Thanks for being so patient in waiting for the remainder of this fic. I hope you enjoy it, and stick around until I've posted everything.

3.

Scully stared at her living room and sighed. She really should use some of this 'free time' and catch up on some of the cleaning she'd been neglecting, and maybe a bit of redecorating. After all, she had to do something with her time, right? She sighed again, running a hand through her hair.

She was bored. Chores and errands had to be done, but she felt no motivation or desire to do them. When the phone rang, she jumped at the excuse to avoid her housework and answered it on the second ring.

"It's me, Scully."

"Mulder."

"Did I wake you?"

"Since when do you worry about that?" she asked pointedly.

"You were tired, I didn't want to disturb you."

She chuckled, confused by the logic Mulder employed to reach the conclusion, but oddly touched by his concern. "I've been up for hours already."

"Do I detect a touch of frustration?" he questioned.

"Possibly."

"Good. You can out your cabin fever by taking a ride with me."

"A ride?" she asked.

"Yes. Some sightseeing. Appreciate our country a bit more."

"Mulder, are you feeling okay?"

"I'm fine, Scully. What do you say?"

"I don't know," she hedged, looking guiltily around her apartment. Since when did Mulder like sightseeing anyway?

"It's not like you have to do anything today," he pointed out.

She sighed. "What time?"

"I'll be there in twenty minutes. Dress warmly, Scully, we're going hiking."

She stared at the phone in her hand, suspicious. Hiking? Mulder? She'd bet her bottom dollar this had nothing to do with sightseeing and everything to do with investigating.


"So, you didn't say where we were going," Scully commented as she settled herself into the passenger seat.

"No, I didn't," Mulder agreed casually.

"Mulder?" Scully pressed.

"Virginia."

"Why Virginia?"

"Because Quinnimont is in Virginia."

"And what are we going to do in Quinnimont?" Scully asked, getting irritated with the game.

"Visit the train yards."

She glanced across at him sharply. "You know something."

"No," he said, avoiding her gaze by keeping his eyes on the road in front of him, "not exactly."

"Not exactly?" she repeated.

"It's a theory," he admitted. "We know they were doing something on the train lines and are probably still using them for transportation. The Gunmen think there's a link between some clinics in DC and San Diego, so they would need a method of transport between DC and San Diego."

"What makes you so sure they're using the train yards in Quinnimont again?" Scully asked.

"I'm not," he shrugged. "That's what we're going to investigate."

Scully sighed. "Even if you're right, Mulder, they could use any train yard in Virginia. They're not necessarily using the one in Quinnimont."

"But we know they were there," Mulder returned. "It's worth a look, Scully, who knows what we might find."

"What about the clinics in DC? Shouldn't we be looking into them?"

"The Gunmen are already doing that," Mulder said, "so I thought we'd look into how they're connected. I think they're the ones creating the children, and transporting them to San Diego where the remainder of the experiments are carried out."

Scully was silent, contemplating this theory. "What makes you so sure about that?"

"The link between clinics in DC and San Diego."

"Any names yet?"

"Zeus Genetics," Mulder said.

"What field?"

"Fertility and birth defects," Mulder supplied.

Scully nodded, closing her eyes. "I went to their offices," she admitted, "but I preferred Parenti."

Mulder was silent in the seat next to her, the sudden tension between them uncomfortable. Scully swallowed, licked her lips, and opened her eyes to gaze out of the windows, pretending to admire the snow covered scenery.


"What are we looking for?" Scully asked, her heavy hiking boots squelching in the mud and snow underfoot.

Mulder shrugged his shoulders, looking around. "I don't know, Scully. The line they used last time was there," he pointed ahead of them to where several men were working on an engine, their clothes dirty with mud and oil and their cheeks red with cold.

"I don't envy them at all," Scully said. "Don't they have sheds to do manual work in when the weather is this bad?"

Mulder shrugged, looking around.

"This isn't going to work, Mulder," Scully said, touching his arm. He stepped away from her, ignoring her words and moved toward a boxcar standing alone on the tracks. "Mulder!" she called in frustration, trying to jog through the snow to catch up to him.

"I thought you wanted to expose them," he said when she caught up, his face impassive but his eyes flickering with something she couldn't decipher. "I thought you wanted this to end, Scully."

"I do," she said. "I do, Mulder, but this isn't going to prove anything."

His opened his mouth to say something, but shut it wordlessly.

"What's wrong, Mulder?" she asked, frowning.

"Nothing. I'm going to look at this boxcar."

She watched him stalk away through the muddy yard, not looking back at her. Sometimes she understood Mulder perfectly. She knew the way his mind worked, the way he'd blame himself or feel about things. But there were parts of him which she had no idea how to interpret, and she had touched that area with her comment about the IVF. He hadn't wanted it to come between them, she thought tiredly, but it had. It had taken them months to recover from the failed attempt; almost a year before things were comfortable between them again.

Scully swallowed, closing her eyes and feeling the bitter breeze as it caressed her skin.

Damn him for letting it come between them. Damn her for bringing it up now, when the wounds were still raw and the feelings still so confusing. Damn him for being so selfish and pushing her away.

She turned and walked back to the car, wishing she'd had the foresight to take the keys from him before letting him go exploring alone.


She was sick of Mulder. Her irritation with him at the train yards hadn't diminished in his company. Instead, it had increased when he'd offered no word of apology or admitted that it had been a wild goose chase to begin with. Now she was driven to distraction by his inability to sit still for a second. There was a familiar crunching noise next to her, and Scully ground her teeth in frustration.

"Do you have to eat those?" she demanded curtly, conveniently forgetting that it was his car. She speared him with a quick sidelong glance before focusing her attention back on the road.

"I'm not spitting the shells in the car, Scully," he said reasonably. A cold blast of air buffeted her cheek as he wound the window down to throw the empty shell out, and then died when he rolled it shut again. Seconds later she heard another crunch.

"Mulder," she warned, too irritated to care that her voice sounded like a low growl in the bottom of her throat.

"Do you have to tap like that?" he responded snidely.

She stilled her fingers against the wheel instantly and clenched her fist against it in frustration.

Crunch.

Thirty seconds later she pulled over on the side of the road and got out, leaving him sitting in his damn car chewing his damn seeds and smirking his damn smirk.

Outside the air was bitterly cold, and she thought longingly of her jacket lying across the backseat of Mulder's car. But she'd be damned if she walked back to the car before he got out and apologised to her.

Watching her breath condense in front of her face she stalked angrily through the fringe of trees decorating the side of the road. Underfoot the ground was a sludgy milkshake of half melted snow and thick mud that caked against her nostrils and stained her boots.

When she finally stopped walking her fingers were blue and her nose was dripping steadily. She swiped at it angrily, surprised by the wet warmth she encountered with her fingers. Pulling her fingers from her nose to wipe them on the black denim of her jeans, she froze, staring. Against the grey backdrop of sludge and snow, bordered by the dark brown bark of the trees, the blood on her fingers was vivid. Her nose was bleeding; she could feel the steady trickle as it dripped like warm molasses and mixed into the sludge at her feet.

Oh God, no. No. Anything but this.

Scully closed her eyes and prayed to a God she thought she'd abandoned.


In my field of paper flowers
And candy clouds of lullayby
I lie inside myself for hours
And watch my purple sky fly over me


Mulder didn't come looking for her. When she finally got back to the car, subdued and repentant, he was still sitting in the same seat with the same smirk on his face, still chewing the damn seeds and spitting them out the window onto the small mountain he was building.

Suddenly she felt like crying.

Unobtrusively she checked her reflection against the window, hoping there was no trace of blood left on her face and no trace of fear left in her eyes.

When she opened her door and slid back behind the wheel, Mulder shut his window and re-buckled himself in. "Okay?" he asked.

"Okay," she lied, not meeting his gaze as she started the car.

She knew he was watching her as she pulled back on to the icy road, his gaze not leaving her face for several minutes until he seemed to accept she wasn't willing to talk. Only then did she reach up and pretend to readjust the rear-view mirror, double checking her reflection. There was no sign of the blood.


Feedback would be loved and adored; it's nice to know people actually read what you write.