Oso Madre

She had lied to Skinner by omission and misdirection. She had quivered her chin and let drops of saltwater drizzle from the corners of her eyes. Vulnerable. Easy prey. It wouldn't be a shock when she vanished.

How long would look he for her, for them both? She realized that she should feel guilty, that Scully would be tormented by guilt, knowing her old friend would suffer because of her.

She felt nothing but the elemental drive to find her mate and burrow underground with her cub. The Bureau couldn't help her anymore. Skinner couldn't help her anymore, but maybe believing her lie could keep him alive.

<M., the woman that was Scully slipped away quietly while reading the results of the pregnancy test. Seven years stripped her down- I am merely what was left underneath: the animal without conscience or moral imperative other than the preservation of her own. The Mother.>

The hospital wouldn't be safe much longer. Too many old shadow men interested in their little snake oil miracle. She knew she had to get moving.

<This is what I was meant to do, search and rescue. Cubs need their father, colonization be damned. Not one more sacrificial lamb on my watch. I will pull you down from that tree where they have nailed you; your very own personal Mary fucking Magdalene.>

She felt no sense of panic. She breathed and the universe breathed with her. She found her cell phone. The connection would be monitored. Didn't matter anymore.

Bill Scully had never believed in his sister, but he respected those old Cold War codes. Every military family had them. Casual words officers could warn their wives and kids with, believing they could prevail against carbon 14. Duck and cover, Billy baby...

"Dana", he sputtered, "what is so damned important you had to pull me out of a meeting?"

"Bill, why don't you and Tara meet Mom and me at Uncle Herman's place tonight?" The line was silent. Did he understand? Had he forgotten?

"Sure, fish fry sounds good." He spat the code back at her in harsh staccato and hung up abruptly.

She released a heavy breath and leaned back against the bathroom door for a moment. In a matter of hours, the remnants of Scully's family not murdered by the cloak and dagger types would disappear. She wished she could do more to protect them. At least "Uncle Herman's place" was well secured. Things were going to get ugly.

Armed with sewing kit scissors she allowed herself a moment of vanity.

<Is this survival or ritual, M.? Ritual, maybe. I have no eulogy or ashes to cover my face for the woman that was Scully, for our world. It was a nice world sometimes. So it's these copper coiled snakes in the bottom of the toilet bowl that I mourn with. But this is survival too. The hair never blended. I've got to blend for a while.>

She twisted the rebellious lock that always fell in her face with her left index finger and cropped the hair close to her skull. Her head felt light and cool as she finished. Sounds seemed more immediate. She frowned into the mirror. The shorn woman staring back looked vaguely like a concentration camp victim, or maybe someone in chemo. Scully had never gotten that far. Now she smeared a hint of purple eyeshadow underneath her eyes to heighten the effect.

The oncology department at this hospital was small, but somewhere close in the surrounding city blocks there would be a lilac scented shop selling blue sequined turbans and blonde bombshells and hope to women desperately struggling not to lose both. She didn't really need a complicated disguise; just something to avoid being easily identified at a distance. Something to help her blend.

The force of the explosion sent mannequin heads rolling across the counter top. Storefront windows crashed, car alarms blared. From the floor she glanced at her watch. Thirty-six minutes since she left that hospital room. The bastards certainly weren't wasting any time. Bitter metallic smell in the air. Fertilizer bomb? So easy to trace-they didn't care who knew. Bad sign. Staggering slightly, she scooped up her purchase and was out the door even before the cashier in the pink scarf had stopped screaming.

Four hours later, a mousy woman with slouching shoulders shivered in the phone booth outside a grimy hotel. On the fourth ring a soft man's voice answered.

"Yeah?"

"Is this line still secure?"

"Scully, my God...the hospital...we were so afraid...where are you?"

"Avoiding the bad guys, Melvin. Whatever you do, don't go back to your office."

"No problem, we're mobile as we speak. Do you want me to contact-"

"No." She said.

"But-"

"I'm dead. Eventually the investigation will prove inconclusive, but that will have to be good enough. I need you guys to do some things for me. I'm going to need cash, all that you can get your hands on. Sell the FPS stock, and drain our joint accounts at Luxembourg National, but fix it so it happened yesterday. Don't go anywhere near my apartment or his... bound to be dangerous places right now. But I don't need to be telling you this stuff. You guys are the pros here..." She trailed off.

"So this is it?"

"I'm honestly not sure," she said.

"Did you hear about the British Prime Minister?"

"Supposed to have been an accident..."

"And the outbreak in St. Paul?" He countered.

"Handn't heard about that yet! When I'm gone, you guys have to-"

"I know, Scully. We've been at this subversive activity gig a lot longer than you, remember?" She didn't need to lecture him. The maternal instinct had already kicked into overdrive.

Focus and breathe.

She gave him an address and hung up.

<M., what is this strange calm sense of purpose? Am I scientist or shaman? I only came to your room that night to get warm, and then you were telling me it had to end sometime and I thought you meant us too and I found absolute zero. It was colder than the ice at the bottom of the world. I pulled away from you and knocked over the glass lamp on the nightstand and one of the shards was sharp in my fingers. I was hurting so much and everything was spinning. I was screaming at you to cut the goddamn chip out of my neck if you felt that way and you grabbed my wrist and the glass cut you too and I was sobbing that the Smoking Man was right...easier to die for you than to love you and we were bleeding. Then I felt your palm on my jaw. I would kill anyone else for striking me that way. I felt the furious strength for killing inside me, but also violent joy that I could hurt you so much and I told you to stop speaking obscenities- that I couldn't leave you because I couldn't leave myself, and we fell together on the bed. Like that day in the temple, the walls melted away and we contained each other and became each other and our single body breathed with the universe. Big Bang/Big Crunch. Evolution as heart and lungs, forever expanding and contracting.>

Accessing the contents of locker number forty-two in the bus station was easy enough, but she had been seen. She couldn't spot the tail but it was there nevertheless, itching her neck. The Gunmen had left her money and passports, bearing ridiculous names like Dr. Nancee Droo and Mrs. Matah Harey. The absurdity was comforting somehow. She knew what the next step was. Fortunately, the part of her that was still Scully seemed to be as far away as her mate. Or dead. Better that way.

She headed down the street back to the hotel on foot, careful to move slowly enough to be followed easily. She stopped outside the door of the room and listened. Surely she had given them enough time.

Breathe.

Two heartbeats inside. Neither heightened. Professionals. One to the right of the door and one with the gun in the center of the room, male. Somehow, she didn't need to see them. They were there.

<Gee, M. Guess who?>

A stillness filled her and the universe breathed, and there was nothing but her gun and the two people inside. Her movements poured out of her body like honey. The door seemed to open of its own accord and she spun right and squeezed the trigger, then dropped and rolled as the shot rang out in front of her.

<How is it that I'm slipping through the air around the bullets? Never mind, centipede paradox and all...>

The man moved towards her, not looking at his companion, who was bleeding from the throat in the doorway, already dead.

She came up on one knee and they were so close that their guns almost touched.

"I thought I smelled brimstone. Let me guess, Alex, you and Marita want to get the band back together."

"You can stop running, Scully. He's gone. There are other concerns now. You have become extremely valuable to-"

She had originally intended to kill him. Now it occurred to her that he could be useful. He had information. Contacts. A sharp chill curled at the bottom of her spine. It was a slippery slope, commanding demons was notoriously dangerous. Did she really want this one? If she started craving Morleys she would have to kill Krycek directly, she decided. In the meantime his wings would have to be clipped a little.

Breathe.

Again she was moving between the molecules in the air. She swept his legs out from under him. Krycek fell heavily to his knees, grunting in surprise. He tried to get to his feet, but one knee hyperextended to the side. She kicked the knee and heard it give a deep, low pop. The other knee was easier. He was writhing on the floor and screaming and didn't fight back.

<M., you and I are supposed to be the good guys here - right? Why am I so warm and fuzzy from hurting Krycek? Is this how it feels for you? What else did you forget to tell me?>

No one had responded to the gunfire yet, it was that kind of hotel. Conveniently, Marita had not even broken the needle on her way down. She jabbed it into Krycek's neck and he was silent almost instantly. Now that she had him, what was she going to do with him? Too heavy to carry. She had noticed a wheelchair in the lobby. That would work.

"Scully, what the fuck have you done?" His voice was raw. His jaw clenched, absorbing the pain that had finally brought him to consciousness. She grinned unpleasantly.

"Well, the wig proved useless. You found me anyway. Besides-" she ran her hand through the scraggly spikes, "Don't you think I make a good Ripley?"

"Huh?"

"You know, the woman in the movies who runs around chasing aliens and then turns into one herself. Doesn't it even sound familiar?"

"Are you trying to tell me something?"

She leaned forward conspiratorially. "I don't know, Alex. Maybe you could tell me something. Just how does a woman whose ova have been scooped out like jellybeans conceive?"

Her prisoner sagged slightly in the chair, all at once a hundred years old.

"Maybe you picked up a little something in Africa."

"The ruin?" She asked. "The ruin regenerated me?"

"Can't be the strangest thing you've seen." He needed the injection. His dislocated knees were partially stabilized, but she was no orthopedic specialist. The left one might have exacerbated arterial damage.

"You were good, Scully, no one else would have found you. I've just known you too long. He used that locker once."

She pushed the plastic spoon between his lips.

"Eat now."

"What is it?"

"Strawberry ice cream. We both need the calcium."

He shook his head and tried to pull away. "Too cold."

His knees were covered by ziplock baggies filled with ice from the convenience store on the corner. She had elevated his legs with milk crates, and inadvertently, hooked him on morphine. The addiction shouldn't have happened so fast. She tried to keep the doses under five thousand milligrams, but even those levels gave him a kind of twilight euphoria, leaving him giddy and useless. He could hardly string coherent thoughts together.

"Still hurts, Scully."

"I know. You can have another injection in a couple of hours."

"Now, please."

"Not yet."

He sweated and shivered, respiration jagged. His splinted legs stuck out pitifully. As his body metabolized the food, she watched pain force his consciousness forward.

"Bitch."

"That's crazy bitch to you, mister."

"Make the pain stop."

She chuckled indulgently, hand brushing through his hair. Cool fingers followed the path of wetness down his cheek, across his throat. His need moved something in her. The animal self couldn't understand it, and Scully wasn't available to translate. Her pet spy, needing his Miss Emma, as the street people called it.

Twice he had gone into respiratory depression. She could still taste him from the CPR. Sharp. Like cloves and bile. She kept them both as clean as she could, but the street seeped into them. No one expected junkies to be clean. That would attract attention, and thus far, the street had proved to be safer than a Bureau safehouse because no one really saw junkies. In the back of the alley, no one even made eye contact.

They were sleeping in a urine-smelling corner behind a dumpster. She couldn't call the Gunmen again. She was a leper. News and rumor were living things on the street. They couldn't afford any illusions about secure lines and loyalties.

Things were happening: another outbreak had occurred, this time in Muncie; a rash of suicides in the Canadian Parliament. Strange things indeed, but no bees. None of the expected things. She didn't know what to think of it, and it didn't matter what flavor of chaos and annihilation followed. Humans were getting good at dying.

<When in danger, when in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.>

The blackout had bought them some time. Twenty- seven hours worth, but the lights were finally back on. There was luck, and then there was luck. She had to get something out of Krycek soon, even if she lost him in the process.

She looked down at the dark glossy creature curled around her among the classified ads. He should have something hot first. Tea, maybe.

Every time she let him to sober up a little, he brutalized her with his mouth. He would smash her nose through the back of her skull. He would sodomize her with his prosthetic. He would rip the fetus from her womb and make her watch him eat it.

He seemed genuinely afraid.

<The sky is falling, M.>

She hurried back to the alley with paper cups of jasmine tea. She had hidden him among the cardboard boxes, a makeshift cave. It was time for his shot. He would be howling back there soon, her own twisted Chinese obligation. In sparing his life, she became responsible for him. He was hers to destroy...or protect.

They would be noticed soon. Dr. Droo had spent a bundle on supplies in just a few days. Junkies never had resources like that. Sooner or later she would be a walking commodity, if she weren't already.

"The needle...pain...please...Scully...stop." "Shhhh. Be still." "Ya dumayu u minya pirilom..." "Yes, broken. I told you. You never should have waved a gun in my face. " "Mat..." "I'm not your mother..."

<Don't ask me where I learned Russian. Scully certainly never knew any.>

"Drink it," she said.

"Who are you, my social worker?"

He pulled away as she bent over him with the cup.

"It's just tea."

"No, I mean who the hell ARE you?"

>I guess that's a fair question, M.<

She shrugged. "Who I appear to be, mostly." He grasped her hand tightly and she let him. His skin was clammy.

"Tell me what happened again."

"The universe was breathing and the wheel spun," she began.

"Grief has made you crazy."

"Maybe. Did you do the hospital, Alex?"

"No."

"Who did?"

"Any number of parties at this point. Look, Scully, the only way for you and your baby to survive is to come back with me."

She shook her head. "You gave me to them once already. Can't say I liked it."

"We need you. You wouldn't be harmed, we can protect-"

"Sometimes I can still hear Cassandra screaming."

He was fully awake now. Dangerously conscious. He set the empty cup down on a box upturned like a sad sort of end table.

Softly he said, "Scully, let it go. He isn't chained in some tower where you can rescue him. He isn't even in a geographical place. The aliens aren't hiding on the dark side of the Moon or whatever...they move dimensionally."

"He is waiting for me."

"Don't you get it? He's not a test subject, he's a political prisoner. If you come to work with us now, we'll try to help him, I promise. I'll see what kind of negotiations we can make. You can head the project yourself..."

His voice held a hissing seductive quality. Want some candy, little girl? How about this nice shiny red apple? Somewhere, Scully, still very much alive, quivered at the promise of rational order. A group like the Bureau, with hierarchy. With protocols and known quantities. The serpent's lovely green eyes promising security... So this was how Alex Krycek had lived so long. She felt a rush of something like admiration. He was good.

"Of course I get it," she said evenly. "Maybe better than you. He is east of the sun and west of the moon, and we must ride on the back of the north wind to find him."

He regarded her carefully, as though she were a wild animal.

"Allegory and archetypes? Wasn't that always more his line? Fairytales? Clap if you believe?" He snorted. "You'll have to make do with the sound of one hand clapping-it's all I've got."

"I have faith, Alex."

"Faith guarantees nothing and demands everything. Happily ever after is a damned lie, worse than statistics." He said.

"Our Truth was wrapped in harem veils...I saw ships come sailing in," she murmured dreamily. "I saw a gold man who wasn't there. The last veil fell away when I wasn't looking."

"Or while you were flat on your back maybe?"

There was a luxurious blasphemy in his words. The man could sell ice to Eskimos. He had sold out her mate over and over.

<Maybe he's right, M. The world did end on New Years, between your legs and blankets. Scully didn't notice. Neither did I.>

"You didn't stick around in the basement long enough. More than aliens down there."

"His infamous monster of the week?"

She sighed. It was a wistful sound.

"And goulies. And long legged beasties. And things that spirit us away in the night. But I always find him in the end. You're going to help me. I'll need to know their weaknesses, weapons, contacts...everything. How did you put it? You've become extremely valuable, Alex."

"And you've lost it." He twisted uncomfortably, gentle facade crumbling. "Just give me the injection."

It was if she had flipped a switch in him. She regarded Krycek steadily, observing with faint interest that he flinched as she brought the barrel of her gun against his jaw. He was pale.

"But I need your help. I told you."

"Don't fuck with me, lady. You're not him. Not even close."

"No more meds until you come up with something for me. Where do I start?"

"Stupid cunt..."

She smiled then. Wide. Her eyes sparkled delightedly, as if he had given her a basket of Persian kittens.

" Thank you Alex. I always wondered if I would be good at this. You'll have to let me know if I'm as good as he is."

He stopped. He understood. In that wild moment, he was beautiful. Chin titled up, waiting for it.

Breathe.

Creation of the universe. Exhale. Destruction of the universe. It made her chest ache. Suddenly there was too much saliva in her mouth.

Breathe.

She could smell the fear on his skin. Her mate's rage flowed in her, down to the tips of her fingers. She pulled Krycek from the chair onto the ground and climbed on top of him, pressing the barrel of the gun all the way into his mouth to stifle his scream.

"Its ok to be scared, Alex," she whispered. "There's lots to be scared of."

She straddled his legs. He made a small hurting sound and she found that she liked it. She yanked the gun from his mouth and slammed the butt of it against his temple. He gasped, spine bowing underneath her. He grabbed her arm, fingers convulsing. Heat spilled over her. She closed her eyes and brilliant flowers exploded on her vision. She shifted until her knee was resting over his battered right leg and then ground it downwards.

<Russian masochism must be inherited genetically, leftover by Roman legions, cultivated by Czars who prided themselves in the delivery of exquisite terror.>

Violence rippled through the two of them, down the alley, out into the world. It flowed all the way to her mate who waited for her, and returned back into Krycek's body and her own again, the intensity of it nearly overwhelming. She could feel Scully hovering like lace around the edge of a fried egg, sickened. Terrified.

"God damn it Scully, he's GONE! Even if you could reach one of their portals..."

"Portals?"

"Don't you know? The hot spots...OHGODSTOPSTOPOKSTOPLEASESCULLY... "

She eased off his leg, feeling light and empty. She had wanted to hurt him. To break him. Wanted him to scream and beg. And he had. But he was already a broken thing. Something in him was enjoying this. Hardly fair.

"Afsyanaye pichenye if you're truthful, my anti-hero," she murmured.

"Suicide and worse. Don't even think it. And I hate oatmeal cookies."

"Peanut butter then. You wanted me to kill you earlier."

"Didn't he teach you better than to bribe your torture subjects with sweets? It's just weird, Scully."

"Figure it out so we don't die in the process."

"No. It's hopeless."

"Give me a place to start Alex." She nudged his leg with her knee. He seemed to concentrate his focus on the cup teetering above him. She could see him beginning to fade. She counted to ten. Backwards. In Russian.

<There are things sadder than we are. Some people do not even touch. The difference between Alex Kyrcek and me? There but for the grace of Scully's God...>

"New Orleans."

"What?"

"New Orleans. And I want chocolate chip..."

She leaned on the handles of the chair thoughtfully, noticing in a distracted way how Krycek's head rested against her stomach. They had exhausted most of the morning navigating kneeling buses and other public transportation hazards of the east side; crossing the river twice, doubling back on themselves. Her instinct. His experience. He was cooperating; directing her to a stash of weapons and other goodies he had hidden away. Pumped full of morphine, he was incredibly submissive, even amiable. She kept the needle handy. More convenient than physical therapy.

Her original mission had been simple. Stay alive, protect the cub, and rescue her mate. Perfect trinity. Now, as she faced a proverbially ominous and disreputable looking warehouse with her newly adopted accomplice, she began to feel a sort of rising force, shadows she couldn't explain. They were both damp from the drizzling rain and the smell of ozone and old diesel fumes permeated everything. Yet another damned warehouse in a lifetime of warehouses, where monsters invariably lurked.

She thought of Scully and her partner, playing out games of Marco Polo by cell phone, calling each other's names in through all the haunted and abandoned places...forever set up and sold out.

<Of course the game is rigged, but if we don't play, we can't win.>

It was not fear that marked her hesitation, but an almost amused sense of inevitability. Journey across Anacostia, abandoned warehouse at the end of the line. Don't venture into that abandoned warehouse, Scully. Don't walk into that forest tonight, that darkened room. Don't look under the bed. There's a monster waiting to get you. She shuddered. Scully was close like a caress.

<Yes, there is always a monster, and it always tries to get Scully. But M., this time the monster is right here inside...and every night is Halloween.>

"You have no idea how lewd that looks, do you Scully?"

Krycek was coming down, getting jumpy. Deliberately, she returned the crate in her arms to the floor, took the penlight from between her lips, and shone it directly into his eyes. He squinted, the space between his brows wrinkling.

"There's an art to holding a flashlight in your mouth without drooling," she said innocently. "You have to suck on the end."

"Clever girl."

She started to give a sharp reply, but clicked off the light instead and motioned for him to be quiet. She didn't need to. They had both heard it. Someone had found them.

Scully had found that it was not especially useful to stick her gun around corners first. After all, she couldn't shoot at what she couldn't see, and it was like handing the weapon over to the enemy. None of the variety of ways to take a blind corner was foolproof. It was a judgement call. Would she more likely be grabbed or shot at? This time, she pressed her right shoulder against the wall.

Breathe.

She threw herself forward. No neat shoulder roll into the adjoining passage. She fell on her side, gun held two-handed out in front.

Nothing moved. She scrambled to her feet, gun still hovering, looking for something to aim at. The stacks of crates created a hallway easily twelve feet high on either side. Problematic. Especially given her strong premonition of exactly who had come for them.

"Agent Scully?" Skinner called out.

She felt the horrible impulse to giggle.

<Fool me once, shame on them. Fool me twice, shame on me. >

"Agent Scully, drop your weapon!"

She strained to see in the blackness.

"Come on," she whispered, "Come closer."

She was aware of only herself and the alien shapeshifter, the thing sent to hunt her and her cub. She didn't look back at Krycek. Nothing mattered but her feet shuffling over the ground, the thing moving towards her, and the gun in her hands.

"Agent Scully?"

Breathe.

The hunter came into view.

It was a dance. Rhythm of the universe, music of the spheres. Not that the gun would save her. She'd been warned before. But then again, she hadn't found any crates of icepicks among the hand grenades, so she would have to improvise. A flicker in the shadows. Why the pretense? She sighted down her arm at the hunter's neck and squeezed the trigger.

Scully's boss dissolved and the squarish features she remembered appeared. The hunter slammed into her, taking them both down. She was flat on her back with the thing on top of her.

Breathe.

She fired again and again with the gun's muzzle pressed against the hunter's ear. Bullets exploded out of the base of its skull in a rain of warm liquid and thicker bits. The green boiled and seemed to glow as the hunter hissed though its ruined jaw. A fist smashed into her. It grasped for her neck.

<Oh no, not this time.>

She pulled the trigger twice more and the hunter reared back, loosing its balance as she scooted backwards like a crab.

"Alex!" she yelled. "Clip!"

He flowed with her, unquestioning, caught in the cosmic hum.

Breathe.

The clip arched in the air, dropping gently into her outstretched hand, as though he was ten inches away instead of ten feet. She jacked the fresh round in and emptied the chamber into the hunter's neck. Not good enough. Her fingers reached in, tearing at the meat of its throat. She yanked great globs of jellied flesh until she saw its spine, wet and glistening. She wrapped her hand around it and jerked upwards. The hunter's body twitched and began to smoke.

<Look, M. I'm immune to the fry power of alien blood. How'd that happen? Oh yeah, that centipede. Careless of me...>

Krycek shivered quietly in his chair, watching her as she dug though the gear, looking for something to clean herself off with. When he finally spoke, his suede-silk voice was accusing.

"We should be dead, Scully."

"Yes." The cotton shirt she was wearing bore chemical burns. Her skin was undamaged. She hadn't examined the shoes, but could feel the cold of the floor with her bare toes. Another pair of shoes consumed by alien bodily fluids and no Bureau reimbursement forms in sight. Great.

His panic rose.

"Why aren't we DEAD?"

She shrugged. "Synchronicity."

"What the- you never bought his Jungian crap before."

The conversation was becoming irritating.

"I don't know, Alex. Centipede paradox." she said tiredly.

"Explain."

She recited: "The centipede was happy quite, until a toad in fun, said pray, which leg goes after which? This put his mind in such a fix, he fell distracted in a ditch, considering how to run."

"Bloody fucking queer sense of humor you've got on you," he muttered.

"It's from spending so much time around corpses." She stopped, unable to control the malevolent humor pinching at her cheeks. "You should know, Alex. You've spent years making corpses for me to autopsy. You kill them, I cut them-right?"

"Shit." He shook his head. "God, just shut up and give me the shot."

"Can't you wait till we get to the train? There may be more-"

She finally gave in when the pitch of his whinning began to vibrate in her eardrums, slipping the needle into him.

<At least one of us gets some peace.>

The Amtrak Crescent rumbled drowsily under her feet, down through Manassas, Culpeper, Charlottesville, Lynchburg. They would have daylight again by Atlanta. It was an antiquated way to travel, but, on the train, they could move and rest simultaneously, bodies in motion. Fight mode to flight.

He was sleeping finally, and she had even managed to placate Scully with a scalding forty-minute shower. She had found that if she didn't turn the water on full blast, her shoulder holster could be fastened to the towel rack at the back of the stall and not get wet.

<The good life is in the details, right, M.?>

She pulled the fresh gift shop T-shirt over her head, stretching the fabric so that it hung comfortably at her knees, and emerged from the bathroom. The handicapped accessible compartment had a removable lounge chair, which she sunk into. A wave of dizziness swept over her, then nausea. They hadn't eaten in hours. She fished a roll of Tums from her jacket pocket.

"Pozhaluysta?" He was awake.

"Yes, of course, " she said. How are you feeling?"

"Like maybe you're going to overdose me if I keep pissing you off."

They had fallen into a sort of pidgin dialect. A fragmented hybrid of Russian and English and preternatural baby talk; potty mouthed infant and brutal mother, intimacy born out of days of her caring for his body and all of its necessary functions.

He stuck out his tongue at her. She ignored the sugestive quality in the gesture and placed the Tums he had asked for on it.

Then she casually began her routine checks. He remained somewhat flushed from the histamine release, a side effect of the medication. The skin on his neck and shoulders was inflamed. He had been scratching in his sleep again. She would have to trim his fingernails.He ground the Tums between his teeth.

"This isn't you, Scully. None of this is you."

"There's a child now, it's that simple."

"Shouldn't change your basic profile. Read it years ago-"

"What was I supposed to do, Alex? Lie around sulking with my Nina Simone albums, scarfing boxes of bon bons, praying he'd be returned someday?"

She popped another mint flavored, calcium enriched Tums. A finger of frustration poked at her. Krycek was starting in again. In his more lucid moments, he could be eerily amiable. It was not at all difficult to imagine just shooting the breeze with him from across the front seat of the inevitable tan colored Taurus, on some dreary sixteen-hour stakeout in the Baltimore suburbs. But then he would come crashing down. Plead and promise and threaten, and plead again. She couldn't overdose him; she didn't know what the contact in New Orleans looked like.

"You killed Marita," he said wonderingly, as though the realization had just hit him.

She had not expected this line of conversation.

"Marita threatened me. She had a needle. You had a gun. You would have done the same."

"You shot her."

She shrugged.

"But, you didn't even hesitate, Scully."

"Next you're going to tell me you loved her. Like a sister, maybe?"

"Everyone I have ever loved is dead," he said, releasing a breath, "but I wondered when you'd get around to that."

<M., if I "get around to it" now; if I allow myself to consider old grievances, the man will die quickly. Hardly convenient. I would hate to have to deal with sneaking his body off the train.>

"You'll know when I get around to it, Solnyshko," she said, "In the meantime, are you hungry?"

"Yeah. Something salty. Or cold."

"I'll see what I can find."

Food options after midnight seemed rather bleak until she found the Assistant Steward embattled in a particularly fierce poker game with the kitchen staff. The timing was perfect. He graciously accepted the wad of fifties she offered, and sent her off with appropriate "honeymoon" provisions; predicting she would have a little girl.

<Ah, the privileges of pregnancy, and I'm not even showing yet. >

"See here," she exclaimed as she shut the door of the compartment with her foot, "I have met both of your criteria!"

He stirred eagerly.

"I don't believe it, Scully. Beluga?"

"And toast points," she agreed smugly.

"And Cristall? Please tell me you brought-"

<What is it with men and their drink orders?>

"Sorry. I don't drink vodka. Besides, I told you, I'm not ready to kill you yet. Can't have you mixing alcohol and depressants. And stop pouting!"

She set the tray and the ice bucket on the floor, crawled onto the bed beside Krycek, and began spooning the caviar onto the toast.

"Open."

"I can feed myself you know, Scully."

"Fine. But I'll get more that way. You're slower." He grinned.

"The cub is ravenous, huh?"

"Oh yeah."

The meal was succulent. Buttery. Wonderful. They gorged themselves silently.

"Scully, when you were...when you killed the hunter..."

<Here we go again.>

"When you were fighting it, he continued, "I felt something. A tingling sensation. I shouldn't have been able to reach that ammo bag." Krycek shook his head slowly. "It was just kind of there...and it was like we were connected somehow...your hand was so close...but it wasn't close at all..."

<Well now, looks like it's time for Agent Scully to pull a nice scientific explanation out of her ass before the poor man implodes.>

She squirmed, rearranging herself among the pillows so that she sat cross-legged, like a kid at camp telling ghost stories.

"Ok, Alex," she began in Quantico lecturing style, "Think of it this way. At the subatomic level there are no solid objects. Electrons don't move from place to place, they manifest as probability patterns spread out in space. The shape of these patterns changes with time; it seems like motion to us. The electron has no independent existence though. It is merely a set of relations that reach outward to interconnect with other things."

He cocked an eyebrow, unconsciously emulating her. "But Scully, there are boundaries though- right? We are two separate bodies, aren't we?"

<Look, M.! I'm preaching to the Heathens...and enjoying it way too much.>

"At the subatomic level, there is a connection between the two of us. Between us and this bed, between the train and tracks. Between the tracks and ground. It is a continual exchange of matter and energy, photons and electrons. We are part of one inseparable web of relationships. At the macro level, light particles collide and create even more particles. It is the cosmic dance of creation and destruction, sustaining the universe. The ceaseless flow of energy, moving though a multiplicity of patterns, dissolving into one another. Physics. Poetry. Shiva..."

<Scientific? Who, me?>

He stared, unblinking.

"And it was like that with him?" Krycek asked.

"Always. Still. More powerful now though."

<Yes, I've been listening to myself M.; and I wonder at the necessity of that gym bag full of hardware strapped under his chair. I could move faster and easier without him. He impedes everything. But maybe he is necessary; an ironic roadmap for Scully when it is finally safe for her to return. He remembers what she was.>

"Let me prove the synchronicity to you. What is the name of our contact in New Orleans?"

He didn't answer.

"Come on, Alex, humor me..."

"Goldkom," he muttered, momentarily resigned.

"Beautiful!" Through the motion of the train, she could feel the universe pulsing. Living. "So, our heroine searches for the white bear, who is really her enchanted husband, and the kindly old crone gives her a talisman- a gold carding comb!"

"Oh God, Scully," he moaned. "I sat though my share of comparative mythology courses in college too, but your little metaphors don't even begin to explain this." Another opiate mood swing. He was laughing. She found that she was too.

"They teach comparative mythology in spy school?"

"Sure. Got to have something to think about on those covert surveillance assignments. Ok. So you're Psyche, and he's the Fisher King. What does that make me? Judas? Loki?"

"I love that you're getting into the spirit of this! I'm feeling generous now. I dub thee, Bilbo Baggins."

"Joseph Campbell is spinning in his grave, Scully. Why The Hobbit?"

"Like I said, I'm feeling generous. I could have picked Gollum. It's just that Baggins...Baggins kept getting dragged into things he didn't really want to see or believe in. He was a reluctant hero," she said.

"Reminds me of someone else I thought I knew," he replied softly.

<M., the evil that engulfs this man has not completely consumed him. For all his sins, he is part of this. Bound with us. At the risk of abusing the vernacular, we are not alone. Never were. This is his story too, whatever happens. Scully never dreamed of this, couldn't have tolerated it. I feel a sort of anticipation. Some part of her, of me, knows this is right instinctually. The same way I know you are alive and waiting for me. Somewhere the physics of our world can't even begin to triangulate.>

They were quiet again, watching the night.

"I have envied you. The two of you, warriors on the righteous path. Martyrs. For me it was better to be a live jackal than a dead lion."

"Personally, I plan to stay a live lion a while longer, Alex."

His lush, Loreal ad eyelashes curled over green rivers of world-weariness. Feral and shattered.

"You know, you never mentioned the obvious reason for all of this," he said.

"That being?"

"Love. You love him."

"It seems narcissistic somehow. He is my other self. Our cub is our physical expression of Eros and Agape intertwined, the song our soul sings to itself."

"That's love to you?" He asked.

"Yeah. It is. So, how does the bad ass double agent of the apocalypse define love?"

"When the happiness and well being of another become essential to your own."

She shook her head, perplexed. "And Marita's happiness and well being were essential to yours?"

"She wouldn't allow it."

"I'm sorry."

<Shit, that came out of my mouth didn't it? Am I sorry? No, couldn't be. Not even Scully would be sorry for self-defense. Not for defending a child.>

"I'm sorry too, Scully. If it makes a difference."

"Get some sleep."

She wiggled off the bed and stood, preparing to climb into the upper berth. She hadn't slept in bunk beds since she and Missy were little girls...

<SHIT SHIT SHIT! M., don't let me kill him tonight. Not tonight, please. It's not part of the plan anymore.>

She woke because the train had stopped. Clemson, South Carolina. Almost morning. Krycek would need his injection. She supposed that it was good to become accustomed to the hours. Three am feedings were coming. She only hoped she wouldn't be dispensing both morphine and infant formula by then.

She knelt on the edge of the mattress and touched his shoulder. Krycek moved under her hand, and she rolled him onto his back. He remained totally passive, looking up at her with a slow, lazy smile.

"Where do you want this?" She gestured with the needle. "Shall I turn on the light and try and find a space without a bruise already?" He didn't answer. His hand slid around her waist and pulled her down to his chest. She tried to back off the bed, but he held her, stopping with his face only inches from her own.

"Alex?"

He said nothing, did nothing. Looked at her. Waiting. She could see the pulse in his neck jumping against the skin. Suddenly, she wanted to touch it. She wanted to slide her mouth down his throat until she could feel that pulse beating beneath her tongue. He shuddered against her.

Breathe.

"Doesn't this hurt your legs?" She asked tonelessly.

"Yeah."

"But you like it." She didn't really need to ask. She could feel that he liked it. "Alex, is it me you want, or him?"

"Either. Both."

"Kinky."

"Yeah. You like it too," he said, "Don't you?."

His submission was corrupting; a decaying thing that could easily drown her. Every time he pushed her. Made her hurt him. Invited her to wallow in the sadistic impulse. She remembered her mate beating him, seemingly unable to stop.

Krycek pulled her down again so that his mouth was pressed against his ear.

"Come on, Scully. You aren't really going to let me do this are you?" He whispered languidly. "You can do anything you want to me. I'm yours."

And then she understood.

"That's what this is really about, isn't it, Alex? Ownership. Protection. I get it now! You provoke him, he hits you. You provoke me, the old Syndicate men, and somewhere between the blows we get used to it. I'm supposed to think of it as my right. My prerogative. I'm supposed to get territorial enough to take care of you. To protect you because you're my dog. It's why you always come back to him. To us. It's why you let me drag you across the country and you haven't tried to leave or even resist me very much. It's the belonging to someone isn't it? It isn't sex, it's a safe corner to back into!"

The revelation left her triumphant.

"Fine! For him, yes. Yes. I'll give you what you want. You are mine. I'll protect you. From the aliens. From the Smoking Man you think you killed." Her voice grew stronger, more sure. "I'll even protect you from my partner. Isn't that what you want to hear? I'm the safe haven. You're mine."

"You shouldn't have forgiveness in you, Scully."

"No, you're right. I'll probably still kill you at some point. But no one else touches you."

The announcement interrupted them, "Attention passengers: Due to circumstances beyond our control, The Crescent will be delayed indefinitely. Charter buses are currently being prepared to transport all passengers who wish, to the Atlanta Hartsfield airport, where further travel arrangements can be made through the concierge."

The compartment was too small to pace in.

<M., once Judgement Day was just around the corner. There were no clocks to measure progression towards it; no mechanical time. Time was dawn to dusk, season to season, Sabbath to Saint Day. Judgement Day was the reason for it all. Now, it's more a break in our concept of order; a violation. Judgement Day has become the ultimate off day, instead of the ultimate day off. >

She switched the radio over to the AM band roughly, breaking a nail; sick to death of shadows and Fate's dark humored soundtrack. Bad Moon Rising. Black Magic Woman. Spooky. The fucking Monster Mash. Hilarious. Really.

The radio crackled: "And now live from the Kingdom of Nye, It's the Art Bell Show! With Special Guest Star, Richard Hoagland!"

She flicked the off button with a grunt of disgust.

"Sculleee," Krycek whined, childlike, "I want to hear about the faces on Mars! And the Black Helicopters. I like Black Helicopters!" His sarcasm was not improving the mood.

"Shut up, Krycek!"

Her nerves began to fray at the ends. NPR was worse. Too many earthquakes along previously uncharted fault lines recently. And computer viruses.Five of them, all out of North Africa, running amok. Not quite Y2k, but enough to stop things like trains.

"You haven't called me that in a while, I'm touched."

"It's more his distancing mechanism anyway," she said.

"Oh. Does that mean I get to call you-"

"Don't even think about it!"

Wiry tension ate at her. Remaining on the train was a gamble. They were more likely to be found before they reached New Orleans. But instinct said wait, and so she waited.

"Shit." His voice went low, heavy with fear. "I take it back, about the helicopters." He ducked awkwardly, attempting to wheel back from the window. The rumble over the gray morning was unmistakable. Two of them. Black. "What now? I told you we should have gotten out. We're sitting ducks on this track."

"Wait," she said.

"For what?"

"I don't know. It's just what we're supposed to do."

Energy burned in the air like the weight of a thunderstorm. Her whole body vibrated with it; insects marching over her bones. She moved in front of him, facing the window. There was a clicking behind her. He was loading weapons.

Breathe.

She hadn't considered the consequences of allowing him that access. The fragile truce between them was like that of Axis and Allies, singing Silent Night together on a cold Christmas battlefield, because they were the only ones there to do it. He was no longer quite her prisoner, but he disapproved of her decision to remain on the train. Professional differences and all. She could feel his survivor's mind at her back, grinding through the haze, making his decision.

<Centipedecentipedecentipede M.>

"Scully."

She half turned, still watching the helicopters. He passed her one of the guns he had assembled. It resembled a miniature Uzi. Even with one arm, the man was fast. And apparently on her team for the moment.

And then she forgot the guns. Forgot the helicopters. Something was coming. No. Something was there, in the room with them. There was a whiteness in her head and the light dimmed. Silence fell over everything. Krycek moaned, his head rolling back, gear slipping from his lap. Her hand went to his shoulder and a shock of electrical pulse stung her. Power flared between them. His eyes had gone from green to black. The scent of ambergris and sandalwood filled her lungs. She was swallowing the ocean, familiar somehow. Familiar.

Breathe.

She could almost remember...the condemned man's face gaunt with some great effort, the gaze of a drowning thing, determined not to scream on the last trip down...do not underestimate my fear! Recognition surged over her. She sunk down beside the chair, burying her face against his leg.

"Alex! Let her in! Let me see her! Oh please please please..."

"It hurts," he gasped, "Why-"

"Please!" The emotion choked her, but she found his hand and grasped it in both of hers. They rode the power together, dancing along the edge of its music, until her vision swam in pieces and they cried out with one voice. When she raised her head again the man she had been clinging to had become a whole being. Pure. Not like the tortured one in the prison, but a union of twin souls that belonged to each other. Beautiful. Perfect. Seeing it made her ache for her mate.

"Missy!"

"Dana." His voice, her sister's intonation. Bright. Almost too beautiful too bear. The being was stroking her hair, cupping her face.

"How? Alex isn't a medium. He's not clairvoyant."

"But I am. And you are too, Dana." The being laughed. "All Scully women are. Haven't you learned anything on you journey?"

"But he killed you."

Again the being laughed. "Actually, for once he didn't. And it has made all the difference."

"He told me once he didn't pull the trigger, but-"

"But you see, in our last cycle together I pulled the trigger. And before that, I drowned him in the North Sea. We lost our balance a long time ago. You were there too."

She caught a flash of swirling white skirts, lit by beeswax candles, commanded by Strauss and the waltz and Prussian pride.

"We were here before, Alex," she whispered, the memory playing back. "My sister and I were pleading our case, begging you to find my mate, my husband then, lost in the colonies. You were enchanted with her, there was nothing you wouldn't have done for her...and you set out that night to bring him home. But the things you saw there damaged you. He died in your arms and by the time you came back, you had betrayed us all...and here is where Karma finally catches up...but why now?"

"You called me. You let me in. And Alex let me, a whole string of impossible chances. He doesn't even fully believe yet, even though he's right here with us. The two of you finally gave up some of the negativity you carry around. It was enough," said the being.

"For what purpose?"

"I can help you, Dana."

"How?" she asked.

"Look out the window," the being said.

The wreckage of the two helicopters lay scattered across the hillside, burning.

She hadn't heard a sound. Strangely, the sun was more than halfway across the sky. Many hours had passed. She realized she couldn't quite remember what she had been saying, couldn't remember why she was on the floor. She felt pleasantly drowsy. Serene.

"Alex? You're coming with me to New Orleans, right?" She asked hesitantly.

"There and back again." It was his own tired voice. She could hear his need for the pain killer in it. "Look, Scully, we're moving. You were right. It was better to stay..."

The train purred and an inexplicable peace settled over her. It was good to be moving.

She was kneeling between Krycek's legs as he fluffed the ends of her wig with his fingertips.

"That's eight hairpins. Isn't my head on straight yet, Alex?"

"Stop fidgeting. And if you try to use your shoe for a cell phone, I'm outta here."

"Admit it," she taunted, "You know you always wanted to call Skinner "Chief," just to see what he would do."

"Kick my ass, of course. Deeply and profoundly."

"Ahh, the good old days." She stood up gingerly. Her back was sore. She had woken up on the floor of the train compartment, unable to recall anything after the delay announcement. "Now, according to the map, we should be able to head down Loyola and-"

"No, Scully."

"No?"

"We go into the Quarter. Got to lose the tail waiting outside the station. Besides," he glanced at his watch, "we're early."

"Late, you mean."

"Goldkom owns the bar. He won't show until at least four. But yeah, he expected us yesterday. You must have overfilled that needle..." Krycek shook himself, as if to clear a fog. His forehead wrinkled slightly, creating a diamond shape between his eyebrows.

"I don't suppose you can account for the events between the delay and a few minutes ago, when we woke up?" she asked.

"No, and don't say it, Scully."

Her eyes went wide and guileless. "Say what, Solnyshko Mayo? You mean that we appear to have-"

"Noooo!" He moaned, not bothering to repress the rising cackle in his throat.

She joined him, giggling high and brittle. "Missing time!"

Mirth spilled out of them, a mournful sound, bordering on hysteria.

"Scully, why are we laughing?"

"Because, if we let ourselves start screaming, we won't be able to stop."

A blue norther had hit New Orleans. The cold front blew all the clouds into the Gulf, turning the sky brilliant and the air crisp. She pushed the wheelchair over dried leaves, realizing that she had lost track of the days. Judging by the proliferation of jack-o- lanterns in the shop windows, it was very near the end of October. Again, Krycek's experience had delivered them. They evaded the shadow with minor effort among the hustlers and doom-sayers crowding the sidewalks.

If horror had a face and form, New Orleans had embraced it as a friend. The manic Carnival dirge in progress celebrated unknown multitudes dead and dying in Baytown, less than three hundred miles west. Something at the nuclear plant that should have been christened "accident," except that four other accidents across the country had struck within the same hour. Accidents. Well, profilers were in short supply.

They swept past parades of women in iridescent garments, patterned with flowers and tropical birds. Saxophones and violins wailed in funereal revelry. She found herself yielding to the drunken dementia of the place, impulsively buying a red velvet gris-gris from a vendor and slipping it over Krycek's head as he rolled his eyes.

"Somehow, I don't think aliens count as evil spirits, Scully."

"One woman's sorcery is another woman's quantum mechanics," she said.

"And one man's salvation," he pointed to the preacher on the opposite street corner, "is another man's belly laugh."

"Repent!" cried the preacher.

"I am, I am," Krycek answered back so quiet, only she could hear.

They crossed over Elysian Fields, traveling east under canopies of live oak filtering the light; under cantilevered balconies; past potted ferns on slender porches; into a neighborhood where the street signs were missing and the unending communal dance of humans relented some. Then, at the end of one street, they stopped in front of an unmarked red door, fringed on either side by banana trees and ironwork.

"Dr. Droo, welcome to The Last Concert Café, the speakeasy of a completely different Prohibition," said Krycek.

Three hours later, she wriggled in the green vinyl booth, chewing impatiently on her straw.

<Thirty-two ounce glasses of iced tea, twinkling Christmas lights, and a Parrot Head cover band. Damn it M., you're enjoying this, aren't you?>

A fleshy balding man finally came toward them, greasy curls falling over his shoulders.

"Arntzen! Good to see you in all this craziness. What has happened to you?" The man crouched to hug Krycek awkwardly. She watched with increasing interest as her companion actually hugged him back with warm sincerity. "Come back to the office," boomed Goldkom, "I've been looking forward to this." He steered the wheelchair towards a tiled arch at the front of the bar that she hadn't noticed when they arrived. Trailing down the narrow hall after them, she strained her peripheral vision. Foreboding twitched in her nostrils. Something was off...Scully's partner would have known instantly.

Goldkom rummaged over a cluttered desk, full lips protruding beneath his black moustache. He was mountainous in the largest pair of khakis she had ever seen. His faded Mr. Spock T-shirt, with the words, "Live Long and Prosper" printed across the front, left her expecting back issues of The Lone Gunman to come cascading down from under the accounting receipts. She should have felt safe. It should have been comforting; familiar territory. It wasn't, and she couldn't figure out why.

Goldkom extended a hand to her. "Dr. Droo, Arntzen has told me almost nothing..."

She froze in recognition at his touch. Two steps back and she had her gun on both of them. Seconds seemed to stretch infinitely.

"What's the problem, Doctor?" Krycek's voice came smooth and predatory. She noted that his gun was trained on Goldkom, not her.

<Interesting time to display loyalty, M.>

"Start explaining," she demanded. Krycek appeared confused, but didn't waver from the target.

"Anything specific, Boss Lady? The nature of God and the Universe, maybe?"

Perhaps he really didn't know.

"He's not human," she said.

Goldkom spread his hands flat and out to his sides, a mollifying gesture. "I assure you, I mean no harm."

"Funny," she said. "The last time I met one of your brothers, he said the same thing. Right before he-"

"My people have been extinct for many years, enslaved and exterminated by the same race that would colonize here now," Goldkom interrupted. His voice was bitter. The jovial buffoon had vanished.

"Not extinct, retired. In Massachusetts. Stevestown," she said.

"Impossible! I am the last."

"They prayed for The Day of Coming-" she began.

"The Moment of Our Release," he finished. "Oh..." He sank into a chair behind the desk, seemingly unable to comprehend it.

She started to put her gun away, suddenly feeling foolish and somehow guilty. Then, another problem occurred to her. She turned to Krycek.

"You! You were spying on us as early as 1994?"

"Hardly. I was still in training," he said.

Her eyebrow kissed her hairline.

"At the Bureau, Doctor."

"But you were at the hospital. We interviewed you as Michael Something," she insisted.

"Who knows? My evil twin maybe...but wait a minute. You," he emphasized the word, "You had some kind of tangible proof back then? That wasn't in your profile! You never...He never..."

The strange thing was, she knew exactly what Krycek was asking. Even if Krycek himself didn't.

"That was the dynamic of the relationship. When he accepted, she doubted. If she accepted, he began to doubt himself."

<Oops, wonder if anyone noticed that disassociative pronoun, M.?>

"Some soul mates," Krycek muttered, disgusted.

"It doesn't solve everything," she said mildly. "It just makes you want to. Gives you the strength of belief to think you can."

"Great. Whatever. So I look like someone you knew?"

"We just met him that one time. I never even though of it until now."

"My people are still alive somewhere?" Goldkom said. "And one of them tried to hurt you?"

She jumped, having forgotten their host.

"Well, he couldn't seem to decide whether to seduce me or kill me," she said.

"I can relate," said Krycek under his breath.

"K-Arntzen," she corrected quickly, "If you weren't playing victim in Massachusetts, then how do you know this guy? What are we doing here?"

"He helped me out once. In Dakota."

"The silo?"

"Yeah. He's a regular one man Underground Railroad. But he never indicated he was anything but human. A supporter of the resistance movement," said Krycek.

"Then the old men don't know. My God, they don't know...this is the best-"

"Well, they know now," said Goldkom, recovering. "Dr. Droo, it appears that I owe you. One of mine attempted to injure you. It is an abhorrent thing and I will make amends if I can. Since I broke from slavery, I have hidden among humans, hindering Colonization in my own small ways. I have avoided the Syndicate until today, but my sources have warned me that you were followed. That is why I was so late. What is it that I can do for you?"

"Her partner was abducted," said Krycek. "She wants to rescue him. By force if necessary. I know how crazy that sounds, but I thought that if anyone would know what to do...well, I guess you would, Marcus."

Goldkom smiled humorlessly. "So, she's planning a modest reconnaissance team then? Crash their celestial plane, ray guns blazing?"

"She doesn't understand-" Krycek began.

"Arntzen, old friend, you brought the Syndicate to my door for this?"

<Gosh, M., not even the other aliens believe in me. Should I be hurt? >

She had an inspiration.

"Goldkom," she asked, "How did you get here? To Earth, I mean."

"I was brought from their world with a group of my brothers and sisters, down at Tzintzutzan," he said.

"On a ship?" she prompted.

"No. It was thousands of years ago. They used different technology then. Sort of a portal. The Tarascan Indians built a temple on top of the site. Called it The Ascent of the Gods. That temple was destroyed by the Spanish Conquistadors, and the mechanism had been abandoned long before then. They had begun using what you think of as spaceships."

She turned back to Krycek, gloating. "We have a destination."

"But there's no point. It is a ruin, I told you," said Goldkom.

"Forget it, Marcus," sighed Krycek. "Where he goes, she follows. One way or another."

Goldkom looked at her and she looked back. For a moment she remembered his brother's thumb crossing back and forth over her knuckles. It was difficult to imagine what his female form might be like.

"I wonder," said Goldkom. "Perhaps if anyone can reopen The Ascent of the Gods, it will be you. The Tarascans venerated a mother goddess in the shape of a bear. A goddess who fought the other gods for the lives of her children and her lover, and brought deliverance..."

"Don't distract her with mythology, we'll be here all night," Krycek warned.

"If you are serious about this, wait here," said Goldkom. "I'll make the arrangements."

Whatever Marcus Goldkom was doing, it was taking too long. The windowless room was making her claustrophobic. She thought of the Kindred and of Scully before the cancer, before the abduction. A woman without a dark bone in her body, infatuated with her lanky partner, debriefing some clone of Alex Krycek in a New England hospital. She wished she could reach out to that woman. Reach out and shake Scully until her head snapped back and scream, Run! Just run! But it wouldn't do any good, and regrets were useless things.

<More worlds than we can hold in our hands...>

She caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Goldkom stepped into the room, hands clasped above his head, flanked by two men in black swat gear. She smelled tobacco smoke.

"My goodness, Alex," said the Smoking Man. He took a long drag on his Morely and dropped it on the floor. "What happened to you?"

She moved in front of the wheelchair, shielding Krycek, gun clutched two handed. She aimed carefully at the Smoking Man's chest. Only three of them, how arrogant. Scully wouldn't have been impressed either.

Krycek hissed from behind her. "You're dead. I did it myself."

<Oh M., please tell me he's just buying us time. He should know better by now.>

She decided to play along. She found Scully's hot indignation and let it erupt. "That's right. You said you were dying."

The Smoking Man straightened his shoulders, pink cheeks glowing with health and vigor. "And I would have died, but for a few drops of your blood, Dana. It was lucky the last tests went to a lab outside the hospital. Saved my life, and it might save your partner's."

<Oh, the plot thickens, and with my platelets, no less. >

"WHERE IS MY PARTNER?"

"All in good time, Dana. You have..."

<Yeah, yeah. I know. Become really valuable, blah blah blah. You've got nothing. Sorry old man, Dana's not home and I don't have time.>

The Smoking Man continued. "We have already established that you won't shoot. Why don't you put down your weapon and listen to reason? I'm relieved to have found you again. You gave us all quite a scare. We thought our Alex was trying to carry out an obsolete assignment. Do you feel well enough to travel?"

"What about Krycek?" she asked.

"A liability, obviously. You won't have to worry about him anymore."

Breathe.

The gun went off before she realized she had squeezed the trigger. A second shot echoed the first from across the room. Blood sprayed her face. Goldkom had his arms around both of the commandos and they were moaning against him. Her. One massive breast had been hit. The three of them sunk to the floor.

The silence was deafening. The Smoking Man sprawled on his side, the hole in his chest deepening red, ringed with blackish scorch marks. she stared down at the body and felt nothing. Absolutely nothing.

"Thanks for the memories, CGB," she said, and hopped over him.

Krycek winked at her impishly and for a moment she saw the gaping hole where his conscience was supposed to be. A liability? Oh yeah.

"Marcus?" She called out, not wanting to touch the alien.

"I will be all right." he answered. "Directions to the airstrip are written on the coaster in this blonde one's vest pocket. Hurry, but be careful not to come in contact with his skin or mine. More will be coming. Use the crawlspace behind the bookshelf. And Doctor, vaya con dios."

She could hear shouting outside.

Breathe.

The blood in the room smelled like copper pennies and she pulled Krycek down into the mouth of the tunnel.

"Time to crawl, Galupchik."

"There's no time," he protested. "Go on. I'll catch up if I can."

His legs had to be killing him. Unfortunate. She shoved him hard into the gloom ahead of them, pulling the chair and gear after her. "Oh, show some professionalism. You're a good soldier. You follow orders."

"I can't. Not anymore."

"Here, I'll help," she said. "Take my hand."

Somehow, they struggled forward and up into the chilly twilight. After a few blocks, she stopped to catch her breath.

"That was stupid, Scully."

"Hmmm. Grateful. Point for you, Alex."

"Excuse me, it's a little disconcerting. Marcus Goldkom is an alien and I never knew. And a woman. You should have left me there," he said.

<D=E9j=E0 vu all over again, M. >

"They might have killed you. I made a promise. I keep my word, even to you."

"Your amorality is slipping, Scully."

"Then be a good mentor and hike it back up for me."

"Mentor,?" he questioned.

"Of subterfuge and all-round ethical ambiguity. Every girl needs a mentor." She smashed in the window of a tan colored old hatchback and popped open the hood.

"At least Spender is dead," Krycek said as he worked the steering wheel with a screwdriver from his knapsack.

"You just go right on believing that, Alex. And while you're at it, I can get you a sweet deal on some ocean front property in Iowa. Cash only. So how do this?"

"Look for the coil wire, it's the red one. Your shot was clean, god damn it!" He huffed.

"Talk to me again the day I get his open carcass on my table. Preferably, after I've weighed each of his organs and bagged it in its own sterile airtight container. Found the red wire, now what?"

"Remember those hairpins? Link up the wire with the positive side of the battery. And hurry."

"You made me wear hairpins for this? Son of a-" Her voice came muffled and incredulous from under the hood.

Finally the engine sputtered and then hummed. She climbed behind the steering wheel.

"Oh shit," he said. "I forgot about your legendary driving..."

"Just shut up and navigate, Krycek."

"Hey, I'm working off a Shiner Bock coaster here. Turn right at the next intersection. I said RIGHT..."

They had really only been lost twice on the way. The second time, she slammed on the brakes and skidded across the dirt road towards the ditch. There was a Louisiana map in the glove box.

Krycek's good natured bickering gradually degenerated into reluctant monosyllables. She knew he didn't want to ask for the injection, hated the weakness that clamored for it. His relief was almost tangible as she reached over without asking to fight his rolling vein with the needle in the middle of the swamp. His drowsy release and inebriated teasing followed her, heavy with innuendo...something about being ass-deep in alligators and mosquitoes high from biting him as she scrambled through the kudzu vines to pee in the cold. When she came back he had slipped from consciousness.

The airstrip turned out to be at the end of the dirt road; courtesy, she supposed, of Grandfather Centipede. She pulled up, illuminating two girls loading open crates of sugar into a paneled van. One of the girls waved to the driver and the van peeled out.

"Senora Doctor," she called in a faint Spanish accent, "you are late."

The other girl appeared on the passenger side of the car.

They were twins. Each stood about four foot nine, sporting a shiny black pixie haircut, set off by dangling jade earrings. They wore skin tight black leather pants and clinging black sweaters and black high heeled boots. Gold and jade studded gun belts slung low over angular hips. They couldn't have been older than eighteen.

They had drawn their weapons casually and without obvious motion. Pirates. Teenage girl pirates, who obviously weren't smuggling sugar. It was like a scenario out of a certain orphan video collection back in Alexandria.

"Doctor, we don't have much time. And Marcus neglected to mention a second passenger," the other twin said.

She got out of the car slowly."This man is a patient of mine and requires special care. Where is the pilot?"

The twin closest to her Answered, "Right here."

"You?" She must have looked skeptical.

"Do not worry, my sister and I have been flying this plane since we were nine. It was a birthday gift. Esmerelda and Elodia Escoto, at your service."

The sisters graciously maneuvered her still unconscious "patient" onto an overstuffed leather couch and covered him with a green satin quilt, chattering to each other in Spanish. She could hear them saying, "Guapo! Handsome...no, precioso. Beautiful!"

<Well yes, M., I'm not blind. But damn it, the man is going to get us into trouble. I can feel it. Protecting him is one thing, but I really should get to draw the line at guarding his virtue...>

Elodia had unbuttoned Krycek's shirt. His pale skin shone starkly pure and impossible. She had seen each of his scars and bruises, but her chest contracted anyway. He opened his eyes then, catching her looking. Damned hormones. She focused on the cubby above her and finished stowing their belongings. He was awake.Good. Let him defend him own virtue.

Sequestered in the tiny but opulent powder room at the back of the cabin, she ran cool fingers over the white sundress Esmerelda had brought for her to change into. The sisters were incredibly diplomatic, neither questioning the fact that she and Krycek were covered in dried blood and armed to the teeth. She wondered how often Elodia and Esmerelda acted as an impromptu airline for Marcus Goldkom. The dress was embroidered with silk ribbon roses and would have been quite ethereal but for the gun holsters.

She longed for Scully's old black trench, with its linebacker shoulderpads insinuating strength. Even that unfortunate plum colored one that had always made her look vaguely jaundiced would have been comforting. Whatever had happened to it anyway? Left behind in some shabby motel in the midwest maybe, or forgotten in a hospital room closet.

She slammed the lavatory door harder than necessary, stumbling as the plane jumped in turbulence. Beside Krycek, she drew her knees up, body adjusting to the ingrained pattern: run, rest. Run, rest. Run. Run. Run.

"That outfit is a NRA wetdream, Scully." He spoke softly, even though the cockpit door was shut.

She pulled at one of the dress straps, wishing it was wider. "We're headed for warmer country. The magically realistic and totally implausible state of Michocan, Mexico."

"Under the escort of the esteemed Escota clan," he said.

"You know them?"

"Yeah."

"And?"

Krycek rubbed the back of his skull, avoiding eye contact. It was a trademark gesture, a personal tic. It usually meant he was reacting to something with frustration. "They move more than the odd kilo. Both ValArntzen and Alex Krycek have dealt with their father in the past. It ended badly once."

"So you double-crossed him? No, you killed him didn't you? He was an 'assignment.' Oh Alex, what- do you just specialize in the especially awkward assassinations?"

"Scully-"

"Did Goldkom know? Have they recognized you yet?"

"Scully, if you'll let me fin-"

"Well, at least start trying to locate where they keep the parachutes. Just for this I'm making you land the plane once I've dispatched the bodies!"

"Scully!"

She hadn't managed to piss him off in days. It was good to know she hadn't lost her touch.

"Shut up and listen for a minute. Marcus didn't know anything about it first of all, and Don Escota is very much alive and well, thank you."

"So you're saying you botched it?" She couldn't seem to stop for some reason.

"No," Krycek said between his teeth, "It was just a misunderstanding. And DON'T do anything. We should be safe if we play by the rules."

"So you trust them?" She wanted very much to allow herself another bout of manical giggling. Who trusting who? Such a strange state of affairs when it was easier to simply assume that everyone she came in contact with was likely to try and kill her.

Krycek produced a pair of delicate jade handled pistols from his jacket. She remembered the twins fawning over him, running long fuchsia lacquered fingernails over his shoulders, pressing in closer and closer. "Trust anyone you want, Scully. But cut the cards yourself."

She bit back the chuckle in her throat, not ready to be won over so easily. It was a stupid thing for him to have done. Foolish. Provocative. But she gave in, briefly bemoaning her failure to acquire the name of the Syndicate's liability insurance carrier. It was impossible to stay angry with him. "Ok, ok Alex. Unconscious. Ha! Remind me to give you a raise. But can you shoot the cork off the Champagne bottle at twenty paces?"

"I know what you're thinking, Scully. Of course they have other weapons. These are mainly for show anyway. Stealing them was strictly a ritual thing. Do unto others as they would do unto you, but do it first. All that touchy- feely business you saw earlier was just fancy frisking. The Escotas would have identified me anyway. Now I appear a little less vulnerable."

She wasn't quite convinced. "A villain secret handshake, honor and tradition among thieves?

"Sort of."

"And you think they'll just let us go? Out of the kindness of their hearts? Their better natures?"

"Ultimately, the Escotas are doing a Marcos a favor. They won't cross him. No one does," he said.

She should have been far more concerned, but his confidence was contagious. Krycek shifted, raising the edge of the quilt for her to slip underneath. They were running again. Gliding over the continent, ever southward. Not away from some threat, some conspiracy of men. Like soap bubbles, conspiracies were limited in size and by time. The real enemy seemed to have no such constraints.

"Never waste time bothering with a person's better nature, Scully. He may not have one. It's the self-interest factor that gets him every time. Self-interest and power. Me, for example: I sign up with the most powerful player I can find. And you," he touched her collarbone reverently, "you are the most powerful thing I have ever seen."

Turbulence shook the cabin as though the plane had hit a pothole in the sky. Energy moved along her skin in a hot surge and she was gulping air, waiting for the oxygen masks to drop from the low ceiling and then realizing there were none coming. Sense and recollection spilled over them. Krycek recoiled as if she had burned him.

"It was better not knowing. Not remembering what happened on the train."

"It happened, Alex. How can it be so hard for you to accept? You, of all people, operating among aliens and undercover agents for years before she-I could even say the word extraterrestrial with a straight face?"

He covered his face with his hand. "I wasn't myself anymore... like the time in Hong Kong...it rode me...horrible...I could still hear myself in my head, but it controlled everything. It used me and I couldn't stop it and it was burning the men...it could have burned him...that would have been it for me, you know? If it had burned him..."

She let out a tight sigh and wrapped her arms around him. "But it didn't burn him and he was ok and we're going to get him now, remember? Some of that hero-worship stuff was for real, wasn't it?"

Krycek leaned into her, breath warm against her cheek. "Yeah. I like power. I told you before. He was powerful... and so was she...and she was in me...and I...god Scully..." He rested his forehead on hers, unable to continue.

She found Krycek's equivocation of his possession experience with Purity and that of channeling her sister to be disturbing. But then again, both events had happened without his consent. Her sister had indicated that he let her in, but that didn't mean he had wanted to.

"Alex, listen to me. Missy wouldn't hurt you on purpose. I think it was my fault. You- she said I called her somehow and that's why we need to remember-"

She was cut off because he had covered her mouth with his, forcing her lips apart. Her heart beat too fast, too hard, but she remained still. She could almost feel his mind fluttering frantically against the truth, a trapped butterfly. No. No. No. Krycek dragged denial around them like a winter quilt.

<Nope, nothing going on here M. Just two former government employees, AWOL at the end of the world; without a paper to push in sight. Did you know about this hero-worship thing? Of course you did. Probably encouraged it. I should have your gorgeous hide on a platter for this, profiler. Hmmm. Never mind... >

Krycek's tongue stabbed at hers. She waited, letting him. Passive. At last he stopped, still clinging to her and weeping. "She didn't hurt me, Scully."

She swallowed. "What was it like? When she came to us on the train, how did it feel?"

"Better than sex. Better then our Miss Emma. Better than anything ever...better then anything."

Her voice was harsh, but she didn't push him away. "And now you know," she said. "And now you finally understand."

"Why you can think of bending an entire alien race and their agenda to your will?" he said. "That you can calmly contemplate our agonizing and bloody demise as a reasonable risk in order to be with him again? Yeah. I understand now. I would do anything to have her with me, part of me again. Anything. But she's gone...oh god, Scully, she's gone and I...how can you stand it?"

"No, Alex, not gone. She's right here with us." She pushed up the leather of his jacket sleeve, baring the skin above his wrist bone. His hair was standing on end. Missy's energy rippled in waves like heat rising off August pavement. "Can't you feel her all around us?" He went very still, eyes closed. After a while he nodded.

"She whispers to me constantly, I couldn't hear it before now. It should bother you more though," he said. "It should offend you that I...she..."

"Once. Yes, I would have cried heresy. And I would have been dead wrong."

She eased back against the far arm of the couch, drawing his body between her legs, cradling him.

"Sleep now. We don't know when we'll have the luxury again." They slept entwined together and her sister and her mate twined with them and none of them dreamed.

She woke to a low clicking sound. Krycek stirred also and they sat up quickly. Ready. Esmerelda emerged from the cockpit.

"Senora," she said briskly, with no trace of accent, "Wake up. We must speak. Mr. Krycek, please return our little guns now, the time for games has run out."

Krycek handed over the pistols immediately, his face an unreadable mask of light and stone.

"We have lost radio contact," the girl continued. "It will not affect our landing, but once you are on the ground, the two of you should move cautiously. Rioting has become widespread and internationals are being arrested in Guadalajara and points south. There is talk of some kind of coup d' tat..."

<She sounds so sincere, M. But then I'm sure the Medicis had their moments too.>

"Why are you helping us?" she asked.

"Senora Doctor, I cannot imagine why you are traveling to my country with Alex Krycek and I do not want to know. I do know that Marcus Goldkom told my sister and me to take good care of you and we will do so. Our personal quarrels with your companion can wait for another time."

She wasn't sure of the appropriate answer, and Krycek was silent beside her. "Thank you, Esmerelda," she said finally.

"I am Elodia. And you're welcome."

Elodia's idea of a reasonable dollar to peso exchange rate constituted highway robbery, especially since they couldn't count on the paper notes being worth much under martial law. To balance the risk, she had stubbornly bargained for transportation to the nearest bus station once the Escotas' deliveries were made. The sisters seemed to be more reliable than the Post Office. She divided the remaining cash between Krycek and herself, grumbling about Robber Maidens.

Krycek chuckled and then leaned forward to whisper in her ear. "In The Snow Queen, Gerda gives up her muff to the Robber Maiden. Now, while I suspect Elodia fancies the ladies and wouldn't mind adjusting the agreement in the least, just how far do you plan to take this particular deconstruction, Slatkaya? Oh, excuse me, Senora Doctor." He rolled the R's and batted playful eyelashes.

"Atebis, Alex." Her tone registered none of the venom of the profanity.

They landed and met the jeep without incident. She was surprised to see Elodia climb into the front seat with the driver. They would have an escort.

The jeep stopped in front of an archway over the road covered in magenta blossoms that Elodia called Soul Flowers. The Soul Flowers had been arrange to form the word, BIENVENIDOS. Welcome.

"What is it for?" she asked Elodia curiously.

"This is the eve of All Saints, Tonight, at midnight, the spirits of our children who have died, the Angelitos, return. Then, the next night, at midnight, the grownup spirits come and it will be All Souls Day, the Day of the Dead. It is an old tradition, pre-Hispanic. In some villages, it is more important than Christmas. You will see the processions tonight."

"Even with the civil unrest?"

"Especially now," agreed the girl.

She pushed the chair between gaunt brown dogs, following Elodia down the dusty road. It was hot under the long sleeved shirt she had appropriated from Krycek to cover her dress and her guns. The Mexican sun offered no tender benediction quality like the northern sun.

The temper in the square was festive, lacking the fearful glee of New Orleans. The merchants in the open air market seemed oblivious to border shut downs and persecution of foreign agitators. They called out to her in endless friendly litany.

"Buy my pretty one! Buy my little red one! I bring oranges from Cordoba-let's see if they please you..."

She could smell leather, and still-green grass mats, and tortillas frying in burnt corn oil. The dizzying din of strolling mariachis, farm truck engines and calling merchants enveloped her. Tables of gleaming skulls, sugar-white with gold trim lured her from under plastic tarps as they pushed deeper and deeper into the market. "Skulls! Skulls!" the merchants cried. "Two for ten pesos!" She couldn't tell if they were speaking Spanish or English. Language differences had lost their relevancy.

The whole village was immersed in death. Everywhere skeletons danced, married, rode bicycles and played guitar. Pastries and candy took the shape of skeletons and skulls just as they did in D.C. for Halloween. It was not a day for walking in the sun. She wanted to retch from the smoke of copal burning in the shops. Copal, the incense the Tarascans and later the Aztecs had used to perfume their human sacrifices...

The skulls seemed to rise and float out of the stalls, bobbing like helium balloons. She rose too, to the call of two for ten, two for ten. Somewhere, she thought, there must be shade. Somewhere she could find reality again, find Scully. Escape the white skull bones. But there was no shade, only the merciless sun, sugar-white on the skulls floating around her. Brown hands molded cool ices in poisonous feeble pink and extended strange fruits to her.

"Buy my pretty one. Buy my little red one."

Smiling, opiate, she rejected them all with a wave of her hand, and the skulls floating with her also smiled. While they had been thus cheated of her flesh, they were taking her reason and that pleased them. One skull was inscribed with the name, Guadalupe on its forehead in red icing. She had first noticed it in a stall with some other female skulls: Ramona, Teresa and Christina. It had joined her floating escort and taken the lead.

There was no shade anywhere and she longed for a church, a dim Catholic interior to absolve her from the sun. There, the skulls would disappear, for they were clearly devils of the fierce Mexican sun. Beggars blinded by this sun streamed past her, phantasms from some medieval painting. Buildings leaned gently away, crumbling into the earth. As she was about to begin to tear her teeth out, they came to a chapel and she veered inside, abandoning the chair and Krycek, who called out to her from the bottom of the steps.

Pressed against a cold marble pillar, she inhaled and exhaled, shuddering. The air whirled around her and candlelight flickered on the waxen Christ figure high above the altar, pitifully believable beads of blood bright on His cheeks, one pale tortured hand uplifted in reproof. The skulls winked out, one by one, and finally only a single one remained. Its red icing name had melted, but as she closed her eyes, she knew its name was Emily.

Krycek was feeding her bits of mango. It was a slow process and messy because he had to hold the fruit against his leg with his prosthetic and wield the scout knife with his hand. He was trembling. She considered distantly that it must be muscle spasms from pain. Luckily, Elodia had followed her into the church, revived her quickly, and had helped her and then Krycek onto the battered green and white bus to Lago Patzcuaro.

From under the remaining fatigue and numbness, something like compassion welled in her throat. So hard for him to cut fruit one handed. Impossible to shoot up. Well, you could go into the muscle or skin in a pinch if necessary, and she had. But the relief was slower in coming, and subcutaneous injections caused abscesses. Still, she knew she should have taught him how to do it, in case she couldn't. In case she...

"Scully?"

She hadn't been able to talk to him yet. Hadn't been able to respond when Elodia formally kissed them goodbye and vanished into the market crowds. Krycek nudged another slice of mango against her mouth and the acid stung her chapped lips as she swallowed it.

The bus rumbled by countless roadside altars, shrines of marigolds and bougainvillea woven into wreaths. They were moving over a hazy mountain pass. The road was narrow and at times the bus swerved perilously close to the ledge. Below she could see domed churches and dome shaped haystacks. The air had cooled and seemed more like autumn. More like the land, green life sucked out.

"Scully, please." His voice was hoarse, He wiped her chin with the back of his fingers. It didn't help. They were both sticky.

"You don't hate me for this." She wasn't really asking a question.

"I wish I could." He wasn't her mate. That other half felt impossibly far away now. Unattainable. Scully huddled between her body and the window, between protons and electrons, infecting her with despair.

<I will never desert thee, nor will I ever forsake thee. Right, M. Basic as the speed of light...>

"Something is wrong," she whispered.

"And you're just now figuring this out?"

"What has she- what have I become, Alex?"

He traced the point of the knife on his jeans. "You know, I had to poison the last guy who kept referring to himself in the third person."

Funny, how he knew she needed that old rage, that he was brave enough to risk a reference to Barry and to the past to bring her back to herself.

"Most of us start life soft, Slatkaya, but you don't stay soft and survive. You do whatever it takes. Right now you're just scared because you think part of you is as dead inside as I am."

In a quick motion, he brought the blade of the knife against her rib cage. No one on the bus seemed to notice.

Breathe.

In the next instant, she caught his wrist and twisted until the blade pointed at his crotch. No sound had passed between them at all.

Krycek laughed softly. "See? You're fine. Drop the bleeding heart shit or it won't be the last part of you bleeding. The supreme irony of life is that almost no one gets out alive, but I don't want to have to bury you. I don't think I could anymore."

She was being selfish, showing weakness in front of the troops.

"Don't worry. You won't have to bury me," she said lightly, "someone once told me that I won't ever die."

Krycek's luminous cat eyes narrowed. "Ah. There you are. Please don't leave me with HER again. I only seem to be able to hurt her."

"I promised to watch over you, Alex. To keep you safe. I will do it. And we aren't dead, either of us. Some parts are just sleeping. I know, I've seen you smile."

"Scully, part of you has become him, hasn't it? Or has he become you?"

"Answer the question yourself. Missy is the only person who ever played in my hair like that."

He froze, mid-twirl, red tuft between his fingers. She didn't think he had been aware of the action.

<M., the man trusts me. I'm supposed to protect him, the cub, all of us. I'm supposed to deliver us all from death's jaws. In this country, Dia de los Muertos is the deliverance. It touches our need to comprehend the mysteries of mortality. Across this country tonight, families await the return of their dead and adorn headstones with the favorite possessions of their departed ones. They light candles to help the dead find their way back from where ever they go when they die. Where do we go when we die, M.? Where are our sisters and my daughter? Heaven? Starlight? The ancient people of this place believed their blood fed the gods. How you and I must have fattened the gods then!>

From the window of the bus, she finally caught sight of the lake, pink and orange glass in the fading twilight. The bus stopped to let off passengers and she heard church bells, summoning the faithful, signaling the approaching Vigil of the Little Angels.

"Here, Alex. We stop here."

"But Tzinttzunzan is on the other side of the lake."

"I know."

"Scully?"

"It's ok. Come on."

They got off along with Purepecho Indian women carrying babies and baskets of gourds. Some of them held turkeys by the legs, dragging their heads in the dust. Two Indian men with soft dignified eyes helped Krycek with the chair; gender solidarity in a matriarchal place perhaps. Or maybe simple kindness.

They proceeded along the path at the edge of the lake, avoiding the dogs fighting in front of open air cafes with brilliant purple table cloths and dried corn and fresh orchids hanging from the ceilings. Pleasure boats engraved white lines on the smooth surface of the water, gliding back and forth to the island, Janitzio, floating worlds of light and music. The massive forty-foot statue of the folk hero, Pavon presided over all, his upraised fist a balcony, from which young boys dropped sparklers.

<M., Scully was often tempted to do that. To furiously shake her fist at the sky, crying 'Enough already! I've had just about enough out of you!'>

The crowd jostled thickly with bunches of marigolds and blue pots of fruit and candles towards an already overflowing graveyard, the smell of wax mixed with earth and incense, evoking private memory. Inside the cemetery walls, homemade crosses of soul flowers teetered against the stars and squealing children scattered the ground with flower petals.

She drew them into a field behind the cemetery. "Here. We wait here."

Krycek didn't question her further, but he watched, alert. She lay back against a haystack, glad for the length of the dress covering her legs. Her hands rested on her rounded abdomen. Rounded? She tried to remember how long she had been showing. Time seemed elastic. Hadn't she been sleek on the train, days before? How many days before? How many days in the back of the alley in D.C.? In the hotel before Krycek and Marita had found her? It was Halloween - hadn't it just been summer? Church bells chimed, loud and continuous.

Midnight had arrived. The bells rang out jaggedly. The Angelitos were returning. Something was building in the air, building up around them like a static charge. The hair on her arms began to stir and move. The bells sounded further away than before, distorted, like sirens. Blood and violent hope surged within her. Breathe. The dead are coming back to us, she thought helplessly. They're coming. Oh my god, they really are.

She bowed her head as the golden energy rushed over them. The human noise from the graveyard slipped away like water and then she was reaching for her weapons.

"You don't need your guns, Mommy." The child's tone was calm and eerily indifferent through Krycek's lips.

"You told me to let you go and I did." Her chest ached, shot with diamond.

"And you called me back. You still love me, don't you?"

"I'll always love you, no matter what, Emily," she choked, "but you're hurting Alex." Her daughter was doing more than hurting Krycek, Emily was killing him. Krycek convulsed, coughing. Blood trickled from the corners of his eyes, from his nostrils, from his mouth and ears.

"Emily! Emily stop. Leave him, he isn't a medium, you'll kill him!"

"It doesn't matter-"

"It matters to me! I promised I wouldn't let anyone hurt him."

<M., my little girl...>

Then Emily was beside her, hologrammed between thick particles of air.

"If you can manifest this way, why use a flesh vehicle at all, Emily? You didn't need to before."

The spirit said nothing.

"Answer me!"

"I can't do what I was meant to do this way, Mommy. I'll have to find someone who can." Her daughter turned to walk away into the night.

Krycek had fallen from the chair onto the grass, where he lay with the dull twisted rag expression of a man reliving an old nightmare.

"Emily, wait."

<My Emily! Not human. Not even close.>

She had to ask, make the leap, and demand the impossible. "You can make him better, can't you, Emily?"

The vision shimmered slightly.

"You're determined to keep him?"

"I promised."

"I can heal the vessel's wounds. I can heal what you did to its legs and its veins- this is just a question of shifting matter. But Mommy, I can do nothing for the wreck of its heart, it has been twisted too long. You think I am not human enough..."

"HE, Emily. Alex Krycek. He is a person." Maybe the child died too young to understand compassion. Then again, separated from Scully, her own aptitude for compassion had seemed limited lately. She shivered involuntarily. Her DNA had produced such a cold thing.

"It will turn against you, it always does."

"Missy and I won't let him."

"Missy is afraid of me. She is hiding as we speak."

"I think she should be afraid of you, Emily. But she will help me anyway, when she knows we need her."

"To do it I need hands. Will you be the hands, Mommy?"

The thought was disturbing, linking with that cold essence...no. It was her own, whether or not she wanted to accept it, and channeling would be like the birth process. Just reversed. "Will it hurt the cub?"

"No."

"Then do it."

The air temperature soared twenty degrees. Emily was strong, so strong. Darkness and confusion flew inside her head, clouds driven by wind. She disengaged, spinning free. The earth rotated on its axis, traveling elliptic around the sun. She was pulsing with the swells of the lake below, tugged gently and inexorably by the moon...elegant cosmic Lamaze.

"It's done."

She was alone in her skin once more, lying on her back watching the stars fade into morning and drops of moisture drizzling over the scuff marks on Krycek's boots. Her companion was standing, sharp and dangerous as he had ever seemed, watching something on the horizon. It was indeed done.

"Dobra-yeh ootro," she murmured.

Krycek looked down at her, stretching languorously. "And what a morning. I wasn't sure how long to let you sleep, you've been out a while. Can you stand?"

"I think so. A little help here?"

He took her wrists and pulled her up easily, eyes clear. Her sister's warmth and concern encircled them and for a moment she let herself bathe in it's comfort.

"We should get moving," he said. She glanced up quickly.

"You're ok? Ok to walk?"

"Ever taken it up the ass, Scully? You usually live. You don't like it much for a while, but you-"

"Watch you mouth! There's a child present."

"Um, she's de-"

"Dead or not, human or otherwise, Emily is still my daughter and I will not tolerate vulgarity in her presence!"

Krycek grinned, not even vaguely contrite. "I think she's gone now anyway. You seem to be able to channel her with no ill effect. Race you to the Ascent of the Gods?"

Missy's vocabulary blended with his own, seamless and oddly charming.

They headed for the road, leaving the wheelchair overturned in the field like a memorial.

"You know, Emily believes I'm destined to betray you, no matter how I feel," said Krycek.

"It can't all be pre-ordained," she insisted, "every contemporary scientist knows there's a clown in Newton's clockwork universe. Even a simple, predictable set of entities and laws can have a complex and unpredictable outcome. Think of the weather, the stock market, the timing of a dripping faucet...these systems balance on a knife edge. The slightest deviation effects the outcome. The cumulative result of these small differences is that two initial conditions, almost exactly the same at their starting point, will diverge more and more."

Krycek slipped his arm around her shoulders as they walked. "Sure, Scully, Chaos Theory. And how many angels can sit on the head of a pin?"

"Please, that's an easy one," she said. "You measure said angels' behinds. Measure the head of your pin. Divide A into B. The numerical answer is left as an exercise for the student. Anyway, all I'm saying is that things change. Patterns change."

"We have our own theory," said Krycek.

"You-uh realize that your lab partner in there," she tapped his temple, "flunked both chemistry and physics?"

"You asked before what you had become. We think you are sub-incarnating the goddess."

"What? What goddess?"

"Pick one. Artemis-Calliste, Isis, Tlazolteotl, the eater of impurities. Perhaps especially Tlazolteol. She absolves sins. No defilement is too great. In her overwhelming capacity for destruction one finds her mercy."

"Missy," she addressed Krycek, knowing her sister's spirit rested somehow with his, "you're making about as much sense as you ever did."

"Then hear it from me, Slatkaya."

"Alex...I can't be a goddess, I'm Catholic! Well, Scully's Catholic...oh damn it-"

"Exactly."

She felt devoured by bitterness, and underneath, fear. It wasn't fair to Scully. None of it was. The catalog of wrongs had grown too thick, it was not to be tolerated, everything she had believed in and lived for easily and blithely turned on it's ear. Scully's grief and pain meant nothing? Scully had carried so much anguish, endless despair for the sake of an object lesson? The universe was laughing in her face.

"And when was your last confession, sister? Oh wait," she spat, "spare us the suspense, where exactly have you been since the day Luis Cardinal shot the wrong redhead?"

The two spirits fused in Alex Krycek's body stopped and turned to her. "It doesn't matter. You're fighting this, but Marcus saw the truth of it. You called us forth; sister and daughter and enemy, lover trapped in the underworld awaiting rescue. We're parts of the whole and of each other. Men and gods flow in and out and mingle."

There was nothing more to say. She stalked off ahead of them down the path, Scully beside her in step. All Saints Day was almost over by the time they reached The Ascent. It seemed accidental, almost anti- climactic behind the grand pyramids, in a field of dried grasses. The pile of black stones stood about five feet high and was crusted with lichen. Across the long gradual slant of the land, goats bleated faintly. The wind blew in dry gusts of copal and marigolds. They had found the portal. She supposed that opening it would be slightly more complicated than hotwiring a Honda.

"Mommy, I brought you a present." She felt a quick amber presence mixed with the coldness she knew to be Emily. It felt like her mate, but he was still alive. If Krycek and Missy had not caught her arms she might have lost her balance. The air brightened around them as if on fire, and as she drew it into her lungs, it filled her with new terror, joy, and an overpowering sweetness. She was pierced through the gut with it. She was being unmade. She was not Scully. She was not the goddess. She was no one...

"I found her, Mommy."

"FOUND her? Emily, she's not a puppy! She's the Holy Grail."

"This will help you, Mommy. Help you save him. Isn't that what you want?"

"Damn it, Emily! She was safe-"

"I found her."

"Well put her back! Right now!"

"I came willingly," said Samantha quietly.

Inane exuberance stifled all other sensation and awareness. She was giddy with it, drunk on emotion and wonder. The one final connection with her mate, the mystery and loss that had launched their journey, come to her full circle. "Sam! Oh Sam, I'm so sorry...and so happy... That's what Emily meant, you will come with-"

"No. Without flesh we cannot follow you across," said the spirit. Samantha's presence smoothed away her fear. All was reconciled. No outrage was left, no questions. Breathe and be a goddess in the universe. Or a slave- it didn't matter. She was close to her mate now. He waited on the other side of the door, in the underworld.

"Alex, I won't ask you to follow me any further."

"You called me," he answered. "I know that now. You called me to aid you and to redeem myself. My soul is Missy's, but my life is yours until the debts are paid-to you and to him."

Breathe.

"Then we should go."

She couldn't see what Samantha did, but piercing light flashed above them and her body hummed and twitched with its voltage. She reached out and felt Krycek's hand slip into her own and they stepped into the circle of light.

She had closed her eyes, and when she opened them again she saw before her an endless field of gray shale. There was no breeze, no air, and the sun seemed to stretch across half the sky, a smooth orange disk hanging unvarying against the gray flat ceiling. It gave no discernable warmth.

"What do you think, Alex?"

"Some distant future. The end."

"Or maybe the beginning."

"How so?"

"You have the Big Bang, right? A continuously expanding universe? Well, at some point that expansion must collapse down again. That's the Big Crunch. So what happens after the Big Crunch? Another Big Bang, hence my concept of a breathing universe."

"See, Scully? You are a goddess, and a good one. Most deities have all the manners and morals of a spoiled child. You, on the other hand, just offered a rational explanation for reincarnation- a reason for the miracle. You're way ahead of every other human religion already."

"Sooner or later, Someone's going to smite you, Alex." He waggled his eyebrows at her.

"Promises, promises, goddess."

"Look."

"It's him, isn't it?"

She ran towards the shape on the edge of the horizon. She could hear someone screaming and then realized that the sound was tearing out of her own throat.

"Mulder! Mulder!"

He sat cross-legged on the ground, not acknowledging them. He was completely naked, save for her gold cross around his neck. She felt Scully calling out to him, and something of his absent self calling back to her.

"Help me get him to his feet, Alex."

Mulder faced them, animated, yet not conscious. The black oil rolled over his empty eyes. Purity. In that instant, she understood the nature of Purity. The goddess had recognized the divine. Not vehicle. Not virus. Life essence, the alien god.

She wasn't certain where the words came from, but they spilled from her: "I cast you out once before."

"And I will take back what is mine," said the god. Purity stood up in Mulder's skin and stepped toward her. Black oil seemed to bleed up from the shale, over Mulder's feet, further defiling him.

"You have taken too much already," she replied.

"Scully!" Krycek cried out, leaning between them to pull her back. The flash sent her to the ground, atomic heat, searing her bones. Alex isn't screaming, she thought. Why isn't he screaming? The smell of burnt flesh swam in her nostrils. Krycek was smiling with lips that weren't there anymore. She was also smiling- a terrible sort of grimace because she hadn't been harmed. The goddess was immune to Purity. She knelt beside the body of her companion.

"See, Alex, Emily was wrong. I told you, it's Chaos Theory. Betrayal evolves and becomes salvation, cycle broken. You earned your place in Valhalla." There was no sorrow in her tone. No reason for grief in transcendence.

"Scu-"

"Shhh. The debts are paid, my Slatkaya. Wait. Wait for me and I will take you back to the other side. Back to her. I won't leave you, I promised. Wait for me." She turned to her mate, her love, held by the alien god.

Purity spoke, profane through Mulder's lips: "You will not take him, he is mine. As is this one. My right, I feed on it." The thing radiated horrible malevolence. Dark. Vile. Pulsing.

Feed? Of course. Feed the gods. She found the knife Krycek had used to peel mangos in the pocket of her shirt.

Breathe.

<'But for a few drops of your blood', the smoking man had said.>

She laid the blade against her left wrist and sliced down the skin, leaving a thin red line that welled and spread and baptized the shale ground. The blood ran in a hot river over her fingers, as she dropped the knife and reached out to her mate and smeared the crimson liquid across his lips. Feeding the gods. Feeding Purity. Reverse Communion ritual.

<Take. Drink. This is my blood, shed for you. Drown in it, Purity.>

Scully had said once there was no justice. Now justice poured over everything. In a soundless explosion, the immense force of Purity shook the ground and the sun went green, flickering as the alien god thrashed and shrieked and drowned.

Breathe.

Mulder's fingertips brushed hers and the last vestiges of the dying alien god melted away. Her mate's touch was as startling as ever. Electric. As their palms pressed together, Scully came rushing back through her. Mulder had found her. Called her back inside herself.

"Sam," she called tiredly, "open the door."

Mulder was breastfeeding. No. That was absurd. Yet he sat beside the bed, bare-chested, nursing a plump dark haired infant, shaggy hair falling into his eyes. Scully struggled to sit up and to make sense of it.

"Hey G-Woman, awake again?" He grinned and he was beautiful and she remained confused.

"The medication seems to be helping," he said. "Each time you wake up, you remain conscious a little longer and remember a little more. They said it would take time."

"The baby!"

"She's fine. You're not due for another couple of months."

Arms protectively about her belly she asked, "Who is that?"

"Meet Elana Escota, our intrepid beta-nurser." He waved one of Elana's hands at her. The infant grunted in protest.

"Mulder! Where are we?"

"La Hacienda de Escota. The political situation calmed down to a degree, but we're still safer out of the U.S. for a while. You've made some-um-interesting friends, Senora Doctor, lucky for us. They found us in pretty bad shape, out behind some ruin. Do you have any memory of what we were doing there yet?"

"No, not really. Bits and pieces...they?"

"The Gunman. They tracked you as far as New Orleans, but lagged about two days behind. Didn't catch up until Patzcuaro, and that was only after they found the Escotas." Mulder leaned forward to whisper in her ear: "I think Frohike is in love."

"And in deference to my delicate condition, you got a sex change, Mulder?" She gestured to the now peacefully burping baby.

"Like it?" Mulder appeared to strip off the breast and handed it to her. She dropped it, shocked at the warmth and skin-like texture of the fabric, and then picked it up again, turning it over in her hands in fascination. "Langly and I are going to get rich on this patent, Scully, it's going to keep the cub in diapers all the way to Depends."

She giggled helplessly. It was beyond absurd, and it was wonderful.

"A self-heating prosthetic breast, Mulder? I ditched the FBI for this?"

Then she stopped, memory rocking her and the subject of her amusement slipped to the floor.

"Oh God. His body. What did they do with his body?"

The mirth drained from her mate's face. "You demanded the first time you woke up that they lay him out in a wooden boat and burn the boat in the middle of the lake. Viking style. A hero's burial. And the weird thing is, the Escotas did it without question. Scully, I hope you can remember what happened to us. The last thing I have clear is crashing through the woods with Skinner. Then I was being held somehow, but I wasn't afraid." He shrugged. "I knew you'd find me eventually. You always do."

She ran a thumb over Mulder's knee, the part of him closest to her, feeling sleepy again.

"Yeah. I always do."