The daylight shone through the broken blinds of the rundown motel. Mulder was the first to wake, blinking awkwardly through the dust-filled room. They couldn't have picked a crappier motel, but right now they had to lay low. Only days ago had they been running for their lives in the desert being chased by black helicopters. It was the story of their life now.

Mulder propped himself up on his pillow. As crappy motel beds go, this had been fairly high up on the list. He studied the beautiful woman sleeping soundly beside him, the sun lighting her small frame in the most flattering of ways. He caressed her back, her bare skin soft under his touch as he drew delicate circles. She stirred slightly, pulling the covers closer to her.

"What time is it?" She groaned.

"Early" he placed a gentle kiss on her head, "Go back to sleep…"

She didn't need telling twice.

Mulder rolled out of bed to relieve himself.

He peed with the bathroom door wide open, vaguely wondering at which point in time their relationship had reached a stage were such things were deemed acceptable. Then again, he was fairly certain their rules on personal space had lapsed long before they'd even considered a relationship that was anything other than FBI assigned partners.

He paced over to the window plastered in a thick layer of dust and peeked through the rusted blinds. It was a ghost town out there. Fitting, he thought to himself, that's what they were after all, 'ghosts'.

She didn't talk about him, in fact she avoided the subject like the plague, but Mulder knew that William was always on her mind. The fate of the world lay largely in their hands, but that didn't matter to Scully right now, all she cared about was that little infant she'd bought into the world. He was out there somewhere, living his life, loving and being loved back by his new adoptive parents. Mulder felt the ache in his heart, an emptiness that could not, and never would be filled.

She was suffering, more than he could ever know.

"What are you doing?" She asked from the cosy confines of the bed.

"Just watching" He replied without moving.

"Watching what?"

He wasn't entirely sure, himself.

"…The world, I guess"

"Oh"

"It's still there…" Mulder smiled, "…In all it's 'redneck-ville beauty"

The burned down gas station was a particularly nice touch.

He reached for his boxer shorts, discarded on the floor the previous evening.

"Don't…" She requested, "…I was enjoying the view"

He grinned like a schoolboy, swiftly climbing back into bed beside her and pulling her into a warm embrace.

For so long they'd been chasing monsters in the dark they'd never the time for simple pleasures. Now, they had all the time in the world and not a clue what to do with it.

"Mulder…" She began, his attention taken up by kissing her neck tenderly, "…If someone had said to me ten years ago that you and me would end up as fugitives together…"

"Mhmm" He acknowledged in between caresses.

"…I'd have probably believed them"

His line of kisses interrupted, he stopped momentarily to face her, "Are you suggesting, Scully, that I'm a bad influence?"

"The worst" She smiled, kissing his lips softly.

….

William jolted awake, panting at the bad dream he'd just escaped. He was met with the familiarity of his old bedroom, the walls plastered in posters of bands and the floor littered with video games. He'd not even attempted to climb under the sheets, rather sprawl on top of them where he fell immediately asleep.

He reached blindly for the alarm clock on his bedside table. It was morning; he'd even slept in a little. Dangling his feet over the side of the bed he managed to tread on an x-box controller and math textbook before he'd even made it out of the room. He admitted his bedroom was not always the tidiest, but had his mother really let him get his room to this much of a pigsty?

The sunlight seeping in through the thin curtains revealed a far worse state. The men that had killed his parents; they must have searched his room in the process. Either that or the cops had done a fairly haphazard job of collecting evidence.

As he headed down the stairway it was only now that he could fully see the extent of the damage. Air looms had been trashed, and the family portrait that once hung proudly above the stairs was smashed to pieces. William carefully removed the photograph from the broken frame. Alex's face smiled back at him, his two front teeth gappy and still growing. His mother had thought it an adorable look. William, of course had taken the opportunity to tease him light heartedly.

He pocketed the photograph, stuffing his cell phone and Mulder's wallet along with it. The street below him was calm, certainly calm for a Saturday. Usually the cul-de-sac would be filled with kids riding bikes and neighbours mowing lawns. Today, however, the streets were silent.

William wrestled his bike from the garage. After unsuccessfully wishing that a plan would spontaneously reveal itself to him, he decided the next best approach would be to find his old school friends. He'd assess the severity of the outbreak, see if he could do anything to help, and hopefully gain some insight into the colonist's movements. At least it would lead him closer to Alex and Rachel. How he intended to get them back once he had found them was a whole other matter.