From: "pjtdjt" <pjtdjt@stellarnet.com>
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2002 17:59:19 -0600
Subject: Shadowland
Source: direct


TITLE:    SHADOWLAND
AUTHOR:   Pacquin
E-MAIL:   pjtdjt@stellarnet.com
CATEGORY: MSR, angst
RATING:   R

SPOILERS: Through Season 9, post-The Truth

DISCLAIMER:  The X-Files and its characters are the
property of 1013 Productions and Twentieth Century
Fox and its subsidiaries, and are used without
permission.

SUMMARY:  Sequel to "Sugarland." A year and a half later
finds Mulder and Scully making a new life for themselves.


THANK YOU ... to MaybeAmanda for lead-pipe beta reading, 
to Fran58 and C.S. for their encouragement, and to 
Sallie for her constant love and support. And to those readers
who wondered what happened to Mulder and Scully after "Sugarland,"
I wondered, too, so here it is....

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

"They're in last place, Scully. Eighth out of eight in
the conference. There's no where to go but up."

"Well, that's one way of looking at it, I guess." She
yawns sleepily, cuddling against him.  "I take it you've
got a plan."

"There are some great kids on that team, there really
are," he says, looking at her, stroking her shoulder. He
sighs. "They want me to cut."

"How many?"

"Four. Maybe five."

"Mmmm...." Scully murmurs sympathetically, then presses
her lips against his chest.

It's a quiet Sunday morning, the only day they can really
sleep in.  A warm breeze gently moves the worn lace
curtains at the bedroom window. It's the second week of 
October, and yet the weather feels nothing like fall. Indian
summer has come to this part of Canada; the nights are pleasant, 
but the days are hot under the bright blue sky, as if summer 
had returned full force.  

But the calendar says autumn, and it's basketball season.
The school is in a real bind--the guy with the contract to
coach quit, no reason given, before school even began, so
there's no coach, and practice is supposed to have
started. Mulder hates to disappoint the kids;
they all look at him so hopefully when the superintendent
calls him into the gym to discuss the situation. So at
this school, Mulder has agreed to coach boys' basketball. 

Scully strokes his chest gently, her hand sliding down
to his hip, and then she says softly, "Speaking of
cutting, what are you going to do about the statistician
thing?"

Mulder smiles. She's enjoying this, his problem with
the statisticians. The school's policy is that girls act as
statisticians for the boys' teams, guys for the girls'
sports.

Scully stirs against him.  "So tell me, Mulder, how many
stats spots are there?"

He sighs.  "Three."

"And how many girls have applied for them?"

Mulder hesitates.

"Mulder?"

He sighs again.  "Twenty-three."

Scully raises herself on her elbow and stares at him. 
"*Twenty-three*?  Twenty-three girls for *three* spots?" 

"Uh-huh."

Scully starts to laugh.  "God, that's more than boys who
went out for basketball itself!"

"You're exaggerating, Scully," he says.

She looks at him again.  "Okay, tell me.  How many boys
tried out for the team?"

"Twenty-four."  Almost. 

Scully raises one eyebrow and gives him an "I-told-you-so"
look, then smiles and closes her eyes, settling herself
against his chest.  "Oh, yeah," she says sexily, "*all*
the girls want to do stats for Mr. Mulder."

"Come on, Scully," he protests. "Help me out here.  This
is a problem.  I don't know what to do about these
girls."

"You love it, Mulder," Scully says, her lips curving into
a smile, nestling against him.  "You love how all the
girls in school have crushes on you."

"Well, enrollment in psychology *has* gone up
significantly since I've been there,"  Mulder teases her,
stroking her hair.  "And you should talk, Scully.  We
haven't even got a lawn anymore, thanks to all those guys
in your senior physics class coming over to mow the grass
every five minutes.  What are we down to now, anyway? 
Ten blades of grass? And that one kid--what's
his name, Detweiler?--I think I saw him bringing a
pair of scissors over here yesterday."

"It was a weedwhacker, Mulder," says Scully lazily,
turning toward him.  "He just likes to be thorough."  She
kisses him, just below the hollow of his throat.

"Yeah, I have to fight those physics guys off with a
stick," Mulder says, smiling. Just as in the other places
they've lived, he's made a deal with the landlord: They
get the small, furnished house at a reduced rent in
exchange for cutting the grass and doing the yardwork;
and Mulder does some work around the house--painting,
small repairs. It works out well; they have almost
no contact with the landlord at all this way.
Mulder wouldn't mind mowing the grass, but he doesn't get
the chance. These teenage boys who've got it bad for 
Scully do it for him.

"There are some girls in that physics class, too,
Mulder," Scully points out. "I go out of my way to
recruit girls into the sciences, you know I do."

"And what does that tell you, Scully, when even the girls
are over here, working on our yard?"

She smiles at him. "It tells me that even *my* students
have crushes on you.  The weather's hot, Mulder, those
girls are over here hoping you're going to take off your
shirt...."

"Not as much as those guys are hoping you'll take off
yours."

Scully laughs. He grabs her wrists and rolls her on top
of him. Her hair tumbles over her face, and she looks
down at him, a slight smile on her lips.  

She's so beautiful, he thinks, looking up at her. Her
hair seems thicker and fuller to him, somehow; it's still
red, she won't color it, no matter what. It's softer,
now, as is Scully herself. They made love when they first
woke up about an hour and a half ago, but he wants her
again, he's hard for her; he knows that she can feel him
pressing against her.  He feels the warmth of her body as
she positions herself over him.  And then he tightens his
grip on her wrists as he raises her arms and rolls her
over so that she is underneath him again, holding her
hands above her head.

She gives a little gasp of surprise as she looks up at
him.

"I'll always keep you guessing," he grins, then gently
releases her hands.

She gives him the slow, sexy smile that he loves.  "You
do keep me guessing," she whispers as she reaches up to
stroke his hair.

Mulder brushes his lips against hers, kissing her
lightly, then deepens the kiss, feeling her mouth open
under his. She moves her hands to the back of his neck,
then gently down his back, softly stroking him. He kneels
over her, pushes her legs apart and enters her, begins 
moving slowly inside her.

He likes this bed better than the other one, this heavy,
tarnished  brass bed their landlord finds to replace the
wooden bed that came with the house.  He's too tall for
the bed, with its headboard and footboard, but he has no
problem sleeping entwined around Scully.  After a year
and a half he still can't believe that she's in his bed,
that she will be there when he reaches out for her. 

Scully is breathing harder now, her eyes closed, her
face flushed with pleasure, her hands stroking
insistently against his shoulders. He slides his arms
under her back, bringing her closer to him, feeling the
softness of her breasts against his chest, and he thrusts
hard inside her, faster.  "Oh, God," she gasps, then
reaches back and grabs one of the thick brass columns of
the headboard with her right hand, as if she's steadying
herself, as if she's going to come so hard that she has
to brace herself for it.  He loves it when she does that,
knowing what he's done to her, what he's made her feel.

Her body stiffens and arches hard against his, and she
cries out, her knuckles white as she grasps the metal
column of the bed; and he feels it, too, that relentless
rush toward his climax, and it's unstoppable, and he
thrusts hard and fast between her legs, feels his muscles
tense up as he reaches out and covers her hand with his
own, moaning as he feels the release of his pleasure deep
inside her.

They lie there together, breathing hard, then Mulder
takes their hands from the headboard and presses his lips
against her palm before he sinks down and buries his head
against her shoulder.  His breathing slows, and he raises
his head, then leans down to kiss her.

"The bed didn't break," he says.

Scully opens her eyes and reaches up to caress his face, then
smiles.  "No, it didn't."


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

Mulder breaks the first bed while making love to her
their second night in the house. He protests that the
bed was old and rickety, that he'll talk to the landlord
about getting them a different bed, but Scully's
embarrassed.

"Don't you dare, Mulder. We'll just put the mattress on
the floor."

And he wouldn't have said anything, but their landlord
stops over the next day to see that things are working
out okay.

Scully is kneeling on the ground by the back door,
digging into the soft earth with a trowel, getting ready
to plant some half-price flowers they picked up. It's
late in the season, mid-July, but she wants to try
anyway.

"Everything's great, thanks,"  Mulder tells their
landlord, then shoots a quick look in Scully's direction. 
"Except...uh...for the bed."

"The bed?"

"We...I...uh...broke the bed," he says
sheepishly.  "I ... well, you know how it is," he lowers
his voice, looking at Scully again. 

Their landlord laughs. "I think I can come up with a new
bed for you.  You can wait a few hours, can't you?"
he says slyly, winking at Mulder. 

"One or two," says Mulder, and the man laughs again, and
claps Mulder on the shoulder.  

"Okay, then," he says, "I'll be back sometime later today
with that NEW BED."  He raises his voice on the words
"new bed," and Mulder looks at Scully, who is putting the
first plant into the ground.  Her back stiffens at their
landlord's words, and Mulder can see that she's blushing.
She pushes the sharp trowel into the earth, hard, then
looks at him, glares at him, gives him "the look"....

It's just like the old days....

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

It's worked out all right, the way they fell into this
life. He's a teacher now; he and Scully both are. It's
what they do when they're not searching for the truth,
when there are no leads to follow, or when they feel the
need to lay low for a while, stay out of sight. Or when they
need money.  They teach, never staying in one place for
very long.  Scully especially is in demand; science
teachers are needed everywhere. Mulder teaches
psychology, mostly at high schools, occasionally at a
small junior college, those are pretty obscure; their
appointments are supposed to be temporary, mostly for
people who are on family leave or who resign suddenly
with no explanation.  He's glad in a way, for those; it
makes it easier when he and Scully do the same thing,
attracts less attention.

"If you could get us a copy of your credentials, Mr.
Mulder, I'd appreciate it.  Need it for our records," a
harried administrator calls out to him in passing one day
at school. Mulder nods at the man, but he'll never
supply a copy of his "credentials."  It's not a problem
because they never stay long enough in one place. 

They don't teach at the same schools anymore.  They did
at the beginning, but people paid too much attention to
them as a couple.  People were kind, welcoming, wanting
to invite the nice couple teaching at the high school to
the church potluck, the spaghetti feed for the young
family who lost their possessions in a fire. So now he
teaches in one place, and Scully at a school nearby. 
They use their real names, more or less; he wasn't sure
at first how good an idea that was, but it's probably
better than using aliases, because even one uncomfortable
slip-up would attract attention that they don't want. He
has an easier time of it than Scully does; he smiles,
thinking that all he has to do is remind himself to call
her "Dana" the rare times they're in public together. 
She has a harder time.  He smiles again, thinking of the
expression on her face the first time someone called her
"Mrs. Mulder."  He calls her that sometimes, too,
teasingly.

She never changed her name after they were married, of
course.

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

An early summer day in that small North Dakota town near
the Canadian border they'd come to after driving out of
the Badlands.  The church is small, shabby, the paint
peeling from the south side of the building. Someone is
mowing the lawn; the smell of freshly-mown grass, the
scent of lilacs in bloom is heavy and rich about them.

After a hundred years, the church is closing.

"Not enough Presbyterians," the minister explains,
smiling a little.  "Not enough people."

Maybe that's why the minister doesn't question them too
closely about anything. Just nods when Mulder tells him,
holding Scully's hand tightly in his, that they want to
be married.

"All right," the man smiles. "When do you want me to
perform the ceremony?"

"Now," Mulder says.

Here's a trivia question for you, Scully, he thinks:  
What were the names of the witnesses at our wedding?  He
thinks that someday he'll dig out their marriage license
and check to see.  He knows who they are, of course:  
the minister's wife and the guy who's mowing the lawn. 
Yeah, his "best man" was a guy whose name he doesn't even
know.  There's no problem with getting a license; 
Mulder's surprised, a little, to find that this town,
small as it is, is the county seat.

He and Scully stand there in the fading afternoon light,
and he takes her hand in his.  Has he ever been to a
wedding, he wonders, listening to the minister speaking. 
He really can't remember.  Maybe a long time ago, maybe
in high school his parents dragged him to one.  His
mother's family is Scottish, Scots Presbyterian; in her
day it was a stern religion, not the liberal denomination
it's become now.  His father had no religion; he went
occasionally to please Mulder's mother, so nominally the
Mulders are Presbyterian. But they never go to church
again after Samantha.

His mother is mad at God, among others.

And now here he is, back in a Presbyterian church. It's
surprising how familiar it all sounds, how much you pick
up from television, how much seems to be part of the
culture. And it's not like he has to memorize anything;
he just repeats the words the minister says to him.

But he gets his vows wrong, after all.

"'... as long as we both shall live,'" he hears the
minister intone.

He looks at Scully then.  A small smile on her lips,
she's looking up at him. Have her eyes always been that
blue and trusting?

God, she trusts him...

"I love you, Scully," he says hoarsely, his hand
tightening on hers. "I'll love you until the day I die." 

He doesn't say them right, the vows, but it's good
enough, apparently, because the next thing that happens
is the minister is saying the words "husband and wife,"
and then they are kissing, he is kissing Scully, her lips
soft beneath his.

Theirs is the last wedding in the small Presbyterian
church.

And then they are gone, into the north, off into Canada,
into a new life.

Some day he's going to get out their marriage license
just so he can find out the names of their witnesses, the
date they got married.

He's really bad at anniversaries.

He always knew he would be.

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

"I like it here," Scully says softly, looking out the
bedroom window at the trees that have turned color:  red
sugar maples, the bright yellow and deep orange of the
oak trees. Soon the leaves will fall, and winter will
be on its way. Flannel sheet weather, he thinks, and
cuddles her more closely.  She nestles into him. "Can we
stay?"

He's quiet for a moment.  "I don't think so, Scully."

She says nothing. Then she shifts slightly away from him,
moving out of his arms as she sits up on the edge of the
bed.  She slips out from under the sheet and stands up,
facing away from him. "You won't get the chance to coach
that basketball team out of last place, after all, will
you?" he hears her say quietly.

She heads for the bathroom, and Mulder turns on his side
and stares at the wall.

The bedroom needs painting.

He guesses he won't bother.


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

He's trying to explain Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory
to his third period psych class when there's a knock at
the classroom door.

"Thanks, Katie," he says to the girl who hands him a
note; she blushes a little and smiles at him, then turns
to leave as Mulder pulls the door shut again, glancing
quickly at the note before returning to the front of the
class. He's wanted in the office after class is over;
he's got a message waiting.

He runs his hand through his hair. He hopes it's not
about the basketball thing; he hates to cut anybody as
long as they're putting forth some effort.

"Here's your message." Linda, the head secretary, smiles
brightly at him, pushing a folded white piece of paper
toward him. "Not much of a message."

Mulder opens the note.  The letters are dark black
against the white paper, and they pop out at him.  The
secretary is right.  It's a short message, two words
followed by an address.  Only two words, but two words
that he prayed he'd never have to read.

Alas, Babylon.

Skinner's message, their code. 

Come right away.

Alas, Babylon is the title of a book. Mulder finds a
copy and wishes he hadn't. It's about the
end of the world.

Walter Skinner is not subtle.

Mulder feels the room spin slightly, and he holds his
hand to his forehead.  

"Mr. Mulder, are you okay?" the secretary asks
solicitously.

"Um ... yeah, fine," he stammers.  "Linda, could you get
my wife on the phone for me, please?  I think you've got
the number...."

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

He picks up Scully at her school and they make a quick stop
at home first.  He grabs their bags out of the closet;
they always keep a bag packed, each of them, ready to
leave at a moment's notice.

He looks around the shabby one-story house.  This has
been his favorite one so far.  He remembers the day they
moved in.  "Put me down," he hears her say.  In every
place they've lived, he jokingly carries Scully over the
threshold.  Her response is always the same: "Put me
down, Mulder."

Scully comes into the living room.  "Have you got
everything?" he asks.  She nods silently; she's very
pale, and she looks frightened.  "Take a quick look
around, Scully," he says. "Anything here you can't live
without?"

She raises her eyes and looks right at him.


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

They are driving toward the next town over.  He knows the
address: it's the biggest chain motel in the area; he
attended a breakfast meeting on the relevance of
standardized testing there a couple of weeks ago. Mulder
is driving just a little over the speed limit.  He wants
to get there, and yet he doesn't, but he sure as hell
doesn't want to get stopped. He hasn't let himself
think yet about what it all means, what has happened. 
His stomach is clenched into a tight, painful knot.  

He's so afraid it's Scully's mom.  

Dear God, don't let it be Scully's mother.  He knows what
Scully's scared of because he's scared  of the same
thing: something has happened to Mrs. Scully, or one of
Scully's brothers; something's happened to John Doggett
or Monica.

Or something worse, even.

Plague, contagion.

Alas, Babylon.

"Stop the car, Mulder," she says suddenly, leaning
against her door.

"What?"

"Stop the car, Mulder.  I'm going to be sick."

He slows the car down, pulls over to the shoulder and
stops. Scully opens her door and practically falls
out, winding up on her hands and knees, and vomits into
the ditch. He gets out of the car and goes to her; she's
still on her knees, holding her hand to her mouth. "I'm
sorry...." she gasps.

He leaves her for a moment, goes back to the car and
grabs the bottle of water that's between them in the
drink holder in the front seat.  "Here," he says, helping
her take a few sips. She rinses her mouth out and spits
into the grass.  "Better?"

"I'm fine."  She tries to smile.

He tries to smile back.

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

He parks the car at the side entrance of the motel. 
Scully slowly opens her door, and he comes around to her
side and helps her out, then takes her hand in his.  He
walks quickly, dragging Scully along behind him.

Skinner is in a poolside room, Room 131.  It's not that
Skinner likes to swim so much, but the poolside rooms
have two exits, one directly to the outside and one that
opens onto the pool area.  Skinner is always prepared.  

Mulder pushes open the glass door that separates the pool
from the rest of the motel.  The air is hot and humid,
thick with the smell of chlorine. The pool is surrounded
by fake jungle growth, imitation palms and coconut trees,
the bright-green artificial grass of the miniature golf
course. The light seems bright and unnatural. It's the
middle of the afternoon, so no one is in the pool, and in
fact, the motel seems deserted. Their footsteps echo
hollowly against the tiled floor.   

He stops suddenly, so suddenly that Scully bumps into
him.  He looks down at her.

"Whatever it is, we'll handle it," he says to her.

Her face is white with fear, but she nods anyway.

Mulder's heart begins to pound as they near Skinner's
room. The door is ajar, but Skinner's not in there. 
Mulder panics for a moment,  but then out of the corner
of his eye he sees someone in the room next door, the
motel conference room, a room about the size of a
classroom, glassed-in on three sides, facing the pool
area.  

Skinner's not wearing a suit; he's dressed casually, and
that throws Mulder for a minute because, for some reason,
he expected to see him in a suit, for something like
this, something official.  But it's Skinner.  Mulder
recognizes him even though Skinner is standing facing
away from him and Scully, his back to them.  Mulder pulls
on Scully's hand, dragging her with him.

Skinner hears them enter the room, and turns to face
them.

Mulder stops dead in his tracks. Surely it hasn't been
that long, thinks Mulder, momentarily stunned.  

The change is startling.  This can't be right, he thinks. 
It can't be possible.  He can't have changed so much. 
Mulder can't believe the difference. It's really unbelievable. 
He never would have recognized him.

But his mother does.

Scully drops Mulder's hand and moves a few hesitant steps
forward.  Skinner is standing in front of her, with the
bundle he has in his arms, and looks at Scully.  And God
damn it, he can't believe it, but he thinks Skinner has
tears in his eyes, and all at once Scully smiles at him,
and opens her arms to him, like a lover, and then ... and
then she is crying, and Skinner hands the little boy to
her.

Mulder is trying to take it all in.  Not a baby, anymore,
but a little boy.  William seems almost as large as
Scully, there in Scully's arms, and everything is
happening so fast, Mulder can't think.  Suddenly Scully's 
knees buckle, and she starts to sink toward the floor as
Skinner reaches out for her.  "You take him, Mulder," she
says falteringly.  "... I can't ... I need to...."  He
reaches out blindly toward Scully, and the little boy
lifts his arms up to Mulder.

He looks down at William, at his son, and says that first
thing that comes into his mind.

"I thought you were a puppy."

He did, too.  It's stupid, but he thought that Skinner
was holding a large, squirming puppy in his arms when
they first came in the room.

William looks up at him.  "Puppy?"

He's changed so much.  Mulder has only memories of his
three-day-old son.

And one picture that Skinner had given to him while he was 
in prison, awaiting his "trial." He'd told him about William, 
and then had handed the small, grainy photo to Mulder. He doesn't 
know when it was taken; not too long before William was sent
away, he thinks. He's not sure if Scully asked Skinner
to give the picture to him or not. He never asked her.

Skinner has gotten a chair for Scully and is helping her
to sit down; he kneels on the floor beside her and begins
speaking.  He knows Skinner is saying something, probably
something important, but Mulder can't seem to focus on
what it is; Skinner keeps looking at him.

"They're all dead," he hears Skinner say. "Three states--
Wyoming, Utah, Nevada.  Three epicenters, and everyone
dead for approximately 200 miles in all directions. CDC
thought it was a new strain of anthrax."

Scully stares at Skinner.

"Now they think it's something else." Skinner looks at
her. "Maybe a virus."

She speaks so softly that Mulder can barely hear her. 
"William?"

"The only survivor."  Skinner clears his throat.  "They
think he has a natural immunity.  Inherited from you.  Or
Mulder.  Maybe both of you, some genetic combination."

William.  

The baby is staring up at him with some interest, and
Mulder looks down at his son, into William's eyes.

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

He has her coloring.  Scully has a connection with
William, right from the start.

"Lots of babies are born with blue eyes, Mulder," Scully
says softly, gently pushing the pale blue blanket away
from William's face. "They don't always stay blue."

"I hope his do." Mulder holds the baby in his arms. "My
blue-eyed boy," he whispers to William. 

But they haven't stayed blue. William's eyes are brown,
brown eyes. Mulder catches his breath; he knows those
eyes, those brown eyes, he hasn't seen them since....

"I'm watching 'The Magician' at nine," his voice comes
back to him out of the past. 

Those brown eyes, that lost little girl....

"I want to believe that the dead are not lost to us," he
tells Scully once.

Mulder swallows hard. "Scully, he has her eyes," he
tries to say, but his voice barely comes out, and
Scully's attention is on Skinner, who, Mulder thinks, is
talking about the end of the world.

Mulder stares at his son, and knows that the dead are not
lost, that they come back in ways you never imagined...

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

He didn't think he'd be able to do it after all, on that
last morning. 

That last morning he stands there looking into the
bassinet; he's paralyzed, unable to move.  Finally he
looks up helplessly at Scully.  She gazes at him for a
long moment, then reaches down and picks up William, and
gently gives the baby to Mulder.  She turns and leaves
the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

Mulder puts his hand under William's neck, supporting his
head the way Scully has shown him.  He looks at his son,
and William blinks up at him.  He cradles the baby
against his chest, and bends his head and kisses his
son's forehead. He puts his lips close to the baby's
tiny ear. 

"Don't forget me," he whispers.

He wonders what will happen, if he will ever get the
chance to have a connection to his son; he wonders if
William will ever know him.  It's not the same with
Scully.  Even if he never sees her again, never holds
her, never touches her, she will always be with him. It's
different with William.

But here, on an October afternoon in the pool area of an
anonymous Canadian motel, Mulder realizes that there was no
reason to have been afraid. He closes his eyes briefly, 
feeling the satisfying weight of his son in his arms as
he holds the little boy next to his heart. He is William's
father, connected to him in ways that a thousand nights
apart could never change.

William is carefully unwrapping a stick of gum he's found in the
pocket of Mulder's jacket.  He slowly peels off the paper and shiny
foil wrapper and gives them to Mulder, then pinches the stick
of gum between his thumb and index finger and licks the gum until
he's gotten all the sugar off. The gum smells sweet, like Juicy
Fruit, thinks Mulder.  William looks up at Mulder and presses the
sticky treat against his lips.  Mulder opens his mouth,
and William feeds him the gum, then smiles.

Skinner has finished speaking. He stands and gets his briefcase
off a table at the side of the room.

"Scully," Mulder says again, a little louder this time. "Scully,
he has her eyes."

Scully rests her head tiredly against Mulder. "I wondered," she
says. "It's hard to tell from a picture..."

The baby leans down and grabs some of Scully's bright hair in his
little hand. She reaches up and gently pulls it from William's
grasp, then brushes her lips against his hand, pretending to nibble
his fingers.  William giggles.

"We need to get moving," he hears Skinner say. 

All at once, Mulder thinks of the poem. In the classroom next to
his, the honors English class has been studying twentieth century
poetry, and Mulder has heard the last few lines recited many
times over the last few weeks.

    This is the way the world ends/
    This is the way the world ends/
    This is the way the world ends/
    Not with a bang....

The baby pats Mulder's lips. "Gum," William says cheerfully.

    But a whimper.

"Let's go," says Skinner.


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

Thank you for reading.  Story concludes in "Badlands."



My thanks to MaybeAmanda and Fran58 who made places for
my stories.  Please visit!

http://www.geocities.com/pacquin2002/

http://www.fran58.net/authorspgs/pacquin/pacquin.htm