Andrew Covington was two car lengths behind Meena as they reached the stoplight across from Dr. Broadstreet's office. At first, the car hesitated as though she were waiting for him to catch up; then at the last minute, she sped through the yellow light and went into the parking garage. Because of that little maneuver and his delay at the traffic light, Meena got the last available parking space on the ground floor. When Andrew pulled into the garage and passed her parked car, he could see her watching his car in her rear view mirror. Their eyes met for a brief moment, but it was as if she didn't see him at all. Andrew followed the yellow lines to another floor, and as he drove, he thought about their conversation at the diner. Had she begun to trust him a little? He couldn't tell. But one thing was certain; he never expected her to come this far. He never expected her to come at all. Andrew's search for a parking space brought him to yet another floor. Neither he nor Meena had anticipated that there wouldn't be any parking this late in the day. But there were a number of things they hadn't anticipated.

Andrew went over the day's events and the events that had led both of them to this moment. In light of the circumstances, he decided that he really couldn't fault her for being suspicious, and he wouldn't have been surprised at all if she had turned him down like the others. But he knew something was different about her the moment he spoke to her on the phone and in the van on their way from the conference. She was a passionate woman, and inquisitive woman. A woman who had an insatiable thirst for knowledge and the truth it provided.

Andrew finally found a parking space, and pulled into it. As he turned off the ignition, he felt a slight twinge near his temple. "Oh God, please God no," he thought as he tried to rub the pain away. He rested his head against the steering wheel, breathing deeply in and out; trying to wait out the pain. They were on the verge of finding out the truth - he didn't have time for this...

The headaches had not happened until after the conference- of this fact, he was certain. They were unpredictable and intense, and left him incapacitated for hours and sometimes days. Even though he doubted they were migraines, he endured hours of tests and bottle after bottle of medication. Nothing worked.

No, the headaches never happened until after the conference; he was positive he was right.

Sometimes, during the worst headaches, he would see visions of things that made no sense; people he didn't recognize, instruments and rooms. Come to think of it, he thought he'd seen Meena, or someone who looked like her during one of these visions, but....

Andrew tried to contact the other participants, but to no avail. He couldn't reach half of them, and the ones he did reach spoke with him once and the disappeared. It was as if the earth had swallowed them whole, to coin a familiar phrase.

That all changed when he met Meena and when they began this journey, this search for what had happened to them. Their search for the truth.

The pain subsided after a minute, and Andrew opened his eyes. "Sometimes, a headache is simply that - a headache," he mused to himself. He got out of the car, and went to the elevator. As he waited for the car to arrive, he made a mental note to insist that Meena call her parents at the first available opportunity. Meena. "That's the first time you haven't thought of her as Dr. Mulder," he chuckled out loud.

Andrew grew impatient with the elevator, and decided to take the stairs down to Dr. Broadstreet's office. He went down two flights of stairs, sometimes taking two at a time. He finally reached Dr. Broadstreet's floor, opened the door, and went into the hallway. Andrew noticed that this hallway was different from the one he and Meena had been in earlier. He quickly decided that this was a back entrance to Dr. Broadstreet's lab, and walked down the hall. An arrow pointed him in the right direction.

That direction wouldn't prepare him for what he would see next.

Andrew heard a scream as he placed a hand on the doorknob. He quickly opened the door, and found himself on the opposite end of the lab. He had to blink; he saw himself standing on the other side of the lab, holding Meena by the neck in mid-air. He saw the glint of light bounce off the point of the needle as it came down...

"LET HER GO!" he screamed. The needle stopped in mid-arch, and Andrew watched as his twin changed before his eyes. He now stood in front of a tall, blond man with harsh features and a square jaw. "Well, aren't I the lucky one?" the man said. He tossed Meena to the side as though she were a rag doll. "Three in one day. I might just have time to buy souvenirs after all..."

Andrew lunged for the man, and was knocked backwards by one swift arm movement from the killer. As he hit the ground, there was a sharp, intense pain that griped his head like a vise.

As Andrew raised his head off the ground, his attacker could see that his eyes were black as oil.

All of a sudden, an intense, blinding white light began to emanate from Andrew's body and engulf the room. The attacker suddenly doubled over in pain as boils began to erupt all over his flesh. He stumbled out of the room, the automatic door shutting behind him. Minutes later, there was a sickening pop as his head exploded.

As quickly as it had begun, it was over.

Andrew had no recollection of what had just happened when he came to. He looked over and saw the body of Dr. Broadstreet on the floor; a few feet in front of her was Meena.

"Oh, my God, Meena!"

Andrew rushed over to her side. She was so still... He gingerly reached towards her neck to take her pulse. Just as his fingers touched her neck, she came to. When she saw Andrew, she tried to scream, but nothing came out - not a sound. She began to beat her fists at his chest, his face, his arms - anything in an attempt to get away. "Meena, Meena it's me; I won't harm you..."

"AhhhhAHHHHHHHHH!" Meena finally found her voice. She tried to back away from him until she doubled over in pain.

Meena was in labor. Hard labor. The next wave of pain was so intense that she fainted.

Andrew picked her up, and carried her out to her rental car. Rather than search through her pocket for the keys, he broke the window out on the driver's side. He placed her next to him, hot wired the car, and sped out of the parking lot. As he was driving, Meena regained consciousness once more and began to scream. She grabbed for the steering wheel, in an effort to steer the car off the road. Another wave of pain hit Meena and she doubled over, tears streaming down her face. She leaned her head against the glass and fainted again.

Andrew pulled up to the emergency doors of Buckhead General hospital. The car came to a screeching halt, and Andrew pulled Meena out from the passenger side of the car. "Help! I need some help here, please!" The nurses and orderlies saw what was happening on the other side of the swinging door, and rushed out with a gurney. They placed Meena on top of it, ad wheeled her into an emergency bay. "She's in labor; she's in labor and in shock," He gasped.

The headache was starting again.

He never heard the admitting nurse call out to him as he stumble down the hallway. He half ran, half stumbled through a door and into a stairwell. It was here that he collapsed.

The last thing he saw before the world went dark was a pair of black, wing-tipped shoes.

********************************************************************

"Was this the man who bought my daughter in?" Scully asked. She reached into her jacket, pulled out a photo, and showed it to Dr. Wescott. "I really don't know, Agent Mulder," he replied, "I wasn't in the admitting area when she arrived." "Who was the admitting nurse when she got here?" "I'm not sure, let's look at her chart." Scully and Dr. Wescott walked the few short steps to the desk. "Nurse Dawson," asked Dr. Wescott, "could you look up admitting information for a patient? Last name Mulder?" The nurse logged into the patient database. "What did you need to know?" he asked. "Do we know who was with the patient when she was admitted?" "No," the nurse replied, "No information. But I could have told you that - I was on duty when she came in." Scully handed the male nurse Andrew Covington's photo. "Did he look anything like this man?" she asked. The nurse looked at the picture, and nodded his head. "Yep; that's him. We tried to find him to ask if he knew anything else about the patient - name, next of kin, but it was like he vanished into thin air. But I'm sure that's him; I'm positive."

"What about the baby? What's the baby's prognosis, and how is my daughter?" asked Scully. "Your daughter delivered a six pound, five ounce baby boy by cesarean section," answered the doctor. "He's a little smaller than we like to see, but we've delivered smaller babies who've done just fine. How far along did you say your daughter was, Agent?" "I didn't," Scully replied. She knew better than try to explain the circumstances surrounding her daughter's pregnancy. "And Meena? Is she alright?" "Take a look for yourself," replied the doctor. "They've just updated her chart; we can go and take a look at her patient PDA now, if you'd like."

Scully and Doctor Wescott walked down to Meena's room. Scully was the first to reach the door.

Meena was gone.

Scully closed her eyes again; hoping that fate had not changed its mind and decided to be cruel and malevolent. When she opened her eyes again, Meena was still missing. Dr. Wescott reached Meena's room. "She's gone, doctor; she was here a minute ago, and now she's gone," Scully replied. It took every ounce of strength and courage not to reveal the panic in her voice. "Nurse!" Doctor Wescott called out, "call Security and tell them we have a possible missing patient." "Right away, doctor," the nurse replied.

As they began their search for Meena, Scully entered Meena's room and like a good investigator, began to look for clues.

When Scully read the information on Meena's patient PDA, she instantly knew where she was.

Scully took the elevator to the neo-natal intensive care unit, and got out. As she stood in front of the elevator, she looked down the corridor for her daughter. She finally saw here, standing in front of a glass window. Meena's hand was on the glass in front of her. She looked so small, the sights and sounds engulfing her as though she was a little girl again, lost in a crowd of strangers. Scully walked up to her daughter and stood beside her. The two women stood silently side by side, and looked into the intensive care nursery. In the incubator before them laid an infant, Meena's son. Scully's grandson.

Scully didn't need the look on her daughter's face to tell her the news wasn't good.

************************************************************************

Mulder raced through the corridors of Buckhead General hospital, searching for his family.

The Lone Gunmen got him on a flight where there had been no seats; the non-stop flight sped through the night but even supersonic speed wasn't fast enough for Mulder. As the plane soared through the sky to Atlanta, certain scenes raced through his mind: the first time he met Scully; her face the first time she saw him after his disappearance; their wedding. His daughter's birth.

The last time he saw his daughter alive.

Mulder drove through the streets of Atlanta; a part of him thought that if he drove fast enough he could suspend time or if he were lucky enough, reverse it so that he could have a chance to make things right, a chance to save his daughter.

"Please God," he thought, "save my daughter"

He finally found his wife and his daughter in the neo-natal intensive care ward of Buckhead General. He got off the elevator, and walked down the long corridor to the glassed-in nursery in front of him. When he told the nurse who he was, she gave him scrubs, a mask and paper slippers to wear in the nursery. His wife looked up and saw him just as he entered.

Scully was standing next to their daughter. For a moment, he noticed the bruises on her neck, and a wave of anger washed over him.

A wave that was quelled only by the sight of his grandchild.

Meena cradled the infant in her arms. She had drifted into sleep. Scully gently took the infant from Meena's arms, and kissed her daughter on her forehead. Scully faced Mulder; the look in her eyes told him all he needed to know.

"Hold your grandson, Fox," Scully replied.

Scully placed his grandson in his arms. He pulled the mask down from his face, and bent his face towards his grandson. He kissed his grandson on the forehead. As he did this, the baby reached towards Mulder's face.

The infant touched Mulder's cheek, and sighed.