Title: Time Flies
Spoilers: Sometime in season 5, after TR&TB and before Folie A
Deux. 
Category: CXA
Summary: The Doctor, Martha, Mulder, & Scully find themselves in
danger as they work together to solve an X-File. Timeline for
DW:(new series) early season 3, after Daleks in Manhattan/EotD
Keywords: M/S UST.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I own neither TXF nor Doctor Who, and none of their
associated characters.
Archive: Sure, but please ask first.
Feedback: Is welcomed at pomme_noire@hotmail.com
Author's Note: My apologies for any geographical inaccuracies
regarding Washington D.C.
Also, thanks again to belsum for her beta-ing awesomeness!

~~~~~~~
The Doctor, working with a haste born of desperation, managed at
last to disconnect the crucial remaining wire. Within seconds, the
ominous humming sound decreased in intensity. Then it finally
ceased altogether. The Doctor sighed heavily, relieved. He looked
up at Scully and Martha, but Scully wasted no time - she was
already almost running up the stairs and out of the house. Martha
met the Doctor's look. He raised his eyebrows, and they quickly
followed Scully out of the house.

As soon as they were outside, both Martha and the Doctor saw that
there was no one in the car, and that the passenger's side door was
open. The Doctor's hearts sank. He had been too late. Had Agent
Mulder-- but then he saw Scully bent over Mulder's prone form on
the ground a short distance away from the car.

Agent Mulder was lying facedown on the grass, unmoving. The Doctor
noted that his hands were holding onto the grass tightly - perhaps
an attempt to keep himself anchored there. He had also clearly been
sick, though thankfully it looked like he had managed to move far
enough that he hadn't landed in it when he fell. Mulder's partner
hardly seemed to notice as the Doctor arrived on the scene with
Martha. She was speaking quietly but urgently: "Mulder, can you
hear me? Are you all right?"

There was no response for a few moments, and the Doctor could see
Scully's anxiety and distress increase, though she tried to keep
herself under control. She had only looked up from him briefly, to
see that the Doctor and Martha were there. Then she had resumed her
complete focus on Mulder. Once again, the Doctor found himself
wondering what experiences these two had shared to knit them so
tightly together.

Just then, Agent Mulder groaned slightly, and his hold on the lawn
relaxed. "What happened?" He opened his eyes and turned his head
toward the sound of Scully's voice, then groaned again, his eyes
closing quickly.

"Just stay still, Mulder," Scully cautioned, gently touching the
back of his head. She glanced at the Doctor before answering his
question. "The machine somehow turned itself on while we were
taking it apart, but we managed to get it completely shut off." She
looked at the Doctor again, nervously. "We *did* get it completely
shut off, right?"

"I very much doubt it'll be a problem again," the Doctor assured
her. He was already thinking of the next step. "And there may even
be a way to persuade Mrs. Stewart to disassemble the rest, once she
feels better."

Mulder coughed and said, "I, uh, I'm sorry I didn't stay in the car
like I promised, Scully. I just - suddenly felt like I really
needed to get as far away from the house as I could." He opened his
eyes then and said wryly, "Guess that wasn't very far, was it?"

"That's hardly surprising, considering your concussion," Martha put
in gently.

Scully nodded. "Don't apologize for that, Mulder. If you were
already feeling like the machine was affecting you again before it
turned back on, I can't imagine how much worse it must have felt
afterwards." She looked troubled. "I'm sorry we took so long to
take the machine apart. If we'd been able to-"

Mulder interrupted her. "No, I know you were working as fast as you
could have, without causing an explosion." He took a deep breath.
"Think I could try to get up now?"

"Carefully," Scully replied. She held onto his hand tightly as he
started to stand up.

The Doctor moved forward slightly, ready to help if necessary - but
the two agents once again hardly seemed to notice him or Martha as
they concentrated on each other. He fought down another painful
rush of memory at the scene and turned away briefly to regain his
composure.

Slowly, Mulder stood up. He rubbed a hand across his face (smudging
it a bit with dirt as he did so) - and then his eyes widened. "If I
felt like this when the machine activated again, I doubt it was
exactly a bed of roses for Michael Davis or Jeanne Fisher."

Martha was serious as she met Scully's eyes. "I don't like to think
what this might've done to Jeanne, if she was still in the state we
saw her in last."

The Doctor rubbed his chin. "I'm not sure of the range of the
machine, but yeah, that certainly could have been very bad for
someone in her state." He blinked, and hastened to add, "Not that
it wasn't very bad for you, Agent Mulder, but--"

The man smiled. "I know what you meant." Then he cleared his
throat. "So... what was it, exactly, that caused it to activate
again?"

"Good question," the Doctor answered. "I think," and he paused,
gathering his thoughts, "that whatever being or force caused Mrs.
Stewart to develop this manic fixation on the machine wasn't
deterred by her hospitalization. I think it wanted her to continue
her work. And I think this time, it realized what use Mr. Stewart's
own psychic abilities could be, and so it tapped into his energy as
well. I think he was the one who came off worse this time, not his
wife. We'll need to check on him, too."

"Wait." Agent Scully was looking fairly skeptically at him. "Are
you saying that there's some... force that has been controlling
Mrs. Stewart, causing her mania, and now it has also taken control
of her husband?"

The Doctor blinked. "Yep. That about sums it up." He glanced at
Mulder in confusion, wondering what his partner found problematic
with that neat summary, only to see a small grin on his face.
Evidently he wasn't surprised in the least at this reaction from
her.

Scully heaved a sigh and shook her head. "Oookay. What's our next
move?"

They decided that it would be most effective to divide and conquer.
The Doctor wanted to check out Mrs. Stewart's work at the Museum of
Natural History. Agent Scully wanted to check up on Jeanne Fisher,
and Agent Mulder thought he could stand to visit the hospital
again-- and perhaps speak to Mr. Stewart while he was there. Scully
glared at him suspiciously, but agreed that that might be a good
idea. Martha seemed content to go with the Doctor, stating that she
hadn't seen all there was to see at the museum, anyway.

The four of them set off on their separate ways. Mulder loaned the
Doctor his car keys willingly enough, though he had asked after the
Doctor's own vehicle - to which the Doctor had made a vague
response that he'd left it somewhere near the Washington Monument
(which was true). Mulder had simply nodded at this, with a knowing
look that made the Doctor wonder. He had then asked if the Doctor
knew his way around the city, offering a map, which the Doctor had
politely declined.

"How long has it been since you've driven an actual car, Doctor?"
Martha asked as he got into the driver's seat.

"Ooh, a while," he replied. "Years and years. But you know, it's
like riding a bicycle." He turned the key in the ignition, then
looked at the gear shift. "Of course, my last car was a manual
transmission..." He grinned at his Companion as he put the car into
drive.

Martha raised her eyebrows and laughed. "Well, it can't be any
worse than how you drive the TARDIS," she said.

"Now, Miss Jones, just what do you mean by that statement?" he
demanded, mock-offended. He pulled out into the street, narrowly
missing the rear bumper on Agent Scully's car. Martha didn't
respond, other than what might have been a stifled groan. The
Doctor chose to ignore it. It *had* been a while since he'd driven
a car, but he was sure it would all come back to him in no time at
all.

The two travelers made it to the Smithsonian without too much
trouble - though the Doctor had to admit, after a few close calls
with other people on the road, that Washington D.C. was probably
not the best city in which to reenter the world of automobile
driving. When he said as much to Martha as they were pulling into a
parking place, she just shook her head and muttered something that
sounded like "Understatement of the year, that one."

They entered the cool, vaulted museum and headed for the area that
housed the dinosaur skeletons and fossils, and other such
prehistoric exhibits. The Doctor saw a woman who looked to be a
museum staff person, and he walked over, calling out, "Excuse me!
Do you work here?"

Martha stood next to him as the woman replied, "Yes, I do. Can I
help you?"

Pulling out the psychic paper once again, the Doctor held it up for
her to see and said briskly, "I'm looking for Mrs.-- er, Doctor
Anna Stewart. I have some important news for her."

Looking slightly surprised and flustered, the woman looked the
Doctor and Martha over, and then said, "I'm sorry that you came all
this way for nothing, sir, but Dr. Stewart is on vacation right
now." She paused. "Uh, you could leave the message at her office, I
guess."

The Doctor made a show of looking dissatisfied. "Well, I suppose
that will have to do," he said finally. Then he turned to Martha
and said with irritation, "That's the last time we make a trip
without having everything double-checked first, though." Martha
nodded, looking properly irritated as well. "We'll have to lodge a
complaint!"

The woman led them to a door marked "STAFF ONLY," and unlocked it
for them. "Dr. Stewart's office is the third one on the right."
Thankfully, she left after that. The Doctor had been rather hoping
they would have uninterrupted time to investigate.

"Right," the Doctor said, as soon as the door to the hallway closed
behind her. "Let's see what secrets Dr. Stewart might have
uncovered."

They went into Anna Stewart's office. Martha closed the door after
they were inside and turned on the light. It looked like no one had
been there for weeks - which matched up with what Evan had told
them about how long his wife had been away from work. "Aha," the
Doctor remarked, walking over to the large file folder that was
closed on top of her desk. He held it up for Martha to see - it had
a label on it that said "Ongoing - Do not file!"

"Looks promising," Martha agreed, and joined him as he opened the
folder.

The first thing that jumped out at the Doctor was a photo of a very
large, very odd bone... so odd, in fact, that he was willing to bet
it was not from any period of Earth's history. He said as much to
Martha as he examined it closely.

"Well, if it's not a dinosaur, what is it?" she asked, looking more
closely at the picture.

"Very good question," the Doctor replied. He handed her the photo
and began to rifle through the rest of the folder. What he read on
one report chilled him. "Oh, this is not good. This is really,
really, really, spectacularly not good."

"What?" Martha put down the photo and stared at him. "What is it,
Doctor?"

The Doctor put down the file, not noticing as it almost slid off
the desk onto the floor. He took off his glasses and began to pace
around the small room. "Why didn't I think of this before?! The
quantic energy - the fact that Mrs. Stewart was being controlled -
that she's a paleontologist..." He took a deep breath, stopped, and
met Martha's worried eyes. "That bone," he told her, "is from the
outside of a ship. A Tetranos ship, to be exact. They like to
decorate the prow of their ships with bones from their hunting
trophies, so that bone that Dr. Stewart's team uncovered is
probably some animal from their homeworld or one of the worlds they
take hunting trips to." He paused. "And they especially like to
hunt bipeds, since as quadrupeds, they think of themselves as
superior to any creature with only two legs. So the fact that
there's a Tetranos ship on Earth, even one that's buried, is really
not good."

Martha reached for the folder again and flipped it open. "But how
could something still be alive after being buried underground long
enough to be mistaken for a dinosaur fossil?"

The Doctor shook his head and resumed pacing. "I'm not sure. I
haven't had a lot of experience with their ships, so I have no idea
how durable they are. Tetranos technology isn't all that advanced,
either, so I can't say whether or not their life support systems
would hold up after all this time." He rubbed his chin. "But the
fact that something from this dig took control over Anna Stewart's
mind makes me think that something survived, all right. Something
that wants to make use of quantic energy - to regain its strength,
maybe."

"How do we stop it?" Martha asked next. She was resolute.

Grinning his approval for just a second, the Doctor became serious
just as quickly. "Well, the first thing we need to do is go see Dr.
Stewart in the hospital." He headed for the door to the office,
then turned to his Companion again. "Oh, and call Agent Scully and
Agent Mulder and let them know that they should not try to talk to
Mrs. Stewart or her husband directly. It... well, she could be more
dangerous than we'd thought."

~~~~~~~
Scully pulled up at Georgetown Memorial once again, wondering how
many times that made it for today. Probably a personal record. She
parked the car, and she and Mulder headed for the ICU. As they
entered the building, Scully watched her partner carefully for
signs of increased pain or nausea, but he seemed steady enough on
his feet.

Despite this, Mulder sank into a chair in the waiting room without
her having to ask. He gave her a weak smile and said, "I think I'll
sit this one out, Scully, if you don't mind."

Scully smiled back and put her hand to his forehead. It was quite
warm. "No, I don't mind, Mulder," she replied. "In fact, I'm going
to ask a nurse to give you another checkup - you feel like you
might have a fever."

Mulder looked up at her. "All right. That's probably a good idea."

She moved her hand up to the top of his head and rested it there
briefly, then turned to walk away. She heard his heavy sigh, and
hoped that she would be able to finish with Jeanne Fisher quickly.
She knew that Mulder was still invested in this case, and she was
certainly not about to give up - but at the moment she mostly
wanted to wrap it up so she could be sure that he would finally
allow himself to relax and heal, as he so desperately needed.

Scully showed her badge to the receptionist again, and the woman
told her that Jeanne Fisher was still in the same room. There had
been a disturbance there just an hour or so ago, and also, Ms.
Fisher's parents were expected at any moment.

Thanking her for the information, Scully requested that a nurse
come do a follow-up checkup for Mulder, and then went to the
hospital room that she had visited briefly with Martha earlier
today. Dr. Hansen was just leaving the room when she got there.

"Oh, Agent Scully," he said upon seeing her. He closed the door
behind him. "She still hasn't regained consciousness."

Scully nodded. "I heard something about a disturbance?"

The older man shook his head. "No one can explain it." He looked in
the window at his patient. "Just about an hour ago, all her
monitors started going crazy, and she started seizing. The seizure
lasted almost five minutes, but after it stopped, everything went
back to normal... except the room looked almost like it had been
hit by an earthquake."

"An earthquake?" Scully repeated, impressed. She wondered if the
increased violence of this situation had to do with the fact that
the unfortunate Ms. Fisher was so much closer to the Stewarts-- now
that Anna was in the same hospital.

"That's what it looked like," Dr. Hansen said. "And other patients
and staff around the hospital have reported feeling something like
an earthquake at that exact time, though I can't say as I noticed
any shaking, only the evidence of it."

Scully suddenly remembered what the Doctor had said about the
consequences of uncontrolled release of this quantic energy:
"massive explosions" had been his words. Dr. Hansen handed her
Jeanne Fisher's charts, but she only glanced at them before
thanking the man and heading back out to the waiting room. As she
was about to go through the doorway out into the room, her cell
phone rang.

"Agent Scully, it's Martha," came the young woman's voice when
Scully answered. "The Doctor and I found what we think has been
controlling Mrs. Stewart, and we're gonna meet you at the hospital
to try to talk to her. But the Doctor wants you to wait before you
try to talk to either of the Stewarts - he thinks they're probably
both dangerous right now."

"And what, he's going to come and confront them himself?" Scully
was more than a little bit annoyed at the Doctor's assumption that
he was better equipped to deal with whatever this danger was, and
that he didn't even need to tell the FBI agents in charge of this
investigation what was going on. It was true that he seemed to have
a more cohesive theory than either her or Mulder, but the point
remained.

Martha said yes, somewhat apologetically, and Scully hung up. She
looked around the waiting room to see that Mulder was sitting in
the same sit where she'd left him, eyes closed and head resting
against the wall. As soon as she walked over to him, though, he was
alert. "Scully. Any news?"

"Well," Scully answered, "Dr. Hansen said Jeanne Fisher started to
seize about an hour ago, and that hospital staff and patients
reported feeling something like an earthquake at the same time."

Mulder raised his eyebrows. "Wow. I didn't feel an earthquake when
the machine turned on... but I guess I was a little distracted."

"I didn't feel any shaking, either," she told him. "Oh, and Martha
called - she says they're coming to talk to the Stewarts again now
that the Doctor thinks he knows what's been controlling Mrs.
Stewart. But he doesn't want us to try to talk to the Stewarts
before he and Martha get here. Says it's too dangerous."

"Hmm," Mulder replied. He looked rebellious. "I guess we should
follow the Doctor's orders."

"Speaking of doctors, Mulder," Scully put in, "did you get checked
out by a nurse?"

"Actually, I checked a few out, myself," he quipped, but hurried to
continue when she leveled a glare at him. "Yeah, a nurse took a
look at my head, took my temperature, and gave me some more
painkillers. She told me I have a slight fever - and that I should
go home and rest." He sighed a little. "Haven't heard that one
before."

"It's good advice," Scully said, but she smiled in sympathy,
sitting down in the chair next to him. "You can at least get some
rest while we wait for the Doctor and Martha, okay, Mulder?"

He nodded, leaning back carefully against the wall again and
shutting his eyes. Scully watched some of the tension ease out of
him, and she settled more comfortably into her own chair. Her
worries kept her from relaxing into sleep as she normally might
have, but she was pleased that Mulder seemed to have dropped off,
based on the evenness of his breathing.