Disclaimer in Chapter 0. This is Chapter 11b.

**********


TWO GREY HILLS, NEW MEXICO 
MARCH 29 
5:32 a.m.


The sun coming up over the ridge of mountains that wreathed the
desert, the whole world a burnt amber, Paul Granger walked along the
sandy road that split the wash out behind Victor Hosteen's property,
a vast expanse of sagebrush and yucca and nothingness. He wore faded
jeans dusted with sand like ash, a sweatshirt from Johns Hopkins, the
waist of which was frayed, the lettering dotted away from 10 years'
worth of washes. It was still cold from the night, the desert holding
no heat, and the sun seemed almost wan in the way it was rising
through a thin layer of cloud, the moon still a claw hooked in the
deep blue of the night sky to the west. 

Granger looked up as he walked, one hand in his pocket, the other
holding a long thin branch he was using both as a walking stick and
also as a crook of sorts to tap the sheep in front of him into a
jumble of woolen bodies that bleated plaintively as he touched their
sides. Several wore bells, and the muffled sounds of their jangling
rose into the brisk air. 

They were coming up over a rise, one of the few on the property, a
fairly sharp incline when compared to the flatness of the rest of the
land. The sheep moved up it, zigging and zagging as Granger moved
them back together with his stick, and he wished, as they rose, that
he'd taken Victor's advice and ridden one of the horses from the
stable to do this task of moving the sheep from the pens behind
Victor's brother Keel's house back to their home base on Victor's
ranch. 

It hadn't seemed a long walk when Granger had gone the mile to get
them, but now, coming back, it felt a great distance, a heavy burden
of miles. 

Robin was on his mind this morning, as she was most mornings since
he'd arrived in New Mexico, the image of her lying in their bed
beneath the heath-green sheets clear in his mind, a smile on his
face. Then he was thinking of a night from last autumn, the weekend
she'd cooked a recipe from the Gastronome Cookbook he'd given her for
her birthday. The dish had a name he couldn't pronounce and in the
end it didn't matter what it was, didn't matter a bit, because they'd
stopped in the middle of her making it to make love instead on the
broad cherry table off the kitchen. 

He remembered the peals of her laughter as the room had filled with
light grey smoke, the smoke detector screaming its shrill alarm as
they kissed. 

Granger was still thinking this as he reached the top of the
incline, a nice view of light bleeding over the landscape, and that
was when the pain struck him in the center of his chest, a squeezing
inside him, a rush of burning that bloomed in him like a terrible
flower, and it was only the staff that kept him from falling.
Instead, he slid down it to one knee, then the other, his breath
catching and a low moan coming up from his throat. He clenched his
eyes closed against it, his teeth bearing down, his hand on his chest
as though he meant to claw the pain out. 

"Breathe..." he rasped. "Just breathe..." 

His pulse roared in his ear, and his face felt full and hot, the
pain coursing through him, a lightness in his head. His stomach
roiled, bile rising in his throat, and he had to staunch the urge to
vomit. He reached up and swiped at his forehead, knocking his glasses
off in the process, and held his hand over his eyes, willing the pain
away. 

His pills were a mile away, hidden in his shaving bag at Victor's
place. He kicked himself for not having them with him, at least one,
tucked in the fifth pocket of his jeans. 

Breathe, he told himself again, this time silently, and he
concentrated on slowing his heart rate as best he could, as slowing
it, being calm, would help the pain. That's what the doctor had said,
at least. The doctor had said little about how to stave off his
panic, though, the terror that gripped him when he wondered if this
would be the last time he would feel this, if his world were going to
fade to the sound of his heartbeat and a warm feeling in his chest
that would spread until it blotted out the rest of his life. 

The infection that had taken over his heart shortly after his
surgery had come swiftly, his chest filled with blood from a severed
artery and swelling as a fever had taken him over after the first
couple of days in the ICU. Robin would never know how close he'd come
to dying from the infection that had overrun him; he'd forbidden the
doctors from telling her or his mother, the elder woman hanging onto
the side of his bed like a tattered old bird, her dry hand on his
cheek. 

He'd forbidden the doctor from telling either woman of the prognosis
afterwards, as well, the percentage of damage to the broad muscle of
his heart, the lack of integrity in the vessels surrounding it from
the tearing of the bullet through his chest. The time that he might
have, and that he might not have, left. 

He'd told them nothing. None of them. His doctor, a kindly, older
man, had reluctantly cleared Granger for light duty, talked quietly
about transplant options and possibilities and time, the things he
knew and the things he didn't, and then he'd let Granger go when
Granger had said he wanted nothing more than to get back to what was
left of his life. 

There on the road he thought of all this, the pain beginning to ebb
slightly, sweat cold on his forehead. He thought of Robin, thousands
of miles between them and her even further than that away in the land
of the truths he would not speak. Everyone was there in that lost
land -- his mother, his friends. Mulder and Scully. Rosen and
Skinner. He felt like a man living on a ship that never saw a harbor,
alone in a way he'd never felt before. 

The guilt crept in as the pain receded, his head coming back to his
body, his breathing evening out. The guilt of being here at all, of
not telling Robin. Of hiding in the desert to keep from facing --
with her -- the truth.

The sheep mingled around him, unsure, soft sounds coming from them,
the hollow sounds of bells. 

They were enough to pull him back to the present. Finally, he
dropped his hand from in front of his face and looked at the animals,
pulled in a less painful breath, leaned on the walking stick and
managed to come up onto just one knee. Shaking his head to clear the
pain away, to ground himself, he rubbed at his chest, sweat sticking
his sweatshirt to his body, and then reached down and lifted his
glasses carefully off the sand. He righted them on his face, mindful
of the pain in his shoulder, as well, and stood slowly, brushed at
his pants, and waited for the sudden fatigue to wan. 

A couple of sheep were off to the right, meandering through the
brush on the way to the desert to the side of the road. Willing his
feet to move, Granger stumbled toward them, tapped them, called out,
gathered them back with the others, and then moved back down the
road, the sun full-on the sand now, bathing everything with warmth
and light. 


**********


11 SAMUEL STREET, #3 
BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND, U.K. 
6:35 a.m.


Rain pattering on the windows of the tiny rented flat, Christie
Collin lay beneath the thin blankets of his bed, a woman whom he knew
only as Bridget asleep beside him facing the wall. His eyes were on
the thin line of a scar that traced down the back of her shoulder,
each side of it dotted with stitch scars, though the scar itself was
wide and fairly jagged. 

A sloppy bit of work, he decided, and he inched a bit away from her,
toward his own edge of the bed. 

He didn't know why he'd picked her up at the pub the night before.
There was something about her that had reminded him of someone, a
face that seemed familiar but that he couldn't quite place. She'd
been drunk when he'd met her, his friend John Finney introducing
them. A few rounds of darts with her watching, a small predatory
smile on her face as she swung back another pint, and he'd simply
waited as the pub began to close, her against the bar on the far
side. He'd gone to her and taken her by the arm and led her out and
onto the dank streets, off to his place for the night. 

The sex had been quick. Empty. Just after 2:00 a.m., she'd mumbled
something about work and called him by the wrong name as she drifted
off to sleep.

Now he only remembered her eyes -- blue. And the red of her hair, a
plait of it drifting on the pillow toward him like tendrils. Looking
at them, at the angry relief of the scar, he swung his legs over the
side of the bed and rose, nude, into the light coming in from the
street.

His military boxers were at the foot of the bed. Stepping into them,
he walked into the adjoining room, a kitchen and a small den, the
television still on and talking to no one. Going for it, he turned it
off and the room fell into a silence broken only by the rain. 

He stood in the midst of it, listening, still as stone. 

He missed the life in Curragh Camp, his life with the Rangers, the
Cciathan Fhiannoglaigh an Airm. He and Roy Killian would have been up
hours ago, making tea on the hotplate in the barracks, waiting for
Sergeant Malley to come in beating a metal trashcan to wake the
others for the morning run. Or he'd be waking in a forest, his face
painted tan and green and the world smelling of loam and the oil on
his A196 rifle, his first sight the view of the valley from the
ridge. 

There in the rain, smelling the heavy scent of sausage cooking from
the flat across the hall, he missed his life as it had been before
with an anger that sunk into him and burned. 

He'd learned not be easily startled, so when the phone began to ring
he simply went for it, picking up the black handle from its cradle
and placing it against his ear.

"Aye," he said, his voice low, graveled with fatigue.

"Christie?" The papery voice. The slight wheeze. His grandmother's
voice. "Are you dressed?"

He looked down at himself, felt color rising in his face.

"Aye," he said again. "Just up and getting ready to make the tea. Is
something wrong?"

A wispy breath, and his grandmother continued. "There are two men
asking questions, I'm told. Two Americans. They've got Mr. Renahan
with them and they're trying to find out who's responsible for the
trouble." 

She paused, out of breath, and he waited. He'd expected questions,
but Renahan? The name was as old as he was. He didn't think the man
could ever come back from the dead. 

"What should I do?" he asked. 

"I want you back in the south," came the reply. "Today. Take a car
and go across the border. There's a man you're going to stay with.
Outside Dublin. Riggs is his name. You'll meet him at the Cloniffe
Bed & Breakfast and he'll tell you where to go from there." 

"You're sure?" he said, the most vociferous a protest he could
muster. He said it under his breath. 

"Of course," his grandmother replied, her voice cracking, like a
crow's. "I wouldn't send you away lightly, would I?"

"Aye, I reckon you wouldn't," he said, and forced a smile onto his
face so it would touch his voice. "I'll be on my way then." 

"And Christie?" 

"Yes?" 

A pause. "You shouldn't let strange women into your flat or into
your bed."

He froze, looked behind at Bridget from the doorway, a chill running
through him. 

"Goodbye, Christie."

And then the line went dead.


**********


TWO GREY HILLS, NEW MEXICO 
9:12 a.m.


The black dog wandered down the dirt road that connected Albert
Hosteen's house to Victor's, his head down, his long black tail
tucked tightly between his legs. He darted from one side of the road
to the other, his nose busy on any scrap of anything he encountered,
the road littered here and there with blowing bits of paper and soda
cans. 

Scully watched Bo making his way down the road, her hand on the
small of her back as she walked, the tails of the plaid shirt Albert
Hosteen had purchased for her at the Target in town flapping in a
wind that whipped sand into small clouds in front of her. She wore
maternity jeans, a pair of boots, her hair pulled back into a loose
ponytail at the base of her neck. 

The baby jutted out in front of her, a small, perfect mound, making
her feel a bit off balance. Rose was growing quickly, despite
Scully's lack of appetite and fatigue. As Scully walked, she felt the
baby roll over inside her, head-up to head-down, a lazy motion that
made Scully smile. The tautness in her back as she leaned slightly
stood in stark contrast to her daughter's ease inside her. 

Bo made a beeline for lump of trash off to the right side,
cluttering the base of a rough patch of sagebrush. He whined softly
as he discovered nothing there of interest, looked back at her with
his oil eyes. Scully might have wondered if he was hungry had she not
just fed him. There was no consoling him the past few days. He'd been
spending more and more time outside the house, disappearing for hours
into the space around Albert Hosteen's house, coming back looking
tired and afraid. He was reminding Scully of the stories Mulder had
told about how the dog was when Mulder had first found him -- a black
ghost haunting the area around the ranch.

"Bo," she called, a bit singy, and patted her thigh. The dog stopped
at the sound of his name and, still tucked in on himself, trotted up
to her side, pressing the top of his head into the palm of her
outstretched hand. 

"It's okay," she murmured, rubbing his ears. If she could have
comfortably knelt down -- the pain in her back unbearable -- she
would have, just to get her face closer to the dog's. As it was, she
simply bent and stroked his head, listening to his faint whining,
until his tail came out and waved slightly in recognition, in
something like ease.

She smiled down to him, though it made her sad to do it. The dog was
like the part of herself that felt Mulder's absence so acutely. It
was as if that part of her had crept out of her body during the night
and drifted into the dog's dark body. 

Pushing the thought aside, steeling herself, she straightened and
began to walk again, Victor's house in sight now, the dingy buildings
and the rising cloud of dust coming from the corral, the smell of the
place drifting to her on the wind. She'd grown to like the heavy
smell, to associate it with the cocoon of this place.

Albert Hosteen had left early in the morning, Sara cooking Scully's
breakfast as she also did Hosteen's laundry in the battered Maytags
off the back of the house. Sara had told her about a dream she'd had
the night before, something about turning into a dove, and she'd
finished the strange, unsolicited tale by turning to Scully, a
knowing smile on her face, and saying:

"Tell me about your dreams, Agent Scully. Tell me." 

Scully had looked at her, something in her rattled, that feeling one
gets when another has somehow seen too much, and she'd withdrawn,
mumbling something about a shower and a walk to Victor's place. 

The walk had helped to ease her mind a bit, though her nagging worry
about Mulder stayed with her as she and Bo entered the collection of
structures that made up the ranch. 

No e-mail from him in days, and the last only a brief note.
Something about him and Skinner and this man Renahan staying at a
Protestant man's house outside a town called Ballymena. He was on his
way out to a meeting with someone, an informant of Renahan's, and
couldn't write for long. She gathered he was getting little sleep,
moving a lot, sometimes all night, criss-crossing and backtracking
across the country. He'd told her he loved her, though even in the
black on white of the computer screen the words had sounded sad. He'd
promised to write as soon as he could.

But since then -- six days ago -- nothing. 

She was trying to push the worry away, but it was pressing down on
her. The what-ifs were beginning to circle her head like birds.

"Dana," came a voice from her right, Mae's voice, and the fussy
sounds of Katherine in her mother's arms. Scully had been so deep in
thought she hadn't seen Mae come around Victor's house. 

Scully forced another smile onto her face, and Mae did the same. It
was a common gesture they did for each other, this attempt to pretend
that everything was all right. Scully thought that Mae was better at
it than she was, and she didn't envy the woman her ability to wear
such a mask.

"Just stretching your legs, or looking for someone?" Mae asked,
bouncing Katherine slightly to try to hush her impending cries. 

"Just walking," Scully replied, and Bo fell in right beside her,
sitting up against her leg. "I thought I'd come down and see how you
all were, what you were up to."

Mae nodded toward the stables. "Mr. Hosteen came early and got Sean.
They're in the small corral with that pony and Mr. Hosteen's horse. I
was watching them until Katherine needed her nappy changed."

Scully nodded, met Mae's eyes, her face growing serious. "Has he
spoken to you?" 

Mae's face fell, the mask slipping as though her expression were
attached with string. "No," she replied, her voice tinged with anger
and her accent growing clipped. "And it's not right. I'm ready to put
my foot down with him. It's been over a month. Enough is enough."

Scully put a hand out, brushing Mae's arm. "Mae, you heard what
Granger said. Mr. Hosteen's methods may be unorthodox, but he's
moving Sean in the right direction." 

They'd eaten at Mae's house -- she and Granger -- while Albert
Hosteen had had Sean out for the day, off somewhere in the desert.
Mae had been fretting as the sun had started to fall low on the
horizon, a simple dinner of beef stew and fry bread. Sara, who was
staying with Victor at night now, had made the bread, and Mae had
made the Irish stew. Granger, looking haggard, had tried to explain
Sean's condition to Mae -- something he called Selective Mutism. 

"Why the bloody hell does he feel it's all right to talk to a
fucking pony and not to me?" Mae had burst out with after listening
for a few minutes to Granger's psychospeak. 

"Mae, he has to talk to who or what he trusts right now," Granger
had soothed, Scully nearly dropping her spoon with the suddenness and
volume of Mae's words.

"Why can't he trust me? I'm the only family he's got. Katherine and
I are all he's got. Not Mr. Hosteen. And certainly not a horse." 

Granger had put his spoon down then, touched the nosepiece of his
glasses to push them up and cleared his throat. "Mae, I think he
talks to the pony because he knows the pony won't talk back. I think
that's what he needs right now. To just be *heard*. And by someone or
something that isn't involved with any of the things in his life that
he's finding too painful to speak about. He's lost so much. And
everyone in his life is associated with that loss. Except Mr. Hosteen
and the pony he gave him. You need to let this take its time." 

"He blames me," Mae replied. "That's why he won't speak to me."

"Mae, after what he's been through, I think he blames everything,"
Scully offered softly. "Starting with Owen, and going right through
us all." 

Mae had stared at her, unconvinced and fighting back tears, and had
finally risen and gone to the sink. They hadn't spoken of it again.

Now, bouncing Katherine on her hip, Mae relented again, though her
expression was still pained. Every day that went by, Scully saw Mae's
anger growing more and more intense. Her anger at the situation and
at her own helplessness. 

"How are *you*?" Mae asked, glancing down at her belly. 

"I'm fine," Scully said automatically, rubbing the mound of the baby. 

"You don't look like you've slept," Mae replied doubtfully.

"No, I'm fine," she said again. "She's keeping me up some. Moving a
lot. That's all." 

"It's more than that," Mae said, her voice dropping. "You're having
strange dreams."

Scully went still, searching Mae's eyes, feeling exposed. 

Since that day ten days ago when she'd seen Rose as a child, her
doll Casey in her arms outside she and Mulder's bedroom, she'd hadn't
seen anything else of her daughter's life. 

But there were other things she'd seen, asleep. She'd seen a man in
her dreams. A young man in a white sweater on a phone in an airport.
She'd seen another man. A man with a beard and shaggy hair. Wild
eyes. Brown sweatshirt and brown pants. 

And a gun. Pointed at her. 

She'd heard the screaming. A child's. And her own.

Then the old man, sitting in his wheelchair, his hand outstretched. 

(Come with me, Dana. Come with me....)

Scully composed herself, pushing all of that away, rubbing her belly
like a charm. 

"No, no dreams," she lied, and she could tell from the look on Mae's
face that the other woman saw the lie for what it was, and was about
to say so.

"Let's look in on Sean and Mr. Hosteen," Scully said, interrupting
Mae before she could start.

The deflection worked. Mae's face hardened again, and she turned and
started down the road toward the stables, Scully following, and Bo
trailing behind them like the shadow of a child.


**********

CLEW BAY 
OFF CLARE ISLAND 
REPUBLIC OF IRELAND 
10:03 a.m.


"Keep your fucking head down, I said!"

It was a hissed whisper, and was punctuated by the kick of a boot on
the back of Mulder's neck. Mulder flattened himself onto the floor of
the van he was riding in, his stomach swimming, the pressure of the
foot on his neck growing stronger as a moan slipped up from his
chest. 

It wasn't the motion of the van moving over curving roads, the
motion he'd had for most of the night, that was making him ill, but
rather the current rocking of the vehicle. He'd felt the tell-tale
bump of the van's tires as it boarded a ferry, the blow of a boat
whistle, and then nothing but the swell of waves.

Between the aching in his head and his tendency toward seasickness
anyway, he didn't know how much more he could take without his
stomach revolting, which he was sure wouldn't please his companions
one bit. 

Only one of his current "hosts" was familiar -- the man who'd led
the group who had tried to run he and Skinner and that sonofabitch
Renahan off the road outside Omagh. The others -- and the van -- were
all new, picked up just before they'd crossed the border into
Ireland, Mulder covered with a thick tarp and threatened into silence
with a promise of a bullet as the border guards had questioned the
driver. 

Then hours on roads that felt like they'd been paved by the Roman
Empire, struggling for breath and sweating beneath the tarp. Every
time he'd spoken or tried to shift or rise, he'd paid for it. His
body and face wore a collection of souvenirs from the attempts. His
mouth tasted like blood. 

So now, the van rocking and someone smoking a pipe that smelled like
Christmas, the two men in the front laughing over some joke, Mulder
put his head down all the way and tried to relax as much as he could.
He was rewarded when the foot was removed from his neck.

"There's a good Yank," one of the men said softly, and one of the
other men chuckled softly. 

"Fucker," came another voice, and Mulder had to hold his tongue or
risk another hit.

The boat whistle blew again, and Mulder felt the ferry slow, bumping
into the buoys that would guide it to the dock. The van's engine
started, and after a moment the vehicle jostled off the ferry,
revving up, and they were on their way again, onto another stretch of
rough road. 

After a few minutes, Mulder could tell by the noise of other cars,
the starting and stopping, that they'd entered a town. It didn't take
long to be through it, however, and then they were out again, bumping
along, curving. 

Then a turn. A gravel drive. Brakes squeaking as they stopped. 

He heard the two doors open, then the side door slide open, sunlight
flooding the darkened interior. 

"Get him up," the leader said, and the canvas was pulled off
Mulder's back, light hurting his eyes. The two men with him in the
back grabbed him beneath the arms and dragged him up and out onto the
drive. 

Squinting, one of his eyes swelling, Mulder looked at his
surroundings. A small house, perched on the edge of a cliffside, the
ocean beyond. There were trees around the house, partially hiding it
from view. Smoke curled up from it, grey. 

"Move," the leader said, and Mulder turned to look at him, taking in
his red hair, the set of his face. The thin scar over his full lower
lip. 

Seeing Mulder seeming to memorize his face, the man grabbed Mulder's
shoulder and shoved him toward the house.

Three steps up, and the door opened without anyone knocking. 

A man stood there -- fifty or sixty. It was hard to tell. His face
still had a boyish look to it, despite the grey beard, the high
forehead, and the creases around his eyes. He wore a black
fisherman's sweater, wide corduroy pants and boots on his feet. He
was looking at Mulder, taking in his face, the blood crusted around
his nose and mouth.

"Bring him in," the man said softly, a gentle tone to his voice that
surprised Mulder, given the treatment he'd received at the hands of
the other men. 

The red-haired man with the scar shoved Mulder again, pushing him
down a narrow hallway into a living room warm with a fire. A window
to the side showed the ocean view, and there was music playing.
Something soothing. Low voice and a guitar. 

"Let him be," the house's occupant said quietly as the others
stuffed Mulder into a chair. Outnumbered and more than a little
unnerved, Mulder held his tongue and held still. 

Like dogs, the other men backed away from Mulder, retreating to the
room's sides. 

The older man turned and retrieved a pipe from the mantle, stuffed
it with tobacco and gave it a light with a thick wooden match. There
was a grandfather clock against the far wall, and it ticked loudly,
sounding tired. When the man had his pipe lit, he moved until he
stood in front of Mulder, towering over him in the chair, the pipe in
the corner of his mouth. 

His eyes were bright, inquisitive, a small smile on his face.

"Why don't you tell me who I am," the man said, and he sounded calm,
almost amused.

Mulder looked at him. "You're Neill," he said. "Eamon Neill."

The man smiled wider, and Mulder swallowed, his hands clenching the
arms of the chair. Though every inch of him hurt, he felt suddenly
hopeful. Hopeful and still very much afraid.


***********


END OF CHAPTER 11b. CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 12.