SERIES: Flight

TITLE: Flight Delayed

AUTHOR: Tesla 

RATING: R 

CLASSIFICATION: Mulder/Other

KEYWORDS: None 

ARCHIVE: Sure, everyone, I would be in a tizzy of pleasure and tell everyone I knew. 

SPOILERS: Assume that this alternate universe careens off track after "Field Trip," but back for "Goldberg Variations" and "Millennium"

DISCLAIMERS: If Ten Thirteen is even reading this, HI! I know a copyright lawyer who said he'll defend us!

SUMMARY: Continuation of "Flying under the Radar", "Gaining Altitude", "Some Turbulence Expected"and "Visibility Zero."

THANKS o my beta, Emerex, for encouragement and all-round good cheer, and to MaybeAmanda for the MulderClone, and advice disguised as wisecracks. 

So here Scully was, sitting in Mulder's apartment, talking to his ex-girlfriend. And said ex was not a stripper, not a Hooter's waitress or an aerobics instructor, but a criminal defense attorney. Her attorney, if she wanted. In case the county prosecutor arrested her for killing Donnie Pfaster. And what Scully wanted, more than anything, was to put her face in the couch cushions and weep, weep for both of them, both of them Mulder's women (although he wasn't having sex with either of them, as far as Scully knew).

Mulder had talked her into seeing Janet Durrell almost immediately. "These cops are making noises like they want to arrest you," he said angrily, urgently, kneeling beside her as she sat at her kitchen table. "I've put them off. But this one idiot seems to think it was a lover's quarrel." Scully barely made it to the sink before retching. Mulder got her a glass of water, a wet paper towel, before continuing his hissing in her ear. "You need to see a lawyer."

"Where am I going to find a lawyer on Sunday morning?" she choked, trying not to hyperventilate. "The Bureau-"

Mulder looked straight in her eyes. "Janet. She's home. She's across the street from my place. That's what she does, Scully. She's a defense lawyer. She's smart. She'll fight for you. And she knows a hell of a lot more about the X-Files and all the shit we've seen than anyone the Personnel Office would recommend. And she won't be a Bureau flack. She's told me a hundred times that there's a conflict of interest with the Bureau and with an agent under investigation."

"Damn, Mulder, she's not gonna help me," Scully spat.

"Yes, she will. I'm the one who-I didn't stop seeing her because of you, and she knows that." He paused. "I told her a lot about the work. About Tooms, and the Jersey Devil, and Pfaster, and Bill Patterson. She knows about our work. You won't have to bring her up to speed. And she's good."

Scully couldn't believe she was even considering talking to Janet. "Why did you stop seeing her, then?" she asked bitterly.

Mulder blinked twice. "Because I'm a fucked-up shit," he said levelly. "Is that what she said?" Scully demanded. "No, that's what I say." His eyes, already bloodshot, grew darker. "But Janet will help you." He stood up, slowly, knees cracking. He looked down at her. "Because I'll ask her."

"And she'll do it? Because you ask her?"

He turned away, head down, his hands on his hips. "Yeah."

The District cops just wanted Scully to "come downtown" that afternoon. Mulder, having made his phone calls to Janet, and, presumably, Skinner, dragged Scully out the door to his car, and drove like a maniac to his apartment. Like he was afraid Janet would change her mind and tell him to stuff it. He pulled out his cellular and said, "We're here." He listened. "No, it's late. Meet us downstairs." He locked Scully in his car, and loped across the street to the entrance of the other apartments. Scully thought sullenly that if Mulder had known Scully had spied on him there, he wouldn't be so cavalier in his assumptions.

He had no idea how carefully she had observed him, back in December, when he abruptly changed from his abnormal cheerfulness into full-blown Mulder the Miserable Victim of Fate. He didn't go home early, any more, or she else she saw him leave for the gym. He was casting an even deeper gloom than usual through the basement: Mulder, the dark star. So, she had seized upon one of his usual groanings over the Bureau's Christmas memos, to ask him if he was seeing Janet over the holidays. "No," he had said, and changed the subject. And he continued being the familiar Mulder she was accustomed to. Even the whole New Year's Eve extravaganza of the Undead, complete with mandatory visit to an emergency room, and the kiss, was within normal operating perimeters. She had fully expected him to kiss her, given his usual Pavlovian response to anything he was watching on television.

There they were, walking towards her, Janet with a legal pad, pages flying in the breeze, long coat open over sweats. She nodded briefly at Scully, getting out of the car, and they walked into Mulder's building, Mulder giving his version the entire time. Finally, in the elevator, the other woman turned to Mulder. "Be quiet, Fox, " she said, her voice gravelly. "I want to talk to Agent Scully. Alone." She held up her hand, palm out, as he started to speak. "Attorney-Client privilege, remember? Don't worry, we'll talk later." They were at the apartment door, and Janet gave him a tiny push away. "Go get us some coffee and donuts." She shut the door on him, and looked around before walking to the couch.

She sat down, and looked up at Scully. Her gaze was very clear and steady. "What are the cops gonna say?" she asked. "Well, wait. Is this the mortician with the fingernail fixation?" She stood up and pulled off her coat. "Where' s the bathroom?"

Scully stared, pointed to it. "Don't you know?" she couldn't help herself.

"I've never been over here," Janet said, without inflection, and disappeared in the direction indicated. Scully collapsed in the chair, mute. What a morning.

When Janet came back, and sat down, Scully was shaken by a glimpse of sadness on her face her brown eyes almost black. Then it was gone. "Nicest single-guy bathroom I've been in for years," Janet said approvingly.

"Thank you for seeing me," Scully said. It wasn't as hard as she had thought. "I wouldn't, in your shoes. I wasn't very friendly when we met before."

Janet raised her eyebrows. "I've represented law enforcement cases," she said, clearly making Mulder off-limits. Scully thought, But we have so much in common! We should form a support group, ask Fowley, call that English bitch? Hi, I'm Dana and I work with Fox Mulder.

Janet picked up her legal pad. "I don't want you to confess to me. I want to know what you did up to the point of the shooting. Don't tell me about the shooting. Tell me everything until then."

So Scully did. Janet made notes, only interjecting the occasional "Shit!" Strangely enough, Scully felt quieter, herself. Janet seemed to radiate massive calm and confidence, even with bed hair. By the time Mulder reappeared, with, Scully was surprised to see, cartons of coffee and a box of Dunkin' Donuts, Janet seemed to have what she wanted. She wrote steadily, her face almost placid.

"We'll want your boss to messenger the first casefile to the cops. Eventually. Let me have a copy of everything, first." she told Mulder, popping the lid of her cup. Delicately sipping at the coffee, she held out the pad to Mulder. "Write down exactly what you're telling the cops and your boss." Waving aside the paper, Mulder went over to his desk and sat down at his computer. Janet motioned to Scully. "C'mere." Warily, Scully sat down. "You knew he was going to kill you," she said quietly. Scully nodded. "You were tied. He prepared the bath. He brought the candles and lit them. You got loose. You got your gun." Janet paused, running a finger along her eyebrow. "Did you know Mulder was there?" she asked.

"I thought I was still alone with him," Scully said, and shivered. " When I came out of the bedroom. But right after-I mean right after-I knew Mulder was there." "All you could see was Pfaster," Janet stated. She looked straight at Scully for emphasis. "You know, you did the right thing. You know that a bad situation only gets worse. You know that you have to defend yourself by any means necessary." Scully nodded, and then jumped slightly, like someone coming out of a trance. She was sitting knee to knee with Janet, both her hands gripping Janet's left hand.

"They can't charge you," Janet said, her voice deeply satisfied. She disengaged herself from Scully's clasp, and stood up abruptly. "What time do they want her?" she asked Mulder.

"One, " he said over his shoulder. He was watching the printer, but he got up as Janet walked over to him. "Let me walk you back." He was still wearing his jacket. She plucked the paper from the printer, leaning around him.

"Dana, I'll see you later on today. Don't say a goddamn word until I'm with you." They left the apartment, and Scully heard their footsteps recede.

In the elevator, Mulder turned to Janet. "You're the best," Mulder said thickly. Janet shrugged, her lip curling cynically.

"I'm billing you," she said, trying for snottiness and failing. She was startled when Mulder put his hands on her shoulders.

"You are the best person I know," he said. He dropped his hands as the elevator stopped; the door opened and closed as they stared at each other. Mulder gently took her hand and brought it to his mouth, kissing the palm. It took all of Janet's strength not to snatch it away, not to slap him and run. Or throw herself in his arms. She couldn't keep from letting her face show her misery, her eyes from filling with tears.

"I must be. I must be a fool," she choked. "I must be a fucking idiot."

"No," Mulder said, and kissed her, his hands tight and painful on her arms. She wanted to fall into him. She shook him loose, but gently, and they walked across the street in silence. Mulder let her get her own key out, and when she looked up at him to say goodbye, he kissed her again, on her open mouth.

At the police station: "She's a victim, god damn it!" Janet insisted. She was nose to nose with the assistant district attorney. "He already attacked her once. He escaped just to kill her! He brought the candles-read the fuckin' file! That's his MO. This is a serial killer for God's sake." Scully moved her eyes to look at Mulder. He was concentrating on Janet's face with all the interest he customarily showed at budget meetings-a game face for the cops, Scully thought with one disinterested part of her mind. The other parts of her mind were blank "I read it as a deliberate killing. Her partner was there-he had his weapon drawn-" "Yeah? Well, she's gonna testify she didn't know he was there!" The two women seemed to realize that a roomful of cops was watching them in open-mouthed fascination, and they went into an office, slamming the door. Scully was hunched over, her face milky pale. Mulder looked like a man with a bleeding ulcer. No one said anything in the outer room.

"They think we're gonna catfight, Darla," Janet said mildly, sitting down in the chair in front of the desk. Darla Skemp, the veteran ADA, perched on the desk. "Yeah, well, I tend to agree with you. I don't want to prosecute. But for some reason, the sergeant felt like something was funny." She pushed her glasses up her nose. "I admit, it's a waste of time." "Darla, a grand jury would no-bill it. We're talking Clarice Starling and Silence of the Lambs here. She should be commended, not charged. The only thing she has to worry about is the internal investigation. She didn't know her partner was there, and she could have shot him. But that's not our problem. Since she didn't know her partner had come in the front, there's no intent. And since she had every reason to believe she was about to be tortured to death, she has every element of self-defense. C'mon. Don't you think I could get a straight acquittal? Hell, I could get a straight dismissal at preliminary." The desk creaked as Janet shifted. "I-could-sell-it," she chanted, in a singsong. "You don't wanna charge a fed."

Darla looked at the copy of the X-File in her hands. "Yeah, I tend to agree. Okay. No charges. I'll have them file self-defense." She raised an eyebrow. "But you'll have a time with those dildos in Reno's office, if you don't put the right spin on it." "Mulder's taking care of that."

"Jesus, that's another thing. Get him out of here, before some other corpse turns up. My officers hate him. Call me this week about your dear little mugger."

The door opened, and Scully found herself looking not at the ADA, but at Janet. Janet smiled faintly at her. "We're done here, guys. As far as the District Attorney's office is concerned, it's self-defense." Scully felt her vision blacken for a moment. When she recovered her self-possession, Janet had left with the ADA. She could hear their voices outside in the hall for a moment. She looked at Mulder, but he wasn't looking at her. His head was bowed.

After Mulder had driven her home, he and Scully had spent all Sunday clearing the debris, throwing out the rug, and generally trying to remove all traces of "crime scene." Mulder was in his most infuriating mood, making stupid jokes about everything, going to IKEA for a new mirror without consulting her, calling Frohike! to come help them. Melvin refused, thank God. But she managed to get rid of Mulder, she managed to take a shower, she managed to sleep. She dreamed of Janet holding her hands while she slept. And she was able to get up and face Monday.

Monday was hideous, of course. She had to report to Skinner. She had to surrender her weapon, pending his review of her report. He asked her to write a report for him and a report for the Office of Professional Responsibility; she had to draft them and let him see the drafts first. His growl was set on low; apparently, the assistant district attorney had called him and given him the good word about the lack of charges. After that, she thought, go home and finish cleaning up her apartment. She had to go to Confession.

But it wasn't as bad as she thought. For one thing, Mulder didn't shadow her with his hangdog guilty expression, and he didn't go to the other extreme and glower at her. He had his own report ready on the computer, and after he got a phone call, left with it and did not come back to work. She assumed, by the strained look on his face, that he went to have his own private session with the Assistant Director. She got her reports done, and sent them up to Skinner after lunch; then she made her mandatory appointment with the counselor.

When she finally got home, she decided that she and Mulder had done a pretty good job at cleaning. The professional carpet service had removed all traces of glass and blood from the carpet, and the Mulder had already replaced the light fixture. So, she took a long hot shower (without thinking about the cold bath Pfaster had in mind until later) and drank a glass of wine, watching the Discovery Channel.

She slept, and didn't dream.

Tuesday morning brought other thoughts. How could Janet have helped her if Janet loved Mulder? It must have really been nothing. Mulder acted upset about it, but face it, Mulder was dysfunctional. They couldn't have been living together. Janet couldn't have any hard feelings. Scully would have to force Mulder to tell how much Janet's regular fees were. It was worth it. For just that one moment in Mulder's apartment, no one had ever made her feel as safe. That must be part of her lawyer mojo-the whammy, she smiled to herself.

For a moment, she pitied Mulder for breaking it off with Janet.

Janet had a shitty Sunday afternoon. She sent an e-mailed invoice for her fee to Mulder, to relieve her feelings. She sent an invitation to Darla-the-ADA for lunch sometime. Then she went to bed and decided to sleep, until Monday morning.

She had been doing that a lot, ever since she and Fox Mulder had broken up. FoxMulder, all one name. Him. He had just gotten to tolerate being called Fox, too-and didn't care at all if she called him Fox in bed. Fox. She had bought Dr. Seuss' Fox in Socks for his Christmas present, and it was still in its sack under her bed. She hadn't seen him since early December.

Get a cat, she thought gloomily. Cat in the Hat.

Mulder had called her early Sunday morning, his voice strained. I know you should hang up on me, he had started, but I need you to help Scully. She said, derisively, "Hah! Help her?"

"Yes."

At her continued silence, he had actually said, "You know I wouldn't ask you if I was with her."

"With, in the sexual sense?" Janet had replied, furious at herself for asking.

"I'm not," he said. "I wouldn't do that to you."

"I know," Janet said, her voice cracking. On the other end of the line, Mulder let out a breath that was close to a sob, before telling her the details. So, for the chance to see him, the chance to prove what a wonderful person she was, she agreed.

That's what she hated herself for: setting herself up for sainthood. All to have him at her door, at her mercy. His mouth on her hand, his mouth on hers. If he had asked, she would have done him in the elevator.

The case itself was a piece of cake. Indict a cop? A former victim? A tiny woman like Dana Scully? As for Scully herself, she was like every defendant-she didn't think she would ever be talking to a criminal defense lawyer. She was law enforcement, not a defendant. The change in identity rattled the strongest people. Janet was so relieved that Scully wasn't acting like the new MulderWoman, she could hardly stand up. And there she was, literally holding Scully's hand-but Scully didn't have Mulder, either. Too bad Mulder didn't see the hand thing-he would have been mumbling about threesomes.

Janet didn't have him, but she had two ties, a suit in its dry cleaning bag, three casefiles, half a carton of Coronas, the DVD player he had brought over and plugged into her television, a souvenir snow globe from the Chicago airport, and a pillow that still smelled of him. His hair stuff and a razor in the bathroom-well, she had bundled up all the loose items in a Borders shopping bag and put them in her hall closet for return. Sometime.

Monday morning, she had one tasteful bouquet of flowers from Scully, one odd-looking plant from Frohike (did they ever stop monitoring police band radio?) and a messengered cashier's check from Mulder.

If he doesn't think I'll cash it, he's nuts, she thought, tapping the envelope on her open palm. Cash it and blow it all. Diamond earrings, day-spas.

She turned it over to sign, and saw a Post-It Note.

I love you.

And that's when she left work and took the Metro to the J. Edgar Hoover building.

Mulder didn't know what was going to happen next.

He had spent all Sunday helping Scully clean up her apartment. Things looked almost normal by the time he left. But he still couldn't sleep, wondering what to say to Janet. Seeing her again had jolted him back to perspective, in a way that his New Year's Eve kiss with Scully had significantly----not.

Not a mistake, exactly, but a mis-step. After so long without Janet, he had clung to Scully again. But this year, Scully did not bother to ask him what he was going to do for Christmas. It was somehow clear to him that new excursions to haunted houses were off the agenda. She didn't call him, and he didn't call her. Careful spying informed him that Janet's car was gone the appropriate number of days for a trip home for the holidays. He bought another snow-globe, but he hadn't made the effort to give it to her.

Then, after he kissed Scully, he had thought for a minute-ten seconds, really-that maybe they would change. That maybe she would show him something aside from that comradely, fellow-soldier devotion. He knew that, in the abstract, Scully was devoted to him, that she respected the work, and she admired how he had kept looking for the truth. She knew that he would do anything in his power for her. And that she would put her career and life on the line for him.

But her feelings were all in the abstract. He didn't feel that she had one gleam of affection for his flesh and blood. He needed some affection. He needed some physical contact beyond a handclasp. The world hadn't come to an end for them, and it should have. He was tired of being alone, and it was clear to him that Scully didn't want him in her nice, tidy world, any more than she really wanted him in her nice, tidy apartment.

His thoughts naturally went to Janet. She wanted him. He still had her key, and she had never called to demand it back. She also hadn't sent his belongings back to him, C.O.D., or worse, via Melvin Frohike. (And she was quite capable of doing any of those things)

Mulder was still doing emotional long division problems in his head, when Donnie Pfaster escaped from prison. When Scully shot Pfaster, and the friendliest of the cops suggested that he get his partner a lawyer, he thought, Who you gonna call?

So he called. And she came, although not without making her unhappiness plain to him. And when they were alone in the elevator, he knew that she still cared. He knew he could move back into her apartment, and her life.

When she e-mailed her bill, he got an idea. He wrote a check for the entire amount, and before giving it to the messenger, he wrote "I love you" on a Post-It Note. Like a real geek, he thought, once he had sent it.

After that, he waited. Thank God Scully was upstairs with Skinnermost of the morning; she would have caught on that something was up. (Or would she?) He answered all his e-mail (including snotty questions from Accounting regarding his expenses involved in going to California and Chicago), polished up his incident report, and put away several files. Well, that might have made her suspicious.

Scully returned from Skinner's office, without the expression of one who had been treated to Skinner's imitation of the Iron Chef ("And the dish tonight is: agent tempura!"). She sat down at her desk and booted up her laptop. Mulder pretended to be absorbed in reading his stack of Weekly World News.

Then his phone rang.

Janet had ridden about halfway to downtown D.C. when she realized, to her horror, that she was still wearing her sneakers. The complete urban professional look: business suit and running shoes. At least she had clean underwear. She coughed, blushing bright red, and her seatmate gave her a curious stare.

"What if he isn't there?" she asked aloud. Her seatmate kindly ignored her.

No, he messengered it this morning. He wouldn't do that and then vanish, not after writing.that.She touched the note, folded in her pocket, for reassurance.

Then, she just had to go in and ask for him. Go in and give her name to the guard. She'd been there before, with her first boss, escorting a defendant who wanted to make a deal. The guard, incurious, took her name and Mulder's extension, before calling Mulder's office.

"He'll be right up, he said," the guard told her. "You can wait over there." She sat down, clasping her hands on her lap over her briefcase. (Her last coherent thought was that she should try to look like she was working, so she had dumped the contents of her briefcase onto her desk, and filled it with the contents of her purse.)

"Hey," Mulder said behind her, and she started. Just like him to sneak up on her. She stood up, and held out her hand. "Did you bring your car?" he asked in a normal voice. He was wearing his patented "Fox Mulder, FBI" expression.

"I took the Metro," she said. "Are we going somewhere?"

"I hope so," he said quietly. "My car's in the parking deck."

"Okay," she said. He released her hand, and nodded towards an exit she hadn 't noticed. She walked in front of him, and he put one hand in the small of her back to guide her.

They walked for a few minutes in silence, until they reached the parking deck elevators. He punched a button, the doors opened. They got in; she noticed that even this elevator had a security camera. Finally, finally, the doors opened and he led her around a concrete pillar. "My car's up there," he said, pointing up a ramp. "But this is the security camera's blind spot." He scuffed the toe of his shoe through discarded cigarette butts. "As you see."

"Oh," she said, and looked up. His face was unbearably worried. She couldn' t have that.

"I love you," she said. "I'm crazy about-" but he had shoved her against the pillar and was kissing her. Her briefcase fell out of her hand onto the concrete. She ignored it.

"I love you," he said. Behind them, they heard a door open. Mulder cast a harassed look over his shoulder. "We better leave." He bent down for her briefcase, and put it in her hand. "My car's over here," he said, and gently took her elbow.

Tuesday, Assistant Director Skinner called Scully into his office and went over the ground rules for the expected inter-agency investigation. He seemed fairly nonchalant about it. "This is just routine, Agent," he said. "You know that; any time an agent fires her weapon, the Bureau investigates. However, since you haven't been charged, there's no need to worry. You and Mulder don't have anything pending out in the field. I'll authorize another stint at Quantico. Or take some time off; Mulder won't, but that shouldn't stop you." He picked up a letter. "Mandatory counseling, I'm afraid, but you know the drill." He picked up a business card. "I'm giving you my private number, Scully." (When he called her Scully in that tone she knew she was home free.)

In the elevator down to the basement, Scully wondered what Skinner's girlfriend called him-not Walter. Sergei? And Skinner was such a skinny name, like an old man's name. Walter Skinner. Set Janet Durrell up with Skinner. She paused. No. She didn't like that idea at all. Set Janet up with Frohike-he'd like those long legs wrapped around him.

The elevator door opened. Her bawdy thoughts didn't surprise her. Karen Kossoff had told her years ago that one way the mind processed life-threatening situations was to turn to sex. Well, Karen had meant actual sex, not mental sex; but that was the only kind she had. And life with the X-Files had certainly given her enough fantasy scripts for shelves of MulderPorno Lite.

She squirmed mentally. Yuck. Don't go there. Be firm, make Mulder accept her repayment of Janet's fee. Besides, she didn't (and let's be honest, Dana) like the idea of owing either Janet or Mulder. Not so much Janet-Janet was another professional. Scully couldn't bear the idea of one more item on the mental tally of Who Owed Whom, a list already seven years long.

It would be nice if she and Mulder could wipe the slate clean, and start out by neither one of them owing the other anything.

Mulder was at his desk, writing furiously on a legal pad. He raised his eyes as she came in. "You've got a letter," he said, and went back to scrawling notes. On Scully's desk were a lidded cup of Starbucks coffee, and an envelope.

Scully picked up the envelope. From Janet, "Hand Delivery" was typed as the address. Inside, Janet enclosed Mulder's check, saying that ethically, as Mulder wasn't the client, she was pleased to return his check, per Scully's request, and would Scully forward a check for the agreed amount? And that Janet had Mulder's copy of Bureau regs and OPR procedures. Please let Janet know as soon as Scully was given her hearing date, and make an office appointment as soon as said hearing was set. And she was very truly Scully' s.

"It feels weird having a lawyer," Scully said conversationally, watching Mulder's face like a flyfisher watching the success of her cast.

Mulder didn't give her the quick quip. Perhaps, he being the veteran of many sessions with the review board, Mulder (at last) wasn't going to joke? He didn't even look up. Scully's teasing feelings left her. "Skinner acts like nothing's going to happen."

"Something always happens," Mulder said, looking up now. He seemed exhausted. Scully felt protective of him. He would worry much more than she did. He always thought everything that happened to her was his fault.

"Really, Mulder, Janet and I can handle it." But at that, Mulder gave her one of the blankest stares in his repertoire.

He hadn't slept at all the night before. Not because of the hot reunion sex or even a Knicks game running overtime, but because he lay awake imagining all the dire things that could happen to Janet. True, the Consortium was, to all appearances, dead, but who could say? What if various mutants began breaking into Janet's apartment? His apartment certainly had been violated more than the DUI laws in Fort Lauderdale.

This is sick, he had told himself, turning his pillow, while Janet slept with an annoyingly satisfied smile. You're transferring all of your anxiety about Scully onto Janet. Which must mean that he really did love Janet. And he couldn't be sure whether she really believed all the weird shit he said had happened to him, or whether she had decided he was demented but cute.

But Frohike told her, he comforted himself. She thinks Melvin hung the moon. In fact, their little mutual admiration society was a little scary. If Scully had ever joined forces with Frohike, his life would not have been worth living. But if Scully had ever given a thought to him as a person with feelings, instead of some kind of comic relief/fighter against injustice, he wouldn't be in Janet's bed now.

Janet had opened her eyes then, proving that she had been awake all along, and climbed back on top of him. And all of Mulder's arguments had disappeared, subsumed by sensation.

Which was why he couldn't even respond when Scully mentioned Janet's name. He felt like a traveler in a foreign land, one in which he didn't know the language or the rituals.

He wanted to tell Scully that he was changed; that he had joined the ranks of the ordinary male; that he wanted an ordinary life; that there was no single bad guy, and that even finding Cancerman would never bring back the dead. That he had grown up.

That someone loved him.

Instead, he kept writing his reports.

At lunch, in a suburban strip-mall restaurant, a tall bald man met a shorter man with a neatly trimmed beard. Businessmen among other businessmen, all with cell phones and briefcases.

John Byers handed AD Skinner a floppy disk. "That's all I've found on Janet Durrell," he said. "There is nothing to indicate that she is anyone other than what she is supposed to be."

The Assistant Director frowned. "She's representing Agent Scully in this OPR investigation. Is she still seeing Agent Mulder?"

"Not that I know of."

Skinner hesitated fractionally. "You understand why I couldn't risk using the Bureau to check her out?"

Byers nodded. "Believe me, Mr. Skinner, we wouldn't have given you this information if we didn't think you had Mulder's best interests at heart."

Skinner's shoulders raised and lowered a fraction of an inch. "I hope so."