(headers and Disclaimers in Chapter One)
Chapter 13 of 20

Scully lay atop her sheet and blanket that night too hot
and too tired to sleep.  An unexplained restlessness filled her.
She had sense of growing urgency about this prison, Mulder, her
real life.  If she could just talk with him, Scully felt sure she
would understand more.  

Perhaps his pieces of this puzzle would fit hers.  
There, as in everything else, they fit together.  The
hard experiences and their own abrasiveness had worn off their
points, rounded their edges until now they fit together.  Apart
from Mulder she felt adrift, imperfect, wounded - as though
large piece of flesh had been torn from her side.  Now she felt more
like herself.

A Dana Scully she recognized, but who had changed.

She didn't think all the change in her was healthy.  Worst of
all, she couldn't define for herself the nature of her
alternation.  Certainly she had never been one to use loopholes
to achieve her goals or test the patience of authority.  She
believed in rules, regulations, the letter of the law.  

She would ask Mulder: How had she changed?  He would see, although it
would displease her to hear him tick it off for her.  Bereft
of the counsel she'd come to rely on, she opened herself to the
Infinite, praying as she had not been able to do since she was a
child.  Not even Mulder's grave illness, which altered her
perceptions of reality, or her own had pushed her into the lap
of God as this awareness of the changes in herself.  Her prayer
was simple, really: "Don't let me go."

When she blinked, she was still mortal.  Still human.  With
a human yearning so potent it surprised her.

She closed her eyes but they popped open.  Mulder's face
projected against the bedsprings above.  Compelling, bold images
of Mulder, of being with him, on him, next to him pounded into
her.  She grabbed the mattress with both hands, saliva pouring
into her mouth.

"Dana."

Scully stiffened.

Zelda slid off the top bunk and leaned on it to stare down
at Scully.  Finally she nodded to the opposite wall.  "Let's sit
over there," she said.  She pushed herself away from the bed,
stretched, yawned, then plopped a folded blanket against the
wall.

After a moment Scully followed.

"I didn't want to interrupt your prayers - I AM has missed
you." Zelda hugged her knees.  She waited until Scully took a
similar pose beside her.  

"I owe you an apology, " she said.  "I said when you
were empty enough I would fill you.  That was arrogant and
foolish of me.  Only two of my many sins.  You must fill yourself
with -- but you know that.  I can give you a little relief from
what you're fighting now.  It's the least I can do.  Tomorrow, I
swear.  Tomorrow I will teach you what you need to know - to
defend yourself, to do what you must."  

Zelda offered her hand. Scully grasped it and they linked fingers for
a moment.  "I'm sorry, Dana. I was so busy wrestling my own demons I 
didn't take time to help you with yours.  You almost slipped away.  
I made that mistake with Ann and lost her."

"Ann Millard." The name fell out of Scully's mouth.

"Your friend from the academy," Zelda said.  She gave
Scully a gentle poke in the ribs and a big grin.  "See, I've
known you from the first."  

Scully licked her lips.  Ann had been undercover here.  With Zelda.

"Let's do this."

"Do?"

"Imagination - even a powerful one - can only take you so
far.  It is the spark.  Then you have to trust your own intuition.
But - that's for tomorrow.  Tonight let's go to Mulder before you burn 
up," Zelda said and made her eyebrows go up and down in a suggestive
leer.

"No, I don't want to-to invade him."

"You'll know everything you want to know."

"I know everything I need to," she said.

Zelda slapped her knees.  "I was wondering when you'd get
around to that."

"He's too strong, anyway."

"You could do it.  Bernice did.  Did it to you too."

Scully rolled her head and fixed her eyes on a place where
the ceiling met the wall.  "She saw in him what was within her
experience to see.  In me she saw the fear and guilt that was
hers too."

"You could do it, Dana.  He would allow it.  Still, a man as
intuitive -- and needy -- as your partner, there could be
another problem." 

Scully already suspected what it might be.  Panic
clawed at her.  For a moment they both listened to the noise of 
the prison bedding down for the night.

"I killed Michael," Zelda said.  "My husband.  The crime for
which I was convicted."  Scully said nothing, so she went on: "I
loved him to distraction."  Her laugh held no mirth.  "That's a
real good way to put it.  Distraction.  He distracted me from what
I knew to be true.  He still comes to me sometimes.  Laughing,
calling to me, touching me in ways that make me soar.  Singing -
he has a terrific voice.  We go to Brazil, Arizona, India."  

She paused, then licked her upper lip and said, "Strange
that I never feared I would disappear in him."

"Disappear?"

"Millions of women do. Subvert who they are and what they want for 
the sake of a man who can't wait to take it." Zelda looked at Scully
and Scully squirmed. "To become nothing - to know, feel, and see
nothing in and of yourself."

"Yes!"

"You can look inside a man and become one in ways beyond the
physical.  But I always chose, as you do, not to violate
Michael's trust and test the patience of Allah.  Maybe if I had,
I would have recognized Michael's weakness."

"Or maybe you would have become lost in him forever."

"Or that.  A real possibility as things turned out, as
easily as he could manipulate me." Zelda took a long breath
before she began again.  "He wanted to fly, you know, as I do --
as you will.  This is not what I AM has given to men.  I knew
that!  God chose to bless men with other gifts." Zelda's head 
dropped to her chest.

"What... other gift?"

Zelda popped up in surprise.  "Why - us.  The gift of women."

Scully laughed - it burst out of her in a gloriously clear
gush -- and Zelda punched her in the ribs playfully.  They
giggled together, before falling into comfortable silence. 

"But, in the end, you taught him."

Zelda regarded her from beneath her eyelashes.  "I'm no
angel."

"I didn't mean -"

"Because I loved him.  I taught him.  He was slow at first.
Then, it was -- incredible.  Amazing.
Liberating.  Until the day he never came back.  I thought he was
right behind me.  I waited.  I went after him, back into the
mountains and the mountain guide shown in the "National
Geographic" picture.  I sat by his body for hours - days -- and
waited."

"The authorities thought you killed him."

"They were right," she said.  "I lost Michael, our son, my
freedom - for a time I even lost Abba.  Big thing to misplace,
huh?  Because I didn't love Michael enough.  When it mattered --
when I knew it mattered -- I didn't love him enough." 

She leaned her head against the wall.  "Maybe I was meant to 
serve only as a bad example." She grinned and tilted her head 
towards Scully with a deep groan.  "I'm tired.  I'm ready for this 
to end.  I want Scott to be safe and have someone to love him.  
You're tired.  Your doubts press on you and your need is getting to be a
physical pain - for both of us.  Sleeping above you is like
bedding down on a stove."

"It's, ah, the estrogen rush that follows each episode.
This one is lasting, um, a long time." Smiling, Scully lowered
her head and studied her fingers.

"Yeah, well, I understand that.  Just follow my lead as
before -- and try, I mean try hard -- not to get carried away
this time."

Zelda scooted around on her bottom to get in front of Scully.

"Is it difficult to learn this - mind manipulation?"
Scully asked.  She tucked her hair behind her ears out of the
way.

"Oh, no," Zelda said cheerfully.  "Not difficult to learn.
But very easy to forget."

Scully continued to stare at her hands.

Zelda said, "You want to see him, don't you?"

Scully's eyes shone in the security lights from the
hallway.  "Yes.  But I want to talk with him more."
******************
Mulder swore he wouldn't do this again, but here he was
concentrating on the pencil stuck in the ceiling tile over his
head.  He knew it was going to fall.  He willed it to fall.  He
waited for it to fall.  He held out his hand in anticipation as
he stared.  It landed on his head the minute the janitor slammed
the office door.

"Mulder?"

His feet came off the desk and hit the floor.  He grabbed
the pencil and put it behind his ear with an air of nonchalance.
"Still working.  You can't clean in here yet, Amman."

The young janitor began dusting shelves in the office.

"I'm going soon." Mulder tried to find the pencil on his
desk.

Amman pointed behind his own ear.

"Yeah, uh, thanks." Mulder jerked the pencil down, started
to flip open his yellow legal pad of notes when it struck him
that Amman, the Lebanese janitor charged with cleaning the FBI
offices for the last year, had called him Mulder.  He gave Amman
closer scrutiny.  Amman looked as he always had.  Tall, muscular,
dark, clear-eyed and sober.  "Can you come back later?"

"Okey-dokey," Amman said.  He continued dusting and picked
up the trashcan on the opposite side of the room.

Mulder looked at the papers on his desk again.  Zelda
Deschamps, serving 25-to-life for the 1996 murder of her
husband, magna cum laude, scholarships, awards, master's degree
then doctoral, yes,yes, yes.  Mulder read on through her
psychological profile - which he noted could easily have been
his - the basic facts of her life: raised in a foster home after
her grandmother died; dad died young and military mom killed in
Vietnam; Worked with Greenpeace from 1985; jumped ship in Asia
when the Japanese threatened to board the Greenpeace boat; no
record until 1990.  Something in this file should speak to him.

Something about Zelda Deschamps was worth putting Scully into a
prison cell with her.  It was right there - Mulder just couldn't
see it.

He shoved that file aside and pulled down the pages with
Henry Donaldson's profile on it.  Something here might correlate.
Maybe he should go through it line by line.  Something metal
clanged.  His head jerked up and Amman, still holding the trash
can, smiled sheepishly.

Mulder stood up to gather the files together so he could
go home -- then stopped.  The last file Dr. Otis left him was
Scully's.  Her photograph was stapled to inside folder cover.  He
stared at it for a long time, rubbing his thumb over the bottom.

Without realizing what he did, Mulder sat down again, his eyes
blurry but focused on the grainy black and white image of his
partner.  The edges of the photo ran together.

He became aware that Amman stood right behind him.  The
young man moved his hands just above both Mulder's shoulders,
then down his arms.  Momentarily paralyzed by shock, Mulder
watched Amman put a hand on Mulder's chest.  He could smell
onions from janitor's dinner.  His breath tickled Mulder's ear.

Mulder sprang to his feet, flustered.  "Ah, look, Amman,
you have the wrong idea here."

Amman appeared eager, expectant.  He took the pencil from
Mulder's desk, underlined something and looked up to see if
Mulder understood.

He did not.

"I'm not-- you can't...I mean, I don't need your phone
number.  Look, ah, can-can you just go.  Go." To his horror it
appeared Amman might cry.  "No offense, I'm just not-interested.
Really.  Flattered though - " He pointed repeatedly to the photo
of Scully.  "Not interested, okay? Understand?"

"Okey-dokey," Amman muttered.  He picked up the waste can
by Mulder's desk and closed the door behind him.

Mulder collapsed into the chair, released the breath he'd
been holding into his cheeks and grinned.  Scully would laugh at
him - maybe he'd never tell her. "Mulder." He had never heard Amman
say anything but okey-dokey.  

Mulder always presumed he couldn't speak English.  He looked 
at the marks Amman made on the files, then leapt out of the chair, 
flung open the door, and ran into the hall. Following a noise, 
he found the young janitor retching in the restroom.

"Sculleee!" Mulder shouted to the ceiling, the walls, the
door.  "Scullee!"

Amman looked at Mulder as though he were insane.  Which, Mulder
thought later, he might be.

**************

The conspirators stood outside the freshly painted rec
room and nodded to each other like players in a World War II spy
movie.  Using requisitioned paint, colors had been mixed and
secreted around the rec room in small buckets collected from
various work sites.  The team of painters took positions along
the wall and the women who would run interference congregated at
the entrances of the rec room.  The surveillance camera made a
sweep and the preliminary work began on the wall.

The guard monitoring the surveillance cameras served by
the rec area cameras made a habit of concentrating on the women
and their movements, not the scene behind them.  So he noticed
nothing amiss for about half an hour.  Then he sat up.  The second
pass confirmed it.  He grabbed up the microphone and notified the
third tier guards that prisoners had painted flowers and trees
on the wall of the rec room.

So many prisoners clogged the entrances and were so slow
in moving out of the way, the sergeant and the duty officer had
to shout orders to clear a path.  The two guards searched the
women's expressions, demeanors and noted nothing but amusement.

One at a time they obeyed each order to back away.  They seemed
respectful - even happy.  Sgt. Anderson glanced back at the
officer with him in bewilderment.

When the last woman stepped aside the guards discovered a
half completed mural of a woodland scene on the wall.  Colorful.
Bright.  The artists, brushes dripping, continued their fevered
work until the sergeant yelled for them to stop and back off.

"Is there a problem?" said Scully.

"What the hell is this?" The sergeant's face colored red.

"This has to come down.  Get some paint over that."

"Actually, sergeant, the paints and colors are from the
approved list published by the prison," Scully said.  "The
requisition list, signed by you, and the work detail names, also
signed by you, are in order."

"It's against regulations," the sergeant said into Scully's face.

Scully folded her arms and shifted her weight to one foot.
The other foot rocked back and forth on her heel.  "Nothing in
the regulations or specifications prohibits this.  The
regulations only state the paint and colors must be come from
prison stock and approved by staff."

"It comes off."

"Are you saying you would rather cost the prison at least
$500 in paint and labor than permit this mural to remain? I
think these women have a great deal of talent, don't you,
sergeant?"

The sergeant gave it some thought.  He looked over the
mural, walked up to it, and stood for a moment, tension playing
up and down his neck.

"Let's go," he muttered to the duty officer and they began
to leave the rec area.  The women let them pass unimpeded and
began to cheer until the sergeant whirled around to Scully.  "Pod
leader," he spat out.  "What's needed here is some-some
discipline..and responsibility.  Not flowers and trees."

"It requires a great deal of discipline and creativity to
achieve objectives within the limits of rules and regulations,"
Scully said.  "As all civilized people will attest."

"And you would know all about that, wouldn't you Special
Agent Scully." 

She said nothing and she didn't flinch.
***************
Scully stood outside the barred doors of the clinic
speaking through an intercom and camera to the guard sitting in
a master control room.  "I was told to report to the clinic for
work detail." She saw a mop and bucket just inside the infirmary
door and pretended not to care that it probably had her name or
rather, her number, on it.

"Turn.  Lemme see your number."

Scully shifted so the number on the top of her shirt
pocket became visible to the camera.  The man in the booth
checked it against the one he'd been given.  Seconds later he
buzzed Scully through the first door.  She waited until the door
closed and the second set of barred doors slid open.

A feeling of homecoming swept over her as she surveyed the 
clinic: white sheets, charts, a computer, drug cabinets behind
unbreakable glass, trays of instruments locked in cases.  The smell of
antiseptic and alcohol.  Within her reach.

Dr. Otis beckoned to her.  "I'm glad to see you.  My feet
hurt and I want to visit my grandchildren." To Scully's surprise
Dr. Otis thrust a clipboard listing patients and their diagnosis
into Scully's face.  "Welcome to the clinic.  Don't disappoint me, 
Dr. Scully."

"I'll do my best," she said, hardly daring to believe she
was free of the laundry, of the mop and pail.

Clare snorted.  "Don't thank me yet.  We get more patients
through here than the average emergency room - it's a mercy the
injuries and illnesses aren't usually as severe.  Five a.m.  sick
call through 8 p.m.  lights out.  An hour for lunch and another
for dinner in the mess - nothing if we're busy.  Two hours
afternoon break in the rec room when I can let you off.  I want
you up there too.  You'll be the physician on call, but a
guard will have to observe you anytime you're here without me.
Is that acceptable?"

"Yes."

Clare handed her a stethoscope and watched Scully finger
it affectionately.  Right then she decided it had been worth the
knock down, drag out battle with administration to allow Dana
Scully into the clinic.

The stethoscope triggered a memory for Scully.  Her mother.
The night she went to visit her mother.  It had seemed so real.
She could remember the feel of the metal and rubber of a
stethoscope.
  
She could remember her mother's heartbeat. Irregular compared to 
the strong pounding of Mulder's heart under her hand, no, Amman's 
hand.  Mulder had jumped away from her.  She shook her head.  
When it happened she knew it was real. She and Zelda laughed about it.

Now? It had to be an illusion, a trick, a dream.

Except for a dig about not being about to control Scully
and teasing her about selecting a target that spoke little
English, Zelda had been ecstatic last night.  She had made a
discovery.  Scully had been only too glad to wait to hear it.  The
trip exhausted her.  

But she did not feel sick, or angry.  And she woke up in her bunk
instead of curled up in the corner of the cell.

"Here's a lab coat - you'll have to roll the sleeves
until we can order a small.  These are all mine," said Dr. Otis.
Scully slipped her arm in the sleeve.  The starch and white
of it was like a caress.  She'd almost forgotten.  

Her eyes flitted around the infirmary: the beds with pale 
green blankets, the desk covered in medical magazines and charts, 
the shiny rolling trays of cotton and bandages.  She noticed the little
things about each one.  Amazing how she missed the ordinary items
of life, the handy things most people take for granted: pencils
with sharp points, paper, paper clips, tape.

"Anything else you need?"

"Do you have anything to stick pictures on the wall?"

"Not tape." Clare thought a moment, wandered to the desk
and pulled out a sheet of gummy-stic.  It looked and felt like
thick yellow gum that had already been chewed.  The packet lay
next to Clare's set of keys to the drug and instrument cabinets.
"They won't let me use tape on the walls either.  I use this.
Take it."

Scully slipped it in the pocket of her jeans.  By tonight
inmates could put up their own pictures and posters in the rec
room.  After tonight the rec would belong to the women who used
it, not the institution that built it.

"Dr. Scully, you gotta put on some weight or you'll blow
away," Clare said.  "Are you ready? Your first patient is--"

"Ah -- Dr. Otis.  I was wondering if you... Have you had an
opportunity-"

"I saw him."

Scully's eyebrow arched and waited.

"I saw him, Dr. Scully."

Scully played with the stethoscope then looped it around
her neck.  Either Dr. Otis didn't see Mulder or he didn't trust
her enough to send word.  In either case she couldn't trust Clare
Otis.  That was the message Scully received.  "Where shall I
begin?"

Clare pointed to a curtain.  "There.  Stay away from the
instrument case, the drug cabinet and the computer.  If you need
something, I'll get it.  In the beginning you'll be supervised
closely, then -- we'll see."

Scully nodded and started off on her new duties.  At least,
she thought, she wasn't in the laundry anymore.  

She was stronger, getting better every day.  She would find
a way to get to Mulder.  No matter what Zelda said, the very idea
of the mind meld did frighten her - the power of it was too
great for a human being to own.  She wasn't sure of the morality
of using someone else's body without permission and knew it was
ethically indefensible to leave them sick and defenseless.  She
wasn't sure she could or even wanted to fly.

Scully pulled back the first curtain and introduced herself to
the inmate there.  Judging from the apprehensive look, the woman
already knew her.
******************
Atty. Byron Waters couldn't remember feeling so nervous.
He'd received more complicated messages from more people than a
nuclear engineer working on a government rocket.  He'd adjusted
his glasses a dozen times since entering the conference room in
AtoZ prison.  What he'd been asked to do - what he was going to
do - would lead to his disbarment he felt certain.  

While Byron Waters professed the radical faith, he rarely 
practiced it. He rose from the table when the door opened and 
his client stepped in.  Waters became livid; Dana Scully wore handcuffs.
Restraints to a meeting with her attorney while in a secured
facility.  He started to protest but she shook her head and he
contented himself for the moment with some loud huffing and puffing.

"I am an officer of the court. I understand you don't wish to make 
an issue of the handcuffs, but I can't let that go by." Waters popped
open his briefcase.  "I feel more like a messenger than an attorney,"
he said.  "Before we say anything else, remember I have to
report anything illegal.  That's not privileged."

"I don't anticipate anything illegal emerging from our
conversations," she said.  "I don't suppose you have a cell phone?"

"Not permitted." Waters smiled his apology.  "Well, uh, I do have 
some messages.  Byers and cohorts send their regards - Frohike said 
something distinctly suggestive, which I will not repeat--" 

Scully chuckled. "Nothing else? No letters?" She was disappointed and
somewhat alarmed.

"Agent Mulder asked me to show you this.  He said you'd understand."

She knew what it was even before he dangled her necklace
in front of her.  She held it across the ridge of her hand and
caressed the gold cross between two fingers.  "Thank you, Mr.
Waters," she said in a soft voice.  She couldn't take her eyes
away from it. 

It glittered with so much promise.  She could tell
Mulder had been wearing it; heat - salty, sweaty Mulder heat -
warmed her fingers where she touched it.  Before she could stop
herself she pressed the cross against her cheek.  Chagrined now,
she licked her lips and handed it back.  Waters held it aloft for
a moment, then slipped the necklace back into a plain white
envelope.

She tried to fold her hands on top of the table, but it
was awkward in handcuffs.

"Why are they so afraid of you," Waters said.  "I've read
what they put in your record - they are all afraid."

"I think they were told to be," Scully said.  "I think
this-" She indicated the handcuffs.  "-is supposed to be more
than a security measure."

"What?"

Scully waved it off with a flick of one hand, a motion
that meant her other hand had to follow.  "Doesn't matter.  It
isn't effective anymore."

"Agent Mulder wanted me to ask if you remembered your
badge number?" She recited it.  "Your email access name and
code?" She nodded.  "He said to ask if you knew that your
cell mate's mother disappeared with a man named Donald-"

Scully stood up so fast her chair nearly fell backwards.
Startled, Waters jumped too.  "I'm going to take that as a
negative," he said.

"Did Mulder say anything else about Zelda?"

Waters shook his head and they slowly sat back down.
"Then tell him Zelda has a dark-haired son, a four-year-
old named Scott Deschamps.  He's living in Maryland with a foster
family named Turner. Tell him to tread lightly." She stopped.  
"Tell him to tread very lightly.  Scott is extremely important to Zelda.
He is her life.  Make certain Mulder understands that."

"Zelda's son.  Tread lightly.  Very important.  Okay." Waters
thought about writing it down and actually took out his pen,
then thought better of it.

"Anything else?" She fingers massaged her forehead.  It was
aggravating not be able to speak to Mulder directly and openly.
She swore she would never take that privilege for granted again.
Her palms sweated and her heart raced.

"He has somehow persuaded FBI agents from Dallas, Denver,
Phoenix and Miami to join him working to clear you.  He said
their efforts have sparked a renewed conviction in him that ugly
men do not make pretty women no matter how hard they try."
Waters said.  "I have no idea what he's talking about."

"Nor do I."

"Oh, and he did say to expect some action soon," Waters
said.  "He seems very anxious to get you out of here.  He was most
emphatic that I tell you he is - and I hope this does not refer
to a weapon - he is gearing up the Midnight Special," Waters
said.

"It's a song, Mr.  Waters.  It refers to freedom from prison," she
said.

"Which may be difficult.  And that brings me to the assault
charges."

"When do I go to Washington?"

"Next Tuesday.  For arraignment.  Nobody's in a rush about
this but Agent Mulder.  So let's go over some things.  I need to
explain this to you, get your signature on some papers, and
prepare a defense.  I don't have much time," Waters said.  Anxiety
burned in his belly.

"Mr. Waters, will you tell Agent Mulder - please tell him
I'm fine," she said.

Waters saw her face turn blood red and he wondered about the
truth in the message she asked him to deliver.