"What line shouldn't be crossed?" Michael asked.

"Knowing too much."

Michael snorted, "You don't know anything."

Frohike frowned. "Look kid, I've lost friends to this. Good friends. Good people." He looked at Alex. "A few years ago a hacker friend of mine actually managed to hack into the encrypted files about the Roswell incident--"

Michael leaned forward intently. "Encrypted in what way?"

"Symbols. Weird stuff. But that's not the point."

"Yeah it is."

"No, it isn't. The point is, as soon as he hacked into the file he became a wanted man. He didn't live long after that, and that zip disk left a trail of blood. Scully's sister and Mulder's father were murdered within a week. Scully and Mulder came close to biting the dust as well."

Alex grimaced. "Who is this Mulder guy?"

"A good man who's also lost to the cause. I told you. There are killers out there," Frohike warned.

"What happened to the disk?" Michael asked.

Frohike shrugged. "Don't know. It was probably destroyed years ago. It wasn't worth so many lives."

"So you never translated any of the symbols?"

Frohike frowned. "Me? No. Scully did though, or rather she found an old Indian who translated for her."

Alex and Michael looked at each other. Frohike caught the look between them. "You've seen these symbols haven't you? Somewhere in Roswell?"

Michael leaned back in his chair. "We didn't say that."

"Sure you didn't"

Michael stood, "Well I'm done talking. Guess I'll be going."

"Hey!" Alex called after him. "You never said why you came here in the first place."

"You're right. I didn't," Michael said as he closed the door behind him.

* * *

Scully watched the waitress glance away nervously. The girl wouldn't make eye contact for any extended length of time. That frequently indicated evasion.

"So you didn't see anything happen the day of the shooting here at the Crashdown?" Scully asked.

Maria shrugged. "Saw a guy pull a gun. I screamed, covered my head and screamed some more. What else do you want to know?"

"Nothing unusual?"

"No." Then Maria blinked. "Well, a lot of people were really weirded out by it. I mean, like seriously freaked. I was. I mean, like for a moment, I almost thought my best friend Liz was shot. I saw all this red stuff and started overreacting. I mean, I ALMOST lived up to my reputation as drama queen." She rolled her eyes. "Well, anyway, it was no biggie. Liz wasn't hurt at all. Just ketchup. Funny how when you're wigging out like that, you can almost convince yourself you see things that didn't even come close to happening. . . Like if you're almost in a car wreck, afterward you're so obsessed by what ALMOST happened that you keep seeing this picture in your head of like being in a car wreck only you weren't. You just ALMOST were. . . " Scully mentally tuned out the waitress' rambling. Mulder hated when she did that. She remembered not too long ago when he had set up one of his elaborate slide shows on some supposedly paranormal incident--that time she thought it was crop circles-- and she had deliberately annoyed him by spending an inordinate amount of time drizzling dressing on her salad. He had watched her as he flipped through the slides then blithely announced, "And I'm standing here with no pants," just to see if she noticed. She pretended she hadn't.

Funny, the games people play, she thought. The patterns they fall into. She instructed herself to pay attention to the girl's nervous rambling. Every word the waitress said was reasonable even if the way she said it was somewhat convoluted. The simple fact of the matter is that the girl's explanation made sense, was probable, and even logical. What else was there?

Scully felt she was looking too hard. She wasn't being cool or rational--hallmarks of her personality. That realization upset Scully on some fundamental level. She was losing control. She hated to lose control. She had always been determined to be rational. Restrained. Authoritative. Someone who could and should be respected. Not a person ruled by need, want, desire, or fear. She should hear a logical explanation for an event and believe it.

Wasn't it Nietzsche who said that when you look long into the abyss, it looks into you? If she kept looking into a void filled with her own need to find Mulder alive, safe and whole would she not soon find herself seeing links created only by her own desperation? Answers based in her own personal fiction? If she lost perspective what good would she be to Mulder? To herself? To. . .

She took a deep breath and told herself yet again to concentrate on the matter at hand. She needed her concentration if she was to maintain control.

"Is there anything else you might want?" the waitress asked. "Maybe an Alien Goo smoothie?"

Scully looked slightly bilious. "No, thank you."

Maria shrugged and walked in the direction of the kitchen just as Michael pushed through the front door. He caught her eye and followed her into the locker area.

"I need your car," he said without preamble.

"My car?"

"That's what I said didn't I?"

"Where are you going?"

"Out."

"Not good enough. Out where?"

He looked frustrated. "Out of town."

"Not gonna happen."

"Maria, come on," he insisted. "It's not like I haven't borrowed it before."

"Okay, let's review for a moment. First time you borrowed it--or should I say abducted me--you blew up the car battery."

"You insisted that I try to fix it."

"Second time you 'borrowed' my car we ended up in the middle of no where, lost that orb or whatever--" She stopped. "On second thought, losing that orb wasn't a half bad idea. Too bad it didn't stay lost."

He glared at her. "Are you going to let me borrow the car or not?"

"One condition."

"What?"

"Where the car goes, I go."

* * *

Scully turned to see Frohike walk into the café with a gangly teenager. "Alex Whitman, meet Special Agent Dana Scully," Frohike introduced.

She gave Frohike a puzzled glance, then smiled and shook hands with Alex.

"Alex is the one who bugged your motel room," Frohike explained.

Scully withdrew her hand and Alex turned a humiliated shade of red. "Is there a particular reason you bugged my room?" she asked.

"Hey, Alex!" Maria called through the kitchen window.

"In here! Now!" Michael yelled.

Alex shuffled off. Scully asked Frohike, "Why the spying?"

"Apparently, he's a budding Lone Gunman."

Scully arched a brow then shook her head. Frohike frowned and said, "The other two are leaving."

Scully looked over her shoulder just in time to see Maria follow Michael out of the building.

Alex left the kitchen. "Uh. . ." he started, "Would you guys like something to eat or something? Looks like I've been elected to mind the café."

"You work here?" Frohike asked.

"Not usually."

Frohike opened the menu, "Well I'll have Skywalker Surprise with a side order of Bladerunning Fries, an Alien Goo smoothie, with a slice of Men In Blackberry Pie. What about you, Scully?"

"A salad would be nice, thank you. I'm not sure what sci-fi reference that would be attached to."

"Um... sure," Alex answered trying to write down the orders on the palm of his hand since he had forgotten to ask Maria for the order pad. He looked distracted as he exited toward the kitchen.

Frohike asked, "Hey kid, why WERE you spying on Scully?"

Alex looked up. "Oh. . .uh. . .I date this tall, blonde, long legged gorgeous alien and I was just sort of looking out for her."

Frohike burst out laughing. "Every technogeek's dream come true. Good one, kid."

"Yeah, uh-huh," Alex muttered as he walked away. As he entered the kitchen, Tess attacked. "What the hell were you thinking saying that?"

Alex blinked. "What? About Isabel?"

"Don't you realize what kind of danger--"

Alex shook his head in disbelief as he looked for the stuff that Frohike ordered. "Chill," he told Tess. "Did they believe me? No. Were they GOING to believe me? No. So everything is fine. Look, sometimes if you say something totally unbelievable people actually don't believe you. Imagine that."

Tess frowned and glanced out the kitchen window. "They could have believed you."

"Why do you say that?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe because she--" Tess pointed at Scully "--has had more alien encounters than both of us put together and I'm willing to bet that we blow the grading curve with the number of bonafide aliens that we know. After all, I am one."

Alex shrugged and opened the refrigerator. He handed Tess a head of lettuce. "Make a salad, and get over it already. No harm done. I was just joking and that's the way they took it."

"It wasn't funny."