though I do wonder

why you intrigue me

I recognize that an exceptional moth

is always drawn

to an exceptional flame...

flames don't flicker

forever

and moths are burned to be burned

it's an unusual way

to start a friendship

but nothing lasts forever

- Nikki Giovanni, "Poem (for EMA)"

****

FLYING J TRUCK PLAZA

OFF INTERSTATE 64

HURRICANE, WEST VIRGINIA

OCTOBER 19

5:50 a.m.

Though he wasn't sure why it had never occurred to him before, Fox Mulder found himself profoundly surprised that a clone could laugh.

Outside at the gas pumps, Mulder stared at Kurt Crawford through the rain-spatted window of the truckstop, where the young man -- still young, even after all these years --

was laughing at something the woman behind the counter was saying to him. Crawford was slicking back his wet hair, wiping the rain from his face, and nodding to say something in reply to what, Mulder could see from outside, was a flirtatious remark from the cashier. Crawford's smile, downcast eyes, as he spoke gave it away.

There beneath the overhang that shielded him from a cold rain that seemed to signal, in one night's worth of weather, the transition from summer into autumn, Mulder thought about that laugh, that smile, the shy way the clone darted his gaze toward the window. He wondered if Kurt had always had those emotions, if they were even real emotions, or if they were something he'd learned in the years since he and Scully had last seen one of his…brothers? Perhaps this was a way of fitting in. A way of being human, or at least seeming to be.

The woman behind the counter believed he was human. Looking at Scully, who was watching Crawford, as well, from inside the car, her face turned toward the window but her features obscured in the shadow thrown by the car's roof, Mulder could sense she believed it, too.

For his own part, Mulder wasn't sure. Maybe it was his natural distrust of anything having to do with the cloning experiments, since they were married so closely to the conspiracies he'd been moving in and around and away from and back again for seven years now.

Or, he reasoned, the gas pump clicking off as the tank signaled "full," it was his natural distrust of anyone who appears at a motel room door in Lake Gaston, Virginia and tells you he knows your future. Particularly when that future is that you're about to drive to a little town in Utah and die saving someone who "must be saved," and your lover (though you would never call her that outside the confines of your own thoughts, or, perhaps, that motel room in Lake Gaston where you'd just made love to her for only the second time in your entire life) can't take your place (when she's said she will) because she's not actually able to die, and, in fact, never will.

Mulder yanked the pump handle a bit harder than he needed to, remembering Scully's blanched face, the way her lips had tightened, the way her face had fallen into an expression he couldn't quite name. Scully's face snapped around at the sound, and though her face showed more fatigue than the anguish she'd had in the Lake View Inn's room, her eyes gave everything away. He could only look at them for an instant before he had to look away.

He gave a "thumbs up" to Crawford, who returned to talking to the cashier now that Mulder's tank was full.

Damn decent of the clone to at least pick up the tab for the gas.

They'd taken two cars, Crawford's battered Chevy pickup in front of them, the back covered with a tarp to protect his few possessions. He and Scully were in the same car they'd rented for the case in Lake Gaston, a black sedan that was too big and too cushy and reminded him of the cars that precede a hearse when a funeral procession crosses before you at a light. The only good thing he could say for it was that the backseat was large enough for them to sleep in -- one at a time -- as they'd alternated driving through the night.

Mulder had taken his jacket off, down to his white dress shirt with the tie long since abandoned in the back seat, his black dress pants rumpled from curling up in the back.

Rain was blowing now, getting under the overhang, so he snapped the gas cap back on, hurried back around to the driver's side of the car, and climbed into the car's relative warmth.

"All set," he said, trying his best to sound like this was just another drive in another state for another case. "You sure you don't want coffee or something to eat?"

"I'm fine, Mulder," she said, quiet.

It was amazing how little they'd said, even though they'd been driving for almost 10 hours now, finally out of the West Virginia mountains that seemed haunted with fog and deer. In some places, it had been all he could do to simply keep his eyes on Crawford's taillights, the two red orbs looking at him all night like eyes.

He reached over and put his hand on top of both of hers, which were folded on the dark cloth of her jacket, her hands clinging to one another. They were cold beneath his palm.

"Scully, go back to sleep. We've got a long way before we stop."

If he thought she would allow it, he would have leaned over and said it softly into her ear, his arm around her taut shoulders. He would have punctuated it with a kiss. It wasn't like him to do such things, though he wasn't sure what was "like him" with her anymore.

Was it the two of them in a car, badges dangling from jacket lapels, the fencing about ordinary things like belief and disbelief?

Or was it her beneath him, his body pushing into her again and again, her

hand coming up to stroke his sweat-soaked hair from his forehead, and then to smooth her fingertip over his lips?

He had never held someone for an hour without moving after lovemaking, the way he'd done in his apartment after she'd come to his bed. He had never awoken to find someone simply watching him sleep as she'd done in Lake Gaston, the second room they'd paid for empty, its bed still tightly made.

He'd opened his eyes, seen her there, her eyes shining, and told her he loved her. This time, she believed him. This time she told him she loved him in return.

There in the car, though, she shook her head, he assumed in answer to his offer of sleep. Then she reached down and unclicked her seatbelt.

"I'm going to ride with him for awhile," she said, opening the door. "I want to know what this is all about."

He nodded, watched her get out and gently close the door. He watched her dark-clad form move toward the passenger side of the pickup and climb in, just as Crawford came trotting out through the rain with a Styrofoam cup of coffee and a white bag to climb in the driver's seat and slam the creaking door as he folded himself inside. The pickup coughed to life.

Mulder started the car, looking at the two dark silhouettes in the cab in front of him. He jammed it into drive, the windshield wipers waving in his view.

St. Louis was where they were stopping, Crawford had said. He had someone to meet.

Ten more hours to go.

****

INTERSTATE 64

NEAR FRANKFORT, KENTUCKY

9:10 a.m.

Three hours and she'd learned next to nothing. She knew that The Crawford (as she called him in her mind) ate donuts -- jelly, glazed -- and that he seemed to have every album Peter Gabriel had ever made. The truck, while dilapidated on the outside, was meant for comfort on the inside. CD player, a case that attached to the dash that held maps from what seemed like every state in the U.S., bottled water tucked into grocery bags in the scant space behind the seat.

She glanced at the maps again, at the names on the corners. Alberta. British Columbia. A map of the city of Quebec.

She'd asked him when they'd driven away from the truck plaza if he was playing some sort of game. He smiled in that kind way he had, and shook his head.

"No, Agent Scully," he said. "This isn't a game."

She'd felt anger spike then, a flush on her face. "Not a game?" she said, her voice going quieter, but edged like a blade. "One of you appears out of nowhere after all this time --

apparently having no trouble knowing where we are ñ and tells us that Mulder's about to be killed to save someone, and tells us nothing about who this person is, or where we're going exactly, or why the person *must* be saved. You don't find that a bit like a game?"

They swung onto the highway, Mulder's headlights blurring in the rain behind them, the windshield wipers slapping away the rain as the truck growled to pick up speed. He glanced over at her when he was secure in the traveling lane.

"I didn't force either of you to go anywhere. He could have chosen to stay in Virginia. You both could have stayed. If I'd forced you along, then I could believe that. But you decided to come on your own."

She shook her head, glaring out the window. He hadn't answered the question. And he was right, too, which galled her all the more.

"You knew we would go with you," she stated flatly.

The wipers tapped out a few beats. "Yes," he replied.

"Because of what you supposedly know about what will happen? Because of what you told us at the motel? Or because of what you know from one of you having met us before?"

She looked back at him in the gray light as morning struggled through the rain.

He kept his eyes on the road. "Yes," he said again, and tapped the track select on the CD player, which started the light, incongruent intro to "Solsbury Hill."

She shook her head in frustration and lapsed into quiet, leaned her head against the window, meaning only to close her eyes for a moment, to rest them from the hypnosis of the white and yellow lines. She was so tired—

The next thing she knew there were signs for Lexington and the outskirts of the city, and the rain had broken into a crisp and clear fall-like day.

Glancing at the side mirror, she could see Mulder behind them, his face expressionless.

She could see his fingers on the steering wheel's top.

She turned to Crawford, who looked less rumpled now that his hair had dried. He looked content and yet somehow serious, his ginger hair smoothed back. He didn't look tired at all, and when he glanced at her, his eyes seemed to be taking her in, sizing up how she looked and how she seemed to feel. The concern made her a bit uncomfortable, the kindness feeling like some strange intrusion on her privacy in the small space.

"Good nap?" he asked.

She didn't respond. His constant attempts at being polite grated on her.

She kept looking at him, though. At the way his eyes were wide and blue and set deep in his face.

"I want you to tell me what's going to happen to Mulder," she said, pinning him with both her eyes and the question. She'd hoped to rattle him with her directness, but his expression didn't change a bit.

He glanced back. The nose. The curl of his upper lip. The paleness of his skin.

"I've told you," he said.

"How does it happen?" she pushed, anger in her voice. The set of his shoulders. The slight but strong build--

"I don't know exactly," The Crawford said, unruffled by the tone in her voice or her gaze. "And even if I did, I'm not sure I would say."

"You'll tell us that he's going to die, you'll tell us he's going to sacrifice himself for someone else, but you wouldn't tell us *how* so that we might prevent it from occurring in the first place?"

His hands were small, like Charlie's. Strong and delicate as a potter's hands.

He looked back, and now he seemed sad. "I wouldn't allow you to prevent it, Agent Scully," he said.

She blew out a breath, pushed her hair back from her face. "There might be a way to save them both," she blurted out. "Why would you keep me from at least *trying*--"

"You can't save him," The Crawford interrupted. "Not this time."

"But if what you say is true and I--" She couldn't even say it. It caught in her throat. "If I can't--" She couldn't say it. She would not believe it enough to give it shape in her

mouth.

"You can't save him, Agent Scully." He looked at her with regret. "You can't take his place."

She fought the tears that were behind her eyes, borne of frustration and pain and something else, something that made her swallow hard as she looked at The Crawford's profile again, his hand as he tapped the CD up again. ("Accepting all I've done and said, I want to stand and stare again…")

"I know who you are," she said quietly, and her voice caught as if on an errant thread.

He looked over at her, smiled again.

"Yes."

The tears welled, and she reached a hand up to cover her lips.

He reached out into the space between them as if to touch her, but she turned her face toward the window and pulled her hand away.

*****

INTERSTATE 64

OUTSIDE MT. VERNON, ILLINOIS

12:50 p.m.

Scully had said she wanted to be alone, and given their circumstances, the only way to accomplish this was for Mulder to, albeit it reluctantly, ride with Crawford from Louisville through the flattest country he'd ever seen in his life. Southern Illinois was one giant field ready for plowing or planting, the occasional stray tree inexplicably left standing in the middle of hundreds of acres of farm land standing out against the flat horizon. The trees and the farmhouses and barns in the distance were the only break in the landscape.

It was like a dead-flat-calm sea.

Crawford was eating a hamburger they'd picked up at a Jack-in-the-Box at a pit stop for bathroom and fuel 20 miles back. Mulder had downed half of his in a couple of bites, and it had immediately begun some angry dialogue with his innards. He was getting too old for haring off and driving all night.

He rubbed the front of his shirt absently, watching Scully in the sideview mirror. She was following them closely, and she'd stopped wiped the skin below her eyes. He hoped this meant she'd stopped the crying she'd been doing off and on for the last hour.

"Stomach bothering you?" Kurt Crawford asked, nodding toward the glove compartment. "I've got some Tums."

"Nah, I'm all right," Mulder said gruffly. He had an overwhelming urge to punch the sonofabitch, just in case he'd said something to make Scully cry. It would have accomplished nothing, though, except to show how much protective he'd become since he and Scully had become lovers, and Scully wouldn't appreciate the sentiment or the display of it. So he kept his peace.

He shifted in his seat, turning to face Crawford a bit. Crawford was still chewing away on the Super Double with Cheese.

"So…" he began. "How many of you are there anyway?" They'd been in and out of awkward silences since Mulder had gotten in the car with him when they'd crossed out of

Kentucky, and this seemed a good way to start small talk with a clone.

Crawford guffawed, choking a bit on the bite he'd taken. "You mean total, or how many are left?"

Mulder shrugged. "Both."

Crawford swallowed the bite he had taken. "I don't know how many of me were made, to be honest. A lot, I know. Many more than the Samantha Base. More than the Pritchard Base."

The Samantha Base. Mulder stared, and he could feel his face going white.

"Why…why more of you?" he asked, doing his best to sound nonchalant and failing. His voice sounded there was wind blowing through the words as he spoke.

"I was the most stable," he said. "They found the least amount of cell degradation on each round of the Make."

The strange terms slid off Crawford's tongue as though the two of them were discussing the previous night's Redskin's game. "Base" and "Make."

"Ah." It was all Mulder could think to say. "So how many of you are left then?"

Crawford smiled with a strange pride and held up one finger. "You're looking at him."

Not them, but "him." Somewhere along the way, Mulder thought, Crawford had gone from being a "Base" to being…well, Crawford. Kurt Crawford. One of a kind. Almost human, if "one of kind" was any indicator of what that meant.

Like laughter, Mulder thought. Like that smile.

"What happened to all the others?" He didn't want to ask about the Samantha Bases. Maybe there was only one of them left, as well? Maybe Crawford knew where she (it?) could be found…

Crawford didn't answer right away. His hand came down and back to the steering wheel. He wasn't smiling anymore.

"They abandoned the cloning operation long ago, Agent Mulder," he said. "I would think you'd have surmised that. It wasn't having the desired effect, and the similarity in our various appearances was drawing too much attention. The cloning tanks were too hard to find. The breeding programs were too risky. When the Consortium was found and eliminated, so were we."

"So what the hell are you doing driving around with me listening to 'Shock the Monkey'?" Mulder asked.

He meant it to be amusingly gruff. Two guys just shooting the shit, you know. About 80's music and cloning and something that smacked of the end of the world.

"I told you," Crawford said, keeping his head straight ahead.

"Yeah, I know. I'm about to die and you know all about it. Scully's immortal and you know all about that, too." He tried to sound bored. He was anything but.

Crawford tapped the CD player and wadded up the paper of his burger, driving for a second with his knees.

He asked Mulder to loot around for a bottle of water in the back, and Mulder complied, glad to have something to do.

When Crawford had taken the cap off his bottle and taken a swig, Mulder swallowed, started to ask, swallowed again.

"There are no more of her," Crawford offered, saving him the trouble. He looked at Mulder in the strain of silence that followed. "I'm sorry."

Mulder nodded. "They killed all of her, too?" he asked, his voice quiet, the bravado vanishing like mist in bright light.

Crawford shook his head. "No," he said. "They stopped making her years ago. She was deemed 'unreliable' as a Base."

"'Unreliable'?" Mulder asked. "What does that mean?"

"She was a bad model," Crawford said softly, admiration on his face. He looked at Mulder. "She couldn't be controlled. She destroyed tanks with other clones like her in them. And then she kept running away."

Mulder swallowed again. He nodded, and his lip curled with something like Crawford's admiring smile.

They passed an exit for Mt. Vernon, a sign for St. Louis white-on-green, clouds in the sky ahead of them, the horizon a straight thread of blue that met the horizon's blank line.

Scully was wiping her face again, but her expression, even in miniature in the mirror to his right, looked angry and resolved and set.

St. Louis, with sixty miles to go.

*****

THE BLUE NOTE

ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI

7:30 p.m.

After Kurt Crawford had left them with a promise to meet them at the Radisson by the airport the following morning to continue on their way, they'd tried to act like tourists, taking the strange capsule elevators to the top of the St. Louis Arch, the Gateway to the West. Mulder had tried to scare her by telling her that if she stood still at the top, the view of St. Louis beautiful despite the rain, that she could feel the wind moving them, the floor beneath her slightly swaying. He tried again and again to make her laugh, and she tried.

She really did.

In the end, they found a restaurant filled with dark wood booths with candles, a trio of men -- piano, saxophone, standup bass -- playing old jazz. They tucked themselves into the back. Mulder spent more than she'd ever seen him spend on the most extravagant things on the menu, and they had wine, a red from Australia that seemed nearly mulled as she held it in her mouth.

The waiter came by to check on them, an amiable man in his 20s who looked like every college student Scully had ever seen who worked as a waiter: white dress shirt, black pants, shoes that needed a shine. He looked like Mulder had earlier before he'd changed into a black sweater and the jeans she'd always loved on him, the ones so faded the back pocket had frayed.

"How we doing over here, folks?" the young man asked -- Shore, his nametag said, and though she pitied the name, he wore it well.

"We're good," Mulder said softly, looking through the halo of candlelight at her to make sure he hadn't spoken too soon. Even though he'd done it for as long as she'd known him, something felt strangely intimate about the gesture here.

Perhaps, she realized, looking down to delicately cut another bulb of lobster from the tail, it had always felt that way.

"You all locals?" Shore asked. "I don't remember seeing you in here before."

"No," Mulder said, moving his glass over so that Shore could refill it, the bottle crushing down in the wine bucket at the end of the booth when he returned it with a flare. "We're…visiting."

"You all look like you're on your honeymoon," Shore said. Scully felt her cheeks go a touch red. She put the delicious meat in her mouth and chewed.

"Yeah," Mulder said, surprising her. She looked at him in surprise. "It's our honeymoon."

Shore nodded. "Congratulations," he said, beaming. "The bottle of wine's on the house."

He drifted off toward other tables as Mulder thanked him, and Mulder watched him go, a soft smile on his face.

"You said 'yes' to get the wine for free, I assume," she said, teasing, arching a brow at him as he looked back at her. His eyes seemed black in the candlelight.

He shook his head. "No," he said softly. "I guess…I just wanted him to know it *was* an occasion."

"Is it?" she asked. Something in how he said it burst the bubble of Forget she'd hidden herself in. There was something sad in it, mixed with equal parts love and regret.

"Yeah," he said. "I think it is." He ran his fingertip on the rim of the wineglass, his steak long gone.

Scully sat her fork down, her knife. "What did he say to you today?" she asked.

"What do you mean?" He looked up from where his eyes had been focused on the rim.

"I mean that I don't think you believed him when we left Virginia, even though we decided to follow him. I don't think you believed what he said about either one of us. But I think you do now."

The way the candle threw such dim light, the quiet of the restaurant, they seemed like the only two people on earth.

"I don't know what I believe," he said softly. "But I think I could say the same thing about you, you know. That you think he's right."

"Why do you say that?" she asked, going for her glass. She hoped it sounded incredulous, but she missed and hit "uncertain" instead.

"It's how you look at me." She could not describe what she heard in his voice.

Her eyes took in his face. "How do I look at you?"

Mulder gave her a wry half smile. "Like you're trying to memorize what I look like. In case you don't see me again."

She felt something catch in her throat that the wine had to get around. She could tell by the way the candlelight's halo grew larger, split at the edges, that tears had come into her eyes.

"I've always looked at you like that, Mulder," she said. She couldn't believe she'd said it aloud. She felt something light in her chest, fluttering there.

His eyes grew even darker, his smile more soft. "I want to take you home," he said in a voice she'd never heard him use.

"'Home?'" she asked, nearly a whisper.

"Any home we can find tonight," he replied, and she nodded.

"Yes."

Mulder leaned out to catch Shore's eye for the check.

**

Rain gone, the city was gleaming with lights by the time they got to the hotel, the eighteenth floor view lovely and quiet, cars moving silently far below along the streets, the winking eyes of planes on approach to safe passage on the ground passing over the cityscape.

They didn't close the drapes. They didn't turn on any lights beyond the small, dim lamp on one side of the bed that had been on when they came in and set down their bags inside the door, their coats across the neatly made bed with its dark comforter and white sheets.

The first time they'd made love, only two months and a some before, she had undressed beside the bed, her eyes on the play of muscle in his back as he faced away from her and slept.

The second time, she had joined him in the shower after the bust case at Lake Gaston, the two of them ending up in the motel's too-soft bed in the darkness, all hands and the rustle of sheets and soft, deep breath.

This time, he undressed her himself.

This time, when he took the cardigan and T-shirt she'd been wearing, the sweater closed with delicate buttons that looked like pearls, when he cupped her breasts in his palms and felt the warmth of her through the bra's fine mesh, he saw exactly what this cost her, to open herself to him this way. He saw it in the way her eyes went wide as he touched her. He felt it in the soft grip on his wrists as he pushed her black pants down.

He felt her give herself over to it when she stepped closer and put her arms around his neck to draw him down for a long kiss.

His stomach trembled beneath her hand as her warm fingers moved across it to pull the sweater up. He didn't mean to do it, but he held his breath when she touched the waist of his jeans.

Finally, the moon coming out through the window, he sat on the edge of the bed, his hands on her waist, his eyes taking in her body in the soft light. She was trembling, and without asking he reached over and lifted his black trench he'd thrown across the bed and held it up for her. As she put it on, he ran his hands over her bare body. Breasts. Belly. Hips…

As she moved onto his lap he pressed a kiss just above her navel, his teeth grazing her skin as she shuddered, his hands guiding her hips, his grip soft and sure.

Then his arms were around her back, his lips moving from her sternum to the soft skin of her breast. He pulled her hard against him, close. He breathed her in.

A moan caught in her exhale, his lips against her throat, her body pressing him in. Her hands went from his hair to the edge of the long black coat, and once he was inside, she draped it around them like warm dark wings.

*****

INTERSTATE 70

NEAR YOCEMENTO, KANSAS

OCTOBER 21

3:02 a.m.

They'd switched off cars again at midnight and Mulder was driving since he and Scully had noticed that Crawford had begun to weave. Clones were apparently human enough to laugh, and they were also human enough to sleep.

Mulder had the window down, a cold air just bracing enough to keep him awake, his gaze darting back and forth from the rearview mirror to the road ahead. Scully had slept for a bit since dinner, having driven during the day while he'd napped. She was still right behind them, the pickup and the sedan the only two cars for as far as he could see.

Beside him, Crawford slept against the window, his arms crossed over his chest. He looked impossibly young in the dashboard light, which, Mulder thought, he was. He didn't understand why the clones were all frozen at certain ages. He found he didn't really wish to know.

A deer careened through the headlights, a flash of a doe's tan side, flash of white on her legs. Mulder swerved to avoiding hitting her, over into the left lane and then back again. Water bottles and two of the maps -- one of Missouri, one of Kansas -- skid off the dashboard into Crawford's lap.

The clone had startled awake with the motion, his arms out to his sides, his eyes open like it was he who'd been caught in the headlights.

"What--?"

"Deer," Mulder said. Scully had flashed the lights behind them and he waved to let her know everything was all right.

Crawford nodded, sat up straighter in his seat belt, wiped his eyes. "Where are we?" he asked.

"No idea," Mulder said. "West Jesus, Kansas."

"Still Kansas?" Crawford coughed to clear his throat.

Mulder nodded. "About halfway through now, I think."

"We need to not stop as much," Crawford said. "We're behind on time."

Mulder laughed. "Yeah, God knows I'd hate to not be there when I'm supposed to be *killed.* I'd hate to still be on the way and miss out on the whole thing."

Crawford chuffed. "Yeah," he said, and he seemed nervous.

"That was a joke, Crawford," Mulder said, looking over him. "Unless you know something else you're not telling that you'd like to share with the class, what I said doesn't make any sense."

Crawford looked out the window. "I can't explain it to you, I'm sorry. You'll just have to trust me that we need to make better time."

Mulder nodded. "Of course, of course," he said, and he felt himself getting pissed. "I'll trust you. By all means." He gave a bitter laugh.

"You don't trust me, Agent Mulder?" Crawford said carefully.

"No, I don't."

Mulder could hear the smile in Crawford's reply. "Then why are you out here with me? You and Agent Scully? Why did you come at all?"

"Because," Mulder began, "after all this time, one of you showing up has to mean *something.* That's my best guess. You have to know something about what the Consortium was doing -- what they might still be doing -- and that's worth driving across the country to see."

"You don't believe I'm telling you the truth about you and about Agent Scully?"

The question hung in the cab. Mulder rolled up the window, since he found he was suddenly cold.

"I don't know about any of that," he said, reaching for a new CD. Bob Segar. The only other one that they hadn't already heard on this stretch of the drive.

"You're lying." The bluntness of the response surprised Mulder, and he turned to look at the younger man.

"You've always known you would have to sacrifice yourself for this search you've been on," Crawford continued. "And you knew that it would be someone like me -- someone who was part of it -- who would show you how you'd do that. You think that by dying for it, you'll finally win."

"I don't give a rat's ass about the Consortium. They're dead and gone. What I care about is--"

"--Agent Scully," Crawford finished for him, pissing Mulder off even more.

"That's none of your fucking business." Mulder pressed down on the gas, and the pickup gathered speed, topping 80, leaving Scully a bit further behind.

"She is my business. She's--"

"Don't even say it," Mulder cut him off. "I don't want to hear it from you. I want you to leave her alone, all right? I don't want you saying another thing to her about any of this."

"You've known for a long time about what happened to her with Alfred Fellig," Crawford said, his voice gaining urgency and speed. "You knew then. She survived a gunshot wound to the belly and she shouldn't have lived. That's what the doctors told you."

"Shut up," Mulder spat at him.

"And they said that she'd somehow healed from it faster than anyone they'd ever seen, didn't they?"

"Shut up!" Mulder repeated, his voice rising.

"She doesn't have a scar on her body, does she, Agent Mulder?" Crawford said, sounding angry himself now. "You've made love to her and you know that's true."

"GODDAMN YOU SHUT UP!"

He swerved onto the shoulder, slamming on the brakes. The pickup skid on some loose gravel, the seatbelt straining as everything in the cab flew toward the dash as they stopped.

"You sonofabitch!" Mulder said, turning to Crawford, his finger in the clone's face. "Don't you EVER--"

"I love her, too!" Crawford shouted back. "You're not the only one--"

"You can't love a fucking thing," Mulder shouted. "You're not even real. You're not human!"

"I'm as human as she is," Crawford said softly, breathing hard.

"You're exactly HALF as human as she is!" Mulder roared. "And don't you fucking

forget that!"

Crawford blanched. "I'm sorry, Agent Mulder, but you're going to have to die for all this. As much as she's going to have to live."

Scully had pulled up right behind them, her headlights on bright, the car jerking to a halt. Mulder could hear her running from the car toward the driver's window, but it wasn't until she knocked that he broke Crawford's regretting gaze.

"Mulder?" she called, and he turned to her rolling down the window. "Mulder, what's wrong??"

He looked at her, her eyes bloodshot and wide and tired. Her breath was puffing out in the cold, her coat flapping open on a breeze. She pushed a strand of red hair from her eyes, looked to Crawford and then to him and back again.

"Nothing," Mulder said. "Sorry, Scully. I was just dozing off. It's time for me to get some sleep."

He unsnicked the seatbelt, pushed open the door. His body seemed to creak as he stood outside the truck, Scully stepping back as he stretched.

"Do you need me to drive you?" she asked Crawford, and Mulder touched her arm.

"No, he's fine," he said before Crawford could reply. "You drive until dawn, Scully. I'll sleep."

*****

INTERSTATE 70

OUTSIDE EAGLE, COLORADO

OCTOBER 23

3:05 a.m.

Right past mile marker 207, the lights of Denver far behind and mountains all around them, Scully finally broke down.

Mulder had been waiting for it, seeing the creases on her forehead, and the worried lines between her eyes getting deeper and deeper, her lips thinning. She was sleeping fitfully when she did; he had listened half the day to her turning in the back, muttering something to herself. When he'd climbed into the back to sleep (each of them trading off as the sedan and the pickup needed gas or restrooms or food and drink), he noticed she didn't turn on the radio anymore, didn't hum or speak to him even when she knew he was still

awake.

It was only a matter of time, he knew, and mile marker 207 proved to be that time.

He'd been lying in the back, watching the stars through the side window with his arm across his forehead, when he heard the sound, like a hum at first, then higher-pitched, a keen.

She must have jerked her foot off the gas because the car lurched from its smooth pace, and then she sounded like she was choking, as though the sob was caught dangerously in her throat.

He sat up quickly, his hand on her shoulder. "Scully?" he asked, and he could feel her shaking beneath his hand. She leaned forward over the steering wheel, the car jerking to the left.

"Okay," he said quickly. "Scully, it's okay…you're okay…just pull over. Pull over on the shoulder. That's it. Over to the right. That's it…"

They were on the shoulder then, and Scully was gasping for air, her hands so tight on the steering wheel that he could hear her skin squeaking on the plastic. When the car stopped, she grabbed for her seatbelt, the same choking sound coming from her, the misery of it…

She pushed the door open, one hand on her mouth and the other over her middle. She lurched out of the car as he got the passenger door open and bolted from the car after her.

"Scully, it's all right," he tried, going to where she'd hunched over on the side of the shoulder where the road gave way to ditch. He put a hand on her back as she moved her hand and began to vomit, choking out coughs and sobbing as she did.

"Okay…it's okay…" He stroked back her hair, an arm curled around her middle. He turned as he saw that Crawford had pulled over far up ahead and was backing the pickup down the shoulder back toward them.

He felt Scully wretch again beneath his arm, so hard that it hurt him just to think about what her body was trying to push out of her. He knew it would not succeed in ridding her of it. There was nothing to be done for grief.

"Oh God…" she said as she finished. "My God, Mulder…" He let her sink to her knees as she turned and faced him, covering her mouth. He followed her down.

"I can't do this," she said against him, her voice muffled in his coat. "I can't. I can't do this…"

He looked at the taillights coming back, the whine of the old truck in reverse. He looked at the night sky and the stars and their starlight. He could see the faint outline of

mountains and he could smell something like snow in the air.

"We're not going to do it," Mulder said to her, holding her against him, his lips against her hair.

"I can't--"

"We won't. We're not going to go where he wants us to."

"I won't let you die--"

He held her close to him. "I won't."

That seemed to quiet her for a moment, her breath still heaving in and out. They'd been driving for days now with only the night in Missouri for rest. They'd made love for so long and with such desperation that even there they'd barely slept.

"Are you afraid?" she asked in a whisper.

"Afraid of what?" he asked, rubbing her back.

"Of dying," she replied.

"Yes," he said plainly.

"Are you afraid of *not* dying, Mulder? For someone who should be saved?" It came out between sharp inhales.

"Yes," he said again. Crawford was almost there now, the truck's brakes squeaking as he slowed. "Almost as much as you are of living forever. You are, aren't you?"

She nodded against him. "More than I can say."

Crawford was out of the truck, trotting back toward them. "Is she okay?" he called. Mulder looked at the clone coming toward them, the anguish in his expression. "Tell me she's okay."

The young man really did love her. Mulder could see it on his face.

"She's all right, Kurt," he called. "She's just too tired, you know? Too much time on the road and not enough decent food and not enough rest."

Crawford stopped a few feet from them. "Okay," he said. "I'm sorry, Agent Scully. We're nearly there, though. It's just over the border. There are only two, maybe three, hours to go."

Scully looked up from Mulder's chest, at Crawford and then into Mulder's face. He was shocked at how pale she was, how stark her eyes were, even in the vehicles' lights.

He looked into her eyes as she met his gaze.

"Can you make it, Agent Scully?" Crawford asked, sounding desperate.

She looked at him and Mulder nodded. She did, as well.

"Yes," she called to Crawford. "I can make it."

Mulder helped her to her feet, smoothing down her coat. He looked up at Crawford.

It would be the last time they would speak.

"We're right behind you, Crawford," he said.

"You sure she's all right?" the clone asked, looking stricken.

"I'm fine," Scully said. She knew it, as well. She was looking at Crawford with that way she had. The memorizing. The grief.

"Let's go," Mulder said to him. "We want this over. We want it done."

*****

INTERSTATE 70

THE TURNOFF TO CISCO, UTAH

6:18 a.m.

They'd watched as they crossed the border, both of their gazes on Crawford's truck as the sky turned from black to blue to pale. Scully had reached over and touched his thigh so that he'd move one hand off the steering wheel to take her hand, their grip desperate and tight.

Now that they were over the border, "Utah Welcomes You," she felt that she might turn and look at Mulder and find that he was somehow, impossibly, not there.

They were waiting for any sign of change from Crawford. They'd gotten gas before they'd crossed the border, and they would not stop with him again once they entered the state.

They watched his truck for any change. A stop. A turn. Another car. Some difference in the endlessness of the days of non-stop driving, mile on mile on mile.

That's why when he slowed at a turnoff to a rural highway headed south to a town called Cisco, Scully sat up straighter, her hand squeezing Mulder's even more tightly.

"That's it," he said, putting on his signal.

Scully nodded. She said nothing. She knew what they would do.

Mulder slowed almost imperceptibly, as if to better make the lazy turn onto the exit ramp, but it put more distance between Crawford and them. Crawford hit the exit ramp, climbing toward the road at the end.

Mulder seemed to take the turn, then, at the last moment, he jerked the wheel to the left, heading back onto the deserted highway, his foot laying on the gas. The car roared, picking up speed.

Scully spun around to see Crawford putting on his brakes at the stop sign at the ramp's end. She saw his head jerk toward them. Then they were gone.

There was a turnaround for emergency vehicles about 50 feet away, and Mulder pulled into the left lane, slowing as they neared it. The tires still squealed as they took it, Mulder whipping the car around as quickly as the sedan could manage and peeling them out headed east.

"Goodbye Utah," he muttered under his breath, gunning the engine. She couldn't help but smile, though it vanished in another 100 feet as she looked to their left.

"He's following," she said, tensing even more as they passed the exit to Cisco, the one that Crawford was backing down, weaving as he did in his haste to reach the interstate again.

"He won't catch us. Trust me." As if for punctuation, he pressed the gas down even more.

There was no one on the highway, the road the most desolate she'd ever seen. It was early, dawn just on.

They could make time. They could make it back.

Ten miles passed. Twenty. Forty more to the border and he'd be safe, she thought. Forty more…

Twenty miles to go was when she saw the cars. One behind them and one in front. Heading toward them. On the wrong side of the road. Straight toward them.

"What the--?" Mulder took his foot off of the gas, changed lanes. "Drunk?"

When he moved to the right lane, the oncoming car did the same. Heading toward them again.

"No," Scully said, shaking her head, her eyes going wide. "Not drunk."

The car behind was gaining speed, as well. She could see it in the side mirror.

No choice, she thought. They'd never had any choice.

"Shit," Mulder said, coming to the same conclusion.

There was another emergency turnaround.

"Mulder, turn," she bit out. "Turn around and go back."

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah," and he gunned the engine more to get to it in time. The oncoming car sped up, as well.

They were silent, the sound of the engine all they could hear. Scully looked at the car ahead of them. It was close enough now to see that there was only one person inside. The

driver. Big. A man.

She gauged the distance. She squeezed Mulder's hand.

"We're not--"

**

--going to make it.

Mulder finished her thought for her in his own mind.

If he slowed to take the turn, the car would be on them. Worse, if he tried to take it, the right side of the car would be facing the oncoming car. Scully would take the brunt of the hit on the passenger side. She wouldn't survive it. She wouldn't…

He thought all this in an instant, the thoughts tumbling like water.

One choice.

He slammed on the brakes, swerved to the right toward the shoulder and its gravel, a deep ditch and then the flat expanse of high desert starting where the pavement ended.

"Mulder!" she cried. "What--?"

The anti-lock brakes stuttered, but the car stopped in a cloud of dust. The oncoming car revved and swerved toward its target.

In one motion he pulled his seatbelt off, lurched across the seat.

He grabbed the buckle of her belt and detached it.

He pulled the handle of the door.

And with every ounce of strength he possessed, he grabbed her arm and shoulder, threw his weight against her and shoved, sending her tumbling out of the side and into the ditch.

He didn't look up as he heard the engine screaming toward him. He simply lay where she'd been.

He felt nothing as the car slammed into the sedan and sent it flying, the last thing he saw the dash as it came crashing toward his face.

****

6:55 a.m.

Kurt Crawford had finally caught up to them, following the trail of smoke from the wreck.

He slowed as he approached the scene, no one there yet. No police, no ambulance. Nothing this far away from any town or any place. No one except the blue station wagon with Missouri plates that he knew would be there.

Off on the shoulder, he parked behind it. He got out, covering his mouth and nose against the smell of things burning, the thick black smoke of tires on fire.

The cars had slammed into each other with such impact that they were indistinguishable in their burning hulk, flames still lingering here and there from where the gas tanks had exploded. As he walked by them, Crawford saw the body of the driver of one burned to a cinder, his teeth set in a perpetual grin.

Reaching into his pocket, he took out a silver instrument, touched a button hidden on its side. The stiletto point, like an ice pick, hissed into place.

He stood by the driver's side, the window shattered on the door, the windshield gone, and looked at the burnt form in front of him.

It turned its head and looked back. Its hand began to move, slowly, full of the creature's version of pain.

Crawford reached in quickly, careful of the heat and metal and glass. He brought the stiletto down with enough force to enter the charred skull of the being, the creature freezing, his mouth with its teeth opening in what looked like surprise.

The next thing Crawford heard was the hissing, the Bounty Hunter dissolving, his bones going to green fluid and mist.

He closed the stiletto and put it back in his pocket. He pulled his jacket closer around him and headed toward the ditch.

The owner of the station wagon was kneeling beside two forms he had laid side by side on the shoulder.

He stood as Crawford approached, his kind face wearing a faint smile.

"Kurt," he said.

"Hello, Mr. Smith." He reached out and the two shook hands.

"How are they?" he asked, looking down at Mulder and Scully on the ground, both of them unconscious, Scully's face turned toward Mulder, blood dried on her lips.

"They're fine," Smith said. "Though getting to Mulder while he was still alive…I barely made it here in time. And as you can see, I can bring the flesh back from all that fire, but the clothes..."

Crawford chuffed. Jeremiah had covered Mulder with a blanket, Mulder's bare chest showing above the utility blanket. His face was serene, his hair ruffling in the cold Utah breeze.

"We knew it was a risk, that you wouldn't be able to get here to save him," Crawford replied. "I pushed them both as much as I dared."

"He suffered terribly," Jeremiah said, shaking his head and nodding toward the wreck. "I can't imagine."

Crawford nodded. "We knew he would." He looked down at Scully. "She's bleeding," he said.

"Yes," Smith replied, and knelt down again. He touched her face, his thumb going over her lips. The blood disappeared.

"She's all right now," he said. "Nasty fall."

Crawford looked at him quickly. "The baby?"

Smith reached his hand down to her belly, his hand smoothing over her waist

and resting there. "He's fine. Just as we'd planned."

Crawford nodded again. He looked back at where the Bounty Hunter had been, the one they knew had been sent to destroy the child Scully carried, the being they knew would

have succeeded without their intervention to flush the shape-shifter out into the open in a relatively remote place.

Scully was impossible to protect in the teeming city where she lived. The Bounty Hunter would have succeeded without their machinations.

And, in the end, without Mulder and his terrible -- and wonderful -- choice.

"Thank you for your help, sir," he said to Smith, and Smith rose and again took his hand.

"You have no need to thank me, Kurt," he said. "We all have our part, and we do what we must."

Crawford shifted uncomfortably.

"What is it?" Smith asked.

"She wants to die," he replied softly.

Smith raised an eyebrow, and Crawford smiled.

"I know. I don't understand it. But she does. Not today, but…someday. Can we give her that, as well?"

Smith nodded. "We needed to know she would live to give this child life," he said. "But after that, we will give that to her, if that's what she wants."

Crawford looked down and whispered his thanks.

Sirens were echoing from far away, and both men looked up toward the sound, miles away but closing.

"I called 911 to make sure they were found before the cold set in," Smith said. "We'd best be on our way."

He smiled. "Good luck to you, Kurt."

"To you, as well," Kurt replied.

And with that, Smith moved off, back toward the station wagon. He climbed in and backed up to clear the wreck, then drove away.

Crawford listened to the sirens, looking down at Scully.

He knelt over her, running a hand through her hair to smooth it away from her face. There were tears coming, and he blinked them away. Reaching over to the sleeping Mulder, Crawford covered him to his chin, then pulled the other half of the blanket over onto Scully, tucking it around her, his palm stopping on her waist.

"Goodbye, Mother," he said softly, and leaned to her forehead, lingering long enough as the sirens drew nearer for a long, warm kiss.

END

****

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Thanks to Dani, Shari, Revely, dtg, and Nancy for reading along and for the betas. Thanks to you for reading along, as well.

1 November 2004