From lochness@mindspring.com Sat Apr 26 00:58:18 1997 Subject: REVISED: Letters of Transit (0/14) By Loch Ness From: Loch Ness -------- Letters of Transit (0/14) ***Intro only - story begins in Part 1/14*** By Loch Ness Please do not repost to ATXFC. Already sent to Gossamer U.S. archive; OK to archive elsewhere or redistribute as long as Loch Ness is acknowledged as author and nothing of value is exchanged. ***Not to be entered in or nominated for any competition or award.*** Classification: T, RA Crossover references to the film *Casablanca*, but you don't have to have seen it to understand this. International readers: US4 spoilers for "Herrenvolk" and "Tunguska/ Terma." Everything thereafter has been ignored. Rating: NC-17, for VIOLENCE, PROFANITY and (M/S) SEX. If you are under-age, please do not read this. SHIPPERS: Although I regard this as a romantic piece, it's not an MSR in the usual sense--our heroes don't ride off into the sunset locked in each other's arms. Summary: It's 1999--"The Date" has come and gone, the "Project" is under way, and deadly bees have been unleashed on North America. With the world coming apart and people scrambling to get away from the swarm, Mulder faces fateful decisions about his own role in events to come--and about Scully. CHARACTER DIES: Cancer Man doesn't make it out of this one. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. :-) On the other hand, in this timeline, Pendrell's still alive. Not a bad trade-off, huh? AUTHOR'S NOTES: Although I didn't read past the introduction of *A Notorious Affair* (I'm not a Hitchcock fan), I must give a nod of thanks to Nicole Perry. About four hours after I read that introduction, I suddenly had a very vivid mental image of David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson dressed up in those gorgeous 1930s-'40s movie clothes. And thus this was born. Only - call me crazy - I ended up not putting them in those clothes, for the most part. While I have the same reservations other fans do about the season four conspiracy arc - a totally separate and distinct creature from the conspiracy arc of the first three seasons - this particular story only works in the context of season four's conspiracy. Consequently, this probably won't make much sense to anyone who hasn't seen *Tunguska/Terma*. DISCLAIMER: This is intended as an homage, not a rip-off. These characters and the X Files universe were created by and/or are the property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen and Fox Broadcasting, all of whom are smarter and richer than I. Likewise, all references express or implied to the film *Casablanca,* screenplay by Julius J. Epstein, Phillip G. Epstein and Howard Koch. No infringement is intended. Anybody who sues me is wasting a lot of time and effort, because I'm broke and this story is actually *costing* me money to produce. MISCELLANEOUS: Do not use if seal is broken. Contains 0 calories derived from fat. No animals were harmed in the making of this fanfic. (Yes, there is a story - it begins in part 1.) lochness@mindspring.com From lochness@mindspring.com Sat Apr 26 00:59:46 1997 Subject: REVISED: Letters of Transit (1/14) By Loch Ness From: Loch Ness -------- Letters of Transit (1/14) By Loch Ness Please do not repost to ATXFC. Already sent to Gossamer U.S. archive; OK to archive elsewhere or redistribute as long as Loch Ness is acknowledged as author and nothing of value is exchanged. ***Not to be entered in or nominated for any competition or award.*** Classification: T, RA Crossover references to the film *Casablanca* International readers: US4 spoilers. Rating: NC-17, for VIOLENCE, PROFANITY and (M/S) SEX. If you are under-age, please do not read this. See Part 0 for disclaimer, summary and introductory notes. *********************************************************************** Letters of Transit (1/14) By Loch Ness "I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world." - Rick Blaine, *Casablanca* July 17, 1999 As little as a month ago, the causeway across to Galveston Island would have glittered like a string of Christmas lights in the night-time sky. But that was before the bees had swarmed into Houston, and the lights had gone out all along Interstate 45, including on the causeway. The bridge was still passable. If one had the proper papers and a working vehicle with sufficient fuel, one could still cross it in either direction. But few people would want to go across to the mainland. The bees were on the mainland. Getting to the island didn't guarantee safety, either--there was no real safety to be had, not so close to the bees, not within reach of the Special Emigration Bureau. But the bees had not been seen in Galveston. Not yet. And for now the concrete-and-steel roadway still loomed up out of the water like the desiccated, twisted spine of a long-dead, giant snake, standing out dully in the moonlight as Alex Krycek crept toward it in the dark. Krycek hadn't heard any reports of bees farther south than Clear Lake. Still, he had taken no chances. He was wearing a black nylon wind-suit with all its cuffs and openings carefully sealed with duct tape, leather gloves, and a beekeeper's hood, also sealed with tape. The getup was miserable in the midsummer heat of the Texas coast, but better to be sweaty than to be hit with multiple, toxic bee stings. He couldn't afford the delay in his mission he'd have if he got stung. He drew his gun as he approached the darkened guard house at the end of the causeway. One of the sentries stepped outside the hut and stood there, his submachine gun shouldered, and glanced at his watch. Krycek threw a glance inside, looking for the second guard. Sitting in the hut, eyes half-closed, nodding in the heavy evening heat. Drawing a long, silent breath, Krycek set himself to his task. He whipped around the edge of the hut and put two silenced rounds into the chest of the standing guard, who gasped and fell, dead before he hit the ground. The sentry inside died without ever waking up. Krycek took the guard outside the hut by the feet and dragged him into the building, dropped him untidily in the corner and left, the murders already forgotten. Krycek never killed out of malice, and he never allowed himself any remorse. He looked at his own watch--ten-oh-seven p.m. Right on schedule. He secured a rope harness to the bridge railing, careful to avoid the strands of wire strung along the bridge, each wire attached to an explosive charge underneath the roadway. The Galveston city fathers had declared that if the bees reached as far south as Dickinson, about ten miles to the north, the road would be destroyed to keep the bees from being able to use it. The theory was that the bees couldn't fly far enough to reach the island without landing on something--something like the causeway--and that they would grow exhausted and drop into the sea before they made it to the island. There was no real evidence to show it was true. Krycek made sure that the end of the rope hung near the Zodiac raft he had tied under the causeway, then turned to wait for the convoy. It didn't take long. After no more than ten minutes he felt more than heard the approaching trucks coming across from the island--a low rumble through the concrete he stood on. He smiled. They were punctual tonight, too. This bunch was made up of "officials"--the city-sanctioned pirates who drove up from Galveston to ravage Houston's wrecked, abandoned corpse twice a week. Refugees fleeing Houston had taken a lot, had burned and destroyed a lot. But there was still canned food in the city, stocks of fuel and clothing, building materials and auto parts, with no police to stop anyone from taking what he liked. At the outset of the bee invasion, somebody had estimated that Galveston could live off Houston's remains for two years. But that had not factored in that Galveston's population would quadruple almost overnight as refugees fled to the island. Refugees were still straggling in. The causeway from the mainland was closed to all but the "officials" now, but escapees came by boat, by raft, by every conceivable sort of aircraft--some just barely air- or seaworthy. Everybody who could get off the mainland was leaving. Their numbers had begun to dwindle as the bees killed more and more who couldn't escape fast enough--but refugees were coming nonetheless. Krycek waited, hunkered down in the dark, as the convoy approached him. The trucks ran without headlights to avoid drawing attention, but they would stop at the barricades before the guard post. And though the men driving the trucks were city "officials" he doubted they'd risk much to interfere with him. Not even the local cops wasted any love on the feds. Krycek didn't really care about the trucks. He was after the federal car he knew would be traveling with them for the safety of numbers. A pouch carried by the government courier in that car was his target. In the pouch, Krycek knew there were two letters of transit signed by the governor of Hawaii and by Lawrence Sherrill, director of the emigration bureau. Sherrill, the almighty guru of escape from the country, who in effect determined who would live and who would die. Letters of transit were reserved for diplomats, and no local authorities could prevent individuals carrying them from leaving the continental U.S. on any basis whatever. Oh, yeah--those letters were Alex Krycek's ticket to better latitudes. He'd use one of them to get out himself and sell the other one for a fat price. He'd ship out for the port of Tampico, Mexico, and from there to Hawaii, which people said was safe from the bees. He could do a lot worse, he figured, than to be stuck for life in Honolulu. The convoy pulled up at the barricades, the driver of the first truck peering warily at the guards' hut. Staying low and in the shadows, Krycek approached the federal car from the passenger side. *Five bucks says the dumb cocksuckers are so arrogant they haven't bothered to lock the doors,* he thought. He was right. The door swung open when he pulled the handle, and before the two men inside had time to register what was happening or shout, he had put two more well-placed bullets into them. He heard the "officials" in the trucks come toward him, but he didn't look up. He used a third round to smash the handcuff lock on the courier's briefcase, then stood up--hands in the air, the case in one hand and his gun in the other, held loosely to indicate he was all done shooting. He'd guessed right again. None of the "officials" wanted to drill him just for offing a couple of feds. They stood there, warily, submachine guns pointed at him, but as long as he made no move to harm any of them, they weren't going to fire. Krycek backed toward his rope harness, hands still up. When he reached the railing, he shifted the gun to his other hand--the prosthesis--and slid down the rope into his raft. The "officials" never even looked over the side. As Krycek untied the raft, he heard them drive off. **** July 19, 1999 The Galveston airport was small, and like everything else on the island had suffered considerably from lack of supplies with which to conduct maintenance work. Paint peeled on the steel hangars, and most of the aircraft crammed onto one end of the tarmac field, some wrecked or dismantled and cannibalized for parts, would never fly again. Many had never been intended to go any farther than the island, and in any case, there wasn't much aviation gas to be had any more. It was hot, the blinding Texas sun beating down like the rays in a microwave oven and bouncing off the pavement in visible waves. Walter Skinner, feeling slightly parboiled in his light gray suit, stood waiting for a plane. Skinner had learned in the army that physical comfort was not a thing to be taken lightly, and so he had found a patch of shade to stand in, just inside an open, broken-down hangar. The hangar's windows were mostly busted out, but no air moved inside the ramshackle building. Just heat, and the faintly metallic scent of engine oil. He wondered what had become of "ocean breezes." None blew this day, that was for damned sure. *Vietnam wasn't this fucking hot,* Skinner thought, though he was pretty sure it had been. He'd just been younger, more resilient then. And it was hard to care about the climate while dodging mortar shells. Skinner hadn't intended to come to Galveston. The bureau's offices had moved twice, farther south each time, to get away from the bees, ending up in Miami. The swarm's entry into Florida had been ugly, people reacting in panic because they were trapped between the sea and the insects. Skinner didn't like thinking about it. He had lost four agents in a riot, and the local cops had been even more decimated than that. Things had gotten crazier and crazier, until in the pandemonium, only about six of the twenty bureau staff in Miami had escaped. Skinner had made it as far as New Orleans, and then had been dispatched to Galveston after a visit from an older man smoking Morley cigarettes and suddenly brandishing the omnipotent authority of the Special Emigration Bureau. Then Skinner had arrived in Texas to find he had no staff on the island, no offices, no nothing. He had commandeered and deputized some local police officers, Old-West-style, by simply handing them badges. When Fox Mulder had appeared out of nowhere, like a revisit from a nightmare long-forgotten, Skinner had offered to forgive his having gone AWOL in Washington fourteen months earlier and put him back to work. And Mulder had laughed. An insane laugh that lived somewhere in the shadows between cynicism and despair. Skinner hadn't asked again. Anyway, Mulder would've been wasted on the sort of cases Skinner's bureau was working now. Petty import violations and the occasional tax evasion would've bored Mulder shitless, and Skinner suspected boredom just would've made him unendurable. As it was, he and Mulder had established an unspoken, uneasy truce. And besides, Mulder had taken up altogether a different line of work these days. Anyway, there wasn't much left in the way of federal authority, except for the heavily protected SEB, in its high-tech underground bunker in Colorado. Hell, there was nothing left to administer on a national level...except who got out of the nation and why, and where they went. On Galveston Island, Walter Skinner was all the federal authority there was left. And he liked it that way. He could call the shots here--for once in his life, he had no need to check with somebody upstairs or engage in petty internal politics or, worst of all, play two ends against the middle, as it had always been in Washington. The arrival of the smoking man might change all that, and all because some son of a bitch had made a bloody mess of two federal couriers. Hell, it hadn't even happened on the island, wasn't Skinner's problem, as he figured it. Everybody knew going back to the mainland was a risk--apparently somebody in the SEB had considered that sending the couriers to the mainland was an *acceptable* risk. But no. The smoking man was annoyed, and so the world would stop until he was satisfied. Finally Skinner heard the roar of jet engines overhead. The parties he was waiting for were traveling first-class. Skinner had never known exactly what agency, if any, the smoking man worked for. CIA? NSA? It had been explained to Skinner, long ago, that he simply didn't need to know. Neither had he ever known the man's real name. But he knew the man, all too well. His arrival boded ill, and Skinner was none too pleased to have him on the island. Skinner approached the plane, a neat, white LearJet, as it taxied up to the small, empty terminal. Before the plane had even completely stopped moving, the door opened, dropping a short stairway that almost touched the ground. And off stepped the smoking man, with an entourage of two toadies in dark suits and dark glasses, radio earphone cords curling down their necks, both of them lugging briefcases and computers. Skinner did not have to check out the tailoring of their jackets to know they had guns on their hips. The smoking man paused long enough to cup his hand against the hot wind stirred by the jet's engines while he rasped the wheel on his Zippo lighter. His heavily lined face sagged briefly as he bent to light his Morley. When he straightened, he blew a plume of smoke and got right to the point. "I want those papers back," he said bluntly, as they headed toward Skinner's waiting car. "The classified material the couriers were transporting when they got hit." "The letters of transit?" Skinner said coolly. *What did you think, that I wouldn't bother trying to find out what they were carrying?* The smoking man's dark eyes narrowed. "Efficient as ever," he said softly, the words coated with menace. "Do you know who took them?" "Yes. But in your honor, I rounded up twice the usual number of snitches," Skinner said, unable to resist the temptation to aggravate the smoker. The wry humor seemed lost on the other man. "Who?" he demanded. "Old friend of yours. Alex Krycek." The smoking man hesitated, then chuckled. "*That* son of a bitch," he murmured. "He's had it coming for a long time." On this point, at least, Skinner agreed. He had a score to settle with Krycek himself, but the little rat was clever. Even in the confined space of the island, Krycek had eluded arrest. But Skinner had him, now. "What's your plan?" the smoking man asked. "If he means to sell the letters, there's only one place he'll go. We'll get him there, at the Casablanca Club." The smoking man held a silence for a moment. "Mulder's place," he said finally. "Yes." "Your boy Mulder has an appreciation of history," the smoker said. "He's not 'my boy' anymore. And the Casablanca Club is about money, not history. He's making a mint, and technically, it's all legal. Nobody can touch him." "Have you ever seen *Casablanca*, Mr. Skinner?" He shrugged. "Not in years. I don't really remember much of it." The smoking man nodded. "Mulder does." He dropped his cigarette butt on the ground and crushed it out with his foot. "As long as he's still legal, you might tell him for me that it's a dangerous fantasy." Skinner had no idea what he was talking about. The smoking man got in the car, then looked up at Skinner just before he shut the door. "Mulder's got more lives than a fucking cat," the smoking man said. "But he's about used them up. And *Casablanca*--that fantasy's liable to get him killed." Continued in Part 2. lochness@mindspring.com From lochness@mindspring.com Sat Apr 26 01:01:00 1997 Subject: REVISED: Letters of Transit (2/14) By Loch Ness From: Loch Ness -------- Letters of Transit (2/14) By Loch Ness Please do not repost to ATXFC. Already sent to Gossamer U.S. archive; OK to archive elsewhere or redistribute as long as Loch Ness is acknowledged as author and nothing of value is exchanged. ***Not to be entered in or nominated for any competition or award.*** Classification: T, RA Crossover references to the film *Casablanca* International readers: US4 spoilers. Rating: NC-17, for VIOLENCE, PROFANITY and (M/S) SEX. If you are under-age, please do not read this. See Part 0 for disclaimer, summary and introductory notes. *********************************************************************** Letters of Transit (2/14) By Loch Ness July 19, 1999 New Orleans, La. The bees were moving in from the east, along the coast from Mississippi. There'd been two deaths in Biloxi the day before yesterday, and if the swarm kept up its usual pace, no one would be left alive there by tomorrow. The Interstate 10 bridge across Lake Pontchartrain was closed, and the city was talking of closing the toll road from Chinchuba to Metairie. It was oppressively hot, and afternoon monsoon rains threatened from the west. Dark gray clouds, rimmed with snowy white, prickled with lightning. But in New Orleans itself the air hung motionless, heavy and damp as a wet towel. Dana Scully lifted her auburn hair off the back of her neck wearily, gathered it into a thick hank and twisted a rubber band around it to hold it off her skin. The power company turned the electricity off at six every evening to conserve fuel--only an hour later the tiny apartment she shared with Special Agent Ted Pendrell was unbearably stuffy. Scully opened windows to set up a cross-wind through the apartment. Rain would be welcome tonight; it would cool things off at least a little. It was still light enough to work, though the charge in her laptop would only hold out for about four hours. She opened the computer and turned it on. She wanted the projections, the elaborate plots of the bees' spread that she had so carefully charted. She guessed they'd reach New Orleans within a few days, but she wanted to be sure before having to be uprooted. Scully and Pendrell had been working to develop an antivenin to the bee stings for nearly two years now, but it seemed every time they made a little progress, they had to move again. It didn't set them back completely, but it was disruptive, and it had slowed down the work. Scully was hoping the computer would tell her they could put off another move for a week or so. A peal of thunder sounded, so close it startled her. Her hand jumped, and when she looked at the computer screen, what was coming up was her old Eudora Light e-mail program. She hadn't used e-mail in more than a year. The delicate network that had been the Internet had come apart quickly after the bees had arrived. Eudora had launched before she collected herself sufficiently to cancel it, then a gray dialogue box appeared. "Error getting network address for 'pop.fbi.gov,'" the computer reported. "Cause: requested entry not found (11004)." Scully clicked "OK," and the dialogue box disappeared. She blinked. What was left open after she closed the dialogue box was a mailbox she had labeled "Mulder," in a time that now seemed a million years in the past. Her heart thudded hard. There was one message sitting in the queue from "fwmulder@fbi.gov," with a subject line that read "Lunch on Thursday?" She didn't click on it. That was a very old wound, one she dared not reopen. Besides, she didn't have to read it--it might as well have been engraved on her brain. *How about Casper's, around 11?* It hadn't been about lunch at all. It had been Mulder's own weird code, telling her that if he hadn't made it back to D.C. by Thursday, she should leave without him. The bees had come into Washington that morning, and Mulder hadn't showed. She almost hadn't gotten out of the city herself. She had driven out of Washington at a crawl because the bees had swarmed so thickly around her car that even flailing windshield wipers couldn't sweep them off quickly enough for her to see well through it. With all the vents closed up tight, terrified that somehow one would get into the car. She had pulled over at an abandoned automatic car wash in Fredericksburg, Va., and had run the car through the steamy water five times to wash them all off. Then she had doused herself with gasoline from a can she'd been keeping on the floor of the front seat and run like a mad thing away from the car, in a panic, afraid that some of the bees would have lived through the car wash and would come after her. She didn't know what had happened to Mulder. She was sure that if he had survived, he would have tried to contact her. He would've found her. Bloodhound to the bone, that was Mulder--if it had been humanly possible for him to rejoin her, he would have. But he hadn't come to her. That meant it had not been humanly possible for him to rejoin her. Because he had gone to Connecticut to get his mother. Because he had gone where the bees were. Because he was dead. Mulder--fearless, reckless, quixotic, charismatic. Dead. Scully knew the kind of torture the bees inflicted before they took their victims. In the two years since the swarm had reached Washington, she had never been able to picture him like the bodies she had examined. Her mind simply would not yield that picture, the muscles torn and the bones broken from the agonizing spasms induced by the bees' venom. The tongue and throat hideously swollen, the black film on the eyes. She couldn't--wouldn't--see him like that. She still saw Mulder in her mind's eye as clearly as if he were standing right before her, intensely alive. The fine, full mouth, the long, straight limbs. An unmistakable, almost feline fluidity in his motions. Clear hazel eyes, alternately bright green or deep brown, the colors of Druids and magical forests. And the last time they'd been together, finally, the warm, slightly salty taste of his mouth on hers. Lightning flared outside, and Scully started again. She drew a long breath to steady herself. What was she thinking? Druids? Well, that at least was a metaphor Mulder himself would have appreciated. *He's gone,* she told herself, and much had changed since then. Nearly everything had changed, in fact. The nature of her work, for one--she was still doing pathology, but not to solve crimes or determine what had killed people. She knew what had killed the people whose bodies she examined now: the bee stings. The only question was whether their experimental antivenin formulas had changed anything at all, whether it had had any effect. And though she was, technically at least, still a sworn law officer, the FBI hardly existed any more. Neither she nor Pendrell had drawn a paycheck from the U.S. government in nearly a year. They were living off their combined savings and what little she could make working at the nearby hospital. She'd felt strange, at first, treating the living again after so long, but she'd gotten used to it. Then there was the biggest change--she and Pendrell. Mulder's disappearance had hit her hard, but she'd had no time to dwell on it. And every time she had lifted her head and looked around, there'd been Ted Pendrell. He'd been a great comfort to her, keeping her focused on her work, on what there might be left to save. Working so closely with him, she had developed a real affection for him. And so, when he had proposed to her, she hadn't been able to think of a reason to turn him down. He was a good man. She wasn't happy with her life--these days, hell, who was?--but she was content. She wondered whether she would've been content with Mulder. No way to know. Not now. She exited out of Eudora. She clicked on the folder that contained her projection program and began typing in the newest reports of bee activity. The program was still running when she heard the front door open. "God," Pendrell's voice called, "how can you be working in this heat?" She smiled up at him as he came in and kissed her forehead lightly. "It's not as bad now as it was before I opened the windows," she said. He sat at the table beside her, then noticed something lying next to the computer and picked it up. Her wedding ring, the plain gold band he had put on her hand six months ago. "You're going to lose that," he complained good-naturedly. "I can't type with it on," she said. "It gets in my way. And I won't lose it. Anything new?" She suspected there was good news tonight--he was in a playful spirit; she could see it in his eyes. "I think we're close, Dana, really close. One of the test cases from Hattiesburg is still alive, and the other two at least died peacefully." "No spasms?" "No." She frowned, thinking hard. "I'm still not convinced we have the dosage right," she said. She glanced back at the computer screen and drew a sharp breath. "Oh, my God," she said. "What is it?" "I don't think we're going to be able to wait for the test case from Hattiesburg." The computer projection showed the bees would reach the outskirts of New Orleans in less than forty-eight hours. Pendrell sighed heavily in resignation. "Where do we go now?" he asked. "Galveston," Scully said. "There's still one ship that sails for Mexico once a week." He inclined his head, his look skeptical. "We need lab equipment--we can't take everything with us. And we haven't got much money left. How are we going to arrange that in Mexico? The exchange rate'll kill us." "We'll have to find a way across to California. We can't go straight west--the bees have already cleaned out Houston. It was drier there; they made good time on their way south." "So we can't go by land," he said. "No. We go by sea." **** July 20, 1999 Scully had planned their escape from New Orleans well in advance, knowing the bees would drive them out eventually and wanting to be ready when the time came. She had hidden the twelve-foot power boat, the same one they had used to get out of Miami with A.D. Skinner and four other agents, in a dark branch off a bayou well to the west of the city. She had kept the gas tank empty and the engine partly dismantled to discourage anyone who accidentally happened on the boat from stealing it. There wasn't much in the apartment that was worth taking with them, and in any case, they needed the space in the boat for the lab samples and what equipment they could take. All she had to pack was a little clothing, a little food, bottled water. She had calculated the trip would take them a good eighteen hours if they could make thirty miles an hour during the night, if the weather held and the sea wasn't too rough. She would hug the coastline as much as she could--the boat wasn't really designed for the open sea, and if they wandered too far out they would attract the unwelcome attention of a U.N. blockade standing off the coast to keep escapees from carrying the bees to other nations. The sun had dipped toward the horizon. Scully made a last sweep of the apartment, making sure she hadn't overlooked anything. As she turned through the kitchen, out of the corner of her eye she noticed a man standing in the shadows between two old storefront buildings across the narrow street. Powerfully built, he had light brown hair and dark eyes. He was looking straight at her, and when he noticed her looking back at him, he turned away and stepped farther back into the darkness. Scully froze. She'd seen that man before, earlier in the day, when she had gone to the lab. He had been lounging in front of the closed-up convenience store, reading a newspaper. She hadn't thought anything of it at the time--there were a lot of people in New Orleans these days who didn't have much to do but lounge around. But every fiber of her now screamed that this man wasn't watching her because he had too much time on his hands. She left the two small suitcases where they were on the floor beside the front door and slipped downstairs, out the back of her building, circled around through the alley to come up behind him. She reminded herself that she had to conserve ammunition. After Miami she had only two magazines left for her service weapon. But when she got to where the strange man had been standing, he was gone. "Dammit," she murmured. Whatever he was up to, it looked like he was getting away with it. God, what if he had drawn her off so that he could break into the apartment? Suddenly fearful for what few possessions remained to them, she hurried back upstairs. But nothing had been touched. She sighed heavily, holstered her gun again, then picked up the cases and headed for the lab, locking the door behind her for the last time. Pendrell was waiting for her, sitting on the big case he used to carry the microscopes. "I was starting to worry," he said, his voice ringing with relief. "There was somebody outside the apartment. I don't think he was just hanging in the 'hood." Pendrell had never been a field agent; it took him a moment to get it. Then he frowned and asked, "What do you think?" "I'm not sure what to think, but the sooner we're away from here, the happier I'll be. Let's go." They finished loading the car. "How much gas have we got left?" she asked. "About half a tank. Just enough." She nodded and got in, and they were off. They could only drive to within about a quarter mile of the boat. Beyond that, it was back into the thick trees that lined the bayou. Rooting around in the bush, Pendrell found the sledge he had used to unload the boat when they had first arrived from Miami, and they hefted the suitcases and lab equipment onto it before setting off into the forest. Scully pulled her flashlight and her gun, and went ahead of him. She wanted to be ready if they had the bad luck to encounter an alligator or a Louisiana panther back in the bush. A little fog rose. The forest sang to them out of the trees, out of the mucky ground--frogs, crickets, cicadas, the occasional mournful call of an egret. Mosquitoes whined in the air. She heard something splash in the water ahead of them and hoped it was nothing more threatening than the slap of a fish biting on an insect. Scully was tired, and the dank darkness of the bayou weighed on her. The quarter mile seemed like an endless, exhausting trek. She knew how early explorers must have felt, venturing into God knew what with nothing to protect them but a flickering torch. She walked on, claustrophobic, following the small circle of light from her flash. Finally she reached the water line and froze in horror. No boat. She swung the flashlight. God, where was it? Had someone stolen it after all? Had it taken some damage she hadn't noticed on the way from Miami and sunk in the bayou? "There," Pendrell whispered, pointing off to her right. She turned the flash, and sure enough--the boat's dirty white side gleamed dully about fifty yards away. They slogged over. Scully climbed aboard and took the gas can when Pendrell handed it up. She filled the boat's tank while he transferred the equipment, then went to work on the engine, carefully replacing the parts she had removed. "Ready?" Pendrell called breathlessly. He scooped a bullfrog off the rail and stood poised on the bow to cast off. There was a loud pop, back in the trees, and suddenly, the glowing, hissing tail of a flare going up. Another pop, and a blinding light bathed the whole area. "Freeze!" a voice shouted. "This vessel has been impounded by the Special Emigration Bureau!" Scully drew her badge and flipped it open. "We're federal agents!" she shouted back. "FBI! We have clearance to move about freely." "All clearances canceled by order of Executive Director Sherrill!" She couldn't see the man calling to them; the light was too bright. With her free hand, Scully flipped on the switches for the boat's engine and prepared to turn the key. "Why? Since when?" she yelled. "Come out of the boat! No one is to leave the parish, by order of Executive Director Sherrill!" "You don't have that authority," Pendrell called to the unseen voice back in the trees. Scully glanced at him and caught his look--he had finished untying the line on the boat. *Oh, well done,* she thought. *Beautifully done.* She had only to hope he wouldn't lose his balance when she started the engine and swung the boat around. If it started--it had been sitting out here for almost a year. She turned the key. The starter whined, then ground, but there was silence from the engine. *Hail Mary, mother of God...* She'd known it wouldn't start the first time, no way. She tried again. Still nothing. Pendrell seized a boat hook and began pushing them away from the bank. "Freeze!" the voice shouted again. Over the whine of the starter, she could hear footsteps crashing through the brush toward them. "We have been authorized to use deadly force! Come out of the boat, or we will open fire!" Deadly force? What the hell for? There was something very strange going on--Scully decided she didn't want to wait around to find out what. She turned the key again, and this time, the engine gave an asthmatic cough. It sputtered briefly, then died. A flash, then the crack of a gunshot. Scully turned the key again with one hand and drew her own gun with the other. Pendrell'd had the same idea, and she heard him fire first, so she turned her full attention back to the engine. Everybody who'd been an FBI agent had taken the same gun instruction, but she knew him for an indifferent shot. In the dazzle of the flare, he couldn't see what he was shooting at anyway. But then, she had no real wish for him to kill anybody--she just hoped he'd keep them down until she could get the damned engine going. She heard him fire off three rounds before she lost count, focused on the engine. It finally caught and roared, and she swung the rudder around, praying the shots from the shoreline wouldn't hole the hull. A rattle of machine-gun fire sounded. Pendrell had finished off the magazine in his gun, so Scully tossed him hers and he resumed firing to hold the others down. The flare above them flickered and went dark. Scully shoved the throttle forward, hoping they could get out of range before the SEB recovered enough to send up another one. It was a narrow channel, but Scully didn't dare shine the flashlight--it would've made an unmistakable target. All she could do was hope they didn't hit anything. Piloting by instinct, she drove the boat forward, then cringed in momentary terror when she heard it scrape the opposite bank. Another flare went up, but they were already hidden by trees. She felt Pendrell jump down beside her. "Shit," he said, "that was close." "Yeah." "I don't I think I was cut out for this kind of stuff." She chuckled bitterly. "I don't think anybody is. You did all right." The channel had widened now--the tree canopy no longer blotted out the faint moonlight overhead, and she could vaguely see ahead. "Why the hell do you think they'd want to stop us?" Pendrell asked. She shook her head. "I don't know. Especially not badly enough to try to kill us. Maybe it was a mistake--screwed-up paperwork." But she didn't believe it. Screwed-up paperwork didn't explain how the SEB had found them. The man outside the apartment probably did, but how? And why? Continued in Part 3. lochness@mindspring.com From lochness@mindspring.com Sat Apr 26 01:02:18 1997 Subject: REVISED: Letters of Transit (3/14) By Loch Ness From: Loch Ness -------- Letters of Transit (3/14) By Loch Ness Please do not repost to ATXFC. Already sent to Gossamer U.S. archive; OK to archive elsewhere or redistribute as long as Loch Ness is acknowledged as author and nothing of value is exchanged. ***Not to be entered in or nominated for any competition or award.*** Classification: T, RA Crossover references to the film *Casablanca* International readers: US4 spoilers. Rating: NC-17, for VIOLENCE, PROFANITY and (M/S) SEX. If you are under-age, please do not read this. See Part 0 for disclaimer, summary and introductory notes. *********************************************************************** Letters of Transit (3/14) By Loch Ness July 21, 1999 Galveston At the Casablanca Club, Fox Mulder sat at the table that was always reserved for him, playing Windows Solitaire on his battered old laptop computer. Periodically a waiter would interrupt him so he could sign a voucher for somebody who was cashing in his chips from the roulette or craps tables. So far, the cards on the computer had not been kind to Mulder this evening, but then, they rarely were, which was why Mulder left the gambling to his customers. The Casablanca Club stood on a dock that extended a good hundred feet out into the Gulf of Mexico, supported by heavy wooden pilings. It was garish outside, painted purple with orange trim, and hung with wind-battered Chinese lanterns. At first sight, it had conjured for Mulder an image of a cheap brothel. Not so bad, inside--the walls were a pale, muted blue-green, and the round tables had come with white linen cloths; the decor included live, leafy plants and crystal-globed candles. Big, ornate wooden bar, and a private gaming room overlooking the ocean. When things were quiet, Mulder had found he could stand still and hear the surf beat against the pilings. Mulder had bought the club, then named Jack's Shrimp Shack, from a man who had been desperate to get his family to Mexico. Initially, Mulder had thought of the purchase as a kind of charitable act--just give the guy the money so four more people could escape. At the time, he'd had no intention of actually running the place himself. But the longer Mulder had hung around on the island, the more the idea of opening up the club had appealed. If nothing else, it gave some purpose to the fact that he was spending a lot of time standing in the casino staring out to sea. He was acutely vulnerable to seasickness, but he had always liked watching the ocean. He'd grown up near the sea--there was something about the musky smell of saltwater meeting land that had soothed the emptiness in him just a little. After the bee invasion, Mulder had found himself without any real purpose for the first time in his life. The conspiracy had won, and there wasn't a damned thing he could do about it. He hadn't been good enough, hadn't been fast enough, to stop them. And everybody he'd cared about was gone. By the time he'd landed on Galveston, he'd been stagnant, defeated, exhausted. Unwilling to devote the energy to finding a new purpose. So what the hell--why not just run the damned bar until the bees forced him out? His friends the "Lone Gunmen," who had come to Galveston with him, had joined in, unasked. One day they'd just showed up and started working, Langly at the bar, Byers as maitre'd and bookkeeper, and Frohike playing deejay, chatting up the ladies and putting his paranoia to work keeping track of who was snitching for whom. Mulder couldn't decide whether they reminded him more of the Three Stooges or the Three Musketeers. There was a noisy bunch in the casino tonight--the incident on the causeway had everybody churned up with excitement. Rumor had it the couriers had been minions of the Special Emigration Bureau, and everybody was wondering what it would mean, whether the SEB would crack down. It was hard enough now to get off the island and go south or west, to areas where the bees hadn't arrived yet--a blockade of U.N. warships standing off the coast had orders to turn back anyone trying to leave the country, in an effort to stop the spread of the bees to other nations. The warships weren't kidding, either. They'd sunk dozens of vessels in the last two years, everything from freighters to dinghies. The only way to get past that blockade was either to run one Christ-almighty risk or to have the right papers. If the SEB tightened up on emigration requests even more than they had, that could make things hellish on the island. The crowding was miserable already, driving the cost of housing stratospheric. Supplies were sparse expensive. Mulder couldn't remember the last time he had eaten a real egg. And for the SEB to tighten up was likely to drive up the crime rate, too. Mulder knew that a motley array of cutthroats and thieves sold papers in the darker corners of the island, including at his own Casablanca Club, both real documents stolen from God knows where and forgeries, some painstakingly accurate, some criminally sloppy. Mulder was out of the law enforcement business, and he didn't care what his customers did as long as they were discreet enough not to leave any blood and guts on the bar. He suspected he would've looked the other way even if he had been still carrying a badge--people were desperate to get out, and with reason. Mulder knew all too well how good a reason. So he just stayed away from that group of tables over there beyond the roulette wheel. It was none of his business who bought or sold what, or what assignations were made in whispers and for what purpose. He had scrupulously avoided getting involved in illegal papers himself. His former boss, Walter Skinner, was basically the only law left on the island, and Mulder was careful not to provoke him in a way the A.D. couldn't ignore. Skinner had been reasonable enough to define his jurisdiction narrowly, regarding such peccadilloes as gambling as beneath his notice. But he would only overlook so much. Mulder moused a card down on the computer screen, then looked up at the sound of a voice louder than the background noise. Someone at the door into the casino room was shouting, giving the doorman trouble. And while Casey, the bouncer with arms like King Kong's, was trying to deflect the man doing the shouting, Mulder saw someone else ooze past into the casino. *Shit,* Mulder thought, looking at the lithe, dark man who had slipped through the doorway. It was Alex Krycek. Mulder sighed. He got up and went to the door. "What's the problem?" he asked Casey. The man who had been shouting made a flourish of withdrawing a calling card from the inside jacket pocket of an immaculate black tuxedo. Mulder only saw three words: Special Emigration Bureau. He closed his fist around the card, crumpling it into a ball. "This is a private room," he said. "Now, look here," tuxedo said, "I represent--" "I know what you represent," Mulder said coolly. "It's a private room. You want a drink, pay cash at the bar. Federal scrip's no good here. You don't like it, take a hike." "I'll report this," tuxedo hissed. "You do that." Mulder turned his back and headed for his table. As he passed Krycek said, "A casual observer might think you'd been doing this all your life." Mulder shrugged. "I'm likely to be doing it the rest of my life." He sat down. Krycek signaled a waiter and ordered a Scotch-and-water. "Join me?" he asked. There was an almost-manic gleam in Krycek's blue eyes. Now what the hell was he so good-natured about? Mulder gave him a steady, expressionless glare that meant "not only no, but hell, no." Krycek shrugged. He grinned. "Why don't you just kill me, Mulder? We both know you want to." How true. Mulder allowed himself a tiny, cold smile. "Too public," he said. "Besides I'm taking too much pleasure in watching you crawl on your belly trying to survive the living hell you helped create." When Krycek had first showed up, Mulder had wanted to tear him limb from limb, but over the intervening months his anger had worn down--these days he and Krycek were just two rats who had happened to end up in the same cage. But he had no desire to socialize with the man who had murdered his father. Krycek laughed. "I know you hate me," he said. Mulder felt a tingle of annoyance flare at the back of his neck. *You don't know shit about me, Alex.* He squelched it. Krycek was up to something, and he wanted to know what it was. He held his silence, waiting the other man out while the drink was served. "Hear about those poor bastards on the causeway?" Krycek asked over the rim of his highball glass. Mulder turned back to his computer, feigning indifference. He dragged a black seven down onto a red eight. "Somebody saved them the bee stings," he said. "Hell, they were just doing their job." "Dirty job." "Filthy," Krycek agreed. "You really hate what I do, don't you? Look, these people are desperate to get off this island. I get them off of it." "Yeah, you're a saint. Your going rate these days is what...a quarter million a head?" "No ups, no extras. Same rate for kids. Hey, I'm getting out people the SEB would never let go of." "So they get to Mexico, but they're broke when they ground. They can't afford to go any farther, and it's just postponing the inevitable--the bees will get there eventually." "Well, I'm getting out," Krycek said, his face suddenly darkly moody. "I'm getting out for good. And not just to Mexico, either. I'm about to make a deal that'll have me surfing in Hawaii inside a week." "Hey, maybe I will kill you, then--while there's still time." Krycek grinned wolfishly. "You don't have the ice in your belly for murder," he said. "The truth is, Mulder, you're a fucking boy scout. You're not going to kill me. You've got New England prep-school morality oozing out your ass." Mulder allowed himself a mental image of the satisfying crunch of bone and tooth his fist would cause if it slammed into Krycek's mouth. He smiled icily and said nothing. "That's the reason why you're the only living soul on this island I trust," Krycek said. "Fuck," Mulder said, annoyed. "I had a very tasty shrimp dinner over at Matheson's, Krycek. Make me throw it up, and I'll cancel your credit at the roulette table." "No, it's true. You don't take federal scrip, you don't let the SEB come in here and eavesdrop on the innocent, you don't move contraband--and you could launder some major shit through this place, without attracting any notice. You flirt with sin, but you're still a virgin." "Maybe it just looks that way to a slut like you." He was losing patience. "What do you want, Krycek?" Krycek slid some folded sheets of paper across the table. "Ever seen one of those? Diplomatic letters of transit. Can't be questioned by any local authority, personally signed by Sherrill himself." Mulder resisted the temptation to give a low whistle. The papers in his hand were worth gold by the ton. "I heard the guys on the causeway were carrying letters of transit," he murmured. "Really?" Krycek said, wide-eyed. "Where'd you hear that?" "Around," Mulder said carefully. "You know how rumors are on the island." "Yeah. I want you to keep them for me for a couple of days. Just 'til the heat dies down a little." Mulder crooked an eyebrow. "And I suppose I've got your word that you won't roll over on me if you get busted?" "Absolutely," Krycek said earnestly. Mulder laughed. "Fuck you, Alex. I've had my gullible moments, but I'm not that stupid, not anymore. Find yourself another pigeon." "What good would it do me to roll on you, Mulder? At best, I'm still an accessory. If we both keep our mouths shut, nobody's got anything on either of us. We can spend the rest of our lives slurping rum on the beach in Honolulu." "What makes you think I want to leave?" "Shit, everybody wants off this island." Mulder slid the letters back across the table to Krycek. He turned off the laptop. "Not this time, Alex." He went out to see what was going on in the bar, leaving Krycek to his drink and the roulette table. Full house, tonight, Mulder noted with some satisfaction as he walked through the bar. People were out in force, probably because they suspected trouble and wanted to be able to see it coming. Or because they already knew the causeway incident had screwed the pooch and were even more desperate to get away than they had been before. Mulder himself was still considering what Krycek had revealed to him--but more than he cared about the overall result, he was wondering what really had moved his former partner to confide in him. Overconfidence? Desperation? Did he figure Mulder was only the guy left on the island who had enough cash to meet his price for one of those letters? If so, he had miscalculated. Unlike most on Galveston Island, Mulder was in no great tearing hurry to leave, and he already had an escape pod for when the time came. He went to the bar and saw Langly leaning on it, his long blond hair tied back loosely in a pony tail hanging down one shoulder. Mulder inclined his head to see who Langly was scoping, then sighed. Angela White, formerly a police detective in a small New England town, who Mulder had first met while on a case. Strange case, and one he did not much care to reflect on. Langly caught sight of him and motioned, and Mulder approached, groaning inwardly. He was in no mood for Angela. She had short, frosted blonde hair, and she was almost as tall as Mulder, with an athletic figure and broad shoulders. She was dressed to the nines, tonight, in a body-hugging gown prickled with white sequins. She wasn't bad in bed, but then, in bed he had ways of keeping her from talking. When she talked, she whined a lot, and Mulder would as soon have avoided her tonight. But Langly was waving a piece of paper--a personal check, from the look of it. Mulder took it from him, glanced at the signature and drew a pen from the pocket of his white tuxedo jacket. Angela caught his wrist. "Where were you last night?" she demanded breathlessly. Mulder smelled whiskey on her breath. A lot of it. "Busy," he said tightly. He scribbled, "OK, FM" on the check. Dick Matheson could cover a check for a few drinks. "Will I see you tonight?" she asked. "I don't know." She let go and turned her back on him coldly. "I'll have another," she said to Langly. The thin bartender shot Mulder a glance from behind his glasses. Mulder shook his head. Langly shrugged. "He's the boss," he said. Angela slammed her shot glass on the bar. "I said I'll have another," she said. "Not here, you won't," Mulder said. He took her by the elbow, and as she half-fell from the barstool, he caught her around the waist and propelled her across the club toward the door. "You can't do this to me," Angela gasped. Mulder kept pushing her out the door, out to the street. He whistled, and a pudgy Asian teen-ager with a bicycle cab pedaled up. "You're going home," he said to Angela. "You bastard," Angela raged. "I won't be back!" He handed the kid a fifty-dollar bill. "See she gets home safely," he said. "Shit," the Asian kid said. "For fifty bucks, you can have the bike." "Just see that she gets there." The kid rang the bell on his bike and drove off. "You'll be sorry!" Angela yelled. Mulder forced her out of her mind. He turned to go back into the club, and as he swung around, he caught the moonlight glinting off the lenses of Walter Skinner's glasses. Continued in Part 4. lochness@mindspring.com From lochness@mindspring.com Sat Apr 26 01:03:24 1997 Subject: REVISED: Letters of Transit (4/14) By Loch Ness From: Loch Ness -------- Letters of Transit (4/14) By Loch Ness Please do not repost to ATXFC. Already sent to Gossamer U.S. archive; OK to archive elsewhere or redistribute as long as Loch Ness is acknowledged as author and nothing of value is exchanged. ***Not to be entered in or nominated for any competition or award.*** Classification: T, RA Crossover references to the film *Casablanca* International readers: US4 spoilers. Rating: NC-17, for VIOLENCE, PROFANITY and (M/S) SEX. If you are under-age, please do not read this. See Part 0 for disclaimer, summary and introductory notes. *********************************************************************** Letters of Transit (4/14) By Loch Ness July 21, 1999 Galveston Mulder's former boss sat in a courtyard the other patrons had abandoned because of the heat. Angela was still yelling as the bicycle cab drove down the boulevard. "How long you figure it'll take her to find another?" Skinner asked dryly. "Twelve hours? Eighteen?" "Psychology teaches that sexual urges take on an air of desperation when animals are under intense stress." Mulder shrugged. "She'll have that kid upstairs inside thirty minutes." "You're not suffering any desperate urges?" "I'm not feeling stressed." He studied Skinner's practiced, apparently nerveless cool. He knew the A.D. well enough to see that there was something simmering underneath. "But you are." He hooked a thumb eastward along Seawall Boulevard. "She lives at the Gulfstream Apartments. Go for it." Skinner shook his head. "No time," he said. He grinned. "Too much stress." Despite himself, Mulder chuckled. He didn't trust Skinner, never had. But occasionally he found he liked the man. "You got a minute?" the assistant director asked. *Shit.* This was not likely to be good news. Mulder shrugged again and strolled over, sat opposite the bald man. When he sat down, he could see what Skinner had been sitting outside in the dark watching--the freighter from Tampico, steaming sluggishly toward the dock, its lights blinking against its black, rust-streaked sides. Once a week, the freighter sailed in with a load of supplies and then back out again three days later, carrying about a hundred lucky people who had found some way to beg, buy or steal the necessary paperwork. "You ever want to be on that ship?" Skinner asked. Mulder doubted Skinner had beckoned him just to share the sight of the freighter, no matter how appealing and romantic it might be to watch a ship glide in off the ocean. And the older man rarely beat around the bush when there was something on his mind. But Mulder decided to play along. "No. I've got no complaints about where I am." "There's not much future here. Not in the long run." "There's no future anywhere." "Don't bullshit me, Mulder," Skinner said softly. "You made six runs through the blockade carrying Malathion into Georgia. That's not the act of a man who's succumbed to his own bitterness." "It didn't work, did it?" Skinner shrugged. "Besides," Mulder said, "I was well-paid by the state of Georgia. How do you think I came up with the cash to buy this place?" The older man fell silent for a moment. Mulder waited him out. Finally Skinner said, "You never turned in your service weapon. You still carrying?" He was. Both of them--the .40 caliber Sig-Sauer 226 that had been authorized and the Walther PPK in an ankle holster that hadn't been. "Why would I?" he asked. "The smoking man is in town," Skinner said. Mulder blinked in surprise. "You want me to kill him?" he asked dryly. "Not that I'd object to the assignment." "I want you to stay out of it." "Out of what?" "He's after Krycek, not you. Leave it alone. Let me handle it." Mulder considered this, his thoughts whirling like startled bats in a dark cave. After a moment he said, "You think Krycek pulled the job on the causeway?" "I know he did. And I know he's here." "He is?" Skinner's look was dour--*don't play me for a fool.* "The place is already surrounded," he said. There was steel in his tone. The freighter was disappearing as it headed for the port of Galveston, around the other side of the island. Still debating with himself, Mulder watched its lights wink out, one by one. He got up. "Don't make a mess of my bar, okay?" he said, then went back inside the club. It took all the control he had not to run back into the casino. When he got there, Krycek was playing roulette, and losing at it, judging from the scowl on his face. Mulder scanned the room. There was no one here he didn't know, and he would've known if any of them were snitching for Skinner. He sauntered over as casually as he could manage, then leaned down and murmured, "Come and have a drink with me, Alex," and walked on, back to his table. After a moment, Krycek followed, his look wary. "I've changed my mind," Mulder said. "Give them to me." The younger man's dark brows knit in suspicion. "What's happened?" he asked. "Skinner's here, and Cancer Man's not far behind him. They had the club surrounded before I knew anything about it." Krycek had gone a little pale at Cancer Man's name. Mulder leaned into his former partner's face. "Listen to me, Alex," he whispered. "I don't give a shit what happens to you. If they pull your guts out through your asshole, I'll make sausage out of them and feed it to the gulls down on the beach. But I don't see any reason to let the Cancer Man get what he wants. You give me the letters, and I'll keep my mouth shut." Much as Mulder found the idea of helping Krycek distasteful, he really wanted, just this one time, to make the smoking man squirm. Cancer Man wanted those papers badly enough to come down here himself--just as badly, Mulder wanted to thwart him, even in a small thing. Just once. After all Cancer Man had put him through, even a small victory...he deserved that, didn't he? He sat back in his chair. "I won't turn you in, Alex. But I don't know what they've got on you. So maybe you beat the charges. Or not. If you do, you get to leave the island. If you don't...well, like I said, I just don't give a shit. Anyway, the way I figure it, you don't have much choice but to trust me." Krycek studied him for a long moment. Then, expressionlessly, he drew the letters of transit out of the inside pocket of his jacket and slipped them across the table again. Mulder put them in his own pocket. Krycek gave him a wan smile. "I'll give you twenty minutes, then I'll go out front," he said. "That way your customers don't get involved." A magnanimous gesture from a man not known for his generosity. But then, he had little to gain now by taking anyone else with him, or by doing anything to piss Mulder off. Krycek got up, heading back to the roulette table. "See you in Hawaii, partner." **** Skinner sat outside the club for a few more minutes, waiting for the smoking man's arrival, gripped by a foreboding he couldn't identify or drag himself out of. He had an uneasy feeling about what was coming--he wasn't sure why, but he couldn't shake it. Shit, it was hot. He decided to wait inside. As he rose to go into the club, the breeze eddied around the corner of the building, and he caught a whiff of cigarette smoke. He turned to see the smoking man standing on the deck, in the shadows at the corner of the building. *Son of a bitch,* Skinner thought grimly. *How long have you been watching me?* "Interesting place," the smoking man said. He drew on his cigarette, and the ash went from a dusky red to a bright orange. Skinner held his silence. What was he supposed to say? *Glad you like it?* The smoking man gestured, the glowing ash describing a lazy arc toward Seawall Boulevard at the end of the dock. "There's someone I'd like to be introduced to," he said. "I don't know everybody on the island," Skinner said tightly. *And I'm not the social director.* "I'm sure you remember Agent Pendrell," the smoking man said, smiling. Skinner's head swiveled in astonishment before he thought to try to control it. *What the hell were Pendrell and Scully doing on the island?* He couldn't imagine. Yet there they were--just coming up the dock toward the club. The smoking man tossed his spent cigarette over the railing onto the beach below. "I would really like to make Agent Pendrell's acquaintance," he said. He lit another Morley. Skinner ground his teeth. The last thing he wanted was for the smoking man to get his hooks into Scully or Pendrell. On the other hand, maybe it'd be better for them if they could see the bastard coming. He inclined his head and led the smoking man toward them. **** Mulder busied himself, waiting Krycek out. He fetched ice for Langly at the bar, made an elaborate show of helping a waitress make change for a hundred-dollar bill. The Gunmen could run the place all by themselves, and usually did, leaving Mulder as the tuxedoed frontman for an operation that really didn't need him for anything but a symbol, a target for any trouble that cropped up. But he had an act to put on tonight. *I'm just running my club. Yessir, I'm way too busy for anything else. Got no time for any ee-legal activity, not me.* The front door got busy just then, as if fate had taken a hand and sent out some subliminal signal for twenty or thirty people to show up at the club right at that moment. Mulder knew better than to question a sudden turn of good luck. He just got to work helping Byers seat customers. But then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a familiar yellow flare, and despite his better judgment, he turned to find himself facing the smoking man, standing in a small knot of people waiting for tables. "Well, well," the older man said, smiling through a haze of gray smoke. "Mr. Mulder." Skinner stood at his elbow. Mulder stomped down his resentment of the smoker, clamped his teeth hard and asked the A.D., "Table for two?" "Four," the smoker said. He waved off to his left. Mulder turned around and saw them and went into freefall. Pendrell, his eyes wide, flushing deeply across the cheekbones. And beside him, Scully. Scully. Mulder felt gut-shot. As if the whole universe had suddenly canted thirty degrees off level and left him sliding downhill, flailing desperately for balance as the blood ran out of his head. Scully was dead, or at least she was supposed to be. Pendrell had told him she was, almost two years ago, and he'd had no reason not to believe it. But there she was, alive. As radiantly alive as ever. He drank her in with his eyes. She had let her hair grow--it hung down her shoulders, even longer than it had been when he had first met her seven years ago. And she was thinner than he remembered, as if she hadn't been eating well, which had only heightened the ethereal quality of her tiny, delicate features. Her eyes had gone wide, too, staring back at him. She looked every bit as stunned as he felt. Back in a corner of his mind, he was dimly aware of how the tableau must have looked to someone outside himself. He and Scully gaping at each other like two mesmerized lab mice; Pendrell clearly dismayed, bristling slightly and exuding testosterone like some kind of banty rooster prepared to drive off a rival. Skinner and the Cancer Man, clueless but fascinated. Oh, yeah. This was a classic moment, all right. Engrave this one on the old eidetic memory. Proof positive that the human condition was nothing if not absurd--as if he hadn't already been painfully aware of that. Skinner cleared his throat quietly. Mulder forced himself to breathe. How long had he been staring at her? "I think you're already acquainted with Raul Bloodworth," the A.D. said, inclining his head toward the Cancer Man. Mulder blinked. *Raul?* Who did they think they were kidding? He glared at the smoking man and said nothing. "And you'll remember Agent Pendrell," Skinner went on. *Yeah. I remember.* Mulder gave him a curt nod. "And my wife," Pendrell said, his tone a little strident. "Dana." His wife. Why yes, of course. That explained damned near everything. Mulder had known Pendrell had a crush on Scully almost from the first moment it had ignited, but he had never suspected the red-headed lab geek had the balls to clear the field for himself with a blatant, outright deceit. Mulder forced his expression and his tone into neutral. "Mrs. Pendrell," he said evenly, then glanced back at Skinner. "This way, please," he said, and led them into the club. Continued in Part 5. lochness@mindspring.com From lochness@mindspring.com Sat Apr 26 01:04:36 1997 Subject: REVISED: Letters of Transit (5/14 By Loch Ness From: Loch Ness -------- Letters of Transit (5/14) ***NC-17*** By Loch Ness Please do not repost to ATXFC. Already sent to Gossamer U.S. archive; OK to archive elsewhere or redistribute as long as Loch Ness is acknowledged as author and nothing of value is exchanged. ***Not to be entered in or nominated for any competition or award.*** Classification: T, RA Crossover references to the film *Casablanca* International readers: US4 spoilers. Rating: NC-17, for VIOLENCE, PROFANITY and (M/S) SEX. If you are under-age, please do not read this. See Part 0 for disclaimer, summary and introductory notes. *********************************************************************** Letters of Transit (5/14) By Loch Ness TWO YEARS EARLIER September 7, 1997 Washington, D.C. The Hoover building had an empty ring as Dana Scully walked through the halls. There were only two kinds of people left in Washington as the bees approached from the northwest--those who didn't have the resources to leave and those who had been ordered to stay. Scully fell into that latter category. She had spent the last four days helping the bureau pack up delicate pieces of forensic evidence stored at Quantico in preparation for moving the whole FBI operation south to the Carolinas. The bees had moved south from Canada, through the northern central plains and slowly southeastward, decimating everyone in their convoluted, seemingly aimless path. They were aggressive and deadly--Scully had never heard of anything that had the sort of 100-percent-guaranteed mortality rate these bee stings carried. They attacked in numbers, in swarms. They attacked anything that moved or made sound. Unlike honeybees, they didn't lose their stingers and die after striking, but could sting again and again. Over the last few months they had moved rapidly and inexorably through the Great Lakes states, then into Pennsylvania, and now were heading into West Virginia, toward to the capital. Latest projections showed the bees would arrive at the outskirts of D.C. inside 48 hours. Most of the government big shots were already gone, leaving their frightened staffs to ship office contents south or west and get themselves and their families out as best they could. The bureau was not quite as deserted as Capitol Hill--but at the moment most of its personnel were engaged in local functions like crowd control at the airport, at the port, along the highways. As the city had emptied out, those agents were being gradually transferred south. Scully had thought her partner, Fox Mulder, was in that same "essential personnel" category. But Mulder had pulled one of his trademark disappearing acts two days ago, leaving the basement office at Hoover virtually untouched except for taping up and marking the file cabinets for transfer, with a mere four boxes of miscellaneous stuff he regarded as important stacked on top of them. Scully had no idea where he had gone or what he was doing. She knew only that he had taken off--likely tilting at windmills somewhere--and left her holding the bag for packing up the remaining mountain of paperwork, photos, equipment and just plain junk that had mounted up over the years. She gave him credit, at least, for the fact that what he had bothered to pack was all of *her* things. Each day since his disappearance, Scully had hoped to come back to Hoover and find him down there. She had been disappointed each time. No answer at his home, "no service" on his cell phone, his parking space at work and at home vacant. No sign of him. She hoped Skinner wouldn't find out. He would've been likely to regard it as dereliction of duty. Scully doubted that was Mulder's intent--he had just chosen to interpret what his duty was according to his own rules. Fortunately, Skinner had been too busy to notice. So far. Tonight she opened the door to the office, looked inside at the mammoth task that still awaited, and decided she just didn't have the strength to do any more. What the hell--if the stuff wasn't that important to him, why should she care? She closed the door again and retraced her steps through Hoover's empty, echoing halls and went home. She didn't go past his place this time. He would come to her when he was ready, and it would only add to her frustration to drive by and see his car still missing. What she craved tonight was a moment of normalcy, of peace and quiet, however temporary or illusory it might be. A long, hot bath, maybe. An old movie in the VCR. Nothing too frenetic--maybe something gently humorous and optimistic, like *Singing in the Rain*. Yeah, that was what she needed. A little R-and-R, something to take her mind off things. **** Fox Mulder had been on the road for four solid days, driving to Ohio and back, only catching a few hours' sleep now and then, parked beside the highway and curled up on the front seat of his Buick. The last time he'd pulled over for a nap, he'd awakened to a Pennsylvania highway patrolman thumping his night stick on the side window, demanding to know what Mulder thought he was doing there. Didn't he know the bees were coming? Yeah. He knew. Now he was driving back into a Washington that looked more than ever like one tomb after another - Lincoln, Jefferson and tens of thousands of Joe Blows whose names weren't imprinted on any building but who nonetheless were leaving behind their ruins, monumental and otherwise. As he rolled along a deserted Rockville Pike, it occurred to Mulder that Washington, D.C., was a much safer place tonight than it had been in decades. He stopped off at his apartment just long enough for a shave, shower and change of clothes. He didn't have to check his answering machine to know that it held about a dozen messages from Scully, wanting to know where he was and what he was doing. He had no special desire to spend any extra time at home, and in any case, he meant for his stay in Washington to be brief. He would go to Scully, this time, despite his discomfort with the idea. He hated going to her place. Her apartment had the same shiny, newly minted neatness she fairly exuded. It held her smell, her clean, sweetly spicy fragrance, in its every corner. She smelled the way Earl Grey tea tasted--of warmth, of distant, indefinable flowers. And her place had a softness, a homeyness that one would never guess from watching Scully slice competently and scientifically into a mutilated corpse. There was nothing unfeminine about Dana Scully--her very breath spoke of femininity--but her home was *womanly*. Being there made Mulder sweat. It made his heart race. *It makes your cock hard, you testosterone-drenched schmuck*, he thought. That was the truth, of course. Just thinking about it was making him stiff. And he hated that. Not the erection itself, but the idea that what he and Scully shared really could be that simple. He and Scully were more emotionally and intellectually intimate than he ever would have believed possible between two human souls. He knew people who had been married for decades who had never *fit* together the way he and Scully did. Did he want her? Hell, yes. Who wouldn't? But he treasured the *special* nature of what they had, so much so that the loss of it was unthinkable, terrifying. To turn it into something sexual would've normalized it, made it susceptible to loss, in a way he felt bound to resist, to the extent that he could without driving himself mad. But of course, *that* was the problem, wasn't it? Trying not to go mad while the most delectable woman he had ever known stood so close to him he could hear her heartbeat, while she slept in the hotel room next door, when it would've been the easiest, most natural thing in the world just to reach out, to caress... *Knock it off.* He was torturing himself with it. *Fucking masochist.* Still, it was a more pleasant torture than most. He had a whole menu of things with which he might've tormented himself, and of them, sexual fantasies about his partner were by the far the least painful. At some level, he knew it wasn't his fault that the bees were poised to destroy the world. But he had known the bees were coming, and he had not been able to stop them. Hadn't been able to muster any support for any effort on the part of others to stop them. Just another one of "Spooky" Mulder's fantasies, oh-so-plausibly-deniable. But the moment the swarm had gone free, he had known it was over. The conspiracy had won. He didn't have any clear notion *what* they had won, but it was obvious things had gone well beyond the point where any normal solutions could apply. He thought of a message on his cell-phone's readout, from years ago: "ALL DONE BYE BYE." Yeah. That pretty much summed it up. Mulder had never felt so helpless, so hopeless. He had spent his whole life in an effort that clearly had been so futile it now seemed absurd. His work, his search for Samantha, his life--it was all going up in the smoky flames of Armageddon, and it didn't seem to him that there was a damned thing he could do about it. Worst of all, he couldn't seem to feel anything much about it. Nothing but a dim, numb fatigue that had seeped into his bones. He was still going through the motions of trying to do his work, trying to save what and who he could, but deep down inside, he did not believe his efforts meant anything or had any chance of success. There was nothing left now but the salvage operation, which might or might not work, and which, in any case, was more Scully's line than it was his. **** As Scully drew her bath, she found she couldn't help it, couldn't stop thinking about him, worrying about him. And the longer she worried, the angrier she became, furious with him and even more so with herself. It was so foolish of her to dwell on his comings and goings this way. He was an adult, and a highly trained, well-armed adult at that. Mulder was good at squeezing his own way out of tight situations. He always had been. He could take care of himself. She knew that. So why was she obsessing over this now? Why couldn't she just let it be? Why couldn't she worry about him in the sort of cool, detached way she'd worry about any of her other colleagues? She had always known there was something more between them than friendship, more than service camaraderie, more even than being partners. She would not have called that something love or even lust, but maybe that was just because those words felt so forbidden. Putting their relationship in those terms was dangerous. And what she and Mulder shared was already dangerous enough, for both of them. Nevertheless, whatever that "something" was, it certainly felt as powerful as either love or lust. He had become part of her, and she part of him, almost as if they had physically grown together, like Siamese twins. Nevermind that there'd been no actual, physical joining. Over the years Scully had begun to feel as if she had a missing limb when he wasn't there, and over the same period of time, slowly, the absence of that joining had begun to feel...well, unnatural. She hadn't wanted to take that step, and apparently, neither had he, because he had never made even a subtle effort to veer that direction. And in any case, the bureau bigwigs would've had a fit--some of them devoted a fair bit of time to looking for excuses to hammer Mulder. Give the OPC evidence that Mulder had pranged his partner, and some of them would have been turning cartwheels in the streets with joy. At the very least, she and Mulder would have been separated professionally, and that would have been agony. They both had too much invested in the work to have it disrupted in that way. But now the bureau was coming apart. The nation--maybe the world--was in the process of coming apart. Things were way beyond any concern about her career or his, and it seemed to Scully now that nothing stood in the way of taking that last step toward fusion except the thin air between their bodies. And God knew whether they'd have the chance if they waited. She sighed in resignation and turned off the water in the bath. She picked up the phone, dialed. Still "no service." She paced her living room, her plans for the evening abandoned. Damn him. Damn, damn, damn. The doorbell rang, and she jumped, startled out of her anxious reverie. One hand on her gun, she went to the door and peered out the peephole. It was Mulder. Scully let go of a long breath--half anger, half relief. She unlocked the door, just barely able to resist the temptation to drag him inside by the collar and beat the ever-loving shit out of him. "Hey," he said. His eyes had a manic glaze they got when he had been running continuously for far too long. She doubted he had eaten or slept in days. But his suit looked fresh, and he smelled of soap and shampoo--she'd never noticed any dandruff on him, but he used Selsun Blue like some kind of preventive talisman--he had come over right out of the shower. He flopped bonelessly down on the couch in a motion that telegraphed exhaustion and defeat. She was in no mood to let up on him just for a little fatigue. She stood over him like the school-teacher nun from hell. "Where the hell have you been?" she demanded. "I don't appreciate the way you dumped all the packing-up on me, Mulder--most of that shit is yours, and--" He waved her off. "Oh, forget all that." "Forget it? There's material there that relates directly to a number of active cases--" "None of that matters now, Scully." "Doesn't matter?" "By the time any of those cases could be brought to trial the perps'll all be dead. It's irrelevant unless we do something about the bees." The galling part was, this actually made sense. She ground her teeth. "You have a suggestion?" she asked dryly. "Not yet. But I've got something that might help us find an answer." He pulled a small glass vial out of a pocket and handed it to her. "What's that?" Before he could answer, she knew what it was--one of the bees. "It's dead," he said. "Sorry. I couldn't figure out how to get it back alive." Despite herself, she was impressed. "Where did you get it?" "Ohio." "Ohio?" God. The damnfool had gone right into the 100-percent fatality zone. "Just outside Columbus, to be exact." "How the hell did you manage to get in and out of Columbus, Ohio, without getting stung?" "I doused myself with gasoline, just like I did in Canada that time last year. Don't worry--I've had three showers since then." "That keeps the bees from stinging?" "At least temporarily. I didn't hang around long enough to test whether it would wear off." He retrieved a roll of 35-mm film from another pocket and handed that over, too. "You'll need to get started as soon as you get set up in South Carolina--maybe Pendrell can help, too. Speed things up that way, with two of you working on it." It occurred to her suddenly that he was turning this material over to her in a way that suggested *he* wouldn't be around to help. "Wait a minute," she objected. "What are you going to do?" "I'm going to Connecticut to get my mom." Absurd. He was nuts. On the other hand, it was also quite human and perfectly understandable. Scully had already shipped her own mother off to the Caribbean, where--she hoped--she'd be safe. "I don't think that's such a terrific idea," Scully said carefully. "The bees are getting closer every day, and--" "They're not heading for New England, not yet, anyway. And she can't get here by herself--she doesn't get around that well anymore." Scully sighed. His mother had made a miraculous recovery from her stroke; she was nearly as functional as she'd ever been. But Mulder had a difficult time seeing her that way. He kept picturing her in a coma. Scully understood, but all the same, she knew he was wrong. "All she has to do is take a bus to Massachusetts and get the ferry out to Martha's Vineyard," Scully said. "I don't think the bees can fly that far across the ocean, do you?" He blinked, considered this. "I don't know," he said. "What makes you think they can't?" "They went around Lake Michigan, not across it." He shook his head. "Lake Michigan is farther across than the distance between Cape Cod and the Vineyard." "Then wire her the money to fly down here. It's too dangerous, Mulder. What if the bees get here before you can get back? Then you'll both be cut off, and neither of you will get out." "Well, then, we'll both have to try for the Vineyard, or Nantucket." He was on his feet again, already heading for the door. She moved between it and him. "It's too dangerous," she repeated. "Mulder, she's a grown-up, and I doubt very much she'd want to see you endanger yourself on her account." He let his head drop forward in resignation, then lifted it again to look at her. "If it was your mom, what would you do?" He had her, there. She'd go--even if it meant the hounds of hell snapping at her feet. She sighed. "Will you at least stay the night and get some sleep first? Eat something? You're in no shape for this, and you know it." "I'm all right." "Bullshit." She stepped forward and took the lapels of his jacket in her hands. "I'm not letting you go until you get some rest." She had him cold, now--something about the touch had stopped him dead in his tracks, and there was a deep sadness, a loneliness in his eyes that caught her, too. "I can't stay here, Scully," he whispered. "If I do, I'm not sure I'll be able to leave. I'm afraid something might... Swear you won't wait for me. If it gets bad, you'll just go." She could see how tightly he was caught between his wish to stay and protect her, and his fear that he couldn't protect her if he tried. He hadn't been able to protect Samantha, or his father. That was the Mulder she knew so well she could almost read his thoughts--he spent his life wedged in a narrow chasm that was guilt on one side and terror on the other. Still holding onto his jacket, she lifted herself on tiptoe and kissed him. His mouth was warm, his lips soft, and suddenly he was kissing her with a passion that caught her breath. She hadn't planned this, hadn't thought it through, and she had a moment of panic. But then his long arms curled around her waist and she found herself unwilling to protest, transported by the sensation of his mouth on hers and her breasts crushed against his chest. *No more thoughts. No plans.* Just her fervent wish to know nothing, feel nothing but his flesh and her own. With one hand she let go of his jacket and reached up to twine her fingers tightly through his hair, to ensure that he could not pull away from her. Then she let her knees go limp so that her own deadweight dragged him toward the floor. There was no romance in it, no gentleness, just the two of them tearing at each other's clothes, and only the essentials at that - his trousers and shorts, her nylons and panties. Then fusion as he found her and penetrated. He was bigger than she had realized, and so hard...just having him inside was enough. She arched her back and came, came with her whole body, grinding against him, her own hoarse groans reverberating in the still room and inflaming her even more. Dimly she realized that he had held perfectly still for her, to keep from disrupting her orgasm, and she felt him trembling with the effort required. Then, just as she began to relax, he moved. His figure was so slim, she rarely thought of him as strong, but she felt his strength now as he thrust with a startling power, withholding nothing, all the force and intensity of him focused inside her. Scully gasped and met him with force of her own, eyes closed, aware of nothing but the fiercely sweet sensation of him moving inside her, driving into the hottest part of her center. He shuddered, and she came again. Through a haze of passion, she heard his animal howl of release. After a long, silent moment, she felt his lips graze hers, then his breath warm against her neck. She twined her fingers into his hair again, gently this time, and held him. Later, Scully would remember that afterward, his tie remained immaculately knotted, as if nothing unusual had happened. Continued in Part 6. lochness@mindspring.com From lochness@mindspring.com Sat Apr 26 01:07:38 1997 Subject: REVISED: Letters of Transit (6/14) By Loch Ness From: Loch Ness -------- Letters of Transit (6/14) By Loch Ness Please do not repost to ATXFC. Already sent to Gossamer U.S. archive; OK to archive elsewhere or redistribute as long as Loch Ness is acknowledged as author and nothing of value is exchanged. ***Not to be entered in or nominated for any competition or award.*** Classification: T, RA Crossover references to the film *Casablanca* International readers: US4 spoilers. Rating: NC-17, for VIOLENCE, PROFANITY and (M/S) SEX. If you are under-age, please do not read this. See Part 0 for disclaimer, summary and introductory notes. *********************************************************************** Letters of Transit (6/14) By Loch Ness September 8, 1997 Washington, D.C. She had gotten him into bed, after that, where he'd gone dead out like a light the minute he hit the sheets. Scully molded herself against his back and lay awake, not really thinking of anything, just soaking in his warmth, watching over him, worrying she might not have another chance to lie beside him and shelter him, take shelter from him. She knew he feared he couldn't take care of her. And he couldn't, of course, but then, she didn't want him to. All she really wanted from him was what she already had--the certain knowledge that he would fight like hell for her, never willingly let go of her, no matter what. Mulder's affection was hard to obtain, but once won, it was as unconditional as a puppy's. She had rejected him, insulted him, rebelled against him--hell, she'd even shot him--but none of that mattered a damn, because he had given her his heart and just didn't know how to withdraw that gift. He had never given up on Samantha, and he had never, would never, give up on her. She felt him go tense in his sleep, and her attention sharpened. He moaned softly. Dreaming, gripped by some nightmare. She stroked his hair. "Shh," she breathed. He stretched his spine like a cat, sighed, and settled back into slumber, the tension drifting away. Scully knew he was blaming himself for the bees' attack. He was thinking he ought to have been able to do something more to stop it. He hadn't said so, wasn't planning to say so, at least in part because he feared she'd take his self-recrimination to mean he was blaming her. For slowing him down, for arguing him to a standstill, for not believing him, for not having the same willingness to throw her life away in search of the truth. She thought now that he might've been right to blame her for those things. In retrospect, she wished she *had* done more to support him, had been more open to his views. So many times, he'd turned out to be dead right. He'd been dead right about the bees, that was for damn sure. But nobody had listened. She hadn't listened. Instead, she had read him chapter and verse on the Africanized honeybees that had moved up from South America into parts of Texas, pointing out that they hadn't meant the end of civilization. She'd accused him of having spent too much time watching *Them* in reruns on cable. And he'd been right, and she'd been dead wrong. All she could do for him now was give him her love and a warm, dry place to sleep and hope it was enough for him to cling to, despite everything else he was losing. Around dawn she finally dozed, lulled into sleep by the quiet, even rhythm of his breath. **** She woke to find him sitting on the bed, gazing down at her, dressed and ready to leave. He leaned in to kiss her, and she held him briefly, her arms tight around his neck. She let go after a moment; she could almost hear his muscles straining to hold the position. "Okay," he said. "Now you can call me Fox." She smiled and shook her head. "I don't want to anymore." "No?" "It would sound funny now. It's too late, Mulder--you're stuck with your surname." "Oh. Okay, good." He glanced away, his eyes darkly thoughtful. "You didn't swear," he said softly. "To what?" "That you won't wait for me." She put one hand over his heart. "I'm not going to have to wait for you, Mulder," she said. "You're going to get your mom and be back here in record time, and the three of us are going to get to safety together." "Swear," he said. "On one condition--" "No conditions, just swear." "--you e-mail me, the minute you get there, so I know you made it all right, and let me know when you're coming back." He sighed. "Okay, I can do that." She sat up, holding the sheet to her bare chest, and laid one hand gently along his cheek. "You do know that I love you," she said. His eyes were haunted, his mouth tight with anxiety. "I want to believe," he whispered. "What will it take to persuade you?" "If you don't wait for me. Then I'll believe." She kissed him. "Then you hurry back." He closed his eyes, and smiled. "I will." And then he was gone. **** By the time he passed Baltimore, the traffic was godawful in both directions, and it seemed to Mulder that every jerkwater town between D.C. and Boston must have put up a roadblock to stop drivers and check for bees. As if anybody who had bees in his car could drive. Mulder found that his badge eased his way, but still, every five or ten miles, the traffic would stop, would line up. Wait for a state trooper to check things out. It was aggravating as hell, and he had begun to worry that he wouldn't make it back in time. Maybe Scully had been right--maybe this whole idea had been a fool's errand. By the time he reached New York, he had begun to wish he hadn't come, to consider turning around. But hell, he was halfway there, now. The traffic heading south surely would lessen by the time he started on the return trip--by then, people who were going south would be heading *toward* the bees, not away from them. Few would want to do that. As he drove he reflected that twenty-four hours ago, he wouldn't have cared much whether he made it there and back or not. He wanted to get his mother out because it was the right thing to do, but his own survival had not been an issue. Twenty-four hours ago, he hadn't had Scully to get back to. To live for. In the moment when she had reached for him, the ice that had hardened around his heart at the bees' arrival had begun to crack and melt away. Somehow, they would survive whatever happened. If they had to find their way to some hot, dank, primitive corner of the world--hell, Borneo would do, if only they could be together. Or Antarctica, for all he cared. He could live in an igloo, he figured, eat dried fish. He could give up everything else--ESPN, Chinese food, Samuel Adams beer--only, please God, let him have Dana Scully's arms around him, and he would regard himself the luckiest son of a bitch on Earth. He didn't know whether to believe that she really loved him or not. It seemed improbable--could it really be true? The idea terrified him. He knew all too well how painful it was to love and have love snatched away, to have it go sour. Samantha had been snatched away. Phoebe, his father--those loves had gone sour. Scully's affection, in whatever form it took, had become so important to him he was sure he couldn't survive losing it. He would've forgone having her love him, if only it would mean she just wouldn't learn to hate him. All she had to do was tolerate him, and he would be content just to be near her. Still, if for once in his life the fates that controlled such things had finally seen fit to give him a break--God, could it *really* be true?--he was for-fucking-sure not going to argue about it. He would just love her, and thank every God man had ever conceived that she let him. **** Greenwich, Conn. Mulder found his mother locked up tight in her house, sitting in front of the television, chewing her nails and staring at CNN. "Get some things together," he said breathlessly. "I'm getting you out of here." He thumped his laptop down on the kitchen counter, near the phone jack, and began setting up to send Scully the e-mail she had asked for. "Fox," his mother started. "Move, Mom," he said. "Go. I don't have time to discuss it." "Fox, there's nowhere to go." He turned, too tired and frazzled and anxious to get back on the road to care what arguments she might put up. "Mother," he said sternly, "if I have to handcuff you and carry you out of here, I will." Her look was sad, helpless. "All right," she said meekly, and went upstairs to her room to pack. Mulder typed furiously, hit "send," then logged off and packed the computer up again. Only then did he turn to see what CNN was saying about the bees. The swarm was eighteen hours out of D.C. And part of the swarm had turned north, toward New York State. If they didn't hurry, they'd get cut off. **** Under normal conditions, he could've made it. But conditions weren't normal. Twelve hours later the roadblocks were still up. This time the state troopers were warning people not to go south, and the last time he got stopped, just south of Trenton, N.Y., his badge didn't do him any good. "My orders are to not let anyone pass," the trooper said from behind his mirrored sunglasses. "I'm sorry, sir, but it's for your own safety." Mulder noticed National Guard trucks a thousand yards away. Soldiers with M-16's on their shoulders. He decided not to argue. He'd pretend to play along. He'd find another road. If he could get on I-76 heading west, he could hook back up with the 95 into Maryland just west of Philadelphia. Beyond this point, surely, there'd be no more traffic, no more blockades because there'd be no one to man them. He nodded at the trooper. "Thank you," he said. He turned around, and started looking for a way to get on another highway. When he finally wound around and got to the interstate, it was blocked only by a "Road Closed" barrier. He got out of the car to move the obstacle out of the way. But then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something dark moving along the horizon. "Shit," he murmured, suddenly afraid. He had seen that gray shadow before--it had chased him out of Ohio. The bees. He was too late. **** They turned again. Went north, this time. According to the car radio, the swarm was right behind them all the way. Remembering what Scully had said about the bees not being able to cross large bodies of water, he headed into Rhode Island, then to Massachusetts. Three times he stopped to try to call or e-mail Scully, but he couldn't get through. Phone lines jammed or dead; cell phone no help. Finally, he did get an e-mail through to the new North Carolina office, with all the files he had on what he knew about the bees attached, the subject line asking somebody to please deliver the material to Scully or Pendrell. Just in case he didn't make it, he wanted somebody to have that stuff. When they finally reached New Bedford, Mulder knew they'd never make it around the peninsula to Woods Hole, where the ferry to Martha's Vineyard sailed. They'd have to go straight to Nantucket. Another state trooper told him he'd have to leave his car--they were saving the space to try to get as many people aboard the ferry as possible. Mulder had been driving for thirty-six hours. He was exhausted, and he would've agreed to anything that would get them away. He shouldered his mother's bag and led her onto the crowded deck. He stood at the railing, desperately fighting nausea, as the ferry lurched out into Buzzards Bay. He looked longingly at the Elizabeth Islands as they passed, about thirty minutes later, and then at Martha's Vineyard, beyond. But he reminded himself that Scully had figured the bees couldn't go as far as the Vineyard. Surely they wouldn't make it to Nantucket. The freighter had pulled clear of Martha's Vineyard and pushed on for about ten minutes when the bees struck. Mulder heard them before he saw them, and at the sound, he grasped his mother's hand and headed below decks. But it was already too late. Before he'd gone more than two or three steps, the sky went dark with them, and everything seemed to turn to noise--the insects buzzing, voices shrieking in agony, the sickening thud of bodies striking the wooden deck. Mulder tried to ignore it, tried not to hear or see anything. He kept pushing forward, toward the hatchway. If they moved slowly but steadily, if *they* made no noise, if they could just get inside, then maybe... The first sting hit him right in the face, just above his left eyebrow. For a moment, it was just a bee sting, maddeningly painful but with no other obvious effects, and he kept going, intent on forcing his way to the hatch. Then he was stung again, and it hit him--every muscle in his body went into a vicious cramp, and he just managed to draw one shuddering breath before he doubled over in agony and fell. His mother called his name, her voice sharp and fearful. She screamed. He tried to reach out to her, but his body would not cooperate. His muscles all had knotted, his spine curled until he was sure his bones would break with the strain. He felt his mother fall beside him, but if she cried out or groaned, he couldn't hear it over his own hoarse, tortured grunts. **** Sometimes it was dark, and sometimes light, but Mulder had no idea whether the time that passed was measured in days or hours. He didn't know anything but misery. He writhed on the rough deck, jerked about by muscle spasms like a broken puppet, his head exploding. Violent bouts of nausea, retching so hard he thought his guts would burst out through his throat. Miserable thirst, alternately afire with fever and racked by chills. He was incapable of voluntary motion. He could only lie in whatever position his twisted muscles would allow. He could heave and sweat and shiver. His eyes were swollen shut, and even if they hadn't been, he didn't want to see, didn't want to know. He could smell the death around him, a smell that had become all too familiar to him in course of his work. Mulder was not comforted by the fact that the symptoms he was suffering had proved him right, yet again--he had thought there was a connection between the toxin in the bee stings and the black cancer he had encountered in Siberia. What good did knowing that do him now? Each time sleep claimed him, he went willingly, hoping it would be for the last time. The only thing he had the strength left to want was to be dead so that it would finally be over. God, why couldn't he just die? **** He woke to a sound like endless, roaring thunder, and for the first time, he did force his eyes open. He was looking straight up at a painfully bright, blue sky. He saw the ship's superstructure looming above him, and it seemed to split and waver in shimmering, fragmented shards of splintered vision. A huge shadow crossed him, and then he saw what looked like a gigantic red and black insect hovering, its wings whirling above it. A blast of hot wind hit him hard. *Get away.* Without thinking, ignoring how much it hurt, he crawled away from the huge, roaring bug. Then suddenly he was falling, and he hit the water below. It hurt. Oh, God, it hurt. The surface of the water had felt as hard as concrete. And it was cold, and the cold set off another paroxysm of cramps. He couldn't swim, and he gasped in pain, sucked in a mouthful of water. He was going to drown. In his head, he was laughing--it was so ludicrous. After all this, he'd just up and fucking drown. Something grabbed him. For a moment he got his head above the water, and he saw the huge red insect still poised above him. A figure with dark eyes shadowed behind a face plate had hold of his arm. He tried to struggle, but he couldn't. The pounding in his head was worse. He coughed and gagged, and then it was worse yet. Then there was nothing but blackness and a roaring, and then there was nothing at all. **** When he woke again, he was in a hospital. His head still hurt; he hurt all over, but not as much, and though his mouth was dry, he no longer felt thirsty. He wondered how much water he had swallowed when he went overboard. Something stung his arm, and with a terrible effort, he turned to look. The motion made his head hurt and his vision go fuzzy. The man standing beside him had punctured the inside of his elbow with a needle, drawing blood. Vaguely familiar, this man. Mulder fought to focus his eyes, clear his gray, dusky vision. He knew this man, but he couldn't make his brain work. Red, slightly curly hair. Freckles. Mulder tried to speak. In his head, he was saying "who are you?" but the sound that came out of his mouth was more like "huhhh..." The red-haired man looked up, eyes wide in surprise. "Agent Mulder," he said. "You're awake." *In a manner of speaking.* "Uhhh..." Mulder got out. The red-haired man withdrew the needle, then came closer. "You're in a hospital in North Carolina," he said. "You're going to be all right." The combination of proximity and the voice did the trick. Pendrell. It was Agent Pendrell. "Haaw..." Mulder focused, cleared his throat, tried again. Half-croak, half-whisper, he managed, "How...how is that...possible?" "I don't know. We're running some tests to try to find out." "Uh...okay." He frowned suddenly. "Ssss..." It was so hard; why was it so hard? "Sss-scully," he said. Pendrell glanced away, his fair skin coloring slightly. "Have you been exposed before, to the toxin in the bees' sting?" He had. The "black cancer" in Tunguska had produced almost identical symptoms, and it killed people, too, though not as many, not as instantly, as the bees. "Buh...black cancer. The files I sent. Where...where's Scully?" Pendrell looked at the floor. "Are you sure it was the same substance?" He knew it would hurt, but he didn't care. He forced his arm up, forced himself to grab Pendrell's wrist and grip it with whatever strength he had. "Sss-scully...god...dammit." "I'm sorry," Pendrell murmured, not looking at him. "I don't know what happened. I just don't know. I heard she didn't make it out of D.C., that's all I know." Mulder let his hand drop nervelessly onto the blanket, let his head fall back, his eyes close. He'd known, from the way Pendrell wasn't looking at him, but still it was a shock. Like a gunshot to the chest. She had waited for him. And died. Gone, all of them. Scully, too. Everyone he'd ever really loved dead or gone. Samantha, his father, his mother. Scully. His throat constricted painfully, and his eyes burned, and he realized, as if from a great distance, that he was weeping. That did not matter, of course--nothing did now. God, why hadn't he just died? Continued in Part 7. lochness@mindspring.com From lochness@mindspring.com Sat Apr 26 01:08:54 1997 Subject: REVISED: Letters of Transit (7/14) By Loch Ness From: Loch Ness -------- Letters of Transit (7/14) By Loch Ness Please do not repost to ATXFC. Already sent to Gossamer U.S. archive; OK to archive elsewhere or redistribute as long as Loch Ness is acknowledged as author and nothing of value is exchanged. ***Not to be entered in or nominated for any competition or award.*** Classification: T, RA Crossover references to the film *Casablanca* International readers: US4 spoilers. Rating: NC-17, for VIOLENCE, PROFANITY and (M/S) SEX. If you are under-age, please do not read this. See Part 0 for disclaimer, summary and introductory notes. *********************************************************************** Letters of Transit (7/14) By Loch Ness TWO YEARS LATER July 21, 1999 Galveston, Texas - The Casablanca Club Mulder led Skinner, Cancer Man and the Pendrells to a four-top table near a window. *Nice view. Only the best for the happy couple and the evil government minions,* he thought bitterly. "Have you a moment to join us?" Bloodworth asked, very correctly remaining on his feet while Pendrell just as correctly pulled Scully's chair out for her. Mulder hadn't seen manners like this since his last visit to the Boston Yacht Club. It left him feeling as if he'd been transported into a real-life Sartre short story. *Next thing you know, we'll all be singing *Auld Lang Syne*.* He ground his teeth again. He didn't want to join them--he wanted to get the hell away from the lot of them and never look back. But it would make Pendrell uncomfortable if he did sit down, and he figured the little shit deserved at least a moment of discomfort. What the hell. Mulder smiled. "If I wouldn't be intruding on federal business, I'd love to." "Ah, yes, I'd heard you were...pursuing other interests. Well, this is purely social." *Bullshit,* Mulder thought. *You have even less social life than I ever did.* He appropriated an empty chair from an adjacent table and sat between Skinner and Pendrell. Where he could get an unobstructed view of Mrs. Dana Pendrell. She was keeping her cool, on the outside at least, but there was a tension in the way she held her mouth that he recognized as meaning she was feeling awkward as hell. She was wearing a beige suit with a mustard-colored shell under the jacket, the familiar tiny gold cross at her throat. Reddish-brown lipstick immaculate on her perfect mouth, as always. Suddenly she looked straight at him, her azure eyes pinning him like a laser beam. "How have you been?" she asked. The warm, low sound of her voice stopped his heart for a moment. He breathed carefully, trying to release the sudden constriction in his chest. "I'm still on my feet," he said lightly. "You?" "I'm fine." What she always said when she wasn't. A waitress appeared, and Bloodworth ordered champagne. Then he turned to Scully. "I heard you had some trouble getting out of New Orleans," Bloodworth said. "There was a misunderstanding about our clearances," Scully said. Mulder heard a note of stress in her even tone--it had been more than a misunderstanding. "Nothing Mr. Skinner can't clear up for you, I'm sure." Mulder saw a muscle flex along Skinner's jaw. "I'm sure we can work something out," the A.D. said tightly, "if you two wouldn't mind stopping by my office in the morning." *Jesus,* Mulder thought. *Sit, Walter. Roll over, Walter. Good Walter. Lick his fucking face, why don't you?* "Sure," Pendrell said. "No problem." The waitress came back with five glasses of champagne, set them down one by one. "How long are you planning to stay in Galveston?" Bloodworth asked pleasantly. "We haven't really made any decisions about that," Scully said. Bloodworth nodded and sipped his champagne. Nobody else was drinking. "It can be difficult to get away," he said knowingly. "What with the blockade. Don't you agree, Mr. Mulder?" Bloodworth knew about Georgia, and he wanted Mulder to know he knew. Mulder shrugged. "It's not impossible to get by the blockade." "But of course you need a boat." Bloodworth gave Scully a slantwise look. "I'm afraid on inspecting yours, we discovered it had been damaged. Badly holed. It was already sinking when we went aboard to examine it." Scully's look was venomous--it told Mulder there'd been nothing wrong with the boat when she'd left it. "How lucky for us that you discovered that when you did," she said. "I haven't tried it myself," Mulder said, "but I'm told if you have the right equipment you can go across the causeway and over the mainland to Colorado." He turned the stem of his glass on the crisp table cloth. "There are still flights out of Denver to L.A.--even to Honolulu--if you can just get as far as Denver." "Well, of course, those flights are reserved for movement of essential personnel," Bloodworth said. "Which leads us to the question of how the SEB defines 'essential,'" Mulder said, allowing himself the sarcasm. "Just what is that definition these days? Mute alien-hybrid clones only?" Bloodworth laughed. "I'd forgotten about that vivid imagination of yours," he said, smiling. "What a sense of humor you have!" Mulder grinned back at him. "Well, we are revisiting old times, aren't we? Don't worry--despite the fact that it's all quite true, I'm not delusional enough to expect that anyone will believe it." "Actually," Bloodworth said, then he stopped long enough to light another Morley and exhale a plume of smoke in Skinner's general direction. "I think it could be argued that Mr. and Mrs. Pendrell are essential personnel. How is that antivenin coming along, anyway?" Scully started. She hadn't expected Bloodworth would know what she and Pendrell were working on. Despite himself, Mulder felt his left eyebrow rise a notch. "We haven't perfected anything yet," Pendrell said, frowning down into his glass. "But we're making progress." "Well, now. That's certainly encouraging news." Skinner got to his feet suddenly. "Excuse me," he said softly. Mulder knew he must have spotted Krycek, but he also knew better than to turn and look. He left it to Scully to notice what Skinner was doing. She didn't disappoint him. "My God," she said. "Is that Alex Krycek?" Now he turned. Krycek strolled through the front door and took a left turn on the deck that extended out a few feet from the building, and disappeared from sight. A moment later he was back in view, now running, with two of Skinner's men hot on his heels. He lunged toward the railing, trying to leap into the water, but the two cops caught him before he went over. He shouted, and struggled, but they had him. "Huh," Mulder said. "What do you know? I think it *is* Krycek. Looks like he's got himself in trouble again." "He has a talent for it," Bloodworth said, his tone cold. "What do you suppose he's done now?" Scully asked. Mulder shrugged. "It's Krycek--could be anything from murder to panhandling." "Does he come here often?" Bloodworth asked, his look suddenly penetrating. The feds had Krycek handcuffed and were leading him off the dock. "I don't recall him ever having been here before," Mulder said. He saw Skinner heading back toward the table. "But then," he went on, "I generally don't have time to socialize with the guests. Speaking of which, I'm afraid I'm going to have to excuse myself, too." He got up. "Much as I've enjoyed this, I have a business to run. Oh, and nevermind about the check--it's on the house. My pleasure." "I think we should be going, too," Pendrell said, rising to his feet. "So soon?" Bloodworth said. "We've had a long trip," Scully said. "We're tired. But thank you both--it's been a very pleasant evening." "I'm glad you enjoyed it," Mulder said. He stood back out of the way while they went past. "Please come again." To Skinner, Scully said, "Is there a particular time you'd like us to come by at the office?" "Mid-morning's good," the A.D. said, his face unreadable. "We'll be there," Pendrell said, and then he took Scully's arm and led her off. "Mr. Mulder," Bloodworth said. His tone was soft, underlain by a hint of steel. "I hope you're not thinking of doing anything rash to help them leave the island." "What makes you think I'd do that?" "It's said you have helped some in the past--paid their passage, arranged their transportation. Naturally I assume you may have an understandable affinity for your former colleagues." Mulder gave him a cold smile. "Mr., uh...*Bloodworth,*" he said, "if I knew how to get off this island, do you think for a moment I'd still be here myself?" "Wouldn't you?" He let the smile die. "The bees flew from Cape Cod to Martha's Vineyard. They'll be here, too, before long. You know it, and I know it. The only thing I haven't figured out is just what you and your army of speechless drones intend to do with the wreckage after it's over. I confess it's beyond me what you could gain by reducing North America to roughly the cultural and technological sophistication of the Bronze Age." Bloodworth smiled. **** Scully and Pendrell walked down Seawall Boulevard toward their hotel in silence. The concrete seawall itself, erected to guard against the storm surge from a hurricane, dropped off steeply toward the smooth, sandy beach. The nightly curfew was two hours off, and there were still a fair number of people walking or lounging along the street and on the beach. A half-moon threw a glow on the surf as it rolled steadily, quietly up onto the sand. Some small part of Scully's mind registered that it was picturesque--she might even have called it beautiful, if she had been capable of caring about anything that far off in the distance. "Are you all right?" Pendrell asked, his voice low. "I'm fine," Scully lied. Her emotions stewed, simmered. She dared not lift the lid, for fear they would boil over. Mulder was alive. How could he have been alive and not come back to her? Come looking for her? Why would he do that? Had she meant so little to him? No, that was impossible. She'd had his heart, his soul, in her hands. He had *given* them to her. And yet, he had not come for her. Had she completely misread what he had meant when he had asked her not to wait for him? Was that possible? *Don't wait for me. Then I'll believe.* No. She had known exactly what he meant. She had not misread it. Although he had not explicitly said so, he had been just as much in love with her as she had been with him. What in God's name could've happened in Connecticut that would have so transformed him? It had been clear from looking at him that he was much changed, and not just two years older, not just the three or four strands of silver hair she'd noticed at his temples. The Mulder she had known had worn his heart on his sleeve. He'd been an open book to her, so easily readable she could almost hear his thoughts in her mind. He'd been mercurial, moods spanning the whole range from manic energy to quiet grief to vitriolic moral outrage. Cool of nerve, but never cold of heart. He might not have been a hero in the usual sense, but he had been possessed of a heroic passion. The Fox Mulder who owned the Casablanca Club seemed devoid of any passions at all. The look on his face when he had seen her had been profound astonishment--but there'd been nothing else she could read in it. No embarrassment or horror or affection or pain. Just surprise. Only once during the evening had Scully noticed the smallest glimmer of the old fire in his eyes, when he had come back at Bloodworth: *Just what is that definition these days? Mute alien-hybrid clones only?* And then, as if the tiny flame were a candle, he had simply blown it out, and it was gone. She couldn't understand it. It was completely unlike him. He might be physically alive, but it was clear something inside him had died. She did not want to see him like that. They reached the hotel room and went in. Scully sat numbly on the end of the bed. Pendrell said, "The man in the lobby downstairs said the freighter to Mexico City leaves on Saturday." She nodded. "The sooner the bettter," she said. **** Mulder took his run every night after the bar closed, while the Gunmen cleaned up the club. He went out in plain defiance of the island curfew; it was too damned hot to run during the day. He did his five miles down and back on the beach, dodging the milky-white, gelatinous blobs of Portuguese men-o-war washed up on the sand. The little jellyfish had a nasty sting even when dead and were best given a wide berth. The thunderstorms off in the distance had dissipated after sundown, leaving a clear, cool, humid sky. In the last two years he had spent a lot of his time learning to block out thoughts of the past--if there was any coherent lesson in his life, Mulder figured it was the futility of trying to change his own history. He had spent--wasted, as he now calculated it--most of his life in an effort to undo or correct his own past. To get Samantha back so that things would be right. It hadn't worked then, and it wasn't going to work now. As he ran along the beach, he tried valiantly to focus on nothing but the mechanical, enervating rhythm of his feet on the sand. Just running. Breathing. Futility again. The more he concentrated on other things, the more *she* intruded on his thoughts. Every time he thought he had pushed her aside, his eidetic memory yielded up another mental image. The play of light like dancing flame on her hair. The crisp, competent grace of her movement as she had sat down at the table. Seeing her had, yet again, melted the ice he'd been using to numb himself. He wanted to shove the mind-pictures away, as a child might reject playing with a cat who had once scratched its hand. The past couldn't be repaired. He had gone to New England. He hadn't been able to get back. Pendrell had said what he had said. Mulder had not checked it out on his own. And now it was too late. It was done, and wishing would not undo it. He sensed that the near future held something nasty, though he couldn't predict what it might be. A bad patch in his life loomed ahead, and the last thing he needed was something that would make him vulnerable. He was vulnerable to Scully, sure as hell. No solution to that problem loomed immediately on the horizon, so he went back to trying desperately to concentrate on running. To watching out for the men-o'-war on the beach. He wasn't surprised to see Skinner waiting for him outside the club when he came back. "A little past your bedtime, isn't it?" he asked the older man. "We didn't find the couriers' documents on Krycek," Skinner said. "Tough break. You want a cup of coffee? Sounds like you've got a long night ahead of you." He went inside, Skinner following. Mulder shivered a little at the contrast as the air conditioning hit the bare skin on his face and arms. The A.D. slung his jacket across the bar and loosened his tie. Mulder went behind the bar and scooped coffee beans into the grinder. "Did he give them to you?" Skinner asked. "Krycek hasn't given me the time of day in years." He ran the grinder, its harsh whine loud in the empty club. "That's not what I asked you," Skinner said, when the machine went quiet. "I don't know what 'them' you're talking about." "You've become a very adept liar. And don't tell me you didn't lie to Bloodworth about not knowing how to get off the island." "I've always been an adept liar," Mulder said. "I just used to have better reasons to tell you the truth. As for Bloodworth, I don't like the fucker. Never have. And what my plans are is none of his business." "Are you thinking of giving Pendrell and Scully the letters of transit so they can get off the island?" "What letters of transit?" Skinner smiled. "The ones Krycek gave you." Mulder sighed heavily. "You want to search me, Walter? You want to search the club? You don't even need a warrant these days--I couldn't stop you if I wanted to. Go ahead. But they're not here, because I don't have them, because Krycek didn't give them to me." "Bloodworth doesn't want Pendrell and Scully to leave the island." "He made that pretty clear. You want to tell me why?" Into Skinner's sudden silence the coffee maker gurgled and exuded steam. Mulder shrugged. "They made it this far without my help. Why should I stick my neck out?" He poured coffee for both of them and slid a mug across the bar toward the A.D. "I always thought you were in love with her," Skinner said, stirring his coffee. "You were mistaken," Mulder said coldly. But he heard the harsh note in his own voice--too harsh, and he knew Skinner had heard it, too. "Prove it," the A.D. said. He laughed. "I haven't seen her since '97, and she married somebody else." "That doesn't mean you're not in love with her." Skinner wasn't buying it, and Mulder yielded to the inevitable. "Okay, so I wouldn't kick her out of my bed just for eating crackers. So what? I can't give her paperwork I don't have. And if Krycek had any emigration papers with him, he didn't offer them to me." "Uh, huh," Skinner said, unconvinced. "Look, I didn't kill those guys on the causeway. And Alex Krycek and I are not friends. I didn't know Pendrell and Scully were coming to the island, and I have no plans either to assist or interfere with them." There was a silence, Skinner avoiding Mulder's eyes. Finally, Skinner said softly, "Pendrell's very close to developing an antivenin for the bee stings." "Good for him. What's that got to do with me?" "You're the guy who ran the blockade with a cigarette boat full of Malathion six times--you tell me what it has to do with you." "Nothing, that's what. Public service is your line of work." Skinner's turn to sigh. "I'm sorry to hear that," he said. He sounded tired, suddenly. "I was hoping you had those letters and might be willing to devote them to a good cause." He looked up, and there was a heavy sadness in his eyes. "You used to be the kind who'd fight for the chance to do the right thing." Mulder nodded. A cold anger gathered in his chest. Who the fuck did Skinner think he was, coming across with this self-righteous crap? "Yeah," Mulder said. "I was. And all it got me was a reserved seat down in the same sewer with you and Krycek." Skinner's jaw went hard. "Sorry to bother you." He picked up his jacket. "Don't give me that," Mulder said, his anger boiling over. "There's damned little evidence you'd know the right thing to do if it bit you in the ass--you're still doing that smoking bastard's bidding." Mulder leaned toward him and let his voice go low. "You've got one fucking nerve asking me to trust you. Your idea of doing the right thing has always been to get me to smash myself up on the rocks doing it for you. Not this time, *sir.* If you want to help Pendrell and Scully get off the island, go ahead." There was a hard silence, both of them glaring at each other. Mulder broke it, backing off his belligerent stance. "*If* I had the letters and *if* I wanted to give them to Scully--neither of which is true--you'd be the last motherfucker I'd tell." He picked up his coffee. "And that's all I have to say." "Okay," Skinner said. "I deserve that. But the time's coming when it's not going to be so easy to turn your head." "Bullshit. There's nothing easier than turning your head." Mulder took his coffee and went toward the kitchen. "I learned that from you, Walter." He stopped and turned just before he stepped through the double doors. "Hit that light switch before you leave, will you?" Continued in Part 8. lochness@mindspring.com