#for giving me the idea about byers being the reason for those mysterious car rentals ;)

[scenes-in-between]

Within

“Mulder? Are you in here?”

Her heart is still racing from the mix of adrenaline and fierce, fierce hope. Could he really be back? Is he moments from stepping out of the shadows and wrapping her in his arms and telling her everything is going to be okay? Her entire body is bowstring-taut with anticipation as she listens for any sign of movement within the apartment.

When her gaze lands on the desk, on the space where her laptop is now conspicuously absent, the sight is so unexpected that she stares in disbelief, the truth of the situation not really hitting her fully until she physically walks over and picks up the disconnected power cables. That’s when she knows, for certain, that of course it was too much to hope for.

Whoever her landlord saw, it wasn’t Mulder.

Something in her deflates, and all at once she feels shaky and nauseated again. She barely makes it to the bathroom in time, but it doesn’t even matter; nothing comes up. Unsteadily, she sits on the edge of the bathtub and rests her head in her hands. Is this how her body is going to respond to every strong emotional moment now?  

She tells herself it’s her investigator’s instinct that leads her to grab a jacket and keys and head out through the rain to Alexandria. She rationalizes that whoever stole her computer might also want to take Mulder’s and that going to his apartment might either help her catch them or prevent it from happening. Her decision has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that misses him so badly the thought of spending tonight alone in her own bed is suddenly unbearable.

(It’s not as though she will be any less alone at his place. The very notion of feeling closer to him merely by surrounding herself with his belongings is completely irrational.)

Calm determination sustains her for the drive over, her resolve only slipping momentarily once she’s standing in front of his apartment door, force of habit and muscle memory causing her to tap out their knock against the wood. The sound makes her breath hitch, and she can’t help the irrational surge of hope that somehow this has all just been a terrible dream.

But of course there is no answer, and she swallows back the bitter disappointment as she pulls out his key and unlocks the door herself.

***

“I’m just trying to find him.” “Then what are you doing here?” “Trying to figure these out. I found them in his desk there. Car rental receipts on Agent Mulder’s Visa.”

Damn it. Those receipts have nothing to do with Mulder or where he is right now, but she absolutely cannot explain to Agent Doggett how she knows that.

“Four consecutive weekends in May. Same mileage each trip -- 370 miles, 375 miles. Where was he going?”

Mulder wasn’t going anywhere. The first weekend in May, they were on a stakeout in front of that godawful night club. The next one, he was chasing crop circles in England. The one after that, they were both in L.A. for the movie premiere. And as for last weekend… she has to force herself not to unwittingly glance toward his bedroom.

Byers was the one taking the car trips. Something to do with the woman he ran into in Las Vegas last year, the woman he and Langly and Frohike helped go into hiding. Scully’s not entirely sure of the details, didn’t need to know beyond the fact that it was important enough for Mulder to help him cover his tracks. If Doggett does his homework well enough, he will figure out the discrepancy eventually; Scully doesn’t need to help him get there any sooner.

She probably should invent some explanation, give him an answer so he’ll stop looking, but she can’t seem to come up with anything plausible on the spot. Instead, she does her best to look as genuinely clueless as possible. “I don’t know.”

“Like I said, maybe you really didn’t know your partner.”

It is only by the grace of God that he’s interrupted by his phone just then. Indignation and sudden rage at his smug assertion nearly make her contradict him with admissions she will one hundred percent regret.

“John Doggett. Agent Mulder at the FBI?”

Her stomach flips, and the emotional whiplash is almost enough to short-circuit her brain. She pins her gaze to his face, searching for anything that could possibly explain the words that just came out of his mouth.

There’s no way.

If Mulder had been returned, he would have come home. Or gone to her place. He would not have gone to the office, especially not without so much as calling her.

“I see.” Doggett shakes his head ever so slightly, still holding her gaze, and she can barely keep from rolling her eyes. She is so goddamned sick of the games, of feeling like she’s ten steps behind on every aspect of this investigation. “Thank you. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

He finally looks away from her and down at his phone as he hangs it up. “Seems Agent Mulder may have visited headquarters last night. His pass-card was used to access the task force base of operations.”

This time she does roll her eyes. “And I don’t suppose anyone actually witnessed him.”

“They’re checking security camera footage as we speak. May I ask where you were last night between one and two AM?”

She stares at him. “Are you serious?”

“It's a simple question, Agent Scully.”

“No, it's an insulting question, Agent Doggett. I am sick and tired of being treated like a suspect, here.”

His demeanor is infuriatingly calm; it is especially galling considering she's barely holding herself together. “Maybe you should consider trying not to act like one, then. Maybe instead of fighting me at every turn, you can start cooperating. See, because otherwise, it starts to look like maybe you don't want Mulder found.”

A bitter laugh bubbles up out of her. “If you think I don't want to find Mulder--”

“Or maybe you know exactly where he is and what he's up to, only you don't want me to find him.”

She crosses her arms, glaring at him. “I was at home. Asleep.” It’s not exactly a lie; Mulder’s apartment feels more like home than her own place does, right now. Besides, if Doggett contradicts her claim, it will prove he had her under surveillance.

He studies her a moment, almost as if he’s deciding whether or not to challenge her. “See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?” he says at last. “Okay. We’d better get back to the office and see what’s on those tapes. That is, if you’re finished here.”

They’re not going to find anything on the security cameras. Whatever’s going on with the apparent use of Mulder’s pass-card, she knows without a doubt that he wasn’t at the FBI last night. It’s just another dead end that will get them no closer to actually finding him. While Doggett and his team run around chasing their tails, Mulder is slipping farther and farther away.

It occurs to her, then, that she doesn’t so much as have her own work ID with her; she didn’t exactly think things through when she ran over here last night. She also hasn’t eaten anything, either, and if she has to put up with much more of Doggett’s condescension without having any breakfast, she just might lose her cool entirely.

He’s still waiting for an answer, she realizes, and she quickly nods. “I, um, I need to run an errand on my way back to the Hoover Building. I’ll meet you there.”

***

“They are looking to find the whereabouts of good, hard proof. That in this case exists in a person. In a boy named Gibson Praise.”

Skinner’s eyes widen in understanding. Clearly he remembers Gibson, which is good, because Scully’s mind is running a mile a minute right now, and she doesn’t want to stop and rehash everything.

“The chess phenom?” Frohike pipes up. “I thought you said he was some kind of mind reader.”

Right. She forgot that she consulted with the Gunmen on Gibson’s case, too. That will make this even easier.

“We determined that a genetic anomaly was the most likely cause of his ability. Specifically, there are segments of his DNA that appear to be extraterrestrial in origin.”

“No freaking way,” Frohike breathes, and Byers lets out a low whistle.

“But the point,” she continues quickly, “is that the last place we saw him was Arizona. If someone were looking for him, and all they had to go on was our report -- the report in Gibson’s file -- that’s where they would go.”

“You’re saying that’s the file that was stolen from the FBI?” Skinner says.

“I am saying that it would go a long way toward explaining a lot of what’s been going on around here the past couple of days. They’re trying to get us looking in the wrong direction, to make it seem like Mulder’s orchestrating everything.”

“Because if we think he’s here, running around stealing computers and case files, then there would be no reason to keep looking for him elsewhere.”

“Exactly.”

It’s even bigger than that, though. If the point is to discredit Mulder and cast doubt on his motivations, then of course the medical records are also fake. Of course Skinner was right when he said Mulder would have told them about something that big. The headstone Mulder supposedly purchased, which threw her so completely into turmoil this afternoon, seems so over the top now as to be downright laughable.

She hates herself more than a little bit for doubting him, for even considering that he might have been capable of such deceit.

“Well, then I’ll get us booked on the first flight to Phoenix tomorrow morning,” Skinner says, leaning forward to gather the maps and satellite data. “With any luck, we’ll get to them before they move on again.”

She paces from room to room for a while after Skinner and the Gunmen have left; they’ve already lost so much time, and now that they finally have a potential lead, she can hardly stand the fact that they have to wait until morning to follow up on it. It's a helpless sort of feeling, and she hates it. So she paces. Some ridiculous part of her is tempted to go back over to Mulder's apartment again, as if she might be better able to find calm there, but that's completely impractical. Skinner will be back here in just over six hours to pick her up on the way to the airport.

Even though exhaustion does eventually send her to lie down on her bed, she never does manage to fall asleep.