"Antidote" (1/18)
by Rachel Howard
& Karen Rasch
Snowrider5@aol.com
Krasch@earthlink.net

<Rachel starts us off.>

Welcome to our little experiment. Neither of us had ever collaborated 
on a story before, but, hey, first time for everything.  We played fast 
and loose with the description of Gateway, which is a real place that
I've actually been to.  But it's all in a good cause - the further glory of
fanfic.  So please forgive me, and if you're planning on visiting western
Colorado - buy a good map.

Disclaimer:  We don't own 'em, wish we did, we don't plan on making 
money off of 'em, so don't sue.  [Okay, Karen, you want to write a 
REAL disclaimer?]

Your turn.

<Karen assumes the podium.>

Real disclaimer?  Who the hell reads those things anyway?  Okay.  As
you guys probably know, this is a post as you go kind of thing.  I don't
think it'll wind up being as scary as it may sound.  Rachel and I went
to the trouble of hammering out an outline for this (something I've
only done once before when writing fanfic), so we have a pretty good
idea where we're headed.  We're taking turns writing chunks and then
going back and editing each other's work.  So far, it's been working 
out really well.  But we reserve the right to go back and change things
between the time the story is posted on my page and it makes its 
debut on ATXC.  Your feedback will help shape that process.  So,
feel free to comment.  The addys are above.

GOSSAMER INFO:

Classification:  XRA
Rating:  NC-17
Spoilers:  None to speak of.  Cancer isn't an issue here.
Summary:  Strange doings in a tiny western town bring Mulder and 
Scully out to investigate.  Once there, they uncover a deadly experiment
that may cost both of them their lives.

**********************************************************

I believe in the refusal to take part.
I believe in the ruined career.
I believe in the wasted years of work.
I believe in the secret taken to the grave.

These words soar for me beyond all rules
without seeking support from actual examples.
My faith is strong, blind, and without foundation.

Wislawa Szymborska, "The Discovery"

**********************************************************

October 17
Gateway, Colorado 

It smelled bad. 

Worse, the damp chill of the garage was totally at odds with the 
lovely, baking heat of the October afternoon.  After two days of 
snow, all Norm wanted to do was sit on the front porch and roast 
the stiffness out of his joints, just like the rest of the respectable 
old farts in Gateway. 

All the old farts whose wives hadn't been nagging for two months 
about the state of the garage.  The garage, where the workbench, 
groaning with the weight of fixable clocks, moderately rusted hand 
saws, cans of rusty nails, three-legged waffle irons, and other 
projects had somehow overflowed onto the floor. 

Norm admitted privately that Mary had a point: when you couldn't 
fit the truck in anymore, it might be time to take stock of things, 
tidy up a little.  And, knowing that the coming weeks and months 
would only bring more snowstorms to western Colorado, he could 
easily see that putting off the garage clean-up would only bring 
another problem: digging snowdrifts off his truck.

So, reminding himself that it was either dig out the garage today 
or dig out the truck for the rest of the goldarn winter, Norm Orban 
stood in front of the open garage door, peering into the semidarkness 
and rubbing a hand absently through his thinning gray hair.

And wrinkled his nose in disgust as his eyes adjusted to the dim light. 

A rat.  Dead one.  Not too dead, not dead enough for its shining eyes to 
have sunk far back into the skull, but where there was one rat, there 
were more, and probably more dead ones adding to that bad, damp-
rot smell that hung inside the garage.

He stepped inside, frowning as he nudged the small, stiff corpse 
with the toe of his work boot.  It was a fat one, white, with a pink 
hairless tail and pink-rimmed eyes.  Looked like a fancy pet-store 
rat, not a wild one.  Which damn kid in town was keeping pet rats? 
Norm mentally inventoried the handful of kids, all seven of them that 
he could recall, and settled on Charlie Cutler as the likely culprit.

Damn kid.  Oughta get a dog.

Resigned, he rummaged in the back of the garage for a dustpan 
and a broom, and settled for a hand-brush and a rusty piece of tin. 
Wincing slightly, he bent to sweep the rat's body onto the metal, 
walked a few yards behind the building and heaved the refuse into 
the scrub. 

Returning to his task, he forgot about the dead rat, even forgetting 
when Bonnie Cutler stopped by to share news about her new grand-
niece with Mary, who ate it up with the same intensity she usually 
reserved for Ding-Dongs and soap operas.  Seventeen year-old Linda 
Cutler had gone to Grand Junction for a weekend last January and 
stayed with some cousins, which would have been fine except little 
Linda had gotten fond of a boy she met at a party and now, as Bonnie 
was breathlessly reporting, Linda was talking about taking the baby 
and going away, maybe to Glenwood Springs or maybe even Denver, 
and becoming a waitress. 

Norm half-listened, watching the Broncos take another pasting from 
the Steelers, and scratched absently at his wrist, thinking again, 
damn Cutler kids. 

Not even Bonnie's visit reminded him of the rat.  Not until the 
following afternoon, when a sprinkling of small red bumps had 
become visible on his left wrist, did he remember it.  And then it 
was only because over a beer John Soames was complaining that 
you couldn't eat anywhere but home these days, what with bad 
burger meat in the stores, and just yesterday, leaving the men's 
restroom at Gateway's only diner-gas-station-convenience store he 
saw a rat running off toward the pumps.

"Was it white? Pink eyes?" Norm asked, surprising himself nearly 
as much as Soames. 

"Yeah, y'know, it was," replied Soames, after a moment of 
consideration. "It was." 

And the following day, Norm was far too sick to worry about rats. 
The little red bumps were receding, but the wrenching cough and 
dull ache radiating from his chest more than took their place, and 
before long the high, sweet humming in his head drowned out the 
noise of the occasional car passing by, Mary's panicked voice on the 
phone with the doctor, the sounds of lazy breezes ruffling the few 
leaves left on the trees, the sounds of fall coming to an end.  

Of a long winter beginning.

		*	*	*	*	*

October 22
Basement of the FBI headquarters


"Hey Scully, you ever actually read 'The Lone Gunmen'?"

Dana Scully peered up from the notes she had been struggling 
for the past several hours to decipher, shot Special Agent Fox Mulder
her most withering look, and murmured, "Are you referring to the 
publication you gave me a subscription to last Christmas?"

Smiling ever so slightly, he nodded from his desk across the room, 
his hazel eyes twinkling behind his wire-rimmed lens. 

"That's the one.  Do you ever check out what the boys have to 
say?  Or is their little periodical strictly liner for your birdcage?"

"I don't have a bird, Mulder."

"Figuratively speaking."

She hesitated for a moment, wondering at her partner's unexpected 
interest.  "I look at it each month.  Every once and awhile, I'll even 
read it cover to cover.  Why?"

"Just to be polite?" he asked, ignoring her question.  "Because I got it 
for you?  Or do you do it because you think there might actually be 
something to the boys' findings?"

"Mostly the former," she admitted, her confusion growing slowly 
but steadily, "and partly because I can't bear to hurt Frohike's 
feelings by admitting I haven't read the thing." 

"You better watch it, Scully," Mulder advised playfully, stabbing 
at the air with his pen for emphasis.  "You keep feeding his ego 
that way and one day the little guy is going to show his appreciation 
by making you the magazine's first centerfold."

She grimaced before she could stop herself.

Noticing immediately, he pounced on her reaction.  "You know, I 
may even suggest that to the fellas myself.  I have a feeling their 
readership would really go for a babe in Kevlar."

She cocked a brow.  Don't push it, Mulder, the look warned.

Smiling, he accepted her silent challenge.  "And little else."

Deciding to rein things in before they got utterly out of control, 
Scully sat back in her chair, folded her arms across her chest and
drawled, "You want to explain to me why you're suddenly so 
interested in my opinion of the 'Gunmen'?  I mean . . .  it's 
October.  I'm down to my last few issues.  Are you fishing for  
ideas for this year's holiday gift-giving?"

"Not exactly.  I'm more of a Christmas Eve shopper myself," 
he said as he stood and snagged a sheet of paper from the printer
on his way over to her side of the office.  Perching a hip on the corner 
of her desk, he leaned in just a touch and confessed in an innuendo-
loaded voice.  "I find I do my best work under pressure."

"Ah.  So that explains why you're always putting off paperwork
till the last minute," she said, not at all impressed by flirtatious tone.

"All work and no play . . . ," he softly murmured.

"Succinctly describes my life," she finished dryly.

"Which is exactly why I'm bringing this up."

"What?  Are you trying to tell me you're looking to play, Mulder?" she 
queried with a lift of her chin, trying her own luck with the double 
entendre.

"Ah, Scully, believe me--when it comes to you, I'd want to get right 
down to business," he parried, a certain indefinable warmth in his eyes. 

Biting back a smile, Scully slowly crossed her legs and studied her 
partner.  Something was up.  He had been behaving strangely all day.  
It wasn't the bantering that had clued her in.  True, Mulder was being 
a tad friskier in that department than he had been lately, but their 
verbal sparring was nothing new.  And it wasn't his appearance.  He 
looked just as he always did.   Starched white shirt, pressed gray pants 
and coat that were excellent complements to her tailored navy suit. 

Rather, it was the palpable energy she could very nearly visualize 
rolling off him in waves.  When she had first made her realization 
she had considered perhaps chalking up the observation to an odd 
manifestation of cabin fever.  After all, they had both been confined 
to the Hoover Building for the past week and a half.  And a little of 
that went a long way.  Even for her.  Maybe what she was sensing was
simply a build-up of adrenaline, she had thought.  But, as the hours 
wore on, and Mulder had sat rapt, first before his computer monitor 
and then later bent over a succession of increasingly eclectic research 
books, she had concluded that boredom wasn't to blame.  Excitement 
was.  Something had him revved that morning.  Something decidedly 
out of the ordinary.  He hadn't told her what it was.  Not yet.  But he 
would.

Who else was there for him to tell?

But maybe she should help him out just a bit.  "So, what kind of 
business do you have in mind?"

"Aren't you bored?" he asked, his gaze intent but not without the 
humor that had lurked there since he had begun.

"With what exactly?" she feinted as, sitting forward once more, she 
closed her pen with a snap, all thoughts of administrative details 
banished in the face of Mulder's enthusiasm.  "With my life?  My 
job?"

She leaned in on him, just as he had previously.  "This conversation?"

He placed his hand over his heart as if he were afraid the organ 
might make a run for it.  "Scully, you wound me.  I was talking
about desk detail, about these endless mountains of official documents
we're expected to wade through when we're not in the field."

"Are you telling me we've got a new assignment?" she asked with 
surprise.

"Not officially," he conceded.  "Not yet."

"I'm not so certain I like the sound of that," she mumbled ruefully.

Mulder grinned down at her for a beat before setting in front of 
her the paper in his hands.  "This was emailed to me this morning.
Courtesy of our journalistic friends."

She glanced at the sheet, her eyes skimming the page with 
practiced speed.  "What is it?  A letter to the editor?"

He gave a small shrug.  "In a manner of speaking.  The Gunmen 
had an email account set up for the magazine over a year ago.  They
use it to drum up subscriptions, pick up anonymous information, that 
sort of thing."

"And this letter came through that address?" she asked, reading 
over its contents again, this time perusing it a bit more carefully.

"Yeah," he confirmed, watching her read.  "They received it 
yesterday afternoon."

Coming to the end of the missive, Scully looked up at him, her
brow knit with concern and amazement.  "Mulder, this man says 
that an entire town has disappeared."

The man seated on her desk nodded happily.

It was all she could do not to push him off of it.

"That's impossible," she said, tamping down on the urge to do
damage to her partner.  "Scores of people do not just suddenly 
vanish." 

"Don't forget the Lost Colony," he reminded her blithely.

She glared up at him.

"And anyway," he continued, heedless of her disgruntled expression, 
"you can hardly consider Gateway, Colorado a booming metropolis.  
According to what the Gunmen have told me, the population hovers 
just below 50."

"I'm not familiar with Gateway," she admitted with a small shake 
of her head.  "Where's it located?"

Mulder rose and crossed to his desk to retrieve a road atlas.  "In the 
middle of nowhere.  It's in far west-central Colorado, close to the 
Utah border."

He strode back to stand beside her, and set Rand McNally's latest
edition on the desk.  Flipping quickly to the proper page, he pointed
out the mysterious Gateway.

"Boy, it really is out there all by itself," Scully murmured, studying 
the map.

"If you were looking to get away with something, Gateway wouldn't 
be a bad place for it," he murmured in agreement as he hunched 
over her, one hand braced on the back of her chair, the other
pressed flat on the corner of the atlas.

"Get away with something?" she echoed as she peered over her 
shoulder at him.  She didn't have far to peer, Mulder's face was 
only inches from her own.  "What do you mean?"

He didn't draw away.  "Well, doesn't it strike you as odd that when 
our letter-writer, a Mr. Vaughn W. Franklin, went into town for 
his mail all the people had disappeared?"

She just looked at him.

The corner of his mouth quirked upwards.  "Seems to me that 
'people stealing' would indicate that *somebody* is doing something
they shouldn't." 

This made Scully pull back just a bit, a scowl crinkling her features.  
"Mulder, we know nothing about this Franklin guy.  This letter could 
be a crank, or he might have simply imagined the whole thing.  Maybe
the missing postal clerk he referred to had just stepped outside for a 
moment.  Franklin had to wait for his mail, he got upset, and that was
reason enough for him to blow the whole thing out of proportion."

Mulder picked up the letter, searching it for ammunition to refute 
her theory.  "Just the mail clerk, Scully?  What about the gas 
station attendant?  Or the guy at the convenience store?  According 
to Franklin, no one--not a soul--was where they would normally be 
at 10:00 on a Tuesday morning.  The streets were empty.  He heard 
no noises, saw no sign of life save for a dog that scared the hell out 
of him by running out in front of his truck."

Pulling the letter from his hands, she sighed and looked it over once 
more.  "Mulder, when you read this, did you look past the whole 
'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' thing?"

"I don't recall seeing any mention of pods," he murmured.

She pursed her lips.  "Pods or no pods, our Mr. Franklin is a poster 
boy for paranoia."

"Just for subscribing to 'The Lone Gunmen'?" Mulder asked 
with amusement.  "Don't forget, you and I are also on that list."

"And look what people say about us," she retorted.

"Just because you're paranoid . . . " he began meaningfully.

She shook her head.  "Mulder, by his own admission, Franklin is a 
man who built himself a cabin out in the middle of the wilderness 
because he no longer felt able to deal with 'society'.  It says so.  
Right here in black and white."

Reluctantly, Mulder nodded.

"Keeping that sort of acute anxiety in mind, delusions--particularly 
those involving separation from other people--would seem to me not
entirely unexpected," Scully asserted reasonably.

Hands shoved in his pants pockets, Mulder seemed to actually
consider that argument for a moment before he said with a certain 
relish.  "Would it make any difference if I told you that it now 
appears Vaughn Franklin has also vanished?"

"What?"

He nodded, his eyes alight behind their lens once more.  "The
Gunmen have been emailing him non-stop since receiving his
message, but have gotten nothing back in the way of a reply.
They think he's disappeared like the rest of Gateway." 

"Did you stop to think that if Franklin was as frightened as he says 
he was, he might have simply taken off?" she queried dryly, her 
small hands folded neatly atop the map of Colorado.

"I did," he said evenly.  "I considered that Franklin might be
scared enough to run."

She nodded.

"But I also questioned if perhaps poor Vaughn might not be the
latest in a series of disappearances."

"Mulder--"

"Aren't you curious, Scully?" he asked quietly as he squatted down 
beside her chair.  This arrangement brought their eyes level with
each other.  Scully could see the silent entreaty shining in his.  
"Don't you want to know what's going on out there?" 
	
"I'm not convinced that anything is," she murmured, struggling 
not to fall victim to her partner's persuasive capabilities.

However, Mulder saw her slight weakening, and played upon her 
vulnerability.  "But you don't know for certain, do you?"

She said nothing.

"Don't you want to be sure?" he asked softly, almost seductively.

She chewed on her lower lip.

He gently smiled.  "Don't you want to get out of this basement?"

"It'll only mean more paperwork when we get back," she 
warned in jest, her decision having already been made.

"That is one risk I'm willing to take."

*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Continued in Chapter II

"Antidote" (2/18)
by Rachel Howard 
& Karen Rasch

Snowrider5@aol.com
Krasch@earthlink.net

Intro, disclaimer, etc. are found in chapter one.

**********************************************************

October 23
Denver CO, Airport

"Mulder, wouldn't it have been closer to fly into Telluride?"  Scully 
was studying the huge map on the wall.  The small airport lounge 
where they waited for their connecting flight to Grand Junction was 
only half-full.  "It looks like a much shorter drive."

"Hate to disappoint you, Scully, but it's not ski season yet.  What, 
you thought we'd have time to get in a few runs before heading up to 
Gateway?" Mulder teased.

"Seriously, Mulder, why are we flying into Grand Junction?"

Looking up, he took in her expression and realized that, as usual, 
deflecting Scully's curiosity was a lost cause.  "It's actually about 
the same drive-time, and renting a car is a lot cheaper in Grand 
Junction."

She nodded, turning back to the map. Inwardly, he sighed in relief.  
The Telluride airport was also notoriously inaccessible; more than 
saving the Bureau money on the car, he had been eager to save Scully, 
always a nervous flier, the hair-raising descent onto Telluride's tiny 
airstrip.  However, his solicitousness was more likely to earn him a 
chilly rebuff from Scully than any thanks; it was lucky that she had 
accepted the car-rental as an excuse.

As it turned out, even the commuter flight to Grand Junction was rough 
enough to leave her a striking shade of green.  As usual, she hung on 
gamely throughout the blessedly short flight, only giving a nearly 
inaudible sigh of relief as they disembarked.  Brushing aside his 
suggestion that she sit down and let him collect their luggage, she 
resolutely carried her own bags to the rental counter, leaving him to 
trail behind her like an errant puppy.  She did manage to fall asleep as 
soon as he got onto the highway, however, leaving him to enjoy the 
scenery in silence.

Though the dry slopes of the buttes and mesas decorating the landscape 
were appealing, he found himself thinking about his sleeping partner 
before long.  Adversity only stiffened Scully's backbone.  Had that 
tendency always been there?  Had she always been this stoic, or had 
joining the Bureau brought her to a point where she was acutely 
uncomfortable letting any weakness show?  He guessed it was the job 
that had done it; that, or being partnered with him.

He snuck another look at her sleeping profile.  Her red-gold hair, 
luminous in the afternoon sunlight, floated slightly with the stale air 
pushing through the vents.  She shifted restlessly against the car 
upholstery pillowing her head, but slept on. 

The rise and fall of the jutting mesas and buttes was giving way to 
foothills.  They were climbing again, and the air was getting cooler.  
A half-hour after turning south onto 141, Scully woke up to a 
completely different vista, the dark sweep of the Uncompaghres 
swelling to fill the skyline. 

Much later, Mulder would remember thinking, you could get lost out 
here.  Really lost. 

It was late afternoon when they saw the first bend of the Dolores 
River ahead.

"Gateway's only a few miles from here."  She wasn't green anymore, 
but she still looked tired.  "You feeling okay?"

"I'm fine, Mulder."

The roadblock was three-quarters of the way through a blind corner. 
Mulder had to hit the brakes hard, bringing the car down from a 
smooth seventy-five to a quaking, shuddering stop that left him white-
knuckled and angry.  A uniformed man waved at the sign:  "ROAD 
CLOSED."

Mulder banged on the steering wheel twice.  "Shit.  We're five miles 
from town and if we have to go around, drive up from the south, we're 
probably a hundred miles out of our way.  I hope this is just an accident."

"I don't think so, Mulder.  Those aren't highway patrolmen over there."

She was right, he realized with growing alarm.  Two dark-suited figures 
stood aloof from the rest of the group, their white shirts and ties as out 
of place on the remote highway as Smoky the Bear would be at FBI 
headquarters.  For that matter, the six or eight men in commando getup 
looked pretty weird, too.  The few men in state trooper uniforms seemed 
nervous, sipping from styrofoam cups, huddled together.

Mulder and Scully got out of the car.  Following his instincts, he headed 
for the men in suits.  Flipping open his ID, he introduced himself. 

"Special Agent Fox Mulder, FBI.  Why is this road closed?"

For a long minute, no one answered him.  Then, almost casually, one of 
the suits replied, "Quarantine.  Got a contagious illness here."

"What illness?"

"Hasn't been determined yet."

"Then how do you know it's contagious?"

No answer.

Mulder tried again.  "My partner is a medical doctor.  Could we be of 
any assistance?"

The man replied, "No.  The CDC is already here."

Scully had appeared at his side, silent as a shadow.  "Special Agent Dana 
Scully.  How long has this town been under quarantine?"

"Since this morning."

"Could you describe the nature of the disease?"

Finally, one of the two men looked directly at them.  His gaze was 
cold, and it crawled avidly, blatantly over Scully's chest.  "No."

She felt a quick wave of impatient anger but supressed it with the ease 
borne of long practice.  "What agency?"

"What?"  The man was looking at her again, at her face this time. She 
noticed that glaring at him required her to tilt her head back even farther 
than an argument with Mulder at close quarters did. The man was tall 
and lean, with disproportionately large hands that flexed unnervingly as 
he looked down at her.

"Who do you work for?  And what right do you have to withhold 
information from the FBI?" 

She let her tone change, deliberately challenging him.  Scully thought 
she saw anger and a more complex emotion flare briefly in his eyes, and 
for a second he looked eerily familiar.  Then it was gone and he replied, 
in the same even tone, "The CDC is here.  The FBI has been informed."  
He paused for a moment, then looked directly into her eyes.  She saw the 
flare again in his before he said, in a low snarl, "You should go back 
home, *doctor.*  Before you get sick yourself." 

She knew where she had seen that look before.  Donnie Pfaster.

It was like standing on the tracks, looking down a long, dark tunnel at a
train coming fast.

Only murderers looked like that.

But she couldn't afford to dwell on that realization.  Not right at that 
moment.  Not when watching Mulder's jaw set, she knew it was probably 
time to back off before the conversation took a turn for the worse.  She 
brushed her fingers against his sleeve, a gesture that he seemed to interpret 
correctly, since he took a step backwards almost immediately.  When his 
eyes met hers, she saw his growing frustration and silently implored him 
to hold it together.

They left the men in suits and approached the state troopers.  Scully felt 
a little of her tension dissipate as Mulder mildly asked the men, "Hey. 
Looks like we're not getting any farther.  Any decent motels around 
here?"

She watched him warily as he chatted easily with the men, staying close 
until she was certain he was in check.  She had been equally offended 
by the offhanded dismissal that had met their questions, and her 
instincts were telling her that something was wrong here, very wrong. 
But she didn't share Mulder's habit of doggedly pursuing unproductive 
conversations.  He had probably been the kind of kid who had bugged 
his parents about the mystery surrounding Santa Claus until they gave 
in and told him it was a myth, she thought to herself, a child's story. 

Then she remembered his parents.  No, maybe not, she amended.  Poor 
Mulder, whose fine, searching mind had found so many closed doors. 
No wonder he got angry when people refused to give him straight 
answers.

"Scully?"

She looked up at her partner's quizzical stare.  "Sorry.  What?"

"We should get going.  There's a motel about a half-hour from here. 
What say we head back up the road, grab some dinner, and fly back to 
D.C. tomorrow?"

And as he had heard her silent plea to give up on the men in dark 
suits, she heard his unspoken message:   Let's make it *look* like 
we're leaving. 

Mulder never gave up on anything. 

"Okay," she said, her face deliberately expressionless. 

Without another look back, they retreated to the rental car and turned 
around.  The carefully neutral cast of Mulder's face disappeared as 
soon as they rounded the bend.  "Dammit, Scully, did you see those 
guys?  We've *got* to get into that town."  His eyes narrowed in 
concentration.  "No ID--although I should have asked to see some, 
just to see what they'd do--"

"No, Mulder."

"What?"

"You handled that just right."

"Oh."  He sounded partly miffed, partly flattered.  "Just right?"

She rolled her eyes, but said calmly,  "A confrontation with those 
men would only have drawn attention to us and you wouldn't have 
gotten any more information from them.  You were smart to walk 
away."

He looked smug for a moment, then serious again.  "We need to get 
into the town and find out what's wrong with those people.  I don't 
think those guys were with the CDC."

"I suppose you want to try and sneak into Gateway tonight.  Through 
the forest."

"Did anyone ever tell you you're sexy when you're psychic?"

She didn't smile.  "In spite of the fact that the town's under quarantine, 
and from what we've heard, there probably *is* a nasty disease infecting 
the townsfolk?  That would explain why our elusive friend, Mr. Franklin, 
didn't see anyone.  They might all be sick.  Or dead."

"So we don't get too friendly with the locals, and we wash our hands 
before we eat."

"Mulder."

"You *know* there's something going on there, Scully."

She did.  "All right.  Did you bring a compass?"  His blank look told 
her clearly that he hadn't.  "Hiking boots?  Dark clothing?"

"Hey, do I look like an amateur to you?"

She snorted, but the curl of her lip answered him. 

"Thanks, Scully, I'll remember that when I'm shopping for your 
Christmas present."

"I already know what I'm getting for Christmas, remember?  A 
renewal to the "Paranoids-'R-Us" newsletter.  And I didn't say you 
were amateurish."

He peeked over at her, but her hands were folded in her lap and her 
face gave nothing away.  "Okay, but you'd better look out when it's 
time for your birthday present."

"Oh please, Mulder.  What am I getting this year?  Another keychain?"

"But I gave you a really *cool* keychain last year," he wheedled.

 "A pet rock?  A subscription to 'Celebrity Skin'?"

 "That's not fair.  You liked the keychain."

"Mulder, this is silly.  You win, okay?  You're a big sugar daddy, I just 
never noticed."

"That wasn't fair either, Scully.  If we're going to have a dumb argument, 
you might as well put some effort into it.  Otherwise, it isn't any fun." 

"How far is this motel?"

He sighed, giving up.  "A ways."

"Well, before we're out of the neighborhood, why don't we stop by Mr. 
Franklin's place?  With this map and the information we got from the 
Gunmen, we ought to be able to find it fairly easily.  His place is 
supposedly on this road that runs perpendicular to the highway."  She 
studied the map.  "I think these dashes mean it's unpaved."

"How far is the road?"

She examined the map further for a minute. "Just before mile marker 
41."

It took him two passes by the mile marker to spot the dirt track heading 
into the forest.  The trail proved barely visible from a moving car.  
"Jesus.  This guy sure doesn't get out much.  Look at his driveway."

She murmured assent.  "It's about five miles from here."

Mulder thanked whatever gods were listening for the lack of snow.  The 
bumpy road was nearly impassable in the rental sedan as it was.  Finally, 
they spotted a cabin through a thick stand of trees.  A rusted-out pickup 
truck with a gun rack was parked in front of the small rustic structure.

"Looks like Mr. Franklin's at home."

But he wasn't.  They knocked politely, waited, and finally Mulder tried 
the door.  It wasn't locked.

The one-room cabin was cold and dark.  Mulder found the light, and 
they both simply stood for a minute, taking in the place.

It was a puzzle, Scully thought, looking around.  On the one hand, the 
computer set up on a long, low table was clearly a nice one.  A rack on 
the far wall held four shotguns along with a crossbow.  So the man was 
no Luddite.  But the wood-burning stove in the center of the room was 
the only visible heat-source, and judging by the iron grill and pans set 
up on the top of the stove, this was where he cooked, too.  Rows of 
books filled the shelving on two walls, and more were stacked in piles 
that threatened to topple over onto the wood floor.  A neatly made 
double bed, covered by a wool blanket, was tucked into one corner.  It 
would be cozy with the stove going, she mused.

She didn't see an entry leading to a bathroom.  So apparently the guy 
had electricity, but no central heat; a phone line, but no indoor plumbing. 
Walking back to the open door of the cabin, she peered out into what 
passed for a yard, and immediately spotted a pump and, further off, 
an outhouse.

Mystery solved.

Still . . . weirdness. 

"Where do you suppose he..."

"Outhouse."  Mulder was looking out the window on the rear wall of 
the cabin.  "And look in here."  He pulled back a checkered curtain to 
reveal an old-fashioned iron tub.  He grinned at her.  "Soap, shampoo-- 
Breck!"

"Mulder, I was going to say, where do you think he is, not where do
you suppose he . . . bathes."

He was peering at the floor.  "I dunno, Scully," he said slowly, "but I 
don't think this is a good sign."

Barely visible on the dark wood of the cabin's floor, blood had 
spattered and smeared in streaks that had long since dried to an 
opaque brown.  The streaks pointed towards the door.

Like something--or someone--had been dragged bleeding from the 
cabin.

"With the guns on the wall, there's a good chance he hunts . . . "
Scully began softly, but her heart wasn't in it.

"The blood begins here," Mulder said, gesturing to the center of the 
room.  "So unless he shot Bambi indoors and then lugged him outside 
to gut him . . . ."

She nodded thoughtfully.  Mulder was right.  Franklin's gun rack was
fully stocked; his truck was parked outside.  Add to that the splash 
pattern on the man's floor, and it appeared far more likely that the 
cabin's occupant had been the shootee rather than the shooter.

"I guess we're figuring this guy probably isn't just off in Miami for the 
weekend, or something." 

When her eyes met his, they were somber. "No, probably not."

		*	*	*	*	*

With twilight, it had gotten cold.  The sky was darkening from a rich 
tapestry of pinks and blues streaked with golden clouds to deep blue 
sprinkled with stars.  Scully put her hand to the car window; it was 
freezing to the touch.  I hope Mulder brought warm clothes, she 
thought; then, why do I worry about him?  It's not that he's amateurish--
that isn't it.  He just doesn't care about himself enough.  He'll forget to 
bring warm clothes, then suffer the cold like he deserves it.

He doesn't care about himself as much as I care for him.  That's why 
I worry. 

The Prairie Dog Motel wasn't glamorous, but it was Mulder's kind of 
place.  The flickering neon glow was visible from several miles away 
on the dark highway.  Mulder, driving in silence, brightened visibly as 
they approached the motel.  He parked so haphazardly Scully scolded 
him, but he was oblivious, eyes pinned to the sign as he unfolded his 
lanky frame from behind the steering wheel.  She collected her luggage 
and joined him.

He was in seventh heaven, gazing appreciatively up at the massive, 
buck-toothed rodent outlined in yellow neon that leered down at them 
from the motel's sign.

"Thank God we don't have a camera," she sighed, mostly to herself.

"Why?"

"Because you'd be asking me to take your picture under that awful sign," 
she retorted. 

He stared at her for a moment, then let loose a yelp of laughter.  Still 
laughing, he pushed his way into the motel office, leaving her standing 
under the garish glow of the sign, grinning at his retreating back. 

They got adjoining rooms, as usual.  She always felt a moment of 
quiet satisfaction when they walked into two rooms next to each 
other.  Usually, she glossed it over mentally by reminding herself that 
it was safer to have him within earshot--look at all the times one of 
them had gotten into trouble, alone and asleep or unguarded.  Tonight, 
however, the justification rang false.  Why?

Why else would she feel such contentment at having him sleeping 
nearby? 

She pushed the thought away before it could cause any real trouble.

She was halfway into her jeans when Mulder knocked on the connecting 
door.  "Hang on a second," she called out, but he was walking into the 
room practically before she was done zipping up.  "Mulder, what . . . ?"

His fingers closed around her wrist and he tugged her unceremoniously 
into his room.  "I called my voicemail.  You gotta hear this, Scully."  He 
handed her the receiver, still off the hook, and pressed 3 to start the 
message playing again.

The recording said, "Agent Mulder, this is Assistant Director Skinner. 
I've come up with some new information on the case that you're 
investigating with Agent Scully, and I don't think it's a wise use of 
the Bureau's resources for you to continue with the investigation." 
The voice paused, then added, "I want you both back here tomorrow. 
Let my secretary know what time we can expect you at the office; I'll 
need to speak with you as soon as you're back."  Another pause, and a
steely note was now present in the AD's voice:  "Tomorrow, Mulder.  
I mean it."

"Press one to delete this message," the automaton broke in smoothly. 
"Press two..."

Scully hit one, and looked up at her partner, who was standing 
unnervingly close.

"Wow."

"Yeah, wow.  Must be something good to make him sound that nervous," 
Mulder said happily. "You ready?"

"I don't believe you.  Two seconds ago, I was listening to Skinner, our 
*boss*, give us a *direct* order not to investigate this case, to return to 
D.C. *immediately*. . ."

"Scully," he entreated.  "Scully, there's no flights out of that rinky-dink 
airport until tomorrow morning.  So we're stuck here for the night anyway. 
And Skinner even said, and I quote, 'tomorrow,' unquote.  So we're on 
our own tonight--shouldn't we do a little poking around?"

"Mulder..."

"It's either that or sit in this motel and watch dirty movies on the Spice 
Channel.  Unless you'd =prefer= to stay here and watch dirty movies 
with me," he teased.

She regarded him steadily.  "Okay."

"Okay, you're ready to go?"

"Okay, let's find out what's on the Spice Channel."

His jaw actually dropped slightly, she was pleased to see.  "Scully . . ."

"What's wrong, Mulder?  You all talk and no action?"

Now he was actually goggling at her, jaw slack, eyes wide as she 
reached for the remote.  His expression did her in, though, and she 
relented.  "Mulder, this is ridiculous.  What if Skinner talked to the 
CDC and there really is something contagious in Gateway?"

"We don't even have to go *into* town, Scully.  We could just get close 
enough to scope the place out, see if there's anything going on that we 
could pick up through binoculars."

"You brought binoculars?"

"Yup."

"And if we get busted by the state police or those other guys, we're in 
deep shit with our boss."

"C'mon, Scully, you *know* you're itching to find out what's going on 
here.  What happened to Franklin."

And the simple truth was--she was.  Years at Mulder's side had made 
her curiosity nearly as urgent as his own.  She sighed, ready to capitulate.

"Atta girl."

"I didn't *say* anything."

"Yeah, but you're ready to go.  I can tell."  He crouched in front of her, 
leaning in with both hands on his knees.  "And you *know* it's got to 
be big if I'm willing to pass up a night of watching skin flicks with 
you."

She administered one careful push to the center of his chest and primly 
watched as he toppled over backwards.  The astonished look on his face 
was priceless, even better than when he thought she was serious about 
the pornography.  That's twice in one night, she noted with a distinct 
twinge of satisfaction.  Gotcha again, Mulder.

*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Continued in Chapter III

"Antidote" (3/18)
by Rachel Howard
& Karen Rasch

Snowrider5@aol.com
Krasch@earthlink.net

See chapter one for intro and non-story stuff.

**********************************************************

October 23
Just outside Gateway, CO

It was cold enough out to make her wish she'd brought an extra 
sweater.  Unfortunately, she couldn't just dash back to the motel and 
don another layer.  In a few more minutes, they would reach their 
destination.  So the thin, black wool turtleneck she wore would have 
to suffice.   

Oh well, Scully thought as she peered out the car window at the 
inky landscape, at least she had had the foresight to pack jeans and a 
pair of sturdy boots.  Of course, work alongside Mulder long enough
and a person learns to be prepared for any and all eventualities, she 
wordlessly grumbled.  She might not have planned on a midnight visit 
to a supposedly quarantined hamlet, but that didn't mean she couldn't
dress for it.

She glanced over at the man who had talked her into this little jaunt.  
He sat behind the wheel, staring straight ahead, his eyes narrowed 
against the night.  He was garbed much as she was--jeans, navy blue 
pullover, boots, and a dark, heavy jacket.  Hell, Mulder had even 
remembered gloves, she realized with a lift of her brow, her gaze 
dropping to her lap where she considered her own bare hands.  What 
d'ya know?  And here she had been worried about him.  Damn.  What 
she wouldn't give to have her nice, fleece-lined Isotoners with her 
instead of sitting on her closet shelf back home.  She had almost 
tossed them in her suitcase too; but the temperature had been over fifty 
degrees when they had left D.C.  Bringing along such decidedly winter 
accessories had seemed, to her practical mind, like overkill.

Thank God for pockets.

Mulder drove silently on, unaware of her dilemma, seemingly lost in 
thought.  Two miles from the roadblock, he cut the headlights, and 
they slowed to a crawl, navigating by moonlight. 

A half a mile from the roadblock, he eased the rental car onto the 
shoulder and let it crunch through the weeds in the dark.  "If we circle 
around to the left, I think the woods will give us enough cover to use 
a flashlight for awhile, at least."

She nodded her assent and they slipped out of the car into the frosty 
night.  He slung the small backpack with their supplies over his 
shoulders and they melted into the cover of the trees.

Mulder clicked the flashlight off when they were deep enough into 
the woods for Scully to have lost sight of the road.  They stood silently 
side by side, waiting for their eyes to adjust to the light.  Or lack thereof.
Even standing as closely as they were, all she could initially make out 
of her companion was the ghostly oval of his face.  Searching for a way 
to calm her nerves, she listened to Mulder's steady, even breathing.  
That simple sound, unnaturally loud in the silent forest, soothed her.  
She smiled softly to herself at that realization.  Then, her smile still 
curving her lips, she felt her partner's fingertips brush the sleeve of her 
jacket.  "Ready?"

"I wish we had some of those night-vision goggles," she admitted 
ruefully.

"I bet those guys in the commando outfits have some.  Want me to find 
one of them and steal his shit?"

"Just keep track of where we are, okay?"

"Right, boss."

They eased their way down the wooded slope toward the town as 
quietly as they could.  She heard Mulder grunt softly as he tripped over 
something on the forest floor, then heard a branch crack under her foot.  
This wasn't such a great idea, she thought.  If anyone is on perimeter 
watch, we're as good as caught.  It was impossible to walk quietly in 
the dark forest.

But no one stopped them as they approached the outskirts of town.  A 
few more minutes of careful walking took them to the edge of a 
backyard.  A gleam of white on the ground caught Scully's eye and 
she began to bend down to see what it was only to recoil immediately 
when a fetid odor reached her.

"What is that?"

"Something dead, from the smell of it," she whispered.  She nudged 
the object carefully with the toe of her small hiking boot.  "A dead rat, 
I think."  It shone dully in the moonlight.  "A white one."  A slight 
frown crossed her face.

I wonder what the hell that's doing out here, she thought.

And then thought no more.  Because Mulder slipped his hand around 
her upper arm, and leaning in so that his breath kissed her ear, he
whispered, "This way."  Treading cautiously across the treacherous, 
leaf-covered ground, she followed her partner around the perimeter of 
the property.

At first, she thought that Mulder was merely trekking blindly through
the brush, keeping just inside the tree line for cover, but having no
particular destination in mind.  Then, as she trailed slowly in his wake,
she saw what had captured his attention.  On the horizon, radiating 
through the pines like a biblical star was a pale wash of light; high and 
diffuse as if from an oversized street lamp.  

Stretching out her hand, Scully caught hold of his jacket.  Mulder 
immediately pulled up and, turning, bent his head once more to hers.  
"What do you think that is?" she hissed, gesturing towards the glow.

"I don't know," he whispered in reply.  "Let's find out."  Together, they 
set off towards the light.  

The forest thinned as they drew closer to the center of town.  Gradually, 
the trees that had cloaked their approach were giving way to bushes 
and tall, yellowed grasses.  Fearing that eventually the mysterious light 
would bleed into the surrounding forest and betray their location, Scully 
scanned the area for a vantage point that would allow them to see but 
not be seen.

When a misshapen oak came into view, she was struck by 
inspiration.

Tugging on Mulder's arm to gain his attention, she pointed to the 
tree.  Still clinging to some of its resplendent fall color, it stood 
outside the circle of light.  Twisted as if with a case of acute arthritis, 
its bottom-most branches dipped low to the ground.  If the boughs 
were sturdy enough, it would make an ideal lookout tower, 
Scully thought.

Taking the lead, she walked quietly to the foot of the oak, her 
partner on her heels.  "Give me a leg up," she murmured softly.
Understanding her intention, Mulder complied, knitting his fingers
together into a footrest.  Bracing her hands against his shoulders,
Scully stepped into his hand.  Smoothly, he lifted her towards her 
target.  Grabbing hold of the branch overhead, she hoisted herself 
up onto it.

Bark scraped her palms, burrowed beneath her fingernails.  Wincing 
slightly, she swung her leg over the limb and, straddling it, pushed 
herself into a sitting position.  Peering down at her partner, she gave 
a little wave.  Don't look now, Mulder, she told him silently, but it 
appears all those hours spent working my upper body have paid off.  
The notion brought her no small measure of satisfaction.  Shedding 
his gloves and shoving them in his pockets, he smiled back.  

Her satisfaction was short-lived, however.  Because once he was 
certain she was solidly ensconced on her perch, Mulder sprang for
the bough himself.  Moving with an easy, fluid strength, he first latched 
on, then effortlessly swung his legs up and around the limb.  In no more 
than a matter of seconds, he was seated opposite her.  Show-off, she 
mouthed with an arch of her brow.  His mouth pulled up in a lopsided 
smile, and he shrugged sheepishly.

Then, from the edge of town, engines roared.  It sounded like a fleet of 
automobiles approaching.  One after another they rolled in, rocks and 
gravel crunching beneath their tires.  Getting his feet beneath him with 
the care and grace of a tightrope walker, Mulder stood, using the branch 
above him for balance.  Turning, he climbed to the limb above theirs; 
and finally, to the one above that.

Scully scrambled skyward after him, eventually taking the hand Mulder 
extended to her, and settling beside him.  From this new, higher perch 
they had a superb view of what she guessed the locals must once have 
called Main Street.

But no longer.

Because if the scene before them was any indication, Gateway, Colorado
no longer had any residents.

"Oh my God, Scully," Mulder murmured breathlessly, his tone as 
horrified as it was awed.

Scully not only understood, but sympathized.  

Beneath a harsh white spotlight, a platoon of haz-mat suited drones 
were carting away what looked to be bodies.  Lots and lots of bodies, 
zippered up tight in shiny black bags.  

"Mulder, what's going on here?" she whispered, her hand resting lightly
on his shoulder, her cheek nearly brushing his.  

"I don't know," he mumbled with distraction.  "I just don't know."

Apparently unaware of their audience, the clean-up crew continued.
They moved precisely, as a team, their fluidity suggesting the group
had worked in this capacity before.  Scully found herself praying that
their seamless efforts had been honed by drills, and not actual practice.
The squads went from building to building, exiting quickly; inevitably 
bearing yet another bag on a stretcher.  Once outside, they would load 
their cargo onto one of several large transport vehicles.  With the 
distance, it was hard to be sure, but they appeared to be Army regulation 
Hum-Vees.

"Military?" she queried softly, her brow furrowed.

"Maybe," he replied.  "There's not a uniform in sight.  But still . . . 
that sure as hell isn't the CDC down there."

She shrugged thoughtfully.  "Well, we don't know that.  I mean . . .
the CDC may be involved.  Judging by the way those guys are dressed,
they must believe that there's *some* sort of contagion involved."

He turned to look at her in the dim light.  "Yeah, but what?  What kills 
that quickly?  So quickly that no one other than Franklin was able to get 
word to the outside world?  If it was simply some new, killer strain of
virus, this decade's Legionnaire's Disease, we would have heard.  We 
would have been made aware.  But there's been nothing.  No news 
reports, no warnings."

She shook her head, at a loss.  

"There's a cover-up going on here, Scully.  One of virtually catastrophic
proportions.  Something unnatural killed those people.  I'm sure of it.
And someone is trying to make just as sure that no one else finds out 
about it."

She took a deep breath, wishing she could formulate some sort of 
argument to dissuade him; but instead, coming up empty.  "So what do
you want to do?"

The corner of his mouth raised.  "Well, I suppose walking in and 
flashing our badges is out of the question."

She smiled in spite of herself.  "I don't think we're dressed for it."

"So, that leaves us with two options:  one, go back to the car and use 
our cell phones to call for back-up."

She nodded.

"Two, go back to the car, and play funeral procession."

"Play what?"

"Follow them."

"Mulder," she murmured, drawing out his name, almost as if she were
tasting it on her tongue, "you and I alone are not enough to go up 
against that entire squadron.  It would be suicide."

"Only if we get caught," he said softly, anticipation gleaming in his
eyes.

She shook her head.  Judging by the number of men in the area and 
the ferocity with which they were guarding their secrecy, capture was 
an all too deadly threat.  "In which case, we'd be no good to anyone."

With that, she stepped away, and pinning him with her gaze, 
whispered, "Come on.  Let's get out of here.  We can talk about it 
in the car."

He hesitated for just an instant, and in that moment, Scully feared he
might insist on being left behind to continue their surveillance.  But
finally, he nodded slowly, the gesture screaming reluctance.

She smiled her thanks.  And saying nothing more, they began 
making their way cautiously down the tree.  It was tricky going.  
Darkness draped the branches, making it difficult for them to judge
where best to grab hold or brace their feet.  It took them easily twice
as long to descend as it had to climb.  At last, they found themselves
both sitting on the bough they had started from.  Scully began swinging 
her leg over the side in preparation for dropping to the forest floor 
below.  But, Mulder halted her progress by placing his hand on her 
shoulder.  "Let me go first.  I'll spot your jump."

Smiling at his unexpected chivalry, she nodded.  He smiled in reply, 
and bending, hooked himself around the branch to hang from his hands.
A second later, he let go and landed without incident, although Scully 
winced at the sound of twigs crunching loudly under his feet.  Looking 
up, he gestured for her to take the plunge.  Following his example as best 
she could, she leaned over and slid her lower body off the limb.  Dangling
from the bough, she was just ready to release, when she felt Mulder's hands 
close around her hips.  She relinquished her grip and let him guide her 
gently down.  Their bodies slid, one over the other, as he lowered her.  
The friction was minimal.  Slight, really.  But she could have sworn sparks
flew. 

After they were both on solid ground once more, she looked up at 
her partner.  They stood closely together, facing each other.

"Well, that wasn't so bad," she quietly commented, wondering why 
the hell she felt the need to say something, but needing to just the 
same.

Seemingly bemused, Mulder shook his head.

"Let's go," she whispered as she turned to head back the way they
had come.

"Just a minute," he said, grabbing hold of her sleeve.  She stopped in
her tracks and felt his fingers comb gently through her hair.  Lost in 
the shadows, it was impossible to see his face.  Scully stood dumbstruck.  
What did he think he was doing? she wondered.  It wasn't that she 
minded his touch.  She liked it.  Could, in fact, learn to crave it.  But 
this was hardly the time or the place. . . . .

"Leaf," he murmured, effectively ending her silent tirade.

"What?"

"You had a leaf in your hair," he explained, twirling the offending bit
of plant life before her eyes.

A leaf.

"Oh," she mumbled, suddenly feeling beyond foolish.

"Come on," he whispered, his fingers closing around her forearm, utterly
unaware that she currently wanted to shoot one or the both of them.

Though somehow she suspected she was the one more deserving of it.

"Okay," she replied just as quietly, determined to forget all about things
like Mulder's hands and Mulder's body, and concentrate on the case at 
hand.  

The exceedingly dangerous case at hand.

When all at once, it got much easier to focus.

Because a steely voice behind them ordered, "Put your hands up."

They halted in unison, their arms at their sides.

"I said, 'put your hands up.'  Now."

Stealing a glance at each other, they complied.

"Turn around.  Slowly."

Once more doing as they were told, they pivoted.  And discovered they
were face-to-face with three men, all garbed much as they were--dark 
clothes, boots, parkas.  All holding semi-automatic rifles.

"You don't belong here," said the man standing center.  She couldn't
see him clearly.  From where she stood, shadows bathed his features.  
But there was something familiar about him.  Judging by his voice and 
carriage, she guessed him to be Mulder's age, perhaps a year or two 
older.  All evidence pointed to him being the man in charge.

"Would you believe we got lost?" Mulder ventured dryly.

"I believe you need to," the man countered.  "Get lost, that is."

He took a step closer.  As he drew near, Scully could just make out the 
menace shining in his eyes.  The rest of his face remained hidden to her
gaze.

Slowly, the man looked them over, then smiled.  His expression was 
anything but kind.  "And my friends and I are going to help you do just 
that."

*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Continued in Chapter IV

"Antidote" (4/18)
by Rachel Howard
& Karen Rasch

Snowrider5@aol.com
Krasch@earthlink.net

You guys know the drill.  Everything other than story is prior to 
Chapter One.

**********************************************************

October 23
Gateway, Colorado

The men who had seized them worked just like the automatons toting 
body-bags through Gateway's streets, Mulder thought.  Cold and precise, 
and utterly ruthless.  

He got a look at the man behind him when the gunman turned him 
around and frisked him rapidly, relieving him of his Sig Sauer and his 
ID.  Visibility wasn't a problem.  Not when one of the other two men 
had popped on an industrial strength flashlight the moment the guy 
seemingly in charge had begun patting the agent down.  Instantly, the 
small clearing had glowed as if lit by a particularly roaring bonfire.  
And in that light, Mulder made a positive ID.  The trio's leader was 
their friend from the roadblock.  Same face, same sneer.

Same shitty attitude, Mulder silently fumed as their captor next turned 
his attention to the lone woman in the group.  This bozo really needs 
to take some classes on gender issues in the workplace, he thought 
darkly, icy fury creeping up his chest as he watched the object of his
tirade advance on Scully.  Because Mulder detected a marked shift in 
the big man's attitude.  Separating the male fibbie from his weapon 
had been standard operating procedure, a necessary task, nothing more.  
But it appeared to Mulder as if Goon #1 was looking forward to 
repeating the process on Scully; the heated anticipation he saw in the 
man's gaze was enough to chill his blood.

Scully must have recognized in the man the same malicious intent.  
She never took her eyes off the guy.  Still, although her gaze narrowed 
slightly, she didn't flinch when he spun her so that she stood in profile 
to her partner, then began sliding his hands along her sides with unctuous 
care.  You perverted son of a bitch, Mulder wordlessly railed, his eyes 
shuttered as he watched the man stroke slowly along Scully's back, 
pulling her gun from the holster resting just above her hip and handing 
it off to one of his accomplices.  Yet, although the words were screaming 
inside his head, he said nothing; instead he stood stoically by as those 
treacherous hands then made their way around to the front of Scully's 
slender form, intimately tracing the contours of her slender waist.  
Again, the gorilla took his time, allowing the woman under his control 
to think about what was to come.  To worry about it.  Fear it.

What the man didn't understand, however, was that his delicate-looking 
prisoner didn't scare all that easily.  So, despite his best efforts to 
intimidate her, to reduce her to tears or trembling, she simply endured, 
her face impassive as at last he pawed at her chest with all the subtlety 
of a hormone-riddled adolescent. 

Unfortunately, Mulder wasn't holding up nearly as well.  He clung 
to his composure for as long as he could, breathing in harsh, short 
pants, his teeth grinding viciously against each other.  Keep it cool, 
he told himself over and over again, knowing that any outbursts on his 
part would most likely accomplish nothing other than to embarrass 
Scully.  But when that sick bastard had the fucking audacity to glide 
his hands up the inside of her thighs, to cup one meaty palm intimately 
around the juncture of her spread legs . . . .

Mulder lost it.  Letting out a low, ugly growl, he lunged towards the
pair before him.

And in the space of a breath, he found himself retching on the ground, 
clutching his stomach.  The fist had come from the man holding him, 
not the guy groping Scully.  But in the end, it didn't matter who had 
delivered the blow; Mulder had accomplished what he had set out to 
do.  The guy who had slugged him warned in a bored voice, "Let's go, 
Carl."

And, just like that, Scully's ordeal ended.

So despite the fact that Mulder's middle burned as if someone had
driven a red hot poker through it, he was feeling pretty smug.  After 
all, a single sucker punch wasn't so much to suffer.  Not for what he 
had gained.  

He reconsidered that optimistic viewpoint when the men dragged him 
to his feet and he saw Scully's stricken expression.  He mouthed "I'm 
okay" at her as their hands were duct-taped behind their backs.  She 
looked relieved.

As soon as the agents were bound, the man holding Mulder up shoved 
him forward.  He stumbled, then righted himself quickly, anticipating 
another blow if he couldn't walk.  Scully fell wordlessly into step beside 
him; Mulder saw that the man who had frisked her trailed behind them 
both.  

He tried to get a look at the town as they were marched past it, through 
the thick scrub that marked the edge of the forest.  When his sightseeing 
won him a hard jab in the side from the butt of someone's gun, he kept 
his head down, able only to peer out furtively from time to time.

Gateway looked cold, awash with white light.  The few houses he 
caught glimpses of were dark and still.  Mulder saw loose boards 
curling up like jagged teeth on the back porch of a small home trimmed 
in garish blue paint and thought, crazily, 'That's dangerous.  Someone 
could trip.'

He spied a number of body bags laid out in neat rows, like playing 
cards on a table.  He tried to look beyond the corpses, to the trucks and 
equipment that had taken up residence on the street, but all he could 
see were the shrouds of the dead.  Some -- a few -- were quite small. 

They stopped beyond the edge of town.  Mulder estimated that they 
weren't far from where they had parked their rental car at the side of 
the road.  However, there was no sign of their blue sedan.  Instead, a 
short convoy of military vehicles was lined up along the shoulder.  A 
group of figures in haz-mat suits turned their bubbled heads towards 
him, then incuriously away.  

He chanced a look at Scully.  Her face reflected little of the horror they
had seen on the short walk past the town, but her expression changed 
quickly as she watched something happening behind him.  He turned 
his head in time to see Carl's burly companion preparing a syringe.  He 
struggled until he felt the sharp sting of the needle and then everything 
faded into whirling gray, then blackness.

When he woke up, it was dark, and his arms ached terribly. 

The steady, grinding noise beneath his ear slowly resolved itself into the
sound of an engine.  As his head cleared slowly, he took an inventory of 
his tactile discoveries.  Rough carpeting under his cheek.  A dusty, filthy 
taste in his mouth, like he had slept off a bad drinking binge. 

The sweet smell of Scully's hair, the heat from her body.

Wiggling his hands, he found out why they hurt so badly; they were 
still duct-taped behind his back.  His unconscious partner lay only inches 
from him.  Twisting his head slightly, he saw that her wrists were tied 
too.  But, by some miracle, her left hand looked to have slipped partially 
free of the loop of tape. 

Unfortunately, she was still out cold.

He laid perfectly still as he tried to figure out just where the hell their 
captors had taken them.  It looked like they were in the back of a truck.  
A wide truck.  But not in the back seat.

No, wait.  Not a truck, a Hum-Vee, he deduced.  Like the ones they had 
seen in Gateway.  Over the grumble of the engine, two voices were 
discussing the Redskins' defensive line.  Mulder immediately recognized 
the voices: Carl and his buddy.  Lovely. 

Mulder flexed his toes experimentally and felt something solid.  We're 
behind the bucket seats in the back, he realized, dumped in the vehicle's
long, low cargo area.  They had probably been tossed there hours ago, 
bodies packed closely together to accommodate whatever supplies their 
captors had stashed in the back

He didn't really mind the close quarters.  He and his partner laid cozily 
front to back. The top of Scully's head was just beneath his chin.  If he 
weren't tied up, half-stoned and aching horribly, he'd be enjoying her 
proximity.  

As far as he could tell in his still muddled state, aside from their hands, 
they weren't secured in any way.  He could still move his legs.  Geez.  
For an operation that was obviously well funded, the hired help's work 
bordered on lackadaisical.  Then, mulling it over, Mulder decided
to give Carl and his cronies the benefit of the doubt.  We weren't 
supposed to wake up, he guessed, his hope rising.  And if they think 
we're still unconscious, that's a good indication that they're not really 
paying attention to what's going on.  

Terrific.

Now if Scully would just come to, they'd be batting a thousand.

But her breath was flowing slowly and evenly and she looked like she 
could stay out forever.

He needed to wake her up without alerting the Thug Brothers.  And 
his options were somewhat limited, since they were within spitting 
distance.

"Hey, turn that up."

Mulder sent a silent thank-you to whatever deity was watching them 
as Carl leaned over and turned up the radio.  It wasn't much, but it was 
a small break.  Mulder listened as the two men began talking again; 
louder this time.  He took a chance and scootched down a few inches so 
that his mouth was next to his partner's ear.  He breathed in the clean 
scent of her shampoo for just a second before he murmured her name.

"Scully."

Nothing.  Not even a twitch. 

A little louder.  "Scully."

Damn it, she wasn't moving and he didn't dare risk more than a loud 
whisper, even with the radio playing.

He considered his options.  He was within easy reach of her ear, and its
delicate lobe was incredibly tempting.  He knew she was going to kill 
him later, but this was too good an opportunity to pass up.

He stole another look at the oblivious pair in the front seat, then 
stretched his neck out far enough to nuzzle Scully's ear.  He gently 
tugged her earlobe into his mouth and bit down lightly.

That did it.  She made a soft sighing sound, then he felt her body go 
rigid next to his.  He whispered, "Stay quiet and don't move." She 
didn't say anything and he was worried that she wasn't fully awake 
until he felt her hands move against his stomach.  

He murmured, "Sorry about that, Scully, but my hands are tied -- 
literally.  Your left hand is loose.  Can you get it free?"

She wiggled her hands again, paused, then moved them again.  He 
kept his eyes nearly shut, but he could feel her working at the tape.

Eventually, these guys have to stop, Mulder thought.  To take a piss, if 
nothing else.  If we can surprise them while they're getting out of the 
truck, we've got a chance.  Not much of a chance, but it's better than 
nothing.

Finally, he felt Scully shift against him, and her palms pressed flat into
his stomach.

"Good job," he whispered.  "I can't get my hands loose, though.  I had 
the car keys in my front pocket.  See if you can dig them out and drop 
them into my hands, behind my back."

She fumbled at the front of his pants until her fingertips brushed the 
edge of his pocket.  At least a dozen sophomoric jokes flitted through 
Mulder's mind, but remembering that talking was dangerous, he 
squelched them.

Her index finger was inching back up the inside of his pocket, and he 
felt the keys scrape the fabric.  Not bad, not bad at all.  But then, Scully 
had wonderfully dexterous hands, doctor's hands.  

Now she was curving the hand with the keys over his hip, back toward 
his hands.

"Gotcha," he murmured as the keys, warm from his body heat, dropped
noiselessly into his joined palms.

Turning the small objects around so that the serrated side was against 
the edge of the tape was excruciating, with his nearly immobilized, 
stiffened muscles screaming at him every millimeter of the way.  He 
supposed he could have asked Scully to simply roll over and free his
hands from the tape herself.  But, he feared that too much movement
on the part of he and his partner would alert their captors.  No.  Despite
the discomfort, this was the tack to take.

If he only had enough time and mobility to make the effort successful.

To take his mind off the pain, he mapped out a strategy as he sawed.  
Carl was farther from him, but it would be easier to surprise the driver, 
who would be distracted by the business of shutting off the engine.  So, 
Scully could go for the man behind the wheel while he went after the 
guy riding shotgun.  Mulder was almost looking forward to it.

He hadn't forgotten the way the bastard had groped Scully back in 
Gateway.

He felt a slight give in the wad of duct tape, but his hands were 
cramping.  Shit.  He stopped and bent his mouth to Scully's ear again.  
He whispered his plan to her, and felt her hands press into him again 
in assent.

By the time the frayed edge of the tape loop parted, he had become
seriously worried about his chances of overcoming his lean yet strong-
looking nemesis.  His hands were nearly numb.  Oh well.  Work with 
what you've got, Mulder.  He sized up the distance to Carl's neck.  
Okay, then.  If he could get an arm around the man's neck, at the 
elbow, it wouldn't matter that his grip was useless.

"Gotta take a leak."

Yeah, you do.  Go for it, Mulder silently thought.  Wait 'till you see 
what I've got for you, fucker.

"You want me to drive?"

"Nah.  We need to give them another shot, though."

Mulder shut his eyes, anticipating Carl's move a split second before it 
came.  The seats creaked as the man turned around and looked at the 
two prone agents, then turned back.  "They're still out.  Just as well.  I 
gotta take a leak, too."

Nothing more was said, and Mulder prayed that Scully was ready.  It 
was too quiet without the two men talking for him to risk another 
whisper.

The Hum-Vee ground to a halt, and Scully, keeping low, had centered 
herself precisely between the two bucket seats.  Without warning, she 
moved first.

Silently, she sprang to her left and launched herself towards the
driver, drilling her elbow into the base of the his neck.  The element of 
surprise now lost, Mulder threw himself over the rear seat, stretching 
out his long frame, and locking his arm around Carl's throat.  Though 
his attack was met with a satisfying gasp turned groan, Carl wasn't 
giving up without a fight.  Battling for oxygen, the man's arms whipped 
up and back, fingers digging into Mulder's scalp seconds later.  Wincing 
with pain, the agent hung on grimly, like an angry terrier stubbornly 
refusing to release its hold on a larger dog.  

Carl's breath whistled through his teeth in agonizing hisses, his chest
lurching as he desperately tried to suck in air.  But still the man managed 
to wind one hand back to Mulder's shoulder, where his fingers sank in 
again, this time digging for a nerve.  Mulder gritted his teeth and 
tightened his grip on his adversary's throat.  Vision blurring with the 
effort, Mulder heard a thud, and a male grunt.  Not Carl, though.  The 
driver.  Did that sound mean Scully had clobbered the guy?  Or had her 
opponent overpowered her?  He couldn't look to his left to check because 
Carl chose that moment to wrap his hand around the back of Mulder's 
neck.

Through what had to be dumb luck, Carl found the nerve ending he 
sought and a sharp involuntary twitch ran through Mulder's back.  
Dimly, Mulder recognized a small snarl of pain as his own.  But even as 
the agent suffered, Carl was weakening.  And just when the raw agony 
shooting through Mulder's neck and shoulder threatened to make him 
lose his grip, Carl's hand went slack and his head fell forward.

Mulder reached across for the gun resting on the console before he 
completely released Carl's neck.  The unconscious gunman slumped 
forward as Mulder pulled his arm back and at last turned his attention 
to his partner.  

She was extricating herself from underneath the limp figure of the 
driver.  Judging from their position, the man must have recovered from 
the blow to his neck.  In the midst of their battle, he had apparently 
crawled over the back of the seat and gotten on top of Scully.  But she 
had somehow disabled him.

"Scully?"

She pushed her hair away from her face, and he saw that she was 
grinning.   "Oldest trick in the book.  But it's a good one."

"Ooh, Scully, did you grab his nuts?"

"Yup.  He'll be singing soprano for a while.  A blow to the head finished
him off."  Crawling, she opened the back door and shoved the man 
unceremoniously to the cold, hard ground.   Mulder opened the door next 
to Carl and imitated her.  The man groaned but didn't move.

Standing over the unconscious body, he restrained a ridiculous urge to
high-five Scully. 

"Looks like we got ourselves a Hum-Vee, Scully," Mulder said, grinning 
evilly as he tried to catch his breath.

*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Continued in Chapter V

"Antidote" (5/18)
by Rachel Howard
& Karen Rasch

Snowrider5@aol.com
Krasch@earthlink.net

Do you think we'll get this done by 1998?  <Karen>
Not if you keep writing at your current pace, Rasch.  <Rachel>

**********************************************************

October 24
Somewhere West

Moving stiffly, Scully climbed out of the vehicle and frowned, looking 
it over.  "Wow.  I think this is a genuine Army model."

"So, do we do the chivalrous thing and take them back with us, or do we 
just leave them here?"

Scully considered this briefly. "Do you think they'll live?"

"Yeah, probably.  They can walk out of here - it'll take them awhile to 
hike out to a road, but they should be okay.  I think.  Except for maybe 
some frostbite if it gets any colder."  He glanced at his partner and saw 
that she was giving him her special, patented Look.  "Scully, I'm sorry, 
but you know as well as I do that these guys didn't drag our unconscious 
bodies all the way out here just to give us a stern lecture."  She grimaced.  
"I just can't get too worked up about their welfare right now.  They were 
planning on killing us.  I'm fairly comfortable with the idea of letting 
them take their chances with Mother Nature."

Scully shrugged, then turned resolutely back toward the Hum-Vee. 
"Okay, then.  Leave them.  Let's get out of here."

Nodding, he crossed around and settled into the front seat.  Flipping on 
the interior lights, he examined the gears.  "Hey, Scully?  This would be 
a good time to dazzle me with your navigation skills.  I see a compass, 
but no map."

"Really?  So how did these guys know where they were going?"

"I have no idea, but it'd be nice if we had at least a general clue which
direction we're headed in."  He looked at his watch.  "Twelve-thirty.  I'd  
like to say we were only out of it for a few hours, but I don't think so, do 
you?"

She shook her head.  "No.  Judging by how hungry I am, I think we were
unconscious for the rest of the night, then all day, and into the next night.
And I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I have no idea where we are.  My
navigation skills are a lot more useful when I haven't been out cold for 
the entire drive."

"So pick a compass point."

"How about east?  If they'd driven west from Gateway, we'd be in 
eastern Utah by now - which is possible, since it's pretty sparsely 
populated."

"There's a river in the way.  But, yeah, it's a good theory.  They could 
have taken I-70 part of the way."

She nodded, squirming slightly in the seat. 

"Scully?  Got ants in your pants?"

She shot him a disgusted look before admitting with a touch of chagrin, 
"Bathroom.  But would you mind driving a ways first?  I don't really feel 
like answering nature's call with our two friends out there." 

He grinned at her wry tone.  "Now that you mention it, I probably could
use the facilities myself."

Scully smiled in spite of herself.  "Yeah, well . . . if it's been as long as
we think it's been, I can't say that I'm surprised.  You get us going.  I'll 
go look in the back and see if they've got any food."

Keeping a careful eye on the compass, Mulder put the heavy vehicle in 
gear, and they trundled off slowly into the darkness.  

"Wait!"

He hit the brake hard, throwing his partner roughly against the back of
his seat.

"What?  What's wrong?" he queried, peeking over his shoulder at her.

Rather than immediately answering, she crossed away from him and 
opened the rear door.  Bending at the waist, she retrieved a couple of 
bottles of water and heaved them at the prone figures of their former 
captors.  She then slammed the door shut once more, saying sheepishly, 
"You can live without food for days, but they'll need some water."  He 
smiled at her softhearted nature but didn't reply - a charitable gesture, 
since he knew how easy it would be to tease her about her humanitarian 
impulse.  He started driving again as she went back to rummaging in 
the back.

After a while, Scully snaked around the gearshift and eased herself 
carefully into the passenger side.

"Anything?"

"Lots of drugs.  Ibuprofen and Percocet and some stuff I don't recognize, 
plus more sedatives and syringes. They had enough to keep us under for 
another couple of days.  Also, a bunch of antibiotics and some first-aid 
stuff.  They were pretty well prepared.  Plus, I found these."  She tore 
open a box of crackers and dumped a handful into his lap.

"Wow."  With this bounty before him, Mulder suddenly realized that he 
was starving.  Scully uncapped a can of Cheez Whiz and thoughtfully 
doused a cracker for him, popping one into her own mouth.  For a time, 
they chewed happily in silence while the Hum-Vee rumbled ponderously 
over the rough, rocky terrain.  Mulder was just about to ask Scully to 
pass him one of the bottles of water when he caught her flipping the top 
off the bottle of ibuprofen and shaking a couple into her palm. "Scully?"

She gave a resigned sigh.  "I think I pulled a muscle when that guy 
landed on me.  I kicked him in the gut and something didn't bend the
way it should have.  No biggie, Mulder."  Her steely gaze dared him to 
make something of it.

He declined.  "Is that all the food there is?"

"Some apples, more bottles of water, chocolate bars, beef jerky, Cokes, 
plus a few cans of baked beans, which should come in handy if we're 
farther from civilization than we think we are.  A few other things." 

"Scully, we have to go back to Gateway."

She took another sip of her water before answering him.  "I know."

They ate for a while, the silence interrupted only by the sounds of the
engine growling and tires churning.  In the small pool of light cast by 
their headlights, Mulder could see faint, wide tire tracks.  Tire tracks 
had to come *from* somewhere, he reasoned.  They were doing all 
right so far.

"There're clothes back there, too," Scully said quietly.  "Plaid jackets 
and daypacks.  Two sets.  I checked the packs - there's ID in there for 
a Tom and Sally Parker.  I think they were going to make it look like 
we'd gone hiking and gotten lost."

He winced.  "They knew we were here before they caught us, then.  
They wouldn't have had the IDs otherwise.  So the only question at 
this point is, was Skinner calling to warn us, or. . . "

". . . Don't, Mulder," she broke in.  "Just don't.  He wouldn't have called 
if he'd given our location to them himself."  He heard the worry in her 
voice, but he couldn't stop himself.

"Maybe he didn't have a choice, Scully."

She didn't answer.

After a minute, he asked, "Any camping gear back there?"

"A couple of blankets.  Nothing else that I could see.  Why?"

"We need to get back into town and figure out what's going on without 
anyone catching us.  If they think these guys already killed us and 
dumped our bodies, they won't be looking for us for awhile.  But we 
need enough time to investigate what's wrong in Gateway.  Obviously, 
the motel is out - hell, with as remote as this place is I wouldn't be 
surprised if Carl's buddies were staying there themselves.  So, I was 
thinking we could camp near the town and try sneaking in again at 
night."

"Well, I didn't see a tent back there.  But we can always sleep in the 
back - there's enough room, I think."

At that, the corner of Mulder's mouth lifted.  Cuddling under a blanket 
with Scully in the back of a truck.  Suddenly, things were looking up.

"Did we finish those crackers?" he asked, trying to push all those 
terribly inappropriate thoughts to the outermost reaches of his 
psyche.  Down, boy.

"Sorry."

"How 'bout the Cheeze Whiz?"

"No, but what are you going to put it on?"

"Just hand it over."

Scully lifted a skeptical brow, but did as he asked.

Keeping one hand on the steering wheel, he tipped his head back, 
aimed for his mouth and pressed the little plastic button. 

Stressful as the past couple of days had been, all his partner could do 
was laugh.

		*	*	*	*	*

After two hours of driving at ten miles an hour in total darkness, 
Mulder's eyes were crossing.  He looked over at the woman dozing 
beside him and decided that enough was enough.  He coasted to a stop 
and switched off the ignition.  Without the dashboard lights, the night 
seemed nearly suffocating.  Only thin slivers of starlight found their 
way in through the windows.

"Hey, Scully?  Time to check into Motel Hum-Vee."

She lifted her head and yawned.  "Hmm."

Smiling at the sleepy sound, he climbed carefully into the back, feeling 
his way to the carpeted floor, and was totally unprepared when, before 
he could get settled, Scully fell heavily on top of him.  "Scully, I didn't 
know you cared," he began, then stopped when he heard her soft gasp.   
"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

Without another word, he fumbled for the ibuprofen tablets in the front 
seat and, stretching out his hand like a blind man, passed them to her.  
She dry-swallowed two before he had finished twisting the cap off a 
bottle of water. 

Peering through the inky void separating them, he watched her tug 
the blankets out from behind the seats.  "Anything I can do?" he asked, 
hating the way the question sounded.

She surprised him, replying wryly as she handed him his portion of the 
bedding, "Yeah.  Draw me a hot bath."

He grinned back in the darkness, settling down next to her under his 
own blanket.  Disappointingly, there was enough room for both of them 
to lie down without actually touching, although his legs were too long 
to stretch out comfortably in the Hum-Vee's cramped interior.  He 
astounded himself by falling asleep almost immediately.

However, at one point in the night, he woke up with a jolt.

A GPS.

Shit.

That's what Carl and the other guy had been using.

He grimaced.  With the exertion of the fight and the drugs in their 
systems, neither he nor Scully had been thinking quite clearly enough.  
If they had, one of them would have undoubtedly come up sooner with 
the answer to the puzzle.

When you're sending a couple of mercenaries out in the woods to 
dump a body or two, do you rely on their navigation skills?  No way.  
That's why they hadn't found a map in the Hum-Vee.  He'd stake his life 
that the two men had been outfitted with a Army-issue GPS, a Global 
Positioning System.  A handy gadget that told them exactly where they 
were at any given time.  And, unless it had fallen under a seat during the 
struggle, Mulder was willing to bet that one of the two men they had left 
behind hours ago still had it.

Lucky them.

Eyes closed, he debated waking Scully up to let her in on his reasoning.
Listening to her slow, steady breathing, he ruled against it.  Morning 
was plenty early enough for the bad news.  

And it was bad news, he reminded himself wearily.  He had been hoping 
that the tire tracks that he had been carefully following would eventually 
lead to a road of some kind, so that he wouldn't have to rely entirely on 
the compass and his skimpy knowledge of western geography.  But Carl 
and Company wouldn't have needed a road with the GPS.

And the light snow that had begun falling outside the Hum-Vee's 
windows would soon obliterate yesterday's tire tracks. 

It was a long time before Mulder fell asleep again.

It was the sun streaming directly into her eyes that finally woke Scully 
up.  She laid perfectly still at first, eyes shut, trying to remember why 
she hadn't pulled the curtains shut before she went to bed last night.  
Then she smelled the musty wool of the blanket underneath her chin, 
felt the steady in-and-out of Mulder's breathing, and remembered. 

Hum-Vee. 

Mulder.

And it was Mulder who was curled snugly against her back, one arm 
wrapped around her middle, holding her securely, his body fitted as 
closely as possible to hers from the curve behind her knees to the back 
of her head.  His breath ruffled her hair.  She was perfectly warm, and 
Mulder's other arm, pillowing her head, was divinely comfortable. 

Altogether, it felt heavenly.

She considered her options.  One, struggle out of his arms, waking 
him up in the process so they could get this show on the road.  Which 
would certainly be the appropriate course of action.

Two, lie next to him and surreptitiously enjoy being held by her partner 
until he woke up too. 

Her conscience nattered dimly at her, but she wasn't completely awake 
yet.  So, feeling only a trifle guilty, she ignored it.

Sighing with pleasure, she shut her eyes again and shifted slightly, 
trying to avoid the bar of sunlight angled directly into her face, and 
unwittingly made a small discovery.

Well, actually, . . . not small at all. 

It's a normal physiological response, she reminded herself logically.  
All men get morning erections from time to time.  And Mulder 
probably hasn't woken up next to another warm body for a long time.  
Clearly, this is nothing personal. 

So why was she feeling an answering warmth spreading through her 
own body?

Suddenly option one seemed like a much more viable choice. 

Briskly, she plucked Mulder's arm off her midsection and began to sit 
up, but with a small cry stopped dead at the white-hot bolt of agony 
that seared through her right leg. 

Mulder was instantly awake, and battling into a sitting position 
himself.  "Scully?"

Stretching it would help, she thought, hitching herself over to the door 
on her butt.  She opened the door and carefully swung both legs down 
to the uneven ground, shivering with the bite of the cold air that rushed 
up to meet her.

"Scully?"

"I'm fine, Mulder," she gritted out.  She took a step forward gingerly, 
and almost cried out again at the fresh jolt of pain through the injured 
leg.  Ow, ow, ow.  Probably just pulled the hamstring.  Walk it out, 
Dana, she admonished herself, carefully hobbling a couple of steps.  
From out of nowhere, Mulder's hand clamped down on her upper arm 
and she found herself gazing up into his tight-lipped face.

"I said, let me give you a hand."

She stared at him. "What?"

"What do you mean, 'what'?  You're obviously hurt, and it's got to be 
pretty damn bad, judging by the way you're walking.  Or not walking.  
When are we going to get past this, Scully?"

What the hell was he so angry about?  "Get past what?"

"Get past your not being able to admit when you need help.  Get past 
your being so unwilling to accept my help that you suffer unnecessarily 
and make me feel like an asshole for not doing something for you. 
I mean . . . =Look at you=."  He glared angrily at her leg.  "You gonna 
tell me what's wrong with you?  *Were* you planning on telling me 
that you couldn't walk -- before we get into a situation where we might 
have to run?"

She gaped up at him. Mulder wasn't just angry.  He was livid.  He 
loomed over her like a storm cloud, bed-head and all, his cheeks pink 
with a combination of cold and fury.  Try though she might, Scully 
couldn't remember if she had ever before seen him in such a state.  
Then, she recalled a one instance that came close.

When, alone,  she had followed Luther Lee Boggs' directions and found 
Liz Hawley's bracelet.

Not sure what to do to diffuse the situation, she said, in a small voice, 
"Mulder, I think I pulled a hamstring.  It's probably just stiff.  That's 
all.  It's nothing life-threatening, nothing you need to worry about."

"Why not let me decide whether or not I need to worry?"

"I'm *fine*, Mul..."

His fingers clamped down painfully and he bent his head until he was 
within an inch of her face.  "*Stop*, Scully.  Just stop saying that. 
You're not fine.  In fact, if I never heard those words from you again, 
it'll be too soon.  I want to KNOW when you're not fine.  Even if it's 
not a big deal, even if you just have a pulled muscle.  I *need* to know."

She still couldn't seem to put together a complete sentence.  "Why?"

At first, he didn't answer her.  Instead, he just looked at her, his hazel
eyes boring into hers.  Finally, something seemed to loosen inside of 
him, and he let go of her arm.  "I just do."

And before she could compose a reply, he wheeled away from her.  
Returning to the Hum-Vee, he dug out the ibuprofen and a water bottle 
and handed them to her.  She took them without meeting his eyes and 
swallowed two more.  She then stretched out the right leg cautiously.
This time, the pain was less intense.

Carefully, she walked back and forth, elasticity slowly returning to the 
injured muscle.  Mulder was spreading one of the blankets on the 
ground, which was lightly dusted with snow.  He dumped an armful of 
food in the center of the blanket and went back to the Hum-Vee to grab 
two Cokes.

"Breakfast?"  He asked as he drew next to her once more.  She tried 
to catch his eyes, but he wouldn't let her.  Instead, he took a seat on 
the blanket and ripped open a package of beef jerky.

Turning to him, she knelt painfully beside him, putting a hand on his 
shoulder.  "I'm sorry, Mulder." 

At last he looked up.  Covering her hand with his own, he squeezed it 
briefly.  "I got carried away."

Normally, apologies such as these cleared the air between them.  But 
this time a current of tension lingered.  She wasn't clear on exactly 
what was going on in his head, but Mulder was obviously still upset.  
"I'll try, okay?" she said, hoping her offer might do the trick.

After a moment, he nodded.  "Jerky?"

Hmm.  Hard to tell.  His reply could be interpreted as a peace offering.
Or he might have simply wanted to change the subject.

Deciding to follow his lead regardless, she let the matter drop.  
Wrinkling her nose at the greasy strips of dried beef, she reached for a 
bag of salted peanuts instead.

While he chewed on the jerky and Scully nibbled away at the peanuts, 
Mulder told her his theory about the GPS.  She listened thoughtfully, 
then shrugged.  "So they're not lost in the woods."

"Apparently not."

"Then I want our water back."

Mulder chuckled, though the effort was labored at best.  The men 
would make it back to Gateway, he thought, but not until after he and 
Scully did, thanks to the Hum-Vee.  Whatever investigating they wanted 
to do would have to be done quickly, before Carl and his pal raised the 
alarm.

"Maybe we should finish this in the car," he said.  Scully agreed.

They had been on the move again for almost an hour when Scully asked, 
"How do we know we're not in Arizona, or New Mexico, or New Jersey, 
for that matter?"  She was frowning.  "You know, we've both been 
assuming that we were transported from Gateway in this vehicle.  But 
we were out for such a long time, we could be almost anywhere.  They 
could have flown us out in a helicopter, or even a small plane if they 
went all the way to an airport." 

He squinted at the view through the windshield.  A jagged line of peaks 
was faintly visible in the distance.

"I don't think so, Scully.  The terrain looks a lot like it did when we 
were driving down from Grand Junction to Gateway.   See those buttes?" 
He gestured at the horizon.  

It was pretty, he thought as he looked out over the landscape, the 
realization taking him by surprise.  Like something straight out of an 
Ansel Adams photograph.  Only their view was in color.  He had been 
so focused on following their almost invisible path, he hadn't really 
noticed before.  The silvery green shrubs jutting up from the arid ground 
were still frosted with last night's snow, but sunlight dappled the gently 
rolling terrain, highlighting every swell and dip in the land.  Miles 
away, a lone tree stood out like a sentinel.  He was steering them along 
the contours of a dry wash, and where water had cut away the dirt from 
its sides, waves of subtle color flowed through the exposed earth.  The 
air was crisp and cold, and it made Mulder's head feel clear and sharp.

"Mesas, not buttes."  Scully delivered herself of this pronouncement 
smugly.

"What's the difference?"

"Uh, I don't know.  Why don't you look in the glove box and check the 
triple-A guide?"

He threw his head back and laughed.  "Did you take a couple extra 
funny pills before we left D.C., Scully?"

Her answering smile left him feeling a little giddy.  Did Scully have 
any idea what it did to him when she lit up like that?  That sweet curve 
of her perfect mouth, that slightly knowing, teasing lift of her lips that, 
when accompanied by a slight flutter of her lashes, left him completely 
at her mercy?   She was the only woman he'd ever known who could 
turn him on just by smiling at him. 

On the other hand, maybe she *did* know, and that was why she hardly 
ever did it.  "You should do that more often."

"Do what?" she queried as she turned to look at her, that killer smile
still clinging to her lips.

Think, Mulder.  You need to think.

And speak.

"Ah, . . . never mind.  Um . . anyway . . . I think we're still in the same 
region.  Look at those."  He pointed at the mountain range in the 
distance, her eyes followed his finger.  "Maybe Utah, maybe Colorado.  
But unless those guys made much better time than we've been making, 
we're probably not more than one state away.  If they'd gone east, we'd 
have gone through Colorado, and since the mountains are in *front* 
of us, not behind, that kind of rules that theory out.  No, I think we're 
somewhere on the western side of the Rockies."

"I guess I really did sleep through the whole car ride down to Gateway."  
She gave him a sidelong glance, and admitted, "The flight shook me 
up a little.  I wasn't feeling so hot."

Startled, he glanced quickly at her.  She was pointedly not looking in his 
direction.  Well, what do you know? Mulder mused with delight.  Scully
was admitting to a weakness.  Would wonders never cease?  It appeared
as if that morning's tirade hadn't fallen on deaf ears after all.  Good, 
because he'd been kind of worried about it.  Berating the woman when
she had obviously been hurting made him feel like a school yard bully.  
But she couldn't do that to him, or do it to herself.  They only had each
other to depend on out here.  Secrets of any kind were a definite no-no.

He longed to thank her for her honesty, but feared she might misinterpret 
the gesture as gloating.  So, he decided to show his appreciation with a 
little confession of his own.  Taking a deep breath, he said, "I know.  I 
know every once and awhile you have a hard time with flying.  That's 
why I picked Grand Junction.  Telluride's airport is tiny and it can be 
pretty terrifying even if you have an iron stomach.  So. . . . ."  He waited. 
"You mad?"

After a long pause, she said softly, "No."

Phew.

Then after an even longer pause, he ventured, "It's too cold for bees."

Mulder knew that with anyone else, his comment would have earned 
him an odd look and a disparaging remark.  But, as was typically the 
case, Scully followed his train of thought as easily as if it were a line
she commuted on daily.  She sat silently for a minute, but he could 
almost feel her making the transition back to pathologist mode.  And 
as they slipped back into their accustomed roles, the tension left the air 
almost immediately.  

Oh sure, we work beautifully together, Mulder reminded himself 
sarcastically.  It's only the personal stuff that we can't handle.  Bugs 
carrying a deadly virus are a lot less scary than discussing our 
communication problems. 

Still, they were getting somewhere.  Scully had opened the door for him 
on the airsickness issue.  And he had returned the favor by confessing 
to his airport scam.  He had a feeling, though, that he was going to pay 
for demanding from her such disclosures.  Not that she was harboring 
any resentment - Scully never held grudges - but that she'd expect some 
kind of concession from him.  One that was instigated by him this time 
rather than her.  What that might be, he didn't want to think about.

"What made you think of bees?" she asked at last, returning him to the
conversation at hand.

Other than the need to change the subject? he silently queried before 
saying aloud,  "I don't know.  The Consortium.  I can't think of anyone 
else who would want us dead, can you?"

She frowned, but he could tell her agile mind wasn't on the bees 
comment any longer.  "Mulder, why not dump us someplace closer?  
This is a hell of a long way to go just to get rid of a couple of bodies.  
Why didn't they dump us closer to Gateway?"

A vision of the heavy forest surrounding the town flashed into his mind.  
"I think I know where we are."

"What?"

"I mean it. You're right, Scully, why not dump our corpses near town? 
Because they didn't want them found too quickly.  So they went 
somewhere that you might logically expect to find dead hikers -- in the 
spring.  A national forest." 

She was slowly shaking her head, the puzzle pieces not falling into place
quite as quickly for her as they had for him.

"Hiking and hunting," he explained.  "People go out in the fall, get lost, 
die of exposure.  It happens every so often.  Then the bodies don't turn 
up until spring.  Once the winter rolls in around here, there's not much 
of a chance of being found until the snow melts in late spring.  Especially 
if no one knows you're out here to begin with."

She nodded thoughtfully.  "So why do you think you know where we 
are?"

"There are lots of national forests around here -- obviously, it's the West --
but there's one just the other side of the Colorado - Utah border from
Gateway.  I saw it on the map.  That would be the easiest one for them 
to get to.  So they dump us, and no one catches on.  Even if, by chance, 
someone *did* find our bodies, the fake IDs would throw them off, at 
least for a while.  It was a pretty good plan, but Mike and Ike were too 
lazy to shoot us up as often as they shoulda.  Or too stupid.  Anyway, 
here we are."

"Which is where?"

"Somewhere southwest of Gateway, in Utah.  On the wrong side of the 
Dolores River."  He looked at the mountains and turned slightly so they 
were headed roughly northeast.  "With any luck, we're pointed toward 
I-70 now."

*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Continued in Chapter VI

"Antidote" (6/18)
by Rachel Howard
& Karen Rasch

Snowrider5@aol.com
Krasch@earthlink.net

Rollin', rollin', rollin' . . . .

**********************************************************

October 26 
West of Gateway, Colorado

As the day dragged on, Scully's leg, which had earlier stubbornly fought
her best attempts to put weight on it, continued to ache.  First, the pain
centered in the area surrounding her knee.  But as she and Mulder
bounced their way across the Wild, Wild West, the entire limb began to
cramp and burn.  She just couldn't get comfortable, couldn't figure out a
way to properly brace herself against their truck's incessant bucking and
rolling.  With a doctor's detached eye, she reminded herself that the
injury was still far from serious - with ibuprofen, moist heat and
stretching, the leg would be fine.  Unfortunately, she was currently
lacking two of the three healing elements her injury required.

To further darken her mood, they were making almost no time at all.
She understood why Mulder didn't chance urging the HumVee much
above 10 miles an hour.  After all, they were quite literally traveling
cross-country, without signposts or curbs to guide them.  Obstacles
were plentiful; boulders dotted the landscape like freckles on an
Irishman.  Thankfully, they hadn't been plagued with further snow.
What had already fallen was proving treacherous enough.  Almost
as if laughing at their attempts to see what lay beneath, the pristine
white stuff played hide-and-seek with the terrain, its feathery crystals
lifting and drifting on the whim of the wind.

And that wind appeared to be picking up, she noted with thinned lips.
The brush rippled with it; the HumVee shimmied and creaked.  The
sunlight that had awakened her had long since said its farewells,
having been swallowed by a menacing grayscale sky; its clouds piled
one on top of the other, like mounds of dingy mashed potatoes.  A
front was blowing in.  All signs pointed to it.  And this time of year
that usually meant one thing.

Snow.

Or rather, more snow.

Brow creased, she pondered exactly how far they were from civilization.

"How's the gas gauge?" she asked, stealing a look at Mulder.  Without
any discussion of the issue, he had done all the day's driving.  She
wasn't complaining, not with the way her leg was bothering her.

He glanced down at the dashboard.  "Not bad.  We're still above
three quarters of a tank."

She nodded, her frown easing just a bit.  "Good.  Something tells me
the nearest Gas-n-Go is a ways yet."

The corner of his mouth lifted.  "The reservoirs on these things are
huge.  We should be okay.  Besides, our two friends were going
to have to return from wherever the hell it was they planned on
disposing of us.  I can't imagine even they were dumb enough to drive
out here without making sure they had enough gas to get home."

"No.  I guess not."

Reassured, she settled back in her seat, striving once more to find the
angle at which her leg would stop reminding her it was attached to
her torso.  Unfortunately, despite her most imaginative contortions, it
seemed a losing proposition at best.  Still, she made no mention of her
discomfort to Mulder.  The topic wasn't exactly the best conversation
fodder.

So, they drove for a time, saying nothing.  Scully couldn't tell for
certain, but she thought the temperature might have dropped a few
degrees.  The draft seeping in through the floor was more pronounced 
than it had been when they had first set out.

Idly, she wondered if the moonsuited men labored still in Gateway's
streets.  And just how much protection their hi-tech garments afforded
them from such bitter cold.

"So how do you think it's transmitted?"

Chuckling mirthlessly, she slowly shook her head.  Who needed
Psychic Friends when you had a partner like Mulder?  Once again,
her thoughts and his were on convergent paths.  And yet, she supposed
she shouldn't be surprised.  Journeying across the windswept, empty
West, it was too easy to envision Gateway's future -- as Colorado's
newest ghost town.

"My guess is it's not airborne," she murmured, her eyes trained
not on her companion, but on the still landscape before them.

Mulder cocked his head, mulling over her statement.  "Why do you say
that?"

"The guys who caught us.  They weren't suited up."

"So?"

"So, we weren't that far from town," she said reasonably, turning to
look at him at last.  "Not far at all, really, from where the bodies were
being collected.  If there was any chance of contagion by inhalation,
I can't imagine Carl and his men would have agreed to be on perimeter
guard without some form of protection.  A gas mask, if nothing else."

"True.  The clean-up crew was fully shielded from any sort of contact
with Gateway and its citizens.  I suppose that points to whatever killed
those people being spread by contact--"

Without warning, the HumVee's right front tire slammed against a
half-buried boulder.  The vehicle lurched, then rolled up and over the
obstacle.  Hand grabbing for the dashboard, her good leg shoved firmly
against the floor mat for balance, Scully was jerked first one way, then
another upon her perch.  When her sore hip slapped against  the console
separating her seat and Mulder's, it was all she could do to hold back a
whimper.  Jaw clenched, she felt the impact shudder all the way down
her already throbbing limb.

"Wow."  Mulder whistled appreciatively, his fingers locked around the
jittery steering wheel.  "That's amazing.  That would have broken
the axle on a regular car, but this thing just rolled right over it."  He
belatedly turned to his partner, who only just managed to hide a grimace.
"You okay?"

"Fine," she assured him softly, wishing she could get out and stretch,
or even just take a moment and massage her damned leg.  But if she
broke down and admitted the need for such indulgences, Mulder would
only blow the whole thing up to way more than it actually was.  Besides,
it wasn't as if they had time to dawdle.  Nightfall was probably only a
few hours away.  They had to take advantage of what little light the
overcast sky provided.  Dark was =dark= out here in the middle of
nowhere.  It would be far too easy to miss a particularly dangerous dip
in the terrain and wind up with a flat tire - and who knew if this thing
had a jack?  She could deal with the pain.  Although perhaps it was time
for a couple more ibuprofen.

"So, if what we've got here =is= a disease transmitted by touch, what
do you suppose it is?" Mulder queried a few moments later, once their
way had grown easier to navigate.

Scully's lips curved with indulgent humor as she dug in her coat
pocket for the ibuprofen she had secreted there hours ago.  Leave it
to Mulder to get right back to the business at hand.  The man's power
of concentration was ferocious when he chose to exercise it.  Good.
If he kept his attention on the case and the tricky driving, she might
actually be able to swallow a few painkillers without his noticing.

Yet even as that thought registered, their morning conversation
replayed inside her head.  He needed to =know=, he had said.

Why?

What difference did it make?  His knowing that her leg was sore wasn't
going to change things.  He couldn't just magically cure her or really
even alter their course.  They had to get back to Gateway.  Time was of
the essence.  And in the greater scheme of things, her pulled hamstring
was of little consequence.

So why make him feel badly?

Guilt assuaged, she successfully palmed two of the tablets, then searched
for a third, taking care to make her efforts as inconspicuous as possible.
What the hell, she cavalierly reasoned, the extra pill only brought the 
dosage up to prescription strength.  "Well, it could be a lot of things," 
she said, continuing their conversation as much to cover her actions as 
to answer Mulder's question.  "Some highly toxic or mutated form of 
bacteria.  Perhaps some sort of organic poison like those found in arrow-
poison frogs.  There are even several forms of pesticides that are lethal 
once they're absorbed into the skin."

"So what--are you suggesting that someone crop-dusted poor Gateway?"
he asked with a wry, lop-sided smile.

She shrugged, her fingers straining inside her pocket's slippery interior.
Ah, there we go.  Pill number three.  "I don't know.  One thing is for
sure--whatever killed those people wasn't a natural occurrence."

"You think it was planned?"

She shook her head.  "Not necessarily planned, but engineered."

"Oooh, I love it when you talk semantics," he murmured, leering
playfully.

She smiled in spite of herself.  "What I mean is that what we witnessed
had all the markings of a manmade disaster.  Those men might not
have meant to kill the entire town.  But I'd bet my life that they're
directly responsible for the deaths."

Mulder nodded his head vigorously.  "I agree.  But why would they
target such an insignificant community?  Gateway has no strategic
value.  There was no industry to speak of.  No famous citizens--"

"Maybe that was the point," she said, reaching beside her for her half-
empty bottle of water

He turned to regard her, his hazel eyes shadowed in the muted light.
"What do you mean?"

Scully thought before she spoke, taking advantage of the pause to
swallow down the pills she had popped in her mouth while Mulder
had been focused on the road.  "What if what happened to Gateway
happened specifically =because= it's in many ways so unimportant?
It's like you said back in D.C.--if someone wanted to get away with
something, a town like Gateway isn't a bad place to do it in.  It's
inaccessible.  It has no local media.  No attraction that would normally
draw outsiders.  It's the perfect place to stage a cover-up."

Restlessly, he gnawed on his lower lip, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
"So what are you suggesting, Scully?  Do you think that Gateway was
used as a kind of testing ground, a laboratory of sorts?"

She sat there stunned.  She hadn't actually been postulating anything
specific.  She had only been brainstorming aloud, airing out her
impressions of the case thus far.  What Mulder implied was awful.
Like the Tuskeegee experiments all over again.  And yet, given
the evidence they had, such a hypothesis made a sort of sick sense.
Stomach slightly queasy, she allowed, "I suppose such a thing would
be possible.  With its population being as small and as varied in age
as it was, Gateway's citizens would be a sort of ready-made sampling."

Then, almost angrily, she shook her head; negating the notion before
it could even fully take shape.  "But why, Mulder?  Why ruthlessly
slaughter more than four dozen people?  What could the ones
responsible for such a thing ever hope to learn by doing so?"

"How to kill more efficiently," he answered, his voice hoarse, his
words echoing around the suddenly hushed cabin.

For a moment neither said anything.  Then, Scully whispered
faintly, "God."  And looking out at the endless horizon, she couldn't
help but feel as if the darkness that threatened them with close of
day not only represented night, but evil.

An evil that grew nearer and more dangerous the longer they drove.

*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

Continued in Chapter VII

"Antidote" (7/18)
by Rachel Howard
& Karen Rasch

Snowrider5@aol.com
Krasch@earthlink.net

And as the temperature drops, things sloooooooowly heat up.  ;-)

**********************************************************

October 26
The Middle of Nowhere

This didn't look good.

No way.  No how.

It wasn't even nine o'clock when Mulder was forced to suggest to 
Scully that they call it quits for the night.

It was either that or chance driving off a cliff.

They couldn't see more than a foot in front of them.  Not with the snow
whipping against the windshield as if Mother Nature herself was firing
the stuff.  The storm had begun rather unremarkably, a light shower
at twilight.  Pretty, in a child's snow globe kind of way.  But before long, 
the wind that had dogged them since early afternoon had reasserted
itself.  Soon, what had at first reminded Mulder of Currier and Ives 
had seemed more like Stephen King.  And all at once, Scully and he 
were trapped smack dab in the middle of the sort of tempest he had 
prayed for as a kid, the variety guaranteed to close roads and the 
schools they led to.

God, what he wouldn't give for an open road right about now.

But, traffic-free interstates not being an option, Mulder had instead 
concentrated on guiding the Hum-Vee as best he could, his shoulders 
hunched over the wheel, until it became clear that continuing would 
be suicidal.

"I think we need to find a place to spend the night," he said at last, the
words as much apology as opinion.

His partner agreed.

Scully's softly murmured assent was one of the few things she had
shared with him since they had discussed Gateway's possible selection 
as a kind of test site.  She hadn't admitted as much, but he suspected 
her leg was still acting up.  Throughout their journey, she had been 
restlessly shifting her weight upon the seat, her movement subtle, yet 
telling.  He wished that she would just come right out and say, "You 
know, Mulder--my leg hurts like hell."  But, no.  Despite some of the 
inroads they had made earlier in the day, she had remained mute on the 
subject, stubbornly pretending that all was well.

Mulder knew better.

Particularly, when it came to their immediate predicament.

"Well, I don't know what kind of wind break this rise is going to give
us," he said as he brought the Hum-Vee to a stop on what appeared to 
be the beginnings of an incline, and put it into park.  "But, I have a 
feeling it's not going to be enough for us to mistake Colorado in October 
for Barbados in July."

Scully shook her head as she stared out at the storm, her expression
grim.  "How cold do you think it is out there?"

He shrugged and, leaving the motor running, slipped from behind the
wheel to turn to the cargo area behind.  "I don't know for sure.  But
with those gusts, I'd guess we're looking at a minus wind chill.  Maybe
even minus double digits."

Scully looked longingly at the temperature controls on the dashboard;
turned up to maximum capacity, the heating unit was only just 
managing to keep the fierce winds at bay.  Grimacing with sympathy, 
Mulder shook his head.  "We can't leave the engine running, Scully.  
Even if we didn't have our gas supply to worry about, we'd still run 
the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning."

She nodded, the motion weary and resigned.  "I know.  It's just . . . .
we've got our coats and one blanket each.  I'm not sure that's going to
be enough, Mulder.  Not on a night like this."

"I'm afraid I have to agree with you," he mumbled ruefully as, flipping
on the vehicle's interior lights, he began hunting through the supplies
stowed in the back of the Hum-Vee; checking inside packs and
boxes, searching behind and beneath their meager stash of food .  The
dome light illuminating the rear hold got only a C for effort.  Its glow 
was weak, casting shadows far more impressive than the light it 
imparted.

"What are you looking for?" Scully queried curiously as she peered
over the seats at him.

"Anything that we can use for insulation."

Immediately picking up on his train of thought, she remembered, "The
jackets.  The ones I found with the daypacks.  They aren't the heaviest
things in the world, but they're something."

"Great," he replied with enthusiasm as he found the items in question
and draped them over the back seat so as not to lose track of them.  "Do
you recall seeing anything else back here we could use?  It wouldn't
have to be cloth.  Plastic or even rubber might do the trick."

Brow furrowed in thought, she shook her head.  "Not really.  Aside
from the food and water and the traveling medicine chest, there wasn't
all that much back there.  Some rope maybe . . . "

"Paydirt!"

"What?" Scully asked with interest, as she carefully knelt and
began to crawl over the console splitting the driver's seat from that of 
the passenger.  But, as she slowly navigated the narrow path leading
to his side, her injured leg suddenly buckled.  Her hand outstretched,
her face taut with pain, she grabbed wildly for support.

"Shit!"

Mulder caught her just before her hip hit the ground.

"What happened?" he asked, his voice gruff with concern, his body
wrapped around hers, holding her up.  "What's wrong?"

She shook her head and sighed, her hands braced on his forearms.
"It's this damned leg.  It's stiffened up on me after all those hours 
sitting."

"Does it hurt?" he queried, his face bent to hers.

"No--"

He slipped his hand beneath her chin and tipped her head so that her
eyes met his.  "The =truth=, Scully."

She looked up at him, her gaze faintly rebellious.  They just eyed each
other for a moment, fixed in a silent contest of wills.  At last, she wet
her lips with her tongue and softly admitted, "A little.  It keeps 
cramping."

He nodded slowly, trying to judge if she was minimizing the situation
for his benefit or being straight with him.  They were locked in an
awkward sort of kneeling embrace, his one arm twined around her waist, 
her face balanced on his fingertips, their legs tangled like tree roots.  
Thrust as closely together as they were, he was even more aware than 
usual of her size, her delicacy.  Hell.  Her head didn't even clear his 
shoulder.  He wasn't a terribly big guy, yet he was looming over her.

Maybe that's why he so strongly felt the urge to protect her, Mulder 
realized with a spark of insight.  To scoop her up, and hide her away, 
and make certain that nothing would ever threaten or harm her again.  
Not goons named Carl, not dangerous treks out to the middle of nowhere,
not killer snowstorms, and certainly not something as mundane as a
pulled hamstring.

Mulder vs. The Hamstring.

Yeah.  That ought to be one battle he stood a chance of winning.

Bemused by his own silliness, he quietly chuckled, his hand sliding
around the curve of Scully's face to brush lightly against her cheek, 
the caress seeming to him at that moment like the most natural thing 
in the world.  His odd fit of whimsy seemed to erase the last of his 
partner's lingering vexation.  Lifting a brow, she drawled, "Are you 
laughing at me, Mulder?"

"No, ma'am," he said meekly.

"Then what's so funny?"

His lips lifted still, he combed behind her ear a few strands of cool
auburn hair.  "Scully, you and I are about to bed down for the night
in weather a popsicle would find chilly.  Our bed is a vehicle we
stole from thugs bent on killing us.  We're somehow going to have to
manage to grab some shut-eye without the comfort of heat.  We're 
miles from anywhere, without a road or maps to guide us, and yet 
we're doing our damnedest to get back to a town with nary a live 
citizen to greet us upon our return."

He shrugged.

"If I don't laugh, I may cry."

That coaxed a smile out of her.  "I see your point."

"I'm nothing if not persuasive," he sardonically assured her.  "Remember, 
I'm the one who talked you into coming out here in the first place."

"But you were in a slightly better mood a minute ago," she murmured 
as she ever so cautiously stretched and flexed her leg.  A small shadow 
of pain darkened her eyes, yet she didn't cry out.  Rather, she continued, 
"What did you find that got you so excited?"

"Oh!" Mulder mumbled, feeling a bit foolish for forgetting to have
shared with her the good news.  Guess that's what happens when a 
beautiful woman literally falls into a guy's lap, he reasoned.  "Here.  
Sit down a minute and I'll show you."

Guiding her to one of the back seats, he gently lowered her down, 
then turned and retrieved his discovery from behind him.

"Voila!"

Scully squinted in the half-light.  "What is that?"

"A tarp," he explained, shaking it out.  "I think.  I found it folded and
shoved under that big carton of bottled water.  I don't know what the
hell Carl and his buddy had planned on doing with it, but I have a 
feeling we can probably find a use for it."

 She nodded thoughtfully.  "Are you thinking we should try layering
all this stuff?"

He shrugged.  "You tell me, Scully.  You're the doctor."

"I think that's our best bet," she said with another small bob of her
head.  "If we're to have any hope of conserving our body heat, we're
going to have to pool our resources."

Pool our resources.  In other words, he was going to finally get to live 
out his fantasy of Scully, him, and a lone sleeping bag.

Or at least, some sadly less sensual version of it.

Beggars can't be choosers, Mulder, he dryly reminded himself.  Better
make that fantasy a reality.

After convincing Scully to sit back and let him ready their sleeping
quarters, Mulder quickly constructed a sort of makeshift nest.  The
tarp proved nearly double the size of their blankets.  So he used that 
as the foundation of their bed, figuring that half the fabric could go
beneath them and half on top.  Next, he took their coats and unzipped
them so they lay flat upon the bottom portion of the canvas, then did 
the same with the two plaid jackets.

"You know, we're assuming that the Gunmen didn't hear from Franklin 
again because someone physically stopped him from communicating 
with anybody,"  Scully said as she watched him work.  "But what if it 
was something simpler?  Like a downed phone line?"

"Scully, you saw the bloodstains on the floor," Mulder argued as he 
arranged the coats upon the tarp.

"I know.  I'm just saying . . . wouldn't they have cut the phone lines 
to Gateway first?  If this really is what we think it is, a man-made 
catastrophe?"

"Which would mean we're heading back to an area that we can't dial 
out of," Mulder said, finishing her thought.  "I don't know though . . .
did you see the setup Franklin had?  I'm pretty sure he was pirating his 
electricity, and the phone line, too."

"Mulder, that's not possible.  He wouldn't have a phone number, for 
starters."

"Exactly.  That guy wasn't looking to be reachable to the outside 
world.  He just wanted modem access so he could get onto the net,"  
Mulder said with a grin.  "A man after my own heart.  Pretty effective 
way to keep the telemarketers from interrupting your dinner.  Anyway, 
I doubt anyone cutting phone lines would have nuked Franklin's little 
arrangement.  His cabin is too far out for them to have bothered with.  
At least at first."  

She slowly nodded her agreement.  "Well, if the cabin does still have 
internet access that would make it a good place to hide out while we 
try to figure out what happened in Gateway."

Mulder considered for a moment.  "That's true.  After all, when I got
the okay from Skinner to look into this, I never mentioned how we got 
our lead.  No one knows that we first learned about Gateway from 
Franklin."

"Except the Gunmen," Scully reminded him.

"I feel pretty sure they'll keep it to themselves,"  he assured her with 
a wry smile.  

She smiled back at him.

Her grin threw more light than that stupid overhead bulb.

For just a second or two, Mulder froze, his behind on his heels, his
gaze trained on his partner's sunny expression.  "Um . . . it occurred 
to me that we should actually sleep on top of the coats to help cushion 
us from the floor," he muttered at last, gesturing weakly at the 
handiwork in question.  "I don't know about you, but even with the
heat on, I can feel the wind seeping in from underneath."

"Good thinking."

"I like yours better."

"How do you mean?" she queried.

"The cabin," he replied, turning to regard her more fully.  "After all, 
a man may have died there. . . ."

She wrinkled her nose with distaste.

"But it does have heat," he reminded her.  "And food."

"And a real bed."

Oh God.  It was like his fantasy on steroids--Scully, him, and one lone
bed.

Easy, tiger.

"Hey!  Don't knock this one till you've tried it," Mulder finally said, 
mock indignation masking certain other musings.  Scully appeared
not to notice anything amiss.  She merely lifted a brow in reply.  

"Why don't you go ahead and get situated," he said, taking hold of 
her arm and settling her atop the would-be mattress.  "No sense
in two of us crawling in after the fact and messing everything up."

Moving carefully, Scully did as he suggested, stretching out on her back 
and looking up at him with wide, dark eyes.  For just a millisecond, 
Mulder paused at the picture she presented gazing up at him, her bright 
hair fanning out from her pale cheeks in tousled waves.  Then, shaking 
himself free from his persistent reverie, he draped their two blankets 
over her and folded the tarp on top of that.

"Do what you can to warm that up for me, will ya, Scully?" he
entreated with a grin.  "I'm gonna go back up front for a second and
shut everything down."

"Just think of me as your very own personal hot water bottle, Mulder," 
she murmured dryly.

"Ooh.  Can I share that nickname with the guys back at the Bureau?" 
he queried over his shoulder.

"Do, and I'll deny everything," she retorted from beneath the tarp.

Chuckling, he slipped behind the wheel.  Outside the Hum-Vee the
world was a white whirlwind.  He could make out nothing but snow
and more snow, the vision leaving him vaguely claustrophobic.  
Taking a deep breath, he first snapped off the lights, then finally the 
engine.

Darkness, black as pitch.

Almost at once, he could feel the frigid north wind pushing through 
the vehicle's seams.

Please God, let their preparations be enough.

"Talk to me, Scully," he mumbled.  "I don't want to step on you."

"I'm over here," she called softly.

Crawling cautiously in the direction of her voice, he found the edge of
the tarp with his hand.  Bending down, he lifted up the covers and
eased beneath them.  Pulling the combination of canvas and wool to
just beneath his chin, he twisted slightly in an attempt to adjust himself
more comfortably atop the coats.

"Ow!"

He couldn't be certain, but he thought that it might have been her head
with which his elbow had made contact.

"Sorry," he apologized contritely.  "I'm sorry.  This is tricky.  I can't
see a damn thing.  And I'm afraid I'm going to kick your leg or 
something."

"It's okay," she murmured from right beside his shoulder.  "Don't worry
about it.  I'm fine."

Once he was comfortably arranged, it was Scully's turn to adjust.  She 
scooted up, then to her side; trying, as he had earlier, to find the best 
possible position.  The problem was, their cocoon was economy-sized 
at best.  There just wasn't a lot of room to maneuver.  Not if a person 
wanted to stay beneath the tarp.

Which meant that her soft little body couldn't help but wiggle alongside
his longer, harder frame.  Rub against it.  Warm and firm.  Curved and
sweet.

Christ.

No doubt about it.  Parts of his anatomy were getting harder by the
minute.

"Come here," he nearly growled a heartbeat or two later.  Wrapping his
arm around her shoulder, he tugged her to him so that her head rested
on his shoulder and her tummy pressed against his hip.  In her surprise
at this sudden turn of events, her hand fluttered for just an instant to his
exposed throat.

At her touch, Mulder almost jumped straight through the covers.  "Geez,
Scully!!"

"What?" she queried, her tone disgruntled.

"Your hands are like ice," he said, trying his best not to sound like
a parent.  "Where are your gloves?"

"Nice and warm back in D.C."

"Do you want mine?"

"No.  You need them as much as I do," she told him firmly.  "Besides,
yours wouldn't fit me.  They'd just fall off overnight."

"We could share."

"=No=, Mulder."

Sighing in frustration, he pondered the problem for a moment, silently
cursing her stubbornness.   Honest to God, there were times when he 
swore that his partner's independence was a curse.  She wouldn't take 
his gloves, eh?  Well, she probably wouldn't approve of his back-up 
plan either.  But this time, Dana Scully simply wasn't going to get her 
way.

Pointedly refraining from asking for permission, he lifted her dainty 
hand in his and raising it to his lips.  Cupping it in his gloved palm, 
he opened his mouth and slowly exhaled.  Gently, he bathed her fingers 
in moist heat, then took another deep breath and repeated the action.  
His lips grazed her knuckles, the edges of her nails scratched with 
phantom force against the coarse stubble on his chin.  It took every 
ounce of willpower he possessed to keep from pulling one of those slim 
digits into his mouth and tasting her skin with his tongue, from suckling 
lightly on a forefinger or a pinkie.  But somehow, reason prevailed.  
After a few moments, he instead took her hand and placed it against his 
cheek to assess his work.

"That's better," he murmured with satisfaction, tucking both their hands
beneath the covers once more so that hers was sandwiched between his
and his chest.

Scully said nothing.  But he thought he detected a slight softening of
her body, a relaxation of sorts as she rested against him from shoulder
to knee.

They lay there for a time, not speaking.  Mulder could feel the gradual
drop in temperature on his face.  But, so far, his homemade sleeping
bag was holding up admirably.  His bed partner was throwing heat like
a miniature furnace.

"Are you comfortable?" he asked softly, his hand gliding lightly along
her shoulder and arm.

"Hmm" she hummed from just below his ear, her voice husky and low,
and astonishingly intimate in the darkness.  "Yes.  I am."

He nodded, thinking that even though she couldn't see him, she could 
probably feel the motion of his cheek against her hair.

"Thank you."

He had nearly dozed off when he heard the words, whispered in a hush.
God, what he wouldn't give to be able to see her.  To look in her eyes
and try to gauge just what had brought this about.  He couldn't tell.  And 
he had damn few clues to go by.  As far as he could judge, she hadn't
moved.  She still laid curled against him, her head tucked beneath his
chin. And her voice gave away no secrets; he detected no tremor, no
temper.

What in the world was she thanking him for?  For dragging her in to
this mess when in reality they had no official case to investigate?

Perhaps he should simply ask her.

"For what?" he queried softly, giving her hand the gentlest of squeezes.

She didn't answer him immediately.  Instead, she shook her head which,
given their positions, meant she was for all intents and purposes nuzzling 
his shoulder.

Which, when he stopped to think about it, was probably what it had 
seemed as if he had been doing to her earlier.

"Just thank you," she said again, and sighing, melted against him.

And while the warmth her words imparted would have been sufficient to
get him through a week of nights as cold as the one they were presently
being forced to endure, the sensation of a trusting Dana Scully nestled 
in his arms was enough to keep Fox Mulder up for many hours to come.

		*	*	*	*	*	

Yet, he still fell asleep before his partner.  Long after Mulder's breathing 
had turned slow and deep, hours past the point where his arms had grown
slack and heavy around her, Scully laid awake in the cold, starless night.  
Thinking.  

The evening's chill was biting, nipping at her ears and nose until she 
was forced to seek refuge even deeper beneath the covers.  Sliding lower, 
so that only the top of her head peeked out from under the tarp, she 
burrowed against the man sharing her bed, drinking in his warmth,
his comfort, his familiar scent.  The wind howled outside their shelter, 
shaking the Hum-Vee.  The low, mournful racket should have been 
worrisome; or at the very least, lonely.

But, it seemed neither.  Not to her.  Why should she be concerned?  
She rested snug and content beside a man she knew would face down 
the devil himself to keep her safe.  So what, in the end, was a little 
wind?  Sure, they were edging ever closer to a confrontation with 
forces who clearly wanted them dead.  It looked like one of their own 
had given away their mission.  They had no one to trust, save each 
other.  Such betrayal should have been devastating to her psyche.

Instead, she lay there, smiling in the frigid blackness, wry humor 
striking at what many would have deemed a rather inappropriate time.  
Tickling her unexpectedly, just as it had Mulder earlier.  She was no 
reckless thrill-seeker.  She knew the seriousness of their predicament, 
the ruthlessness of those they sought to bring down.  She didn't take 
the work that lay before them lightly.  Didn't underestimate the danger 
facing them.  

It was only that she had reached a kind of epiphany that day.  One that
had begun when she had awoke in her partner's arms and grown to
maturity in that same locale hours later.  It hadn't come upon her like a
bolt of lightning.  Hadn't swept over her in a wave.  Rather it had crept
up on her, stolen around her like most wily of thieves.  Making off with
bits of her pride, pieces of her restraint.

And the entirety of her heart.

Yet, that trophy wasn't really as grandiose as it might first appear, 
she mused,