Chapter 2

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BROADCLOAK ALLEY

6:33 P.M.

"He does know there's nothing to be found from an empty crime scene, right?" Alex Danvers was asking her girlfriend.

"According to Scully, this is a typical ploy of his." Maggie said into the phone. "Part of it is wanting to get inside the head of whatever creature he's stalking. Holdover from VICAP, I think."

"And the rest of it?"

"Part of him is still that arrogant young agent who thinks he can find something that local law enforcement and the best of the Feds missed," Maggie admitted. "Considering his track record at the Bureau, I'm not inclined to doubt him."

"What's your feel of Star City?"

"It's not like home, I can tell you that much," Maggie admitted. "For all that shit that went down there; I got the feeling that there was basically something good about the place. Here, everybody's scared. The civilians, the cops, hell, even the junkies are terrified at going out at night. "

"And it has nothing to do with the vigilantes?"

Maggie wasn't sure why Alex was so uppity about the costumed crowd that made up much of the city's nightlife – considering her sister's dual identity, it was kind of hypocritical. "This place was screwed up long before the Hood showed up. Maybe the darkness was always there below the surface, and all he did was hold up a mirror."

"You saw Mulder's report same as me. You know it's more than that."

Maggie couldn't argue with numbers, much as she'd like to. "Are you saying that what Mulder's trying is a mistake? That we shouldn't be trying to win the Arrow and his people over?"

"We're going to need all the help we can get in this fight. And certainly no one in our unit can deny how good his people are. I just wonder why Mulder is taking this approach. "

You and me both, Maggie thought. Aloud she only said: "You do trust him and Scully, don't you?"

"That's not even a question," Alex said sincerely. "It's just all the intel we have on this guy tells us he doesn't take help unless it's forced upon it."

"Well, in that case, Mulder is absolutely the right man for the job," Maggie said with a hint of humor. She saw her superior officer come over. "I'll get back to you when I can."

"I'd tell you to stay safe, but we'd both know that's unlikely on this job." Alex said with a trace of a smile.

"I'll do my best anyway." Maggie hung up. "You find what you were looking for?"

"That would imply I knew what I was looking for in the first place," Mulder admitted. "I've been up and down this alley so many times I think the cockroaches are starting to think I've moved in. Star City PD brass may not be taking this seriously yet, but the rank and file did a good job. There's nothing in their reports that I haven't seen for myself."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"I don't know." Mulder shook his head. "Maybe I've been out to pasture so long I've lost my feel for the game."

This was the first time since she'd known him that Mulder had shown any sign of doubt. "Scully tells me you did fine with the Mayor, and the cops are taking you seriously."

"That'll make Scully happy. She can have me chained to a desk while the real heroes go out and fight for me," Mulder sounded disappointed. "I'm not going to be someone like him, who lets other people fight and die for him while he watches from afar."

Even though they still didn't know his name, Maggie knew Mulder well enough to know who he was talking about. "Generals leading their troops in the battle went out with the Spanish-American war. There's a difference between being a leader and being a villain."

"I know that," Mulder said dismissively.

"Do you?" Maggie asked. "Superman may be able to leap tall buildings and fly, but according to Jimmy, he doesn't have a lot of friends. Batman may be the World's Greatest Detective – present company excluded – but I don't see him attending a lot of dedications in his honor. Hell, I'd bet anything he's just one bad day from a stint at Arkham himself."

"If you're trying to make me feel better, you're doing a shitty job," Mulder said with a trace of his old humor.

"This world needs Batman and Superman," Maggie told him. "But it also needs Commissioner Gordon and Cat Grant and yes, Mulder and Scully. We need people who can lead and who can follow. You're in the rare position, because you have the ability to do both. We knew that you could inspire people before you became a media sensation, but when the time came you were willing to let Supergirl and the DEO do what needed to be done. That couldn't have been easy for you."

"Because I knew I couldn't fly or shapeshift," Mulder said quietly. "And as for the following part, ask Scully how many times over the years I ditched her. Hell, I did it a week after our son was born."

"Is that what this is really about?" Maggie said sharply. "Is that real reason you asked Scully to do an autopsy she literally could've just read the field notes on rather than come down to an empty crime scene? Because I got to tell you, Mulder, I could tell after five minutes what it apparently took you eight years to learn. She can handle herself."

Mulder had been nose to nose with Maggie for this entire conversation, but upon hearing that last remark, he turned away from her. "I have no doubts in her ability to handle anything." He paused. "It's just…I wasn't there for her at the most important time in her life. I abandoned her, and it broke her so badly it took years to put her back together again. And we were reunited just in time for me to be sentenced to death and then go on the run for four years."

Maggie knew that this was a sore subject for both of them nearly fifteen years later. She was about to offer some words of comfort, when she noticed something. "How good a job do you think the police did at clearing the place?"

"Why?"

She pointed to one of the towers near the building. "There's someone up there."

"After you, Agent Sawyer," Mulder said quietly

"Ladies first?"

"Beauty before age," Mulder said. "Somehow, I think you'll get there quicker than me."

Indeed, Maggie was on the run before he finished the second syllable in 'quicker'. "Oh, to be flush with youth again."

A

By the time Mulder had made it up to the second floor of the building Maggie had run into more than three minutes earlier, she had caught up with the person – a short, skinny woman who couldn't be more than twenty.

"Easy does it. I'm not after you."

"You cops are always after somebody, guilty or not," the woman said defiantly.

Somehow, Maggie didn't think her credentials would do her much good. "I barely have two incuse. How bad an ass-whupping do you think I could lay on you?"

"In this town, you'd be surprised," the woman said.

Good point. "You got a name to go with that mouth?"

"Call me Sin. And I wasn't running. "

"Let me guess," Mulder had caught up to her by now. "You were avoiding. I can respect that. In this town, trusting the wrong people gets you a bullet if you're lucky. And there isn't a lot of luck to go around."

"After everything that's happened the last few years, we've learned to look out for each other," Sin said in a milder tone. "Every so often I come down here to try and help those I left behind. Call it neighborhood watch."

"And did anyone in the neighborhood see what happened Tuesday night?" Maggie asked.

Sin gave a bitter smile. "You know what they say: someone gets killed in the Glades and nobody hears it, did that guy actually die?"

"Given the way Sam Thorne died, I find it hard to believe that nobody could've heard what happened to him," Mulder told her.

Sin actually shrank a little. "I've seen my share of weird shit the last few years; I even participated in some of it. This, this brought up a lot of old nightmares.

"What happened?"

Sin paused. "Cops can't know about this. They get involved; they're just going to end up dead. You have to pass this on to the Arrow."

Somehow Mulder wasn't that surprised that it would come to this. "Why don't you go to him yourself?"

Sin looked down. "We've been on the outs ever since Laurel Lance was murdered. Her death was the last one in a long line of bodies that can be died to him. Last time I saw him, I said some pretty nasty things."

"I'm sure in addition to that hood he wears, he's got a pretty thick skin underneath," Maggie reminded her.

"Me and him never had the greatest relationship." Sin was still looking at the floor. "The guy never took advice when he needed it, wouldn't take help unless it was shoved down his throat." She looked up. "But he needs to know about this. He may be the only one equipped to handle it."

Mulder looked around. "I should probably warn you that a lot of the people who confide in me end up dead or worse."

"I grew up in the Glades. I can handle both."

MAYORS OFFICE

8:23 P.M.

Felicity looked at Oliver, the man she loved, as if she didn't recognize him. "You don't want me to activate the bugs in the FBI's cells?" she asked.

"You can find the GPS in them. Right now, I think tracking their locations is all we'll need to do," Oliver said calmly.

"You don't want to know what the Bureau's saying about you."

"Considering everything that they've told us, it would be a huge violation of trust," Oliver said.

"Who are you and what have you done with my brother?" Thea asked, only half in jest.

"Mulder and Scully have told us what they're here to investigate, and they passed on information about Amanda Waller, which we were completely in the dark about," Oliver reminded them. "In the past four years, how often has someone from the government, hell, anyone from the outside come here and given us more information than we asked for, without asking for a quid pro quo?"

"I can count it without having to use any fingers at all," John admitted. "But come on, Oliver. You know as well as I do that another shoe is going to drop any time now."

"Starting with the fact these guys totally know your secret identity," Rene pointed out.

"And Mulder danced as carefully as he could to avoid embarrassing me," Oliver reminded them. "No threats, no hidden statements. Hell, he came a lot closer to saying I was doing a good job then some of you have over the years. Now don't get me wrong. ,Mulder and Scully absolutely came her with an agenda outside of these murders, but for once I think that it isn't necessarily one that's going to bite us in the ass."

Felicity snickered. "Everything we know about Mulder's file is that he trusts no one. That's been your motto as long as I've known you. Do the two negatives cancel each other out or something?"

"We trust your instincts, Oliver, but they have led us astray at times." John argued. "We're going to need more proof than that."

"Funny you should mention that."

They all looked up to see Quentin, who looked lot a fresher and more alert than he had in months. "How long have you been back?"

"I was getting a briefing from an old source at the department. I take it the feds have decided to grace us with their presence." Quentin replied.

"Oliver seems to think they can be trusted."

"Well, if my opinion counts for anything, I think he's right. Because I just spent two weeks in recovery with a man who told me they were beyond reproach."

Now he had everybody's attention "You know somebody at the Bureau?" John asked.

"Ex-FBI. And next to Mulder and Scully, he probably knew more about the X-Files than anybody else." Quentin told him.

Felicity made the connection. "Doggett. He handled the manhunt for Mulder when he disappeared. Ran the department the last two years it was open."

"John was a good guy. Marine in the First Gulf War, worked at the NYPD until '97, when he joined the Bureau. The guy was a rock star. Lot of people thought he was going to be the next director. Then he gets handed the manhunt for Fox Mulder, and his life would never be the same." Quentin looked at Diggle. "Kind of had your sensibilities. Meat and potatoes guy. Tried to investigate an alien conspiracy, and when I talked to him last week, he said he never believed in aliens until Superman made his debut five years back."

"Then why did he hand him the job in the first place?" Thea asked.

"According to Skinner, his assistant director, it was a setup. Who better to search for a man abducted by aliens than a man who didn't believe in them? They wanted the hunt for Mulder to go nowhere. Then they used his work on the X-Files to push Mulder out when they found him. John spent two years pushing the rock up the hill, and when he stood up for Mulder at his trial, they took it away from him. Spent three years doing scut work for the Bureau before he finally couldn't take it any more and rejoined the NYPD."

"How did you end up knowing him in the first place?" Thea asked.

Quentin hesitated. Oliver got it. "Who did he lose?"

Lance sighed. "His son. Four years old, abducted from his family's house in 1995. The manhunt went on for three days before they found his body."

"Was there, you know, anything supernatural about it?" Oliver asked.

Quentin shook his head. "Local mobster is seeing paying a visit to an informant. Son sees this visit. Mobster doesn't want a witness. So he has him erased." He shook his head. "The thing is, Doggett didn't know any of this until nearly seven years after his son was murdered. Long enough to destroy his marriage, for him to transfer to the Bureau, and put a hole in his soul he never thought would be put back… and hasn't really. When the killer was finally brought down, it was near the end of his stint on the X-Files. He managed to put his life and his marriage back together. He's now the lieutenant commander of the major crimes division, and he and Barbara have been together for the last eight years."

"And he vouches for Mulder and Scully as agents?" Diggle said.

"He said there was a lot of next-level shit going down while he was on the X-Files. A lot of stuff he never could get his head around, even now, after all the strangeness that's become a part of the daily news." Quentin told them. "But when I asked him what he thought of the experience, he told me that there were only two certainties that he took away from his time. Dana Scully had absolute faith in Mulder's beliefs, and he had absolute faith in Scully's integrity."

"And you're convinced that he's right in his beliefs?" Oliver asked.

Quentin looked at them. "John was vital at getting me through the absolute worst time in my life," he told them. "He got me off the bottle, and he helped put me back together when I thought AA was a dirty word. He doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve, but he leveled with me about where he had been ten years ago, that the pain was always going to be there, and that drinking was never going to take it away. When I called him a few weeks and told him how bad I was, he didn't hesitate; he made the time for me. And when I told him what had happened this time, he didn't place any blame, and he didn't bothered about the strangeness. I have total faith in John Doggett. And you heard what I just said about his faith in Mulder and Scully."

"That's saying a lot, Quentin," Thea admitted. "But even so, it's still second hand trust at best."

"I know, "Quentin admitted. "Which is why I've spent the last couple hours going over the case file that they came to us with. This new detective, Drake, you made the right call pulling her in. She's definitely got the right stuff."

No one thought this was the time to tell him that wasn't the only role Dinah was going to be filling in Star City. "We understand she had a conversation with one of the other agents who work with Mulder and Scully." Felicity said.

Quentin nodded. "Maggie Sawyer. Recently transferred over from National City P.D. Pulled her sheet. Good record dealing with a messy city has a problem with authority. Right up Mulder and Scully's alley."

"She told us about this blood they found. How it ties in to these 'supersoldiers' that gave them so much trouble the last year they were with the Bureau," Oliver pointed out.

"Yeah. About that," Quentin looked at Felicity. "How much of what they told you are in the files they gave you?"

"They were pretty direct." Felicity admitted. "These supersoldiers, whatever they were, were so focused on Scully and her son that they went to a lot of trouble to keep them out of the files altogether. They were clearly holding the personal part back, so none of us pressed them on it."

The incredulity on Quentin's face was obvious when he looked at Oliver. "They were trying to protect their son. I can sympathize with that part of it. Besides, I couldn't exactly throw stones at this particular glass house."

"John spent the last year on the Files dealing with these so-called supersoldiers. He told me he kept calling them that because they didn't fit the description of aliens in the files, and because he could wrap his mind around that easier than an alien." He paused. "The guy Mulder was accused of murdering, Knowle Rohrer, Doggett served with him in the First Gulf War. He still has no idea what happened to him or what he was at the end."

"Bottom line it for us," Diggle asked. "This thing that killed Thorne in the alley? Was it an alien or not?"

"According to Sawyer, Mulder and Scully's opinion is 'no'," Quentin paused. "And I'm inclined to agree with her, because my mind is very open these days, but I'm having a hard time trying to figure out why an alien would get involved in a drug territory dispute."

That got everybody's attention. "Thorne was a low-level dealer, but this doesn't look like any drug killing I've seen, even in Afghanistan," Diggle pointed out.

"Depends on the killer. Ever since Tobias Church was arrested, there was the obvious moving for his territory. According to narcotics, Thorne had been picking up a lot of that area."

"So what was this, payback from a rival gang?" Rene asked

'Payback yes, rival faction no. See Mulder and Scully told the truth about the blood have foreign compounds. What they seem to have left out was one of things they did know about the blood." Quentin paused. "It has the same type and factors belonging to Tobias Church."

That got everybody's attention. After Church had been shipped off to prison, they had gotten a report that night that he'd been locked in Iron Heights. But with all the chaos they'd been dealing with involving their late night activities, none of them had followed up on that with the DA. It was becoming particularly obvious why now. "Felicity, you and Curtis…" Oliver stared.

She was already in motion. "On it."

"I just want to be sure we're clear on this," Rene said slowly. "Tobias Church was abducted from his convoy, infected with some kind of supersoldier serum that may have alien DNA, and has come back her to finish what he started."

"This is what you signed up for, Rene," Diggle told him.

"Your New York friend was right," Rene told Lance. "This is really next level shit."

"And I've got a sinking feeling as to who would've had access to the material that could've made one crazy-ass drug dealer even more of a monster," Oliver said slowly.

"What are you talking about?" Quentin asked.

When they showed them the footage that Mulder and Scully had provided, Lance just shook his head. "Can't anybody just stay dead anymore?" he said slowly. "You telling me Amanda Waller prepared for her own assassination?"

'This was a woman who had a contingency plan for her contingency plans," Diggle had, after a few minutes, a lot less trouble dealing with this scenario then the rest of them. "Mulder's nemesis was prepared in case someone tried to kill him. Why not the Princess of Darkness?"

"You went to her funeral," Thea reminded them.

"It was a closed casket," Diggle told them. "Maybe we should have questions about that, but we'd seen her take a bullet in the chest. Usually, you don't come back from that."

"The Amanda Waller we knew wouldn't willingly relinquish her power," Lance reminded them.

"Unless she got a better offer," Oliver replied.

"She believed in protecting this country above all else," Diggle was still having a hard time getting his mind around that.

"I took a look at some of the X-Files," Oliver admitted. "According to him, when the original Syndicate formed in 1973, the whole purpose of their venture was to save mankind from a fate worse than death. 'Victory was an absence of defeat' is how he put it. Amanda always saw things with that same narrow view. She'd have fit right in with those people."

"But those men are all dead," Thea argued.

"And according to Cat Grant, they've spent the interim rebuilding. Who better to have on your side than someone who's spent a lifetime preparing for a worse-case scenario, who had no trouble sending psychopaths to fight for her?" Oliver shook his head. "The Amanda Waller I knew may have argued that she wanted to keep our country safe above all else, but I always thought that was a secondary protocol at best."

"Not that I really need to ask, but what was it?" Quentin asked.

"Protecting herself, and making sure she would always have a seat at the table," John finished. "Do I know how she could've protected herself from being assassinated? No. But if anybody could…"

"So Amanda Waller is part of this new Syndicate," Thea said. "Is there any chance at all we know some of the other players involved?"

"Lyla went through those files with a tooth comb," Diggle told them. "Mulder and Scully never had names for anybody who was working for the enemy, just a lot of descriptors – Smoking Man, Well-Manicured Man, Grey-Haired Man. Hell, he never even knew the names of the people who were on his side half the time."

"Until the last month," Thea reminded him. "And this is one glass ceiling I could've lived without being broken. Two names, both women. And both very close to Mulder. Marita Covarrubias, former assistant to the U.N. Secretary General, and Monica Reyes, ex-FBI."

Quentin put his head in his hands. "I'm guessing you knew the name before this." Oliver said slowly.

"She was Doggett's partner the last year the X-Files were open," Quentin said slowly. "But they had a friendship long before that. She helped lead the investigation into his son's murder. There was a time when he thought he might've loved her. But after the files were shutdown, they got split up, and they lost track of each other." He looked at them. "I hope like hell Mulder and Scully broke that news to them before he found out through some other connection. You're sure about this?"

"Mulder and Scully signed off on the file themselves," Diggle said sadly. "I'd say I can't imagine how much it must've hurt, but…."

Andy was now the elephant in the room, so Oliver changed the subject. "Well, if they've been rebuilding the project, they want someone like Amanda to do it. She still has a lot of pull with the people they need."

"They give you any leads on where they got this footage to begin with?" Quentin told them.

"Considering how many of their sources ended up dead, I don't exactly blame them for not wanting to share," Diggle pointed out.

Oliver's cell buzzed. "You got something, Felicity?"

"Tobias Church's convoy never made it to Iron Heights," Felicity said bluntly.

"How the hell did we not know about that?" Quentin demanded.

"Because the order was superseded by the Department of Homeland Security five minutes we left it," Felicity told them. "The convoy was pulled out of the river three days ago, with the guard's bodies in it, and no sign of Tobias Church."

They all took this in. "We're heading back to the lair," Oliver told them. He looked at Quentin. "I'm going to need you to do something."

"Name it," Quentin said.

"Mulder and Scully wanted you to arrange a meeting with the Green Arrow. I need you to tell them you've set up a time and place."

WESTERFIELD MOTEL

10:52 P.M.

Mulder had hoped that one of the fringe benefits of having the X-Files reopened was that they could rent fewer motel rooms. After all, no one could really object that he wanted to share a bed with the love of his life. That was before, of course, he had pressed the FBI to hire Maggie Sawyer, and three was still an odd number.

It also assumed that Scully was going to be in an amorous mood. Considering what she had just found out, she was anything but.

"Mulder, I didn't like Lethal Weapon before I joined the Bureau, and I like it even less now, but to paraphrase Danny Glover, I'm way too old for this shit," Scully said.

"You're definitely hotter than he ever was." Mulder said weakly.

Over the years Mulder had gotten to know just how pissed off his partner could get depending on how high her left eyebrow would reach. Right now, it was so high up into her hairline, he could barely see it. "Do I have to get Agent Sawyer in here to remind you just how badly you have screwed this up?' she demanded.

"No, she made it very clear how badly I handled things," Mulder admitted. "If you're waiting for me to defend myself, I'm not going to. But you know better than I do the territory we're in."

"I don't actually, Mulder," Scully had calmed a little. "You know as well as I do we never confirmed one way or the other just where these so-called 'supersoldiers' fit in the conspiracy. They didn't have any connection to the Syndicate, none of the old players connected to them. The only reason we knew that they had anything to do with the conspiracy was…"

And then she trailed off. This confirmed for Mulder more than anything else that he might have made the right decision. The words she was unable to put into the air were 'our son'. The one thing that they had absolutely been sure that these beings had wanted. The sacrifice that Scully had made. But there was more.

"You still can't forgive me, have you?" Scully asked.

"You made the best choice you could make. The one you thought that would protect William."

"And that's why we never talk about him?" Scully said softly. "That's why you were more willing to open up with someone you hadn't seen for twenty years about it then me."

There it was. The elephant that had been in whatever room they had been in the four years that they were on the run. The reason that they had stopped being together when they had gone back to Virginia after the manhunt had been called off. The reason Mulder couldn't look his soulmate in the face half the time.

"I have no right to judge you," Mulder said softly. "You had no idea where I was. You thought I was dead."

"But John and Monica were," Scully said. "They all tried to talk me out of it. And they were right. "

This was something that Mulder hadn't heard.

"How could I possibly think that strangers could protect my son better than I could?" Scully asked rhetorically. "I spent the last half of my career trying to hard to be a mother. I did everything beyond the scope of the law to protect my son. And then at the last moment, I threw him out with the trash."

Now it was starting to sound like Scully was on the verge of tears. "And what was it for? They've come back. They always come back, no matter how hard you try to stop it."

Mulder walked over to his partner – a word that even now meant more to him than something pedantic like soulmate. "They're not here for us," he reminded her. "Whatever reason this new syndicate has for bringing these monsters back into our midst, it has nothing to do with us."

"Are you sure, Mulder?" Scully asked. "We're back and so are they. You yourself said you never believed in coincidences. The fact that these things came back within weeks of our returning to the Bureau; it's a hell of a one.""

"Except they're not here for us," Mulder said. "They're here because they want to go after someone who they think is a threat. Someone who'd be a lot harder to kill than we are."

"We've proven pretty resilient over the years," Scully sounded a little more stoic than before.

"Not like this guy."

Almost as if this was a cue, Mulder's cell chose that moment to ring. "Mulder," he said.

"This is Deputy Mayor Lance," said the voice at the other end. "You wanted to arrange a meeting."

"Yes."

"Where Thorne's body was found. One hour. You and Scully. No cops."

Mulder paused. "How do I know he won't kill me the second we show our faces?"

"The same way he knows you won't arrest him the second he shows his." Click.

Mulder turned to Scully. "If ever there was I time for me to ditch you, it's now."

"Pretty sure he asked for both of us, Mulder." Scully said.

"It'll be a lot harder to save my ass if we're both kidnapped together," he reminded her.

"In all our years working together, how often did that happen?" Scully reminded him. "You sure about going forth with what we discussed."

"Like everything else, that pretty much depends on him." Mulder heaved a sigh. "I just hope he doesn't go for the head. It's taken way too many dents over the years."

"So we're going into the mouth of darkness. Just like old times."

"Yeah, but this time we go prepared." He speed-dialed Maggie. "Agent Sawyer. He's made contact. Get on the phone with Skinner. Tell him the operation is a go." Pause. "Hey, I never got a chance to say that before. Let me savor the moment."