"Mississippi"   by Foxsong

Finally, fi-i-i-inally finished on 9-23-01! :-D

Rated R.

Category/Keywords: X, A, MSR/UST. (Yes, MSR. Trust me. It's a rough ride in places, 
but buckle up and come along -- I won't say more and spoil!)

Spoilers: Assumes familiarity with Christmas Carol, Emily, Herrenvolk, Talitha Cumi, 
Sein und Zeit/Closure, and makes a passing reference to Orison.

Feedback to foxsong@earthlink.net.

Archive at will, but please let me know where, and provide a link back to my site at 
http://www.trax.to/the_foxsong_files.

Disclaimer: "The X-Files" TM and copyright Fox and its related entities. All rights 
reserved. Neither this work of fiction nor its writer is authorized by Fox.

Author's notes: This story was born, way back when Hollywood AD was just a rumor on 
the spoiler boards, from speculation as to what kind of part Téa Leoni might play in an X-
F ep. One day as I was mulling it over I happened to play the Paula Cole song 
'Mississippi,' and it all began to fall into place. So turn the song up loud, and picture Téa 
in the starring role. She was a delight to work with. ;-)

Many thanks and much love to MaybeAmanda and Char Chaffin, who stuck with me 
through the whole thing, and who have a halfway decent idea what the story really 
means.

 Summary: Investigating a series of homicides, Mulder and Scully find that other lives 
than their own have been touched by the Consortium; putting together the pieces of that 
puzzle, they begin to put together the pieces of their own.

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

 Prologue

 She slipped down the hallway in the dark, hugging the wall as if to make herself less 
visible. The vinyl soles of the attached slippers on her flannel pajamas scuffed softly 
against the hardwood floor. She crouched down on the landing at the top of the stairs and 
waited, listening to the men's voices.

On another night, if she'd been wakeful like this, she would have gone the other way 
down the hall and found Mama. Daddy stayed up late, reading his papers from work, but 
Mama always went to bed right after tucking her in; she knew she could always go to 
Mama and stay with her for a little while. But Mama was over at Aunt Mary's house 
tonight. She'd been staying there a lot these past few months. Mama told her Aunt Mary 
was very sick and that she needed Mama's help sometimes.

She hugged her stuffed toy bunny closer to her chest. If Daddy had been alone, she would 
have gone down, but the man from work was here with him again. He had been coming 
over more and more often on the nights that Mama was at Aunt Mary's. He and Daddy 
sat in the living room and talked late into the night.

She never knew what to make of it when the man from work was there. The way he and 
Daddy talked was different from the way other grownups talked when Mama and Daddy 
had parties and she would sit on the landing listening to them. They never turned on the 
hi-fi and played records. She never heard the clinking of ice cubes in glasses that meant 
they were having drinks. There was no laughter. Their voices were quiet and serious and 
they used words she didn't understand.

"It's really only the next logical step, Edward," the man from work was saying, "and 
you've certainly understood the necessity from the beginning. I've never made any 
pretenses about it. We've all known it would be a road of sacrifice."

"I know. I know." Her father's voice was grim. "But it's a bad time. What with Mary 
sick..."

"Yes," said the visitor. "I was... sorry... to hear she's been taken ill."

"She's dying."

Aunt Mary was...? Her eyes widened. She pressed herself against the wall and crept a 
little farther toward the edge of the stairs.

There was a pause before the man spoke. "Not every aspect of the process has been 
perfected, Edward. We are working with unknown factors, feeling our way along -- "

There was a sudden thump, as if one of the men had slapped his hand down hard on the 
armrest of his chair. "How is that supposed to reassure me? How am I supposed to watch 
her die, and let you take my little girl? You know Arlene can't have another child. If 
anything happened to Paula..."

She sat up sharply on the landing at the sound of her name. They were talking about her. 
Her! She hugged the bunny tighter and leaned forward, holding her breath, trying to hear 
every word.

"It will take, at most, two weeks," the visitor said. "I assure you that she will be returned 
unharmed. Perhaps your wife might be persuaded to move into her sister's home for the 
duration of the procedure? You might be able to keep it from her entirely by that means."

Daddy snorted. "Mary lives right across the river. Why would she pack up and move over 
there? It's ridiculous."

There was a long silence. She craned her neck, peering anxiously around the corner of the 
landing, not wanting to miss anything, but knowing somehow she must remain unnoticed.

At last the man from work spoke. "Perhaps," he said slowly," there might arise some... 
circumstance... that requires her constant presence there, hmm?"

"You bastard," Daddy swore softly."I should..."

"You should what, Edward? You knew from the beginning this day would come. I 
promise you now, as I did then, that your daughter will be returned to you. She will have 
no memory of the procedure." He dropped his voice; his tone became low and 
confidential. "You know as well as I do that it's the only way to save her."

Overcome with curiosity, she leaned just a little farther forward and looked down into the 
living room. Daddy was leaning over in the armchair, his head in his hands. The man 
from work had his back turned to her, and she couldn't see his face. All she could see was 
the smoke from his cigarette, rising up to wreathe his head like a halo in the lamplight.



Chapter One

 The clamor of the alarm seemed distant, but after a moment Denny yawned and stretched 
and groped out toward the bedside table where it should have been. When her hand 
swiped through empty air and came down on the thick plush carpeting she came awake 
with a start, her heart thudding in her chest with the old familiar dread.

Not again. Oh, God, not again.

She fell back against the cushions and choked back a sob; then, more from force of habit 
than from any desire to really know, raised her head to assess the situation.

She was sprawled full length on her living room sofa, still wearing yesterday's work 
clothes. Her shoes lay out in the middle of the floor as if she'd just walked out of them on 
her way into the apartment.

She took these as good signs. Sometimes she woke half-dressed, the languid weight of 
her limbs telling her without doubt what she'd done the night before. Those were the 
mornings she might find her pantyhose stuffed haphazardly into her purse, or not find 
them at all. Sometimes on those mornings there was a man's business card in her bag; 
sometimes there was just a slip of paper with a phone number and not even a name.

Maybe it was worse when there was nothing concrete at all to give her a hint. Maybe it 
was worse when her body had memories of its own that it refused to share.

Thank God, there was none of that today. She sat up, running a shaky hand through her 
blonde hair. The alarm still shrilled, and she rose on her long legs and went across the 
apartment to the bedroom and shut it off. One hand still on the clock, she glanced back 
toward the living room, feeling the uncertainty and the fear pooling in the pit of her 
stomach. She turned back, her lips pressed together in a tight line, and walked 
deliberately over to the answering machine on the desk.

A sheet of paper leaned partially across it, obscuring the panel of tiny lights at the 
bottom. Her hand paused for a moment and then snatched it away. The red light shone 
steadily -- no blinks. No messages.

A sigh of relief escaped her lips, and she laid both palms flat upon the desk and leaned 
against it heavily. No messages. Jim hadn't called. He wouldn't know she'd been out last 
night. There would be nothing to explain. She had no way to explain it to herself; how 
could she possibly explain it to him?

Mouthing a silent prayer of thanks, Denny roused herself again and stepped back from 
the desk. On the way to the bathroom she shed her blazer. It smelled like stale cigarette 
smoke. A bar this time, maybe? But her head was clear; she didn't think she'd been 
drinking.

She sighed as she stepped out of her skirt; now she'd have to find time to drop these 
things at the cleaner's today, too. She wanted to be a little early to work -- she wanted to 
have everything else in the office squared away by the time those two Bureau people 
came in a few more days; she had promised herself she'd keep it together while they were 
here. It had been hard enough, even humiliating, to have to leave the Bureau and come 
back to Louisiana. Her AD had been understanding, even as he'd relieved her of duty, but 
with the blackouts, there hadn't been much of a choice.

Denny shook her head. It was just stress, she told herself; there were too many things 
going on, too many things that hit too close to home. The little Raymon girl had been 
missing for a week. Now, hard on the heels of that, there'd been the call from the FBI 
yesterday. That was more than enough to trigger this blackout, she reasoned. It seemed, at 
least, to have been a minor one. Maybe she would have to talk to Dr. DeMontreaux about 
adjusting her medication again.

She reached into the shower and twisted the knob to turn on the water. She unbuttoned 
her blouse and as it fell from her shoulders she glanced up into the mirror and saw the 
unmistakable, telltale bruises on her throat and along her collarbone. She froze, staring, 
and this time the tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks.



Chapter Two

 "Look," Mulder finally addressed the looming silence in the car, "I said I'm sorry. Can 
we just skip it?"

"I haven't said a thing about it, Mulder," Scully replied mildly without looking toward 
him.

Actually, she hadn't said anything. She hadn't needed to. Her silences were always as 
eloquent as speech. She didn't have to spell it out; Mulder knew she was still smarting 
from the way he'd taken off last week without a word to her, with just that hasty message 
left on her answering machine.

Admittedly, the thing had been a long shot. He'd known full well that Scully would have 
brushed it off without hesitation. She'd have made too much sense, he grudgingly 
allowed, and he'd been in no mood to be talked out of it, so he'd left the message rather 
than trying to talk her into coming along, and then he'd hopped a flight and spent two 
days on what really had turned out to be nothing at all.

Mulder glanced over at her impassive profile, at the brown October landscape passing 
behind her outside the window. Yeah, it had turned out to be nothing, he thought, but ten 
days later he was still paying for it.

It had been one of his rare miscalculations. For years now he had been carefully chipping 
away at Scully's armor, but sometimes he pushed her a little too hard, took a little bit 
more of a liberty than she seemed to think he'd earned. There'd be a sudden flash of fire, 
and after the flare she would ice over and freeze him out until she'd settled down again. 
He understood by now that she couldn't help it, but between the little ice ages he always 
managed to forget how much they hurt.

He had puzzled long and hard over what it could have been that had made Scully steel 
her heart the way she had. The things she had let him know about her life didn't point in 
any of the obvious directions. He guessed that she had buried the beginnings of her pain 
so deeply that even she might not be able to say anymore.

He sighed. He tried, and failed, to suppress a yawn, and Scully seemed to take pity on 
him at last. "We're almost there," she said, gracing him with a little smile. "Just two more 
exits."

He marveled anew at the effortless power she held over him. Had he really been 
aggravated only a moment ago? He smiled back. "Two more," he echoed, relieved. "A 
good night's sleep, and we can dig right in tomorrow morning."

Scully nodded. "You said you'd set up a meeting with the medical examiner?"

"Nine o'clock. She's got the latest guy on ice for you."

"Mmm-hmm." She opened the manila folder in her lap and leafed almost idly through the 
pages. "Although I'm not exactly sure what I should be looking for..."

"You're the only one who might know what to look for, Scully," he answered. "You're the 
only one -- the only pathologist, I mean -- that I know of who's seen anything like this 
before."

"Well..." she mused, "the manner of death, yes... but, Mulder, there's nothing here to 
suggest that any of these men's bodies exuded toxic fumes or acidic substances when they 
were stabbed."

"Stabbed in the back of the neck, Scully." He thumped one palm against the steering 
wheel for emphasis. "A single stab wound, made with a narrow, sharp instrument, right 
into the brain -- through the base of the skull. In the back of the neck."

"Yes, yes. I know," she said patiently. "It's all right here."

"Sound familiar to you, Scully?" He looked over and met her eyes, and she sighed and 
turned away again.

"I know what you're thinking, Mulder. But these were just men, not -- not..." She 
gestured helplessly. "They were just men," she repeated, closing the folder and settling 
her hands upon it.

"Maybe." He nodded slowly, not quite ready to concede the point. "But Scully, somebody 
else didn't think so."



Chapter Three

 It was still early when Denny turned the grey Jeep into the parking lot. She headed for 
her usual parking place, with the small, tidy wooden marker reserving it for her, but was 
flustered for a moment to find a car in it. Jim's pickup truck was already there too, one 
space over, and she pulled into the unmarked space just past it. Jim was standing in front 
of his truck, talking to a heavyset man. Denny recognized him -- Nathan Raymon, the 
missing child's father. She caught her breath, almost daring to hope the news was good.

She opened her door just as Nathan was shaking Jim's hand. "Thanks, Sheriff," he was 
saying.

Jim shook his head a little. "I wish I had more to tell you, Nate."

"I know everybody's doing the best they can," the other man said wearily, getting into his 
car. "It's like... it's like I let myself have just a little bit of hope every morning on the way 
here. At least it gets me out of bed for another day."

The car's engine turned over. Jim scored the ground slowly with the heel of one worn 
boot in a gesture Denny recognized as frustration; still, his voice was steady as he said, 
"My best to Linda."

Raymon nodded, and closed the car door, and backed out of Denny's parking space and 
drove away. Jim stood, staring after the car; he didn't seem to notice as Denny came up 
beside him.

She reached out and rubbed her hand up and down his back. "Hey," she said.

Jim let out a long sigh and turned toward her, a sad half-smile on his lips. "Hey yourself." 
He leaned over to kiss her cheek. "You're early."

"You were here before me." She gestured after Raymon's car. "Does he come by every 
morning like that?"

Jim nodded. "Yeah. I think it makes him feel like he's doing more, even though he's 
already doing everything he can."

Denny looked away down the road after Nathan Raymon's car. The sun was just 
beginning to cast a few direct, pinkish-gold rays across the tarmac; soon the mist would 
burn away and you'd be able to see all the way clear down to the statues at the entrance of 
the park.

"The longer she's gone," she said, "the worse the odds are that we'll ever get her back."

Jim put one arm around her shoulders. "Not always. You ought to know that better than 
anybody, Den -- you're living proof." He gave her a brief, reassuring hug. "C'mon. Let's 
get to it."

She turned with him toward the entrance of the building and hoped he would write off her 
sudden shiver to the chill of the October morning.



 Chapter Four

 "Denny?" Jim asked, leaning into the open doorway.

She looked up and slowly pushed the papers she'd been pretending to read away across 
the desk.

"Your FBI people are here," he said. "You ready?"

She pushed her glasses up into place on her nose. "Yes. Thanks. Would you send them 
in?"

"Sure thing."

Denny took a deep breath and rose to her feet. She stepped out from behind her desk just 
as Jim showed a tall, dark-haired man and a small redheaded woman into the office.

She'd have recognized them as Bureau, she thought with a twinge, even if they'd walked 
in off the street without any introduction at all. The conservative dark suits, the long coats 
that camoflaged their holstered weapons. The Look, she and her colleagues had called it 
in Los Angeles, and kidded each other about it. It had been one of their favorite running 
jokes.

She smiled carefully. "Good morning."

The man stepped forward and extended his hand. "Fox Mulder," he said as Denny 
reached forward to accept the handshake. "My partner, Dr. Dana Scully."

Denny nodded, turning to the woman. "Paula Dennison," she said, looking from one to 
the other. "Nice to meet you." The smaller woman inclined her head in 
acknowledgement, but said nothing; her hands remained before her, clasped around the 
handle of her bag. Denny took in the details -- the fine cut of her clothes, the small pearl 
earrings -- and felt pleased that she herself had worn her good navy wool, rather than the 
tweed. This woman would have noticed the difference, she felt sure.

"I appreciate your agreeing to see us on such short notice," Agent Mulder said, and 
Denny shook her head.

"It's no trouble, really." Her smile turned a little rueful. "All in all, Donaldsonville is a 
quiet place. I get a car accident now and then, or once in a while a little old lady that they 
find after the mailman notices she hasn't picked up the mail for a few days. These three 
guys floating into town are the most excitement we've had all year, other than..." She 
stopped, not wanting to think about Jessy Raymon now.

Agent Scully spoke for the first time. "I suppose this would seem very quiet to you -- you 
were with the Bureau, weren't you?" She cocked her head a little to one side and raised an 
eyebrow. "In California?"

Denny paused. The breath she was taking caught for a moment in her throat. She'd 
noticed the unabashed way the redheaded woman had been staring around the little office 
since she'd come in; now she noticed the brief flicker of surprise across the tall man's 
face, and understood that this Scully had done some homework she hadn't shared with her 
partner.

Denny found her breath and willed herself to answer before her composure could slip. 
"Yes. I was." She hoped that would be the end of it.

But Scully nodded and continued, "I thought I knew the name. The Mitchell case -- your 
work was well done."

"Thank you," Denny said, and felt a flush rise to her cheeks. She turned deliberately back 
toward Mulder. "I trust you received the overview of the cases in good order?"

"Yes, thank you. I did." Denny watched the way he shot another sidelong glance at his 
partner even as he was nodding.

"Good. These," she continued, "are the full case files. There are two copies, one for each 
of you." She picked up the folders and handed one to each agent, and leaned back against 
the edge of the desk, folding her arms across her chest. She tried hard to look relaxed. 
There was a moment's pause as the two agents opened the folders and began to leaf 
through them.

"No prints lifted from any of the bodies...?" Scully mused aloud, glancing up at Denny 
without raising her head. Something in her tone made Denny wonder whether it might be 
a challenge.

"No," she returned slowly, "and, really, it's almost impossible to say whether we have a 
very careful killer, or whether the bodies were just in the water too long -- as you can 
read there, all but the most recent had been in the river for a number of days."

There was something going on here, she thought, that had very little to do with the case at 
hand. Why would that woman mention, of all the Bureau work Denny had ever done, the 
Mitchell case? She willed herself to stay calm, and was glad that both agents were still 
studying the casefiles instead of watching her.

As she looked at them, something in the way they stood struck her. They were a little too 
close for 'professional' space; this looked more personal. She noticed the way the tall man 
inclined just the slightest degree toward his partner and the way she, in response, shifted 
her weight onto the foot nearest him. Playing a hunch, Denny turned her eyes, and let her 
gaze linger deliberately on Scully's partner until, with her peripheral vision, she saw the 
smaller woman look up and take notice. Denny didn't even need to look back at her. She 
could fairly feel the redhead bristling.

Ah! So that was all it was -- they had a 'history,' as one of her old colleagues used to 
phrase it. She straightened up and squared her shoulders as if a weight had been lifted 
from them. "Agents," she smiled, "shall we head down to the morgue?" And she led the 
way from the office without looking back.

In the basement, she pushed open the door of the morgue, reaching automatically for the 
light switch as she entered. It was small, and not so state-of-the-art as this Agent Scully 
might be used to, but Denny herself had seen to every detail in the room, and she was 
confident that it was scrupulously clean and excellently equipped. She walked briskly 
across her little morgue to the bank of square metal doors and unlatched the one farthest 
to the left.

"This is Mr. Charles Vaccaro," she announced, pulling the handle and rolling the slab out 
into the room. "Or at least, he was till about a week and a half ago, as near as we can 
figure." She looked up coolly across the body at Scully. "But maybe you'll want to draw 
your own conclusions."

"I'm sure we'll concur on most of the salient points," the other woman returned, already 
looking the body over with a practiced eye. "There are a few particulars that Agent 
Mulder would like me to look into. That's all." Scully glanced toward her partner and 
their eyes met; they shared a momentary look that Denny couldn't read, and then the 
redhead turned away and began taking off her coat.

"Mulder," she said, hanging the coat on the rack near the door, and beginning to unfasten 
the buttons of the smartly-tailored blazer, "why don't you take this time to go with Sheriff 
Cormerais and check out those things you told him you wanted to see? I'll be fine here."

Denny saw the tall man shift his weight hesitantly from one foot to the other and back 
again. He watched his partner help herself to one of the freshly cleaned lab jackets 
hanging on the next rack over from her coat. As Scully tore the cleaners' plastic wrap 
from the jacket and slipped it off the hanger, he finally said, "You're sure you don't want 
me to wait, so you can come with us?"

"I'll do you more good here," she answered shortly, putting her arm into the first sleeve. 
Mulder reached out to help her into the jacket, a little hurriedly, Denny thought, as if he 
had just realized he should have done it sooner. The small woman pushed the wad of 
plastic wrap into his hand and walked back toward the slab where the corpse lay waiting. 
Mulder didn't try to follow; he just gazed after her, at her back. His face was blank.

Denny swung the overhead light around toward the body and turned it on. Agent Scully 
was already pulling the stainless-steel surgical cart toward the table; she seemed to want 
to start immediately. "There's a tape recorder in the drawer of the cart," Denny said. "It's 
ready to go."

"I carry my own. I have it right here in my bag," the smaller woman said, looking up at 
Denny and smiling a little for the first time. "But thank you." She leaned down to open 
her leather attache, and took the microcassette recorder out.

"Then you're all set," Denny nodded. "I'll be upstairs whenever you're done. If you have 
any other questions, the phone's right over there. My office is marked on the intercom 
keys."

"Thank you," Scully said again. "I'm sure everything will be fine." She looked over at 
Mulder, still standing by the door, still clutching the little handful of crumpled plastic 
wrap. "You'll keep me posted? If I haven't heard from you by the time I'm done, I'll call 
you." She didn't wait for an answer; she began rearranging the instruments on the tray to 
her liking.

Mulder's jaw worked just a little; he nodded fractionally. Denny looked from one agent to 
the other. Then the tall man spoke, just a few curt words. "Fine. See you later." He turned 
and grasped the doorknob, and pulled the door open.

"Agent," Denny nodded to Scully, taking her leave; the redhead returned the courtesy. 
Denny walked through the open doorway and into the hall.

In front of the elevator door, Mulder glanced over curiously at Denny. "I thought you 
might want to stick around for that autopsy," he said.

The elevator opened and Denny stepped in, turning to face Mulder as he followed. "I'm 
sure your partner and Mr. Vaccaro will have a lovely time all by themselves," she 
answered with a wry smile. "I didn't get the impression she needed any help from me."

Mulder punched the 'up' button on the elevator panel just a little more emphatically than 
necessary. "Yeah. I know the feeling," he said, half to himself. He glanced down at the 
plastic wrap in his hand as if he'd forgotten he was still carrying it.

"There's a garbage can over there, on the left," Denny said, pointing, as the elevator doors 
opened again. "I'll just take you back to Jim's office, and then you two can get started, if 
you like."

"Thanks." Mulder dropped the wad of plastic wrap into the trash can. "That would be 
fine."



Chapter Five

Denny turned the key in the ignition of the Cherokee and hardly heard the engine starting. 
Deep in thought, she had already made the left turn and driven half the way toward the 
bridge across the river into Darrow before she realized where she was going. She blinked 
and looked around as if waking from sleep; she smiled ruefully, but kept driving.

She glanced out at the river rushing under the bridge. Whenever she crossed it Denny felt 
as if she'd stepped across a threshold into another place. It was nothing she could 
articulate, but she always thought she could feel herself shaking off one way of being, 
shouldering another, as she looked down at the grey water. She knew that water had 
begun its journey far to the north in Lake Itasca, had rolled south over the miles, across 
the prairies, through the valleys, past farmlands and cities. Now it murmured under the 
bridge beneath her, whispering of some of the things it had seen, holding some of them 
secret, carrying them away unseen and unspoken to the Gulf of Mexico.

Denny sighed. The only secrets the river had seen fit to share lately were those of the 
three corpses that had washed up against the banks, there on the hairpin turn between 
Donaldsonville and Darrow. She glanced at the bridge in her rearview mirror and pushed 
down the resentful thought that the Mississippi had purposefully brought the two FBI 
agents into her office that morning, awakening memories she'd tried so hard to leave 
behind.

She slowed the Jeep as she turned onto the narrow streets of the little town. Of course, 
Darrow had grown; but somehow it seemed so much smaller now than it had when she 
was a child. The houses had seemed grander then, the trees taller; the lawns rolled out 
acres wide in her memory, splashed with lazy midsummer sunshine. On the rise 
overlooking the river her father's house seemed to stand a little apart, as if it understood 
that it was closed up and empty, ashamed of its cool darkness as the evening lights came 
on in the houses around it.

She should sell it. She really should. She had told herself when she moved across the 
river into the apartment in Donaldsonville that she would put it on the market as soon as 
her father's estate was cleared up. Now it was going on three years since he'd died, and 
she hadn't been able to bring herself to do it.

She pulled into the driveway and cut the lights. She knew what she would see if she went 
inside. Nothing had really been done since her father had died; the few relatives who had 
come had taken the things he'd wanted them to have, and she'd cleaned up the house and 
covered up the furniture and turned the key in the lock and walked away. She couldn't 
stay here alone; still, she couldn't quite let it go. Maybe, she thought sadly, somewhere in 
that house was the secret of where and when and how everything had begun to go wrong. 
Maybe that was what kept drawing her back like this.

She wasn't supposed to be back here, wasn't supposed to be stuck in this little backwoods 
town she thought she'd gotten away from. She'd finished near the top of her class at 
Quantico; she'd been recruited by the Los Angeles field office. She'd been on the way up. 
By now she should have been heading up a forensics division. She should have...

She sighed and bowed her head in resignation. She should have been paying attention to 
where she was going just now, that's what she should have been doing; now she'd have to 
hurry to be on time to Dr. DeMontreaux's office. She reached for the light switch and put 
the Jeep into reverse and backed out onto the street.



Chapter Six

 "But that," Scully asked, tapping her forefinger slowly against the edge of the laminated 
menu, "is the *least* deep-fried thing you have?"

"Yes, ma'am." The young waitress was clearly puzzled to meet a customer whose taste 
ran to food that was anything other than breaded, deep-fried, chicken-fried, smothered in 
cheese, or swimming in bacon fat or thick brown gravy. "That or, like I said -- a plain 
house salad, ma'am."

Scully suppressed a sigh. They'd chosen the little diner for lunch because it met Mulder's 
First Rule of Road Food: they'd had to hunt for a parking place around the tractor-trailers 
that dominated the parking lot. Long-haul truckers, Mulder insisted, knew all the good 
places to eat, and Scully had to admit that the beer-bellied group of drivers up at the 
counter looked right at home there.

"I'll have that, then, please." She handed the menu back to the waitress. "And a Diet 
Coke."

"Yes, ma'am." She folded up her order pad and tucked it into her apron pocket. "Be just a 
few minutes, folks."

Scully frowned, staring after her as she walked away. " 'Ma'am'," she repeated 
mournfully. "When did I get to be 'ma'am'?"

Mulder looked up, obviously puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"I was 'miss.' Now I'm 'ma'am'. When did I cross the line?" She picked up her napkin and 
began to roll the edge restlessly between her fingertips. The moment she realized how the 
gesture gave away the depth of her agitation, she stilled her hands.

Mulder shrugged. "It's a Southern thing," he said absently, reaching for his glass of water. 
"Any woman over a certain age is 'ma'am'."

"But that's what I *mean*." She drew the last word out petulantly. "I'm *over a certain 
age* now. When did that happen?"

She watched Mulder realize his mistake. He glanced furtively around as if for a way to 
backtrack, and opted to drink some of his water instead.

"Mulder, you're such..." She cast around frustratedly for the right word. "You're such a 
*guy* sometimes." She thought he looked vaguely guilty, as if there ought to have been 
something he could have done even about so elemental a thing as his gender, if it had 
offended her.

"Scully, I'm -- "

"Never mind." She unfolded her napkin and laid it in her lap. "It doesn't matter."

She spent a lot of time thinking about Mulder these days. To be fair, she had to admit she 
had always spent a lot of time thinking about him. It was the tone of the thought that had 
changed over the years, so gradually that she had been surprised when she finally saw the 
direction it had taken. One day she had finally had to ask herself whether she was only 
acting like she was in love or whether, in fact, she really was.

When had Mulder become the sun? When had her whole life begun to turn around his? It 
crossed her mind that this was probably -- no, it was definitely the longest interpersonal 
relationship of her adult life, and she couldn't bring herself to let it go anywhere at all. 
She wasn't sure what that said about her. She wasn't sure she wanted to know.

She had grown used to this feeling of standing perpetually on the brink of something. It 
seemed normal now. She was almost comfortable here. The truth was that, even though 
she couldn't quite picture herself with Mulder, she knew by now that she'd never be able 
to picture herself with anybody else.

It wasn't that there was anything so wrong with Mulder. The trouble, she knew, was that 
she was so resistant to the idea of being in love with anyone, to the idea of giving anyone 
that kind of power over her -- and when that person was Mulder, it was even more 
complicated.

She might trust Mulder with her life, she thought sadly, but she couldn't trust her own 
heart. Deep inside, she was afraid that maybe they hadn't been drawn together by 
anything so ordinary as a mutual attraction. Maybe it was really that the trials of their 
lives had ruined each of them for anybody else. No one else would understand; normal 
people would think either of them mad. Their shared history had not just brought them 
close: it had bound them together, back to back, guns drawn and trained upon a world 
neither of them dared to trust.

It was nothing, Scully reflected ruefully, that she had ever imagined basing a romance on.

"Look at this, Scully." Mulder's voice brought her back from her thoughts. "You can 
learn all kinds of trivia while you wait for your food." He ran his finger across a block of 
text on the printed paper placemat and read aloud, " 'Crawfish: From the Ecosystem to 
Your Plate'."

"You keep that up, Mulder, and I'll go vegan on you," she told him, and smiled a little at 
the thought. "I'd love to see you find me something to eat then."

He winked. "All the more cheeseburgers for me, my dear." He took another sip of water, 
and his expression became more serious. "So what do you think, Scully? See any 
connection between these three men?"

"Well, the government connection," she shrugged. "ATF. Bureau. State Department. It's 
obvious."

"Too obvious." He shook his head warily. "Too broad. Something's got to narrow it 
down. I was thinking they might all have some assignment or project in common."

"I can see how that might be a possibility with the first two, because Ed Tascone and 
Robert Frank were close in age, and would have been working at the same time," Scully 
answered. "But they both retired almost ten years ago, just about when Charles Vaccaro 
was joining the ATF. He wouldn't have worked with them."

"Unless," Mulder mused, "unless, unless..." He picked up the fork that laid on his napkin 
and tapped the tines against the printed placemat. "Unless it was a long-term project. 
Something ongoing." He looked up at Scully. "Maybe still going on right now."

"Then that would explain why Frank and Tascone still held security clearance even after 
they'd been retired for so long." She nodded slowly. "They were still involved."

"You know what else really stood out to me?" Mulder asked. "Even before they retired, 
neither of those men had the kind of job that would have required the high-level 
clearance they had. They had to be involved in something else. Something they wouldn't 
put on their resumes."

She smiled ruefully. "Oh, goody, Mulder," she sighed. "A covert project. Your favorite."

"What can I say, Scully?" He spread his hands and gave her a winning smile. "I know 
how to pick 'em, don't I?"

It must be involuntary, she decided as she looked at him. She'd seen him trying to charm 
women on purpose, but this wasn't quite the same thing -- and he wouldn't try it on her, 
anyway, would he...? She was spared by the reappearance of the waitress, who set an 
impressively heaping platter in front of Mulder.

"Here you go, sir," she said, and added, presenting Scully with her more modest repast, 
"ma'am."



  Chapter Seven

  Mulder hated to think of any day as wasted, but this one, he had to allow, was coming 
awfully close.

  Their morning spent poking around on the riverbank where Charles Vaccaro's body had 
washed up had yielded nothing. Now Cecelia Vaccaro was just showing them to the door 
after what had proven to be a largely fruitless interview. When Mulder's cell phone rang, 
he said, "Excuse me," and stepped through the doorway onto the porch, leaving Scully 
inside.

  "Mulder."

  "Hello, Agent Mulder? Jim Cormerais."

  "Sheriff. What can I do for you?" Mulder stretched his long frame, glad to be standing 
again; Mrs. Vaccaro had meant well when she brought out the coffee and cookies and led 
them into the living room, but the overstuffed couches had obviously been designed for 
people who meant to sink deep into them and be enveloped, unmoving, for a long 
evening of channel-surfing. It had required a conscious effort to unfold himself when he 
got up.

  "You were in the right place, all right, but your timing's a few hours off," the sheriff was 
saying. "I think we've got a new one for you."

  Mulder frowned. "Another victim?"

  "Sure looks that way," Cormerais returned. "Couple of kids playing hooky from school 
spotted him -- got themselves good and scared. Anyway, we just fished him out, and he's 
got the same kind of stab wound to the back of the neck."

  "Huh," Mulder said, gesturing to Scully as she came out onto the porch with Mrs. 
Vaccaro. "Anything there to see?"

  "No more than last time," the sheriff sighed. "He started somewhere upriver and just 
ended up here. Soon as my people are done, we're heading back to the morgue with him, 
but of course you can run by here again if you want."

  Mulder wandered down the stairs. "I'll ask Agent Scully, but she'll probably just want to 
come have a look at the body." He turned to look at her and saw that she was just taking 
her leave of Mrs. Vaccaro; he recognized the wave of her hand in his direction and knew 
she was excusing him as well. "We'll catch up with you."

  "Well, you know where to find us. We'll see you later. And that dinner invite still 
stands, you know."

  "Thank you, Sheriff."

  Scully appeared at his elbow just as he was snapping the phone shut and replacing it in 
his pocket. "How's the back?" she asked with a knowing smile.

  "That wasn't a sofa. It was an upholstered amoeba," Mulder snorted as he slid into the 
car. "And here I thought you were just being ladylike when you perched on the edge of 
the thing like that."

  "Whereas you, on the other hand, sat down and found yourself engulfed by its 
pseudopods." She settled in beside him and reached for her seat belt. "Who was that on 
the phone?"

  "It was the sheriff," he said, turning the key in the ignition. "They just took another one 
out of the river."

  Scully looked up sharply. "Another victim?"

  Mulder nodded. "They'd just pulled him out when Cormerais called me."

  "Matching the pattern of the other three?"

  "He thought so. As soon as the CSI are done at the scene, they're heading straight to the 
morgue with him."

  "Well, there goes dinner," Scully said bleakly. "Nothing against your beloved truck-stop 
fare, Mulder, but I was looking forward to this much-vaunted Cajun food." She folded 
her hands in her lap. "I guess I can talk to Dr. Dennison tomorrow," she added, almost 
under her breath.

  "About the autopsies?"

  "Oh," she said, seeming surprised he'd heard her last words. "No, I concur with her 
findings. She was very thorough."

  Mulder glanced over at her. "You said you remembered her name -- from a case? It 
wasn't anything of ours."

  She sighed, looking away toward the window, and Mulder wondered for a moment 
whether he'd unwittingly committed some kind of faux pas again. "I mean, I don't 
remember it, anyway," he ventured.

  "It wasn't ours, exactly," she said. "She wrote a report that I studied at some length. I 
thought it might have some bearing on a followup."

  "A followup to...?"

  Scully was quiet for so long that he was almost sure he'd overstepped one of her unseen 
boundaries. He risked a sidelong look at her; she so seldom gave him words to go on at 
moments like this that he'd become adept at reading her physical language. She was only 
gazing down at her folded hands; her head was tilted to the side, bowed down a little at 
the end of the smooth curve of her neck and back, and Mulder breathed a sigh of relief as 
he knew he'd escaped an argument this time.

  "Dr. Dennison wrote a short paper," Scully began, "on her unusual findings in the case 
of a small girl who was reported missing by her adoptive parents and who was left by 
persons unknown, near death, at a hospital emergency room two weeks later." She raised 
her head, her eyes focused somewhere on the dull terrain outside the windshield. "She 
failed to respond to any kind of treatment. She died within a week."

  He wasn't sure what he had expected, but it had been nothing like this. He considered 
pulling over, but Scully was still staring fixedly ahead, and he decided maybe she found 
it easier to recount these horrors without having to meet his eyes. He kept driving.

  "The child's mother made repeated charges of abuse against the father, but they were so 
extravagant and improbable that they proved impossible to substantiate," she continued. 
"The father was a high-level medical researcher involved in a government-sponsored 
project. The local law enforcement agencies were very quietly relieved of the case."

  She had adopted the dry, detached tone she reserved for relating the details of a case to 
another professional; that, more than anything, told him how it hurt her just to say it. 
"Scully..." he murmured, but she shook her head and went on.

  "Dr. Dennison found evidence of bizarre genetic mutations in her initial tests on the 
blood and tissue samples that were collected from the body. She at first proposed that 
they were viral in origin, and that they were the cause of death, but then theorized that the 
girl's body had been functioning optimally until that point with the support of certain 
proteins that her system had somehow stopped producing."

  "Or that had stopped being provided for her," Mulder said grimly. "What did the rest of 
the tests show?"

  "There were no more tests." Scully crossed her forearms around her middle, wrapping 
herself in a kind of hug. The gesture was at once so defensive and so forlorn that it made 
Mulder heartsick. "Both parents died shortly afterward in an apparent murder/suicide. All 
of Dr. Dennison's samples and lab work were confiscated. ... There were no more tests."

  They drove in silence for a few miles.

  "You never told me about this," Mulder finally said.

  Scully shrugged halfheartedly.

  "Scully, I'm..."

  "I know, Mulder." To his surprise, she reached out and laid her hand over his and gave it 
a brief squeeze. "I know." And from the corner of his eye he watched her sit up straighter 
in her seat and don her invisible armor again.



   Chapter Eight

   Mulder was waiting in the hotel lobby when he saw the grey Cherokee pull up outside, 
and he walked out to meet it. As he came nearer, he saw Dr. Dennison lean across the 
seat and push the door open. "Hop in," she called, smiling.

  "Thanks," he said, settling himself into the seat and closing the door. Fastening his seat 
belt, he glanced over at her, and then looked again. She wasn't wearing the glasses she'd 
had on earlier at the office, and her hair was drawn up into a soft French braid. A few 
gently curling locks had escaped to trail down her neck. Her dangling earring glittered in 
a passing shaft of light.

  "It's just us tonight, I'm afraid. Jim got a call he said he had to take care of." She braked 
the Jeep at the edge of the hotel's driveway.

  "Something to do with our case?" Mulder asked.

  "I don't think so," she said, shaking her head and frowning just a little. "He would've 
told me if it was."

  "Well, Dr. -- " he began, but she lifted one hand from the wheel and waved it to stop 
him.

  "Please -- 'Paula.' For tonight, when I'm out of that office, anyway." She looked over at 
him and grinned. "Okay?"

  "Okay. Paula." He nodded. "So. Where does one dine in the exciting urban mecca that is 
Donaldsonville?"

  She chuckled. "One doesn't. One drives across the river into Burnside and goes to a 
place called the Cabin."

  "You're the tourguide," he said amiably. "The Cabin it is."

  "So," she said after a moment, "any thoughts yet on our fourth swimmer?"

  "Not really. Maybe in the morning, when we have the autopsy reports." He inhaled 
carefully, trying to decide if the dark, spicy scent he caught every now and then was 
something she was wearing. It was very different from the one Scully wore, but it was 
nice.

  Paula interrupted his little reverie. "He's kind of a break in the pattern, don't you think?"

  "How do you mean?"

  "I mean, he's not government." She tilted her head a little and glanced toward him 
before turning her eyes back to the road. "You had ex-Bureau, ex-State Department, and 
one ATF. This guy was just some kind of scientist."

  Mulder shook his head. "There'll be a connection, but it won't be that obvious. Once I 
know the real relationship between the victims, I'll be able to understand what's on the 
killer's mind, what he's getting at. What he's trying to tell me."

  "What he's trying to tell you?" she repeated.

  "This killer is trying to tell a story," Mulder nodded. "When I learn to read it, it'll be 
there -- all of it. What he thinks was done to him to make him feel this way. The 
characters from his life that the people he's killing represent. He's acting out a drama that 
he can't express in any other way."

  "Hmm," Paula said slowly. "Now that's a little different." Mulder looked over at her, at 
the way the lights of the passing cars caught her blonde hair and set it alight as they went 
by.

  "You've profiled?" he asked.

  "Not the way you have. I've always been interested, but I've only dabbled," she shook 
her head. "That's just intriguing. I've never heard it put quite that way before."

  "Well, look at it. The bodies aren't disposed of in a way that makes them difficult to 
find. He's made no attempt at all to conceal their identities. He even left this last man's 
wallet in his pocket with all his ID."

  "So what's he saying? Is it a dare? Or that he can't stop himself, and he wants someone 
to stop him?"

  "That's how it strikes me -- that he can't stop. My instincts are usually pretty good." He 
sighed. "There's more to this one than I'd expect your people to see. My partner and I 
have... We're on familiar ground. I think I have some idea of what we're looking for."

  Paula was turning the Jeep into the little parking lot in front of an unassuming building. 
"It's not fancy," she said, by way of introduction, "but if you want real Cajun food, this is 
the place."

  Mulder got out of the Jeep. Paula was tall, and her stride was almost as long as his; he 
fell easily into step with her as she led him to the door of the restaurant. Remembering his 
manners, he stepped ahead and opened it for her.

  When they walked in, she made a right and headed for a booth in the bar, rather than 
turning left toward the restaurant proper. "It's no-smoking in there," she said, wrinkling 
her nose, to his questioning gaze. "Unless you mind?"

  "No, no," he said, "it's all right." She unbuttoned her coat, and he reached out to take it 
as it slipped from her shoulders. She was wearing a silky dark dress that fit just a little too 
closely, was just a little too low-cut at the neckline, to be businesslike. He wouldn't have 
guessed, from the suit she'd been wearing yesterday, that she had such a lovely figure. 
Mulder found himself staring and hurriedly looked away before she could catch him.

  He hung her coat on the hook between booths, and put his own next to it. As they sat 
down, a waitress approached, and set two menus and two glasses of water on the table. 
"Hey, Paula," she said.

  Mulder looked over at Paula. "You're a regular," he said, and she smiled.

  "Maybe," she said with what might have been a teasing lilt. She turned back to the 
waitress. "What's good tonight?"

  "The corn and crab bisque is great. So's the catfish couveon. There's a crawfish etouffee 
tonight, too."

"Hmm. It all sounds good," Paula mused. "Give us a minute, would you?"

"Sure," the waitress said, folding up her notepad. "Drinks?"

Paula lifted her eyes from the menu to catch Mulder's gaze. "What do you -- oh, never 
mind. Tonight you're drinking Hurricanes."

"Hurricanes?"

"It's a local thing. It'd be a crime to come all the way down here to Cajun country and not 
try a Hurricane."

"Two?" the waitress asked.

"Sure, Honey. Thanks," she said, and laughed at Mulder's surprised expression as the 
other woman walked away. "That's her name. 'Honey'."

"You *are* a regular," he said.

She shrugged, and said "Maybe," again, and this time the way she held his gaze and 
smiled made him sure she was teasing him. He found himself smiling back, and then she 
dropped her eyes and began to read the menu.

She really was an attractive woman, he thought idly, watching her over the edge of the 
menu he was pretending to study. He'd never been able to shake his feeling that women 
were like chameleons, seeming to change according to their surroundings; sometimes he 
still felt oddly adrift with them. He felt that he could never quite understand what was 
wanted of him, however hard he tried. Even Scully, as long as he'd known her, still 
surprised him from time to time, and not always pleasantly.

A Hurricane proved to be an orangeish concoction over ice in a tall glass. It tasted 
innocuous enough, but Mulder suspected it was the kind of drink that would sneak up on 
him if he treated it disrespectfully, so he sipped cautiously at it over their appetizers.

At first they talked shop, and his mind turned again and again to the case Scully had told 
him about, but he couldn't bring himself to ask Paula about it. Emily and all the things 
concerning her had somehow become Scully's private affair in a way that few other 
things ever had, and it was unsettling to think this stranger might have some kind of 
insight that he didn't. The feeling was strong enough to make him hold his tongue.

As the evening grew longer, the conversation drifted to other things. Somewhere along 
the line, more of the tall orange drinks appeared, and by that time Mulder had forgotten 
his initial distrust of them. He had discovered that he was having a good time. Paula was 
pretty and clever, and she laughed at the right places in all his stories, and she looked at 
him as if she wasn't just stuck with him for the evening, but really liked him.

As the waitress finally set their coffee cups down before them, he said to Paula, "You 
used to work with the Bureau. Didn't it suit you? Is that how you came here?"

Something changed in her gold-flecked blue eyes, and he thought he'd made a mistake. 
She glanced away and tapped the ash from the end of her cigarette carefully into the 
ashtray before answering.

"No, I liked it. I would have stayed." She looked up, but not quite at him. "My father was 
dying, and I came back here to take care of him."

"I'm sorry," Mulder said. "I didn't mean..."

"No, it's okay," she said, meeting his eyes. "He really didn't have anyone else. My mom 
passed away when I was seven. There was a... a family crisis the year before, and she 
never got over it. My dad never remarried." She looked away, and picked up her coffee, 
and took a sip.

Paula seemed to be far away, thinking. Mulder didn't know what to say, so he drank a 
little of his own coffee, and waited.

"My dad was the reason I got into the Bureau in the first place," she finally said. "He was 
Bureau, and I was an only child, and I was kind of raised to follow in his footsteps."

"That sounds like me," Mulder said, nodding. "My father worked for the State 
Department. I know how that is."

Paula looked up from her coffee. "Really. Only child, too?"

"Well... no, and yes. I had a younger sister, who..." He dropped his eyes and ran his 
finger lightly around the rim of his coffee cup. "She was abducted from our house when 
she was eight, and they never found her. So..."

"So when you grew up, you thought you would, and you joined the Bureau," Paula said 
with certainty, and Mulder looked up sharply. She met his gaze evenly. "Did you?"

Mulder, surprised, drew a long breath before answering. "I finally found out what 
happened to her. It wasn't the same as finding her, but it -- it helped."

Paula reached across the table and laid her hand over his. "It's the not knowing," she said, 
"that's the worst. Once you know, you can start to go on." There was an intensity in her 
eyes and in her words that he didn't know how to answer, and he was relieved when she 
withdrew her hand and the moment passed.

Looking at her watch a few minutes later, Paula smiled. "Look how late it's gotten. I'm 
going to have to take you back before my truck turns into a pumpkin." She waved him 
away from the check, handing her credit card to the waitress. "I can write it off. Don't 
worry about it." She signed the slip, and Mulder held her coat out for her, and let his gaze 
linger again on the errant golden curls of her hair that lay along her smooth pale skin as 
he settled the coat upon her shoulders.

"You know, I'm just going to swing by my place on the way back," she said after they'd 
driven a few miles. "Then you can take some paperwork I was going to bring to the office 
tomorrow, and get a head start. We practically drive right past there anyway; it's not out 
of the way."

"Fine," he answered, settling back against the headrest. He didn't want to admit that he 
was still feeling those Hurricanes. It was just that he hardly ever drank, he told himself; 
he wasn't used to it. The dark forms of the landscape rolled soothingly past outside the 
window.

He must have dozed a little. The Jeep was pulling to a stop in the gravel driveway of a 
little house; the crunching sound beneath the tires brought him awake. "Here we are," 
Paula said beside him.

He opened the door, intending to step out and get a breath of the cool air, but when he 
did, he heard the murmuring of the water in the quiet of the night, and looked into the 
darkness beyond the house. "Is that the river? Right there?" he asked.

"That's it," Paula replied. Mulder walked toward it, cautiously at first, and then more 
surely as his eyes grew used to the moonlight. He crossed the yard and came to a low 
picket fence; perhaps a hundred yards on the other side, the land fell away steeply toward 
the riverbank. The moon's reflection rippled on the broad expanse of moving water.

"It's beautiful," he murmured. "Peaceful."

"Tonight, yes," Paula said softly beside him. "But I've seen her wild. I've seen her 
climbing these banks like a woman bent on vengeance. ... I've seen her kill."

He watched the way the white-gold moonlight shifted on Paula's hair. Her fingertips 
grazed his arm. "Come in the house," she said, turning, and he followed.

They went inside, and she turned on a dim lamp on a table by the door. She slipped her 
coat off and laid it over the back of an overstuffed wing chair. "I'll be right back," she 
said, disappearing down the hallway.

When she returned only a moment later, she was empty-handed. "You know," she said, "I 
don't see those papers here. I guess I brought them to the office today, after all." But she 
didn't stop to pick up her coat; she came past it, came closer to him, smiling mysteriously.

"I can pick them up in the morning," Mulder offered. Paula nodded, moving closer still.

"Silly me," she said, lifting her hands and tracing the edge of his coat collar with her 
fingers. "I guess you'll have to." And then one of her hands was smoothing along his 
chest, and the other was slipping around the back of his neck, and she was closing her 
eyes, tilting her face up toward his, and drawing him down into her kiss, drawing him 
down, drowning him as surely as the river outside would have. As his coat fell from his 
shoulders, he reached up to take her into his arms.

He ought to stop her. He knew he ought to stop her. But, oh, it had been such a long time, 
and it was so easy to keep kissing her, so easy to let her keep loosening his tie, 
unfastening the buttons of his shirt; it was so shamefully simple to let his hand slip down 
to trace the curve of her hip as she pressed her body even closer to his.

He ought to pull away, he ought to take his hand -- the one that was, just at present, 
cradling her head, holding her near -- he ought to take that hand and close his fingers 
around her wrist, and tell her he couldn't, and ask her to drive him back to the hotel and to 
Scully. But his disobedient fingers had already undone the little clip that held the loose 
French braid, and they were letting her hair down, weaving themselves gently through its 
silky golden length.

He took his hand from Paula's hair, then, but instead of closing around her wrist his 
fingers closed on the zipper at the back of her dress, and just then he felt the buckle of his 
belt fall open, and Mulder finally understood that he wasn't going to stop her, not at all.



Chapter Nine

 He was standing in front of the mirror, knotting his tie, when he heard Scully's 
peremptory rap at the door of his room behind him, and he closed his eyes for a moment 
and took a deep breath before answering. "It's open."

In the reflection he saw Scully open the door enough to lean in and smile at him. "Good 
morning," she said. "Ready to go?"

He fussed with the tie another moment, answering her image in the mirror. "Almost," he 
said, and then, because he couldn't think of a way to stall any further, he turned to face 
her. "Let's go."

They walked silently down the hallway. "I think I might have found something last 
night," Scully said as they stepped into the elevator, and Mulder's stomach lurched more 
than it should have from the feeling of the floor dropping away as they began their 
descent.

"Found something?" he asked. His voice sounded odd to his own ears.

"A break, Mulder," Scully answered, looking up at him quizzically. "On the case."

"On the case. Of course." The elevator made him feel claustrophobic. He was relieved to 
get out of it. When they came to the cafeteria he picked up a tray and headed off away 
from Scully and toward the counter, but though he lingered there longer than he needed 
to, looking over all the fruits and pastries, he couldn't find anything that appealed to him. 
He took his coffee and looked around, and Scully's red hair drew his eye like a beacon. 
She was making her way to an empty table toward the back of the room.

By the time he got to the table, Scully was settled in with her breakfast. She had a 
generous chunk of cantaloupe and one of those bran-muffin things she liked so much. He 
wished he could eat.

She glanced up at him, her eyebrow rising into its familiar arch. "Just coffee?"

"I'm... not hungry," he said, sliding into his seat and reaching for the sugar, avoiding her 
eyes.

"Mulder, are you feeling all right?"

Damn. Why did he ever imagine he could fly below her radar? He didn't have to look at 
her to know how she was watching him; her stare was almost palpable. In his mind's eye 
he saw the way she would tip her head just that little bit to the side; he saw the warmth of 
concern in her expression. He kept his eyes trained carefully on the coffee as he stirred 
the spoonful of sugar into it.

"I didn't sleep much last night." There: it wasn't a lie, and it wasn't so unusual, either. 
Maybe she'd just let it go.

Looking down at the coffee cup, he didn't see her lift her hand and reach out toward him, 
and he flinched when she laid her soft cool fingers against his forehead.

She drew her hand back, and said, "Sorry," in a way that made him sure he'd offended 
her.

"I didn't see you. That's all."

It had been so long since he had really tried to hide anything of importance from her that 
he scarcely remembered how. The peculiar alchemy of it seemed to turn him to glass; he 
marveled that she didn't just look up and see right through him to the stain on his heart. If 
she were to touch him again he thought he might shatter.

To his mingled relief and chagrin, when Scully set down her spoon, she only reached into 
her bag and pulled out a notepad. Mulder coalesced back into ordinary flesh and bone as 
she flipped back the cover and began to leaf through the densely scribbled pages. "I didn't 
get far, of course," she said, "but I've made what I believe to be an important connection.

"This Plevretes, that I autopsied last night," she went on, her eyes fixed on the page she 
was worrying between her fingertips, "had an employee ID -- a keycard, with a 
fingerprint scan -- in his wallet from a company called Crouse-Hinds. It only took one 
phone call to find out that he was a microbiologist on staff there, working on gene 
therapy. But the name of the place sounded so familiar, and I just couldn't shake it. I 
couldn't stop thinking about it the whole time I was working on him."

She glanced up from the notepad to Mulder's face. He cocked his head in what he hoped 
was a casual-enough curious expression, and waited.

"When I got back to the hotel I got into the Bureau database and did a little digging. 
Between a few of our own old reports, and an educated guess, I put two and two together. 
Mulder, until just six months ago, the Crouse-Hinds Corporation was a wholly owned 
subsidiary of a company called Transgen."

Mulder's hand stopped short halfway to his coffee cup. His eyes narrowed. "Roush," he 
said, not brave enough to speak the other name.

"Emily," Scully said softly for him, nodding, closing the notepad. Mulder released the 
breath he hadn't been aware he was holding.

The enormity and the depth of the implications of that simple utterance of the child's 
name washed over Mulder, taking away whatever chance he might have stood of making 
casual breakfast chat. Instead he sat watching the precise way Scully scooped out little 
spoonfuls of melon, working methodically from one end of the rind to the other, as if it 
were a source of unending fascination. She didn't look up, and if she could feel his eyes 
on her, she didn't acknowledge it in any way. A little part of his mind was tempted to 
assign some dark significance to her silence, but he chided himself and told himself that 
he was imagining things.

At length Scully patted her mouth with her napkin and looked at her watch. "We should 
get going, Mulder," she said. "Dr. Dennison told me I could stop by and pick up some of 
the lab work first thing this morning."

"Oh," Mulder said. "Great."



- - -



Fifteen minutes later they arrived at the medical examiner's office. Holding the front door 
open for Scully, Mulder helplessly remembered holding the door at the restaurant for 
Paula last night. He shook his head and followed Scully down the hallway.

It occurred to him that he had no idea what the proper protocol might be these days for 
greeting the colleague by whom one had been seduced the night before. Was an ordinary 
'good morning' enough? As he was thinking, his hand absently sought its accustomed 
place low against Scully's back, and as he realized what he was doing Mulder snatched it 
away before it could touch her.

Scully knocked briskly at the office door and reached for the knob without waiting for an 
answer. "Good morning, Dr. Dennison," she said as she swept into the room.

"Good morning, Agents," Paula answered from behind her desk. She hardly looked like 
the same woman, he thought with a kind of shock, seeing her bright hair pulled back 
again into its demure bun, and her lithe figure hidden behind the severe lines of her steel-
grey suit. Mulder met her eyes and smiled uncertainly, but the smile he received in return 
was polite and professional, and gave no hint of anything that might have stirred beneath 
its surface.

Paula rose from her chair and picked up a large yellow envelope from the corner of her 
desk. "Here are your radiographs, Agent Scully," she said smoothly, holding them out. 
Mulder watched Scully's right eyebrow rise into its familiar arch. As Scully took the x-
rays, Paula picked up several manila folders. "And these are your preliminary lab results. 
The full tox screen will be in sometime before noon."

"Thank you very much," Scully said. Mulder looked over at her and saw that the left 
eyebrow had joined its sister, softening her whole expression. "I must admit I really 
hadn't expected to have all of this so soon this morning."

"When I called the lab yesterday afternoon," Paula said, "I just told them to treat anything 
of yours the same way they'd handle something of mine." She sat down behind her desk 
again, and looked up with a smile that might have been a little bit smug. Mulder thought 
it was just as well that Scully's attention was engrossed in the paperwork and that she 
missed it.

"I also took the liberty of doing a little of the legwork on Dr. Plevretes for you." Paula 
reached over and took a paper from the tray of her printer. "He lived alone in Natchez, 
across the state line in Mississippi, but his ex-wife is in Port Vincent, a little less than 
thirty miles from here. This is her contact info. I imagine you'll want to interview her."

"Thank you," Mulder murmured, reaching for the paper. As he took it, his fingers grazed 
hers, but she didn't even seem to notice. He watched her face carefully, but as she met his 
gaze her expression revealed nothing at all.

"Jim already spoke to her this morning," she went on, "and she's expecting a call from 
you either way." She turned to address Scully. "I could call you when the tox screen 
comes back, if you'd like," she offered.

"Don't go out of your way, Dr. Dennison," Scully said with what Mulder recognized as a 
genuine smile. "You've been so helpful. Besides, I doubt we'll be back here till later in 
the afternoon."

"Well, if you think you'll be much later than five, give me a call," the blonde woman said, 
"and I can have someone drop the file off at your hotel. That'll save you a few minutes."

And keep me out of your way, Mulder thought. He was beginning to suspect that Paula 
had a lot more practice at this kind of thing than he did. Looking at her now, it was hard 
to believe she was the same woman who'd... Well, best not to go there, he told himself. 
He folded the paper with Mrs. Plevretes' contact info, and folded it again, and tucked it 
into his coat pocket.

"Thank you so much," Scully said, still with that smile, and then looked over at Mulder. 
"Shall we get moving on this?"

"Sure," he said, still watching Paula from the corner of his eye.

"Goodbye, Agents. Good luck," she said.

"Thanks again, Dr. Dennison," Scully answered, gathering up all her papers. "We'll be in 
touch later." Mulder murmured his assent and edged toward the door.

He let out a sigh of relief as the door closed behind them. Standing in that office like 
nothing had ever happened had been far too surreal for his liking. The sharp report of 
Scully's heels on the tile floor was the most reassuring sound he could imagine.

"You know, she's good," Scully said suddenly. "Very professional." She glanced up at 
Mulder. "She runs a tight ship. I wonder how she ended up out of the Bureau and in a 
little backwater like this."

"She grew up here," Mulder answered, and immediately wished he hadn't. "She came 
back when her father was dying." He silently begged Scully not to ask him anything 
more.

"Ah," Scully nodded. "And then she met up with the sheriff?"

"I, uh... what?" he stammered, caught by surprise.

"Don't tell me you haven't noticed the way he looks at her," Scully chuckled. She reached 
over and patted his arm affectionately. "Mulder. Please. Wake up."

His heart sank. If Scully could look at a stranger and read him so easily, how would he 
ever be safe? He had to put it from his mind, or he would never be able to keep up his 
facade. Paula, he thought sourly, certainly seemed to have put it from hers.

He took his cell phone and the paper Paula had given him out of his pocket. "C'mon, 
Scully," he said. "Let's go see what we can find out about Russell Plevretes."



Chapter Ten

"You mentioned on the phone that it had been a bit of a stressful week for you," Dr. 
DeMontreaux said conversationally as Denny sat down. "How are you holding up?"

"Pretty well, I guess." As Denny settled into the chair, the dark maroon leather made the 
funny little low squeaking sound that she always associated with this office now. "All 
things considered."

"Ah. 'All things considered,' eh?" Dr. DeMontreaux smiled a little. "Let's consider them, 
then. What's been on your mind?"

"Well, I know what it is mostly, right now. It's that little girl who's missing."

"Yes. I understand that must be very difficult. But you don't deal directly with the police 
work involved in the search...?"

"No," Denny shook her head. "But you can't get away from it. It's a little town and it 
seems like everybody knows her. If they were strangers it would be easier." She frowned. 
"Not easier, but... different, somehow. But we know these people."

Dr. DeMontreaux nodded. "And because it's close to home, it reminds you of your own 
experience, and that makes it more uncomfortable."

"Exactly." Denny looked up with a wry smile. "I mean, I'm a lot better than I used to be. 
Did I tell you I used to buy my milk in bottles, because it was too hard to see the missing 
kids' faces on the sides of the milk cartons?"

"Well, you're facing it now, rather than trying to hide it from yourself, or deny it." Dr. 
DeMontreaux wrote something quickly on her notepad. "It's much healthier to face it and 
come to terms with it."

"I know," Denny sighed. "It's almost like something's trying to *make* me face it. I just 
can't get away from it, what with Jessy missing. People want to ask me about it. Even if 
they won't say it in so many words, they'll lead the conversation around that way and then 
sit there with this look on their faces like they're waiting for me to say something 
nobody's thought of yet. Like they think I'll have an answer, because it happened to me." 
She shifted uncomfortably in the chair. "Last Sunday after church, a woman I know even 
asked me..."

Denny paused and took a deep breath. Dr. DeMontreaux looked on expectantly.

"Well, she writes a column in the Chief. The town paper," Denny went on. "She actually 
asked me if I'd talk with her, if she could do a little piece on how I'd been... on what 
happened to me." She laughed mirthlessly. "A human-interest piece, she said. On how I 
*overcame* it."

"And how did you handle that?" Dr. DeMontreaux asked. "How did it make you feel?"

"I just told her I'd really rather not. I said it was still difficult for me to talk about. And I 
felt... I think I was so surprised I didn't know how to feel." She shook her head 
wonderingly, remembering the surreal feeling of standing in the sun on the front steps of 
St. Francis, realizing what the woman had wanted. "I mean, she meant well. I've known 
her since we were kids. I guess that's why she thought she could ask. She has no idea 
what it's like."

"Yes." Dr. DeMontreaux agreed. "It's very difficult for people who've had no experience 
like yours to understand."

"They don't want to understand," Denny said vehemently. "Oh, they say they do. Maybe 
they even believe it. But if you try to show it to them, they're frightened, and they back 
away. They want to think that when it's over, it's over. That you pick up your life where 
you left off and that everything's fine. They don't want to find out that you're still 
screaming inside, somewhere they can't hear. When they find out it's never really over, 
they're afraid. And they're afraid of you, because you're the one it happened to."

She fell silent, a little surprised at her own outburst. Dr. DeMontreaux waited a moment 
before speaking.

"And yet," she finally said, "as you've learned, holding it in isn't the answer."

"Well, I'm here, aren't I?" Denny snorted softly, and then glanced down, almost ashamed. 
"I'm sorry. You know what I mean."

"Yes, I do," the older woman nodded reassuringly. "But to be at peace with yourself, you 
know you can't save it all for here. That's still a way of trying to compartmentalize it, and 
keep it separated from the rest of your life." She tapped the end of her pen against the 
blotter of the desk. "Now, I'm certainly not suggesting that you give that newspaper 
interview, but we've said this before -- it's important that you try to begin placing trust in 
others." She looked inquiringly at Denny. "What about your friend Jim? You've told me 
you feel safer with him than with anyone else."

"I do," Denny said slowly. "I do. But that makes it harder, too, in a way -- because he's 
the most important. His opinion matters more than anyone else's."

"Start small," Dr. DeMontreaux suggested. "Why, you could even just mention that you 
come to see me. That's not such a remarkable thing, and it would open the door for more 
as you feel comfortable with it."

"I... I guess so," Denny mused, and then nodded. "Yes. I think I could do that."

"Don't force yourself," Dr. DeMontreaux said kindly. "You know you tend to be hard on 
yourself anyway. But I'm sure there are opportunities for you to share. You just have to 
stop letting them all pass you by. Start using them, little by little, and we'll talk about how 
that makes you feel." She made another more lengthy notation on her pad, and then 
looked up at Denny again. "How are you doing with your medication?"

"All right, I think," Denny answered. "I mean, it's only been a few days since we 
switched it, so you know we can't really say for sure yet."

"Of course. But I know you -- and if it disagreed with you, I know you'd have noticed 
something already, however minor," Dr. DeMontreaux said, and Denny had to smile a 
little.

"Occupational hazard of a medical background, I suppose," she said. "I do notice things."

"That's fine, dear. You make my job a little easier," the other woman chuckled, making 
another brief note. "Now, you had mentioned those FBI agents last week. How did that 
go?"

"Not bad, after all. Actually, they're quite a pair." Denny wrinkled her nose a little. "At 
first I just thought the woman was standoffish, but then I figured out there's something 
besides work going on between them -- and that the man is a bit of a wolf. I've caught 
him looking at me like he's imagining what's under my dress. I don't know how she deals 
with him." She looked up and smiled. "You know, it probably made it a little easier for 
me, though. Being aggravated at him kept me from feeling sorry for myself that I'm not 
still in the Bureau too."

"Well, that's good, then," Dr. DeMontreaux said, setting down her pen and leaning back 
from her desk. "I think you're learning that you're stronger than you believed you were. 
Why, a year ago you would have been much more likely to let all these things gang up on 
you and make you very upset. I'm so pleased with your progress. Aren't you?"

"I guess so," Denny answered, and then added more decisively, "Yes. I am."

"Good for you! You can give yourself a big pat on the back," the older woman smiled. 
"Was there anything else on your mind before we finish?"

Denny thought for a moment. "No, not really. There was a lot going on, but the whole 
week wasn't as scary as I thought it would be."

"All right, then," Dr. DeMontreaux said confidently, standing up behind the desk. "And 
next week you'll come and tell me how well it went when you found a way to open up a 
little with your friend Jim."

"Positive thinking," Denny chuckled, rising from the squeaky leather chair.

"Yes, indeed," the therapist said as she walked Denny to the door. "We both know it 
works. Now you have a wonderful week."

"Thanks. You too," Denny said. "I'll see you next week."

 

Chapter Eleven

"Mulder." Scully, standing in the hotel hallway outside Mulder's room, tapped again at 
the door. "Mulder?"

It was late; he should be there. She frowned and pressed her ear to the smooth wood of 
the door. She couldn't hear anything inside. She had expected at least the low murmur of 
the muted television that seemed to be his favorite brand of white noise; she had come to 
think of it almost as the soundtrack to the long years of hotel rooms they'd stayed in.

Scully straightened up again and studied the door, her frown deepening. It was the second 
time since they'd been here that she hadn't been able to find him. Even after all these 
years, she was still never quite sure how to feel when he dropped out of sight like this. 
Part of her wanted to huff back to her room and luxuriate in self-righteous indignation at 
being left to pore alone over the information they'd gathered during the day, but she could 
never quite shake off the little voice of worry that insisted he might have gotten himself 
into some kind of trouble again.

She sighed and turned back across the hall to her own room. Once inside, she sat down at 
the little desk in front of the window, fingering the pages of the yellow legal pad there, 
not really seeing the notes she'd taken. She reached out and picked up her cell phone, but 
her finger paused above that speed-dial key, and she eyed the phone speculatively. It was 
a touchy situation. She didn't want him to think she was keeping tabs on him. *She* 
didn't want to think she was keeping tabs on him. The ice had just melted from that little 
unannounced excursion of his three weeks ago.

Maybe, she thought now, she had been a little hard on him over that. She'd been surprised 
at the vehemence of her own feelings. When he'd reappeared in the office on the third 
morning as if nothing had happened, she had given full vent to her anger. The wide-eyed, 
blinking incomprehension on his face had only spurred her on. The way she had slammed 
the door as she left the office had felt ludicrously satisfying.

Mulder had been wary around her for days afterward. He had cringed apologetically at 
the outer edges of her personal space like a dog that had been kicked. He hadn't even 
dared to escort her with the familiar hand at the small of her back until the first morning 
they'd been here, walking down the hallway toward the medical examiner's office.

Scully shook her head and pressed the key to dial Mulder's cell phone. She would tell him 
she was sorry for that outburst. She knew him better by now than to think he'd 
purposefully done it to hurt her. Cradling the phone between her shoulder and her ear, she 
began gathering up the papers on the desk; she found herself smiling a little, waiting to 
hear his voice.

Her smile faded as the phone rang on unanswered, and vanished when the recorded voice 
clicked on to tell her that the customer she was calling was out of range, or had turned off 
the phone. She pressed the dial key and carefully dialed the number herself, one digit at a 
time, but the same thing happened. Hesitantly, she turned the phone back to standby and 
set it down.

She peered out the window and saw that their rented Taurus was still in the place they'd 
left it. While she was wondering what to do, the headlights of a vehicle turning into the 
driveway two stories below caught her eye. It seemed familiar, and she looked at it more 
carefully; as it pulled up under the front lights of the hotel she saw that it was a grey Jeep 
Cherokee, like the one she'd seen that Dr. Dennison driving yesterday. And after the Jeep 
had drawn to a halt, the passenger-side door, the one nearest her view, opened, and 
Mulder stepped out.

Scully's eyes widened. She reached over and fumbled with the switch of the lamp, 
turning out the light so she couldn't be seen. She rose slowly, unconsciously, to her feet, 
watching transfixed as Mulder walked around the front of the Jeep and leaned down to 
the driver's window. She watched him saying something, smiling; her mouth dropped 
open in astonishment as she saw a graceful, feminine hand reach out of the window to 
touch his cheek and to ruffle his hair. When that hand playfully grasped his tie and drew 
his head down into the window, out of her line of sight, she gasped aloud.

He stayed there for what seemed like a very long time, and when he drew back and 
straightened up, he was holding Dr. Dennison's outstretched hand, and as Scully stared he 
bent his head and kissed the back of that hand before letting it go. Then the Jeep pulled 
away into the night, and Mulder began to walk toward the front door of the hotel.

Scully sank back into her chair, her own hand pressed to her mouth. No wonder she 
hadn't been able to find him the other night. No wonder he had seemed so uncomfortable 
the next morning. He had been -- he had been with --

She startled to her feet and hurried toward the door. She had already locked it, of course, 
but now with trembling fingers she fastened the little chain as well. She fled to the bed 
and hastily turned off the bedside lamp, and hoped that if he couldn't see a sliver of light 
under her door, he would walk past without knocking.

It must have worked, for the summons never came. She sat for a long time in the dark, 
staring at the red digits of her travel alarm and wondering how she would be able to 
pretend that she hadn't seen and didn't know.



Chapter Twelve

Afterward, Denny lay quietly for a long while, her head on Jim's shoulder, her arm 
thrown loosely around his waist. His fingers smoothed her hair in long, lazy, soothing 
strokes. She sighed, her eyes half-closed; it was always so tempting to fall asleep here, all 
safe and warm and loved, so tempting to think of waking beside him.

She sighed again, resigned. She stirred and lifted her head, pausing to drop a kiss on that 
warm shoulder, and slowly sat up. As she swung her legs over the side of the bed, she felt 
Jim's hand on her arm.

"Stay," he said softly. 

She didn't answer, but she waited. The mattress shifted beneath her as he rolled toward 
her. He slipped his arm around her waist.

"It's after midnight already," she whispered.

"Just a little while, Den. ... Please."

She had wondered a hundred times whether his simple presence might chase her demons 
away, whether she might look back some day, years from now, and mark that first night 
she'd been brave enough to stay as the beginning of the time she no longer needed to fear 
where or how she might wake to find herself some morning.

She turned to look over her shoulder, and found him propped on one elbow, watching her 
steadily. "Just a little while," she said, and he sat up, and heaped the pillows against the 
headboard, and leaned back against them and reached for her. She settled in against him 
and dared to half-close her eyes.

"You never stay, Den. You know I wish you would," he murmured against her hair. "By 
this time, you should know you're welcome."

She nuzzled closer against his chest in lieu of answering. The hand that rested upon her 
shoulder picked up that slow, soothing stroke again.

"Remember back when we were in high school?" he asked, a few minutes later.

She nodded. "Yeah." Her voice was barely a whisper.

"You know, Denny... when you went away to college, I told myself I'd get over you, that 
we'd both find somebody else. Once or twice, I thought I had." He bent his head and 
pressed his lips to her temple.

"Then they told me you were coming back. The minute I saw you I knew I hadn't gotten 
over you. Now I know I never will."

She felt the sweet drowsiness creeping over her, and let her eyes slip the rest of the way 
shut. Her limbs felt so heavy; in only a few more minutes it would be impossible to 
move. Surely she could give in; surely she was safe here...

She was almost gone when Jim's voice found her ears again. "Denny... baby?"

She drew a deep breath, stirring. "Mmm?"

"Den, we..." His voice was soft, almost tentative. "We could get married."

Her eyelids fluttered open and she was suddenly, utterly awake again. 

There was so much, too much, that she had never dared to tell him. He meant too much to 
her. The risk had always seemed too great. How could she tell him what had really driven 
her back to this place? How could she describe the great missing chunk of her life, the 
childhood that had vanished? When Jim reminisced sometimes about how he'd tipped 
over her dollhouse and made her cry on the first day of kindergarten, she always smiled 
as if she remembered it, too, but it was gone, like everything else that had happened 
before the morning she'd found herself standing at the edge of a sunny forest glade in the 
July just before her seventh birthday.

"There are," she whispered, "... there are things... you don't know."

"You can tell me," he murmured. 

Jim waited, silent, but even over the din of her own racing heart she could feel how his 
had quickened its pace beneath her ear. She owed him this. She owed him more than she 
could ever give him, really, but this was a start. Start small, Dr. DeMontreaux had said. 
The door was open. She had to step through it.

"You know how, on Tuesdays -- I always leave early. I go and... " She took a shuddering 
breath. "I see a doctor."

Jim's arm tightened around her. "You're not -- baby, are you sick?" he said, and she knew 
he was thinking of the cancer that had taken her aunt and her father, spreading by 
inexorable, inoperable degrees from their sinuses into their brains.

"No," she answered quickly, "no, no. It's not that. It's... she's a psychiatrist. I talk to her 
about... Jim, do you remember when we were little, when I..."

Her voice failed her. "It's okay," Jim whispered into the silence. "It's okay."

"Do you remember..." She closed her eyes, willing away the threatening tears. "Do you 
remember when I was taken?"

"Yes, baby," he said soothingly. "Yes."

"Jim, I... I don't."

"Not at all?" he asked, and she could only nod. "Well, I guess that's not too unusual, is 
it?" Denny was too relieved and surprised to answer. Jim's hand kept up the comforting, 
soft stroking against her shoulder.

"I mean, people block things out all the time. It's just a defense mechanism," he went on. 
"And something as scary as that? For a little kid? ... It's not strange at all."

She let out a long sigh and sagged against him, and he held her quietly for a while. At last 
he shifted a little and gently took her chin in his hand, and turned her face up to his.

"Baby," he said teasingly, tickling her under the chin, "if your purpose in bringing this up 
was to distract me so I'd forget that I just about proposed to you, it's not working."

His eyes were merry. She found herself smiling back up at him. She opened her mouth to 
answer, but he laid his finger across her lips.

"Shh. We don't have to talk about it anymore right now," he said. "All I want to hear now 
is that you're going to stay right here for the rest of the night."

"Right here," she sighed happily, nestling closer against him and closing her eyes.

 Chapter Thirteen

"You sure you don't want to come?" Jim asked. 

"No. You guys go do your male-bonding thing." Denny shook her head, glancing down 
the hall to where two of Jim's state-trooper buddies stood by the front door waiting. One 
of them lifted a hand to wave when he saw her looking, and she smiled back at him. "I've 
still got half of yesterday's lunch left over in the fridge."

Jim squeezed her hand in his. "You've been messing with the paperwork for old Calvin 
all morning, haven't you? I'd think you'd want a break."

"By the time you get back I'll have it done, and all I'll have to do then is start trying to 
call his next-of-kin." At his raised eyebrow, she smiled. "I found one. A nephew in North 
Carolina."

"That's amazing. I didn't think that old hermit had any relatives left." Jim grinned a little 
and shook his head. "We're wasting you in this office, Denny. You should be out here 
doing detective work with us."

"This *is* detective work, Jim. The difference is that the people I'm investigating stay put 
while I do it without being arrested first." She smiled and nodded toward the waiting 
men. "Go. Feed the troops."

"Okay. I'll see you in a little while." He leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to her lips. 
"Love you."

"Love you," she said softly in return, and stood, leaning against the frame of the open 
door, watching him walk down the hallway to meet the other men. When they had 
stepped outside into the parking lot, she turned and went back into her office, closing the 
door behind her. She lingered at the window for a moment, watching their car pull out of 
the parking lot and into the street; when they'd gone, she turned back to her desk and 
picked up the phone.

She dialed the number from memory. She didn't sit down; she leaned against the desk, 
twirling the phone's coiled cord in her fingers, as she listened to the ringing and waited 
for an answer.

"Good afternoon. This is Dr. DeMontreaux."

"Doctor, hello. This is Paula Dennison," she said.

"Well, hello!" Dr. DeMontreaux answered warmly. "What can I do for you today?"

Denny let go of the phone cord and twisted around to open the top drawer of the desk as 
she spoke. "Well, I'm starting to wonder about the new meds."

"Ah." She could picture the therapist reaching for the ever-present notepad and picking 
up her pen. "And why is that?"

"I'm not even sure it's the meds, actually," Denny said apologetically, sorting through the 
odds and ends in the drawer. "I don't feel --" she groped for the right word -- "I don't feel 
*connected.* I've had mornings when I wake up and I don't even remember what I did 
after I got home from work the night before."

"But you do wake up at home, with nothing in disarray?"

Denny withdrew her hand from the desk drawer and studied the thick, glossy coat of too-
red polish on her nails. "Yes, that's true."

In the short pause she could imagine Dr. DeMontreaux sitting back in her chair, setting 
her pen down on the desk beside her notepad. "And, overall," the doctor remarked, "you 
did say you've been feeling better."

Denny thought about it for a moment before answering, a bit reluctantly, "Yes, I suppose 
I'd still have to say so."

"You don't sound convinced," the older woman said. 

"I... should be," Denny answered slowly, still studying her hands. "It's like you said -- I 
haven't had any, um... incidents. Not since we changed the meds." She hated the polish. 
Her nails were short, her hands workmanlike; red was a terrible color on her. She hated 
red.

"So what is it that keeps you from being sure?" Dr. DeMontreaux continued.

"I don't mean to sound like I don't think it's helping," Denny said, shaking her head. "I 
mean, this is so minor, compared to the other stuff. But it's just such a weird feeling. It's 
like... like I'm missing time." She folded her hands together to keep the offending polish 
out of her sight. Red. What had possessed her to try red? She couldn't remember putting 
it on, couldn't find the bottle of nail polish in her apartment, and now she couldn't find it 
in her desk, either.

"Well, we had discussed the possibility that this medication might make you feel 
fatigued. I imagine you're just overtired in the evenings because you're still adjusting to 
it." There was a short pause, and Denny was sure Dr. DeMontreaux was picking up her 
pen and writing something on the notepad. "Tell you what. Let's give it another week, 
and if you aren't comfortable with it then we'll back off a little. Okay?"

"Okay. Good," Denny nodded. She was going to have to stop on the way home tonight 
and buy nail polish remover -- she didn't have that at home, either. "Thanks."

"You're very welcome, dear. And now I must go, because I'm expecting a patient in a few 
minutes. You know you can always call me right away if you have any more questions."

"I will," Denny said. "Thanks again."

"My pleasure. I'll see you Tuesday. Bye bye."

Denny hung up the phone and sat back against the desk. She held one hand out in front of 
her, turning it a little from side to side, looking at the nail polish. She pursed her lips. She 
supposed she should be grateful, actually, if misplacing her reading glasses and putting 
on red nail polish was the worst thing she'd been getting up to during those foggy 
evenings lately. Maybe this was actually a good sign. Maybe she was heading in the right 
direction after all.

She sighed and stood up and stretched, feeling a little better about things, and headed out 
of her office toward the break room to get her lunch.

 

Chapter Fourteen

Mulder was already pressing Paula up against the front door as she struggled with the 
lock. The blood sang so stridently in his ears that he could not distinguish the 
omnipresent voice of the river just beyond the little picket fence. When the door swung 
open they staggered inside; Mulder roughly kicked the door shut behind them. He heard 
Paula's keys fall, forgotten, to the hardwood floor.

There was no time to bother with a light. He pushed her hard against the back of the 
nearest chair, tangling his fingers into her hair, pulling, forcing her head back, his mouth 
urgent at her throat. Her fingers clawed at his belt buckle and then at the zipper of his 
pants. He felt her tug down his pants and his boxers, and then suddenly her strong arms 
pushed him back, her hands braced against his chest.

He lifted his head, panting, dumb with confusion. He couldn't read her eyes in the 
shadows.

She twisted in his arms until her back was turned toward him. "From behind," she 
growled, pressing herself against him. His breath hissed savagely between his teeth as he 
ran his hands up under her skirt and found that she was wearing nothing at all beneath it.

---

In the hallway, Scully's stride grew shorter and shorter as she came closer to the door of 
Mulder's room. She would not look at it. She wouldn't even look at it. She meant to walk 
past, but her feet balked; she paused, and glanced up sidelong, reluctantly, at the door; 
her gaze traveled slowly up the bland wood, lingered on the dull sheen of the brass 
doorknob...

Silence. There was no sound at all from behind the door. It was no surprise. She had 
already assumed he wouldn't be there. She dropped her eyes and studied the blue-and-
cream pattern of the carpet, watching one foot, and then the other, step -- and step -- and 
step, carrying her toward her own room.

---

Mulder let himself into his room and drew the door shut softly behind him. He waited in 
the silent darkness for a long moment before he sighed and reached for the light. He 
dropped his jacket over a chair and tugged at his tie as he headed toward the bathroom.

Three times, now. He wondered why he couldn't just close the door of his room and leave 
the shame outside in the hallway. In the shower he turned the water up, hotter and hotter, 
until he felt the sweat breaking out on his face again. He scrubbed at his skin as if that 
could wash away the memory of her body.

It was Scully he dreamed of, Scully he longed for; it was Scully he couldn't have. He 
thought he had long since resigned himself to it. Why, then, was it that when the Fates 
dropped someone like Paula into his life like some kind of cosmic consolation prize, he 
just couldn't put Scully out of his mind for a little while and enjoy himself?

He laid in bed, propped against the pillows, the TV remote in his right hand. He changed 
the channel over and over. Nothing caught his attention. In his mind he constructed 
elaborate fantasies, scenes of Scully confronting him, accusing him; Scully enraged, 
tearing into him, telling him she knew everything. He could see just how her eyes would 
flash. He could hear the furious intonations of her voice. How could you do this? the 
Scully in his mind demanded. To the work? To us? To *me?*

He had no answers. He couldn't even pretend that Paula cared for him; he certainly didn't 
try to convince himself that he cared for her. It was the wickedness of the affair that 
thrilled him, and he was too selfish to turn away from it.

But worse than the Scully in his conscience was the Scully who faced him each morning 
over breakfast. It was worse knowing that she could tell just by looking at him that 
something was wrong. Worst of all was the way she watched him, when she thought him 
unaware, with that clear light of concern in her gaze.

 

Chapter Fifteen

"Hey, Jim, I'm starving," Denny called, opening the door of his office. "Are you almost 
ready to-- oh!" She hadn't expected to see the two FBI agents sitting across the desk from 
him. File folders were stacked three-deep on the desk, and another was open on the 
redheaded woman's lap; more papers were laid out across the desk. "Excuse me. I didn't 
mean to interrupt."

Jim turned in his chair to face her. "No problem," he said. "We shouldn't be too long 
here." The heap of paperwork looked more than not-too-long to Denny, but Jim winked 
quickly at her before turning back to the agents, and she smiled in understanding.

"I'll be in my office when you're done," she said. She nodded to the agents and turned to 
go.

"Oh, Denny?" Jim called her back. "If Nate Raymon calls, would you go ahead and tell 
him the NCMEC has added Jessy to the database?" He added, turning back toward the 
two agents, "We've had a little girl missing for about a week and a half now."

The effect of Jim's words surprised Denny. Both the agents stiffened in their seats for the 
briefest of moments; they turned toward each other and exchanged a look that seemed to 
Denny to be part of a years-long, ongoing conversation that only those two were privy to.

"Missing girl?" the redheaded woman asked, a little too quickly to be casual. Her bright 
blue eyes had fixed on Jim like a cat's on a bird.

"What were the circumstances surrounding her disappearance?" her partner asked at 
almost the same time. His voice betrayed his keenness less than Agent Scully's, but his 
eyes were alight just like hers, and he had begun leaning subtly forward in his chair.

Denny felt a sudden wariness. She looked over at Jim and saw that his expression had 
gone cool and unreadable, and knew that he felt the unease in the air as well. Jim was 
almost always gracious about accepting help on a case, but she wondered if he'd extend 
that attitude to these two people -- she knew, just from a few offhand comments he'd 
made to her, that they had already come perilously close to stepping on his toes. She 
found herself waiting in the doorway to see what would happen.

Jim leaned back in his chair and stretched his sturdy legs out in front of him, slowly 
crossing them at the ankles. He turned that carefully blank gaze from Mulder to Scully 
and back again. "The parents sent the kid up to her room to do her homework after 
supper," he began slowly, as if testing the waters. "Her mom went in about an hour later 
and she wasn't there. House was locked, windows shut -- nobody'd seen a thing."

"How long did the parents wait before they called the police?" Agent Mulder asked. "Did 
you go out yourself on that call?" Denny glanced over at his partner, and saw that she had 
picked up her notepad and was flipping, pen in hand, to a blank page.

Denny could feel her blood pressure going up as she listened. Enough, she told herself. 
Enough. She slipped back out into the hallway and pulled the door silently shut behind 
her.

She made her way slowly back to her office, her shoulders bowed with worry. Even if 
Jim managed to find Jessy alive and bring her home, Denny couldn't help but dread what 
it might still do to the Raymons. She had seen it in her own home after she'd been 
returned. The constant tension between her parents had seemed to cloud the air around 
them. Sometimes it had been hard just to breathe in that house. There'd been terse, 
clipped words instead of happy chatter; there were Mama and Daddy's sudden silences 
when she walked into the room. Daddy had taken to sleeping down the hall in the spare 
bedroom months before Mama had gotten so sick.

She pushed her office door open and stepped across the threshold into the shadows. Her 
hand lingered on the switch, but she didn't turn on the light. Instead she leaned against the 
doorframe and sighed, and thought that what it would do to Jessy herself would be worse 
than what it did to Linda and Nate.

The other children had always seemed to know, as if by some instinct, that Denny was 
different, and her memories of the time before she was taken were so vague and scattered 
that she couldn't say whether it had ever been any other way. She was the one they 
singled out, the one they teased and bullied, the one they excluded. She'd thrown herself 
into her studies and pretended it didn't matter that she had so few friends. She'd never told 
Mama and Daddy about it; she could tell they had troubles enough of their own.

Her adult mind could rationalize most of it away now, but down inside her there was still 
a child who helplessly, constantly wondered what she had done to bring all this to pass, 
and who despaired of ever being able to make it right again.

"Hey." Jim's voice almost startled her. "What are you doing standing here in the dark?"

"Just thinking," she answered, but she turned and reached for him, and he put his arms 
around her. She laid her head down against his shoulder.

"It's okay," he murmured. "What is it, baby?"

"It's just everything at once, I guess," she sighed. "The whole Raymon thing. And those 
two -- they're starting to give me the creeps. Why did they start asking all those 
questions?"

"They were a little evasive on that point." She felt Jim shake his head. "I didn't like it 
either."

"What else did they want to know?"

"All kinds of strange things." Jim's hand, rubbing soothing circles against her back, 
slowed a little. "What Nate does for a living. They got all excited when I told them he 
drives a tanker truck for Bouchereau Oil. And then they wanted to know if Linda'd left 
any handwritten notes in the house."

Denny lifted her head to look at his face, profiled in the light from the hallway. "What did 
you tell them?"

"I just said the only note in the house was her grocery list." He paused, lifting one hand to 
smooth Denny's hair. "Then I said if they thought it mattered what flavor of Pop-Tarts or 
what brand of cat litter the Raymons bought, I supposed I could subpoena the grocery list 
as evidence." He chuckled. "They got the message. They left."

"They wouldn't give up that easily," Denny murmured. "I wonder if they're not telling us 
why they're really here."

"Well..." Jim said slowly, "you hate to think the Feds would come in and sneak around, 
instead of just saying what they want. But we both know they work that way sometimes."

Maybe it was the way her face was still hidden in shadow that made Denny so bold. 
"That woman knew who I was before she even got here," she blurted out. "She knew 
about a case I worked in LA -- one of the last ones I did." She shuddered involuntarily. 
"It was an awful case. Just awful."

Jim's arms tightened around her waist for a moment. "What was it about?"

"It was a girl who'd died. A six-year-old girl. She --" Denny stumbled over her words. "I 
never saw her alive. They just sent me the blood and tissue samples, because they didn't 
know what to make of it. She had some kind of... There were genetic mutations I'd never 
even imagined were possible. It was a miracle she lived as long as she did."

Jim said nothing; he only leaned down just enough to press a kiss to her forehead.

"That was bad enough, but it wasn't the worst of it. I got hold of the casefile." Denny 
didn't realize her voice had dropped to a whisper. "She'd been... kidnapped, or something. 
She'd gone missing. Somebody dropped her off at the hospital. They didn't even know 
who." She pulled back and looked up at Jim, searching his face as well as she could in the 
half-light. "Why would that woman mention that case to me right away? Why would they 
ask you all those questions about Jessy Raymon?"

"I don't know, baby. I don't know." Jim pulled her closer. "But the sooner they find 
whatever they're looking for and go home, the better," he said, his voice darkening. "I 
don't trust that Mulder as far as I can throw him. I don't like the way he looks at you."

Denny stifled a gasp. "You... you've seen that, too?" she asked. Her fingers clutched at 
his shirt. "I hate it. It's unnerving."

"It's goddamned rude, is what it is," Jim growled. His arms tightened around her. "He's 
got no right."

She closed her eyes and hid her face against his chest. "They'll be gone soon," she 
murmured like an incantation, as if she believed that saying it could make it so. "They'll 
be gone soon."

"Let's hope so," Jim sighed. He released her from his embrace, and cupped her face 
between his hands, and kissed her forehead gently. "Get your coat, baby. Let's get out of 
here." Then he chuckled softly. "It's my turn to cook, remember? And you can never tell 
how *that's* gonna turn out."

"You?" she teased, feeling her spirits lift. "Mr. Jim 'Martha Stewart' Cormerais? Please." 
She stretched up to kiss his cheek. "You can be the chief cook in our house. I'll wash the 
dishes."

"Works for me," he said, and swatted playfully at her derriere as she turned away to get 
her coat. "Come along, my little kitchen-maid," he crooned in high-pitched voice. "The 
souffle is ready, and you have to set the table with the good china!"

"Yes, Martha, sir," she giggled, taking his hand, and they headed down the hall together 
to go home.



Chapter Sixteen

Tonight clouds covered the moon, and fog veiled the little house from the Jeep's 
headlights as Paula turned into driveway, one hand on the wheel, the other distractingly 
high on Mulder's thigh. She parked the truck and set the brake, and he shivered at the 
slow, deliberate way she scraped her nails all the way down to his knee before wordlessly 
turning away and opening the door to step out into the night. Mulder's shaking fingers 
fumbled with the catch of the seatbelt, and Paula was halfway up the front steps when he 
got out and slammed the door and hastily followed her.

By the time he came through the front door, Paula was already coming out of the kitchen 
with the glass, the ice cubes gently clinking in the splash of orange juice; he shut the door 
and watched her at the sideboard, topping it off with the vodka. He had drunk more in the 
past week, he thought, than he had in all the past year. He didn't expect it to make him 
forget that he'd slipped away from Scully again, but it drove the guilt down just long 
enough, made it easier to lose himself in the moment, in Paula's arms and her mouth and 
her...

She pressed the drink into his hand. "Thanks," he murmured, lifting it to his lips. She 
stepped back a pace or two, watching him, her eyes knowing and hungry, her slow smile 
almost feral. He found himself half-expecting to see fangs.

She folded her arms across her chest, the gesture tugging even lower the already 
revealing neckline of her soft, clinging dress. He let his gaze travel there, and linger, and 
he heard her laugh softly.

He drained the rest of his drink in a single draught; he set the glass down on the sideboard 
and reached for her. He caught her about the waist and pulled her close. He leaned in to 
kiss her, but she dodged him, and instead reached down, unbuckling his belt, unfastening 
his holster and weapon and tossing them aside onto the sofa. He gasped against her neck 
as she slipped one hand under the waistband of his pants, stroking his flank, teasing; then 
just as suddenly she withdrew, leaning back in his embrace, pulling his head down 
toward her breast. As quickly as he could, he found the tab of the zipper at the back of 
her dress and pulled it down. He nuzzled the fabric aside, felt her nails tighten against his 
scalp as his lips closed over a nipple, but as he closed his eyes a wave of vertigo washed 
over him, and he blinked and lifted his head.

"What is it, Fox?" Paula asked, straightening up in his arms. "What's the matter?"

"I don't know," he said. "I was just --" and he let go of her with one hand, reaching 
toward the sideboard to steady himself as the room tilted again -- "I was dizzy all of a 
sudden."

"Is that so?" she murmured. "Maybe I should get you some water." And she slipped out 
of his arms and backed away slowly toward the kitchen, watching him with an odd 
expression that he couldn't quite fathom. The dizziness hit him again, harder this time, 
and he put out a hand toward her, but she stepped out of his reach.

"Paula --" he gasped, but she only stood back, watching him, and he stumbled toward the 
sideboard; stretching out a hand to support himself, he knocked the purse that she'd set 
there to the floor, and the things inside it tumbled out.

Something made a metallic thunk, accompanied by a sickeningly familiar *snick* that he 
had first heard, years ago, as he stood among the shards of the broken lamp in the living 
room of the summer house in Quonochontaug. His gaze swam uncertainly toward the 
glint of reflected light moving on the floor, and his unsteady eyes focused on the blade of 
the terrible stiletto as it rolled slowly toward Paula's feet.

 

Chapter Seventeen

Mulder drifted slowly back to consciousness, nagged awake by the insistent throbbing in 
his right shoulder.

His head lolled to the side and his eyes fluttered open. He was lying on some kind of thin 
padding over a cool, hard surface; he felt rings of metal around his wrists and knew his 
hands were cuffed in front of him. In the dim light, he could make out the open boards of 
what looked like basement stairs.

Stairs. The basement of... Paula's house? 

He had a metallic taste in his mouth and a hazy recollection of the horror he'd felt when 
the stiletto had spilled out of the fallen purse with the rest of her belongings. He 
remembered trying to back away, trying to reach for his gun; he remembered the sudden, 
overpowering vertigo that had brought him helpless to his knees instead. He remembered 
Paula leaning over him, and the strange, surreal calm of her voice as she spoke to him. He 
wished he could remember her words, but they had faded in the red-tinged haze that had 
taken his sight as he had lost consciousness.

Slowly, tentatively, he flexed his arms; he lifted them enough to bring his watch into 
view, but save for the cuff his left wrist was bare. He sighed and closed his eyes again. 
Trying not to move his painful right shoulder, he reached his left hand across to his right 
hip, groping for the phone that was, as he had expected, also gone. He let his hands fall 
back across his waist.

He opened his eyes, and turned his head, wincing, and tried to take a look around. Across 
the basement, he saw a little window set high in the concrete wall. The sunlight outside 
was bright, but no rays angled in to relieve the half-darkness where he lay; it must be 
midday, he reasoned. He hoped it was only the first day. He wondered what she had used 
to drug him. He wished he had a little water.

Midday. If this was the first day, then it was Friday, and Paula would probably be at 
work. Mulder lay still, for how long he could not tell, listening for some sound that might 
tell him she was upstairs. His head was beginning to ache as well, and it was hard to 
concentrate, hard to keep from slipping back into that darkness.

The silence was thick all around him. He was reasonably sure he was alone in the house. 
He looked over again at the little window. Even handcuffed like this, he thought, if he 
could get to it he could probably break it open. Maybe he could find a way to crawl 
through it and get outside. Maybe he could make it to a neighbor's house...

He moved the fingers of his right hand experimentally. It didn't seem to make the pain in 
his shoulder any worse, and he took this as a good sign. He tried bracing his left hand 
behind him, but that pulled his right arm all the way across his body, and the pain 
sharpened. He caught his breath and fell back again onto the thin quilt.

There just wasn't any other way to do it, he reasoned. He had to roll over to the left in 
order to put his good hand down in front of him and lift his upper body so that he could 
get his feet underneath him. It would only be for a moment, he encouraged himself. It 
might be the only chance he would have. He had to try it.

He took one great, determined breath, and rolled onto his side, heaving his head up, 
slapping his left hand down onto the floor, trying to catch his balance. The pain flared 
and blossomed, white-hot, and he thought he could actually hear the ends of broken bone 
grinding in his shoulder as he moved. A sickening wave of nausea hit him and he 
collapsed, moaning through clenched teeth.

He lay gasping on the cold floor, the room whirling wildly around him. His last plaintive 
thought as he surrendered to the darkness was of Scully.

 

Chapter Eighteen"Answer," Scully muttered under her breath, pacing back and forth in 
front of the little desk, tethered by the phone cord. Outside her hotel-room window the 
sky was steel-grey with clouds. The phone rang again. "Answer, damn it."

She pressed her fingers to her aching forehead. She should have started sooner, she 
thought yet again; she should have gotten started right then, right after breakfast, as soon 
as she knew. Just then someone on the other end of the line picked up the ringing phone.

There were some muffled fumbling sounds before she heard a cautious voice. "Hello?"

"Langly?" she asked.

He paused as if considering his answer. "Uh... yeah?"

"Langly, it's Scully."

"Scully?" he repeated, evidently surprised. "Um -- hey. Want me to shut off the tape?"

"The what?" she said, and then remembered that they habitually recorded all their calls. "I 
guess it doesn't -- I don't know. Look, I need your help."

"What kind of help?" Byers chimed in, and Scully's temper, already short, flared.

"What is this? A party line?" she snapped.

"A conference call, Agent Scully," Frohike's voice explained.

"Oh." Scully stopped her pacing and sank into the chair by the desk. "So that's what that 
noise was."

"I *told* you they could hear it over the phone!" Langly exclaimed irritably, and Frohike 
immediately shot back, "They can't when *I* set it up!"

"Guys, stop it," Byers interjected, and Langly's voice cut short its retort.

"Sorry about that, Agent Scully," Byers continued. "We'd be glad to help you. What do 
you need?"

"I can't find Mulder," she said bluntly. She hated the sound of it, hated the words and 
what they said about her own helplessness.

"Can't find him?" Byers said above the murmurs of concern from the other two. "Where 
are you, Agent Scully?"

"Louisiana," she said. "A town called Donaldsonville. We were working a case." She 
closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the heel of her hand, her elbow propped 
against the desk. "He didn't show up for breakfast this morning."

"And he wasn't -- where are you, a hotel?" Frohike asked. "And he wasn't in his room?"

For the first ten minutes that morning, it hadn't even occurred to Scully to notice. There 
was Eastern standard time, and there was Mulder time; ten minutes either way was 
nothing out of the ordinary. She'd gotten her coffee and her yogurt and a particularly 
irresistible almond croissant, and she'd pulled her notebook out of her bag and flipped it 
open to the pages she'd been working from, and waited for him.

"I didn't look for him right away," she admitted to Frohike.

After waiting for twenty minutes, she had not only noticed, but had let it sour her whole 
mood. She was very well aware that he'd gone out again after dinner the night before. She 
had gone outside for a walk, telling herself the cool evening air would clear her head and 
help her fall asleep when she came in. She could almost convince herself that she hadn't 
been specifically looking to see whether there was a light in his room. She had simply 
happened to glance up as she walked through the courtyard at the back of the hotel; she 
had simply happened to notice that his window was dark.

"Ah," Frohike said after a moment, and that seemed more incriminating to her than 
anything else he could have said.

"I was... I thought it was just a miscommunication," she lied. "So I left right after 
breakfast and drove up to Natchez by myself."

"Natchez?" Byers asked. "Isn't that in Mississippi?"

"Yes. It's almost a four-hour drive." She'd wished Mulder was along once she got there, 
too; she was stonewalled when she inquired at Crouse-Hinds, her FBI badge 
notwithstanding -- or, she thought, maybe that had just made it worse. Each man she 
questioned just referred her to the next one along the line, and no one gave her a straight 
answer about anything. Getting back into the car to head back to Donaldsonville, she put 
the key into the ignition and hesitated. She almost reached for her phone, but then let her 
anger get the better of her again. What Mulder did on his own time was his own damned 
business, and she would never say a word to him about it, but this was the FBI's time 
now. This was *her* time, damn it. She turned the key and started the car.

"So when did you realize he was actually gone, Scully?" Langly asked.

"It must have been almost seven o'clock." She sighed, massaging her forehead with her 
fingertips. "I tried his cell phone a couple of times on the way back, and I kept getting his 
voice mail. He never called me back." She had called the sheriff then, too, and he was as 
mystified as she was. By the time she returned to the hotel, she had run out of ways to 
talk herself out of it. She was worried.

"Man," Frohike said. "I don't like it. That's not like him."

"I know," Scully said. "So I got them to open his room for me." She'd had to flash her 
badge at the desk clerk, and then at his supervisor, and finally at the manager, but 
eventually they got the key and went with her to Mulder's room. "It was empty. No 
Mulder, no luggage, no clothes. It looked like he'd never even been there."

She heard a low whistle, and then Langly's voice. "Holy shi..."

"Had the maids been in? Did they see anything?" Byers interrupted.

"They had. He wasn't there then, either. And of course they changed all the sheets and 
towels, so I didn't have any kind of evidence, of... of anything."

Scully had wished desperately that she'd had something to go on, but there was nothing. 
She was acutely aware that it was because she'd waited too long. She had gone back to 
her room. She'd sat down at the desk. She'd stared for a long time at the traitorous, silent 
phone before she'd picked it up and made this call to the Gunmen.

"We'd better start by running down his credit cards," Byers suggested.

"Okay. I got that," Langly said quickly. "I'll get on it right now."

"How do..." Scully started to ask how they had the numbers, but realized at the same 
instant that they hadn't pressed her for any of the awkward details they must be 
wondering about. She decided she was better off returning the courtesy.

Frohike said, "Donaldsonville, you said? I'll get on all the local car rental places."

"I'll see what I can do about his cell phone," Byers added. "And what's the name of the 
hotel, Agent Scully? I might find something in their phones, too."

"It's the Plantation Inn," she said, surprised. "It's... wait, let me see -- " she picked up a 
piece of the hotel stationery from the desk -- "2179 Highway 70."

"Agent Scully," Frohike said tentatively, "does Skinner know any of this yet?"

"God, no," she groaned. Her head hurt just thinking about that. She closed her eyes for a 
moment. "He's my next phone call."

"We'll get started, then," Byers said. "We'll call you as soon as we get anything."

"Yes," she said. "Please. Call me right away." She lifted her head and looked out the 
window into the parking lot, and realized that right now she'd actually be glad, in a 
strange way, to see that grey Jeep pulling in tonight the way it had only a few nights ago.

"Wait," she murmured. "I should..."

"What's that, Agent Scully?" Byers asked.

"Nothing." Scully sat up. "I just realized I should..." She swallowed hard. "There's one 
more phone call I could make."

Chapter Nineteen

Denny walked from the bathroom through her bedroom, tying the sash at the waist of her 
robe. She came into the living room and reached up to steady the towel wrapped around 
her wet hair as she leaned down to look at the answering machine on her desk; frowning 
a little, she straightened up. The phone had rung twice while she was in the shower, but 
the little red message light burned steady and unblinking.

A call at nearly eleven-thirty at night was never good news, she thought. She couldn't 
help associating late-hour phone calls with hurried trips to the scenes of accidents and 
homicides; she couldn't help wondering, now, if someone had finally found a child's 
body, and if it had been Jim calling to break the news.

She wiped absently with the edge of the towel at a few drops of water that had escaped 
and were trickling down her neck. If it had been Jim, he would have left a message, 
wouldn't he? Even if it was just for her to call him back? She picked up the receiver and 
tapped the three keys that would give her the number of the most recent incoming call.

"The number of your latest call is --" and the recorded voice paused a moment -- "202... 
555... 6431. To be connected to this number, press the pound key now."

Denny didn't recognize the number, but knew it was a DC area cell-phone code. She 
frowned again, pursing her lips; then, as the stilted voice began to repeat its 
announcement, she set down the receiver. She'd had enough weird stuff going on lately, 
she thought. She wasn't going to court trouble. "If somebody really wants to talk to me," 
she murmured, "they'll call back." She turned away and went back toward the bedroom, 
loosening the towel and rubbing it across her hair.

Almost as if that someone had heard her, the phone rang again just as she was picking up 
her hair dryer. She set it down beside the sink and went back into the living room and 
picked up the phone before the machine could answer. "Hello?"

There was a moment's pause before a woman said hesitantly, "Hello... Dr. Dennison?"

"Yes," Denny answered, not quite able to place the voice.

"Dr. Dennison, this is Dana Scully."

"Agent Scully," she repeated, surprised. "What can I do for you?"

"I'm sorry to call you so late. I was hoping you could..." Scully began, and then seemed to 
stumble over her words. She cleared her throat. "Excuse me." Denny heard her take a 
deep breath. "I haven't seen Agent Mulder today, and I've been unable to reach him by 
phone. I was wondering if you'd, ah... heard from him."

"If I'd...? Well, no," Denny answered, puzzled. "Have you asked Sheriff Cormerais?"

"Yes," the agent said. "I spoke to him about two hours ago. He hadn't seen him either." 
There was something about the woman's tone that made Denny uneasy. "I hesitated to 
call you, but I just hoped -- that you..."

Denny's vague unease began to turn to alarm. Her knees felt weak; she clutched at the 
edge of the desk, and sank into the chair beside it. "I think Jim might be more likely to be 
in touch with Agent Mulder than I am," she said as steadily as she could.

There was a long, excruciating moment of silence from the other end of the phone.

"I'm sorry," Scully said suddenly. "I've been presumptuous. Please excuse me," and she 
hung up.

Denny slowly lowered the receiver from her ear to her lap. She stared down at it, and at 
the remnants of the red polish that still clung stubbornly to the cuticles of her nails.

*I don't like the way he looks at you,* Jim had said. 

The red nail polish. The missing evenings. 

The way he looked at her. 

"No," she whispered, lowering her head to the desk, curling into herself. She didn't feel 
the phone slipping from her fingers and dropping to the floor. "No. Oh, God, please, 
no..."

The weight of what she might have done, what she *must* have done, was 
overwhelming. She felt for a moment that it would crush her and drive the breath from 
her lungs, and maybe that would be better, after all -- better for it to all be over with; 
better for Jim to find her here and grieve for her and to go on than to have to find out how 
she'd betrayed him. Better for her, too, to be done with all of this, to be at peace, instead 
of living with this growing feeling that there was a stranger hiding somewhere inside her.

Still, slumped against the desk, her body too heavy to move, she kept breathing.

She ought to do something, she knew. She ought to do something, anything, to shake off 
the growing, shadowy feeling that she wasn't really *here,* that she was only some kind 
of story someone else was telling. This was the feeling that came before the chunks of 
missing time -- she understood that whenever she felt it, but she seemed to forget again 
when she came back to herself afterward.

Do something, she told herself. Remind yourself of who and where you are. Stand up. Sit 
up. Just reach down and pick up the phone. Just lift your head -- just *move.* Just lift one 
finger, and break the spell...

It was no use. The struggle had been too hard and gone on too long, and she didn't have 
the heart to fight anymore. She let out a long sigh as her eyes slipped shut and she 
surrendered.

 

Chapter Twenty 

Mulder swam up through the murky depths and blinked against the light and against the 
dull throbbing in his head. A figure was leaning over him; in the glare of the naked bulb 
hanging from the ceiling, its face was in shadow. He squinted groggily and turned his 
head a little, trying to make out the features.

"Ah, there you are," Paula said, not unkindly. "I was starting to get a little worried."

"Worried?" The word came out with a great deal less force than he'd intended. "Strange 
way to put it."

Paula didn't answer. She stepped over his legs as he lay on the floor and knelt down next 
to him; her fingers probed his injured shoulder, apparently assessing the damage.

"Easy," he grunted, gritting his teeth.

She frowned and shook her head. "I was thinking collarbone, but I don't know. This could 
be scapular, could even involve the acromion process -- soft tissue damage too. I'd need 
an x-ray to tell." She removed her hands from his shoulder and sat back on her heels. 
"Sorry about that. But the stairs... and you were dead weight."

He opened his mouth, but it took a moment's effort to form the words. "Sorry to be such 
an inconvenience." Was that his weapon holstered there on her hip? He knew he was in 
no condition to try to take it back from her.

"You'll want a drink, Fox," she was saying, reaching around behind her and picking up a 
bottle of water. She twisted the lid off and held it out to him. He eyed it suspiciously and 
made no move to take it.

Paula watched as he hesitated; an expression of annoyance flitted across her features. 
"Fine," she said. She screwed the cap back onto the bottle and set it next to him on the 
floor. "I'll leave it there. You can think it over."

She stood up and walked back across the basement toward the steps. Mulder thought she 
was going to climb them and leave him alone again, but instead she turned and sat down 
on the stairs. She pulled her feet up one step higher, her bare toes curling over the edge of 
the wooden board, and studied Mulder for some time.

"You know," she said at length, "we have to talk, Fox."

Wincing, he turned his head a little further toward her. "I'm listening," he said, but for a 
long time she only sat silently watching him.

"What I still can't figure out," she finally said, "is why you came down here."

"Two of the victims were from outside Louisiana," he answered wearily. "State lines. 
Federal jurisdiction. You know about that."

"You can stop fooling, Fox. Of course I know about Federal jurisdiction." One corner of 
her mouth lifted in a bemused half-smile.

Mulder took a deep breath. There was something important here, he was sure; he had to 
try to think coherently so that he could figure out what it was. He closed his eyes for a 
moment but abandoned it when he felt the way the floor seemed to shift beneath him as 
he did.

"I came," he said slowly, "to investigate what appeared to be a serial killer."

"No, no." She shook her head. "That's not what I mean. Why did you come -- you, 
specifically? I wasn't expecting anybody so impressive."

He studied her for a long moment, considering his answer. She was perched on the edge 
of the step, her arms folded and resting on her knees; her eyes were bright and inquisitive. 
He wished he had some way to clear the fog from his head.

"I requested assignment to this case," he said carefully. "Certain features of these killings 
were very similar to some others my partner and I have looked into before. We thought 
we might find a connection."

He could tell before he'd finished speaking that it had been the wrong answer. Paula's 
eyes narrowed; her eager expression faded and became a frown.

"Don't try to play any more games with me," she said darkly. "What were you thinking, 
Fox? Was it a miscalculation? Or were you just so brazen as to think you wouldn't be 
recognized?"

"Paula. I don't know what you're talking about..."

"This one was too big to send just anybody, wasn't it? You had to come yourself for this 
one," she said angrily, rising from the stairs. "You had to come here to find out who'd 
been killing your own!"

She leaned over him, her long blonde hair hanging down to frame her face, its ends 
catching the light and turning gold even as it kept her face in shadow. "You know what 
really got me?" she burst out. "You were so damned arrogant. You came waltzing right in 
here, dropping all these little tidbits about your sister being abducted, about your father 
working for the State Department. You never thought I'd put it together, did you? You 
thought you could just toy with me."

Mulder kept quiet, hoping not to anger her more. After staring down at him for a long 
moment, Paula turned away and went back to the stairs and picked up a pack of cigarettes 
from one of the lower steps. She tapped the pack against the heel of her hand and then 
peeled back the cellophane wrapper from the top.

"I didn't know it was you," Mulder offered. "I didn't know it was you before I got here."

She paused, a cigarette halfway out of the pack. "Well, maybe not," she said, her voice 
softening. A thoughtful expression passed across her face. "No. No, actually, I don't think 
you did." She took the cigarette out and set the pack down again. "You wouldn't be here 
like this if you'd known in time. I'm sure you'd have been more careful."

Mulder, encouraged, waited while she took her lighter out of her pocket and lit the 
cigarette from its flame. "I'm not one of them," he tried again.

"Please. I've done my homework," she drawled scornfully, the hard edge coming back to 
her voice. She pointed an accusing finger at him. "I know who your father was. I know 
who *you* are. I know you gave your partner up to them just the way your father gave up 
your sister. Just like Edward Dennison gave up his only child."

"No!" Mulder protested. "I never did." He lifted his head, fighting the wave of nausea 
that rolled over him. "She knows I didn't." With some effort, he held his head up, held her 
gaze; Paula only watched him impassively, and said nothing.

"You have to believe me," he said faintly as he laid his head down again. "I'm not one of 
them, Paula. I'm a victim, just like you."

Paula tossed her own head indignantly. "I'm no victim!" she exclaimed. "Maybe the rest 
of us are, but not me. I'm the one who's doing something about it." She exhaled a long 
plume of smoke. "And if you didn't know so much about what's going on, I'd have done 
something about *you* by now, too."

She crouched down to grind the cigarette butt out against the floor. "You're going to have 
to talk to me eventually, Fox," she said, and walked over toward him to grasp the end of 
the chain that dangled from the light bulb overhead.

Mulder let his eyes slip half-shut. "She'll find me," he groaned softly, uttering aloud the 
one thought that had sustained him thus far. "Scully will find me."

"I don't see how she could," Paula said. She tugged at the chain and the familiar darkness 
fell around Mulder. "After all, who's she going to run into who knows where you are?"

Mulder listened to the sound of her bare feet padding up the stairs, and then the door 
opened and closed again, and he was alone.

 

Chapter Twenty-One

On Monday morning Scully sat at the little desk by the window in her room. She stared 
out at the sullen grey morning, telephone pressed to her ear, punching the familiar 
number on the keypad almost by rote. She tangled the phone cord unconsciously, 
aimlessly, between her restless fingers, waiting for the answering voice.

"Federal Bureau of Investigation," it said at last. "How may I direct your call?"

"Assistant Director Walter Skinner, please." 

"One moment, please." 

She had to listen to a long passage of bland instrumental music before Kimberly picked 
up. "Good morning, Assistant Director Skinner's office. How may I help you?"

"This is Dana Scully," she said simply. She just didn't have the little pleasantries in her 
this morning. "I need to speak to --"

"Please hold, Agent Scully," Kimberly cut in quickly. "The Assistant Director has been 
waiting for your call." The music came back.

Waiting? Scully herself had been fretfully waiting since before the cold, sunless daybreak 
until a decent hour to call, until she thought there was even a slight chance Skinner would 
be in the office. It was only five after eight. How long could he have been there?

"Agent Scully."

"Sir," she said. "Is there any news?"

"There are people running down the passenger manifests now, Agent." He sighed. 
"You've done this kind of thing before. You know it takes a little time."

"Yes, sir." She kept her tone level, even as she crumpled inside. "I know that." She 
looked out the window; the morning was still bleak. It looked like rain. "But something is 
*wrong* with this. He wouldn't..."

"There's nothing yet to suggest he didn't, and everything to suggest he's tried pretty hard 
to cover his tracks," Skinner said, his voice strained. "Five sets of plane tickets booked, 
going to five different destinations? That was just to throw us off, to buy him time. And 
you said this woman we assume he's traveling with was some kind of child abductee..." 
He sighed heavily, and his voice softened. "Scully, it wouldn't be the first time he's gone 
off half-cocked. Not by a long stretch. I'm sorry, but this has 'Mulder' written all over it."

She knew that; she knew it looked that way. But this couldn't be how it ended. After all 
she had seen and done and gone through with him, he couldn't take up with someone else 
and just walk away. She felt betrayed; she felt angry that this woman could have 
appeared and simply taken what she had come to think of as her own. But most of all, she 
felt ashamed that she had never taken it herself, even though he had offered it to her so 
many times and so many ways over the years.

"Agent Scully, are you there?" Skinner asked on the other end of the phone.

"Yes. I'm sorry." The first drops of rain tapped dully against the windowpane, and she 
reached up, tracing with a fingertip the slow descent of one fat drop down the outside of 
the glass. "I was just thinking."

"The New Orleans field office has everyone they can spare on this, Scully," Skinner said, 
still in that same unaccustomed, gentle tone. "Keep going at your end. We'll get to the 
bottom of it."

"Thank you, sir."

"Check in with me again after you speak to Agent Corwin in New Orleans. I'll call you 
immediately if we come up with something sooner."

"Yes, sir," she said. "Goodbye." She set the receiver down slowly, gently, in the cradle, 
and stared searchingly out the window into the thickening rain.



Chapter Twenty-Two

There were ghosts in the room, wraiths of conversations she'd had with him; her own 
heartless words hung in the air all around her. There was no escaping. "Get some sleep," 
she was saying, watching him turn the little fabric hearts over in his hands, hearing his 
mirthless bark of laughter in response. "Oh, brother," she was muttering, loud enough for 
him to hear, in that hospital room in the Barbados. She was letting her hands fall away 
from his face, there on the threshold of his apartment the day after Diana had died, and 
she was walking away. How could she have walked away?

Scully sighed and lifted her head. She raised her hands to her face, and pulled her reading 
glasses off; she set them down and rubbed at her tired eyes with her fingertips.

"You okay?" Cormerais asked from across the table. "More coffee?"

"No," she sighed, reaching for her glasses. "Not yet, anyway. Thanks." She focused again 
on the lengthy printed columns of names and seat numbers on the page, trying to ignore 
the wave of weary hopelessness that lapped at her.

"Your people in Washington..." the sheriff began, and Scully cut him off, not caring that 
she was interrupting, too tired to think about being polite.

"They have the same lists," she said tonelessly. She adjusted her glasses again, more to 
give her hands something to do than because they were out of place. "The passenger 
manifests from each flight. My, ah... consultants that I mentioned, they have the same 
lists. So does the New Orleans field office. They're all going over them too." She made a 
pencil mark next to the name of Grace Carames, checking her off, and moved the wooden 
ruler she was using as a straightedge down one column.

"You still haven't convinced me we're going to find anything in here," the sheriff said, 
and Scully looked up.

"We are the two people who know them best," she said again, slowly and deliberately, as 
if she were explaining something necessary to a stubborn child -- which was, in fact, 
pretty much the way she had begun to feel. "We are the people most likely to recognize 
the aliases they might be traveling under. We are the people most likely to be able to 
weed out the real flight from the decoys."

"Aliases, decoys -- this is crazy. This isn't Denny," he answered sourly. "This is just 
*not* Denny."

"The evidence suggests --"

"The evidence suggests that your partner is the one who has a habit of vanishing," 
Cormerais said sharply. "The evidence suggests that you two showed up here and started 
finding crazy, nonexistent connections between your serial killer and the disappearance 
of a little girl, a case that was hard on Denny in the first place, and that now your 
partner..." He sat back, pushing the papers away from him in obvious disgust. "The 
evidence suggests to me that Denny's the victim here, and you're treating her like a 
suspect."

Scully opened her mouth, and closed it again on her first, impulsive answer, and took a 
deep breath before answering. "Sheriff," she said carefully, "I do understand that it may 
seem that way to you, but I assure you, I am only interested in locating Agent Mulder and 
Dr. Dennison and ensuring their safety." She pushed her reading glasses back up into 
place on her nose and bent her head to the list again.

"Uh-huh," Cormerais replied, clearly unconvinced. He appeared to have given up all 
pretense of studying the passenger manifest; from the corner of her eye Scully could see 
him leaning back in his chair, arms folded across his chest, watching her. She moved the 
ruler down the rows on the paper, checking names off with her pencil. She refused to give 
him the satisfaction of looking up again.

A few minutes passed in this fashion. Scully found it harder and harder to concentrate 
with that man glowering at her from across the table. She wanted to say something about 
it, and was wondering exactly how sharp-tongued she could be without losing whatever 
vestige of cooperation she might still get from him, when he spoke.

"Whose idea was it to come here in the first place, Agent Scully -- yours, or his?"

She lifted her head and fixed him in a cold stare. "I beg your pardon?"

"You two come down here saying you're looking for a serial killer." He unfolded his arms 
and laid them on the table, leaning forward to stare directly into Scully's face. "Then you 
start sniffing around this missing-child case as if you had a right to. Denny tells me you 
knew her name from her last work for the FBI, and that was a case with a kid who went 
missing, too. Now she drops off the face of the earth, and your partner's conveniently 
gone, too. Maybe you think I'm just some hick sheriff who's too stupid to put it all 
together, but I'm not as stupid as you were counting on."

Scully set her pencil down. She took off her glasses and set them beside it. "Exactly what 
are you implying, Sheriff?"

Cormerais studied her for a long moment, as if sizing her up. "How well do you know 
your partner?" he finally asked.

Scully found herself slowly rising to her feet. "I know him very well," she replied 
through nearly-clenched teeth. "If you have a point, get to it."

The sheriff nodded. "I may not have the kind of pull you have, but I have enough to find 
out a few things," he said angrily. "Like that Agent Mulder doesn't exactly have the most 
sterling record in the FBI. That he's been involved in more than a few shady things. That 
he's been brought up on disciplinary charges more than once. Now are you still gonna 
stand here and tell me Denny's the one who's made him disappear?"

"Did Dr. Dennison tell you about the circumstances of that case I remembered her name 
from?" Scully asked hotly.

"It was a little girl who died. She had some kind of genetic disease."

"And did she tell you about two women who worked at the medical research facility with 
that girl's father?" She was nearly shaking with rage. It was hard to keep from shouting. 
"They were murdered, Sheriff, within a month of that child's death. The homicides were 
very unusual. Each woman died from a single stab wound, right at the base of the skull."

She watched the weight of her words sink in, watched the color slowly drain from the 
sheriff's face. She took her hands from her hips and placed them on the table, leaning 
toward him.

"How well do you know Dr. Dennison, Sheriff?" 

Before he could answer, Scully's cell phone shrilled from her purse. They both turned and 
stared at it for a moment, and then she snatched up the purse and plucked the phone out.

"Sc-" In her haste to answer, she fumbled with the phone, catching her earring against it; 
when she bit her lip to keep from exclaiming at the sudden jab, she bit too hard, and then 
that hurt, too. "Scully."

"Scully, it's Frohike. We've got a little something."

On another day she might have noticed that he had dropped her title and skipped all the 
little flirtatious little niceties that usually peppered his speech to her, but the depth of her 
anxiety was so great now that it only skipped across the surface like a pebble. "What is 
it?" she asked. She picked up her notepad and a pen from the table, and stepped away 
from the table toward the doorway into the hall.

"Those plane tickets -- the charges to his Visa and Amex? You know they were all done 
over the phone. We've confirmed a common source for two of the calls, and I'm guessing 
the rest will go there too if we keep tracking."

"I suppose I don't want to know how you trace these things," she said. She propped the 
phone between her shoulder and her ear, and flipped the notepad to a fresh page.

"I couldn't tell you if you asked. It would put you in too much danger," Frohike answered 
in a momentary flare of his usual style. "You ready to take this down?"

"Yeah. Go."

"The phone's in the name of an Edward Dennison, in a town called Darrow. It's right 
across the Mississippi River there, just a stone's throw away from you. That ring any 
bells?"

"Edward?" She rubbed at her sore earlobe and spared a sidelong glance for the sheriff, 
who was sitting quietly, staring down at his folded hands. "Edward doesn't. But 
Dennison... You got an address on that, Frohike?"

"I don't. The bill goes to a post office box. I may be able to get an address, but it's going 
to take time, just like it will to track down the rest of those phone calls. And time..."

"And we don't know if we have time," Scully said flatly. "I'll get moving on it. Thanks, 
Frohike. You guys just -- just keep..."

"Keep going. I know. We will," he said.

"Thanks." She snapped the phone shut and turned back to the sheriff. He looked up at her 
approach, his expression still a little dazed.

"Edward Dennison," she said shortly. "What's the connection?"

His eyes narrowed. "What do you mean -- the connection?" 

"I mean, who is Edward Dennison? I have evidence that appears to tie him to this case."

"Well, wouldn't that be interesting," Cormerais drawled, rising to the challenge again, 
"seeing as he's been dead nearly three years now? You suppose he reached out from 
beyond the grave to tell his daughter it was okay to go off with your Agent Mulder?"

"Did he live in Darrow?" she shot back, ignoring his remark. "Because those plane tickets 
--" she pointed toward the passenger manifests spread out on the table -- "that were 
charged to Mulder's credit cards, over the phone? The calls originated in Darrow from the 
number of an Edward Dennison."

That seemed to shake Cormerais again. "He -- he lived in Darrow," he admitted. "But that 
house is empty. Denny's been saying all this time she's going to sell it, but she never has."

"Come on," Scully said, picking her coat up from the back of the chair and pulling it on. 
"Let's go."

"Where, to Darrow? Do you think they're --"

"Now!" Scully barked, heading for the door. The sheriff followed in her wake.

 

Chapter Twenty-Three

When he opened his eyes again it was almost dark.

Mulder smelled the smoke of the cigarette before he could distinguish the point of ruddy 
light in the shadows on the stairs. He turned his head slowly toward it, relieved to find 
that the throbbing in his head had lessened and was almost gone.

With a little effort he found he could make out her slim form, seated near the bottom of 
the stairs; one leg was tucked beneath her, the other bent at the knee, her foot propped 
against the stair rail. As he watched, she brought the cigarette to her lips, and for that 
moment its glow brightened just enough to reveal the outlines of her face. Then she 
sighed out the smoke and draped her arm once more across her knee.

He licked his lips. It felt like a long time, he thought, since he'd finished that bottle of 
water, but of course he had no way of knowing for sure. He wasn't sure she was planning 
on bringing him another one, either.

"Paula." 

It came out barely above a whisper. The only indication at all that she had heard him was 
the shift of her weight on the stair and the disinterested flicker of the little red light as she 
tapped the ash from the end of her cigarette.

"Paula," he tried again, and then, after a pause, "Paula. Let me talk to Denny."

The reddish light wavered briefly in its slow arc on the way to her mouth. "Absolutely 
not." She took a long, deep drag on the cigarette, exhaling her words evenly with the 
smoke. "As hard as I've worked to shield her from this? No."

She didn't sound angry, so Mulder pressed on. "She's a smart woman, Paula. She must 
have realized by now that something's going on."

"No," Paula repeated firmly. "She's not the one who knows about this. She doesn't even 
have to remember how it began anymore. I'm in charge of this now." She turned her head 
and looked full at him for the first time. "It's better for all of us this way."

"How is it better for Denny?" he persisted. "How long do you think she can rationalize 
away all the things that don't add up? You must know her better than anyone else, Paula. 
You know it must torment her. Is it right to take this much of her own life away from 
her?"

"She doesn't want that part of her life," Paula answered sharply. "Why should she? Look 
what it's already cost her. Her childhood. Her family. The Bureau. You think it would 
stop there? You think it wouldn't cost her this career and Jim now, too?"

"He's known her all her life," Mulder said. "He knows she was taken. He hasn't left. You 
don't know that he will."

Paula rose from the stairs and advanced upon him slowly, as a cat upon prey. "You think 
so?" she asked, her voice low and dark with anger. "Do you think he'd love her if he 
knew what they'd done to her? Do you think he'd still love her if he knew what she really 
is?"

Mulder's head had begun to ache again, deep muffled drumbeats against his temples. 
Before he could formulate the right answer, Paula turned on her heel and stalked away.

"*I* love her!" she burst out savagely, whirling to face him again. "*I* love her. I've 
protected her. Who else is going to take care of her the way I do?" She thrust the cigarette 
into her mouth and took a fierce drag.

"But what about you, Paula?" he asked weakly.

"What about me?" she snapped.

"Who's going to take care of you?"

Paula froze, and even in the dark Mulder could feel her staring at him, could feel the rage 
rolling off her in waves. He waited for her to strike, but in the end she only spat her 
cigarette onto the floor, and crushed it beneath her heel, and fled up the stairs into the 
house.

 

Chapter Twenty-Four

They took the sheriff's car. He drove with confident speed down the narrow roads; though 
Darrow was, indeed, just across the river, the route to the bridge crossing was circuitous. 
It was late enough that there were few other cars on the road.

Inside the car, the silence was broken only by the occasional crackle of the radio, and by 
the voices of the dispatcher and some officer that followed. Scully watched the 
amorphous forms of the landscape passing by her window. The sky was still as grey as it 
had been all weekend; though the drizzling rain had held off tonight, the clouds diffused 
the moonlight that should have been shining down, reducing the features of the land to 
this unearthly watercolor wash.

Finally they came to the bridge, and when she looked down she was startled to see the 
way the violent torrents leaped and roiled, spewing up spray and foam. "My God," she 
murmured.

"What?"

"The river." As she watched, it carried an enormous tree branch across an exposed rock, 
splintering it like a twig.

"The storm," Cormerais said shortly. "She gets like this when there's a big enough storm 
coming."

Scully craned her neck for a last look at the river as they left the bridge and came onto 
land again. " 'She'?"

"Lots of us who've lived by the Mississippi all our lives call it 'she'," the sheriff said. He 
reached out to the dashboard and turned on his flashing lights, and blipped his siren 
twice; the slower car ahead of them pulled aside to let him pass, and he turned the lights 
off. "She's not just a river, when you know her. She's like a live thing."

Scully settled back into her seat and into the silence again.

Darrow was a much smaller town than Donaldsonville; once into it, they were across it in 
only a few minutes. The street they wanted went uphill, doubling back toward the river, 
and the sheriff cut the headlights of the car as he pulled into the gravel driveway of the 
last house on the street. It stood alone on a rise overlooking the Mississippi.

The house was dark; there were no signs that anyone might be there. Still, as she stepped 
out of the car, Scully took out her weapon and let the safety off before slipping it back 
into its holster and taking out her flashlight. Cormerais reached under the driver's seat and 
pulled out a flashlight big enough to double as a club. Scully nodded to the sheriff, and 
they made their way as quietly as they could across the gravel toward the garage.

The windows were set high in the pull-down door, and Scully wasn't tall enough to see 
into them. Cormerais, peering inside, switched on his flashlight and cautiously lifted it to 
the edge of the dusty pane. "I don't... God."

She stood up on her toes, but it wasn't enough. "What?"

"That's Denny's Jeep."

Somewhere inside the house, Scully thought she heard a door slam. She reached up 
quickly and batted the sheriff's flashlight away from the windowpane. As he turned 
toward her, she gestured toward his car. "Call for backup," she said.

"Denny owns this place," he protested. "It doesn't mean -- " 

"Call for backup," Scully hissed, "or I'll call 911 and do it for you."

In the eerie half-light of the stormclouds, she could see the way the sheriff's jaw 
clenched, but he moved away from her toward the car, and reached inside through the 
open window for the radio mike.

 

Chapter Twenty-Five

The door at the top of the stairs banged violently against the wall as it flew open. Light 
footfalls raced down the steps, and then she was kneeling on the floor at his side, pushing 
at him, trying to make him sit up. "Come on," she said breathlessly, tugging at his arm. 
"Come on. We have to go."

"Paula? What are you --" Mulder's shoulder protested at the sudden movement, and his 
stomach churned in sympathy; he fell forward against her, coughing. She threw her arms 
around him to hold him up.

"Come on," she repeated urgently. She started getting to her feet, trying to pull him up 
beside her. "Get up. There's not much time."

He lurched awkwardly to his knees. It was hard to find his balance with the way the room 
was whirling around him. He lifted his head to look around in the dim light from the 
window, hoping to orient himself that way, and the pain in his shoulder stabbed up into 
his neck. "I don't think I can," he gasped.

"You *have* to." Her arms went around his waist and strained against his ribs. "You 
have to. They're coming."

She was pulling at him with such fevered strength that he had little choice but to try to 
obey. He clenched his teeth against the pain and somehow managed to get his legs 
beneath him, and with her help he staggered to his feet. He realized that she was 
breathing so quickly she was almost panting; he could feel the frantic racing of her heart 
as he leaned heavily against her.

She immediately began trying to lead him toward the stairs. He made it that far with less 
trouble than he'd expected, but he stumbled against the first step and almost fell. She 
clutched at him to steady him, and he grunted as she jostled his injured shoulder.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," she said quickly, but she never stopped urging him forward. "We 
have to hurry. They're coming."

There was an odd, pleading note that he'd never heard before in her voice, but Mulder 
could hardly concentrate enough to notice it, much less try to decipher what it meant. 
Climbing the stairs was too difficult to allow him the luxury of thinking of anything else 
while he did it. It took all his effort to lift each foot and place it on the next step.

As they came to the top his strength failed, and he sagged against the doorframe to rest, 
gasping for breath, but she pulled him away from the wall. "You can't stop!" she 
exclaimed, propelling him forward again into the room. The inside of the house was 
nearly as dark as the basement had been; as they passed a window Mulder saw that the 
curtains were drawn across it, and he supposed she must have covered all the windows 
that way.

As they crossed the kitchen and came to the back door of the house, Mulder thought he 
heard a car door slam outside. She must have heard it too, for she froze for a moment as 
if listening, and then pushed him forward again with one hand as she drew back the bolt 
of the doorlatch with the other. "Hurry!" she hissed. The door swung open before him, 
and Mulder found himself shuffling out onto the back porch.

A blast of cold, damp wind nearly toppled him as he crossed the threshold, but his 
captor's hands set him upright again, and he stumbled across the porch with her. Going 
down stairs proved simpler than going up; he made it down the two steps onto the grass 
with relative ease. As he set out across the yard, half-led and half-carried, Mulder glanced 
back and thought he saw the play of flashlight beams against the windowpanes from the 
inside of the garage.

A spray of rain splashed against his face, and he ducked, nearly losing his precarious 
balance, but the woman beside him never faltered. He stumbled forward again, leaning 
into her strong shoulder. The throbbing in his own shoulder echoed every step he took 
over the slick, uneven ground, but the cool air or the rain or perhaps just the fact that he 
was moving around had begun to clear his head; able to assess his surroundings now, he 
looked around himself as they fled.

It was night, he knew, but it was impossible to tell what time it might be. The moon and 
stars were obscured by banks of swiftly rolling clouds, their color that peculiar sickly 
grey that portended a storm. The landscape was only a series of monochrome shadows; 
here might be trees, there shrubs and abandoned, overgrown gardens -- it was hard to tell. 
They had been advancing steadily, gently uphill; now they topped a rise and the land 
began to slope away downward again. The long blur of white ahead of them began to 
take more definite form, and Mulder was able to make out that it was the picket fence 
he'd stood at that first night with Paula, and then he realized that the sound he'd heard 
ever since leaving the house wasn't only the wind, but the river as well.

There was nothing peaceful about the sound of the river tonight. It wasn't merely that the 
sound was louder, but that its tone had changed; Mulder almost felt he could hear within 
it hundreds of angry voices, dissenting, threatening. There seemed to be words and 
phrases that he couldn't quite catch, as if he were overhearing a bitter argument through 
an apartment wall. Now and then a distant rumble of thunder added its underscore.

"Where are we going?" he asked as they came closer to the fence. "Paula? Where are we 
going?" There was no answer save for the steady pressure of her hands pushing him 
forward.

Just then, Mulder heard a shout behind them, and he recognized the tone of the voice, as 
clear over the echo of the thunder and the rush of the river as the ringing of a bell. He 
stumbled, almost going to his knees, and sobbed aloud in relief.

"Stop!" Scully cried again. "Federal agent! I'm armed!"

"Denny!" came another voice that must have been the sheriff's. "Denny, wait right there!"

Mulder grunted as he was swung around by his bad arm to face the voices. He felt the 
muzzle of a pistol shoved up against his jaw just below and in front of his ear. In the 
ghostlight of the storm, he saw Scully and the sheriff halt, perhaps a little less than a 
hundred feet away, at the sight of the weapon.

Scully's own weapon was drawn. She held it out in front of her with both hands, her feet 
spread apart and planted firmly in the tussocks of wet grass. Her hair and her long coat 
fluttered in the gusty wind. "Step away from him, Dr. Dennison," she called loudly. "Put 
your gun on the ground and step back. No sudden moves."

Mulder felt her pull him closer against her side. "I can't," she cried. "You don't 
understand. I can't." The gun pushed harder against his jaw, tilting his head back. He felt 
himself being dragged slowly backward as she retreated.

"I'll understand, Denny," the sheriff said. He eased forward, his empty hands 
outstretched, palms turned upward. "I'll understand. Just let him go now, baby. Come 
on."

Mulder could feel her beginning to tremble. In the distance, near the house, he saw the 
flashing lights of two police cruisers pulling into the driveway. He could tell by the way 
Scully stiffened for a moment that she'd heard the sirens, but she never took her eyes off 
the woman next to him.

Mulder felt their slow backward progress suddenly stopped by the picket fence at his 
back. Cormerais inched nearer, and Mulder felt the gun leave his ear; he watched it wave 
unsteadily at Scully and the sheriff. The four uniformed officers ran toward them with 
their own weapons drawn; they formed a phalanx behind Scully, but came no closer.

They were pinned against the fence. She was shaking now, but her arm remained locked 
around Mulder's waist, her fingers clutching the wrist of his injured arm with ferocious 
strength. "Please. I'm sorry," she cried, her voice breaking. "I didn't mean it. I didn't 
know. I never would have done it if I'd known."

"I know, baby," Cormerais answered. "It'll be okay. Just put that down and come to me. 
Come on now."

"Put down the weapon, Dr. Dennison," Scully repeated.

She didn't seem to hear. "You don't know what they did to me. You don't know the things 
they did to me!" She was crying wildly now; the pistol pointed back and forth from 
Scully to the sheriff and then returned to Mulder's cheek again. "Why did he let them take 
me? He gave me away. My own father gave me to them." Her voice rose in a desperate 
shriek. "My own father! Why did he let them take me? Why?"

Cormerais was only about thirty feet away now, his empty hands still outstretched. Scully 
trailed him by about fifteen feet, but Mulder knew she wouldn't be able to get a shot in; 
he was obstructing her target, serving as a shield. The police officers were slowly fanning 
out, and he knew they were hoping to be able to get around to the sides, but he knew as 
well that the fence would prevent them from getting far enough behind them to get a 
decent shot.

"Denny," the sheriff pleaded. His voice was calm, but Mulder could see in the half-light 
that his expression was sick with grief and fear. "You don't have to do this."

"They never should have brought me back," she sobbed. The muzzle of the gun shifted 
against Mulder's face with the force of her weeping. "I wish they'd never brought me 
back."

"Come on, Denny. Let him go." Cormerais nodded reassuringly and lifted his arms 
further toward her. "This can all be over, Denny. This can end right now."

Mulder felt her draw a deep breath. "You're right," she called over the rising wind. She 
straightened up against him, easing out from directly behind him toward his side, and her 
grip on his wrist loosened just a little. "You're right. It can."

It happened so quickly that he was confused. She let go of his wrist; she tossed the 
weapon aside; as nimbly as a cat and just as quickly, she sprang over the picket fence and 
darted away toward the river. With a wordless shout, the sheriff followed; he vaulted the 
fence and sprinted after her, but he was too late and too slow. For a second Mulder 
thought the earthshaking crack he heard was the report of the pistol going off as it hit the 
ground, but it was only the thunder.

Mulder, falling, caught himself against the fence and turned. In the brilliant flash of 
lightning, the image was burned forever into his mind: her long golden hair streaming 
around her head like a halo, her arms outstretched; her body describing an arc like a 
diver's, impossibly graceful, poised in midair over the raging waters of the Mississippi 
that waited to receive her.

The steel sky opened then, and the rain poured down, and as he collapsed to the earth 
Mulder heard Scully's voice, and felt her arms around him.

 

Chapter Twenty-Six

The late-afternoon sunlight was sloping in through the window of the hospital room 
where Mulder sat propped up in bed. Scully looked in, and paused in the doorway, 
tapping at the open door.

"Isn't it early?" he asked as she stepped inside. "Visiting hours don't start till after 
dinner."

She shrugged. "I waved my badge around again," she answered. "Works every time."

Half a dozen clever rejoinders jumped to mind, but he let the moment pass, and she 
walked over to the side of his bed.

"You're doing well," she said. "The last traces of the drugs seem to be out of your system 
now. And did they tell you they aren't going to have to do the surgery on that shoulder 
after all?"

He nodded. "Yeah. The doctor was just here about fifteen minutes ago." He found he was 
grateful to her for standing so far up by the head of the bed; he couldn't turn his head far 
enough to be able to look her in the eye, and so he didn't have to try. "They said I'll have 
this arm in a sling for six or eight weeks, but they want to let me out of here tomorrow."

"You're getting off easy," she said softly, and he nodded again, thinking it might be too 
easy, thinking it might have been easier to live with if it had been harder to live through.

Scully turned and made one slow circuit of the room, finally coming to a halt before the 
window. The evenings were short these days, with winter almost here; the thin ray of 
watery sunlight that had made its way across the floor only a few minutes ago was 
already gone. Scully watched at the window, seemingly absorbed in the view. She was 
still looking out when she spoke again.

"Mulder, they... We found the body this morning. Down at the bend of the river, near 
where all the victims had washed up."

He couldn't look at her. Instead he silently studied the little hills and valleys the blanket 
made as it draped across his legs.

"I had meant to do the autopsy myself, but..." 

He glanced up to see her shaking her head slowly, her eyes focused somewhere in the 
middle distance between them.

"But by the time we got back to the morgue, and went to take the body bag out of the 
ambulance, something had -- In just that time, the body had decomposed." She finally 
lifted her head and met his gaze.

He regarded her for a long moment, unsure whether she meant exactly what he thought. 
"...Decomposed?" he asked at last.

She nodded. "Like the woman who died in the fall from Memorial Bridge in Bethesda. 
The one who traded herself for me."

Mulder's heart sank. "She *was* an abductee," he said slowly. "She was exposed to the 
virus."

"No, Mulder. Not just exposed," Scully answered. "Simple exposure doesn't have such a 
profound effect. If it did, then neither of us would be alive today."

"But she..." His mind raced through the possibilities, each more unsavory than the last. 
"Then what was she?"

She held up one hand in something like a warning gesture. "I won't know for sure until I 
see the results on the samples I sent to our own labs in Washington today. ... Oh, hell. 
Maybe I won't know with any certainty then, either." She folded her arms across her chest 
and sighed. "Maybe a hybrid. Or a clone."

A clone of what? he wondered silently. The idea was intriguing, appalling. It made what 
he had done somehow both less and more reprehensible. "And she was sent to eliminate 
these people for whatever reason? It doesn't make sense. A bounty hunter, yes, but..."

Scully shook her head. "I don't think the murders were part of the plan. I keep thinking of 
the other woman you told me about, the one that the smoking man brought to meet you 
once. The one that you said really seemed to believe she was your sister.

"I think, maybe, that when Paula Dennison was taken as a six-year-old child, she never 
really came back. I think it's possible that the woman we met here never knew what she 
really was."

Mulder paused to digest this. "But that's not what you're putting in your report." He had 
meant it to be a question, but somewhere between the thought and the spoken word it had 
become a statement.

"No," she sighed, seeming to sag a little. "On the record, I'm planning to go with your 
original idea of dissociative identity disorder. Her psychiatrist even admitted, albeit a bit 
reluctantly, that if she was in the habit of diagnosing DID, she might well have done so 
here."

"What a ringing endorsement," Mulder said sourly.

"You know as well as I do that it's a controversial diagnosis in many circles." She sighed 
again and turned away, leaning her hands upon the windowpane, her gaze once again 
searching the darkening landscape. "I'm faxing in my report tomorrow morning."

"Okay," he said uncertainly, and waited.

She paused, glancing back over her shoulder; she turned toward him from the window 
then, but came no closer, nor did she look up to meet his eyes. "Mulder," she said slowly, 
"there's another thing you should know. There's nothing in the report to indicate any... 
indiscretion on your part. I didn't think... I don't think it's necessary to know any of that in 
order to understand the resolution of the case."

"Scully."

"No, Mulder, I --"

"Don't lie for me, Scully."

She looked up, and her eyes met his; he felt burned by her simple, unaccusing gaze. "Call 
us even, then. Call us even, after your report on how Donnie Pfaster died."

He had no answer for that, and fell silent.

She was pacing now, treading a slow, deliberate, even path up and down the floor beside 
his bed. "Mulder, I feel..." she began, and hesitated; he closed his eyes, steeling himself. 
He wished she would just cut him down the way he had imagined her doing; these 
measured words, her level voice, held a far worse torment.

"Mulder, you're not alone in this," she finally went on. "I feel as if I share in it, too."

"Don't be ridiculous," he said, more harshly than he'd meant. "How could you be 
responsible? You had nothing to do with it. I'm the one who --" And he stopped sharply, 
not wanting to pick at the scab, to reopen the wound. He didn't want to think anymore 
about how he had finally thrown away whatever chance he might have had with her.

"No, Mulder," she said, coming to a stop beside him. "Listen to me." She clasped her 
hands together, staring down at them. "I don't think you would have gone with her if I 
had -- if I had..."

"Scully, no. No," he whispered, reaching up awkwardly to touch her hands.

"Maybe I'm -- maybe I'm being presumptuous. But if I had been able to let down my 
guard, to let you in," and her voice quavered, "the way you've been asking me to for so 
long, then..." She twined the fingers of one hand through his; she lifted her other hand to 
cover her eyes. He could see that she was trying not to cry.

"Please, Scully," he begged, squeezing her hand. "Please don't." Don't tell me this. Don't 
tell me how I've finally broken your heart.

"I was afraid," she was whispering, her eyes still downcast. "I was afraid." He waited, but 
Scully said no more.

"She told me," he finally began, halting at the name, "she -- Paula told me no one would 
love her if they found out what had happened to her when she was abducted. Scully... is 
that what you're afraid of, too?"

"It's more like..." She turned his hand over in her own, studying it. "I didn't know if it was 
just me you wanted. If I was enough. I wondered if you blamed yourself -- if you thought 
you had something to make up to me, because I was abducted, and if that was why you 
thought you loved me."

"Do *you* blame me?" 

She lifted her head as if startled. "No." She clutched his hand tighter, and lifted it to her 
lips. "No, Mulder. Never."

"Oh, Scully," he murmured. "I -- I loved you a long time before you were taken. I just..."

Her eyes met his at last. "I want to try, Mulder," she said.

His throat tightened. "Come here," he said gruffly, tugging at her hand. She bent over 
him, wrapping her arms around him; he put his good arm around her and hugged her 
tight. "I'm so sorry, Scully," he whispered. "I'm so sorry."

"So am I," she said, and she shifted in his embrace. He felt her lips brush against his. The 
touch was so brief, so delicate, that he fleetingly wondered if it had been in error. When 
she didn't pull away, he let his fingertips trail up her back; at his tentative gesture she 
bent her head and kissed him, really kissed him, and this time there could be no mistaking 
what she meant by it.

When she lifted her head, she moved as if to pull back, but he took her wrist in his hand 
so that she could not, and she met his eyes. For an endless moment he simply looked at 
her, studying her as if he were really seeing her for the first time.

At last she broke his gaze and looked down. "I guess I should go..."

"Would you -- " he faltered, "will you come back later? During the regular visitors' 
hours?"

She paused. "If you want me to," she finally answered.

"I do. I wish you would," he said in a rush, and she nodded.

Scully straightened up, and he expected her to pull her hand away, but she waited, 
watching him, the first hint of a smile playing across her mouth. All at once she seemed 
to make up her mind. She leaned down again and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

"So. I'll see you after dinner. And I don't want to hear your usual complaints about the 
menu," she said near his ear, and added, whispering, "I... love you."

Mulder released her wrist and let her go. She turned, smiling over her shoulder at him, 
and walked toward the door, but as she came to the threshold she paused, and her smile 
faded. It was plain that there was something more on her mind.

"Scully?" he ventured. "What are you not telling me?"

Scully waited a long moment, as if measuring her words. "They found something else 
today, too, Mulder," she said quietly. "They found that missing girl."

Mulder watched her face for clues, but there were none. He inclined his head inquiringly.

"And she seems fine. She just wandered in from the bayou, Sheriff Cormerais said. Just 
like that. Just..." She spread her hands helplessly. "Just walked out of the bayou. And 
there isn't so much as a scratch on her."

"After that storm?" Mulder frowned, incredulous.

Scully leaned against the doorframe and sighed. "She said she didn't remember a storm, 
Mulder," she answered, her eyes downcast.

"Well, what does she remember?"

"Not a thing," she said, shaking her head slowly. "She knows who and where she is, 
knows her family, knows her friends, her school, even 'N Sync and the Backstreet Boys, 
but..." Her voice trailed off.

"But nothing about her abduction," he murmured. "Nothing about what they..."

She looked up at him with haunted eyes. "Would you really expect her to?" she asked. He 
knew the question was rhetorical. "Anyway, Sheriff Cormerais asked if I -- if *we* -- 
wanted to look into it with him."

Anything Mulder might have been able to say fled his mind at her words. What did 
Cormerais know? He couldn't imagine how he could face the man, even if the sheriff had 
no idea what had happened. He sat staring dumbly at Scully. Finally she cleared her 
throat, and that seemed to shake him from his stupor.

"What -- what did you tell him?" he choked out.

She dropped her gaze to the floor, where the toe of one foot was tracing an idle pattern 
against the linoleum. "That I had to speak to you about it first."

A wave of gratitude washed over him. "What do *you* want to do, Scully?"

Her answer was a long time in coming. 

"I don't know, Mulder," she said at last. "I honestly don't know. I want to run there, 
overturn every stone, detain everyone within a ten-mile radius for questioning, re-
examine the evidence that's been examined, and do it all again, until I find the answers. 
But..."

He waited. Somewhere out in the hall he heard a doctor being paged; he registered, at the 
edge of his vision, that it was fully dark outside the window now. Then Scully looked up 
and continued.

"But part of me just wants to go away and leave these poor people alone. Part of me 
wants to believe that their nightmare is over. Part of me wants to believe that this was just 
a terrible coincidence and that they'll all live happily ever after."

He leaned back and closed his eyes. It was the same story, over and over, he thought; it 
was the same question, posed in different forms, and asked again and again, as if some 
gods thought he might really find the answer someday. Where did he draw the line? 
Where did his obligation end? When did he step away from the trail of broken hearts and 
minds and lives?

The question was too wearying to answer now. He opened his eyes to find Scully 
watching him. "Let's talk about it after dinner," he sighed.

She nodded and made an attempt at a little smile. "Okay. See you later."

"Scully?" He called her back as she turned to leave. "Sneak me in a snack? Bring 
chocolate, and maybe I'll share."

"Don't push your luck, Mulder," she answered, but her smile broadened even as she 
shook her head in mock disapproval. Then she was through the door and gone, and all 
Mulder could hear was the rhythmic click of her heels fading away down the hall.

 

- - - End - - -

 

I've poured nearly the last two years of my life into this fic. Thanks to everyone who read 
it through for coming along for the ride.

Feedback? foxsong@earthlink.net