Part One

The truck stop on Route 127 between Griffith and Dunn's 
Corners was not remarkable in any way.  The orange vinyl 
booths were worn but clean, all the tables rocked unless 
between one and three packets of sugar were shoved under 
the short leg, and every surface smelled as if it had been 
lovingly hand-rubbed with combination of pine-sol, bleach, and 
fried bacon.  A standard-issue neon sign in the window proudly 
proclaimed that it was always open, and as far as Scully could 
tell, that was true: she and Mulder had come past  this place a 
couple dozen times in the time they'd been in the area, and, just 
like now, gas pumps were always lit up, and the TV in the 
corner was always on. 

"You cheated," Mulder said as he flipped through his menu. 

Scully peered over her own menu.  "I cheated?" 

"You must have," Mulder said, without making eye contact.  

"How exactly could I have cheated?" Toast. She would probably 
just have some toast.  

"Witchcraft?"  Mulder shrugged.  "Or voodoo, maybe." 

"Voodoo?"   Whole wheat toast, and maybe some orange juice. 

"That's what I said." 

She wondered if they had peanut butter.  She was never quite 
sure how to balance the fact that it was delicious when allowed 
to melt into the cracks and crevices of warm toast against the 
fact that there was always a chance someone else in the place 
could go into anaphylactic shock just by being in the same 
room with your peanut buttery breath.   "So, what?  You think I 
pulled out my portable voodoo doll and stuck a pin in 
Thomason's leg?" 

"I believe that's known as a poppet, and come on, we both 
know North Carolina had it locked up," he replied.  "Then all of 
the sudden, Thomason falls down and takes the point guard 
with him and it's BOOM, game over."

"You lost.  Deal," she said, closing her menu.  "How much do 
you owe me now?  Two million?  Three?"

Ignoring her question, Mulder closed his own menu and slid it 
back behind the napkin dispenser. "I will have my revenge," he 
vowed.  "Mark my words, woman, I *will* have my revenge." 

Scully rolled her eyes.  "Not if you keep picking them like you 
have been, you won't."
 
"Mornin'," the middle-aged waitress in powder blue polyester 
greeted them cheerily.  Her uniform told them her name was 
Janet, but Scully decided she looked more like a Carleen.  "Y'all 
need more time?" 
 
Mulder shook his head. "I'm good," he answered.  "Honey?" 

"Coffee, whole wheat toast, and a large orange juice, please."  
Scully handed the waitress her menu. "Oh, and peanut butter, if 
you have it." 

"We sure do," not-Carleen replied.  "And you?" 

"Big breakfast number two," he said.  "Sunnyside up, white 
toast.  And an extra order of hash browns, for when Miss-
Wheat-Toast-and-Orange-Juice over there eats mine." 

The waitress grinned and gave Mulder a wink before she turned 
away.  Scully wrinkled her nose at him.  "You're just a sore 
loser." 

"You say it like it's news."  Mulder leaned back into the bench 
and, pulling his John Deere cap from his head, ran his fingers 
through his messy collar-length hair.  "And what's sore losing 
got to do with my spuds, bud?"  

"Nothing, I guess." His hair was getting too long, she noted, and 
his dark roots were showing more than was good for either one 
of them. They were getting lazy, she reflected, sloppy, and that 
wasn't good for either one of them, either.  "Your hair needs a 
trim," she said.   

The bell over the door clanged, announcing the arrival of two 
more weary-looking truckers.  Not-Carleen returned to their 
table with a carafe of coffee, poured them each a cup, assured 
them their orders would be right up before she hurried off to 
attend to her new customers, apparently regulars by the way 
she greeted them.   

Mulder scratched his cheek, nodded.  "So does my beard," he 
said.  "It's itchy."  He scratched again, his jaw this time.  "You 
think I'd be used to this thing by now." 

She nodded.  Maybe he was still having trouble, but she'd 
gotten used to it.  She'd gotten used to all of it - the ever 
changing geometry of his greying beard, his chameleon hair, 
the blue contact lenses he favoured, and the tiny diamond stud 
he wore, either in his left ear or right, depending on his mood 
and inclination.  Whenever she missed her old life and, by 
extension, missed her old Mulder - the one with  the regulation 
hair and by-the-book suits, all she had to do was really look at 
him. Rumpled and road-worn suited him better than she would 
ever have guessed, and appealed to her more than she would 
have supposed.  Even after all this time, even on those days 
when she wanted to strangle him in his sleep, just looking at 
him still made her mouth water.  

Which, some days, probably kept him alive. 

"Yeah, you'd think so," she agreed.

Breakfast arrived and Scully tucked in, as much as one could 
tuck into orange juice and toast, anyway.  Spreading peanut 
butter as thinly as she could, she had to admit Mulder's double 
order of hash browns really did look good.  Bastard.  "So what's 
the plan?" 

"I dunno."  Mulder paused between forkfuls.  "Despite out best 
efforts, nothing's materialized around here. I think it's time to 
move on." 

Scully nodded in agreement.  She'd been thinking the same 
thing for weeks. "Where you thinking?" 

He shook his head.  "I don't know.  Back to Landau, maybe?" 

Wonderful, she thought. Back to the middle of nowhere.  They 
were scraping the bottom of the conspiracy barrel if they were 
heading back to Arizona.  Again.  

"Unless you've got a better idea," he said after a moment,  
more resignation that challenge in his voice.  She knew he'd be 
happy with any suggestion she could offer.   

She sighed. Problem was, she didn't have anything to offer.  
Almost seven years of this crap, this running across the 
continent, looking for clues to the how and why and who of the 
coming invasion, and their leads, which had been few and far 
between from the start, were drying up, their sources 
disappearing until they'd found themselves treading and re-
treading the same ground over and over, month after month, 
year after year.  It gave a new meaning to the word 'rut'. 

"It's been a few months," she said at last, not really up for 
another argument.  "Maybe you're right, maybe there'll be 
something new."

Mulder nodded.  "Hope springs eternal," but, really, there wasn't 
the faintest glimmer of hope in his voice.   "Want some hash 
browns  yet?" he asked and nudged the plate toward her. 

She speared a forkful of potatoes.  "Or maybe Gunnar's heard 
something," she said.  "We could check on the way." 

"Yeah, he might have."  Mulder paused. He stirred his coffee, 
round and round, staring intently at the cup as he did so, and 
Scully knew what that meant.  "I'm just beginning to wonder,"  
he said at last. 

"Wonder what?" she asked casually. 

He picked at his eggs a few moments, pushing them aimlessly 
around before he blew out a long slow breath.  "Lately, I'm 
beginning to wonder if there's anything *to* hear, you know?" 

Ah. Yeah. There it was.  For a self-confessed moody guy, 
Mulder was usually pretty upbeat, sometimes relentlessly so.  
Which, naturally, made it all that much harder to deal with him 
on the downbeat.  And for the past two or three weeks, that 
seemed to be where he was heading.  He'd been restless at 
night, and alternately high and low during the day.  She was 
starting to worry, for all the good worrying had ever done her.  

Scully tore open a creamer, stirred it into her own coffee.  The 
past six months had been one dead end after another - no new 
leads on the super-soldiers, no progress on the vaccine, not 
even a shiny new wild goose for them to chase.  They were 
spinning their wheels, and her own sense of frustration grew 
right alongside Mulder's.  When she let herself think about it - 
think about what was gone, lost, what seemed eternally beyond 
their grasp -  she wanted to scream, long and loud.  

But screaming would attract attention, and attention was a non-
starter.  Consequently, she did what she always did when it 
seemed like Mulder's mood was about to go south; she looked 
out the nearest window, and waited for it to pass. 

"More coffee?" Janet asked, swinging the carafe between them 
and filling their cups without waiting for a response.

After a few minutes, her campaign of active nonchalance paid 
off.  Mulder ran his fingers lightly over the back of her hand.  
"Hey," he said, and waited until she made eye contact.  "I 
haven't been sleeping worth a damn lately.  So just ignore me, 
okay?"

She turned the corners of her mouth up, literally putting on a 
happy face.  "I generally do, don't I?" she replied, and took up 
her coffee cup.  

He smiled back.  "And that's why you're the -" 

"The?" she asked when he stopped cold.  

Mulder was looking over her shoulder, his expression suddenly, 
carefully neutral.  Then his brows rose.  "Son of a bitch," he  
muttered. 

"I'm the son of a bitch?  Oooh, you 'do' know how to sweet talk 
a girl."  She turned half-way around in the booth, following his 
line of sight to the tv.  

"It's a small world, after all," Mulder half-hummed. 

"Wow. I'll say," she agreed, blinking in disbelief as the shock of 
recognition jolted her.  There, on the television, was Walter 
Skinner.  
Deputy Director Walter Skinner, FBI, according to the crawl, live 
from Omaha, Nebraska, of all places, and CNN was waiting for 
him to give an update on the Wright case.  

Mulder asked, "You heard anything about this?"

Scully shook her head, wondering how she would have heard 
about it if Mulder hadn't.  It wasn't as if they didn't spend about 
twenty-three hours and forty-five minutes together on any given 
day.  

"Isn't that just awful?" the waitress asked as she refilled Scully's 
cup for the third time.  "Cute little thing, too." 

"Awful," Scully agreed, as if she had a clue.  But then, it had to 
be a pretty bad for a Nebraska-based case to have a D.C.-
based Deputy Director involved.  Especially one who liked 
giving press conferences as little as Skinner always had.  
"Could you turn that up just a little, please?" 

"Sure can," Janet said and scurried off in search of the remote.  

"He looks like shit," Mulder said.  

"He does not," she replied automatically.  Although, yes, he did 
look older, and maybe a little thinner than he'd been the time 
she had seen him.  Harder, too, but they all looked that way 
now; some of them just wore it better than others.  Skinner 
didn't appear to be wearing it too well.

"Well, maybe not shit," Mulder conceded and scraped up the 
last bit of his egg yoke with the last bits of his toast.  "Maybe 
like he stepped in shit."

"You're just jealous because he's stepping in shit in three 
hundred dollar shoes," she said, poking at one of Mulder's sore 
spots.  

"You're right."  Mulder sniffed theatrically.  "I miss my three 
hundred dollar shoes.  My feet miss my three hundred dollar 
shoes." 

"See? Told you." 

"Scully, what happened to all my three hundred dollar shoes?" 

"No idea," she answered, even though she knew exactly what 
had happened to them; she'd put them in a big cardboard box, 
taped it shut, and given it to the Salvation Army.  He had, in her 
defense,  been dead at the time, and since she'd expected him 
to stay that way, it had seemed like reasonable course of 
action.  

"I've got more hair than he does," Mulder said.  "Fewer shoes, 
but more hair." 

"Yes, so you win, okay?"   

"Good morning." Skinner stood at a standard-issue podium in 
front of a standard-issue blue curtain, spoke into a dozen or so 
microphones while cameras clicked and flashes popped. "I'm 
going to update you on the Wright investigation.  As reported 
yesterday, Christopher and Elizabeth Wright and their 3 year 
old daughter, Mary Ellen, of North Ridge, Nebraska, were 
reported missing three nights ago by Mr. Wright's parents, 
Cathleen and Edmund, also of North Ridge, when they failed to 
show up for - "   

As Skinner said this, the screen split, and the second panel 
filled with a family portrait, presumably the Wrights.  The 
parents were maybe mid-thirties, Caucasian, unremarkable; 
their little girl was blonde, blue eyed, and smiling broadly.  Cute, 
Scully thought.  And probably dead, the former FBI agent in her 
added.

" -investigation of their home by local authorities shortly 
thereafter revealed signs of forced entry and a struggle. As a 
result of-" 

"Is that Cornbluth?" 

"Hmm?" 

"Mark Cornbluth.  Standing behind him, on the left."  

Scully squinted, thinking this should have been one of those 
times she opted for funky, functional glasses instead of useless 
coloured contacts.  "I think so." 

"That guy is a complete jerk." 

"Because he wanted to date me?" 

"Because he thought he actually had a shot at getting into your 
pants," he said.  

Scully batted her eyes at him.  "What makes you think he 
didn't?" 

Mulder rolled his eyes.  "Oh, please..." 

She waved dismissively.  "Quiet. I'm trying to catch of glimpse 
of Skinner's three hundred dollar shoes."

"-sequent analysis proved the blood to be that of Christopher 
and Elizabeth Wright.  None of the blood analyzed has been 
conclusively-"

"You are a cruel woman." Mulder stabbed at his potatoes.  
"Have I ever mentioned that you're a cruel woman? Because 
you are, in fact, a-"

"Shh," she repeated, finding herself drawn to the unspooling 
story.  Not that she cared that much about a family tragedy 
more than half a continent away; she knew too well those 
played out every day. It was just that she'd never expected to 
lay eyes on Skinner again. Even at this remove, with the tv 
cameras and 1500 miles between them, it was both thrilling and 
unsettling, like witnessing a supernova.  Or watching a train 
wreck.  Or seeing a ghost. 

"-odies were found.  As of this time, they have not been 
positively identified.  However, forensic examination by the 
Omaha County coroner's office is ongoing.  To date, no  -"

"Do you think this Wright guy was a military contractor or 
something?" Mulder asked.  "Spook, maybe, or NSA?"

She half-nodded.  "I can't imagine why else someone as high 
up as a deputy director would be involved otherwise. " 

"-don County Sherrif's office recovered sever-"

Mulder took another sip of his coffee.  "He deserves that 
promotion," he said. 

"Skinner?"  In Scully's opinion, that was a gross 
understatement.  He was, in no small part, the reason they 
were still alive. Even if he himself didn't know it.  "He does." 

"Cornbluth, though, not so much." 

"Shh." 

"-proximately 10:30 p.m., security camera footage locat- -"

Mulder touched her shoulder. "Are you going to finish your 
toast?"

She shook her head. "Eat it." 

"-missing until such time as -"

"How about the peanut butter?  Can I have the peanut butter?" 

She turned back to him, bristly with frustration.  "Sweetie," she 
said in such a way that it was clear she thought of him as 
anything but sweet, "shut up." 

"Yes ma'am." Mulder grinned at her, but suddenly his face was 
blank, and just as suddenly, he was frowning. 

"What?" she asked. 

Mulder dropped the toast and gestured toward the television.   

"What is it?" she repeated as she turned. 

"Is that-"  he began, but stopped.  He squinted at the screen.  
"Oh, fuck me," he mumbled. 

The shot of Skinner had been replaced by a black-and-white 
still from a security camera.  It was grainy, slightly unfocused, 
and shot from a high angle, the kind of thing you saw on the 
evening news all the time.  Two adults, a man and a woman by 
the look of it, both in dark clothing, the man with a child in his 
arms, on their way into a gas bar mini-mart.  

The picture changed.  This one was clearer, sharper, better lit.  

The child was clearly Mary Ellen Wright. 

And the man -

"M- Mulder," Scully let out a harsh gasp, using a name she 
hasn't spoken in public in almost 7 years.  "Mulder, that's -"

"Yeah, I'm getting that," he said, reaching for his wallet.  He 
tugged the brim of his ball cap  low, and cleared his throat.  
"Okay, listen. Go to the ladies' room.  Go out that back door we 
scoped out when we got here, if you can. If not, use the 
window, don't come back through here.  I'll take care of the 
check and meet you around back in five.  If we get split up, you 
know the drill."

Scully stared uncomprehendingly at him.  She understood his 
words, but they were only words, only random noises that didn't 
make any sense.  As far as the world knew, they were dead.  
They'd been dead for years.   So why would-?  How-?  Who-?

-"armed and dangerous," Skinner continued,  "and should be 
considered -"

The screen changed again.  Mulder's last badge photo - 
regulation hair and by-the-book suit -   and hers  -  hair still red, 
eyes still blue  - both of them some seven years out of date 
now, stared out from the screen. 

"- former FBI special agents-" Skinner said, "and I repeat, 
armed and dangerous -"  

"Scully!" Mulder hissed as he stood. "Move. Now." 

"Good god," she said, "that's - that's us." 

===========================================