Chapter 2

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Disclaimers at 10:57am, notes when it's over.

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The following takes place between 12:00pm and 1:00 pm
Pacific Time, 1:00 pm and 2:00pm Mountain Time.

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Tony Almeida's Office
CTU 
Los Angeles, CA
12:00 noon PT

Ryan Chappelle's appearance at CTU did little to improve Tony
Almeida's day.  Tony remained the Special Agent in Charge of
Los Angeles's CTU office simply because Jack Bauer didn't
want it and the November 2002 bombing led to the death or
retirement of anyone who previously expressed interest in the
position.

Tony knew if it was up to Chappelle, he'd be in Lompoc
serving time for assault.  He was never sure what Chappelle
was unhappier about - -  that he wasn't charged or that he was
right countermanding Chappelle's orders after the terrorist
bombing.

"I don't like that Bauer is out there."

"Good afternoon, Ryan.  I'm sure you've been briefed."

Chappelle dropped a large file on Tony's desk.  "This is our
classified information about Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. 
They're nuts.  Washed out of the FBI, washed out of their own
lives.  She works for practically nothing for the BIA, he doesn't
work at all.  Jack's wasting valuable time and resources with
them."

"The FBI won't have their experts here until the end of the day. 
Jack heard of this Fox Mulder and thinks he could have some
answers."

"Remember the office building bomb in Dallas?  Fox Mulder
and Dana Scully were assigned to that."

Tony started flipping through the file.  "If I remember that
right, wasn't there a rouge FBI Agent?  He had units searching
through one building when the bomb was across the street." 
Tony pulled out one of the pages and handed it to Chappelle. 
"According to this, Agent Mulder found the bomb and Agent
Scully had the building evacuated."

"Former Agent Mulder and former Agent Scully."

"Noted."

"This is a mistake, Tony, and something that will look bad on
your record."  Ryan started to leave.

"Your concern for my career is admirable but whatever they
found out in Twentynine Palms isn't going anywhere.  Since the
FBI can't get anyone out here to help us before 6pm, Jack has
my complete support."  Tony opened the classified file and
started reading.

x-x-x

McDonalds
Cortez, Colorado
1:10pm MT

William Mulder found the plastic snow globe that came with
his happy meal much more interesting than the Chicken
McNuggets and french fries his mother was encouraging him to
eat.  "Makin' snow."

"Come on William, you need to eat this."  Scully finally got the
snow globe away from him and handed him a McNugget.  She
moved to the back seat of the car at the Cortez McDonalds. 
"You can have the snow back when you're finished."

"William, be a good boy for Mommy."  Mulder pulled back on
to the highway, gunning the engine after their lunch stop.   "I'm
figuring we'll be in Grand Junction in about two hours." 
Mulder popped a McNugget himself, hoping his son would
follow his lead.

"We don't need a ticket."  Scully saw the speedometer hit
seventy.

"No, we don't."  He eased off the gas pedal slightly.

"All done."  William put his hands up in the air.

"Good for you." Mulder said from the front seat.

"Snow."  William looked expectantly at his mother.  

Scully returned the snow globe to her son and started to tackle
her own lunch.  "I'm still trying to remember if we ever met this
Bowers."

"I think it was Bauer and I don't remember him.  It doesn't
matter anyway."

"You're not even a little interested."

"No.  I'm interested in getting you and the Snow Miser back
there someplace safe.  Since you have no opinion on
Reykjavik, how do you feel about Petajavesi?"

"Peta-what?"

"Petajavesi, a Finnish town."

"Let's just get to Grand Junction before we're Helsenki bound."

x-x-x

Bluff Airport
Bluff, UT
1:20pm MT

"Change in plans."  Jack called to the pilot and Michelle as he
reboarded the plane.  "Mr. Mulder's Range Rover was last seen
driving through Cortez."

"Cortez?"

"Colorado.  They're either going to Colorado Springs, Grand
Junction or Denver.  We need to get to them before they get to
the San Juan National Forest."

"San Juan National Forest?"

"There are several roads in and out of the forest, each going in
different directions.  They get in there, we can be looking for
them going to Denver..."

"..And they're taking a different road to Grand Junction."

"Exactly."

"What are we going to do?"

"Colorado State Police are looking for them, we're taking the
chopper out to Cortez."  He turn to the pilot, "Frank, I want you
to stay here, with any luck we'll have them in custody within
the hour."

"Custody?"

"For now.  Depends on their level of cooperation."

x-x-x

Rt. 145
Cortez, Colorado
1:25pm MT

"Why would you think I'd be interested?"  Mulder had waited
long enough for Scully to finish her meal and set up the DVD
player for William.  With his headphones on, the little guy was
bouncing along in his car seat to The Wiggles.

"You're always interested."  Scully finished cleaning her hands
with one of William's Wet Ones.  She started working on
William's wiggling fingers.

"Not for years."  He paused for a second, "Do you think I
should be doing more?"

"I think what you're doing is fine, I've told you that before."

"You sick of Utah?"

"Mulder, I'm not unhappy.  Quite the opposite in fact.  I've just
been waiting for you to wonder if you can do more with your
life than writing whatever you're writing every night, keep up
the house and watch the' Teletubbies'."  She took another Wet
One and cleaned William's face, giving the boy a kiss on the
forehead when he was clean.  William just happily sang along
with his program.

"I don't watch the 'Teletubbies', he does.  I watch 'Spongebob'."

"You know what I mean.  You've been restless all your life, I'm
waiting for you to be restless again."

"I'm just working really hard at being a decent husband to you
and a good father to William."

"I believe you.  And you're more than a decent husband and a
good father.   I'm just wondering when you're going to start
working hard at being a good man to yourself."

"Everything I need is in the car right now.  This is the deal we
made and I'm happy to fulfill my end.  They changed the rules
this morning."

"You don't even know who "they" are."

"And I have no intention of finding out."

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Tony Almeida's Office
CTU 
Los Angeles, CA
12:30pm PT

Half way through the file, Tony knew why Fox Mulder and
Dana Scully wanted nothing to do with them.  A missing sister,
a dead sister, a murdered father, major reprimands from the
Bureau, stunning successes.  These two earned the right to be
left alone.  Too bad they weren't going to get it.  

For a pair of washouts, they were of great interest to the FBI,
CIA, NSA and CTU.  The classified file contained more of
what the original FBI file offered, page after page of redacted
material.  There was a copy of a marriage license from the Las
Vegas Elvis Chapel with blackened pages before and after the
document.  Those pages were legal documents, the "vs"
between the plaintiff and defendant was the only word on one
page.  Whatever was there, no one was supposed to know.

He started through the health records and they were worse:
gunshot wounds, a mysterious virus, car wrecks, cancer, brain
injury, snake bites and fertility treatments.  Tony started paging
through the records, fertility treatments?

There was what looked like a birth certificate with one non-
boilerplate word on the page: William.  Flipping through their
personnel records, both Mr. Mulder and Dr. Scully's fathers
were named William.  Only this William was born in 2001. 
They had a child.

Picking up the phone, he was quickly connected to the FBI's
jet.  Walter Skinner was not happy to be on the phone again.

"AD Skinner, Tony Almeida again."

"Yes, Mr. Almeida."

"If we were to find Mr. Mulder and Dr. Scully, would they
have a child with them?"

"Mr. Almeida, everything Fox Mulder and Dana Scully have
done since the child's birth has been to protect him.  They
would do anything to protect him, they already have."

Tony hung up and called the CTU jet.

x-x-x

5 miles south of Cortez, Colorado
1:40pm MT

The plane ride made her a little nervous, but racing east in a
helicopter was terrifying.  Michelle Dessler decided she was
much better suited for CTU's Los Angeles office, not field
work.  She looked at Jack Bauer and he couldn't be calmer.  

"First helicopter ride?"  Jack's smile was kind.

"Second."  She didn't think the trip to Hawaii with her parents
when she was sixteen really prepared her for this military
chopper.   "How can you do this all the time?"

"I don't do this all the time.  Just when Tony calls me."  He
didn't tell her that he wasn't working much anymore for health
reasons.  His heart was strong enough for this.  He just couldn't
do the job full-time anymore.  It was bad for his heart and bad
for his head..

"Do you really think that was an alien in a spaceship this
morning?"

"I don't know what it was.  I know there is a dead body, two
badly injured corpsmen and a plane I've never even thought
could exist.  I'm hoping Mr. Mulder and Dr. Scully do because
if they don't, we're screwed."

"The FBI is sending some experts."

"I heard Mulder got into this a few years ago.  I saw him once
as a profiler.  If he's half as good at aliens as he was at serial
killers, the FBI experts can go home."

"And if we don't find them."

"We'll find them."  Jack smiled at her again.  "That's why Tony
called me."

x-x-x

Rt. 145
Cortez, Colorado
1:45pm MT

"That's the third state police car I've seen."

Scully leaned forward to look at the GPS screen.  "Is there
somewhere we can get off the highway?"

"I figured we'd take 145 to Placerville, 62 to 550 and we're
right into Grand Junction.  145 goes into Telluride, we can
probably catch a quick flight to Denver."

"Can we..."

"No, we can't."  Mulder cut her off.  "There are four police cars
behind us with the lights on.  Is he strapped in?"

"Yeah, but Mulder..."

"Hold on."  Mulder pushed the pedal to the floor, the engine
roaring to life.  In just six seconds, the Range Rover went from
65 to 120.  The police cars were now just small dots in
Mulder's rear view mirror.

"We should have put the police radio in this car."  Scully put
her arm across her son's chest.  Carseat or not, she was keeping
William safe.

"Your jeep has it for work.  It would have been suspicious to
have it in Mr. Mom's car."

"Do you hear that?"  Scully thought they had a flat until the
dark green military helicopter shot past them.

"Shit."  Mulder banged his fist against the steering wheel.  "We
should have left the country last year."

"Mulder, this is insane."

Mulder had to agree.  While the three police cars in the rear
view mirror were long gone, there was a five police car
roadblock in front of them with the military helicopter landing
behind the vehicles.  "I'll go with them.  You take William back
to the house, wait until tomorrow morning and just take off."

"I'm not going anywhere without you."

"There is plenty of money in diaper bag.  I'll catch up with
you."

"Where, in Finland, Iceland?"

"Go to your mother's..."

"Absolutely not.  We're a family, we spent too much time
apart."

"This is no time to be the Waltons, he needs to be safe.  You
need to be safe and with him."

"We need to be together."

"Dammit.  All this for nothing."

"Answer Mr. Bauer's questions and we'll all go home."

"No, you go home, I'll..."

"We'll sit with Mr. Bauer, do whatever he asks and explain our
situation."

"Because they've all been so family friendly to the two of us in
the past."  Mulder started to slow the Range Rover down.  They
were about one-hundred feet from the road block when he
finally stopped the car.

x-x-x

Colorado State Police Roadblock
Dolores, CO.
1:55pm

Once they landed, Jack was out of his seat and the helicopter in
one fluid motion.  Michelle was struggling with the lap belt
when the pilot advised her of a phone call coming in from the
CTU jet.

"Dessler."

"Michelle, it's Tony, where are you?"

"On the ground in the middle of Southwest Colorado.  We've
just pulled over Mr. Mulder and his wife."

"They have a child with them."

"Whose child?"

"There's a child.  The two of them have a child and according
to the FBI, he's someone they've spent the last three years
protecting."

"I'll tell Jack."

She lost the connection to Tony just as she finally got out of the
safety belts.  She removed her headset and went to find Jack.

Jack was standing with the ranking officer of the Colorado
State Police.  A man, Fox Mulder in all likelihood, was
kneeling next to his SUV's front right wheel with his hands
behind his head.  The rear door was opened and a small woman
hopped out.  She didn't exactly follow the trooper's order to lie
down on the ground.  The squirming three year old in her arms
made that hard to do.

Michelle was sure she heard "Oh shit" from Jack.

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Feedback is like a helicopter ride in Hawaii -- fabulous!

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