Chance Edition
Megan Reilly


*Disclaimer - The X Files and its characters belong to their creator,
Chris Carter, Fox TV, and 1013 Productions.  Strange Luck and its
characters belong to their creator, Karl Shaeffer, Fox TV, and
Unreality, Inc.  Early Edition and its characters belong to their
creator and CBS TV.  No infringement is intended by this usage.

*Summary and category: Crossover with action, plot, and a touch of
romance.  Mulder and Scully go to Chicago to investigate a man with
strange luck, and become embroiled in a conspiracy of murder attempts
and an unexplainable confluence of events.

*Author's notes: As indicated in the disclaimer, this story is a
crossover between X Files, Strange Luck, and Early Edition.  It is set
during the fourth season of the X Files, although there are no strong
spoilers.  It is set after the events of the final episode of Strange
Luck.  It is also in some ways a sequel to my earlier X Files/Strange
Luck story, "The Luck."  There are a few inconsistencies between events
in that story and this one, because of when I wrote it.  Hopefully, you
don't have to have read it before to enjoy this [though it's available
on the archives, various places, and from me].  I also tried to write
this in such a way that you don't have to know the characters from the
shows in order to enjoy it.  My thanks to Michelle Hiley, who indirectly
put the idea into my head. Comments are always appreciated by me at
eponine@prodigy.net

_____________________
Chance Edition
by Megan Reilly
eponine@prodigy.net
April 12, 1997
______________________


He lay in bed, his body tense, listening and waiting.  The alarm was
about to ring.  Maybe this would be the morning. Maybe it would be
different from all of the other mornings in recent memory.  Maybe today
he would be freed from his responsibility, his obligation...his curse. 
What would he do if he were free? he wondered.

His heart sank as he heard it.  A thunk outside the door and the tiny
mewling sound of a cat.  A second later, the alarm went off and the
sound of the radio filled the small room.  Today was not going to be the
day he found out.  Maybe that day would never come.  The sound of the
cat grew more insistent and he threw the covers back, getting out of
bed.  He opened the door and the cat dashed into the apartment.  For a
moment, he just stood there in the doorway, looking at the newspaper
lying there.  Wishing he could leave it alone, this once.  Then he
sighed and picked it up.

>< >< >< >< ><


"Why are we going to Chicago?" Scully asked Mulder.

"There's a man I want to see," he answered, his nose buried in the in
flight magazine.

"Who?" asked Scully.  Mulder shrugged and turned the page.  "Who?" she
asked again, poking him with her finger.

Mulder closed the magazine and shoved it back into the pocket of the
seat in front of him.  He leaned down and retrieved a manila folder from
his carryon bag.  "There's a man who says he knows who killed Kennedy."

"I thought your friend Frohike knew who killed Kennedy," Scully
replied, teasing gently.

"They have so many choices it's hard to pick just one," remarked
Mulder.

"So who did kill Kennedy?" Scully asked smoothly.

"A man named Morley."

"Is that who we're going to see?" asked Scully.

"No."  Mulder didn't elaborate.

"You know, Mulder, sometimes I really want to strangle you."  But there
was a smile in her voice.

"Even when I asked the flight attendant for some white wine while you
were in the lavatory?" Mulder asked, seeing the tall thin woman
approaching them with two glasses.  He hid his smile when he saw the
look of surprise on Scully's face.

"Thanks," she said, accepting the glass he passed over to her.  "Why
did you-"

"Can't I do something nice for you every once in a while, Scully?"
Mulder asked.

"You're up to something."

"What makes you say that?" he asked, much too innocent.

"This," she said, sipping at the wine.  "And the fact that getting
information out of you is about as easy as pulling facts out of a Ouija
board."

"Why, Scully, I had no idea you dabbled in the black arts," declared
Mulder.

"Who are we going to see, Mulder."

"A man named Gary Hobson.  He's acquired quite an interesting profile
in the last few months."

"Why are they sending us?" Scully asked.

"'They' aren't sending us. I'm sending us."

"Why?"

He handed the file to her.  She looked at him, and then she opened it. 
Aware of him watching her, she picked up her glass of wine and began to
read the file.  After a moment, Mulder fished out his in flight magazine
and began to read again.  They didn't speak until after the plane had
landed.

Scully gave the file back to Mulder.  "What do you think?" he asked as
he zipped it back into his carryon bag.

"Interesting," she said.

"Remind you of anyone?" Mulder asked with a hard edge to his voice.

Scully suddenly understood why he'd gotten the wine for her.  "Now that
you mention it, his file reminded me of Chance Harper's," she said
evenly.  Mulder set his jaw and nodded.  "That's why we're here, isn't
it?" she asked.  "You're still after him."

"He was responsible for the death of an FBI agent," Mulder replied.

"There's no proof of that, Mulder," she cautioned.

"He disappeared.  There's proof."

"And you think he's feeding information to Hobson?" Scully asked.

"No," Mulder said, facing her.  "I think he is Hobson."  He began
walking through the airport and she had to scramble to keep up.  

>< >< >< >< ><


Mulder scribbled something down on a sheet of paper and then pressed it
into Scully's hand.  "What's this?" she asked, looking at it and then
back at Mulder.

"It's the address of the hotel where Hobson is living.  Book us into a
suite, as close as you can get.  I want you to stake him out."

Scully frowned.  "Where are you going to be?"

"There's a couple of things I need to look into."

Scully just looked at her partner.  Fox Mulder, renegade agent on a
mission. How many times had he played this role for her?  He had a real
grudge against Harper.  But since she had found nothing in the file on
Hobson to suggest that he really was Chance Harper, she'd have to let
Mulder go.  He would go regardless, she knew.  "What if Hobson does turn
out to be Chance?" she asked, thinking it would blow their surveillance
pretty fast.

"That's why I want you to go," Mulder said.  "He'd have a better
reaction to seeing you than me."

Scully looked at Mulder, but he refused to meet her eyes.  The lonely,
stubborn set to his mouth touched her.  But she nodded.  "See you later,
then."  They set off in separate directions.

It was cold in Chicago.  It had been cold in DC when they left it, and
cold in Kansas where they had been before that, but the cold in Chicago
had a bite to it.  The wind that chafed at your bones.  Mulder put his
hands deep into the pockets of his coat, turned to get a last look at
Scully, who was getting into a yellow cab.  And he started to walk.

He knew the disapproval he'd seen in Scully's eyes when he'd mentioned
Harper.  She'd liked him - more than liked him - and Mulder had never
been able to see why.  But he trusted her professionalism enough to know
she could remain emotionally uninvolved in this pursuit.

After all, she had ultimately chosen Mulder over Chance.

It was the fact that there had been any choice to make that hurt
Mulder.

Still, whatever Scully's personal tender feelings for the guy might be,
it didn't alter the fact that Chance Harper was a murderer.  And he
might hold a clue to the whereabouts of Samantha.

Mulder had never personally met Special Agent Lansdale Wilford, but
he'd heard of him.  Wilford had worked exclusively in the field; he
didn't have an office or a home base.  He had distinguished himself time
and again in the 1960s and early 70s, as a young agent.  It left him
free to write his own ticket as he grew older. The X Files were never
mentioned in relation to Wilford, because he worked mostly on espionage
cases, matters of national security, but he had also had a strong
fascination with the strange and hard to explain.

When Mulder had read through Wilford's reports and field journals, he
had recognized parts of himself in Wilford.  The obsessed, driven
loner.  The uncanny knack for success.  It had made Mulder wonder again
what his life would be like if he didn't have Scully to keep him
grounded.  Would he have ended up like Wilford?

Chance Harper had killed Agent Wilford by setting a bomb in  a
warehouse. His motives for doing this were unknown.  Five other people
had died at the scene.  The only one of them who had been identified was
Eric Vandenburg.

Eric had been Mulder's friend.  They'd passed the occasional evening
together, drinking beer and watching the Knicks play on the  TV in a
local sports bar.  When Eric came into information, he shared it.  He'd
been a good man.

He'd also been Chance Harper's older brother.

Mulder was freezing.  He also wasn't sure where he was exactly.  There
was a convenience store up ahead and he ducked inside. He browsed the
racks for a few moments while the cashier helped another customer.  Then
he stepped up to the counter and asked for a large coffee and some
advice on how to get to Michigan Avenue.

"That be all for you?"

The shiny foil scratch off lottery tickets caught Mulder's eye. "Give
me a scratcher, too." he said on impulse, tossing another dollar on the
counter.

The clerk nodded and grinned and tore one off for him, then waited,
watching expectantly to see if Mulder won.  So he rubbed the flakes off
and looked at the card.

He'd won $25.

A sick feeling of dread began in his stomach.

"Give me one more," he said without thinking.  The cashier handed him
$24 and another ticket.  Mulder picked up the steaming cup of coffee and
stepped outside.  He started up the street, following the directions
he'd been given.

He could feel the untested lottery ticket in his pocket. It was like it
was burning him; taunting him.  Finally Mulder gave up fighting the
impulse and scratched it off.

A two dollar winner.

If Scully were there, she'd be able to tell him the odds of getting two
winning lottery tickets in a row.  It probably was not astronomical.

It was just lucky.

Mulder dropped the ticket on the ground and kept walking.  He
remembered the words someone had said to him more than a year before. 
"You have it too."  Harper's strange luck.

"Damn it," Mulder muttered and crossed the street.  His destination, a
posh law building, was just up ahead.

A big black sedan pulled seemingly out of nowhere and the driver
punched the gas as he approached Mulder.  Hearing the rev of the engine
from the wrong direction up the one way street, Mulder turned his head.
Adrenaline speeding his reaction, Mulder jumped onto the sidewalk but
the car swerved in a final effort to hit him.  He managed to duck into a
revolving door and from there, watched the car careen back onto the road
and speed away.  The license plate was obscured by snow.

Why was someone trying to kill him?  Mulder didn't like it. Not one
bit.

>< >< >< >< ><


Scully got a suite next to Hobson's.  It was a homey place, she
thought, wandering through the tiny kitchen and living room, plunking
her bag down on the bed.  It wasn't really a suite; it was more like a
one bedroom apartment.  She didn't think Mulder would mind taking the
couch.  If he did, she would sleep there and let him have the bed. 
Besides, it was beginning as a stakeout; they wouldn't be sleeping at
the same time anyway.

She wondered where Mulder had gone.  Scully pulled a thick paperback
book out of her carryon and sat down on the couch. It was quiet and the
walls were paper thin.  She'd be able to hear it if anything was going
on in Hobson's apartment.  In the meantime, she could enjoy a little
downtime.

She pulled her feet up on the couch and rested her head on the arm. 
She highlighted passages in the book as she read, resting the pen
against her teeth when she wasn't using it.

Hobson's door opened and she was on her feet instantly.  She stood on
tiptoe to peek through the hole in the door.  A tall man with dark hair
emerged from the apartment.  Not Harper. Maybe Hobson, maybe not.

Scully was starting to see a problem with this stakeout already. 
Watching was not going to give them the information that they needed. 
She threw down her book and grabbed her coat to follow the guy. Whoever
he might be.

The elevator doors slid closed before her eyes and Scully made an
aggravated sound.  Her long coat swished out behind her as she turned
and headed down the stairwell, running in order not to lose the man. 
She emerged into the lobby and stood for a moment, searching with her
eyes.  Her heart thudded and she knew disappointment.  Then she spotted
him.

"Gotcha," she whispered to herself, starting determinedly after him. 
He was wearing jeans and a jacket, and had a newspaper tucked underneath
one arm.  He wore his hair short, neatly cut, and he was in good shape,
she noted as she hurried after him, trying to think of a reason why his
police record had grown by leaps and bounds over the last six months. 
She could find no answers in his outward appearance - he seemed to be a
clean cut, nice young man.

Suddenly feeling the cold of the Chicago afternoon, Scully kept after
him.

>< >< >< >< >< 


Mulder picked himself up from the pavement and went on about his route,
disturbed at the fact that someone so obviously wanted to see him out of
the picture.  Harper was his first thought.  Nevermind that the guy had
never seemed malicious when Mulder had met him - he had after all killed
five people in an explosion. Appearances could be deceiving.  If Harper
knew Mulder was after him, maybe he would go to such lengths to remain a
free man.

He rode up the elevator to an elegantly decorated law office, where he
spoke with Gary Hobson's ex wife Marcia.  They had been married for
several years.  It was a dead end...for her to be telling the truth,
there was no way Hobson and Harper could be the same man.  Even if they
did have the same strange luck.

Although Marcia denied that there was anything lucky about Gary
Hobson.  He got up, went to work, did his job, came home and slept.  Day
in and day out, nothing ever changing until the routine had become too
dull and tedious for her to bother with anymore.  Gary had changed, and
she had changed.  They were not as they had been when they had married,
and so they divorced.

It was a sad story, Mulder contemplated, as he faced the wind and the
cold again after the interview.  A story he heard often.  It seemed to
be all too common in the modern world.  Two people, driven by their
passions and their work would come together, and eventually that same
passion and work would drive them apart.  It hadn't seemed to be a
bitter divorce, he thought.  Although it had occurred about the same
time Hobson had begun to collect notations on his police record. Maybe
it wasn't such a coincidence, he thought.

He was frozen and his stomach rumbled.  It was dinnertime.  Mulder
decided to head over to the hotel and see Scully.  Take her out to
dinner, maybe someplace nice.  It had been a long time since they'd gone
out anywhere together, he thought.  They were always so busy...working.

His parents had never been the type to push him to marry, but now
Mulder wondered what would have happened if he had met someone and
married along the way.  Would that relationship have fallen by the
wayside, crushed by his endless pursuit of the truth?  Sadly, he knew
the answer was yes.  There was no room in his life for a woman.  Only
his partner.

Not for the first time, he thought about what marriage to Scully might
be like.

>< >< >< >< ><


Scully was finding herself absolutely amazed by Gary Hobson, the man
she was following.  In three short blocks, he'd already stopped a
mugging in progress, returned a dropped wallet stuffed with bills to a
couple who were shopping for an engagement ring, and pulled a cute
scared little tabby cat out of the upper branches of a tree.   Each
time, as soon as the person he'd helped began to thank him, Hobson
looked nervous, like a caged animal.  He backed away and started walking
quickly, fading into the crowd of people making their way home from the
busy workday.  Scully never lost sight of him.

His eyes had a light in them, and his smile was charming.  She could
see that even from a distance.  He looked like a nice guy.  And there
weren't many of those left in the world.  She found it odd the number of
things happening right in front of her - and in front of him - but she
supposed, rationally, that things of that sort happened every minute in
every city across the country.

When he headed inside a cozy looking bar, she felt relieved.  She could
barely feel her fingers even though they were protected by her leather
gloves.  A burst of warm air hit her face as she stepped into the
establishment and she smiled.  The atmosphere was friendly; people were
talking, but it wasn't too loud.  Something about it just felt...nice. 
Soothing.  She shrugged out of her coat and slid into a booth by
herself, ordering a cup of coffee and looking around.

Gary Hobson had taken a seat at the bar, next to a very thin shorter
man dressed in a suit.  He'd opened the newspaper and was paging through
it, but kept it out of the thin man's reach.  Interesting, thought
Scully, trying not to be too obvious about watching them. After a
moment, Gary folded up the paper and put  it into the back pocket of his
jeans, tucking it underneath his jacket.  He resumed his conversation
with his friend, and Scully wondered if this place served food, too. 
She really wanted a bowl of soup to take the chill off.

She saw Gary's eyes on the door and turned her head slightly to look. 
An African-American woman with a dog had just walked in.  It took Scully
a moment to realize it was a seeing eye dog.  The woman passed very
close to her booth and went to join  Hobson and his friend.  When Scully
glanced up, she noticed Gary staring at her.

An unwelcome blush stained her cheeks and she put her head down,
allowing her hair to fall around her face.  But she couldn't resist
looking back at him.  Scully found his eyes still trained on her face,
as though...

As though he recognized her.

That's impossible, she told herself.  It didn't keep her heart from
turning over when Gary got up and started in her direction.

Chance Edition, part 2
>< >< >< >< >< 


The lights were on in the suite Scully had gotten for them, and Mulder
picked up from the floor the paperback book she'd been reading on the
plane.  A few steps in, he found her highlighting pen, uncapped.  She'd
left in a hurry.  He couldn't help but let it worry him.

She's a big girl, she can take care of herself, he thought, but the
words afforded him no real comfort.  Worried, and without a good reason,
Mulder poked about the suite, exploring. One bedroom, he noticed.  One
large bed in the middle of the room.  Of course, the couch in the living
room was of a size to accommodate someone of his height...was that what
Scully had been thinking?

Of course it was, Mulder told himself.  It would never occur to Scully
to share this bed with me.  He sat down on it with a sigh and opened his
overnight bag, pulling out the files he'd brought with him to study. 
There had to be a connection, something obvious he was overlooking. 
Yawning, he stretched out on the bed to be more comfortable while he
read.

Five minutes later, Fox Mulder was fast asleep, with a file propped
open on his chest and his glasses still on his nose.

>< >< >< >< >< 



"Hi," Gary said to Dana, feeling a bit nervous about approaching her. 
He could feel his buddy Chuck's eyes on his back, watching him, not
about to let him get out of this, no matter how uncomfortable he was
with the idea of picking up women in bars.  Even if he wasn't really
picking her up, it didn't change the fact that she was beautiful.  Just
the sort of woman he would approach if, well, if he felt comfortable
approaching women in bars.

"Hi," Scully said back with a small, curious smile. Mulder's going to
kill me, she thought.  Then again, there was no better way to get close
to a suspect than to get close to him.  "Have a seat?"

"Uh - sure," Gary said, "Thanks."

He had a soft drawl to his words that Scully found to be very down-home
and attractive.  "I'm Dana," she said.  "Dana Scully."

"Gary Hobson," he replied.  Of course she didn't know his name, even if
he already knew hers, he thought.  "I'm sorry, I'm not too used to doing
this sort of thing."  Oh man, and it didn't help that Chuck was giving
him a thumbs-up sign. Gary hoped that Dana wouldn't notice.

"That's all right," Scully said, touching his hand briefly.

His stomach turned over and he blinked, staring into her blue eyes. 
Suddenly he found he was having a hard time concentrating on what he was
supposed to be doing here.  He smiled, and she smiled back.  She was
really pretty, he thought.

"Do you come here often?" she asked, and cringed inside, realizing that
was a common 'line'.  "I mean, I was wondering if you knew if they
served food here?  I'm starving."

"They do," he said.

"Wonderful," she said, and wondered why she was suddenly having such a
hard time thinking of something to say. It isn't as though I'm a
complete idiot, she thought, so why is my mind so incredibly blank? 
"Are those your friends over there?" she asked, raising her chin and
giving a nod to the thin man and the blind woman.

"Yeah. How did you know that?" Gary asked, frowning slightly.  She
couldn't be psychic, he thought, hoping.  That was all he needed to add
to his troubles, to meet and like and try to help a woman who was
psychic.

"They're staring," she smiled at him.

"Oh."  He breathed a little easier and shot a threatening look at
Chuck.  It didn't seem to have any effect on his friend.  Of course
she's not psychic, he thought, if she did, she would know what's going
to happen and avoid it.

"It's OK," she told him conspiratorially.  "I have friends who would be
exactly the same way."  What would Mulder think if he was here right
now, she thought.  He'd probably be glaring over here, the way he did
when...she stopped herself for a moment, a thought forming in her brain,
but she held it back before it could truly blossom...when I was with
Chance.

"Is something wrong?" Gary asked.

"No," she replied.  The waiter appeared at that moment, rescuing her
from a difficult explanation.  "Do you have any soup?" she asked him.

"Sure, ma'am.  Tomato, and split pea."

"I'll have the split pea, then, I guess," Scully said, a little
disappointed.  She'd have preferred chicken noodle, or vegetable,
something nice and normal like that.  But now was not the time to be
picky.   She still felt chilled from the long walk outside.

"Are you sure?" Gary asked her.

She frowned at him, and so did the waiter. It was an extremely odd
question.  "Yes, I'm sure," she replied.  The waiter nodded and walked
away.  Scully looked at Gary. "What was that?" she asked.

"I - just - I thought -"  Damn it, thought Gary.  "You looked like that
wasn't what you wanted."

"Well, I'd have preferred something else, but if that's all they have,
it will have to do," said Scully.  She looked at Gary, trying to figure
him out.  Maybe the guy was just weird, she thought, wondering if it was
really wise for her to be sitting here talking to him.  But she had to
seize the opportunity.  "What do you do?" she asked.

Gary looked embarrassed.  "I'm sort of...between jobs at the moment."

"I'm sorry," Scully said, suddenly feeling guilty for bringing it up,
when she already knew it.  "It happens."


"Yes, it does," he replied in that same easygoing manner.

He doesn't seem  upset about it, Scully thought, and that bothered her.
She knew how she would feel without her work.  "What did you do...back
when you were doing something?" she pressed.

"Stockbroker," he answered.

"That's a high pressure sort of a job, isn't it?" she asked.

He shook his head.  "It wasn't right for me," he told her.

"What would be right for you?" 

"I'm not so sure yet.  Something will come up," he answered.  

She could see he was growing uncomfortable with this line of
questioning.  Maybe he was a sociopathic killer, Scully thought.  He
didn't care about losing his job, he didn't seem to care about where his
future was going, and yet he had a real charm about him.  To a small
degree, it reminded her of the things she had read of serial killers. 
Mulder would know, she thought.  She realized she was staring at him and
struggled to salvage the situation.  "I'm sorry," she said, smiling
again.  Might as well be honest.  "I'm an FBI agent, and I tend to ask a
lot of questions without even realizing that I'm doing it."

"An FBI agent, that must be interesting work," Gary said, making small
talk.  He'd already known that fact.

She nodded.  "It can be fascinating.  And it feels good when you know
you've gotten something off the street that was hurting people."

Gary nodded; he knew exactly what she meant.  "What brings you to
town?" he asked.

"I'm sorry, I can't tell you about it," she answered.  Guilt compelled
her to continue: "That's Bureau policy on all open investigations."

"It's quite all right," Gary answered.

The waiter stopped by and slid her soup onto the placemat in front of
her.  Scully murmured her thanks, and picked up her spoon.

"Are you sure you want to eat that?" he asked.

She frowned again - this weirdness was what made her think he might be
some sort of a psycho.  "Yeah," she said and took a bite.

"Does it taste OK?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered.  "Would you like some?"  This obsession he had
with her food was quite annoying.

"No, that's all right," he said, and sat silently, watching her eat, a
feeling of failure spreading through him.

Scully finished her soup, more to spite him than because she actually
wanted to eat it.  Gary was right - it didn't taste very good, and it
wasn't doing anything to warm her up.  She felt colder, and tired.  Jet
lag, she supposed, even though it was only an hour's time difference. 
"I should be going," she said, getting to her feet, taking some money
from her wallet and leaving it on the table to cover her check.

"Let me see you home safely," Gary said, getting to his feet quickly.

"That's all right," Scully told him.  He was nice enough, she guessed,
but her head was beginning to ache and it was too much work to put up a
front for him.  Besides, what was he going to say when he saw that her
room was right next to his?  That was going to be a very awkward moment.

"I want to," Gary insisted.  "Chicago can be a dangerous place at
night."

"I'm an FBI agent," she reminded him.  "I'm sure I'll be all right."

"It will put my mind at ease," he told her. If he couldn't prevent what
was going to happen, he could at least be around to make sure it turned
out all right.  And not the way it said things would happen in the
paper.  His fingers itched to retrieve it from his pocket, to check the
headline and the text to see if they had changed at all, but he could
not touch it without arousing Scully's suspicions.  He already sensed
that she was wary of him - even though at the same time, he could feel
the stirrings of mutual attraction between them.  Not that he was going
to act on them - he was through with women, for now.  It would only
complicate matters.

"All right," Scully agreed reluctantly, thinking that perhaps she could
learn something useful on the walk home.  Gary took her arm in a very
gentlemanly way.  "Have you lived in Chicago all your life?" she asked.

He nodded.  "Where are you from?"

"Here and there."  She realized it sounded evasive.  "Navy brat," she
elaborated.

"That must have been hard on you."      

"It was," she agreed.  "But I think I'm a better person for it."

"Strange, isn't it, how the things we think of as our curse, are
actually our blessings."

She looked at him, surprised.  "I've often felt that way," she said
honestly, still surprised to have heard her feelings given voice by this
mysterious man.  He noticed her staring up at him and caught her eye. 
They looked at each other for a long moment, the sort of long moment
that usually came before a kiss.

Scully smiled shyly and looked away, feeling her face flaming.  What am
I thinking? she asked herself.  It's exhaustion, she told herself
firmly, even though she knew it was not.

"Are you all right?" Gary asked.  "You look pale."  His cold, bare
fingers brushed ever so briefly against her cheek, stopping her heart's
beating for a few seconds.

"I'm fine," Scully said automatically, although to admit the truth, she
didn't feel fine.  She felt lightheaded suddenly.  It's jet lag, she
told herself, it's the cold, it's exhaustion, it's attraction -

Gary's arms went around her as she suddenly sagged against his body,
her eyes closed in sudden unconsciousness.  His stomach tightened and
his heart began to pound, even though he knew this had been about to
happen.  He held her tight as he felt her shivering against him.  There
was a phone booth only a few steps away and he walked with her over to
it and called an ambulance.  "Please hurry," he said into the phone, "I
think she's gone into shock."  Her shivers grew more furious against him
and he held her tighter.

>< >< >< >< >< 


Mulder was too warm.  He got up for the third time in as many minutes,
storming across the small living room to the thermostat, which he
adjusted with savage fingers.  He bristled with irritation.  Where the
hell was Scully?  He'd been sitting in this damned hotel room for hours,
waiting for her and still there was no word.  

He threw his body back onto the couch and touched his cellular phone,
which he was keeping close at hand.  But he refused to press in the
familiar numbers. He would not call her.  He would not check up on her. 
He could not betray his feelings that way.   So he had to sit, and wait
for her to call him.

Come on, Scully, hurry up, he thought.  He hoped she would return with
some useful information.

Sighing and running a hand through his hair again, he flipped the
manilla file folder open in front of him on the couch again and began to
study it.  It didn't take his mind off his worry for his partner, and a
moment later he turned on the television.  The raucous sounds of a
sitcom filled the small, still hotel suite. Mulder closed his eyes and
held his head in his hands for a moment, telling himself to get his act
together.  If Scully walked in and saw him this way, she'd know -

He stopped himself.  He wasn't going to think those words.  Never.

The telephone shrilled, startling him. Mulder jumped and dove for his
cellular phone. He'd already pressed the button and said, "Mulder," when
he realized that it wasn't his cellular that was ringing.  It was the
suite's phone.   He answered it cautiously.

"Agent Mulder?  This is Nurse Hawkins," a soft voice said.  Mulder's
stomach lurched.  "Hello, are you there?"

"I'm here," he said, gripping the phone with whitening knuckles.
Someone had tried to kill him earlier. He should have called Scully
immediately to warn her. If anything had happened...

"We have your partner - Dana Scully - here at Chicago General."

"What's happened?" his mouth was dry and his knees felt weak.

"She had an adverse reaction to something she ingested earlier this
evening..."

"What?" Mulder cried, not making sense of the words.

"Does she have any known food allergies, Mr. Mulder?" the nurse asked.

A food allergy. He only wished he could laugh.  "I'll be right there,"
he swore and hung up.

>< >< >< >< >< 


Gary looked through the paper.  The article with its headline
proclaiming the death of an FBI agent had disappeared from page four. 
He found a new article closer to the back page of the paper, about a
mysterious substance in the soup at the bar where they had been and a
number of people who were affected by it.  No one had been killed or
seriously injured by their reaction.

He'd saved her, by being there.  Thank God, he thought.

He heard her make a small, waking noise in the back of her throat and
quickly refolded the paper and tucked it away.  When he looked at her,
she was just opening her eyes.  "What happened?" she asked, her voice
rough.

"You're all right," Gary told her, putting his hand on her  arm.  She
looked at him, frowning, trying to remember.  "You had a bad reaction to
the soup you ate.  An allergy." 

Her frown deepened. "How bad?" she asked.

"You had your stomach pumped, for starters," he told her.  She groaned
and let her head fall back against the pillows. That was exactly how she
felt.

Mulder opened the door and walked in.  Scully looked pale, he noted
with concern.  Then he saw the man sitting by her bedside, holding her
hand.  "Who are you?"  he roared.  Before the man could react, Mulder
demanded, "Did you do this to her?  Did you?"

"Mulder, no," Scully said softly.  

He froze and looked at her.  He crouched down by her bed so his face
was on a level with hers.  "How are you doing?"

"I'm fine," she said.

"What happened?" he asked her, searching her eyes.  "The nurse who
called me said something about a food allergy."

"I'm so embarrassed," Scully admitted, turning her face away.

"There's nothing to be embarrassed about," Gary said.  "A lot of other
people got sick too.  I'm not sure it was really an allergy so much as
it was contaminated."

Mulder looked at him again.  "Who are you?" he asked.

"Gary Hobson," he said good naturedly.

"Nice to meet you," Mulder muttered and turned back to Scully, who was
looking at him intensely.

After a moment, she turned to speak to Gary.  "I have to thank you
again for your quick thinking."

"It was nothing," he shrugged.  She held his eyes for a moment, and he 
looked away.  "I guess I'd better be going," he said.  His work was
done; he'd saved the pretty FBI agent from a premature and unfortunate
demise.  He walked out of the room feeling a bit dejected; wishing he'd
had a reason to stay.  

"What's really going on here, Scully?" asked Mulder.  "That was
Hobson?"

"It was," she said.  "Guess he's not Chance Harper after all, huh?" she
needled him.

"What made you so sick?"

"If you'll hand me my chart, I'll be able to tell you," she said,
sitting up in bed.  A pain in her middle made her stop in agony, but she
breathed through it.

"What are you doing?"

"Getting dressed."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Mulder asked.

"I'm fine," Scully said, emphasizing the words.  She climbed out of bed
carefully, very well aware that she was wearing a hospital gown.  "Let
me see."  She reached for her chart.  Mulder watched her as she scanned
it.  "This is strange, Mulder."

"How?" he asked.

"This thing that I had a reaction to, the thing that made me sick -
they're not sure what it was."

"How can they not know what it was?" Mulder asked.

"That's what I'd like to know.  There was no response to the usual
allergy treatments, either.  And actually, the reaction was somewhat
unusual."  Scully lapsed into silence, her brows creased.

"What are you thinking?" Mulder asked her after a minute.

"I don't think you want to know," she told him.  "Give me a minute?" 
He nodded, and left the room.  Scully got into her clothes quickly,
wondering if it was really worth the trouble of trying to obtain what
the doctors had recovered from her stomach and having it analyzed. 
After all, this was not an attack directed at her personally.  It was
weird, but it was probably a matter better suited for the board of
health than the FBI.  She'd leave it alone, she decided.

"They haven't released you?" Mulder asked sharply when Scully went to
the nurses' station and insisted on signing herself out.

"They just did," she told him with a forced smile.  "Let's go."

Chance Edition, part 3
___________________
>< >< >< >< >< 


"So how did it go, buddy?"  Chuck asked Gary as soon as he walked
through the door of his apartment.

"Hi, Chuck," Gary said, feeling faint annoyance at how comfortable his
friend always seemed to make himself in this, his, apartment.  Did Gary
ever go to Chuck's cushy place and put his feet on the furniture and
spill potato chip crumbs in between the couch cushions?  No.  He took
the remote control from his friend and turned off the television.

"Well, I'm waiting.  Did you kiss her?"  Chuck leaned forward with all
the interest of a spectator at a ball game.

"Chuck!  She was sick."

"Did you at least get a phone number?"  The look Gary gave his friend
was answer enough.  "All right, but I'm tellin' ya, you're gonna regret
it come morning.  She was pretty hot.  And saving her life, that usually
makes the chicks melt."

"She doesn't know I saved her life," Gary said distractedly, thumbing
through the newspaper, now worn by his carrying it throughout the day.

"Put that thing away!" Chuck cried, ripping it out of his hands.  "It's
late, you've done your part."

"You never know," Gary argued, pulling the paper out of his friend's
grasp.  But he refolded it and set it aside.  He was going to have to
find a place that recycled newsprint pretty soon.

"Do you ever wonder what would happen if you didn't, you know, step
in?" Chuck asked him.

"I know what would happen.  Exactly what it says."

"But how do you know if you always step in and change things?"  He
asked philosophically.

He had a point, Gary thought reluctantly.  "I can't do that, and you
know it."

"Why not?"  

Gary was silent for a long moment.  "Because people would get hurt,
that's why not," he said finally.

Chuck shrugged.  "People get hurt every day.  The trouble with you, my
man, is that you are too nice a person."

"And the trouble with you is that you don't think of anyone but
yourself."

"Fine, fine, but at least think about what I'm saying,  Gary. You'll
never know unless you try."  With those words, Chuck rose from the couch
and left Gary alone in the contemplative silence of the apartment. For a
moment, he wondered if he had offended the other man, but he didn't
think so. Chuck's feelings were hard to find, let alone wound.  He tried
to shrug it off, but in truth, he had a hard time falling to sleep that
night.  His thoughts and Chuck's words would not let him alone.

>< >< >< >< >< 


"Howdy, stranger," the words, delivered in a slow, almost sexy drawl,
roused him from his near-sleep.  The man sprawled out on the bench row
of seats in the airport terminal started, and opened his eyes.  They
widened when he recognized the woman who stood before him.

"Angie?" he said, purposely keeping his voice low.  He sat up
straighter and looked at her.  She was a sight for sore eyes; a reminder
of the home he'd left behind so long ago and still yearned to return to
someday.  "What are you doing here?  And how did you find me?"

"No kiss for an old friend, Chance?"  Angie asked, still teasing him
slightly.  "Or are you going by Alex these days?"

"It's still Chance," he assured her.

"And does the name still fit?"

"More than ever," he remarked wryly, getting to his feet.  He kissed
her cheek as she had asked him to.  "It's good to see you, Ange."

"Good to see you too," she replied.

"But we have to talk. How did you find me here?" Chance demanded,
taking her arm and steering her over to the airport's dingy, deserted
bar.  She tottered on her too-high heels and had to steady herself
against his arm.  When they sat down on the stools, she remained
staunchly silent.  "If you could find me, so could anyone else."

"Just who is this anyone you're running from, Chance?" Angie demanded. 
"You disappear without a word to anyone, without a trace, let people
believe you might be dead...what did you do?  Did that funny luck of
yours finally get you into trouble?"

"I found my brother.  And my father.  But they were wrapped up in
something...something I'm still trying to understand.  But if they find
me, they'll kill me."

"Who's 'they'?"

Chance shrugged.  "The Agency."

"This is beginning to remind me of a bad spy movie, Chance, what
agency?"

He had to crack a smile; when she talked like that, she reminded him of
a stern but loving mother.  He wondered what his own real mother would
have been like, had she lived.  Probably not like Angie. Nobody was like
Angie.  "Some secret government spying agency. I don't know many of the
details.  But my father was wrapped up in it, and so was Eric."

"I thought your father was dead."

"Yeah, so did I.  Till he showed up.  But then..."  Chance sighed.

"Then?"

He shook his head.  "You should go, Angie.  Back to the coast, back to
the Blue Plate.  It'll be safer for you."

"I don't care about safe, Chance, I want to help you."

"I don't think anyone can help me," he said forlornly, and stared out
into the empty airport.

"What brings you here?" she asked, looking at his profile and wondering
if he was all right.

"Following some leads.  One of them is still alive.  Looking for me."

"When are you coming back?"

There was a long pause. Then Chance spoke.  "When I find the truth."

>< >< >< >< >< 


"I'm sorry about there only being the one bed, Mulder," Scully said
before they even made it through the door of the suite.  "They had some
available with two beds, two bedrooms, but they were two floors up.  We
could always get another room."

"No," Mulder shook his head.  "It's all right."  His eyes lingered on
her.  "Are you all right?"  She looked tired.  Her shoulders slumped
slightly, and she was pale.

"I'm fine.  Do you want to take first watch - or have you given up the
notion of surveillance on Gary Hobson?"  One eyebrow arched almost
disapprovingly.

"How did he end up with you at the hospital?" Mulder asked her.

"I trailed him into a bar, and he noticed me.  Not that I was following
him, just...noticed me.  And he came over and started talking."  Scully
looked uncomfortable.

"Couldn't shake him, huh?" Mulder asked with an ironic grin.

"Is it really so hard to believe that a man - albeit a suspect, but a
man nonetheless - could possibly find me attractive, Mulder?" Scully
demanded with a hard edge to her voice that betrayed emotion.

"No," Mulder said in a low, dangerous voice.  "It's completely
understandable."  With two fingers, he brushed a lock of hair back from
her face, barely skimming against her skin.  Their eyes locked and the
moment stretched on and on.

What are we doing? Scully asked herself, finding it very hard to
breathe.  She made herself look away, to put her chin down and focus on
the floor.  The move made him drop his hand.  She heard his sigh, and he
took a step backwards, away from her.  "So, surveillance?" she said.

"You get some rest," Mulder told her.  "I'm a light sleeper, I'll hear
it if anything happens."

"Mulder, you sleep like the dead," Scully informed him.  He raised his
eyebrows at her, as though questioning where she had come by  this
knowledge.  

"When I sleep at all," he said softly.

"Are you sure you wouldn't be more comfortable in the bed?" she asked.

"Was that an offer?"  His gentle smile told her he wasn't serious.

"I just feel bad, it's my fault you have to sleep out there on the
couch."

"I'll be all right, Scully," he assured her.  "You take the bed. You
were just in the hospital, remember."

"I'm fine, Mulder," she reminded him.  But she turned and went into the
bedroom without arguing any further.  Mulder sank down on the couch and
his eyes lingered on that closed bedroom door for a long while before he
flipped on the TV to see what was on.

In spite of what she'd been through, or perhaps because of it, Scully's
sleep was fitfull.  She drifted off for an hour or so after listening to
Mulder change the channels on the television in the other room.  When
she awoke, it was halfway between night and dawn, and she was awake. 
She sighed and pulled the covers back up, hoping to persuader herself to
go back to sleep, but she was awake.  Finally she threw back the covers
and got out of bed.

It was cold.  She tugged the blanket off the bed and wrapped it around
her shoulders, then went out into the living room.  The TV was still on,
tuned to static, and the volume had been turned down.  Mulder was
propped up against the arm of the couch and Scully opened her mouth to
wish him a good morning, but then she saw that his eyes were closed.  He
was asleep.  

"Oh, Mulder," she said softly.  She untangled herself from the blanket
and draped it over him. He had to be freezing.  He stirred gently,
snuggling against the softness and warmth of the blanket, but he didn't
wake.  Scully smiled and walked over to the small kitchen area to begin
heating up some coffee.

She heard a strange noise out in the hallway.  A scratching noise. 
Scully looked up and frowned, then turned back to her coffeemaking.  She
imagined Mulder waking to the smell of it brewing, like a TV ad, and it
amused her.  Their life was nothing like anything she'd ever seen on TV.

Their life, she caught herself thinking, and had to wonder about it.

A cat meowed in the hall, interrupting Scully's thoughts.  Then she
heard an ominous thump.  What would a cat be doing here?  She went to
the door and opened it a crack.

There was an orange cat sitting on top of a newspaper out in the
hallway.  The paper was in front of Gary Hobson's door, and the cat was
looking at the door expectantly.  It meowed again, loudly, but its gaze
never wavered from the door.  It struck Scully as strange and gave her
the creeps, even though she knew that cats were weird, and she didn't
particularly like them.

The door opened and Gary appeared.  His hair was mussed charmingly from
sleep, and he was wearing only a pair of boxers and a pair of white tube
socks.  Scully couldn't help smiling and thinking that he was cute.  He
bent down to pick up the paper, tossing the cat off.  The orange
creature leapt up and ran into Gary's apartment.

Gary looked up and his eyes locked with hers.

Her eyes widened at having been caught.

"What are you doing here?" he asked her.

"What a coincidence," Scully said smoothly, even though she felt
extremely uneasy.  "This is the hotel where I'm staying with my
partner."

Gary gave her a speculative look when she mentioned her partner, and
his eyes went over the blue satin pajamas she was wearing.  "The guy
from last night?" he asked.

"Yeah," Scully found herself responding defensively.  She didn't know
why it bothered her that Gary thought she was sleeping with Mulder -
she'd certainly encountered enough other people with that opinion, and
she hadn't let any of them bother her.  "Mulder. My partner."

There was nowhere for the conversation to go from there, and it died
suddenly.  Gary nodded to her, and folded his paper, and then mumbled,
"Have a good morning, then."  He began backing into his apartment.

Scully took a step back and closed the door.  She felt eyes on her, and
when she turned, she saw that Mulder's eyes were open.  "What's going
on?" Mulder asked, looking sleepy.

"Hobson just found out who his neighbors are," Scully said quietly.

"Damn it," Mulder muttered.

Scully bristled.  "He has no reason to believe that we suspect him of
anything.  Speaking of which, what do we suspect him of, by the way?" 

Mulder shook  his head and ran his hands through his sleep-messed
hair. It fell untidily over his forehead and even in her anger, Scully
felt her hands itch with the urge to brush it back.  She didn't move. 
"He's got an unusual record," Mulder said.

"And that means there's something paranormal about him?" Scully
challenged.  Mulder shook his head again and yawned.  She couldn't help
noticing that he was having a hard time getting his eyes open this
morning.  "Look, it's still early.  Why don't you try to get some more
sleep?  You can even have the bed."

The offer was tempting, but Mulder didn't budge.  "What are you going
to do?"  he asked, almost accusatively.

"Eat breakfast.  Read. I don't know."

Mulder held her eyes for a long moment.  "No, I'm okay, Scully," he
told her, and pushed the blanket back.  "Did you do this?" he asked,
gesturing to the blanket.

"Yeah," she admitted.

"Order up some room service for breakfast," Mulder said, rising and
stretching.  "I've got to have a quick shower, and then I'll join you." 
He patted her on the shoulder, and then disappeared into the bathroom,
closing the door soundly.

Scully stood there for a moment, thinking about him, and then reached
for the telephone.

>< >< >< >< >< 


The cat had taken up what seemed like permanent residence in Gary's
lap.  He'd sat down for a moment to look at the front page before
getting his clothes on, and the cat had ambushed him.  Now he was
trapped.  "That's enough," he said, trying to encourage the cat to move,
but it didn't work.  Its fur was cold and he petted it absently.  Poor
thing, he thought, just wants to be next to a warm body.

The front page story was about striking train engineers and the
commuters' nightmare that wrought.  Not too big a deal, Gary decided. 
It wasn't a disaster, no one got hurt, and there was nothing he could do
about it.  He began to thumb through the pages, looking at the headlines
for something that he could do something about.

Not much happening in the city, he noticed.  It made him think about
what Chuck had said to him the night before.  Maybe he should take a day
off.  See if the paper's events were written in stone, if there was
nothing that would change them except his own intervention.

Gary knew that someone had received the paper before he had - Mr. Snow,
a typesetter for the Sun Times.  What he wondered sometimes was whether
he was the only one to receive the paper.  Maybe there were a number of
other people throughout the city who were also blessed, or cursed, with
the knowledge of the day's events before they actually occurred.  He
didn't think this was true, because otherwise he would have seen the
people, noticed them at the scenes of incidents where he kept things
from happening.

Unless Chuck was right.  Unless he really was too nice a guy, and no
one else would bother.

What would someone else do with the paper? Gary wondered, fingering its
pages, but lost in thought.  He knew what Chuck would do - use the
financial pages to get rich quick.  He knew that Mr. Snow had set the
paper's headlines a day ahead, and he had the feeling that Mr. Snow had
also done what he could to change things, to set things right, although
there was no way Gary could know that for certain.

His mind wandered to his red-haired neighbor.  What would pretty Dana
Scully do if she received tomorrow's paper, today, and had the chance to
set right what had gone wrong?  Would she do it?  He thought she might.
Wouldn't anyone?  In spite of all his talk, wouldn't Chuck even do so?

Gary didn't honestly know.  He turned back to the front page and began
to read his way through again.  A man was going to be killed in a
shooting outside the Borders bookstore across from the Water Tower. 
That was a place to begin.  Gary started to read the article and the cat
got up from his lap.

Aware that he should go and dress before he froze to death, but his eye
stopped on the leader paragraph of the article.  At 9:57 am this
morning, in front of the Borders bookstore, a man would shot and killed
during an attempted robbery.  That man was an FBI agent, and his name
was Mulder.

Hadn't Dana said her partner's name was Mulder?  Gary thought, looking
at the wall they shared, his heart beating oddly fast.  His first urge
was to go and talk to her about this, to warn her.  But he knew that he
could not.  It was sort of weird, he thought, that first she would have
been killed, and now her partner.

A cold chill hung around his shoulders as he rose from the table and
headed for a hot shower, trying to decide how to intervene.  He had the
terrible feeling he wasn't going to be able to stop this one.

>< >< >< >< >< 


"Where would Chance go if he was in town?" Mulder asked Scully over
steaming hot eggs and bacon and biscuits in the tiny kitchen.

She wanted to snap 'how the hell should I know?' at him, but restrained
herself.  This was unhealthy, she thought, wondering again why Mulder
had it in so much for Chance Harper.  "I don't know," she said
truthfully.  "What was the tip that you had that made you think he was
here?"

"Strange things have been happening in this area, Scully."

"Strange things happen everywhere, Mulder."

"Not like this."  Mulder didn't say any more.

"I imagine he'd find a diner or a coffee shop," Scully said after a
long silent moment.

"Like that dive he used to eat in," Mulder remarked, thinking.

"He - Family was important to him.  His real family, and his created
one.  I think he would want to have a place where he could go."  Scully
glanced at Mulder and saw that he was staring at her with a strange look
on his face.  She blinked. "What?"

"Very intuitive," he told her.

Scully shook her head.  "No," she protested, feeling oddly flattered.

"No, I'm serious, Scully.  You're thinking like a profiler now," he
said in a low voice.

She could barely breathe with his eyes so close on her.  "No," she said
again.  "I just know the man."

It ruined the moment, as she had known it would, but she'd had to say
it anyway.  Mulder immediately looked away, down at his plate.  Feeling
hurt.  After a moment, he looked at her again and his face was a mask
against pain.  "That's where we start, then," he said, tossing his
napkin down on the table over his plate.  "Every cheesy diner in town,
until we find him."

"What are you going to do when you find him?" Scully asked.

Mulder didn't answer. He rose from the table and grabbed his
trenchcoat.  Scully jumped up, knowing she had to hurry to keep up with
him.

Chance Edition, part 4
__________________
>< >< >< >< ><


Chance snapped awake.  He'd heard a sound.  He looked around, and
wondered why he was on the chair in his motel room.  With a pounding
heart, he tried to place the sound that had woken him.

He heard the hissing of water beginning to boil in his hot pot, the one
he wasn't  supposed to have in his room.  He immediately looked in that
direction.  Then he remembered.

Angie, in the airport.  He'd let her take the bed.  Now she stood near
the bathroom counter, where the hotpot was plugged in and steaming the
mirror.  "I didn't mean to wake you," she said gently, shoving her long
red hair back over her shoulder.

"It's all right," Chance told her, getting out of the chair and
stretching the muscles that had gone tense in protest of sleeping
sitting up.  He walked past her and smiled to see the coffee she'd
already poured into the motel cups, waiting for the hot water.  "Thanks,
Angie," he said.

"De nada," she replied.  He nodded and went into the bathroom.  "So
what's on the agenda for today?" she called through the closed door.

He emerged a moment later.  "We're going back to the airport."

"Are you expecting someone to be coming into or leaving town?" she
asked.

"Leaving," he replied.

"Who?" 

He met her eyes honestly.  "You can't stay here, Angie. It isn't safe,
for either of us."

"It's been a whole year, Chance."  She stopped herself there.

He wasn't sure what she was implying.  "Someone is still after me. 
They probably always will be, until I find enough evidence to take to
the authorities.  Who even then will have great reason to doubt my
story.  You could lead them to me."

"Don't you get tired of being alone, Chance?" she asked.

He didn't answer.  He picked up the hotpot and poured hot water into
the cups, but the coffee was too hot to drink.   "Why are you here,
Angie?" he asked.

"You don't think it's too dangerous to keep Weston informed of your
whereabouts," Angie said.

"Did she tell you where I was?'

"She's worried about you, Chance.  I'm worried about you."

"It's different with Weston," he answered.

"Why?" she asked.

Chance just looked at her.  Audrey Weston did what he asked her to
because she cared about him.  Still loved him, he suspected, and he
hated taking advantage of that.  But nothing had ever passed between he
and Angie.  They were friends, was all.  So this sudden appearance and
tenacity puzzled him.  "Why are you here, Angie?" he asked again,
beginning to wonder if he could trust his friend.

She looked away and took a sip of her coffee.  Chance watched her.  "My
son died," she said after a long while.

"I'm sorry," Chance said, stunned.  He had gone with Angie to meet her
son, a little over a year ago.  A boy she'd given up for adoption nearly
twenty years ago.

"Car accident.  We hadn't spoken, since that one time.  That kind of
thing," Angie said, "makes you start to think about what's really
important in your life."

She was tough, Chance thought.  He could read that in the lines on her
face.  "I'm not your son, Angie.  You can't protect me."

"You're my friend, Chance, and I care about you."

"You shouldn't," he informed her.  

Their eyes locked for a long moment. Then she looked away and set her
half-drunk cup back on the counter.  "So, are we going to the bus
station or not?"

"Airport," Chance corrected her absently.

Angie shook her head as she pressed an envelope into his hands.  "The
bus will be fine, Chance," she whispered.

He looked down at the envelope full of cash she'd given him in
surprise.  "Business must be good at the Blue Plate," he said, not
knowing what to say.

She laughed, and he forced out a rough laugh to match.  "I want you to
be safe, Chance."

He shook his head.  "I can take care of myself," he told her gravely. 
"I can't take this."

"I was saving it for him," she told him.  "In case he ever needed...if
he wanted to go to college, or something.  But now...I want you to have
it."

Knowing he'd hurt her if he refused, he jammed it into the pocket of
his coat, vowing he would give every penny of it back to her.  He would
find a way to make her take it.  She smiled faintly, and grabbed her
bag.  "Let's go."

>< >< >< >< >< 


"Mulder, I don't think we're going to find anything," Scully called,
trying to keep pace with his long strides against the cold morning
wind.  "Mulder!" she called sharply.  He stopped and turned back to look
at her.  "This is insane."

Her face was white and her cheeks were flushed red with cold. He could
see the steam of her breath.  She is so beautiful, Mulder thought, and
was surprised by it, even though he had had the thought before. And he
caused her to suffer so much.  "All right, Scully, what do you want to
do?" he asked her.

"Going back to Washington is out of the question?" she asked, knowing
the answer already.

Her words were like a stab to Mulder's heart. He wanted to believe that
she didn't actually mean them, but he had the feeling that she did. 
"Scully, I have to do this."

"I know," she said, meeting his eyes.

He crossed the distance on the sidewalk between them quickly, and put
his arm through hers.  "Have you ever been to Chicago?" he asked her.

"Sure," she answered with a wary look on her face.

"Seen the sights?" he asked further.

"A couple of them," she admitted.

"It's almost ten," Mulder said, "And the visitor's center happens to be
right over there.  Now that we've seen half the dives in this town, do
you want to find somewhere more fun to go?"

Scully looked at him as though his brain had been invaded, or possibly
melted, by an alien entity bent on confusing her.  Then she said,
"Sure."

"Good," he said, casting a radiant smile down at her.  He pulled her
closer against him and together they started towards the visitor's
center.  At that moment, a car with a noisy muffler and an even noisier
radio passed them, going very slowly.  An object fell through the open
window and clattered against the curb just feet from where they were
standing.

Ever curious, Mulder released Scully's arm and went to pick the object
up.  He held it in his hands, staring at it.  This is weird, he
thought.  It was a remote control for a television set.  He looked in
the direction the car had gone, wondering why on earth someone would
have this in their car, and why they would fling it out of the window.

At his feet, no less. Strange luck, a voice in his head said to him.

Mulder shrugged it off.  The car had pulled to a stop at a traffic
light only a few yards away.  He started up the street and approached
the car, aware that Scully was watching him and probably thinking that
he was absolutely insane.  "Excuse me, I think you dropped your -"

The words died on Mulder's lips.  The men in the car were wearing black
ski masks.  And one of them was pointing a gun right at Mulder's face.

The moment froze and held on and on, echoing in the silence of
indecision and inability to react.  Mulder felt his hands go slippery
even as he reached for his gun.  The masked man seemed to sneer and
laugh at him, waving the gun in his face. Mulder dropped the remote
control on the sidewalk, and heard its plastic case bounce against the
pavement.

Time unfroze and exploded into action.

A gunshot.

Mulder felt his body flung backwards onto the icy sidewalk, a heavy
weight pressing against his chest.

"Mulder!" Scully screamed.

The engine of the car revved and it sped away.

Mulder sat up, dazed, as Scully stopped running and crouched down near
his head.  Amazingly, he didn't feel any pain.  He felt good, for having
been knocked to the ground. And he could swear the gun went off *after*
he fell back -

Gary Hobson was on the sidewalk next to him.  And Scully was holding
her hand out, helping him to his feet. Mulder could only stare and
think, what about me?  

"What happened?" Scully turned to Gary.  "How did you know -"

Mulder sighed and got to his feet on his own.

Gary shrugged modestly.  "Right place at the right time, I guess," he
said.  Unconvincingly, Mulder thought.

Scully turned those sharp blue eyes to him. "What was that all about,
Mulder?" she demanded.

"Did I mention someone's trying to kill me?" Mulder said, half joking.
Her eyes widened and he took her arm again.  "Thank you," he said to
Gary, and pulled Scully away.

Gary watched them walk away with that cold feeling he always got when
he saved someone's life and they didn't seem to give a damn.  It was
disconcerting, how badly people consistently reacted to a stranger who
was just trying to help.  Just as well, he thought, turning away and
walking in the opposite direction as Mulder and Scully.  He got
embarrassed when people made too big a deal of thanking him, as well.

Temptation overcame him and he reached into his jacket and pulled out
his folded newspaper.  The story of the shooting had disappeared
completely.  Mission accomplished, Gary thought, scanning for the next
event that he could prevent.  An eighty year old man was going to have a
heart attack in half an hour while stealing a television from a pawn
shop.  Gary checked his pocket for change and headed for the El.

"What the hell happened back there, Mulder?" Scully demanded once they
were standing inside the relative warmth of the visitors' center,
surrounded by hundreds of brightly colored brochures for tourist
attractions.

"I went to give the guy his remote back and he pulled a gun on me,"
Mulder said nonchalantly.

"And you stood there like an idiot!" Scully cried.  Seeing the hurt
look on Mulder's face, she immediately recanted.  "I'm sorry, I didn't
mean that.  It's just when you tell me someone's trying to kill
you...what's going on?"

"A car tried to run me down yesterday."

"The same car as just now?"

"I'm not sure.  I don't think so.  That doesn't matter, these men can
get their hands on any car they want to."

"So you think it's members of the conspiracy?  Why would they choose to
kill you now?" Scully asked.

"Maybe  I'm getting too close."  It had happened before.

"And the remote out the window was what, throwing down the gauntlet? 
Getting your attention?  It's strange, Mulder."

"I know that, Scully," he said. Uncomfortable with her searching look,
he turned away and rifled through some of the brochures on the table
before them.  "Ever been to the Field Museum?"

Scully let her anger and her worries go. "Do they have dinosaurs?" she
asked.

"You bet."

"Let's give it a try then," she said with a small smile that Mulder
thought made even getting shot at worth it.

>< >< >< >< >< 


Gary slid into a booth in a coffee shop an hour later, thinking about
how very tired he was. He was tired of this, tired of saving people...

"Are you ready to order, sir?" asked a waitress with a pretty smile.

"Uh - some coffee, please?" he asked, fiddling with the menu.  He'd
been too busy thinking to remember where he was or what he was supposed
to be doing there.  

"Is that all?" she asked.

"I guess I'll have a burger, too," Gary said.  He wasn't really hungry,
but it was coming up towards lunchtime and he didn't know if he'd have
the chance to grab something later.  The paper changed its headlines
often; he never knew what he was going to have to do next.  The waitress
smiled and walked away.  He stared after her for a moment, not thinking
about anything at all.

Until he realized his hand was inside his jacket touching the
newspaper.  Reminding him that he had to look again; it had been almost
an hour.  Things might have changed. There might be something he was
supposed to be doing at that very moment.

Supposed to be, he thought with a twinge of anger. Says who?

Saving the would-be robber from himself hadn't been as easy as he'd
thought it would be. The old man was dead set on stealing the TV set,
even when the pains down his left arm were so bad he could barely clutch
the set, let alone escape with it.  Then the owner of the shop had come
out with a gun, thinking Gary was a looter, or a mugger trying to take
the TV from the original thief.

The police had given the idea some thought, as well. He'd almost ended 
up spending time in a holding cell.

Again.

I need a vacation, he thought, rubbing his neck. But he knew it would
do no good; the cat would find him wherever he went.  Even if the cat
did leave him alone, his conscience would not.  Every moment would be
spent wondering what was going wrong, what he could have changed.  His
skin would itch with the need to sneak just one peek...

"Oh, all right!" he muttered to himself and took the paper out of his
jacket.   It unfolded as he plopped it down on the table.

"Here you go," the waitress said, yanking his attention away from the
smeary headlines.  He jumped and looked up at her, realizing she had
overheard him talking to himself.  Gary felt his ears go pink at her
speculative glance as she set the plate in front of him and poured his
coffee.

"Thank you," he said, still feeling embarrassed.

She just looked at his newspaper headline and walked away.

"Two Killed In Wreck; Traffic Stopped For Hours," it read.

Gary sighed and took a bite of the burger. It was going to be a very
long afternoon.

>< >< >< >< ><


"Well, what do you think?" Mulder asked, turning to Scully.  Her head
was tilted back as she looked at the skeleton to a very large dinosaur. 
He tried to guess what she was thinking and immediately failed.

She nodded and glanced at him sideways.  "Very interesting," she said.

"You're standing before the bones of an animal that dominated this
planet millions of years ago and all you can say is 'very interesting'?"
Mulder demanded.

She smiled.  "Little boys and dinosaurs," she chuckled.

"I resent that!" he said, adding a bit of a deliberate pout.  She
noticed it and it made him grin at her, feeling oddly giddy inside.

"Remind me to get you a T. Rex keychain at the gift shop," Scully
remarked wryly, unfolding the brochure that highlighted the museum's
displays.  "I'm surprised you haven't dragged me down to see the mummies
yet."

His eyes lit up, but he held himself in restraint.  "Only if you want
to go," he said diplomatically.

She looked at him coolly for a moment, unreadable, and he thought she
was going to say no.  How could she not want to see the mummies? he
wondered.   But then she smiled that enigmatic smile, the one that never
failed to charm, and she took his hand. "Let's go, Mulder," she said,
tucking the map of the museum away and leading him to the exhibit. 
Mulder could only grin and wonder why he felt so happy, even looking at
the bodies of people who had been dead for many centuries, people who
had wanted to believe in the afterlife so strongly that they had gone to
incredible lengths to preserve the semblance of their lives. In some
ways, it had served them well.

Scully liked the mummies a lot. Mulder should have guessed that she
would; after all, they were the earliest example of pathologists he
could think of.  He was thankful that there weren't too many canopic
jars cluttering up the museum cases.  He stood back and watched her as
she walked close to the glass, at times looking as though she wanted to
touch it, reach through to what lay beyond it.  She was gazing at the
mummies with the same bright, incisive look she turned on suspects and
victims of their cases.

A troop of very excited little boys on a field trip ran through the
small room at top speed, distracting Mulder's attention for a moment. 
His eyes followed them and he found himself smiling for some strange
reason.  He didn't really understand why; he didn't understand why he
was feeling the way he was feeling at that moment.

When he looked up, Scully was standing under one of the soft orangey
lights that was kept low to protect the mummies from accelerated aging. 
It made her hair resemble a vivid flame as she leaned in to examine
something in one of the cases.  The strange feeling grew in Mulder's
stomach and he thought he began to recognize it.  Attraction.  Maybe
something more than attraction. 

He walked over to her and she didn't notice, even when he was standing
within millimeters of touching her.  She was absorbed in whatever
thoughts she was having, whatever she was looking at in the case.  Her
mind was about four thousand years in the past.  Mulder reached out and
stroked the soft skin at the back of her neck between her hair and her
collar to get her attention.

He felt her body jump and she turned around.  Not realizing how close
he was standing to her.  They were almost touching, almost embracing, as
she looked up into his eyes.  "What is it, Mulder?" she asked.

He shook his head, no, not knowing the answer to her question.

"What are we doing here?" she asked, not moving away from him.

He took a deep breath unconsciously, preparing himself for...what? 
When he looked at her again, a split second later, everything had
changed.  The moment had gone, dissolved.  She'd moved away and was
looking at him as though he were a clue or a subject to be interrogated.

"Why is someone trying to kill you, Mulder?" she asked.

He didn't know.  And there was nothing he could say to change that.  He
could see faint anger sparking in her eyes now.  She still thought he
was wrong to pursue this case.  She still thought they should leave it
alone and go back to DC.  There was no way to convince her, and no way
to change things.

Had he really been about to kiss her?

"Let's go," Scully said and she sounded irritated.

It didn't matter, he decided.  The moment was gone now.

Chance Edition, part five
____________________
>< >< >< >< >< 


"Something's going to happen," Chance murmured to himself as he walked
back down the steps of the bus station, back to where he had left his
car.  He didn't know what, but he could feel something big coming. 
Something in the air was different.

Angie was gone.  She'd let him put her on a bus back home.  That had
surprised him; but then, Angie always managed to surprise him.  She'd
kissed his cheek and ruffled his short hair before she boarded the bus. 
"Stay safe," she'd said.

He would try, he thought.  But it was a difficult task when you
attracted trouble like a magnet.  Wilford had thought it was something
inherited.  Maybe he was right.  Chance didn't know.  His father had
claimed to have the same luck.  His brother, too.

Eric had been trying to manipulate it.  Make things happen, instead of
letting them.

And look where it got them, Chance thought, wrenching his thoughts
away.  He'd barely known his father or brother, but it still hurt like
hell to think of them.  What a short time he'd had with them.  All his
life, he'd known something was missing.  For a long time, he hadn't
really known what that was, until he opened the box and learned about
himself.  His brother, his father. The missing pieces to his life.

Now he knew what was missing.  They were.  And they weren't coming
back.

It was worse knowing, he thought.

 With determined steps, he swung back around and walked into the bus
station again, directly to a  post office counter he'd noticed when he
dropped off  Angie.  He bought a blank postcard and wrote a short note
on it.  Sending word that he was safe to his adoptive parents.  They'd
given him so much, and he'd thanked them so little in return.

They'd warned him not to embark on this quest.  He'd thought it was
because they didn't want to lose him.  But they'd been right.

Chance turned from the counter, intending to go out to the car and
drive, get away from this place, but he didn't.  Something...was telling
him not to.  Not to leave yet.  He looked around himself but didn't see
anything out of the ordinary.  He plunked down on one of the benches to
wait.  He'd watch and see who got off the buses for a while.  Maybe that
was what this odd sense of his was telling him.

He thought about his adoptive parents, the Harpers.  Full of love, but
also fear of losing their little boy, their gift from the heavens. 
After all, someone had already lost him once.

His name was Alex, but he'd never been called by it.  Ever since he
remembered, he'd been called Chance.  Because he was lucky.  Thirty
years ago, a plane had gone down into a remote wooded area.  Every soul
on board perished...except him.  A fireman had pulled him from the
wreckage.  He and his wife were never able to have children of their
own, and they'd adopted him.  Loved him.  They'd run a search for two
years, looking for any other relatives who might have claim to him, but
no one had responded and they assumed he had no more living relatives.

Two years ago, he'd discovered differently.  He'd opened the wooden box
that his parents had given him and found the legacy of the crash.  A
battered jacket he'd been wearing when they found him.  Too big for a
boy his age.  There was a name written on the bag of the manufacturer's
tag.  Eric.

His big brother Eric.  Who hadn't been on the plane.

Who he later found, and lost again.

Chance pulled himself from his thoughts and sighed.  Their deaths would
have meaning, even if he had to search the rest of his life to find it. 
Someone had killed his father and brother.  Perhaps it had been
Wilford's doing, or maybe someone had been trying to kill Wilford, too,
because he knew too much about them and their luck.  He didn't know. 
All he knew was, someone wanted him to take the fall for those deaths. 
And when he did, he was dead too.

He got up from the bench and went out to the car, knowing there was
nothing in the bus station for him.  The sight of the battered machine
made him smile ironically.  It wasn't worth fixing; his luck led him
into too many accidents and scrapes.  Once he'd bought a new car, and
that hadn't gone so well either.  He'd stick with it; it was familiar
and that was comforting.  He'd gotten new registration and plates, which
made it harder for him or the car to be traced.  They matched the
Illinois drivers' license he now held in his real name, Alex Sanders. 
Even though he'd left that little boy behind and would never find him as
a man.

He got in the car and drove.

>< >< >< >< ><


Gary checked the intersection again, itching to recheck the newspaper. 
He glanced at his watch for the third time in a minute.  They were late.
This had never happened before. How could someone be late for a traffic
accident? he wondered.  Accidents were based on timing, and luck and...

"This is stupid," Gary complained, getting up to stretch his freezing
legs.  Ten minutes more, that was all he was going to wait for this
crash.  No, make that five. It was cold out here.

He gave in and pulled out the paper, hoping the crash would have
magically disappeared.  It hadn't. In fact, it had only gotten worse for
the delay.  Now three were dead and traffic would be backed up for six
hours for the investigation.  

Three dead.  He couldn't walk away.  But he didn't know what he could
do, either.

So he waited.

>< >< >< >< ><


Chance noticed a black sedan following him at a discreet distance.  He
made a couple of quick turns that backtracked, and the sedan stayed with
him.  "Damn it," he whispered.  Angie's presence had distracted him,
throwing him back into a world he'd walked away from.  He should have
been more vigilant, knowing she could lead the men who were after him
directly to him.

He checked the rearview mirror again.    They'd found him.  He didn't
know how, or particularly care.  Even if they had followed Angie, he
couldn't blame her.  They'd have found him eventually.  What was he
going to do now? he wondered.

They were gaining on him.  Getting cocky.  That was a bad sign.  If
they got close, there was only one reason for it.  

They were going to kill him.  What were the odds they'd mess up twice?

He ran a red light, and they stayed with him.

All right, he thought, as the car pulled even closer. He could see the
faces of the men in the car clearly, it was that close.  The driver was
young; he looked clean cut, but there was something menacing about that
face.  The passenger was older; his face was impossibly lined.  He
looked up, absolutely calm as he lit a cigarette in the middle of this
car chase.  His eyes seemed to meet Chance's in the rearview mirror.

If there was ever a time he needed to invoke his luck and hope he could
make something happen, rather than wait for something to happen to him,
it was now, Chance thought.  They were coming up fast on a busy street
and there was no way the light was going to turn green in time.

>< >< >< >< >< 



Mulder glanced at Scully and let his eyes linger for a moment before he
returned his gaze to the road.  She was staring out the window at the
passing houses and apartments and he wondered what was going on in her
mind.  Her face betrayed nothing.  Her silence seemed cold, and Mulder
thought he could feel vibrations of anger coming from her, but he had no
reason to think she was angry with him.  They hadn't argued.

Then again, they never did argue, did they?  A quiet exchange, and then
moody silence.  Eventually, things fixed themselves and the world
returned to normal.  The case would end, and one of them would be proved
right and the point  would be moot.  Or the case would end and a few
days apart, relaxing, would drive the issues from their minds, leaving
only a trace of hostility, buried deep.

Scully thought they were wasting their time here.  That he was obsessed
with something ridiculous.  It had happened before, and it would
inevitably happen again.

It always seemed to happen just when he thought they were getting along
incredibly well.  The door would slam closed again.  It hadn't always
been this way, had it? Mulder wondered, sneaking another glance at
Scully. There was no change in her expression.   He couldn't remember
when it had begun happening.

It was almost as though Scully could sense the moment his thoughts
toward her began to change.  He'd been trying, damned hard, to treat her
like an equal.  To show her how much he cared about her.  It wasn't easy
to him; he'd learned the only thing being open with his emotions earned
him was hurt.  Every time he tried, he failed.

Maybe he wasn't being obvious enough.

Or, maybe he was being too obvious.  Scully could see through him, and
she wasn't interested.  These little silences were her way of cooling
things off -

"Mulder, look out!" Scully's shout drew his full attention back to the
road unfolding in front of him.

But it was too late.  The old car of indeterminate color and make was
headed straight for them.  Fast.  A collision seemed unavoidable.

>< >< >< >< >< 


Gary jumped up from the stone wall where he'd been sitting for almost
half an hour.  He could see the cars down the street.  It was their
speed that caught his eye.  An old car, followed closely by a shiny
black four-door.  He approached the street on the sidewalk, his heart
racing. He didn't know what to do.  Maybe there was nothing that he
could do.  They were going too fast. 

He glanced over at the traffic signal. It was red.  This was going to
be bad; he didn't have to consult the paper to know that the casualties
had probably tripled since his last look.  He looked back at the cars. 
The front one was trying to slow down, and slid slightly on the icy,
snowy road.  The car behind would ram it in a moment, like a scene
stolen from a bad action movie.

He saw the traffic light turn from red to green out of the corner of
his eye.

His heartbeat slowed, but only slightly.

There was a car coming from the opposite direction, an immaculate blue
Ford. It looked like a family car.  Gary could see two people sitting in
the front seat and prayed there were no little children in the back.  He
didn't know how, but he got the sense the driver wasn't paying
attention.   The car was close to the yellow line dividing the lanes as
it approached the intersection. 

From the other direction, the front car was losing control as the
driver tried to slow down.  Gary heard the impact as the following car
struck it from behind, trying to push it.  Where, he wondered, and why?

The old car slid into the oncoming lane.

There was nothing Gary could do.

As the old car struck the blue Ford and set both cars into motion, the
black sedan slipped around them, skirting the accident and streaking
away.

Gary could only stare.  There had been nothing he could have done to
prevent it.  As people emerged from the storefronts to see what had
happened, he could only stand and stare, feeling colder than he ever had
in his years of Chicago winters. This cold came from inside.

Three businesspeople in trenchcoats who had been waiting for a bus to
come instantly produced cellular phones and dialed for help.  A small
child began to cry, and he heard her father try to comfort her.

He watched as the cars slid to a stop in the middle of the road.  Both
were crumpled, and broken glass in white and red glittered on the
pavement.  Sick and cold, Gary turned away.  He had goosebumps all over
and a creepy feeling between his shoulderblades, as though someone was
watching him.  Maybe someone was...the higher power who gave him the
newspaper every day to see if he could make a difference.

Well, now he had the answer.  Chuck was right. Sometimes there was
nothing he could do.

But he couldn't walk away.  Something wouldn't let him.  He turned back
to the horrible scene, his mind catalogueing details.  The older car was
made of sturdier metal; it hadn't suffered as much as the poor blue
Ford.  But those were made to bend strategically in accidents, Gary
remembered from TV commercials.  Maybe...maybe there was still some
hope.  Maybe someone was still alive in there.

He could smell gasoline as he walked out into the street.  Traffic was
stopped; there was no point in trying to go around.  People simply
waited for the police to come and clean things up.  Gary saw a couple of
people over by the Ford, so he went to the other car, the one that had
been pursued.  The drivers' door hung ajar, as though it hadn't closed
properly to begin with.    He forced it wider, noticing it had yellow
and black stripes painted on it as though it was a door stolen from a
taxicab.

The driver was wearing his seatbelt and Gary reached across him to
unfasten it.  He didn't feel cold yet; perhaps there was something he
could do for this man, Gary thought.  Gingerly, he pulled him from the
seat and dragged  him clear of the wreck.  A man on the sidewalk
identified himself as a doctor, and Gary left the injured man there,
heading back in.

The drivers' side of the Ford seemed to have taken the worst of the
impact.   The engine block was crushed, and Gary prayed the driver had
not been crushed as well.  The bystanders who had emerged to help looked
grim.  "What's going on?" he asked them.


"Got the passenger out, but there's a man in there.  Dunno if we can
get him out."  The man's eyes flickered to the leaking gas tank.  

"Where are the police?" demanded Gary, feeling irrationally angry at
having been left alone at this scene.  As though he were in charge. 
There should be someone else, the weight shouldn't all rest upon his
shoulders!

"They've been called," a woman assured him, waving her cell phone and
shrugging.  Who knew where the police were when they were needed?

Gary came around the car to the passenger door and saw the damage.  The
driver was trapped by the twisted metal. His forehead was bleeding, and
it was impossible to tell how badly he was hurt - or if he was dead.  He
searched for a way to climb into the car, to get to the man whose face
was obscured by blood.

A hand touched his arm.  "It's too dangerous," a man in a blue
windbreaker told him.  The man who'd noted the leaking gas tank.

Gary ignored him, feeling disgusted.  He turned back to the problem of
freeing the driver of the car.  He hadn't been at fault.  He'd probably
never even seen it coming.  Another innocent victim.  Who had been
chasing the other car?  Why had they caused this to happen?

Someone strong punched his shoulders, shoving him back away from the
car.  "I have to get to him!" a female voice cried, and Gary was shocked
to see that his strong, determined attacker was a very petite, very
familiar redhead.  His neighbor at the hotel, Agent Scully.  For a
moment, he was too amazed to move.  How many scrapes could one woman get
into in 24 hours?

She, too, was bleeding, and her eye looked like it was beginning to
bruise.  But she shoved him again, away from the car, hard enough to
send him off balance. He landed hard on the cold pavement as she
scrambled into the car.

"Mulder...come on, Mulder.  Wake up, you've got to hear me.  You've got
to help me."  Gary heard her crooning to the man, pleading with him,
from inside the car.  Her determination and the lack of an answer was
almost heartbreaking.  In the distance, he could hear sirens.

"Come on," he said, pulling at her, trying to get her out of the car. 
"The authorities are almost here, they can handle this."

"But he might be...he might be...I have to get him out. I have to save
him, you don't understand!" she cried, shoving him again and reaching
for Agent Mulder.  He watched her unsteady hands unfasten his seat belt,
and then her head went down as she tried to maneuver his legs out of the
small space below the dash.  One of her hands caressed his face
reassuringly.

There was nothing Gary could do.  She was determined, and he could not
dissuade her.  He stood back and watched her as she freed one leg and
then the other.  She pulled Mulder's head against her shoulder and
backed out of the car with him.  "He's still breathing," she said as she
clutched his jacket to try to hold him upright, when her own legs were
shaking.

The ambulances had arrived at the scene, along with police and fire. 
Two medics seized Mulder's shoulders, and Gary put his arms around
Scully's waist, pulling her away from her partner.  She fought him, but
he was stronger.  The spite went out of her all of a sudden and he
relaxed his hold on her, hearing her gasping as though she were in
pain.  It hadn't occurred to him that she might have broken ribs or
internal injuries.  She leaned back against him as she watched the
paramedics strap Mulder to a stretcher board.  Gary could feel her
trembling against him.  "I think this woman needs help!" he called.     

She pulled away from him. "I'm fine," she declared.  That was the first
time she looked up and saw his face.  "You," she said.

"You seem to get into a lot of trouble," Gary said.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded.

Gary shrugged. "Right place at the right time," he murmured.  He could
see in her eyes that she didn't  believe him, but at the moment she
didn't care.  The ambulance with her partner in it had turned on its
siren and lights and was pulling away.  She looked panicked at being
left behind.

Scully closed her eyes, feeling weak and sick and scared.  She didn't
know what to do, and she knew that confusion was a symptom of shock. 
She didn't understand what had happened, or why Gary  Hobson was there
again when they were in trouble.  She wanted to be with Mulder.  She
turned, her eyes following the ambulance.  She hadn't gotten to touch
him, or speak to him, or even know which hospital he was being taken
to...

She stopped when she saw the driver of the other car, sitting dazed and
wrapped in a blanket on the opposite curb.  It was Chance Harper.

"Chance," she said loudly, not certain what would come next.  He looked
up and saw her.  Shock crossed his face, and he scrambled to his feet. 
Scully was aware of Gary Hobson trailing her as she crossed the blocked
street.  No words had come to her by the time she stood in front of him,
her mouth open.  Mulder had been right.  Chance Harper was here. He'd
also been right that someone was trying to kill him.  Perhaps the two
*were* connected, she thought.  And what did Gary Hobson have to do with
any of it?

"Dana," said  Chance.  He'd never thought he would see her again.  And
not under these circumstances.  He did the only thing he could think to
do.  He kissed her.

She couldn't help responding.  She was cold and she was afraid, and his
mouth on hers was warm and reassuring.  It was nice to have a man's arms
around her, to feel that fire begin to burn from where she'd buried it
deep.  Her emotions were not unreachable.  

She remembered Mulder and shoved Chance away.  She glared at him,
ashamed to be breathing hard and feeling her blood race when he had
nearly killed her.  Maybe had killed  Mulder - dear god, she had to get
to him - someone had been trying to kill Mulder.  Maybe it had been
Chance all this time.  The thing with the remote control was weird
enough to be him, but why...

The Chance Harper she had known was not a killer.  Guilt flooded
through her as she remembered how deep her feelings for this man had
gone.  She had almost left Mulder and her life behind to be with him. 
No one could change that much.

He was still looking at her and she didn't know what to do.  She wanted
to cry, but that just wasn't an option.

"What are you doing here?" Scully demanded.  "And what the hell just
happened?"

"I'd say  I just kissed you," Chance replied, just as angrily.

"I mean *THAT*," she cried, pointing an accusing finger at the wrecked
autos in the middle of the street.

"Someone tried to kill me.  A black sedan, with two people in it, was
trying to run me off the road - or something."

"So you ran into us instead?" she crossed her arms.

"I didn't know it was you!"

"Where is this other car?" she demanded, making it clear she didn't
believe a word of it.

"It sped away.  Why the hell would it want to stick around here?  To
see if its mission was accomplished?"

"It's true," Gary spoke up when he saw the doubt in Scully's eyes.  "I
saw the whole thing.  There was a black car.  It all happened as he says
it did."

Scully could just stare at him, blinking occasionally.  What was he
doing here?  she couldn't get her mind around it.  "I think I need to
get to the hospital," she said.

"It was quite an accident, you should get checked out," Gary
suggested.  Had the paper said the victims died at the scene?  Had he
really changed things, or was this hotheaded FBI agent determined to
walk around with internal injuries until she collapsed? he wondered.

"I'm fine," she muttered.  "I have to get to Mulder."

"Mulder."  Chance's tone said it all.  

Scully glanced at him, but Gary jumped in before she could do or say
anything.  "I know which hospital they've taken him to, and the quickest
way to get there.  If you want to come with me," he suggested.

Scully nodded wordlessly and began to follow him.  Gary wanted to put
his arm around her shoulders to give her a hand and make sure she made
it, but was too afraid she'd bite his arm off and throw it back at him
to try it.  Chance didn't take his eyes off her as he accompanied them.

Chance Edition, part 6
__________________
>< >< >< >< >< 


The hospital was only a few blocks away, and Scully burst into the ER
covering for her fear of what she might find with anger and authority. 
Out came her FBI badge and she demanded to be taken to Mulder.  No one
questioned Gary or Chance as her sidekicks, merely led her to a
curtained off cubicle where Mulder sat on a table as though he was
waiting for her.

"You're all right," Scully said, relieved, restraining her urge to
throw her arms around his neck.

Mulder nodded gingerly and managed not to touch the bandage taped to
his temple.  "It's just a small concussion."

"There is no such thing as a small concussion, Mulder, you lost
consciousness," she said, touching the bandage and making him flinch
with pain.  "Sorry," she mumbled.

"You're all right?" Mulder turned to her with concerned eyes.

"Fine," she said firmly.

"No one's checked her out," Gary volunteered, and suddenly Mulder was
staring daggers at him.

Just as quickly, he shifted his gaze to Scully.  "You should have a
doctor look at you."

"I am a doctor, Mulder -"

"You can't examine yourself."

"Want to bet," she mumbled, but knew she couldn't argue with the look
on Mulder's face.  "All right," she gave in.  Her eyes met his again. 
"Are you certain you're all right?" she asked.

Mulder nodded, unable to tear his eyes away from the tender look of
concern on his partner's face.  "I guess I'm just lucky," he said.

"Speaking of lucky, guess who we ran into?" Scully's forced light tone
was like a joke at a funeral, and she knew it.  "Mulder, you remember
Chance Harper."  She watched Mulder look up and lock eyes with the other
man, the object of his current quest.  She wanted to back away, or maybe
run, but she had to remain where she was standing.  This was incredibly
awkward.

"You're the son of a bitch who hit us?" Mulder demanded, his body
tensing with absolute fury.  He got down from his perch on the examining
table and Scully saw that he was favoring his ankle.   "Well?"

"Yeah," Chance answered roughly.  Scully watched the two men, ready to
intervene in one hell of a fight, but she didn't want to step in unless
she had to.  Chance's eyes turned dark and his expression was
unreadable.  His anger was quieter than Mulder's.

And as it turned out, there was no fight.  Because before Mulder could
say anything more to Chance, he saw Gary standing there.  "What are you
doing here?" he cried.

Gary shrugged.  "Just helping this lady get back to her partner.  Right
place at the right time."  He took a step back, towards the door.  He
didn't understand what was going on here, and the more he thought about
it, the more he didn't think he wanted to.  There were bound to be other
things in the paper that needed his attention. If not, he could meet
Chuck and maybe watch sports on TV or something normal.  At this moment,
Gary craved something normal.  He didn't know what these FBI agents were
doing wrong, but they'd needed too much of his help in the past two
days.  It was almost eerie.

"No you don't," Mulder said to Gary, stopping him with his words. 
"It's a little too convenient that you're here, too."  He looked from
one man to the other and Scully could practically see the conspiracy
theory forming in his head.  "I'm placing you both under arrest."

"You can't do that," Chance said.

Mulder turned to  him with a surprised look, his eyebrows arched
ironically.  "Oh no?  There's a warrant out for you, in case you weren't
aware of it.  For killing an FBI agent."

"I didn't do that," Chance said.  As though he didn't care what Mulder
believed.  As though he knew no one would believe his words.

"That's what they all say," Mulder remarked coldly.  It was a side of
him Scully didn't like  - petty, jealous, horribly driven.  She didn't
see any of the good of Mulder left.  She wished there was something she
could do, but she knew anything she said would only make matters worse.

Still, she tried.  "Gary hasn't done anything, Mulder."

Mulder didn't break his staring contest with Chance.  "Someone has been
trying to kill me since we got into town.  Every time, he's shown up." 
He glanced at Gary, who stood silently.  "I don't think it's a
coincidence, do you?"  He looked to Scully for her opinion.

She shrugged.  An 'all right, Mulder, you win - for now' shrug.  But he
didn't look away from her face.  After a second, he touched the skin
under his nose and said "Scully."

She jumped, and swiped at her nose with her hand.  Blood.  Another
freaking nosebleed; they always picked the wrong damn time, didn't they?
she thought, angrily, but she fought not to show her irritation.  She
could feel Mulder's eyes lingering on her as she looked around and
finally located a box of tissues.  The bleeding stopped quickly and she
met his eyes again with a look to tell him that she was fine.  She could
see in his eyes that he didn't believe her.  "I must have hit my head,"
she said, trying to make it seem as though this was nothing when they
both knew it was not.

It was the wrong thing to say, she realized with a wilting feeling in
her stomach when she saw Mulder's eyes change. He was looking at her as
though she was too fragile to live again, a look she detested.  He
couldn't keep her safe in a padded  box and only take her out when he
thought there would be nothing to break her.  She was fine; she wasn't
going to stop living her life.

"What are we doing now, Mulder?' she challenged him. He had made this
his show; she wanted to know what happened next.  

"What do you suggest?" he asked her.

"Rather than turning this matter over to the police - who I suspect
never requested our help with this matter -" she said, reminding him of
proper Bureau protocol, "why don't we go back to the hotel and try to
sort this out?  I'm sure Mr. Hobson will be able to present a suitable
explanation for the series of coincidences that has -"

"Let's go," Mulder gruffly interrupted her.  He took  Gary's arm and
Gary jerked away.  He would answer their questions as best he could, he
decided, but they had no right to treat him like a criminal. As least
Scully sounded as though she would give him fair consideration, Gary
thought.

Chance hung back, waiting for Scully.  "What's wrong?" he asked her in
a low voice.    

Electricity buzzed in her stomach when he looked into her eyes, but she
just shook her head. "Nothing," she said firmly.  "It's nothing."

"Maybe you should have a doctor take a look at you," Chance suggested,
reaching out and sweeping the hair out of her eyes.

She moved away from his touch.  "I'm fine," she said.  He held her eyes
for a moment and then nodded, walking along beside her in silence. 
Scully managed to pull her thoughts away from the accident and her
health and Chance long enough to think objectively about the case.  Gary
corroborated Chance's story about someone trying to kill him.  Someone
was trying to kill Mulder,  too, but there was no way that person could
have  known their car would be in that particular intersection at that
moment.  The men who tried to run Chance off the road hadn't been doing
so in order to kill Mulder; it was extremely unlikely, it involved too
much luck.  So there was another party at work here. Probably two, she
thought, since she didn't think Chance was the one who was trying to
kill Mulder.  It was possible the men trying to kill Chance were the
same men trying to kill Mulder...that only left the question of why.

Mulder looked ready to conduct one hell of an interrogation, Scully
thought, looking at the angry lines of his back.  Hopefully he'll look
far enough beyond his anger to find some answers, she thought.  If
things got out of hand, it would be difficult for her to keep them under
control.

>< >< >< >< ><


The hotel room was silent and seemed too small to contain the tension
between its four occupants.  Gary and Chance sat at opposite ends of the
couch.  Scully stood off in one corner, leaning against the wall with
her arms crossed.  Mulder stood in the middle of the room.  Center
stage.

"I think it was just coincidence that Gary happened to be where he was
today," Scully said, trying to reason with Mulder.

He turned on her. "You believe in coincidences now?" he asked her
harshly.

She didn't react to his words physically, although his tone made her
angry.  All of this made her angry - that Mulder took personal offense
at everything that had happened.  None of this is about you, she wanted
to scream at him, but he would never see it that way.  He was truly
infuriating at times, she thought.  "I can't think of any other rational
explanation, Mulder," she said evenly.    "Are you going to try to
convince me that he has some sort of foreknowledge?  Are you going to
test him for psychic ability?"

"I wish you wouldn't talk about me as though I wasn't here," Gary
said.  Both agents immediately looked at him.  A nervous feeling in his
stomach told him this wasn't such a good idea because he didn't have any
rational explanation for how he knew the things he knew.  But he sensed
this was more of a personal fight between the agents, and in that case,
he just wanted to go home. He had enough problems of his own.

"Care to explain your interesting police record?" Mulder asked.

Gary shrugged modestly.  "I don't have any explanation."  Mulder was
still staring at him, as though taunting him: you can do better than
that.  "I guess things just happen to me," he finished.  "I happen to be
in the right place at the right time to help people.  And sometimes,
people don't want to be helped.  And it gets misconstrued."  He sensed
that Chance was now staring at him, but he didn't know why.  He didn't
think he wanted to know why; it was an uncomfortable feeling and so he
didn't turn to look at the other man.

"Can you explain how, in the course of one day, you were at the scene
of a near-shooting, intervened in a robbery in progress, and then turned
up at the scene of a car wreck?" Mulder continued.

"A bad day," Gary said.

Mulder nodded as though he didn't believe a word of it. "Isn't it
funny," he said,  "That your record is so startlingly similar to Chance
Harper's?  Or should I call you Alex now?  Alex Sanders?"  he turned his
gaze to the other man.  As Gary knew what it was to be in the hot seat,
he didn't look at the other man.  Chance didn't move or say anything to
answer Mulder's questions.  "How do you explain your record, Hobson?"

"I don't.  I guess I'm just not very lucky."

"Or too lucky," Chance murmured.  Gary looked at him then, out of
surprise.  The other man was giving him an odd look, one of
understanding and something else.  Dark curiosity?  Sympathy?  Gary
wasn't sure.

"Why did you quit your job?"  Mulder asked Gary.

"I didn't.  I was fired."

"Why?"

Gary shrugged.  "The boss didn't agree with me?"

"Why haven't you found another job?  A stockbroker, it shouldn't be too
difficult to -"

"Mulder, stop it.  He doesn't know anything." Scully spoke up. She
remembered Hobson's gentle manner the evening before in the bar when
she'd asked him questions.  Right before he'd saved her life as though
he'd had foreknowledge.  Maybe he did, even though she didn't believe in
it.  Regardless, Mulder was behaving badly.

"And you've never seen this man before?  Chance Harper, Alex Sanders,
whatever he's calling himself these days?" Mulder demanded.

"No," Gary said.  "May I go now?"

"No!" growled Mulder.

Scully saw Gary open his mouth to protest.  "You're no longer under any
semblance of arrest, Mr. Hobson," she said.  "However, it might be
helpful to our investigation if you remained here for a few moments
longer."  She really, really hated it when she had to play diplomat and
clean up Mulder's messes.

"What are you investigating?" Gary asked her.

"The murder of an FBI agent and the mysterious arson deaths of five
others," Mulder picked up, now staring daggers into Chance Harper.  "By
a man who also claims he's 'lucky'."  He said the word with loathing.  A
chill crept across his shoulders as he remembered, again, Angie the
waitress's admonishment that he, too, had the luck.

"I didn't set that fire," Chance said.  "I know it looks bad.  Because
I've been set up."  He looked at Scully, not at Mulder.

"Convince me," Mulder challenged.

"I had no reason to set that fire.  I'd just found my father.  Met him
after thirty years of thinking that he was dead.  My brother, too.  I
would never have done anything to..."  Chance trailed off.   The words
hurt too much. And they were untrue.

"Never done anything to what?" Mulder demanded.

"To hurt them," Chance finished, quiet with guilt.  "There's a very
long story behind that warehouse fire, and I'm not sure you're willing
to listen to it."  This his addressed to Mulder.

"On the contrary, I'd love to hear your version of the events of that
night," Mulder said with mock interest.  "And you're not going
anywhere."

"It's hard to know where to begin," Chance said, trying to sort through
the events in his mind to locate a beginning to his story.  He glanced
at Scully.

"Don't look at her!" Mulder roared.

"Mulder," Scully cautioned him quietly.  "Why don't you just listen to
Chance's side of the story?"

"You're on his side," Mulder said defensively.

Gary propped his chin in his hand, watching the verbal back and forth
as though it were a tennis game.  He didn't pretend to understand any of
what was happening here, but he was intrigued by this fellow Harper's
"luck".  He turned and studied the other man for a moment. Could he be
receiving the paper, too?  It was the only explanation Gary could think
of.  Then he had to wonder if Mulder and Scully knew about the  paper. 
If they were going to try to take it and exploit it for the government's
agenda.

"I'm not on anybody's side, Mulder," Scully said with a sigh.

Chance took a deep breath and began.  "When the two of you met me last
year, you said you wanted to help me find my brother."  He was uneasy
bringing up the events of that prior meeting, because every time he did,
he could see it made Mulder insane with jealousy.  A jealousy Chance
didn't understand, because Dana had chosen Mulder.  Chance had known,
even then, that she was in love with her partner.  When he'd thought of
her since then, he'd assumed that she would have initiated a
relationship with him.  But he saw no sign of a relationship between
them now, which puzzled him.  "And I assume you know about the plane
crash that killed part of my family and separated me from my brother
Eric."  

Scully nodded, and Chance continued.  "Shortly after the two of you
left, I found my brother. Or, rather, he found me.  His name was Eric
Vandenburg.  He got mixed up in some sort of trouble, and he left me a
letter."  Chance produced it from the pocket of his jacket, where it had
become aged and wrinkled.  "It advised me that if I heard of something
happening to him, to get in touch with his friend at the FBI.  A friend
he trusted.  You, Agent Mulder."

Mulder put out his hand for the letter and Chance let him have it.  He
watched the agent's face change as he read it.  He had been his
brother's friend, Chance realized.  Perhaps once Mulder was through
trying to arrest him for murder, they would be able to put aside their
differences and jealousies to talk about his brother. There was so much
Chance didn't know that he wanted to.  Mulder handed the letter back,
looking uncomfortable.

"Eric surfaced again a few months later, along with a man named
Wilford, who claimed to be with the FBI.  He'd faked his death, but he
wasn't dead."

"He was an FBI agent," Mulder confirmed.

"Well, he was more than that," Chance said, taking a deep breath.  "My
father also surfaced. Robert Sanders, who I thought had been killed
before the plane crash.  He'd been involved in something big, thirty
years ago.  Something so big he had to fake his death to get out, to try
to get his family out and safe.  But it didn't work. They knew he was
alive.  My mother and sister were killed, and I lost my brother." 
Chance paused a moment to pull his thoughts together.  He happened to
notice Dana's expression, and it was compassionate.

"My father belonged to something he only referred to as the Agency.  It
sounded like something out of a spy movie.  Apparently, Wilford was a
double agent for this Agency as well.  He was obsessed with something he
called 'a fortunate confluence of events' - he investigated strange
phenomena.  For this Agency.  He had information - a file - he wanted my
father and my brother, because they had the same luck I do.  Eric was
trying to  test it.  Make things happen himself, rather than let things
happen to him. The way I did.  I got the impression Wilford wanted to
study us.  Somehow."

"What happened that night?" Scully asked, involved in Chance's story. 
It was sad; the loss of his family.  She could relate to it.  Mulder
ought to be able to relate to it as well, she thought, but he was too
angry still.  Angry about his friend Eric, and his predecessor Wilford.
Too angry to see the truth clearly. Wilford had been mixed up in
something bad, Scully thought.  She suspected she knew what, but needed
more information.

"I don't know," Chance answered.  "The memory is fuzzy in my mind.  We
met Wilford at the warehouse.  It was a trap.  And I was the only one
who walked away."

"Why?" asked Mulder.

"I don't know."

"Why don't you know?"

"When my brother showed up, it was because I'd been struck by
lightning," Chance said.  "I remember waking up in the hospital with my
hands bandaged and hearing his voice. Someone had found him, and told
him.  They wanted him there.  And then, a week later, I woke up in the
hospital again."  His smile was wry.  "Lightning can strike twice."

"You're saying you were struck by lightning?  Twice?" Scully cried.

Chance nodded, annoyed by her tone.  "You can check my medical
records.  I imagine the hospital still has them on file. Or you can
interrogate my friends.  Unless you already have."

"Why did you run?" asked Mulder.

"My father and brother were dead.  I was the sole survivor, again. 
They'd set it up to make it look like I knew something.  They probably
thought I knew something.  I knew I was in danger."

"Is this the first time someone has tried to kill you since then?" 
Scully asked.

"I managed to remain one step ahead  until today."

"What happened today?" Mulder asked.

"My luck ran out."  Chance said finally.  Mulder just watched him,
waiting for more.  "You can arrest me and throw me into jail, but I
doubt you have enough evidence to convict me of blowing up that
warehouse, even given my record.  I also doubt I would live long enough
to stand trial."

"Who's after you, Chance?" Scully asked softly.  In a caring voice
Mulder hated.  He looked at her and saw the softness in her eyes towards
Harper.  He hated it.  What if she decided she would rather have 
Chance, after all?  What if she left him? he wondered, irrationally
scared.

"The Agency.  Maybe Wilford.  He could have faked his death again."

"He's dead," Mulder told him certainly.  "What does this Agency do?"

"I'm not sure," Chance replied honestly.  Mulder's anger towards him
had dissipated; he could feel it.  "I think they experiment on people.
People like me and my father, to try to find the source of the
'confluence of events', maybe.  I don't know. Maybe they cause things to
happen."

Scully was staring intensely at Mulder.  "Who does that sound like,"
she said to him.

Mulder merely nodded, holding her eyes for a moment.  Then his eyes
slid back to Chance.  "I believe you," he said.

"Oh, am I supposed to say 'thank you'?" Chance demanded.

"Look, I could still arrest you -" Mulder shouted.

"Do what you want," Chance snapped.  "You're probably mixed up with
this Agency just like Wilford was.  You probably befriended my brother
to use him.  You -"

"No," said Mulder, angry but firm.  "I think I know who's behind this
agency of yours.  And if you want to live, as you're so convinced they
want to kill you off, your only chance is to help us bring them down."

"I'm listening," Chance said.

Gary was, too.  He was fascinated. He'd never been one to believe in
government conspiracies or shadowy agencies.  That stuff was in the
movies, not in real life, he thought.  But now he wasn't so sure.  The
things he had seen in the last twenty four hours were more
characteristic of a spy movie than real life.  And he knew from
experience that real life was pretty strange.  What would these people
say if they knew he got the paper a day ahead of time?  Would they
accept it as normal?  Would they know who was responsible, he wondered,
maybe this Agency?  Did they have files of other people just like him
who got the paper?  He didn't know.  And he was unwilling to ask them
until he knew more.

"Scully and I have been fighting against certain...factors...high up in
the government for several years.  These factors disapprove of our work
investigating the paranormal and the unexplained," Mulder said.  "To
some degree, they have also attempted to control us.  To what purpose,
we have not been able to discover.  But it has something to do with the
government's attempts to hide its contact with extraterrestrials from
the American public."

"Extraterrestrials?" Chance and Gary said at the same time.

"Look, it's late.  We've all had a long, terrible day," Scully said. 
"Maybe it would be best if we got some rest and started fresh with this
in the morning."  She looked at the mens' tired eyes and knew they would
agree with her.  "Chance, I think it will be safer for you to remain
here tonight.  There's a double bed; you and Mulder can share and I can
take the sofa.  Gary, you're free to go, but please, I have to ask you
not to speak of the things you've heard here."

"Chance can stay in my apartment," Gary said.  He was interested to see
how this resolved itself.  If some Agency, or maybe extraterrestrials,
were furnishing him with the paper every day, he wanted to find out as
much as he could about it.  Even if they were wrong, he knew he had
found the only people he could possibly tell about the paper.  Perhaps
they would be able to help him make sense out of it.

"Are you sure?" Scully asked.

"I want to help," Gary said.

Scully smiled at him, sure that he did.  He seemed to like to help
people.  He seemed like a nice guy; maybe that was all there was to it. 
Most people turned away from catastrophe and pretended they hadn't seen.
Gary got involved.  Perhaps there was nothing stranger involved.  But
she could sense Mulder's disapproval.  "It is only next door," she told
him.

Mulder nodded. He  looked exhausted.  His head probably ached from his
concussion, and he was keeping all of his weight off his bad ankle,
Scully noted.    "We'll pick it up in the morning, then."

Scully glanced at her watch. "It is almost morning," she remarked. 
"See you in a few hours."  She accompanied Gary and Chance to the door. 
"Thank you for this," she said graciously.  Gary nodded as he went out
into the hallway and opened the door to his  apartment. 

 Chance lingered in the doorway and touched Scully's fingers with his
own, smiling at her.  "I appreciate your help, Dana," he said.  Leaning
in, he brushed his lips across her cheek.  "It's good to see you
again."  He squeezed her hand, and then left the room.

Scully closed the door and put the chain on, her heart racing.  She
could feel herself blushing because she knew Mulder was watching, and
that he had not missed any detail of the exchange.  She prayed he would
say nothing as she turned around.  He had crossed his arms over his
chest and was watching her carefully.  "Why don't you take the bed," she
offered.

"Are you sure you don't want to call Harper back here and the two of
you can share it?" Mulder demanded coldly.

"He's an old friend, Mulder," she told him.

"Yeah, I could tell."

"Why are you acting like a jealous husband?"

"Why would I be jealous?"

"I don't know.  All I know is, you hate Chance.  You did last year when
we met him, and your feelings haven't changed.  And I have
this...feeling...that it's because of the relationship I had with him."

"You almost left behind the X Files for him."

"You mean I almost left you for him."  Scully said, and Mulder didn't
have an easy comeback to that one.  "And maybe I would have been better
off."  As soon as the words were out, she regretted them and wished she
could take them back.

"Maybe you would have been," Mulder agreed coldly, surprising her. 
"And maybe if I was your *old* friend, you would..."

"What?" Scully demanded, catching him.  She wanted to shout at him and
she had the notion the feeling was mutual. Did he want her to kiss him?
Is that what all of this insanity was about?  But he couldn't say it and
she couldn't ask it.

Mulder frowned and made his angry-pouting face.  "Your nose is
bleeding," he said and walked away.  Scully put her hand to her nose as
the door to the bedroom closed.  She felt her stomach turn over with the
dread she felt every time this happened and looked for a tissue to stop
the flow.  Maybe she'd been right with her malthought words, maybe she
would have been better off, she thought sickly.

And maybe she should kiss Mulder, too.  She sat down on the couch.  It
was going to be a long night.

Chance Edition, part 7
__________________
>< >< >< >< >< 


Scully couldn't sleep.  Her eyes were itchy and she was tired, but
every time she closed them, sleep refused to come.  She began to worry,
and think bad thoughts, and her neck began to slowly knot itself up
again.  Her fears would come to the surface as though she were having a
waking nightmare.  So she stared at the small television, keeping the
volume low so as not to disturb Mulder.

But she knew he was awake.  The light had been on in the bedroom of the
suite for some time now; she could see it underneath the door.  Every
once in a while, she heard him move. She'd offered him the bed because
she'd thought he would be sore from the accident.  Now she wondered if
he would have been happier on the couch because he was used to sleeping
with the television on.

What an intimate thing to know about a person, she thought, suddenly
feeling warm.  But she could often hear it through the motel room wall
when they were on the road. When she was home in her own bed, sometimes
she couldn't sleep because she could no longer hear the soft sounds
through the wall and know Mulder was on the other side.

She knew she should apologize for the things she had said to him. She
had been unfair, and she had been angry.  Her anger had been provoked by
his behavior which she knew he would never apologize for, but she was a
bigger person than that.  He also knew she wasn't one to brood.  She
knew that he was.

Scully got up from the couch and walked over to the closed bedroom
door.  She hesitated a moment before knocking softly.  There was no
answer, so she opened it.

Mulder was asleep, after all.  He lay on his stomach, with his face
pressed against the pillow.  His eyes were red and something about his
position made Scully wonder if he had been crying.  She immediately
pushed the thought away.  Mulder wouldn't cry - what had he to cry
about?

He opened his eyes and looked at her, standing in the bedroom in her
pajamas.

Scully suddenly wondered if he was angry because he wanted her to kiss
him.  The idea didn't seem so absurd any more.  She took two steps
toward the bed and stopped. Neither of them moved, feeling the tension
in the room like a string ready to snap.

Then they heard a horrible crash from the apartment next door.  Gary's
apartment.

"We never should have left them alone," Scully said in a rush, turning
around and running through the living room of the suite,  grabbing her
gun from the endtable on her way to the door. Mulder was a fraction of a
second behind her, and they burst into the hallway in their pajamas.

They paused at the closed door to Gary's apartment, catching their
breath and synchronizing their movements.  Mulder smashed the door open
and Scully went in, her gun drawn.  The apartment was a wreck, but there
was no sound or movement. The apartment was empty.  Chance was not
sleeping on the couch and Gary was not in the bedroom.  Not any more. 
The kitchen window, overlooking the fire escape, was open and cold air
seared the room.

"Gone," said Mulder.

"And I don't think it was aliens, either," said Scully, nudging a
cigarette pack on the counter.

"He's laughing at us, Scully," Mulder said angrily.  She nodded.

They both jumped at a sound in the hallway before they realized it was
the most normal sound in the world: the sound of the morning paper
thudding against the door, which had fallen shut.  There was a faint
scratching sound at the door, and they looked at each other.

Scully opened the door with her gun drawn and found herself faced with
an orange cat.  It rubbed against her ankles and then ran into the
kitchen where Mulder was, obviously hungry and used to being fed. 
Scully bent and grabbed the paper and brought it inside.  "Where do we
begin?" she asked Mulder.

He shook his head.  "I don't know," he answered truthfully.

"It's our fault they were taken.  We knew this could happen; we should
have all stayed together," Scully said.

Mulder nodded.  "If our chain smoking friend wanted them dead, he would
have done it right here."

"You think he's part of this Agency Chance spoke of?" Scully said. 
Mulder just looked at her.  "I agree," she said.  "He probably took them
somewhere to...what?  Experiment on them?"   Mulder's look was intense
and his jaw was tight. His eyes burned into hers, seemingly looking
right through her into her past and her soul, and she shivered.  "That
doesn't help us find them."

"You said you believed your abduction actually occurred in a train car
- do you still believe that to be true?" Mulder's voice was soft.  He
didn't want to hurt her, but he had to.

"I don't know, Mulder," she replied, just as softly.  She didn't want
to remember her experiences. But at times it seemed as though she needed
to.  To avoid Mulder's eyes, she looked down.  She'd been worrying the
paper in her hands without realizing it.  Her brow creased as she read
the giant headline.  "Two Killed in Mysterious Train Wreck."  Odd, she
thought, since they were just speaking of...

"What is it?" Mulder asked.

"The date on this paper," Scully said.

"What about it?" Mulder asked, approaching her.

"It's tomorrow."  She frowned.  "Somehow, this is tomorrow's paper."

"Let me see."  He took it from her hands, not believing her.  But there
it was. 

"It's got to be a misprint," Scully said, searching for a rational
explanation.

"I don't think so, Scully," said Mulder ominously.  "The lead story is
about Harper and Hobson.  And it happened - *happens* - today."

>< ><  >< >< ><


It was dark and it was quiet.  All Gary could hear was the sound of his
own breathing...and someone else's.  His head hurt, and if he'd been
able to move  his arms, he would have felt the lump on his head from
where he'd been hit.  But he couldn't move his arms.  They were pinned
behind him and bound at the wrists.  He tried to move and decided it was
a strip of cloth that bound him.  

He didn't know where he was, or why he was there, and that scared him. 
Worse yet, he didn't have the paper.

Had he really come to depend on the paper so much, he asked himself. 
Why would someone want to kidnap him?  The answer was clear to him when
he thought about it.  It had something to do with what Agents Mulder and
Scully had told him the previous night.  And that meant the other
breathing person in the small space with him was Chance Harper.

"Chance," Gary whispered.

"What?"

So the other man was awake.  "Where are we?"

"I don't know," Chance whispered back, dismayed. "Why are we
whispering?"

"I don't know,"   Gary replied, still keeping his voice low.  The two
men fell into silence, each assessing their position.

"They got us," Chance said.  "Damn. I'm sorry - if I hadn't been
staying on your couch, they probably would have left you alone."

"You never know," Gary replied.

Chance's heart began to pound in his chest. What if Gary was one of
them?  Scully had said he was a stockbroker, mysteriously out of work.
What would be a better cover for one of their operatives?  Had he really
been so foolish as to not only lead them straight to him, but to walk
right into a trap?  "What does that mean?" he asked.

"This luck of yours that you were telling the FBI agents about, that's
what these men are after, isn't it?"

"Yeah," agreed Chance.  This got worse all the time.  He got a sudden
flash of being strapped to a table as someone opened his skull with a
saw to see what went on inside. He'd read that the human brain had no
nerve endings, and so it didn't feel pain.  You could be awake through
brain surgery and never feel a thing. The thought of it turned his
stomach.

"Well, I've - uh - got it too."

"Luck," said Chance, not believing him.  This had to be a set up; but
these people were professionals, would they really do things as
unconvincingly as this?

"Well, no, not luck exactly," Gary hedged.  "I've got a paper."

"A paper?" said Chance.

"Tomorrow's paper."

"I don't get it."

"I get the newspaper a day early.  So I get tomorrow's paper. I know
what's going to happen."

"You didn't know this was going to happen." Did you? thought Chance,
still suspicious.

"No.  I get the paper in the morning, and I hadn't gotten it yet. I
find out about things the day they happen, because when the paper comes
out tomorrow, it's yesterday's news.  So it was really today."

"Uh-huh," said Chance.

"I know, it's confusing," Gary said.

"Where does it come from, this paper?" asked Chance.

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"No." Gary had to wonder why Chance repeated almost everything he said
as though he didn't believe a word of it.  Then he figured it out.  "You
think I'm making this up, don't you?"  There was no answer, which he
took to mean yes.  "Go on, you can say it, you think I'm crazy, don't
you?"  He'd never told an outsider about the paper before; why should
Chance believe him?

"No, I think you're in on this," answered Chance.

"If I was in on it, why would I be tied up on the floor of wherever we
are with a bump on my head the size of New Jersey?  Why would I tell you
a crazy story like that instead of just slapping you around with a
pistol the way they do in the movies?"

"Maybe you want to gain my trust," Chance suggested, but it seemed a
thin excuse even as he said it.

"Even if you trusted me, would you tell me everything you know?"

"No."

"So why should I bother?" Gary asked.  The two men drifted into silence
again, lost in thoughts of where they were, and why, and how to escape.

"If you get the newspaper a day early, why don't you just use the
winning lottery numbers, take the money, and run?" asked Chance.

"It wouldn't be right.  My friend Chuck, that's what he thinks I should
do.  But I - I can't.  There's something telling me I shouldn't.  So I
track down the things in the headlines and try to stop them from
happening."

"That's how you knew about the car accident yesterday."

Gary nodded, but since it was dark, Chance couldn't see it.  "It
probably sounds silly, but I feel like there's a reason I'm getting the
paper and not somebody else.  Maybe because I try to make a difference,
I don't know. But there's no way I could read about something and
just...let it happen."

"Hero complex," Chance said.

Gary shrugged.  "That's not the first time I've heard the phrase."

"Me either," Chance admitted.  He thought about it all for a moment,
the very oddity of life, and then said, "I always win on scratchers. 
Those dollar lottery tickets, you know?  I always win. Sometimes it's
only two bucks, and sometimes it's a hundred.  But I always win. If I
buy one, that's the one. If I buy six, at least one of them's a winner."

"Don't you think there's got to be a reason?  It can't just be an
accident the way these things happen," said Gary.

"There are no accidents," Chance said with conviction.

"Just a 'fortunate confluence of events'?"

"I guess that's why you weren't bored by my conversation with Dana and
Mulder," Chance said.  "You've got your own luck. But you're still
trying to figure out how it works."

"You're not."  He'd meant it as a question, but it came out as a
statement.

Chance shook his head.  "I don't know how it works.  I tried, for a
long time, to figure it out.  This lady I used to know said that I made
my own luck.  That if I really wanted to have a normal life, I would
just walk away.  And I want a normal life, more than anything.  But I
can't just walk away, either.  I can't turn my back on someone who's in
trouble."

"Even when it spells trouble for yourself," Gary agreed.

"Yeah, even then.  So I don't know how it works.  I don't think I want
to know.  Some of the stuff that's happened to me has just been too
weird."

"Like what?"

"Like...I met these two brothers, who had a potato shaped like Elvis. 
They had it on display, called it a miracle.  And these two guys were
ready to kill each other over this Elvis potato because they couldn't
share the profit."

Gary was smiling now; an Elvis potato?  "What did you do?"

"I made hash browns."  Chance chuckled, and Gary laughed.  Then he
turned serious again, staring into the darkness of their captivity.  "I
figure it's my luck, it's mine. It's the only thing I've had my entire
life. It's the only thing I've been able to count on.  It's a part of
me.  And then my father, and my brother...I thought they could explain
it to me. Maybe they could have, I don't know.  I don't understand how
such a thing could be hereditary."

"That's like the paper.  It doesn't matter where I am at 6:30am, the
cat and the paper always find me."

"The cat?"

"I didn't mention the cat?'

"Huh-uh."

"There's a cat that delivers the newspaper. Mr. Snow's cat."

"Mr. Snow?"

"He was the guy who got the paper before me."

"Someone got the paper before you started getting it?  How do you
know?"

"He was the man who had the apartment before I rented it.  I saw his
picture - and the cat's - in a book."   

"So maybe it comes with the apartment. If you don't want it, maybe you
should  move."

"But the cat always finds me.  And even if it didn't, how could I do
that and have to wonder who moved got the paper next?  If they were
doing the right things with it?"

"If they didn't just walk away."

"Right!"

"We make our own luck, Gary," said Chance.

The light came on at that moment, blinding them.  "This has been a
fascinating conversation, gentlemen," said the man who had turned on the
light in a smooth voice.  "But I think it's time for story hour to
end."  He dropped the match he'd used to light his cigarette onto the
floor.

Someone came up behind Chance and lifted him from the floor by his
bound hands.  He looked about wildly and saw someone was doing the same
to Gary.  Men in dark suits...always a bad sign.  And the room, now
illuminated by bright white light, looked like a long, skinny
laboratory.

Chance knew how the mice felt. He had to do something, and fast.  He
had to make something happen.

Before his luck ran out.

Chance Edition, part eight
__________________________
>< >< ><  >< ><


"Are you sure about this,  Mulder?" asked Scully, shooting him a wary
look, then went back to consulting the thin, unfolded map in her hand. 
"Because there's no abandoned trainyard on *my* map."  

"It's amazing what isn't on the map in this country," muttered Mulder.

"The Bermuda triangle," suggested Scully brightly.

"Area 51," Mulder countered.

"Bigfoot's house."

Scully laughed at that one, which made  Mulder grin.  "I think we
should have stopped for coffee, Mulder," she said, looking out the
window at the pale light of the early morning.

"Too late," Mulder said, bringing the car to a stop just off the side
of the road.

"Where are we?" Scully asked, looking around. "This is middle of
nowhere."

"If all of the midwest is the middle of nowhere, you know what that
makes the USA," quipped Mulder.

"Nowhere," they finished together, their wry tones matching.

"Seriously," Mulder continued, "This is as far as this Taurus is going
to manage to go."

"Told you we should have gotten the Explorer."

"Just because you're hot to drive a cool sport utility vehicle, it
doesn't mean we should charge up our account with the Bureau."

"Four wheel drive's handle better in the ice and snow, Mulder, and
besides, when did you start caring about how much we bill to our expense
accounts?" Scully snapped, a little unhappy about being characterized as
"hot to" do anything.

"When they started charging me for losing cell phones?" Mulder joked,
but it fell flat. Scully frowned at him, remembering the last time he'd
lost his phone: jumping from a bridge onto a train car much like the one
they were now in search of.  Where he'd very nearly been murdered.  A
train car like the one that held atrocious memories for her, events she
never wanted to remember.

One look at Scully's face told Mulder he'd gone too far, as usual.  The
time for levity had passed.   They'd been having fun, but in one quick,
changeable moment, it had ended and she had gone back to being all
business.  Scully was steady as a rock, and he loved her all the more
for it, but sometimes he couldn't cope with the quick, subtle changes in
her mood.   She was just as sensitive as he was - maybe even more so -
but she hid it better, usually with silence.

They began the long walk over frozen soil.

"Are you sure you know where we're going?" Scully asked after they'd
been walking for what felt like an eternity.  Mulder's nose and ears
were turning red, and she could see his breath.

He just nodded, looking back at her as they took a moment to rest.  The
cold only made her more beautiful, he thought.  Her skin became more
pale and her cheeks were pink.  The sun glinted off her hair and made it
look like fire.  He wanted to say something that would tell her what he
was feeling, but as usual, there were no words.  And this was not the 
moment.  He tore his eyes away just as she caught him staring and he
began to walk again, feeling her eyes  linger on him as though wondering
why he had been watching her, but she didn't say a word.

Did she know? he asked himself.  How could she not?

"There it is," he said as the rows of train cars appeared over the
crest of the next hill.

"How do we know which car it is?  There's hundreds here, Mulder!"

"Watch," Mulder breathed, and they stood perfectly still, watching the
cars.  They looked like a child's toy set, scattered and strewn across a
frosted green rug.  None of them moving.

A puff of air, cloudy in the cold so it looked like smoke, appeared and
hung over one of the cars before dissipating.

"That's the one," said Scully, pointing out the obvious.  Beside her,
Mulder nodded.  Now that she was looking, she could see other signs of
life around that particular car.  It was newer; there was less snow
around it.  And she could see the plain black car parked sideways a few
feet away from it.

"Let's go," said Mulder, taking off at a jog.

 Scully was right behind him, drawing her weapon as she  skidded down
the hill.  Approaching the car and wondering what was transpiring beyond
its thin metal walls made her feel shaky.  She fought to push the
feeling back and concentrated on what she was doing.  The car had one
door in its side, and a top panel that could be opened.  She looked at
Mulder and they were able to coordinate their actions without a sound. 
She covered the door, her arms outstretched to steady her hand around
the cool, comforting steel of her gun, while he smashed it in.

"Come on out of there," Mulder ordered, waving his gun inside  with one
hand.

Scully's heart was pounding harder than the situation warranted.  She
was terrified to think what they might find inside.  Although they were
there to rescue Gary and Chance, it was not an image of the two men,
bloodied and dead, that came to mind at all.  The strong picture filling
her mind was of a woman, bathed in white light, held to a table and
screaming in pain.

She blinked, but the picture didn't clear. Nor did it leave her.

Two men in dark suits emerged from the  train car, looking grim. Scully
motioned them to one side with the barrel of her gun, keeping her eyes
trained on them, fully expecting either of them to produce an automatic
weapon from the inside of their jackets.  Neither did.  She watched
Mulder enter the car out of the corner of her eye as she ordered the two
men to drop their weapons on the ground.

They did as she requested.

Mulder didn't come out of the car.  And she needed to know why.  But if
she took her eyes off these men, they would run.  Or shoot her. 
"Mulder?" she called.

"I'm all right, Scully," he assured her from inside.

"What's going on in there?"

The answer to her question was a long time in coming.  "Let the two men
go," Mulder said at last.   They wiggled at his command, and she
steadied her aim on them.

"No," she called back to him.

"You had best let them leave, Ms. Scully," said a calm, menacing voice
from inside.  A voice she recognized all too well from behind a
cigarette in Assistant Director Skinner's office. A voice with a face to
go with it, but no name.  "Otherwise, your partner and lover will be
dead."

Scully frowned at the thought.  And at his referral to Chance Harper as
her lover...she had thought she loved him, once; cared about him,
certainly - but they had never been lovers.

Or did he mean Mulder?  The thought was startling.

"All right, go on, get out of here," Scully said tersely to the men,
still holding her gun on them so they wouldn't have the opportunity to
turn on her, grab their weapons, and shoot her dead.  They turned slowly
and started for the car at a walk, which quickly progressed to a run.

She wondered for a moment how the cigarette smoking man was going to
leave if the men took the car. She couldn't imagine him running, or even
walking, out of there, huffing and puffing to draw breath into his
emphysemic lungs.  And yet she was sure that was what it would come to. 
She knew in her heart that she and Mulder would prevail.

The two men sat in the car, but didn't start it.  They watched her.

She thought evil thoughts about them.  Then the voice beckoned her from
inside the train car.  "Come inside, Ms. Scully.  And close the door
behind you."  It chilled her to the bone, more than the Chicago winter
ever could.  But she did as he said, picking up the two goons' weapons
in a move that was most likely futile - they probably had more guns in
the car.  She would just have to take that chance.

>< >< >< >< ><


Mulder watched as Scully slowly entered the train car and set the guns
on the floor without having been told to do so.  Her eyes locked with
his for just a second, before flickering away to take in the rest of the
small laboratory.  It was set up much like the train car he'd been in
before, where the NSA agent had tried to kill him, and there had been an
alien hybrid chained in the corner.  Only now, he thought, looking back
at the gaunt, terrible man they'd matched a dozen times, it was more
serious that an  NSA agent and a hybrid.  It wasn't only Mulder's life
on the line.  It was the lives of two mostly-innocent civilians.  And
Scully.   Scully's life.

He still had his small pistol strapped to the inside of his ankle.  

He assessed his options quickly.  Mulder looked at Chance, who had been
watching him intensely.  The other man was ready for action, ready to
make a move.  They could work together to get out of this situation. 
Mulder appreciated that.  Even though he still held a strong personal
grudge against the man, this was no place for his personal feelings.  He
knew he couldn't do this alone.

Gary looked afraid.  He hadn't seen or been through as much as Chance. 
Mulder hoped he would be of use, but had to assume that he would be
useless.

And of course, there was Scully.  But when Mulder looked at her, he
realized he could not count on her.  Her face had blanched to a stark
white, and her eyes were open, but seeing something that was in her
mind.  Mulder's heart felt as though it was being squeezed by an iron
fist.  She was remembering something...something terrible.  So her
abduction had occurred in a train car like this one, and not in a
spaceship.  It hadn't been aliens, it had been bastards like this man.

"You want to help her, don't you, Agent Mulder?" the smoking man goaded
him.

Not yet, Mulder thought, knowing he had to restrain the anger that rose
in him like bile.  "Tell me what you did to her,"  Mulder suggested. 
"And why you're holding two citizens here against their will.  For that
matter, why not throw in why you killed  Agent Wilford."

"That's not for you to know," the man said elegantly, certain that he
held all of the power.  Even though he was outnumbered, four to  one, by
people younger than he was.  His conceit was amazing.

Chance shot at glance at Mulder before approaching the man.  "When you
killed Agent Wilford, you killed my father and my brother.  Again."  He
was ready to beat the hell out of the older man, who for a moment,
didn't react.  He certainly showed no fear, and no flicker of the
thought that he'd lost any of his power.

"Are you certain?" the man asked, and Chance's fist fell limp by his
side.

"What are you talking about?"

The man only shook his head.

Mulder looked at Scully.  She was shaking now, and he had a hard time
drawing a breath.  What was going on in her mind, he wondered.  She
looked as though she was almost caught in some sort of a fit.  He had to
act now, or he'd never be able to get her back.  Even now, he wasn't
certain.

Stick with me, Scully, he thought.  He tried to catch Hobson's eye, but
was unsuccessful.  "I've had enough," Mulder said, striding towards the
smoking man.  He drew the gun from its ankle holster.

Chance shoved the man forward, knocking him off balance.  The blow,
designed to knock him to his knees, failed.

Mulder cocked the pistol.

Gary grabbed Scully and ran out of the train car.

The smoking man smiled as Mulder raised the pistol to the level of his
head.  "I don't think you want to do that, Mr. Mulder."

"Why not?" Mulder asked.  He had the man now.

"You won't leave this car alive if you shoot me.  And neither will your
partner.  They can take her again."     

There was a gunshot outside, and the unwanted picture of Scully lying
bleeding on the frozen grasss filled Mulder's mind like the sound filled
the quiet air.  He flinched, and the man darted out of the train car. 
Mulder glared at Chance, but knew he had been just as startled.  Mulder
fired after the man, and ran out of the car, but it was too late.  He
was out of sight.  Probably ducked into one of the other cars to wait
them out.  Like a coward, hiding from them.  But living to fight another
day.

"Scully!" Mulder shouted, turning around.  He saw her sitting on the
ground, and Gary  Hobson was sitting next to her.  "What happened, who
fired?" Mulder demanded.

"I did," Gary said, his eyes shifting to a gun that lay on the snow. 

Mulder held Gary's eyes, and knew that he was lying.  But he let it go,
feeling chilled.  He put his hand on Scully's shoulder.  "Scully?" he
asked gently.  "Are you all right?"  Her jacket hung open and her right
hand was red.  Burned by firing the gun.  There were icy tears on her
face.  

She blinked, and another fell, sliding quickly down to her chin. 
"Fine," she whispered, nodding.  Her breath was still coming fast, but
her eyes were alert.  He wished he had known what she had seen in her
mind, but he didn't think she would ever speak of it.  It hurt him that
she wouldn't trust him, but he understood.  And it didn't hurt as much
as seeing her that way, burrowed deep in the horrors of her mind.

"Who was that guy?" Chance asked.

Mulder shrugged.  "A very evil man."

"You know him?"

"We've encountered him before.  He's involved in all sorts of schemes. 
Paranormal, extraterrestrial.  He is probably the one who killled Agent
Wilford.  As well as the one Wilford answered to."

"Why?"

"He knew too much?  Men like these need no motive."

"He said my father and brother might still be alive."

Mulder nodded grimly.  Now Chance would always wonder and search.  As
he had searched for Samantha.  "Let's get back to the car," he said,
indicating the direction with his hand.  Gary and Chance walked ahead. 
Mulder gave Scully a hand to pull herself up and he felt how weak her
grip was...the grip of a woman who could fire a pistol repeatedly and
not flinch with recoil.  He draped an arm around her shoulders and she
let him hold her as they walked up the hill together.

The drive back to the city was a silent one.

>< >< >< >< ><



Mulder sat on the couch, thinking about the scene in the airport
earlier that day.  Chance was going home, for the first time in almost a
year on the run.  Mulder had promised to cancel the warrants outstanding
on him, since he was obviously a victim in this whole thing.  Chance
looked good before he got on that plane, happy to be going home, but
there had been a new, haunted look in his eyes.  A look Mulder knew
well.  The look that went with not knowing if loved ones were alive or
dead, or simply...gone.

Mostly, though, Mulder was remembering the way Chance had hugged
Scully.  He'd grinned at her and wrapped her with both arms with a big,
deep bear hug.  When he'd released her, the look on her face made Mulder
think she was someone other than his no-nonsense partner.

She was a woman.

Had he ever seen Scully happy?  Because he knew, in that moment, he'd
never ever made her happy.  And he probably never would.

He had to talk to her.  He wasn't even certain about what, but there
were too many things between them that needed to be spoken of.  He
looked up at the door of the bedroom, wondering if she was sleeping, and
saw her standing there.

"We should talk," Scully said.  Her hair was mussed by sleep, or
tossing and turning.

"I was thinking the same thing," Mulder admitted.  He moved over to
make room for her on the couch.  For a moment, she remained standing,
but then she gave in and sat beside him.

"This afternoon, in the train car..."  The words were difficult for
her.  "I remembered."

"I know," Mulder whispered back.

A curious light appeared in her eyes.  "But you didn't ask."

"I knew you would tell me if you trusted me enough.  When you'd had
time to process it all."

"It was strange, Mulder.  It was as though I was reliving it...I guess
it was a flashback.  And it was horrible.  But then, when it faded...I
was left not knowing what it had been."  She shook her head.  "I don't
know how to explain it."

"I was afraid for you."

Her eyes widened.  "You were?"

"It was silly, maybe..." he recanted, suddenly embarrassed.

"No," Scully said firmly, taking his hand.  "Our feelings are never
silly.  Even  if we're not sure what they are, or if they're even real
or not, they are not silly."

Mulder thought how odd that sounded coming from her.  Scully held
herself very carefully, and kept her emotions away.  Unless...  "Has
something changed?" he asked her.

"Every case changes us, Mulder.  This one was just...different."

Mulder realized suddenly what this was about. It was about Chance. 
Damn it! he thought.  "Because of Harper."

"In part.  I was glad to see the two of you working together, Mulder.
And that you were able to forgive him.  But..." she stopped.

"But what?"

"But that brings up the reason of what you had to forgive him for.  Why
you hated him."

"He almost took you away, Scully!" Mulder cried.

"Exactly," she said evenly, looking into his eyes.

What did I just confess? Mulder asked himself as his stomach turned
over. He'd made a big mistake.  And there was no way he could cover
because it was true.  And he didn't want to cover.

"Life is too short to spend it  hiding, Mulder."

Was she asking him to say he loved her? Was she fishing? he wondered,
and it suddenly made him angry.  "What about you, Scully?" he shot back.

"I've been hiding too.  I know.  It's difficult for me..."

"It's hard for me, too, Scully!" Mulder told her.

She nodded and he could see how tired she was.  "Then let's just
agree...not to hide any more.  Even though it's scary.  We trust each
other."

"Okay," Mulder said, and he saw relief flow through her as her body
relaxed.  "Go to sleep now."

Rather than get up from the couch and return to bed, Scully just put
her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes. It felt good, Mulder
thought.  It was a start.  Maybe his luck was beginning to change.

>< >< >< >< ><


Gary Hobson sat in his kitchen, an empty bowl and a carton of milk
sitting on the table. He could hear the soft murmur of his neighbors'
voices, although he couldn't hear the words.  There was something deep
running between the agents, of that he had been sure.  He took a deep
breath, hoping someday he would find someone who complemented him so
perfectly. Someone who he could tell about the paper.

The door was locked today.  And so was the entry from the fire escape.

The clock flipped to 6:30am.

There was no whomp! as the newpaper hit the door.  There was no soft
cat's meow from outside, waiting for him to come and open the door.

It was hard for Gary to remain in his seat and not act, but he
remained.

A moment later, the orange cat streaked in from the living room and
jumped up onto the table.  It nudged the empty bowl with its nose and
Gary poured the milk as had been requested.

The paper was lying on the couch.

If all the doors and windows were shut and locked, how had the cat and
the paper come inside?

Gary smiled.  He didn't know. All that he knew was, they were there. 
Because they were meant to be there.  'There are no accidents' as Chance
had told him.

He had decided to push his luck.

So far, it was working!

The end.
Thanks for reading!  Please email comments to eponine@prodigy.net