Value & Honor by Forte (Forte1354@aol.com) Please see Chapter 1 for rating, summary, disclaimer, etc. ******************************************************************** - Chapter 8 - ******************************************************************** Office of the Lone Gunmen Saturday, 8:10 a.m. Mulder pounded on the Gunmen's door for the third time. "Come on, guys, we know you're in there!" Through the door he could hear the shuffling of feet. Scully waited beside him, not touching him but close enough that he could feel her radiating body heat. "Jesus, Mulder, you know we're not morning people," Frohike muttered, as he unlatched the multiple locks. After a half-dozen *snicks* he opened the door to the Gunmen's unexpected visitors. "I heard that. Top of the morning to you, too, Frohike," Mulder responded. He ushered Scully into the Gunmen's office, hand at her back. Frohike closed and re-locked the door. "So what gives?" Frohike asked, his tone shouting irritation at being roused so early. He looked almost comical, hands on hips, wearing black jeans, a black sweatshirt, and a furry vest, all looking like they'd been rescued from a pile on the floor. Thick gray socks flopped a bit at his toes. Even his face looked like it had been pulled on with haste. "Remind me never to drop by before you've had your first cup of coffee," Mulder quipped. He placed Scully's laptop computer on the nearest clear space, then yanked off his jacket and tossed it on top. "We need your help." "We guessed that." Langly approached from the direction of the Gunmen's sleeping area. He had pulled on jeans and a Ramones T-shirt, complementing the outfit with black high-tops. Byers followed in what was, for him, a casual outfit: dress slacks, pullover sweater, and loafers. Both shared Frohike's half-asleep countenance. Scully set her briefcase on the floor and pulled several printed pages from her coat pocket. "We need you to decipher some encrypted e-mail messages that we received this morning." She moved over to a table and spread out the four sheets of paper. "We also forwarded the e-mails to you." The Gunmen crowded around the table to look at the pages. "Who sent these to you?" Byers asked. "Kurt Crawford," Scully answered. Her eyes remained fixed on the pages on the table. "Wow, that's a blast from the past. He was that guy at the Lombard Research Center in Pennsylvania, wasn't he?" Langly asked. "You told us there was a bunch of Kurt Crawfords there." "Yeah, that's the guy. One of them, anyway," Mulder replied. He stood behind Scully, almost hovering. For some reason he felt uneasy, as though he needed to stand over her to protect her from some unseen force. "He was waiting for me at my apartment last night." "Ah, so Crawford was your distraction," Frohike commented. "Why was he downloading from those medical journals?" "He's looking for evidence that would corroborate a new gene therapy technique," Scully replied. "Gene therapy that he believes Dr. Scanlon developed to control the development of cancerous cells. It may be related somehow to the chip in my neck." All three Gunmen gave her quick, concerned looks at the mention of the chip and the doctor who'd nearly killed her. "Kurt believes that they've located Dr. Scanlon," Scully continued. "But he wouldn't tell us where. Not yet." "We'll do anything to help you find that murdering punkass," Frohike declared. Byers and Langly nodded their agreement. "Kurt told us that he wants us to go with him to their research facility, and that he'd be in touch with us this morning." Mulder gestured to the pages spread out before them. "We got these messages at home and at work." "We're assuming that the messages will tell us where to go to meet him," Scully added. "Their research..." She trailed off, then cleared her throat. "Were you able to download the information I asked for from those medical journals?" Langly paced over to a nearby row of computers. He checked three in quick succession. "They're all finished -- we ran them overnight. Did them separately to save time." "Good. I'd like copies of as much of that information as possible." She gestured toward her laptop. "No problem." The blond man loaded a disk into a CD writer, then typed some commands at each computer. While they whirred, he disappeared into the kitchen. Scully shrugged off her coat, then reclaimed her laptop from where Mulder had placed it. She began to set it up on a nearby table. Meanwhile, Byers and Frohike were studying the mysterious pages and had begun an animated discussion about various forms of encryption. Mulder tried to follow their conversation but gave up when they began debating the finer points of color, font, original language, and other potential attributes of encrypted text. As he gazed at the pages laid out on the table, his mind wandered back to the first e-mail he'd received from Kurt Crawford. The message that had so thoughtfully roused him from his bizarre dream. No, wait, that wasn't the message that woke him up... Shit. "Scully?" His partner looked up as he approached her. Her laptop hummed as it booted up. "Hmm?" "I forgot to tell you earlier," he said, looking sheepish. "The guys didn't have any luck when they searched for Kurt's name in car rental and travel records." Scully nodded. "That's not much of a surprise. We didn't think they'd find anything." "Have any ideas on what other names he might have traveled under?" Her brow furrowed as she thought. "I suppose," she began slowly, "that if, for some reason, he were trying to leave a trail for us to find, he might have used the last name of one of the women from Allentown." "Hey, breakfast time." Langly came from the kitchen carrying a box. "Java's brewing." He set down the box and pulled out a chocolate-enrobed donut. "Breakfast of champions," he declared, taking a big bite. "Langly, take another look at these," Byers urged, gesturing to the four printed messages. "Neither of us recognize this style of encryption. Does it look familiar to you?" Langly studied the pages for a long moment before shaking his head. "I don't see any patterns, no combinations of characters that repeat. It just looks like gibberish." Byers turned to Mulder and Scully. "Are you certain these messages are from Kurt Crawford?" "I think we have to assume that they are until we have some reason to believe otherwise," Scully responded. The bearded Gunman shook his head. "We'll do our best, but this could take some time." "Time," Mulder replied, "is exactly what we do not have." "Then let's get started," Frohike stated. Langly returned to the computer area to retrieve the completed CD and gave it to Scully. Frohike moved to the computers as well, pulling up the copies of the e-mails that Mulder and Scully had forwarded to them and making back-up copies before loading them into their encryption-breaking software. "Another piece of surplus technology bought from Uncle Sam and improved tenfold by us," he announced proudly. "Did you guys keep copies of the passenger manifests and car rental records you checked last night?" Mulder asked. "Of course," Byers replied. He started typing at one of the other computers, pulling up the information. "And you still have a file containing the names of the women from the MUFON group in Allentown?" "Two for two," Langly responded, and then all three Gunmen were typing at a PC. Mulder grinned. "Remind me to give each of you a really big bonus at Christmas." He moved to where his partner sat, standing closer than usual and lowering both his head and his voice to speak to her. He couldn't explain it, but his protective instinct was prodding him again. "I'm going to search those lists for the names of the MUFON women." He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. If Scully noticed his nearness, she chose to say nothing about it. Instead, she nodded her agreement with his plan and very lightly tapped a finger on the closed door of the CD-ROM drive. "I'm going to skim through these files from the medical journals for a little while to see if I can find anything relevant." Then she brushed a few fingers across his arm, and turned toward the laptop to start her work. Neither noticed the three Gunmen watching them, and then looking at each other with raised brows, before Mulder left her side to start his own search. ******************************************************************** After what felt like hours of tedious review, Scully glanced at her watch. Only 9 a.m. She sat back in her chair, rolled her neck, then looked down at the pad of paper she had pulled from her briefcase to use for jotting down notes. It was blank. What she'd read so far contained nothing that she hadn't already seen in one of the other medical journals to which she subscribed. She looked around the room. Mulder sat at one PC, engrossed in his search of the passenger manifests. By the look on his face, he had come up with the same nothing that she had. The Gunmen were crowded around two other computers, and seemed to be enthused about the path they were following. Would they be able to break the encryption? How long would Kurt wait for Mulder and her? Where could the Kurts' research lab be? Damn. Why hadn't they just gone with Kurt to begin with? Why the hell had they let him leave the night before? They let him take his weapons, take his laptop, put on his coat, and walk out the door. Weapons. Laptop. Coat. Coat... "Mulder." He looked up at her. "Hmm?" "I was just thinking. Wondering where the Kurts could have their research lab." Mulder's expression asked her to continue. "When Kurt left last night -- he was carrying a raincoat, and it was wet. Water rolled off of it onto your floor." Mulder's eyebrows went up. "It wasn't raining yesterday." "No, it wasn't. Not in Washington. It must have been raining wherever he came from." "Where he came from isn't necessarily where the rest of the Kurts are." "That's true, but it's all we have to go on at the moment." In less than a minute Mulder was logged on to the Internet, Scully at his side, leaning over his shoulder. Inside of five minutes they'd reviewed weather patterns for the previous forty-eight hours over North America. Most of the continent had been free of rain. However, the remnants of a late-season tropical storm had blown up the East coast, staying well off-shore until it reached eastern Long Island and New England on Friday morning, bringing heavy rain and localized flooding. Mulder jabbed a finger at the weather map. "The Northeast, Scully. If Kurt flew in yesterday from such a relatively short distance, that would explain the coat still being wet." Scully leaned closer to the PC, pointing to the monitor, her forearm on Mulder's shoulder for support. "So it's likely that he traveled from Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, or the eastern part of Connecticut, Massachusetts, or Long Island." "Hmm." Mulder hummed his agreement, then pivoted to look at her. "That will really narrow down the number of passenger lists that I have to look at." "Good," Scully said, straightening. "You can keep checking from that angle." She gestured toward her laptop. "I'm not making any progress here. It's -- " she glanced at her watch again, "almost nine fifteen. I should head back to the office to finish that report for Kersh on those child murders." "Leaving already?" "Mulder, once we take off after Kurt Crawford, who knows when we'll be back? We'll have enough trouble if we don't make it to work on Monday. I don't think we should risk irritating Kersh further by not having that report in his hands on time." Mulder stared at her, an inexplicable panic running through him. For a third time, the feeling of needing to protect her from something unseen crawled over him. His voice lowered. "You have the files and the laptop, Scully. Couldn't you just work on it here? We can drop the report off at the office on our way home." Scully paused before responding. "I'd rather... work on it alone." Her eyes pleaded with him to understand her need for privacy. He wanted to tell her, "I have a bad feeling about us not being together," but knew that that wouldn't go over well. Mulder blinked at her, biting back the uneasy feeling, imagining her response. <"I'm an armed Federal agent, Mulder. I'll be fine."> Finally, he nodded. "Okay, Scully." She turned to go back to her laptop. "Scully... before you leave." She faced him again, eyebrows raised. "This trip to meet Kurt should be as far off the record as possible." He turned in the direction of their three friends, still working at their computers. "Frohike?" The Gunman looked up at him. "We're gonna need some ID's." "Tell me what you need and give me some names." "Driver's licenses. Credit cards." Mulder considered for a moment before adding, "You still have pictures of us, right?" Frohike nodded. "Make us passports, too." Scully had returned to her laptop and was writing something on the pad of paper. She looked up at Mulder, the question in her expression. Passports? Mulder shrugged. "He may have traveled to DC from New England, but the lab may be in Canada." "You don't need a passport to go to Canada," Frohike protested. "I know, but we may still need to prove U.S. citizenship. I just want to be prepared." Scully nodded her agreement with his logic and ripped the top sheet of paper from the pad. "Here's a name for me," she said, walking back toward her partner. Mulder took the page from her and glanced at the name she had written. Then he added a name for himself and handed the sheet to Frohike. Scully approached the other two Gunmen. "Any progress?" "Nothing definitive," Byers replied. "We've tried a bunch of different translations, based on known forms of encryption, but nothing's panned out yet," Langly added. "That doesn't sound very encouraging." "We've only been at it for an hour. We've got plenty of other things to try," Frohike assured her. Scully returned to the table with her belongings, nodding, but Mulder could tell from the set of her jaw that she'd lost much of the optimism they'd had only minutes before. He joined her, observing her preoccupied demeanor as she shut down the laptop. Finally, she slipped the CD and pad of paper into her briefcase and pulled on her coat. "Scully." He touched her arm. "We'll find them, Scully. One way or another, we'll find them." She met his eyes and nodded. "I know." She picked up the laptop and briefcase and made her way to the door. Mulder followed. "I'll call you as soon as there's news," he said softly. "I know," she repeated. Mulder released the locks on the door and opened it to let his partner through. He touched the familiar spot on her back as she passed by, then closed and re-locked the door. And once again the Gunmen diverted their eyes before he turned, to hide that they'd been watching the two agents. ******************************************************************** Saturday, 11:14 a.m. With his focus on Friday flights from the Northeast to DC-area airports, Mulder's search for names of women from the MUFON group had gone much faster. That just meant his disappointment had come sooner: he found no matches. After that, tired of staring at the PC's monitor, he'd printed the passenger manifests for all of the Friday flights. His next task would be to manually search for any name that looked like it might have been used by Kurt Crawford. But now he'd been staring at the black and white pages for so long that the text was starting to swim. Mulder rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. Time to take a break. Mulder stood and stretched, looking around the room to re-focus his eyes. Byers and Langly were still working on deciphering the e-mails. Frohike was not in sight. He had been alternating between working at one of the computers, making an occasional suggestion regarding the encrypted messages, and disappearing into a back room. Mulder assumed that that was where he practiced the art and science of creating bogus ID's. Mulder stifled a yawn, then decided a good stiff dose of caffeine was in order. He went to the kitchen and made himself a cup. He picked up a donut when he returned, wolfing it down in half a dozen bites. Might as well get wired on sugar, too. While he finished his coffee, Mulder watched Byers and Langly work on the four messages. A thought struck him. Could any more messages have been sent to them in the past few hours? He went to one of the other computers and checked all of his personal e-mail accounts. Nothing new. Then he pulled out his cell phone and checked his home answering machine and FBI voicemail. Nothing there, either. Well, no news was... what? Good news? Just not bad news? If he'd had any Gunmen-inspired doubts that the four messages were from Kurt Crawford, those doubts were all but gone. No, no, no. Not going there. He was certain that it had been Kurt. And as he'd told Scully, Kurt could have harmed them or forced them to go with him if he'd wanted to. No, his story must have been on the level. Those e-mails must have been from Kurt. Now they just had to get them translated so he and Scully would know where to go meet him. Jesus. Scully. Mulder set down his empty coffee mug and rubbed his eyes for a second time. She was at the Hoover Building, dealing with those autopsy files again. And she'd wanted to be alone while doing it. Scully kept her emotions in check, but this case was so hard for her that she had to physically distance herself from him to deal with her pain. It was just like Emily's death, when he'd offered to stay with her but she'd asked to be alone. Emily. They never talked about her. Hell, they never talked about a lot of things, but they especially never talked about Emily. Until the conversation they'd had the day before, after their meeting with Kersh, the last time Scully had mentioned Emily had been... when? During the case involving the four sisters who had died under mysterious circumstances? Scully had told him she'd seen Emily in a vision. He'd all but told her she was crazy. No wonder she never talked about her daughter. Good work, Mulder. Real understanding of you. And now this damn case with Jack Morse, the autopsy files Kersh had asked Scully to look at, just compounded the fracture in her soul. Then the bullshit from Diana, and the whole matter with Kurt Crawford, her abduction, her stolen ova... <"You have hope, Mulder, and I don't have a damned thing."> He wished there was something he could do for her, to ease her anguish, to give her hope. Something besides finding Kurt Crawford, anyway. But he couldn't think of anything. And if he asked what she needed, she'd say she was fine. Damn it all. "Earth to Mulder." He nearly jumped at the sound of Frohike's voice, then realized he was still holding his cell phone. He must have been staring at it, not really seeing it while he was lost in his thoughts. He placed the phone on the closest flat surface and turned to the Gunman. Frohike held out two sets of driver's licenses, credit cards, and passports. "All set. Finest forgeries money can buy." Mulder took the ID's from him and shuffled through them like playing cards, admiring them. "You're another Michelangelo, Frohike. A true artist." "Flattery will get you nowhere. I'll send you a bill for my services." "That reminds me. I need to make a withdrawal from our account." "How much do you need?" "How much have we got? I haven't checked our balance lately." Mulder left the ID's by his jacket, then followed Frohike to the Gunmen's sleeping area. Frohike pulled up the corner of one of the mattresses. Short stacks of twenty-dollar bills, held together by rubber bands, waited there. Mulder and Scully had realized years before that there would be times when they needed quick money for emergencies. At such times a large withdrawal might be inadvisable (not wanting their withdrawals to be traced) or impossible (due to daily ATM withdrawal limits, or the Consortium finally turning the economic screw by freezing their accounts). So both had started putting aside small quantities of cash on a regular basis, leaving it with the Gunmen for safekeeping. They were able to set aside amounts small enough that no one watching their bank accounts would ever notice. The Gunmen were careful to de-magnetize the strips in the bills so they couldn't be traced through metal detectors. Frohike counted the piles of cash and did a quick mental calculation, knowing each bundle held two hundred dollars. "Close to $4,000. All of it's been de-magnetized." Mulder grinned, recalling Scully's anti-counterfeiting argument for the strip when she'd first met the Gunmen. He wondered if she'd ever gotten back the twenty-dollar bill that Byers had ripped in two. She'd later pronounced his friends as "paranoid"; he knew she now saw that their concerns were often well-founded. His grin disappeared as he realized that she'd lost her innocence -- and a hell of a lot more. "Give me twenty-five hundred," he said, re-focusing himself to the task at hand. "That should be plenty to pay cash for plane tickets, renting a car, hotel, whatever. I just hope we don't have to go into Canada. I don't want to have to screw around with crossing a border." Frohike raised an eyebrow as he handed him some of the bills. "You doubt the quality of my forgeries?" Mulder shook his head. "No, just the fewer checkpoints and security cameras we have to deal with, the better." Frohike nodded his understanding, passing him more of the cash. "This is a lot of money, Mulder. It's gonna be bulky." "Yeah, well, I'll find an impressive-looking place on myself to hide it." He took the piles as Frohike handed them to him. "You know, I never got my free toaster when I opened this account." "I'll have it delivered tomorrow," Frohike said, handing him the last of the requested money. "And Mulder, since you're so loaded now..." "Yeah?" "We're growing boys. We need to be fed. Deciphering encrypted messages and creating fake ID's takes a lot of energy, you know." "Fine," Mulder nodded. "You guys keep working on those e-mails. Tell me what you want, and I'll get the food and bring it back here." ******************************************************************** J. Edgar Hoover Building Washington, DC Saturday, 11:16 a.m. Mulder was right. The coffee at the FBI was sludge. Scully set down her Styrofoam cup and frowned at it, as though her scolding look would improve the coffee's taste. Needing a break from her work on the report for Kersh, she'd started the pot of coffee and then checked her e-mail, voicemail, and home answering machine while she waited for the brew. She had no new messages, no additional contact from Kurt Crawford. Now she stared at the stack of autopsy reports in front of her. She was nearly finished with her report, but needed to flip through the files one last time to see if any additional details caught her eye. She didn't expect to find anything, but her experience had told her that one final review was a good idea. As much as she wanted to skip that step this time, as sick as she was of the photos and graphic details, she couldn't do it. The dead were speaking, demanding justice, and she wasn't going to shortchange them. Scully reached toward the stack of autopsy files and set the top one in front of her. She read through the pages methodically, closed the file, did the same with the next. And the next. Within 15 minutes she had gone through the entire pile. No, nothing new, just the renewal of her anger at the sick bastard that would kill little children so brutally. The deaths described in the unsolved cases dated back to 1992. Dear God, if her theory was correct, and Morse was responsible for murdering many of these innocents, then he'd been bringing death to families across the country for close to seven years, at least. She always thought she'd known how incensed Mulder had felt about John Lee Roche, but if his feelings had been anything like hers were toward Morse.... Well, it was remarkable that he hadn't put that bullet through his brain the second he saw him. As much as the doctor in her, the healer, hated death, the end of life for these killers couldn't come too soon. And God, how much anguish had the parents suffered, not knowing what had really happened to their children? How did they survive it? How were they able to look at the pictures of those children on their walls, on their mantles, and not break down every time? They were... they were probably able to look at those pictures for the same reason she could look at the one picture of Emily she possessed. Because it hurt more to not look. It would be worse to deny that Emily had lived and breathed and smiled and played. The circumstances weren't identical, but in a way she shared that unique loss, the nightmare of a child's sudden death, with those parents. But one thing she didn't share with them was years of memories. What had she and Emily missed? Her eyes began to sting with threatening tears as she remembered coloring on the floor with her daughter. And what could have been if... if things had turned out differently? They could have made cookies. Cut out paper dolls. Fed ducks at the pond in the park. Would I have been a good mother? As good as mine had been for me? Yes. Yes, I think I would have been. Could have been. Could =be=. No, Dana, you can't, remember? They took that away from you. They made you a thing. A tool for their plans, to be discarded when it was used up. Just a tool for the Consortium's plans. Unbidden, a saying she'd heard years before reverberated in her head. "Man plans, and God laughs." But at whose plans was He laughing? Maybe it was the Consortium's plans, Cancer Man's plans, that God laughed at. She hoped, prayed, that she was one of His instruments for foiling their plans, just as she had been for saving Kevin Kryder. For saving Roberta Dyer, one of the four sisters that Father Gregory tried to protect. She had saved them, hadn't she? Or did she just want to believe that she had? Scully looked down at the autopsy files. Of course the parents were tortured by the pain of not knowing what had happened. Were these children tortured as well, by the not knowing? She was too late to save their lives, but could she ease the pain of their souls? She'd done all she could for them now. She hoped it would be enough. And she would do everything she could for the women from Allentown. She'd been too late to save their lives. But she'd do her best to fulfill their demands for justice, the ones she'd heard the previous night in Mulder's apartment. How ironic, and pathetic, and sick was it that these women who had sought treatment for their infertility had been used to create some... some mockeries of life that they never knew about? No. No. Emily wasn't a mockery. She was a beautiful, beautiful little girl who didn't deserve to be born as... an experiment. Scully squeezed her eyes shut. A tear tracked down each of her cheeks. Oh, Emily. I tried to save you, too. Her head throbbed. Scully opened her eyes and realized that her head was in her hands, elbows on the desk. When had that happened? She rolled her neck, trying to loosen her stiff muscles. Her headache had abated with seven hours of sleep, but the tension in her shoulders was drawing out its intensity again. Pull yourself together, Dana. Right now these children and their parents need you to finish this report. They need you to help them get the answers they deserve. And then there are others who need your help. Scully took a deep breath, pulling herself up to her straightest height. She fished out the bottle of Tylenol that she'd returned to her desk drawer the previous day and swallowed two of the caplets with a mouthful of FBI coffee. Swiveling her chair towards her computer, she raised her hands to the keyboard and clicked on "caps lock". She got as far as typing CONCLUSION before a phone rang, somewhat muffled. Scully closed her eyes against the intrusion, then remembered who would be calling. And why. Her eyes flew open and she pulled the cell phone from her coat pocket. "Scully." "Hey Scully, it's me." The last syllable had barely left his lips before she rushed out her own words. "Have they broken the encryption?" Her question was met with silence. Eager much, Dana? "I'm sorry, Mulder, I'm... on edge, I guess." "It's okay, Scully. I am, too. Unfortunately there's nothing to report yet. They're still working on it." "Oh." Disappointment. <"So why are you calling, Mulder?"> "So what's up?" "I'm doing a food run for the guys. You want anything?" "Umm... no, thanks. I'm not really hungry." Mulder paused. "Okay." He paused again. "How's the report going?" "I have about an hour's worth of work before it's in inter-office mail to Kersh." "What are your conclusions?" Mulder asked the question as though he were tip-toeing around a hand grenade with the pin about to fall out. And Scully knew it. She wasn't sure whether she should be annoyed with the kid gloves treatment or appreciative of his sensitivity. She decided that a neutral answer would be easiest in the long run. "I'm recommending that this case be run through the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program database," she replied. "Quite frankly, I don't know why Kersh had me do this work at all, rather than just running it through VICAP to begin with." "To test you? To gather proof of your investigative skills so he can recommend you for another position?" Mulder suggested. "You said yourself, Scully, that he might try to split us up." She was in a bad enough mood already. The thought of Kersh re-assigning her made her blood boil. Her jaw tightened. "Yes, well," she muttered, "if he tries, I'm going to have to give him a special demonstration on doing Y-incisions." "Can I sell tickets? We'd make a fortune, Scully." Scully looked down at the unfinished report and sighed. "Mulder, I should really get back to work here. Was there anything else?" "Well, I've checked my e-mail, voicemail, and my answering machine at home. Nothing else from Kurt." "I checked my e-mail and my messages, too. Nothing." There was silence for a moment. "Scully, you said you'd be done in about an hour, right? What were you planning on doing after that?" Then he added quickly, "Of course, by then the guys will probably have these messages deciphered and we'll be on our way to meet Kurt." Scully chose to ignore his optimism, not wanting to get her hopes up. "I'm not certain what I'll do. Probably go home and read through more of those downloaded files. Why?" "I'm getting pretty antsy, here, Scully, and I think the guys are sick of me hovering. I should probably get out of here for a while after I pick up the food. I think you could stand to get outdoors, too. You want to meet somewhere? One o'clock, say?" Scully shook her head without thinking that he couldn't see her. "Mulder, I should really -- " "We've both been cooped up inside, Scully. Come on. It's a beautiful day. And I want to show you the great ID's Frohike made for us," he added, starting to sound as enthusiastic as a kid on his way to Disneyland. "He really outdid himself." Scully sighed again. Mulder's attempt at distracting her from her thoughts about the Jack Morse case and Kurt Crawford was transparent, but nonetheless appreciated. "All right. Potomac? The usual bench?" "Scully, you're such a romantic." She heard the grin in his voice, but ignored his gentle tease. "I'll see you at one." ******************************************************************** Office of the Lone Gunmen Saturday, 11:46 a.m. "And I want to show you the great ID's Frohike made for us," Mulder enthused. "He really outdid himself." Frohike cocked his head in Mulder's direction, listening but not wanting to let Mulder know that he was listening. He caught Byers' and Langly's eyes and knew they were doing the same thing. "Scully, you're such a romantic." All six Gunmen eyebrows shot up, but they quickly pasted innocent looks on their faces and returned their attention to their computers when Mulder turned back toward them, his conversation over. A huge grin spread over his face. "Decisions made?" Mulder asked. Byers gestured to a list on the edge of the table. "You know the way to the sub shop, right?" "Yeah." Mulder picked up the piece of paper and scanned it. "What are you doing, feeding half the neighborhood?" he asked, still smiling. "You made a generous offer, we're taking advantage of it," Frohike replied. "I don't recall =offering= to buy you lunch. I believe it had something to do with extortion." The grin remained and Mulder grabbed his jacket. He shoved the list and his cell phone in the pocket. "Be back in thirty." Langly followed him to the door and re-locked it after Mulder had left. The three gave each other questioning looks, then Langly broke the silence. "He's in a good mood." ******************************************************************** Half an hour later, Mulder and three hungry Gunmen gathered at the table closest to the kitchen to dig in to the lunch Mulder had picked up. "We still have several things to try with those messages," Byers said, pulling sandwiches and bags of potato chips out of one of the large sacks. "The number of variables used to encode messages makes the possible encryption methods almost limitless." "How much longer do you think you'll need?" Mulder asked. "Hard to say," Langly responded. "Part of it is luck -- trying the right things at the right time." He pulled drinks, straws, napkins, and packages of condiments from another bag, while Frohike removed grease-soaked containers and forks out of a third bag. Mulder made a face that was a cross between impatient and stricken. It wasn't lost on Frohike. "We're hoping to crack it this afternoon," the Gunman added. "I have a feeling we're getting close." Mulder nodded while he collected his drink, sandwich, and French fries from the food spread out on the table. His reverie was broken by a sudden squabble. "Hey! Those are my fries," Langly protested, gesturing at the container in front of Frohike. "You snooze, you lose, kid," Frohike replied. "If you wanted fries, you should have asked for some, =Melvin=." "Right now you're asking for a knuckle sandwich, =Ringo=." "All right, all right," Mulder interrupted. "No wonder we never go out to nice restaurants. I can't count on you to behave." He plunked down his own fries in front of Langly. "Can you boys play nice now?" He grabbed a second sandwich, another can of soda, and two bags of potato chips from the table and placed them in one of the now-empty sacks along with his own sandwich and drink. Byers watched him and cocked an eyebrow, but the face he made was friendly, teasing. "Two of everything, Mulder? And you accused us of ordering a lot of food?" "The extra is for Scully. I'm meeting her at one o'clock. Thought you guys would like to get rid of me for a while." "Sharing a meal with the lovely Dr. Scully? I wouldn't mind that," Frohike smiled. "Actually there's a lot of things I'd like to share with the lovely Dr. Scully." "Get in line," Mulder muttered under his breath, stuffing napkins into the bag. Frohike looked up at him. "No shit, Sherlock." "What?" Mulder snapped his head up at him, startled. "You heard me. But I'll repeat it to emphasize my point." He leaned in closer to Mulder to speak, his words slow and careful. "NO. SHIT. SHERLOCK." Mulder stared. "What the hell does =that= mean?" Realizing he was all but gawking, he re-focused himself on the table, grabbing straws and adding them to his bag. "When are you going to tell her, Mulder?" Frohike asked. "Tell who what?" "You know damn well what I'm talking about," Frohike growled. "No, I'm afraid I don't." He grabbed packages of mustard and mayonnaise and threw them in the bag. Byers and Langly looked at each other. "It's obvious even to us, Mulder," Byers said quietly. "Yeah, we're pretty dense about this sort of stuff, but..." Langly added. "=What=?" Mulder demanded. "We see the way you and Scully talk to each other. Look at each other. Get in each other's faces," Frohike said. Mulder gave them his best confused look. "The way we do =what=?" He looked at Frohike, then Langly, then Byers. "This is a joke, right?" He rolled over the top of the bag to close it, giving it much more attention than necessary. "Give it up, Mulder," Langly responded. "After all these years, we can read you like a comic book." "You're serious, aren't you? Look, there's nothing to read. If you think there's something going on between Scully and me, you're wrong." "On the contrary," Byers corrected. "We're sure that there =isn't= anything going on between you and Scully. And we're wondering why not." "We are partners. Period." He continued rolling the top of the bag, even though it was securely closed. "Give it up yourselves, boys. There's nothing to talk about." "If there's nothing to talk about, then why are you strangling that bag?" Langly demanded. Mulder released the bag, backed away from the table, and grabbed his jacket. "We're partners," he repeated. "That's all." "You're full of shit, Mulder," Frohike interjected. "Or is it just that you're even blinder than we thought?" Mulder shook his head as though he were tired of a drawn-out joke. "I have to go. Call us when you've got those messages deciphered." He threw on the jacket and stuffed the pockets with the money and ID's he'd gotten from Frohike, and a CD onto which he'd copied the various passenger manifests. Then he grabbed the food bag and stalked to the door, snapping open the locks as quickly as he could. When he started to turn the doorknob, he heard Frohike's voice. "Mulder." Mulder stopped, took a breath, and turned to face the Gunmen again. "You should tell her, Mulder," Frohike insisted. "And soon. What the hell are you waiting for?" Mulder had no answer for him, nor for himself. ******************************************************************** J. Edgar Hoover Building Washington, DC Saturday, 12:40 p.m. Scully deposited the sealed report into the inter-office mail bin. She stood for a moment, just staring at the envelope, as though saying a silent goodbye. Then she took a breath and returned to her desk, slipping on her coat and gathering her briefcase and laptop. She rode the elevator down to the parking garage and locked her briefcase and computer in the trunk of her car. Then she returned to the building and exited at street level, heading toward her rendezvous with Mulder. She was unaware that she was being watched. ******************************************************************** - end Chapter 8 - ******************************************************************** Feedback is cherished at Forte1354@aol.com or bjm1352@aol.com. Many, many thanks to my wonderful beta reader, Jintian, for her extra efforts to get this chapter ready so I could post before going on vacation. I couldn't do this without you, Jintian. :)