Disclaimer: Not mine.

It only takes five words. Five words he has trouble uttering. Five words that many will not want to hear; that many will hear in the dark of night when the past rises to haunt those who are awake.

"Scully and Mulder are dead."

Those who are gathered in that room stare at him in shock. After all that had happened, they had come to believe the pair would always scrape through. That they would always be fighting for the truth, sending letters from random locations, always unreachable.

But they had lost. And those that stand in the room will need to carry on their crusade. If it is even possible. Mulder's last message had made it clear that the fight is a losing one.

The members of that room face each other. Doggett. Reyes. Maggie Scully, with William in her arms. He had been discovered at his new home, and it was only luck that brought his parents to him in time to prevent his death. His adoptive parents weren't so lucky. Now he was twice-orphaned, before the age of three. Jimmy. Yves. Gibson Praise. And Skinner. The man who was probably the closest to the pair after their own families. The one who'd had to deliver the news to the others.

There are eight of them. But William is too young, and the price on Gibson's head is almost as large as the one that had been on Mulder and Scully's heads. That lowers their numbers to six.

Six who know. And who can never match the strength of the two.