Please don't de-age me if you feel the need to punish me.

I don't own anything.

Including the X-files or any of the people or dialog mentioned in this story.

By the time we get our paperwork in order after flying in from San Diego, it's the week of Thanksgiving, the bane of people who work in retail everywhere. Personally, I hate the stupid holidays – nothing amusing happens but massive amounts of fake reindeer hanging everywhere and everyone gets freakishly religious. It usually snows, though, and I do enjoy snow.

It is snowing a little now, in fact.

I spend my weekend watching TV – there is nothing quite as amusing as Walker: Texas Ranger ("What is obvious is sometimes hidden in plain sight." Really) and reading. Doing nothing, in other words, because, let's face it, I have no life. Scully's probably planning a family holiday, watching some heartwarming movie about families being together at Thanksgiving, or else It's a Wonderful Life and generally being the annoying person she doesn't mean to be but is because the holidays bring out the worst in me.

If I try really hard, I won't notice that Dad isn't going to even call me.

And I won't call him.

With this in mind, I go to work on Monday, like any normal day. Scully is already there – somewhere, because her stuff is in her chair but she's not in the office – and the message light is blinking.

Stupidly, I push the play button instead of the erase button. When will I learn?

It's from Reggie. Reggie Purdue.

Now I haven't talked to Reggie in years, not even when Jerry fell down that elevator shaft. He doesn't write, he doesn't call, and he certainly doesn't leave me messages at work.

"Hey, Mulder, it's Reggie. Reggie Purdue." Yeah, dude, I know. "I'm just calling because, uh... There's this Jewelery store, Zell Brothers? Got robbed? And, uh, well... Mulder, you need to get down here, I just... I don't know how to... Damn it, Mulder, just get down here. Now."

Click.

What the hell was that, I'd like to know?

Scully comes in carrying a bagel. "Morning, Mulder."

This month will not give us a rest. She looks tired, too. I know I am. "Scully," I tell her, "we have to go."

She looks sadly at her bagel.

"I won't tell if you don't?" I ask. She nods. "Okay, Mulder." We go back to the parking garage and get in my car. Technically, if you're using your own car for Bureau purposes it becomes Bureau property and you can't eat in Bureau cars. Or something to that effect. But that's bull, so I'm gonna let it slide. God, I'm getting punchy.

We arrive at the jewelery store in ten minutes, and it looks for all the world like a typical robbery – police, lights, and dead body. "I still don't get it. What does this have to do with us?" asks Scully, who just swallowed the last of her bagel.

"Robbing a jewelry store is a federal crime," I answer, which is true.

"Thank you."

How to explain, when I don't even know? "I don't know. I got a call from some guy I used to work with over at the violent crimes section, said it was important." We walk by the coroner taking away a body and I see Reggie, all right. So that's something. "Reggie! Reggie!" I chant, just like old times, because VCU is dorky like that. We have a many handshake.

"Mulder, God, I hate it when you do that," he says.

"This is Special Agent Scully. Reggie Purdue," I dutifully introduce them. Now will someone tell me what's going on? This just reminds me of Barnett a little, and it's starting to freak me out.

"How are you?" Reggie asks Scully.

"What happened here?" She's good.

"Lone gunman took out a salesgirl after she filled up a bag for him."

Creepily familiar. "You guys turn up anything?"

"Not much... except... this. It's going to blow your mind."

And I know. I mean, I don't know, but I know. There's nothing else it could be.

But it can't be.

"Why?" I ask, which seems like a good enough question to start with.

"I'm telling you, Mulder, this is going to blow... your... mind."

I still know it, but my brain still won't process it. Not for one second. Not as he hands me the evidence bag, not even as I read the note, because there is no way, just none at all.

How?

I dimly hear Scully ask what it is, and my mind is playing catch-up. "Wait, wait a second... " I begin, but I don't know what I"m wating for.

"You see why I called you?"

Yes, I do. "What about witness descriptions?"

I know what he'll say.

"White male, five-eleven to six feet, ski mask."

"Damn it, Reggie, that's Barnett." Not my most intelligent response, but who cares?

"Yeah, but it can't be."

I know it can't. Dammit. "Who's Barnett?" asks Scully.

Reggie looks at her, and I look at her, and neither of us knows what to say. What a crappy year – first Jerry, now this.

"I'll be in touch, Mulder," Reggie finally says, because he doesn't know what else to say.

"Right," I reply, because I have to say something. My impulse is to thank him, but I can't imagine what for. I lead Scully out into the mall, knowing I'll have to say something, but I'm really sick of something right now.

What a hell of a year.

"It was my first case at the bureau," I tell her, because I have to start somewhere. "Barnett was doing armed jobs all over D.C. and getting away with it, very trigger-happy. Killed seven people. There was this big task force, Reggie was my ASAC. I was twenty-eight years old, right out of the academy. I had this theory on the case. Reggie thought I was full of it. I was full of it."

"What was the theory?"

"That Barnett had an inside connection. An employee at the armored car company was tipping him off about large shipments of cash. Turns out I was sort of right." That's one way of putting it.

"Sort of?"

"Yeah, we planted bogus waybills, manifests with the armored car company to try to set a trap but Barnett was way ahead of us. That's... when the notes started." And I hand her the note Reggie never asked if he could have back. Now it's in my custody, I guess.

"'Fox can't guard the chicken coop,'" she reads.

Witty. "Clever, huh?"

"So you never caught him?"

I remember that night. The sound of gunshots – my heart pounding in my chest. "No, we did. We did, but not, uh, not clean. An agent died because I screwed up."

"And what happened to Barnett?"

That's the thing. I remember the verdict – all too well. "He avoided the death penalty on a technicality. But he went down for every job he did. Consecutive terms, three-hundred-and-forty years. The judge promised me he would die in prison." And he did. That's the problem.

"So you think he escaped?"

Definitely not. Until just now. "No, that's just it. He did die in prison, four years ago." Nothing like dramatic effect.

"You're sure?"

Very sure. "I was paying attention." I walk back to the car.

XXXXX

I take the note to Agent Henderson in handwriting, because she's the best. I have to know.

It can't be.

But it is.

She puts the note under her microscope, one of the cool ones with two sets of lenses so I can look too. "This guy a friend of yours?"

Yeah, we're best buds. "Yeah, I play golf with him every Sunday." She has said nothing relevant yet. "What do you think?"

"You just brought this in ten minutes ago."

You're slipping, Henderson. "You're slipping, Henderson."

"Ten minutes may be enough time for you, Mulder. Of course, I wouldn't know that from personal experience." I knew there was a reason I liked her.

I sit down. "Yeah... seriously, what do you think?"

"Okay, first impressions... the ink is fresh, the note was written in the last forty-eight hours. Ballpoint, but you knew that. A right-hander. Let's see... written by someone sitting down, but now I'm just showing off."

That's not what I need. "Yeah, does it match Barnett?"

"I'd say it's him."

"But you're not sure?" My heart lightens, for just a moment. She squints at me.

"Ninety-five percent. The writing's sloppier. Some of the ascenders and descenders are heavier."

Whatever that means. "Could it have been traced over an old note of Barnett's?"

"Could be, but it's a damn good job if it is."

This is not what I want to hear. I mean back from the dead is cool and all, usually, but not this time. "Thanks, Henderson, I owe you one."

"Promises, promises." I leaver her to it.

XXXXX

I call the prison bureau and get a copy of the death certificate faxed over, just so I have some freaking documentation that I'm not crazy, which will eventually come up if I know the FBI like I think I do. Scully finds me as I'm picking it up out of the machine.

"What did Henderson come up with?"

She's gonna be all over this. "Ninety-five percent sure it's Barnett's handwriting." Which she's probably just thinking isn't 100, even though anyone with half a brain knows science is never 100% certain about anything.

She glances at the paper. "What's that?"

"Federal Bureau of Prisons sent me a copy of his death certificate," I explain. "'Name of deceased, Barnett, John Irvin. Cause of death, cardiac arrest. Date, September sixteenth, 1989.'" Pretty cut and dried. We start walking toward the doors – she's not even trying to go back to the office.

"Then it must be a very clever copycat."

Here we go. "The note was written in the last forty-eight hours," I tell her, as though that proves anything but I'm not at my best and she doesn't question it.

"Pull any prints?"

Ha! Tried it. "No prints."

"Barnett had a lot of time on his hands while he was in prison, maybe he planned it with someone on the outside."

I open the door to a confrence room at the end of the bullpen. "Revenge from the grave? That'd be a neat trick." We've even seen something like it before, in Philly.

"He planned to get you, didn't he?"

Sometimes the world really does stop, I decide. And it never goes in quite the same way again. The world changed when Samantha was taken, when my parents got divorced, and the world changed again that day that we took Barnett in.

"I was just down talking to Agent Purdue.
I know what he said, and I know what she saw. "And he showed you the videotape?" I ask, even though she knows.

She nods. "You did the right thing, Mulder."

Then why have I been second guessing it all this time? "Did I? Steve Wallenberg had a wife and two kids. One of his boys is an all-star on his football team now." I know this because sometimes I go watch the games, because a sadistic part of me hopes that someone responsible for Samantha's disappearance came to the prom she never went to, the graduation she never got to have, and so on. It's like a reverse punishment, but I don't care. It's right, and it keeps me from forgetting – until it's all resolved in my head, which it probably will never be. "If I had pulled the trigger two seconds earlier and Wallenberg would be here to see his kid play. Instead, I got some dead man robbing jewelry stores and sending me haikus." I'm starting to like football.

I leave her standing there because I don't know what else to say anyway. Stupid robber.

XXXX

There is a game that day, in fact, and I am in town, and I'm thinking about it anyway, so I go. The kids are so tiny – they seem young to be slamming into each other.

My fault his dad isn't here.

My fault.

Enough wallowing, Mulder. Time to go anyway, Scully'll be worrying.

When I get to my car I see the note. On the freaking seat – he was in the car. I open it and sure enough, there's surveillance photos and a cute little note:

"A hunted Fox eventually dies."

Dammmit.

"I'll get you, you son of a bitch!" I find myself shouting, even though, no, not so much, he's just gonna get off on this, if he's even around to hear me.

Plenty of parents staring though. I get in the car to drive back to work.

Dammit.

XXXXX

I take the photos to Reggie, because I don't know what the hell else to do. It's not that I don't believe in ressurection, it's just...

This is Barnett. Fucking Barnett.

I think I may be going crazy.

Anyway, I flop the pictures down on Reggie's desk and watch while he examines them. "Agent Mulder, I think that somebody is messing with your head."

I don't know anything anymore. "Barnett said he'd get me, you were there."

"I don't care what Barnett said, he's dead, Mulder."

It all fits, except that. Therefore, he's not. "Apparently not."

"Aw, come on. Let me tell you something, there are a lot of guys who know that Barnett made the threat."

He's right. "It's Barnett, Reggie."

"How could you say that?"

It makes no sense, but... "I don't know, I just feel it." With everything I am. Maybe I am crazy.

Reggie signals to his assistant, who I vaguely recall being in the room but haven't really acknowledged. "You know, all this talk around here, about "Spooky" Mulder, I never used to pay it much mind. I figured it was just talk about how paranoid you were and all."

This isn't good. I can't lose Reggie. Not in this way. He's doubting me. "And now?"

"Remember the day you walked into my office wet from Quantico?" Not good at all. "You pissed me off just looking at you but then I saw how your mind worked. How you were always three jumps ahead. It was scary, Mulder. Everybody said so."

He tells this story sometimes, when he's trying to get someone to listen to me. "I've heard this story." And now I want to leave, but Reggie grabs my arm and turns me around.

"Yeah, well, maybe you ought to hear it again. You let a lot of people down here in the bureau. They had big plans for you. A lot of people are saying that "Spooky" Mulder has become an embarrassment, a liability."

This isn't what I thought. Maybe I haven't lost him at all. "What? Are you saying that somebody from the bureau's behind this?"

"Maybe, maybe not. It's always best to cover your ass in any event."

God. What the hell is going on anyway? "Sorry. This was just faxed." Scully. I didn't realize she'd come in. "This is a copy of John Barnett's last will and testament. No surviving relatives, left what little he had to another prisoner... a Joe Crandall... and instructions for his body to be cremated. His will was executed six months after his death and this document states that his ashes were spread along the bank of the Delaware River by an employee of the crematory used by the prison."

"It's like I said," Reggie says, "I think somebody's messing with your head."

So, yeah, maybe.

But there's also no body to dig up. "Killing a sales clerk just to leave me a note? I'd say that's going a little out of your way."

I take my pictures back. Still wanna have them analyzed. And the notes, for handwriting. I'm sure there's another way to get proof.

Take that.

So I take it all up to forensics and have them run the age composite program thingy. The one that shows what someone would look like if they were older. And I have them run Barnett's mug shot. "He's older now, he may have put on some weight," I tell the tech once it's been pulled up on the screen.

"How much older?"

"Five years." She pushes some keys. He gets older, thinner.

"He could be wearing any kind of disguise," I tell her. She gives him a beard.

I don't want to do this. Not anymore.

And I can't stop thinking about it.

I was young, I know that. And I was scared. And when I testified, it was the first time, but dammit, I put him away. "Take us back to the day in question. Was it your impression, Agent Mulder, that John Barnett took a kind of a perverse pleasure in his crimes? Didn't he send you notes to taunt you?"

It sucks, being able to recall things in such detail. Yeah, he taunted me. "Yes, I felt that he was, uh, daring us to catch him. That he killed his victims almost as if it were part of a game," I told the prosecutor, and I don't regret putting it that way because it was a game.

"Describe for the court if you would, Agent Mulder, what happened when you finally caught John Barnett," she instructed me.

"We had a customs warehouse at the airport staked out," I told her then. It was a good plan. Just not good enough. My fault, that I didn't realize. "Now, we knew that Barnett had someone working for the armored car transport tipping him off about large cash shipments but we never figured that he would actually be inside the vehicle when it arrived. That's how Barnett was able to take the driver of the vehicle hostage."

"In other words, John Barnett used his own accomplice as a hostage?"

The guy was scared, even though he got himself into it. So scared. "Yes, ma'am."

"And then what happened?"

I saw it then, just like I still see it sometimes. Especially now. The way we pulled out of hiding, surrounded them. I was behind him. I should have shot him. I wanted to. I really did. And then he shot his hostage, and then he shot Steve and want became need and need became did and I don't regret it. So I lost my temper on the stand. So I started yelling that he shot Steve Wallenberg out of spite and that he should die like an animal. And when I stepped down, Barnett said it:

"I'll... get... you."

But he died.

"I'll need printouts of every variation," I tell the computer lady.

"Right."

"I just got off the phone with the prison," says Scully. When did she get there?

"What did they come up with?"

"No, I called them on a hunch. John Barnett died of a heart attack, right? At least that's what it says on his death certificate. Well, I had them fax me all of his medical records. Barnett was admitted to the prison infirmary for an infection in his right hand. There isn't any indication or diagnosis of coronary complications. In fact, on his physical six months earlier, he was given a clean bill of health."

Well that, is weird.

"It's too late today," she says, "but they said we can go out there and meet with Joe Crandall tomorrow."

I have to think for a second. Oh yeah, Crandall. The heir. "Okay."

November 30 – Tuesday

Once we're all checked in at the prison and make it in, we're eventually escorted to this Crandall guy, in the prison hospital ward.

"I don't get many visitors," he says when we're finally escorted in to see him as he's rolling his way down a hall in his wheelchair.

"You knew John Barnett?" I ask, because that's a good place to start.

"Yes, sir."

Good. Cooperative. "How well did you know him?"

"Pretty well."

"He left you everything he had in his will," says Scully. "You must've known him better than pretty well."

"Used to change his bandages, and we just got to... know each other."

Makes sense, I guess. "Are you aware that Barnett died of cardiac arrest in this facility in 1989?" I ask. He worked in the hospital ward, night shift. Barnett died at night.

"Cardiac arrest? Where does it say that?"

Uh oh. I think I stop breathing. "On his death certificate," says Scully.

The rolling stops.
"He ain't dead, is he?"

Isn't, says my third-grade teacher. Isn't dead. "Why do you say that?"

"Last time I saw John Barnett, it was right in that room over there." he says, nodding to a door down the hall. "Doctor working on him with a knife took his bad hand clean off."

"What doctor?"

I realize then that I have the death certificate memorized. "Was it Doctor Ridley?"

"Yeah, yeah, it was Doctor Ridley, that's the one. He told me Johnny was dead but, uh, I knew it was a lie. Put a knife right up under my chin just for asking."

And Scully, bless her, asks the question that makes it all real. "How could you tell Barnett wasn't dead?"

"I saw him looking at me. I saw him blink. Man, I'll never forget those eyes."

Blinking means alive. After he was declared dead. I win.

XXXXX

Once we get back to work, Scully asks the million-dollar question: "What are you going to do?"

Who the hell knows? "I know what I'm not going to do. I'm not going to hang around and wait for Barnett to send me another valentine."

"You mean the ghost of John Barnett."

Really? Is it really easier to believe in ghosts? "I didn't know you believe in ghosts, Scully."

The phone rings, which saves her the trouble. "Hello? Yeah, just a minute," she glances at me, "It's for you."

And so I take the phone. And then I know. "Mulder."

"Fox Mulder."

Fuck.

"Barnett?" I ask, but it's mostly for Scully's benefit, and so is all the arm-waving I'm doing. She mutters something and runs off, hopefully to trace the call. "You're alive?" I knew it.

"Well, you know, shouldn't I be? You know, it's illegal to tape another's phone call without their express permission. Isn't that what they call it?"

Details. "In some states. What makes you think I'm taping you?"

"Same thing makes me think you're putting a trace on this call."

Never said he was stupid. Stupid haircut though. "What state are you in?"

"The same state you are. I stood next to you in line for coffee this morning."

I would have noticed. Although I did get coffee this morning. And DC isn't a state. And you can tape people in DC if they call a Federal building. "I don't think so."

"Man, I'm everywhere you are. Everywhere. I own you."

Hyuk huyk. "How do I know it's really you, Barnett?"

"What did I say to you in the courtroom? Did you ever... doubt me?"

No. Not until you died, then I thought I'd dodged a bullet. "I don't know, what did you tell me in the courtroom?"

"Huh... if you think you're going to keep me on this phone with this clumsy act..."

No, I don't. I just want to know. "Listen, by all accounts, John Barnett is a dead man."

"Oh, you're the dead man... Mulder."

Huh. What's new? I want to be able to laugh it off, but I have just enough self-preservation left. "Fine. I just need confirmation that you are who you say you are."

"You want confirmation? You got it."

How? "Barnett? You there?"

Nothing, except Scully is back as I slam the phone down. "You lost him."

Nothing to be done. "Yeah, he was hip to the trace."

"Was it Barnett?"

Good question. I don't know. "John Barnett was from New Hampshire. He had a slight accent. Listen to this." And I press Play.

"I just need confirmation that you are who you say you are," I hear myself say. And then, "You want confirmation? You got it." Same voice. "What did he mean by that?" she asks.

Who knows? "I don't know, but that is... John Barnett. I'm sure of it."

XXXXX

I call Reggie. It's late and I feel bad, but he needs to know. "Reggie, it's Mulder."

"Mulder, what do you want? It's the middle of the night."

It is not! I check my watch and everything. "It's only 10:45, Reggie."

"Yeah, well... I was sleeping."

And I was awake, deal. "Listen, Reggie, it doesn't look like Barnett's dead after all."

"Now what?"

He's gotta believe me now. No more. "I've got an inmate at the prison who swears he saw Barnett alive the night they say he died."

"Mulder, go home. Get some rest."

Someone' has to help with this. Scully's gone for the night. And I need him to believe me. It was an infection in his right hand. Barnett was right handed. His right hand was amputated. "No, listen, Reggie, there's just one thing that doesn't make sense to me."

"Yeah, what's that?"

"That Agent Henderson said that that note that was left at the jewelry store was written by a right-hander."

"Yeah, so?"

"Well, this inmate at the prison swears he saw Barnett's right hand amputated."

And then I hear – not a cough. Choking? Maybe choking.

Oh, God.

"Reggie, you there?" I ask, but no answer. "Hey, Reggie!" I shout, but still no answer. "Reggie! Reggie, what's going on? Are you there? What the hell is going on, Reggie? Nothing. "Reggie! What happened? Hey, Reggie!" Silence now, Nothing at all. "What's going on? Are you there? What the hell's going on, Reggie?" Nothing. I hang up and call 911 while I'm driving like mad to his house, praying he still lives in the same place, praying he choked on a LifeSaver, had a heart attack, anything but Barnett. Not Barnett, I tell myself. Not Barnett Not Barnett not Barnett not Barnett. .

When the 911 operator hangs up, I call Scully, give her the address and tell her to meet me.

The paramedics have already covered the body by the time I get there, and the police have contacted the FBI. Crime scene vans are pulling in before I am up the stairs. And when I am up the stairs I see it. Of course. Proof.

"I hope you guys brought your fine-toothed comb. I want every piece of lint collected and analyzed. If nothing turns up, run it through it again."

Scully.

How can I do this to her, after Jerry, after Reggie, how can I ever work with anyone again. "Mulder..." she says, coming into the room. "His wife died of cancer six years ago. Never liked to talk about it," I tell her. He was alone. "As long as I knew him, he was working on a mystery novel. He promised to show it to me once, but he never did. I think he was afraid I wouldn't like it. I'm probably the only guy on the bureau he trusted enough to even ask."

"I'm sorry."

I should have killed Barnett when I had the chance. "I'm just thinking how different things would've been if I would've taken that shot at Barnett when I had it."

"Mulder... we're still not a hundred percent sure that this is him."

I point to the note, which I bagged myself. "'Funerals for Fox's friends - then for Fox'"

Day 3

I take the note to the crime lab the next morning for Henderson to look at. She puts the note under the microscope. "Suspect had his right hand amputated," I tell her. "Could this have been written by him?"

"Fresh ink, slightly smeared... I hate to tell you, and I'm not known to be wrong about these things, but this note was most certainly written by a right-handed person."

Well crap.

"You see the pressure points inside the pen grooves? It's a dead giveaway."

"Would you be able to tell if this note was written by somebody using a prosthetic hand?" I ask, even though Barnett was never fitted for one that we know of.

"Well, this fellow... and I'm assuming from the cursive figures here that it is a male suspect... he has a fairly nice, fluid style. Judging from the pressure variations in the connectors, this person would need good finger dexterity. You're not going to get that with a prosthesis."

Scrap that then.

"So you think it's the same person that wrote the first note?" I ask her, even though it has to be.

"Uh-huh." I take the note back. "This the guy you think killed Agent Purdue?"

God. "Yeah."

"You know what occured to me? You never got any prints off those notes."

So?

"If this guy was wearing a glove on his pen hand, the note wouldn't be smeared like it is. For what it's worth."

I pick up the other note. No fingerprints, no gloves.

Well.

XXXXX

"I was just trying to find you. Listen to this. According to the A.M.A., Doctor Ridley, who signed Barnett's death certificate, hasn't officially been a doctor since 1979."

Uh... He worked at the prison. You'd think someone would notice that. "What do you mean?"

"His membership expired and wasn't renowed after the state of Maryland revoked his medical license for flagrant research malpractice and misuse of a government grant."

Some prison. I take the papers out of her hands. "Where does it say that?"

She points. "Right here. In the federal journal for the National Institute of Health."

"What kind of research?"

"He was conducting experiments on young children afflicted with a disease called progeria." I've heard of this, I think. The one that makes them age faster. "I made us an apointment with the NIH," she tells me. "Doctor Benson is the one it says he was working with – I thought he might be able to explain what's going on."

XXXXX

We drive over to Bethesda in silence, and I can't help thinking I wish he'd just come for me. Nothing is worth this – I don't know what I would do if it were Scully, Reggie is bad enough. Jerry was bad enough. What the hell is wrong with my life – haven't I lost enough yet? Stupid universe just won't stop punishing the people around me – punishing me.

God Fucking Damn It.

Scully signs us in, because God knows what would happen if I tried to do anything, and we walk up to Doctor Benson's office. His secretary is expecting us, because Scully just flashes her ID and we walk right in, and I would not have even thought of this, and I wouldn't know where to start to investigate it, and I wouldn't have gotten in so quietly, that's for damn sure.

I'm gonna lose her too, someday.

Doctor Benson does the initial handshake thing and he and Scully talk for a minute about liscenses and beaureaucratese before he says, "I'd like to show you something," and turns off the lights. I almost say something about not needing to be here for this but I don't really feel like it.

Benson turns on a projector, showing us a film of a tiny... kid, by the size, but she looks about ninety.

"The patient you see is an eight-year-old girl suffering from the advanced stages of progeria."

Jesus. "She looks about ninety," I tell him.

"Only about a hundred cases have ever been reported so the disease is rare."

Dumbest sentence ever.

"But fatal," says Scully.

"Some progeria patients make it to early adulthood but others become terminal at age seven or eight."

Okay, so what's the connection? "What's the cause of death?"

"Clinically, it's cardiac or cerebral vascular disease but actually, these poor kids die of old age."

The girl is talking to a doctor now. "Is that Doctor Ridley?"

"Yes, in 1974. Joe Ridley thought that he could take their accelerated aging and slow it down. Initially, some of his lab work was promising but then... things got out of control. He wanted to begin human trials."

So? "Why wasn't he allowed to?"

"Because he hadn't met the criteria. It was all too hypothetical, too... dangerous." They were dying! Maybe he wanted to help. "I mean... I knew Joe Ridley. He didn't care about those kids. He talked about them as if they were laboratory animals." Oh. "This terrible disease, progeria... he saw it as 'a wonderful opportunity.' He used those exact words with me once. An opportunity to 'unlock all the secrets.' When they refused to allow the human trials, he became enraged. Do you know what they called Joe Ridley behind his back?"

This could be good. "What?"

"Doktor Mengele."

Pretty clear then.

"So, how did Doctor Ridley eventually lose his medical license?" asked Scully.

"He went ahead with the human trials secretly on an out-patient basis."

Oh my.

"When we learned about it, of course, we terminated his grant and filed charges with the state medical boards."

"I'm afraid your colleague, Doctor Ridley, has dropped off the face of the earth," Scully tells him. She doesn't mention the prison.

"Yeah. Although, it's rumored he went to South America to continue his work."

Ah. Well that explains how he got somewhere.

Scully does the polite thing, thanks Benson for his time, and then we both leave the office.

"You just don't reverse aging," she says as we leave the office.

"Ridley's found a way," I remind her, because it makes sense – how else would Barnett be able to walk around with his picture everywhere?

"Listen to what you're saying," says Scully, but seriously, who cares, I go where my brain takes me, which is where Benson took me, and Scully took me to Benson so if she thinks I'm crazy it's her own fault.

"He wanted human research subjects, right? Prisoners. Prisoners like John Barnett." It all fits.

"Mulder, it's science fiction."

Pathetic argument. "Well, what would you have said twenty years ago about gene splicing, DNA fingerprinting, cloning, artificial intelligence?" We're at the elevator now and I push the button. "Maybe we're not looking for a man in his late forties after all. Maybe John Barnett has found the perfect disguise... youth." Yup, it all fits.

We get in the elevator. This is the part where we go try to prove each other wrong until someone – usually me – wins. Someday I will lose this, too. And I will miss it very much.

XXXXX

I go back to the lab with the computers and the aging and ask the tech to pull up Barnett again.

"I want to age him backwards now. Let's start with ten years," I ask. The tech doesn't blink, which says something about my reputation.

He looks healthier now, on the screen.

"Now, five years more."

Younger looking.

"And add twenty pounds. A healthy twenty pounds."

Still too skinny.

XXXXX

The call comes when I'm on my way out to the car.

"Mulder."

"Mulder, it's me." Scully. "Dr. Ridley is here, Mulder. You need to get over here, now."

XXXXX

Ridley's eyes are glazed over, like cataracts or something. He's sick, I think. "If you're really Doctor Joseph Ridley, where've you been for the past five years?" I ask him.

It's almost over, I tell myself. Almost.

"I originally continued my research in Mexico but for the last three years, I spent my time in Central America. In Belize, to be exact."

Okay, now the meat of it. "What about Barnett?"

"John Barnett is the only patient left. The only one who survived the experiments."

Charming. "What about you?"

"My appearance is decieving. I have no more than a month to live as I am dying from a rare cerebral vascular disease."

Ironic. "The same disease that kills the kids suffering from progeria?" asks Scully, and I know she's going where I'm going.

"That's right," says Ridley, and he chuckles. "An unfortunate side effect of the treatment. By using the genetic components of progeria, I was able to reverse the aging process in much the same way the disease expedited it. At the same time, I and my patients became genetically susceptible to the same ailments a child six or eight would if he had the disease."

"And what about Barnett?" I ask him. Stay focused, gloat at Scully later.

"John Barnett. If I didn't so personally detest the man, I might call him my one triumph."

"Barnett's not dying," I realize.

"Only his eyes, which for some reason do not respond to the gene therapy. Otherwise, John Barnett appears to be thriving."

"But how?" asks Scully.

"I varied Barnett's treatment. Once I isolated the progeria receptors, I stumbled onto something quite unexpected... these same genes related to the production of myelin."

What? "The material that insulates neurons in the body," narrates Scully.

"Yes. You see, myelin is not present in the very young and by reversing the effects of aging, I found, with Barnett, I was able to regulate the production of myelin. Myelin being the material that prohibits you or I from, say, regenerating a new hand if we were to have ours cut... off."

Oh.

Oh.

"You were able to grow John Barnett a new hand?"

"Not exactly. Not a human hand, anyway. I could never get the cells to divide or behave properly."

Scully jumps in with what I was wondering. "I'm afraid to ask. What kind of hand did you grow?"

"There had been some successful work done in London. By taking samples of what we call cell morphegins from an amputated salamander arm and applying them to the back of the creature, they were able to grow a new limb on a completely different part of the body. But only on salamanders."

Oh ew. "Until John Barnett."

"Yeah."

"Unbelievable," mutters Scully.

"My work has cost me dearly. I'm an outcast in the medical community. I was called Doctor Mengele, Doctor Frankenstein but I didn't care."

Yeah, well, they call me Spooky and I don't care either.

"Because you knew that if your theories panned out..." begins Scully.

"The man who owns the fountain of youth controls the world. When the A.M.A. censured me, certain sponsors came out of the woodwork. One of them is the U.S. Government."

Typical. "They financed your research?"

"You might be more surprised to learn just how high up the ladder this dirty little secret goes."

"How high?" asks Scully.

"Department of Defense," says Ridley, matter-of-factly, and I want to scream.

XXXXX

Deep Throat agrees to meet me at some bar downtown called Gertie's. "I know why you've contacted me," he says as he sits down. "Listen and I'll explain. I am not particularly proud of the way in which this matter was handled but, uh, like it or not, John Barnett is a fact of life."

I want to kill someone. I think I want to kill someone. "I wish Agent Perdue were around to appreciate the irony."

"The government knew full well that Barnett was in the country. You, of course, know that Barnett stole all of Ridley's research."

"Yes, Ridley was..." I begin, but Deep Throat cuts me off.

"Well, what Ridley doesn't know is that our government is bargaining with Barnett to buy it from him."

I can't help the chuckle. "What does he want?"

"A lot of money, immunity, safe haven."

No. Not Barnett. "Will he get it?"

Now Deep Throat chuckles. "He holds all the cards."

"You're aware that this... freak of science you're negotiating with is a murderer?"

A nod.

Dammit!

"The information he has... could change the course of mankind. Consider the options."

"I will," I tell him, and I walk away, out of here. And then I keep walking, for a long long time.

December 2

I end up getting my car and driving it back to work, sitting in my office staring at the computer image of young Barnett and waiting. Scully comes in at 9 and puts something down on the desk – an answering machine.

"What's that?" I ask her.

"It's my private answering machine. Or at least it used to be."

Uh oh.

I put down the picture. "What do you mean?"

"When I ran from the shower this morning, I heard someone dialing in my private code and replaying my messages. Last night, before Doctor Ridley, I could have sworn that someone was in my apartment. But when Ridley knocked, I thought I'd mistaken the noise for him."

Oh.

God.

No.

Not again.

"Scully..."

"This morning, I took this down to prints before I came here. John Barnett's left index oblique is on the underside of this unit."

NONONONONONONONONONONO.

The phone rings and I pick it up. "Mulder."

Nothing.

"Barnett?"

"Your new friend, Ridley?" Crap. "Don't grow to fond of him... huh? He's going to die soon like the rest of your friends."

Ah.

"The rest of my friends?"

"One by one."

Well, my friends are all dead now.

Except Scully.

Is she even my friend?

Who cares – Barnett won't make the distinction.

"You're not that smart," I tell him.

"Tell me, you're not going to make me prove it to you again, are you? Oh, well, no matter. It'll be your turn soon enough."

Charming. Can't wait. "Well, you won't get that chance."

"Oh, no?" He laughs. I don't like it. "Who's going to stop me, huh? Man, this is... this is the land of the free! Well, I'm just checking in. Bye. For now."

Click.

"What does Barnett know about your phone messages?" I ask Scully.

"Uh, that my mother called for no reason and I'm meeting a friend before her cello recital."

But he doesn't know that we know.

"Where's that?"

"Taylor Hall."

And I feel hope.

XXXXX

The FBI does stings really well. There should be a prize.

You get a few agents, hide them in storage rooms and utility closets, let everyone go about their business, and then when it's time, someone yells "Go!" or "Christmas!" or some other thing and just like that, game over.

Or at least that's how it should be.

We crowd a bunch of people into the hall, just me, Scully, and about a billion FBI agents. "Before the performance and during, we're working at a disadvantage because we don't know exactly what Barnett looks like. Study each of these faces. Know them, particularly the eyes," I tell the group as Scully passes out renditions of what he might look like now.

"I'm including a diagram of the theater. You have six front entrances and four more backstage," she tells the group.

I look to the group. "We know that if he shows, he'll be keying on Scully. So wherever she is, she should not leave your sight. We've got two hours before the performance. Know this place inside and out. We don't want any shots fired if we can help it. We want to take Barnett alive, okay?" So he can be locked up and experimented on. Sounds about right. The crowd disbands. "How are you feeling?" I ask Scully.

"It's the first time I've ever played the target."

Yeah.

"Let's make sure it's not the last time," I reply. Ouch. Not what I meant.

Concert hall, where a man is tuning the piano and Kathy is warming up. Outside in the lobby, the recital is about to start, and people are milling around. Suddenly I hear Scully yell "Gun!" I see her shove someone out of the way of a shot, I see another shot hit her in the chest.

Please be wearing a vest, please be wearing a vest...

"Down!" I yell. Barnett runs away into the lobby. "Check her out!" I yell as Barnett runs to the stage and grabs Scully's friend. Great. Puts his gun to her head. Perfect.

"Stay back, Mulder!" he yells, and then "Shut up..." to poor Kathy or whatever her name is.

A second chance.

I turn back to my accomplices. "Back off, back off..." I tell them. And then I point my gun at Barnett.

"I'll kill her! Don't even think about it!" I know he will.

"Just let her go."

"Go ahead and shoot. Go ahead, man. Shoot, Mulder! What are you afraid of, huh? What, it's against regulations... huh? No, man. You need me alive, don't you? Because I'm the only one who knows where the research is! Huh? So I could shoot her! And you just to live with it, don't you, huh?"

"Shut up!" I yell, like that'll work.

I lower my gun. Can't shoot him. Under orders. Experiment on him. Make him suffer. "How about it, Mulder?"

Screw it.

I raise my gun again.

"Just like old times, huh? Huh?"

And I pull the trigger and he falls and Kathy or whatever is alive. And Barnett probably isn't and I don't think I care.

"Call an ambulance!" I cry. Just because.

XXXXX

They interrogate him on his deathbed while the doctor performs CPR. Stupid, really. He won't talk.

Scully comes up behind me while I watch. "How you feeling?" I ask

"Like somebody kicked me in the ribs."

She was wearing a vest. "That bullet went through eight layers of kevlar, you're lucky to be alive."

"What about him?"

"Well, they flew in three specialists to try to save his life. That guy in the ugly suit there is probably C.I.A. Been trying to talk to him."

"Is Barnett conscious?"

"Yeah, but he's not talking."

We watch the activity in the room for a minute.

"Mulder, I know what you did wasn't by the book."

Shrug. "Tells you a lot about the book, doesn't it?"

Barnett's heart stops.

"They lost him," says Scully.

I'm okay with that.

"Bastard will take that research with him to the grave."

"Where do you think it is?" she asks.

"Who knows? If Barnett didn't destroy it, he could have stashed it anywhere. Which would have a cruel irony, wouldn't it? Scientific knowledge that could change the course of mankind buried out in a field somewhere or in some safe deposit box. Getting old, just like the rest of us."

"If he didn't destroy it, chances are that somehow, someday, somebody will find it."

It's not over. Maybe it won't ever be. "And when they do... maybe he can get his revenge from beyond the grave but somehow, I feel like we haven't heard the last from John Barnett."

At least he's dead.