QUANTICO

Mulder rubbed his hands wearily over his face and sighed.

"I don't know, Scully. I really don't know."

"Do you still believe that Krycek killed Willig because he murdered Grissom?" she asked softly.

"Yes."

"And that Krycek is living proof of the experiments?"

"Yes."

"But you just let him go?"

"I was alone with him Scully. He threatened me; I ran. When I got back with Doggett, he'd already left Arveda. He took enough Seratonin with him to lie low for a long time. I've put an APB out on him, but it's unlikely he'll be picked up. He's too smart, too *talented* to be caught. Somehow, he must have also broken into our car while we were looking for him inside. The report I'd left under my seat was gone."

"Krycek threatened you?" Scully questioned carefully. She wasn't sure why, but something in Mulder's posture suggested that there had been far more to the meeting than Mulder was admitting.

Mulder flushed and avoided her eyes.

"He's a dangerous an..man," Mulder said, defensively.

"Which is exactly why you shouldn't have seen him alone," Scully snapped. "Without him, you've got nothing."

"There's other evidence," Mulder pointed out.

Scully shook her head sadly.

"Not any more. Someone broke into my office. Went through my files, my computer. . .I came as soon as security called but the report was all ready gone."

"Was it Krycek?"

"Couldn't have been," she replied. "It happened while you were at Arveda with him."

"So someone else wants to keep this a secret and whoever it is probably has different reasons for covering it up than he does. He's just trying to survive. Whoever broke into your office is probably the reason Krycek needs to keep running and unless we can bring them down, Krycek's never going to trust us enough to admit what he's become."

"Without that report as evidence, Skinner’s not going to authorize an investigation," Scully pointed out. "So I doubt you'll see Krycek again."

"He said it’s never been more dangerous."

"Skinner?"

"No, the man who leaked us the report. The one who’s been helping us."

"You actually met with him?"

"He said that closing down the X-Files was just the beginning. That we’ve never been in greater danger. Krycek's the key, Scully. He's living proof of the potential of the human mind."

"Then whoever is trying to discredit us and destroy our work is most likely going to try and kill Krycek," Scully said thoughtfully.

"I know," Mulder whispered.

UNKNOWN LOCATION, WASHINGTON D.C.

"Do you know where he got this?"

Doggett looked at the smoking man with distaste. He was beginning to feel some serious doubts about his association with this man. It had seemed so black and white before he'd met Mulder. He could fully understand why the CIA would have approached him and advised him that Mulder's insane, one-man crusade was becoming a national security issue. That Mulder needed to be reined in or retired and that whoever was taking advantage of Mulder's gullibility and feeding him confidential documents needed to be found.

Only, despite Mulder's undoubted oddities and the fiasco at Arveda, Doggett was beginning to get the strange feeling that Mulder *was* one of the good guys, after all. A kook, admittedly, but not a fool.

Doggett was even beginning to wonder whether the shadowy smoking man was *really* CIA.  Still, he'd seen the smoker with Skinner, and Doggett trusted Skinner, so he was going to be cautious about pulling against his own leash.

Maybe he ought to ask Skinner what was really going on.

"Doggett, I asked you whether you knew where he got the file," the smoker snarled impatiently.

"Not yet. But he got it. Which means he’s either found another source, or another source has found him. Sir, if I can recommend something, you’ll see that I have outlined several counter measures in my report."

"What about Scully?" the smoking man demanded.

"Reassigning them to other areas seems to have only strengthened their determination. Scully’s a problem. A much larger problem than you described." 

/Not to mention a complete babe/ Doggett added silently, as he remembered the red-haired spitfire.

"Every problem has a solution," the smoking man replied coldly, putting out his cigarette and turning to leave.

Doggett shivered and narrowed his eyes at his employer's back.  He hadn't liked the way the smoker had said that. No, he hadn't liked it at all.

He had a sudden, frightening feeling that he was out of his depth here.

The one thing he *did* know, though, was that if it came to a choice between Scully and the smoker, the future sales of Morley's were going to be permanently affected.

MULDER'S APARTMENT. D.C.

"I want you. I *do* want you. I'm sorry I ran. Please.....please," Mulder groaned.

He writhed on the narrow couch, his fingers twisting inside his unbuttoned pants, perspiration dripping down his forehead and pouring like tears over his eyelids and down his flushed cheeks.

"Oh God, yeah, yeah. Touch me," he pleaded.  

For a moment his right hand moved with such clear purpose within his shorts that it seemed barely possible that he was only dreaming yet, despite the delirious tossing of his head and his ragged breathing, his eyes still twitched violently beneath sleeping lids. 

Then his mouth opened in a silent scream and his head tipped back, exposing his pale throat, as his swollen cock spurted an arc of semen over his trembling abdomen.

"Alex, oh, Alex," he sobbed quietly, then turned and snuffled into the back of the couch, dreaming that the soft fabric was a slick, black pelt.

On the other side of the long broken air-conditioning panel, the small black cat purred with satisfaction before it turned and slinked away, tail high in the air.

DAVIS CORRECTIONAL TREATMENT CENTER; MARION, VIRGINIA

Doctor Hakkie gave a small inaudible sigh, lay his pen down tiredly over his half-written report, composed his face into a smile and then rose to his feet as the guard led the restrained prisoner into his office.

"Hello, Duane. Nice to see you," he said pleasantly, as though he wasn't well and truly tired of repeating this same conversation over and over with the poor bastard.

"Nice to see you too, Doc," Barry replied easily.

The Doctor waved the guard out and waited until the door closed before returning his attention to his patient.

"How are you feeling today?" he asked carefully.

"Pretty good," Barry replied, with a nonchalant shrug.

"Why don't we sit down, Duane? I want to go over a few things with you."

"Now, uh, it says here that you've been refusing to take your medicine," he continued, once they were both seated.

"I don't like the way it makes me feel," Barry replied sullenly.

"Okay, all right, let's talk about that. Because we give you that medicine for a reason, Duane, because of your behavior," Hakkie explained patiently.

"I know, I know," Barry muttered.

"Because we don't want you to hurt anybody again."

This time Barry just gave a sullen nod.

"You're still hearing voices?" Hakkie queried lightly.

"I'm not crazy, Doc. Duane Barry's not like these other guys."

Hakkie sighed and shook his head sadly. "No, everybody here is different," he said carefully.

"They're coming again. They're coming again, I can feel it. They're going to take Duane Barry to this place," Barry gasped, his eyes widening with obvious panic.

Hakkie saw a thin bead of sweat forming above Barry's eyebrows and deliberately pitched his voice to a soft, reassuring tone.

"Nobody's coming, Duane."

Barry began to rock back and forth in his chair as though he hadn't heard.

"Nobody can stop them," he whimpered.

"I'm going to give you a shot," Hakkie stated, rising and approaching his desk. "I think you just need some rest."

While he was occupied in preparing the shot, Barry's own eyes narrowed in reflection as he saw the bright silver glint of Hakkie's pen still lying where he'd abandoned it.

"Now, this will make you sleep... and you'll wake up and you will see that we didn't let anybody hurt you. Okay, Duane?" Hakkie said.

Alerted by Barry's unusual silence, Hakkie looked up just in time to see Barry disappearing through the now open door.

"Duane?" he demanded, more confused than panicked at this stage.

It was only when he reached the door in time to witness Barry reach the end of the hall and stab the guard with his pen, that Hakkie felt the first chill of true fear, and when Barry reached down and retrieved the fallen guard's gun and began waving it towards the other patients, it took all of  Hakkie's courage not to give in to his panic. 

"Duane?" he called softly, only to freeze when Barry turned and aimed the gun in his face.

"Get away, get away."

Fear for the other residents, fear even for Barry himself, somehow gave Hakkie the strength to raise his arms and walk slowly towards the terrifying sight of a loaded gun in the hands of a terrified mad man.

"Put the gun down, Duane," he said gently

"Give me the keys."

"Duane," Hakkie pleaded, his eyes as compassionate as scared as they regarded his patient.

"Give me the damn keys," Duane demanded.

It was at that moment that the alarm went off, a deafening klaxon that rooted Hakkie to the spot. He half closed his eyes, terrified that the shock of the sudden noise would be enough to frighten Barry into firing. He cringed as Barry raced towards him.

"No, no," he begged.

Barry looked at him for a moment, eyes blank, finger trembling on the trigger, then a little sanity returned. He twisted the gun in his hand and struck Hakkie over the head with the butt of the weapon.

FBI HEADQUARTERS. WASHINGTON, D.C.

Doggett sighed, glanced down the length of the large indoor swimming pool, decided there was no point in trying to attract Mulder's attention from so far off and walked carefully down the wet tiles to where Mulder was swimming laps with the sure strokes of a regular swimmer.

Mulder reached the near end of the pool  just as Doggett walked up,  so he barely needed to raise his voice as he called out Mulder's name.

"Doggett?" Mulder replied with a puzzled frown, "what's up?

He pulled himself out of the water as Doggett replied.

"There's a situation going down. They want you out there right away."

Mulder just nodded and started to walk towards the changing rooms as though being interrupted mid-swim was a daily occurrence.

"What kind of situation?" he asked blandly.

"Hostage negotiation."

"And they want me?" Mulder asked, with obvious confusion.

"Yeah," Doggett drawled, oddly pleased that Mulder's mask of indifference had finally slipped.

"What for?" Mulder asked, picking  up his towel and beginning to dry himself.

"The guy escaped a mental institution. He's got four people at gunpoint in an office building," Doggett replied.

Mulder continued to look blank.

Doggett had to hide a smile as he added the punchline.

"He claims he's being controlled by aliens."

RICHMOND, VA.

The SWAT snipers were already in place by the time Mulder and Doggett arrived outside the travel agency where Barry had holed up with his hostages. They entered the control center where the negotiations commander, Lucy Kazdin, met their arrival with obvious relieved enthusiasm.

"His name's Duane Barry. He's armed with a nine millimeter Smith & Wesson handgun, one nine-round magazine. It is our belief he's prepared to use the gun and not afraid to die."

"What does he want?" Mulder asked, cutting to the chase.

"Safe passage for himself and his original hostage, a shrink named Hakkie." she replied.

"Passage to where?"

"He's bent on taking the Doctor with him to an alien abduction site, only he can't quite remember where the site is so he stopped at a travel agency."

Doggett snorted.

"Is he lucid?" Mulder asked, ignoring his partner.

"Yes, but he's off his medication so he's manic, ranting about scoop mark scars on his body, homing devices, and a lot of other nonsense."

"Like what?

"This whole alien abduction business, which I guess you know something about."

"Yeah, yeah, but I've never been in a hostage negotiation before," Mulder pointed out.

Doggett pretended to be interested in the conversation but found himself tuning out at the point that Mulder started demanding details about Barry's abduction experience.  Whenever he started to feel some genuine respect for the other Agent and start to doubt the smoking man's agenda,  Mulder would fall back on his Alien bullshit and Doggett would start feeling like a fool for doubting his original mission.

Still, maybe Agent Scully would turn up with some more unofficial help. The idea of seeing her again made all the rest of this crap almost seem worthwhile. 

Alex frowned.

This wasn't good. This wasn't good at all.

He slipped silently across one of the rooftops opposite the travel agency, startling one of the prone SWAT snipers so badly that the man almost dropped his rifle.

"Get out of here, mangy cat," the sniper hissed quietly, terrified the black cat's movement would draw attention to his hiding place. 

Alex's eyes blazed with offence. He padded up to the hapless man and sprayed him. Then he scooted away while the sniper choked and gagged for breath as the pungent stench of Tomcat filled his lungs.

Mangy cat indeed, Alex huffed, before settling on the ledge to stare down at the building below with narrow, thoughtful eyes.

"Are we going to have to sit like this all night?" a man asked.

Duane backhanded the hostage so violently that one of the female hostages gasped

"I told you to shut up," Barry growled.

"We all have families, for God's sake," she begged.

Eyes cold, Barry just rose to his feet and turned his back on her.

"Duane?" Hakkie called out. "Don't hurt anyone. Please?"

Barry strode over and grabbed him by the lapel. "I'm not going to hurt you, Doc. Because this time, you're going with Duane Barry so you can see what it's like... that it's real."

While Hakkie was still struggling to find an answer, the telephone rang.

FBI HEADQUARTERS; WASHINGTON, D.C.

Scully was watching the news report of the hostage situation when the phone rang..

"Scully," she snapped into the handset, without taking her eyes off the screen.

"It's me," Mulder's familiar nasal voice replied.  "I'm in Virginia."

"Yeah, I know. I've been watching it on TV."

"You have? How did you know I was here?" Mulder asked, his tone confused.

"I had a call from someone asking whether I knew what my 'damned fool of a partner was up to'," Scully replied dryly.

"We're not partners," Mulder interrupted sadly.

"That's what I told him. He didn't seem impressed."

"*Who* didn't?"

"He didn't give a name. He had the most incredible voice though. Not one you'd forget."

"Like raw silk?" Mulder gasped.

"Not what came to mind, but since you mention it, then yes," Scully replied, with a slight grin.

"Krycek," Mulder announced.

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"Then keep your eyes open, because I got the distinct impression he was watching the action first hand."

"He's here?"

"Yes. He also said that nothing is what it seems. That the media story is as much lie as truth."

"What's the media saying?" Mulder demanded.

"That an escaped mental patient is holding four people hostage in a travel agency."

"Krycek's right. What they're not telling you is that he's former F.B.I. who also claims to be an alien abductee. His name's Duane Barry. Look, Scully, I need your help. I need you to find out what happened to him. Anything, transcripts from therapy sessions, hypnotic regressions...anything about his abduction experience."

"Okay," she agreed.

He didn't answer.

"Mulder? MULDER?"

"Here," he whispered back. "The lights just went out here. I'll call you back."

And Scully heard the dial tone.

RICHMOND, VA.

What the FUCK?

Alex's eyes grew impossibly large as he watched Fox, *his* Fox, approaching the Travel Agency. 

What the hell was wrong with Mulder. Did he have a damn death wish? 

When the lights in the building had gone out and the bullets had started flying, Alex had grinned complacently and had waited for the body bags to be hauled out of the building. It was obvious to him that the SWAT team had decided to sacrifice the hostages and although, at some level, that pissed the hell out of him, Alex was just relieved that Fox wasn't going to be involved in the gun fight.

He didn't know *why* he'd become so obsessed with the Fibbie. He wasn't even sure he was going to do anything about it. He was more than capable of simply losing interest and walking away. He'd done it before. Ever since his 'change' he'd found it increasingly difficult to feel any deep emotions at all. Not even anger. Not even about having to move from Arveda. He wasn't happy about his enforced change of address, but he wasn't angry either. He missed the benefits of Dr. Jeffries' adoration, but preferred the challenge of new prey anyway.

Like Fox.

Which, when he thought about it, was probably why he was currently so pissed off.

Fox was *his*.

Whether or not he decided he actually wanted to play with him, he was damned sure he wasn't going to lose Fox to some damned psycho.

He closed his eyes and opened himself up to the 'nothing'.

He didn't have a name for the place. Didn't even know what the place was. All he knew was that when he was inside it, he could move people around as though they were just pieces on a chess board.

Only, this time, his eyes flashed open again as an impossible image flashed into his head and he realized that it hadn't been the SWAT team who had killed the lights after all.

Well, well, well.  It seemed there were *other* predators on the prowl today.

Alex hissed and arched his back, his tail stiffening as he prepared for battle.

Then he dove fearlessly back into the nothing to retrieve his errant Fox.

"Are you wearing a wire?" Barry asked suspiciously.

"No. We're just here to help," Mulder replied gently.

"Okay," Barry said, but patted them down regardless..

"Nobody's going to try anything, Duane," Mulder assured him. "We just want to make sure no one else gets hurt."

"Just do your business and get out," Barry snarled.

 "They want to work with you, Duane, but you got to work with them. Why not let the others go?" Mulder suggested quietly.

"Doc's going with me," Barry insisted.

"Then let the women go," Mulder said, with a casual shrug despite the whitening of Barry's knuckles against the trigger of the gun. "Were they here, Duane? The light... was that them?"

"Don't try and bullshit. Duane Barry."

"Well, we lost time. I checked my watch. Isn't that what happens? Time stops. Isn't it?" Mulder asked. "Duane?"

Barry closed his eyes for a second and shivered. Then, breathing heavily, he started to back away slowly.

"You're making it up," he hissed.

"Isn't that what they've been saying to you, Duane? That you're making it up?" Mulder replied sympathically.

"They say it's all inside my head. All they want to do is just give me more drugs," Barry agreed.

"I hear you, Duane."

"You hear me 'cause I got a gun," Barry snapped.

"No. I believe your story," Mulder replied sincerely, though he knew that Kazdin would be climbing the walls as she heard him say it. He consciously blanked out her voice in his earpiece.

"I know you're afraid. I know the pain and the fear you must feel. I've talked to people, Duane. People just like you, and nobody wanted to believe."

Doggett cringed and sank down in his seat, attempting desperately to appear invisible as Kazdin raged uselessly into her mouthpiece.

The only positive thing was that it seemed Mulder had finally convinced Barry to let the shot hostage go.

On a less positive note, Kazdin seemed convinced that by buying in to Barry's delusions, Mulder was just making the overall situation worse. Unable to get any satisfaction from Mulder, who was obviously completely ignoring her advice, her angry eyes were darting around the office as though looking for a target to kick, and Doggett had the distinct feeling he was going to be it.

"Damn it," Kazdin cursed, "Mulder's just offered himself as a hostage." She glared at Doggett again as though he was responsible for his partner's behavior.

He shrugged helplessly

"He's going to push him right over the edge. I need a clear picture of what's going on in there," she continued, as she heard Mulder describing abduction scenarios in his attempt to convince Barry that he wasn't a dangerous, homicidal maniac after all.

"Who here can talk to an Agent Scully?" someone asked.

Doggett jumped at the opportunity to avoid Kazdin's wrath. His cock did its own little excited leap as he pictured Scully in his mind before picking up the proffered phone.

"Agent Scully, it's John Doggett," he said smoothly. emphasizing the 'John'.

"Where's Mulder?" she snapped back, seemingly unimpressed.

"He traded himself for one of the hostages," Doggett admitted.

"What?"

"He's in with Duane Barry," Doggett explained reluctantly.

"You've got to get him out of there."

"Well, they're working on it," he replied soothingly.

"No, you've got to get him out of there now or he's going to be killed."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because Duane Barry is not what Mulder thinks he is," she insisted.

Doggett gave a long-suffering sigh, deciding Scully had been working with Mulder for too long. Nice legs, shame about the psychosis.  Oh well. Sanity was a bonus in a woman, rather than a necessity.

"Sure," he mumbled. "I'll see what I can do."

He hung up too soon to hear her say, "Krycek might be able to help you."

She looked at the dead phone for a moment, her face twisting in indecision, then she grabbed her purse and gun and headed towards the door.

"We got a picture. Mulder is here, opposite the doctor. The women are on the north wall. We can't see the east wall, Duane Barry must be there."

"Hold on a second."

Kazdin  jerked her head up and saw a small, red-haired woman arguing at the edge of the security cordon.

"No, I don't think you understand what I'm telling you. I just flew down here from Washington," she was insisting.

"We've got a situation in progress," the Agent argued.

"All right, well then let me speak to someone who's in charge," she snapped.

Doggett strolled over and placed his hand on her shoulder.

"You are. Calm down, Scully."

"Don't tell me to calm down," she growled, slapping his hand away. "I'm not going to calm down until I can talk to someone who will listen to what I'm saying!"

"How the hell did you get here so fast? I spoke to you what, 15 minutes ago?" Doggett asked.

"Never heard of a cell phone?" she spat. "Who the hell's in charge?"

Kazdin walked over.

"What's the problem here?"

"I'm Special Agent Dana Scully and I have information that is vital to your negotiations."

"What information?"

"I think there has been a critical misjudgment here. This man who claims to be under the control of aliens, his, his mental health history describes a rare state of psychosis," she handed over a piece of paper." As you can see from his medical records, in 1982, Duane Barry was shot in the line of duty, the bullet piercing his bilateral frontal lobes. The injury left him nearly incapable of functioning in society. It effectively destroyed the moral center of his brain. Now, almost a hundred years ago, there was a famous case. A man named Gage had a blasting rod pierce the same region."

"And what effect did it have?"

"He became a pathological liar, suffering from severe delusions. His behavior was characterized as bizarre and violent with a tendency to act out his fantasies.  You've got to get Mulder out of there, or take Barry out of the equation."

Doggett's mouth dropped open with shock. He'd gathered that Scully was hard-assed, but he'd never pictured her being capable of calmly suggesting a hit.

"Why don't you just let Mulder know what's going on?" he demanded.

"Something's gone wrong with the equipment," Kazdin snarled. "We can't hear him anymore, and more to the point, he can't hear us. But we can *see* inside the room."

"Well enough to take him out?" Scully asked coldly.

Kazdin nodded.

Scully grinned like a cat.

FBI HEADQUARTERS; WASHINGTON, D.C.

"He's going to live," Mulder snapped. "The gunshot wound wasn't fatal. What the hell were you thinking?"

"I wasn't there," Scully said quietly.

"What?"

"I never got to Richmond. I was still arguing at the Airport trying to get a flight when everything went down."

"But...but you were there..." Mulder argued.

"I wasn't," Scully replied quietly.

Mulder's eyes flared with understanding.

"But Krycek was," they both said together.

"Shit," Mulder muttered.

"You'll have to help me file my report," Scully said calmly. "Get me a copy of Doggett's and I'll use it to write my own."

"You're going to cover this up?" Mulder asked in disbelief.

"He saved your life. He didn't even get Barry killed. I owe him," she said quietly. "Besides, no one would believe us anyway."

"What about what you said, I mean what *he* said, about Barry's head injury. Was it true?"

"That's the weirdest part," Scully confirmed. "It *was* true. Except...none of it explains the *other* injuries that Barry has."

"No," Mulder agreed. "The hospital say that some of his scars defy explanation."

"So do you believe his abduction story?" she asked.

"Why don't you sound as skeptical as usual?" Mulder asked.

"I'm not sure," Scully replied with a sigh, "but now I'm beginning to believe in a man who has the power to alter reality, or at least everyone's perception of reality to the extent that Alex Krycek evidently can, nothing else seems quite as impossible anymore."