Title: Rongbuk Author: Ravenscion E-mail: ravenscion@hotmail.com Rating: R (language, violence, sex) Category: XR Keywords: Mulder/Scully romance, some angst Spoilers: possible for seasons 1-5 and the movie. Date of First Posting: 29 August 1998 Author's website: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Dunes/6767/ Archiving: Please archive at Gossamer. Others, please email for permission. Summary: As Mulder and Scully enter a new phase in their relationship in the wake of the Blackwood virus case, a man who disappeared decades earlier returns from a remote region of Tibet. This event prompts a new investigation that has implications both for the X-Files and for Mulder and Scully personally. Disclaimer: Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, and all of the other characters and situations related to the X-Files, belong to Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and the FOX network. I am using them without permission but intend no copyright infringement. Notes: Encouraged by the kind responses to my first attempts at fan fiction (both vignettes), I am now posting a somewhat longer story. Naturally, I am very interested in the opinions of readers, so please send feedback, positive or negative. I would greatly appreciate it. I have included references to extant literature throughout this story, references which merit explanation, but due to their number, I think it would be inconvenient to attempt to list them here. Therefore, I am adding a short "endnotes" section to the last chapter of this story, where these references, along with certain points of Tibetan culture and geography, are discussed. This story attempts to address certain issues that were brought up as early as the "Gethsemane-Redux II" story arc, along with aspects of season five and the X-Files movie. For timeline purposes, I have assumed that the events of the movie ended sometime around 7 September 1998 (despite the 1997 date-time stamp on the telegram in the film), and "Rongbuk", from Mulder and Scully's perspective, picks up shortly after the film ends. All times given are local to the time zone in which the action is taking place. I hope you enjoy it. [begin part 1 of 11] *********************************************************************** Rongbuk -- an X-Files Novella by Ravenscion Book I -- Asymptotes Rongbuk Monastery, Tsang Province, Tibet Friday, 31 July 1998, 3:23 a.m. A distant crash startled Jamyang Dorje from a troubled sleep. He sat up on his cot, listening, but the noise was not repeated. The only sounds were the wind moaning about the monastery's eaves, and the quiet clank of the bronze chimes that hung beneath them. Within the monastery walls, the silence was undisturbed, a heavy blanket over the sleeping community of monks. Jamyang Dorje remained upright, allowing full wakefulness to catch up with him. Most likely the sound had been nothing of consequence. Perhaps a rat had overturned an offering vase. He climbed out of his cot. Best to check anyway, he thought, lighting a butter lamp as he pulled his robes of heavy maroon cloth about himself. He slipped out of his room and made his way through the darkened halls. The flickering of the lamp, and the fresh, chill night-scent that had insinuated itself amid the ancient sandalwood atmosphere of the monastery, indicated that something had disturbed a window somewhere, breaking the careful seals that kept out the nighttime wind and cold. No one else had risen. The sound that had disturbed him had apparently not interrupted the sleep of his fellow monks. Of course, night duty was his tonight, and thus he had slept in a designated room in the front part of the building, away from the main dormitory. He moved toward a window at the end of the corridor, finding broken glass and a small stone on the floor beneath it. He squinted a bit as he peered out into the night, searching for the source of the mischief. Before him lay Rongbuk's southern vista, an expansive grassy plain that abutted a distant range of high, jagged peaks, unseen now in the night. Bright moonlight spilled over the scene, reflecting off wavelets in the river that flowed past the monastery and illuminating the nearby village and fields of barley. Moonlight? Strange, he thought. The moon should have set hours ago. He felt a sudden, peculiar chill climb his back. Moving more quickly, the stone-thrower temporarily forgotten, he retraced his steps a short distance and ascended a ladder to a door that opened onto the monastery's flat roof, nearly slipping once on the slick, rounded rungs as he climbed. He left his lamp on a small table and raised the bar- lock, pushing the door open and stepping out onto the roof. He did not feel the bite of wind; the sight that greeted him banished all such mundane thoughts from his mind. To the north, an intense white light floated low in the sky, growing slowly larger as whatever it was approached. The light illuminated the land below in with an eldritch glow that licked the low hills at the valley's edge, sending shadows writhing along the landscape. Jamyang Dorje stared long at this apparition, watching as it neared the monastery, one hand clutching his robes tightly about him, the other fingering the sacred mala-rosary that he had unconsciously drawn out. He recited a protective mantra under his breath. He had an idea where the origin of this thing might be, a place he had heard about but never seen. The monks of Rongbuk and the people of the local villages and nomad camps alike spoke in hushed tones of a place in the wilderness north of the monastery, a place of the most profound inauspiciousness, -- a place people did not go. He hoped he was wrong. Several interminable minutes later, the source of light drew near, drifting silently above the rooftop where Jamyang Dorje stood. The illumination was too bright, and the monk was forced to shield his eyes with his robes. He waited without moving for something to happen. Without warning, the light disappeared, and for a few moments he could not see at all. When his vision at last adjusted for the return of moonless dark, he saw nothing above him but the jewel-stars of the Tibetan night sky. The thing that had passed over the monastery had vanished. "Hello, up there! Hey!" A voice broke the silence, and he lowered his gaze from the sky above, stepping over to the edge of the roof. Below him, a figure stood in the half-light, waving and shouting in accented Tibetan. "Hey! Let me inside!" The figure gestured toward the monastery gate, waving his arm in animated jerks. Jamyang Dorje called down to him. "Go to the gate. I will open it for you." He watched the figure move south along the wall, then made his own way back through the rooftop doorway, pausing to cast one last troubled glance northward. He then descended past the sleeping level, pausing there to wake one of the novices, and stepped out into the monastery's courtyard, hurrying to the massive wooden doors that opened onto the southward road to the village. The novice trailed him. As he approached the gate, he could already hear the stranger's muffled pounding on the other side. He pulled open the doors to find a foreigner, a westerner, standing outside. "Be patient, friend. You are welcome here," he said. The man darted within, pushing the gate closed behind him. He spoke in rapid, clipped tones. "Thank you, Lama. Sorry about the window, but no one was answering. I am in desperate haste." Jamyang Dorje considered him. "There is trouble?" The man nodded toward the northern sky. "Trouble? Yes, perhaps. Something astonishing. I have to get to Lhasa. I have to get word to the Regent." Jamyang Dorje said nothing for a moment. Regent, he thought. That is a strange word to use. He scrutinized the man before him, holding up the butter lamp, which he had retrieved on his way down. The foreigner appeared fairly young, and wore travel-stained khaki trousers, boots, and a jacket of heavy leather. He carried a rucksack, also of leather, which he had slid off his shoulders and lowered to the paving stones of the courtyard. "I'll need a horse," the man said. "I have to get back to Lhasa as soon as possible." He seemed calmer now, within Rongbuk's protective walls, and his Tibetan had settled down as well, becoming more understandable. Jamyang Dorje spoke carefully, not sure what to make of the stranger. "You must hasten to Lhasa, you say. To meet with the Governor? Do you work for the Chinese?" The man looked startled. "No, no," he said. "The Chinese? Of course not. I work for the Regent's government. I'm John Leslie. I'm a surveyor." Jamyang Dorje frowned, said nothing. "Les-lie." "My friend," said the monk, "there is no Regent in Lhasa for you to meet with. The Chinese rule there now." Leslie blinked, uncomprehending. "How can this be?" His voice was quiet now, muffled by troubling implications. He started then, as if remembering something. "And where is my partner?" he asked. "I couldn't find our campsite." Something was very wrong here, Jamyang Dorje thought. The monk searched the face of his interlocutor. He appeared tired, and confused, yet no gleam of madness burned in his eyes. Puzzled, the monk spoke again. "My friend, I do not know you. If you came from Lhasa, you would have come this way, and you would have stopped here." He paused. "I do not know you," he said again. A strange look clouded Leslie's features. "Lama," he began. His words were cut off as he staggered suddenly, reaching out to brace himself against the wall, and then falling forward into the arms of a surprised Jamyang Dorje, who nearly dropped his lamp as he lowered Leslie to the pavings. He knelt next to him, then turned to the bewildered novice. "Get help. This man will need care." The novice hurried for the inner door to Rongbuk's main hall. "And send word to the Rinpoche," he called after him. *********************************************************************** Wilderness of Central Siberia Sunday, 6 September, 5:45 p.m. Alex Krycek raised a hand, halting the men behind him, and listened. For a few long moments, he heard nothing but the natural sounds of the taiga evening and then, satisfied, he relaxed and drew out his canteen, indicating to his men that they could take a break from their trek through the forest. Krycek signaled to one of them. "Radu," he said, indicating the direction in which they had been heading, "keep watch forward." Krycek gestured again and a man broke away from the other side of the group to act as their rear guard. Radu Florescu, second in command of the Team in spite of his relatively recent enlistment, nodded without replying and slipped through the woods ahead, disappearing from sight. No sound betrayed his movements, and Krycek found himself impressed once again with the man's skill. Florescu was working out well, he thought. He had joined with the Organization only a year before, but his professional abilities, honed during his career with some of the more obscure departments of the Romanian government, had led to his rapid rise to Krycek's right hand. He tended to drink a bit while off duty, but on the job his wits were inevitably razor-sharp. This suited Krycek just fine -- he couldn't care less what a man did on his own time, so long as he kept his head during an operation. Krycek genuinely liked the somewhat taciturn Romanian, and it was unusual for him to like, or trust, anyone. His paranoia had kept him alive this long, and now, in his late 30's, he was not inclined to start getting cozy with people. But Florescu's temperament suited him. He made a good partner, Krycek decided. He raised his canteen and took a long drink, replenishing the fluids he had sweated out in the warm afternoon and evening. He and his team had hiked through eight miles of swampy woodlands so far, plagued by bugs and weighed down by their packs and weapons, but they had nearly reached their destination now. Soon, the fireworks would begin. Replacing the canteen, Krycek adjusted the weapon he carried in a special mount attached to his prosthetic left hand. Though the pack in which the tanks were mounted was heavy, the flame-thrower would be essential. He and his men carried pistols as well, of course, but the weapon of choice for the fight to come would be a jet of inflammable jelly, sprayed in the direction of their enemies. Enemies upon whom a bullet would likely be wasted. Krycek smiled grimly. For years, he and others like him had been obsessed with an icepick applied forcefully to the back of an enemy's neck, an effective technique, but one that was both difficult and dangerous to attempt. Florescu had proven very skilled at it, but most of Krycek's men could not match his quickness, and for them the icepick had been a problematic weapon. Until one day, almost a year earlier in Kazakhstan, as he stood amid dozens of charred victims of alien malevolence, Krycek had had a grotesque epiphany. Flame-throwers -- it wouldn't matter whether you hit the base of the neck if you didn't leave anything behind that could get up again. And with luck, the cauterizing affects of the weapon would alleviate some of the chemical dangers associated with the enemies they faced. At the first opportunity, he had tested his hypothesis, with results that were delightfully spectacular. One good dose of napalm and presto! 'Visitor flambe.' If tonight's mission went according to plan, he would roast a few more of the motherfuckers within the hour. He signaled to his team to prepare to march again, and as packs were being re-shouldered, he moved through the trees and up to the spot where Florescu had halted. "Anything?" "Nyet." The Romanian's Russian was fluent, if accented. He spoke English as well, but when operating in Russia, Krycek made a point of using the language of his parents, and so that was the language that he used with Florescu. "Good," said Krycek. "I'd like to surprise them." Florescu nodded. "This is, what, the fifth this year?" "Yes. But there will be more." The team had assembled behind them, and Krycek led them forward once again. As they walked the final distance to their target, he felt the tension in him begin to crest, the spur of adrenaline in his legs and a dryness in his mouth. Time seemed to stretch out and then grind to a halt. Twenty minute's walk brought them to a large open area in the midst of the woods. In the center of the clearing, barely lit by the fading light, stood a low metallic structure. The building was nearly featureless, but one section, slightly different from the wall around it, Krycek knew to be a gate. He signaled with his good hand, and one of his men, carrying an RPG, moved up next to him. "Clear," ordered Krycek. His team scattered laterally, vacating the area behind the rocket launcher. "Fire!" The rocket streaked toward the building, exploding with a deafening boom that echoed through the previously silent forest. And then Krycek and his men were running, running toward the breach in the gateway. They rushed into the passages within the structure, bursting through doorways and rounding corners, bathing the surprised and terrified occupants with a fiery gel that clung to their skins, slowly reducing them to smoking corpses. The screams of the victims made no impression on their killers. The Visitors looked like men, they burned like men, but they were not. * * * Much later, Krycek radioed for the helicopter that had dropped his team off earlier that afternoon. Now that the alien facility had been cleared, it could come in directly without worrying about alerting the occupants, a fact for which the exhausted team was profoundly grateful. Another hike through the woods after the stress of the assault, in the inky dark of the taiga night, would have been a bit much, even for an elite unit such as theirs. The operation had gone fairly well; only one man had been wounded, and the Visitors had all been exterminated. On the down side, most of the equipment within the facility, as well as its records, had been destroyed, either by the heat of the flames or due to the last-minute efforts of the Visitors themselves. Though not unexpected, the destruction frustrated Krycek to no end. He had long hoped to capture a facility intact, to plunder its secrets, but after five tries, he had still had no success. Florescu joined him. "Not bad, but not good either," he said, gesturing toward the ruined building nearby. Krycek spat. "This site was unimportant anyway." He waved his arm, indicating the vast wilderness around them. "There has to be a master facility somewhere. When we find that one, we will have to come up with a way to take it in one piece." Florescu indicated the southern horizon. "Some would say that we're looking in the wrong place. You would, yourself, I think." Krycek stared south as well. "That's a long way to go," he said. "Yes, it is." At that moment, Krycek heard the distant throb of the approaching helicopter's rotors. He turned to his team. "Prepare to mount up!" he ordered. One of the men activated a signal strobe. His men readied their gear and assembled as the helicopter, a large black relic of the Soviet Spetznatz units, descended toward them, a dark insect barely visible against the evening sky. It slowed and hovered for a moment, then touched down in the field adjacent to the building. Krycek went aboard last, giving the area one last look, though he could see little in the advancing darkness. He settled into the belly of the machine, relaxing as it lifted off and began its flight back to their base. The radio operator stepped out of the cockpit and made his way into the cargo area, stepping carefully over Krycek's men until he stood next to him. He held a scrap of paper in his hand. "Be ready to travel," he yelled over the roar or the engines. "Why?" Krycek yelled back at him. "Orders. You are to return to St. Petersburg. Tonight." He gave the paper to Krycek, who read it with growing annoyance. He turned and handed it to Florescu as the radio operator returned to the cockpit. "Look at this," he yelled. Florescu glanced over the Cyrillic letters, handed the note back to Krycek. "What do you think it means?" he asked. "Who the fuck knows? Better try and get some sleep, though." Disgusted, Krycek settled back, letting himself drift off. He would not be getting much sleep for the next couple of days, he surmised. The helicopter sped over the vast forest, leaving the scene of the destruction far in its wake. *********************************************************************** FBI Headquarters, Washington, D.C. Monday, 14 September, 7:00 a.m. Fox Mulder stood in the basement hallway and shook the rain from his trenchcoat, then entered the dark office that had been his lair for the past five years. Despite the length of time he had worked there, the place seemed strange now. The new furnishings and paint, necessitated by the fire that had destroyed most of the X-Files, made the room an unfamiliar place. He felt yet another surge of frustration. Much of the information in the X-Files had never been backed up, in any medium, and thus had been lost forever at the hands of an unknown arsonist. An officially unknown arsonist -- Mulder had a good idea who had been responsible for starting the blaze. He slung his coat nonchalantly onto the rack by the door, set the coffee brewing, and slumped in his chair. He ran his fingers through his hair and felt water begin to trickle down the back of his neck. He flicked droplets from his hand in irritation. The morning had blown in damp and warm, the long, sultry Washington summer, with its hazy, dead heat and red sunsets giving way to dark, heavy rainclouds and high winds, as a tropical gale made its way up America's eastern seaboard. In the still-dim light of morning, flags whipped urgently in the wind, and commuters hugged their trenchcoats to themselves, warding off the stray bursts of rain but ensuring the clammy misery of too much clothing. Amid the rain and bluster, a tired and preoccupied Mulder had made his way to his office earlier than usual. Though the start of the work week usually found him alert and full of energy, on this particular Monday he was in less than top form. He had slept poorly the night before, tossing about in a tangle of sheets, alternately too warm and too cold, and wholly unable to relax. Eventually, he had slipped out to his sofa, retreating to an old, abandoned habit in the hope that with the familiar would at last come relaxation, but he had given that up as well -- nights on the couch had known demons of their own, and he found no comfort there. Returning to his bed, he had finally lost the staring contest with the ceiling and dropped off, only to be woken moments later by the shriek of his alarm clock. He had given up, then, on getting any sleep and headed for the office, hoping to lose himself in his work instead. Now, however, he found himself utterly unable to focus, as unquiet shadows pursued each other through his mind. The cause of his unrest was no mystery; indeed, its intensity derived in part from its stark simplicity. Dana Scully had an appointment with her oncologist that morning. To the extent possible, given the randomness inherent in work on the X-Files project, Mulder's life had evolved into a pattern centered on Scully's periodic check-ups. Most of the time, he could allow her remarkable return to health to reassure him, coping with lingering specters by ignoring them. But her appointments, scheduled now at six- month intervals, inevitably brought his unease over her health back in full measure. Often blithe about his own safety, Mulder compensated with a surfeit of concern for the handful of people in his life who were truly important to him. Especially Scully -- he knew he sometimes drove her to distraction with his protectiveness, but he couldn't stop himself. She meant too much to him. Mulder told himself he shouldn't worry. Scully's cancer, artifact that it had been, remained safely barred from her body by the alien implant still ensconced in her neck. Intellectually, he was confident that this was so. But here, now, in an office left cold and lifeless by her absence, Mulder found that reasoning to be a cold comfort. Alone, he contemplated the restoration of a condition he had been glad to leave behind. He forced himself to log into his email account, seeking distraction from what promised to be an interminable morning. Glancing over a message -- reports of crop circles and blisters on leaves -- he snorted to himself -- Gulf Breeze all over again. People never learn. File that one in "Miscellaneous," along with the rest of the foolishness that frequently found its way into his public email account. Nonetheless, he was glad for the diversion. He glanced at the clock -- 7:15 -- and sighed, removing his reading glasses for a moment and rubbing his eyes. Scully's appointment had been scheduled for 8:00 a.m., which meant he could not reasonably expect her for at least another hour and a half. Another 90 minutes of tension before he would know the results of last week's tests. Although with luck it would be less than that. If the news were good, she would call. She would know that he would be concerned. Mulder stared at the phone, willing it to ring. She would be okay. She had to be, because there was no way he could go back to being alone. Early in his career, working in the VCS, Mulder had relished solitude, the inherent challenge of the psyche of the serial killer fascinating him, drawing him into a heady vortex of concentration and exhaustion and exhilaration. Amid that tumult, he had had no time for real companionship, and even then his relations with his colleagues had carried undertones of alienation, as his profiling gift inspired envy and even a vague, awed loathing in those around him. 'Weave a circle round him thrice, and close your eyes with holy dread....' For a young bachelor, submerged in his work, spending a few hours on the weekend unwinding and then filling his Sundays with televised sports and the minimal concessions to laundry and housekeeping, being alone had become a familiar sensation. And later in his career, when he had begun work on the X-Files, Mulder's personal stake in his investigations had only deepened his life of solitude. He had come to resent even the necessary down time of Sundays, and Saturday had simply dissolved into the rest of the work week. Cycle upon cycle, he had gone from lurking amid dusty and mildewed files in his dark office to remote field sites and then back again, losing touch with sometime not-quite friends and rivals alike. The odd evening with the boys at 'The Lone Gunman,' accounts of alien technology or shadowy assassinations washed down with a few beers in an office overflowing with high-tech clutter, became his only avenue for relaxation. Relationships had foundered or were stillborn, and sex, once an occasional diversion with women who, like him, merely sought a few hours of diversion, had been translated into the solo dissipation of video tapes. And then Dana Scully had walked into his office, his caseload, and his life. Mulder shook his head, opened another email, and began to read something about a sighting in Alaska of a dire wolf, of all things. He gave it up in mid-message, though, his momentary enthusiasm at the prospect of such a species still roaming some far corner of the wild quickly eclipsed by the thought of his partner. On a fundamental level, everything had changed when she had come to him, though his day-to-day existence had in outward respects remained much the same. Scarcely a year into their partnership -- a calamitous year of initial distrust that became a wary harmony, and harmony that grew into deeper affection -- he realized that he was lost completely. Mulder could not say precisely when he had fallen in love with Scully, when his sense of friendship and casual attraction had become something more profound, but with some uncertain, critical day or event, she had caught him in her embrace of spirit, and he had never even wanted to escape. Mulder sat back from his computer, idly tapping a pencil eraser on his desk, his eyes beginning a three-stop tour of the room, cycling from the door to the clock, from the clock to the phone, and then back to the door again. Door...clock...phone -- her absence ate at him. He could not say when he had fallen in love, but he remembered his moment of realization. Understanding had come as he stood in the wreckage of her motel room, shattered glass and her drying blood bearing witness to the violence that had been done there. And later her phone call had interrupted his anguished, ineffectual rage, provoking an initial upsurge of relief that was instantly replaced by a desperate need to rescue her, whatever the cost. In the privacy of his heart, he had been ashamed at how willingly he had traded his sister for Dana Scully's safety. Of course, it hadn't really been Samantha -- an irony of fate had spared him that particular burden -- but he had not known that at the time. As he stood on a lonely bridge in Maryland, staring at the shape- shifter's relentless grip around Scully's throat, he only knew that he had to save her. Get her clear first, Mulder, then play it from there. Thus he had dictated his course to himself. His guilt at the relief he had felt made his grief over Samantha that much harder to bear, until the next half-truth had been unveiled before him. That knowledge, however, had paled in comparison to the greater truth revealed to him that day, a truth he had then been forced to find a way to live with for the next few years. In retrospect, he'd been surprised it had taken him so long to recognize it. Others had known his heart long before he did, and had even told him so, but he had been too absorbed in his quest, and too full of wrath, to listen. That had almost cost him more than he could ever have imagined at the time. Mulder gave the dire wolves one last try and then sent that message after its predecessor, into the black hole of his miscellaneous email folder. He realized he was not going to get a lot done until his current concern was alleviated. His eyes locked on the phone again. Ring, damn it. The device sat inert on his desk, unmoved by his agitation. Trying a new tactic, he began scanning a case file, yet another murder- with-occult-overtones that had been routed to his attention, and actually managed to concentrate for some time, looking over the crime scene photographs of grisly eviscerations and mysterious painted symbols, skimming through reports filed by horrified policemen. Eventually, though, he gave that up as well, his eyes abandoning the text in mid-paragraph, slipping into an unfocused stare as his thoughts returned to Scully once more. She had caused Mulder's isolation to undergo a profound transformation. He still endured long hours of solitude, but drank deep of every moment he spent with her, relentless in his investigations in part due to his desire for answers, in part due to his need for the balm of her company. And thus had passed the years of their quasi-courtship, in which he and Scully had circled each other in a tentative dance, close, but not touching, neither daring to close the gap, neither willing to walk away. For Mulder, it had been a long, lonely love affair, with moments of intimacy -- the stroke of his hand on her cheek, or in a madman's house, where she had wept, soul bared, in his arms -- often coming with a price. He had not once found it within himself to act decisively, to break the familiar, incomplete pattern they had created. He had been tempted, at times, by brief intimate moments, but he had never taken the last, fateful step. He had valued what he had too much to risk its loss in an attempt to make it something more. And despite the fears and regrets her cancer had raised in him, he had felt unable to burden her with his attentions during her illness. As much as he had wanted to comfort her, he feared that overt expressions of love would have been too sorrowful, too ironic an intrusion into her suffering. His own preoccupations, a mounting frustration with his efforts to unmask the conspiracy whose destruction he had claimed as his purpose in life, had come between them as well. Mulder rubbed his forehead. Just as well he had kept silent then, he thought. She had hardly needed a suitor who, literally, had a hole in his skull. He remembered her brother's contempt. You don't know the half of it, Billy-boy. Scully, for reasons of her own, had frozen him out of her ordeal, donning a mask of denial and brittle independence to insulate him from her pain, and herself from, perhaps, the regrets that he represented. Only at the moment of her final crisis had they at last been able to truly reach out to one another. He couldn't face that again, and now, after the still crueler ordeal of the death of a daughter she had never had a chance to know, from which she at last seemed to be recovering, he feared the return of the cancer would be a blow too heavy even for Scully to endure. That was a possibility that did not bear contemplating. The emptiness of his life without her would consume him utterly, he knew from bitter experience. She'll be fine, he told himself again. Any moment now, she'll call and I'll have wasted the morning fretting about nothing. Mulder was beginning to become annoyed with himself. It wasn't as though they lacked real troubles to be concerned about. The X-Files had wrought ruin enough in both of their lives. But at least they truly had each other now. Given just a modicum of good fortune, they could walk out of the ashes together. In the middle of the recent nightmare of a case that had begun with a bombing in Dallas and ended in the hellish cold of Antarctica, Mulder had realized just how close he had come to losing Scully forever. Between the machinations of those who wanted them separated and her own sense of futility over the X-Files, Scully had been on the verge of walking out of his life for good. The fear and desperation that had welled up in him had caused him to cast aside his doubts and, standing in the corridor outside of his apartment, declare himself to her. 'You make me a whole person,' he had said. And that, more than anything he could have said about the importance of her science to his life's quest, had been the essence of his heart's message to her. I need you. I can't go on without you. Her response, the gentle touch of her lips on his forehead, had jolted every fiber of his being, bringing the nerves throughout his body to their highest sensitivity. He had embraced her, losing himself in the deep blue of her eyes, and suddenly realized that he was going to kiss her, to cross a line that he had never dared approach before. And he had realized, as her lips parted in anticipation, that she had been waiting for him all along. He could almost enjoy the irony of it. One some level, perhaps, he had known how it would be. Scully had proven her devotion to him time and again, and he had known that, in some way, she loved him. Even so, he had been relieved as well as delighted that, after their return from Antarctica, she had accepted him, that she had wanted him to be her lover. The thought tightened in his chest, an upwelling of joy that outshone for a moment his present worry. You are more fortunate than you deserve, Mulder. The ringing of the telephone cut through his thoughts, spurring his arm into a violent reach that upset a coffee cup full of pencils and almost sent the phone itself tumbling off the desk. "Mulder," he said, just managing to control the receiver. A couple of pencils rolled off the edge of his desk and clattered on the floor. "Mulder, John Byers here." Mulder exhaled in disappointment. "Hey, man," he said. "What is it?" "Any chance you two could come by the 'Gunman' later today? I think I've got something for you." Byers spoke as though holding himself down, an undercurrent of nervous excitement in his voice. Mulder merely felt impatient. "Sure, later. Gotta run, I'm waiting for a call." "She can call your cell phone, Mulder. Listen, I think this could be important." He paused, then continued rapidly: "Have you ever heard of Randolph Sales?" "Rings a bell." Mulder let his mind shift into free-flow, waiting for the name to connect with something. "An explorer, or something, right? Central Asia?" "Close," said Byers. "He worked as a surveyor in Tibet in the 1930s. He came back from a field survey in '34 without his partner and was sent home to upstate New York in mysterious circumstances. Spent the rest of his life in seclusion -- some of it in mental hospitals." "Okay," said Mulder, "what about him?" "Well, you know that a lot of UFO activity has been reported in Tibet." Mulder made a non-committal sound. He had indeed read of such reports, but little serious work had been done in that particular area of UFO studies, mainly because most of the reports pre-dated Roswell and the upsurge of awareness that followed that event. "I know, I know," said Byers, "but you of all people should be open to the possibilities." Byers paused, evidently taking a breath, then plunged onward. "Mulder, someone just brought me Sales' original journals, some written after his breakdown." He sounded progressively more excited. "It's dynamite stuff, Mulder. If this is genuine, it might be the key to the location of an extraterrestrial facility in Central Asia." Byers paused, waiting for a reaction. Conflicting emotions swirled in Mulder. He didn't really want to think about the implications of what Byers was saying. Between the matter of the alien virus, which he and Scully had spent the last week or so attempting to come to terms with, and his current concern over Scully's appointment, he just wasn't ready to take this on. Still, Byers was not one to get worked up over nothing, which meant that whatever he had gotten his hands on could be important.... "Alright, Byers, alright." Mulder decided to cut the conversation short. "Look, I said we'd be there, but really, I can't talk now...I'm sorry. After work, okay?" "Very well, that'll do." Byers sounded resigned. "How soon can you get out here?" "I'm not sure, probably late. How about eight o'clock?" "Alright, eight it is. I'll see you then." "We'll be there." Mulder hung up, resumed staring at the phone. Byers' news teased at his brain for a while, but he thrust the matter aside and returned to the case file he had looked at earlier, seeking to distract himself from his vigil and from the issues that Byers had raised. He met with some success, managing to read the file through once in the five passes his eyes made across its contents, his concentration not aided by its utter irrelevance to recent developments in the X-Files. Closing the folder for the last time, Mulder sat back and began staring at the clock, which had described just over one full circuit and now read 8:21. By the bottom of the hour, he was certain that the second hand had come to a complete stop. The office door opened, then, and she was there. Mulder stared at her, struck anew by the classic elegance of her beauty. He waited, unable to ask. Scully gave him a slight smile, uncomplicated joy for a moment lifting years from her visage. "Clear," she said. "Clear?" His voice caught a bit. She nodded. "Everything's fine. There's no sign of the cancer." ************************************************************************ Ned Kelley's Last Stand, Hong Kong 14 September, 7:30 p.m. Alex Krycek ordered another beer from an attractive young waitress and sat back, at last able to relax after what had been a hellish week. After the raid in Siberia, he and Florescu had flown back to St. Petersburg the same night, arriving before dawn and reporting to the headquarters of the Organization at exactly 7:00 a.m. There, they had been received by one of the highest-ranking members and presented with a rather unexpected, but critical assignment. Krycek had ended up boarding a plane for Hong Kong that same morning, having barely enough time to pack a bag before he had been due at the airport. He would have resented the orders, had he not been so intrigued by their implications. Few would have been very excited by the news that one John Edward Leslie had returned from a surveying expedition in Tibet, but to those in the know, it had been news indeed. After all, Leslie had begun his journey in 1934. And even the rumor of the man who disappeared at Rongbuk had been enough to banish thoughts of protest from Krycek's mind and send him hurrying to Hong Kong, hoping to get to Lhasa in time to catch up with him. That had been a week ago, though, and here he was, still stuck in Hong Kong, drinking in an Aussie pub in the evening and fighting the bureaucracy by day. Historically, Tibet had been a difficult place to enter, and in that regard at least, nothing had changed. The waitress brought Krycek's beer and he took a long swig, watching her ass with appreciation as she walked away from his table. She had been making eyes at him all evening, and he had begun to think she might be willing to do a lot more than that once her shift ended. Krycek smiled to himself, considering all of the creative ways he could debauch her. He enjoyed the image for a moment and then returned his mind to the problem at hand. He had not been idle during his week in Hong Kong, and if most of his efforts had been thwarted, he nonetheless had managed to make progress. Unfortunately, with every day that passed, his initial goal had become more difficult to attain, and he knew that it was probably too late by now. Krycek had managed to find the reporter, an employee of the South China Morning Post, who had filed a story on Leslie 10 days earlier while in Lhasa -- the story that had alerted the Organization to the affair in the first place. From him he learned that Leslie had probably already left the Tibetan capital, though no one could be sure where he had been headed. Krycek had a guess, though. Leslie was an American after all. Missing 64 years or not, he would likely head for home. Which meant he would be almost impossible to find, without resources. There had not been much that Krycek could do, so he had decided to roll the dice. His plan, hasty, improvised, and, some might say, desperate though it was, *could* work, with the right personnel to implement it, and a little luck. He had the right personnel, and as for luck, well, he was due. Krycek had contacted Florescu, who had remained in St. Petersburg, and emailed him detailed instructions. By now, the Romanian would be in Washington D.C., putting his part of the plan in motion. And Krycek had already done his part. One small act, completed earlier that day, should have set events in motion. Now, all he could do was prepare to travel into Tibet and wait for Florescu's report. He raised his glass to his partner. We'll soon know whether you are as good as you say you are, Radu. Krycek looked around, finding the waitress in the smoky room. If he had to kill time, he might as well find an entertaining way to do it. *********************************************************************** [end part 1 of 11]