David was unconcerned when Dr. Charles didn't show for the 
Monday morning lab session.  She frequently left the teaching 
of the undergraduate labs for him to manage himself.  

He was surprised, though, later that day, to see many of his 
original classmates from the Molecular Xenobiology class 
wandering slowly out of the lecture hall, when class should 
have been well underway.  They seemed pleased by the 
unexpected morning reprieve, heading happily out into the 
cloudless day, but David was startled to hear that she hadn't 
appeared for class, and hadn't forwarded any instructions for 
postponement, or arranged for him to substitute.

He didn't really expect her to show up for their afternoon 
session, and was relieved to be proven right.  He still felt 
angry with her over the events of the day before.  He focused 
on her rebuffing of him early in the day, when all he had 
wanted to do was help.  On that count, his indignation felt 
righteous.  He wasn't yet ready to admit that his real anger 
was based in the fact that she had made him feel ashamed.   
It was 200 years ago!  Why should he have been expected to 
know, or to care, what had happened?  Why did *she* care so 
much?  But the images wouldn't leave him, and in spite of 
himself, he gradually began to feel their weight.

When she was absent again on Tuesday, anger and concern 
warred within him, and although he didn't try to contact her, 
he slept less easily that night.  

By Wednesday, the battle was lost.  After she missed yet 
another lecture, he headed over to her house.   If she were 
hurt, he supposed she would hide it.  And if he pressed the 
issue, he supposed she would reject him again.  Although his 
pace had been brisk enough when he had started walking, it 
slowed now.  He studied the toe of his canvas shoes, and 
found himself identifying with the rock he was kicking as he 
walked.  He would apologize, he decided resolutely.  He still 
wasn't convinced he'd done anything wrong, but his need to 
talk to her was paramount.  He hesitated on her front porch, 
his hands shoved deep within his pockets, summoning the 
courage to breach this wall.

He knocked.

And he waited.

No creak of footsteps inside the house answered his summons.  
No greeting from an upstairs window.  The door remained 
closed.

At first he thought she must be in the garden, but after 
searching for her among the rich green aroma of the corn and 
tomatoes and beans and peas, he returned to the house.  This 
time, he let himself in, calling out to announce his 
presence.  His voice echoed back to him in the stillness.  He 
searched the lab, kitchen, and study readily, places he had 
come to feel he belonged in her home.  More cautiously, he 
let himself into her archives and storerooms, his hesitance 
evident in his light tread.  Reluctantly, at last, he found 
himself at her bedroom, torn between knocking, and just going 
home.  He leaned his forehead against the varnished wood, and 
breathed in the parched smell deeply.

"Dr. Charles?" he called through the closed door.  "Look, I 
know you don't want to see me, or you would have answered me 
by now, but I just need to talk to you for a minute.  I just 
want to make sure you're alright, and then you can kick me 
out again, ok?"

He waited hopefully for the silence to break, shoulders 
sagging when it didn't.

"I'm coming in now," he finally announced, pushing the door 
open slowly.

The room was empty, the bed made.  She was gone, and in spite 
of the year he had spent in her close presence, he hadn't a 
clue where.

------------------------------------------------------------

"When was the last time you saw her?" Jerry asked, trying to 
focus his friend's agitated story.

"Sunday afternoon, I told you.  After that stupid fight.  
After she kicked me out.  I shouldn't have left her, though," 
he went on, guiltily.  "She was upset.  I should have stayed 
with her instead of just running off because she was angry."  
He felt certain that something had befallen her, had the 
irrational sense that it must surely be his fault.

"She's a grown woman, David, and has taken care of herself 
quite admirably prior to having met you," Jerry said.  He 
meant it to be reassuring, but to David it sounded like a 
rebuke.

"Look, just, can you," he sighed and pressed his lips 
together.  "Can you track her?"

Everyone was fitted with a subcutaneous homing device at 
birth.  It was rarely necessary, but if someone became lost, 
particularly in the interior, the authorities could locate 
them using the network of satellites that ringed the planet.  
David had always considered it a safety net, and had never 
before considered the implications on privacy.  He trusted 
those in control of the technology instinctively, could never 
imagine anyone misusing it.  Until now, when he was asking 
Jerry to break into the system and locate Dr. Charles, who 
might very well not want to be found.  Just to soothe his own 
conscience.

"If you want her tracked, you should notify the proper 
authorities," Jerry stated.

"No," David protested.  "That will take too long.  And it 
leaves a record."

"If you're concerned for her safety, what difference does a 
record make?"

David squirmed, struggling to explain.  "Maybe there's 
nothing wrong at all, in which case, she'll be angry at being 
tracked.  She's private."

"Which is why you should leave her alone," Jerry insisted.  
"She'll return when she's ready."

"But what if she's not ok?  And I didn't do anything?  Look, 
Jerry, just jack in, find her, and if her vitals are fine, 
we'll jack right back out, I swear.  If something's wrong, 
though, I promise I'll go straight to the authorities.  
Official channels.  No one has to know we took a peek first, 
right?  You're too good for that.  Please."

His own concern outweighing his good judgement, Jerry 
acquiesced.

"Let's go to her house," he suggested.  "The uplink from her 
lab consoles is more suitable than anything available in the 
student housing complex."  

Jerry had to admonish David to act naturally several times 
during their anxious march across town.  Just knowing they 
were embarking on an unsanctioned path was enough to make him 
glance guiltily around him every few minutes.  Though they 
were friends, Jerry's true age was much greater than David's, 
and while he usually found the younger man's innocence 
endearing, at the moment it was a liability.  It was 
fortunate that the reality of the age held little actual 
danger, even if they were discovered in their small 
subterfuge.  In another time such transparency might have 
proven deadly.

David let them in with his lab key when they arrived, 
striding directly to Dr. Charles's more powerful console, and 
crowding over Jerry's shoulder while he worked.  It took 
several minutes to locate an accessible port to the satellite 
tracking subsystem, a few minutes more to create an 
appropriate disguise for the connection.  At last, though, 
the data began trickling down to the console screen.  Jerry's 
usually implacable expression changed to one of 
consternation.

"What?" David asked, alarmed.  "Is she ok?"

"According to this, she's fine," he replied.  "But she's 
standing right behind you."

David spun, glancing around the vacant lab, the significance 
of the report escaping him.

"I don't understand."

"Her locater data appears to bogus."  Turning the puzzle over 
in his mind, he asked, "can you remember your approximate 
positions in the house on Sunday, and the times?  If I can 
check the recorded data against her known location, I may be 
able to determine a pattern for the variation."

"The data is recorded?" David asked, incredulous.  "I thought 
it was strictly realtime."  His mind strayed to several 
youthful adventures, when he had snuck out of his 
grandmother's house, bent on mischief with his friends.  Some 
of those adventures had left a bit of damage in their wake.  
Nothing serious, some broken fences and a few bruised cows, 
but he would have been horrified as a youngster had he known 
he could be tracked back to that location the next day, home 
in bed and smug with having avoided discovery.

"David," Jerry intoned, bringing him back to the present.  
"I'd like to limit the duration of this connection, if you 
don't mind."

Quickly, he recounted their day, and Jerry began comparing 
David's locater data with Dr. Charles's, and with David's 
memory of the times they had been together and apart.  Unless 
one had been there, there would be no reason to suspect her 
tracking record of being inaccurate, and yet, subtly, it was.  
And now, it appeared she was moving casually around the 
house, when she was clearly not to be found.  Jerry dared 
only a few more minutes in the system, and used them to find 
the source of the false data.  Deep in the subsystem for the 
house, usually an innocuous and unsophisticated piece of 
software, was buried a brilliant routine for forging location 
data.  He jacked out of the satellite system without 
disturbing the connection, but continued to study the code he 
had discovered.  It clearly had a manual override, probably 
allowing her to forward her actual location through the 
connection using some device she kept with her.

The implications were startling.  Using real location data 
most of the time would keep the amount of randomness in her 
patterns of movement sufficient that the times when the 
programmed information was substituted would not be noticed.  
And someone with the foresight to design a system to cover 
that contingency would not have left the same simple 
movements about the house running for three days while she 
was clearly absent, unless something was genuinely wrong.

"We're not going to find her this way," Jerry said.  

"What do you mean?"

"She's not trackable.  We need to take another approach."

"I don't know why," David said, "but I have a strong feeling 
we should do this ourselves.  No reports, no authorities, 
just us."

Jerry merely nodded.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Hours later, Jerry remained at the console puzzling out new 
avenues of inquiry into Dr. Charles' whereabouts.

"David, *please* be still," Jerry asked again.  "Pacing will 
not make this go any more quickly."  

Ducking his head sheepishly, David collapsed into the nearest 
chair and sighed.  "It's so weird, though.  How many people 
have we contacted now?"

Dr. Charles had claimed to be an orphan, and indeed the 
obvious references turned up no living family.  No other 
property appeared in her ownership.  Remembering Jerry's 
earlier research into Dr. Charles's pre-doctoral reports, 
they had hit upon the notion of cross referencing against her 
enrollment records and contacting old classmates and 
teachers, in hopes she might have gone to see one.

"Twenty seven have responded."

"Anyone remember her yet?"

Jerry shook his head.  

"How can that be?" David puzzled.  "She can't have been 
*that* much of an introvert, can she?  It's almost like she 
wasn't even there."  He shoved himself up out of the chair 
and resumed his pacing.  "How can she have gone through nine 
years of university, and not had a memorable interaction with 
anyone?"

Fatigued, Jerry watched the length of the lab elapse behind 
David several times.

"She may have been a remote student for much of that time," 
he theorized.  "Her most meaningful interactions would 
probably have been with Dr. Luder, as yours are with her."

"Dr. Luder's dead though.  Which doesn't give us any useful 
leads."

Jerry shrugged.  "We have nothing to do but wait for 
responses from her remaining classmates.  I can look into Dr. 
Luder's background in the meantime.  If," he stressed, "you 
will please sit down."

He lasted mere seconds in the chair.  "I'll wait in the 
study," he declared, before Jerry could repeat his 
admonition.

In the muted tranquility of the study, the old sofa beckoned 
him.  He collapsed onto the worn leather, and though it had 
been an age since it had last done so, the sofa once again 
cradled the restless and troubled dreams of a man searching 
for this missing woman.

-------------------------------------------------------------

His dreams dissolved and drained utterly away at the first 
sound of Jerry's voice.

"Coming," he hollered, his voice gravelly with sleep.   The 
bright light of the lab as he entered from the hallway hurt 
his eyes, and he squinted painfully, certain he could feel 
his pupils contracting.  "Anything?" he asked, hopefully, 
hand combing his tousled brown hair.

"What I have found is exceedingly strange," Jerry affirmed.  
"Pull up a chair while I try to explain this to you."  He 
waited while David hooked the nearest lab stool with his 
right foot, swinging it underneath him as he sat, in a 
single, deft movement.

"Do you recognize this?" he asked, bringing up the familiar 
directory of Dr. Charles's publications.  Encouraged by 
David's matter of fact nodding, he continued.  "Ultimately, 
all permanently stored data is warehoused in the central 
repository in Africa, within the Gray's main colony.  
Maintaining it is the primary occupation of a large 
institution of my people, under the Gray's direction.  The 
main site has several complete mirrors.  One on each of the 
North American coasts, one in Europe, two in Asia, and a 
failsafe at the southernmost point of South America.  New 
permanent data generally is transferred from its originating 
console to a local mirror, and the mirror uploads to the 
African site.  Periodically, all new data at the African site 
is disseminated back out to the mirrors, and becomes 
generally available, within the confines of an individual's 
access rights."

"We learn about this in elementary school, Jerry," David 
prompted, impatient.  "How does this relate to Dr. Charles?"

Smoothly, Jerry brought a series of indices to the console.  
"There are any number of ways to search through a class of 
records.  By topic.  Alphabetically.  Chronologically.  The 
data itself is not difficult to store, but there is vast 
complexity in the indices maintained which allow us to search 
through that data.  However there is one absolute, and that 
is that nothing is ever deleted from the primary repository." 
As he spoke, he began to align the display of the indices he 
had selected.  "Now compare this," he pointed, "to this."

David studied the readout, but Jerry's discovery remained 
invisible to him.  "I don't understand what I'm looking at," 
he confessed.

"All of the indices for Dr. Charles's papers have been 
connected flawlessly.  If I select her paper for her second 
year Fundamental Principals of Linguistic DNA Abstraction 
coursework, then ask for the next thing published, I get her 
final thesis for that year.  It's correct for all of her 
undergraduate coursework.  Except," he turned back to face 
David, for emphasis, "that if I look at the raw storage 
locations for these works, they're not distributed as they 
should be, they're clustered."

"Is that because they were picked up in a group from the 
originating mirror?" David asked.

"No.  The uploads occur too frequently to cause clustering."

David shook his head, his sleep addled brain still failing to 
comprehend the significance of the discovery.  

"This can't happen by any natural means of data collection," 
Jerry stressed.  "Groups of these records were manually 
inserted at irregular intervals over a period of years, and 
the indices were manipulated to make them appear to have been 
collected over a natural life span.  It explains why no one 
remembers her.  Melissa Charles does not exist.  Someone 
invented her."

"Of course she exists, Jerry.  Whose lab is this we're 
trespassing in if she's a figment of someone's imagination?" 
David protested.

"I didn't say that she wasn't real," Jerry clarified.  "Only 
that we don't know who she is."  David's brows drew down in a 
tight scowl as he struggled to comprehend.  

"I wasn't sure myself," Jerry continued, "so I went back 
further.  Her whole life is a forgery.  The indices she 
attaches to as parents appear to be real people, and they did 
indeed die unnaturally young, but the raw location of the 
birth record for Melissa Charles is stored in a later cluster 
than her parent's death records.  Her entire identity is a 
fabrication."

"Why would anyone bother to do such a thing?  Why pretend to 
be someone you're not?"

In response, Jerry activated an image.  "Who does this look 
like to you?"

The hair was darker and longer, but the stern expression was 
unmistakable.  "That's Dr. Charles," he stated with 
confidence.

"That's Dr. Luder," Jerry corrected.  "And the image is 
nearly fifty years old.  It would appear that Dr. Luder 
invented the persona of her protege, inserted it into the 
record system, and then assumed the identity.  Dr. Luder's 
home was in the extreme Pacific Northwest, so the choice of 
placing Dr. Charles in the Atlantic Southeast was likely a 
practical solution to avoid meeting those who might recognize 
her.  Both personalities were largely reclusive, except for 
several brief teaching contracts.  No doubt Dr. Luder's 
having taken the contracts served to create the framework for 
her to insert her new identity."

Incredulous, David reached for the console, needing the 
weight of the evidence to convince him of his friend's 
astonishing theory.  The records were irrefutable, but still 
the equation appeared flawed.

"If Dr. Charles is really Dr. Luder, and that image is 50 
years old, then Dr. Charles should be a wizened little old 
troll by now, and she's not.  She looks just the same.  Maybe 
Dr. Charles is just her daughter, or some kind of relation," 
he argued.

"Why hide the existence of a daughter?" Jerry asked.

"Why hide the existence of yourself?"  He groaned in 
frustration.  "It doesn't add up, Jerry."

"There's more."

David's eyebrows rose incredulously.

"Once I became aware of the indexing anomaly, I began to 
examine Dr. Luder's life as well."  The next image he brought 
forth was grainy, but still recognizable.  "This is Margaret 
Williams," he stated flatly.  Once more, Dr. Charles's face 
gazed at them from the display.  "The pattern appears to be 
the same, although the patching of the indexing is less 
sophisticated.  Whoever she is, she has grown more proficient 
at covering her tracks over the years.  What she hasn't grown 
is older.  If I were to render an opinion, I would suspect 
her age is the thing she's hiding."

David fell heavily back into his chair, silently 
contemplating the three unmistakably familiar versions of his 
mentor.  "Does it go back any further?" he finally asked.

"Possibly," Jerry affirmed, "although I've been unable to 
reliably access those records.  Any more aggressive intrusion 
into data that old is likely to draw attention."  He 
shrugged.  "The estates of the two earlier identities have 
never been dissolved.  They're held in trust by a historical 
preservation society.  I suspect that organization may 
actually be a front that allows her to keep the properties 
she has accumulated.  At any rate, it gives us a place to 
begin looking."  He paused while the estate locations printed 
out.  

"Why the hardcopy?" David asked.

"This console is extremely secure," he stated.  "Our pads are 
not.  Whatever mystery she may be hiding, I don't believe she 
poses any danger, do you?"

David shook his head.

"So, for now, we'll keep her secret."  He folded the small 
document, and slipped it into his pocket.  "Welcome to the 
wonderful world of high technology."

-------------------------------------------------------------

Margaret Williams had lived in Boston.  It was the closer of 
the two estates, therefore the logical first choice to 
investigate.

David managed to hide his agitation while teaching the 
Thursday morning lab section, then dismissed the students a 
day early for the trimester break.  He used the midmorning to 
locate the trimester exam Dr. Charles had been composing for 
the afternoon lecture, reworked it as a take home exam, 
surprising himself by adding several brutal questions, and 
then likewise dismissed the rest of her students.

Jerry had both their packs already provisioned when he 
returned to their apartment, and they set off without delay 
for the tube station, the sun still well up in the sky.

The muted lighting in the tubes encouraged quiet 
contemplation, the tunnel lights flashing by hypnotically.   
David stared at them endlessly, trying to fill in the missing 
pieces of the puzzle that Dr. Charles had become.  

"If what you say is true," he began hesitantly, "and she's 
had three identities, all isolated and private, why change 
now?  Why would she choose to become so familiar with us?"

"Perhaps it had little to do with choice, and more to do with 
circumstance," Jerry hypothesized.  "Or maybe whatever she 
has needed to hide is passing.  If indeed her secret is a 
remarkable longevity, there would be nothing left to hide if 
it were drawing to a close."

David found himself pained by the thought of Dr. Charles's 
aging and death.  "Then why disappear again?"

"You're arguing the other side now, David," Jerry observed.

"I know," he sighed.  "What if she's not in Boston?" he 
continued, after a beat.

"We learn what we can, and we move on to Seattle," Jerry 
reassured.  "There are sure to be clues."

"And if we don't find her in either place?"

"You know her better than you realize, David.  If she can be 
found, it's likely to be your insight that locates her."

David expelled a harsh breath, a snorting sound indicating 
his limited confidence in Jerry's prediction.  "I don't know 
her at all.  She wouldn't permit it."  A shadow of the 
weekend's anger crossed his face.

"The last time we rode the tube," Jerry offered, in an 
apparent change of subject, "was the day we went to New 
York."

Warm memories of the day at Yankee stadium dispelled the 
brief moment's ire.  Shortly, David understood his point.  
"So what, then?" he asked.  "We scour every stadium in the 
East?"

Jerry bowed his head, in tacit agreement.  "Possibly.  Or 
possibly, in the end, we'll simply have to wait for her to 
return on her own."

David turned back to the window, rejecting that option.  "I'm 
not willing to let her slip away, become somebody else, and 
never know.  She owes me more than that."

"Does she?" Jerry asked.  "She's already given you a great 
deal, evidently at some cost to herself," he continued, in 
mild rebuke.  "Why does she owe you anything more?"

"Because," David grated out, glancing away from the window.  
But he stopped, not speaking again for several long breaths.

"We're not done," he finally sighed.  "We've got so much more 
to do.  I don't just mean the research, although we're on the 
cusp of something, I'm sure of it.  But," he faltered.  
"*I'm* not done.  She's changing me Jerry.  I don't know into 
what, but, it's not finished."  He laughed, an edgy sound 
that lacked humor.  "A year ago, could you have imagined me 
entertaining the notion that someone of her appearance is 
over a hundred years old?" he asked, inflection rising along 
with his eyebrows.  "People don't age that slowly.  I 
wouldn't have given it a second thought.  But now... Now I'm 
just trying to figure out how it happened.  Using herself as 
a test subject in some other branch of her research, or some 
bizarre combination of environmental conditions... I'm 
wracking my brains trying to rationalize it, because I'm no 
longer capable of just dismissing it," he concluded 
emphatically.  "It feels strange to think this way.  
Exhilarating, but frightening too.  It was so much easier 
when I was still certain I knew exactly how the world worked.  
But she -- she thinks this way all the time.  I need her to -
- to help me learn how to live like this.  How to, I don't 
know, maintain a direction when nothing's quite concrete."

His confession spent, he fell silent once again.  The tube 
speed changed, decelerated, indicating their proximity to 
Washington.  When they emerged above ground, the sun had 
lowered in the sky, piercing his eyes with an angled orange 
bite.  He stood, lowering his pack from the overhead racks, 
searching for his goggles to cut the glare.  He found them in 
the third side-pocket he opened.  Something cold and smooth 
brushed against his fingers as he groped in the tight 
compartment to retrieve the goggles, and as he pulled them 
out, he found several small metal tubes pooled in one of the 
eyepieces.  Memories of their trip to the mountains flooded 
back, as he held one of the small tubes up to the window.  He 
had never told Dr. Charles about that adventure.  He polished 
the closed base of the tube absently on his pants leg, while 
he thought about her penchant for ancient documents.  She 
would have liked to know about that place.  When he found 
her, he'd tell her about it, he promised himself.  Pouring 
the rest of the tubes into his hand, he bent to return them 
to the side pocket of his pack, pulling the flap open as wide 
as possible to admit his overfilled hand.  Another souvenir 
from that day glinted at him, and as the tubes tinkled and 
clinked their way to rest in the bottom of the pocket, he 
carefully snaked the tiny cross and chain out of their 
resting place.  

Abruptly, he stuffed the slender necklace into his pocket, 
draped the goggles around his neck, and hoisted his pack.  
"Come on, Jerry," he said, gazing at the battered skyline 
visible outside.  "We're getting off at the next stop."

-------------------------------------------------------------

In the dream, he was back again.  She still couldn't see his 
face clearly, but more of him had emerged each time she 
dreamt, and she now readily recognized his presence.  The 
dream was tranquil, this time.  She was sitting high atop a 
grassy knoll, watching a city laid out in the valley below 
like a living map, when his lanky form appeared, walking 
toward her out of the low sun.  She rose to greet him, 
squinting, wishing he weren't backlit, so that his face would 
not be in shadow.  

He strode to her, embracing her without hesitation.  Somehow, 
it felt natural to return the embrace, to run her hands 
through his thick brown hair.  Brown, she mused to herself.  
She'd never been able to tell, before.

"I've missed you," he declared.

She chuckled.  "I'll try to get more sleep," she promised.

She felt his answering chuckle rumble against her chest, felt 
the petal soft touch of lips as he bent his head to the 
juncture of her neck and shoulder.  She could smell him, too.  
The scent pierced her with its familiarity, cutting her loose 
from time and slamming her backward.

"Oh!" she cried.  "Oh, my God!"

He gripped her tighter, the hand in her hair preventing her 
from raising her eyes to look at him.

"No," he said, when she strained against him.  "Don't look."

"Why?"

"Scent is primitive, instinctive.  But I don't think you 
remember my face yet."  She felt something hot and wet drop 
onto her shoulder, and realized he must be weeping with the 
joy and pain of her imperfect recognition.

"It's been so long," she whispered.  "I've tried to hold onto 
you, but it seems like only the horror remains."  She filled 
her hungry hands with his arms and back, buried her face in 
his chest, letting touch and smell recall what her eyes would 
not.  "Please" she pleaded silently to whoever might be 
listening, "Please don't let me wake up."

The light gradually faded as they rocked together, and when 
she next opened her eyes hardwood slats had replaced the 
grass beneath her feet.  He pulled away, then, and crossed to 
a sofa recessed in the dim apartment they now occupied.  In 
the way of dreams, she didn't question the transition.  She 
was assaulted by the dusty man-smell of a bachelor's home, 
the long absent tang of hydrocarbons all pervasive.

"These were good times," he said from the shadows.  "Better 
than we knew."

"Are you a dream or a vision?" she asked, feeling bereft 
without his touch.

"What's the difference?" he asked.

"Hope," she whispered.  After a few breaths she added, "I'm 
so, so tired."

She followed him to the sofa, reaching for the comfort of his 
hand.  "When does the nightmare start?" she asked.

"You're sleeping in a safe place tonight," he promised.  
"It's why I can tell you."

"Tell me what?"

"From here, I can see the past, I can see the future, I can 
see all the paths laid out.  There's something you have to 
do."

She tensed, afraid of the coming revelation.  He folded her 
hand tighter in his warm palm.  "It didn't end with us.  It 
was only postponed.  But it will end soon.  That's why you 
dream what you dream.  It's a gift of your condition, one 
you've tried to ignore.  But there are too many this time, 
and they've invaded your dreams."

"No," she denied.  "I don't want it."

"You have it.  Don't turn away from the truth now, after all 
this time," he pleaded.  "You already know."

"I can't be around people, knowing.  Seeing death on them, 
waiting for it to come true, anticipating a loss that can't 
be prevented.  I don't want that truth, that life."  Her eyes 
began to sting, and she looked toward the ceiling, willing 
herself not to cry.  "All I want is to follow them.  Follow 
you.  God, I miss you."  

He gathered her into his side, tucking her head under his 
chin.  "It's not certain yet, that's why you don't see it 
when you wake.  You can still save them all."

"How?" she sighed, "How, when I don't know what's coming?"

"It's the same thing that's always been coming.  You have to 
remember.  And you have to keep working.  I don't know 
exactly how you figure it out, I only know that you can.  
That you're close now, very close, but there are still paths 
where you miss the signs.  Promise me you'll pay attention," 
he pleaded.  "Promise me."

"We were a team when we won before," she despaired.  "I'm 
alone now."

"Listen to me," he insisted.  Gently, he leaned against her, 
bending her back onto the sofa, the arm around her shoulders 
supporting her and adjusting her position, the other reaching 
down to hook her knees and raise her legs from the floor.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Making sure you remember this dream," he said, rocking 
slightly side to side as he insinuated first one knee, then 
the other, between her legs.  His face was still in shadow, 
but her body quickened to the memory of his weight above her, 
the memory of holding him in the cradle of her hips.  He 
caged her face with his forearms, leaning down to whisper 
directly in her ear.

"Listen to me.  You're not alone.  There's another.  You can 
trust him, he's one of ours.  Show him, teach him, and when 
the crisis is past, he'll take your place."

"Who?"

"You'll know him.  He'll give you what I gave you."

"I don't understand," she began, but he hushed her with a 
finger to her lips.

"There's not much more time, and there's one more thing I 
have to tell you, one more thing you have to remember.  A man 
named Fellig.  He has a message for you.  He says 'you look 
instead.' Promise me you'll remember these three things." He 
risked a few seconds to press a kiss to the sensitive skin 
behind her ear before repeating the litany.  "First, you have 
to save them," he said, punctuating his recital with a grind 
of his hips.  "Say it."

"I have to save them," she repeated breathlessly.

"There's another.  He'll be you ally," he said, grinding 
harder.  "Say it."

"I have an ally," she said, moaning slightly in response to 
his movements.

"Remember Fellig.  Fellig says 'you look instead.'"  She felt 
him trembling as he thrust against her again, and was as 
moved by the evidence of his raw emotion as by the heat 
pooling at her center.  "Say it."

"Fellig says I should look instead," she repeated, turning 
her head to capture his lips in a desperate kiss.  Around 
him, the apartment was beginning to glow, the details of the 
far walls and furnishings washing out in the encroaching 
light.  "No!" she wailed, "Not yet!"

But she felt herself waking, felt the first preconscious 
awareness of footsteps and voices in the room with her.  
Taking his face in her hands she held him in front of her, 
determined to see his face clearly before it was too late.  A 
band of light fell across his eyes as he turned his head, and 
though she hadn't time to see his whole face, she drowned in 
a pair of gold-flecked hazel eyes just before she woke. 

-------------------------------------------------------------

If she could see her own eyes, as David did, she would have 
seen the hard glitter of unshed tears filming over their blue 
depths.

She blinked, slowly, twice, as she woke, and the moisture 
pooled, ran down her cheek.

"You're making a habit of this, David," she said, when she 
recognized his face in the shadowed chapel.

"I'm sorry," he said softly.  "We were worried about you."

She spied Jerry, standing quietly at a respectful distance, 
as she stretched and sat up on the hard pew.

"You're crying," David said quietly, daring to brush one of 
the tears away.  "Were you having another nightmare?"

"No," she sighed.  "Not this time.  This time...  This time I 
didn't want to wake up."

"Oh."  He sat motionless in the heavy silence with her, 
waiting for her to remember to be angry, waiting to be sent 
away.  Instead, she only asked, "How did you find me?"

In answer, he dug deeply into his front pocket, retrieving 
the tiny necklace and letting it dangle between them.  "I've 
had this for a while," he explained.  "I found it in the 
mountains, last year, and I'd forgotten about it.  But when I 
saw it again, I thought of you.  I thought of what you've 
told me about what your belief gives you.  You were so 
troubled the last time I saw you..." he trailed off.  After a 
moment, he continued with a slight shrug.  "It was a hunch.  
This is the only church I actually know about."  

"It's a cathedral, actually," she commented.  "But you have 
good instincts."  She gave him a small smile.  "There are 
congregations with churches thinly scattered everywhere 
there's enough population.  But so few cathedrals remain.  I 
came for the solitude."

Cocking his head slightly to the side, he considered the tiny 
talisman hanging between them.  "Maybe you should have this," 
he said, extending his hand.  

Reaching, she took it from him, gingerly handling the fine 
chain, studying the minute cross.  It couldn't be, and yet it 
was.  Hers.  Lost for so long, and now returned to her in the 
most unexpected way.  "He'll give you what I gave you," her 
dream had told her.  She tried to work the clasp, but found 
her hands trembling.  Not a dream, then, a premonition.  The 
time had long past when she would dismiss such an idea.

"Let me help," David said, taking the chain gently back.  
Acquiescing, she turned her back to him, and lifted her hair 
away from her neck.  "There," he said, dropping his hands 
when he was done.

She turned to face forward again, staring at the distressed 
finish of the crucifix propped in the corner.  The long 
absent feeling of the cross between her thumb and forefinger 
was still familiar, she found, still soothing.  She worried 
the fine ridge at the juncture of the cross-piece while she 
considered the irony.  *This* boy, she had to teach history, 
intrigue, distrust.  Lessons of the past, and all that.  It 
was not an education he would embrace, she felt sure.

"David," she began, resolutely, "there are some things I have 
to tell you."

"I think I already know," he interjected.  "Some of it, 
anyway."

She lifted her eyebrow, curious as to what he thought he 
knew.

"I wasn't part of your plans, when you came to South Eastern, 
was I?  The protege you were looking for wasn't a real 
student.  You were just laying the groundwork to become 
someone else someday.  It's probably awkward for you, having 
me around, when you're going to have to vanish eventually."  
He took a deep breath.  "I just want you to know, I won't 
tell anyone."

"Tell anyone what, David?"

"That you're really Dr. Luder.  And someone named Margaret 
Williams, too."

She nodded once, looking over at Jerry.  He bowed his head 
slightly, acknowledging her suspicion that his skills had 
unearthed her past identities.

"Actually David," she said, "I was looking for you all along.  
I just didn't know it until now."

Unable to tease out the meaning of her remark, he instead 
asked the question that had been plaguing him since Jerry 
first revealed her secret.  "How old are you, anyway?"

"Are you sure you're ready for the truth?" she asked.  "It's 
going to seem implausible.  And I have no science to support 
it."

He nodded gravely.  "Yes, I'm ready.  I want to believe."

She laughed a dry, mirthless chuckle.  "Voices from the 
past," she said cryptically.  "I was born before it all began 
David, in 1964.  I was part of the resistance.  The name I 
was given by my parents was Dana Katherine Scully."  She 
watched him carefully school his astonished expression back 
into one of consideration and acceptance.  "And my being over 
200 years old is the easiest of the things I'm going to have 
to tell you."