Title: The Alpha and Omega
Author: shawntaw
Rating: G
Spoilers: Oh, please. (rolling eyes) Post - "The Truth" (not mine)
and my story "Genesis"
Summary: Mulder fights a new ailment, discovers he's lost some of his
best friends, and plans for the fight ahead..

Author's Note: I should mention that in my world the Lone Gunmen
faked their deaths and are very much alive. Thank you very much.:)

Disclaimers: I forgot this on "Genesis."  Whoops!  I don't own them. 
I'm only borrowing them for fun, not for profit.  I also don't own Zoloft
or Lorazapam, but that is all I'm saying about that...


***************************************************************************


Mulder leaned his forehead heavily on the heels of his hands and
tried to breath deeply and slowly...in and out...

Scully had started noticing the panic attacks lately, although she'd
yet to mention it aloud.

He found himself staring longingly at an advertisement for Zoloft one
day in a magazine he was half-reading over her shoulder and shook himself
out of it before Scully offered to write him a prescription.

That's all he needed now - after all these years - to develop some
sort of anxiety or panic disorder.

Wouldn't that be ironic?

...in and out...slow and deep...calm down...

The e-mail message which had prompted this attack blinked at him from
the laptop screen. The Gunmen had contacted him through a long ago
prearranged e-mail address, to be used if Mulder had to go underground for 
any reason.

The message was frightening.  Skinner was last seen entering Kersh's
office yesterday and Kersh himself had not been seen since arriving at work
on the same day.

Reyes had been called away and then used to lure Doggett into the open.

So, Doggett and Reyes were missing as well.

The scariest news of all, perhaps, was that Gibson Praise's whereabouts 
were unknown.  He was last seen at Doggett's side as he went to meet with
Reyes in response to a cryptic note about having "answers."

The note was found with Doggett's bloody thumbprint on it in the
parking garage of the Hoover building.

....in and out....calm....please....why won't my heart stop 
pounding?...in...out...in..

Scully's hand appeared on his shoulder.  She'd read the message over
his shoulder. A strangled sound pushed from his throat.  He hadn't wanted 
her to find out like this.

Mulder looked up at her and felt the pressure start to push his
throat closed.  She was trying not to cry, her jaw clenched, eyes watering.

"Mulder, you need to calm down.  This isn't going to help anyone,
especially you."

He closed his eyes and tried to relax.	The pressure got worse.  His
throat was closing.  His heart was leaping out of his chest.  He felt
prickles up his arms and around his mouth.

He was going to die.  He was having a heart attack and he was going
to die.

*Oh, God, not like this...not like this...not a heart attack...so
much to do...*

Mulder stood up like a shot, knocking his chair backwards, "Scully!"
He gasped.

She turned him around, locking her gaze with his.  He could hear his
own dying gasps as she grasped him by the forearms and forced him to look
at her.  He gripped her forearms in return, desperately.

"Mulder, look at me!  You are having a panic attack.  You are in
serious danger of hyperventilating.  Control your breathing, Mulder!  Slow 
down...deep breaths.."

He tried.  He gasped in and gasped out.

Scully wrenched herself free from his grasp and dived for her bag.

Mulder watched intently, thinking that he wanted his last sight to be
of his Scully.

*...dying...dying...can't breathe...everybody's dead...no...no...we're all 
gonna die..*

Scully came up with a prescription bottle and practically tore it
open. Shaking a small pill into her hand, she quickly came back to stand in
front of Mulder.

"Put this under your tongue," she ordered, holding out the pill to him.

For once he didn't question; he didn't even cock an eyebrow.  He
simply took it from her and put it under his tongue.

"With you, at your size, it might take two.." she was muttering to
herself as she watched him.

*Ah, but she forgets how sensitive to medication I am*

For a minute, there was only the sound of his labored breathing and
then..

Mulder realized that his chest didn't feel as constricted.  His
throat was relaxing.

But, man, his head sure felt funny...

"Lorazapam," Scully said to Mulder's inquisitive look, "I-I got a 
prescription for them after the whole.. thing with-with William.  I
was having anxiety attacks at night and trouble sleeping."

Mulder's eyes softened with sadness for her.

"I only took them a few times," she quickly said, dropping her eyes
from his, "but just knowing they're in my bag if I need them makes me feel 
better.  Ridiculous, really."

She waved her hand as though dismissing the whole maudlin subject.

"How're you feeling now, Mulder?"

"I can breathe, but I feel...weird.  Light.  Um, kinda stoned."

Scully huffed, her lips curling into a smile.

"That's another reason I only took them a few times, but if anybody
deserves a little drug-induced escape right now, Mulder, it is you."

"Won't make things better," Mulder said, drowsily, heading for one of
the beds.

"Yes.  It will make things better for a little while.  Then maybe
you'll be able to deal with the ugly world," Scully was saying, sitting 
beside him on the bed where he lay and stroking his hair.

He felt like a cherished child when she treated him like this. He 
supposed it was her way of trying to make up for his lousy childhood and 
cold mother.

She was always trying to be everything to him, his Scully.  His friend, his 
partner, his helpmate, his lover, his keeper...

She filled in all the gaps.

With that last thought curving his lips and the feel of Scully's
fingers gently stroking his hair, he fell asleep.

***************************************************************************


When he awoke it was late.  Night had fallen and he could hear the
distant rumble of yet another storm.

He could feel Scully lying next to him, hear her soft breathing.

So, Mulder lay in the dark and contemplated whether or not he was
losing his mind.

Panic attacks?	Visitation from the dead and undead?  Why would he
envision a visitation from Krycek, of all people?  The man had been slimy,
only on the lookout for himself, hardly caring about the fate of mankind
unless it happened to coincide with his own survival.

X he understood as perhaps a messenger his mind created, for although
the paper with Marita's address on it had felt as substantial in his hand
as the bed felt under him now, he had awoken the next morning to find the
paper gone.

He still couldn't explain how he knew where to tell Skinner to find
Marita though.

And The Lone Gunmen?  Why would he picture them to warn him to
safety? They weren't even dead..

Mulder was gripped with fear.  Were they?  Was the e-mail he received
this morning from them or someone pretending to be them?  Maybe Byers,
Frohike, and Langley were dead...

No.  The account had been set up securely and without anyone else's 
knowledge, even Scully.  There was no way the guys could be dead...

although that is what the world believes.

Mulder had to admit that the guys had pulled off their deaths with
flair.	He still wasn't sure HOW they done it.	Even Scully had been
convinced they were dead.

Until one night, while Doggett and Reyes were out of town on a case,
the Gunmen had revealed themselves.  Doggett carried a message back to
Scully and she had met with the guys in a secret location, very much alive.

Mulder grinned as he remembered how Scully had told him that Frohike
turned bright red when she kissed him full on the mouth, so relieved she 
was to see the three of them alive and well.

Mulder pulled his mind back to the problem at hand.  The time for
weakness was over.  Hadn't he already had this talk with himself?  He had 
to pull this panic thing under control.

Where do they go from here?

Ok, no Skinner.  No Kersh.  So, no connections within the F.B.I.

Damn, that was gonna hurt.  Mulder struggled to keep his thoughts
impersonal and not to think what might have actually happened to the two 
men. He only tried to consider what their dissappearances meant to the 
ultimate goal.

Stopping colonization.

No Doggett.  No Reyes.  So, no fellow foot soldiers in the battle.

Gibson Praise....

Now, that one was too scary to contemplate.  Gibson was the key to it
all, as he always had been.

Mulder sat up abruptly.  There it was.	The first objective in this war.

Find Gibson Praise.  Find the key.

The journey had begun...

***************************************************************************


Scully awoke to blinding sunlight.

The front door to the motel room was flung open, and bright, early-morning 
sunlight pierced the relative darkness of the room and shined into her 
squinting eyes.

"M-Mulder?" She pushed herself sleepily up onto her elbows and shielded her 
eyes with the flat of one hand.

She could see him frantically throwing their bags into the bed of a faded 
red, beat-up, circa 1970's pick-up truck. 

At the sound of her voice, he dashed into the doorway, momentarily
blocking the searing brightness and becoming a shadow outlined by flame.

*avenging angel* she thought abruptly.

"Mulder? What are you doing? And where the hell did that truck come
from?"

He stepped further in the doorway.  Now that she could make out his 
features, she could see the determination etched in the lines of his
face.

Uh-oh.  He had a plan.

"I've..been busy this morning," he said, rushing forward and sitting
on the edge of the bed, "You seemed to need the rest, so I let you sleep.  
I traded for this truck and some cash, "he waved a hand toward the doorway,
"just in case anyone suspects us of still being among the living.  We don't
want to be in the same vehicle we were last seen in."

He took her hand in both of his and stared at it as he continued,
rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb.

"I think I know how to start.  We need to find Gibson. We once thought he 
might be the key to everything in the X-files. I still think he is;
not only that, but also the key to stopping colonization.  He's a weapon, 
Scully, and we need him on our side."

"He's a BOY, Mulder," she reminded him, softly, "and our friend."

His eyes rose to meet hers, pained, but fiercely determined.  "Yes,
our friend, but a boy with an incredible gift that may or may not be the
proof we need of what you found in Africa....of how we came to be here... 
He may be the ONE that can help us.  We NEED him on our side, Scully. If
THEY have him, they will kill him.  Because they won't be able to make him 
use his gift for their cause and he will die because of it."

"He's not the only one with that gift," Scully hoarsely whispered,
almost too softly for Mulder to catch.

Mulder's brow furrowed and his thumb stopped it's nervous rubbing,
"What are you talking about, Scully?"

She swallowed.	It was still hard for her to speak of William - of
all the things she'd gone through and found out during Mulder's absence. 
He'd left when their son was barely 48 hours old.  He had no idea...

"You said Skinner told you that I had to-to give William up for
adoption.  Did he tell you anything else about our son?"

Mulder shook his head mutely, but his hand gripped hers tighter.  "Is
there something I should know?"

Scully pressed her lips together and tried not to give in the sorrow
she felt rising in her chest everytime she spoke aloud of her son.

"William was able to..do things.  Move things with his mind.  His
mobile, for instance.  He couldn't speak yet, of course, but his moods were
very in tune to those around him.  It almost seemed like..he could read
people."

She glanced up from the bedspread where she had been avoiding his
eyes and gasped at Mulder's pale face.  He was swallowing convulsively and
breathing in shallow puffs.

"Mulder?" Scully put a hand to his cheek. "Mulder, there's more. Listen, 
before you give yourself another attack."

She watched his hazel eyes fill with tears, but he did not weep.  He
merely nodded slightly for her to continue.

"William no longer has these..talents.	It's a long story, but Jeffrey 
Spender claims to have 'cured' him of whatever it was that caused him
to exhibit these abilities.  He claimed our son was a part of the 
'super-soldier' experiments that the government had been performing
on certain abductee females.  Mulder, only some of the abductees were
taken by our alien 'friends.'  The others - and I was one of them - were 
taken by our own government to try to produce a race of soldiers to serve 
as an army to aid in the invasion.  Another deal made with the aliens as 
insurance for their own survival."

Scully spit this last out in disgust and Mulder took the opportunity
to interrupt.

"We found out the government  - actually the Consortium - had been
the ones to abduct you, Scully-" he began.

"But we weren't sure WHY," Scully continued, " and now we know that
because of Jeffrey.  And there's more."

Mulder fell silent and waited for her to continue.

"The Consortium was destroyed just as we thought, Mulder, but it
didn't stop anything.  We just slowed it down.  Now the Consortium - the 
shadowy group of men who would aid colonization - just has new members.  
Simple as that," she huffed in bitter irony.

"The good news is that within the Consortium there is another group
of men.  A group of men who want to use the 'super-soldier' technology to 
STOP colonization.  They would use the tests done on the female abductees
to sort out the best candidates for their plans.  Jeffrey said they were
THRILLED to find that you and I had..taken our relationship to a physical 
level."

"Because we have both been vaccinated against the alien virus," he
muttered, almost to himself, understanding, "They were hoping that we would
pass on our immunity to our child."  Scully nodded.

"Did we?"

She sighed, "For all intents and purposes, William is a normal little
boy.  That is what all the tests show.  The only way I could really be sure
he had immunity to the 'black oil' would be to infect him.  I wasn't going
to do that."

"So, you don't know," Mulder said.  Scully shook her head.

"But, how did you get pregnant, Scully," Mulder took her hand in his
again, "I mean, I know HOW, but how was it possible?  I thought THEY
harvested your ova-"

"The chip, Mulder.  I was tagged like some kind of animal," she was
getting bitter and angry again, although she tried to fight it, "and it was 
guaranteed I couldn't remove it."

"The cancer," Mulder breathed, the memories of that time making his
heart ache.

She nodded.  "So I was prime breeding material for their little
'program' I guess and they used the chip to somehow reverse what they had 
done. Or maybe on one of my visits to the hospital..." she shook her head.
"Jeffrey didn't know exactly how it  worked; he only knew it had something 
to do with the chip."

"Sounds like you and Jeffrey had quite a conversation," Mulder quipped, 
trying to lighten the mood.  It didn't work.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked, seriously.

"I wanted to, but Jeffrey told me all of this right before I got the
call from Skinner that you were being held on accusations of murder.  And
you know how busy we've been since then.."	He nodded, ruefully.  "It
just didn't seem important in the face of saving your life and getting
away."

"But for the last few days we've been holed up here with nothing
threatening us, Scully.  Nothing to do but talk.  Why didn't you tell me 
this days ago?  What else don't I know?"

Scully considered him for a moment and put her hand gently on his cheek.	
Her Mulder, always seeking the truth.

"And don't say 'you can't HANDLE the truth.'  I didn't even like that 
movie," Mulder cocked an eyebrow at her.

This time his attempt at levity worked.  She smiled a genuine smile
at him and leaned forward to kiss him.

He closed his eyes.  Oh, how he had missed this.  Being close to her.

Scully was thinking the same thing, breathing in his scent.  She
kissed his lips softly, reverently, and nuzzled his cheek as she pulled 
away.

"A lot of stuff happened while you were away, Mulder.  I'll tell you
all of it, I promise.	The last few days, to be honest, I just didn't feel
like thinking about any of it."

He stared sympathetically at her for a moment.  He could certainly 
understand that sentiment.

"So, how are we going to start on our search for Gibson?  The message
said that he was last seen with Doggett and Doggett's missing too," Scully
was switching to 'Agent' mode, and Mulder gratefully followed her.

"Well, I figure we'll just have to start at the beginning."

"A very good place to start?" Scully quipped, quoting the 'Sound of
Music.'

Mulder's lips turned up appreciatively.  That's his girl.

"Exactly, Agent Scully.  We're going back to D.C."

***************************************************************************


The two of them looked unassuming really.  Like two people on a roadtrip, 
maybe.	Scully was dressed in shorts and a t-shirt with the arms and
bottom cut off to just cover her stomach.  On her feet were leather 
sandals.  She peered out the open passenger window and let the wind whip 
through the honey-brown strands of hair that refused to be tamed into the
ponytail she had her newly-colored hair pulled back into.  She squinted 
into the landscape through cheap sunglasses, lost in thought.

Mulder glanced away from her and returned his attention to the road. 
He was dressed similarly in shorts, t-shirt, and baseball cap.  He also 
wore sandals on his feet.  Scully had jokingly called them "man-sandals." 
He scrubbed a hand across the several days growth on his face.  Pretty
soon he'd have a good beard and mustache going.  He hadn't decided yet
whether he intended to keep both the beard and mustache or just the 
mustache. He'd never let his facial hair grow out before.  Mulder decided 
to wait and see how it looked.

He had decided to ditch his contacts for his glasses and so had
bought clip-on sunglasses for himself on their trip to Wal-mart.

Gone were the two polished F.B.I. agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully
and in their places sat ...somebody.

They were still arguing about their aliases.

"Charles?"  She suddenly said from the passenger seat.

"Like your brother?" He crinkled his nose.

She sighed.

"Scully, why don't we just go by our middle names?"

She turned to raise an eyebrow at him.	An auburn eyebrow.  Oops. 
Should he point that out?

"Your eyebrows are still red, you know."

"I know, Mulder.  That is why I went for more of a golden brown on my
hair.  I still have reddish highlights.  Looks natural."  She seemed
exasperated.

He took in the overall effect and had to admit, if he didn't know
this wasn't her natural color, he'd be fooled.

"Ok," he conceded, "Now what was your objection to our middle names?"

"Don't you think yours is a little obvious?  William?"

He stared straight ahead.  The more he thought about it, actually,
the more he liked the idea of being William.  An homage to  his son.

"I think I'll be William," he said in a quiet way that allowed no
room for argument.

Her eyes misted and she began to object, but decided against it.  "I
guess being Katherine wouldn't be so bad," she said, looking back out the
window.

"Nah, you're my Katie,"  he said with a small smile.  She turned her
head quickly to look at him in his sudden change of mood.

His lips turned up, slightly embarrassed, "I don't know, it just seems 
natural.  Kate or Katie fits you."

She blushed, "Ok, Kate it is,"	she smiled back at him, "Katie, to you."

There was a moment of comfortable silence between the two of them as
Mulder went back to concentrating on driving and Scully went back to
contemplating the scenery.

"Last names?" He asked.

"Skinner?" Scully suggested as a tribute to their former boss and
trusted friend.

Mulder's eyes softened again and he glanced at her.

"It's too unique.  We need something like, like..Wilson or Johnson."

Scully sighed, looking out the window.

"Wilson then," she decided and he nodded.

Silence fell in the cab of the pick-up as Mr. and Mrs. William and
Katie Wilson contemplated their future.

***************************************************************************


Ok, I was going to write this as one looooong story, but my back
hurts so I'm taking a break from typing right now.  So, anyway, I thought 
I'd post what I have so far.

I didn't want to make this a WIP, Mimic!  Honest!!

More coming later, after I go do some housework (grumble grumble) *L*