************
Chapter 18
************

Warner residence
November 9, 2000
7:28 a.m.

"You're mean!"

Natalie Warner takes a heavy, squinting draw from her second
cigarette of the morning.  She turns to face her angry
little daughter's accusation, crossing robed arms and
leaning back against the edge of the counter.

A petulant cloud of smoke prefaces her reply.  "So, tell me
something else that's new."

"I want Kari to come over and play today!"

"You see her the whole Goddamn day at school.  You play with
her at recess.  You sit next to each other for hours on end
talking about who knows what.  If you ask me, that's more
exposure than one person needs to Kari Marshall and her
bouncy curls, thank you very much."

"See?  You're just a rotten old meanie!"

"Deal with it, Miss Smarty-pants.  Look at the fiasco you
pulled on your birthday, for God's sake.  When things settle
down, *maybe* you can have her over sometime next week.  I
dunno yet."

"Dad-deee?"  Shawna's voice rises in outraged, squeaking
crescendo.

"Talk to your Mom about it," he puffs, breezing out of the
hallway and into the kitchen.  Briefcase in hand, fumbling a
necktie knot, he's a typical picture of self-absorbed male
abdication.

"Oh, crap!"  Shawna shouts, whirling.  Her foot kicks out,
planting a coltish stamp to the floor tile, her pint-sized
frustration at its peak.  "Why are parents so *mean*?
Kari's mom acts like you, too!  She says even her grandma's
mean now."

"News to me.  I thought Alice Marshall was God's gift to
whiney kids the world over."  Natalie turns on a bare foot
to flick ash into the sink, feeling her chest tighten with
uncertainty.  Then, referencing Shawna's last remark under
her breath, she mutters, "Well, well, well..."

Greg Warner overhears, pouring himself a hurried cup of
coffee while pulling on his coat.  He throws his wife an
ambivalent glance.  "Somebody getting twitchy over at
Marshall's in light of recent events?"

"Put a lid on it, Greg --" she hisses over her shoulder.
"At least wait until the kid's out of the room."

"The *kid*," pipes up Shawna from the doorway, with a look
of pure condescension and a hand glued to her hip, "is
leaving to *pee* right now, if you'd really like to know."

Sipping gingerly from the cup, he waits until his tiny
blonde daughter saunters up the hall, where she disappears
with a slam worthy of her mother.  Then he resumes, "Any
news from the grapevine?"

"That's none of your business, buster."

He scoffs while setting down the porcelain mug and brown
liquid sloshes onto the countertop already crowded with the
remnants of a non-nutritional breakfast.  "Well, admit it,
Nat.  The similarities between what's happening now and what
happened back then are getting under everybody's skin.  It's
in all the papers.  The closer someone was to the action,
the more they'd be feeling it."

Natalie grits her teeth before taking a furious pull on her
smoke.  She doesn't need Greg intruding unasked into her
private domain or poking into this hornet's nest for a lark.
Some secrets shouldn't be disturbed, or should at least be
treated with distance, timing, and respect.

And gorgeous though Agent Mulder might be, they'd all be
better off if the FBI man took his handsome ass out of town
-- his little red-headed bitch of a partner with him.

It's enough that the information she knows makes her squirm.
It takes a hell of a lot to make Natalie Warner squirm.  She
won't risk getting stung, even by accident.

"Just drop her off at school and get to work, will you?  And
shut the hell up -- the less said right now, the better."

"Famous last words..."

She glares at her husband as he plunders his coat pocket for
car keys, fury and fear making her seethe in silence.   Face
pinched like a sallow prune, she steps away to grind out her
cigarette in the ash-littered sink.

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

Tillman residence
November 9, 2000
8:15 a.m.

Mulder has seen this expression on Tillman's face before,
the afternoon of the raid on Harry Cokely's house.

The room was dimmed by curtains, licked by the bluish,
flickering waves from the TV.  It stank of old man, of too
many cigarettes, and from Mulder's vantage point on the rug,
the sour tang of unwashed socks.  B.J.'s razor snicked his
throat, her eyes wide as alien saucers in the gloom
overhead.  "Freeze!" Scully had ordered, her voice steel in
the dimness, SIG raised and cocked.  Flanking her, Tillman
also aimed his gun reflexively, but his face held the same
uncomprehending look of desperation.  Stunned, beseeching.

Six years later, a week into the resurrected case, and
nothing's changed.  The man comes by his haunted demeanor
honestly, Mulder surmises, and for good reason -- one more
woman in his life looms as a suspect in the most abhorrent
string of crimes the Aubrey police department has ever
encountered.

"Thanks.  Thanks for coming over.  Something else has
happened," Tillman rambles, an echo from the previous
evening.

By Mulder's estimation, the man rues his fool's mission, the
macho blustering out to the Conestoga Motel and to Scully
after Darnell's warning to stay away.  What did he hope to
accomplish during her time of weakness besides willful
seduction?  Instead, he was sent packing, the wind knocked
out of his sails after Scully's timely call from the shower
and the sight of that dripping washcloth...

Tillman knows now what they share off-duty.  Illogically,
Mulder feels in an even better position to bargain his own
agenda.

They're ushered toward the warm, coffee-scented kitchen,
past the chatter of morning cartoons and the overstuffed
sofa where Benjie sits cross-legged.  Curious, the boy
swivels and kneels to track their passage.  His eyes look
wide and luminous, like his mother's.  Both agents give him
a shy smile, a child who resembles Kilroy-in-miniature, nose
and hands peeking over the high back cushion.

The meeting takes place not at the kitchen table as Mulder
anticipated, but on mismatched chairs in the sewing room,
well out of the child's earshot.  Tillman seems quietly
agitated, awkward with the intimate knowledge he possesses.
His glance darts first to Mulder, then riffles over Scully's
face and hand, noting the reddened contusions that mar her
pale skin.  He clears his throat several times, hands
working, then reaches up to rub at his thin caterpillar of a
mustache.

Scully, Mulder observes, remains composed and self-
contained, wearing a mask of smooth professional distance.
Personal exposure to her hidden debilities makes him
appreciate all the more what a source of strength she is,
for him and for herself.  What she's capable of when the
situation demands a cool head and a team player.  She
softened for a moment upon seeing Benjie, but pulled the
mask firmly back into place before taking her chair with the
two men.  She sat down with ginger care, mindful of her many
bruises.  Inwardly, he assumes she must be reconciled to
what Tillman now knows about them.

Awakening this morning, Mulder assisted her into the
bathroom, her muscles stiffened like sun-scorched rawhide,
scrapes tight and stinging with each small movement.  After
downing multiple analgesics, the hot shower and his gentle
massage did the trick, especially when she insisted he join
her in the water.  He loves the resiliency of this woman and
her resolve to get back astride the proverbial horse after
taking a hit.  Her willingness to reciprocate pleasure in
spite of setback.  Her unique ability to turn his knees to
rubber with a flurry of well-timed, well-placed strokes to
his dick.

She's got the Catholic schoolgirl's knack for snake
handling, no doubt about it.

Tillman leaps to his feet to pull the door of the sewing
room nearly shut, disturbing Mulder's musings.  He knows
that when this meeting is concluded, Scully still faces the
matter of the boy and the toy house.  Another appointment,
on a more personal level, that he's pressing her to keep.
One pain at a time, he told her last night, checking over
her various injuries, willing each one to heal and disappear
with a kiss.

The sentiment still holds true, though the reality this
morning is much more imposing.

"So," he starts, "what have you got, Lieutenant?  You said
there were new developments related to the case."

In the hushed room he sits with Scully, watching this
tortured man knead the wrinkles from his forehead before he
shares a tale that holds little in the way of surprises for
Mulder.  They've already presupposed these basics.  Wife
missing, family clueless as to her whereabouts.  Skipped
medications, closet alcoholism.  Resentment toward his love
child, who has just come clean about the secret abuse he's
suffered since babyhood.  No surprises there.

Even so, when Tillman relates past conversation and whispers
the words 'crazy house' and 'real mommy,' Scully presses her
eyelids shut, giving a slow shake of her head.

"I hope you're not contemplating putting out an APB on your
wife," Mulder says, feeling out the Lieutenant's next move.
"Coincidence isn't motive enough to assume there's guilt.
Not in this case."

"It's damn incriminating to me," retorts Tillman.  The man
looks haggard from prolonged tension and lack of sleep.  He
rubs his eyes one more time until they water, then leans
forward to rest his mouth and mustache against hands that
clasp into a tight knot.  "I refused to believe the obvious
six years ago and look where it got me.  Shafted.
Compromised by someone I trusted.  Someone close to me --"

"Different set of circumstances," points out Mulder.  With
Darnell's reluctant help he's already given Janine Tillman's
family tree a cursory examination and found her clean.  "And
just so there aren't any misunderstandings or surprises
later, I want you to know that I've also been in touch with
B.J. through all this --"

"You *what*?"

"Mulder visited Shamrock last week," interjects Scully,
speaking for the first time, "besides having had numerous
phone conversations with B.J.  At her request and with her
doctor's permission, if that makes it more palatable for
you."

"She should have been left out of this entirely, Goddamn
it."

"She wouldn't be left out, Tillman," says Mulder.  "She's
affected by this thing, just like your son -- *her* son --
is.  But, unlike him, her present location keeps her from
directly acting on those impulses.  Benjie's free to respond
to the killer's movements.  You've seen it yourself -- he's
drawn like a mouse to the Pied Piper every time something's
about to go down."

The mention of his son's name disarms the man.  Covering his
face for a long moment, he sounds like a race-worn runner,
taking the information deep inside his body with labored
breaths.  Finally, he lifts imploring eyes to Mulder.
"Christ... what should I do?"

"You're already doing it.  Stick to that boy like glue,
especially at night... make sure he stays safe until we can
reasonably pinpoint the killer."

Tillman's scoff is bitter.  "And you're convinced it's not
my wife --"

"Agent Mulder has a working theory," offers Scully, "that
the killer most likely could be a relative of one of
Cokely's earlier victims."

Both men stare at her, Tillman with disbelief, Mulder with
satisfied surprise that she'd take the initiative to expose
this particular premise.  Whether she personally indulges in
his theory or not is moot.  That she displays it before
Tillman as a means to divert his misdirected accusation is
further evidence of trust and acceptance of her partner's
investigative techniques.  Sharing with Darnell, as he did,
is one thing.  Applying her own stamp of endorsement for
Tillman's edification is another.

"Earlier?  How early?"

"1942," she supplies succinctly.  "You remember the details
of the case.  Three young women killed, two federal agents,
Chaney and Ledbetter, missing."  She enumerates the list of
victims' names, to which the Lieutenant responds with
several puzzled shakes of his head.  "Do none of these names
ring a bell?"

"You've been around these parts a long time, I take it,"
adds Mulder, snatching up the thread.  "Every member or
descendant of the Bradshaw, Eberhardt, and Van Cleef
families could not have inexplicably vanished from the area
and public knowledge.  That seems unlikely to me.  Aubrey is
no black hole."

"I'm not aware of anyone off the top of my head.  That was
way before my time, Agent Mulder.  And something I didn't
feel the need to dwell on."

"Unacceptable," says Mulder, catching the glance of his
partner.  "The gossip-mongers have a clue, but nobody's
talking.  Their leader's taken the 'Fifth' the last time we
met."

"D'you mean the Warner woman?  She's responsible for
spreading the 'bad seed' crap about my boy all over town.
For making Janine's life a living hell --" Tillman pauses in
sudden confusion.  The probability that his wife transferred
her frustrated anger toward his son seems to stun him.  "Are
you implying that the bloodline theory isn't valid in this
case after all?  That you believe my son is innocent of
suspicion despite who his mother is and what she's done?"

"And his great-grandfather," adds Mulder.  "But, yes, that's
exactly what we're saying."

"Then, why does Benjie have these dreams?  Why is he under
the killer's control?"

Mulder glances at Tillman and smirks at the irony.  "Maybe
that's why this is called an X-File."

Conversation halts between the three, eddying into still,
shallow pools of thought.  At the lull, Mulder glances over
his shoulder toward the living room and the faint cartoon
chatter he hears.  Then he pivots back, eyes resting for a
gentle moment on the bruised and beautiful face of his
partner before boring next into Tillman's.

"I need to ask a big favor from you, Lieutenant..." he
begins.

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

With Mulder as her guide Scully moves on a pilgrimage of
healing, taking slow footsteps across a symbolic desert.
Purification-by-fire.  A journey toward the truth as she
perceives it.  Her truth -- elusive, painful, and private.

He would have her believe that the enigmatic child in the
next room harbors a special secret for her.

Together they enter the living room, his hand strong and
essential at her back, fortifying her on this walk into
another unknown.  She should be used to this, after years of
second-guessing his sixth sense and being witness to his
paranormal radar.  His unerring penchant for steering her
into dark, forbidding places where she'd rather not go.

And the boy... how many times has she approached him in the
last week?  Their relationship, such as it is, has evolved
from the clinical, official stance of agent and child-
suspect to something much more transcendent and compelling.
Her first instinct should be to turn her back on anything
but professional distance.  Before, she felt secure in her
bureaucratic integrity; now she feels taut as tightrope,
poised between Benjie and the esoteric secret he holds.

She marvels again at the change in this child, at what a
minimum of proper care has accomplished.

No longer is he the raw-skinned, seeping waif who shuffled
toward her across the carpet.  Eyes downcast, chin pressed
to his chest like a small, feral rabbit eager to bolt.  She
remembers the shock that seized her heart when he raised his
head that day of first meeting, the sting when he jerked
away from her touch.  Such shame, fear, and victimization
for one so young.

A homicide investigation is by no means a platform for
personal exorcism, yet Mulder has suggested there are
synchronous connections between this small boy and her early-
November angst.  Powers both psychological and supernatural
that surface as this drama draws to an inexorable head in
Aubrey.

"Hi, sweetie," she whispers to Benjie and slips with care
onto the love seat that sits angled opposite the couch.
She's aware of Mulder's hovering closeness beside her and
knows he's had previous communication with this child.  They
connect in subtle ways she hasn't realized until now.
Unaccountably, she feels left out of the integral loop they
share, man and boy.

"Hi."  Benjie blinks large troubled eyes and examines her
face, head tilted at an angle.  With his small brow furrowed
he accuses Mulder.  "You didn't give it to her."

"The house?  Yeah, I did.  Don't worry."

The boy pouts and looks at Scully.  "But you got hurt."

"Yes.  A little," she agrees sheepishly.  She dabs at her
forehead scrape with a finger, forcing a smile.  "But it's
nothing serious.  It looks much worse than it is."

He shakes his head.  "I bet it feels a *lot* worse than it
looks.  It's always like that."

"When you're hurt, you mean," she clarifies.

The distinctive rasp of Benjie's voice, coupled with a
small, sage nod brings wetness to her eyes.  Please, not
yet... they've said little more than two sentences to one
another and already she feels self-control sifting through
her fingers like so much sand.

...Sand, packed into the pint-sized coffin, mocking her
grief.  More evidence that Scully's life as an agent for the
FBI flaunts the status quo, that she's been an unsuitable
candidate all along for adopting a child, even though Emily
was a biological DNA near-match.  Her own flesh and blood,
as Mulder so vehemently explicated in her defense.

And there in the coffin, where a little girl's corpse should
have lain... adrift in the grains of sand, a golden sparkle,
the cross necklace she'd given to her daughter as a gift,
for safekeeping.  Another exercise in futility returning to
mock her...

"You know quite a bit about that, don't you?  About being
hurt," she whispers to Benjie.

He nods again.  "You do, too."

Startled, she glances sideways at Mulder who is leaning
toward them both, absorbing the exchange with the thirst of
a dry sponge.  Mouth set into a mirthless bow, his eyes
radiate tenderness and something deeply protective.  During
these tense, confrontational moments he's hard at work
monitoring what unfolds before him, watching her back.
"I'll be right beside you," he'd assured her.  It comes as
no surprise to feel the warm, sudden pressure of his hand
cloaking one of hers.

She swings back to the boy, surprise in her tone.  "Why do
you say that?  Did Agent Mulder say something to you?  Tell
you something --?"

"No," Mulder interrupts, head shaking in concert with the
boy's.  "Benjie shared something with me that concerns you.
It's the reason why he built that little safehouse in the
first place.  Not his idea at all."

"She asked me to do it," whispers the boy and the words feel
like a red-hot lance through Scully's chest.

"Who?  Who is *she*?"

Benjie fumbles at the intensity and tremor in her voice, his
eyes flicking to Mulder for reassurance.  Pacified, he
squirms and whispers, "I saw her in my dream.  It was
different from the other scary dreams I have.  She told me
to make it for you."

"Who?  A woman?"

The hope Scully clings to is that perhaps B.J., in some
absurd, supernatural fluke of communication, is speaking to
her son.  Her own belief system has undergone a unique
course of invasive surgery during her time with Mulder.  She
can accept the reality that message transmissions occur in
the most unscientific, convention-defying ways.  She
remembers her own brushes with the paranormal, the strange
sensory visions that woke her during the times when the
world-at-large believed Special Agent Fox Mulder was truly
dead.  Feelings of deja vu and psychic intuition.  Melissa's
clear, urgent voice on the other end of the phone line two
Christmases ago at Bill's home in San Diego.

"She was crying.  She said you needed a place to hide."
Benjie speaks in a well-enunciated murmur, almost with fear.
"It was her... the little girl."

"Oh, my God --"

Adrenalin spiking, she attempts to rise, a dizzying warmth
flushing over her cheeks and forehead.  Mulder's quick hand
prevents an escape.  He sidles closer, slipping an arm
around her back and side, pressing her uninjured hip more
firmly into his as though to glue her against him.  With
such close contact, he can no doubt feel her desperation,
the wild, panicked hammering of her heart.

"No!  Not this..." She practically hisses the words at
Mulder.

"Stay, Scully.  You need to hear it.  You have to be willing
to accept it, to believe."

She's heard many versions of that line before, sometimes
barked at her in frustration, other times pleading with her
in persuasive undertones.  How often in the past has a hard
line of frost edged his voice when he's convinced it's for
her benefit to see, experience, confront, believe?  Her knee-
jerk reaction to flee is the quickest route to deny what
she's hearing from this child's mouth, like the clean slice
of a scalpel pares away necrotic flesh.  Is it truth or
fabrication?  Does it hold up under scientific scrutiny?  Is
it dream or plausible message from beyond the grave?

Synchronous phenomenon... or pure coincidence?

Held tight in the crook of Mulder's arm, her determination
wavers, crumbles, and the room rocks before her.  "Keep
going, Benjie," prompts Mulder, more command than request.

The boy's eyes fill with tears and he shakes his head.

"Hey.  I'm serious about this."  Mulder's voice softens
markedly with new tact.  "Tell Agent Scully what you saw in
the dream.  Tell her what the little girl looked like."

Still Benjie hesitates and she feels Mulder's fingers
tighten on her ribcage.  Bending his head toward hers,
blocking her view of the child's face, his eyes smolder with
quiet fire.  Inescapable.

"Scully, let him know that it's okay to continue..."

His breath is moist and soothing on the skin of her
forehead.  She exhales with a shudder and closes her eyes at
the gentle compassion communicated in that near-touch.
Mulder's heart is strong and good; she clings to that
lifeline like she clung to his neck after Naciamento's
bizarre attack in his apartment, her shirt soaked with
blood, heart intact and thumping within her chest.

Another moment and she's freshly grounded, safe once again.
He leans slowly out of the way and she takes the next
faltering step.

"Sweetie, it's okay," she says, nodding to the solemn-faced
child.  "Really.  You can tell me exactly what you saw in
the dream."  Reaching out, her fingertips smooth his thick
hair in a gesture of motherly comfort.  "I want to know what
she looked like."

"But you'll cry..."

Control eludes her, but she makes a valiant grab for it.
She smiles at his forthright and childlike concern, dabbing
at a runaway tear that slips from one eye to prove his
point.  "I may... but that's okay.  How old was this little
girl in your dream?"

The boy considers before speaking, reluctant.  "Little.
Like she was in kindergarten.  She didn't tell me."  He
focuses inwardly and blinks.  "Kinda chubby cheeks and short
hair.  But not real short..."

"Like mine is?"

He considers and nods, looking her over.  "And not as red.
It was cut here --" When the boy moves a small, short finger
straight across his brows, it's all Scully can do to
maintain a modicum of control.  Once more she feels her
partner's gentle squeeze to her side.

"She wanted you to be safe, and she was crying," he repeats.

"Did she tell you her name?"

When Benjie shakes his head no, Mulder reaches out to give
the boy's shoulder a satisfied pat.  "Listen, that's okay...
I think Agent Scully already knows who it is.  Good job,
Benjie."

Scully nods agreement and with relief, aware that she's
survived yet another fire, another purging of her rawest,
deepest hurt.  Emily, the child who should never have
existed -- offering protection from beyond the grave, if
she's to accept the boy's dream at face value.  Truth or
fiction, she draws a pinch of consolation from this tense,
unsteady exchange.

Suddenly restless on his sofa seat, the child stares up at
Scully with large imploring eyes.  "But is it really true?"

She falters, glancing at Mulder and then back to the boy.
"Is what really true, sweetie?"

"She..." he pauses, squirming in unsettled chagrin, then
connects again, steeling himself to continue.  "The little
girl said that you were her mommy.  Her real mommy."

The world heaves and tumbles around her; she tries to hold
what's left of it together by covering her mouth with
shaking hands, and falls against the firm support of
Mulder's shoulder.  His low groan and quick, responsive hug
tells her that this, too, is news to him.  That the child
has revealed only snippets during their short dialogue at
the station office, saving the bombshell until now.

They're not alone in their confusion.  From somewhere behind
them comes a masculine grunt of surprise, but she's beyond
caring.

Benjie begins to weep as well, frightened by the adult
reaction before him, cheeks red and wet with crocodile
tears.  "Sh-she said... that you tried to help her," he
quavers.  "And now she wants to help you."  Stumbling to his
feet, he puts out a groping hand to Scully's knee.

She finds herself responding to the pleading, innocent touch
of this child.

They feel soft and babyish, these fingers curving into her
palm, swallowed by her desperate grasp.  Moist and trusting,
like Emily's little hand was during those grim, too-short,
dangerous days.  Her sweet, melon face appearing in a
ripple, surfacing from memory through a veil of tears.  Her
timid, serious smile, a grimace of pain.  Of fear, sweat,
and incomprehension.

Scully pulls at him, drawing the weeping child toward her.
Rocking to and fro in anguish, eyes squeezed tight, she
holds Benjie's wet cheek to hers for a few precious moments.

At her back, she feels Mulder's steadfast presence.  He
remains, as he said he would, to shield and protect her from
intrusion until she's ready to face the outside world again.

************
End of Chapter 18