Title: This Is How The World Ends

Fandom: X-Files

Rating: M

Disclaimer: I do not own The X-Files or any of its characters. FOX does, but when does it end up in the public domain?

Author's Notes: Happy December everybody! In five days this fic has its first birthday, which is a little scary looking forward because I don't think I've even reached the halfway point yet. Thanks to everybody who is still following along – I hope you're okay with a long road. I promise to make it worth your while! Thanks especially to those who left me feedback after the last chapter. Ship1013, always more updates! :) Guest, thanks for sharing exactly what you liked about the chapter! Definitely, the Bureau has buried the X-Files, and in this chapter they'll find it was to their own detriment. I'm sorry to hear that you haven't really connected with Colt yet. Having never personally met a junior FBI agent I can't comment on what someone in that job would or wouldn't be likely to do, but I think from memory that his visit to Scully back at Christmas was more a reaction to the universe-flip of learning that aliens are real. Harlow is now handling it just as ungracefully. I'll see what I can do about your M/S request ;) IanLevitt, thank you! Guest, I loved that too :) The best thing about Colt and Harlow (and their central reason for existing) is the dynamic we get when they interact with canon characters. Colt gives us personable insight into Scully; Harlow gives us a chance to see dominant scientist Scully. DontGiveUp, thank you for your patience, and thank you for your thoughts on the Will chapter. Poor kid. We'll see him again soon ;)

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Conference rooms look so sterile and safe and dull with their subdued colours and simple furnishings, but in fact they can be volatile, as savage as any offshore battlefront.

Once a quarter, FBI departments met as a whole staff to check in how everyone was going and to report to the entire team on progress, challenges and requirements for continued success, whether that be budgetary, resourcing, time… Altogether it was a boring affair. Scully picked at her nails during the proceedings, and no one was surprised because she wasn't the only one doing so. Her colleagues were dull, uninspiring even to one another. She tried not to give in to the temptation to roll her eyes at Colt when yet another monologue began. The investigation and its obstacles were explained. Likely required resourcing was discussed. Budgeting reorganisation was promised to allow it. Expected outcomes were laid out plainly for the team in question. They thanked the Assistant Director and his panel and they sat down, to be replaced by the next presenters, and so it went on. All. Over. Again.

Scully had already crisply presented her team's progress on the investigation centred on Room 623 and the potential bomb-builder within and made things easy for the panel by making no requests except more time. Tan and his fellows were pleased with her team's advancements. They now had a name to put to the resident – a former soldier, injured on the frontlines and sent back home – and through his unspoken military connections, Colt had been able to draw official records that painted a bitter picture of damage to both body and mind. It explained why the old lady chose to deliver his groceries, and the records indicated a tragic disfigurement, which went a good way to explaining why the resident needed his groceries delivered at all.

AD Tan had nodded appreciatively as she'd resumed her seat and had called on her opinion a couple of times throughout the following proceedings. She was in his good books, right where she wanted to be. Or at least, right where she wanted the rest of Counterterrorism to perceive her to be for this next trick.

"Thank you, Agent Donahue," Hofstetter said from the head table, looking down at his notes as the latest presenter sat back down. He scribbled something down quickly as he said, "We will take that into consideration. The budget will be reviewed…"

He looked down the table for confirmation; Kylie Field, who often joked she could never have been an agent sent out of the office with a name like hers, flipped open a document folder and skimmed the many figures and tables she had meticulously recorded there.

"I think we should be able to find room for the manpower you require, Agent Donahue, but of course I'll need to get back to you with more precise figures, after I've factored in the requests of the other teams presenting today," she said chirpily. She let the top page fall shut and took up her pen and legal pad. "It may only be for a short period of time, however."

"An extra pair of agents for a week should suffice," Donahue assured her. "Most of the legwork has been done."

"Good," Tan said, stretching his arms forward to release the tension building in his shoulders after two hours of stillness. "I'm glad. We might be able to have that one closed by next weekend." While the rest of the room likewise behaved restlessly, taking his cue that things were nearly done, he looked over at his assistant. "Is that everything, then?"

Seated at the end of the top table, Tan's assistant had been taking the minutes but now glanced at the schedule beside her elbow. Her tap-tapping fingers went momentarily still as she read. "No, sir, you have one more. A case proposal."

The room had gotten jittery at the anticipation of being able to leave but many eyes lit up with interest at this. Most cases were opened after just an email to the Assistant Director of the appropriate department, or at best, a meeting with said boss. Only very complex, sensitive or challenging cases came to these meetings to be pitched, where evidence could be laid out and other agents could be invited to assist in drawing the necessary conclusions required to make a case viable to pursue.

Even AD Tan sat forward at his assistant's words. He looked out around the room and said, "Go ahead," but no one stood up. Everyone seemed to be looking at everyone else, trying to determine who had the interesting new case to share. Scully feigned mild interest and let her eyes flicker to her watch. Mulder's watch. Showtime.

"She may be waiting outside, sir," the assistant said briskly, standing and reaching for the phone in front of her boss. "If she was late she wouldn't have been let in once the proceedings began. Yes?" She spoke now into the phone. She listened. "Yes, that's right. Please send her in." She hung up. "She's here."

"She?" Tan asked. He looked around the room again. He knew his team. "Who's missing?"

Again the eyes in the room fluttered about, trying to answer his question, but it was simply no one. No one from Counterterrorism was missing, and certainly none of their few female agents.

The door opened tentatively just as Colt took a sip of water from the glass in front of him, and when long bare legs stepped through, followed by a familiar face, he was not the only one who choked on his drink. Agent Harlow closed the door softly behind her, but she didn't need to slam it – she had the room's attention. Her skirt was ever so slightly shorter than it needed to be on her already tall frame, her heels were killer and her long hair was loose around her shoulders.

"Uh, hi," she said, playing at coy and uncertain, or maybe just being coy and uncertain. She looked around the room as though checking for a familiar face. Her eyes touched on Scully's and moved off without reaction on either part. Colt was less cool. He stared at her openly. "Thanks for seeing me."

She stood demurely at the door, both hands gripping the handle of her briefcase, no sign in her elegant posture of the attitude she carried with her everywhere. Assistant Director Tan eyed her with interest. Section Chief Hofstetter offered Harlow a warm smile from the top table and gestured to an empty seat at the U-shape of tables circling the room.

"Please take a seat, Agent. Could you begin by stating your name for the room and the record?"

Harlow's return smile was golden, all confidence and sureness to cover what Scully knew was absolute terror, as she crossed the room to the allocated seat. "Agent Natalie Harlow, Federal DNA Database Unit. I'm a virologist and immune biologist." She laid her briefcase on the table at her spot and looked the Section Chief in the eye, still smiling beautifully. Scully discreetly moved her own attention to the faces on the panel, nudging Colt's ankle with her foot to stop him staring. Hofstetter's smile faltered slightly, recognising the name but apparently unable to place it; Assistant Director Tan seemed in the same boat, because his brow furrowed a little. Harlow smartly unclipped her briefcase and began to unpack her documentation. "I have a case I'd like to present."

No one declined her; nobody in a position to decline her could recall who she was. The Bureau had done such a good job burying her in obscurity that they had personally painted her in camouflage and even their own gatekeepers were waving her through.

Despite the feelings that rose along with him, Scully thought of Mulder, with the big target on his back. Panels like this one had always seen him coming a mile off. His infamy had made them a lot of headway but had also eventually made official channels and sneaking around difficult, if not impossible. Harlow was a Bureau mistake, the perfect Trojan horse, and Scully was grateful to have her, even if this trick would only work once.

Once was all they needed, provided they got it right.

"I believe I have evidence of a bioterrorism threat," Harlow said now, going serious. "An anonymous contact approached me with a blood and tissue sample from an unknown victim, and my studies on this small sample have been quite alarming." She produced a small pile of photocopied pages and started to hand them out. Tan quickly sent his assistant to take over the task so Harlow could continue with her presentation. She relinquished the pages. "Oh – thanks. What you're getting is a summary of the test results I've run on the blood and tissue samples. In it I found both an unknown virus and extensive cellular damage, to an extent I have never seen before."

"A virus," AD Tan repeated slowly, extending a hand to receive his copy of the results. Scully received hers with quiet thanks and pretended to peruse the page as though she hadn't helped to write it. Colt took his with more interest, poring over the page. He wasn't in on this act. Tan looked at Harlow over the top of his paper as she finally sat down. "And what makes you think this is a case for Counterterrorism? Have you spoken with the CDC?"

"My sisters work for the CDC," Harlow answered calmly, surprising Scully, because this hadn't come up in any of their short conversations. "They deal with outbreaks and contagions. At this point I don't have evidence of any outbreak or a large-populace threat, but I do have evidence that this virus was engineered, and an indication that the victim was targeted."

Several agents looked up from their pages with interest at this. Colt glanced again at Scully, incredulous, but she ignored him. She hadn't warned him that this would be happening and perhaps should have. Someone nearby cleared his throat awkwardly.

"Sorry, Agent," Desmond said apologetically, raising the page Harlow had given out. "I'm sure this stuff proves your point perfectly, but could you translate this for the non-virologists in the room?"

Harlow smiled as a few others laughed lightly, confirming that they felt similarly overwhelmed by the science on the page. "The most significant finding is the genome map at the top." She pointed to the computer-generated diagram on her own copy and all eyes fell back to it. "Viruses are living things with very short reproductive cycles, so from year to year we expect to see changes and mutations even in familiar strains. When this happens, though, the virus itself is still recognisable. Its overall genetic structure remains very similar. This segment of the code, which I've represented with blue," she pointed again, and the room followed her instructions, looking intently at their genome maps, "is recognisable as a strain of Influenza first identified in 2013. It's about nine percent of this virus's genetic makeup. The protein bonds from point M to point T along the DNA sequence are a perfect match to the flu of three years ago – all recent mutations omitted. This therefore is not wild Influenza, but a sample from somebody's collection. Meanwhile the red, which is a scattered set of code that I found in eight locations along the DNA chain, is Anthrax."

She'd said the magic word. She was officially in the correct room.

"Holy…" Hofstetter sat back in his seat, staring at Harlow's findings. He looked up at her with wide eyes. "You're sure?"

She nodded seriously, clasping her hands together primly in front of her. Playing her part perfectly. Scully prepared to play her own. She tapped the page in front of her thoughtfully.

"What's the yellow?" she asked. A few others nodded. The diagram was littered with the terrifying red, and the chunk of blue stood out, but over half of the DNA sequence was depicted in bright yellow.

Harlow looked at her politely as if they'd never met before. "I'm afraid I can't answer that yet. I haven't been able to identify the code as anything on the Bureau's databanks, and I ran it against the CDC's library of diseases and found no matches."

"A mystery virus?" Field asked quizzically. "Some new strain?"

"As I said, every new transformation of any known virus would still be recognisable," Harlow said. "This particular genetic sequence has not ever been documented in nature, and in fact is constructed of proteins that do not occur in nature." She paused, swallowing her feelings on the impossibility of the alien angle to compose herself for this vital redirect. "It's my belief that we're looking at a synthetic sequence, built as a vessel for the other dangerous pieces of code."

Anthrax, bioengineering and a possible victim – Harlow had laid down all the right cards and kept all the incriminating ones – Engel, Pierce and Diffuse Alveolar Syndrome – up her sleeve to throw down once the room was already committed.

Tan raised his hand to his mouth, appropriately concerned. "These other diseases, the flu and the Anthrax; they couldn't have gotten in there just through a natural transference process?"

"No, sir," Harlow replied. "As I mentioned, the Influenza genes are old, and I know we all hope Anthrax in this form is not floating around uncontrolled. On top of that, viruses simply do not cut themselves up and insert gene sequences this specific into one another."

No one liked that. Colt looked again at Scully. This time she looked back at him, and she saw the questions in his eyes. Desmond scratched his head uncomfortably.

"So – to be clear – you're saying someone spliced up all these killer germs and put the bits they wanted into a big fake virus train they'd made in a lab, and now we potentially have a catastrophic supervirus on our hands?" he checked. Harlow nodded.

"Basically, yes, I think that's what we're looking at."

Desmond stared. "We see it in movies but can people really do that?" He looked immediately to Scully a few seats away, the scientific resource on his team. "Can they?"

"Yes, they can," she confirmed, looking intently at her page. She raised her eyes to Harlow's shapely brown ones. Time to push the envelope. She had warned the younger that she'd be grilled. "It's one thing to engineer such a thing in a lab and another to release it into the population. What evidence do you have that this is actually a threat?"

Harlow stared at her, taken aback by the unexpected reversal.

"Other than the Anthrax, you mean?" Macgregor asked with raised eyebrows.

"Yes, other than that," Scully said coolly. Hofstetter nodded reluctantly.

"The presence of Anthrax doesn't prove intent," he agreed, joining her in the position of Devil's advocate in order to truly justify the case. "There's Anthrax stored all over the world in laboratories for study and it's not harming anybody. How do we know that this is being used for purposes of terror?"

All eyes went back to Harlow. She referred back to her handout. "The images at the bottom half of the page show the cell damage caused by the virus in a live victim."

"I see that," Scully said, reading. "Lung tissue? Expelled from the body?"

Harlow pretended to be impressed by Scully's interpretation. "Yes, miss. Displaced by coughing, I would expect. The breakdown of the lung tissue included in the sample was extensive and appears to have been rapid, judging from the-"

"Yes, I agree with that," Scully interrupted dismissively, conveying to the rest of the division that she understood the handout just as well as the virologist presenter. She gathered from the feel of the room that most were relieved to know she, at least, understood the whole problem, right down to the very last word on the page. "The immune response evident in the blood suggests an infection period of only days. But what indication do you have that this is an attack?"

"We deal in deliberate acts of harm against the American population for the purpose of inciting fear and discord," AD Tan reminded Harlow. "The scientific case is compelling but what about motive or impact?"

"At this time I have only one confirmed victim," the virologist admitted, "and as to the identity of that victim, I have no information except what was given to me by the anonymous contact who provided the samples. He said the victim was dead, which is unsurprising considering the state of cellular deterioration evident in the lung tissue, and that the victim was male. My own tests have confirmed biological sex, but his blood was not catalogued in the DNA Database. What I can't confirm – and what I'm here to get help with – is what the contact told me next." She straightened her shoulders. "He said the victim was an anarchist targeted for his political agenda, and that he was not the first victim and that there will be more."

She produced the most convincing piece of evidence yet – the list Gray had written for Mulder, which Mulder had given to Scully and which Scully had now given to Harlow to cement their claim to this case, after calling a few names at the top of the list.

"The contact gave me this list of names and said they were the next targets," Harlow said. "I checked into a few of them. The first two are dead. Advanced pulmonary distress."

Tan waved over his assistant and handed her a note, looking uneasy, while Hofstetter frowned at Harlow.

"If there have been deaths already, why haven't we heard of it before today?" he demanded. Tan's assistant returned to her spot and typed away on her keyboard. "Unexplained medical deaths are reported by hospitals usually, aren't they?"

"The contact advised that the symptoms of this supervirus, while violent, are similar to those of the small pieces of disease implanted into its DNA chain, and were likely to be misdiagnosed and overlooked," Harlow said. "Supposedly the current death toll has been targeted and small, but the supervirus could potentially be released into the populace and kill unnoticed for days or even weeks before we knew about it. I would need to test extensively to be able to tell you the level of contagiousness. In any case, I think it's prudent to begin working on medical countermeasures as soon as possible, developing a treatment for those infected if this should get out."

"I agree," Hofstetter said firmly, jotting a note down. "Your background is in immunology and virology – is this something you are qualified to work on, Agent?"

"Yes, sir. But even with assistance, it could take months to develop. This is such a complex virus."

They were buying it, swallowing the whole thing, committing. Scully couldn't believe her luck, and reached to her throat out of habit – to pray, to wish, to ask – but of course there was nothing there to touch, and she lowered her hand quickly. Under the table she tightened her fist into a hopeful ball, unseen, channelling the nervous tension in her body into her hand. Hoping, hoping…

Field clicked her pen, ready for business. "What sort of resourcing would you require, Agent Harlow? Just an estimate. Manpower, workspace, travel, materials? I'm not familiar with the scientific processes typical of your work."

"To develop a cure?" Harlow thought about it. "I need use of a number of the FDDU's suite of instruments, which I'd be able to negotiate times for myself, but the issue there is red tape. My transfer into the Unit was filed incorrectly and for insurance reasons I don't have clearance to work on the equipment until it's set right. I'm completely qualified and competent."

Field looked up, looking incredulous. "It's just a paperwork issue? Preventing you from doing your job? Have you asked your supervisor about it?"

"I have. I understand the Bureau has had other priorities."

"That's ridiculous." Field got writing again. "I'll chase it up."

Harlow smiled with genuine relief and Scully could almost feel it for her. This restriction had been sorely felt by the younger agent and the promise of it being lifted was hugely empowering.

"While you're budgeting for this case, Miss Field, a cure isn't the only thing we need," Macgregor spoke up. "This is a real threat and it deserves a thorough investigation. Who made it? Why?"

"Is this everything you've got for us to work with?" Marzollo asked Harlow directly, waving the handout. "What about the guy that gave you the blood? What do you know about him?"

"Nothing much, I'm afraid. I had never seen him before and I have no way of contacting him, but somehow he found me. He approached me outside my gym. He said he'd chosen me specifically."

"Would you recognise him if you saw him again? Could you pick him out of a line-up?"

Harlow and Scully had rehearsed some of these questions. The pretty virologist nodded. "I think so, yes."

The room erupted in voices conferring with one another and asking Harlow more questions, every agent completely convinced of the worthiness of her case and wanting to get started on it immediately. Scully chanced making eye contact with Colt beside her, letting out a breath very slowly and loosening her fist, daring to hope she'd made it over the threshold. He wove his fingers together behind his neck and leaned back, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Very brave," he admitted under his breath. She knew that he knew now exactly what she was doing. In synchronicity, their gazes shifted over to the movement of Tan's assistant. She brought him a sheet of notepaper with quick dot points in her handwriting. Tan took it and read quickly, intense expression dropping as clarification set in. Colt looked back at Scully meaningfully. They both knew what Tan's assistant had found.

Hofstetter was already deeply committed. He was leaning forward across his desk to be heard by Harlow.

"And did he say – can we have quiet, please?" he called to the room at large, and the noise went down. He turned back to Harlow. "Did he say why he chose you? Instead of coming to Counterterrorism itself?"

The remaining voices switched off to hear the answer. Scully and Colt listened attentively. Here was the line that would split the room.

"He did," Harlow confirmed. "I dealt with a case some time ago that followed a family whose deaths mirrored these symptoms. I have a couple of copies here, actually," she said briskly, flicking open her briefcase again and withdrawing a few stapled documents. "Anyone else wanting to read through it can look it up on the archive database. Case designation…" She checked the cover page of the topmost copy. Beside Scully, she felt the restless shift of Colt as he controlled the impulse to recite the case number from memory. His affinity for recalling strings of numbers was something that rarely came up but did still surprise her.

All around the room, pens clicked as agents wrote the number Harlow read out, and laptops snapped open so searches could begin. Assistant Director Tan frowned worriedly – the disappearance of the 2014 file was about to be revealed to the whole department.

"Frank," he said, trying to get Hofstetter's attention, but his section chief was getting to his feet and extending a hand, ready to move, to approach Harlow and receive the paper copy of the case file from her.

"What was the case?" Hofstetter asked, hand outstretched, and Harlow stood as well, offering the file out.

"Engel."

It had exactly the shattering effect Scully had expected, at least on the two most powerful men in the room. Hofstetter froze, realising how far he'd been drawn along this road he was meant to be guarding, and dropped his hand abruptly in the silence that followed. Every agent at the tables watched in confusion as Agent Harlow, symbol of thorough investigation and hard work, was visibly rejected by a panel member, seemingly for nothing. Field looked up from her budget planning to stare along her table at the faces of the other panellists to try and determine the cause of the sudden silence. Scully watched only Harlow, counting the seconds in her head and pitying the younger agent as she just stood there, files held out before her and expression and hand dropping with her self-esteem.

She was all full of bluster and apparent confidence, but self-esteem was where she lacked, and this fundamental character flaw was what had enabled them to bury her as deep as they had with so little. They'd given her one good kick and she'd crumpled.

And now she was crumpling again, and if she broke in front of this room, everything they'd worked for was over.

Colt, meanwhile, was the opposite, devoid of bluster and pride but solid in his regard of his own self, and he was also hopelessly kind, so after almost ten uncomfortable seconds of Harlow just standing there and everybody feeling awkward and losing confidence in what was going on, he shoved his chair back and got up. He rounded the table he was seated at and quickly crossed the room to where Harlow stood. He met her eyes briefly as he accepted the files out of her hand, and her return look was one of graciousness as he walked away.

"Has anyone already got it up on their screens?" Colt asked the room, gifted at social conflict resolution after a life lived in that insane house full of noisy, arguing children. He sifted through the handful of copies she'd given him and disseminated the copies around the room, one per table group. Desmond from their table raised a hand and took a copy, and others around him leaned in to look. Scully feigned interest for the sake of her team but she'd already read it – it was a copy of the version she'd downloaded from the database before it was removed, not Harlow's more complete, secret under-the-bed version – and Tan and Hofstetter were already onto the game. They knew she knew the case.

"I can't find it," Donahue said, frowning at his screen. "What was the case number again?"

"Uh," Harlow said, looking around for a spare copy, while Colt gave the last copy a cursory glance as though he was reading it and recited the number automatically. He stopped in front of Hofstetter, who was just now sitting down, and offered the final copy directly to him. The section chief was unimpressed with the silent rebuke and snatched it out of his hand without looking at it.

"No, I've typed the same thing, and I'm coming up with nothing," Marzollo told Donahue from across the conference room. He typed something else. "Doesn't matter what you put into the search parameters, nothing comes up."

"Well, I can't explain that, but the case does exist," Harlow said, sitting down gracefully, some confidence restored by Colt's show of respect.

Tan cleared his throat. "A few cases from that time period were taken down recently for reformatting."

"I'll track it down," Field promised, adding the note to her legal pad. "It should be available to our whole division if we're going to take it forward."

"A decision has yet to be made on that front," Tan replied. He gave Harlow a hard look. "I have a few concerns about the agent's professional conduct and some of the impacts her negligence may have on an investigation."

Harlow adjusted her glasses, her nervous tic, Scully had begun to notice. But her voice was steady when she asked, "Such as?"

"How long have you had these samples, Agent Harlow?"

"Four weeks," she answered honestly. Tan nodded smugly.

"You've been sitting on an engineered virus with hints of Anthrax for four weeks and notified nobody?"

"I only finished confirming what I had a week ago, at which time I set up this appointment," Harlow answered smoothly, as rehearsed. "I wanted to be sure about what I was dealing with."

"A stranger approached you at the gym and gave you blood samples contaminated with a lethal virus, and told you it was part of a terror plot," Tan summarised. "Why is this the first I'm hearing of it? I'm the Assistant Director for Counterterrorism. Gina," he redirected to his assistant, "can you please list the forms Agent Harlow should have filled in and sent to us before today? And the relevant policies and protocols she has breached."

The assistant mumbled about looking it up and clicked around her computer, but Harlow said, "I know what to do when I receive something like this. I filled them in. I sent them."

"Then where are they?" Tan asked, smiling dangerously, catching her in a lie. Her return look was level, and Scully was proud of her.

"I don't know, sir. Perhaps they were filed incorrectly."

Tan and Hofstetter took her meaning and their eyes narrowed simultaneously. Field scoffed.

"Are we nit-picking about paperwork?" she demanded. "This is Counterterrorism, not Counterintelligence. We've got more important things to worry about than what forms she did or didn't submit. Submit them again," she told Harlow, "and I'll see they're put through correctly."

"Can we go back to the Engel case?" Macgregor asked the room. He addressed Harlow. "You said the contact chose you because of this case and that the deaths mirrored the symptoms of your supervirus. How was this case ruled?"

"The coroner ruled it a medical tragedy," Desmond read. "Diffuse Alveolar Syndrome. Never heard of it, but it sounds like a nasty disease."

"Diffuse Alveolar Syndrome isn't a disease," Scully spoke up suddenly, drawing attention back to herself, including Tan's furious glare. "It's a symptom of other genuine conditions, but all it means is that the lungs bled and were damaged, resulting in blood and tissue being coughed up. It's not an explanation for the deaths – it's a description. Let me see that," she ordered, standing and extending a hand for Desmond's copy of the case file.

Macgregor looked around. "It needs to be reopened. Precedents as far back as 2013? This could have been going on for years without us knowing."

Many agents in the room nodded. Tan looked uncomfortable but tried to smile.

"Reopening a case is always a sensitive task. The families and loved ones have been traumatised enough-"

"Actually, I'm still in contact with this particular family," Harlow spoke right over the top of him, "and they have always maintained that there was more to the case than what was found in the first investigation. They have petitioned numerous times for the case to be reopened. They'll be very open to the move."

Scully raised the file to gain attention again. "The autopsy report is missing."

"I didn't close this case," Harlow said. "A more experienced agent took over and handled the wrap-up."

"Not very well, by what I'm hearing," Field commented darkly while she wrote. "I think it warrants a second look. Peter?"

Tan didn't like it but his whole division was committed, and his budget advisor was on board, too. He fidgeted thoughtfully with his pen, recognising a lost cause when he saw one.

"What does our budget look like for taking on something like this?" he asked. Field had been doing her calculations throughout the presentation.

"Depends how we want to play it," she said, looking over her numbers. "In terms of manpower? Seconding Agent Harlow from the FDDU… They'll expect us to cover that. Three agents full-time for a week, one agent full-time for six weeks or one agent split between this task and another… that would cross into the next quarter, and we can apply for more funding to the investigation after that." She looked up at Harlow. "That would be my recommendation, if you can make do with that very minimal level of assistance for the time being."

"I think that would be perfectly adequate," Harlow said gratefully. "Especially once I have access to the FDDU's resources, too."

"Yes, that's completely stupid. It'll be amended soon, I assure you." Field turned to the rest of the room. "Do we have any nominations for this case?"

For a moment, the conference room was quiet. Scully swallowed minutely, counting the beats so she didn't look too eager. Someone else spoke first.

"I think Agent Scully makes the most sense," Agent Marzollo said finally, to the nods of others around him. "This investigation needs a scientific eye the rest our department doesn't have."

"I agree." Desmond waved the first handout at Scully. "Think you're the only one in the room who could read this."

Scully smiled at that, glad she and Harlow had managed to convince the room of her competency in this area. They weren't quite out of the woods yet, but she was feeling confident. She was feeling good. The entire division was on her side and she'd found a way to publicise a case that Mulder had picked out of obscurity. Things never worked out this good.

She wished Mulder were here to enjoy the moment, too. He'd experienced few enough of these little triumphs in his time at the FBI.

Then warm thoughts of her former partner were chased down by feelings of discomfort, and she shrugged them away before she had to properly acknowledge them.

"Agent Scully is busy running your investigation into the D.C. bomb-builder," Hofstetter reminded Desmond, who shrugged.

"She'll still be with us half the time, overseeing. Right?" he asked of her. Scully nodded once. So did Field.

"That's right. Agent Scully? Do you accept? I'm sure you can manage the responsibility."

Scully tried to look as though she hadn't seen this coming and to act as though she was only just now considering whether she would take it on. "I've juggled multiple projects before, so I don't expect it will be a problem. Certainly, if everyone is in agreement that I would be most suited…" She let her gaze float across the room and saw no headshakes, and finally came to rest her sights on Tan.

He was so unhappy with her.

"Agent Scully is a pathologist, physicist and senior agent with Counterterrorism," Agent Field informed Harlow briskly. "I expect you'll find her a most valuable asset."

Harlow smiled politely at Scully. "I expect so."

"I think you're uniquely suited to the job, Agent Scully," Tan said smoothly, cuttingly. "With a background like yours, I suppose I should be more surprised it's taken this long for a case like this to find you again."

She knew what he meant. She also knew he wouldn't say more. "Sometimes I do miss medicine, sir."

"Agent Scully is also an excellent and proven leader," Tan told Harlow. "As senior agent, my division will consider her word and her reports final in any dispute on this investigation." Because he thought he could warp her words. He still thought he controlled her. He still thought he had the weaker of the original X-Files dream team and that he could manipulate her. "While I understand this was your case first, Agent Scully will be named case supervisor in writing, due to it being a Counterterrorism investigation, and she will report your findings to me."

Harlow blinked, immediately rubbed the wrong way and wanting to lash out, as was her natural instinct. She reined herself in before she could give him ammunition to shut her down. She cared about the case and wasn't going to put up a fight against losing it if it was going to her one and only ally.

"I understand," she said in a clipped voice. Giving him nothing.

Tan's door of opportunity closed on Harlow and his dark eyes moved to Colt, beside Scully. Poor ignorant Colt, whose brave decision to dip his toe into her world had thrown his into disarray. She'd gone out of her way since his grandmother's accident to separate her work from their work. They were less close today than what they'd been a month ago, she felt – the loneliness of a shared crushing secret like theirs brought with it an instant and unshakeable intimacy that she hadn't had since Mulder, and the wilful removal of Colt from the secret felt like a loss – but they were certainly still friends, resuming the cool professional distance they'd been at when she first took him to Boston. Now, seeing Tan's glare on Colt, she read the threat there. Tan knew she had been keeping her past from Colt. He thought it was out of embarrassment. He didn't know what he would risk if he pushed the young agent unwillingly into the whirlpool Scully had been trying to escape since she met Mulder. She felt the protective urge to stand and put herself between the Assistant Director and her partner, but stayed put.

"How does your partner fit into this?" Tan asked. Scully kept her gaze and voice steady.

"Agent Colt will remain on the bomb-builder investigation and keep me apprised," she responded. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Harlow's attention flicker to her partner briefly. Tan's did, too, and Hofstetter's.

The professional beat-down she'd taken from these two in December was still fresh in her memory but that was behind closed doors. They couldn't throw the X-Files in her face here in front of every agent in the department unless they were prepared to explain what it was, why it was worthy of being used as an insult, and if it was such a dirty word, why they would have headhunted Scully for their team in the first place. It was as embarrassing for them as it was for her.

"On the case without your partner, Agent Colt," Hofstetter said with a smile that supposed to be friendly. "A good opportunity to prove yourself, I would think."

"Yes, sir," Colt answered automatically, cautious without sounding it. Scully saw it in the way he straightened slightly, and in his stillness. She didn't know what he did in Afghanistan but whether he was a frontline soldier or a sniper, she imagined this was the quiet alertness he had gained from that time. She imagined that from his current tense position he could burst into action very quickly.

"Tell me, Agent Colt," Hofstetter prompted, casually, leaning back in his seat, "where do you think Agents Scully and Harlow should begin their investigation? Where would you begin?"

It was such a stupid exercise, the way the panellists liked to play with Colt and tried to play him off against Scully. Beside her, he turned his head to look at her for a cue, but she didn't return his gaze. She kept hers on Tan, who was quiet, watching this last little dig at her go down before he would be forced to concede and give her what she wanted in front of the whole division.

No guidance offered, Colt went to his instinct to be honest. "I, uh, I would question the legitimacy of the contact," he said, glancing again at his partner, knowing he wasn't being helpful but not knowing what else to say. "I would like to know who he is, what his motive might be for handing over the virus, how he came to possess it and what his connection is to it. I would start there, sir."

Tan and Hofstetter smiled, while Scully finally dropped her gaze from Tan's. It was definitely the most logical starting point for such an investigation, but Mulder's connection could not be found. If anything was going to bring down the gates on this fragile case, it was the mention of his name.

"Sound advice from a quick study. I told you he was a good investment," Hofstetter said to Tan, the second time Scully had heard the claim. Colt looked uncomfortable with it, and looked down at the desk in front of him, troubled.

Tan looked back at Harlow. "Agent, how much knowledge did the man who contacted you with these samples have about them and their origin?"

Harlow took a moment to answer, gathering her wits. She'd thought the interrogation was over and had relaxed. "A fair understanding, I would estimate, from what little he told me."

"Would it be feasible to consider that this same man claiming that this supervirus is and will be used to commit bioterrorism is the same man who is enacting this very plot? Could he be our suspect?"

Scully tried not to react but her stomach tightened. Across the conference room, Harlow was tense, eyes wide, trying admirably hard not to let those eyes flicker to Scully. A single glance would be a dead giveaway – it was one thing for Colt to look to her for guidance like everyone expected him to, but Harlow wasn't meant to know her, and the virologist was also in the discomforting position of knowing who the contact was… and that Scully knew him. Well.

The virologist kept her eyes forward.

"I… suppose it's possible," Harlow admitted finally. "I can't think of any evidence yet that excludes him from the suspect list, although I would question why he would give me the case that would ultimately see him on death row."

"It wouldn't be the first time we've seen a terrorist dangle themselves in front of us like that," Agent Desmond warned her. "A lot of them want the attention, and put themselves in our line of sight deliberately. Send us confessions, photos."

Field cut the conversation short, turning to Tan. "You and I have a meeting with the Deputy Director in less than an hour and I still need to put these numbers into some sort of draft for him," she said, gesturing at the legal pad of scribbled figures in front of her. "I'm afraid we need to stop things here."

Tan nodded reluctantly and addressed the room. "Thank you everyone for your time today. All actions agreed upon in today's meeting will be taken now to the Deputy Director and you will be informed of the budget allowances made for your requests by the end of business today."

"Thank you for seeing me," Harlow said, standing and packing her briefcase back up again while others began to stand and stretch. She left it on the desktop while Scully and Colt got up and approached the top desk with her card. "I'd appreciate it if you could email me when the investigation is officially reopened."

Tan accepted her card with a tight smile. "Of course. Excellent presentation, Agent Harlow." He tapped the card on his laptop while he packed everything away. "We'll be keeping our eye on you."

Harlow smiled back uncertainly at what was either a compliment or a threat. Colt glanced meaningfully at his partner as he left the room, knowing as well as she did which one it was. Scully quickly leaned in before her new ally could be destabilised. "Dr Harlow? Agent Scully."

They shook hands and pretended to meet for the first time for the benefit of the majority of the agents still milling out of the room amid their own conversations. The women pretended to arrange a meeting time the next day at Quantico before Kylie Field, a phone wedged between her shoulder and ear, interrupted to get Harlow's badge and personal details so she could chase up the paperwork issue. Scully shared a final secretive smile with Harlow as she turned to leave.

AD Tan was leaving, too. She nodded respectfully, insides tightening slightly when they reached the door at the same moment. She stopped to allow him ahead of her.

"I insist," he said, gesturing her through, and when she exited with a quiet "thanks," he murmured, "Nicely played, but watch your back, Agent."

The low voice over her shoulder chilled her and the nervousness gave her the audacity to ask in the same tone, "Why? Are you going to put a knife in it?"

She stopped in the hallway and turned to face her boss head-on, not liking him behind her now that this thought had occurred to her. He shook his head as he circled past her, glancing back at the door momentarily.

"It's not me you're crossing."

He kept going, and Scully watched him go, exhaling slowly with a sharp awareness of how narrow a victory that was. Tan had fought her but he'd relented under pressure, as she'd expected, because it wasn't his fight. Whose was it? She thought of the other soldiers she knew of – Kelley, Pierce, Hofstetter – and wondered whether they were all just battlers for someone else, someone shadier, for a cause none of them could make out through the fog and shadow cast over it. How many more were there and who was conscripting them and what were they being given or promised or told to make them so determinedly loyal to the cause?

As with a million times before, Scully felt acutely alone in this fight, standing boldly against this shadow agenda and its infinite armies of bad guys, able to count her allies on one hand and not knowing where one of them was, whether one even believed and how much the other two could do for her without compromising themselves.

A soft noise behind her gave her a second's warning before Colt was at her shoulder. "He knows."

He must have been waiting for her beside the door, and he was what Tan had glanced at before leaving, why he hadn't said more. A couple of other agents from other offices stepped out of the conference room and Scully got moving again, her partner falling into step beside her.

"Well, it wasn't exactly covert," Scully pointed out as they followed the thin crowd along the hallway, "but that was the point. It was never going to make it past the gatekeepers unless it was a public assault." She looked down at her shoes as she walked, as the shoes ahead of her turned off the hallway into their own offices. "Undercover operations only takes you so far."

And trying to stay under the radar hadn't protected Colt from the effects of investigating in the shadows.

"Aren't you afraid?" Colt's question was low and serious, only for her. She pretended like the answer was no, and gave the only verbal answer that was both truthful and saved face.

"Not of him."

"Ma'am-"

"I've got nothing left for them to take," she reminded him when he continued to look worried for her. Colt shook his head and whistled, impressed, looking wistfully ahead.

"You two have balls, I have to hand it to you. I wish you would have told me."

Scully smiled gently up at him, hearing the honesty in his voice. "No, you don't."

"I could have helped," he argued. He cringed as they split from the crowd and headed into their own office, which was mostly empty. "More than I did, giving you advice in front of the whole division." He dropped into his chair and swivelled in a depressed circle. "I can't believe I caved to those assholes again. I'm so spineless."

"Shh," Scully scolded as she sat in her own chair beside his, but no one was around to hear him lament. "I'm not mad at you, Colt. It's their favourite game, putting us back in our places, reminding you who you work for and reminding me what power I don't have. You played perfectly, and they know from your answer that you're not involved. It's what we both wanted."

She knew from his look that it was not what he wanted, and that was painful because it wasn't what she wanted, either. She would have had him back on board in a heartbeat, and she'd seen the way his attention lingered on documents she stashed quickly in her briefcase and knew his curiosity had not fallen victim to the same protective terror that had seen him step away from their work for the sake of his family. He wasn't Mulder but she saw flickers of her old partner in her new one, even more frequently now that he lived with a frustrated sense of intrigue. And she knew from her years with Mulder that the only cure for that ailment was a good crazy case to chase, but she'd also seen Colt the day after his grandmother's accident and heard the rational explanation for why he'd chosen to pull out. He'd reasoned and deliberated and decided, and that process was logical and she understood that better than anything. She had to respect the choice he'd come to logically and not give in to his flights of fancy just because she personally wanted him back chasing crazy cases with her.

She was not Fox Mulder and Colt was not Scully. She would not drag him back in his moments of weakness. He deserved the chance to escape this world that Mulder had never afforded her.

As was becoming common by association, a string of unpleasant thoughts chased Mulder's name through her mind – selfish, unsafe, untrustworthy – and she looked away from Colt, blushing, rubbing the back of her neck, feeling the scar and the heat beneath it. She'd known for about a week now and though she yearned to tell someone, to tell Colt, she'd refrained, knowing this fact more than anything else reinforced his decision to abandon their secret case. If he knew what was being done to her, to her mind, without her permission, she knew he would flip. Like Mulder would.

But he didn't have to know. That she knew was enough. Enough to manage it.

She struggled to redirect, opening her briefcase and rearranging the documents inside for something to do. "And you are not spineless. Nobody else stood and backed Agent Harlow up when she started to sink in there. Not even me."

Instead, she'd let the young scientist flounder helplessly, and had even been one to help hold her head under a few times there. All for the sake of the case. She'd achieved her goal; but would she ever have left an ally out in unfriendly seas like that as a younger agent? Would Mulder?

No. Mulder would have done what Colt did. Stuck it to the man.

Colt smiled his little self-deprecating smile, not knowing what she was thinking. "Yeah, but you're smarter than me." They both heard his phone buzz and he fished it out of his pocket. He read the screen quickly and started to type back his response while he told her, "It doesn't take backbone to do something dumb and draw attention to yourself."

"No, but it takes backbone to do the right thing when nobody else will," Scully corrected, thinking again how perfect Colt's entire nature was for working on a project like the X-Files, wishing things were different. Her young partner scoffed as he texted.

"Maybe," he relented, not willing to argue. "Still, I fully expect Hofstetter will find a way to ensure I regret my moment of righteousness."

"I don't doubt it," Scully replied dryly. "No good deed goes unpunished." Colt glanced up at her quickly with an appreciative smirk of amusement, but when his attention went back to his phone, his expression tensed again, brow furrowing, mouth tightening. Scully spun her chair slightly to the left and nudged her partner's shoe with hers lightly, nodding at the phone. "Everything alright?"

He finished his message. "It's my aunt. She was supposed to take Nana to her hospital appointment today but she's been called into the school – apparently, my cousin got into a fight." He rolled his eyes, and Scully recalled the atmosphere of happy chaos that she'd walked into the day she'd dropped his car back. Kids. "I've got to take her. Do you mind? I'll be back as soon as I can."

"No, go," Scully insisted, spinning her chair further so her legs didn't obstruct him as he stood and cleared his desk. He never left without it in perfect order. "Is she okay?"

Colt was tidying a stack of files but slowed at her question. "I think so. She says it's just another follow-up from the fall." He turned his head to look at her uncertainly. "But she's been for a few of those. It seems like a lot of appointments." He paused. "Is that normal?"

Scully shrugged, unwilling to jump to any conclusion. "Depends on what they're monitoring. I can't comment without seeing charts or scans, obviously, but your grandmother did have quite a serious fall. You told me there were some fractures, as well as a brain scan. In an older person, healing can be significantly slower than in a young person. Prolonged monitoring may be necessary." It was her turn to pause. "Has your grandmother given you any other reason to question whether her appointments are routine?"

"No, ma'am." Colt shook his head and went back to tidying. "She just dismisses any concerns I bring up; says I'm being overprotective. I just worry, you know, about people I care about."

And it was obvious that there was no one he loved more than his grandmother. Where his own mother had failed him, Nana had stepped in. Scully still thought on that conversation from time to time, unexpectedly haunted by the sting of Colt's detachment from the mother who had abandoned him. When she wasn't lying awake avoiding artificial nightmares about Mulder, she was lying there wondering whether her William thought any less of her than Colt thought of Val.

She tried to smile. "I'm sure everything's in order. It's a good hospital, and they know you're FBI – you and I both brought the accident and her treatment into question. They want a flawless patient history if we ever bring it out again. That's probably all there is to it."

"Yeah, probably," Colt agreed. He put his phone back into his pocket. "Thanks. I'll be back as quickly as I can. And, uh," here he paused, glancing quickly around to ensure no one else was in eavesdropping distance, "great going, in there, today. I'm glad for you. You deserved a win." He laid a hand on her desk in lieu of placing it on her shoulder or hand, but she determined the same degree of loyal warmth from the gesture. Like Mulder. "But please, be careful."

He headed for the door, straightening his jacket as he went. She watched him go, reminding herself how little he looked like Mulder, how very different their connection was, and how unfair it would be to expect him to step back into her world and help her the way Mulder would have if he were still at the Bureau.

He stopped suddenly at the office door, rebounding like he'd almost walked into someone, and he had; she heard him immediately apologise, automatically polite as he was.

"I'm sorry."

"Oh – no, it's fine, I'm sorry…"

Agent Harlow, in her rush, had almost crashed into him, and now stood in the doorway, briefcase swinging with the momentum of her halt. They only stood there a moment together, briefly awkward, but Scully felt the faint ghost of the electric jolt she'd experienced when she'd seen them together at the door to her old basement office last week. She hadn't expected her own reaction, but then, she hadn't expected from Colt's urgent text that he and Harlow would see fit to venture through the bomb site that was the basement and find themselves at the door of the room that was once just the copier, and later something much, much more. She'd taken the elevator down wondering what more she would say to Harlow to initiate her without letting her in too deep, and had the doors open to see both the young agents she was trying to protect standing at the exact precipice of the world she did not want to see them fall into.

Standing exactly where she stood, the first time she heard Mulder's voice. Nobody in here but the FBI's most unwanted. Right before she walked inside and met him and let him redirect the whole course of her life.

Harlow and Colt were not Mulder and Scully, and they hadn't even met in the basement – Colt had spoken at length about Harlow's prize motorcycle when Scully had caught him later – but the sense of déjà vu that had struck Scully the first time she saw them together was potent, and returned faintly now. At the office door, Harlow adjusted her glasses while Colt stepped aside, gesturing for her to go ahead past him, assuming she was here to see his partner.

"She's just-"

"No, I'll see her tomorrow," Harlow stopped him dismissively, casting a quick smile in Scully's direction before looking back to Colt. "Actually, it was you I was hoping to see." She hesitated, uncharacteristically lost for words. "I wanted to…" She stopped again, plainly awkward despite her pretty, put-together appearance. Scully could imagine Mulder sitting beside her, muttering observations as he profiled the virologist. High pressure childhood, too busy for real friends, high IQ but low social-emotional intelligence, difficulty expressing true emotion, difficulty accepting help on face value and expressing gratitude… Harlow swallowed and tried again. "Just… thanks."

Colt had made fun of his own choices a minute earlier and Scully had called it backbone, but in truth, standing up for someone was nothing to Warren. He didn't think twice, and certainly didn't expect to be thanked for it. But where Harlow struggled to understand the motives of others and seemed to question every behaviour, especially nice ones, Colt was highly attuned, and must have sensed how much his little action had meant to her. He just shrugged and said, sincerely, "Anytime."

Harlow smiled, confidence restored. "I'll catch you later, then, Mr Corvette." She turned away, but made sure to meet Scully's gaze as she did.

The look in her eyes said a thousand thank-yous, and any question Scully had had about Harlow's dedication to the cause evaporated. The other doctor disappeared, and Colt stayed put for a moment, giving her time to walk away before he left so they didn't end up in the uncomfortable post-farewell tandem walk to the elevator. So thoughtful. He raised his eyes to Scully's as well, sharing his amused look with her before he left, too.

In their absence Scully slowly closed her briefcase and locked it. She'd cut Mulder out of her life for the time being and given Skinner and Doggett the cold shoulder when they'd extended the offer of help, for their own good, but she wasn't alone. She had Harlow now, and Colt at the periphery if she really needed him – she had no doubt he'd be at her side if she asked – and they had an open X-file for the first time since the one-off that had resulted in Mulder's exoneration in 2008.

She sighed and wove her fingers together, pressing her entwined fists to her mouth as she considered her position. She lowered her eyes to the left to her lovely new watch. Mulder's watch. It was the most hopeful things had looked in… well, a long while, and moving forward from here needed to be handled delicately to avoid losing the ground they'd fought for and gained in that conference room.

Conference rooms were indeed battlegrounds and she and her allies had strategically won that round, but she knew the war was far from over, and from here, it could only get bloodier.