DISCLAIMER:

MEMO: To CHRIS CARTER--

Chris, just a heads-up on our Monster of the Week prospects for season 7. After "Teso," the Cat Fanciers' Association had a hissy-fit and said "no more cats." "Alpha" was the last straw for the Dog Breeders of America who now have a bone to pick with you. The head cheese at the Rat Supply House says that we can still get guest artists for atmospheric shots, but her rodent clients resent having to share a nickname with Krycek. You'll have to cancel the episode about sentient penguins, by the way: the Professional Penguins Association still has its beak out of joint about the whole Antarctica thing in the movie.

The glass is cool to the touch, sweaty with condensation. It always is in this weather. I rest my forehead on the cool glass and solemnly skate my fingertip along to break the tension of the sweat beads of condensation. Then the glass cries, and if my tears mix with those of the glass, no one can tell.

The glass is the definition point, the boundary between inside and outside, between what is me and what is outside of me. The weather heeds no boundaries; it moves through me, my emotions reduced from raging storm fronts to dry dead pockets of stagnant air. Once, long ago in my college days, several of us drove to Texas during semester break. We rolled into Houston just hours before a major hurricane swept into the region. Even then, glass served as a boundary. I was on one side of the glass, content, sheltered from the elements. On the other side of the glass, the air was spongy and uncomfortably warm, and the sky was green, green in the way the sea is green. I was on one side, and green was on the other, and between us was the glass.

Now the world is sharply divided in two: my soul as bitter condensation on the glass, and within the glass the murky green of incubation fluid. Each day is neatly divided in two: my waking hours are spent searching each incubation tank we find, checking the DNA fingerprints and sequences, hoping for a match, while my nights are spent soundlessly stitching together my broken heart with rough thread and a blunt needle.

Once, we found Emily. The cache of hybrids and clones was housed at a laboratory remembered only as a footnote in Consortium documents. We stormed the laboratory, but even then it was too late. All of the clones and hybrids were dead, poisoned by the addition of toxic analogs that interfered with DNA synthesis. Standing orders dictated that we type the contents of all laboratory incubators prior to destruction of the contents. The new genoprobes were fast and efficient and infallible. Emily, my Emily, was in tank 44. I had them remove her from the tank and prepare her body for burial. He stood behind me, in silent grief, mourning my loss. I did not cry, since I had wept all my tears for Emily long ago.

The search continues, even now. I hold them to their bargain. I am a modern parody of Charon, trapped between the land of the living and the underworld as the dead press their coins of passage into my palm. The dead have been redeemed through sacrifice and they rejoice as the ferry takes them back to the land of the living. But each coin weighs the ferry down, so many coins now, and the boat is sinking, and I am in neither the light nor the darkness as green wraps around me. I am alone.

It is a metaphor, of course. It is symbolic. The road to Hell was paved with symbolism.

Language, even language filtered through telepathy, has a nasty deceit of its own. In the early days of contact no one realized that "colonization" could have a different meaning for the aliens. What Mankind understood as impending invasion the aliens put forward as a joining with their sphere of influence. The 'hostages' the Consortium surrendered were but a symbolic trade for an alien fetus. The creation of human-alien hybrids as a first step to colonization was more symbolism, but the Greys monitored the progress of the experiments as a matter of scientific curiosity. They made allowances for our barbaric tendencies and for our confusion when confronted by the rebel aliens who espoused a different agenda. We were as children to them.

Our childhood ended with the use of the vaccine at the alien ship in Antarctica. The Greys, shocked by the symbolic rejection of their presence, demanded the return of the alien fetus, but its theft by the Rebels made that impossible. That was when we learned that the Greys were capable of anger, and that their justice was infused with cold logic and far-reaching consequences.

The alien fetus entrusted to our care had been destroyed, therefore the lives of the human hostages were forfeit. As punishment, as retribution, Earth itself was forfeit. Such was the cost of our ignorance. It was the ultimate sanction, with but a single alternative offered.

Earth, in the guise of the leadership of the Western world and a humbled Consortium, chose the alternative.

I remember him leafing through yet another tabloid of the bizarre and inexplicable, feet up on the corner of the desk. The day had been long, full of arguments and minor misunderstandings, and by day's end our words were prickly and impatient. I was curt and to the point: "See you tomorrow."

"Yeah, tomorrow." He practically dismissed me. I can still see him, annoyed, upset, discouraged. I couldn't slam the door behind me fast enough.

That was the last time I saw Fox William Mulder.

He was not presented with options that night. The President of the United States stood in the Director's office and told Mulder that the aliens would return the hostages, would remove the black oil, would leave Earth now and forever, in return for the life of one man. The price of Earth's freedom was the sacrifice of the man who symbolized Earth's offense against the Greys.

Mulder's life would purchase the continued existence of a planet of six billion souls.

It was the pronouncement of a death sentence, a decision delivered without pity. They did not apologize for cruel necessity or thank him for his sacrifice. To do so would be an admission of their guilt and the enormity of their shame. Silence reigned until Mulder spoke.

"On one condition."

With those words he set a price on his own life and became a willing participant in what was to come. It was a final gift, acceptance of their sin as his own. There were five witnesses to the condition he set, the price for his life. There were five witnesses to the President's unreserved granting of Mulder's request. No pictures were taken, no recordings were made. There is no evidence to preserve forever the memory of Mulder's sacrifice. There are only the memories of the witnesses.

Five witnesses.

One of them was Walter Sergei Skinner.

I got in to work late that morning, haunted by the terror of an unremembered nightmare. Skinner was seated at the desk, looking at me through eyes red with tears.

I knew then that Mulder was gone.

And while those who had known of the alien threat rejoiced at the world's new freedom, while those who had been held so long came back to joyful families and relatives, I grieved for Mulder.

I believe that the aliens were quick and merciful...that Mulder did not suffer. It was a single intense flash of light, light that took the life of one, one life that redeemed six billion. What I know, what Mulder knew in a final moment of insight, is that it was his willing sacrifice that redeemed those lives. The symbolism did not escape the aliens' notice. Out of respect, the Greys returned Mulder's remains. The President himself came to the funeral at Arlington. They interred Mulder's remains with highest honors and presented me with the flag that had been draped over his coffin.

Through it all, Skinner was next to me or close by.

I had been Mulder's price. He made the President of the United States swear that I would be protected, that I would want for nothing, that I would be able to have anything and everything I needed to continue the work of the X-Files or any other project I wanted to pursue. Anything, everything could be mine.

I never got to say goodbye. I never got to tell him that I loved him.

It was three weeks before I could face returning to work. There was a new nameplate on the door of the office, walnut veneer engraved with the title 'Special Agent Dana Scully.' I took a hammer from the janitor's closet and smashed the nameplate to bits. Then I retrieved Mulder's nameplate from a plain cardboard box of his personal effects.

His name will always be on the door of the X-Files office. Always.

Oxford University set up a scholarship in Mulder's name. The military confessed to its true role in the tragedy of Flight 549. Inexplicably, the MIBs at Area 51 offered the Lone Gunmen a one-day, no-holds-barred tour of the secret base. The looks on their faces would have made Mulder laugh.

I moved into his apartment. All my bills were paid before I ever saw them. The Bureau sent a car for me every morning, and on Sundays Skinner came by at 10 AM sharp to take me to visit Mulder. Sometimes I would read to Mulder the latest issue of the Lone Gunmen's rag, sometimes I'd read him the pending 302s. Most Sundays I sat beside his grave and cried.

One Sunday Alex Krycek was waiting for us at Mulder's grave. He stood respectfully off to one side while I put fresh flowers on the grave and told Mulder about the trials and tribulations of the week just past. We'd still had no luck at tracking down key members of the Consortium who had gone into hiding once the aliens had left. I wanted to bring the Consortium to justice. I wanted them to pay for all the misery and heartache they had caused, for what they had taken from me.

Krycek offered to bring me CancerMan, in a voice so calm and reasonable he might have been talking about going to pick up a suit from the dry cleaners. No deal was offered, no strings were attached--I think it was Krycek's way of honoring Mulder. Eleven days later, just before midnight, Skinner came to Mulder's apartment to escort me to the Hoover Building. There, in Skinner's office, under Krycek's watchful eye, was C.G.B. Spender.

CancerMan looked older, more brittle, almost haunted. He hadn't lost his nerve, though, or his patronizing attitude. He said it was touching that someone in my pampered and exalted position should bolster the economy by hiring street scum to find him. Krycek's thin, predatory smile never changed. It was a pity, CancerMan continued, that we failed to appreciate the sacrifices the Consortium had made, for the good of the planet...and that it had been Mulder who had injected the vaccine into me and therefore into the biomechanisms of the alien ship. Mulder was guilty, and while it was almost politically correct to say that Mulder died to ransom six billion lives--CancerMan's voice dripped with tainted pity--the real reason Mulder died was that he'd used the vaccine to save me.

Of course, he said, it would be such a tragic story...if Mulder were truly dead.

He saw the hunger and longing in my eyes, and with a note of triumph in his voice CancerMan told me of the clones--not the Samantha clones, but the clones of Mulder and me, clones incubated under accelerated growth conditions in secret laboratories. They were insurance, CancerMan claimed, material, merchandise to be used or substituted on demand. The clones were trainable, went his siren song, I could have Mulder again, I could see Mulder alive once more...on one condition. CancerMan wanted to trade his own life for the information about the Mulder clones.

It was my choice.

He still reeked of cigarettes and the stench was stronger the closer I got to him. His eyes were rheumy but bore the unmistakable glint of anticipated victory. I sighed, and a single tear ran its hot course down my face. I drew my weapon and placed the barrel against his forehead. "No more bargains," I said, as I pulled the trigger.

A grateful nation paid the cleaning bills for Skinner's office.

Protocol demanded that I surrender my weapon, but there was no official inquiry, no condemnation. Over Skinner's objections, and those of the FBI and the Secret Service, I hired Krycek as my bodyguard. With the air of one long inured to temporary accommodations he sleeps on a cot in the front hallway of Mulder's apartment. He speaks only to answer direct questions. If he has heard me crying at night, sobbing Mulder's name in the darkness, he has been discreet enough not to mention it. He is my silent shadow.

I had to shame Skinner into approving the 302. For the first and only time since Mulder's passing, Skinner tried to refuse one of my requests. He begged me to reconsider, to realize that raiding the Consortium facilities in the vain hope of finding one of the Mulder clones only played into the hands of the power brokers still at large. He questioned my sanity, asked how I could possibly believe Spender's desperate lies. I tapped lightly on the bottom line, where I had forged 'Fox W. Mulder' with the same skill I'd used on countless expense reports. Before my eyes he relived that night again, each detail, every nuance. He didn't seem to see the paper as he signed it.

I know it broke his heart, Mulder.

I've lost count of the laboratories we've raided and the number of clones and hybrids we've terminated. Last week we discovered a facility on the outskirts of Baton Rouge, a laboratory with only 24 incubators. I recognized myself floating serenely within a chamber, and my laughter sounded strained and unnatural as I started the genotyping procedure.

We're close, Mulder. I can feel it.

My hand on his shoulder brought him instantly from sleep. Krycek read the scrap of paper I handed him. We didn't speak, because I know Mulder's apartment is monitored 24 hours a day as part of my personal protection. There, in the semi-darkness, he stared at the note, and then into my eyes. Finally, he nodded.

He knows, Mulder.

It will happen soon. We will find you. Those who think that I am overwrought with grief will look away, embarrassed by the spectacle of a woman's slow slide into insanity. They whisper about perversion, obsession, about my failure to discern reality. I don't care what they think, Mulder. Reality is all too clear and sharp-edged.

Soon, Mulder.

When we find you, I'll bring you home. We'll sit and talk, right here on the sofa. I'll tell you the news about your sister and your mother. I'll show you the photo spread from the Gunmen's expose of Area 51. The Knicks have been playing a little better this season. Skinner looks like a shoe-in for Director in the next couple of years.

I didn't know it was the last time I'd see you, Mulder. So many things I could have said, so many things that needed to be said. I left in anger and I gave up my chance for memories to hold my heart together. Perhaps you knew all along what I stupidly never told you.

I love you, Mulder.

I know you loved me. You loved me enough to risk death in Antarctica. You accepted the price for saving me and did so with such style and grace that even the aliens understood. If only I had been there, to tell you what I can finally tell you now.

Goodbye, Mulder.

It will not be painful. The toxin Krycek obtained for me is fast-acting but subtle. We'll appear to be asleep, relaxed in a gentle embrace, and between one breath and the next, our lives will stop.

There will be those who will not understand, those who will say that I was mentally ill and committed murder in my incapacitated state. They will say I then took my own life, unable to live with the consequences of my actions.

They will be wrong. It will not be murder. It will not be suicide.

Because Mulder is already dead.

As am I.