::  Tales Of The Resistance  ::

Epilogue

Part 26 A  Anniversary

The dream with its normal cast of alien-hybrid monsters and dying friends had been bad enough. Being jarred awake by the insistent ding of his communication cube did little to improve Webb's incredibly lousy mood. "What?" he snarled into the darkness.

"Mr. Webb?"

He recognized the voice immediately and guilt further darkened his mood. He sighed, sat up and swung his feet over the side of the bed. "What time is it, Vickie?"

"0700 Zulu, Mr. Webb."

His sigh became piteous. "English, Vickie."

"Oh yeah, I forgot. 3:00 AM."

"Christ, it must be bad."

"That’s what the boss lady says."

"How’s Mac treating you, Vickie?" He stood, stretching as he did. He was trying to make points for barking at her earlier. Even though he knew he could do no wrong in the ‘kid’s’ eyes. Had he ever been that young? Regardless of what his mirror showed him, on mornings like this he felt every one of his 142 years.

"Commissioner Chegwidden is a doll, sir. But don’t tell her I said so."

Memories washed over him and suddenly he was transported to an earlier time when Commissioner Chegwidden was a take charge Marine Colonel and would have scoffed at being called a doll. "Are you kidding me?" He went into the old-fashioned water shower he had insisted upon, telling Skinner that ‘by God, all the bull-shit should be worth something!’ He knew it embarrassed Vicki to no end when she heard him prepare for his shower, but he just kept on talking as he turned on the water. "I plan on telling her the next time I see her. She’ll probably have you doing 1000 sit-ups for insubordination or something."

A giggle of delight was his reward as he stepped under the water. Another time he might have regaled her with an Aria or even an ancient jazz song, but after the dream he wasn’t up to it. Stepping out and grabbing a towel, he called out to her. "So where is it this time?"

"Northern California, along the coast. Napa Valley?" Webb sighed. He could remember a time when Napa Valley was nowhere near the coast. Of course he could remember Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and any number of other cities and towns that had been lost in the quake of 2002.

"How many, this time?" He quizzed as he pulled on his underwear and the bright red one-piece uniform of his new station. Everyone would get out of his way when they saw him in it. He liked the way the hideous uniform isolated him from the general population as much as he hated the look and feel of it. He hadn’t thought about his 'before life' in such a long time, but as he studied the haggard vision that stared back him in the ancient mirror, he had a flash of his very old self. He hadn’t worn a three-piece suit in a century. Sometimes, he missed them.

"Report doesn’t say. Just says to send a Xeno-inspector right away."

He shuddered. God, who had thought up that name? He couldn’t remember anymore. Morris? Frohike? Sounded like something that one of those two would come up with. He absolutely refused to wear the cap that went with the ensemble that announced to the world another outbreak of alien-hybrids was nearby. Let the ‘youngsters’ wear them. The pips on his collar declared his rank, the look on his face left no room for questions. He shook himself and resumed his teasing. "So, Vickie, my love, do I get company this time?"

Her voice dropped to a reverent whisper. "The Vice-Counsel said that if you needed any back up to call him direct."

"Which one?" He snorted. He knew, but the patter between him and the personal assistant to the Commissioner of the Department of Public Safety was part of the fabric of his life now.

"Vice-Counsel Chegwidden." The resigned sigh was also part of their not-really flirting.

That brought a bark of laughter. "Yeah right. AJ just got back from Europe. He probably needs the rest from his homecoming."

The gasp of embarrassment brightened his mood considerably. He loved teasing Victor Galindez’s great-granddaughter. Damn, he missed the Marine. They had enjoyed good times together in the early bad old days before things got really ugly. Going into towns and cleaning out the alien infection, finding nests of hybrids that managed to make a small foothold on the planet and most importantly, keeping Rabb alive so they could bring him back home to Renee.

What the hell was wrong with him these past weeks? It wasn’t like him to walk down memory lane. But of course, he knew why. The anniversary was in two days. Mac and AJ and Walter and Dana and all the kids, grandkids, and great great grandkids would expect him to show up at the Mountain Top. This year would be a big one. He would have to come up with a really good excuse not to show. He hated the damn things. He had gone in the beginning when Francesca was still alive, but that had been almost fifty years ago. He hated a lot of things lately. The anniversaries, the aliens he still sought out even after most people thought they were myths, much like the boogie man, at least until an outbreak hit their little town - and Olsen. God, he hated Olsen the most, because he had little doubt that it was Olsen and his merry band of so-called Monitors who had done this to them. To AJ, Mac, Skinner, Scully, Rabb and Webb – but not Francesca or Renee. Francesca had loved him so much, had given him three beautiful children. He had come to cherish her, it had killed him when she began to age and he didn’t. She said it didn’t bother her. "Clayton, it is wrong to live for so long. I have lived a very long life. Longer than my own Mama. Long enough to see many grandchildren. No, Clayton, do not feel sorry for me."

‘I never did, sweetheart, I felt sorry for me.’ He shook himself, grabbed his pack and opened the door. "I’m out of here, Vicky. Feed the fish for me while I’m gone."

"Sure thing, Mr. Webb."

He stepped out into the deserted Georgetown street he called home even now. After they returned to help in rebuilding the capital and finally, the rest of the country, he had moved Francesca and their first born son into his old townhouse. They named the boy Timothy Neville after his old mentor and his father. She had cleaned it up just fine and if things weren’t as easy to come by as they had been in the 'before time,' she never complained. He and Rabb had finally made it up to the North Woods and found Porter Webb and Tim Fawkes quite happy together in the cabin Tim had taken her to right before the invasion. They had declined to return to Washington until Porter Marcella Webb followed Timothy two years later. Porter Webb died in her sleep before Little Fran, their last child, made her appearance four years later.

The Webbs had settled into a reasonably comfortable pattern that lasted until that bright July afternoon when Francesca died in his arms, looking younger than her 88-years. He was 16 years older than she was and looked perhaps 60, but that was mostly because the stress made him look haggard and because he went out of his way to color his hair gray. He had let it return to its natural shade and now that his children seemed to have inherited what he saw as his curse of long-life, it no longer mattered.

He stepped onto the anti-grav people mover. ‘Leave it to the Gunmen,’ he thought. Conspiracy theories were pretty much passé after the invasion and Fiona had insisted that Melvin do ‘something’. So one afternoon after years of squabbling and searching and just plain dumb luck, the three old friends worked out the problem in the physics. The next thing everyone knew FLB movers were everywhere and Frohike, Langley and Byers all had permanent memorials to their contribution to the growth out of destruction. Melvin Frohike, Jr. had perfected the process. Now, any rapid transportation was done by hover cabs, trucks and flitters and even a personal hover sled.

Of course, you didn’t get there very fast, but things had slowed down quite a bit in the post-apocalyptic world. Only Omaha and St. Louis emerged relatively unscathed from the onslaught of nature and even those cities had emptied out over the past 100 years. Hurricanes and then killer blizzards and finally, unexplainable tidal waves had destroyed New York, Boston and most of the East Coast. Everything south of the Mason-Dixon Line had taken the brunt of the invasion. In that first deadly decade they had spent all of their time there. He would be gone for months without seeing Francesca or the kids. It needed to be done. Just like now.

Only uniformed members of the Department for Public Safety had free access, without special clearance from the Tribunal, to the high-speed jetcopters. He hopped from one anti-grav belt to the next until he arrived at Dulles. He showed his credentials and was led to the next outgoing flight. As he settled into the body-form seat, he wondered briefly which of the ‘grandchildren’ would be there to help. While the DPS culled recruits from all over, the core group had always been made up by various offspring from the group that had fought at Clews Haven. As always, they would be dispatched from their home bases, meeting ‘the old man’ where they were needed.

::  ::  ::

The house had been Walter’s second wedding present to her. Built high on the hilltop overlooking the valley below. The whole front of the house was covered in paniflex windows that let the light in, while keeping the cold out. The thermal heating system hadn’t changed much from the old houses on the next ridge over. She was glad he hadn’t built there. There were too many painful memories of too many bad times, for them, for everyone.

She curled up on the window seat in the bedroom. Dawn in the Blue Ridge Mountains was just making itself known and she watched a doe and her fawn walk across the lawn. There had been times, so very long ago when she would have gotten a rifle and gone out herself. It had been a hard winter that first year. Even after the mother ship lifted off with its cargo of bounty hunters and other aliens, the winter had settled back in for real.

They had argued for years whether or not the snow was one of the alien attack methods or one of Olsen’s defense mechanisms. They never came to a consensus on that subject. But for all the hardships, those first years with Walter had been good - very good. They had married three months after AJ and Mac, only waiting for a break when they could actually get everyone back together. Russell Harper had married Clay and Francesca the same day.

A muffled grumble drew her attention back to the large bed in the center of the room. He lay with one arm flung out, the other across his eyes, the comforter just covering his loins. ‘Lord, he has a nice chest for someone 149 years old.’ She sighed. She had always loved him. Even when she couldn’t stand to be around him. Even after the divorce. Even when she had lived with Webb. Thinking of her former lover, dear friend, and the man who had finally gotten her and Skinner back together, her thoughts turned very sad indeed. They had formed such a tight little group, ‘the first families of the resistance’ Renee had dubbed them. But that had been in the first twenty years, during the rebuilding – before the life changes started happening to only some of them.

Oh, they had lost good friends to natural and unnatural causes. Susan Ling died in childbirth and Victor Galindez had raised his five sons alone. His grandson had married William Scully-Skinner’s oldest daughter and now Vickie Galindez, born ten years after Francesca’s death, and showing every indication for inheriting "the gene," was head over heals in love with Clayton Webb. Webb, who after he had locked Dana and Skinner in a isolation chamber and yelled through the speaker, "either make up or kill each other" had never again been seen in public with the same woman twice.

Renee Rabb had lived to see the truth, as had Francesca. While Francesca had told her she really didn’t resent not being ‘blessed’ with Olsen’s gift. Renee had turned very bitter. When she died of a stroke at 65, Rabb who showed every indication of having not aged a day, went out on a mission and never came back. A scouting party thirty years ago brought back his dogtags and holo’s of where they had found the twenty-year-old wreckage.

Bud and Harriet died within two years of each other, the happiest of the couples that Dana could tell. Others, like John Doggett, died in more horrible ways and she didn’t want to think about that now.

"Hey! I’m cold. Come and warm me up."

She tossed her long red hair back over her shoulders. "Indeed Vice-Counsel Skinner. And how can this small insignificant peon warm you up?"

Walter Skinner sat up in bed, pulling the comforter up to his waist. He studied the chief medical officer of the nation, Director of Medical Research of the Republic, his wife of almost 70 years – well fifty, the first time, and now twenty more and going strong. He thanked God that she had returned to him. Silently, he thanked Clayton Webb for watching out for her those fifteen years and for being unselfish enough to push her back to him. ‘God! What a pigheaded fool you were Walter Skinner.’

To this day he couldn’t remember what had been the straw that broke their marriage. Perhaps, it was just the strain of fighting the aliens for so long. Perhaps, it was the pressure of realizing that they weren’t getting any older while good friends were dying of old age. Whatever it had been, the fights had been truly spectacular. For awhile, the make-up sex had been good, too. But in the end, the strain had gotten to be too much.

After one long mission, when he returned, she was gone. AJ had told him she had volunteered to go to Europe to help with the vaccine there. She had been gone ten years, but after only one month, she had sent official notice that she no longer wanted to be his wife. AJ had co-signed the forms and it was over and Skinner had gone a little crazy then. Acted the old fool. Bedding any number of the young things who threw themselves at him. Webb had finally set him straight. "For Christ sake Walter, don’t you get it? They think by sleeping with you, they, or at least any kids you give them will get the damn ‘gene.’" The words had stung and he had become more circumspect. His children, William, Melissa, Charlie and Mary Kate who were all grown with children of their own, became the focal point of his life – when he wasn’t involved with the Tribunal.

Dana had returned from Europe worn out. He should have gone to her then but there had been a major nest found in Arizona and they had all gone, Skinner, Doggett, Galindez, Webb, and Chegwidden, along with various children and grandchildren as well as raw recruits who had nothing better to do than chase the boogie-man. That had been a bad one. Doggett had died there, leaving Samantha, three children and nine grandchildren. Doggett had been too old to go, just like Galindez. But they had insisted. Galindez had survived Arizona, but saw his oldest grandson fall at the hands of the enemy. It had broken him and he died a year later. It had almost been a disaster. Costing them more men that the ‘The Battle of Fort Clews’.

They were all in the history books. They were all the topic of medical discussion and request for blood samples. As the Secretary for National Medical Research, Dana handled that aspect of it. Supplying endless vials of blood and tissue samples to any valid researcher. "Hey, do your best. It has stumped me for nearly fifty years.

He watched in pure delight as she gracefully unfolded her legs and stood up. He never asked her how she had wound up with Clayton Webb or why they had stayed together for almost fifteen years, but he would forever thank the former spy and Mac’s chief alien hunter for convincing them both that they still needed each other. He hoped Webb would come to the party on Sunday.

She crawled into bed with him and rubbed her feet along his calves. "Hey! Damn, you have cold feet, Mrs. Skinner!" He covered her with his body and kissed her soundly.

She returned the kiss but didn’t play. "Walter."

"Hmmmmmmm." He nuzzled her neck and she sighed.

"Walter." She repeated, amusement creeping into her voice.

He kissed her again and again, she returned the kiss, but kept her hands firmly on his shoulders.

"Uhm¼it’s more fun if you fully participate." He insisted between nips at her neck.

"Yes, dear, but the last time Mary Kate burst in on us, uhm¼participating¼you were embarrassed for a month."

"Mary Kate is in Richmond."

"No, Mary Kate just landed on the front lawn."

"Mom! Dad!" An excited voice called from the living room.

"Dana, you are going to pay for that."

"Yes, dear."

::  ::  ::

Webb hopped off the jetcopter onto what, a century ago, had probably been the parking lot of one of the bigger wineries. He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a pair of reflecting sunglasses. Some things hadn’t changed all that much in a century – like sunglasses and the special way that the sun kissed California, what was left of it, anyway. Grapes still grew in the rich soil. Small wineries flourished. All small, self-contained businesses did.

After the invasion, lawyers and accountants found their services were no longer needed. The ones who survived found services that were more in demand. Many a farmer in those first new decades had gotten their degrees from Harvard, Northwestern and Stanford.

Money hadn’t meant anything since the Great Thaw of 2004 when the seasonal cycle began to reassert itself. Bartering gradually evolved into a formal credit system, one of the last things Bud Roberts established before he died. Finally, teachers made exactly the same as doctors, and farmers and garbage collectors made the same as mayors and senators. Scavengers, who went into suspect areas to clean out department stores, factories and deserted homes, were the Sam Waltons/Bill Gates for a while, but supply really did exceed demand and they too fell into line, eventually.

Inventors invented because they wanted to and the Internet filled again with chatrooms – geared more to exchanging ideas and discussing problems than with pornography and the latest vid-craze, though in recent years there had been a resurgence of those too. In Australia, the great-granddaughter of Mic Brumby had conferred many a long night with the great-grandson of Melvin Frohike and the result was that humans were once again able to leave the atmosphere and venture into space. Graceful crafts that were hand tooled like fine racing cars were made from recycled material and a high tempered cerami-glass. Some kid nobody ever heard of before who lived in the middle of the Mid-Central Region had perfected the material. Because of the anti-grav technology, the ships soared through the air and into the vacuum of space without the need for rocket fuel. Webb didn’t even pretend to understand, though he appreciated the drive that his youngest grandchild had helped to perfect.

The ‘soarers’ were needed if for no other reason that the number of satellites that were crashing back into the atmosphere had become a serious concern to the small widely spaced society that had come to depend upon them for communication. Of course, Mary Kate Skinner and her team were working on ways around those, too. He sighed. The ‘New Earth’ was such an odd mix of old-fashioned community and technology.

Webb gazed around him looking for the team that should be here to meet him. Sometimes, these missions were the only times he saw some of his myriad of grandchildren. All he saw was a small vehicle slowly approaching from the west and probably being pulled by one of the few farm animals left on the planet.

Fossil fuels and iron ore were too hard to mine and process without a large, replaceable labor force. On the other hand, small family owned labs were able to churn out enough solar panels to keep the current population – such that it was – in heat and light. Webb shook his head. It had been a hundred years, health care had suffered, but people without the curse of ‘the gene’ were living longer and, oddly enough, having fewer children than had been predicted. Small communities once again cherished the old ones. Harriet and Bud Roberts' youngest child, Perri, who just celebrated her 95th birthday, was still a valued member of their growing group. While AJ was still nearly 60 years older than the spry computer expert, Perri bossed him around as no one else dared.

The vehicle grew nearer and he finally made out the source of power and his eyes grew wide with fear. ‘Dear God. No!’

In 2036 they had almost lost the war. Somehow, the alien virus had found its true host. On a small horse ranch in Argentina, a viable colony of alien-equine hybrid had taken root. The resulting creatures had been right out of the Saturday night ‘Creature Feature’ monsters of his youth, only worse, ferocious in their apparent need to kill any human.

Year after year, more outbreaks occurred in South America, each one a little further north. Until finally, after an outbreak in Mexico followed by the bad one in Arizona, the invasion had jumped to Northern Montana – as far north as anyone had seen the zombies and their offspring - it was deemed that all the horses had to be killed. Fortunately, Africa had been left alone in its misery, the wildlife including horses, free of the virus, reclaiming most everything between Cape Town and the Egyptian border. Europe took no chances and killed every last equine.

It was the one time Webb had put his foot down. "Damn it, I will go into any firefight you can find, I will NOT go out and eradicate healthy horses off the face of the planet or even this continent." The order had gone down the same year that Francesca had died. Somehow, it was all tied together in his mind.

Now he watched in horror as the wagon approached. So engrossed with the beautiful creature, he ignored the driver until he heard. "It’s okay, Webb. I’ll tell you all about it."

"Son of a bitch." Webb breathed. "Mulder."

::  ::  ::

"Sarah!" The bellow shook the duplex apartment that had once been a luxury suite in the former Willard Hotel.

"Heavens, AJ. We still have time. The hovercraft won’t be here for another ten minutes." Mac called down from their bedroom.

"We still have to get downstairs," he muttered to himself. Sighing in defeat, he walked to the bar and poured a glass of the fine old scotch that Skinner had brought back from an expedition into the wilderness of Eastern Texas.

Only a few settlements in their former home state held any size population at all, the great cities of Houston and Austin had been ransacked and burned by marauders. Even now, the main occupation of the Department for Public Safety was hunting, not the alien hybrids, but the humans that preyed off their own kind. He stared down at the White House. It no longer housed the President simply because the country hadn’t had one in over 95 years.

Who would have thought that after all was said and done, their cherished form of government had been deemed too bulky to deal with the new crisis. Even when forty-eight states were divided into 20 regions, no region could claim the total population of Rhode Island before the invasion. Almost 3 billion people had inhabited the United States in the year of the invasion, now,100 years later, the population of the mainland was estimated to be around 20 million.

Instead, the remnants of the Congress, the Senate and Toblin had hashed out a plan, presented it over the Internet, radio and television broadcasts. Toblin’s message was simple. Local issues would be settled locally. Any military personnel left were to report immediately and they would become part of the new combined Department of Public Safety. The DPS’s mission was stated in its name. Modeled more after the Texas Rangers than the Marines, teams of inspectors patrolled the wilderness and answered the call from any source. It had worked well for nearly 80 years.

Over the years, Walter, AJ, Mac and Dana had all participated in the new government. Regions would send senators to Washington and three Counsels were elected by the senators to run the ‘central government.’ Toblin had ruled, at the Senate’s insistence, until the day he died in 2010. There had been surprisingly few power struggles. No one really wanted the damn thankless jobs. AJ Roberts had been First Counsel during the dark days in the middle part of the century. Skinner had served for the ten years before he had finally gotten back together with Scully and recently, accepted the position of Vice-Counsel once again. AJ had spent twenty years at the head of the Department of Public Safety. It was he who set up the DPS Academy at the old site of the Air Force Academy in Colorado. His beloved Annapolis as well as West Point had been destroyed in the turmoil. He was coming to the end of his term of Vice Counsel and was looking forward to spending a little time with his wife. Only Webb had refused any post in the government other than Xeno-investigator.

AJ shook his head sorrowfully. He was deeply worried about his old friend. Francesca’s death had hit AJ hard, but not as hard as it had hit her husband. AJ had been resigned when Webb had avoided any further entanglement until he had hooked up with Dana Scully twenty years after Francesca’s death. That the relationship had lasted for nearly 15 years had been surprising. That Webb had instigated the reconciliation between Walter and Dana had spoke volumes of the depth of Webb’s pain and isolation.

AJ sighed. He knew why he was thinking black thoughts. The ‘celebration’ ahead – 100 years since the Battle of Clews Haven. The centennial of the departure of the mother ship had been the true beginning of the new millennium. It had been a challenging, sometimes thrilling, more often than not, terrifying time to be alive. But through it all, he had Sarah. No matter how long they were apart, he always knew when she was safe or in trouble. Once that feeling had saved her life.

They had been apart for long stretches of their marriage. Perhaps that was one of the reasons why they never suffered like Walter and Dana. Their time together was precious. And, of course, they had only each other. He sighed and tossed back the scotch. Perfect health hadn’t really been perfect. They had never had any children together. They never discovered why.

When they first returned to Washington she had gone out on missions with Webb, Galindez and the others, but gradually stopped. "They look out for me too much, AJ. I hold them back. I almost cost Webb his life last time." She had quit entirely in 2012 when alarming reports on the number of orphans without homes or shelter were brought to her attention. It took ten long years but finally, they felt that one problem was solved and the DPS had a branch that did nothing but find homes for children they found. The Chegwiddens had never been such a home. Mac had insisted. "I couldn’t stand it, AJ. I couldn’t stand to see ‘my children’ grow old, while I didn’t." He had acquiesced.

"So tell me, Mr. Vice-Counsel, do you have to get drunk to face all those relatives?"

He turned to find her standing on the stairs, her auburn hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, a cotton tee tucked into the wool pants. She had a leather coat thrown over her shoulder. He sighed in pleasure. "Madam Commissioner, you take my breath away."

She walked up to him, threw the coat on the coach, took his empty glass from him, set it on the table and wrapped her arms around his neck. The kiss was as long and as passionate as it had been a hundred years ago at their wedding. "I love you to pieces, AJ." She whispered as she traced his lips with her tongue.

He sighed and gently untangled her arms. "You madam, have lousy timing."

"Yes, sir." She leaned in again but the chirp of the intercom announced. "Vice-Counsel, the hovercraft is here, sir."

He took her by the elbow and led her out the door to the elevator. As they rode down, he remembered. "Webb coming?"

"No reason why he shouldn’t. We’ve had no reports of any outbreaks in four months. I haven’t heard from him. Hold on." She took out her tiny communicator. "Vickie?"

"Yes, Commissioner Chegwidden."

"Has Mr. Webb checked in?"

"No ma’am. I haven’t talked to him all week."

They exchanged rueful grins at the sigh in her voice. It was an open secret that Vickie Galindez was in love with Webb. Even though Webb teased her unmercifully, they were both sure that he would never make a move. Since he and Dana had parted ways, Clay had been extremely circumspect about whom he ‘dated.’

"How are you getting to Mountain Top, Vickie?" Mac asked and instantly the dynamic changed and Commissioner Chegwidden became Aunt Mac.

"Oh, a bunch of us are hovering down tonight. I’ll see you guys down there tomorrow, okay."

"See you there, darlin’." AJ added just as the elevator doors opened.

"You think I should call him and see if he wants to ride down with us?" Mac chewed on her lower lip.

"Don’t mother-hen, Sarah. If he comes, he comes. You know he hates them."

"But, AJ! It’s the centennial." Mac cried.

"I know, baby. But¼" For some reason, after all these years, the thought of his daughter brought tears to his eyes. "Come on, Sarah. Let’s not keep the driver waiting."

::  Part 26 B  ::

Anniversary

Webb had his hands on his hips, staring up at Mulder who hadn’t changed one whit in 100 years. Hell, the man looked younger if that were possible. "What the hell are you thinking?" Webb yelled.

"Good to see you too, Webb." The smirk was reminiscent of one of Webb’s before the invasion. There was little to smirk about anymore.

"You know I’m going to have to have him destroyed." Webb snarled.

"Who’s going to kill a cow?"

"Cow! Are you insane?"

Mulder sighed. "Why the hell aren’t you affected?"

"What?"

"If there was anyone else around and you asked them to shoot the horse, 100% of them would look at you the way Skinner used to look at me when I presented him with a 302 to investigate a sighting of Bigfoot. But Youuuuuuuu. You see the horse for what it is even though I’m pushing you to see a cow." He jumped down and glared at Webb. "You know you make me feel really inadequate as a Monitor." The smirk peeked through the glare.

"Tough. Look, Mulder, regardless of what everyone sees, there’s a reason why horses were exterminated." His pain came through loud and clear.

"Yeah, I know, but this horse is different. And I can prove it." He was like an excited kid. "No, really. I can prove it so even Scully will believe." He narrowed his eyes and practically purred. "How is Mrs. Skinner by the way?"

Webb shook his head. "As far as I know, she’s fine and perfectly happy being Mrs. Skinner."

"Not getting ready to come back to you?"

"You’ve been keeping an eye on us, Mulder." There was no rancor in his voice.

"I know about what happened." Mulder retorted smugly.

"Do you?" ‘Then tell me, buddy.’ Webb thought. He turned his back on his tormentor and studied the fields before him. Tiny wine grapes, mostly hidden by leaves hung heavy on the supported vines. The incessant buzzing of flies and honeybees were the only noise he was aware of. A hawk glided silently over head and twenty-five years washed away.

His time with Dana had been sweet and brief. Francesca had been dead for more than fifteen years and Dana had been divorced from Skinner for more than ten when one evening, they found themselves dancing at John Doggett’s great-grandson’s wedding. Doggett had been dead for almost 30 years by then. Sightings had diminished for a while and they both had a little too much to drink. He had insisted on seeing her home and she had gravely allowed it. At the door of her apartment he had bent to kiss her on the cheek but she had moved and he found her lips pressed against his. It had felt so good and the next morning he had awakened with her head resting on his bare chest, one leg thrown over his.

He had stayed for nearly 15 years, all the while knowing that she was still in love with Skinner. Somehow, that had made it easier. Why, he didn’t know, even to this day. But they had both been lonely and they shared so much history that for the time they were together, it had felt right.

But in the end, he had insisted that she and Skinner grow up. The plan to get them together was simple. It had been challenging trying to get them out of that damn isolation chamber before they shocked the socks off their youngest grandchild who was due to come into the lab just when the "making up" was about to begin. .

The friendship with Skinner had been strong even during the years that Webb and Scully had shown up together at family gatherings. Afterward, he was Good Neighbor Webb, everyone’s favorite uncle, the extra man for any party. Now, if he could only convince Vickie Galindez that she would be much better off with someone who didn't have quite as much darkness in his soul.

"Hey! Earth to Webb."

"There isn’t any infection here, is there?" He sighed.

"Nah. Just got lonely."

"Bullshit."

"Oh hell. Get in and we can talk."

"Mulder, damn it. I’ve broken more rules than you ever even knew about ‘before.’ But I will not get behind that damn horse."

"What the hell do you know about the rules I broke?" Mulder belligerently snarled.

"She had fifteen years, Mulder. If she wasn’t talking about the next best vaccine that was just around the corner, she was talking about you and her bugging the shit out of Skinner when Flukeman and Toomes were the scariest things you had to encounter."

"She told you about Flukeman?" Mulder’s mood mollified.

"Yeah and she told me about that Pusher guy. Sounds to me like he might have been one of you guys."

Mulder put his head against the forehead of the roan and patted it on the neck. Webb watched in amazement as the horse turned and pulled the small cart back down the road. Mulder sighed. "Nah, Modell wasn’t a Monitor gone bad or anything. Hell, I think I’m the only Monitor to go bad in history." He grinned and pointed in the opposite direction that the horse was walking. "Come on, its only a mile to a hover track."

Webb shook his head and picked up his pack. "What have you gone and done?"

"Oh,don’t worry. I’ve just shook them up a little."

"Why am I not surprised?" Webb growled, took one more look at the beautiful creature walking away from him and followed Mulder through the grapevine rows. When they came to the hover track, they hopped on and felt the force field rise around them. They moved at a leisurely pace, faster than walking, faster even than most private vehicles now in use. But Webb could still remember how the wind felt in his hair as he sped down route GW Parkway with the top down in his Mercedes.

Mulder turned to face him. "Who would have thought the guys could have done it?"

"The anti-grav fields? Yeah they’ve really changed the landscape." The fields had been around for nearly 30 years now. Webb was used to them.

"No." Mulder whispered. "They changed more than the landscape. They’ve changed everything."

"Huh?" But Mulder ignored him. When they came to the crossroads where they had to jump to another field to ride into Sonoma-by-the-Sea, Mulder jumped off and started walking further west. In less than half a mile they came upon the Pacific Ocean. "What do you mean, Mulder?" Webb continued.

"It was the straw, Webb. The straw that broke the Monitors’ back if you will."

"Damn you!" Webb took Mulder by the collar and came nose to nose with him. "Stop talking in goddamn cliches!"

Mulder glowered at him but sighed. "Let go – please."

Webb released him and went to stand at the cliff’s edge. His head hurt and the view was inviting. The surf crashed against the virgin walls. Exposed less than 100 years to the pounding of the sea, great chunks of rock crashed into the ocean sending up geysers of water. Perhaps if he stayed here long enough, the edge would¼

"It all started with the hover tracks. I had been diligently studying all the records, just like they made me. They never let me out. Monica was a real bear and Ma¼Constance was no help. You would have thought she would have been." Mulder sighed sourly. "Olsen would question me about what I had learned each day. Shit! I thought I was back at Oxford."

"Yeah, Olsen fucked up everyone’s life, didn’t he?" Webb whispered to the sea.

"Not really. He was just wrong. I proved him, wrong." Mulder reached out and touched Webb on the shoulder. "You proved him wrong."

Webb knew what Mulder wanted but he could be as stubborn as Skinner when he wanted to be, so he didn’t ask the obvious question, just waited. Mulder glared but continued. "Around 2028 when the first big lull occurred and you guys started concentrating on the bandits and gangs, I first went to Olsen and told him that it was all wrong. That the Monitors had served their purpose and that we should join in the fight and help bring the world back and to help make sure that the alien spore didn’t find a way to live and grow here. Of course, what the hell did I know?" His tone turned bitter.

Webb thought back seventy years. Things were hard but good. They were just starting to sense there was something weird going on - what with AJ, supposedly 80 years old still looking like he had the day he had entered Clews Haven. But he and Francesca had still been happy. Happy with their life and happy with their first grandson. Timothy had married young and little Clay had been the apple of Webb’s eye. He sighed. Clayton Webb II would be at the anniversary party with his children. "So what did Olsen do to you?"

"Nothing. Olsen wasn’t big into discipline. Just kept asking me to prove my point. Then you found Lugar de gritos, the horse ranch in Argentina."

"I didn’t find it, Rabb did." Webb wearily corrected.

"Okay, Rabb found it and it looked really dicey there for a long time. Then of course, there was you."

"You’re talking in circles, Mulder." Tired anger resonated.

"You ever wonder why?"

"Every God damn morning I wake up in a empty bed, you bastard." Webb spun around. "Where is Olsen? I really want to talk to him. Really want to thank him for fucking up my life. Who asked for this, Mulder? Oh wait. You did. What was that, a joke? Olsen looked me right in the eye and told me I wasn’t cut out for your life. And you know what! He was right! Why the hell did he do it?" Tears were forming in his eyes. He hadn’t been this mad since he buried Francesca. "Why?"

"He didn’t." Mulder’s voice was kind. "That’s just it, Webb. He didn’t. He had only planned on Skinner and Scully and AJ and Mac. He had always planned on Skinner and Scully, but Hannah had told him it was too cruel. Told him that it would be setting them up as gods and that they needed some others to relate to. Did you honestly think that Clews Haven was spur of the moment? Hell, from the reports I read, they almost scrapped the whole plan when Smith entered the equation, but they worked around him."

"Wait a minute. What the hell are you talking about? What about me and Rabb? Was it Smith? Did Smith did this to us?"

"No, not from what we could tell. And, just to set the record straight. Rabb wasn’t like you or like the others."

"The hell, you say."

"Rabb was 70 when he died. We found the body. He didn’t commit suicide like you thought and his plane didn’t malfunction. He died of a heart attack. He died of old age."

"He looked as good as I did!"

"You looked like shit then, Webb." Mulder sighed. "Rabb took excellent care of himself. He was a vegetarian. He had good genes, but not ‘the gene’ as you are so fond of calling it. You were the anomaly. You were never meant to live any longer than Francesca or the Roberts or Doggett. We still don’t know why. Though maybe Smith awakened something when he supposedly brought you back to life. Hannah and I argued for years about it. Trust me, you’ve been studied. Remember when you almost died in Montana, when you tried to let that thing rip out your stomach?"

Webb thought back on that battle. It had been three years after Francesca’s death and he really threw himself into the battle, hoping to die an honorable death and get it over with. There was only terror that day. The creatures had kept coming, kept killing. Chegwidden had called in the last of the Air Force, used the last of the jet fuel they could lay their hands on so they could drop every flaming weapon they had. He had been cornered in a small wash and didn’t remember anything after the beast had struck until he woke up staring into the medic’s concerned eyes. It was funny, he had a huge collection of nightmares to draw on any night of the week, but he never dreamed about that battle. He met Mulder’s gaze and suddenly, after more than forty years, he remembered. "She was there. Hannah, the woman who fixed my nose that day and said she removed the last of the cancer. I always thought that was when she did it."

"I was there too, Webb. We were ‘observing.’ Pissed me off. I won Hannah over that day. She got you to the field hospital. Of course, everyone just saw another medic bringing in a body. She made sure your wounds were healed but she also took tissue and blood samples." Mulder shrugged. "The markers are completely different. From everything we can tell, you’re a natural mutation."

"So you’re telling me that even if the invasion would have never occurred, I would still be alive today?"

"Yeah."

"You’re as big a liar as Olsen." Webb snarled and walked away from him, along the cliff.

"No, I’m not. Why would I? What do I have to gain?" Mulder followed but didn’t try and stop the very angry man.

"I don’t know, but why the hell did Olsen do it? If not to me, to the others?"

"Because, it was deemed necessary by the Council of Monitors. They decided that there had to be people who would remembered first-hand the horrors and not let the country fall prey to the people who would try to make a treaty with the hybrids."

"Treaty! With those things? Jesus, you are definitely a bunch of freaks."

"We didn’t know. He didn’t know. By the time that Frohike and the guys created the hover technology. By the time the first ‘soarer’ reached outer space, by the time we realized that your and Francesca’s children had inherited your mutation and by the time Hannah realized what she had inadvertently done to Mac, we realized that you had passed us by. You could use our help, but you live and thrive without it." Mulder stuck his hands in his pants pockets. "Then of course, everything went to hell."

"For you too, huh?" Webb sneered and walked away. "What the hell do you want from me Mulder?"

"I want to go back. I want to see them. Talk to them. Tell them I’m sorry¼and tell them about Monica."

Webb groaned. He hadn’t known about the special relationship between Skinner, Scully and Reyes until one night just before he decided that Dana had to go back to Skinner for all their sakes. She had been drunk that night and sobbed in his arms. She hadn’t done that very often. "What about Monica?"

"She’s dead." Mulder’s tone was flat and hard.

"You kill her?" It was a nasty question, asked in a mean way but he was still surprised by the bitterness behind the answer.

"Yes."

"Oh, shit. You’re damn straight you’re telling them. I won’t be your messenger on that one." Webb rubbed his hands through his hair and sat on a rock. "How did it happen?"

"Three years after Montana. Two years after 1st Counsel Skinner declared all the horses had to be killed." Mulder flopped on the ground at Webb’s feet. He pulled a piece of sea grass and began to pick at it. "We heard there was a new nest starting. By that time, Olsen was completely entrenched. He was the only real hold out on the Council of Monitors. I could have convinced them that it was stupid to stay so isolated when the very people who we were monitoring, in one leap of technology, outstripped everything we had done. You have no idea what lies in the technology, but your great grandson knows – Jesus, your offspring are smart."

"Yeah, not like their old man at all, huh?"

"Yeah, right. Anyway, I heard about this nest and I wanted to get to it before anybody got killed. Plus, I wanted to see if we could find the definitive vaccine, once and for all. I went alone, or so I thought, but Hannah and Monica and¼Constance followed me. We had tazers and flame-guns. It went perfect. We destroyed all but one. We stunned it and I swear we thought we had it encased in the force field." Tears shown in his eyes and Webb suddenly felt sick at the pain his earlier accusation had caused Mulder. "It broke through. Ripped her apart before we could kill it." He hugged his legs to his chest. "All the kings horses and all the kings men couldn’t put Monica together again." He whispered. "There was nothing we could do but bury her and take our samples back. Hannah and I worked on it night and day and it worked. We tested it on a small herd we found three years ago. Did you really think you could destroy all the wild horses in this country?"

"Mulder, we’ve been down this path before. We create a vaccine and it works until the black oil finds a new breed of host." Cats, dogs and pigs no longer existed in any great number either.

"But this works on humans, horse, cows and dogs. You name it, we gave the vaccine to every damn living thing we could get our hands on and by God, this works. And the best thing? The thing that Scully and her researchers have never been able to perfect? It can be sprayed in the air." He stood up and crossed his arms. "It already has been. It took me thirty years but I did it. The Council gave its blessing and Olsen just walked away. We haven’t heard from him in two years. I don’t know whether he’s alive or dead."

"When did you do this?" Webb whispered.

"Three months ago." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small data disc. "Here. Feed this back whenever you want. It’s the location of the last of the spore nests. Constance worked a method to find them all – I made her. You can go and find them yourself. You’ll find black oil completely inert. Useless, dead. But you can still burn it if you want."

Webb fingered the disc. What if it was true? What if it was all true? His chest suddenly felt tight. All these years after Francesca had died and Scully had left, what was left for him if there was no fighting the aliens? "So we check this out and everything is all good and we can tell people to be fruitful and multiply? What about ‘us’ Mulder? There is every indication that our children are going to live for years longer than most of the population? Scully and Skinner’s too. What about AJ and Mac?"

Mulder shrugged. "Chegwidden and MacKenzie? I don’t know. Hannah finally broke the last rule and fixed the mistake she made. I suspect that the Chegwiddens will have a life-changing occurrence any day now. Scully will spend a lot of hours checking out my vaccine and Skinner and you and hopefully, me if you allow it, will have our hands full meeting our parent race." Mulder laughed at the look on Webb’s face. "That’s the real punch line, Webb. That’s the real ‘gift’ the Gunmen left. The technology! It’s our ticket in."

"You are certifiable. You know that, don’t you? Scully will have you committed."

"Been there, done that, Webb my man. So? Will you take me back? I want to be the one to explain it all."

Webb started laughing. "Oh, you will be the one to explain it – all of it." He wiped his eyes. "So tell me, why the hell did you bring me all the way out here? You knew damn good and well the anniversary is in two days. Hell, you could have gone there today and gotten all of them alone before hand. We were never that close, Mulder. Why, me?"

Mulder took a deep breath and then another one. "I need your help." Webb saw real fear in the man’s eyes.

::  ::  ::

AJ sighed and leaned his head back to gaze into her passion filled eyes. There were definite perks to being Vice-Counsel. One of them was the hover-car with the private compartment. Very much like his limo in the old days, only without all the plush details. The craft had been intended to allow the passenger to stretch out and sleep during a long cross-country flight. Normally, it would take two pilots for the 10-hour flight from DC to any of the West Coast ‘cities’ – if it were non-stop. The jetcopters could make it in three hours, but the nuclear fuel was restricted to a very small fleet of the large transports and reserved for emergency use only. But that was okay, this was nicer.

She had attacked him as soon as they had lifted off. He barely had time to give the pilot instructions that they were not to be disturbed during the hour and a half flight down and even less time to close the sound and light proof windows. She crawled into his lap and continued the kiss they had started in their apartment. "Mmmmmmm. Damn, Sarah." He sighed as they caught their breath. This is a hell of a way to start our 100th anniversary."

She had grinned, but said nothing. Tugging at his turtleneck she sighed in contentment as he caressed her breasts through the cotton shirt, hardening the nipples to rigid peaks. "You do that so well, AJ."

"Haven’t had enough practice." He growled as he nipped them through the material.

She pushed back and pulled the tee over her head. "Better get this off. I don’t want Dana’s granddaughter to ask me why the front of my shirt is wet." He helped her with her bra and then brought his lips back to play with his favorite toys, licking and sucking them as she moved sensuously against the hardness behind his zipper. "Oh yes, AJ." She held his head to her, reveling in the feel of his lips and fingers teasing and twisting her nipples. Her hands trailed down until they found his belt buckle and pulled at it impatiently. Edging off of him, she sank to her knees. It was a tight fit, but there was enough room so she could free him and bring her lips down to torment him.

He ran his fingers through her hair and tried not to buck and thrust into her mouth but they had been apart for nearly a month. This time, he had been in Europe, working with Jason Webb and his wife trying to bring the next phase of the hover technology to that ravaged continent. "Sarah, feels so good. Can’t get enough of you. Please, baby I want to be inside of you." She ran her tongue along the length of him before kissing her way up his chest, rising to straddle him. He held her hips as she plunged down on him. Rising and falling in ever-increasing speed, she threw her head back in ecstasy as her nails dug into his shoulders. He shuddered at her passion. There were times that it surprised him all over again that she could love him this much; take this much pleasure from their coupling. The very sight of her was enough to bring on his own heady release, just as her own cry of pleasure echoed around the small chamber.

She groaned softly as she fell forward. "Too fast. Wanted it to last longer."

He laughed weakly. "You mean like last night? Homecomings are grand, but I’ve been home for a week."

"Are you objecting?"

He rolled them over until he covered her. "Never, darlin’." He kissed her soundly before letting her sit back against the seat. "But, you’ve been avoiding telling me everything that’s been going on."

"Have not. I’ve just been more interested in kissing you."

"Sarah. How did the doctor’s visit go? Did you find out why you are so tired?"

"I’m fine. I had to cancel. Something came up."

AJ leaned back against the seat. "Sarah, we have to know."

"AJ I’m just tired." She looked out the window at the approaching mountains. She didn’t want to tell him how sick she had been. She would talk to Dana.

26 C - 26 D

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