Monica leaned back in her chair, her feet resting against the railing on her balcony, absently sipping at her glass of Scotch as the cool night breeze drifted from the east. There had been a short but wonderful thunderstorm just before sundown, and the result was a sultry summer night, the kind that made Monica miss her time in New Orleans. Certainly that assignment had been a little more exciting. In all of her fantasies about working on the X-Files, especially at John’s side, she had never expected that things would be so damned boring.
What exactly had happened, since the last actual case that she and John had decided to work together? Three months of waiting for the transfer to be approved, while John filed an entire filing cabinet worth of paperwork to get the investigation into Deputy Director Kersh moving forward. And that had turned out to be a mess, with Brad getting involved in the entire thing and all of their assumptions being dashed. Besides that case in Florida with the Dannahs, everything had been administrative nonsense and ominous warnings about government conspiracies.
Not that anything had changed now that the investigation was officially over. There were still the inevitable repercussions. Nothing was coming to the department as a potential case until someone could answer for the cost of the internal investigation. All of Mulder’s talk of aliens now seemed to be something to do with super-soldiers, and Mulder himself was gone with no indication of whether he was ever coming back. Brad was as smug and arrogant as ever, damn the man, and of all people, the deputy director had turned out to be on their side.
Meanwhile, Dana was still being more than a little distant, not quite positive that the worst was over. She had never said a word about what had happened with her son, no matter how many times that she or John had asked. If anything, she was pretending that everything was fine, as if they had never even seen the evidence of those experiments on the ship. Once or twice, she had even checked the back of William’s neck to see if Dana was hiding something as significant as that. But there was nothing to find. Whatever it was, Dana was keeping it to herself.
John, on the other hand, was beginning to go a little stir crazy. Working on the X-Files was not exactly his dream job as it was, but sitting in the basement waiting for yet another conference call with yet another member of OPR was pushing him to his limit. And he was still trying to figure out how he felt about all of the changes in his own way. He tried to keep it to himself, tried to act as though nothing was wrong, but she knew him better than that. So many of the people he had known were part of something that threatened everything he believed in. It made her want to prove her loyalty even more.
Assistant Director Skinner was still keeping a low profile, worried that he would still come under fire for his murder of Alex Krycek. Monica had read the files and knew that the man had been a free agent in the worse sense of the term, but that wouldn’t matter if the wrong people were to get a videotape in their inbox. For all she knew, Brad would jump at the chance to put the final nail in Skinner’s coffin. But she had no idea what Brad was thinking or planning in the wake of the investigation, because even he was avoiding her.
No, working on the X-Files was nothing like she expected. If anything, she felt more alone and isolated than she had in a very long time, since she left New York for New Orleans.
A sudden discordant chord broke her out of her reverie, and she realized that for quite some time, she had been gently rocking herself to the steady beat of music being performed in the apartment across the hall. She smiled to herself, taking another sip of the Scotch, and ran a hand through her lushly dark hair. As annoying as she thought it would be at first, she had quickly found herself looking forward to the nightly ritual. The music always seemed to begin when she wanted to relax from another drudging day behind a desk, and it always seemed to end before it became a nuisance. She had yet to actually meet the tenant across the hall, or the others who seemed to jam with him on a regular basis, although there was a willowy, thin woman with long blonde hair that seemed to stop by quite often.
There was a bit of silence, and then the song resumed, this time with the atmospheric addition of a synthesizer behind the muted bass and acoustic guitar. She found herself uneasy as she heard a woman’s gentle voice singing. She couldn’t make out the words, but the tone was sad and mournful, and she found her doubts rushing back into her mind, leaving her full of discontent.
Suddenly the breeze wasn’t quite as comforting, the familiar and sensual sheen of sweat over her skin not quite as appealing. Even the Scotch left her vaguely dissatisfied. But she remained where she was, staring at the growing darkness on the horizon.
***
“Have you seen Craig?”
Monica practically missed the mail as it poured out of her box, as she turned to see who had actually taken the time to talk to her. With a blink, she recognized the young blonde, and she was surprised to notice just how oddly compelling her blue eyes were. It was almost as if her eyes were just slightly too large, almost unreal, and the unassuming smile on the young woman’s face just enhanced the effect.
“I’m sorry?”
The young woman laughed. “Craig? You live across the hall?”
“Oh,” Monica said with a frown. She glanced towards the stairs, and then shook her head. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Damn,” the blonde breathed, and then she smiled at Monica again. “By the way, I’m Elyssa.”
“Monica,” she replied. “Monica Reyes.” Not quite sure what else to say, she suddenly remembered the night before. “Was that you last night? I mean, the singing.”
“Yeah,” Elyssa said with a serious nod of her head. She glanced towards the stairs. “Craig was supposed to have a tape for me, maybe some news on a gig. So what did you think?”
Monica smiled slightly, more than a little disarmed at Elyssa’s outgoing nature. “A little sad, actually. Made me a bit melancholy.”
Elyssa nodded. “Yeah. Kinda the mood we were going for. Reflection and regrets, you know?”
“’Lyssa!”
Thankful at the interruption, Monica turned towards the new arrival and was shocked to realize that she knew the man. In fact, he was about the last person that she would have expected to see again. And from the look on his face, he was more than a little startled to see her in his apartment building.
“Agent Reyes?”
Monica smiled, shaking her head in wonder. “Craig Walden? What are you doing in Washington?”
“I was passing through back in May, and wound up staying for a while,” he replied, casting a wary look at Elyssa. “By the look on your face, I’m assuming you didn’t know I was in town, so should I be worried about losing my keyboards?”
“What?” Then Monica understood. “Oh, no, nothing like that.” She gestured towards her wide open mailbox. “I live across the hall.”
“You’re kidding.” Craig chuckled in disbelief. “When did you move in?”
“Last month,” she replied, but then she added, “We’ve been busy.”
“That’s right, Dana said you and Agent Doggett were a bit tied up with some kind of mess at the FBI,” Craig replied, and then he finally flashed that memorable grin as he turned to Elyssa. “Monica’s in the FBI.”
“Yeah, caught that,” Elyssa said, rolling her deep blue eyes as she flashed Monica a look that spoke volumes. “So what did you do that made the FBI come calling?”
Craig’s expression sobered, and his grin became a little more forced. “Wasn’t like that.” He looked to Monica for a little help.
“There were some murders in his area, and Craig was a friend of the main suspect,” Monica explained, and she was morbidly amused at how poorly that encompassed the events that had transpired. “The last thing I remember, though, you were hitting the road. What brought you here?”
Craig shrugged. “I’m not sure. Just a feeling, I guess. I wound up meeting someone, and she helped me look at my life from a better perspective.”
Monica cast a knowing glance at Elyssa. “So I guess you’re not just in the band?”
Elyssa blushed, her eyes suddenly even wider than they had been. “Oh, no, no, no! Craig’s talking about Angel.”
“She owns a shop in Georgetown,” Craig explained. “She knew Elyssa and the others, and we hang at the store sometimes. Dana comes around a lot, too.”
Monica finally caught the repeated references. “Dana? Dana Scully?”
“Yeah,” Craig said, his grin returning. “Isn’t that amazing? She’s still a bit daunted by the idea that her comments convinced me to leave Jersey for good, but she takes it in stride. She brings William around with her, since Angel likes children.” Something occurred to him, and he reached into his jacket. “You know what? You should stop by sometime. I’m sure you’d love to meet Angel. I think you’d find you have a lot in common.” He pulled out a sheet of paper. “She lives upstairs, but she’s not home very often.”
Monica took the paper when Craig offered it, and saw that it was a flier for a show at a local bar. There was a fuzzy picture of a rather eclectic band called Angel’s Flock. “This is you?”
“Tonight,” Craig replied with a nod. “Why not come out and see what you think of us live?”
Monica glanced down at the paper, looking for some indication of what kind of music they played. “Well, let me think-”
“Oh, come on, you’ve gotta come,” Elyssa said, her voice pleading. “What, you have plans?”
Monica smirked at the young woman, and then nodded with a bemused sigh and a smile. “I’ll be there.”
“This is incredible,” Craig said, and then he patted one of the pockets on his black leather jacket. “Tape’s ready, ‘Lyssa, but Von wants to adjust the mix. I was just going to grab a couple things on the way, and see if you were waiting for me.”
“Oh, then let’s go,” Elyssa said, stepping towards the stairs. When Craig moved to follow, Elyssa tossed her hair over her shoulder and waved back at Monica. “See you tonight!”
Monica watched them rush up the stairs, and then she glanced back down at the flier. Absently closing her mailbox, she remembered how alone she had felt the night before, and shook her head in wonder.
***
John looked down at Monica with a skeptical glint in his eye. “What the hell kind of name is ‘Tripping Billies’ for a bar?”
“It’s a club, not a bar,” Monica replied with a frown. “Note the lack of drunken, leering men standing around in front of the place. Not to mention the derth of glaring neon signs for every type of beer on the planet.”
“All right, I get the picture,” Doggett grumbled, his expression remaining largely the same. “But this better not be some kind of drug den or something.”
“It’s a reference to a Dave Matthews song,” Monica muttered, shaking her head in disbelief. “Really, John, you need to expand your musical horizons.”
Doggett sighed, and then reached for the door. “The last time you knew a song and I didn’t, it was that twenty minute mess from Genesis about people turning into flowers and crap like that. Excuse me if I stick to my admittedly narrow musical tastes.” Holding open the door for her, he smiled insincerely. “Besides, I know some songs by Dave Matthews.”
“Uh huh,” Monica grunted as she walked through the door. “Like what?”
Doggett followed her closely, and when she looked back at him for an answer, he deadpanned, “Lyle is God. Let it go.”
Rolling her eyes, Monica turned back towards the seemingly random arrangement of circular tables. The room was actually quite large, obviously designed with the widened stage in mind, rather than the bar itself. In fact, if anything, the bar was a token addition to what appeared to be a focus on artistic talent. Monica saw Craig sitting at one of the tables near the back, and she was about to wave when she realized who else was sitting there.
“John, Dana’s here.”
Doggett looked in the same direction. “You know, for a single woman with a young child to take care of, she sure gets out a lot.”
“No kidding,” Monica breathed in agreement. She shrugged, absently pulling at the low cut neckline of her tight black shirt. “Well, Craig did say that she was a friend of Angel’s.” Scully shifted in her seat, and a stunning Asian woman came into view. “Wow. I’m guessing that’s Angel next to Craig.”
“Did I miss anything?”
Monica and Doggett turned to see Skinner standing behind them. Like Doggett, he was dressed down for the evening, wearing a button-down casual shirt with khakis. For a moment, Monica found herself admiring the double view, and then she snapped to attention when Skinner began regarding her with a puzzled expression.
“No, nothing yet,” Monica said with a sigh. “We just got here ourselves. Dana’s here, too, over with Angel and Craig.”
“It’ll be nice to finally meet those two, given how much I’ve heard about them lately.” Skinner hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “By the way, what kind of name is ‘Tripping Billies’?”
“It’s a Dave Matthews song,” Doggett said with a smile, ignoring Monica’s resultant growling. “Why don’t we go join the party?”
“And get a nice, stiff drink,” Monica muttered under her breath. She followed John and Walter over to the table, and flashed Dana and Craig a wide smile. “We found it! Not too late, I hope?”
“Plenty of time to spare,” Craig replied with a grin. He looked up at Doggett, and for a moment, his expression became slightly stilled, as though he was unsure how what to say. “Agent Doggett. Good to see you again.”
Monica glanced at Doggett, and found Craig’s unreadable expression mirrored there. “I wasn’t sure whether or not to believe Monica when she said you were here in town, but I’m glad she was right. Things are going well? How’s your sister and niece doing?”
Craig’s expression seemed to become even more troubled. “I haven’t been able to get in touch with Kirsten to check on her or Rhiannon for a while now. But they were all right the last time I talked to them.” Craig’s grin returned, the moment of uneasiness having passed. “The rest of the band is in the back, getting ready. We ought to be starting soon. Nice mix tonight, old and new.”
Monica nodded appreciatively, and turned to Scully before Doggett could ask what kind of music they were going to play. “I didn’t know you were coming out tonight. We could have stopped by, given you a ride.”
“That’s all right,” Scully replied. Something in her eyes seemed distracted, as though something else was preying on her mind. “My mother wanted to stay over again, and she practically pushed me out the door. I remembered Craig telling Angel about the show, so I thought I would catch the first set or two.” She seemed to think of something, turning towards Doggett before continuing. “Everyone, this is Angel, a good friend of mine. She’s been very helpful these past few months.”
Angel flashed everyone a smile, her delicately almond-shaped eyes taking in the three new arrivals. “Good to meet you.” Her gaze seemed to linger ever so slightly on Doggett, but if he noticed, Monica couldn’t tell.
John and Walter waited for Monica to take a seat, and then they joined the others around the table. After a moment of odd silence, Craig cleared his throat and nodded towards Doggett. “We were just having an interesting discussion, Agent Doggett, about your recent investigation. Dana mentioned what you found on that ship, and that whole business with the reproductive experiments.”
“Hold on,” Skinner said, and Monica had the feeling that John was about two seconds away from doing the exact same thing. The assistant director gave Scully a look that could have scorched steel. “Is this the kind of place where we should be discussing something that, last time I checked, was part of an internal Bureau investigation?”
When Scully seemed reluctant to answer, Angel cleared her throat. “I can assure you that nothing discussed here will reach the ears of those not meant to hear it.”
Skinner’s scowl only deepened. “How do I know that it hasn’t already happened?”
“Angel has my complete confidence,” Scully said finally, and to Monica’s surprise, Skinner visibly relaxed. “If she says this is a safe haven, it is.”
“All right, now that we’ve cleared up that mess,” Doggett said testily, “someone want to tell me what that discussion was about.”
Angel took hold of her glass, which seemed to be half full of red wine. “Dana mentioned that the experiments were supposed an attempt to create some kind of enhanced or augmented human being, to be used as soldiers in a possible future conflict.”
“That’s what we were told,” Doggett said with a smirk. He glanced at Scully. “But there’s a bit of dissension as to whether or not that makes any sense.”
“Well, setting that aside,” Craig said, a slight smile on his lips as he caught the tension in the air, “it sounds a bit like what Thomas used to tell about.”
Doggett shifted uncomfortably, and he glanced at Skinner. “Thomas Gabriel McShane. From that case in Jersey, the murders, all that.”
“I remember that McShane had some interesting theories,” Skinner said with a somewhat annoyed expression. “But there was something specific you had mind, I assume?”
Monica vaguely remembered something that she had read at the time, the notes that John had written the night that Craig had explained it all to him. “McShane claimed to be some kind of sentinel. Certainly he had some incredible powers of persuasion. He exhibited several aspects of high level telepathy, at the very least.”
“I’m not so sure about how real any of that was,” Doggett interrupted with a laugh, “but he seemed to believe it. Even claimed that he was the product of some kind of long-term breeding program set up thousands of years ago, that these sentinels of his were supposed to be in place for something evil coming in the near future.”
“That was the part that I found interesting,” Craig admitted with a nod and a grin. “I found it interesting that there was this similarity in concept.”
“You seriously believe all of that?” Skinner asked, leaning back in his seat. He shared a skeptical look with Doggett.
Craig sighed, glancing at Scully, who shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “I believed it at the time, because of the things I saw Thomas do. Dana explained that the science was not quite as conclusively supportive of the theory as Thomas might have claimed, but since then, I’ve come to appreciate that there are possibilities I might not have considered.” He glanced at Angel, who didn’t react to the reference. “Anyway, even if Thomas was wrong, I find it curious that there is this common element of genetic manipulation being done to prepare for a threat that is apparently supposed to come very soon.”
“But that sort of thing is common,” Scully finally said. She tapped her finger on the table a couple times to emphasize it. “Get people to buy into the concept of an ambiguous, undefined threat, and you can manipulate them into doing all kinds of things. Eugenics was a big part of the Nazi regime, after all, because the perfect Aryan was supposed to be the answer to the threat of racial impurity.”
“Wouldn’t that have a lot to do with intentions?” Monica asked, warming to the topic, even if what Craig had said was making her uneasy in an all too familiar way.
“Good point,” Doggett said. “Whoever it is behind the super-soldiers, they seem willing to use anyone and everyone they can to achieve their goal. Thomas wasn’t all that different.”
“No,” Craig admitted with a sigh. “He wasn’t. But in a lot of ways, Thomas was...I don’t know, tainted. When you look at the concept of the sentinels, they were supposed to be a bit like shamans. Detached, like Thomas was, but protective of humanity as a whole.”
“Bit of a fine line, don’t you think?” Skinner scoffed. “Let’s say there were these people out there with the kinds of abilities that these super-soldiers are supposed to have, set up to be able to do things that no one else can do. And they are supposed to protect us. Who makes sure that they don’t all turn out like McShane? How do we know that they’re not the ones running the experiments in the first place?”
“Interesting,” Angel said, and Monica suddenly realized that the woman had been content to listen to the debate, following the flow of ideas carefully.
“Damn, there’s a thought,” Doggett murmured. Then he shook his head. “Doesn’t fit though. I mean, if we give McShane the kind of credit that we are, for the sake of this discussion? Not a prayer. Any way you cut it, he had us fooled the whole time, and the only reason we figured it out was because he needed us to.”
“I agree,” Monica affirmed. She looked each one of them in the eye. “The fact is, if there were a number of people like McShane running a conspiracy, we wouldn’t know it. Even if we discovered it, they could make us forget. Even make us a part of it.” She was about to continue, when she realized what it was she had said.
The implications stunned all of them, and it took a little while for anyone to say another word. To Monica’s surprise, it was Angel. “In other words, the fact that the conspiracy requires so much work is convincing proof that the sentinels are not behind it.”
“Uh, yeah, that was the point I was trying to make,” Doggett muttered. He flashed Craig a knowing smile. “Do you ever have a normal conversation?”
“Sometimes,” Craig answered with his characteristic grin. He glanced at his watch. “Almost time to get ready. Eylssa’s probably having a fit that I’m not back there yet.”
Monica smiled, and for the first time since she had arrived, she felt as though she was part of something truly special. Whatever Angel had done for Craig, she had given him a way to heal from the wounds that Thomas McShane had inflicted on him. There were still some signs of that betrayal in the way he said certain things. She could hear it in the sound of his voice, see it in his posture. But she had heard his music, and she knew that Craig had found something within himself, a way to explore the potential that McShane had twisted to his own devices all those years.
She could almost see the way that the same connections were reaching from Angel to Dana, giving her some sense of balance in the chaos of her life now that so much had changed. And while they were at odds at the moment, their relationships changing day by day, it was reaching beyond Dana to all of them. John, Walter, even herself...all of them were finding a new balance for the days ahead. And looking around the table, Monica could feel how there was a bond forming, a circle of trust. And everything told her that Angel was at the center of it all.
That thought unsettled her, as much as Craig’s mention of the sentinels had, and she wondered if there was a reason why the conversation had turned in the direction it had. She glanced around the table, to see what the others might be thinking. Craig was rising to go backstage. John and Walter were ordering drinks, and when John offered, she murmured that she would like her usual Scotch on the rocks. Dana seemed lost in her thoughts, considering something other than the here and now, probably whatever was happening with her son. And Angel...
“Penny for your thoughts, Monica?”
Monica found Angel staring at her over the rim of her wineglass, a slight smile on the woman’s lips. Monica blinked for a moment, and then laughed nervously. “I don’t know. Just thinking about what it all might mean. Whether Thomas really was one of these sentinels, if they even exist.” She paused, hoping that she could seem to be asking her next question out of simple curiosity. “So tell me a little about yourself, Angel. How did you meet Dana?”
Angel smiled, and Monica got the feeling that she hadn’t fooled the woman one damn bit. “Well, I own an antique store in Georgetown. Not a big store, really, just a cozy little shop. It was raining, Dana needed a place to keep William dry, and that was all there was to it. We wound up talking.” Angel nodded in the direction that Craig had gone. “Craig came along around the same time.”
“There’s more to it than that,” Monica said bluntly, more than a little surprised at her own boldness.
Angel considered her answer, and then smiled. “Yes. Isn’t there always?”
Somehow her admission didn’t make Monica feel any more at ease.
****
Despite the fact that she still had her questions about Angel and how she fit into the picture, once the music started playing, she was as spellbound as the rest of them. There was a quality to the music, to the way that Craig and the others crafted it, that seemed to communicate so much more than simple words or melodies. It didn’t seem to matter what kind of music they played. Light, dark, everything in between, it rushed over all of them like a wave of pure emotional symbiosis.
Every so often, she would find herself watching one of the others, to see if they were feeling the same depth of connection that she was experiencing. At one point, Angel’s Flock was playing a song with a driving electronic beat and penetrating guitars, something completely out of John’s usual range of tolerance. But he listened with that slight smile on his lips, as if pondering the message underneath it all.
By the time that Craig announced that they were wrapping up the set with one last song, Monica found that she recognized something within the connection that the music had engendered between everyone in the audience. It was very similar to what she had felt when they had all been together at the table. As though they were distinct individuals, but also sharing something powerful in common. A unity that was hard to express in simple words.
As the music faded around them, they stirred, glancing at each other in surprise and appreciation of what they had shared. Walter whispered something under his breath to Dana, and she nodded. John turned to her with a smile on his face, almost like a proud older brother.
“Never would have thought he had it in him,” he said, turning to Angel. “Whatever you said to him, it worked well.” He stood, moving to get Craig’s attention.
Monica watched the band as they left the stage. “And all of them are friends of yours?”
Angel nodded, sipping at her now nearly empty glass. “I’ve known some of them for years, and they’ve played together now and then. But Craig was the one that truly brought them together as they are. He is a genuine talent.”
Monica nodded, looking back at Angel with a grin. “I’ve heard them practice over the past month or so, and I have to say, now that I know who it is, I’m glad to be living in the same building.”
Suddenly turning to her with an odd expression on his face, Skinner turned to her and frowned. “Were you and John planning on staying much longer?”
Monica blinked in surprise. “I suppose not. Why?”
“Just wanted to talk to you alone for a moment,” Skinner said, trying to sound nonchalant and doing a rather poor job at it.
“Well,” Monica said with a sigh, looking over her shoulder, “if you like, I’ll tell John to meet us outside. We can talk by the car, get some fresh air.”
While Angel seemed a little amused at the exchange, Scully was far less understanding. “What’s going on?”
“Business,” Skinner said with a shrug. “The kind that I doubt you want to get involved in right now.”
Scully hesitated, but then she nodded, likely assuming that it had something to do with the aftermath of the investigation. “OK. I was going to stay a bit and talk with Angel and Craig, anyway.”
“Ready to leave already?” John asked suddenly, leaning over the back of her chair with a grin. It was such a rare sight that she was almost willing to put Skinner off just a moment or two longer. But obviously it was something important, or Walter wouldn’t have mentioned it.
“Yeah, in a minute,” Monica said, running a hand through her hair. “I wanted to talk something over with Skinner first. Get some fresh air, you know.”
The usual look of skepticism made a fresh appearance. “I’m sure that’s it.” Then he smiled again, pushing away the cynical thoughts. “I’ll meet you outside. I wanted to ask Craig a couple more things anyway.”
“All right.” She turned to Angel. “Good to meet you.”
Angel smiled warmly. “Yes, it was good to have all of you here tonight.”
Scully flashed a rare smile at Doggett. “It must have been interesting for you, seeing Craig and Angel again after all this time.”
Doggett nodded, but his expression was slightly confused. “Yeah, I had no idea he was in town. I hope we get to run into each other more often.” Then he glanced at Angel. “But I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve met Angel.”
Monica caught Scully’s confusion, as Dana glanced with uncertainty towards Angel. “I thought...well, it doesn’t matter.”
John shrugged it off, and then Skinner was at her side, his wishes clear by the set of his shoulders. “We should go.”
“OK,” Monica said with a nod, and then she waved to the other two women again before following him out.
****
She waited until they were about halfway to the car, and then she stopped, looking over her shoulder before saying anything. “All right, what is it? Is something happening?”
“Nothing like what you’re thinking,” Skinner replied. He sighed, and then gestured towards the club. “It’s just that you made that comment about being happy where you were.”
Monica frowned. “Is there a reason I shouldn’t be?”
“There might be a problem,” Skinner admitted. Seeing the alarm in her eyes, he did his best to reassure her, softening his expression. “Nothing definite, but we are looking into certain options for relocating you out of your present location to something in the city.”
“What?” Monica couldn’t believe the timing. Finally she had a sense of belonging, a sense of approaching balance, and now this? “Why?”
“Because someone knows that you are living there, someone that used my office as a means of drawing Mulder there. I’m not sure why, but I think he was supposed to harass Angel in some way.” Skinner shrugged. “Look, I really don’t know what it might mean, but the first thing I thought of was you.”
Monica took a deep breath, let it out. “I still don’t see what you think is happening here.”
Skinner gestured that they should keep walking towards the cars, and they resumed their slow progress. “You know that when an agent is transferred, the Bureau has certain channels in place for setting up housing. Someplace like Washington has a bit of a waiting list, depending on what might be happening. Your building is on that list.”
“I know all of that,” Monica said, a bit impatiently.
“Yes, but it’s not the only option. And the fact that you were assigned to that building right before Agent Doggett’s investigation was set to begin, and Mulder was sent there by some unknown person or persons right after we got the warning from Kersh...”
“So you think that it’s connected,” Monica reasoned with a nod. “That someone was working behind the scenes to...well, to do what? Is there some reason to think that Angel is connected to any of this?”
Skinner shook his head. “No, not even after I managed to track down where Mulder had gone.”
Monica realized what Skinner was saying. “You mean, you have no idea what happened with Mulder, whether or not he met with Angel or discovered something?”
“Mulder wouldn’t say, other than to indicate that there was some kind of misunderstanding,” Skinner admitted. He sighed, shaking his head. “There were a lot of things about his departure that didn’t make sense. This is just one of them. But I have to say, after that little conversation tonight, I’m not sure what to think.”
Monica stopped as they came to Doggett’s truck, and she leaned against it gently, considering what she had heard. “The question is, I guess, do we trust Angel?”
Skinner nodded his agreement. “That does seem to be the question.” He looked back towards the club. “Scully trusts her, and even if she does come across as a bit mysterious, I don’t get the feeling that she’s trying to hide anything.” He saw Monica frown, and his expression changed to match her own. “What? Did you catch something?”
“She admitted that there was something she and Dana were keeping between them, and possibly Craig,” Monica said carefully, thinking out loud. “But they did all meet each other around the same time, and everything she said matched what Craig mentioned to me earlier.”
“So what’s bothering you?” Skinner asked, prodding her gently with his tone.
“That last bit, about John having met her before,” Monica said, trying to remember exactly how it had gone. “Dana seemed to think Angel had told her that she had met John at some point, at least before he was on the X-Files. Angel didn’t react, not so much that you would notice...but there was this feeling...”
“What?” Skinner asked, peering at her as if trying to see the picture forming in her eyes.
“As if she disapproved of Dana mentioning it,” Monica said, but then she shook her head. “No, that’s not it exactly. It wasn’t so much that she didn’t want Dana to mention it. It was almost as if the timing was wrong.” She sighed. “Almost as if it was something that John wasn’t supposed to hear yet.”
Skinner let out a long exhale, his eyes flickering towards the club. “Bottom line...do you think that she’s pulling one over on us?”
Monica shook her head. “No, I really don’t think that’s it. I mean, think about it. There are reasons to suspect everyone we meet, the way things are going. But according to what we’ve been told, we’ve all been under surveillance. Especially Mulder and Scully. It’s possible they wanted to put me in the building with Angel because it would be easier to keep an eye on Scully’s most recent acquaintances that way. Keep us all in one place.”
“And then send Mulder in?” Skinner asked.
Monica shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe they were hoping Mulder would stir up something more than what they already knew.”
“It’s possible,” Skinner said. He thought about it, and then nodded. “Maybe that’s a little more than what I was going on, but it’s not far from what I was already concerned about. If someone did engineer your placement in that building, then the first step is getting you someplace that is outside the normal channels.”
Monica groaned, rolling her eyes. “This is so unfair.”
Skinner actually smiled at her reaction. “I know, but it’s not immediate. Maybe in the next month or so. Anyway, just thought that you should know, before you got too comfortable. See you on Tuesday?”
Monica sighed, and then saw John coming and recognized that the discussion was over. “That’s right, it’s Labor Day on Monday. So Tuesday.”
Skinner nodded his farewell, and as he walked towards his car, he waved to Doggett. John waved back absently, a smile still on his face, but there were question marks behind his eyes when he caught up with Monica.
“Everything all right?”
Monica nodded absently. “Yeah, it’s fine. Just relocating me faster than I thought.” She looked back at the club, and shrugged.
“Knowing our luck, it’ll be the most exciting thing that happens in September...”
****
Craig returned to the table, having seen Doggett to the door. He caught that there was a bit of tension between Angel and Dana, and as he took his seat, he eyed them warily. “What is it?”
Scully shook her head. “I think I’m being paranoid, that’s all.”
“It’s really nothing, Dana,” Angel said, placing her glass on the table and leaning forward. “I just didn’t want to ruin what seemed like a good evening for him by bringing up memories that he probably never wants to think about again.”
“I know, I know,” Scully said, her expression slightly self-depreciating. “Like I said, these kinds of conclusions start coming naturally when you’ve worked on the X-Files.” She chuckled, and then turned to Craig. “Never mind that conversation.”
“It was a little off the beaten path, wasn’t it?” Craig admitted. He gave Scully an apologetic smile. “I know it was probably a little too close to our earlier discussion about William, but I couldn’t resist the urge to draw Agent Doggett out a bit.” He sighed. “Even if my point was a little lost.”
“Which was?” Angel said, leaning back in her seat as she realized that all was forgiven.
“That there are a lot of indications in folklore, tradition, and now even secretive government circles that something is coming. Something that’s supposed to be rather ominous for us.” Craig counted them off on his fingers. “There’s the supposed alien colonization that Dana said Mulder was told about, there’s the Mayan prophesies, the Hopi traditions, and the version of the same lore that Thomas believes in. All of it pointing to something coming very soon.”
Scully shifted in her seat, obviously uncomfortable. “Sometimes I’m watching William sleep, just marveling at the peace on his face...and I think about all of the things we’ve been told. Plans for colonization by aliens that want to control us or use us to gestate, cults like the Church of the Red Museum or the Millennium Group...it all runs through my mind a mile a minute. And I wonder if I was being responsible, trying so hard to bring a child into this world, facing those possible futures.”
Angel was about to say something comforting, but then she noticed how still Craig had become. “What is it?”
“I just thought of something.” He stood, the tension in his expression communicating volumes. “Remember what I was saying before about Thomas believing, without a doubt, that something was coming soon, something that would threaten the entire human race? Well, something you just said made me wonder about that.”
He looked away for a moment, and then turned to them, his fear plain in his eyes. “If there’s one thing that I learned after that mess, it was that Thomas planned out everything. He couldn’t get everything down to the fine details, but as far as the big picture was concerned, he had everything worked out.”
Craig’s voice softened slightly, to make his point clear. “So if he knew that there was something really bad coming, or at least had his own reasons for believing that...why have a daughter when you know that she’ll be born with similar abilities, and that those abilities would make her a target?”
Angel’s expression darkened. “You think that he had something in mind for her? That he intentionally fathered a child?”
“Maybe even made sure that it was a daughter, for all I know,” Craig added with a nod. “Sure, it’s a bit hard to swallow, but we all know that there’s always the possibility.”
“And you haven’t been able to get it touch with them,” Scully said, the full implications dawning on her. She folded her arms tightly against her chest, as if unconsciously wanting to cradle William and protect him.
“A lot of ‘what ifs’,” Angel said finally, shaking her head. She looked at Craig intently. “What are you planning to do about it?”
Craig slid back into his seat, thinking hard before answering. “I’m tied up for a couple weeks, but closer to the end of the month, I might be able to get the time to take a trip back to Jersey. If Thomas is up to something, then it’s going to be tough getting in and out without being noticed. And the last thing I want is a confrontation, after the way we left things.” He sighed heavily, as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders. “I just wish that I knew what was happening.”
“Yes,” Angel said, her voice somewhat distant as her gaze seemed to focus on some far horizon. “So do I.
