"Dana, hi." Monica Reyes smiles as she lets her friend in. She continues in a lower voice, "John's asleep, but at least so are the kids."

Scully smiles back. Between work, the kids, and her pregnancy, it wasn't often that she got to see Monica or John once Jon-Jon was born. She tries not to think too hard about the irony that this little baby is the reason why it's her husband, rather than Jon-Jon's parents, that are chasing after a body-chopping serial killer. "How have you been?" she asks.

The brunette leads them to the kitchen, yawning along the way. "Sorry," she says, but Scully smiles wryly in understanding. "I'm glad we have the time off," she says when she attaches the breast pump, "but at the same time, I want more hours in the day so we can rest. Sometimes, I think there's some kind of time-warping that happens after birth that decreases the number of hours slept as well as actual hours in a day."

"I know what you mean," Scully says, "have you heard from Leyla?"

Reyes nods, then purses her lips briefly in thought. "There's a part of me that wants to throw myself in there, be part of the hunt, solve the case, and all that," she says, "I don't blame Leyla for wanting to be a part of that, and I'm glad she managed as much as she did." Then she squeezes Scully's hand in hers. "And I'm glad you and Mulder were with her. Her instincts are improving, but - "

"If Agent Bannan could get taken out, so could she," Scully finishes the thought. "I know. But Monica, that's a risk we all face. Well, I used to face." She looks away, trying to sort through her memories. "Were we ever as naïve as she was?"

Reyes smiles. "Yes," she says, "but sooner or later, time on the X-Files takes that away. Well, for most of us. Somehow, Leyla's managed to hold on to her sense of wonder and trust longer than I have, and she's seen incredible things and fought with monsters as much as any of us." Then she shakes her head, bemused. "Maybe that's her superpower."

Scully snorts. "I think you need more sleep," she says, "mind if I look in on Jon-Jon before I go?"

"Of course," Reyes says, "give me a couple of minutes and I should be done."

"Oh, there's no rush." Scully puts her hands up.

The brunette smiles, and in a few minutes, she puts away the contraption, covers and labels the milk bottles and puts them in the fridge. "This makes things so much easier," Reyes sighs, "I'm glad we got the pump as soon as we did." A small part of her envies the ease at which Scully was able to continue breastfeeding her children, but then again, she's not sure she'd be able to raise that many children, nanny or no, and keep her sanity.

Then again, she knows she herself is part of the population that has a hard time breastfeeding after a certain point, and she's been blessed to live in a place and time where she can get an effective breast pump. She'd long ago put aside her pride and squickiness at the thought of using something akin to a bovine milker, because, to be honest, that's basically the same idea in play, only it's to benefit her little Jon-Jon, and that was the important thing.

They make their way to the bedroom as quietly and quickly as a currently-pregnant and a post-pregnant woman can, although giggling every now and then as they pass the ever-growing number of framed photos in the hallways. Most of them are silly, as opposed to the "normally posed" ones in the foyer and living room. One that has Scully snickering stars Rebecca as Captain Jack Sparrow fighting against Luke wearing a bad squid mask, that is, Captain Davy Jones. And the best part was that it wasn't even Halloween when they were dressed up like that.

When they reach the bedroom, lying on the bed, is John Doggett snoring softly on his back, along with Rebecca on his right and Jon-Jon on his belly. They're all in pretty much the same pose, mouth hanging open, limbs akimbo, and neither woman is bothering to hide their wide smiles. Reyes is the first to pull out her cell phone and snap a photo, but Scully isn't far behind.

The picture is just too cute, and when they go back to the kitchen, Reyes is already forwarding the photo to her college sons. "I'm going to show this to Hannah when she gets home," she says, "as proof that I can resist drawing on people's faces when they're asleep."

Scully gives her friend a long look, then chuckles. "I think I need to tuck you in before I go."

"No, I think we've got a new picture for the hallway," Reyes smiles. "No, okay, sleep sounds like a really good idea."

And once Scully leaves Reyes to pass out along with the rest of her family, she decides to sleep in for the rest of the day. She figures she bloody well deserves it.


When Mulder joins Agent Whitney at the hospital, she tells him, "I think you should know that he has been diagnosed with a terminal illness. He has advanced-stage lung cancer."

"Then we've got a captive witness," Mulder says, "looking at a few photos shouldn't be too hard on him." The ASAC inclines her head slightly, and Mulder notices her makeup's done more carefully than usual, probably because she had less sleep than he did, if she had any.

They walk into the room, where Father Joe is lying in bed, his torso raised by the adjustable bed. While he isn't exactly happy to see them, he does look rather excited. "You wouldn't believe," he said, "or maybe you would. I was thinking of you. I had a vision you might find interesting. Of a man speaking a foreign language."

Mulder and Whitney share a look, and Mulder pulls out a photo from the manila folder. "Did he look like this?" he asks, holding out Janke Dacyshyn's photo.

The defrocked priest puts on his glasses before taking it. "Yes, that's him," he agrees. "How did you know?"

Whitney exhales through her nose. "We think he's the man who abducted the FBI agent, and the second woman you say you saw and possibly many more. And we think that is helped by this man." She pulls out Franz Tomczesyn's photo.

He squints through his glasses, then frowns. "Who's he?"

"You don't know who that is?" Mulder asks blandly, his face matching his tone, but both he and the brunette ASAC are watching the old man carefully.

"No," Father Joe says, starting to shake his head, but finds that it uncomfortably dislodges the oxygen line from his nose a bit, and he stills. "Am I supposed to?"

"Take another look," Whitney urges.

He does. "Who is he supposed to be?"

"Someone you've known since he was a boy," Mulder says flatly, and now the bedridden man blanches.

"Oh, no. It can't be true," the old man says, his eyes going from the photo to them and back again. "I don't believe this. He was my connection to the girl. My visions were to save her from him." He looks back up at Mulder, holding the photo as if it were some kind of relic. "This is God's work. This is God's work."

"One more thing, Father Joe," Whitney says seriously, "the FBI agent, the first woman that you saw, Monica Bannan. Is she still alive?"

Father Joe exhales, then leans back and closes his eyes. "I feel her. Yes. She's still alive," he says, softly but firmly.

Mulder and Whitney exchange another look, but this time, Mulder looks determined and Whitney just looks irritated. They walk out of the room, and when the door closes behind them, Mulder says in a low voice, "That second victim may be alive. Everybody's given up on her, but I'm not going to."

"Do you really think so, or do you just want to believe the word of a dying man so badly that you're willing to waste resources on it?" she shoots back.

He shrugs. "It's not wasting anything if I just have a look around. Besides, you've got the best of the best working on the case. I'm just a retired guy going on a hunch." He smiles inoffensively, then waves without looking back as he walks out of the building.


That's why Mulder finds himself alone in the middle of a snow field, walking towards yellow crime scene tape, rather than doing the sane thing and staying at home, nice and warm, keeping his lovely and pregnant wife company. Nope, he's just gonna stare at the yellow tape… and large snow banks… and yeah. Wow, that was inspired, his inner monologue deadpans. So he's gonna wander around until something catches his eye. Oh look, the "No Hunting" sign's got blood on it. And more man-made snow banks! Perhaps those are clues! Ugh.

It's no fun being snarky by himself, so he cuts it out, gets in the car, and starts driving. And then he notices he's getting low on gas, and being that it's the middle of winter (or sure as hell feels like it) and the near-middle of nowhere, he decides to hit up the nearest town. He scores a gas station, and while he's filling up, he sees "Nutter's Feed, Animal Supply" nearby.

That stirs another hunch, so he rushes over as fast as he can without falling on his face, just as the owner's closing up. He brings up the Acepromazine, and, just as expected, the feed store carries it. He pulls out Dacyshyn's photo, but the older man sighs as the phone rings, and goes into his office. But he catches sight of the snowplow truck, and something else clicks, so he gets out of the store and into his car. And, just as expected, Dacyshyn drives off in the truck, so Mulder follows after him. This is a good time to talk to Scully, so he pulls out his cell and is scrolling through his speed dial. When the hell did he add these idiots to his speed dial? And why isn't Scully at the top?

What's expected is that he loses sight of the truck briefly. What is unexpected, is that the suspect has stopped, so he jams on the brakes, spins out of control, hits the truck, and gets smacked in the face by the airbag. As he groans, Dacyshyn rams his truck into Mulder's car, pushing it over a snow bank. Mulder has enough presence of mind to make a grab for his cell, but not enough coordination or speed to catch it, winding up with a nasty case of vertigo-induced nausea. And when the car comes to a stop at the bottom of a steep slope, he finally closes his eyes, giving in to both inner and outer pain.


Of course, there's no rest for the pregnant, especially not one with an overactive bladder. Scully had a nice nap while Alan took the younger ones out to the library and the older children were in school, but now that they were all home, her body felt obligated to stay awake, unfortunately. So she decided to tidy up the notes she and Mulder had on the Bannan investigation, and noticed an article about Russian stem cell research. Curious, she scanned through the article, and frowned. "Mulder," she breaths, and pulls out her cell phone.

When she hears, "Yeah, it's me," she isn't relieved, instead, she's worried. Why did his phone go directly to voicemail if he's with Agent Whitney? As his voicemail message plays on, she decides to forge on ahead. Perhaps he's in one of those lovely dead zones the Hoover building is known for, and says after the beep, "Mulder, I just found something in the stem cell research. Experiments were being done in Russia on dogs, Mulder. I think that's what your suspects have been doing, only on humans." She can't help emphasizing that last word, it gives her the willies. "Those women who've been abducted - you've got to call me. Mulder, the FBI agent's alive." Technically, her body could be still functioning, if that was what Father Joe was referring to, since her head was removed.

She feels uncomfortable enough to try and call the FBI, only to get the runaround, or, more politely, a game of phone tag. But as the hours tick by, even her kids are getting worried, so she calls Missy, only to have Kry – no, Alex, answer the phone. "Yeah?"

"Alex, where's Missy?" Scully doesn't beat around the bush.

"She's with the kids for some arts classes. Well, Emily and Ryan's classes, Addy's judo class is nearby. Why? What's up?"

Scully exhaled. "Could you watch my kids? Mulder's been working a case with a psychic," She's proud of how she doesn't stumble over that word, "helping the FBI find a missing agent. Unfortunately, the case is connected to serial killers who I believe have been performing some kind of radical surgeries using ideas from Russian stem cell research. The thing is, I haven't been able to reach Mulder for the last four hours, and the only thing helpful I've heard from the FBI is that the agent in charge said the last time she saw Mulder was this morning when they went to interview the psychic. I'm going after him, Alex, so I need you to watch the kids for me."

There's a long pause, and then Krycek says, "Wouldn't it make more sense for me to look for him?"

Scully closes her eyes. "Normally, yes, and I've been advised to let the police take care of things. But I've still got ties with other branches of the FBI, should I need to pull strings. You, on the other hand…"

"Yeah, yeah, more likely to get arrested, blah blah," Krycek grumbles. "Fine. But for God's sake, Dana, get some backup first. Otherwise, Missy will kill me if something happens to you or your baby. Promise?"

To her shame, Scully realizes that her first impulse was, yes, to go headlong, as she's always done when it comes to Mulder. Dammit, she thought she was over this by now! "Promise," she says. "As soon as I hang up on you."

"And I'd better see him or her driving you out," Krycek says.

Ugh. She thought she was the overprotective one, but considering his background and Missy, he's probably taking as many precautions as possible without actually going out there himself. "Yes, Dad..." She smiles. "And Alex?"

"What?" he says, grumpily.

"Thank you." And, true to her word, she calls the only other person she can count on to cut through red tape at the FBI. "Sir," she says when he answers, "I need your help."


So by the time Krycek and Scully are going over things with the kids, Skinner's pulling up to her driveway. "I thought this would be over by the time you guys retired," the bald AD says wearily.

Krycek rolls his eyes while Scully flashes her former boss a grateful smile. "And yet, like a certain organization, it keeps dragging us back in," she says.

Skinner scowls. "No, I think it's just the two of you being your usual idiotic selves," he says. "Of course Mulder would find the suspect the hard way. And of course you'd run after him. At least you had the presence of mind to call for backup this time."

She blushes as the former double-agent snickers.

"Oh, God, you had to remind her?" Skinner looks at Krycek, who smirks. "Come on, let's find your husband and hopefully some common sense." He nods at the older Mulder children, and a somewhat chastened Scully and long-suffering Skinner leave the house.


On the drive out, Skinner gets a call, and he nods, offering some terse comments before hanging up. "So, serial killers with some kind of Frankenstein deal?" he asks, glancing at her before returning his eyes to the snowy road.

"Simplistically, yes," she says, her eyes also on the road. "With an eye to some ethically questionable Russian stem cell research."

"Russian? I'm surprised you didn't send Krycek out here."

"It's Mulder," she says, and Skinner doesn't sigh, his lips tighten, but that's it.

When they come to the crash site, Scully gets out of Skinner's car as quickly as she can. It's their car, but there's no sign of Mulder anywhere. "I'm Dana Scully and that's my car," she says, forcing herself just stand there and not to tear the car apart for clues, letting the police do their job.

The officer nods, apparently realizing she hadn't been driving it. "Yeah, I talked to some bigwig down at the FBI, called from Washington."

"Yeah, that's him." Scully nods at Skinner, who walks towards them. "Is there any indication what happened, or any footprints?"

"Nothing. The snow is pretty heavy. But we did find this, you might want to give it to him." The officer hands her Mulder's cell, and any hopes of finding him alive and well takes a dive in Scully's mind. "Excuse me."

"Skinner," is all she says, as the blood stains are visible to them both. She's waiting for the tears to come, but all she feels is numb.

Skinner grabs her shoulders. "Hey, listen to me, calm down, stop and think. He's okay. He's got to be. He climbed out of this thing, he climbed out, he probably climbed up."

She nods, a small gesture, but she doesn't trust herself to say or do anything much. Inasmuch as she'd like to blame the hormones, she knows she's in an emotionally precarious situation, and lets the older man lead her back to his vehicle.


In the meantime, Mulder's done exactly what Skinner described, climbed out of the car, albeit a bit dazed and bleeding, but nothing serious. He blames the brief blood loss and mild concussion for his timing, checking for his cell phone only when he sees the snowplow truck parked on a side road. He figures it's probably in the car, but also figures there isn't time to run back and get it, instead, he picks up a wrench from inside the truck. Might as well have some kind of weapon, he thinks, since he came in unarmed. He walks down the cleared path, hoping against hope that he'll be in time to save anyone.

Once he sees the badly-lit building, he goes forward and climbs the chain link fence. It's only when he gets knocked down by the guard dog that he wishes he'd bought some Acepromazine, or maybe stolen some. "Shit," he mutters, getting his breath back, and swings the wrench.

He hates beating up on a dog, but he hates getting torn up by one more, and getting caught by the bad guys more so. When the dog lies still, to the accompaniment of other dogs barking in the distance, he sees it has not one, but two heads. "Oh, God," he whispers, his face folding. Of course the mad science had to start somewhere. In the case of the Great Mutato, it was an unlucky boy, but here, it was an unlucky dog.

He knows someone's going to come looking, thanks to all the barking dogs, so he runs off to hide in some kind of weird chute attached to the building. There's a shadow of a man he can see from his side of the plastic chute, but the footsteps fade after a while. When they do, he walks into the building through the chute, and he finds himself in the operating room of Frankenstein. That's as close as his shocked mind can translate for him, as he stares at a small crew of people in hospital scrubs, surrounding a woman lying in a large ice bath, connected to a large humming machine by plastic tubes that carry what looks like blood.

"Stop what you're doing," he says hoarsely. None of them hear him, preoccupied as they are, and the hum of the machine overwhelming his soft tone.

"Stop! Back off!" he shouts, raising the wrench as he walks towards them. "Back away! Back off! You speak English? Anybody speak English?" Now that he's closer, he can distinguish their mutterings as Russian, or some Slavic derivation close to it.

"I want her out of here," he says clearly, in case they can understand English. "I want those tubes out of her neck and I want her neck sewn up." He draws on what little he's learned from Alex and waves the wrench menacingly. "Я хочу ее отсюда. Сделай это!" (I want it out of here! Do it!)

Mulder makes his way to the operating table, pulls back the sheet, and grimaces when he sees the headless body. He snaps, "Собираетесь ли вы делать то, что я говорю?" (Are you going to do what I say?) He holds on to his anger, because otherwise, he'd throw up and lose what little control he has of the situation.

"Вы не можете быть здесь!" (You can't be here!) one of the doctors says, and Mulder looks at an ice bucket which holds what looks like Tomczesyn's head. The eyes open, and he momentarily freezes in shock. Unfortunately, that's when the doctor sticks his needle into Mulder, and Mulder's reaction is like he got instantly drunk, minus the good buzz. He sees Dacyshyn, who grabs him and punches him in the face. Unlike alcohol, however, Mulder can feel the hit, even as he can't move to block it, and he goes down, the secondary pain of hitting the floor finally forcing him to black out.


It's quiet in the car. Skinner doesn't bother to break the silence with the radio, knowing it would just irritate the both of them. "We will find him," he says, after a side glance shows how upset Scully's allowing herself to look. "I know Mulder. He'd get to a phone and call first. He wouldn't do anything crazy."

Now she raises an eyebrow in disbelief. Well, that's better that sorrow or surrender. Giving in to the urge to play the straight man, he goes on, "Not overly crazy."

She snorts, then shakes her head before returning her gaze out the window.


Back at the compound, Dacyshyn drags the headless body outside to a shed, then does the same for Mulder. Mulder groans, the effects of the brief dose of what he thinks is Acepromazine wearing off. Thank God, he thinks, even though he feels so tired, and his body won't move, period.


From Skinner's car, Scully tells Skinner to back the car up, then stop. "Proverbs 25:2," she says, opening the mailbox with the numbers 25 and 2. "The glory of God to hide a thing. I've got it." She holds up an envelope. "It's an invoice for medical supplies to a Dr. Uroff-Koltoff. It's an address on Bellflower Road." They look around. Middle of Snowy Nowhere. Of course.

"Maybe I could Google it," Skinner mutters, and takes out his smartphone.

"Listen," Scully says, putting a free hand up.

"What?"

They look around, straining their senses. "Dogs," Scully whispers, then repeats louder. "Dogs!"


In the shed, Dacyshyn is chopping up the headless body on the chopping block. When Mulder sees the medical bracelet on the arm, he closes his eyes briefly. He was right, and yet, it wasn't enough to save this person, whom he strongly believes is what's left of Agent Bannan. Once in tinder-sized pieces, Dacyshyn gets down to the business of putting the severed body parts into a black plastic bag.

Seeing that not only Dacyshyn is suitably distracted, but that the axe is stuck in the chopping block, Mulder forces himself to get to the axe. He pulls at the axe handle, hoping it wasn't in as deep as it looks. Unfortunately, he's still weak from the shot, and Dacyshyn easily knocks him down, replacing the axe with Mulder's head on the chopping block. The bastard smiles as he sharpens the axe, even as Mulder attempts to raise himself for the second time, but it seems the effort is forcing more of the drug into his veins, because he can't friggin' move.

As Dacyshyn raises the axe, Mulder thinks, Sorry, Scully. And that's when there's a loud thunk, followed by Dacyshyn going down like a sack of spuds. Behind the fallen man is Scully, who looks like an angel, framed by moonlight and bad fluorescent light.

"Mulder, can you hear me?" she asks, checking his head.

He tries to smile, but it feels like a grimace. "Sorry about the car," he rasps, "the girl, she's still inside." He rolls his eyes rather than pointing, but the effort feels about the same.

Inside the building. Skinner yells, "Show me your hands!" His gun is pointed at the surgical crew which was busy cutting into a young woman's neck, but thankfully, they've stopped. "Put the scalpel down. Put that scalpel down!" he yells, not caring that they're trying to argue in Russian with him. He flicks off the safety loudly, "Just put it down or I'll blow your goddamn hand off." The so-called surgeon does so, but is still trying to argue with him after he pushes him to the side.

Before he can start yelling some more at them, Scully rushes into the room. "Mulder needs warm clothes and fluids."

Skinner jerks his head at the woman in the ice bath. "Oh, God," Scully says, taking off her coat. Now firmly distracted, she says, "I've got work to do here."

Skinner's jaw clenches, then orders the mad scientists into the dog kennels. He's got a pretty good idea it wasn't just dogs kept in those kennels, and feels a keen surge of vindictiveness as he locks them in. Much as he'd like to shoot them where they sit, he's got more pressing issues, like an idiot freezing to death outside.

"Mulder," he says, after checking to make sure the suspect stayed unconscious.

"The girl inside," Mulder said weakly.

Skinner would smile, except he's frankly too tired to do so. That guy and his priorities, he thinks. "Scully's got her. She's in good hands."

"Skinner?"

"Yeah."

"I'm cold."

Now Skinner rolls his eyes, but shrugs off his coat and puts it on the younger man, then hugs him. "Next time you go chasing after someone, make it someplace tropical," he says.