed in response and I almost gagged
on the answer. Fine. That bad.

"It's still puzzling to me," the doctor declared without provocation as he
walked back in. I started and jerked my ribs back out of place. Dammit, just
like my mother, suddenly verbalizing a conversation she'd been having with
herself and expecting me to know what the hell she was talking about. "Your
blood, I mean," he clarified. "I don't know why they wouldn't have done
bloodwork."

"Maybe they did," I said cryptically.

"Well yes. These things do get lost sometimes."

Sure, yeah. Lost. That's what I meant.

"At any rate, that's what we were waiting on." He threw the file down at the
edge of the bed and put his hands in his pockets. "It's not a lung condition
at all. You've got some irritation to the back of your bronchial tube -
almost as if something has corroded the tissue. The blood was kicked-up by
the coughing, which is being caused by the pneumonia. Not just *any*
pneumonia though - chemical pneumonia."

"Chemical?"

"Yes. This isn't the first time I've seen a case of it by any means, but
under the circumstances, I'd say it was odd." He sat down in the guest chair.
"Most of the cases I've run into involved industrial environments - where
there was a high toxicity in the air due to the primer used to coat surplus
steel, or the pressurant in large-sized sprayers for high-gloss paint."

I nodded. "Do I look like someone who paints a lot of surplus steel?"

"No, that's why I said it was odd." He rubbed the side of his nose
thoughtfully. "Any ideas on how you might've been exposed to something like
this?"

"Nerve gas," I replied matter-of-factly.

He frowned almost instantly. "Yes, that was -" He sighed. "We were put on a
new database at the beginning of the year. All federal employees, of any
stripe, are on the database. You can search by symptoms, diagnosis or just
name and find another federal doctor in the area who's handling some of the
same symptoms with a measure of success. The doctor that came up when I put
your symptoms in is contracted out to OSHA - no doubt for industrial work,
and recently made an attache' to the Health Department for - "

I finished. "Veterans of the Gulf War."

He concurred gravely. "You fight in that war, Agent Mulder?"

"Right after I painted all that surplus steel."

He stood up, and I followed suit. "If you come into my office, I can give you
the man's name and fill out these prescriptions."

I put my shirt back on. I never knew it could be painful to button a damn
shirt. Arm still absently tucked in, I followed him to the alcove off the
side of a hallway that served as his "office." He sat down in front of the
screen. "I had the information *on* the screen. Someone's played with this
thing. You've got a minute?"

No, but I nodded anyway, smirking at the Run to Be Fit poster directly above
his work area. I glanced over his shoulder at the program itself, at the
fields that could be utilized for a search and -

My instincts were back, dammit.

I double-checked the name plate on the desk from the corner of my eye.
"Doctor Wexford." I crouched so that my stare was even with his as he sat
down. "That database - any federal employee would be listed in there, for the
name search you told me about, correct?"

"Anyone with federal insurance," he answered. "Retired, active, civilian or
dependents. Why?"

"So if you put a name in there, it would tell you if that person's insurance
had been used for any recent medical expenses. Couldn't it?"

He narrowed his eyes at the terminal. "Suppose it could."

"Try Michael Jonson. J-O-N-S-O-N."

The doctor cleared his throat. "I'm not sure if I can just... I'm not sure
how ethical that is. The database is closed. We usually have to have some
kind of waiver to release
the - "

I wasn't going to haul out the badge as anything but a last resort. "It's for
a criminal investigation, Dr. Wexford."

"But usually when the Bureau needs something off the Mednet, Data Resources
fills out the form and it's signed by - "

I just stared.

He huffed in frustration at the monitor. "Is Michael Jonson the man who did
that to your face? Is he why you're coughing up blood?"

(Lie, boy! Lie like your bastard father taught you to!)

"Yes. That's him."

He was vindicated now, angry at the name. He typed it into empty fields and
ran the search. There wasn't even a Michael Johnson, much less the other.

"Nope," he said. "Nothing there." His whisper was almost conspiratorial. But
he didn't want to abandon the cloak and dagger just yet. "Have you got
another name?"

I stared hard at the screen. "Yes I do."

xxxxxxxxxx
End 2 of 16.

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11 / 12 / 13 / 14 / 15 / 16

Feedback

Back to Fanfic Index

Home