Mackenzie paused and looked into her coffee cup. Only the cold dregs were left.

"So what happened?" Harm asked.

"I definitely have to get another cup of coffee," Mac said and climbed to her feet. "You coming."

"I want to know what happened next?"

"I'm not talking any more until I get coffee."

*

They came awake one after another; all of them disoriented. They found them selves lying on the little raised altars that the Asgards had scattered about the place.

"We got him out," Mackenzie told Odin. There might have been a question mark at the end of her statement. Even she wasn't sure.

"I believe so," Odin agreed.

"He should be OK," she half pleaded. "You should be able to return him to us. He will be OK."

Odin cocked that oversized head of his to one side before saying anything more. "Well, if you're sure," that was said rather dubiously. "We could fix his obsession, at least enough for your people to take over."

"I'm not sure he would want you too," Mackenzie noted absently. What Samantha Carter had said to her immediately after she left the sensorium the first time suddenly intruded into her awareness. They had only been gone a moment in time. Odin had barely moved from where he stood when they went into the dreamscape. Even this conversation was longer than the time they had been gone. "You continued questioning him after I left haven't you? How long has that continued? What has he asked you for?"

"You are correct, we have kept questioning the recording of Mulder. It was running in parallel to your actions. Yours was a less than total probability of success. We could not risk all on the chance that you would be able to bring him out of his catatonic withdrawal schema. Our discussions with the alternate personality recording have taken several hours of your subjective time. He has asked to stay with us and find his sister."

"Can you give him that? Is that a viable outcome from this situation."

"We will consider his request. By it's nature, it is not what you think it is. There is more to it than you could possibly imagine. We will debate our decision. Thank you Colonel Mackenzie. We have our answer. We will consider the options."

She looked at the Asgard in surprise. "That's all?"

"Yes. You may go home. Jack O'Neill, it has been nice to deal with you once again. Good luck to you and yours."

O'Neill nodded and took Mackenzie's arm. He pulled her toward the corridor and the stargate. She came along, not unwillingly exactly but...

"But…" she objected. "When will he be free?"

"What is free?" Odin asked. "If he is constrained by the bounds of an obsession, how free can he be? What free will does he exercise? We will decide among ourselves if the consciousness of Fox Mulder should be returned to a corporeal existence. We have enough information to reach that decision. Will we return him to Earth? That decision, whichever way we decide, will follow. We have much to consider. We have much to negotiate."

"But…" she struggled against O'Neill's insistence that she come along with the SG-1 team.

"It'll work out," O'Neill said. "Might take them a while. You achieved a great result. He may yet live again."

"But…"

"Take this with you," said the Asgard. Something appeared inside her hand. "We will communicate our decision to you once we know it ourselves. This will convey it to you once we know."

And suddenly they were through the gate and they rode the roller coaster ride home.

*

"That was it," she said to Harm Rebka. "They bundled me into a chopper and straight back here. No one has answered any of my questions since. They just hide behind their security smoke screen and won't come out, and that's all I get." She shrugged expressively.

"The case was a bit of a fizzer," he commented in reply.

She smiled a slow vulpine grin with no mirth. "I don't know. Sam probably got the information she needed on the distortion that the Asgard's gate made in space. I'm sure the video recording that Daniel Jackson made with that tiny camera he had fixed to his glasses gave them some clue as to how the Asgard mapped their gate to other galaxies."

Harm stared at her for a moment and then grinned slowly. "Did they tell you that?"

Her answering grin was slow to develop as well. "What do you think?"

He fell silent for a minute. He had another idea. "So they're completely secure?"

"Can't get anything on them. Nothing. They even gave me a grunt, who knew nothing about what was going on, to fly me back to Washington. They weren't prepared to give me another flight - chance - where I had access to Samantha Carter."

"I could make some inquiries," suggested Harm warming now to the idea that he was being sent up. "That should bring a few things to light." Including the story behind this story, he thought. He might have to use up a few favours but he was prepared to do it to get to the bottom of this story.

"Best of luck,' she advised ruefully. "They might as well not even exist as far as I can find out, and I tried. Believe me."

He had his own thoughts on that matter. The cynicism on his face stood out like a beacon.

Sarah Mackenzie reached into her desk draw and pulled out a metallic sphere about the size of a tennis ball. She pushed it across the space between them and then let go. It floated in the air above the desk and reflected the rest of her office environment like a perfect mirrored surface.

"That's apparently what quantum fixed material should look like," she said triumphantly. "Samantha Carter explained it to me. It has the inertia of a solid platinum ball, and is unaffected by gravity. Funny stuff. Carter wanted to keep it, but the Asgard gave it to me. When they have something to say, it'll come through that thing."

Harm watched the sphere floating in the air above the desk. His mouth hung open.

Mackenzie reached across the desk and pushed his jaw upward gently, so his teeth clicked together. She smiled fully for the first time that morning.

It was time for another cup of coffee.

It was funny how a burden shared was a burden halved. She felt much better already.