The Day After Series
Pieces
By: Jenn Nistor

Disclaimer: The character Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, And Margaret Scully are the property of Chris Carter, Fox, and 1013 productions. They have been used with out permission, no copy right infringement is intended.

Notes: This is a new story in my "Maybe Tomorrow" series. Actually this is a new series following after it known as..."The Day After". But to make those of you feel better, you can call it Maybe Tomorrow IX. If you haven't read the previous stories I think you will be okay. This one sort of stands by its self, or at least it could. It does refer to different things in my other stories, but nothing really important .. . . . . . .

All you need to know is that in 1997 Mulder and Scully were separated, not on very good terms. Three years later they were both called in to investigate the same case, but that didn't turn out well. Scully went back to Memphis and Mulder to DC. The X-Files were then closed and by a chance of fate Mulder was sent to Memphis and pared with Scully. She was depressed, she lost her fiancé, they admitted that they were in love, but never really acted on it. Scully was shot and almost died, Mulder felt like he suddenly lost Samantha.

You may want to read "I Call You by Name" the first in this new series. Also I'm trying a new style. I had a really good idea so I thought I'd try it. Bare with me

Summery: A shallow grave, revealing the remains of a young woman, is discovered outside a small farming community in southern Illinois. Mulder and Scully are called in to investigate, but when Scully discovers the woman's tragic secret she finds herself facing a decision that could changes hers and Mulder's life forever. (Classification X A MSR)

The Days After II: "Pieces" 1/3
a.k.a. Maybe Tomorrow IX
By Jenn Nistor (Jenn6092@aol.com)

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"Defeat,
the power above in which we stand was gained by the others hand.
Pieces and pieces scatter the ground.
Peace is only a single restless sound.
My brothers lie at my feat,
my dreams a desecrate. . . ." -Roberts "A Stone Throw"
***************
Part One "Fragile Object"

January 18, 2001 '8:18 A.M.'
FBI Headquarters
Washington DC

Scully tapped her pencil lightly on her desk. 'What's taking so long?' she wondered, glancing back at the clock above her desk for the tenth time in the last minute. Skinner had called Mulder in to set the rules and guidelines down for their next case and time was running out. They had a plane to catch at 9:30. There was no way they were going to make it if he didn't hurry.

She was just about to ring Skinners office when Mulder came running through the door.

"Hurry, get your stuff and lets go." he cried, grabbing his jacket of the stand and his brief case off the desk..

"Your one to talk." Scully mumbled. "I've been waiting over an hour for you and if we miss this flight you are going to have to go on your own because I'm not waiting around for the next one." she grabbed her purse and quickly followed him out the door.

Mulder laughed. "Skinner wouldn't shut up. He kept going on and on about my not being disciplined enough and if one things goes wrong I'm going to be facing a long term suspension." he pulled out his car keys. "Finally after he gave me this really long lecture on proper conduct he glanced at the clock and started screaming at me about missing my flight. I swear, I can't win with either of you."

"Listen." Scully paused outside the car. "I asked Skinner to talk to you." she closed her eyes, waiting for his loud outburst, but it never came. "Mulder--?" she opened her eyes and found him grinning. "What? I didn't think he'd keep you over an hour."

He shook his head. "No, it wasn't that. I just think it's funny that you asked Skinner to talk to me and didn't do it yourself. Did you think I wouldn't listen to you."

"The thought has crossed my mind Mulder." She replied, climbing into the passenger seat. "Besides, Skinner asked me if I had any concerns about this investigation and I told him that it might me a little too personal for you."

"Personal?"

She nodded. "Every time we investigate a case like this you end up leaving me behind and doing all the dirty work. I just don't think I'm ready to be left alone this soon after my accident."

Mulder sighed and started the car. "I asked Skinner to take you off this case, but he refused. I won't leave you alone. I may be stubborn but not stupid, I'm still worried about your condition. It's only been two and a half months."

"I know, but don't be over protective. You don't have to go to the other extreme."

"Me be over protective? You must have mistaken me for someone else?" Mulder joked.

Scully smiled and slid down in her seat. "You better speed up or we'll really miss the flight. At this point I don't think it would be such a good idea."

"What ever you say." Mulder agreed and slammed his foot on the accelerator.

**************
Marybell, Illinois
3:12 P.M.
County Coroner's Office

"Okay agent Scully. She's all ready for you." Dr. Avery said, walling from his office. "When you get finished, write up the report and slip it under my door. I'm going to take your partner and Lt. Hawthorn out to the site where our Jane Doe was found."

Scully nodded and quickly tied her hair back and pulled one the surgical hat. "Is there anything I should be looking for?"

He shrugged. "The woman was pretty beaten up. Most of her teeth were missing, her hair had been pulled out." he led her into the room. "One of her arms was completely severed from the body and well." he motioned to the body. "Any defining characteristics have pretty much been beaten away."

"Ouch." Scully grimaced when she caught sight of the victims body. "This will take me a while. Thank you Dr. Avery."

The doctor nodded and quickly left, leaving Scully alone with the victim. Pulling on her surgical gloves, she picked up the scalpel and quickly opened up the victims chest. She wasn't all that surprised to find every single rib crushed, but as she looked closer she noticed that several of the bones had been replaced with some kind of synthetic bone.

Gently removing a fragment of bone from the victims rib cage, she placed it on a small slide and placed it off to the side. She quickly removed the victims heart and began making her way through the muscle.

"Want some help?" a voice came from behind.

Scully jumped, and stumbled backwards into the arms of a young man whom she guess to be in his late twenties. His long black hair was tied back into a pony tail and his right eye was covered with a black patch. If she hadn't known any better she could have sworn that he was the spitting image of Captain hook in Peter Pan.

"Who are you?" she asked, straightening herself up. "And what are you doing in here?"

The man grinned and extended his hand. "Michael Finch. I'm the county coroners assistant." he pulled on a pair of gloves. "I figured that you'd want some help with this one, so I canceled my almost completely free schedule and jogged on over here to help."

Scully laughed. "Dr. Avery said that you were unavailable to help so I figured I'd be doing this myself." she motioned to the body. "I'm sort of glad I don't have too."

"Is this the Jane Doe they found on the Stevenson property two days ago?"

She nodded and turned back to the victim. "Yes, and so far I've found that several of the bones making up the victims rib cage have been replaced with some sort of plastic bone and the other have been crushed by what I would guess to be some sort of wooden object, possibly a baseball bat."

"Were all of her organs intact?" Michael asked, stepping up behind her.

Scully nodded. "So far, but I've only done her upper chest, I haven't gotten to the lower part of her body." she handed him the scalpel. "Would you mind? I'd like to take a look at the bone fragment."

Michael accepted the instrument and started an across the victims stomach. "So why was the FBI called it?" he asked. "Usually the local police are the officials handling the cases like this."

"Honestly I have no idea." she replied, placing the slide down under the microscope. "Our superior just told us to get our butts to Marybell. This just seems too much like a routine homicide to get us involved."

"What do you mean? Aren't you VC?"

Scully laughed and peered through the small eye piece. "Not exactly." she replied and moved the slide into focus. "Actually Agent Mulder and I work under the VC, but we work in an independent branch."

"Which would be?" Michael asked, pulling aside the skin to reveal a hole the size of a baseball in the victims stomach. "Ouch, Agent Scully I think you should have a look at this."

Scully moved away from the microscope and over to the table. "Was there a bullet entrance or anything?" she asked.

He shook his head. "No, just an ugly purple patch." he winced. "This poor girl, I can't believe that someone would do something like this."

"I see this all of the time. That's one bad thing about working with the X-Files."

"X-Files?"

"Yeah." she turned away and walked back over to the microscope. "That's the division we work for, but usually we aren't called in for cases like this. I still can't figure it out."

Michael made his way to the victims head. "I sure hope you catch the sons-of-bitches that did this."

"Me to--" Scully was about to agree when a thought suddenly occurred to her. "Would you mind if I took over? This is an FBI investigation and I'm not really supposed to be letting anyone else do this."

He nodded and backed away. "No problems. I'll just assist."

"Start sowing her up so I can turn her over." Scully instructed and gently lifted the woman's head. Sure enough there was a small incision in the back of her neck. Careful not to damage what ever might lie under it, she cut away the skin and picked up a probe off the table.

"What are you doing?" Michael asked.

"I'm. . ." she grinned as the probe locked with something. Gently, she extracted the small object and hurried over to the microscope. "Just as I thought." she muttered.

"What? Would you mind telling me what that is?"

Scully motioned for him to keep quiet. "I'm not sure, but agent Mulder and I have been investigating cases of Alien abductions and many times we find small implants in the backs of the so-called victims necks."

"Do you really believe in stuff like that?" Michael asked, peering at the object from over her shoulder. "Some how I don't find that plausible. I mean this is the deadest location on earth. I doubt UFO's would be staking us out."

"I honestly don't know what to think." she turned away. "I'm going to finish this up. You don't have to stay."

"All right, good luck."

Scully smiled and watched him leave. She sure was going to need all the luck she could get.

***************
9:15 P.M.

Scully yawned and placed her small tape recorder down on the examining table. It had been close to five ours since Mulder had gone to the crime scene with the local authorities, but he still had not called to fill her in on what was happening.

Quickly sliding the body back into the freezer, she finished fill out the papers and hurried out of the room. She was just about to slip the papers under the coroners door when Mulder came jogging around the corner.

"Finished?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yeah, just. How about you?"

He shrugged and leaned back up against the wall. "I don't know. The scene was pretty muddy, it was hard to find much evidence on who the girl was or how she was killed. I was hoping you'd be able to fill me in."

"Well. . ." she motioned for him to follow her back down the hall and into the examining room. "For starters she was one of our governments victims." she he grabbed a small vile off the table and handed it too him. "I found that in her neck, along with synthetic bones in her chest."

Mulder placed the vile back on the table. "What kind of bones?"

"I don't know. The material used wasn't familiar. My guess is that it's some type of plastic. I sent a sample back to agent Pendral in DC. He agreed to analyze it and send us the results when he was finished."

"How about her identity or cause of death?"

"Well, you can rule out natural death and suicide. Every single bone in her upper body was shattered. At first I thought some sort of wooden object caused it, but when I started examining her stomach I found traces of Radium."

"Radium?" Mulder pulled up a chair and sat down to examine the notes.

"It's a white metallic element, deadly in it's purest form. It's broken down into radium chloride and radium bromide and is usually used in the treatment of cancer." she paused. "No one really knew the effects of radium until hundreds of workers started dying from radiation. I was surprised to find the purest form in her body. It just eats away the flesh until nothing is left."

"Then why are we in here?" Mulder asked, suddenly alarmed.

"That's the strange thing." Scully continued. "It didn't seem to be active. I can't figure it out. It reacts with acids and yet it was digested. We're not at any risk."

"So she died from radiation?"

Scully nodded. "That would explain the loss of hair and teeth. The ugly purple bruises and lesions. And it would also explain the disintegration of her bones and some organs. But there was something else too that could be another factor in her death."

"What?"

"I found dirt in her lungs. She was buried alive and suffocated."

"Okay." Mulder stood up. "We know that some one killed her by some how giving her radium and we know that she's not from around here." he paused, taking a quick glance at the photograph.. "She's also got the implant. . ."

"My guess is that our government was testing some sort of shield against these deadly elements and when she finally died they decided to dump her here to stray away suspicion upon themselves. What better way to keep law official busy while they mess around with innocent people right under their noses."

"That sounds about right." Mulder agreed. "Normally I'd say it was something that science couldn't explain, but this..." he shook his head. "this is just too typical to be anything else. There's just something about that woman that is familiar."

Scully nodded and leaned back against the wall. "I know. I still can't figure out why we were called in when the body was found."

"I know. I thought it was kind of strange too, but now I can see why." he paused. "But we were called in before we know any of this so someone with a higher power must have wanted us to find something."

"Like who? One of your trader connections or someone like Cancer Man? Personally I think that we should do some DNA tests and find out who this person is before we jump to any conclusions about her identity. She could have worked in a lab somewhere, exposed herself to the element radium and in order to protect themselves from exposure, the lab dragged her out here and buried her alive."

"Maybe." Mulder yawned. "I don't know about you, but I'd like to go get some dinner then go to sleep. We can get up early and go over all of this again in the morning."

Scully nodded and grabbed her jacket off the chair. "Sounds good, lead the way."

***************
Crime Scene
10:12 P.M.

"Find it! If anyone finds it we'll all be exposed." the man dressed in a long trench coat cried, as his associates kicked around through the dirt.

"We're looking, but it's impossible." a young man holding a bright torch light cried. "The rain probably washed away all evidence of our existence."

"Find it! Find it now!"

The men continued to look, but after another hour they gave up and headed back towards the car. No one noticed the small pouch lying on the ground under a bush, nor did they notice the fragile object tangled around it.

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