Title: The Alpha and Omega II
Author: shawntaw
Rating: G
Spoilers: Post - "The Truth" (not mine)
Summary: They're putting the past behind them..

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.:) Also, you
might get a 
little lost if you don't read "Genesis" and "The Alpha and Omega"
first.

Disclaimers: I don't own them.	I'm only borrowing them for fun, not
for 
profit.  I also don't own Super Wal-mart.

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"I hope they're not all dead," Scully suddenly said in a small voice,
still 
watching the passing scenery.

"Me too," Mulder agreed quietly and reached over to take her hand.

"Skinner was so good to me when you were gone, Mulder.	Both times,"
she 
still wasn't meeting his occasional glance from the road in her
direction, 
"He felt responsible for losing you that first time.  He-he held me
when I 
grieved for you, did you know that?"  She looked at him with watery
eyes.

He shook his head, "No, but it doesn't surprise me."

"He was so caring, so very sad for us - William and I.	I WAS
surprised.  
I'd never pictured him like that before."

She sniffled and cleared her throat, "I think he felt like it was his
job to 
take your place and be my protector."

At this she smiled a little, "No matter how many times I told him -
and 
Doggett, and the Guys - that we would be fine."

She looked down at her hand in his, "But above Doggett and the
Gunmen, 
Skinner was a constant presence.  Flowers showed up on my desk out of 
nowhere with no note.  My landlord would thank me for paying my rent
so far 
in advance."

She chuckled, "I even yelled at Skinner and told him to cut it out,
that he 
wasn't my father and that he sure as hell wasn't my husband."

Mulder's eyebrows arched at her and she laughed snuffily again,
"Pregnancy 
hormones," she explained, "Then I immediately broke down crying and 
apologized.  He brought over a big bag of groceries the next day.  I
cooked 
him dinner."

She laughed a little bit to herself.

"What?"

She shook her head with a smile. "I was just remembering that night. 
I 
cooked spaghetti and we were talking, sitting down to eat and the
doorbell 
rang," Scully's smile grew, "It was Doggett with a casserole.  I just
stood 
there with the door open, my mouth hanging open with surprise.	I
mean, the 
big, bad ex-New York cop cooked me a casserole.  He stuttered and
stammered 
about how his wife hadn't felt like cooking when she'd been pregnant
and 
he'd had to learn to fend for himself.	He came up with some story
about how 
he'd been making some for himself and just threw together an extra
one for 
me to put in the freezer."

Mulder was smiling now too, grateful and lifting a thankful prayer to
the 
God that had sent these men to care for his Scully when he couldn't. 
He 
tried to ignore the small knot of jealousy that they'd seen her grow
with 
his child, had been there for her when she was vulnerable and weepy -
very 
un-Scullylike -, and had shared such personal moments with her.

"What happened?" he asked, turning his head toward her so that the
sunlight 
winked off his glasses.

"I asked Doggett to come in and join us, and he did.  I ate the
casserole 
over the rest of the week.  It was delicious; he's a good cook.  But,
this 
story gets better," Scully was grinning one of her rare, toothy grins
at 
him.

"Let me guess, The Three Stooges showed up," Mulder guessed, seeing
the 
punchline from a mile away.

"AND my mother," Scully added, "I had stocked up on canned spaghetti
sauce 
and pasta because it is so easy, so I just cooked more.  Everyone had
a 
great time and I remember thinking what a wonderful, loving family I
had.  
We're a strange group, but a family all the same."

She sighed, "The only thing missing was you."


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Mulder didn't know what to say to that, so the two rode in silence
for 
awhile, falling into a comfortable pattern of two who've been on
countless 
road trips together.

Scully did the inevitable where she was concerned; she fell asleep.

Mulder smiled at her slumped figure and reached out to gently touch
her 
cheek.  At least THIS was familiar.

He shifted in his stiff, new clothes and settled in for the long
drive, his 
mind drifting back to this morning.

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~~ AM of the same day ~~

Mulder was making notes on a notepad when Scully emerged from the
bathroom.

He looked up as she entered, standing there nervously in her blue
jeans and 
summer blouse, red hair pulled back into a wet, slick ponytail.

"What?" His brow furrowed at her expression.

"I-I just remembered something else I should tell you, Mulder. 
You're not 
gonna like it."

"What?" He repeated and turned to face her completely in his chair,
giving 
her his full attention.

And she proceeded to tell him of the night when she found out that
the two 
of them had been under observation by a secret faction of the shadow 
government off and on for nearly their entire partnership because of
his 
activities.  She told him of her trip out of town to meet a
mysterious 
informant - an informant who later turned out to be one of the 
super-soldiers pursuing Mulder.  Scully detailed how she'd had to
change her 
clothes to avoid any tracking devices.

Her eyes fell on the doorway, her meaning clear.  Their luggage out
in the 
truck.	The meager, personal clothes and few items that the Gunmen
had been 
able to get to them.  They'd mailed it overnight to someone, who
overnighted 
it to someone else, who..well, and it went on for a few days until it
landed 
in a post office out in the middle of nowhere for Mulder and Scully
to pick 
up.

The clothes they'd been wearing when they got away from the aerial
assault 
that was supposed to have taken their lives was, of course, from
their 
regular wardrobes as well.

Anything that had been in either of their apartments was now suspect.

Mulder felt a tightening in his chest, but breathed deeply for a
moment and 
told himself to cut it out.  To his pleased amazement, the feeling
had 
subsided.

"So, we get rid of it," he said, lips pressed together determinedly.

Scully had nodded, her expression just as grim.

Mulder sat for a moment, to overwhelmed by information to move.

"Let's go."

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The bags didn't contain anything irreplaceable, except for a
photograph of 
their son William.  Mulder shoved it in his pocket.

The two of them stood beside a small canyon lined with scrub brush
and brown 
grass.	The small precipice that they stood on was crumbly around the
edges 
and Mulder had the sudden thought if they died here, no one would
care.  To 
the world, they were already dead.

Mulder took the two bags from the back of the truck, swung each one
over his 
head once and lobbed them into the distance.

They disappeared as they hit the dead trees and dried-creek bed at
the 
bottom.

All identifications had been removed from the bags and Mulder went
back to 
the truck for the small shovel he'd bought at a hardware store.

He dug a hole deep enough to bury the remains of his laptop in. 
They'd 
erased any memory and run over it several times with the truck
earlier.

Then, silently, he hefted the shovel to one shoulder and looked at
Scully.  
You choose, he offered with sad and weary hazel eyes, you choose
where to 
bury Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.

She nodded and walked around for a moment.  She raised her eyes and
looked 
around and, to his surprise, smiled a little bit.

"Here," she said aloud, "you can see the sunset from here and I bet
the 
colors are spectacular, don't you think?"

Mulder came to stand beside her and looked where she was gazing.  "I
bet 
it's fantastic," he agreed quietly and knelt before her and started
to dig.

"I wish it was by the ocean," she added so softly he almost didn't
make out 
the words, "I always said I wanted to be buried near the ocean."

Mulder didn't comment, but swallowed the lump in his throat and
continued 
digging.  When he had a good-sized hole, he set the shovel aside.

"Me first or you?" he looked up to her from where he squatted.

"I'll go," she said in a numb voice and took out all her
identification, 
kneeling beside Mulder.  Her F.B.I. badge, driver's license, and
assorted 
other credit cards and paraphanelia...	She stared for a moment at
the 
pictures in her wallet of her family and lingered over the one of
William.  
She traced his chubby cheek with her finger; kissed her fingertip and
placed 
it on his head.  Then she threw it all into the hole, including her
wallet.

"Surely you could keep the pictures?" Mulder said in a choked voice.

She shook her head.  "We don't know what kind of technology these
people 
have.  We're going to have to be brutal about this, Mulder.  They
have done 
things in the past that I would have said are impossible to
accomplish, what 
makes this any different?"

A single tear drew a line down her cheek, but her expression was
stoic as 
she stood and faced where the sunset would color the sky in the
evening.

Mulder pulled out all of his stuff next.  The same identification as
hers, 
but only one picture.  The picture he had rescued from the bag he'd 
sacrificed to the dead canyon.	The picture of the son he may never
see 
again.

He stared at it, trying to commit every nuance of his son to memory. 
His 
mother's eyes, but maybe his nose, poor guy.
Mulder smiled at the toothless smile of the boy.  Would he recognize
his son 
if he met him as a man?  Mulder felt choked with grief.

Would his son even live to see adulthood?

Mulder gently placed the picture in the hole and began to cover it
back up 
with dirt.  Scully turned around to watch him and the two of them
watched as 
the face of their child disappeared under the earth.

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The ride to the next town had been nearly unbearable.

They were utterly quiet, and Mulder had no idea what to say to make
it 
better.

"We'll find a way, Scully.  We have to," he said without giving it
any 
thought.

She sighed, closed her eyes with a weary smile, and opened them to
look at 
Mulder.  Scully leaned over in the truck and kissed him on the cheek.

"I know.  We always have.  Let's hope we can this time too."

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They had run into a Super Walmart in the next town, and decided it
was as 
good a place as any.

They bought functional clothes, underclothes, basic toiletries, and
bags to 
put them in.  Scully bought a new Bible and some haircolor.  Mulder a 
baseball cap.  Scully some new hairties.  Sunglasses.  Spiral
notebooks.  
Pens and pencils.

And, considering Scully's possible fertility, a box of condoms.

Mulder surprised Scully with some new silky pajamas.  Not silk, but
as close 
as he could get anyway.  And they were white, like her lost ones.

She had granted him a rare toothy smile and then presented him with
her 
surprise.

Boxer shorts with "X"s all over them.  They were supposed to
represent 
kisses, but they symbolized something entirely different to the man
and 
woman standing in between the nightwear section and bathing suits,
clinging 
to their full cart laughing until they were practically crying.

"And the 'x's glow in the dark," Scully said with a wide, teary grin.

"Of course," Mulder responded and pulled her into a passionate kiss
right 
there in the middle of the aisle.

They had made their purchases and changed at a local gas station -
where 
Scully also colored her hair - and leaving their old clothes and the
last 
remnants of Mulder and Scully behind, started the trip back to D.C.

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This wasn't SUPPOSED to be a series.  I got the idea for "Genesis"
and then 
"The Alpha and Omega" and then it just kind of started writing
itself...

Hope you're enjoying it.  For me it is my way of working throught the 
mytharc and all the nonsense from the last two seasons; hope it's
making 
sense so far:)

Oh, and - for the record - I like Doggett.  I didn't at first, but
Robert 
Patrick did an awesome job bringing him to life.

But, OF COURSE, he's no Mulder! ;)