Letters of Transit (0/14)

***Intro only - story begins in Part 1/14*** By Loch Ness   

 

DO NOT ARCHIVE. ***Not to be entered in or nominated

for any competition or award.***   

 

Classification: T, RA Crossover references to the film

*Casablanca*, but you don't have to have seen it to

understand this.   

 

International readers: US4 spoilers for "Herrenvolk" and

"Tunguska/ Terma." Everything thereafter has been ignored.

 

 

Rating: NC-17, for VIOLENCE, PROFANITY and (M/S) SEX. If

you are under-age, please do not read this.   

 

SHIPPERS: Although I regard this as a romantic piece, it's

not an MSR in the usual sense--our heroes don't ride off

into the sunset locked in each other's arms.   

 

Summary: It's 1999--"The Date" has come and gone, the

"Project" is under way, and deadly bees have been unleashed

on North America. With the world coming apart and people

scrambling to get away from the swarm, Mulder faces fateful

decisions about his own role in events to come--and about

Scully.    

 

CHARACTER DIES: Cancer Man doesn't make it out of this one.

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. :-) On the other hand, in

this timeline, Pendrell's still alive. Not a bad trade-off,

huh?   

 

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Although I didn't read past the

introduction of *A Notorious Affair* (I'm not a Hitchcock

fan), I must give a nod of thanks to Nicole Perry. About

four hours after I read that introduction, I suddenly had a

very vivid mental image of David Duchovny and Gillian

Anderson dressed up in those gorgeous 1930s-'40s movie

clothes. And thus this was born. Only - call me crazy - I

ended up not putting them in those clothes, for the most

part.   

 

While I have the same reservations other fans do about the

season four conspiracy arc - a totally separate and

distinct creature from the conspiracy arc of the first

three seasons - this particular story only works in the

context of season four's conspiracy. Consequently, this

probably won't make much sense to anyone who hasn't seen

*Tunguska/Terma*.   

 

DISCLAIMER: This is intended as an homage, not a rip-off.

These characters and the X Files universe were created by

and/or are the property of Chris Carter, Ten-Thirteen and

Fox Broadcasting, all of whom are smarter and richer than

I. Likewise, all references express or implied to the film

*Casablanca,* screenplay by Julius J. Epstein, Phillip G.

Epstein and Howard Koch. No infringement is intended.

Anybody who sues me is wasting a lot of time and effort,

because I'm broke and this story is actually *costing* me

money to produce.    

 

MISCELLANEOUS: Do not use if seal is broken. Contains 0

calories derived from fat. No animals were harmed in the

making of this fanfic.   

 

(Yes, there is a story - it begins in part 1.)

lochness@texas.net   

 

Letters of Transit (1/14) By Loch Ness   

 

DO NOT ARCHIVE. ***Not to be entered in or nominated

for any competition or award.***   

 

Classification: T, RA Crossover references to the film

*Casablanca* International readers: US4 spoilers. Rating:

NC-17, for VIOLENCE, PROFANITY and (M/S) SEX. If you are

under-age, please do not read this. See Part 0 for

disclaimer, summary and introductory notes.   

 

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

 

Letters of Transit (1/14) By Loch Ness   

 

"I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to

see that the problems of three little people don't amount

to a hill of beans in this crazy world." - Rick Blaine,

*Casablanca*   

 

July 17, 1999   

 

As little as a month ago, the causeway across to Galveston

Island would have glittered like a string of Christmas

lights in the night-time sky. But that was before the bees

had swarmed into Houston, and the lights had gone out all

along Interstate 45, including on the causeway.    

 

The bridge was still passable. If one had the proper papers

and a working vehicle with sufficient fuel, one could still

cross it in either direction. But few people would want to

go across to the mainland. The bees were on the mainland.

Getting to the island didn't guarantee safety,

either--there was no real safety to be had, not so close to

the bees, not within reach of the Special Emigration

Bureau. But the bees had not been seen in Galveston.   

 

Not yet. And for now the concrete-and-steel roadway still

loomed up out of the water like the desiccated, twisted

spine of a long-dead, giant snake, standing out dully in

the moonlight as Alex Krycek crept toward it in the dark. 

 

Krycek hadn't heard any reports of bees farther south than

Clear Lake. Still, he had taken no chances. He was wearing

a black nylon wind-suit with all its cuffs and openings

carefully sealed with duct tape, leather gloves, and a

beekeeper's hood, also sealed with tape. The getup was

miserable in the midsummer heat of the Texas coast, but

better to be sweaty than to be hit with multiple, toxic bee

stings. He couldn't afford the delay in his mission he'd

have if he got stung.   

 

He drew his gun as he approached the darkened guard house

at the end of the causeway. One of the sentries stepped

outside the hut and stood there, his submachine gun

shouldered, and glanced at his watch. Krycek threw a glance

inside, looking for the second guard. Sitting in the hut,

eyes half-closed, nodding in the heavy evening heat.

Drawing a long, silent breath, Krycek set himself to his

task.   

 

He whipped around the edge of the hut and put two silenced

rounds into the chest of the standing guard, who gasped and

fell, dead before he hit the ground. The sentry inside died

without ever waking up. Krycek took the guard outside the

hut by the feet and dragged him into the building, dropped

him untidily in the corner and left, the murders already

forgotten. Krycek never killed out of malice, and he never

allowed himself any remorse. He looked at his own

watch--ten-oh-seven p.m. Right on schedule.   

 

He secured a rope harness to the bridge railing, careful to

avoid the  strands of wire strung along the bridge, each

wire attached to an explosive charge underneath the

roadway. The Galveston city fathers had declared that if

the bees reached as far south as Dickinson, about ten miles

to the north, the road would be destroyed to keep the bees

from being able to use it. The theory was that the bees

couldn't fly far enough to reach the island without landing

on something--something like the causeway--and that they

would grow exhausted and drop into the sea before they made

it to the island. There was no real evidence to show it was

true.   

 

Krycek made sure that the end of the rope hung near the

Zodiac raft he had tied under the causeway, then turned to

wait for the convoy. It didn't take long. After no more

than ten minutes he felt more than heard the approaching

trucks coming across from the island--a low rumble through

the concrete he stood on. He smiled. They were punctual

tonight, too. This bunch was made up of "officials"--the

city-sanctioned pirates who drove up from Galveston to

ravage Houston's wrecked, abandoned corpse twice a week.

Refugees fleeing Houston had taken a lot, had burned and

destroyed a lot. But there was still canned food in the

city, stocks of fuel and clothing, building materials and

auto parts, with no police to stop anyone from taking what

he liked. At the outset of the bee invasion, somebody had

estimated that Galveston could live off Houston's remains

for two years. But that had not factored in that

Galveston's population would quadruple almost overnight as

refugees fled to the island.   

 

Refugees were still straggling in. The causeway from the

mainland was closed to all but the "officials" now, but

escapees came by boat, by raft, by every conceivable sort

of aircraft--some just barely air- or seaworthy.  Everybody

who could get off the mainland was leaving. Their numbers

had begun to dwindle as the bees killed more and more who

couldn't escape fast enough--but refugees were coming

nonetheless.   

 

Krycek waited, hunkered down in the dark, as the convoy

approached him.  The trucks ran without headlights to avoid

drawing attention, but they would stop at the barricades

before the guard post. And though the men driving the

trucks were city "officials" he doubted they'd risk much to

interfere with him. Not even the local cops wasted any love

on the feds.   

 

Krycek didn't really care about the trucks. He was after

the federal car he knew would be traveling with them for

the safety of numbers. A pouch carried by the government

courier in that car was his target. In the pouch, Krycek

knew there were two letters of transit signed by the

governor of Hawaii and by Lawrence Sherrill, director of

the emigration bureau. Sherrill, the almighty guru of

escape from the country, who in effect determined who would

live and who would die. Letters of transit were reserved

for diplomats, and no local authorities could prevent

individuals carrying them from leaving the continental U.S.

on any basis whatever.   

 

Oh, yeah--those letters were Alex Krycek's ticket to better

latitudes.  He'd use one of them to get out himself and

sell the other one for a fat price. He'd ship out for the

port of Tampico, Mexico, and from there to Hawaii, which

people said was safe from the bees.  He could do a lot

worse, he figured, than to be stuck for life in Honolulu. 

 

The convoy pulled up at the barricades, the driver of the

first truck peering warily at the guards' hut. Staying low

and in the shadows, Krycek approached the federal car from

the passenger side.   

 

*Five bucks says the dumb cocksuckers are so arrogant they

haven't bothered to lock the doors,* he thought.   

 

He was right. The door swung open when he pulled the

handle, and before the two men inside had time to register

what was happening or shout, he had put two more

well-placed bullets into them. He heard the "officials" in

the trucks come toward him, but he didn't look up. He used

a third round to smash the handcuff lock on the courier's

briefcase, then stood up--hands in the air, the case in one

hand and his gun in the other, held loosely to indicate he

was all done shooting.   

 

He'd guessed right again. None of the "officials" wanted to

drill him just for offing a couple of feds. They stood

there, warily, submachine guns pointed at him, but as long

as he made no move to harm any of them, they weren't going

to fire.   

 

Krycek backed toward his rope harness, hands still up. When

he reached the railing, he shifted the gun to his other

hand--the prosthesis--and slid down the rope into his raft.

 

The "officials" never even looked over the side. As Krycek

untied the raft, he heard them drive off.   

 

                                 ****   

 

July 19, 1999   

 

The Galveston airport was small, and like everything else

on the island had suffered considerably from lack of

supplies with which to conduct maintenance work. Paint

peeled on the steel hangars, and most of the aircraft

crammed onto one end of the tarmac field, some wrecked or

dismantled and cannibalized for parts, would never fly

again. Many had never been intended to go any farther than

the island, and in any case, there wasn't much aviation gas

to be had any more.   

 

It was hot, the blinding Texas sun beating down like the

rays in a microwave oven and bouncing off the pavement in

visible waves. Walter Skinner, feeling slightly parboiled

in his light gray suit, stood waiting for a plane. Skinner

had learned in the army that physical comfort was not a

thing to be taken lightly, and so he had found a patch of

shade to stand in, just inside an open, broken-down hangar.

The hangar's windows were mostly busted out, but no air

moved inside the ramshackle building. Just heat, and the

faintly metallic scent of engine oil. He wondered what had

become of "ocean breezes." None blew this day, that was for

damned sure.   

 

*Vietnam wasn't this fucking hot,* Skinner thought, though

he was pretty sure it had been. He'd just been younger,

more resilient then. And it was hard to care about the

climate while dodging mortar shells.   

 

Skinner hadn't intended to come to Galveston. The bureau's

offices had moved twice, farther south each time, to get

away from the bees, ending up in Miami. The swarm's entry

into Florida had been ugly, people reacting in panic

because they were trapped between the sea and the insects.

Skinner didn't like thinking about it. He had lost four

agents in a riot, and the local cops had been even more

decimated than that. Things had gotten crazier and crazier,

until in the pandemonium, only about six of the twenty

bureau staff in Miami had escaped.   

 

Skinner had made it as far as New Orleans, and then had

been dispatched to Galveston after a visit from an older

man smoking Morley cigarettes and suddenly brandishing the

omnipotent authority of the Special Emigration Bureau. Then

Skinner had arrived in Texas to find he had no staff on the

island, no offices, no nothing. He had commandeered and

deputized some local police officers, Old-West-style, by

simply handing them badges.   

 

When Fox Mulder had appeared out of nowhere, like a revisit

from a nightmare long-forgotten, Skinner had offered to

forgive his having gone AWOL in Washington fourteen months

earlier and put him back to work. And Mulder had laughed. 

 

An insane laugh that lived somewhere in the shadows between

cynicism and despair. Skinner hadn't asked again.   

 

Anyway, Mulder would've been wasted on the sort of cases

Skinner's bureau was working now. Petty import violations

and the occasional tax evasion would've bored Mulder

shitless, and Skinner suspected boredom just would've made

him unendurable. As it was, he and Mulder had established

an unspoken, uneasy truce. And besides, Mulder had taken up

altogether a different line of work these days.   

 

Anyway, there wasn't much left in the way of federal

authority, except for the heavily protected SEB, in its

high-tech underground bunker in Colorado. Hell, there was

nothing left to administer on a national level...except who

got out of the nation and why, and where they went. On

Galveston Island, Walter Skinner was all the federal

authority there was left. And he liked it that way. He

could call the shots here--for once in his life, he had no

need to check with somebody upstairs or engage in petty

internal politics or, worst of all, play two ends against

the middle, as it had always been in Washington.   

 

The arrival of the smoking man might change all that, and

all because some son of a bitch had made a bloody mess of

two federal couriers. Hell, it hadn't even happened on the

island, wasn't Skinner's problem, as he figured it.

Everybody knew going back to the mainland was a

risk--apparently somebody in the SEB had considered that

sending the couriers to the mainland was an *acceptable*

risk.   

 

But no. The smoking man was annoyed, and so the world would

stop until he was satisfied.   

 

Finally Skinner heard the roar of jet engines overhead. The

parties he was waiting for were traveling first-class.

Skinner had never known exactly what agency, if any, the

smoking man worked for. CIA? NSA? It had been explained to

Skinner, long ago, that he simply didn't need to know.

Neither had he ever known the man's real name.   

 

But he knew the man, all too well. His arrival boded ill,

and Skinner was none too pleased to have him on the island.

   

Skinner approached the plane, a neat, white LearJet, as it

taxied up to the small, empty terminal. Before the plane

had even completely stopped moving, the door opened,

dropping a short stairway that almost touched the ground.

And off stepped the smoking man, with an entourage of two

toadies in dark suits and dark glasses, radio earphone

cords curling down their necks, both of them lugging

briefcases and computers. Skinner did not have to check out

the tailoring of their jackets to know they had guns on

their hips.   

 

The smoking man paused long enough to cup his hand against

the hot wind stirred by the jet's engines while he rasped

the wheel on his Zippo lighter. His heavily lined face

sagged briefly as he bent to light his Morley. When he

straightened, he blew a plume of smoke and got right to the

point.   

 

"I want those papers back," he said bluntly, as they headed

toward Skinner's waiting car. "The classified material the

couriers were transporting when they got hit."   

 

"The letters of transit?" Skinner said coolly. *What did

you think, that I wouldn't bother trying to find out what

they were carrying?*   

 

The smoking man's dark eyes narrowed. "Efficient as ever,"

he said softly, the words coated with menace. "Do you know

who took them?"   

 

"Yes. But in your honor, I rounded up twice the usual

number of snitches," Skinner said, unable to resist the

temptation to aggravate the smoker.   

 

The wry humor seemed lost on the other man. "Who?" he

demanded.   

 

"Old friend of yours. Alex Krycek."   

 

The smoking man hesitated, then chuckled. "*That* son of a

bitch," he murmured. "He's had it coming for a long time."

 

On this point, at least, Skinner agreed. He had a score to

settle with Krycek himself, but the little rat was clever.

Even in the confined space of the island, Krycek had eluded

arrest. But Skinner had him, now.   

 

"What's your plan?" the smoking man asked.   

 

"If he means to sell the letters, there's only one place

he'll go.  We'll get him there, at the Casablanca Club."   

 

The smoking man held a silence for a moment. "Mulder's

place," he said finally.   

 

"Yes."   

 

"Your boy Mulder has an appreciation of history," the

smoker said.   

 

"He's not 'my boy' anymore. And the Casablanca Club is

about money, not history. He's making a mint, and

technically, it's all legal. Nobody can touch him."   

 

"Have you ever seen *Casablanca*, Mr. Skinner?"   

 

He shrugged. "Not in years. I don't really remember much of

it."   

 

The smoking man nodded. "Mulder does."   

 

He dropped his cigarette butt on the ground and crushed it

out with his foot. "As long as he's still legal, you might

tell him for me that it's a dangerous fantasy."   

 

Skinner had no idea what he was talking about. The smoking

man got in the car, then looked up at Skinner just before

he shut the door.   

 

"Mulder's got more lives than a fucking cat," the smoking

man said. "But he's about used them up. And

*Casablanca*--that fantasy's liable to get him killed."   

 

Continued in Part 2.

lochness@texas.net   

 

Letters of Transit (2/14) By Loch Ness   

 

DO NOT ARCHIVE. ***Not to be entered in or nominated

for any competition or award.***   

 

Classification: T, RA Crossover references to the film

*Casablanca* International readers: US4 spoilers. Rating:

NC-17, for VIOLENCE, PROFANITY and (M/S) SEX. If you are

under-age, please do not read this. See Part 0 for

disclaimer, summary and introductory notes.   

 

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

 

Letters of Transit (2/14) By Loch Ness   

 

July 19, 1999

New Orleans, La.   

 

The bees were moving in from the east, along the coast from

Mississippi. There'd been two deaths in Biloxi the day

before yesterday, and if the swarm kept up its usual pace,

no one would be left alive there by tomorrow. The

Interstate 10 bridge across Lake Pontchartrain was closed,

and the city was talking of closing the toll road from

Chinchuba to Metairie.   

 

It was oppressively hot, and afternoon monsoon rains

threatened from the west. Dark gray clouds, rimmed with

snowy white, prickled with lightning. But in New Orleans

itself the air hung motionless, heavy and damp as a wet

towel.   

 

Dana Scully lifted her auburn hair off the back of her neck

wearily, gathered it into a thick hank and twisted a rubber

band around it to hold it off her skin. The power company

turned the electricity off at six every evening to conserve

fuel--only an hour later the tiny apartment she shared with

Special Agent Ted Pendrell was unbearably stuffy. Scully

opened windows to set up a cross-wind through the

apartment. Rain would be welcome tonight; it would cool

things off at least a little. It was still light enough to

work, though the charge in her laptop would only hold out

for about four hours.   

 

She opened the computer and turned it on. She wanted the

projections, the elaborate plots of the bees' spread that

she had so carefully charted. She guessed they'd reach New

Orleans within a few days, but she wanted to be sure before

having to be uprooted. Scully and Pendrell had been working

to develop an antivenin to the bee stings for nearly two

years now, but it seemed every time they made a little

progress, they had to move again. It didn't set them back

completely, but it was disruptive, and it had slowed down

the work. Scully was hoping the computer would tell her

they could put off another move for a week or so.   

 

A peal of thunder sounded, so close it startled her. Her

hand jumped, and when she looked at the computer screen,

what was coming up was her old Eudora Light e-mail program.

She hadn't used e-mail in more than a year. The delicate

network that had been the Internet had come apart quickly

after the bees had arrived.   

 

Eudora had launched before she collected herself

sufficiently to cancel it, then a gray dialogue box

appeared. "Error getting network address for

'pop.fbi.gov,'" the computer reported. "Cause: requested

entry not found (11004)." Scully clicked "OK," and the

dialogue box disappeared. She blinked. What was left open

after she closed the dialogue box was a mailbox she had

labeled "Mulder," in a time that now seemed a million years

in the past.   

 

Her heart thudded hard. There was one message sitting in

the queue from "fwmulder@fbi.gov," with a subject line that

read "Lunch on Thursday?" She didn't click on it. That was

a very old wound, one she dared not reopen. Besides, she

didn't have to read it--it might as well have been engraved

on her brain.   

 

*How about Casper's, around 11?*   

 

It hadn't been about lunch at all. It had been Mulder's own

weird code, telling her that if he hadn't made it back to

D.C. by Thursday, she should leave without him. The bees

had come into Washington that morning, and Mulder hadn't

showed. She almost hadn't gotten out of the city herself.

She had driven out of Washington at a crawl because the

bees had swarmed so thickly around her car that even

flailing windshield wipers couldn't sweep them off quickly

enough for her to see well through it. With all the vents

closed up tight, terrified that somehow one would get into

the car. She had pulled over at an abandoned automatic car

wash in Fredericksburg, Va., and had run the car through

the steamy water five times to wash them all off.   

 

Then she had doused herself with gasoline from a can she'd

been keeping on the floor of the front seat and run like a

mad thing away from the car, in a panic, afraid that some

of the bees would have lived through the car wash and would

come after her.   

 

She didn't know what had happened to Mulder. She was sure

that if he had survived, he would have tried to contact

her. He would've found her. Bloodhound to the bone, that

was Mulder--if it had been humanly possible for him to

rejoin her, he would have. But he hadn't come to her.   

 

That meant it had not been humanly possible for him to

rejoin her. Because he had gone to Connecticut to get his

mother. Because he had gone where the bees were.   

 

Because he was dead.   

 

Mulder--fearless, reckless, quixotic, charismatic.   

 

Dead.   

 

Scully knew the kind of torture the bees inflicted before

they took their victims. In the two years since the swarm

had reached Washington, she had never been able to picture

him like the bodies she had examined. Her mind simply would

not yield that picture, the muscles torn and the bones

broken from the agonizing spasms induced by the bees'

venom. The tongue and throat hideously swollen, the black

film on the eyes. She couldn't--wouldn't--see him like

that. She still saw Mulder in her mind's eye as clearly as

if he were standing right before her, intensely alive. The

fine, full mouth, the long, straight limbs. An

unmistakable, almost feline fluidity in his motions. Clear

hazel eyes, alternately bright green or deep brown, the

colors of Druids and magical forests. And the last time

they'd been together, finally, the warm, slightly salty

taste of his mouth on hers.   

 

Lightning flared outside, and Scully started again. She

drew a long breath to steady herself. What was she

thinking? Druids? Well, that at least was a metaphor Mulder

himself would have appreciated.   

 

*He's gone,* she told herself, and much had changed since

then. Nearly everything had changed, in fact.   

 

The nature of her work, for one--she was still doing

pathology, but not to solve crimes or determine what had

killed people. She knew what had killed the people whose

bodies she examined now: the bee stings. The only question

was whether their experimental antivenin formulas had

changed anything at all, whether it had had any effect.   

 

And though she was, technically at least, still a sworn law

officer, the FBI hardly existed any more. Neither she nor

Pendrell had drawn a paycheck from the U.S. government in

nearly a year. They were living off their combined savings

and what little she could make working at the nearby

hospital. She'd felt strange, at first, treating the living

again after so long, but she'd gotten used to it.   

 

Then there was the biggest change--she and Pendrell.

Mulder's disappearance had hit her hard, but she'd had no

time to dwell on it. And every time she had lifted her head

and looked around, there'd been Ted Pendrell. He'd been a

great comfort to her, keeping her focused on her work, on

what there might be left to save. Working so closely with

him, she had developed a real affection for him. And so,

when he had proposed to her, she hadn't been able to think

of a reason to turn him down. He was a good man. She wasn't

happy with her life--these days, hell, who was?--but she

was content.   

 

She wondered whether she would've been content with Mulder.

No way to know. Not now.   

 

She exited out of Eudora. She clicked on the folder that

contained her projection program and began typing in the

newest reports of bee activity.   

 

The program was still running when she heard the front door

open. "God," Pendrell's voice called, "how can you be

working in this heat?"   

 

She smiled up at him as he came in and kissed her forehead

lightly. "It's not as bad now as it was before I opened the

windows," she said.   

 

He sat at the table beside her, then noticed something

lying next to the computer and picked it up. Her wedding

ring, the plain gold band he had put on her hand six months

ago.   

 

"You're going to lose that," he complained good-naturedly.

 

"I can't type with it on," she said. "It gets in my way.

And I won't lose it. Anything new?" She suspected there was

good news tonight--he was in a playful spirit; she could

see it in his eyes.   

 

"I think we're close, Dana, really close. One of the test

cases from Hattiesburg is still alive, and the other two at

least died peacefully."   

 

"No spasms?"   

 

"No."   

 

She frowned, thinking hard. "I'm still not convinced we

have the dosage right," she said. She glanced back at the

computer screen and drew a sharp breath. "Oh, my God," she

said.   

 

"What is it?"   

 

"I don't think we're going to be able to wait for the test

case from Hattiesburg."   

 

The computer projection showed the bees would reach the

outskirts of New Orleans in less than forty-eight hours.   

 

Pendrell sighed heavily in resignation. "Where do we go

now?" he asked.   

 

"Galveston," Scully said. "There's still one ship that

sails for Mexico once a week."   

 

He inclined his head, his look skeptical. "We need lab

equipment--we can't take everything with us. And we haven't

got much money left. How are we going to arrange that in

Mexico? The exchange rate'll kill us."   

 

"We'll have to find a way across to California. We can't go

straight west--the bees have already cleaned out Houston.

It was drier there; they made good time on their way

south."   

 

"So we can't go by land," he said.   

 

"No. We go by sea."   

 

                                 ****   

 

July 20, 1999   

 

Scully had planned their escape from New Orleans well in

advance, knowing the bees would drive them out eventually

and wanting to be ready when the time came. She had hidden

the twelve-foot power boat, the same one they had used to

get out of Miami with A.D. Skinner and four other agents,

in a dark branch off a bayou well to the west of the city.

She had kept the gas tank empty and the engine partly

dismantled to discourage anyone who accidentally happened

on the boat from stealing it.   

 

There wasn't much in the apartment that was worth taking

with them, and in any case, they needed the space in the

boat for the lab samples and what equipment they could

take. All she had to pack was a little clothing, a little

food, bottled water. She had calculated the trip would take

them a good eighteen hours if they could make thirty miles

an hour during the night, if the weather held and the sea

wasn't too rough. She would hug the coastline as much as

she could--the boat wasn't really designed for the open

sea, and if they wandered too far out they would attract

the unwelcome attention of a U.N. blockade standing off the

coast to keep escapees from carrying the bees to other

nations.   

 

The sun had dipped toward the horizon. Scully made a last

sweep of the apartment, making sure she hadn't overlooked

anything. As she turned through the kitchen, out of the

corner of her eye she noticed a man standing in the shadows

between two old storefront buildings across the narrow

street. Powerfully built, he had light brown hair and dark

eyes. He was looking straight at her, and when he noticed

her looking back at him, he turned away and stepped farther

back into the darkness.   

 

Scully froze. She'd seen that man before, earlier in the

day, when she had gone to the lab. He had been lounging in

front of the closed-up convenience store, reading a

newspaper. She hadn't thought anything of it at the

time--there were a lot of people in New Orleans these days

who didn't have much to do but lounge around. But every

fiber of her now screamed that this man wasn't watching her

because he had too much time on his hands.   

 

She left the two small suitcases where they were on the

floor beside the front door and slipped downstairs, out the

back of her building, circled around through the alley to

come up behind him. She reminded herself that she had to

conserve ammunition. After Miami she had only two magazines

left for her service weapon. But when she got to where the

strange man had been standing, he was gone.   

 

"Dammit," she murmured. Whatever he was up to, it looked

like he was getting away with it. God, what if he had drawn

her off so that he could break into the apartment? Suddenly

fearful for what few possessions remained to them, she

hurried back upstairs. But nothing had been touched.   

 

She sighed heavily, holstered her gun again, then picked up

the cases and headed for the lab, locking the door behind

her for the last time.   

 

Pendrell was waiting for her, sitting on the big case he

used to carry the microscopes. "I was starting to worry,"

he said, his voice ringing with relief.   

 

"There was somebody outside the apartment. I don't think he

was just hanging in the 'hood."   

 

Pendrell had never been a field agent; it took him a moment

to get it. Then he frowned and asked, "What do you think?"

 

 

"I'm not sure what to think, but the sooner we're away from

here, the happier I'll be. Let's go."   

 

They finished loading the car. "How much gas have we got

left?" she asked.   

 

"About half a tank. Just enough."   

 

She nodded and got in, and they were off.   

 

They could only drive to within about a quarter mile of the

boat. Beyond that, it was back into the thick trees that

lined the bayou. Rooting around in the bush, Pendrell found

the sledge he had used to unload the boat when they had

first arrived from Miami, and they hefted the suitcases and

lab equipment onto it before setting off into the forest.

Scully pulled her flashlight and her gun, and went ahead of

him. She wanted to be ready if they had the bad luck to

encounter an alligator or a Louisiana panther back in the

bush.   

 

A little fog rose. The forest sang to them out of the

trees, out of the mucky ground--frogs, crickets, cicadas,

the occasional mournful call of an egret. Mosquitoes whined

in the air. She heard something splash in the water ahead

of them and hoped it was nothing more threatening than the

slap of a fish biting on an insect. Scully was tired, and

the dank darkness of the bayou weighed on her. The quarter

mile seemed like an endless, exhausting trek. She knew how

early explorers must have felt, venturing into God knew

what with nothing to protect them but a flickering torch.  

 

She walked on, claustrophobic, following the small circle

of light from her flash.   

 

Finally she reached the water line and froze in horror. No

boat. She swung the flashlight. God, where was it? Had

someone stolen it after all? Had it taken some damage she

hadn't noticed on the way from Miami and sunk in the bayou?

  

"There," Pendrell whispered, pointing off to her right. She

turned the flash, and sure enough--the boat's dirty white

side gleamed dully about fifty yards away.   

 

They slogged over. Scully climbed aboard and took the gas

can when Pendrell handed it up. She filled the boat's tank

while he transferred the equipment, then went to work on

the engine, carefully replacing the parts she had removed.

 

"Ready?" Pendrell called breathlessly. He scooped a

bullfrog off the rail and stood poised on the bow to cast

off.   

 

There was a loud pop, back in the trees, and suddenly, the

glowing, hissing tail of a flare going up. Another pop, and

a blinding light bathed the whole area. "Freeze!" a voice

shouted. "This vessel has been impounded by the Special

Emigration Bureau!"   

 

Scully drew her badge and flipped it open. "We're federal

agents!" she shouted back. "FBI! We have clearance to move

about freely."   

 

"All clearances canceled by order of Executive Director

Sherrill!"   

 

She couldn't see the man calling to them; the light was too

bright. With her free hand, Scully flipped on the switches

for the boat's engine and prepared to turn the key.   

 

"Why? Since when?" she yelled.   

 

"Come out of the boat! No one is to leave the parish, by

order of Executive Director Sherrill!"   

 

"You don't have that authority," Pendrell called to the

unseen voice back in the trees. Scully glanced at him and

caught his look--he had finished untying the line on the

boat.   

 

*Oh, well done,* she thought. *Beautifully done.* She had

only to hope he wouldn't lose his balance when she started

the engine and swung the boat around. If it started--it had

been sitting out here for almost a year. She turned the

key. The starter whined, then ground, but there was silence

from the engine.   

 

*Hail Mary, mother of God...* She'd known it wouldn't start

the first time, no way. She tried again. Still nothing.

Pendrell seized a boat hook and began pushing them away

from the bank.   

 

"Freeze!" the voice shouted again. Over the whine of the

starter, she could hear footsteps crashing through the

brush toward them. "We have been authorized to use deadly

force! Come out of the boat, or we will open fire!"   

 

Deadly force? What the hell for? There was something very

strange going on--Scully decided she didn't want to wait

around to find out what. She turned the key again, and this

time, the engine gave an asthmatic cough. It sputtered

briefly, then died.   

 

A flash, then the crack of a gunshot. Scully turned the key

again with one hand and drew her own gun with the other.

Pendrell'd had the same idea, and she heard him fire first,

so she turned her full attention back to the engine.

Everybody who'd been an FBI agent had taken the same gun

instruction, but she knew him for an indifferent shot. In

the dazzle of the flare, he couldn't see what he was

shooting at anyway. But then, she had no real wish for him

to kill anybody--she just hoped he'd keep them down until

she could get the damned engine going. She heard him fire

off three rounds before she lost count, focused on the

engine.   

 

It finally caught and roared, and she swung the rudder

around, praying the shots from the shoreline wouldn't hole

the hull. A rattle of machine-gun fire sounded. Pendrell

had finished off the magazine in his gun, so Scully tossed

him hers and he resumed firing to hold the others down.   

 

The flare above them flickered and went dark. Scully shoved

the throttle forward, hoping they could get out of range

before the SEB recovered enough to send up another one. It

was a narrow channel, but Scully didn't dare shine the

flashlight--it would've made an unmistakable target. All

she could do was hope they didn't hit anything.   

 

Piloting by instinct, she drove the boat forward, then

cringed in momentary terror when she heard it scrape the

opposite bank. Another flare went up, but they were already

hidden by trees.   

 

She felt Pendrell jump down beside her. "Shit," he said,

"that was close."   

 

"Yeah."   

 

"I don't I think I was cut out for this kind of stuff."   

 

She chuckled bitterly. "I don't think anybody is. You did

all right."   

 

The channel had widened now--the tree canopy no longer

blotted out the faint moonlight overhead, and she could

vaguely see ahead.   

 

"Why the hell do you think they'd want to stop us?"

Pendrell asked.   

 

She shook her head. "I don't know. Especially not badly

enough to try to kill us. Maybe it was a mistake--screwed-up

paperwork."   

 

But she didn't believe it. Screwed-up paperwork didn't

explain how the SEB had found them. The man outside the

apartment probably did, but how?   

 

And why?   

 

Continued in Part 3.

lochness@texas.net   

 

Letters of Transit (3/14) By Loch Ness   

 

DO NOT ARCHIVE. ***Not to be entered in or nominated

for any competition or award.***   

 

Classification: T, RA Crossover references to the film

*Casablanca* International readers: US4 spoilers. Rating:

NC-17, for VIOLENCE, PROFANITY and (M/S) SEX. If you are

under-age, please do not read this. See Part 0 for

disclaimer, summary and introductory notes.   

 

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

 

Letters of Transit (3/14) By Loch Ness   

 

July 21, 1999 Galveston   

 

At the Casablanca Club, Fox Mulder sat at the table that

was always reserved for him, playing Windows Solitaire on

his battered old laptop computer. Periodically a waiter

would interrupt him so he could sign a voucher for somebody

who was cashing in his chips from the roulette or craps

tables. So far, the cards on the computer had not been kind

to Mulder this evening, but then, they rarely were, which

was why Mulder left the gambling to his customers.   

 

The Casablanca Club stood on a dock that extended a good

hundred feet out into the Gulf of Mexico, supported by

heavy wooden pilings. It was garish outside, painted purple

with orange trim, and hung with wind-battered Chinese

lanterns. At first sight, it had conjured for Mulder an

image of a cheap brothel. Not so bad, inside--the walls

were a pale, muted blue-green, and the round tables had

come with white linen cloths; the decor included live,

leafy plants and crystal-globed candles. Big, ornate wooden

bar, and a private gaming room overlooking the ocean. When

things were quiet, Mulder had found he could stand still

and hear the surf beat against the pilings.   

 

Mulder had bought the club, then named Jack's Shrimp Shack,

from a man who had been desperate to get his family to

Mexico. Initially, Mulder had thought of the purchase as a

kind of charitable act--just give the guy the money so four

more people could escape. At the time, he'd had no

intention of actually running the place himself. But the

longer Mulder had hung around on the island, the more the

idea of opening up the club had appealed. If nothing else,

it gave some purpose to the fact that he was spending a lot

of time standing in the casino staring out to sea. He was

acutely vulnerable to seasickness, but he had always liked

watching the ocean. He'd grown up near the sea--there was

something about the musky smell of saltwater meeting land

that had soothed the emptiness in him just a little.   

 

After the bee invasion, Mulder had found himself without

any real purpose for the first time in his life. The

conspiracy had won, and there wasn't a damned thing he

could do about it. He hadn't been good enough, hadn't been

fast enough, to stop them. And everybody he'd cared about

was gone. By the time he'd landed on Galveston, he'd been

stagnant, defeated, exhausted. Unwilling to devote the

energy to finding a new purpose. So what the hell--why not

just run the damned bar until the bees forced him out?   

 

His friends the "Lone Gunmen," who had come to Galveston

with him, had joined in, unasked. One day they'd just

showed up and started working, Langly at the bar, Byers as

maitre'd and bookkeeper, and Frohike playing deejay,

chatting up the ladies and putting his paranoia to work

keeping track of who was snitching for whom. Mulder

couldn't decide whether they reminded him more of the Three

Stooges or the Three Musketeers.   

 

There was a noisy bunch in the casino tonight--the incident

on the causeway had everybody churned up with excitement.

Rumor had it the couriers had been minions of the Special

Emigration Bureau, and everybody was wondering what it

would mean, whether the SEB would crack down. It was hard

enough now to get off the island and go south or west, to

areas where the bees hadn't arrived yet--a blockade of U.N.

warships standing off the coast had orders to turn back

anyone trying to leave the country, in an effort to stop

the spread of the bees to other nations. The warships

weren't kidding, either. They'd sunk dozens of vessels in

the last two years, everything from freighters to dinghies.

The only way to get past that blockade was either to run

one Christ-almighty risk or to have the right papers.   

 

If the SEB tightened up on emigration requests even more

than they had, that could make things hellish on the

island. The crowding was miserable already, driving the

cost of housing stratospheric. Supplies were sparse

expensive. Mulder couldn't remember the last time he had

eaten a real egg.   

 

And for the SEB to tighten up was likely to drive up the

crime rate, too. Mulder knew that a motley array of

cutthroats and thieves sold papers in the darker corners of

the island, including at his own Casablanca Club, both real

documents stolen from God knows where and  forgeries, some

painstakingly accurate, some criminally sloppy. Mulder was

out of the law enforcement business, and he didn't care

what his customers did as long as they were discreet enough

not to leave any blood and guts on the bar. He suspected he

would've looked the other way even if he had been still

carrying a badge--people were desperate to get out, and

with reason.   

 

Mulder knew all too well how good a reason. So he just

stayed away from that group of tables over there beyond the

roulette wheel. It was none of his business who bought or

sold what, or what assignations were made in whispers and

for what purpose. He had scrupulously avoided getting

involved in illegal papers himself. His former boss, Walter

Skinner, was basically the only law left on the island, and

Mulder was careful not to provoke him in a way the A.D.

couldn't ignore. Skinner had been reasonable enough to

define his jurisdiction narrowly, regarding such

peccadilloes as gambling as beneath his notice. But he

would only overlook so much.   

 

Mulder moused a card down on the computer screen, then

looked up at the sound of a voice louder than the

background noise. Someone at the door into the casino room

was shouting, giving the doorman trouble. And while Casey,

the bouncer with arms like King Kong's, was trying to

deflect the man doing the shouting, Mulder saw someone else

ooze past into the casino.   

 

*Shit,* Mulder thought, looking at the lithe, dark man who

had slipped through the doorway.   

 

It was Alex Krycek.   

 

Mulder sighed. He got up and went to the door. "What's the

problem?" he asked Casey.   

 

The man who had been shouting made a flourish of

withdrawing a calling card from the inside jacket pocket of

an immaculate black tuxedo.   

 

Mulder only saw three words: Special Emigration Bureau. He

closed his fist around the card, crumpling it into a ball.

"This is a private room," he said.   

 

"Now, look here," tuxedo said, "I represent--"   

 

"I know what you represent," Mulder said coolly. "It's a

private room. You want a drink, pay cash at the bar.

Federal scrip's no good here. You don't like it, take a

hike."   

 

"I'll report this," tuxedo hissed.   

 

"You do that." Mulder turned his back and headed for his

table.   

 

As he passed Krycek said, "A casual observer might think

you'd been doing this all your life."   

 

Mulder shrugged. "I'm likely to be doing it the rest of my

life." He sat down.   

 

Krycek signaled a waiter and ordered a Scotch-and-water.

"Join me?" he asked. There was an almost-manic gleam in

Krycek's blue eyes.   

 

Now what the hell was he so good-natured about? Mulder gave

him a steady, expressionless glare that meant "not only no,

but hell, no."    

 

Krycek shrugged. He grinned.  "Why don't you just kill me,

Mulder? We both know you want to."   

 

How true. Mulder allowed himself a tiny, cold smile. "Too

public," he said. "Besides I'm taking too much pleasure in

watching you crawl on your belly trying to survive the

living hell you helped create." When Krycek had first

showed up, Mulder had wanted to tear him limb from limb,

but over the intervening months his anger had worn

down--these days he and Krycek were just two rats who had

happened to end up in the same cage. But he had no desire

to socialize with the man who had murdered his father.   

 

Krycek laughed. "I know you hate me," he said.   

 

Mulder felt a tingle of annoyance flare at the back of his

neck. *You don't know shit about me, Alex.* He squelched

it. Krycek was up to something, and he wanted to know what

it was. He held his silence, waiting the other man out

while the drink was served.   

 

"Hear about those poor bastards on the causeway?" Krycek

asked over the rim of his highball glass.   

 

Mulder turned back to his computer, feigning indifference.

He dragged a black seven down onto a red eight. "Somebody

saved them the bee stings," he said.   

 

"Hell, they were just doing their job."   

 

"Dirty job."   

 

"Filthy," Krycek agreed. "You really hate what I do, don't

you? Look, these people are desperate to get off this

island. I get them off of it."   

 

"Yeah, you're a saint. Your going rate these days is

what...a quarter million a head?"   

 

"No ups, no extras. Same rate for kids. Hey, I'm getting

out people the SEB would never let go of."   

 

"So they get to Mexico, but they're broke when they ground.

They can't afford to go any farther, and it's just

postponing the inevitable--the bees will get there

eventually."   

 

"Well, I'm getting out," Krycek said, his face suddenly

darkly moody. "I'm getting out for good. And not just to

Mexico, either. I'm about to make a deal that'll have me

surfing in Hawaii inside a week."   

 

"Hey, maybe I will kill you, then--while there's still

time."   

 

Krycek grinned wolfishly. "You don't have the ice in your

belly for murder," he said. "The truth is, Mulder, you're a

fucking boy scout. You're not going to kill me.  You've got

New England prep-school morality oozing out your ass."   

 

Mulder allowed himself a mental image of the satisfying

crunch of bone and tooth his fist would cause if it slammed

into Krycek's mouth. He smiled icily and said nothing.   

 

"That's the reason why you're the only living soul on this

island I trust," Krycek said.   

 

"Fuck," Mulder said, annoyed. "I had a very tasty shrimp

dinner over at Matheson's, Krycek. Make me throw it up, and

I'll cancel your credit at the roulette table."   

 

"No, it's true. You don't take federal scrip, you don't let

the SEB come in here and eavesdrop on the innocent, you

don't move contraband--and you could launder some major

shit through this place, without attracting any notice. You

flirt with sin, but you're still a virgin."   

 

"Maybe it just looks that way to a slut like you." He was

losing patience. "What do you want, Krycek?"   

 

Krycek slid some folded sheets of paper across the table.

"Ever seen one of those? Diplomatic letters of transit.

Can't be questioned by any local authority, personally

signed by Sherrill himself."   

 

Mulder resisted the temptation to give a low whistle. The

papers in his hand were worth gold by the ton. "I heard the

guys on the causeway were carrying letters of transit," he

murmured.   

 

"Really?" Krycek said, wide-eyed. "Where'd you hear that?"  

 

"Around," Mulder said carefully. "You know how rumors are

on the island."   

 

"Yeah. I want you to keep them for me for a couple of days.

Just 'til the heat dies down a little."   

 

Mulder crooked an eyebrow. "And I suppose I've got your

word that you won't roll over on me if you get busted?"   

 

"Absolutely," Krycek said earnestly.   

 

Mulder laughed. "Fuck you, Alex. I've had my gullible

moments, but I'm not that stupid, not anymore. Find

yourself another pigeon."   

 

"What good would it do me to roll on you, Mulder? At best,

I'm still an accessory. If we both keep our mouths shut,

nobody's got anything on either of us. We can spend the

rest of our lives slurping rum on the beach in Honolulu." 

 

"What makes you think I want to leave?"   

 

"Shit, everybody wants off this island."   

 

Mulder slid the letters back across the table to Krycek. He

turned off the laptop. "Not this time, Alex." He went out

to see what was going on in the bar, leaving Krycek to his

drink and the roulette table.   

 

Full house, tonight, Mulder noted with some satisfaction as

he walked through the bar. People were out in force,

probably because they suspected trouble and wanted to be

able to see it coming. Or because they already knew the

causeway incident had screwed the pooch and were even more

desperate to get away than they had been before. Mulder

himself was still considering what Krycek had revealed to

him--but more than he cared about the overall result, he

was wondering what really had moved his former partner to

confide in him. Overconfidence? Desperation? Did he figure

Mulder was only the guy left on the island who had enough

cash to meet his price for one of those letters?   

 

If so, he had miscalculated. Unlike most on Galveston

Island, Mulder was in no great tearing hurry to leave, and

he already had an escape pod for when the time came.   

 

He went to the bar and saw Langly leaning on it, his long

blond hair tied back loosely in a pony tail hanging down

one shoulder. Mulder inclined his head to see who Langly

was scoping, then sighed. Angela White, formerly a police

detective in a small New England town, who Mulder had first

met while on a case. Strange case, and one he did not much

care to reflect on.   

 

Langly caught sight of him and motioned, and Mulder

approached, groaning inwardly. He was in no mood for

Angela. She had short, frosted blonde hair, and she was

almost as tall as Mulder, with an athletic figure and broad

shoulders. She was dressed to the nines, tonight, in a

body-hugging gown prickled with white sequins. She wasn't

bad in bed, but then, in bed he had ways of keeping her

from talking. When she talked, she whined a lot, and Mulder

would as soon have avoided her tonight. But Langly was

waving a piece of paper--a personal check, from the look of

it. Mulder took it from him, glanced at the signature and

drew a pen from the pocket of his white tuxedo jacket.   

 

Angela caught his wrist. "Where were you last night?" she

demanded breathlessly.   

 

Mulder smelled whiskey on her breath. A lot of it. "Busy,"

he said tightly. He scribbled, "OK, FM" on the check. Dick

Matheson could cover a check for a few drinks.   

 

"Will I see you tonight?" she asked.   

 

"I don't know."   

 

She let go and turned her back on him coldly. "I'll have

another," she said to Langly. The thin bartender shot

Mulder a glance from behind his glasses.   

 

Mulder shook his head.   

 

Langly shrugged. "He's the boss," he said.   

 

Angela slammed her shot glass on the bar. "I said I'll have

another," she said.   

 

"Not here, you won't," Mulder said.  He took her by the

elbow, and as she half-fell from the barstool, he caught

her around the waist and propelled her across the club

toward the door.   

 

"You can't do this to me," Angela gasped.   

 

Mulder kept pushing her out the door, out to the street. He

whistled, and a pudgy Asian teen-ager with a bicycle cab

pedaled up. "You're going home," he said to Angela.   

 

"You bastard," Angela raged. "I won't be back!"   

 

He handed the kid a fifty-dollar bill. "See she gets home

safely," he said.   

 

"Shit," the Asian kid said. "For fifty bucks, you can have

the bike."   

 

"Just see that she gets there."   

 

The kid rang the bell on his bike and drove off.   

 

"You'll be sorry!" Angela yelled.   

 

Mulder forced her out of her mind. He turned to go back

into the club, and as he swung around, he caught the

moonlight glinting off the lenses of Walter Skinner's

glasses.   

 

Continued in Part 4.

lochness@texas.net   

 

Letters of Transit (4/14) By Loch Ness   

 

DO NOT ARCHIVE. ***Not to be entered in or nominated

for any competition or award.***   

 

Classification: T, RA Crossover references to the film

*Casablanca* International readers: US4 spoilers. Rating:

NC-17, for VIOLENCE, PROFANITY and (M/S) SEX. If you are

under-age, please do not read this. See Part 0 for

disclaimer, summary and introductory notes.   

 

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

 

Letters of Transit (4/14) By Loch Ness   

 

July 21, 1999 Galveston   

 

Mulder's former boss sat in a courtyard the other patrons

had abandoned because of the heat. Angela was still yelling

as the bicycle cab drove down the boulevard.   

 

"How long you figure it'll take her to find another?"

Skinner asked dryly. "Twelve hours? Eighteen?"   

 

"Psychology teaches that sexual urges take on an air of

desperation when animals are under intense stress." Mulder

shrugged. "She'll have that kid upstairs inside thirty

minutes."   

 

"You're not suffering any desperate urges?"   

 

"I'm not feeling stressed." He studied Skinner's practiced,

apparently nerveless cool. He knew the A.D. well enough to

see that there was something simmering underneath. "But you

are." He hooked a thumb eastward along Seawall Boulevard.

"She lives at the Gulfstream Apartments. Go for it."   

 

Skinner shook his head. "No time," he said. He grinned.

"Too much stress."   

 

Despite himself, Mulder chuckled. He didn't trust Skinner,

never had. But occasionally he found he liked the man.   

 

"You got a minute?" the assistant director asked.   

 

*Shit.* This was not likely to be good news. Mulder

shrugged again and strolled over, sat opposite the bald

man. When he sat down, he could see what Skinner had been

sitting outside in the dark watching--the freighter from

Tampico, steaming sluggishly toward the dock, its lights

blinking against its black, rust-streaked sides. Once a

week, the freighter sailed in with a load of supplies and

then back out again three days later, carrying about a

hundred lucky people who had found some way to beg, buy or

steal the necessary paperwork.   

 

"You ever want to be on that ship?" Skinner asked.   

 

Mulder doubted Skinner had beckoned him just to share the

sight of the freighter, no matter how appealing and

romantic it might be to watch a ship glide in off the

ocean. And the older man rarely beat around the bush when

there was something on his mind. But Mulder decided to play

along.   

 

"No. I've got no complaints about where I am."   

 

"There's not much future here. Not in the long run."   

 

"There's no future anywhere."   

 

"Don't bullshit me, Mulder," Skinner said softly. "You made

six runs through the blockade carrying Malathion into

Georgia. That's not the act of a man who's succumbed to his

own bitterness."   

 

"It didn't work, did it?"   

 

Skinner shrugged.   

 

"Besides," Mulder said, "I was well-paid by the state of

Georgia. How do you think I came up with the cash to buy

this place?"   

 

The older man fell silent for a moment. Mulder waited him

out.   

 

Finally Skinner said, "You never turned in your service

weapon. You still carrying?"    

 

He was. Both of them--the .40 caliber Sig-Sauer 226 that

had been authorized and the Walther PPK in an ankle holster

that hadn't been. "Why would I?" he asked.   

 

"The smoking man is in town," Skinner said.   

 

Mulder blinked in surprise. "You want me to kill him?" he

asked dryly. "Not that I'd object to the assignment."   

 

"I want you to stay out of it."   

 

"Out of what?"   

 

"He's after Krycek, not you. Leave it alone. Let me handle

it."   

 

Mulder considered this, his thoughts whirling like startled

bats in a dark cave. After a moment he said, "You think

Krycek pulled the job on the causeway?"   

 

"I know he did. And I know he's here."   

 

"He is?"   

 

Skinner's look was dour--*don't play me for a fool.* "The

place is already surrounded," he said. There was steel in

his tone.   

 

The freighter was disappearing as it headed for the port of

Galveston, around the other side of the island. Still

debating with himself, Mulder watched its lights wink out,

one by one. He got up. "Don't make a mess of my bar, okay?"

he said, then went back inside the club.   

 

It took all the control he had not to run back into the

casino. When he got there, Krycek was playing roulette, and

losing at it, judging from the scowl on his face. Mulder

scanned the room. There was no one here he didn't know, and

he would've known if any of them were snitching for

Skinner. He sauntered over as casually as he could manage,

then leaned down and murmured, "Come and have a drink with

me, Alex," and walked on, back to his table.   

 

After a moment, Krycek followed, his look wary.   

 

"I've changed my mind," Mulder said. "Give them to me."   

 

The younger man's dark brows knit in suspicion. "What's

happened?" he asked.   

 

"Skinner's here, and Cancer Man's not far behind him. They

had the club surrounded before I knew anything about it." 

 

Krycek had gone a little pale at Cancer Man's name.   

 

Mulder leaned into his former partner's face. "Listen to

me, Alex," he whispered. "I don't give a shit what happens

to you. If they pull your guts out through your asshole,

I'll make sausage out of them and feed it to the gulls down

on the beach. But I don't see any reason to let the Cancer

Man get what he wants. You give me the letters, and I'll

keep my mouth shut."   

 

Much as Mulder found the idea of helping Krycek

distasteful, he really wanted, just this one time, to make

the smoking man squirm. Cancer Man wanted those papers

badly enough to come down here himself--just as badly,

Mulder wanted to thwart him, even in a small thing. Just

once. After all Cancer Man had put him through, even a

small victory...he deserved that, didn't he?   

 

He sat back in his chair. "I won't turn you in, Alex. But I

don't know what they've got on you. So maybe you beat the

charges. Or not. If you do, you get to leave the island. If

you don't...well, like I said, I just don't give a shit.

Anyway, the way I figure it, you don't have much choice but

to trust me."   

 

Krycek studied him for a long moment. Then,

expressionlessly, he drew the letters of transit out of the

inside pocket of his jacket and slipped them across the

table again.   

 

Mulder put them in his own pocket.   

 

Krycek gave him a wan smile. "I'll give you twenty minutes,

then I'll go out front," he said. "That way your customers

don't get involved."   

 

A magnanimous gesture from a man not known for his

generosity. But then,  he had little to gain now by taking

anyone else with him, or by doing anything to piss Mulder

off.   

 

Krycek got up, heading back to the roulette table. "See you

in Hawaii, partner."   

 

                                ****   

 

Skinner sat outside the club for a few more minutes,

waiting for the smoking man's arrival, gripped by a

foreboding he couldn't identify or drag himself out of. He

had an uneasy feeling about what was coming--he wasn't sure

why, but he couldn't shake it.   

 

Shit, it was hot. He decided to wait inside. As he rose to

go into the club, the breeze eddied around the corner of

the building, and he caught a whiff of cigarette smoke.   

 

He turned to see the smoking man standing on the deck, in

the shadows at the corner of the building. *Son of a

bitch,* Skinner thought grimly. *How long have you been

watching me?*   

 

"Interesting place," the smoking man said. He drew on his

cigarette, and the ash went from a dusky red to a bright

orange.   

 

Skinner held his silence. What was he supposed to say?

*Glad you like it?*   

 

The smoking man gestured, the glowing ash describing a lazy

arc toward Seawall Boulevard at the end of the dock.

"There's someone I'd like to be introduced to," he said.   

 

"I don't know everybody on the island," Skinner said

tightly. *And I'm not the social director.*   

 

"I'm sure you remember Agent Pendrell," the smoking man

said, smiling.   

 

Skinner's head swiveled in astonishment before he thought

to try to control it. *What the hell were Pendrell and

Scully doing on the island?* He couldn't imagine. Yet there

they were--just coming up the dock toward the club.   

 

The smoking man tossed his spent cigarette over the railing

onto the beach below. "I would really like to make Agent

Pendrell's acquaintance," he said. He lit another Morley. 

 

 

Skinner ground his teeth. The last thing he wanted was for

the smoking man to get his hooks into Scully or Pendrell.

On the other hand, maybe it'd be better for them if they

could see the bastard coming.   

 

He inclined his head and led the smoking man toward them. 

 

 

                                ****   

 

Mulder busied himself, waiting Krycek out. He fetched ice

for Langly at the bar, made an elaborate show of helping a

waitress make change for a hundred-dollar bill. The Gunmen

could run the place all by themselves, and usually did,

leaving Mulder as the tuxedoed frontman for an operation

that really didn't need him for anything but a symbol, a

target for any trouble that cropped up. But he had an act

to put on tonight. *I'm just running my club. Yessir, I'm

way too busy for anything else. Got no time for any

ee-legal activity, not me.*   

 

The front door got busy just then, as if fate had taken a

hand and sent out some subliminal signal for twenty or

thirty people to show up at the club right at that moment.

Mulder knew better than to question a sudden turn of good

luck. He just got to work helping Byers seat customers.   

 

But then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a

familiar yellow flare, and despite his better judgment, he

turned to find himself facing the smoking man, standing in

a small knot of people waiting for tables.    

 

"Well, well," the older man said, smiling through a haze of

gray smoke. "Mr. Mulder."   

 

Skinner stood at his elbow. Mulder stomped down his

resentment of the smoker, clamped his teeth hard and asked

the A.D., "Table for two?"   

 

"Four," the smoker said. He waved off to his left.   

 

Mulder turned around and saw them and went into freefall.

Pendrell, his eyes wide, flushing deeply across the

cheekbones. And beside him, Scully.   

 

Scully.   

 

Mulder felt gut-shot. As if the whole universe had suddenly

canted thirty degrees off level and left him sliding

downhill, flailing desperately for balance as the blood ran

out of his head. Scully was dead, or at least she was

supposed to be. Pendrell had told him she was, almost two

years ago, and he'd had no reason not to believe it.   

 

But there she was, alive. As radiantly alive as ever. He

drank her in with his eyes. She had let her hair grow--it

hung down her shoulders, even longer than it had been when

he had first met her seven years ago. And she was thinner

than he remembered, as if she hadn't been eating well,

which had only heightened the ethereal quality of her tiny,

delicate features. Her eyes had gone wide, too, staring

back at him. She looked every bit as stunned as he felt.   

 

Back in a corner of his mind, he was dimly aware of how the

tableau must have looked to someone outside himself. He and

Scully gaping at each other like two mesmerized lab mice;

Pendrell clearly dismayed, bristling slightly and exuding

testosterone like some kind of banty rooster prepared to

drive off a rival. Skinner and the Cancer Man, clueless but

fascinated. Oh, yeah. This was a classic moment, all right.

Engrave this one on the old eidetic memory. Proof positive

that the human condition was nothing if not absurd--as if

he hadn't already been painfully aware of that.   

 

Skinner cleared his throat quietly. Mulder forced himself

to breathe. How long had he been staring at her?   

 

"I think you're already acquainted with Raul Bloodworth,"

the A.D. said, inclining his head toward the Cancer Man.   

 

Mulder blinked. *Raul?* Who did they think they were

kidding? He glared at the smoking man and said nothing.   

 

"And you'll remember Agent Pendrell," Skinner went on.   

 

*Yeah. I remember.* Mulder gave him a curt nod.   

 

"And my wife," Pendrell said, his tone a little strident.

"Dana."   

 

His wife. Why yes, of course. That explained damned near

everything. Mulder had known Pendrell had a crush on Scully

almost from the first moment it had ignited, but he had

never suspected the red-headed lab geek had the balls to

clear the field for himself with a blatant, outright

deceit.   

 

Mulder forced his expression and his tone into neutral.

"Mrs. Pendrell," he said evenly, then glanced back at

Skinner. "This way, please," he said, and led them into the

club.   

 

Continued in Part 5.

lochness@texas.net   

 

Letters of Transit (5/14) By Loch Ness   

 

DO NOT ARCHIVE. ***Not to be entered in or nominated

for any competition or award.***   

 

Classification: T, RA Crossover references to the film

*Casablanca* International readers: US4 spoilers. Rating:

NC-17, for VIOLENCE, PROFANITY and (M/S) SEX. If you are

under-age, please do not read this. See Part 0 for

disclaimer, summary and introductory notes.   

 

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

 

Letters of Transit (5/14) By Loch Ness   

 

TWO YEARS EARLIER

September 7, 1997

Washington, D.C.   

 

The Hoover building had an empty ring as Dana Scully walked

through the halls. There were only two kinds of people left

in Washington as the bees approached from the

northwest--those who didn't have the resources to leave and

those who had been ordered to stay. Scully fell into that

latter category. She had spent the last four days helping

the bureau pack up delicate pieces of forensic evidence

stored at Quantico in preparation for moving the whole FBI

operation south to the Carolinas.   

 

The bees had moved south from Canada, through the northern

central plains and slowly southeastward, decimating

everyone in their convoluted, seemingly aimless path. They

were aggressive and deadly--Scully had never heard of

anything that had the sort of 100-percent-guaranteed

mortality rate these bee stings carried. They attacked in

numbers, in swarms. They attacked anything that moved or

made sound. Unlike honeybees, they didn't lose their

stingers and die after striking, but could sting again and

again. Over the last few months they had moved rapidly and

inexorably through the Great Lakes states, then into

Pennsylvania, and now were heading into West Virginia,

toward to the capital.   

 

Latest projections showed the bees would arrive at the

outskirts of D.C. inside 48 hours. Most of the government

big shots were already gone, leaving their frightened

staffs to ship office contents south or west and get

themselves and their families out as best they could. The

bureau was not quite as deserted as Capitol Hill--but at

the moment most of its personnel were engaged in local

functions like crowd control at the airport, at the port,

along the highways. As the city had emptied out, those

agents were being gradually transferred south.   

 

Scully had thought her partner, Fox Mulder, was in that

same "essential personnel" category. But Mulder had pulled

one of his trademark disappearing acts two days ago,

leaving the basement office at Hoover virtually untouched

except for taping up and marking the file cabinets for

transfer, with a mere four boxes of miscellaneous stuff he

regarded as important stacked on top of them. Scully had no

idea where he had gone or what he was doing. She knew only

that he had taken off--likely tilting at windmills

somewhere--and left her holding the bag for packing up the

remaining mountain of paperwork, photos, equipment and just

plain junk that had mounted up over the years. She gave him

credit, at least, for the fact that what he had bothered to

pack was all of *her* things.   

 

Each day since his disappearance, Scully had hoped to come

back to Hoover and find him down there. She had been

disappointed each time. No answer at his home, "no service"

on his cell phone, his parking space at work and at home

vacant. No sign of him. She hoped Skinner wouldn't find

out. He would've been likely to regard it as dereliction of

duty. Scully doubted that was Mulder's intent--he had just

chosen to interpret what his duty was according to his own

rules. Fortunately, Skinner had been too busy to notice. So

far.   

 

Tonight she opened the door to the office, looked inside at

the mammoth task that still awaited, and decided she just

didn't have the strength to do any more. What the hell--if

the stuff wasn't that important to him, why should she

care? She closed the door again and retraced her steps

through Hoover's empty, echoing halls and went home.   

 

She didn't go past his place this time. He would come to

her when he was ready, and it would only add to her

frustration to drive by and see his car still missing. What

she craved tonight was a moment of normalcy, of peace and

quiet, however temporary or illusory it might be. A long,

hot bath, maybe. An old movie in the VCR. Nothing too

frenetic--maybe something gently humorous and optimistic,

like *Singing in the Rain*.   

 

Yeah, that was what she needed. A little R-and-R, something

to take her mind off things.   

 

                                  ****   

 

Fox Mulder had been on the road for four solid days,

driving to Ohio and back, only catching a few hours' sleep

now and then, parked beside the highway and curled up on

the front seat of his Buick. The last time he'd pulled over

for a nap, he'd awakened to a Pennsylvania highway

patrolman thumping his night stick on the side window,

demanding to know what Mulder thought he was doing there. 

 

Didn't he know the bees were coming?   

 

Yeah. He knew.   

 

Now he was driving back into a Washington that looked more

than ever like one tomb after another - Lincoln, Jefferson

and tens of thousands of Joe Blows whose names weren't

imprinted on any building but who nonetheless were leaving

behind their ruins, monumental and otherwise. As he rolled

along a deserted Rockville Pike, it occurred to Mulder that

Washington, D.C., was a much safer place tonight than it

had been in decades.   

 

He stopped off at his apartment just long enough for a

shave, shower and change of clothes. He didn't have to

check his answering machine to know that it held about a

dozen messages from Scully, wanting to know where he was

and what he was doing. He had no special desire to spend

any extra time at home, and in any case, he meant for his

stay in Washington to be brief. He would go to Scully, this

time, despite his discomfort with the idea.   

 

He hated going to her place. Her apartment had the same

shiny, newly minted neatness she fairly exuded. It held her

smell, her clean, sweetly spicy fragrance, in its every

corner. She smelled the way Earl Grey tea tasted--of

warmth, of distant, indefinable flowers. And her place had

a softness, a homeyness that one would never guess from

watching Scully slice competently and scientifically into a

mutilated corpse. There was nothing unfeminine about Dana

Scully--her very breath spoke of femininity--but her home

was *womanly*.   

 

Being there made Mulder sweat. It made his heart race.   

 

*It makes your cock hard, you testosterone-drenched

schmuck*, he thought. That was the truth, of course. Just

thinking about it was making him stiff.   

 

And he hated that.   

 

Not the erection itself, but the idea that what he and

Scully shared really could be that simple. He and Scully

were more emotionally and intellectually intimate than he

ever would have believed possible between two human souls.

He knew people who had been married for decades who had

never *fit* together the way he and Scully did. Did he want

her? Hell, yes. Who wouldn't? But he treasured the

*special* nature of what they had, so much so that the loss

of it was unthinkable, terrifying. To turn it into

something sexual would've normalized it, made it

susceptible to loss, in a way he felt bound to resist, to

the extent that he could without driving himself mad.   

 

But of course, *that* was the problem, wasn't it? Trying

not to go mad while the most delectable woman he had ever

known stood so close to him he could hear her heartbeat,

while she slept in the hotel room next door, when it

would've been the easiest, most natural thing in the world

just to reach out, to caress...   

 

*Knock it off.* He was torturing himself with it. *Fucking

masochist.* Still, it was a more pleasant torture than

most. He had a whole menu of things with which he might've

tormented himself, and of them, sexual fantasies about his

partner were by the far the least painful.   

 

At some level, he knew it wasn't his fault that the bees

were poised to destroy the world. But he had known the bees

were coming, and he had not been able to stop them. Hadn't

been able to muster any support for any effort on the part

of others to stop them. Just another one of "Spooky"

Mulder's fantasies, oh-so-plausibly-deniable. But the

moment the swarm had gone free, he had known it was over.

The conspiracy had won. He didn't have any clear notion

*what* they had won, but it was obvious things had gone

well beyond the point where any normal solutions could

apply. He thought of a message on his cell-phone's readout,

from years ago: "ALL DONE BYE BYE."   

 

Yeah. That pretty much summed it up.   

 

Mulder had never felt so helpless, so hopeless. He had

spent his whole life in an effort that clearly had been so

futile it now seemed absurd. His work, his search for

Samantha, his life--it was all going up in the smoky flames

of Armageddon, and it didn't seem to him that there was a

damned thing he could do about it.   

 

Worst of all, he couldn't seem to feel anything much about

it. Nothing but a dim, numb fatigue that had seeped into

his bones. He was still going through the motions of trying

to do his work, trying to save what and who he could, but

deep down inside, he did not believe his efforts meant

anything or had any chance of success.   

 

There was nothing left now but the salvage operation, which

might or might not work, and which, in any case, was more

Scully's line than it was his.   

 

                                  ****   

 

As Scully drew her bath, she found she couldn't help it,

couldn't stop thinking about him, worrying about him. And

the longer she worried, the angrier she became, furious

with him and even more so with herself. It was so foolish

of her to dwell on his comings and goings this way. He was

an adult, and a highly trained, well-armed adult at that.

Mulder was good at squeezing his own way out of tight

situations. He always had been. He could take care of

himself. She knew that.   

 

So why was she obsessing over this now? Why couldn't she

just let it be? Why couldn't she worry about him in the

sort of cool, detached way she'd worry about any of her

other colleagues?   

 

She had always known there was something more between them

than friendship, more than service camaraderie, more even

than being partners. She would not have called that

something love or even lust, but maybe that was just

because those words felt so forbidden. Putting their

relationship in those terms was dangerous. And what she and

Mulder shared was already dangerous enough, for both of

them.    

 

Nevertheless, whatever that "something" was, it certainly

felt as powerful as either love or lust. He had become part

of her, and she part of him, almost as if they had

physically grown together, like Siamese twins. Nevermind

that there'd been no actual, physical joining. Over the

years Scully had begun to feel as if she had a missing limb

when he wasn't there, and over the same period of time,

slowly, the absence of that joining had begun to

feel...well, unnatural.   

 

She hadn't wanted to take that step, and apparently,

neither had he, because he had never made even a subtle

effort to veer that direction. And in any case, the bureau

bigwigs would've had a fit--some of them devoted a fair bit

of time to looking for excuses to hammer Mulder. Give the

OPC evidence that Mulder had pranged his partner, and some

of them would have been turning cartwheels in the streets

with joy. At the very least, she and Mulder would have been

separated professionally, and that would have been agony.

They both had too much invested in the work to have it

disrupted in that way.   

 

But now the bureau was coming apart. The nation--maybe the

world--was in the process of coming apart. Things were way

beyond any concern about her career or his, and it seemed

to Scully now that nothing stood in the way of taking that

last step toward fusion except the thin air between their

bodies. And God knew whether they'd have the chance if they

waited.   

 

She sighed in resignation and turned off the water in the

bath. She picked up the phone, dialed. Still "no service."

She paced her living room, her plans for the evening

abandoned.   

 

Damn him.   

 

Damn, damn, damn.   

 

The doorbell rang, and she jumped, startled out of her

anxious reverie. One hand on her gun, she went to the door

and peered out the peephole.   

 

It was Mulder.   

 

Scully let go of a long breath--half anger, half relief.

She unlocked the door, just barely able to resist the

temptation to drag him inside by the collar and beat the

ever-loving shit out of him.   

 

"Hey," he said. His eyes had a manic glaze they got when he

had been running continuously for far too long. She doubted

he had eaten or slept in days. But his suit looked fresh,

and he smelled of soap and shampoo--she'd never noticed any

dandruff on him, but he used Selsun Blue like some kind of

preventive talisman--he had come over right out of the

shower. He flopped bonelessly down on the couch in a motion

that telegraphed exhaustion and defeat.   

 

She was in no mood to let up on him just for a little

fatigue. She stood over him like the school-teacher nun

from hell.   

 

"Where the hell have you been?" she demanded. "I don't

appreciate the way you dumped all the packing-up on me,

Mulder--most of that shit is yours, and--"   

 

He waved her off. "Oh, forget all that."   

 

"Forget it? There's material there that relates directly to

a number of active cases--"   

 

"None of that matters now, Scully."   

 

"Doesn't matter?"    

 

"By the time any of those cases could be brought to trial

the perps'll all be dead. It's irrelevant unless we do

something about the bees."   

 

The galling part was, this actually made sense. She ground

her teeth. "You have a suggestion?" she asked dryly.   

 

"Not yet. But I've got something that might help us find an

answer." He pulled a small glass vial out of a pocket and

handed it to her.   

 

"What's that?" Before he could answer, she knew what it

was--one of the bees.   

 

"It's dead," he said. "Sorry. I couldn't figure out how to

get it back alive."   

 

Despite herself, she was impressed. "Where did you get it?"

  

"Ohio."   

 

"Ohio?" God. The damnfool had gone right into the

100-percent fatality zone.   

 

"Just outside Columbus, to be exact."   

 

"How the hell did you manage to get in and out of Columbus,

Ohio, without getting stung?"   

 

"I doused myself with gasoline, just like I did in Canada

that time last year. Don't worry--I've had three showers

since then."   

 

"That keeps the bees from stinging?"   

 

"At least temporarily. I didn't hang around long enough to

test whether it would wear off." He retrieved a roll of

35-mm film from another pocket and handed that over, too.

"You'll need to get started as soon as you get set up in

South Carolina--maybe Pendrell can help, too. Speed things

up that way, with two of you working on it."   

 

It occurred to her suddenly that he was turning this

material over to her in a way that suggested *he* wouldn't

be around to help. "Wait a minute," she objected. "What are

you going to do?"   

 

"I'm going to Connecticut to get my mom."   

 

Absurd. He was nuts. On the other hand, it was also quite

human and perfectly understandable. Scully had already

shipped her own mother off to the Caribbean, where--she

hoped--she'd be safe.   

 

"I don't think that's such a terrific idea," Scully said

carefully. "The bees are getting closer every day, and--" 

 

"They're not heading for New England, not yet, anyway. And

she can't get here by herself--she doesn't get around that

well anymore."   

 

Scully sighed. His mother had made a miraculous recovery

from her stroke; she was nearly as functional as she'd ever

been. But Mulder had a difficult time seeing her that way.

He kept picturing her in a coma. Scully understood, but all

the same, she knew he was wrong.   

 

"All she has to do is take a bus to Massachusetts and get

the ferry out to Martha's Vineyard," Scully said. "I don't

think the bees can fly that far across the ocean, do you?"

 

He blinked, considered this. "I don't know," he said. "What

makes you think they can't?"   

 

"They went around Lake Michigan, not across it."   

 

He shook his head. "Lake Michigan is farther across than

the distance between Cape Cod and the Vineyard."   

 

"Then wire her the money to fly down here. It's too

dangerous, Mulder. What if the bees get here before you can

get back? Then you'll both be cut off, and neither of you

will get out."   

 

"Well, then, we'll both have to try for the Vineyard, or

Nantucket." He was on his feet again, already heading for

the door.   

 

She moved between it and him. "It's too dangerous," she

repeated. "Mulder, she's a grown-up, and I doubt very much

she'd want to see you endanger yourself on her account."   

 

He let his head drop forward in resignation, then lifted it

again to look at her. "If it was your mom, what would you

do?"   

 

He had her, there. She'd go--even if it meant the hounds of

hell snapping at her feet.    

 

She sighed. "Will you at least stay the night and get some

sleep first? Eat something? You're in no shape for this,

and you know it."   

 

"I'm all right."   

 

"Bullshit." She stepped forward and took the lapels of his

jacket in her hands. "I'm not letting you go until you get

some rest."   

 

She had him cold, now--something about the touch had

stopped him dead in his tracks, and there was a deep

sadness, a loneliness in his eyes that caught her, too.   

 

"I can't stay here, Scully," he whispered. "If I do, I'm

not sure I'll be able to leave. I'm afraid something

might... Swear you won't wait for me. If it gets bad,

you'll just go."   

 

She could see how tightly he was caught between his wish to

stay and protect her, and his fear that he couldn't protect

her if he tried. He hadn't been able to protect Samantha,

or his father. That was the Mulder she knew so well she

could almost read his thoughts--he spent his life wedged in

a narrow chasm that was guilt on one side and terror on the

other.   

 

Still holding onto his jacket, she lifted herself on tiptoe

and kissed him. His mouth was warm, his lips soft, and

suddenly he was kissing her with a passion that caught her

breath. She hadn't planned this, hadn't thought it through,

and she had a moment of panic. But then his long arms

curled around her waist and she found herself unwilling to

protest, transported by the sensation of his mouth on hers

and her breasts crushed against his chest.    

 

*No more thoughts. No plans.* Just her fervent wish to know

nothing, feel nothing but his flesh and her own. With one

hand she let go of his jacket and reached up to twine her

fingers tightly through his hair, to ensure that he could

not pull away from her. Then she let her knees go limp so

that her own deadweight dragged him toward the floor.   

 

There was no romance in it, no gentleness, just the two of

them tearing at each other's clothes, and only the

essentials at that - his trousers and shorts, her nylons

and panties. Then fusion as he found her and penetrated. He

was bigger than she had realized, and so hard...just having

him inside was enough. She arched her back and came, came

with her whole body, grinding against him, her own hoarse

groans reverberating in the still room and inflaming her

even more. Dimly she realized that he had held perfectly

still for her, to keep from disrupting her orgasm, and she

felt him trembling with the effort required. Then, just as

she began to relax, he moved.   

 

His figure was so slim, she rarely thought of him as

strong, but she felt his strength now as he thrust with a

startling power, withholding nothing, all the force and

intensity of him focused inside her. Scully gasped and met

him with force of her own, eyes closed, aware of nothing

but the fiercely sweet sensation of him moving inside her,

driving into the hottest part of her center. He shuddered,

and she came again. Through a haze of passion, she heard

his animal howl of release.   

 

After a long, silent moment, she felt his lips graze hers,

then his breath warm against her neck. She twined her

fingers into his hair again, gently this time, and held

him.   

 

Later, Scully would remember that afterward, his tie

remained immaculately knotted, as if nothing unusual had

happened.   

 

Continued in Part 6.

lochness@texas.net   

 

Letters of Transit (6/14) By Loch Ness   

 

DO NOT ARCHIVE. ***Not to be entered in or nominated

for any competition or award.***   

 

Classification: T, RA Crossover references to the film

*Casablanca* International readers: US4 spoilers. Rating:

NC-17, for VIOLENCE, PROFANITY and (M/S) SEX. If you are

under-age, please do not read this. See Part 0 for

disclaimer, summary and introductory notes.   

 

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

 

Letters of Transit (6/14) By Loch Ness   

 

September 8, 1997

Washington, D.C.   

 

She had gotten him into bed, after that, where he'd gone

dead out like a light the minute he hit the sheets. Scully

molded herself against his back and lay awake, not really

thinking of anything, just soaking in his warmth, watching

over him, worrying she might not have another chance to lie

beside him and shelter him, take shelter from him.   

 

She knew he feared he couldn't take care of her. And he

couldn't, of course, but then, she didn't want him to. All

she really wanted from him was what she already had--the

certain knowledge that he would fight like hell for her,

never willingly let go of her, no matter what. Mulder's

affection was hard to obtain, but once won, it was as

unconditional as a puppy's. She had rejected him, insulted

him, rebelled against him--hell, she'd even shot him--but

none of that mattered a damn, because he had given her his

heart and just didn't know how to withdraw that gift. He

had never given up on Samantha, and he had never, would

never, give up on her.   

 

She felt him go tense in his sleep, and her attention

sharpened. He moaned softly. Dreaming, gripped by some

nightmare. She stroked his hair. "Shh," she breathed. He

stretched his spine like a cat, sighed, and settled back

into slumber, the tension drifting away.   

 

Scully knew he was blaming himself for the bees' attack. He

was thinking he ought to have been able to do something

more to stop it. He hadn't said so, wasn't planning to say

so, at least in part because he feared she'd take his

self-recrimination to mean he was blaming her. For slowing

him down, for arguing him to a standstill, for not

believing him, for not having the same willingness to throw

her life away in search of the truth. She thought now that

he might've been right to blame her for those things. In

retrospect, she wished she *had* done more to support him,

had been more open to his views. So many times, he'd turned

out to be dead right.   

 

He'd been dead right about the bees, that was for damn

sure. But nobody had listened. She hadn't listened.

Instead, she had read him chapter and verse on the

Africanized honeybees that had moved up from South America

into parts of Texas, pointing out that they hadn't meant

the end of civilization. She'd accused him of having spent

too much time watching *Them* in reruns on cable. And he'd

been right, and she'd been dead wrong.   

 

All she could do for him now was give him her love and a

warm, dry place to sleep and hope it was enough for him to

cling to, despite everything else he was losing.   

 

Around dawn she finally dozed, lulled into sleep by the

quiet, even rhythm of his breath.   

 

                                  ****   

 

She woke to find him sitting on the bed, gazing down at

her, dressed and ready to leave. He leaned in to kiss her,

and she held him briefly, her arms tight around his neck.

She let go after a moment; she could almost hear his

muscles straining to hold the position.   

 

"Okay," he said. "Now you can call me Fox."   

 

She smiled and shook her head. "I don't want to anymore." 

 

"No?"   

 

"It would sound funny now. It's too late, Mulder--you're

stuck with your surname."   

 

"Oh. Okay, good." He glanced away, his eyes darkly

thoughtful. "You didn't swear," he said softly.   

 

"To what?"   

 

"That you won't wait for me."   

 

She put one hand over his heart. "I'm not going to have to

wait for you, Mulder," she said. "You're going to get your

mom and be back here in record time, and the three of us

are going to get to safety together."   

 

"Swear," he said.   

 

"On one condition--"   

 

"No conditions, just swear."   

 

"--you e-mail me, the minute you get there, so I know you

made it all right, and let me know when you're coming

back."   

 

He sighed. "Okay, I can do that."   

 

She sat up, holding the sheet to her bare chest, and laid

one hand gently along his cheek. "You do know that I love

you," she said.   

 

His eyes were haunted, his mouth tight with anxiety. "I

want to believe," he whispered.   

 

"What will it take to persuade you?"   

 

"If you don't wait for me. Then I'll believe."   

 

She kissed him. "Then you hurry back."   

 

He closed his eyes, and smiled. "I will."   

 

And then he was gone.   

 

                                 ****   

 

By the time he passed Baltimore, the traffic was godawful

in both directions, and it seemed to Mulder that every

jerkwater town between D.C. and Boston must have put up a

roadblock to stop drivers and check for bees.   

 

As if anybody who had bees in his car could drive.   

 

Mulder found that his badge eased his way, but still, every

five or ten miles, the traffic would stop, would line up.

Wait for a state trooper to check things out.   

 

It was aggravating as hell, and he had begun to worry that

he wouldn't make it back in time. Maybe Scully had been

right--maybe this whole idea had been a fool's errand. By

the time he reached New York, he had begun to wish he

hadn't come, to consider turning around. But hell, he was

halfway there, now. The traffic heading south surely would

lessen by the time he started on the return trip--by then,

people who were going south would be heading *toward* the

bees, not away from them. Few would want to do that.   

 

As he drove he reflected that twenty-four hours ago, he

wouldn't have cared much whether he made it there and back

or not. He wanted to get his mother out because it was the

right thing to do, but his own survival had not been an

issue. Twenty-four hours ago, he hadn't had Scully to get

back to. To live for. In the moment when she had reached

for him, the ice that had hardened around his heart at the

bees' arrival had begun to crack and melt away.   

 

Somehow, they would survive whatever happened. If they had

to find their way to some hot, dank, primitive corner of

the world--hell, Borneo would do, if only they could be

together. Or Antarctica, for all he cared. He could live in

an igloo, he figured, eat dried fish. He could give up

everything else--ESPN, Chinese food, Samuel Adams

beer--only, please God, let him have Dana Scully's arms

around him, and he would regard himself the luckiest son of

a bitch on Earth.   

 

He didn't know whether to believe that she really loved him

or not. It seemed improbable--could it really be true? The

idea terrified him. He knew all too well how painful it was

to love and have love snatched away, to have it go sour.

Samantha had been snatched away. Phoebe, his father--those

loves had gone sour. Scully's affection, in whatever form

it took, had become so important to him he was sure he

couldn't survive losing it. He would've forgone having her

love him, if only it would mean she just wouldn't learn to

hate him. All she had to do was tolerate him, and he would

be content just to be near her.   

 

Still, if for once in his life the fates that controlled

such things had finally seen fit to give him a break--God,

could it *really* be true?--he was for-fucking-sure not

going to argue about it. He would just love her, and thank

every God man had ever conceived that she let him.   

 

                                  ****   

 

Greenwich, Conn.   

 

Mulder found his mother locked up tight in her house,

sitting in front of the television, chewing her nails and

staring at CNN. "Get some things together," he said

breathlessly. "I'm getting you out of here." He thumped his

laptop down on the kitchen counter, near the phone jack,

and began setting up to send Scully the e-mail she had

asked for.   

 

"Fox," his mother started.   

 

"Move, Mom," he said. "Go. I don't have time to discuss

it."   

 

"Fox, there's nowhere to go."   

 

He turned, too tired and frazzled and anxious to get back

on the road to care what arguments she might put up.

"Mother," he said sternly, "if I have to handcuff you and

carry you out of here, I will."   

 

Her look was sad, helpless. "All right," she said meekly,

and went upstairs to her room to pack.   

 

Mulder typed furiously, hit "send," then logged off and

packed the computer up again. Only then did he turn to see

what CNN was saying about the bees.   

 

The swarm was eighteen hours out of D.C. And part of the

swarm had turned north, toward New York State.   

 

If they didn't hurry, they'd get cut off.   

 

                                 ****   

 

Under normal conditions, he could've made it. But

conditions weren't normal. Twelve hours later the

roadblocks were still up. This time the state troopers were

warning people not to go south, and the last time he got

stopped, just south of Trenton, N.Y., his badge didn't do

him any good.   

 

"My orders are to not let anyone pass," the trooper said

from behind his mirrored sunglasses. "I'm sorry, sir, but

it's for your own safety."   

 

Mulder noticed National Guard trucks a thousand yards away.

Soldiers with M-16's on their shoulders. He decided not to

argue. He'd pretend to play along. He'd find another road.

If he could get on I-76 heading west, he could hook back up

with the 95 into Maryland just west of Philadelphia. Beyond

this point, surely, there'd be no more traffic, no more

blockades because there'd be no one to man them.   

 

He nodded at the trooper. "Thank you," he said. He turned

around, and started looking for a way to get on another

highway. When he finally wound around and got to the

interstate, it was blocked only by a "Road Closed" barrier.

He got out of the car to move the obstacle out of the way.

 

 

But then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw something

dark moving along the horizon.   

 

"Shit," he murmured, suddenly afraid. He had seen that gray

shadow before--it had chased him out of Ohio.   

 

The bees. He was too late.   

 

                                ****   

 

They turned again. Went north, this time. According to the

car radio, the swarm was right behind them all the way.

Remembering what Scully had said about the bees not being

able to cross large bodies of water, he headed into Rhode

Island, then to Massachusetts. Three times he stopped to

try to call or e-mail Scully, but he couldn't get through.

Phone lines jammed or dead; cell phone no help.   

 

Finally, he did get an e-mail through to the new North

Carolina office, with all the files he had on what he knew

about the bees attached, the subject line asking somebody

to please deliver the material to Scully or Pendrell.   

 

Just in case he didn't make it, he wanted somebody to have

that stuff.   

 

When they finally reached New Bedford, Mulder knew they'd

never make it around the peninsula to Woods Hole, where the

ferry to Martha's Vineyard sailed. They'd have to go

straight to Nantucket. Another state trooper told him he'd

have to leave his car--they were saving the space to try to

get as many people aboard the ferry as possible.   

 

Mulder had been driving for thirty-six hours. He was

exhausted, and he would've agreed to anything that would

get them away. He shouldered his mother's bag and led her

onto the crowded deck.   

 

He stood at the railing, desperately fighting nausea, as

the ferry lurched out into Buzzards Bay. He looked

longingly at the Elizabeth Islands as they passed, about

thirty minutes later, and then at Martha's Vineyard,

beyond. But he reminded himself that Scully had figured the

bees couldn't go as far as the Vineyard. Surely they

wouldn't make it to Nantucket.   

 

The freighter had pulled clear of Martha's Vineyard and

pushed on for about ten minutes when the bees struck.

Mulder heard them before he saw them, and at the sound, he

grasped his mother's hand and headed below decks. But it

was already too late. Before he'd gone more than two or

three steps, the sky went dark with them, and everything

seemed to turn to noise--the insects buzzing, voices

shrieking in agony, the sickening thud of bodies striking

the wooden deck.   

 

Mulder tried to ignore it, tried not to hear or see

anything. He kept pushing forward, toward the hatchway. If

they moved slowly but steadily, if *they* made no noise, if

they could just get inside, then maybe...   

 

The first sting hit him right in the face, just above his

left eyebrow. For a moment, it was just a bee sting,

maddeningly painful but with no other obvious effects, and

he kept going, intent on forcing his way to the hatch. Then

he was stung again, and it hit him--every muscle in his

body went into a vicious cramp, and he just managed to draw

one shuddering breath before he doubled over in agony and

fell.   

 

His mother called his name, her voice sharp and fearful.

She screamed. He tried to reach out to her, but his body

would not cooperate. His muscles all had knotted, his spine

curled until he was sure his bones would break with the

strain.   

 

He felt his mother fall beside him, but if she cried out or

groaned, he couldn't hear it over his own hoarse, tortured

grunts.   

 

                                  ****   

 

Sometimes it was dark, and sometimes light, but Mulder had

no idea whether the time that passed was measured in days

or hours. He didn't know anything but misery. He writhed on

the rough deck, jerked about by muscle spasms like a broken

puppet, his head exploding. Violent bouts of nausea,

retching so hard he thought his guts would burst out

through his throat. Miserable thirst, alternately afire

with fever and racked by chills.   

 

He was incapable of voluntary motion. He could only lie in

whatever position his twisted muscles would allow. He could

heave and sweat and shiver. His eyes were swollen shut, and

even if they hadn't been, he didn't want to see, didn't

want to know. He could smell the death around him, a smell

that had become all too familiar to him in course of his

work.   

 

Mulder was not comforted by the fact that the symptoms he

was suffering had proved him right, yet again--he had

thought there was a connection between the toxin in the bee

stings and the black cancer he had encountered in Siberia.

What good did knowing that do him now?   

 

Each time sleep claimed him, he went willingly, hoping it

would be for the last time. The only thing he had the

strength left to want was to be dead so that it would

finally be over.   

 

God, why couldn't he just die?   

 

                                ****   

 

He woke to a sound like endless, roaring thunder, and for

the first time, he did force his eyes open. He was looking

straight up at a painfully bright, blue sky. He saw the

ship's superstructure looming above him, and it seemed to

split and waver in shimmering, fragmented shards of

splintered vision. A huge shadow crossed him, and then he

saw what looked like a gigantic red and black insect

hovering, its wings whirling above it. A blast of hot wind

hit him hard.   

 

*Get away.*   

 

Without thinking, ignoring how much it hurt, he crawled

away from the huge, roaring bug. Then suddenly he was

falling, and he hit the water below.   

 

It hurt. Oh, God, it hurt. The surface of the water had

felt as hard as concrete. And it was cold, and the cold set

off another paroxysm of cramps. He couldn't swim, and he

gasped in pain, sucked in a mouthful of water. He was going

to drown. In his head, he was laughing--it was so

ludicrous. After all this, he'd just up and fucking drown.

 

Something grabbed him. For a moment he got his head above

the water, and he saw the huge red insect still poised

above him. A figure with dark eyes shadowed behind a face

plate had hold of his arm. He tried to struggle, but he

couldn't. The pounding in his head was worse. He coughed

and gagged, and then it was worse yet.   

 

Then there was nothing but blackness and a roaring, and

then there was nothing at all.   

 

                                 ****   

 

When he woke again, he was in a hospital. His head still

hurt; he hurt all over, but not as much, and though his

mouth was dry, he no longer felt thirsty. He wondered how

much water he had swallowed when he went overboard.   

 

Something stung his arm, and with a terrible effort, he

turned to look. The motion made his head hurt and his

vision go fuzzy. The man standing beside him had punctured

the inside of his elbow with a needle, drawing blood.

Vaguely familiar, this man. Mulder fought to focus his

eyes, clear his gray, dusky vision.   

 

He knew this man, but he couldn't make his brain work. Red,

slightly curly hair. Freckles. Mulder tried to speak.   

 

In his head, he was saying "who are you?" but the sound

that came out of his mouth was more like "huhhh..."   

 

The red-haired man looked up, eyes wide in surprise. "Agent

Mulder," he said. "You're awake."   

 

*In a manner of speaking.*   

 

"Uhhh..." Mulder got out.   

 

The red-haired man withdrew the needle, then came closer.

"You're in a hospital in North Carolina," he said. "You're

going to be all right."   

 

The combination of proximity and the voice did the trick.

Pendrell. It was Agent Pendrell.   

 

"Haaw..." Mulder focused, cleared his throat, tried again.

Half-croak, half-whisper, he managed, "How...how is

that...possible?"   

 

"I don't know. We're running some tests to try to find

out."   

 

"Uh...okay." He frowned suddenly. "Ssss..." It was so hard;

why was it so hard? "Sss-scully," he said.   

 

Pendrell glanced away, his fair skin coloring slightly.

"Have you been exposed before, to the toxin in the bees'

sting?"   

 

He had. The "black cancer" in Tunguska had produced almost

identical symptoms, and it killed people, too, though not

as many, not as instantly, as the bees.   

 

"Buh...black cancer. The files I sent. Where...where's

Scully?"   

 

Pendrell looked at the floor. "Are you sure it was the same

substance?"   

 

He knew it would hurt, but he didn't care. He forced his

arm up, forced himself to grab Pendrell's wrist and grip it

with whatever strength he had. "Sss-scully...god...dammit."

  

"I'm sorry," Pendrell murmured, not looking at him. "I

don't know what happened. I just don't know. I heard she

didn't make it out of D.C., that's all I know."   

 

Mulder let his hand drop nervelessly onto the blanket, let

his head fall back, his eyes close. He'd known, from the

way Pendrell wasn't looking at him, but still it was a

shock. Like a gunshot to the chest.   

 

She had waited for him. And died.   

 

Gone, all of them. Scully, too. Everyone he'd ever really

loved dead or gone.   

 

Samantha, his father, his mother.   

 

Scully.   

 

His throat constricted painfully, and his eyes burned, and

he realized, as if from a great distance, that he was

weeping. That did not matter, of course--nothing did now. 

 

God, why hadn't he just died?   

 

Continued in Part 7.

lochness@texas.net   

 

Letters of Transit (7/14) By Loch Ness   

 

DO NOT ARCHIVE. ***Not to be entered in or nominated

for any competition or award.***   

 

Classification: T, RA Crossover references to the film

*Casablanca* International readers: US4 spoilers. Rating:

NC-17, for VIOLENCE, PROFANITY and (M/S) SEX. If you are

under-age, please do not read this. See Part 0 for

disclaimer, summary and introductory notes.   

 

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

 

Letters of Transit (7/14) By Loch Ness   

 

TWO YEARS LATER

July 21, 1999

Galveston, Texas - The Casablanca Club   

 

Mulder led Skinner, Cancer Man and the Pendrells to a

four-top table near a window. *Nice view. Only the best for

the happy couple and the evil government minions,* he

thought bitterly.   

 

"Have you a moment to join us?" Bloodworth asked, very

correctly remaining on his feet while Pendrell just as

correctly pulled Scully's chair out for her.   

 

Mulder hadn't seen manners like this since his last visit

to the Boston Yacht Club. It left him feeling as if he'd

been transported into a real-life Sartre short story. *Next

thing you know, we'll all be singing *Auld Lang Syne*.* He

ground his teeth again. He didn't want to join them--he

wanted to get the hell away from the lot of them and never

look back. But it would make Pendrell uncomfortable if he

did sit down, and he figured the little shit deserved at

least a moment of discomfort. What the hell.   

 

Mulder smiled. "If I wouldn't be intruding on federal

business, I'd love to."    

 

"Ah, yes, I'd heard you were...pursuing other interests.

Well, this is purely social."   

 

*Bullshit,* Mulder thought. *You have even less social life

than I ever did.* He appropriated an empty chair from an

adjacent table and sat between Skinner and Pendrell. Where

he could get an unobstructed view of Mrs. Dana Pendrell.   

 

She was keeping her cool, on the outside at least, but

there was a tension in the way she held her mouth that he

recognized as meaning she was feeling awkward as hell. She

was wearing a beige suit with a mustard-colored shell under

the jacket, the familiar tiny gold cross at her throat.

Reddish-brown lipstick immaculate on her perfect mouth, as

always.   

 

Suddenly she looked straight at him, her azure eyes pinning

him like a laser beam. "How have you been?" she asked.   

 

The warm, low sound of her voice stopped his heart for a

moment. He breathed carefully, trying to release the sudden

constriction in his chest.   

 

"I'm still on my feet," he said lightly. "You?"   

 

"I'm fine." What she always said when she wasn't.   

 

A waitress appeared, and Bloodworth ordered champagne. Then

he turned to Scully. "I heard you had some trouble getting

out of New Orleans," Bloodworth said.   

 

"There was a misunderstanding about our clearances," Scully

said. Mulder heard a note of stress in her even tone--it

had been more than a misunderstanding.   

 

"Nothing Mr. Skinner can't clear up for you, I'm sure."   

 

Mulder saw a muscle flex along Skinner's jaw.   

 

"I'm sure we can work something out," the A.D. said

tightly, "if you two wouldn't mind stopping by my office in

the morning."   

 

*Jesus,* Mulder thought. *Sit, Walter. Roll over, Walter.

Good Walter. Lick his fucking face, why don't you?*   

 

"Sure," Pendrell said. "No problem."   

 

The waitress came back with five glasses of champagne, set

them down one by one. "How long are you planning to stay in

Galveston?" Bloodworth asked pleasantly.   

 

"We haven't really made any decisions about that," Scully

said.   

 

Bloodworth nodded and sipped his champagne. Nobody else was

drinking. "It can be difficult to get away," he said

knowingly. "What with the blockade. Don't you agree, Mr.

Mulder?"   

 

Bloodworth knew about Georgia, and he wanted Mulder to know

he knew. Mulder shrugged. "It's not impossible to get by

the blockade."   

 

"But of course you need a boat." Bloodworth gave Scully a

slantwise look. "I'm afraid on inspecting yours, we

discovered it had been damaged. Badly holed. It was already

sinking when we went aboard to examine it."   

 

Scully's look was venomous--it told Mulder there'd been

nothing wrong with the boat when she'd left it. "How lucky

for us that you discovered that when you did," she said.   

 

"I haven't tried it myself," Mulder said, "but I'm told if

you have the right equipment you can go across the causeway

and over the mainland to Colorado." He turned the stem of

his glass on the crisp table cloth. "There are still

flights out of Denver to L.A.--even to Honolulu--if you can

just get as far as Denver."   

 

"Well, of course, those flights are reserved for movement

of essential personnel," Bloodworth said.   

 

"Which leads us to the question of how the SEB defines

'essential,'" Mulder said, allowing himself the sarcasm.

"Just what is that definition these days? Mute alien-hybrid

clones only?"   

 

Bloodworth laughed. "I'd forgotten about that vivid

imagination of yours," he said, smiling. "What a sense of

humor you have!"   

 

Mulder grinned back at him. "Well, we are revisiting old

times, aren't we? Don't worry--despite the fact that it's

all quite true, I'm not delusional enough to expect that

anyone will believe it."   

 

"Actually," Bloodworth said, then he stopped long enough to

light another Morley and exhale a plume of smoke in

Skinner's general direction. "I think it could be argued

that Mr. and Mrs. Pendrell are essential personnel. How is

that antivenin coming along, anyway?"   

 

Scully started. She hadn't expected Bloodworth would know

what she and Pendrell were working on. Despite himself,

Mulder felt his left eyebrow rise a notch.   

 

"We haven't perfected anything yet," Pendrell said,

frowning down into his glass. "But we're making progress."

 

"Well, now. That's certainly encouraging news."   

 

Skinner got to his feet suddenly. "Excuse me," he said

softly.   

 

Mulder knew he must have spotted Krycek, but he also knew

better than to turn and look. He left it to Scully to

notice what Skinner was doing.   

 

She didn't disappoint him. "My God," she said. "Is that

Alex Krycek?"   

 

Now he turned. Krycek strolled through the front door and

took a left turn on the deck that extended out a few feet

from the building, and disappeared from sight. A moment

later he was back in view, now running, with two of

Skinner's men hot on his heels. He lunged toward the

railing, trying to leap into the water, but the two cops

caught him before he went over. He shouted, and struggled,

but they had him.   

 

"Huh," Mulder said. "What do you know? I think it *is*

Krycek. Looks like he's got himself in trouble again."   

 

"He has a talent for it," Bloodworth said, his tone cold. 

 

"What do you suppose he's done now?" Scully asked.   

 

Mulder shrugged. "It's Krycek--could be anything from

murder to panhandling."   

 

"Does he come here often?" Bloodworth asked, his look

suddenly penetrating.   

 

The feds had Krycek handcuffed and were leading him off the

dock. "I don't recall him ever having been here before,"

Mulder said. He saw Skinner heading back toward the table.

"But then," he went on, "I generally don't have time to

socialize with the guests. Speaking of which, I'm afraid

I'm going to have to excuse myself, too." He got up. "Much

as I've enjoyed this, I have a business to run. Oh, and

nevermind about the check--it's on the house. My pleasure."

  

"I think we should be going, too," Pendrell said, rising to

his feet.   

 

"So soon?" Bloodworth said.   

 

"We've had a long trip," Scully said. "We're tired. But

thank you both--it's been a very pleasant evening."   

 

"I'm glad you enjoyed it," Mulder said. He stood back out

of the way while they went past. "Please come again."   

 

To Skinner, Scully said, "Is there a particular time you'd

like us to come by at the office?"   

 

"Mid-morning's good," the A.D. said, his face unreadable. 

 

"We'll be there," Pendrell said, and then he took Scully's

arm and led her off.    

 

"Mr. Mulder," Bloodworth said. His tone was soft, underlain

by a hint of steel. "I hope you're not thinking of doing

anything rash to help them leave the island."   

 

"What makes you think I'd do that?"   

 

"It's said you have helped some in the past--paid their

passage, arranged their transportation. Naturally I assume

you may have an understandable affinity for your former

colleagues."   

 

Mulder gave him a cold smile. "Mr., uh...*Bloodworth,*" he

said, "if I knew how to get off this island, do you think

for a moment I'd still be here myself?"   

 

"Wouldn't you?"   

 

He let the smile die. "The bees flew from Cape Cod to

Martha's Vineyard. They'll be here, too, before long. You

know it, and I know it. The only thing I haven't figured

out is just what you and your army of speechless drones

intend to do with the wreckage after it's over. I confess

it's beyond me what you could gain by reducing North

America to roughly the cultural and technological

sophistication of the Bronze Age."   

 

Bloodworth smiled.   

 

                                 ****   

 

Scully and Pendrell walked down Seawall Boulevard toward

their hotel in silence. The concrete seawall itself,

erected to guard against the storm surge from a hurricane,

dropped off steeply toward the smooth, sandy beach. The

nightly curfew was two hours off, and there were still a

fair number of people walking or lounging along the street

and on the beach. A half-moon threw a glow on the surf as

it rolled steadily, quietly up onto the sand. Some small

part of Scully's mind registered that it was

picturesque--she might even have called it beautiful, if

she had been capable of caring about anything that far off

in the distance.   

 

"Are you all right?" Pendrell asked, his voice low.   

 

"I'm fine," Scully lied. Her emotions stewed, simmered. She

dared not lift the lid, for fear they would boil over.   

 

Mulder was alive. How could he have been alive and not come

back to her? Come looking for her? Why would he do that?

Had she meant so little to him? No, that was impossible.

She'd had his heart, his soul, in her hands. He had *given*

them to her. And yet, he had not come for her. Had she

completely misread what he had meant when he had asked her

not to wait for him? Was that possible?   

 

*Don't wait for me. Then I'll believe.*   

 

No. She had known exactly what he meant. She had not

misread it. Although he had not explicitly said so, he had

been just as much in love with her as she had been with

him. What in God's name could've happened in Connecticut

that would have so transformed him?   

 

It had been clear from looking at him that he was much

changed, and not just two years older, not just the three

or four strands of silver hair she'd noticed at his

temples. The Mulder she had known had worn his heart on his

sleeve. He'd been an open book to her, so easily readable

she could almost hear his thoughts in her mind. He'd been

mercurial, moods spanning the whole range from manic energy

to quiet grief to vitriolic moral outrage. Cool of nerve,

but never cold of heart. He might not have been a hero in

the usual sense, but he had been possessed of a heroic

passion.   

 

The Fox Mulder who owned the Casablanca Club seemed devoid

of any passions at all. The look on his face when he had

seen her had been profound astonishment--but there'd been

nothing else she could read in it. No embarrassment or

horror or affection or pain. Just surprise. Only once

during the evening had Scully noticed the smallest glimmer

of the old fire in his eyes, when he had come back at

Bloodworth: *Just what is that definition these days? Mute

alien-hybrid clones only?* And then, as if the tiny flame

were a candle, he had simply blown it out, and it was gone.

  

She couldn't understand it. It was completely unlike him.

He might be physically alive, but it was clear something

inside him had died. She did not want to see him like that.

  

They reached the hotel room and went in. Scully sat numbly

on the end of the bed.   

 

Pendrell said, "The man in the lobby downstairs said the

freighter to Mexico City leaves on Saturday."   

 

She nodded. "The sooner the bettter," she said.   

 

                                 ****   

 

Mulder took his run every night after the bar closed, while

the Gunmen cleaned up the club. He went out in plain

defiance of the island curfew; it was too damned hot to run

during the day. He did his five miles down and back on the

beach, dodging the milky-white, gelatinous blobs of

Portuguese men-o-war washed up on the sand. The little

jellyfish had a nasty sting even when dead and were best

given a wide berth. The thunderstorms off in the distance

had dissipated after sundown, leaving a clear, cool, humid

sky.   

 

In the last two years he had spent a lot of his time

learning to block out thoughts of the past--if there was

any coherent lesson in his life, Mulder figured it was the

futility of trying to change his own history. He had

spent--wasted, as he now calculated it--most of his life in

an effort to undo or correct his own past. To get Samantha

back so that things would be right. It hadn't worked then,

and it wasn't going to work now. As he ran along the beach,

he tried valiantly to focus on nothing but the mechanical,

enervating rhythm of his feet on the sand. Just running.

Breathing.   

 

Futility again. The more he concentrated on other things,

the more *she* intruded on his thoughts. Every time he

thought he had pushed her aside, his eidetic memory yielded

up another mental image. The play of light like dancing

flame on her hair. The crisp, competent grace of her

movement as she had sat down at the table. Seeing her had,

yet again, melted the ice he'd been using to numb himself.

He wanted to shove the mind-pictures away, as a child might

reject playing with a cat who had once scratched its hand.

 

The past couldn't be repaired. He had gone to New England.

He hadn't been able to get back. Pendrell had said what he

had said. Mulder had not checked it out on his own. And now

it was too late. It was done, and wishing would not undo

it.   

 

He sensed that the near future held something nasty, though

he couldn't predict what it might be. A bad patch in his

life loomed ahead, and the last thing he needed was

something that would make him vulnerable. He was vulnerable

to Scully, sure as hell. No solution to that problem loomed

immediately on the horizon, so he went back to trying

desperately to concentrate on running. To watching out for

the men-o'-war on the beach.   

 

He wasn't surprised to see Skinner waiting for him outside

the club when he came back. "A little past your bedtime,

isn't it?" he asked the older man.   

 

"We didn't find the couriers' documents on Krycek," Skinner

said.   

 

"Tough break. You want a cup of coffee? Sounds like you've

got a long night ahead of you." He went inside, Skinner

following. Mulder shivered a little at the contrast as the

air conditioning hit the bare skin on his face and arms.

The A.D. slung his jacket across the bar and loosened his

tie. Mulder went behind the bar and scooped coffee beans

into the grinder.   

 

"Did he give them to you?" Skinner asked.   

 

"Krycek hasn't given me the time of day in years." He ran

the grinder, its harsh whine loud in the empty club.   

 

"That's not what I asked you," Skinner said, when the

machine went quiet.   

 

"I don't know what 'them' you're talking about."   

 

"You've become a very adept liar. And don't tell me you

didn't lie to Bloodworth about not knowing how to get off

the island."   

 

"I've always been an adept liar," Mulder said. "I just used

to have better reasons to tell you the truth. As for

Bloodworth, I don't like the fucker. Never have. And what

my plans are is none of his business."   

 

"Are you thinking of giving Pendrell and Scully the letters

of transit so they can get off the island?"   

 

"What letters of transit?"   

 

Skinner smiled. "The ones Krycek gave you."   

 

Mulder sighed heavily. "You want to search me, Walter? You

want to search the club? You don't even need a warrant

these days--I couldn't stop you if I wanted to. Go ahead.

But they're not here, because I don't have them, because

Krycek didn't give them to me."   

 

"Bloodworth doesn't want Pendrell and Scully to leave the

island."   

 

"He made that pretty clear. You want to tell me why?" Into

Skinner's sudden silence the coffee maker gurgled and

exuded steam. Mulder shrugged. "They made it this far

without my help. Why should I stick my neck out?" He poured

coffee for both of them and slid a mug across the bar

toward the A.D.   

 

"I always thought you were in love with her," Skinner said,

stirring his coffee.    

 

"You were mistaken," Mulder said coldly. But he heard the

harsh note in his own voice--too harsh, and he knew Skinner

had heard it, too.   

 

"Prove it," the A.D. said.   

 

He laughed. "I haven't seen her since '97, and she married

somebody else."    

 

"That doesn't mean you're not in love with her."   

 

Skinner wasn't buying it, and Mulder yielded to the

inevitable. "Okay, so I wouldn't kick her out of my bed

just for eating crackers. So what? I can't give her

paperwork I don't have. And if Krycek had any emigration

papers with him, he didn't offer them to me."   

 

"Uh, huh," Skinner said, unconvinced.   

 

"Look, I didn't kill those guys on the causeway. And Alex

Krycek and I are not friends. I didn't know Pendrell and

Scully were coming to the island, and I have no plans

either to assist or interfere with them."   

 

There was a silence, Skinner avoiding Mulder's eyes.

Finally, Skinner said softly, "Pendrell's very close to

developing an antivenin for the bee stings."   

 

"Good for him. What's that got to do with me?"   

 

"You're the guy who ran the blockade with a cigarette boat

full of Malathion six times--you tell me what it has to do

with you."   

 

"Nothing, that's what. Public service is your line of

work."    

 

Skinner's turn to sigh. "I'm sorry to hear that," he said.

He sounded tired, suddenly. "I was hoping you had those

letters and might be willing to devote them to a good

cause." He looked up, and there was a heavy sadness in his

eyes. "You used to be the kind who'd fight for the chance

to do the right thing."   

 

Mulder nodded. A cold anger gathered in his chest. Who the

fuck did Skinner think he was, coming across with this

self-righteous crap? "Yeah," Mulder said. "I was. And all

it got me was a reserved seat down in the same sewer with

you and Krycek."   

 

Skinner's jaw went hard. "Sorry to bother you." He picked

up his jacket.   

 

"Don't give me that," Mulder said, his anger boiling over.

"There's damned little evidence you'd know the right thing

to do if it bit you in the ass--you're still doing that

smoking bastard's bidding." Mulder leaned toward him and

let his voice go low. "You've got one fucking nerve asking

me to trust you. Your idea of doing the right thing has

always been to get me to smash myself up on the rocks doing

it for you. Not this time, *sir.* If you want to help

Pendrell and Scully get off the island, go ahead."   

 

There was a hard silence, both of them glaring at each

other. Mulder broke it, backing off his belligerent stance.

"*If* I had the letters and *if* I wanted to give them to

Scully--neither of which is true--you'd be the last

motherfucker I'd tell." He picked up his coffee. "And

that's all I have to say."   

 

"Okay," Skinner said. "I deserve that. But the time's

coming when it's not going to be so easy to turn your

head."   

 

"Bullshit. There's nothing easier than turning your head."

Mulder took his coffee and went toward the kitchen. "I

learned that from you, Walter." He stopped and turned just

before he stepped through the double doors. "Hit that light

switch before you leave, will you?"   

 

Continued in Part 8.

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