Title: Comrades Under The Gun (2/2) E-Mail: susieqla@yahoo.com Disclaimer: In part I. Notes: Missing scenes, Providence Comrades Under The Gun - Part II The Path of The Conquerors... The Gunmen's Revenge Scully's Apartment 6:00 p.m. Moments before a frustrated Monica Reyes closed the door to Scully's apartment behind herself, Frohike, still brooding, made sure that he got the last definitve, parting shot in. "You got a problem with us, sister? We'll make it real easy for ya. We're not in the habit of failing our friends, Johanna-come- lately." Resisting the urge to reach the feisty gnome in two strides to throttle him, Reyes leveled a dismissive cant of her head at him instead. "We're not about to start now," he committed, sounding rough-and-ready. If she wanted a fight, he'd give her one. Where the hell did she get off putting them down to Scully? "You got that?" "Yeah," Langly chipped in, folding his long arms across his broad lean chest, posturing with his entire body. "We do what Scully needs ta have done." He flicked his unruly locks of white gold behind his angular shoulders, with chips on both of them. "Screw the F.B.I.'s duplicity," he, spat, not sounding as juvenile as he often did. Muttering with a one-track mind stream of consciousness about him, he uttered, "Skinhead's the most bogus of all, when ya think about it. I'll *never* buy he's workin' both ends against the middle. Like I kept tellin' Mulder that all these years. Nanite-man's ethics stink. I don't trust any of you dudes, 'cept Scully." Having thrown his most surly look at Reyes, he stalked back to the tracking computer with Frohike raptly on his heels. Byers, feeling an acute need to apologize for his colleagues' roughhewn display of discourtesy modestly offered, "We're all under tremendous strain." Monica nodded, hesitantly giving him a constrained hint of a smile. There was a shadow of admiration behind the weariness in her eyes. With a good deal of reservation, Byers met her eyes. "It was a courageous thing you did with that phone. A quick-thinking heads up." Such intelligence in his eyes, and the humility of his knowing that intelligence isn't worth a damn thing where conscience is lacking, Monica soberingly reflected, softly shutting the door behind her. Parking Lot Telephone Booths Near A Goodwill Clothing Drop. 9:22 p.m. William heard the curious 'ping-pinging' sound coming from he knew not where; hearing it made him smile, off-and-on, though. The most significant thing his young mind told him was that he was getting hungry, and tired, and most of all, he wanted comfort and succor from the most important person in the world to him at this stage...his mother. He missed her firm, yet loving touch, and her warm maternal smell above all. Despite this prolonged separation, which, instinctively, he knew was different from all the times she had left him in his grandmother's care, he hadn't cried. The gruff, rough-handed woman he was with now, and whose voice which carried he heard coming from outside the car, was certainly not his mother. But of course, William knew this, regardless of how tender his age. He was, after all, his father's son down to the last ordered combination of alleles of his genotype... The Trader's Diner Outside Calgary, Canada - 3 days later 2:42 A.M. Byers kept a bead on Frohike, who was hard at wiring work over at the pick-up, from the beat-up Commercial van they'd rented from Jaleel at half the going rate, seeing the wheeler-dealer was one of Langly's shadier, but long-time friends. With 'Gilgamesh' out of commission, they had to make do with this inferior stand-in. "How's he doin'?" Langly quired, with his eyes glued cohesively to the two- dimensional topography of the laptop's screen. Once again, he swore mercurially at the portable, temperamental computer, ruing that the machine was winking out too much for any appreciable margin of reliability. "What's wrong?" Byers demanded, keeping an eye on Frohike's methodical progress, while keeping tabs on Scully and the 'religious UFO fanatic' seated in the booth in the cheesy diner, by the window. "I should've upgraded this piece of crap weeks ago, before this," Langly berated. "He's finishing up." Worriedly, "Is it picking up the signal?" The anxious look in his eyes rivaled the worried one on his face. "Frohike's coming back." "Yeah, yeah, but it's sorta readin' weak and--" "Dammit, Langly, you'd better do something about it. We can't let Scully down. Not a--" "You'd better not say, 'again,' man, 'cos we didn't let her down a first time. You're lettin' bitch number two make you buy into it." Byers was all set to tear a gaping hole in Langly's points of view, but his chance evaporated as soon as Monica, Langly's new poster girl for pain in the ass of the month, climbed back into the van from the opposite side, just as the fanatic started up the pick-up. "Get ready, Monica," Scully advised over her cell phone, once the man holding her son had pulled out of sight, and she had already risen from the booth, and was heading for the front door. "Hold on," Reyes told her. As though not knowing his own strength, adrenline-pumped Frohike slid the door open, nearly upsetting it off its track, and conspiratorially informed, "His car's wired." "Here we go," Monica said, and imitating greased lightning, traded places with a as serious-as-death-and-taxes Frohike. The Gunmen monitored the two women as they raced for the parked 4-door, with Scully practically tearing the door open, and dropping into the driver's seat, upon reaching the vehicle. Monica plunged into the passenger's seat, and Scully backed the car out, wrestling a reverse bootlegger turn out of it. Scully allowed the pick-up to gain enough distance. And now, driving down the same road they had lost sight of the truck on some time ago, Monica tipped Scully, "They say he's about a mile, ahead, turning off the highway." "What about these hills?" Dana snapped crisply, her mind divided between her driving and the condition of her baby. "Are we gonna lose him in these hills?" "Yeah, yeah," Frohike goaded, on pins and needles and then looked inquiringly to Langly. "How are we in terrain?" he tweaked. Perpetrating his All-Star smirk-and-bravado, Langly bragged, "That transponder will track this guy driving underwater to Brazil." The blond's eyes bugged, then, and he internalized...oh, no--not the hell again. "Langly?" All the air had fizzled from Byers' lungs, and his chest burned like a never-ending night of acid reflux sans Digel. "What just happened?" His eyes, made larger by emotive statement, crossed as he razed the side of his friend's perplexed looking face with them, having seen good and well what had happened. Damn this piece of junk to solenoid purgatory, Langly mentally maligned, reading as plainly as Byers was the impossible '--Signal Lost--' In dire frustration, he clubbed the inflexible keyboard with his fist, the handy solution to all things glitchy, yelping a little over the dull throb of pain just incurred. "We're coming to a turn," Monica spoke rapidly into the phone, "is this it?" "Uh..." Frohike faltered to a hedge. "Yeah. Turn," he reassured. "I think they lost the signal," Monica, sounding somewhat wheezy, exhaled over to Dana. Scully balked, turning half-askance to gawk at Reyes. "Well they have to get it BACK," she mandated, doing a double take at her fellow F.B.I. agent. Over the phone, Monica heard Langly blisteringly erupt, "A PIECE OF CRAP!!!" "Hey--louder, why don'tcha?" Frohike, glaring, reproved under his breath, smothering the phone with his hand. "Tell 'em we're working on it," Byers seamlessly inserted with an encouraging lilt, and pleading eyes that had gone grittily somber. "HERE--" Frohike dickered, his patience having finally unraveled, and he stuck the cell phone to Byers. "You be the messenger!" Byers accepted the phone, but not the assignment, staring at Frohike with mouth open, and acutely aware that there was nothing to be said, unless by some miracle, Langly retrieved the elusive signal, which he was feverishly ciphering in rapid conjunction with typing, to do. Suddenly, the laptop screen went black, and Langly, going beserk, went into no holds barred uber-geek mode, until the screen was again aglow with the GPS, and Langly's mind crackled as it deftly unhinged one algorithm after another to recapture the trolling signal. "Keep heading straight," he cried, nearly at the top of his lungs. "He's under two miles ahead of you." Byers thumped Langly hard on his back, uncommonly impressed. "Nice piece of covering your ass, hairboy." He was borrowing from Frohike, more of late. "*Ours*, collectively," Langly breezed over to him. "One for all, all for one," he said, revealing the extent of the 'due diligence' he felt, about that, and everything in-between that they were about. Over their phone, they heard Scully say, "Thanks, guys," having regained her composure, while flooring the gas pedal through the floorboard. "It's okay now," Monica corroborated, "We have him in sight..." Langly slammed the cover down on the laptop, drumming his fingers upon it. "That settles it, dudes, no more mock-ups for a song. I'm usin' the money I've been savin' up like forever for the D&D convention I was gonna attend later this month, to get that toppest of the line notebook I have wet dreams about. I'm done with droolin' from afar...those days are so way over. It's time we begin rollin' with the twenty-first century." Nearly 1 hour and 20 minutes later... Byers, having kept a stringent vigil ever since the three of them had observed the agents' car streak away, roused his dozing journeymen upon catching the first glimpse of the women's vehicle returning. "Frohike, Langly," he said triumphantly, "they're here." He spilled out of the van, fleet on the move, having rousted himself to one-hundred percent alertness, with Langly beginning to stir, whose sluggish, ill-timed movement caused the 'piece of crap' balanced upon his lean thighs to skitter to the floorbed. Now there was justification, he thought smugly to himself, becoming more awake. "Th-they're okay?" he asked of Byers, not realizing the suit had left the van long ago, Langly, with his droopy eyes still at half-mast, yawning. "She got the kid?" Frohike, though bone tired, smiled in broad satisfaction. Remembering, he grabbed up the night vision goggles which lay upon the dashboard. Through the darkness that was illuminated only by the bounty of bright stars twinkling above in the vast firmament, he said, "Yeah, think so," his voice rife with accomplishment. He moved out himself now, and confirmed, "Yeah. I can see his cap. Monica has him." "Ugh, that smart-ass bitch," Langly spluttered as though he were having a bad dream, "she and Krycek would've made a match made in hell." He tumbled out of the van to stand beside Frohike who whole- heartedly agreed with him. The anxious trio crowded up to the driver's side, waiting for a visibly exhausted Scully, who, nevertheless, wore a look of deep contentment, to emerge. She did, only after Monica settled her peacefully- sleeping son into her arms, and Byers opened the door for her. Happiness shone in her eyes as she beamed at the three of them, with Byers pinching the baby's cheek gently between his fingers, the way he'd done in the alley. Words were unnecessary to convey the depth of her gratitude for all their help getting William back to where he rightfully belonged. Back to her, and one day very, very soon back to Mulder, the father missing in action, who would never leave them, never leave *all* of them, once he came home for good. William's 'uncles' were just as single- minded about that as Scully. "Thanks, guys," Scully bestowed while buried deep within the core of the tight web they'd spun around her, "we'll never be able to thank you for all your help, all the time." Her voice caught, remembering in that instant, in detail, the many, many number of times throughout all these numerous years, they'd selflessly come to their aid, and the close-knit, human knot about her tightened. "I love all of you...v-very much," she attested, susurrating the avowel, as the Gunmen closed rank, kissing first the crown of her head, then the baby's, en masse. "What happened?" Frohike asked, smiling at Scully, still caught up in the special luster of her eyes...the way she was looking at him, and then her visual range expanded to include them all. "Later. I'll tell you later," Scully promised, hugging William close to her breasts so his head fit snugly beneath her chin. The Gunmen nodded in unison. Following the enduring, and sentimental Scully and The Gunmen group hug, which a quietly-observing Reyes had receptively taken especial note of the tenderness of the communal embrace, the two teams divided off quickly into their respective vehicles and drove away from before The Trader's Diner, never looking back. ...Tooling, the van tagged behind the four-door. The conquering young mother was once again behind the wheel. William stirred in Monica's arms, and Scully smiled over at him. Her ragtag band of Knights in Shining Hardware faithfully acted as rear guards, never losing the pace. End