=====o======================================================o=====

"Zurvan" by Mary Ruth Keller 

E-mail: mkeller@universe.digex.net

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Chapter IX - The School of Hellas (Disclaimed in Chapter I)

-----o------------------------------------------------o-----

"For Athens alone of her contemporaries is found when tested
to be greater than her reputation, and alone gives no
occasion to her assailants to blush at the antagonist by
whom they have been worsted, or to her subjects to question
her title to rule by merit. Rather, the admiration of the
present and succeeding ages will be ours, since we have not
left our power without witness, but have shown it by mighty
proofs; and far from needing a Homer for our eulogist, or
other of his craft whose verses might charm for the moment
only for the impression which they gave to melt at the touch
of fact, we have forced every sea and land to be the highway
of our daring, and everywhere, whether for evil or for good,
have left imperishable monuments behind us."

         Excerpted from Pericles' Funeral Oration, as  
         recorded by Thucydides in "The Peloponnesian War"

-----o------------------------------------------------o-----

Eastern Airport
Athens, Greece
Tuesday, March 24, 1997
3:48 pm

Fox Mulder pushed past a boisterous family of Turks and through
the glassed-in double entrance-way, whose automatic doors were
never clear long enough to roll completely closed. After forcing
his way through three traffic circles and six blockages for
unknown reasons, he had ditched Max's tiny Renault where several
other drivers had their vehicles, in an ugly knot close to the
international baggage pick-up exits. 

He glanced at the numbers scribbled on the sheet in his hand, then
up at the closest Arrivals monitor. He frowned as he
transliterated the Greek characters he saw there, then set off
through the crowds for the gate where his partner's flight was
scheduled to arrive in the next fifteen minutes. 

As he expected, the door through which Scully was due to appear
was locked and abandoned, an island of stillness in a swirling,
colorful, noisy sea of human activity. Mulder waded through the
crowd to the check-in booth, then reached over the counter to
shake the attendant, who was counting receipts while perched on a
battered stool. The physical contact had the man glaring
uncomprehendingly at the crush of travellers.

Mulder leaned in. "Do you speak English?" 

The blue-suited ticketing agent nodded. "How may I help you, Sir?" 

Mulder ducked his head, <Stock phrase. We'll see.> then continued.
"When is flight 1036 due to land?" 

The attendant, whose fingerprint-obscured brass name-tag
identified him as "Nicias", blanched at the unhesitating authority
in the American's tone. "It's already here." 

Mulder frowned. "Then what's the problem?"

Nicias pushed his black curls off his forehead. "May I see some
ID, Sir?" 

Mulder dug in his jeans pocket to flash his FBI badge. 

The attendant stepped down off the stool, then out from behind the
booth. Nicias stood close to the dark-haired agent, who had to
bend down to speak with a man almost as short as his partner.
"Mister," the attendant gestured to see the badge again, "Mulder,
are there any other FBI agents on the flight?" 

Mulder shifted closer to him. "There should be one, my partner,
Dana Scully. Why? What's wrong?" 

Nicias relaxed visibly, then pulled Mulder down by the shoulder.
"Is your partner a doctor?" 

Mulder pressed his palms against his knees to keep from toppling
forward in his hunched pose. "She's a forensic pathologist, but
her skills with live patients are quite up to date, thanks to me.
What's wrong?" 

Nicias nodded. <He's legit, then.> "She was traveling on the same
flight as one of our ministers of state. He's had a heart attack,
and Doctor Scully treated him. We're waiting for an ambulance to
arrive before we open the doors." 

Mulder straightened, scanning the crowds for anything resembling
an EMT team. "I don't see anyone." He bent over Nicias. "Do you
think I could get on the plane? Or at least speak with her?" 

Nicias shook his head. "Minister Askoras is partially responsible
for international security, Sir, and with the Olympics coming up,"
he waved at the crowds pressing in on them, "we don't want this to
be generally known." 

Chewing his lower lip, the agent nodded. 

Both men turned when they heard a siren blaring from the corridor. 

Mulder glanced down at Nicias. "So much for secrecy."

The attendant responded by rushing to the gate while flipping
through a ring of keys. When he pulled the door aside, a cluster
of flight attendants, one pushing a thick-chested, florid-faced
man in a wheelchair and wearing an oxygen mask, shoved through. 

Mulder waited until the group passed. Bringing up the rear was
Scully, pale and tight-lipped, her carry-on bag dragging on the
carpet as she walked. He could see the bandages on her arms and
forehead from the explosion, so touched her shoulder when she
brushed by him. 

Expecting it to be her partner, Scully glanced up. She mouthed
"Get my other bags" before she trotted towards the cart with the
flashing light, shouting at the milling crowd. She and the flight
attendants were issuing their admonitions in Greek.

Mulder's lips stretched into his lopsided grin. <I'll bet you
memorized that phrase as you were running down the walkway,
Doctor.>

As she was swallowed in the crush of people, Mulder narrowed his
eyes at her back. The glazed expression, dark circles, and lines
on her face spoke volumes as to her own physical condition, but he
would deal with that later. He headed down the corridor away from
the noise and confusion. There, he joined a flow of more relaxed
arrivals, who were preparing to begin vacations or conduct normal
business. 

                            --o-0-o--

Waiting while the Minister was loaded into an ambulance, Dana
Scully placed one hand against the wall, closing her eyes while
she allowed herself a break. <Why this? All I wanted to do was
check that Mulder was all right, find a cheap hotel, then get some
rest.> Her shoulders drooped for a moment, then, as a reporter
approached, she pulled herself into her professional stance. 

A microphone materialized under her nose. "Doctor Scully, when did
the stroke occur?" 

Grasping the wire mesh sphere, she lowered the microphone so she
could speak. <English. Good.> "We were over the Atlantic, about
mid-way into the flight, when Minister Askoras began suffering
from shortness of breath and chest pains. He's remained lucid
throughout, suffering no paralysis, so I diagnosed cardiac arrest,
not stroke. He's been on oxygen since within minutes of the
occurrence of initial symptoms." She rubbed the back of her neck.
"I'm sure you'll obtain more information from the hospital
physicians after he's checked in and examined in a proper clinical
setting."

The reporter, her sun-bleached hair almost as red in spots as
Scully's, persisted. "But could this be an attempted poisoning,
rather than mere heart failure?" 

Pushing one hand at the microphone, Scully forced the idea away.
"On a flight like this one with only simple medical supplies at my
disposal, I couldn't begin to diagnose the cause of the distress.
You'll have to take it up with the hospital and the Minister's own
physicians." She tried to pull free. 

The olive-skinned woman had taken her by the arm. "So you can't
eliminate the possibility of an assassination attempt?" 

Scully tugged loose. "I can't discount any possibilities. As I
said, take it up with the hospital." The woman's stubbornness
brought an gentle up-curve to the agent's lips as she thought of
the man waiting for her at baggage claim. "Good Day." Scully
forced her way back though the crowds, ignoring the shouted
questions behind her. 

                            --o-0-o--

A suit bag and duffle weighing down his right shoulder, Mulder
scanned the passengers riding down the escalator to the baggage
claim. A black-haired man of medium build in a dark grey suit was
just stepping off the top landing when Mulder spotted his partner.
She was wedged between two Norwegian brothers halfway through the
descent of the creaky moving stairs. When he was sure he had
caught her eye, he patted his hip twice before walking past the
bottom landing. He moved purposefully against the flow of
passengers, who were progressing slowly towards the luggage
carrels. Once out of sight of the man in the grey suit, he ducked
into an alcove. 

Apologizing, Scully passed between the broad-shouldered blond men,
hopping off the moving stairs while she was still a step or two
from the ground. Indulging in one of their favorite pastimes, the
pair followed the diminutive, slender red-head with their clear
blue eyes. Grey-suit had hurried down the metal steps when he
realized he was losing sight of her. But a shove on the back of
one of the Scandinavians earned him nothing more than two broad
smiles and a stout clout of his shoulders for his mis-perceived
good taste. 

Mulder shrugged off the bags while she detoured around the far
side of the escalators and a large group of Iranians. He kept his
eye on the landing area for the moving stairs, but Grey Suit must
have chosen a return trip to try to watch from the upper levels
again. At a single tap to his right shoulder, he spun, pulling her
towards his alcove, out of the main flow of pedestrians. Once
there, he used the cover of greeting an arriving friend to
encircle her shoulders with his arms. <Two months!> Content merely
to hold her in silence, he felt her tense as his hand touched
padding on her back.

Frowning, he traced the outline of a square of gauze on her waist.
"Scully, what's this?" 

"Just a souvenir of the explosion, Mulder. It's not so bad." 

He shifted his fingers away. "Oh."

Grateful for the momentary respite, Scully relaxed against him.
"I'd tell you not to fuss, but it's too late." 

He grinned into her hair. "Yeah, right. Other than mementos you
don't want to talk about, you OK?" 

Stepping away, she nodded. "I will be. Right now, I'd just like a
few un-stressful hours of sleep to catch up." 

Knowing how hard it was for his partner even to admit that much,
he tightened his fingers around her arms. "I'll see what I can do,
Doctor." 

Relaxing her stiff shoulders, she sighed. "Thanks."

After a pat on what he assumed was an undamaged section of her
back, they moved out into the stream of passengers, Mulder tugging
her by the arm towards the Customs area. Once processed and
outside, she reached for her suit bag, but he shrugged and pointed
towards the car. "Max has an apartment here in Athens. It makes it
convenient when he or Mom have a late flight in from Santorini." 

Neither of them gave any signal that they noticed the grey-suited
figure watching them from the doors as Mulder slid her bags in the
trunk and she settled in the passenger seat.

                            --o-0-o--

Apartment
Omonia District
Athens, Greece
Tuesday, 4:51 pm

Mulder and Scully stood in a poorly-lit hallway outside a
weathered pine door. Like the other buildings clustered against
it, the apartment house could have stood a few coats of whitewash,
and a thoroughgoing replacement of the terra-cotta tiles in its
roof. 

Four tiny holes at her partner's eye level were the only evidence
to Scully of a numbering scheme, but at least the deadbolt lock
was shiny and new. She wondered if her paranoid partner had
purchased it yesterday upon his arrival to meet her. <No, then
he'd have to *install* the thing.>

Since Mulder had adamantly refused to let her carry her own bags,
Scully made herself useful by lifting the keychain from her
burdened partner's pocket. "This is the apartment?" At his nod,
she searched the thick batch of keys, checked that the
manufacturer's name on the cleanest matched the one on the lock,
and threw back the dead-bolt. They ducked in as a noisy group of
students passed them.  

Scully took a moment, once she was inside, both to rest her stiff
legs after the climb and to survey the sparely furnished interior.
Clear, bright Mediterranean sunlight flooded in through deep
windows on the west and south wall of the central space. <Without
the light and with more clutter, something this small would make
me as claustrophobic as did crouching under that table for hours.>

Mulder took a long moment to watch her appraising the apartment
before he commented quietly. "I'm glad he didn't splurge on this
place, too." 

She focused up at him, noting that he wore his dark, intense face
that always masked his innermost feelings. <I guess he really did
miss me.>

Mulder carried her bags into the single bedroom with Scully close
behind. He set the duffle on the wicker trunk at the foot of the
bedframe. Lacking a headboard, a raft of pillows were propped
against the wall, and a simple distressed pine nightstand nestled
against the right side of the bed. Since the bedspread was a faded
tan, the blue pads on a green wicker chair, carefully positioned
in the center of a red and white rag rug, provided a splash of
color. "Yeah, this isn't a really great neighborhood, but it's
close to the subway and train stations. You feel like a shower or
something?" 

She stretched both arms over her head. "Sure. When can we head out
to Santorini?" 

The rattan creaked as he dropped into it and propped his feet up
on the trunk. "Tomorrow or whenever you feel like it. There are
nine flights a day to the island, and just as many cruise boats." 

She was tugging a clean pair of shorts out of the duffle.
"Cruise?" 

He grinned. "Yeah. It takes a little longer, but after that
flight, I thought you might want to avoid planes." 

Nodding, she stepped towards the bathroom. <You don't know,
Mulder.> "Thanks." 

                            --o-0-o--

Apartment
Omonia District
Athens, Greece
Tuesday, 5:32 pm

Mulder edged the temperature lever on the one window air
conditioner down a setting as his partner emerged from the
bathroom. She had changed from her tan pantsuit into canvas shorts
and a form-fitting grey FBI T-shirt. He touched her back. "You
want me to take care of this?" 

Patting her hair dry with a towel, she shrugged. "In a while. With
all the traffic, and you having to drive like a wild man as
everyone else in this city seems to, I couldn't ask about your Mom
and Max." 

Smirking, he tugged her towards the balcony. "They're OK. Your Mom
has really settled in, Scully. If she could, I think she'd move
out here, too." <She'll find out the rest soon enough.> He slid
the glass door aside, waiting while she stepped through. 

Draping the terrycloth over the rail, Scully smoothed out the
wrinkles, adjusting the fabric until the two end seams were level.
"I see why Max wanted this apartment. The view of the Periclean
ruins from here is fabulous." 

Closing the glass door to lean against it, Mulder, aching with
relief at the sight of his partner, counted the bruises down her
arms and the backs of her legs. <What really happened in that
explosion?> He blinked. "Yeah. It's great." Checking his watch, he
stepped up beside her. "Just keep your eyes peeled, Doctor." He
set out two wood and canvas chairs, one for each of them. "Take a
seat." 

"Thanks." She rubbed her temples idly while she watched the sky
glow red and gold. The last rays of light changed the few clouds
on the horizon from white to green to a luminescent azure.
Finally, they faded to a deep midnight blue, slightly lighter than
the rest of the sky. A few stars winked through the haze of the
city.

Mulder reached over to brush her knee with his fingertips. "Watch
the Acropolis." 

On the heights of the mount that held Phidias' masterpiece, the
normal low illumination of the glory of ancient Athens was
replaced by a brilliant display of lights, the spare blocks of
marble glowing rosy and incandescent. 

Dana Scully gasped, then her lips morphed into their full-wattage
smile. 

Mulder had been waiting for this moment. But her unabashed delight
had him beaming ecstatically, grateful that despite whatever
disagreements they might have, there were a few loves they shared.

The five minute show finished, the temples went dark, and Scully
sagged against the undyed canvas. She looked over at her partner.
"You knew that was coming, didn't you?" 

Gleeful, he nodded as he moved to stand beside her.

Tipping her head back, she arched one eyebrow. "Did I react like a
proper tourist?" 

Resting his hand on her shoulder, Mulder bent over to whisper in
her ear. "Don't feel bad. It blows me away too." He lifted his
palm away to stare at her waist, the tease falling from his voice.
"Scully, you're bleeding."

Unconsciously, Scully twisted around to try to see her back while
she poked at the spot. She rubbed her fingers together. "Oh, I
guess I am." 

Mulder knelt in front of her to grasp both her shoulders. "I think
we should step inside." <I won't ask. She'll be fine, even though
she's not.> 

Rising, Scully studied her partner's darkening irises. <I'd better
let him help me with this, or I'll have to put up with no end of
fussing.> Reaching back at the last moment to snatch the towel,
she stepped away. After a moment's consideration, she allowed him
to lead her gently into the bathroom by the wrist. "I moved my kit
to the duffle." 

Blocking the doorway, Mulder raised his finger to the tip of her
nose. "Stay." 

She mouthed a silent 'arf' in gentle protest.

When he returned, he was carrying a tan polo shirt of his. "You'll
need to change. Loose clothes won't get so soiled." He set the
garment on the toilet seat, waiting for her to make the next move.

Scully pulled her T-shirt off, exposing her oldest, softest sport
bra, then closed her eyes. <Here it comes.> 

He shuddered sympathetically at the blackening patterns dashed
across her ribs and waist. <Where can I touch her? No wonder she's
been wincing as she walks.> His hands traced the circumference of
the worst, an irregular oval around the gash at her waist. The
bruising extended up across her shoulders and down her arms.
Suddenly he felt a frission of fear, vague and unfocused at first,
then settling in the pit of his stomach. The damage was all too
familiar. <This is what I looked like after Dad...> He forced his
mind back to the present, unaware that he had wrapped both hands
around his partner's waist to massage the flesh gently.

She felt his fingers moving rhythmically, heard a soft gasp. <Oh,
Mulder, I'm not that fragile.> Her voice cold with exhaustion, she
hastened to reassure him. "It looks worse than it is." 

Mulder carefully removed the gauze, forcing himself not to exclaim
again. The line of stitches along her waist was puffy in places,
stressed by the bending and twisting while attending the Minister.
"I hope so, Scully." His voice dropped to a whisper. "Two inches
to the left and it would have severed your spinal cord."

Searching to distract him, she turned her back to the mirror. "Do
you have..." 

He stepped into the bedroom, returning with a small rectangle of
silvered glass. "Sorry, this is the best Max left." 

Nodding, she held it up to her right. "OK. None of the stitches
have torn. If you'd apply the antiseptic salve in the kit, I think
it'll be fine." 

Mulder poked through the contents of the bag, finally holding up a
green tube. "This?" 

As Scully braced herself against the wall, her head dipped once.
"Hum."

He set the red-topped lever all the way to full on, waiting until
the water steamed to wash. Once clean, he extruded pungent lotion
onto his fingers, then applied it lightly to the stitches.
"There." Cleaning his hands on the towel, he leaned around to look
in her face. "You haven't been prescribed some antibiotics you're
not taking, have you?" 

Leaning against the wall, she thought of the pill she had crushed
on the plane. "No. It's not deep." 

After restricting himself to a single disbelieving snort, he cut
and set the cotton in place, finishing taping quickly. "What about
your arms?" 

Scully shrugged, not bothering to look down. "In a while." 

Tipping his head to look her in the face, Mulder caught her wrist
again. "Are you sure? These are almost as bad as the coyote
bites." 

The auburn-haired woman closed her eyes. <I just want to sleep.
Just a few hours. I can't deal with your fears yet, Mulder.> She
sidled up to her partner, leaning until she felt the front of his
untucked black shirt rubbing her bare arm, waiting for his sharp
intake of breath before she replied. "Yes." 

Mulder perused her squared shoulders, the corded muscles in her
neck, and found his concerns for her deepening. He knew if he were
just any man and she any woman, to be alone in a seedy apartment
in Athens, she in a state of undress, would be a set-up for a
scene like many he had on his videotapes. But this was Scully, who
would use a joke and a pat on the arm to reassure him, to
reestablish their connections, strained by absence. It hurt him
deeply that she was using physical closeness to push him away like
she was. "OK." He stepped around her to pass her the shirt. <We
aren't finished here, Scully.> 

As she lifted her eyes to his, the attempt to offer a small grin
faltered, so she simply stated. "Thanks." <Maybe I'll be allowed
to rest now.>

While she slid the shirt on over her head, he replaced the
supplies and tucked her kit under his arm. <She's exhausted, but
she won't let me help.> 

She tried to step through the door, but when he blocked her way,
she gazed up at him. <I guess I have no choice but to deal with
his fears.> "Mulder, it's really OK." She lifted both eyebrows.
"Really." 

Holding her shoulder, he bent over her, refusing her the easy out
of a quip or a facetious leer. "No. It isn't. I want," he closed
his eyes momentarily to tamp down his fear and guilt, "I want to
know what happened to you, Scully. I was half a world away while
my partner was trapped in an explosion of a government complex."
He dropped his hand. "You show up, looking like this," he ran his
fingers down her bruised arm, "and tell me not to worry. Don't do
this, Scully. We can't afford secrets between us, not when it's
only you and me again." 

She pulled herself up straight. "I'll tell you, Mulder, just," she
glanced at the floor, "can we have some dinner first? I haven't
eaten since," she checked her watch, "yesterday." 

Mulder lifted her chin with his finger. <You don't have to be
strong all the time, Scully.> He sent her a sad little grin.
<Avoidance. I wonder who taught you that.> "OK. There's a place
around the corner that's open all night. Fresh bread and
vegetables, just for you." 

While he set the kit on the trunk, Scully rested against the
doorframe. "There's not that much to tell, Mulder. The
investigation was still underway when Skinner sent me off." She
reached into the duffle to retrieve a battered hair-bristle brush
with a cracked wooden handle. "I'll just be a minute." She hurried
into the bathroom without checking his face. 

Mulder sighed. "OK." He moved her long bag to the trunk before
carefully repacking the contents he had shifted to find her
medicine kit. Ignoring the soft grunts he heard as she worked
tentatively on her hair, he passed into the living room. <This
definitely isn't finished. Something very serious happened while
we were apart.> 

She appeared at his elbow, waving her hand to dispel the concern
she saw in his eyes. "He figured I'd do more good looking after
you." 

Standing by the front door, now open, Mulder held his arm out.
"Remind me to send him a bouquet."

                            --o-0-o--

Trattoria
Athens, Greece
Tuesday, 9:13 pm

Andreas Demetrias, the grey-haired proprietor, a towel stretched
over black pants under a white shirt, pulled the chair aside for
Scully. He bowed graciously when she thanked him. Exchanging
pleasantries with the auburn-haired agent, he used the time to
study her freckled skin and green-blue eyes before turning to
Mulder. "Now, what can I do for you and your partner, Mister
Mulder?" 

The dark-haired agent glanced at Scully before replying. "Some of
your bread, and two large salads. One souvlaki." Smirking, he
leaned close to the waiter. "Make sure to set some baklava on the
table in about twenty minutes." 

Demetrias, well-padded from his own cooking, smiled knowingly.
"Very good." 

Scully arched one brow at her partner. "I heard that." 

Mulder narrowed his eyes at her. "You're too thin, Scully. You
haven't been eating, have you?" 

She shrugged. "Sitting in court all day, I haven't had time to
exercise, so I cut back on the calories." She leaned across the
table. "We've been followed." 

Mulder waited until the breads were out on the table to reply.
"The grey-suit at the far table? I know. It's the same one we
picked up at the airport. I don't want him coming back to the
island with us. Your Mom won't admit it, but she doesn't need any
more adventures." 

Scully took a long sip of her bottled water. "There's an outside
chance he's here as a result of the Minister, but, somehow, I
doubt it." She lifted one corner of her mouth. "Like Mom, at least
for a day or two, neither do I." 

Mulder regarded her cautiously. <There's far more to what happened
at the courthouse than I know. An 'Are you OK?' will get me
nowhere. But she won't refuse a direct question.> "Scully, CNN
didn't give many technical details about the explosion, but your
Mom and I sat through far too many horrific images." He wasn't yet
ready to tell her how little sitting he actually did. "All I saw
was you, covered in blood, pulling people out of the rubble. What
happened, precisely?" 

Scully tore one of the braided loaves apart, sesame seeds falling
from the crust to her plate. "You have to promise not to cosset me
after I tell you." 

He nodded. <Only as much as you'll let me get away with.> 

She dipped a piece of bread in the hummos on the table. "Whoever
set the bombs had plenty of time to rig the courtroom. At least
one must have been planted directly under Judge Richard's dais.
She and the court recorder were killed in the initial explosion,
blown to bits." Her face slanted into her autopsy mask. "After
this, there was a delay of a few seconds, just long enough for
people to come to their senses and try to run out the back."

Mulder's eyebrows drew together as he listened. 

Finding she had lost any interest in the food, Scully shoved the
plate away. "Stone, Saunders, and I crawled under the bench where
we were sitting." She shrugged. "It probably saved our lives.
Stone's so tall, he couldn't fit, though." 

Mulder nodded, having watched the angular, emaciated figure of the
former Federal Prosector standing beside his partner. If Scully,
in her heels, came only up to his chin, she had barely reached to
Jarred Stone's armpit. The brown-haired attorney, as distinguished
in his imported suits as Mulder felt rumpled, had taken to
conversing with his partner only while he was seated. 

Scully shifted around on the bench, her sore muscles complaining
of the lateness of the hour. "It was so sad. One of the roof beams
collapsed on the table, and poor Jarred's legs were pinned by the
concrete. He," she twisted the napkin, "he joked that you would
have the advantage in pick-up games for quite some time." Her
voice dropped to a whisper. "We have to be careful, Mulder.
Skinner agrees that the old man with the cigarettes has regained
power, or at least attracted more followers. The two agents
assigned to guard Saunders were actually assassins." 

Mulder leaned across the table, touching her wrist. "How long were
you under there?" 

She sighed. "About twelve hours. The men from the Consortium were
searching through the rubble, eliminating any witnesses they found
alive." She lifted one corner of her mouth. "Skinner isn't going
to let that rest. He promised to start an official FBI inquiry
into why there were deaths that were the result of gunshot
wounds."

"So, did Jarred make it?" 

Finding the energy for a tiny smile, she nodded. "All ten feet of
him. He's at Alexandria Hospital, Elizabeth bossing the staff
around right now." 

Mulder grinned. "That's a relief. Jarred's a good guy. He kept
bemoaning the fact that he wasn't twenty years younger and
single." 

Scully arched a brow at this information.

Mulder frowned. "Scully, there's more, isn't there?" 

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "One of the assassins
found us. I had to defend Jarred and myself." She twisted the
plate for a few moments before she looked up at him. "I didn't
have my weapon, so I had to improvise." 

He shifted to the planks beside her. "Whatever you did, Scully, it
was the right thing." He grasped her shoulder. "Don't punish
yourself for not being dead." 

She shrugged. "I'm not. Not really." Nervous, she propped her chin
up with her hand. "But, it's hard. Shooting someone in self-
defense, well, that's what we learned to do at the Academy.
Shooting an armed suspect who was putting others in danger," she
shrugged, "I've made my peace with having been placed in that
situation, too." The strange events surrounding the death of Jack
Willis lay, unspoken, between them. 

Mulder released her, giving her the space to gather her thoughts. 

She pulled away, crossing her arms over her chest. "It was pitch
dark and all I had was a broken table leg. I found myself thinking
over my old anatomy texts, planning exactly the spot to aim for
and the angle I would have to use to finish him quickly." She
pinched her eyes tightly shut. "I'm a pathologist. I should be
used to death." She shook her head, sternly setting her fear
aside. "It's finished. I've been over it in my mind and there was
nothing else I could have done."

"Ah." Moving back to his chair, Mulder considered whether to let
the matter rest, as she wanted. <No. Not about this.> "Scully, if
- " 

"I'm fine, Mulder." Her head was held high, her tiny chin set
firmly. 

He rested both hands on the red and white checked tablecloth to
stare down at her unyieldingly. "No, Scully, I won't accept that." 

She glared up at him. "Mulder, I'll deal with this in my own way."

He bent towards her. "No." When her lips parted to send out
another objection, he frowned. "Marines, firefighters, disaster
relief workers, go through less than what you did and get help,
Scully. If you had discharged your weapon in self-defense, you
*know* Skinner would schedule you for at least one session with a
Bureau therapist. And he'd rag on you until you went." He sank
into his seat. "Frankly, so would I. Sure, I killed Tooms, but
hand to hand combat with another human..." He shook his head.
"Look, I'll make *this* deal with you." He pointed a long index
finger at her. "You talk," he turned the digit back towards
himself, "I listen. My psychologist's skills may be rusty, but
they're entirely at your disposal." 

Her mouth twitched into a slight grin. "OK. Thanks."

Waving the disagreement away, Mulder glanced in the direction of
their tail. "He's not there." 

Scully flicked her eyes to the far table. "I guess he's assumed
we've settled down, so he'll probably track us when we leave." 

Mulder stared across the table. "What about Saunders?" 

Scully tore off bits of one of the steaming loaves. "He's gone."

Mulder's chair scraped across the floor as his frustration sought
release in fidgeting. "Gone?" He reached across the table to still
her hands, forcing her to look at him. "What do you mean, gone?" 

She shrugged. "I mean, he used the distraction of the explosion to
disappear. When I turned around after freeing Jarred, he was
crawling away through the rubble. After one of the slowest chases
you could imagine, I caught up to him while he was fighting with
the other assassin." She glanced at the empty table where their
tail had been. "The man was killed in a delayed explosion."

Mulder grimaced at the thought. "OK. So, where did he go?"

She shook her head. "He wouldn't say. Only that he was going into
hiding and would contact us later. He did mention something about
another player. It seemed obvious that there was no way this
second trial would have been brought to as successful a conclusion
as the first. So, that's about all, really. If you watched the
coverage on CNN, you probably learned more than I did." 

Mulder crossed his arms. "You didn't go to the hospital, did you?" 

Scully's jaw set. "I didn't have to, Mulder. I knew stitches were
all I needed, so I persuaded the EMT's to take care of that after
we had the last of the victims out." She shook her head. "Now, how
much of Saunders' debriefing could your Mother verify?"

Mulder studied her carefully. <Distancing me again, partner. This
has to stop.> "Eat, Scully, while I talk." He pushed the bread and
salad at her. "Low-fat and nutritious. Most of the vegetables come
from the garden plot we walked through." 

She nodded, stabbing a few tomato sections to chew while she
listened. <This *is* home-grown!> As her partner continued, laying
out the detailed analysis he and his parents had conducted, she
cleaned the last of the lettuce off her plate, and reached for the
bread. She consumed most of a loaf, dipping it in the still-warm
hummos while he talked. 

When he paused to gulp down a few swigs of water, she leaned
towards him. "This just verifies what we suspected at the
debriefings: Saunders was moved out of sensitive activities about
five years ago." 

He nodded. "And that they were purposely beginning to feed him
misinformation as well." 

Scully crossed her arms. "It's vital we find out something about
their present operations: who's in charge; what's the balance of
power with the Europeans and the Japanese; how far have they
ensconced themselves into Red China." 

Mulder nodded. "Yeah. But I want you to have a look at what we've
found first. If I've missed anything, you'll spot it." He dropped
his voice. "It may make more sense to you." He shook his head,
banishing the memory of her abduction, then nudged the plate of
honeyed phyllo towards her. 

Scully shook her head. 

Mulder assumed his best theatrical pout. 

Scully lifted her chin in firm denial. 

Mulder fell back to his weapon of last resort. Grabbing a fork, he
cut off a corner, speared it and munched noisily. 

Rolling her eyes, Scully sheared off the opposite corner and
licked it, then popped in the entire mouthful. 

Mulder spun the plate, grinning while he lopped off another
corner.

Not to be outdone, Scully tugged until the pastry was directly in
front of her, making a great show of measuring with the tines of
the fork before she hacked again. 

Mulder pulled the desert towards him, delighted that they had
regained some of their former ease in each other's company. 

They continued to steal the baklava back and forth, until only a
few green crumbs of pistachio lay on dots of honey. 

Scully leaned back. "Nuts that good should be banned." 

Mulder grinned. "I thought I was." 

She playfully tossed her napkin at him. "I see our friend is back.
He must have been reporting in." 

Mulder beckoned Demetrias to his side. "I'll take our bill." He
pointed to the far table. "And his, too." 

The grey-haired man nodded. "Very good, Sir." 

After they paid, Mulder sent a casual wave to the only other diner
in the open-air trattoria, then they left. 

Their disconcerted tail pretended not to notice. 

                            --o-0-o--

Apartment
Omonia District
Athens, Greece
Tuesday, 11:29 pm

Scully shuffled outside the door while Mulder fumbled in his
pocket for the keys. "We weren't followed?" 

Mulder pressed his hand into her back, then shifted it away from
the bandage. "Not so far as I could tell. But he probably knows
where we are right now." 

Nodding, she stepped into the room, feeling the light contact
persist. "I'm really here, Mulder." 

Leaning over her, he chuckled. "Let me be the judge of that, Agent
Scully." He locked the door behind them. "The sheets on the bed
are clean. Hope you don't mind goose-down." 

She tossed him a tired glance. "That sofa looks pretty light-
weight." 

A facetious leer prepared, Mulder stood over her, but the fears
within him blossomed, driving the trickster to the farthest corner
of his mind. He reached out, grasping her arms, rubbing them
gently with his thumbs while he gazed down at her somberly. "Yeah.
It is." He slid his hands to her back, pulling her against his
chest, enclosing her in the slender protection of his hold. "Not
that it bothers me too much." He leaned backwards slightly, easing
her weight off the tiny feet he had watched stumble while they
climbed five flights of stairs, and onto his own, that seemed
over-large by comparison. 

She twisted, both to encircle his waist and to lift her sore
shoulder above his grip. "It's OK, Mulder. I'll recover, better
than new." She rubbed what small portion of his spine she could
reach, caught as she was in his tight hug. <You've spent too much
time with Mom.> 

Stepping back to grasp her arms, he stared pointedly at the
stitches at her hairline. "Yeah. You will." 

Scully touched the gash. "Oh, this? I barreled into some rebar
checking if any of the prosecutors had survived the way we had."
She dropped her hand. "I never lost consciousness, but it really
scared Jarred." She stepped towards her bedroom. "You know how
head wounds bleed." 

Chewing his lower lip, Mulder retrieved a black wool blanket from
the hall closet. "Hey, Scully, wait." He followed her into the
bedroom, smoothing the cover over the spread after she moved her
duffle to the floor. "You'll need this. It gets cool here at
night." 

She looked up from the chair where she was untying her shoes.
"Thanks." Resting her arms on her knees, she studied his dark
eyes. "I missed you, Mulder." In the thin light from the night
lamp, she could see his face coloring, so she stood quickly,
crossing to stand by him. "Tight-lipped marines are no good with
the repartee." Touching his hand, she whispered. "And I haven't
had a good cup of Kenya in far too long." 

Mulder blinked at his partner. <It's really OK. She's really here.
I haven't lost her.> He turned his head for a moment, pressing the
heel of his hand against one eye before he wept openly. "Yeah.
It's not something they teach in basic training, I guess." He
closed the door quickly behind him. 

                            --o-0-o--

Apartment
Omonia District
Athens, Greece
Wednesday, March 25, 1998
12:03 am

Mulder dropped the pages of the report back onto its open manila
folder. After discussing it with Max, he had brought the
documentation on the Consortium with him, hoping to show it to his
partner. But when he saw how battered she was, he had hesitated.
Even though she would never ask for it, Scully needed a few days
of rest before he could launch them on any new chase. 

Max had taken him aside before he left, out of earshot of his
partner's dark-haired mother. They both agreed that Margaret
Scully was shell-shocked by the events of the past few months, so
the older man had hoped a few days of down-time would let her
settle.

Mulder slid off his glasses to rub his eyes. A brief phone call
before leaving for the airport had told him that the reports of
strangers on the island had not ceased when he had left with the
papers. He hadn't wanted to tell Scully, but it appeared whatever
their parents had accumulated had them under constant
surveillance.

Resting his head on the wicker back of the sofa, Mulder thought of
the woman sleeping just a few inches behind him. <I was afraid we
couldn't pick right up where we had left off.> After nearly two
months apart, his ever-present horror that he would lose his
partner had grown to nearly an obsession. They were cracking jokes
with each other as if the twin trials had never happened, but she
had cloaked herself in her familiar mantle of invincibility. <You
needed to be strong for the courts and the dissolution of the
section, but you can't keep it up forever, Scully.>

"No!" 

The cry brought him upright. 

"No!" 

Sprinting to the bedroom, Mulder found Scully curled in a ball,
hugging one of the goose-down pillows. <More abduction memories?
Or was the explosion worse than she had admitted?> He crossed to
kneel beside her. "Scully?" 

She released the bolster, stretching an hand towards the sound of
her name. "Mulder? Are you there?" 

The plaintive note to her voice made his breath catch. <For as
long as you'll let me help, Scully.> He rubbed her shoulder. "It's
over. You're safe." He desperately wanted to hold her again, to
reassure himself that she was really here, but he knew how easily
she startled while she was waking, so he waited.

As she came to herself, her knees traveled down the mattress,
adjusting to his presence. "Mulder?" She reached for the light.
"You're awake?" 

Once she rolled onto her back, he shifted up to sit by her. "Ah,
some things don't change, Scully." He dropped his hand to her
forehead. "You want to tell me the rest, now?" 

Scully pulled her ankles up so they could sit facing each other,
she with the covers draped over her crossed legs. She studied his
pale feet, tucked under his jeans, his firm grasp of her wrist.
<As if you could pull the facts out of me like taffy, partner.> "I
suppose. When I was leading the rescue crew through the rubble, it
kept shifting and settling from all the vibrations." She stared
down at the patterned rug. "The way back took longer than it
should have," she covered the back of her head with her palm,
"because there was a partial cave-in, and they had to dig me out
before we could reach Jarred. I was unconscious for about ten
minutes." She lifted her hand free to grip his arm. "Sorry about
earlier. It seems I've developed a fear of confined spaces." 

Mulder shrugged. "I couldn't begin to imagine why." He cocked his
head. "It's not triggering any further memories?" 

She pushed her hair behind her ear. "From my abduction?" Her
green-blue eyes shifted randomly as she struggled to recall. "I
don't know. I may have been concealed while I was being
transported." She shook her head. "I have no sense of that time,
only of the events in the warehouse." She slid out from under the
covers to head into the hall. "Is the water here safe to drink?" 

Rising, he followed her. He knew there was something she was still
pushing away, but that it would come out of her, soon. "No, I
stocked the fridge with plenty of Evian, though." 

Stepping into the living room, Scully glimpsed the papers strewn
on the sofa and floor. "You brought the documentation from your
Mom?" She knelt, shifting folders and flipping through pages. 

Mulder returned with a tall plastic bottle, holding it out for
her. "Yeah, I did. I agree the trail's old, as you said, but I
keep thinking I'm missing something." He sighed. "At least someone
who doesn't want to be identified thinks we know things we
shouldn't." 

Accepting the water with a slight dip of her head, Scully waited
while he settled beside her on the black slate slabs. "Well,
you're right, Mulder, some things don't change." She tossed her
hair, relieved to be on the hunt with him, rather than wrestling
with a pain too near to recall dispassionately. She glanced
pointedly around the room. "What, no slide show? I'm not sure how
to start an investigation without one." 

His eyes gleamed. "Not this time. At the house, though..." 

She lifted a photo from a stack close to her, showing a young girl
in a plain muslin dress, pulling weeds from a small vegetable
garden. "This is Sam at the Kibbutz?" 

Mulder nodded. "Looks like the squirt actually had to do some
honest work." He studied the print with a one-sided grin. "She
hated getting dirty at home." His long fingers trailed over the
shape in the image, then he placed the glossy paper back on a
folder. 

Scully touched his arm. "It's like you've found some of the
missing pieces, anyway." She shifted closer to him. "Tell me what
you think this means, Mulder." 

Blinking away tears, he nodded. "Yeah. I feel I'm catching up with
her life, little by little." He opened another folder, removing
several large ruled blue cards. "It seems she got all the math
genes in the family." He pointed to a list of grades, A's in
arithmetic and geometry, B's in Hebrew, and a C in History. 

Scully took the sheets from him, studying them carefully. "But her
marks improved while she was there. It must have just been the
initial dislocation." She passed the cards back. "It appears she
was as bright as you are." 

Mulder leaned away. "Ooh, a compliment from the Enigmatic One.
That blow to the head must have addled your wits, Doctor." 

She slapped at his shoulder playfully. "Go on, Mulder, I don't
think I'll be sleeping much tonight, anyway." 

Assembling a haphazard stack of papers, he grinned. 

                            --o-0-o--

Apartment
Omonia District
Athens, Greece
Wednesday, 6:36 am

The first rays from the sunrise illuminated Scully's arms, setting
the freckles there in stark relief to her skin. She blinked at the
light streaming in through the window. "Morning already? It seems
like I just got started." 

He had shifted to the wicker seat to watch her work on the floor.
"Yeah. It looks like it is. So, what do you think?" 

Scully closed the folder on her lap. "I'm not sure. It's like
there's something tugging at my memories in all these," she waved
at the fan of papers, "but I don't see it just yet." She moved up
onto the green and white striped cushions of the sofa. 

Mulder stretched his feet out in front of him. "Maybe if you take
a break, it'll come to you." 

She looked over at her partner. "Perhaps. It's not like we don't
have a city full of distractions for us to use." 

Grinning, he stood. "Ah, I knew my charms wouldn't be enough to
keep you here. After I hit the shower we'll take in some sights." 

Scully twisted around on the cushions, stretching out the length
of the couch. <How did he sleep on this? It's barely long enough
for me.> "You know, it might work to our advantage to keep our
tail off-guard." 

Cocking an eyebrow, he bent over her. "Yeah." He shifted a curl
off her forehead. "Share, Doctor." 

She interlinked her fingers on her stomach. "I think I should pay
a visit on my airborne patient." 

He crouched. "Make it look like you really do have something to
tell the Minister." He tapped his teeth with his thumbnail. "I
like it. Let me ponder while I scrub." He grasped her wrist while
he stood. "Don't move." 

Snorting, she shifted onto her side.

                            --o-0-o--

Apartment
Omonia District
Athens, Greece
Wednesday, 7:21 am

Mulder bounced out of the bathroom, rubbing his hair with one of
the thick towels Caroline had secreted into his bag. "Hey, Scully,
I..." Stopping short, he smiled to himself. <She needs this.>

His partner was asleep, as primly settled in repose as she ever
was in life. Scully had tucked both hands under her head, one palm
flat against the other. Most other women would curl up one leg,
leaving the other out straight, but not his Dana Scully. Both
knees were raised to precisely the same angle, one foot on top of
the other so she appeared to have a single lower limb. Only her
hair was flung about in wild disarray, but he suspected that if
she could order each strand, she would. 

That unerring poise of hers made her hard to sneak up on, but over
the years, Mulder had treasured the few times, like this one, that
he had. Now he just stood there, affection for his closest friend
and pride at her strength warring with the relief and guilt he
felt for depending on her so completely. 

Catlike, she had sensed his approach, so blinked herself awake.
"Mulder?" 

He dragged the chair over beside her and sat. "Yeah?" 

Scully pushed herself up on one elbow. "You have any brilliant
ideas while you were making yourself presentable?" 

Sliding onto the cushions beside her, Mulder dug a comb out of his
pocket to pull it through his own hair several times before
passing it to Scully. "Yeah, I have. I'll take the Consortium
documents with us in a bag. Max has the originals locked up
securely, so if something happens out there, we're only a few days
behind. If we can't figure out what our tail is really after,
we'll try splitting up and shadowing each other." 

Turning the comb around, she nodded. "See if he's after, you, me,
or," she pointed with the narrowed end, "those papers." She rose
from the sofa to stand in front of the mirror in the bathroom. 

Mulder followed her, leaning against the door while she combed her
hair, wincing as she worked. <Those dark circles are just as bad.>
He closed the distance between them. "Scully, if you need a break,
that's fine with me."

She shifted to face him. "I'll just be a minute here." 

Exasperated, Mulder reached up to take the comb. <The silent,
supportive routine is getting me nowhere.> "Stop this, Scully,
it's me, your partner, not Skinner, not a courtroom full of
attorneys. Just remember how many times you've patched me up. Fair
is fair."

Scully reached up to contain the fingers that had already begun
separating and smoothing her curls. "You promised you wouldn't
coddle me." 

He leaned close to her, whispering. "Did I? Deny everything, Agent
Scully. Besides, given what you've been through, I'd hardly call a
day or two of recovery coddling." 

Frustrated at her debility, she chewed her lip before she replied.
"I'm sorry, Mulder, these," she poked at her back, "are slowing us
down." 

He released a soft sigh. "No more than you being caught up in that
trial for weeks on end." Mulder clamped one hand down on her
shoulder. "Let me." 

Pushing his hands away, Scully brushed past him back into the
living room. <I'm not an invalid, Mulder.> Her arms rigid at her
sides, she paced, opening and closing her fists while she wrestled
with her anger. 

Standing by the sofa, Mulder watched her, waiting. "I mean it,
Scully. If you need a break, we'll stop." 

At his soft suggestion, she whirled, letting him read the
frustration in her eyes. 

He took a step towards her. <I'm here. Let it go, Scully.> 

Her lips drew into a thin line before she growled. "We can't stop,
Mulder, you know that." She stalked towards him. "Or is this just
the excuse you need so you can ditch your weak little woman
partner?" 

He clenched his fists, but kept silent. 

She stood just beneath his chin, her eyes boring into his. "Is
it?" 

He reached for her shoulders. "Scully, I'm past that. We separated
at your suggestion, not mine. It earned us some free exposure, but
not the whole truth."

She spun away from him. "Which you think is my fault, no doubt." 

Mulder stared at her. "Scully! Do you blame yourself for the
explosion, is that it?" He watched her pace. "You're just one
person. How could you have known something like that was coming?" 

Standing at the far end of the room, she hugged herself. "I should
have been more careful." 

Mulder dropped onto the thick cushions of the couch. "What do you
mean?" 

She waved a clenched fist in the direction of the bedroom. "Those
dreams?" 

He rose to take a step towards her. "Yes? 

Scully pushed her hair behind her ear. "This isn't the first time
I've had trouble with tight spaces." 

Mulder frowned. <A shout of 'Eureka' will shut her down
completely.> "Oh?" He kept his tone carefully neutral. 

She paced the length of the room and back before she replied.
"Ever since we've separated, I've been feeling trapped whenever I
was in a bathroom, or an elevator," she shrugged, "or even
selecting clothes in my own closet." <I can't tell him about the
other, not yet.>

Mulder waited. 

She held both hands up, palms towards him. "Now, I'm not one to
immediately think precognition, Mulder, you know that." 

He nodded. "That's never been how we've operated, Scully."

She frowned. "If it weren't for you, I would have called it a
hunch, or a suspicion working in my unconscious based on the past
behavior of the people we were dealing with." 

Mulder took another step towards her. "Yes, it could have been all
those things. True precognition is difficult to document, which is
why you and I have agreed on its existence so rarely." He extended
his arms out from his body slightly as he shifted towards her.
"You have confinement dreams for months, but nothing happens, so
you brush them off. Only in light of the explosion does this
'feeling' of yours seem to have a deeper meaning." 

She clenched her fists at her sides. "But whatever the feeling
was, I kept pushing it aside, just like you said." She stared at
the floor for a moment before she met his eyes. "If you'd been
there, I'm not sure I would have." 

Mulder gasped, submerged in the deep sadness washing over him.
"But I wasn't." He closed his eyes momentarily. "Were these
'feelings' becoming stronger or more frequent in the time just
prior to the explosion?"  

Hearing an angry buzzing in her ears, Scully rubbed her forehead.
"Looking back, I'd say yes, but I can't be sure. I didn't document
anything about what was happening to me. My memory could very
easily be..." 

Mulder's deep concern escaped in a sympathetic whisper. "You had
so much on your mind, Scully. The Section, the trials," he waved
at the papers, white on black stone, "helping me."

She nodded. "All the time we were trapped, I kept thinking: 'I
should have known. I should have seen this coming.' I replayed in
my mind, not only the past behavior of our enemies, but all those
moments when I felt confined." 

Mulder sighed. "You think if you'd paid more attention to your
intuition you might have been attuned to pick up some clue that
the courtroom was rigged."   

She nodded. 

Mulder closed his eyes. <That's why you're so angry with yourself,
Scully.> 

Before he could cross over to her, she punched the corner once
with her right fist. "After all we've seen, how can you trust me
as your partner when I let something like that slip by?" She
struck the wall with her left. "I've let you down." She gritted
her teeth, striking the plaster with her right fist. When she drew
her arm back, Mulder saw four red streaks on the wall. "I let the
Bureau down." He heard a crack as her left hand made contact
again. "I've given my brothers the ammunition they need to never
let me see my nephews again." Thump. "I let my Mom fall into
danger." Thud. "Nichols and Rosen had to go to the other side of
the continent because I wasn't able to keep them at Quantico."
Thump. 

Mulder frowned at this new information. 

"I've lost everything that matters because I wasn't strong
enough." Thud. "Smart enough." Thump. "Careful enough." Gasping,
she leaned her head against the wall. "You can't trust me to cover
your back anymore. You should get yourself a new partner, Mulder."

In two leaping steps, Mulder closed the distance between them,
hovering just behind her. "No." 

She turned to look up at him. "Yes, you should." 

Mulder grasped her wrists before she hit the wall again. "No.
You're all the partner I need. You've stood by me when I didn't
want it, covered for me when I never asked you to, dropped
everything to come and help me find Sam." Taking her by her
shoulders, he turned her gently away from the wall. "If you didn't
spot the bombs before it was too late, maybe it doesn't mean that
you're careless or a failure, Scully, maybe all it means is that
you're not perfect. Maybe it means you need a partner, too." His
hand on her elbow, he guided her to the sofa.  

Relaxing against the cushions, Scully's eye fell on one of the
images of Sam, her dark curls almost as short as her adult
brother's. "But looking for your sister is always so hard on you,
Mulder. You don't need to get caught up in my problems." 

His hands on his hips, he bent at the waist until his face hovered
just above hers, then queried in the gentlest of tones. "Since
when did the X-Files become your problem, Scully? I thought they
were ours."

She stared at him, waiting while the turbulence in her mind
ceased. <Do you think I was pushing you out of the Files? I only
wanted you to go find your sister. I only want you to be happy. We
do such good work together when you are happy.> One thought rose
above the noise, repeating until it drove all others from her.
<You called them *ours*. *You* called them ours. *You* *called*
*them* *ours*!> 

He settled beside her, glancing around the floor at the papers. <I
should never have left you alone, Scully.> "I appreciate your
concern, but this search for Sam isn't as rough as it once was."
He shifted closer to her. <Perhaps this will convince her to let
me help.> "You'd say we were a success running the section, you
and I?" 

She nodded. 

He lifted his framed print of his eight-year-old sister off the
floor to rest it in her lap. "If, with you working alongside me, I
could succeed in leading a group without it ending in disaster,
then I can follow this trail to Sam without falling apart." He
pushed her hair off the gash with his fingers. <Ooh. I didn't
realize how far that extended.> "I told you in July that if your
work on the X-Files was responsible for your family ostracizing
you, Scully, then I wanted to help bring them back to you."

She shifted towards the arm of the couch. "Mulder." 

Clasping his hands between his knees, he stared at one of the
folders on the floor. "I know when other agents look at the X-
Files, they think of them as 'Spooky Mulder's obsession'." He slid
towards her. "But I'm only half the team. If anything, these past
few months have let you shine, Scully, let the Bureau see, if they
were paying attention, how good you really are." He held her by
the back of the neck, surprised that she was trembling as he
spoke. "Let me offer you some free advice, for whatever it's
worth." 

She nodded. 

Mulder shifted the hand from her neck to her shoulders. "Don't
worry about me, the Bureau, or your Mom. Now is the time for you
to think about you. You need to put your life back together." He
slid his free hand under her curled fingers. "Rather than beating
on walls, perhaps you can do something a little more productive
with those fists." He moved the hand on her shoulder down her
spine to her waist. "If you can make me come to my senses by
knocking me around periodically, maybe that's what Bill and
Charles need as well." He bent close to her ear. "Brothers can be
pretty dense that way, you know." 

She leaned into him. "Oh. Is this the voice of experience?"

Feeling the last of the fight go out of her, he pulled her gently
against his chest. "Hum. When we find Sam, you ask her." As she
slowly wrapped her arms around his back, he rubbed her shoulder.

Letting the tears she had been fighting off with her rage fall,
Scully whispered. "I'm so tired, Mulder, and I ache. I'm
afraid..." 

He leaned away from her. "What are you afraid of? Me?" 

She shook her head. "I've been dizzy and nauseous on the plane. I
think I'm suffering from a mild concussion, but I knew I couldn't
stop until I'd checked on you. I just needed to know you're safe." 

Closing his eyes, he rested his chin gently on the crown of her
head as he rocked her. "I am now." He lowered his face to whisper
directly in her ear. "Don't feel like you have to shut me out
again, ever. Please?" 

Scully's hair caught in his stubble as she nodded. "I'm sorry,
Mulder. With the trial and all, I'd forgotten what it was like to
be able to lean on someone." She shifted away from him. "Are we
all square, you and I?"

He covered the cracked skin on her knuckles with his palms. "After
I take care of your lethal weapons, Sugar Ray, and you rest, we
will be. The games begin at the goddess' command." 

                            --o-0-o--

Apartment
Omonia District
Wednesday, 1:17 pm

Hearing a rustle from behind him, Mulder shifted to face the hall
entrance beside the sofa. "Scully?" 

She stepped into the sunlight, the blanket wrapped around her
shoulders. "It's me, the bad penny, back in your pocket." 

He set the folder he had been studying on the floor and crossed
over to her. "How do you feel?" He touched her hairline. "Do you
want to check into a hospital? I could call Max and have him set
something up?" 

She focused on the stones in front of her feet, her answer a
whisper. "No. I just wanted to sleep out here on the couch for a
few hours." She looked up at him. "If it wouldn't put you out. It
seems they're the only place I'm comfortable anymore." 

Relief flooded him as he guided her back to the wicker sofa.
"Sure. I wasn't sleeping anyway." He stepped into the bedroom to
pull a pillow off the mattress. 

She had tucked the blanket in around her while he was gone.
"Sorry. All those weeks I was home in Alexandria I realized how
much I missed the sounds of someone else moving around." 

He nodded. "I know. I missed," he glanced down at the coffee
table, now covered in notes, "I," he chewed his lower lip, "well,
let me just say I don't think your Mom sees me as suitable son-in-
law material anymore." He met her eyes. 

She held out one hand, waiting to speak until he sat beside her
and took it, sending his gratitude with his eyes. "Was it that
bad?" 

His face was shrouded in anxiety. "Not always. Just," he dropped
her hand to pull his ankles to his hips, "my Mom didn't know what
to do with me." 

She shifted closer to him, nodding for him to continue. 

He rested his chin on his knees, letting the stubble scrape the
denim. "It wasn't as bad as when I was a kid, Scully, because she
wanted to help after we heard about the explosion. Back then, it
was always the other way around." He shifted until his back was to
her.

Scully held his shoulder, wondering what it must have been like,
having to be the adult in the house when he was eight, or six. <Or
younger? He's trying to be strong.> "It's OK, Mulder, I want to
know." 

He glanced back at her. "She hugged me. It felt so good, like she
had forgiven me and that she really cared." He pushed himself to
his feet, agitated. "Oh," he touched his forehead, "I know up here
that she cares, that what kept us apart before was her pain, as
well as mine." 

Scully rose, letting the blanket fall away as she reached for his
chest, the thin cotton of his undershirt stretched tight over it.
"You needed to know down here." Her small hand rested over his
breastbone. "You needed to feel it." The torn skin over her
knuckles pulled as she closed her fingers into a circle. "Mulder,
I never thought that you two couldn't connect again, that you were
so far apart that the distance was uncrossable." 

His eyes shining, he was nodding at her words.

She licked her lips. "You both just needed a push to get started.
Max was it for her, and being able to search for Sam with hope was
it for you." 

Covering her hand with his, he shook his head. "No. Having your
friendship, your trust, was it for me, Scully." 

Shocked, she dropped back to the cushions. "You can't mean that,
Mulder. I've done nothing but fight you, argue with you. I've not
done anything to help you. How could I? I was thousands of miles
away these past months." 

"Scully!" 

She looked up. 

As softly as his eyes has held her, they blazed rage now. "Don't
say that! I wouldn't be here, or even alive, if not for you." He
plopped beside her. "You've given me so much, can't you see?" He
settled the blanket around her shoulders. "I've never told you
this, but when I thought you were dying at Georgetown, I
confronted X, who was trying to retrieve a sample of your blood.
He told me to grieve for you and move on. I told him I owed you
too much to just do that." He shifted around on the couch,
dropping his arms to his knees. "Compared to what we are now, back
then, we were only beginning to know each other's minds, to share
our thoughts. It all seemed so simple then, so straightforward.
But now..." He turned back to her. "Let me retire a little bit of
that debt, alright?"

Overwhelmed, her shoulders drooped. <I didn't know. I don't know
what to say.> She nodded, waiting while he tucked the blanket in
around her and adjusted the pillow.

He settled in the wicker chair. "Just take it easy, Scarlet." He
grinned. "After all, tomorrow is another day." 

                            --o-0-o--

Hearing a soft hunh, hunh escape his sleeping partner's lips,
Mulder smiled to himself. He'd listened to that sleepy grunt-sigh
of hers on countless stake-outs over the years. 

<Better than Jerry.> He grinned broadly at the memories. Jerry
Lamana had been a disaster on overnight surveillance duty. Upon
passing his watch off to Mulder, the blond man would drop into a
deep sleep instantly, then would regale him with long, musical
snores and loud arguments he would conduct with himself. It left
Mulder afraid they would be detected by the very people they were
supposed to be watching. 

A frown crossed his partner's face. "Hum. No. Not now." 

Leaning forward, he focused on her, waiting for more words, or for
her to awaken from the dream on her own.

Her eyelids fluttered up, revealing dark pupils aimed directly at
his. "Don't want to go to school, Mom. Don't feel good." Her
green-blue eyes were wide and unfocused, since she was speaking
from the world within her dream.

He smiled. <Not an abduction memory.> Crossing the room, he bent
over her, tucking her bandaged arm back under the blanket. "It's
vacation, Dana, school's been out for months. You don't have to go
to school during vacations." 

Still asleep, she nodded and rolled over, settling in with a long
sigh. 

Smoothing the hair off her face, he felt moisture stinging at his
eyes. <Not like Jerry, at all.>

                            --o-0-o--

Apartment
Omonia District
Athens, Greece
Wednesday, 3:12 pm

Mulder smiled at the sounds of his partner awakening. "Back again
so soon, Doctor?" 

She frowned over at him. "Mulder?" 

He closed the folder on his lap. "Right the first time." His grin
faded as she sat up. "You should rest, Scully." 

Shaking her head, she placed both feet on the floor. "I forgot."
She stumbled towards the bedroom.

Intrigued, Mulder followed her, stepping back from the doorway as
she barrelled towards him. "Whoa, what's that?" He pointed to the
envelope in her hands. "A present?"

Frustrated, she extended the packet towards him. "Pictures of the
adoptive girls we've been tracking." She led him back to the
images spread over the flagstones. "I'm sorry, I was too tired, or
I would have remembered them earlier. Byers finally persuaded one
of the agencies to express mail them to him last week, and he
dropped them off with me on Sunday. All those great pictures from
Mossad should have reminded me sooner." 

Mulder slid on his glasses to peer into the murky prints. "These
are the best the agency could do? These? It's a wonder any of the
girls were adopted, ever. They all look like ghosts." 

Slipping on her own glasses, she shrugged. "Sorry. They didn't
even want to release those. I can't tell you how many times I've
heard, 'Closed adoption means just that, closed.' followed by a
click." After he sat, she grasped the arm of the sofa to peer over
his shoulder. "Do any of them compare, at all?" 

He chewed his lower lip, then pointed with the eraser end of a
pencil. "Maybe her." He tipped the image to reflect less of the
direct light from the lamp. "Maybe. But I couldn't say." 

She took a seat beside him, folding her knees up to her chin.
"It's been so frustrating, this search. I thought the government
was good with the bureaucratese, well, let me tell you..." 

His eyes still scanning the photos, Mulder prompted, "Tell me
what, Scully?" He cocked an eyebrow at her. 

His partner's eyelids had fallen shut, once again. As he waited,
she drooped against him. 

Mulder found himself grinning broadly. <You give 'work till you
drop' a whole new meaning.> He spoke her name gently. 

"Murph." The eyes remained tightly closed. 

"Scully, you need to sleep." 

No response. 

Mulder shifted his arm behind her waist. While having her folded
like a piece of stationery against him was comforting, to say the
least, he knew it wasn't what she needed. "In a real bed." 

"Gurph." 

He smirked. "I'll take that as a yes. Do you want me to carry
you?" 

"Nar!" The auburn head snapped up so fast Mulder had to grip the
arm of the couch. Scully's progress towards the bedroom could best
be described as a cross between marching and swimming, each foot
coming up high for a step. 

Mulder snatched the blanket off the cushions and followed her.
"I'll take that as a no."

When he reached her bedside, she was curled up on the pillows, so
he covered her with the sheet, then the blanket, tucking the satin
edge under the mattress. Before he left he checked her over one
final time. The gold wire frames were pressed into the pillow, so
he cautioned her from the doorway. "Scully, glasses." 

There was a half-hearted shrug of her shoulders, then nothing. 

<Good enough.> Mulder stepped back to slide them off. "Sleep
well."

                            --o-0-o--

Apartment
Omonia District
Athens, Greece
Friday, March 27, 1998
7:38 am

Dana Scully stretched, lifting her feet to pass them over the arm
of the couch, then stopped as the resistance of the blankets
increased. Looking around, she realized she was back in the bed,
not on the sofa where she had been examining files with her
partner. 

Spotting her reading glasses folded neatly on the side table, she
pieced together the sequence of events that must have brought her
here. <I remember reading, showing a report to Mulder, and...> She
spread her hands, then ran her fingers over the gauze on her
forehead. <Oh, Mulder, I'm sorry.> She must have fallen asleep
right there, her head in his lap. <I'm surprised I'm not in a
hospital bed.> 

Hearing the wicker creaking, she realized the noise must have
awakened her, so she reached for the doorknob. But a muffled sigh
from the other room stopped her, turning her back into the space
to make up the bed. She knew those sounds, knew what they meant.
She had learned early in their partnership the difference between
the stifled cries of terror that his nightmares shook out of him
and these. The bed finished, she sat down to wait, but not for
long. She heard the television click off, the door to the bathroom
close, and the shower start up. 

Then, and only then, did she slip into the front room, survey the
bright space, and nod to herself. <Just as I thought.> The files
and photographs were neatly stacked on the trestle table in the
kitchen, the TV pulled out facing the couch. Not bothering with
the sound, she powered the unit up long enough to verify what she
knew had been on the screen. <Hum. Japanese. I didn't think they
would import, but, unlike America, the Greeks are far from
puritanical.> 

She turned when the bathroom door opened. "Hey," she called
softly, sending him one of her huge smiles. 

Mulder was standing in the doorway, barefoot and shirtless, the
waistband of his jeans darkening as moisture ran down his chest.
His hazel eyes flicked from her fingers, resting on the knob to
the left of the blackened screen, to her face, his coloring
slightly as he remained in place. "Hey." His gaze settled on the
black flagstones, slightly uncomfortable that he had wakened her,
that she had worked out what he had been doing. 

Scully padded over to brush his elbow, feeling the heat from the
water, ignoring the slight flinch when her cold fingers contacted
his skin. "So, how long did I sleep, just a few hours, or did I
snore away a whole day?" 

His face snapped upwards, the hazel lighting from their guilty
grey to a teasing green, almost blue. "A whole day? It's Friday,
Doctor Lazybones." The highlights faded, subsiding to a worried
brown as he ran his thumb over the bandage in her hair. "But you
needed it. I can get us some breakfast while you shower, if you'd
like to take today off, too." 

She glanced at the haze on the glass of the stall. "Nope. I'll be
finished before you can get back, and we can pick something up
when we go out." She patted his shoulder. "Don't think I'm passing
up a chance to see the Parthenon, G-man."

He kept still in the hallway, treating himself to the spectacle of
her collecting her toiletries for her ablutions, standing until
the steam began rolling from under the bathroom door. One side of
his mouth turned up in a grin, he headed for the hall closet and
his duffle bag to tug out a clean shirt and socks. He had
forgotten how much he missed her gentle acceptance of him, flaws,
shortcomings, and unmentionable habits all.

                            --o-0-o--

Beule Gate
the Acropolis
Athens, Greece
Friday, 9:11 am

Dana Scully huffed as she and her partner climbed the worn marble
steps to the top of the city's ancient citadel. They were caught
in a shuffling line of babbling visitors, awash in anticipation
expressed in several different languages at once. "I thought
hordes of tourists were a summer handicap." 

One pace behind, Mulder grunted. "Nope. Max warned me that except
for December and January, it's nearly continuous." He checked over
his shoulder for their grey-suited shadow. "It's not like DC,
Scully, this is the real thing." 

Finally at the summit, she patted the closest block in the base of
the Temple of Athena Nike. "I'm almost afraid to walk here,
Mulder. I've read about the pollution, and those steps, well," she
looked back at him, "why haven't more efforts been made to
preserve all this?" 

Still scanning behind them, Mulder shrugged. "It's cheaper to
argue?" 

When the crowd parted in front of them, the ruins of the Doric
temple of Athena Parthenos appeared. Scully gaped, then quickly
covered her mouth with her hand. "Even all battered and covered in
scaffolding like that, it's still beautiful." 

His eyes sparkling, Mulder gazed down at his partner, sensing more
emotions than he could identify. "Yes. I agree." 

She glanced up at him. "I'll think you're a shape-shifter if you
don't stop doing that." 

Tapping her back, he urged her forward. "Do what, Doctor?" 

As she stepped around a line of collapsed stones that had once
been a column, she called back over her shoulder. "Agreeing with
me." 

He caught her by the arm. "I need to take your picture." 

She checked behind him. Their tail was strolling around the
Erechtheum, so she moved into position, holding herself still
through the clicks of the shutter. "You catch his face?" 

Mulder nodded. "Max can have the image forwarded to Mossad."

Scully crossed back over to him. "I'm surprised he followed us up
here. It's not like there are many places we could go." She shaded
her eyes with her hand. "You don't suppose he's a decoy, do you?" 

As they walked along the rectangular temple, he shrugged. "But a
decoy to keep us away from what? The X-Files? The documents have
already been scanned by the Gunmen. Our parents? Max has the local
constabulary on full alert. The shape-shifters? They've migrated
to Africa, for whatever reason. Samantha? We only suspect she's
back in the states, probably on the West Coast. If they'd wanted
to move her, they would have done it at any time, even back in
February when we were beginning to deduce where she was." 

Scully paused, her arms akimbo. "Maybe San Diego? But that's still
thousands of women." She walked around in a tight circle. "She
didn't like it burned." 

Mulder frowned. "What?" 

She lifted one corner of her mouth. "Athena's altar was about
here, Mulder. The priests never burned the sacrifices. They were
just cut up." 

He smirked. "So the Goddess of War invented pathology, too?"
Mulder dodged the elbow aimed at his side. <She's back.>

Scully tossed her head. "Then they were sold in the marketplace.
It was one of the few times the ancient Greeks ate meat." She
checked the groups behind them. "He's still there." 

Mulder blinked, but this time he caught the shift. <I'm not used
to you doing that, Scully.> "Oh? I'd follow you into the Parthenon
itself, but they're still not letting people inside." He waved at
the smaller temple to the north. "Shall we?" 

She glanced up at him. "You want to try plan B?" 

At his nod, they headed for the Erechtheum. Scully concentrated on
wandering aimlessly around the Caryatid Porch, using the open
space as a vantage point. Mulder had kept the documents, taking
his time puttering among the ruins of the Artemesion. She watched
through a notch in the corner of one of the marble blocks as the
black-haired man in grey began searching around for her. Beside
her, an eager group of tourists clustered around their tour guide,
who began explaining the space in German. Scully half-listened to
the woman, deciphering words from three mandatory years of
language requirements for medical school. <I'm recognizing more of
the Greek than I am the Deutsch.> 

She refocused on the bright plaza before her. Grey Suit was
circling the Parthenon, having spotted her dark-haired partner.
Mulder had moved to the south wall, giving the appearance of
fascination with the Theater of Dionysus, spreading from the foot
of the hill. Two more steps, and Grey Suit was at the tall agent's
side. A few brief words were exchanged, then the dark figure
strode towards the Propylaon Gate and the descent from the
Citadel. Scully passed silently through the tour group, around
several workers fitting titanium to a column stone, and across the
courtyard. 

Mulder nodded at her approach. "Not rebuilt enough for you to take
up residence again?" His eyes twinkled as he glanced down at the
maroon leather-bottomed backpack at his feet.

Scully crossed her arms. "So?" 

Mulder grinned. "He thanked me for dinner." 

She began tapping her foot impatiently. 

Mulder slung the backpack over his right shoulder. "He warned me
not to lose track of you." After slipping the free strap over his
left arm, he brushed her elbow with his fingertips. "I thanked him
for his good advice. Where to now?" 

Scully angled them towards the north again. "I'd like to take the
path to the spring." She checked his face. "So, they're after me?" 

He shrugged. "Or so they'd like us to think. I don't believe it
would be this simple." Stopping, he fished a bag of sunflower
seeds out of the front pocket of the backpack, then popped one
black and white hull in his mouth. "What spring?" 

She tipped her head. "What do you mean? Erechteus' spring. The one
dedicated to Gaia that's partway down the north face of the hill.
I thought you knew all this from Oxford." 

As he tucked the crinkled bag away, he chuckled. "I do." 

She frowned. <Then why?>

Touching her back, he guided her in front of him as they
approached a break in the wall, where small signs in several
languages clustered around a long red arrow pointed downwards. He
leaned over her shoulder. "I've just missed you 'edducating' me,
Doctor." 

They fell in step behind a group of Romanians, who were laughing
as they negotiated the narrow descent to the oldest shrine of the
Acropolis.

                            --o-0-o--

Agora
Athens, Greece
Friday, 1:56 pm

Scully knelt to read a marker set in the stones of the path. Her
lips moved as she transliterated the Greek, then palmed through
the paperbound guidebook with a blue and black cover they had
stopped to purchase. 

Mulder was thoroughly enjoying this fishing expedition with her.
Since they seemed to have a partial determination of their tail's
intent, they checked in with the FBI Field Office in Athens.
There, they had handled Scully's paperwork and deposited the cache
of documents in security. So far, they had visited the Acropolis
Museum, the Theater of Dionysus, and the National Archaeological
Museum in Athens. While at the Museum, she had stopped in from of
a patinaed bronze statue of Athena Parthenos, watching the
restorers at work, cleaning and sealing the metal. The statue's
helmet was set back on her head, just as they remembered Scully
doing in their shared dream in Arkansas. He had draped the
backpack over her arm, then stepped away, whispering that he
wanted a photograph in indoor light of the Grey Suit who was
lurking one exhibit room behind them. 

In reality, he had wanted to give her this time to enjoy the
artifacts. After snapping a few images of the dark man tailing
them, he had treated himself to several of her, entranced before
the goddess that was her mental image of herself. He remembered
comparing the straight, narrow noses, the composed, serene
features, the clear eyes of his partner studying the marble ones
in the statue, and smiled. <You *are* Pallas Athena, Scully.> 

Watching her now, Mulder crunched another seed open. "Well? Roman?
Byzantine? Turkish?" The 'sh' came out as a 'th' as he rolled the
hull to the tip of his tongue. 

She looked up, squinting into the sun. "No." 

He cocked his head. 

She shrugged. "Modern water drain." 

Grinning, he bent to help her to her feet, relishing even these
meaningless gestures of courtesy after so many weeks apart. "So,
lunch?" 

She glanced around at the strolling crowds. "Where is he?" 

Mulder pushed his hair off his forehead. "I hate to say this, but
you've worn him out. He dropped out back at the Concession stand."
He grinned. "I think I saw him buying some lemonade."

She rubbed her forehead. "That doesn't sound too bad." 

Grasping her shoulder, Mulder stopped her. "We can continue this
tomorrow, Scully." 

She shook her head. "I'm fine. Just thirsty. It's nice to enjoy
the sunshine after being cooped up in a windowless courtroom all
day long." She trotted as she retraced their steps. "Besides,
don't you think it's time we turned the tables on our guest?
Minister Askoras should be resting comfortably by now." 

Grinning, he hurried after her. <I've really missed this.>

                            --o-0-o--

City Hospital
Athens, Greece
Friday, 4:06 pm

After checking with the nurse at the front station, Mulder and
Scully headed off towards a pair of guards, lounging against the
wall outside the Minister's room. They could hear a long harangue
of Greek emanating from within. 

Scully waited until there was a break in the verbiage to knock on
the door frame. 

The barrel-chested man in the bed extended her arms to her.
"Doctor Scully! How kind of you to check in on me." He beckoned
her over. "Come in, come in." He turned to the harried assistant
Scully remembered from the plane, who was huddled in a folding
chair on the side of the bed away from the door. "You remember
this lovely American who saved my life. You see, Alexander,
awakening to such a vision." He patted his chest. "It made me a
new man." 

Alexander barely glanced at the pair before tapping his papers.
"But, Sir, the Prime Minister needs you to make a decision on
these proposals before the end of the day." 

Askoras waved him off. "Nonsense. I'm a sick man." The Minister
reached for Mulder's hand, pumping it firmly. "So, my friend, how
do you know my lovely Angel of Mercy?" 

After a glance at Scully, whose right eyebrow had settled well up
her forehead, Mulder chuckled. "She's my partner, Sir. I'm Fox
Mulder, Special Agent with the FBI." 

Scully crossed her arms. "Minister Askoras, we came here to ask
you a few questions, if you feel up to it." 

The thick-armed Greek leaned sobered. "Ah. In your official
capacity, of course. So, how may I help you?" 

She dropped her hands to her side. "While I understand if you
can't give us specifics, I still need to know. We've been under
observation for the past twenty-four hours after our arrival. Are
there any projects that you're overseeing in your governmental
duties that would account for this?" 

Askoras turned to his assistant. "Alexander?" 

The gangly secretary nodded. "We have antiterrorist proposals in
the Greek Parliament that might account for such actions. But", he
shrugged, "there's only so much I can say." 

Mulder nodded. "I understand." He pulled a card from his wallet.
"If you could send any relevant information to this address, we
won't take up any more of your time." 

Askoras noted the names on the card. "How do you know my friend
Max?" 

Mulder and Scully exchanged a glance before he replied. "Max
Lowenberg is my step-father, Sir." 

Before Mulder could step away, Askoras pulled the dark-haired
agent into a bear-hug. "Ah, I knew the Fates were on my side. Not
only Agent Scully, but you as well." He thumped Mulder on the back
repeatedly. "Friends everywhere I turn." 

"Sir," Mulder's voice emerged, muffled by the Minister's bathrobe.
"I'll be certain to pass my regards to Max when we return to
Santorini." He wiggled free. "Thank you for all your assistance." 

Scully began backing towards the door, hoping to avoid similar
handling. "We need you to rest, Minister. Thank you." 

Mulder hurried after her, ignoring the farewells called out after
them. 

Scully was scanning the halls when he reached her side, then
glanced in the direction of his casual wave. Grey Suit hovered in
a waiting area, his face obscured by the Athens Times. They passed
in front of him, hearing the paper drop to the table as he
followed. 

As they waited for the elevator, Mulder leaned over his partner.
"I'm more puzzled now than when we started, Scully. How does Max
fit into the picture? I knew the house was under surveillance, but
is Askoras the reason?" 

When the doors opened, she stepped in ahead of him. "I wonder what
Mom thinks of all this?" 

He shrugged. "She's pretty confused, Scully." Once their descent
had begun, he touched her arm, calling her attention to him. "As
much as Max and Mom try to help, it's a little more than she can
handle." 

She leaned onto the handrail beside him. "I thought you said she'd
stay if she could." 

Mulder shrugged. "The travel part of it she loves. Put any of you
Scullys near the sea and you're all blissfully happy." He bared
his teeth in a grin tentatively, continuing when her lips curved
in response. "But she can't understand all the evil she's finding
out exists and it makes her feel weak." He bumped his partner's
shoulder with his elbow. "Another thing about you Scullys is that
all of you hate that with a passion." 

When the car jerked to a stop, both turned, expecting to have to
stand silent, enduring more passengers or patients. Mulder hoped
briefly for no bleeding trauma cases. But, nothing happened. 

Scully began pressing buttons. "I'm not getting a response." The
overhead lights winked out. Both began fumbling for the phone box. 

Finding the flat door first, Mulder yanked it open, then cursed.
"The phone's been pulled." 

Scully's hand grasped his shoulder, then passed down his arm,
grunting when her fingers raked bare ends of cut wires and a surge
of electricity passed through her. "The batteries are still live.
If the unit was stolen, it was recent." 

Mulder waved in the darkness until his arm crashed down on hers.
"Oh, sorry." He caught her wrist. "It seems the automatic
emergency lighting is out, or was never installed." He reached for
her waist. "What say we try to reach the emergency door?" 

Scully grasped his shoulder. "OK, you kneel, Mulder." When he had
crouched, she set one foot on the floor in front of him, then
draped her right leg over his back. 

Mulder, amused, shifted until she was balanced, then arched his
back. 

"Mulder!" 

He grinned. "Sorry. I thought you were settled." 

She crossed her ankles under his right armpit. "Am I choking you?" 

He tucked his chin over her thigh. "No. Ready?" 

"Um-hum." She extended her arms straight up, crouching when her
fingers contacted the cool steel of the ceiling. "Now, walk around
in a circle, slowly, Mulder. I'm all right, so don't worry about
holding onto me. Use your hands to make sure you don't run into a
wall." 

He grunted. "Julie, you take all the excitement out of my trapped-
in-an-elevator fantasies, you know that?" 

She pounded his side gently with her heel, once. "Giddyap there,
Colonial Affair. Besides, I think our Grey Suit has found a way to
put it all back in, don't you? " 

Sobering, he began shuffling. "But again, why?"

They heard voices and running feet in the stairwell. 

Mulder continued. "Shutting down a whole hospital, just for this?"
His shoulder was beginning to cramp. "How's the weather up there,
Doctor?" 

She passed her hands back and forth in sweeping motions. "Clear
and sunny, thank you. No! Stop. Here it is." She leaned back.
"Take two steps to your left, Mulder." After he shifted, she
pulled on the handle, set flush in the door. 

The car jerked, setting Mulder swaying. "Jeez, what was that?"

Scully tightened her hold. "You OK?" 

Mulder grasped her knee and thigh, his fingers digging into her
jeans. "Yeah. Anything?" 

The answer was a snap as the door swung downwards, followed by a
rain of dust. 

Scully spluttered. "I don't see anything, Mulder." 

He coughed. "Maybe if you stand on my shoulders?" 

She grasped the edges of the opening, pulling herself up on top of
the car. "I can feel the winches. Ooh." 

Mulder spun under the opening. "Scully?" 

Her voice came, unmuffled, through the opening. "Sorry. I saw
sparks in the motor. It must just be static discharge." 

He grasped the booted ankles that were dangling over his head.
"But you don't see any open doors?" 

"There's a tiny amount of light from the sparks. Let me check." A
pause. "No, I can't see a thing." 

The car jerked a final time, then began ascending. The motion
caught them both off-guard, and Scully plummeted through the
square hole, scrabbling to grasp the door as she fell. Mulder,
directly beneath her, spread his arms to catch her and block her
fall. The momentum sent their bodies to the steel floor. 

When she heard his soft exclamation of pain and surprise, Scully
rolled onto her knees. "Mulder?" She ran her hands over his ribs
and hips. 

He was curled onto his side, grunting. 

She slid her hand under his left ear. "Tell me where it hurts.
Your head? Your back? Your ribs?" She held one ankle. "Your legs?" 

Mulder heard her questions faintly. The shock of the impact had
set most of his nerves off, but no one part of him was screeching
as it would if he were truly injured. He drawled what he hoped was
an encouraging response. "That's a multiple choice question,
Doctor, but the answer is, all of the above." 

She helped him roll into a crouch. "You're saying you just had the
wind knocked out of you?" She looked up when the doors began to
creak open. 

Two burly orderlies were holding the metal barriers back in the
wall as a third shined a flashlight into the interior. "We heard
someone talking in here. Any injuries?" 

Mulder leaned on Scully while he stood. "Which floor is this?" 

The white-clad attendant was moving out of the opening when he
answered. "Three." 

Scully shifted her shoulder under her partner's arm. "One floor
below Askoras."

Once outside, Mulder leaned against the wall. "Check him, Scully." 

The LOOK she sent him was diminished in its intensity only by the
poor light from a tiny window at the far end of the hall. 

He waved at her. "Go. I'll catch up in a minute." 

She turned on her heel and disappeared. 

                            --o-0-o--

Mulder was moving slowly up the stairwell, feeling strangely
detached from the frantic activity swirling around him. <Without
electricity, a modern hospital is a death-trap.> Still recovering,
he had stood aside as three battery-powered cardiac units were
laboriously hoisted from step to step. When he pushed open the
door to the fourth floor, he heard cries from the rooms ahead of
him for assistance. 

But there was one voice that rang out above the rest. His partner
had obviously offered her expertise and it had equally obviously
been accepted. 

"I need oxygen, stat!" Her words rolled out of the Minister's
room, and Mulder wondered what good he could do when he arrived. 

He had his answer when he finally staggered in. 

She appraised her partner quickly, then guided him to the head of
the bed. "Mulder, hold this." An IV bag was thrust in his face. 

He gripped it limply. 

Scully grabbed the oxygen canister with the hand pump and lowered
the mask over the Minister's face. After she crawled onto the
mattress, she looked up at him. "Hold it high. Now." 

He raised his arm. 

"Good." She resumed pumping oxygen into her charge. 

Mulder blinked as he checked around the room. "Where's the
Assistant?" 

Scully shook her head. "The room was empty except for the
Minister, who wasn't breathing, when I arrived." 

Although he still felt numb, his mind was working on overdrive.
"Why do I have this suspicion that Alexander isn't only working
for the Greek government, Scully?" 

A team of doctors rushed into the room, so she turned, updating
them as to his condition with a few phrases that utterly baffled
Mulder. Scully slid off the bed, taking him by the arm as one of
the hospital personnel relieved him of the bag. 

She led him to one of the hall windows. "I couldn't begin to
guess, Mulder. How are you feeling?" 

The sense of dissociation had left him, so, fully focused, he bent
over her. "I'm OK. In your professional medical opinion, what do
you think happened to him?" 

She crossed her arms. "Any one of a number of things, Mulder, from
simple smothering to a fast-acting poison." As the lights blinked
back on, they both looked up. "We'll know in a few minutes." 

                            --o-0-o--

Mulder and Scully had pulled two chairs from the waiting area to
beneath the window. 

A pair of the doctors stepped out of the Minister's room. One,
slight and grey-haired, approached them. "Doctor Scully?" 

She nodded. 

He rested his hands in his pockets. "Thank you for your prompt
assistance. The stroke was not nearly as severe as it could have
been." 

She waved her hand. "Are you certain that it was a stroke?" 

Mulder leaned over the senior doctor. "You can eliminate poison?" 

He held up both hands. "I've run toxological tests, and there's
nothing in his bloodstream that shouldn't be there, in the proper
quantities as well." 

The dark-haired agent nodded. "Thanks." He took his partner by the
arm. "We'll leave you to work, then." After he had pushed the
stairwell door open and guided her in, he spoke quietly. "I think
we should head back to Santorini this evening, Scully. I don't
like this at all." 

She studied his face. "We should call. Max and Caroline should be
warned." Prepared to leave, they descended the stairs.

                            --o-0-o--

Apartment
Omonia District
Athens, Greece
Saturday, March 28, 1997
12:17 am

Dana Scully sighed when she heard soft thumps from the other side
of the wall. <I knew that couch was too short for him.> Sliding
out from under the covers, she padded into the living room. 

Her partner was upright instantly. "Scully? You OK?" 

She sent him a tiny grin. "Yes, and no. That mattress is too soft
for me and the sofa would fit Frohike better than it would you.
Trade?" 

Mulder swung his feet to the floor. "Yeah, I guess." He rubbed his
face, watching her settle beside him. "Max said not to be
concerned. He's called a few more old friends in Mossad, so
they're onto the problem. This attack on Askoras has them all
worried." 

Scully nodded. "With all the security problems at Athens Airport,
I'd imagine it would." She dropped her hand to his bare shoulder,
covering a tiny scar left there. "Seriously. Take the bed,
Mulder." 

After tugging his black T-shirt over his head, Mulder waved at the
television. "Nah. You'll adjust." He patted the cushion beside
him. "Besides, the wicker creaks." 

Scully felt around under the couch for the remote. "Is there
anything good on right now?" 

Pulling the black box out from under his hip, he smirked. "Depends
how you define 'good', Doctor." 

She punched him. "Anything not in Greek or that does not feature
naked women, Agent Mulder." 

He rested his hand on his chest. "Ooh, such standards as you have,
Agent Scully." Mulder settled back, flipping channels. "Maybe we
can find 'Andy Griffith' dubbed over. The voice they've used for
Barney is even higher than Don Knotts. There." 

Scully tucked her ankles up on the cushions, shifting closer to
his side. 

He glanced over, then twisted until she was leaning against his
spine, her chin resting on his shoulder. <She's back.> He knew
whatever problems she had were behind her, and that whatever
challenges lay in the future, they were ready.

Scully reached around him to tap the mute button. "It's better
this way. I can just read the actor's lips." 

He grunted. 

The episode was "Opie and the Birdman", as well skewered by him as
an old Trek outing, but in respect for his partner's wishes, he
kept from parodying the dialog. Instead, he found himself drawn in
by the simple story, until his eyes misted. <It's just an old TV
show.> He concentrated on evening out his breathing, not noticing
that his partner was shifting, moving more and more of her body
into contact with his. The final credits were interrupted for a
local commercial.

Scully wrapped both arms around his stomach. "I'm sorry." There
were too many things that had gone wrong in his life, too much
pain for a single soul to have to endure, for her to want to be
specific. <I hope this is enough.> 

He draped his muscled arm over the delicate, white one that
covered his waist to pat the small hand on his ribcage. "Ah, I'll
live." He began flipping.

Eventually, they found a videotaped performance of "The
Eumenidies", courtesy of a nearby high school in Eleusis, and
settled back to watch. The over-sized papier-mache masks and the
earnest, if poor, acting set them both smirking, but the lateness
eventually caught up with them. 

As Mulder listened to his partner's breathing even out, enjoying
the feeling of her chin pressing harder and harder into his
shoulder. <Tomorrow, Scully, I have a surprise for you.>

                            --o-0-o--

Piraeus Harbor
Piraeus, Greece
Saturday, 9:04 am

Mulder and Scully emerged from the subway, blinking at light and
the noise. They were assaulted by the smells of a working
dockyard: diesel fuel, fish in crates, gasoline, sweat. Mulder
pointed to a line of people waiting to board a low transport ship,
benches running along the inside of the hull. There was a small
covered area in the center where the line terminated, a dark-
haired crewman punching tickets. 

After they were processed, Scully led them to the first spot on
the bow. "Will this be all right, Mulder? The weather report
called for very light winds. We should be in the lee of the
islands most the time." 

His lips drew into a thin line, but he said nothing. <This is for
you.> He hoped the treat waiting for her would compensate him for
the queasiness he was already feeling. 

A few shouted commands, then the walkway was pulled off. The
engines spun up, a low rumble that churned water and backed them
away from the dock. The cruise boat's horn sounded, sending
smaller vessels a clear message of right of way. 

Mulder felt his stomach roil as the ship swayed, but his
anticipation more than covered for the discomfort. 

His partner had turned away from him, her crossed arms draped over
the side of the vessel, her hair whipping in the slight breeze.
"Mulder?" 

He leaned over her shoulder. "Hum?" 

She looked back at him. "Thanks." 

His eyebrows drew together. 

She shrugged. "Nothing specific, just thanks." Her green-blue eyes
were alight. 

He nodded, settling back to wait. 

When the 'Aegean Adventure' was well into the middle of the
harbor, having negotiated a clear path past rusted oil tankers,
smaller pilot ships, and large pleasure yachts, they heard a blast
from a commanding horn. The Captain shouted, and the ship turned
to starboard, pulling into a gap in a line of waiting vessels. The
other passengers were adjusting cameras, loading film and rotating
lenses. 

Scully looked back at Mulder. "What's happening?" 

He shrugged, carefully avoiding her eyes. "Dunno, Scully." 

She twisted onto her knees to lean out over the bow slightly. "All
I see is a grey warship. Why are all these tourists excited about
a Greek navy vessel coming out of the harbor?" 

As they watched, the small gunboat swept through, claxon blaring.
The grumbling among the passengers grew. There was no ship
immediately behind the first. 

Then they heard the clear, measured call of a coxswain setting a
rowing beat. A long, narrow-hulled ship swung into view, three
tightly packed rows of oars dipping into the water in unison. A
long ram jutted out from a flattened stern, two sails, furled for
the present, banged against the cross-masts, while the blue and
white flag of Greece hung limply from its pole. Most of the
waiting vessels had set their engines down to idle, so Scully
could hear the slap of the oars as they cut into the water, the
strain of wood against wood, and the rush of water as the ship was
propelled forward.

She stared, enraptured, until the trireme was out of view,
oblivious to the clicking of shutters and eager whispers. She
rounded on her partner, who had been watching her with twinkling
eyes. "Mulder! Why didn't you tell me the Olympias was still
afloat?" 

Crossing his arms, he leaned towards her. "The Olympias? I thought
we had fallen through a time warp. Wasn't that the Paralus?" He
set his face in a serious frown. "Or was that the Salamina?" 

She stood in front of him, arms akimbo. "Mulder! That was the ship
built about ten years ago to test our understanding of the ancient
classical trireme!" She bent over him. "You know that, and," she
poked his chest, "I'll bet you even knew that it was pulling out
the harbor today just as this transport was leaving, didn't you?" 

He regarded her somberly, but it was a struggle to keep the grin
off his face. "Less than a week back together, and you're already
shooting holes in my theories, Doctor." 

Scully sat beside him, stretching up until they were nose to nose,
her face twitching slightly at their repartee. "Better than what
else I could be shooting holes in."

He smirked. "You said it yourself, Scully, why would anyone get
excited about a Greek naval vessel?" 

The white-haired woman to their left tapped Scully on the arm.
"Excuse me, but did I just hear you say that it was built as a
test? You mean this wasn't for a movie?" 

Scully nodded. "Yes, two scholars from Cambridge had the idea to
take what we knew from undersea archaeology and..." 

Mulder settled back, letting his partner lecture the slight woman,
a floppy straw hat shading her wrinkled face. <No wonder they keep
wanting to pull you back to Quantico, you make a great teacher,
Scully.> A small group of English-speaking tourists had gathered
around them, so his partner had stood on the bench to be heard by
all. Mulder smiled up at her. He could just listen to the sound of
her voice and relax for the next few minutes, since they were just
two tourists taking in the sights. <No flukemen or werewolves.>

He studied the remaining passengers, some snapping photos of their
companions, some of the ships they were passing, some curiously
watching the group he was a part of. But one hovered just out of
sight, and Mulder sighed. <Him again.> After glancing up at his
partner, he rested his hand on his thigh, pointing in the
direction of the semi-hidden dark-suited man. She pushed on his
shoulder unobtrusively, so he slid through the group, keeping the
tourists between him and their unwelcome listener. 

Scully raised her voice. "The Athenian navy that first sailed out
of Athens to conquer Sicily was by far the most costly and
splendid Hellenic force that had ever been sent out by a single
city up to that time..." 

As Mulder circled the covered bench area, he reflected on how
quickly they had worked through the problems caused by their long
separation. <Not like it was before.> When they had awakened,
cramped from sleeping sitting up, she had readily agreed when he
offered to cover the contusions on her arms and forehead. To keep
unwanted questions from her Mother to a minimum, she had borrowed
one of his long-sleeved black turtlenecks. Mulder crouched below
the bench to crawl up behind the dark-haired man, sitting away
from the others. 

The agent eased himself up beside the man, sitting so his feet
faced away from his quarry's. "Hello." 

The man responded with the barest flicker of surprise.
"Greetings." Their tail turned his head slightly as he gestured
towards the group at the bow. "Glad to have her back?" 

Mulder leaned close to his ear, growling as he countered. "If
anything happens to her or to any member of her family, I will
personally take you apart, molecule by molecule." 

The man snorted. 

"Who sent you, anyway? McConnell? Lindhauer?" 

The two names snapped his head around, but the expression was one
of confusion, not denial. "I don't know what you mean." 

Mulder slid his jacket back, exposing his gun. "Don't play that
game with me. Why did you attempt to assassinate Minister
Askoras?" 

The man shifted to face him. "Why should I get involved in such
petty politics? The present Greek government is facing a crisis of
confidence in its Parliament. Did it ever occur to you that the
attempt on Askoras may be happening for purely political reasons?" 

Mulder leaned away, digging in his pocket for his Swiss Army
knife. "If you would admit that much to me, those obviously aren't
your motives." With a quick swipe, he punctured the spongy hand on
the bench. 

The pain registered as a slight tightening of the man's lips. "Why
on earth did you do that?" 

Mulder glanced down, watching as a thin red stream rolled down
between the man's thumb and forefinger to puddle on the wood. "Oh,
purely terrestrial reasons might have something to do with it." He
grasped their tail's arm. "I will figure out who you are and stop
you." He squeezed, feeling solid muscle beneath the jacket. "Count
on it." 

The man shrugged. "Oh, I am." 

                            --o-0-o--

Mulder worked his way back to his partner just as the little group
around her was dispersing. He waited until the others had moved to
the port side of the ship to view the ruined Temple of Poseidon at
Point Sounion. "Well, he's human, and I don't think he was working
for the Consortium, at least not the new bunch, anyway." 

She crossed her arms. "So he's freelance? Or does he belong to yet
another group we haven't clearly identified?" 

Mulder shrugged. "As if the coup cut loose a raft of associates we
don't know about? It's possible." 

Scully tapped her bag with her black running shoe. "You didn't use
the counter. How did you know he was human?" 

Mulder slid his hand under her elbow, so they began strolling
casually around the periphery of the deck, finally arriving at the
bench where Mulder had confronted their tail. The dark-suited man
was gone. Mulder dropped onto the bench. "I cut him. He had red
blood." He began searching the plank. "It was somewhere around
here." 

Scully crouched, peering intently at the surface. "I don't see any
fresh stains." She looked up at him, shading her eyes at the sun
just below the level of the canopy. "This is the right bench?" 

At his nod, she reached into her bag to lift out a small hand
lens. "A parting gift from Rosen." She began searching the wood
fibers. "Oh." 

Mulder leaned over her. "What?" 

She tapped a small depression on the wood. "See this gouge?" She
passed him the metal-framed lens so he could observe. "It's in the
right shape for the bloodstain." 

Mulder handed her back the lens. "So, you think the shape-shifters
have worked out a way of generating red blood?"

She nodded. "If we can believe what the Samanthas told us in the
Arctic, they had learned to duplicate everything about our bodies
for their experiment in Steveston." 

He crossed his arms. "And that knowledge could have been passed on
to the later arrivals during their trip to the Great White North.
OK. So where does that leave us?" 

Scully rose from her crouch to sit beside him. "With a trireme's
worth of questions and no answers." 

He smiled. "Sounds like fun."

She rolled her eyes.

                            --o-0-o--

Naxos Harbor
Aegean Sea
Saturday, 2:57 pm

Mulder glanced at the line of passengers descending the walkway.
"There he goes." 

Scully lifted her bag from the decking. "Well, I guess this is
where we get off, then." She turned when she felt her partner's
hand land on her arm. "What?" 

He was shaking his head. "If he's after us, he won't be gone for
long." 

The pair slipped to starboard. The dark-suited man was talking
excitedly to a vendor selling trinkets off a crate. 

Scully slipped her sensor out of her bag to wave it at the two
surreptitiously. 

Mulder leaned over. "Well?" 

Sliding the unit away, she sighed. "I can't tell. There's too much
metal blocking the signal, or we may be too far away." 

Mulder touched her arm. "He's coming this way." 

They jogged back to their original seats. 

Scully zipped up her bag. "When he's settled, I'll try to take a
reading. I've noticed he's kept himself in full sun since you
confronted him." 

Mulder nodded. "He bought something, a hand-sized vase replica, it
looks like." 

Scully crossed her arms. "Ceramics can be used to contain many
things." The signal was given for departure, and the walkway was
lifted back to the docks. She leaned over his shoulder. "So, what
now, a Phoenician trader, Mulder?" 

He slid his arm onto the railing behind her. "Just the island of
Delos as we swing to the south. You care to ask for any auguries?" 

She smiled slightly. "There aren't enough chickens." She frowned.
"He's settled. Wish me luck." 

The auburn-haired agent beat a wandering path to their subject,
talking to a few of the passengers she had discussed the Olympias
with as she worked her way around the ship. Once she was within
ten feet of the dark-suited man, now propped against the hull, she
passed the sensor up the length of his body once, then returned
just as casually. 

She dropped beside him. "He's one of the shape-shifters. They've
at least been clever enough to build some shielding into their
clothes, I'm guessing probably aluminum foil." 

Mulder grunted. "I thought basically any cloth would work." 

Scully shook her head. "Their bodies are as strong a source as the
sun down here, which penetrates light-weight mesh fabrics. When we
encountered them earlier, I'm guessing that their clothes were all
still a part of their bodies. There was never anything left behind
when one of them decomposed, you know." 

Mulder slanted his eyes at her. "Right. Those puddles of green goo
you sampled." 

She rubbed her eyes. 

He dropped a hand on her shoulder. "You OK?" 

She waved her hand at him. "More or less." Scully tried sending
him a small grin. "I can't say a few days of fun in the sun
wouldn't be welcome, but..." She turned to face him. "How much
have you told Max and Caroline about the shape-shifters?" 

He blew out a long breath. "I showed them Langly's tape and your
spectra. I did my best to summarize what we think we know about
the Consortium and the aliens for them." He picked at a splinter
on the bench. "Neither seemed as shocked as I might have
expected." 

Scully sighed. "They've seen too much, I guess. It's good we still
have some allies left." She crossed her arms. "I miss Rosen and
Nichols. And Cynthia." 

Mulder rubbed her shoulder. "I'm sorry you had to move the Files
to the new Washington field office without me." 

She tossed her head. "No problem. At least now I know where
everything is." She pointed at the low island they were
approaching. "So that's Sacred Pythia." She shifted around to peer
closely at the dark forest. "Looks familiar, doesn't it?" 

Mulder nodded. "At least if we have to do this cloak and dagger
stuff, it's better than Alaska." 

She sighed. "Right."

                            --o-0-o--

Skala Fira
Santorini, Greece
Saturday, 6:47 pm

Mulder hoisted Scully's duffle up onto the bench. She had been
drowsing while hanging over the bow, and outside of insuring that
she wasn't about to fall in the clear blue waters, Mulder had left
her alone. He contented himself with sitting close to her and
keeping an eye on the shape-shifter. But the alien had left at
Minos, nodding jauntily before he stepped up onto the walkway. 

Mulder rested his hand on his partner's shoulder. "Scully?" 

Looking up at the red cliffs, she stretched. "Santorini?" 

He nodded. "Finally. I knew this was a long trip, but ten hours is
more than my quota of sea duty." 

She rubbed her face. "I'm sorry, have you been all right? I hope
it's been calm for you." She yawned. "I didn't sleep through any
hurricanes, did I?" 

He shook his head. "Actually, it hasn't been bad at all. But you
missed sailing around the island and into the caldera." He pointed
back to the northwest. "Beautiful." 

She lifted one corner of her mouth. "Yes. The explosion of Thera
around 1400 BCE probably sent a tidal wave into all the bays and
channels of the Mediterranean. The resulting ash cloud and
earthquakes were probably responsible for the rise of the Atlantis
legend." 

Mulder smirked. "Or it was a pretty able cover-up." 

She sent him a first-class LOOK, then smiled. "OK. You build that
time machine, Mister Wells, and we'll go back and find out." 

After Scully adjusted the wide strap so it rested comfortably on
her shoulder, they stood. Mulder guided her in front of him. "Not
yet. I'm still interviewing for blonde assistants with the proper
qualifications." 

She snorted. "I'd think there were only two required, which you
could assess with a glance." 

After passing his partner her maroon suit bag, he tugged free his
own duffle. "Nope. In-depth examinations, Doctor." 

She waved her hand at the silliness before stepping off the ship.
"Are we meeting Max here?" 

He glanced around the piers. "No, they'll be safer if they stay at
the house. Besides, your tour isn't over yet. Since our friend
disembarked, we don't have to be so on our guard." He pointed to
the far left of the planks, where a pair of policemen was waiting.
"Max set us our escort." 

They wove their way through crates and exuberant reunions to two
men in pale blue uniforms, one of whom took Scully's suit bag,
rolled it efficiently into a small packet, and placed it in a
waiting cable car. After introductions and polite handshakes, each
of the partners climbed in, adjusting their duffle straps so the
bulky packs were centered on their laps. Markos, the sergeant to
the left of Scully, shouted in Greek until the controller
grudgingly yielded, and they were off. 

                            --o-0-o--

Lowenberg Residence
Santorini, Greece
Saturday, 10:24 pm

Margaret Scully, one hand pressing her floppy straw hat down on
her crown, peered anxiously down the mountainside road at an
approaching cloud of dust. Except for the glimpses she and Mulder
had caught on television, she had not seen her daughter since that
fateful evening in July, and she was worried. Every image of her
red-haired child showed a woman shouldering a burden far too heavy
for her, who had become more angular and waif-like than Margaret
remembered from the summer. 

Caroline Lowenberg appeared at her shoulder. "It's them, Margaret.
Markos just phoned Max. They were taking a short tour of the
island on the way here." 

Margaret nodded. "Dana needs the downtime. When I hear from Fox
that 'she's fine', I know perfectly well that she isn't." 

They fell silent as the motorcycle engines drowned out speech. The
two agents exchanged handshakes with the drivers, then Dana Scully
was caught in her Mother's embrace. 

Mulder slid his arm around Caroline. "How are things here, Mom?" 

She patted his waist. "No surprises yet, at any rate." She jerked
her head at a nearby cliff. "We have a Mossad spotter on the
lookout."

Mulder nodded. "Good. We were followed onto the cruise boat. But,
he disembarked at Minos. It's no stretch to figure out where we
were headed." He bent over his Mother. "How are you, Mom?" 

She smiled up at his frown. "Rested, thanks. I haven't had any
more nightmares." 

He hugged her. "Well, it seems I come by it honestly. then. We'll
be back together soon, just have faith." 

She pressed her head against his shoulder. "You have enough for
both of us, Fox." 

Chewing his lip, he stepped away for a moment. <I hope so, Mom.>

Margaret squeezed her daughter again. "Dana, you haven't been
eating." 

Scully's shoulders dropped. "You and Mulder, Mom, make a great
Greek chorus on this issue. I didn't have time to exercise, so I
cut back on the calories." She stepped back, shouldering her
duffle bag strap. "If I tell you I'm fine, you'll pester me like
Mulder did too, so let me explain everything to you." She poked
the bandage on her forehead. "I may have a slight concussion, but
think *slight*. Don't keep threatening me with hospitals like
Mulder did. The rest are several deep contusions, one up here,
one," she patted her back, "on my waist, and several on my arms." 

Margaret gasped. 

Scully frowned. "But that's all. I have some bruises, but no
broken bones or internal injuries. I'll try to rest while we're
here, but things may get busy." She stepped over to her partner.
"OK?" 

Margaret sighed. <For now, that will have to do.> "Yes, dear." 

Max trotted down from the house. "Sorry, that was the Mayor
again." 

Mulder faced him. "What?" 

Max shrugged. "Local politics, but nothing as important as this."
Max grasped Scully's shoulder briefly. "Welcome to Atlantis,
Dana." 

She tossed her head. "I see Mulder's been working on you." 

Caroline laughed. "No, my dear, Max follows the British custom of
naming houses." She waved at the white building behind them. "This
is Atlantis." 

Max nodded. "While I was in the States, we would rent the place
during Holiday season. Thea came up with it." He bent over Scully
to whisper. "Marvelous little joke, but I know what you mean."

Mulder began shooing the group inside. "Yeah, yeah. Plato was a
liar." 

Scully took her Mother's arm. "No, just not as thorough in
checking his sources as he ought to have been." 

When they heard barking from the screen door, Scully smiled. "I'm
happy you brought him." 

Caroline nodded as she held it open. "Greece doesn't require a
quarantine for pets, and it would have been a great length of
time." 

Margaret hugged her daughter with one arm. "Too long."

                            --o-0-o--

                 End - Zurvan - The School of Hellas