One week later:

Reports on the mysterious disappearance of two Tallahassee detectives and their children have still been occasionally on the news. Monica seems to find them funny, I bet she wouldn't if she knew how devastated I had been when we first saw them. I think I gave her a sufficient chewing out, though, for not calling and telling us what was going on.

The LG have been getting everything together for them. Mon and John have decided that they're going to stay in Tampa. The LG have already figured out their new aliases, it's getting everything else together that's the problem. It's hard to come up with phony papers, as they say. Which, I understand. They're putting their asses on the line so that it's perfect.

Haven't had any calls from Kirtschgau yet. Not that I would be particularly fond of that, his calls normally leave me feeling, for a lack of better words, pissed.

So, I'm sitting here with Caden in my arms, lulling him to sleep, and Monica comes down the stairs with her own sleeping baby, Angel. She sits next to me on the couch, and rocks back and forth, so to keep Angel still sleeping. We share a smile and attend to our youngest little ones.

After there's been time enough for them to be fully asleep she strikes up a conversation. "So, Scully. How's work been going for you?"

"It's fine I guess, I miss being an Agent. But, I've always loved medicine. What about you, I mean, how was being a detective working out?"

"It was wonderful, it didn't have all the benefits of being an Agent, but, it was very similar. I loved it, and I know John did, too. I just wonder what on earth we're going to do now. I mean, all I've ever known is some sort of law enforcement, and same with John, except for the fact he was a marine. What is there really that we could do?"

I could do nothing but shrug and give her a sympathetic look. "I wish I had an answer for you, Mon. But, the Lone Gunmen will come up with something."

She sighed, "I hope so."

6:32pm (that same day)

RING! RING!

I picked up the phone hesitantly. Although we had caller ID, it had come up unknown name, unknown number. That could mean one of two things, either it was one of those damn pesky telemarketers, or it was Kirtschgau. Oddly, I found myself hoping for the former instead of the latter.

"Hello, Carter residence."

"Ah, Mrs. Carter. Nice to speak with you, again. Tell me, did your friends make it all right? I've been worrying about them ever since I gave them a call. I hope they paid heed to my warning, cryptic as it may have been. Have you heard from them?"

"You know full well I have. Was there something you wanted?"

"To speak with your husband, he seems to welcome my calls more than you. Funny, I helped save your life, but for some reason unknown to me, you don't like me."

"That's not true, Mark, it's just that there are many things you could be doing for us that you haven't. I'm just wondering where your true loyalties reside."

"You think I'm playing double agent, eh? No, if you don't believe in anything else that I say, trust that I have no loyalties to the syndicate. The fact I work for them, notwithstanding. You understand that I've been blackmailed, in more ways than one."

"I just wonder how you can be alive, when your ap--"

"Uh-uh, Mrs. Carter, you know that any information like that can tip me off, no, no, I'm alive. That's for sure. Though there are many things to say otherwise, my being alive is not at question here. We'll just say that somebody is a very bad shot."

Scully sighed, "I'm willing to believe that. You're not the only member of the syndicate to be thought of as dead, and then be miraculously alive. CSM did it many times. Though, you weren't a member when you supposedly died. Why did they want you in it anyway? What did you know?"

"It had a lot to do with what you knew, Scully."

"What you downloaded?"

"Yes, among other things. Also I knew how to save Mulder, and I helped to do so, that wasn't good for them. It would have been easy for them to kill me, but, the syndicate at that time was falling apart. Didn't take long for it to actually do so. This is a new syndicate, remember. They needed members."

"Yeah, sure. But, why not just leave?"

"I'm useless if I leave, to you that is. If I stay, I help save the world. If I leave, I aid in its destruction. When I'm here, I can sabotage things, slow them down. If I'm not, things go according to schedule."

"I guess that's a good enough reason. You wanted to talk with Mulder, no?"

"Yes, speaking with your husband was the ultimate reason for my calling today. I've enjoyed our conversation though, strange as it may seem. I'll be keeping in touch."

"Sure." I place my hand over the mouthpiece and call out for Mulder.

"What?" He says walking down the stairs.

"Phone…it's, well. Phone."

He looks at me strangely but picks the phone up anyway, "talk to me."

Pause.

"Right."

Pause.

"Of course."

Pause.

"Will do." He hangs up the phone and looks at me. "Kirtschgau says he approves of your new attitude." He says with a smart-ass grin on his face.

I scowl at him. "Wipe that smirk off your face this instant, or, you'll be sleeping on the couch."

He covers his mouth with his hand for a second and then moves it away, the grin gone. "Eh. He, uh, we need to hurry."

"Hurry?"

"We've gotten 5/6th of them now. The vast majority of them are hiding out on an island somewhere in the Caribbean. He's given us the position. The others are scattered across various countries, some still in the US--no doubt looking for us--Mexico, The UK, Russia, Germany, and China.

"And, there's no more of them, anywhere else?"

"From what he knows, that's it."

"What about the black oil? How many people have received the antidote?"

"3/5th. He said most of those who haven't received it are in 3rd world countries, many in Africa and scattered across South America. But, there's also a large portion of people in Egypt who have yet to receive the virus."

"Have we not gone to Egypt, yet?"

"I thought we had. But, maybe something was wrong with the antidote. We'll have to get Charlie or Bill to go back over it."

"No."

"No?"

"You heard me, no. We'll go."

"Scully, I can't drive a plane, and unless you've been hiding things from me, neither can you."

"So, we'll have Charlie take us. I want to go somewhere exotic, Mulder. Charlie and Bill have gotten to go all these places, Charlie even went swimming on the Great Barrier Reef, for cryin' out loud. I want to see the Sphinx, the pyramids, the Nile. All that fun stuff. Come on, we can have Mon and John watch the kids while we're gone."

Please say yes, please say yes.

"If we can get off work."

Yes!

Ok, so I'm acting a bit childish. But, who cares. I surely don't. I want to go to Egypt.

I smile, "good. I've got a vacation I can take, and, your patients should be fine without you for a few days, well, at least I hope they will. We can go during the weekend, but miss Monday and Tuesday, as well. I'll get the word out to Charlie."

I'm going to Egypt.

a/n: ah! sorry this chapter is so short. Sorry if it's bad, I don't know if it is, or not. Anyway. This story will be over, soon. Sorry it's taken so long to get this chapter out, truth be told, I had this ready on Wenesday, but there were tornados just down the street from my house, and the power went off until Friday afternoon, then I went to Kentucky until yesterday, and got back late last night. Sorry.