Searching for the Heart
by Leigh Alexander
leigh_xf@geocities.com

First posted: February 21, 1997

RATING: PG
CATEGORY: SA
SPOILERS: Paper Hearts
KEYWORDS: Mulder/Scully friendship
SUMMARY: Scully decides to find Roche's last victim in order
to ease Mulder's mind. But she finds more than she was
looking for...

DISCLAIMERS:
1) Dana and Fox belong to Chris and Ten Thirteen Productions
and the other Fox. Absolutely *no* copyright infringement is
intended - I'm not doing this for money, I'm doing it for
love. I *love* these characters, I wouldn't want to hurt
them! :)
2) OK to archive, but if it's going anywhere other than
Gossamer, please drop me a line just so I can keep track.
3) Feel free to distribute and discuss this, as long as my
name and addy remain attached.

INTRO:

Now I know that that gem of an episode, "Paper Hearts" has
since been overshadowed by the "Scully arc" (as someone has
described it to me), but I'm a slow writer, and I still
haven't seen "Leonard Betts" or "Never Again" so I can't
write about those yet! <g> Hopefully this one still has some
relevance.
:)

I like to keep my stories as close to the show as possible,
which means that there's no MSR in here, just lots of UST.
Please let me know if you think Mulder and Scully are out of
character - it will help me for my future stories.

There are a number of references to "Alice In Wonderland",
Lewis Carroll, Charles Dodgson, Alice Liddell, and characters
from that book. Just in case anyone out there wants to take
exception to these references, I'd just like to say that no
copyright infringement is intended, and if you're upset by
any particular accusations made I have to add in my own
defence that I actually *did* see a programme on the
Australian equivalent of PBS, SBS (don't worry - you'll
understand what
I'm on about when you read the story) and it hasn't just come
from my sick little mind.

I owe *huge* thanks to my two editors Melissa and Sarah, both
of whom helped me enormously with this story - particularly
in some of the finer details about American life and planes.
<g>

This is a revised version of the story that was posted to M&S
about a week ago.

-------------------------------------------------------------
Searching for the Heart
-------------------------------------------------------------

Scully closed the door gently behind her. She didn't see the
look that crossed Mulder's face as she left the office. It
wasn't meant for her to witness. His eyes had closed briefly
after their embrace, needing a few precious seconds to
appreciate the lingering warmth he'd felt as Scully's arm had
encircled him. They reopened and his head rose to watch her
retreating back. A small smile of acknowledgment, of thanks,
lit up his face ever so slightly.

There was no need to verbalise the emotions that he was
feeling in that split second. She was there, and she would
always be there. That was as concrete as he could get.

His eyes drifted back to the heart. It sat silently upon his
desk. The delicate floral pattern that would forever be
engraved in his memory seemed to mock him with its
daintiness. Its fragility. It was nothing more than a scrap
of fabric and yet it held all the answers. If only it could
tell him where it had been, the things it had seen.

If only...

He stared at it for a moment - his mind toying dangerously
with all the possibilities - and then with a decisive move,
he placed it in the bottom drawer of his desk. The closing of
the drawer should have symbolised some sort of finality. But
all it did was encourage his imagination. The sight of the
heart had provided all the stimulus his mind needed and
Roche's words suddenly came back to him with sickening
clarity.

"How sure are you it's not Samantha?" There had been a pause
then. Roche had known the impact of his words. He'd hesitated
in order to give the right "dramatic" effect. And then: "How
do you know?"

And all the while Caitlin's deliberate counting had been
pounding through Mulder's head, sending tingles right down to
his trigger finger.

"Eighteen. Nineteen..." It had all happened in a split-
second. The squeeze of Roche's finger had been aborted by
Mulder's bullet.

It had been the right thing to do and Mulder had no regrets
about his actions. Only now...

Now he would never know.

"Mulder, it's not Samantha. And whoever that little girl is,
we'll find her."

Scully's voice was still alive in this room. It was clear and
certain. It caressed him, encircled him, embraced him. No
outside force was needed for him to recall the hope that she
had instilled in him with those few words.

He had doubted, of course. Doubted her. Doubted himself.
Doubted them. Until he heard the conviction in her voice,
"But I do know you." Every word had been underlined. She had
pinioned him with her eyes. And his doubts withdrew. Her
faith had renewed his hope. If there was one thing - one
person - on this earth that he believed in, that he placed
his utmost trust in, it was Scully.

                ********************

Scully paused a moment after closing the door. Her hand fell
loosely to her side as her eyes shut momentarily, then eased
back open. Once again she felt Mulder's pain as if it were
her own. It *was* her own. She hated to see him like this;
being manipulated, played with - to the point where he no
longer had any control. Skinner had counted on her to watch
over him and the command had not surprised her. She was there
to protect him, to cover his ass and save him from himself.
She knew that and Skinner knew that. She had never
consciously assumed the role; it had been thrust upon her at
some unknown point in the increasingly desperate journey that
Mulder had lead through the woods of the X-Files. Now she had
accepted the mantle of protector and with it, the
responsibility of fighting Mulder's demons while valiantly
trying to hold him back from attacking them head-on. But
sometimes her grip just wasn't strong enough. Sometimes she
could only feel the faint touch of his fingers as he slipped
past her. And all she could do was hope that he'd make it
through alive.

Yet she never tired of her role. He was Mulder and this was
the way things were. It wasn't an issue with her. She had
long ago ceased trying to understand this extraordinary
intensity that infiltrated every aspect of their
relationship. She was incapable of defining what she felt for
him. All she knew was that it swayed somewhere between
platonic and romantic, while being firmly rooted in the
passionate. It was the result of their four-year long
partnership - a partnership that had endured more loss and
pain that any two people could ever face without some sort of
rope to hang on to. Sometimes they would cling to it more
tightly than usual. Other times they would only let it drift
lightly between their fingers. But it was always there
nonetheless. Binding them together.

Scully breathed in deeply and moved away from Mulder's door
towards the elevator. Once inside, she pressed the button for
the third floor - the floor of her seldom-used office. She
couldn't go home, not yet. Not until she'd found Roche's
sixteenth victim. She knew that more than anything, that was
what Mulder needed right now. It was the only true
reassurance she could give him that Roche hadn't murdered his
sister, and she was determined to solve that final mystery no
matter what it took.

                ********************

There had to be some clue.

More than three hours had passed since Scully had left
Mulder's office, and in front of her lay the labours of those
hours. Her eye traversed the various objects as she tried to
find some order or pattern that would lead her to the burial
place of the victim. There was a copy of "Alice in
Wonderland" that she had found in the Bureau's library, open
in the middle of the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. She pulled the
book towards her once more and reread the exchange between
Alice and the Mad Hatter. Was there any significance there?
Did Roche identify himself entirely with this manic
character? Were there secrets hidden within the conversation
that only Roche himself had managed to find?

"'Have you guessed the riddle yet?' the Hatter said, turning
to Alice again.
'No, I give it up,' Alice replied: 'what's the answer?'
'I haven't the slightest idea,' said the Hatter.
'Nor I,' said the March Hare.
Alice sighed wearily. ' I think you might do something better
with the time,' she said, 'than waste it asking riddles with
no answer.'"

Scully sighed in turn and pushed the book away with her. She
was also tired of the riddles and for the life of her she
couldn't distinguish any deeper meaning from the nonsensical
text. Maybe Roche had read from the book to the girls he
abducted - the familiar words serving as music from the Pied
Piper's flute. Maybe that was the tale's sole significance?

He had hinted as much in his interviews. She turned towards
one of the other items on her desk, a tape recorder, and fast-
forwarded to the appropriate spot. It was the interview that
Roche had given to the agents who had caught him back in
1990.

"'What happens when you take them, Roche? What do you do to
those little girls?'"

The agent's voice was harsh, demanding. But Roche was unmoved
by the angry tone. His response was characterised with that
same calm, sing-song quality that Scully recognised from her
own interviews with the man.

"'Sometimes I would read. We would play games. They liked the
games. Alice was their favourite. But they were my girls. No
one else could have them. I had to protect them, you see. I
had to take them away from their problems.'

'Where did you take them?'

'If you let me go I can show you.'"

Scully turned the tape off in disgust. She had listened to
the tape so many times now that she knew exactly how the rest
of the interview continued, and the thought of hearing that
voice again repulsed her.

Instead, she glanced down at the notes she had taken while
listening to the interview the second time around. The agents
had pushed Roche to reveal where the girls were buried.
Eventually he had given them detailed descriptions of
thirteen burial sites. But it had been of his own will. They
hadn't broken him in the way suspects normally had to be to
get that sort of information out of them. He had remained
serenely in control throughout the whole interview, only
giving up the information that he wanted to. They asked him
about the hearts, determined to discover where they had been
hidden, but to no avail. He'd remained steadfast and had
refused to answer that question.

Scully pushed the tape recorder aside, and focused on the map
which was spread out beneath it. It was a map of the country,
with the burial locations circled, and notes attached next to
each mark, giving the information about the area that the
child had been abducted from and the years. She had hoped
that the burial locations might provide some sort of clue,
that they might be formed in some sort of pattern, but the
only information this map was able to give her was that all
of the victims were found within twenty miles of their
houses, and all of them were buried in the woods. Scully's
finger traced along the meandering path created by the
various lines she had drawn between each circle. There had to
be some sort of pattern. Even if the crime sites only fell in
the area where Roche was selling his vacuum cleaners, that
would be a clue of sorts.

She looked around her desk before realising that she didn't
have that information at hand. Roche's file was still
downstairs in Mulder's office and she was going to have to
get it if she wanted to pursue this line of thought. It was
almost ten-thirty now and as she removed her glasses and
stood up from the desk, Scully decided that she'd be better
off picking up the file and taking all of this home with her
to study tomorrow and over the weekend. Given that Skinner
had politely ordered her partner to start the weekend a day
early, she knew that she would have plenty of time to pursue
the cerebral investigation on her own without needing to
alert Mulder to the fact.

A few minutes later she found herself back in the hallway of
the basement, heading towards Mulder's office. At this hour
only a handful of agents remained in the building. They, like
her, were intent on solving the riddle of their case, and she
hadn't stopped to chat with the few she had passed on the way
to the elevator. As she walked towards the door of Mulder's
office, she started to pull her keys out of her pocket. It
wasn't until she'd inserted the key in the lock that she
realised it was open. As a precautionary measure, she slowly
eased her gun out of its holster and held it firmly in her
hand as she turned the door knob and entered the room.

The reason for the lack of security became clear to her as
soon as she glanced inside. Mulder was seated in almost the
exact same spot that she had left him, only his head was now
resting upon his arms and he was sound asleep. She holstered
her weapon and silently shut the door behind her as she
continued to look at him. A feeling of deja vu hit her as she
recalled her exact same movements all those hours ago. Only
this time, the gaze of understanding and comfort was
completely one-sided.

Scully moved softly towards her partner and crouched down
beside him. She placed her hand on his knee and whispered,
"Mulder."

There was no response. His measured breaths suggested to her
that he was deeply asleep and she debated whether or not she
should persist in trying to wake him. But she knew that
eventually his body would grow tired from the position he was
in, and that it would be best for him to be awakened now,
before he had become too settled, than in a few hours when
he'd only end up feeling disoriented and even more
uncomfortable.

She lifted her hand to his shoulder and rubbed her fingers
gently along the back of his shoulder bone before softly
squeezing it and repeating his name, louder this time.

He stirred slightly and then resettled into his dreams.
Scully inched closer to him and allowed her fingers to travel
to his cheek. Her knuckles grazed across his skin as she
spoke more forcefully, "Mulder, wake up."

Finally his lids fluttered open. Then closed. Then they
opened again. His eyes gradually focused on Scully's face, a
few inches away from his own and he smiled warmly.

"You sure know how to wake a guy up, Scully." His voice was
thick with sleep, and Scully felt a familiar warmth creep
through her at the sound of it. She smiled back at him and
slowly brought her wayward hand back into her lap.

The moment passed and Mulder pulled himself upright, twisting
his neck to get rid of the cricks, while Scully lifted
herself to her feet. He looked up at her and asked, "What
time is it?"

"It's about ten-thirty Mulder, and I think you'd probably
enjoy your sleep more if it was in a bed, rather than on a
desk."

He didn't bother to deliver any of the numerous smart remarks
that his mind produced in response to her words; he merely
grinned at her and nodded his head loosely.

"So why are you still here, Scully? Don't tell me you've been
reacquainting yourself with your desk, also?" Mulder tossed
the off-hand remark to her, as he stood up and started to
close the open files that were spread across his desk.

Scully deliberately avoided eye-contact as she moved towards
his desk and flicked through the files that he had just
closed. She answered distractedly, "I just thought I'd start
writing up the report on this case." Her hand finally settled
on Roche's file and as she picked it up, she brandished it
slightly towards Mulder, adding, "This was all I needed."

There was no way she was going to let him know her real
intentions just yet. Mulder had suffered enough hurt on this
case to keep him going for a life-time, and she knew that if
he was aware of what she was pursuing he would only want to
help her, and that would mean dredging up all the memories
and the pain all over again. This was one riddle she was
determined to solve on her own.

If he detected her subterfuge he didn't show it, and Scully
breathed an internal sigh of relief. Sometimes Mulder was way
too perspicacious for his own good.

"You're taking it home with you?"

Her reply was non-verbal; she simply pursed her lips and
nodded,  moving towards the door as she did so. Even with her
back to him, she detected the movement on his part as he
followed her to the door. Reaching the coat rack, she lifted
his suit jacket from one of its spikes and turned to offer it
to him. Mulder took it without a word, and yet something
about his expression caused her to stay rooted to the spot,
her hand still absurdly outstretched in a vaguely imploring
gesture.

He searched her eyes for a heavy moment and it wasn't until
he finally spoke that Scully felt her entire body exhale the
tension that it had built up in those few short seconds.

"Do you want any help?"

Her arm fell back to her side and as their gazes remained
interlocked, it was her turn to pluck meaning from his eyes.
They were clouded... lost. In pain. He wanted to do something
active, but he had already plunged too far into the aching
void. She understood this. And she replied, "Mulder, why
don't you leave it to me?" It was more than pure sympathy
that was imparted by her words, and her eyes. It was that
intangible *something* that always seemed to fill her voice
and her gaze when she spoke to him about a painful subject.
She continued talking, needing to fill the suffocating
silence that was growing. "It's nearly the weekend, we don't
have any other cases - why don't you take a break? I'll wrap
it up for you."

"Scully, I..." His sentence remained incomplete, his throat
swallowing what he was trying to say. He didn't want her to
feel that she had to protect him. He didn't want her to
believe him to be so weak that he couldn't cope with the
consequences of this case.

"I don't Mulder." She had heard him anyway. She smiled and
almost unconsciously found her hand stroking his arm as she
went on speaking. "You know I don't believe that. But I *do*
think it would do you some good to catch up on some sleep and
try and put this case behind you, like Skinner suggested.
Then you'll come back Monday morning refreshed and ready to
solve the mystery of the Loch Ness Monster." Her smile
widened into a mischievous grin and Mulder's shaky opposition
slowly leaked away.

The pain was pushed back down again, temporarily - it was
always temporary - and Mulder's hand reached behind his
petite partner and pulled the door open. The hand that had
been resting on his arm reluctantly slid away and came to
rest on the file that she was still holding as she turned
around and walked out the door, followed closely by Mulder.

They journeyed silently through the bowels of the building to
the parking garage and it wasn't until they had each reached
their respective vehicles that their eyes connected once
more.

"So I'll see you on Monday, Mulder?"

"Yeah, OK." He tossed a cavalier smile in her direction and
lowered himself quickly into his car, waving at her
abstractedly as he started the engine and adjusted his seat
belt.

Scully's eyes followed him for a beat longer than necessary,
trying to divine just what kind of weekend lay ahead for him
- and for her - depending on his mood. The shadows had
seemingly abandoned him for the moment, but she had no way of
knowing how long that would last. As she got into her car,
her eyes drifted down to the file she was holding in her
hand. She hoped to God that it held the answers she was
looking for.

For Mulder's sake, and for hers.

                ********************

The coffee was stone cold. It wasn't surprising, given it had
been brewed much earlier in the evening. Scully had still
been able to hear the murmurs of conversation seeping their
way through her kitchen wall as she had impatiently waited
for the kettle to boil. Her neighbours' TV had flared briefly
some time ago, the gratingly shrill voice of a news anchor
weaving itself into her mind as she'd studied Roche's file
fixedly. And then, silence. It had settled on the apartment
building inexorably, with the gentleness of a slowly
descending blanket.

Now the world slept and suddenly she felt alone - almost
desolately so.

Scully put the coffee cup back down on the table, its icy
taste still lingering unpleasantly on her tongue. She
wrinkled her nose and pushed it deliberately to one side. Of
course, it would be easy enough to get up and make another
cup but tiredness governed her movements right now and she
was having enough trouble simply turning the pages of her
scribbled notes that the idea of anything more energetic
drained her at the mere thought.

It was no use.

She had to admit it to herself. After spending half the night
studying the only clues that Roche had left behind, she still
didn't have the faintest idea where the final body could be.
She had arrogantly assumed that the answer would be easy to
find. That the location of the victim had remained unknown
simply because of the inexperience or unintelligence of the
previous investigators. At least, that was what she had
hoped. For if that wasn't the case, and the agents who had
first handled the case had diligently endeavoured to discover
the site of the body using all their know-how and technical
wizardry, but had failed... Then what hope could she possibly
have of solving the mystery? In half-hearted resignation, her
eyelids drooped momentarily into a state of blissful
relaxation until she abruptly shook herself and forced them
back open. No. She couldn't give up. It had to be there
somewhere...

The answer.

The truth.

                ********************

-- and she was tumbling and tumbling. Through the void. The
dark, black emptiness of nothing. She felt fear. It rose in
her throat like bile.

She was falling, and then she wasn't. She was floating. No,
she was falling - but slowly.

She could see the walls around her. They were filled with
cupboards and book-shelves: here and there she saw maps

-- maps with circles. Yellow tags attached to the circles
like parasites. Neat writing painting the tags with black
lines --

and pictures

-- crime scene pictures. Pictures of young girls. A picture
of a girl with two braids, a boy next to her... smiling.
Smiling with joy. A smile of pain replaced it. An adult, yet
still a boy --

hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves
as she passed; it was labelled "ORANGE MARMALADE" but to her
great disappointment it was empty

-- it tasted like coffee --

she did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing
somebody, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as
she fell past it.

-- Dinah. The word - name? - echoed in the tunnel. Queequeg.
Her Queequeg. Mulder. She had to find Mulder.

She had to get out. She was buried. She couldn't breathe.
Large, strong hands were being wrapped around her throat. The
hands lifted. She gulped in deep breaths of air, desperate to
live. Desperate for life. Crying. She was crying so hard.

I want my mommy!!!

And a cord. A necklace of death. It encircled her, biting
into her flesh. It stung. And then it gripped. And then it
killed.

And still she fell. Again a map appeared. But this time it
was a section only. North Carolina. Lewisville. The town was
circled in the same black ink. A yellow tag appeared next to
it and in her own writing she read:

DRINK ME.

A line appeared from nowhere and shakily crossed the two
words out. They vanished and two new words appeared:

EAT ME.

And in the same manner as before they disappeared. To be
replaced with:

HELP ME.

The final two words were written in a childish scrawl.
Desperate.

FIND ME!

And she was in the woods. Suddenly. Abruptly. Hurled through
space and time until she took residence in another. Trees
loomed at her. They frightened her. She was just a little
girl. She clutched her nightgown to her body, pressing it
against her still throbbing wounds. The flannel was warm and
comforting. The flowers reminded her of home. Of her mommy's
garden.

"I want to go home, mister!! Take me home! I want my mommy!
Please."

The hand. No. Not the hand. Please no. But she couldn't stop
it. It jammed against her face, covering not only her mouth,
but her nose and cheeks also. Her eyes watered and her vision
blurred.

<A signpost. Look at the sign.> A voice begged at her.

Her eyes shifted to the side, just in time to catch a glimpse
of the fading words.

DODGSON WOODS. NO CAMPING.

And she was falling... Falling forever. She was never going
to stop falling --

                ********************

Scully's body jerked violently and she was awake. She
clutched the table in front of her to stop the fall. Her
knuckles turned white with the effort of holding on.

<I can't fall. Don't let me fall. I want my mommy. Oh God,
help me.>

The voice spun round in her head. But it wasn't her voice.

                ********************

Scully felt inside her pocket and then silently cursed
herself for forgetting her sunglasses. She shielded her face
with her hand and squinted up at the sky but could see no
clouds in sight. The bright glare of the sun wasn't helping
her extraordinarily painful headache and she could have
kicked herself for leaving the protective glasses back in
D.C.

"You OK, Agent Scully?" The short stocky man ahead of her had
been moving at a rapid pace until noticing that she was no
longer at his side.

Her fingers briefly massaged her temples before dropping back
to her side and she nodded tightly at him, picking her pace
up immediately.

"So how much further did you say it was, Sheriff Gordon?"

"Well, like I was telling you, Agent Scully, that pit was
covered up years ago. After the construction company lost all
its money they couldn't even afford to put back all the earth
they'd dug out. So it stayed open for a while. Became pretty
beaten up - lots of little holes and such forth. Till the
council finally did something about it, which would have been
ten years ago, at least. I haven't had any call to come look
at it since I've been in this town, and I don't know if I can
really give you an exact idea of where it was. But I think
we're getting pretty near now."

Scully nodded. The sheriff had already given her the
backstory on the pit when she'd seen him earlier that
morning, but he was obviously one of those people who either
felt she was too dumb to understand it the first time around,
or who was too dumb himself not to remember the details of
what he'd already told her. Whatever. She didn't care.

All she cared about was finding that hole.

It was Friday afternoon. It had been Thursday night when she
had returned to her apartment to study Roche's file. And on
Friday morning she had dreamed.

She shivered.

That dream... It haunted her still. When she had finally
crawled into bed at about four am on Friday morning, her
sleep had been restless. Not because she had been kept awake
by nightmares, but because she hadn't wanted to allow herself
to fall asleep. She didn't want to go down the rabbit hole
again.

She could still remember the physical pain she had felt. Now,
when her fingers brushed against her woollen suit, it was
soft, white flannel that she felt instead. As they plunged
deeper into the woods - closer to the pit, to the heart - her
breathing became shorter. Like someone was gripping her
throat.

At 7am that morning she had finally given up on her attempt
to sleep and had gone back to sit at her work table. The map
was still open precisely where she had left it. Her map of
North Carolina. And dead in its centre was the shaky line
that she had drawn to enclose the town of Lewisville.

Looking at that circle in the harsh morning light, she had
made her decision without hesitation. She knew that if she
waited any longer - if she allowed herself to think about it
- the instinctual feeling would be eaten away by
rationalisation. She needed to act now. Without thinking.

It hadn't taken her long to reach the Sheriff, who hadn't
been too pleased about being woken up that early in the
morning. She had felt her heart plummet when he asked her to
repeat the name she had given him.

"Dodgson Park. Dodgson. D-O-D-G-S-O-N." She hadn't managed to
control the shakiness in her voice although she hoped that he
hadn't detected it over the phone line.

"Nah... sorry, Agent... uh, Scully. Never heard of it." With
a click the conversation had been terminated.

Although his response had shattered her hopes, there had been
a small part of her that had felt intensely relieved by this
turn of events. If Dodgson Park didn't exist then the whole
dream had been nothing more than that. A dream. A nightmare
caused by her painstaking examination of the evidence that
lay scattered in front of her. She had been overtired and had
fallen asleep while reading the more violent aspects of the
file. That was all. No more significance needed to be placed
on the empathetic pain she had felt for the victim. As for
the lingering impression that stuck to her of having actually
*been* the victim - that was probably just her own
experiences resurfacing. The pain she had felt had been so
visceral, so real precisely because it *had* been her own
pain. And no one else's.

Not Charlotte's.

The name had simply appeared in her head. Like the answer to
a question that she had been asking for hours. She hadn't
known where it had come from. She hadn't understood why it
felt so right. The body that had been dragged through the
woods, that had had a hand clasped over its mouth, that had
desperately pleaded to be taken home - that body was
Charlotte's. Scully knew it with the same absolute certainty
that she knew her own name.

And with shaking fingers she had dialled USAir and booked a
flight to Raleigh, North Carolina.

The flight had been mercifully short. She felt Mulder's
absence in the lack of jokes that embodied the silence around
her. She had been in the middle seat between two overweight
business men and although they had remained silent for the
whole trip, their presence had infiltrated her personal space
in the way that she only allowed Mulder to do. It had been
with noticeable relief that she had finally stepped out of
the airport and into a waiting rental car.

Lewisville was a small town, an hour's drive to the west from
the state's capital and once she arrived, it hadn't taken her
long to find the one and only library. By that time it'd been
well after 11 and she'd been relieved to notice that flashing
her credentials wasn't going to be necessary, as everything
was now open.

An hour later she had emerged from the overly-cramped
building, armed with all the information she had needed.
After a fruitless search through the badly-organised town
records, she had finally directed her attention to the
elderly librarian who had answered her one and only question
almost immediately.

From there she had headed to the sheriff's office. When she'd
told him who she was, his eyebrows had lifted in surprise,
clearly astonished by her perseverance. She had apprised him
of her newly-acquired information, along with the background
of the case, and they had left the station straight away.

And now, here they were: Reagan Recreational Reserve.
Formerly known as Dodgson Park.

Sheriff Gordon found her silence unnerving and nervously
filled the void with chatter. "Yeah, like I was saying
earlier, I'm real sorry that I lead you astray over the phone
like that. I've only been in this town about five years now,
and that park was renamed about ten or so years ago. Before
my time, you see. Of course, I knew about all that trouble
with the construction group 'cause a lot of people lost a lot
of money way back then, and most of them are still mighty
pissed about it all. So I hear about that a lot. Probably
still a few court cases going on about that, I bet."

On his final words, the pair broke through the dense
undergrowth that they had found themselves in for the last
few minutes and were greeted by the sight of a clearing.
Small trees and ferns had begun to take root in the space,
which was about half the size of a basketball court, but it
was obvious that this was the area they had been looking for.

The sheriff stood at the very edge of the thick undergrowth,
not daring to venture onto the uncluttered grassland as if in
fear of some supernatural being lurking within. Scully eyed
him scathingly and strode out to the centre.

Although she was now bathed in sunlight, she felt a coldness
slide through her as she arrived in the middle. Stiffly, she
lowered herself so that she was crouching near the ground,
balancing her weight on the balls of her feet. Her right hand
skimmed over the grass that was next to her feet, while her
left hand mimicked this motion after a hesitant pause. She
pressed her fingertips into the ground briefly as her
equilibrium momentarily deserted her. Her eyes fluttered shut
of their own accord, and she wasn't even aware of her tongue
skittishly darting out to lick her lower lip as she continued
to perch on the grass. Memories of sensations that she'd felt
in another lifetime, another's life, darted through her like
arrows and before any of them had the chance to pierce her
and take hold, she had pushed herself up into a standing
position and had shaken those feelings away.

"Are the rest of your officers nearby?" She asked the sheriff
abruptly.

"Yeah, they shouldn't be too far behind us. They had to go
and get the equipment, of course."

Scully nodded curtly and her voice was almost dictatorial
when she spoke. "Tell them that that's the spot." She pointed
to the place that was now identified by the crushed grass she
had left in her wake.

Gordon looked at her quizzically, "How do you know?"

"I just know." Her face was blank, expressionless. He
couldn't decide if she was pulling his leg or was deadly
serious. He decided to err on the side of caution.

"I'll tell them to dig there."

                ********************

"Mulder."

"Mulder, it's me."

"Where are you, Scully?"

"North Carolina. I need you to come down here, Mulder."

"What is it?"

"I'll explain it when you get here. I'm at the sheriff's in a
small town called Lewisville. There's a flight out of
National in an hour and half-I'll see you when you get here."

Scully terminated the conversation, and placed her phone back
in her pocket. She couldn't tell him what she'd found out
over the phone. It had to be face-to-face. Even if it meant
waiting three or four hours.

She turned to one of the deputies who was writing up a report
at a nearby table and said, "I'm going to the morgue. If
Agent Mulder arrives before I get back, will you direct him
there, please?"

The deputy nodded his head. "Sure, Agent Scully."

Without further delay, Scully briskly left the building and
drove towards the nearby hospital. The medical staff had
already been apprised of her presence, and there had been
little delay in setting up an autopsy bay in the downstairs
morgue.

The body lay exactly where it had been left less than an hour
ago when it had been brought in from the woods. Although
"body" wasn't really the right term. Skeletal remains was
probably closer to the mark. But Scully's mind still chose to
label it with the more concrete, less final, term - at least
until she started the examination.

Standing a few feet away from the steel bay, Scully pulled
her hair back into a neat ponytail. While her hands remained
occupied with the task, her eyes were fixed on the sheet that
was draped over the victim's remains. A shudder ran through
her and it was with noticeable force that she finally pulled
her gaze away from the object at the centre of the room and
moved towards the pile of scrubs in one corner.

She cursed herself angrily and inhaled deeply to clear her
mind. It was ridiculous - this extreme empathy she was
feeling for the victim. The importance of detachment had been
the first lesson they had learned in medical school. And she
had always prided herself on her ability to remain unmoved
while "slicing and dicing" as her partner once so eloquently
put it. It had become so ingrained that it was almost habit
with her - as with all forensic doctors. You *had* to
distance yourself from the victim if you wanted to remain
untouched by the reality of what was under your knife.

But for some reason, this objectivity had abruptly deserted
her on this case. Maybe it had happened right back at the
beginning when Mulder had brushed aside that layer of dirt
and revealed the gaping heart that he had known would be
there. And then, when he had gone on to detail the exact
manner in which the small victim had lost her life. For a
moment - a split second in reality, but it suddenly weighed
upon her memory like an eternity - she had almost believed.
"You got all that from a dream?" But Mulder's reply had
quickly re-grounded them in reality - in cold, hard facts.
They were dealing with a child molester, nothing more,
nothing less. The dreams were merely a powerful descant to
the main event: the resolution of the mystery.

Maybe it was because of Mulder, or his behaviour, that she
could no longer look at those bones with a coldly clinical
eye. He had poured himself so completely into this case; all
the hurt that had built up since Samantha's disappearance had
once more been brought to the surface - had exploded in fact.
Exploded in that wrenching punch that he had thrown at Roche
and with it, all his anger, frustration and agony. Her heart
had constricted agonisingly while she had watched from her
distant position behind the glass. She had tried to rein him
in, and yet she hadn't been able to remain detached. She
couldn't stop herself from reaching out to him, from checking
that he was OK. Replenishing his weakness with her strength.
While Mulder had been emptying his emotions into Roche she
had been refilling him with her own. Maybe that was when it
had happened? Maybe that was when her normally rigid wall of
dispassionate feeling had crumbled and had allowed subjective
passion to creep in and take over. In doing so, she had left
herself vulnerable to these sorts of emotions. Weak.

Looking back on it now, her mind willingly provided numerous
examples of the accompanying moments of weakness. When she
had joined Mulder in digging for what he believed to be his
sister, destroying a crime scene as she did so. At the moment
that their hands had simultaneously hit the scrap of fabric
she hadn't been able to hold back the onslaught of emotions.
<What if it was Samantha?> And later, when she had opened the
door to reveal her partner standing in front of the pitiful
pile of bones they had just dug out, her heart had wept for
him. Any thought of examining those bones with an ounce of
impartiality had vanished the very instant he had asked her
to reassure him that it wasn't Samantha. It was a testament
to how much of a personal investment she had begun to place
in this case that it was Mulder, not her, who had reminded
them both that although the bones weren't those of his
sister, they were still "*some*body".

And that had only been the half of it. Time and time again as
they had walked deeper and deeper into Roche's psychosis and
into the trauma of the case itself, Scully had found herself
reaching out to Mulder. Grasping him either literally or
metaphorically to reassure herself that he was still there,
still in one piece. And that had taken its toll. They had
both been put through the emotional wringer throughout the
past week and it was understandable that she was finding it a
little harder to rebuild that wall of calm detachment.

It had nothing to do with that dream.

Scully's ever-reliable rationalisation chose that moment to
kick into gear. It was perfectly reasonable to attribute
these shaky feelings of hers to the emotions that had been
stirred up by the case. She had said as much to Mulder after
he had placed too much emphasis on his dream. Like her
partner, she had simply allowed her normal rational self to
be overwhelmed by the extreme feelings she had experienced
during that dream. Therefore its significance shouldn't be
overemphasised. If anything, the fact that she had dreamed
about Lewisville and Dodgson Park only further supported the
theory that she had expressed in Mulder's office less than a
week ago: that the answer had been there in front of her, but
it hadn't been until she was asleep that she had processed
it, and thus solved the mystery. "A dream is an answer to a
question that we haven't learned how to ask." Exactly.

Scully forced herself to move towards the autopsy bay and
with a rapid movement, she flung the sheet to one side.
Closing her eyes momentarily she willed the timidly rising
wave of nausea down and ignored the child-like screams of
fear that beat a muffled rhythm in her head. She reopened her
eyes and found a pair of surgical gloves, pulling them on
with a familiar snap. With a final deep breath - the last she
would need to prepare herself for the task - she turned on
her mini-recorder and started doing her job.

                ********************

Mulder's fingers tapped impatiently against his arm rest. It
wasn't until the middle-aged lady to his right gave him an
annoyed glance that he noticed he was doing it, and probably
had been ever since the plane took off about twenty minutes
ago. Nodding his head slightly in acknowledgment, he withdrew
his hand and placed it slackly in his lap. No need to drive
everyone else as insane as he was feeling.

He had no idea what Scully wanted. More than that, he didn't
have the faintest clue why she was in North Carolina. And
ignorance only made him worry. He had already examined and re-
examined the few words that she had offered him over the
phone, but she had given him absolutely no indication to what
the hell was going on. Was it a new case? An old case? Was
she sick? Maybe there was a death in her family... in North
Carolina?

Maybe it was about Samantha.

That was the real worry that had settled in the moment she'd
hung up on him. He would have had no tangible reason to
suspect that if it hadn't been for the Roche business that
they had only just finished. Or not finished, rather. And it
was the very unfinished nature of the whole incident that
lead him to guess that that was what Scully had been ringing
him about.

Only, if it *was* about Samantha - why was Scully the one
bringing him onto the case? Surely, if there had been any new
developments, he would have been contacted directly? Unless
Skinner had considered his mental state too disturbed for him
to receive the news rationally. The idea held a twisted logic
for Mulder. He could well imagine Skinner turning to Scully
to investigate any such findings and then encouraging her to
be the one to give him the news. As the possibility spun
itself out in Mulder's mind, he couldn't fight the
overwhelming feeling of despair that guided it. If that was
the case, it had to be negative - whatever Scully had to tell
him she couldn't do it over the phone, nor could she wait the
time it would take her to wrap it up and come back to
Washington herself. He had to be the one to travel southwards
to meet her. To be told the painful truth.

Mulder looked out the window and examined the dark clouds
with a studied gaze. At that moment, words from the past came
back to him, cut off from their context, floating
persistently in the thick blackness that encircled him, "...
willingly walking deeper into the darkness..." Melissa. The
conversation that had influenced him more than he had ever
acknowledged. She had been right. It had only taken him a few
moments after her departure for the validity of her
sentiments to sink in. He couldn't spend his life drowning in
negativity. Not then. Not now.

Mulder deliberately steered his thoughts in the opposite
direction, forcing himself to contemplate the ideal
situation. Maybe the news was good. Maybe Scully had wanted
to tell him about a *positive* breakthrough? Maybe Samantha
was there waiting for him...?

But he couldn't ponder that possibility too seriously. As
much as he'd like to become a lifelong advocate of counting
on the "light" side of life, it just wasn't in him. Even
allowing that small spark of hope to be stirred within him
was dangerous enough. It was bound to lead to disappointment.
And he'd had his fair share of disappointment for the moment.
In fact, if he really thought about it, he probably would
have decided that he'd endured enough disappointment to last
him through to his final days.

Yes... Far better to wait and see. Patiently.

His fingers begun to drum against his leg.

                ********************

"... there does appear to be a possible hairline fracture on
the left collarbone--"

Scully's coolly precise words was interrupted by the muffled
ring of her cell phone. Her head whipped up from its close
examination of the bones near the head of the table and her
eyes quickly focussed on her coat, lying on a nearby chair.
Pulling one of her gloves off, she snapped off the tape
recorder and then plunged the same hand into her inner coat
pocket.

"Scully."

"Agent Scully, Sheriff Gordon here. I've got those missing
persons files you requested. Did you want to come over and
pick them up, or should I get one of the deputies to bring
them over to you there?"

Scully looked over at the pile of bones and after a moment's
consideration replied, "I'd like them to be brought here, if
possible. I think they'll prove helpful in identifying this
victim."

"OK, no problem."

"And did you manage to find out that other information that I
requested?"

"About John Lee Roche? Uh... just a second." Scully heard a
muffled conversation being held and then almost immediately,
he was back, "According to Deputy Harris, there does appear
to be a record of Roche having lived here in the early
seventies. Sold vacuum cleaners, apparently."

"Thank you Sheriff. That's all I needed to know."

Scully pressed the END button and slid the phone back into
her coat. Any doubts that what she was now involved with was
the post-mortem exam of one of Roche's victims had been
brushed aside by the sheriff's confirmation of her
assumption. Now that that was out of the way, she could
return her attention to her work. With a furrowed brow she
pulled the latex glove back on and reapproached the autopsy
bay. She reached up and rewound the tape recorder and then
replayed her last words: "On close examination there does
appear to be a possible hairline fracture on the left
collarbone..."

Scully had only just begun to focus on that area when her
phone had rung, so it was with deep concentration that she
now moved in closer to the bone and studied the small line
intently. Her gloved finger ran over the length of the bone
delicately, endeavouring to determine the significance of the
barely noticeable groove.

Reactivating the record mechanism, Scully continued the
thought that had earlier been interrupted by Sheriff Gordon,
"... but I suspect it is more likely to be the result of some
post-mortem trauma or activity, due to the nature of the
groove."

And what she knew, but didn't add aloud, was that even if the
mark *was* a fracture, it was an extremely insignificant one
and could in no way be classified as the result of a
collarbone broken after a fall from a rope swing.

She sighed softly in relief and then continued her
examination.

Ten minutes later a deputy arrived with a number of files in
his hands. Scully took the paperwork from him and once he'd
left her alone she immediately began to study each of the
missing person files with intense concentration. She had
provided the sheriff with very specific parameters with which
to focus his selection, and there appeared to only be four
young girls who matched the criteria. It wasn't until she
arrived at the third file that Scully was gripped by the
frightening familiar sensation - a premonition, Mulder would
have called it no doubt, even though she knew it was no more
than a sickening hunch - that she had found her victim. She
hadn't even opened the file, and yet simply holding it in her
hands was enough to stimulate the sensation.

She lowered her eyes to the front page and with increasing
discomfort began to read the data contained within the
folder...

                ********************

No. Not the morgue. God, no.

Mulder strode down the street with burning energy. He had
arrived at the sheriff's station a few minutes earlier and
had been told that his partner was at the hospital. At the
morgue.

Waving off their offers of transportation, Mulder had
practically run out of the station, his imagination in
overdrive. They had told him that the hospital wasn't far,
and that was all he'd needed to hear. He could see it already
in the distance, and he found his legs pummelling the
sidewalk even harder in his need to get there.

Possibilities flew around in his head. Forget the light. Dark
thoughts were his familiar companions and he couldn't let go
of them easily. Visions of dead bodies flashed before him
every time his eyes closed. There was now no doubt at all in
his mind that Scully had called him down here to break some
sort of horrific news to him, and his fear of that being
proven true only pushed his legs faster towards their final
destination.

By the time he reached the hospital, his pace was midway
between a jog and a sprint. He was breathing raggedly as he
entered the quiet building and headed towards the nurses'
station. The nurse on duty looked up at his approach, and a
slight frown of confusion skated across her features as he
drew nearer. Mulder pulled out his ID and asked, "Agent
Scully? She's here?"

The tension left her face and she nodded kindly at him.
"She's downstairs. You just need to take the elevator to the
basement, and enter the door directly opposite you." Her
finger pointed out a nearby elevator, and Mulder immediately
walked over and pounded the button impatiently. Once. Twice.
Three times. The elevator descended leadenly from the top
floor. Finally he was welcomed with the ping of its arrival,
and jumping inside, he repeated the attack-like jabbing on
the basement button.

As the elevator went down, he shifted his weight from one
foot to another. It was a nervous gesture that often
overwhelmed him on such occasions - when he knew he was
incapable of physically altering the course of events he was
witnessing - a small, yet indicative release of all the pent-
up energy that was barely being suppressed inside of him. He
stared woodenly at the doors in front of him and compelled
his feet to stay still.

Then the doors slid smoothly open and he was greeted with the
word, "MORGUE". It was a sign affixed to the double doors
directly in front of him whose intention was obviously to be
discreet and nearly unnoticeable, but whose affect was the
complete opposite on his already-agitated brain. He stepped
out of the elevator and then hesitated before progressing any
further. His eyelids gently fell shut as he gave himself a
brief moment to calm down. Then he reopened his eyes and
pushed open the doors.

The first thing he saw was the confirmation of his
nightmares. A steel table held a place of honour under the
spotlight of the fluorescent tubes. On it, a cluster of tiny
bones protruded garishly, poking upwards towards the light as
if seeking some kind of affirmation from the glowing god. His
mind immediately recalled a similar image that he had been
confronted with only a few days earlier. He felt the same
sinking sensation engulf him as his eyes remained welded to
the frail bones. His body ceased to move, his mind swallowed
every thought. All that he was aware of was the dull
throbbing of his heart. A throbbing which slowly travelled
upwards through his body until it settled somewhere in his
throat. Wavering.

And then a movement caught his eye, and he felt the light on
him. Full and warm. Scully's eyes were watery as she looked
at him and whispered, "Mulder, it's not Samantha."

He continued to stare at her. His mind completely and utterly
failed to comprehend what she was saying. She moved closer,
discarding the file that she had been holding and bending her
head back slightly to fix him in the strength of her
unfaltering gaze. Her hand grasped his arm and he felt her
words resonating through her skin, being transported via
their point of connection straight into his centre. "It's not
her. It's not Samantha." Her voice shot through him. Like
flowing blood, the meaning was quickly disseminated
throughout his body and straight to his mind.

Scully watched as understanding finally dawned. The crease
that had broken the smoothness of his forehead slid away in a
split second and before long his expression of tortured
longing had been replaced by a blank stare. For Mulder, the
transition was abrupt. Once the knowledge finally hit him, he
felt himself being hurtled back to reality with an abrupt
thump. Scully smiled back at him without a hint of the
derision anyone else would have cast upon him and he thanked
her silently with his eyes.

His voice was serious as he asked, "So, who is this then?"

Scully's eyes turned cold as she replied, "It's Roche's
sixteenth victim."

Shock flew into his eyes and he quickly searched those of his
partner for verification. A million questions tore through
his mind and he grabbed at the first one, "How did you find
her?"

A brief spark of hesitance flared in Scully's eyes, and it
was only then that Mulder became aware that their blueness
was still tinged with dampness, as if she had been crying -
or close to it. Her gaze flickered away from his and he knew
immediately that she was hiding something as she replied, "I
just kept studying the clues that Roche left. The information
was there - it just had to be pieced together."

"What clues?"

Scully cast a look of frustration at him and her hand
gesticulated rapidly as she continued. It was a sign that she
was reaching, grasping,  somewhat desperately for some
tangible proof. "Well, there was the "Alice in Wonderland"
connection for starters. The body had been buried in Dodgson
Park." Seeing Mulder's blank look, Scully explained, "Charles
Dodgson was Lewis Carroll's real name. On top of that, the
victim's name was," almost imperceptibly Scully swallowed
before going on, "Charlotte *Alice* Klein."

If Mulder had picked up on her momentary pause, he gave no
indication. Instead, he asked, "Do you think he chose her for
that reason?"

Scully shrugged, "I don't know. Maybe. You said once that you
thought Roche saw himself as the Mad Hatter. Perhaps
everything took on a warped significance for him - as is
reflected by the craziness of the Mad Hatter. Maybe
Charlotte's middle name was all he needed... I really don't
know, Mulder. It could even be Dodgson himself that Roche
identified with. I know there is a certain school of thought
that believe that Charles Dodgson had an unnatural obsession
with Alice Liddell - a real life girl who he told stories to
- and other girls. I don't know if I subscribe to that theory
myself, but maybe Roche did."

Scully stopped talking when she saw the curved grin that
Mulder was regarding her with. She saw the humorous statement
in his eyes, unvocalised, but remembered, <You really *do*
watch the Learning Channel, don't you?>

She replied to the unvoiced comment somewhat defensively, "I
saw a program on PBS a few months ago..."

He chuckled and then just as quickly, grew serious again.
"But I still don't understand what you were doing in North
Carolina in the first place, Scully. Did someone call you?"

Scully shook her head. "No, I came down here after I made the
connection--"

Mulder interrupted, "But *how* did you make the connection?
And *when* did you make it?"

Scully deliberately chose to tackle the easier one first.
"After I left you in your office last night, and then when I
went home later on, I kept working on the case."

Her reply sent Mulder off on a different tack. It was with an
almost physical jolt that his mind hooked onto her words and
examined their meaning. Scully's voice repeated itself in his
head, swirling deftly through the tunnels of comprehension.
His eyes softened as he began to comprehend the significance
of her admission. He murmured, "To find the sixteenth
victim?" She nodded. There was another pause as
Mulder continued to tease out answers from her silence. He
went on, stepping closer to her as his voice lowered even
further, "To prove to me that it wasn't Samantha?" Her head
remained still but her eyes dropped, giving him all the
confirmation he needed.

"You needed to know, Mulder." Her voice barely reached a
whisper.

Mulder felt overwhelmed. She had done that for him. The
enormity of her actions affected him profoundly. He'd never
had anyone care about him in quite the same way - with such
intensity and devotion - as Scully did. In the last few
months, this passion that she held for him - and he for her -
had been demonstrated time and time again but nowhere more
powerfully than right at this moment.

Such thoughts had rarely been expressed between them with
words and this was no exception. Mulder simply drew her
briefly to his chest and kissed soft words of gratitude
against her hair. The separation of their bodies was done
with the same seamless grace with which they had been drawn
together and it was with almost no noticeable hitch in the
conversation that Mulder returned to his earlier question. By
now he realised that Scully was concealing something from him
quite deliberately and while he normally respected her
privacy, he was sure that in this case the only reason she
was reluctant to fill him in was because she was refusing to
face up to something rather than it being a personal matter.

"Scully, how did you make the connection?" His voice was
gentle, yet persistent. He had bent down slightly so that
their faces were nearly level, and although she tried to
avoid it, Scully couldn't stop her eyes from being drawn into
his powerful gaze. And once she was locked in, she couldn't
lie to him.

Which didn't mean she had to tell him straight out. "I
managed to figure it out," she replied evasively, shrugging
dismissively.

He shook his head. No, that wasn't the right answer. Lifting
his finger ever so precariously he wiped away the almost
invisible tear that had crept out her eye before he arrived.
It was his way of showing her that he knew. That she couldn't
hide it from him. That he was determined to find out.

She glared at him with muted defiance but they both knew it
was a pointless reaction. Finally Scully could stand his
omniscient gaze no more. "I had a dream, Mulder. Just like
you. I had a dream. That's all." Pulling herself from his
delicate caress, she moved away and headed towards her
discarded coat. Without looking at him, she removed her lab
coat and pulled the elastic out of her hair. His eyes
followed her every movement.

"And the dream led you here? To North Carolina?"

Scully picked up her coat, sighing deeply in response to
Mulder's question. Avoiding a direct response, she answered,
"Like you, I had obviously processed the information at some
subconscious level and it wasn't until I fell asleep that all
the pieces fell together." Conviction added emphasis to her
words and Mulder immediately knew that the subject was dead.
There was no way she would be drawn any further into a
discussion about the dream, and any conversation they did
have would no doubt terminate in discord. He let it drop.

After re-covering the bones with the sheet, the agents left
the morgue and headed back to the sheriff's station. They
were weighed down with silence, too occupied with their
thoughts to even think about conversing. They both knew that
ahead of them lay the unpleasant task of informing
Charlotte's parents of the discovery of her body, along with
the mundaneness entailed in filing the paperwork on a twenty-
five year-old case, and neither of them relished the
prospect.

It would be some hours later before they felt free of these
burdens. Not until they found themselves in the segregated
tranquility of the paired plane seats did they fall back into
the comforting embrace of words which so often dictated their
relationship.

Earlier, the partners had briefly contemplated the idea of
staying in town overnight, but Sheriff Gordon had reassured
them that he would wrap up the remaining threads of the case,
while also encouraging them to return to D.C. Neither Mulder
nor Scully had needed much persuasion. It was an indication
of just how traumatic the case had been that they had little
reluctance in handing the few unfinished matters over to
Gordon; only under exceptional circumstances would the
distrustful pair ever relinquish their case to anyone else.

Now, sitting in the chilly, claustrophobic, yet inexplicably
peaceful airplane, they had no regrets for having done so.

Two arms rested comfortably against each other on the single
armrest which divided them. As usual, Scully had the window
seat. Looking out over the vastness of terrestrial earth
never ceased to fill her with amazement and Mulder being the
ever-polite man that he was would always allow her to slide
in first and take up the desired position.

After they had both refused the ministrations of the
perennially-cheery flight attendant, Mulder's voice had
falteringly filled the void of silence that had engulfed them
since leaving Lewisville.

"You know, I can't stop thinking about what Addie Sparks'
father said that day..."

Scully turned her head from the window and looked at Mulder
in subtle confusion. "What he said...?"

Without being consciously aware of it, their voices had
lowered to a familiar conspiratorial softness. Even though
the plane was more empty than full, their need for intense
privacy dictated the unnoticed action. There was no explicit
thought as their bodies moved instinctively closer across the
armrest that divided them.

Mulder's eyes focussed on hers and he nodded slightly. "About
how he always thought he wanted to know what happened to her.
But then... she was dead. And suddenly not knowing became a
comfort. He was glad that his wife never knew, Scully."

He broke the eye contact, his gaze dropping and catching the
sight of her hand as it moved to wrap itself around his
fingers. His lips smiled, but the rest of his face remained
unaffected. He continued speaking, "When I walked into that
morgue, I was sure I was seeing my dead sister, Samantha. And
suddenly everything... *everything* that I'd learned, that
I'd grown to appreciate, that I understood - it all meant
nothing, Scully. I felt empty. And I was overwhelmed with the
pointlessness of it all. All those years searching - risking
my life, risking the lives of others, breaking laws, breaking
promises... all of it was in vain."

Scully felt compelled to interrupt. "But it hasn't been. None
of it's been in vain, Mulder. It wasn't Samantha - she isn't
dead."

"How do you know that? How can *I* know that? It may not have
been Samantha this time - but who's to say it won't be her
next time? Or the time after that? How do I know that she
isn't dead - buried in some unknown tunnel in the middle of
Idaho?"

"You don't, Mulder. You're right. We have no way of knowing
if she's still alive... But that doesn't mean you can't stop
hoping."

"What's the point of hoping if she's just going to turn up
dead?"

"Mulder..." Scully's head slowly shook from side to side. How
could she possibly reassure him? How could she restore his
faith? She knew that this was what it was boiling down to: a
crisis of faith. Just because Mulder had always placed his
faith in hope, rather than in God didn't make the religious
analogy any less relevant. And like a devout priest
confronted with a wavering belief in a higher being, she knew
that it was up to her to find the words that would persuade
him to keep looking, to keep believing.

She pleaded achingly, "Wouldn't it be worse if it was
*because* you gave up that she died?"

Mulder's eyes engulfed her with their shocked expression as
his head jerked upwards and he faced her once more. "What do
you mean?"

Scully shrugged, "You asked me how I can be so sure that's
she's still alive. I'm just wondering if you want to take the
risk of assuming she's dead."

Mulder took in her words silently, slowly examining them in
his mind and giving her the chance to reinforce what she was
saying. "You're her last hope, Mulder. Everyone else has
given up looking. And if you give up because you're more
concerned with wallowing in the negative, then I can assure
you with complete certainty Samantha will *never* be found."

As Mulder leaned back, resting his head against the back of
the seat and closing his eyes, Scully's voice continued its
blinding assault on the blackness that encircled him. "I want
to believe she's alive, Mulder." With untypical vehemence,
she added, "But more importantly, you've *got* to believe
it."

An enigmatic smile rose to his lips. Once again it was Scully
who was pushing him to believe. The irony of it struck him
and yet he had no desire to ignore her heartfelt words. As
she had done earlier with such force, her faith reinspired
his hope. He tilted his head forward and opened his eyes to
fix her with his clear eyes, "You're right, Scully. As
always."

A cloud of uncertainty drifted across her face, unsure of his
intent. But when he lifted his free hand and lightly stroked
the fingers that still gripped his, she knew that there was
no mockery in his words and that for the time being, she had
succeeded.

Until next time.

~ THE END ~

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Thanks for reading.

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