"Gethsemane" (you can split up all the sories into pre-and post Gethsemane now--maybe there should be a new category!) However, references to Scully's anti-Church antipathy seen in "Gethsemanne".
Summary: Mulder struggles to cope as Scully's condition gradualy deteriorates.

Mostly friendship, slight shading toward romance, angst galore.

This is dedicated to Rachel: September 1983-June 15, 1997.Good-bye, sweet girl; wherever you may be now, it has to be better.  We will not forget.

_______________________________________________________________________

    When the buzzer rang over his head, Langly was too deep in his work
at the computer to immediately notice.  The buzzer sounded again.
"Langly!" came a distant shout from the back of the office.
    Not taking his eyes from the screen, Langly rolled his chair back
and smacked the switch with his palm.  "Password," he called.
    "Langly, it's me." Mulder's voice crackled over the intercom.
"Open the damn door."
    "Mulder!  Hold on a sec."  Langly pushed to button to unlock the
main entrance, hollering toward the back as he got up to open the
office door.  By the time Mulder arrived, looking tired and haggard,
Frohike had already been rummaging the refrigerator and immediately
handed him a beer.
    "Thanks." Mulder gulped down half the bottle and glanced wearily
around the room.  "Did you guys hear the news?"
    They nodded.  "Your friend over at the bureau called us.  We're,
uh--we're really sorry, Mulder."  Byers hesitated.  "How are you
holding up?"
    "Okay, I guess.  Kind of numb."  Actually, he felt worse than numb;
he felt empty, as though the huge hole inside him had swallowed him up
and made him part of its void.
    "Do you want to talk about it?" Frohicke asked, a little awkwardly.
    Mulder looked at the clutteresd office. "It's wierd, you know..."
his voice trailed off. "Being back here, it's almost like a time warp
or something.  I haven't been here since the night she called to say
she was sick, remember?"
    It had been a Saturday night and he had been hanging out with
Frohike, working on some DOD files the Lone Gunmen had gotten from some
secret source.  They weren't getting much done and had been arguing in
a desultory fashion about pizza versus Chinese when Mulder's cell phone
rang.
    "Mulder," he said cheerfully.
    "Mulder, it's me."
    "Scully!  Thank God, you're going to save me from Hunan Dynasty--"
    "Mulder."  For the first time the tightness in Scully's voice
registered.  "I need your help.  Can you give me a ride to the
hospital?"
    "What is it?  What's wrong?"  He was already on his feet, fighting
panic.
    "I'll explain when you get here--"
    "Okay.  Okay.  Sit tight, I'm leaving now."
    When he arrived Scully was curled on her couch wrapped in her coat,
looking white and anxious.  Even Mulder, with his minimal medical
experience, could see that she was having trouble breathing.
    "God, Scully, you look like crap."
    Scully cocked a brow at him in her characteristic dry way.  "Sit
don a minute," she said.
    Mulder perched on the edge of the coffee table to face her, trying
to hide his anxiety.  "What's going on?"
    "Remember a month or so ago when I had to stay in the hospital for
the scans and the MRI?"
    "Yeah...you said those all came back okay."
    "They did, but the malignant cells kept showing up in my blood
smears.  Then a couple of weeks ago, my blood counts started
falling--all of the cell lines were failing at the same time.  I had a
bone marrow biopsy last week.  It showed that the tumor has
metastasized fairly extensively to the marrow."
    Mulder tried to process this,  He knew that metastases were
generally bad, but had only the vaguest knowledge of what the bone
marrow actully did.  Could you live without it, like a spleen?  He
hoped so.  "What does that mean?"
    "It means that, when they told me, I realized that I would have
very little time left before either the anemia became too clinically
significant for me to work, or I acquired an opportunistic infection
because of the failure of my immune system."
    Mulder mentally translated this.  A death sentence.  "Why didn't
you tell me?" he asked as gently as he could.
    "I wasn't ready, I guess.  I didn't want to have to leave work
yet." Scully's face took on a sad, wry expression.  "I didn't want to
be dying."
    "Oh, Scully." Mulder's heart ached with worry and fear.  "Does your
mom know?"
    "No." Scully shook her head.  "I felt okay until last night--I was
really tired then, but it had beena long week so I just went to bed
early.  But this morning I felt kind of bad and I finally went to take
a nap in the middle of the afternoon.  When I woke up I thought I was
suffocating."  She shivered suddenly.  "That's when I called you.  It's
most like pneumonia, Mulder.  That's about the most common infection in
someone who's immunocompromised.  I called my oncologist's office after
I talked to you and they said the person on call would meet me at the
emergency room."
    Mulder nodded, holding her gaze.
    "Are you ready to go?  Do you need to call your mom or get some
stuff?"
    "I'll talk to her later, and I've got my overnight bag here.  I'm
not going to have a farewell scene with my houseplants, Mulder, let's
just go."

    Mulder disliked hospitals.  They were disporienting and unnerving
places where scary things happened beyond his control, and this trip
was no exception.
    When they arrived at the emergency desk the triage nurse took one
look at Scully and called for a stretcher.  They settled Scully
carefully on the gurney, sitting up, and plunked down a black box with
a glowing clip that attached to Scully's finger.  The box lit up with
red numbers that beeped, scrolling, and finally settled at 79.
    Mulder had always assumed that knowing what was going on would make
the ER a lot easier to deal with; now, seeing the sick resignation that
filled Scully's eyes when she saw the numbers, he was just as glad not
to know.
    People began materializing around the gurney in a small flurry.
Mulder was pushed aside by a woman no bigger than Scully with a long,
shiny black ponytail.
    "Dr. Scully?  I'm Dr. Chang.  I'm one of the ER residents here
tonight.  An oncologist from your group os on the way; they should be
here soon.  Let's get you on some oxygen, okay?  Matt, let's start with
a face mask at ten liters.  Get a nonrebreather.  Julie, can you call
for a portable chest? and respiratory?  Dr. Scully, I'm going to get an
art gas, okay?"
    Scully caught at the mask that a nurse was fitting to her face.  "I
have a DNR order," she said clearly, "you can't intubate me."
    "What?" the young woman stopped, startled, in the middle of drawing
upa syringe.
    "My advance directive is on my chart here.  Check with medical
records."  Scully let go of the mask and the oxygen hissed on.  She had
gotten worse just in the short time Mulder had been with her; the
muscles in her neck tensed as she struggled to pull in air.
    "Okay.  Don't worry, nobody wants to intubate you right now."  Dr.
Chang recovered quickly, probing Scully's wrist delicately for a pulse.
 "We'll talk to your oncologist when they get here."
    "What's going on?  Scully, what are you talking about?" Mulder was
confused and terrified.  He knew what DNR meant; he watched TV.  He
pushed through to Scully's side.  "I'm not going to let you just *die*
here, Scully."
    This was a mistake.  Having drawn attention to his presence Mulder
now found himself hustled into the bright hallway as the knot of people
began poking at Scully in earnest.  And from there the night mare
descended, and his life went to hell.

    Several hours later Mulder found himslef sitting in a hushed,
blandly pleasant room fighting a creeping sense of deja vu.  The fact
that it was a different hospital and a different ICU was irrelevant;
the room's tastefully neutral decor seemed to have been purchased
wholesale from the same central supplier.  He could have sworn he and
Mrs. Scully were even sitting on the same couch.  He sighed.
    The only real difference was that this time they were facing two
doctors instead of one.  The one talking now was the oncologist on call
for Scully's group, a round disheveled woman named Polonsky whom Mulder
found himself liking better than her primary oncologist, who was young,
balding and prematurely curmudgeonly.  The ICU attending was sitting
back for the moment.
    "As I think you're aware," Dr. Polonsky was saying, "Dana has had a
living will for several years, but that's been updated since her
diagnosis.  Last week she and Dr. Weber had quite a long discussion
after she learned of the extent to which her disease had spread.  ana
realized that resuscitation would most likely be needed only if she
suffered an abrupt cerebral event erlated to her tumor--which would
undoubtedly be futile--or if she were to acquire a severe opportunistic
infection, which is in fact what occured.  According to what was
related to me Dana felt very strongly about the possibility that if she
were sick enough to need mechanical ventilation she would be unlikely
to recover and that would place you, her family, in the painful and
difficult position of terminating life support."
    Mulder and Mrs. Scully traded a brief glance. "We faced that
before," Mrs. Scully admitted, "and it was horrible.  But I can't allow
Dana to give up any chance just to spare us a difficult decision."
    Bailey, the ICU attending, intervened.  He was a commanding man
with a bristling mustache who reminded Mulder of Skinner.  "Actually,
the issue is less vital than it may seem.  Either the antibiotics will
work or they won't; putting your daughter on the vent would undoubtedly
buy us some time, but it may not make much difference in the long run."
    Dr. Polonsky hesitated.  "Ther's another issue as well," she said
quietly.  "Dans knew that her tumor was progressing even as it
metastasized, and she knew very well that dying from the actual tumor
would likely be particularly unpleasant.  I'm afraid at this stage
there isn;t much hope that Dane will survive her cancer.  Given that
knowledge, she probably viewed dying from pneumonia to be an acceptable
and even attractive alternative."
    "But I'm not ready for her to die!"  Mrs. Scully burst out, her
face a mask of aunguish.  "I can't--I' can't let her go yet.  I just
can't."
    Dr. Bailey stepped in again.  "We have no intention of just letting
her go, Mrs. Scully.  Choosing not to die on a respirator and giving up
are entirely different things, and your daughter is fighting very hard.
 She's young and her physical condition is good.  With maximal support
she has an excellent chance to survive this acute event."  But not the
cancer, Mulder thought, and deliberately closed his mind to that.
"We'll be doing everything possible to help her."
    "When can we see her?" Mulder asked.
    "I'll check with the nurses and see if they're ready.  In general
you can stay with Dana all the time, except during rounds and at shift
change."  He shook their hands, quickly and formally, and left.

    Mulder stared down at the now empty beer bottle he was rolling
between his hands.  He glanced up as Langly plubked down another one on
the table in front of him.  "Thanks.  The next few days are kind of
blurry; it was just one awful thing after another.  I remember talking
on the phone to you guys a couple of times, though."
    "You said it was pretty bad," Frohike said.
    "Yeah." Scully had gone downhill so quickly that the ICU team could
barely keep up.  They had been incredibly diligent and patient with
Mulder's endless questions; they explained everything as they went
along, showed him X-rays and lab results and then tried to explain
them.  The descriptive, vaguely poetic terms meant nothing to Mulder,
although he never forgot them--"ground glass infiltrate" was a phrase
that stuck in his head, for some reason--but one term struck him with
perfect clarity as he looked at the X-rays: "whiteout".  Scully's lungs
were full of snow; no air could get in.
    The worst of the whole ordeal was that Scully was essentially awake
the whole time.  She had to sit all the way up in the bed, almost
hunching over in order to breathe.  Every breath was a monumental
battle in spite of the maximal oxygen.  He and Mrs. Scully stuck to her
side like a ghoulish cheering section, holding her hands and
encouraging her as bravely as possible.  "Breathe, Scully, breathe.
Come on now, you're doing great, keep it up, good job, keep
breathing..."
    They got good at following the little red numbers--the pulse
oximeter--which spent most of that time stuck in the mid eighties.
Mulder began to recognize some of the lab values too.  When her blood
counts fell he pestered Scully's residents to transfuse her.
    IV access became a monumental problem.  Scully's veins were blowing
easily and her platelets were so low that huge bruises spread up and
down her arms.  At one point two nurses spent an entire morning
searching for a vein on Scully's this white foot.  Mulder watched
anxiously; he had begun to see the various IV bags as near-magical
solutions sustaining the faltering functions of her body.  She needed a
separate line just for the infusion keeping her blood pressure up.  At
one point Scully had IVs in the backs of both wrists, so they could not
hold her hands. Mulder slid his flat hand beneath her taped-up palm and
felt the tips of her fingers curl around his.
    Because Scully could not lie down, even for a moment, or be safely
anesthetized, she could not get a central line which would have
alleviated the problem.  On the second day as the team clustered around
the bed being hectored by the nurses to do something, *anything* about
the IV issue, on of the residents said, "What about a femoral line?"
    Mulder looked at his partner in time to see her exhausted blue eyes
fill suddenly with tears.  He swallowed hard and pushed his other hand
beneath her curled fingers, pressing them gently between her palms.
For him, that was the worst moment.
    In the end, Bailey nixed the femoral line.  A kindly
anesthesiologist arrived, peered over Scullys bowed neck and battered
arms, and finally found a cutdown site on her left leg.
    That was the day Bailey told Mulder and Mrs. Scully that they were
changing Scully over to a mixture of oxygen and helium, which for
reasons Mulder failed to follow would help her to keep more oxygen in
her blood.  The numbers on the pulse oximeter crept up just
perceptibly, but Scully seemed if anything to be working harder.  She
had to be propped upright now, struggling agonizingly to pull in each
breath, fingertips curled over Mulder's.  "Breathe Scully Breathe...I'm
not going anywhere, Scully.  Hang on."  Mulder napped briefly in the
chair and drank gallons of tasteless coffee.  He could not think
clearly.  He felt somehow if he could wrap his arms around Scully and
hold her, he could do the breathing for both of them and she could
rest.
    On the third day, Dr. Bailey announced that they were going to give
Scully some aerosolized medications designed to break up some of the
mucus in her lungs.  Snow, thought Mulder, fuzzy-headed from
exhaustion.  Scully took the first treatment without incident.  An hour
after the second, while Mulder was in the visitor lounge downing
another cup of stale coffee, Scully coughed up an alrming amount of
pink froth into her oxygen mask and began to turn blue.
    Mulder arrived outside the room just as a resident pushed a
terrified Mrs. Scully into the hall.
    "What is it?  What's going on?"  Mulder strained to peer through
the glass wall and over the heads of the growing throng in the room.
He saw Frank, the giant respiratory therapist, supporting Scully's head
and saying kindly "I'm sorry, Dana, we have to do this," as he pushed a
suction catheter into her nose.  Scully immediately gave a cry of such
pain and fear that Mulder's gut clenched.  He heard Mrs. Scully give a
low wail of anguish at the same moment that Bailey pushed by him,
saying authoritatively, "Give her a milligram of Ativan, *right now*."
    And then a nurse was there and led them gently but firmly, away
from the confusion and back to the quiet room.

    "She's hanging in there," Bailey told them some time later.  "The
bleeding has stopped for now.  I know that was a very frightening
experience for everyone, and I'm sorry."  They had given Scully some
new magic infusions--FFP and cryo, Bailey said--and stopped the aerosol
treatments.  Scully was badly shaken but otherwise not much harmed.
    "Isn't there anything you can give her to at least make her more
comfortable?" Mrs. Scully's voice cracked with strain.  She looked as
worn out and depleted as Mulder felt.
    Bailey shook his head, his voice as close to kind as Mulder had
ever heard it.  "I don' think we're to that point yet," he said.
"While giving Dana morphine would make her more comfortable, a *lot*
more comfortable, it would also decrease her respiratory drive.  If she
doesn't turn around fairly soon Dana is going to start to tire out and
at that time, yes, I would very strongly recommend that we give her as
much morphine as necessary to make things easier for her.  But once we
make that decision, there's really nio going back.  I'm not ready to
give up yet and I don't think Dana is either."
    Mulder nodded slowly.  He had overheard some of the residents
talking and he knew that Weber, Scully's primary oncologist, had been
pushing Bailey to start morphine already.  He was deeply grateful that
Bailey seemed willing to fight for every chance.
    "Then if it's okay," he said to Bailey, taking Mrs. Scully's hand
tightly, "we'd better get back there."
    And back they went, to where Scully, at the last resources of her
strength, slumped in the bed laboring mightily with her snowed in
lungs.  "Breathe Scully breathe," Mulder told her, almost chanting.
"You're going to get better, Scully.  Just keep trying.  Breathe,
Scully, breathe."

    Amazingly, very slowly, Scully did begin to get better.  Gradually
her breathing became less strenuous and her blood pressure returned to
normal.  The little red numbers came up to 94 and stayed there, even
when they began turning Scully's oxygen down.  The day a happy resident
showed Mulder an X-ray that actually showed clear areas of lung, Scully
told Mulder in a very weak voice to please go home and take a shower.
    When he got home he stretched out on the couch for a few minutes to
catchup on the sports and woke up twelve hours later.
    "I was so tired," Mulder told the Lone Gunment now. "There were a
couple of days when I would come to the hospital and Scully would be
sleeping or whatever and I would just crash on the chair right next to
her.  Her mom was the same way.
    "They had something called change of service in the ICU right
before we left--all of the doctors turn over at once--all the residents
came and hugged us and told Scully they would miss her.  Even the
attending shook her hand.
    "When she transferred out to the regular floor Scully was on a
nasal cannula and she could sleep lying almost flat.  We thought it was
awesome."
    Scully's younger brother and his wife had made the long drive up
while Scully was int he ICU and now her sister-in-law brought Scully's
beloved nephews to see her.  Mulder found Charlie and Amy pleasant
enough and the boys were cute.  When Bill Jr. flew in for a brief
leave, however, he elected to return to the bureau.
    SOme of their coworkers had come to visit and many had sent
flowers--Scully was relatively popular, especially compared to
Mulder--but most of the visits were awkward.  The majority of her
casual friends at the bureau had not know of Scully's illness and did
not know how to react faced with her obvious deterioration.  When
Mulder went in he kept running into colleagues who either avaioded him
completely or asked endless questions; even the basement office was not
a refuge.  He finally escaped to Skinner's office.
    "How are *you* doing?" the AD asked.  Skinner had been in several
times and had once brought Mulder and Mrs. Scully a bag of bagels.
    "Not too bad.  Still tired,"  Mulder answered.  I'll probably be in
and out for a while if that's okay."
    "Take your time," Skinner said.  "You still have about six weeks of
vacation time left anyway."
    Mulder returned to the hospital to find Scully dwarfed by an
enormous peace lily.  She had been allowed to wash her hair and looked
clean and content.
    "Nice plant," Mulder said.
    "Yeah, my brother...Mom's taking him back to the airport now.  I
think he's jealous, Mom's been going on and on about how great you've
been."
    "He hates me."
    "He doesn't hate you, Mulder, he's just possessive.  he's going to
try to get on detached assignement to Annapolis--I think it was really
hard on him not being able to come earlier, and it won't get any easier
for him to get leave out there."
    Mulder, who knew how he felt about his own sister, thought about
what it would be like to fly away not knowing if she would live until
his next visit.  He felt a twinge of sympathy for Bill Scully.  "That
would be great," he replied, surprising himself with his own sincerity.
    "Hmph." Scully wasn't buying it.  She looked at him sideways.
"What about you, Mulder?  When are you going back to work?"
    "I don't know.  I told Skinner not to really count on anything much
consistent for awhile.  I guess I wanted to talk to you...you won't be
coming back to the bureau, will you, Scully."
    "No." Scully's face was sad but resolute.  "Ther's no chance I
could be in the field again and I don' think I'd last very long even at
a desk job.  Besides, I feel as if this extra tiem is like a gift I've
been given and I don't want to waste it."
    "What are you going to do?"
    "I haven't really decided.  I mean, I don't really have any last
ambitions to fulfill like skydiving or anything."  Mulder grinned.  Of
course not.  "I would like to go to where I could be by the ocean for a
while though."
    Mulder lit up. "Scully, you could go to my place."
    "What place?  The *Quonochontaug* house?  Oh, Mulder, no, you hate
it there."
    "Not if your mom fixes it up.  And then I could come up and see you
on weekends.  Come on, Scully, it would be perfect for you.  There's
plenty of room; it's not like anybosy else wants to stay there."
    "I'll think about it."  Scully's tone was firm.
    "I'll just ask your mom," Mulder threatened.
    "You would, wouldn't you.  Oh, okay.  But let us pay to fix it up."
    "No way.  That place hasn't been touched since the seventies--we'd
have to redecorate to sell the dump anyway."
    In the end Mulder prevailed.  Mrs. Scully drove up with her things
and a mountain of cleaning supplies loaded into her car, and Mulder
stayed to look after cully until she was ready to go.  One of the first
things Weber had done when Scully was well enough to tolerate being
moved was to have a central line placed, and now a home health nurse
came to teach Mulder how to use it.
    Mulder regarded the central line with an affection bordering on
reverence.  "It's beautiful," he told Scully when she came back from
the OR.
    "It's not beautiful; it itches."
    "It's beautiful to me because it means I'll never have to watch
anybody try to put an IV in your foot again."
    Now he learned to clean, tape, injest, flush.  Weber had agreed to
send a supply of morphine, but Scully had no intention of pursuing any
ongoing treatment in Rhode Island.
    "It's pointless, Mulder; it'll just make me feel sick."
    Even Weber agreed she was right.  With the pneumonia clearing from
her lungs the she shadowy forms of metastases were now visible on the
X-rays, and her blood counts continues to stay low.
    "I came to see her in the hospital before you guys left," Frohike
told Mulder.  "You weren't ther; I forget where you were.  Scully
looked terrible when I first got there--she was so pale and skinny--
but she ws telling me about how you were going up to this place on the
ocean and she was so happy about it, she seemed beautiful."
    "She was sort of at peace with the whole thinkg," Mulder said.
"More so than the rest of us.  I think maybe the extra time was a gift
more for us than her."  He remembered the hour he had spent in the ICU
quiet room when he bleieved Scully was going to die.  If she had
drowned in her own blood, would he have been able to handle it then?
He didn't think so.
    "The day we left was great.  It was a perfect spring day, just
starting to get warm.  All of the people Scully knew at the hospital
came to see us off and we drove up in my car."
    Mrs. Scully had done a great job on the Quonochontaug house.
Mulder, bracing himself, found that he barely recognized the bright
interior.  Everything was painted white and the furniture slipcovered.
The twin beds from the loft had been moved to the master bedroom for
Scully so that one of them could sleep with her if necessary.  The
study of the living room had been turned into a bedroom for him; Mulder
dumped his clothes on the bed and rarely touched it again.  Prepped by
Scully, her mother had installed a futon in the living room with an
afghan and cable TV.  "It gets ESPN and the sci-fi channel," Mrs.
Scully told Mulder proudly.
    He hugged her warmly.  "You're my dream woman.  Marry me."
    "I stayed the rest of the week.  It was fun, almost like a
vacation."  Mulder smiled at the memory.  "It was still the off season
so it wasn't too crowded, but there are a lot of cute little towns and
artists' colonies up there.  We took long walks on the beach; at night
we played cards."
    At the end of the week Mulder told Scully he was going back to DC.
    "It was a lie.  I went to Pennsylvania."
    The Kurt Crawfords had been working on the project for a long time,
and Mulder decided that the best hope to save Scully lay with them.  He
spent two days going over their work, what they would show him--
"They're almost as paranoid as you guys"-- and sharing everything he
knew before driving back to Washington.  Spending time with the Kurts
was an experience he never got used to: the sheer identical numbers of
them were daunting enough, but their dour personality made for poor
company.  Mulder decided early on that any genetic input from Scully
had been purely for brains.
    Mulder went back to Washington and settled into a hectic routine.
He worked three days a week at the bureau, mostly consulting for other
departments or following up on old open files.  He refused to open any
new investigations that might tie him up.  Wednesday nights he drove to
Pennsylvania to connect with the Kurts, Leaving Thursday to spend the
weekend with Scully.
    Scully was still doing well during this period.  Although Mulder
could see her getting thinner and she tired more and more easily, her
spirits were good and she insisted she felt fine.
    Because things were so busy Mulder never got over to see the LOne
Gunmen and rarely even called them except to seek hacking help.
    "I feel bad about that."  Mulder was by now slouched in a chair,
picking at the label on an empty beer bottle.  "I really dumped on you
guys."
    "We go over it," Frohike said drily.
    Scully's brother Bill was transferred stateside and promptly
requested a weekend's leave.  Charlie and his family came up too and
the Scullys held a family reunion at the Quonochontaug house.  Mulder
opted to stay in DC.
    "How was it?" he asked Sunday night on the phone.
    "Oh, it was great," Scully said comfortably.  "It's too bad you
couldn't come, Mulder.  We grilled out every night on the beach even
when it was cold.  The boys loved it; they thought the loft was just
the neatest thing."
    "That's good."  Mulder smiled.  He found he liked the idea of the
Scully boys --happy kids from a normal family-- running around in the
Quonochontaug loft.  It seemed somehow cleansing.  "I'm glad that bed
in my room finally got some use, anyway."
    Scully laughed. "Oh, it got used all right-- Bill brought his
girlfriend.  Mom hates her."
    Tuesday night mulder came home late to find a message from Mrs.
Scully on his answering machine.  Scully was in the hospital.
    "Fox, settle down," Mrs. Scully said as soon as she heard his voice
on the phone.  Scully had had a nosebleed that wouldn't stop, so they
had gone to the hospital.  Everything was fine now; she was just
staying overnight to be transfused.  Everyone was very nice and they
were going to set Scully up with the local hospice.  They would be home
tomorrow and would call him then.  He needed to be levelheaded and not
do anything silly and unnecessary like drive up.
    Mulder dutifully promised not to do anything silly and unnecessary,
itching to get off the phone so he could pack.
    He arrived in Scully's hospital room in the dead of night and found
her sleeping peacefully, curled on her side.  He prowled anxiously
around the bed but found nothing hooked up to her except the familiar
bag of dark blood.  He was glad to see Mrs. Scully had apparently left
fot the night: at least one of them was levelheaded.  Besides, it meant
he could prop his feet on the extra chair.  He settled himself
comfortably, truned on the Tv with the sound off, and eventually
drifted off to sleep.
 
    He was awakened the next morning by Scully poking him in the arm.
"You're not supposed to be here," she said sternly, the smile in her
eyes belying the harsh words.
    "Mmff." Mulder sat up groggily, shaking his head to clear it.
"Hey.  How are you doing?"
    "Fine," Scully said cheerfully.  "It was only a nosebleed, Mulder;
I'm just getting tanked up here."
    "Oh, for heaven's sake," Mrs. Scully said, when Mulder checked this
out with her later.  "For someone approaching the final judgement, my
daughter is really an awful liar."
    Scully's blood counts had completely bottomed out.  Although the
anemia nad bleeding problems could be corrected temporarily with
transfusions, nothing could be done to bolster her immune system.  The
metastases in her lungs had spread, and the oncologist called in to
consult had also found evidence that the cancer had begun to spread to
her liver.
    "And you didn't think this was worth coming up for?"  Mulder asked.
    "I just didn't want you driving up in the middle of the night,
which you did anyway," Mrs. Scully replied, exasperated.
    Mulder spent the day dozing intermittently as a steady parade of
people canme throught to see Scully.  The local oncologist, a freindly
Indian woman, came by with a prescrioption for medication which would
slow the failure of her liver.  A nurse form the hospice brought an
information packet and checked over the central line.  Finally, the ENT
attending arrived, peered up Scully's nose with a light, and pronounced
her discharged in a strong Boston accent.
    "Remember, no flying, no mountain climbing," he warned cheerfully.
    "I *know*," Scully replied, eager to leave.
    Finally, that afternoon, they took Scully home to die.
    After only a week and a half away Mulder could see clearly that his
beloved partner had crossed some invisible line; she had gone from
being a woman with an illness to a woman who was ill.  "I don't want to
be dying," she had told him back in her apartment, and at the time he
had thought simply that she was not ready to go.  Now he knew that
death itse;f held no fear for Scully; it was the process she hated.  He
hated it too.
    "I never left her after that," Mulder told the Lone Gunment
tiredly. "I had my laptop and I worked on som ecase reports off and on,
but it made me nervous to be away.  I talked to you and the Kurts by
E-mail if something was going on...the Kurts thought then they were
getting close to finding something, but they didn't seem to need my
help anyway."
    Scully had good days and bad days.  On the good ones she went into
town and walked on the beach; on the bad ones, which were more frequent
now, she mostly stayed curled on a lawn cahir in the back of the house,
gazing out at the ocean.
    A few days after they had come back, Mulder was sitting with Scully
out back working on a report for an old case.  He had just downloaded a
set of recently filed lab and forensic reports and was reading over
them.
    "Scully," he said, frowning at the screen.
    Scully looked up from the magazine she was leafing through.
"Yeah?"
    "I'm looking at these autopsy reports you did on thiose satanic
victims?  The ones we thought might be being used as virgin sacrifices?
 On this report it says the victim showed signs of previous pregnancy.
Why didn't you tell me about that sooner?  This is going to blow the
whole case."
    "What?  Give me that." Scully reached for the laptop.  Mulder
handed it over and swiped her magazine to look for lingerie ads.
    Scully squinted into the glare off the screen for a few minutes and
then said, "Mulder, look here."
    He followed her finger to the line on the screen.  "Is that my
name?"
    "No," he said sheepishly.
    "Now look at the case number.  This isn't even an X-file-- you
downloaded the wrong report!"
    "Oops.  I called up a whole lot of them, too.  I'd better go back
and double check."
    "My God, Mulder, that palce is going to fall apart when I'm gone."
    They were so involved in their discussion that neither had heard
fotsteps behind them until Mrs. Scully's voice said tentatively,
"Dana?"
    Scully and Mulder looked up simultaneously.  Mrs. Scully was
standing hesitantly on the patio next to a middle-aged woman with short
gray hair and a no-nonsense gaze.
    "This is Sister Maureen."  Scully's mother glanced at her with
trepidation.  "She's the chaplain from the hospice."
    "You're a *nun*?"  Mulder asked, fascinated.
    "Yes, I am.  I also trained as a nurse, a long time ago."
    "I thought nuns, you know..." Mulder hesitated. "wore veils and
stuff."
    "Some do.  Some don't.  I don't."  Her tone clearly said, Deal with
it.  Mulder grinned-- he found himself liking her in spite of the
you-traitor scowl he could feel Scully burning into his back.
    "If you like, later on we can discuss that some more," Sister
Maureen added, "but today I'm here to talk to Dana."
    Scully looked up at her silently, brows drawn.
    "Dana," the chaplain continued, stepping down to the grass, "I'm
not here to drag you kicking and screaming back into the church.  I'm
the chaplain for the whole hospice organization; I just happened to
have trained in a Catholic order.  Do you mind if we talk for a while?"
    Scully shook her head, a little reluctantly, and glanced over at
Mulder.  He took the hint and scrambled out of his chair, retrieving
the laptop on the way.
   "Here you go.  Take my chair.  Do you, uh, want a drink or
anything?"
    "Not right now, thank you."  She gave him a brief smile and Mulder
backed inside the house.
    Sister Maureen and Scully stayed outside for over an hour.  Mulder,
wandering around the kitchen, could see the tops of their heads through
the window, they seemed to be talking earnestly.  He finally drifted
into the living room and turned on ESPN, causing Mrs. Scully to
announce hastily that it was time for her walk.
    After a while he heard a car start up and then the sound of the
front door opening and closing.  Scully came in the room and flopped
beside him on the couch, deftly retrieving her magazine from his lap.
    "So how did it go?" In spite of their long friendship Scully was
the most fiercely guarded person Mulder knew, and she had plenty of
wall he had learned early on to respect.  But in this case she had come
nad sat down next to him, so he felt justified in asking.
    "Pretty good.  She's really interesting." Scully looked absently at
the golf game on the television.  "She's a lot less dogmatic than most
of the nuns I knew growing up, or our family priest for that matter.
She told me that it's okay to disagree with the church or its teachings
and still have a relationship with God."
    Mulder grinned.
    "What?"
    "You're such a goody two shoes; it's like you have to have
permission to rebel," he said.
    Scully smacked him lightly with the magazine.  "Oh, shut up.
She's very open minded, is all."
    Sister Maureen came every few days after that.  Mostly she sat with
Scully but several times she went walking with her mother and once, she
came to talk to Mulder.
    It was an overcast gloomy day and Scully announced she was going
into town with her mom.  Mulder took advantage of the female-free house
to make a sandwich, turn on a baseball game and check in with the
Kurts.  They had recently begun tackling the problem from a different
angle and thought they might be getting somewhere.
    "We've hit a wall at Lombard," Mulder's main contact had told him.
"We can't find out any more about who is working on this project or
where they might be doing it.  So we're trying a new approach.
    "In this country, scientists aren't born working for the
government, and some of those Nazis have got to be getting a little
long in the truth.  Even if they're cloning *themselves*, which has
been suggested, they're probably getting new blood from somewhere."
    Mulder had seen some of the government's more shadowy ways of
recruiting scientists and thought they were probably right.  Some of
the Kurts had now begun the painstaking task of combing the medical and
scientific literature for research on cloning or hybrids, then working
backwards to find the scientists involved.
    "We've found someone interesting," Kurt wrote now.  "She was a
brilliant researcher involved in some fertility research several years
ago before completely dropping out of sight.  Some of the references we
found indicate she may have been involved in cloning.  We're trying to
trace where she might have ended up."
    The detailed dossier appended to the message had elements that
sounded eerily familiar to Mulder, but he couldn't quite put his finger
on it.  He was typing a quick response asking Kurt if he had any photos
when the doorbell rang.  Stuffing the end of the sandwich into his
mouth, Mulder went to the door and pulled it open.  It was Sister
Maureen.
    "Oh, hi," he said, swallowing quickly.  "Dana and Maggie went to
town-- they won;t be back for a while."
    "I know," Sister Maureen replied.
    "Sorry?" Mulder blinked.
    "I'm here to talk to you today.  Dana and her mother left on
purpose.  You've been set up, Agent Mulder.  May I come in?"
    In the end they went walking on the beach, watching the gray waves
under the dark sky.  They talked at first about the area-- Sister
Maureen had been living there even when Mulder had come out as a
child-- and she described how she had been a nurse and a hospital
chaplain before helping to found the hospice organization several years
ago.
    "Doesn't your job get depressing?"  Mulder asked, kicking at sand.
    "Not really.  Most of our patients are elderly, and there's a great
deal of satisfaction involved in helping them to leave this world
comfortably and with dignity.  The children's hospital in Providence
has their own hospice so we don't have to deal with kids, but having a
young patient, like Dana, is always hard."
    "Has she told you much about how she got sick?  That it wasn't
random?"
    "Yes she has.  We talk about that quite a bit, actually.  Most
cancer victims have a lot of bitterness, towards God or fate, mostly;
at least Dana has a focus for her anger.  It's one of the few things
she finds hard to deal with."
    "What else is hard?" Mulder asked softly.
    "She worries a lot about her family.  And about you."
    Mulder nodded silently.
    "How are you doing right now?"
    "Right now, okay.  I just go kind of day to day.  I think I'm the
only one who stil has any kind of hope that she'll get through this.
Maybe it's denial, but it helps...I don;t think about the future much."
    "You realize," Sister Maureen said gently, "that the future is
getting very close."
    "Yeah."
    "If you could arrange things, what would you want to have happen?"
    "What do I want to happen?"  Mulder stopped abruptly on a spit of
rock, spray blowing about his feet.  "I want to find a cure for her!  I
want her to get well and live forever and never die!"  He made an
angry, futile gesture toward the sea. "Do you have any idea how much
she's gone through already?  It isn't right that she's the one to die!
It isn't right that she has to suffer!  It's my fault, all of it, and
she shouldn't be the one paying the price!"  He ran down sudden;ly, his
anger burned out as quickly as it had come.  "And I don't think that I
know...how to live without her.  I'm not sure if I can bear it." He
looked at Sister Maureen, anguish naked on his face.
    She looked back at him steadily.
    "You are asked to bear a hard, hard, thing, Agent Mulder.  And no
rationalization I give you is going to lift the burden of guilt you
place on your own shoulders.  This is going to be extremely difficult
for you.  But I know that you have the strength within yourself to do
it.  The challenge is going to be to find that strength, and hold on to
it."
    Mulder started walking again.  He found the womena's forthright
bluntness somehow more comforting that words of sympathy would have
been.  They paced for a chile in silence before Mulder spoke.
    "What I'd like to have happen...I want Scully to be able to stay
here, if that's what she wants, and not have to die at the hospital."
He spoke slowly, thinking aloud. "I don't want her to be in pain." He
glanced at Sister Maureen.
    "There shouldn't be any problem with that."
    "Okay."  They walked for a bit into the stiff breeze.  "I think
Scully is dealing with this better than I am."
    "She went through a difficult period intially; it doesn't sound
like she really felt comfortable talking about it to anyone then.  At
this point, though, you're right.  Dana seems to have worked through
things fairly well."
    "Well...that's good." Mulder himself had no intention of making
peace with Scully's death.
    They walked on a little way, back to the house.
    "I'm glad you came," Mulder said suddenly.
    Sister Maureen smiled at him.  "I am too.  I'll come again, all
right?"
    He returned the smile and they walked in companionable silence back
to the house.

    After Sister Maureen had left Mulder sat out back in the lounge
chair for a while, looking out at the dark sea.  He heard the sound of
the car pulling up and a few minutes later the door scraped open behind
him.
    "Hi," Scully said, leaning over him.  "Want some ice cream?"
    Mulder shook his head and watched as Scully sat cross-legged on the
chair next to him, her hair curtaining her face as she leaned over a
pint of Ben & Jerry's.  He saw her suddenly as a stranger might, her
gaunt wrists and hanging clothes.  He knew she had to cinch her pants
up with a belt.
    Scully glanced up at him and he was struck by the waery gauntness
of her face; she'd been exhauseted by the trip to town.  She grinned at
him and he realized he'd been caught staring.  "How was your day?" she
asked.
    "Oh, not too bad.  You know the Cubs actually won a game?  I think
they might even have a decent season this year."
    "Hmmm." Scully poked around in her ice cream. "Any company?" She
was fishing.
    "Well, you know...the escort service said they'd send over a blond,
but she never showed, so..." Scully's mouth quirked, anticipating the
punch line, "...they sent over this nun."
    "The nerve."
    "Yup."
    Scully dug out a cookie dough chunk and nibbled at it delicately,
watching him sidelong.  Mulder stretched leisurely in his chair.
    "So......" she prompted.  Mulder relented.
    "So really, Scully, I liked talking to her, she's pretty cool."
    "Good." Scully settled back, relieved.  "I just thought it might be
easier if, you know, Mom and I weren't around."
    "Next time, I might even let you stay," Mulder said, leering. "We
could have a threesome."  Scully rolled her eyes at him and he laughed.
 
    The days grew longer and Scully grew weker.  Susan, the hospice
nurse, came out to check her; she gave Scully some special swabs to
brush her teeth and told her gently to avoid crowds.
    Sculy nodded tiredly.  Mrs. Scully went for a long walk and came
back with her eyes red and swollen.  Mulder ran on the beach untilhe
was numb with exhaustion.
    Sister Maureen came on afternoon while Scully was napping and sat
them down at the kitchen table.
    "When a family member dies," she said kindly but with her usual
firmness, "there's a certain temptaion to just sit down and wait to
join them.  Don't do it.  It helps a lot if you plan out ahead of time
what you *are* going to do."
    The first thing, Sister told them, was to call the hospice, who
would take care of notifying the coroner's office and the funeral home.
    "After that you need a list of people to call.  Make it now, and
include backup and contingency numbers.  It seems difficult, but it
would be a lot harder later."
    She outlined what would happen: Susan would come out, check on
them, and retrieve the medical equipment and morphine.  Will she take
my gun too?  Mulder wondered morbidly, then remembered it was in DC.
Sister Maureen would come out too.
    "I guess I need to talk to Dana about what she wants for funeral
arrangements," Mrs. Scully said worriedly.
    Sister Maureen shook her head.  "Dana talked to her brother about
that.  She's even given him written instructions.  She seemed to feel
it would helphime to have something concrete to do."
    "He's also the most likely to be thinking straight," Mulder said,
and Mrs. Scully gave his the ghost of a smile.
    That night Mulder could not sleep.  He flipped through the TV and
turned his computer on and off.  Finally he turned it back on and
checked his mail: one message, from Kurt.  The terse missive sadi they
were no closer to finding the missing scientist, whose picture was
attached.  Mulder opened the attachment and his jaw dropped.
    The last Eve.  It had to be.
    Mulder's mind raced.  He grabbed the phone and dialed, not tearing
his eyes from the woman on the screen.  "Listen to me," he barked
excitedly when he finally got through.  "I know who she is, she's a
clone herself, you have to check this out..."

    For a couple of days Mulder rode the high of Eve's discovery, but
the Kurts seemed to have once again hit a dead end.  They even sent one
of the Kurts out to talk to the three Eves who were still in
custody--"one clone to another," Kurt told Mulder in his usual dry way.
    Two days later Mulder received a message that the Kurt had been
strangled by a delicate looking adolescent Mulder had once known as
Teena.  That same day he looked into Scully's eyes and saw the first
tinge of jaundice: in spite of the medication, her liver was failing.
    Mulder's mood sank like a stone.  He stomped down to the water's
edge and stared out to sea in a black depression, tossing rocks and
driftwood into the waves.
    "Mulder?"
    Mulder spun around.  It was Sister Maureen.  His shoulders slumped
as he climbed down from his rock.  "You know, you're one of the few
women who actually call me that," he told her.
    "Least I can do...you want to walk?"
    They walked into the wind, heads down, as Mulder poured out his
fear and rage.  Once he started, he felt as though he would never stop.
    "...I'm so scared of losing her.  I lost my sister when I was a
kid.  My dad seemed to blame me, and my mom...I guess you could say I
lost her too, except I never really had her.  She wasn't a mom like
Mrs. Scully is.  My relationships with women have all ben disasters--
so have all my relationships, to be honest.  Even my friends aren't
people I can really talk to.
    "Scully is everything to me.  She's more than just my best friend,
she's my life.  I know it's selfish, but I don't know how to go on
without her.  What am I going to do?" he cried in despair, stopping to
face her.  "I know she's running out of time and I'm just so scared of
losing her and being alone again."
    "Listen to me." Siter Maureen's voice was stern.  "You remember
what I told you about strength?"
    Mulder nodded miserably.
    "Well, keep remembering it.  You *will* get through this, Mulder,
whether you want to or not.  But you are going to have to let people
help you. Let them be your friends."
    Mulder looked at the wet sand, his throat tight.
    "Margaret Scully considers you her son," Sister continued softly.
"Do you think she would leave one of her children to suffer alone?"
    Mulder gulped, his eyes welling with tears.  "She's been so great
to me," he managed.  "We've been so much together and I respect her so
much--it's the only good part about this whole mess, that we've gotten
so close." His voice broke.
    "There will be other people reaching out to you too, Mulder,"
Sister Maureen told him.  "It's up to you to let them in."
    Mulder nodded, not trusting his voice, and they trudged into the
wind for a bit.  He scrubbed roughly at his face.
    "I wish," Muler said after a while, "that you'd known Scully before
she got sick.  She's such an amazing person--everything she did she did
better thatn anybody else.  For such a small person she could be really
intimidating.  But everybody loved her--she was always the one people
opened up to when we were on a case. She had a great sense of humor
too."
    "She's your best freind," Sister Maureen said simply.
    "Yeah."  They reached the rocky point where they had turned around
before and stopped.  The sun was out, sparkling on the waves.
    "She was laways the strong one," Mulder said softly.  Scully was
the one who kept her head together when I was losing mine.  he held
everything together--not just our work, but me, too.  I'm afraid that
without her I'm going to fall apart."
    "Have you told her that?" Sister Maureen asked.
    "No." Mulder shook his head, puzzled.  "Id on;t want to burden her
any more."
    "I think you should talk to her."
    Mulder looked out at the dazzling blue sea.
    "You love her." Sister Maureen's voice was very gentle.
    "Yes." The wind tore the word from his mouth.
    They stood on the rock, not talking, for a long time.  Finally
Sister Maureen held out her hand and Mulder took it, and they walked
hand in hand back a;long the beach.

    The next morning dawned bright and summery-- almost hot-- and
Scully announced her intention to go swimming.
    "Mother of God.  Do we have any sunblock?" her mother asked.
    "For what? I don't think melanoma is on my top ten list of concerns
right now, Mom."
    "Don't take that tone with me, young lady.  YOur thighs have not
seen sun since the Bush administration and you know it, but if you want
to go out there and fry then be my guest."
    "I'm going to look for my swimsuit."  Mulder beat a hasty retreat.
    When he returned Mrs. Scully had found a pile of blankets and
filled a thermos with lemonade.  "It's too cold for me," she said,
smiling, when Mulder pressured her to join them.  "I think I'll go into
town.  You two have fun."
    Mulder dragged the blankets down to the beach and spread them out.
He was sprawled on his back, enjoying the warmth of the sun, when
Scully strolled down with her beach bag and began shucking her T-shirt.
    "Oooh, baby," Mulder said, shading his eyes with his hand. "If you
cover up your C-line you could pass for one of those anorexic swimsuit
models."
    "Oh, very funny, Speedo boy." She kicked a sandal in his direction.
    They ran into the surf holding hands like children, Scully
shrieking at the icy water.  Mulder dove headfirst into a wave and was
promptly knocked breathless by the cold.  They splashed in the shallows
until even Mulder was chilled and Scully got tired of keeping her
central line dry, and retreated to the warmth of the blankets.
    Mulder flopped down face first as Scully pulled a bottle of
sunblock from her bag.  "My mom was right," she said ruefully,
squeezing a generous mound onto her palm. "I never tan.  It's the curse
of the Irish skin."
    Mulder squinted up at her.  "Your Cosmo says it's in to be pale."
    "That's a public health campaign, Mulder; they're trying to reduce
skin cancer."
    "Is it working?"
    "No."
    "Huh." He considered.  "Give me some of that."  Scully pushed the
sunblock over and Mulder dabbed it liberally on his face and chest.
"You want me to do your back, Scully?"
    "Sure." Scully turned away from him and leaned forward, pushing her
hair off her neck as he smoothed the lotion carefully over her ivory
skin.  Without her usual baggy clothes she seemed small and vulnerable;
whn he ran his palm down her back he felt only delicate bones, like a
bird's.
    "Thanks," Scully said, taking the bottle.  He watched as she lay
back on the blanket, tilting her had down on her face.
    "Scully," he began hesitantly, "I've never told you this, and I
want to make sure you know: I'd give up everything-- the X-files, my
sister, everything I've learned or might learn-- I'd trade it all in if
it would buy you one more day on this earth."
    Scully's lips curved up in a smile.  She groped for Mulder's hand
and squeezed it.
    "I know, Mulder.  Thank you."
    "It's a big cliche, but you know you're the best thing that ever
happened to me?  I'm going to be lost without you, Scully.  I don't
really know how I'm going to be able to go on.  I'm not sure that I
can."
    "Mulder, you have to!" Scully sat up in her distress.  "Knowing
that you will keep going to find the truth is part of what sustains me
know.  If you give up then our deaths-- not just mine but my sister's,
your father's, Pendrell's-- will all be for nothing!  I have to know
that it will mean something, Mulder.  Please."
    He ooked into her earnest face and felt deperately ashamed of his
weakness.
    "It's going to be so hard, Scully.  Without you...without you I'm
afraid I'll fall apart.  You know you're what keeps me going-- you're
my rock, my strength.  You're what sustains me."
    "Oh, Mulder." Scully gazed up at him wide-eyed.  "You're the one
who's strong-- without your support I never could have made it these
past weeks."  Her eyes filled with tears, but she held his gaze
steadily.  "I've felt so weak.  Even now it's hard to admit that to
you...but I felt like I was taking advantage of you, leaning on you all
the time.  I've been so dependent on your support."  Her voice broke
and she looked down. "I feel bad for needing you so much."
    "Oh, Scully." He cupped her face in his hands and turned it up to
his.  "You've never asked me for anything and there's nothing in the
world I wouldn't give you. Just knowing thereis *anything* I can do for
you is like a gift to me."
    The tears spilled over Scully's eyes and ran down her cheeks.  He
wiped them away with his thumbs, holding her face as carefully as a
flower.  She sniffled a little, blinking back more tears.  He kissed
her forhead gently, looked into her wet eyes, and then, very slowly,
kissed her lips.  Then he wrapped his arms around her and held her very
close for a long time.
    After a bit Scully stirred.  "I don't think I'll really be leaving
you, Mulder," she said into his chest. "I don't know what happens when
we die but I believe we go on, and I think that in a way we still
remain part of the natural world.  I believe that I will cease to be
bounded by space and time and will become part of all that is
unchanging in the universe."  His eyes followed the sweep of her hand.
"When you look at the sea, Mulder, or at the stars, know that part of
me is there, and I am watching out for you."
    Helooked into her eyes and saw such faith and trust there that for
a moment he found it in his heart to believe.  "I will," he whispered.
    She smiled up him and he thought, with a piercing sense of joy and
sadness, that he would never again know such love in his life.  He
leaned his cheek on her warm hair and looked out at the sea.  And there
they stayed, together, watching the sky and the water, not quite happy,
but close enough.

    Mulder stopped.  He had been talking for hours and his throat felt
dry and scratchy.
    "This is where it gets hard," he said.  "Let me get some water."
    When he came back Byers asked, "Are you sure you want to go on,
Mulder?  It's getting late..."
    "No, I want to." He swallowed some water and rubbed at his eyes
wearily.
    "As it turned out, I'm glad I talked to Scully that day.  Because
that was the night she atarted to die.
    "I didn't know it then.  In fact, I talked to you guys that
night--"
    "Yeah, you sounded pretty upbeat."
    "Yeah."
    Scully had gone to bed right after dinner, saying she felt tired
from the sun.  None of them had attributed her flushed face to anything
more worrisome than sunburn.  As Mulder and Mrs. Scully were clearing
up, the phone rang.
    Mrs. Scully picked it up.  "Hello?"  She frowned into the receiver.
 "Hello?  Hello?" She shrugged and replaced it.  "They hung up."
    Mulder rolled his eyes and grabbed the phone.  "Langly!" he shouted
when the other end picked up.  "Did you hang up on Mrs. cully?"
    "I didn't have any way of confirming her identity," Langly said
prissily, sounding a little defensive.
    "Who else would it be?" Mulder carried the phone into the living
room, where his computer was.  "What's going on? It must be big if
you're calling me on this unsecured line."
    This sarcasm went right over Langly's head.  "It is big.  We found
Eve."
    "No way!" Mulder sat up straight on the couch.
    "Way.  And get this.  She's working at an Air Force medical
installation in San Antonio supposedly doing cancer research."
    "San Antonio..." Mulder's mind was racing.
    "Forget it Mulder.  Wilford Hall is a military facility, not some
disguised private lab.  We'll never be able to get in there."
    "Maybe not.  But maybe sombody else will."
    Mulder was up until nearly dawn.  He talked to Skinner not once but
several times-- the AD was as deserate to help Scully as he was, but
was skeptical of his sources.  At one point Mulder thought he might
have to drive to DC just to mediate a meeting between the Lone Gunmen
and Skinner, but Byers finally agreed to a conference call.  After
painstakingly reconstructing the chain of information for Skinner,
Mulder convinced the AD that there was a possibility Eve was working on
something that might benefit Scully.
    "This is going to take some time," Skinner warned.
    "That's okay.  I mean, time's getting short, but I don;t think
we're down to the wire yet."
    He was wrong.  Around five, Mulder finally fell into an exhausted
sleep on the futon.  At nin he was awakened by the Mrs. Scully talking
softly on the phone: Scully had a fever, and was asking for Susan.

    Mulder slipped quietly into the room.  Scully was lying on her
side, gazing out the window.
    "Hey," he said softly.
    "Hey." She smiled up at him tiredly.  Mrs. Scully had found some
Tylenol and her face wsno longer flushed, but she looked exhausted.
    "How are you doing?"
    "Not too bad now.  The Tylenol helped a lot, but my chest feels
really tight, Mulder.  I think it might be the pneumonia again."
    He nodded slowly, watching her face.
    "What are you going to do?"
    "I don;t think I'm going to do anything," Scully said very gently.
"Even if I went back to the hospital there isn't going to be much they
can do.  You know the mets in my lungs are much worse than they were
before, and I'm a lot weaker now."
    "But Scully--" he hated to get her hopes up if things didn't work
out, but if there was any chance he had to push her to hold out for it.
"You know I've never stopped ooking for answers even while we've been
up here.  I think we're getting close to soething now that might he;lp
us find a way to cure you.  Soif there's anything that would buy you
some time..."
    Scully was shaking her head, smiling sadly.  She took his hand and
held it.  "It's too late, Mulder.  I'm sorry.  I'm glad you kept
looking because I know that gave you hope, and never think I'm not
grateful.  But even if the tumor vanished today my lungs and liver are
too badly damaged to ever recover.  I'm going to die, Mulder, and I'm
going to die soon.  I don't really think I have much choice at this
point but if I *could* choose, this isn't such a bad way to go."
    "It's going to be hard," Mulder said miserably.  He remembered all
too well what watching Scully fight to breathe had been like.
    "I know.  But this time I'll use the morphine.  But if you think
it's going to be too much to handle, Mulder, I'll go to the residential
hospice."
    "No way." He squeezed her hand tightly and forced himself to smile.
 "You'd never get such a good view there, and I need you here to keep
me in line."
    It was weak humor but she smiled at it and he smiled back, a little
stronger, and he sat by her side and held her hand until she fell
asleep.

    Susan arrived, brisk and efficient, and listened to Scully's chest.
    "You're way down on the right," she confirmed, "and I hear crackles
on the left side too.  Want to talk about the options?"
    "No antibiotics.  No hospital," Scully said firmly. "I want to stay
here."
    "Okay.  What about fluids?"
    "No.  If I'm too bad off to drink I don;t want to prolong things."
    "It might make you more comfortable."
    Scully shook her head resolutely.  "No thanks>"
    "How about oxygen?"
    "Oh, oxygen, absolutely.  I'm not trying to be a martyr here.  And
morphine too-- can you check what we have while you're here?"
    "Sure...now think about this closely before you say no.  You know
you're pretty severely anemic right now and if we transfuse you it'll
increase your oxygen carrying capacity, and probably make you feel a
lot better."
    "I get transfusion reactions,"  Scully said uneasily.
    "We can premedicate you.  It's your decision, Dana, but think about
it serously."
    Scully considered.  Mulder held his breath.  Scully looked up to
see Mulder and her mother gazing at her hopefully and laughed. "Oh,
okay."
    Susan drew off the blood for typing and took Mulder and Mrs. Scully
into the kitchen to show them how to draw up the morphine.
    "This is the starting dose." She showed them the line on the
syringe and marked the dose on a piece of paper taped to the lid of the
box.  "This is what you'll probably go up to."  She showed them the
next line.  "This," she drew the plunger all the way back, "would be a
lethal overdose."  She held Mulder's eyes until she saw that he
understood.
    "Okay." She packed up her bags with her usual brisk cheer.  "I'll
see you later today--probably tonight, actually."
    After she left, the day dragged.  Mrs. Scully made lunch, which
none of them could eat, and then did laundry that didn't need to be
done.  Scully slept most of the day; she roused politely when Mulder
checked on her, but it was obvious she needed to rest.  He was relieved
when Sister Maureen shoed up.
    Mulder and Mrs. Scully went out to the car to meet her.  As Sister
Maureen climbed out she held out her arms and pulled both of them into
her embrace.
    "How are you holding up?  Are you eating?" she asked.  "Okay.  Let
me go talk to Dana."
    Sister sat with Scully a long time and then sat with Mrs. Scully on
the beach.  She even stayed for dinner; with her there, Mulder and Mrs.
Scully found they could even eat a little.
    "I think you're doing very well," Sister Maureen told them as they
sat around the table, "but I'm a little concerned by your isolation
here.  You don't have any friends or family close by."
    "We talked about that.  I was thinking of trying to get Dana's
brothers back up," Mrs. Scully said.  "But Dana said no.  They were
here a few weeks ago when she was feeling good and that's how she wants
them to remember her."
    "She's very private," Mulder added. "For her to want to be here
with just us--that's very like her.  It's okay." Mrs. Scully nodded in
agreement.
    "All right, then." Sister Maureen smiled. "I'll be back tomorrow."
    Mulder walked her to the car. "Remember when you asked me what I
wanted?"
    "Yes?" she arched her eyebrows at him.
    "What I want now is just not to let her down," Mulder said softly.
"I want to be brave for her." He looked out at the warm evening,
feeling the wind ruffle his hair.  "I've trusted her with my life, but
she's trusting me with her death."
    "So far you're doing fine," she said, gently, and squeezed his arm.
    Susan arrived as Sister Maureen drove away and they went in
together to see Scully.  She was groggy, and after they woke her she
had trouble getting her breath.  Susan hooked up the portable oxygen
and looped the cannula around Scully's ears.
    "Here's your Tylenol, here's your Benadryl, and I think your mother
has some nice hot soup for you," she said cheerfully.  "Now let's get
this blood going."
    It was a difficult night.  Scully was restless and agitated,
whether from the fever or the transfusion they could not tell.  She
couldn't get comfortable and twisted around her bed in frustration,
complaining of itching and fidgeting with her cannula.  Her fever
stayed high despite the Tylenol.  Scully was more anxious than Mulder
had ever seen her-- she became upset if he or her mother left the room,
even for a few minutes.  Finally, in desperation, Mulder pulled out the
information packet from the hospice and had the doctor on call paged.
    Dr. Sheth, their friend from the hospital, called back.  She was
helpful and very patient, especially considering the hour.  SHe told
Mulder to alternate Tylenol with ibuprofen every four hours for the
fever and said she would call in a medication called hydroxizine, which
would help with the itching and calm Scully down.
    "Thanks," Mulder said gratefully.  He pulled on his jacket and
drove to the next town over where the all night pharmacy was.  There
was a short line at the counter, so while he waited he picked out a
bottle of Advil suspension: when Scully had been short of breath
before, she had trouble swallowing pills.
    "They never tell you about this part of it, do they?" the man
behind him asked.
    "Sorry?" Mulder was confused.
    The man gestured at Mulder's bottle with his own pediatric Advil.
"This 2 am stuff.  Ear infection, right?  My little girl's had three
now and they're always in the middle of the night."
    "This is my son's second since we got the damn tubes," the man in
front of Mulder said disgustedly.  "Complete waste of money.  He's only
a year old."
    "How old is yours?" the first man asked Mulder.
    "I don't have any kids," Mulder answered shortly.  He felt suddenly
deeply irritated by these men with their comfortable families,
complaining about ear infections.  "This is for my partner; she's
dying.  I'm picking up the prescription for her."
    A dead silence fell over the pharmacy.
    "Uh, is that for Scully?" the pharmacist leaned over the counter to
ask.
    "Yeah."
    "I've got it right here." Mulder silently paid for his purchases
and collected his bag.
    As he turned to go the man who had addressed him suddenly caught
his arm. "Hey," he said awkwardly.  "I'm really sorry about your wife.
My brother died last year-- it was AIDS, but still...If you need to
talk to anybody, I'm in the book, Jeff Morrow."
    "Thanks," Mulder said, meaning it.  He grasped the man's hand
briefly and left.
    The hydroxyzine visibly calmed Scully and the Advil broke her
fever.  Around four o'clock she finally fell asleep and Mrs. Scully,
exhausted, stretched out on the other bed.  Mulder, who had been up
most of the night before lay down on the futon and was instantly
asleep.

    When he woke up he was startled to find that it was almost noon.
Susan had come and gone, Mrs. Scully told him, foraging in the
refrigerator for orange juice.  Scully's fever was staying down and she
was a lot more comfortable, but getting progressively more short of
breath.
    After he showered Mulder went in to see her.  Scully appeared to be
sleeping, her face turned toward the sun.  He saw with a pang that the
pillows from both beds were stuffed behind her back-- she was already
propped nearly upright.  Her face seemed peaceful, but he could see how
even in sleep she was once again struggling to breathe.
    Scully sensed his presence and stirred.  "Oh, hi," she said. "I
didn't hear you come in."
    "That's okay, go back to sleep."  He pulled the chair up close to
her bedside. "All right if I sit here for a while?"
    "I'd like that." She smiled sleepily, eyes closing.  Mulder took
her hand and held it, watching as the sungradually crept across her
face and away, leaving it in shadow.
    By the time Sister Maureen arrived Scully was awake and seemed to
feel better, although she was visibly working for breath.  She even
wanted to get up.  Mulder waited outside while Mrs. Scully got her
dressed in a baggy sweater and pants, and then helped her slowly walk
out to the back of the house.
    Muler and Scully and Sister Maureen sat in the lounge chairs for a
while, talking, as Mrs. Scully cleaned the bedroom and brought out some
food.  The day was cool but sunny and Mulder was surprised to find he
was almost enjoying himself.  "Watching somebody die," he told Sister
Maureen later, "is just the biggest emotional roller coaster."
    She gave him one of her brief half smiles and said, "If you're
lucky."
    After a time Scully asked to go back and Mulder took her in.  He
carried her this time, cradling her light, fragile body as her mother
brought the oxygen.  "Do you want some clean pajamas?" Mrs. Scully
asked as Mulder set her down gently on the freshly made bed.
    "No, I'm fine." Scully paused for breath.  "Go on back out, Mom;
I'll be okay with Mulder."
    When she had gone Scully said hesitantly, "Mulder, I think I want
to switch over to the face mask."
    "Oh. Okay. Uh, let me find it."  He left the room quickly so Scully
wouldn't see his distress.  He knew if she wanted the mask she must be
feeling very short of breath-- it was less comfortable, and would make
it hard for her to talk.  On the other hand, it was obviously getting
difficult for her to talk anyway.  He got the mask out of the closet,
smoothed out his own face, and went back in.
    "There." He attached the tubing to the oxygen canister and adjusted
the flow up a liter.  "Is that better?  Are you hurting, Scully?  Do
you feel like you need some morphine?"
    Scully shook her head, voice muffled by the mask.  "No, I'm
okay...Mulder, in case I can't tell you later...thank you for
everything."  Her eyes met his.  "Thank you for being my friend."
    "Oh, Scully." He felt dangerously close to tears again.  He
swallowed them back and took her hand in both of his, holding it
tightly.  "We settled all that, remember?  Thank *you*."
    She smiled at him, eyes warm over the mask.  "Remember, I'm not
really going anywhere..."
    "I'll remember." I kissed the tips of her fingers, clasped in his.
"Rest now, Scully.  I'll be right here."
    She drifted off to sleep as he sat there, listening to the distant
sound of the waves through the window and the murmur of the women's
voices outside.  They were saying the rosary, he realized.  He wished
he had a ritual that could give him that kind of comfort and found
himself wanting desperately to believe in Scully's words, that she
would always be there watching him, part of the undying beauty of the
universe.
    Sister Maureen left around six.  He joined Mrs. Scully in the
kitchen after walking Sister to her car and helped her make dinner.
    "Scully's spirits are pretty good," he told her mother through a
mouthful of spaghetti.
    "You know, it's strange, but right now mine are too," Mrs. Scully
said.  "I think it's because she seems so peaceful and because, you
know, it's not nearly as bad as the last time so far..."
    "Yeah." Mulder nodded emphatically.  This pneumonia seemed
relatively benign compared to their previous experience.
    "Maybe because she isn't fighting it?  Maybe she'll just...go to
sleep." Mrs. Scully looked at him hopefully.
    He nodded again.  Me couldn;t imagine he ever would have
anticipated a time when he would hope his best friend would die in her
sleep, but right now it seemed the major desire of his life.
    As with many of his life's desires, it didn;t work out that way.
As they were cleaning up the dinner dighes, the quiet evening ws
shattered by the piercing sound of Scully crying out in terror.
    "Mulder! Mom! Help me!"
    Mulder was in the room so fast he was barely conscious of dropping
a pile of plates on the floor.  "Scully, what is it?  We're here,
Scully, it's okay."
    "I can't breathe." She was sitting bolt upright, panicking,
clutching at the mask.  Her eyes were huge and desperate and her lips
were blue.
    Mulder was more terrified than he had ever been in his life.  He
did the only thing he could think of: he grabbed the oxygen tank and
twisted the valve all the way open.  The faint hiss turned into a loud
*whoosh*.  He held the mask against Scully's face, supporting her
shoulders with his other arm; Mrs. Scully, her face as white as her
daughter's but visibly struggling to stay calm, held her hands.
"Scully, it's okay.  I turned your oxygen up.  Try to slow down."
    She was gasping frantically for air.  "It feels like I'm drowning,
Mulder, help me."
    "Dana. Calm down." Her mother's voice was firm, almost sharp.
"You're not going to feel better if you're al worked up.  The oxygen is
going full blast now.  Breathe in your nose and out your mouth.  That's
it.  Good...go a little slower.  That's it.  YOu're doing fine, Dana,
good girl."
    Gradually Scully's panic eased but she was still terribly
frightened, clutching her mother's hands and sucking huge gasping
breaths through the mask.  Mulder gave her a dose of the hydroxyzine
and she realxed minimally, they brought in more pillows to make her as
comfortable as possible.  She eased back against the pillows,
struggling agonizingly for breath.
    "What happened, Scully?" Mulder asked gently. "Did you just wake up
scared?"
    "I don't know." Scully had to force the words out.  "I just-- woke
up-- and it was so much worse."  The last words tumbled out in a rush.
"That's what-- happened last time-- but not this bad."
    The sky had gradually darkened while they were there and it was
fully dark now.  Mulder switched on the lamp and brought another chair
around so he and Mrs. Scully could sit on either side of the bed.
Scully's face was twisted with pain and misery.
    I didn't want it to be like this, Mulder thought suddenly.  She
trusted me to help her die without suffering.  "Scully," he said
gently.  "I'm going to get the morphine, okay?"
    She nodded, looking up at him under knitted brows.
    Mulder went into the brightly lit kitchen, stepping over the pile
of smashed plates.  He got out the box and pulled out a syringe, fit
the needle on the way Susan had shown him, and carefully drew the
morphine out of the vial.  He checked the dose against the chart on the
box, drew up the saline flush, and carried both syringes back to the
bedroom.
    "It's not a very big dose, Scully; we can always get more."
    "Mrs. Scully swabbed the line with an alcohol wipe and Mulder
tentatively pushed the needle through the rubber covering.  He slowly
pushed in the plunger, pulled out the syringe, flushed the line, and
taped it back into place.  There.  That wasn't so bad, he thought.  He
exchanged proud glances with Mrs. Scully.
    The effect of the morphine was almost magical.  Within a few
moments Scully's face lost its panicky tightness and smoothed out into
its familiar lines.  She still had to struggle terribly to breathe, but
the horrible look of desperation was gone.
    "Thank you." She even managed a smile at him. "I feel-- so much--
better."
    Mulder smiled back, thinking, God, I wish we'd done that sooner.
"I think this is going to be a long night," he said to Mrs. Scully.
"You want to change clothes or anything?"
    "I'm okay.  I'm going to put some coffee on though."  When she
returned a few inutes later, she was carrying a battered hardback book.
    "I thought this might come in handy," she said softly to Scully,
pulling the chair up close to the bed.  "This was your and Missy's
favorite, remember?  So we always saved it for when one of you was
sick.  Which part do you want me to read?"
    Scully was smiling at the sight of the book.  "Pickled limes," she
whispered.
    "Okay." Mrs. Scully flipped through the pages to find the right
spot and began to read in a soothing, gentle voice.
    It was, indeed, a long night.  Mulder and Mrs. Scully sat on either
side of the bed, holding Scully's hands.  Mulder was starting to get
interested in "Little Women" when Mrs. Scully grew hoarse so he took
over reading.  Scully was struggling too hard to sleep, though after
each dose of morphine she seemed to doze briefly.
    As the night wore on Scully had to fight harder and harder to
breathe.  She was sitting all the way up now, leaning heavily on
Mulder's shoulder.  He could tell without looking at his watch when the
morphine was wearing off and had gone up to the higher dose two hours
ago.
    Mulder came to the end of a chapter and paused to drink some water.
 As he set the cup down, Scully's hand closed over his. "Time is it?"
she asked weakly.  He checked his watch.
    "It's almost six, Scully.  You'll be due for more morphine in about
half an hour-- is it getting bad?"
    She shook her head quickly, looking up at him.  "Is the sun up?"
    "Not yet." He shifted so she could see the window.
    "Go see it." Her voice was barely a whisper.
    "What?"
    "Go watch...the sun rise." She had to rest before she could speak
again. "Come back...tell me about it."
    He looked down at her, not understanding; her face was calm but
filled with entreaty.  She wants to say goodbye to her mother, he
realized.  He swallowed.  "Okay.  I'll be back soon..." he pushed her
hair back out of her face and she smiled gratefully up at him.
    Mulder walked out onto the beach in the chill gray dawn.  He heard
the crying of the gulls and the crash of the waves, but they seemed
distant from the quiet coldness surrounding him.  A part of him was
amazed at his own calm.  Scully is going to die today, he thought
deliberately.  He felt eerily distant from the pain of the thought, his
mind filled with a weird unreality.
    He stood out on the rocks for a while, not thining much of
anything, watching the sun rise.
    Scully is going to die today.  God, he thought, I just want it to
be easy for her.  I want her to fall asleep knowing she will wake up as
part of the sea and the sky, like she wants.
    The sun rose higher and the pink clouds lighted in the sky.  Mulder
turned his face up to the sun, feeling the air warm around him, and
know what to do.
 
    When he came back into the room Mrs. Scully was holding Scully, who
lifted her hand slowly to him.
    "How was it?" Her voice was very faint, but her eyes were steady.
    "It's beautiful, Scully." He paused. "I've spread some blankets out
by the patio wall where it's sunny and out of the wind.  What do you
say we go out there?"
    Scully and her mother both looked at him in surprise.  Then Scully
glanced at the window and nodded, a smile spreading across her face.
    They made their way slowly out to the back, Mulder carrying cully
and Mrs. Scully the oxygen and morphine.  When they reached the wall
Mulder sat down and shifted Scully so she could sit in front of him,
leaning against his chest.  They had given her a dose of morphine
before setting out and she seemed relatively comfortable.
    Mrs. Scully knelt in front of them, holding her daughter's hands.
"Isn't this wonderful, Dana?" she said, smiling.  "Do you remember when
you were little and we lived in Florida, and you and Missy and the boys
would go to the beach and look for shells?  You loved the ocean so
much."  She talked on quietly, telling family stories, weaving a spell
of love with her words.  When she faltered Mulder filled in.  "Do you
remember the time you ate the bug?" he asked.  "Do you remember when we
played poker for six hours on a stakeout?  I owe you about five hundred
M&Ms."
    Mrs. Scully was telling a story about Scully's first bike when she
stopped suddenly in midsentence.  Mulder looked over Scully's head to
see her squeezing her mother's hands tightly.  "What is it,
sweetheart?" Mrs. Scully asked.
    Scully's whisper was so weak that mulder could not hear it, but her
mother could see her lips.  Her eyes met Mulder's.  "She wants more
morphine."
    It had only been 45 minutes since the last dose, but Mulder did not
think of hesitating.  He lifted Scully up onto his lap, turning her
sideways so he could help her mother with the line, then settled her
carefully in his arms.
    The morphine didn't help this time.  Mulder rocked her gently,
trying to comfort her, but Scully's face was contorted with agonized
effort.  It hurt Mulder just to hear her breathe.  Finally, after what
seemed an eternity but was really ten minutes, he looked at Mrs. Scully
and said gently, "Scully, I think we're going to give you a little more
morphine now, okay?"
    He thought she was beyond hearing him but then she nodded, once.
    Mrs. Scully drew the morphine up to the second line on the syringe
and then looked into Mulder's eyes.  He looked back, and their eyes
held a long moment.  Then Mrs. cully slowly drew the plunger back
farther, to twice the regular dose.  It wasn't the lethal amount-- not
even close-- but it was, Mulder thought, enough.  He nodded.
    They pushed the morphine, flushed the line, and then held Scully
tightly between them.
    "Dana, I love you," her mother said, kneeling beside Mulder.  Her
eyes were bright with tears but her voice was calm and full of love.
"Your brothers love you, and your daddy and Missy love you.  They're
waiting for you, Dana; they'll take care of you."
    Scully's breaths were coming much slower now, deep gasps several
seconds apart.  Agonal breathing, the last breaths of the dying.
    "Scully," Mulder said and had to stop to quell the tremor in his
voice. "I'll be watching for you, Scully; I'll see you out there, one
with the stars and the sea.  Do you see the ocean, Scully?  It's so
beautiful..." His heart was breaking, but his voice was steady. "I love
you, Scully."
    He thought her eyes flickered up to him, but he couldn't be sure.
She took a slow dragging breath and then nothing for several
heartbeats.  He held her tightly to his chest as her mother, gripping
her hands, whispered, "We love you so much, Dana..."
    Suddenly Scully jerked up in his arms her eyes were looking past
them, unseeing, at the ocean, and they were wide and blue and
completely astonished.  A look filled them that was very close to joy.
And then she drew a great, shuddering breath, and was gone.

    The room was completely silent.
    "And that's how she died," Mulder said finally, leaning his head on
his hands.  She died in my arms on the fifth of May, at eight thirty in
the morning, with her mother holding her hands, and the ocean the last
thing she saw."  It might not have been perfect, Scully, he thought,
but it was the best we could do and I think that wherever you are you
know it, and are not displeased.
    "There's not much to tell after that."
    They realized immediately that Scully was dead but until they saw
the knowledge in each other's faces, it didn't seem real.  The instant
their eyes met Mrs. Scully's face crumpled and she reached for Scully,
pulling the limp body into her arms and crying in great, racking sobs.
Mulder wrapped his arms around her and they rocked together, Mulder
silenced by grief beyond tears, Margaret keening for her lost child.
After a while Mulder thought to turn off the oxygen and pull the mask
from her face, and close her eyes.
    "Sister Maureen was right," Mulder told the Lone Gunmen.  "When I
had to be strong for Scully I was, and when I had to get throught that
first day without her I found the strength for that too.  I don't know
where it comes from, but it's there." He looked around at the faces of
his friends, who in spite of their oddities had loved Scully too, and
had always been there for him.  "She also said that I had to let people
be my friends," he continued slowly.  "So I made myself come over here
instead of sitting around my apartment."
    Byers silently laid a hand on his arm.  Frohike, for once in his
life completely sincere, said, "We're glad you did."
    They sat for a moment, not uncomfortably, and then Mulder said
suddently, "Oh, I almost forgot-- I actually came here for somthing
else too.  Bill called me about the memorial service.  Scully left very
detailed instructions, but she told her brother he would have to ask me
to contact you.  So he asked me, and I'm contacting you.  Would you
guys be willing to go to Scully's funeral with me?"
    "Scully wanted *us*?" Langly's tone was wondering.
    "Very much so." Mulder assured him.
    "Wow." They looked at each other, awed.  Then Byers looked around
and said formally, for all of them: ""we'd be honored."

    Walking home that night Mulder glanced up at the sky, stopping to
gaze at the glittering spill of the stars.
    The loss and grief were still painful inside him, filling the
enormous hole where Scully ought to be.  He suspected they would always
be there.  He was beginning, as well, to feel the cold beginnings of an
anger that would drive him until it was answered.  But mostly he just
felt wshed out by the catharsis of telling his story; he felt cleansed,
even loved.
    He gazed up at the jeweled brilliance of the sky.
    Scully, are you there?  He asked silently.  I want to believe
youare.  I want to believe you can hear me, that you are looking down
on me, from the place where all truths are known, the beautiful and
unchanging of the universe...I want to believe.
    Once he had looked up at the stars from a mountain, searching, and
found no answers.  Now he felt the answers were there, if only could
believe in them.
    I love you, Scully, he told the stars.
    In the back of his mind he felt her smiling, her enigmatic
half-smile: I know.
    He smiled again, peacefully, and walked on.
 

END
 
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