"End" by The Cure, from Show

The morning after the outburst, the smoker unlocks the door to the cell where Mulder and Samantha are held. Mulder barely acknowledges him - the older man admires his restraint - but the slow-burning rage in Samantha's eyes cuts him to the heart. He smiles at her in an attempt to pacify her, but she only cowers against the wall, hugging her knees to her chest.

"Fox," he says, his tone as even as he can make it.

"What do you want?"

He lights a cigarette, blowing smoke into the otherwise sterile air. "I thought we might talk."

"I have nothing to say to you."

He shrugs. "I'm sure you have a great deal to say to me, but that's beside the point." Extinguishing the cigarette against the wall, he draws his gun in an exaggerated gesture. "Don't make me ask twice."

Mulder stands. "Come on, Sam."

"She stays." Without another word, the smoker holds the door open for Mulder. The younger man steps out, and the door slams shut behind him. He walks down a long corridor with the gun trained on his head.

"Where are we going?"

"To discuss the conditions of your release." If Mulder is at all surprised, he doesn't show it. "Keep walking. Straight ahead, then turn left at the end of the hall."

Mulder obeys. They come at last to a darkened room. One chair faces another over an antique desk. An old slide projector is set up facing a screen. The smoker motions for Mulder to sit down, then closes the door behind them. Lighting a new cigarette, he turns the projector on to reveal a slide of a body on an autopsy table. One foot, facing the camera, is slightly blurred by its proximity to the lens, showing a toe-tag and bright red painted nails. It is the corpse of a woman perhaps only in her early twenties.

"I've seen her before..." Mulder says, his eyes drawn to the picture unwillingly. The smoker moves on to the next slide, a young man, half of his skull blown away, then another woman, who might have been beautiful, had she still had a face. And the slides go on, more images of death and horror, until Mulder asks, "Why are you showing me this?"

"The first death was possibly a case of mistaken identity, or of an incompetent gunman. The others were...employees of mine. All killed by an unknown assailant. These were professional hits, Agent Mulder -"

"On professional hitmen?" Mulder asks wryly.

"Those are just the deaths. There's more. You might be interested to know that your sister was the first of several abductees to be returned..." Flash of a slide: a woman lying in a hospital bed, her face bruised, eyes fixed blindly forward. "All were in various states of dementia. One particularly observant doctor noticed that within a few days, many of the abductees developed small cuts on the backs of their necks."

"Implants?" The smoking man says grimly, "Their implants were removed."

Mulder makes the inevitable association immediately, but he hides it well. He pales a little, and his hands grip the arms of the chair tighter. His lips form a name, but no sound emerges.

"I know what you're thinking," the smoking man says. "It's a mystery to us, as well. It's a pity my contact in the FBI met an untimely end - certainly, this is a case worth pursuing...don't you think?"

Mulder's laugh doesn't reach his eyes. It is the maniacal laugh of a man who has been held in a cage one day too long, still unbroken, but slowly collapsing, slowly crumbling. The other man, his own lack of composure concealed by the darkness and the steady exhaling of smoke, trembles a little at the sound.

"I'm sure you have your own resources," Mulder says.

"Perhaps." The smoker thinks of Skinner, with his uncertain allegiances, of the dead bodies that flash one after another on the screen. He thinks of Alex Krycek, gone now too, most likely the next body to be discovered. "But I need you."

"And you think I'll help?" Mulder shakes his head in disbelief.

"I know you will." The smoker relishes the moment that comes as he regains the upper hand, as he takes control with the push of a button.

And the final photograph focuses in perfect, crystal detail on Scully, frozen in her hospital bed.

Mulder does not scream, as he should, nor does he weep, as the smoker had expected. Instead he stands, fists clenched, to face his nemesis.

"Before you accuse me, I'd like you to consider this calmly. Would I give you this information if it led back to my organization? Would I even allow you to live in that case?" He steps forward, reaching out his hand in a conciliatory gesture. "Agent Mulder...Fox..." Mulder flinches. "I'm not responsible for your partner's condition."

"Why do I find that difficult to believe?" Mulder hisses the words between his teeth.

"Believe what you like. I want to know who did this to her as much as you do. It is not in my interests to watch her die." When Mulder doesn't respond, the smoker says, "I trust we have a deal?"

"What about Samantha?"

"She stays - as insurance."

"No."

"For her own protection, then," the smoker attempts to appease him. "You didn notice the chip in her neck, didn't you?"

"You son-of-a--"

"No harm will come to her here. I can offer no such assurances if she is released. Do we have a deal, Mr. Mulder?"

Mulder hesitates, staring helplessly at the image of his partner. The light from the projector hits him before it reaches the screen - her face is superimposed over his, and the smoker is unable to tell which one of those faces is suffering more.

"We have a deal," Mulder says.

The smoker hands him a file, then steps out into the hallway, leaving Mulder to puzzle over the clues. After a moment of silence, he can hear the younger man sobbing softly, no doubt cursing Scully's fate and his own betrayal, collapsing the moment he thinks the smoker cannot see his fallen face.

Or perhaps he knows, but no longer cares - what separates him from his enemies is the remnants of humanity, the ability to weep for his lost blamelessness, for the woman who awaits, helpless and beyond his power to help. What does it matter if the Devil himself hears? The battle is already lost.

The smoker leans against the wall and bows his head in silence. And what Mulder does not see is the single tear that trickles past the creases of the old man's cheek to fall, unbidden, to the floor, and wet the ashes of a broken cigarette.

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