Scully sat hunched over her plate in the back booth of the diner, chewing with enthusiasm. The situation was so weird she had given up trying to place it within the context of her personal vision of reality. If someone had asked her half an hour ago, "Are you hungry?" (As in fact Skinner had) she would have said no. Now she simply could not get enough food down her fast enough.

Skinner had insisted that they stop somewhere for breakfast before they left the small town, even though they saw men boarding up store windows and people coming out of the market with baskets full of bottled water and sacks of canned goods in fortification for the coming storm. The car radio informed them that it was a freakish event for July,but not unheard of in that neck of the woods.

Scully thought it was a bad idea to stay one more minute in that town than they had to, and was all too aware of the boys fixing up the bar windows staring at her as she passed, their goat eyes stripping her, then looking nervously away as the tall man beside her stared them down. It was really annoying.

"Just coffee," she told the waitress, and Skinner, looking at her with that hard set of his mouth as he returned the menus to the waitress, said, "Bring us two of the breakfast specials."

But apparently he hadn't taken into account that this was logging country, and the working man's breakfast was designed for big, hungry outdoorsy men.

More surprising was the fact that when the food began to come, it was perfectly cooked and beautifully presented and both Scully and Skinner plowed into it as if they'd been starved for weeks.

There were fresh eggs with yellow-orange yolks, the whites perfectly round, and fluffy pancakes with mounds of sweet blueberries baked into them, and thick pieces of toast that tasted like they'd been cut from freshly baked bread, with pats of sweet cream butter dripping down the sides. The coffee was heavenly, the syrup redolent of pure maple, and big glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice came with the meal. Scully was intimidated by the hunk of country ham on her plate, the steaming pile of crispy golden potatoes, until she began to eat. Then she and Skinner stopped arguing, stopped talking altogether, and devoted their full attention to the feast in front of them.

Scully couldn't remember when she'd last eaten. She only knew that as she had never tasted anything so good in her life, and she was ravenous. At one point, she glanced up and saw Skinner looking at her, a glint of amusement in his eyes behind the glasses.

"Good," he said.

She nodded. "No kidding."

When they finally finished, Skinner excused himself and went to the bathroom, and Scully leaned back, almost groaning with the pleasure of being full of good food and warm and safe again.

Safe? Skinner was about to drag her back to face a panel of inquiry full of questions she couldn't answer. All the "evidence" they were bringing back would only incriminate her. The only thing she had on her side was the fact that she was voluntarily returning instead of running away, when she could have kept going. At least in their eyes. Not that THAT proved anything.

But safe, yes, in a weird way. As long as Skinner was with her, she felt protected, almost invulnerable, from everything. Now if she could just find someone to protect her from Skinner, everything would be perfect. He was just so damn...Skinner.

A shadow fell over the table, and Scully looked up to see the waitress looking down at her, giving nervous glances at the bathroom door. "Honey, that fellow gave me a note to give you when he left."

"That man...?" Scully nodded at the booth opposite her where Skinner had been sitting, but the waitress shook her head. "No, that mountain climbin fellow. He come in here every day for a week lookin' for you, honey, and then the durn fool asked Winston if he'd help him look for you. Winston just laughed at him, of course. We didn't think you'd be comin back. But anyway, he left you this." She took a piece of folded paper out of her apron and slid it across the table. "Some men just can't take no for an answer, I guess," she said, "But honey," her eyes flicked to the bathroom door, "I sure can't fault your choice on that one."

When the waitress was gone, Scully unfolded the note and saw in neat, rounded handwriting:

Dana,

I know we agreed, but I wanted to try to see you again anyway. I hope everything is all right. Please, I just want to talk to you.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the door to the restrooms open, and she tucked the note into her purse. Skinner didn't sit down, but took out his wallet and fingered through the bills. "Are you ready?"

"Yes."

As Skinner paid the bill, the cashier said, "Y'all be careful out there, now. They've already closed some of the roads to the north."

"We're going south," Skinner said.

Scully was looking at the counter, which was filled with men hunched over steaming breakfast platters, wondering if someone who looked like her had done anything else that she, Dana, would end up paying for. Who was Dave? Who was Winston?

The second question was answered in the next moment, when a man wearing a dark blue jacket with a badge pinned to it came into the diner, stamping snow from his boots and making a lot of bluster. "Mornin' Winston," the cashier called.

Skinner only nodded tightly at the lawman's smile, and Scully made it a point not to look at him at all. She had an absurd urge to take Skinner's arm as they walked across the street, to show him some sort of gratitude for not getting local law enforcement involved.

But then he unlocked her door and opened it and closed it after she got in, and she was irritated all over again; he always had to be in control, always had to let her know that he was in the position of power. "Don't forget who you're talking to," he'd said, back at the motel. Not for the first time, she wished she had the courage to slap his face.

She glanced at him as he started the car, wondering what he'd do if she tried. WHACK! An amazingly satisfying fantasy.

Skinner said, "Put your seat belt on."

With a sigh, Scully pulled the nylon strap across her shoulder. What was the point?

The road out of town was a long, even uphill stretch, winding around the side of a mountain. Skinner kept the car in a low gear and gave it steady gas, and Scully settled in for a long ride. The sky was an odd, greenish color; it was like looking into the depths of the ocean, and there was no other traffic on the highway, but for all the space, the overall atmosphere was one of claustrophia.

Skinner reached over to turn up the heater, looking at her briefly. "Are you okay?"

"Yes."

"Feeling better now?"

"My head is clear, but I still can't really remember much. It's like...Yesterday morning when I woke up and called you, I remember just sitting there in a kind of fog. I don't think I ate all day. I just knew Mulder had been hurt, and I needed to talk to you."

"You called me? Then what?"

"Oh, wait." A small furrow appeared between her brows. "No, that's not what happened. I called John Byers. I..." She rubbed her forehead. "Maybe that wasn't yesterday."

"That's okay," Skinner said. "On Monday morning, I got a call that Mulder had been shot. They found him in front of the building and as soon as I got to the hospital, I called you. But I got a signal saying your phone had been disconnected. Then Kersh called me and told me he wanted me to come in for a meeting right away."

Skinner's face as he stared through the windshield was as bleak as the weather. "They were all there waiting. On an hour's notice, an internal investigation had been put together and was ready to go. They showed me the tape, and–"

"What's this tape you keep talking about?"

She saw his face contort, and had a sick feeling it was about more than Mulder getting shot. He said, "You and Mulder met at five in the morning, and had some kind of argument. We don't know what it was about. Then he was about to hit you, and you protected yourself by drawing your gun and firing." He swallowed. "Three times."

"I swear on my life, Skinner, that wasn't me."

He held a finger up for silence. "Then you ran away, and they found Mulder, and called me. It turned out that an internal investigation had been going on for some time; that was how they got the panel together so quickly. I..." He gave her an almost apologetic look, "They were investigating me first to make sure I wasn't involved."

Scully's eyes met his, and he looked away. She said, "I'm sorry. I mean, I'm sorry this has happened, sir, but I can't apologize for what I didn't do."

"They showed me bank deposits in your handwriting, with your fingerprints on them, making large deposits over a period of about four weeks. They played tapes for me of phone conversations recorded from your apartment; you were soliciting bribes, Scully. You were using information from F.B.I. internal files and selling information."

Although she wanted to put her hands over her ears and cry out like a child, she forced herself to listen calmly. "What else?"

"That's enough, isn't it? An investigation, then it appears that Mulder finds out what you're up to and confronts you, you shoot him, and you disappear with a large amount of cash." He gave his head a short, sharp shake, like a wet dog.

"But Skinner, don't you see how crazy that sounds?"

"That's the other thing, Scully. They showed me pictures of what looked like x rays, scans, whatever, of your tumor. It had grown and shifted, and apparently there'd been some damage to your frontal lobes."

"That's ridiculous." Scully stared at him, willing him to look at her, and finally he turned his head reluctantly. "Skinner, you can't undo frontal lobe damage. Once it's done, it's done. If I was going insane from an organic growth, I wouldn't get better. I'd just get steadily worse until my basic functions were affected and I couldn't breathe. Then I'd die."

"Basically they said that's what was happening to you."

"Do I look sick to you?"

He didn't answer. The car was working hard as the grade of the incline increased, and he shifted it down another gear. The scene outside was awesome, mountains and valleys below, and the green sky so close to the earth it was like the belly of a giant animal trying to scratch itself.

"Why did you call me?" he asked suddenly.

"Because..." She struggled to remember. Had it been Byer's idea? Why had she called Byers?

Then suddenly she DID remember, with aching clarity, sitting on the edge of the bed, looking down at her bare feet and shaking for some reason, maybe reaction to the drug, and she remembered seeing a backpack on the floor, a huge one, and hearing sounds coming from the other room where two people were having sex.

She'd picked up the phone, wanting to talk to Skinner. But afraid to call him at the office, and having no other number, she'd called the office of the Lone Gunmen, and when they heard her voice they all tried to get on the line at the same time, barking questions like a pack of Chihuahuas.

And then in a little while the phone ringing somewhere far away, and a click, and Skinner's voice. "I need to talk to you," she had said. But she couldn't have told him where she was, because she didn't know.

"How did you find me?" she asked.

He rolled his eyes. "How the hell did THEY find you? You must have been on a traceable line to them, though not to us. They had tickets, routes marked out, everything hand delivered, all kinds of bluffs, within a couple of hours. I couldn't trace my route here again if my life depended on it. Those men should be working for us."

Scully smiled. "Don't be too quick to offer them a job."

"I didn't know where I was going myself until I crossed the Canadian border. It was a wild ride."

"But you came."

"Kersh suggested I bring you in myself. He was convinced you'd run from anyone else."

"What did I say on the phone?"

He shook his head as if he couldn't remember. "You just sounded sick and terrified, which was consistent with the pictures I'd been seeing of the inside of your head."

"So you came to arrest me."

"I came to take you home."

"But I'm under arrest now, aren't I?"

Skinner actually squirmed a little in his seat. "You're in my protective custody."

"Semantics, Skinner. Call it what you want. Do you think I stole that money in the back seat?"

"No."

Her eyebrow arched. "No?"

"There are a lot of holes in your story, Scully, but I don't think a person's basic nature changes, and I don't think you're a thief."

"Well, do you–"

Skinner whistled his breath out from between clenched teeth in sudden alarm. "Fuck me!"

"What?"

His foot pumped the pedal violently. "I've lost the brakes!"

"What?" She leaned over as if there were something she could actually see. "What's happening?"

They had reached the crest of the road and had begun their downward descent, and now they were going a little faster than Scully thought was a good idea. "Put it in gear!" she cried.

"I'm losing everything, the steering, the brakes...Shit!"

She could see the tendons in his wrists writhe with strain as he manhandled the car without power steering, keeping it on the road. He eased it over towards the railing, and there was the sickening screech of wood on metal as he tried to slow their momentum by dragging the car along the barrier. But the pull of gravity was too strong, and each time he eased off, the car picked up speed again.

"Scully, we're going to have to make a jump for it. Get out!"

Skinner threw off his seatbelt, but Scully fumbled for hers with nerveless fingers. "I can't..."

Skinner had his door open, his body braced, but he looked back and saw she couldn't get out. He slammed the door shut again and fought the steering wheel back on the road. When it was rolling along on the pavement, he reached over with his right hand and tried to find her buckle. The two of them scrambled at it frantically for a few seconds.

Scully heard a click. Skinner shouted, "NOW!" and slid over to the right; his door flew outwards with an almost human groan as the hinges were ripped back, and then he was gone, and the Taurus, drawn by forces stronger and more inexplicable than any man could understand, smashed through the guard rail, which impeded its forward motion just enough so that when it went over the edge of the cliff it actually hung for a few seconds, rear tires in the air, before giving a shriek of tearing fiberglass and plummeting a hundred feet into the snow-covered rocks below.

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

next chapter: Cold Hands
This chapter will be posted on June 14 or 15, depending on when my beta reader comes out of her coma...