From: tabron@binah.cc.brandeis.edu Date: 7 Sep 1994 18:30:22 GMT Not for redistribution or publication in any form. ------------------------------------------------------------------ LIGHTNING West Virginia panhandle, 3:32 a.m., May 17, 1993 The quiet hillside of the West Virginia mountains rolled away under the dark night sky; the pinpricks of silver moonlight lit the green hills grey and turned the valley where Matt and Libby Vernon lived into an old photograph, the edges peeling and crumbling. Matt Vernon sat alone on his porch, a loaded rifle in his lap, his feet up on the wooden railing, his meaty head resting against the wall of the house behind him. A flash of light burned one side of his face, darkened that side of the house with a coat of ash, and killed the young pine he'd planted last summer to shade that side of the small building. Matt Vernon didn't wake. There was a loud WHUMP and something rattled in the trees; then a falling star of a peculiar sort -- rising up through the air rather than falling down through it -- burned away from the quiet mountainside, and Matt woke as an afterthought. "Libby?" The front two legs of the chair thumped down on the porch, along with Matt Vernon's heavy feet. He ran down the yard and towards the trees that lined the hard-fought-for lawn, such as it was. Then he heard the rustling in the underbrush and stopped. "Libby?" he called again. "Matt...?" A tiny woman, hair straggling across her face, appeared at the edge of the yard where the stars almost lit enough to see; she was half-crawling up the hill to where the cabin perched. "Matt?" She stopped at the edge of the grass, from her knees down still hidden by the forest's brush, dead leaves and vines, a faint pattern of calico visible in her dress, her face half-shadowed by the tree she leaned on, one hand outstretched -- not palm up, but palm out, facing her husband... "Libby," Matt Vernon said, swinging his rifle up and holding it with one hand, perpendicular to his body, the muzzle pointing at his wife. "Let's hear where you've been." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ An X-Files Story starring David Duchovny as Special Agent Fox Mulder Gillian Anderson as Special Agent Dana Scully Guest Starring: as Matt Vernon as Libby Vernon as Marshall Tucker as Mrs. Haynes as Mr. Haynes as Sheriff Connelly Based on the characters and premises of Chris Carter written by Judith Tabron Copyright Ten Thirteen Productions THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9 a.m., the FBI Building, Washington, D.C., December 20th, 1993 "Well, you're here early." Dana Scully, immaculately dressed as always in a beige suit that coordinated with her briefcase and her lipstick, tossed a heavy folder onto her desk in the FBI building's basement. Her partner, Fox Mulder, winced at the thud it made when it hit the blotter. "Judging from your face, I'd take bets that you A.) had a long hard weekend, and would like to ask me for an Alka-Seltzer, or B.) have not left this office since I last saw you here Friday evening. What are my odds?" Mulder ran a hand through his hair, standing it more nearly on end, and smiled a smile that was only at half-mast. "I think you could get 10 to 1 on A, even odds on B -- but neither one of them is the right answer, so you might as well save your money. How'd you like to go to West Virginia?" "I would not like it at all. Next question?" Scully plopped down in her desk chair. "OK, would you like it more than, say, gall bladder surgery?" Lurching out of his chair Mulder snapped off the lights and snapped on a slide projector, which began whirring in the dark. A black-and-white photo of a young woman with long brown hair pulled back in two barrettes flickered across a wall that was only mostly free of tacked-up sheets of paper. "Libby Vernon disappeared from her home on April 15th at 11:55 p.m." "Maybe she needed to file her taxes." "She was reported missing by her husband, Matthew Vernon," the picture flipped to a hefty-looking man who appeared to be on the slope side of 45 and wearing it badly. He wore a hunting cap along with a shirt from which the pattern had faded on the shoulders. "That's her _husband_?" Scully expression gave away her opinion of that possibility. "He looks like he could be her grandfather." "Yes, well, there's never any accounting for taste. Mr. Vernon also reported her *re*appearance, on May 17th of this year." "So she's home, safe and sound, story ends happily, and we care because...?" Sculley leaned forward in her chair, waving an encouraging "cut to the chase" hand towards Mulder. "Well, _I_ care because her local paper claims that Ms. Vernon spent the intervening month on a ship from outer space. " Flick, and a newspaper story headline was projected against the wall. "But enough about me. The bureau cares because one of her neighbors, a Mrs. John Haynes who apparently lives nearby, has reported her missing again." "Runaway?" "Maybe runaway, maybe taken away... maybe murdered." "Why would anyone think that?" "Reports are that Mr. Vernon wasn't too thrilled about his wife's disappearance but was even less thrilled by her reappearance." "I see. Well, Mulder, I'm sure that the local authorities --" "Will be thrilled to have our help. Can't find a trace of the girl but the sherriff says that if there is a body, it's in Pennsylvania or Ohio and out of his jurisdiction. The paperwork's all in, I'll meet you at the plane." "Mulder, no! I mean -- " Scully turned around at her desk, flipped a desk calendar. "It's the 20th of December, Mulder. Christmas is only five days away." "I'm sorry, Scully, I didn't think." The lights came back on and Mulder's long body sloped against the doorframe. "Did you have plans?" Dana considered her nephew and the toys she'd gotten for his Christmas. "Aside from a large stack of presents, every one of which is in a box that says, 'Some assembly required', no, not really." "Great! See you at the airport. You'll have the case solved in time to have us back long before Christmas Eve. And I'll get a chance to catch up on my sleep." From: tabron@binah.cc.brandeis.edu Date: 7 Sep 1994 18:31:08 GMT The "rental" car was a Land Rover of dubious vintage. One of the front fenders, poorly disguised with primer, was rusting away. Apparently it belonged to the brother-in-law of the local sherriff; there was no such thing as a rental car in this town. Scully steadied herself against the dash as a particularly virulent pothole threatened to dislodge her from the seat entirely. "Mulder, at the rate we're going we'll be lucky to question Matt Vernon before New Year's." "Look at it this way. At least we'll probably find him at home." The sun was heading behind the rise of a hill as Mulder stopped the car, at a neat semi-circular wall of stone, then turned in the driveway. A two-story frame house sat back from the snow-packed dirt track that passed for a road, its front serenely lined with rosebushes bare of leaves for winter, a row of enormous pine trees along one side sheltering it from wind where it sat on the top of a slight hill. A dog was chained to one of the trees; it yapped at them as Mulder cut the engine. A white-haired woman answered Scully's knock on the door. "Mrs. Haynes?" Scully inquired. "Yes?" "I'm Special Agent Scully, this is Special Agent Fox Mulder, we're here because of your report of a missing person?" "Come on in." Mrs. Haynes led them through a long hallway to the back of the house, which was entirely taken up by a wide kitchen. "Can I offer you a cup of tea? I'm afraid we're out of coffee; John can't drive any more, his eyes are so bad, and I haven't made my trip in to town for Christmas yet -- cuttin' it a bit fine, I'm afraid." Scully eyed the darkening landscape outside. "It's only the 20th, Mrs. Haynes." The old woman laughed and changed the subject. "So, you've actually come about the Vernon girl. That's good. He killed her, you know." Mulder leaned his chin on his folded hands, elbows resting comfortably on the flowered tablecloth. "Who killed whom, Mrs. Haynes?" "Matt. He's a mean man, Matt Vernon is, and I wouldn't put it past him." She said this as though she were accusing Matt Vernon of picking her roses; she continued preparing a pot of water for tea. "What makes you say that?" Scully inquired, taking out a hand-sized notebook and slim metal pen. "Oh, I'll tell you all about Matt Vernon over supper. You'd better bring your bags in and I'll show you where you can stay. You might as well stay here, as long as you _are_ here -- it's not like there are any real hotels in town." Scully turned and looked at Mulder, who looked as confused as she felt, and said, "Really, Mrs. Haynes, we appreciate the invitation but we were hoping to speak to Mr. Vernon tonight." "What?" The old woman stopped what she was doing, turned on the agents with her hands on her hips as though they were small children. "Where do you kids think you are?" Mulder grinned outright at being called a "kid" and winked at Scully. The other agent persisted, "If you'll just give us directions I'm sure we can --" "Come out here." Mrs. Haynes led them back out on the front porch. The outline of their rental car was indistinguishable from the rest of the outdoors; under the huge pines, even the stars failed to indicate where the land stopped and the sky began. Mulder squinted but he couldn't even see the road. The faint silver of previous snowfalls melted into the iron-black of the sky without a line to mark the change. Only the vague ruts of previous tires had marked road from non-road in the old snow and now they were invisible. "I see what you mean, Mrs. Haynes," he said good-naturedly and stumbled over the front porch steps just as his hostess reached inside and flipped a switch to illuminate the porch. "I'll get our bags." Dana followed him to the rear of the Land-Rover, swung her own bag down from the car's tailgate. "Back way before Christmas, Mulder?" "Would I lie to you?" After a hearty dinner John Haynes settled himself into a large overstuffed chair to read the paper and watch a small 13 inch black-and-white TV, playing Lawrence Welk. He had communicated little throughout the evening and seemed devoted to maintaining that record. Mrs. Haynes settled Mulder and Scully together on a sofa with steaming cups of tea. "Well, that Matt Vernon, he's not really from around here," the old lady began. "His folks built that cabin just about twenty years ago, and he's lived there ever since. Never had no brothers or sisters that I knew of, and when his folks died he just stayed on in that same cabin. No gumption. He plows a few acres of corn up on the hill every spring and has tomatoes and such out back, same as we all do; but if there is a minimum of work to be done keeping body and soul together, Matt Vernon has done found that minimum." "What's wrong with doing the minimum, Mrs. Haynes?" Scully wrapped her hands around her mug; even in the house she could feel the winter chill coming down off the mountains. "There's nothing _wrong_ with it, it's just not likely to help you win friends and influence people, now is it? Marshall Tucker, he helps me out by plowing my garden every spring, and I give him canned vegetables and venison in the fall when I've got 'em. That's cooperation. That's how we live out here. Matt'll never figure it out." Mulder stretched his long legs out in front of him, sniffed appreciatively at his cup. "What can you tell us about his wife? Libby?" "She's a real good girl, Libby is -- I know her mother real well. She's from over on the other side of town. Her mother was the youngest girl of Sue and Lamont Williams, and Lamont's daddy helped my daddy fix the windows in this house right here when lightning struck it and blew every window out of the house. I remember it well, myself. To this day I'm terrified of lightning storms. You never know what lightning might do." "Well, maybe we don't have to start quite that far back in the story, Mrs. Haynes," Mulder grinned at his hostess. "Maybe we can start when Libby and Matt got married?" "Oh -- not very long ago. Not more than a year and a half ago, and we had the wedding right here in this very yard. This is the oldest frame house in the county, you know. My family's lived here since before the turn of the century and I can tell you the history of every house in this county from sitting right here and watching the world go by. But Libby. Well, Libby helped me with my garden last fall, and I gave her quite a load of peas and one of my pumpkins, and when Marshall Tucker killed that deer before Thanksgiving last I gave her a good bit of venison, too. I could tell she wasn't very happy out in that ratty li'l cabin with Matt and I wanted to give her a good excuse to come by and help me again, him too. I mean, I don't know if he's the kind of man who'd tell his wife not to go visiting her only near neighbor, at least if he is Libby never mentioned it. But he sure is the kind of man who'd want to know what was in it for him." Once Mrs. Haynes got started, Scully realized, it would be hard to stop her. Wearing a crocheted ivory vest over her plain blue dress, and fuzzy mules of ancient vintage, the older woman seemed quite comfortable, indeed cozy in her chair across from the sofa on which Scully and Mulder sat. Her white hair, carefully curled and arranged to halo her head, looked ivory too in the golden light from the Christmas tree, three feet tall, sitting on a breakfront, its base covered by a fluffy white skirt. Scully noticed the crocheting of her hostess' vest and thought it might be the same as that of the yarn doilies that adorned the back and arms of the worn brown sofa. How could any room look so warm yet feel so cold, Scully thought, and a small shiver set ripples going in her coffee. Mulder glanced at her, looked back at their hostess. Did he ever miss anything? Scully thought irritably and stared at her coffee. Mrs. Haynes went on, "Poor girl never sees anyone -- maybe I should say never saw anyone -- but me and Marshall since she got married. You realize I mean literally no one. We've got the car and we make pretty regular trips to the grocery store -- milk, dog food, and John's gotten quite attached to his cola, and I figure, we're old enough for some luxuries." Mulder smiled encouragingly, figuring the woman would come to some sort of point soon. "Marshall's got that car he knocked together when he was thirteen and he drives it too, even though he shouldn'ta, no license of course --" "Excuse me, Mrs. Haynes, who is this Marshall Tucker? Does he live here with you?" Scully interrupted. "I'm not going to get him in trouble, am I? Marshall's a real good driver. He'll have his license as soon as he gets to be of age, I'm sure. It's just an old VW bug. He lives down the road -- I'm sure you passed the Tucker place on your way in. His older brothers are all gone and his father works in town most of the week; sleeps there too -- well, that's his business -- and Marshall and I keep each other good company... when he's not in school." Clearly worried about getting her friend in trouble over the driving business, Mrs. Haynes had obviously added the last detail so as not to add another black mark to Marshall's record. "The poor boy's all by himself since his mother's gone and does very well, too. Anyway, Matt and Libby don't have no car and Matt has to bum a ride off one of us when he wants to go to town for whatever. Even then we wouldn't see Libby if we didn't ask for her to come along." "You paint a persuasive picture of a pretty unappealing life for a young woman Libby's age, Mrs. Haynes," Scully said, placing her mug carefully on a coaster. "Doesn't it seem probable that Libby simply ran away?" "First off, Libby wouldn't do that; she owes Matt a lot." Mrs. Haynes seemed to consider her words carefully before she went on, "Second, where would she run to? Her folks moved the week after she got married, of course, and she wouldn't dream of putting me out, though truth to tell I'd be sort of glad to have her. She'd be a help and a person to talk to." Mulder examined the back of John Haynes' head and nodded. "But she's never once suggested it and I don't think she'd do it." "I still don't understand why not, Mrs. Haynes. It seems reasonable to me that a young woman would --" "She owes Matt a lot," Mrs. Haynes repeated. "Would you kids like to see where you're going to sleep? Not that I'm tired, you know, but in case I drift off I'd like to get you a bit settled first." As Mulder and Scully hauled their bags up the narrow stairs Mrs. Haynes rattled on, explaining how the house had been a hotel for a brief time in the twenties and that there were still numbers on the door and that Mulder could have room number 3, Scully would be very comfortable at the end of the hall in 5, and if they needed anything not to hesitate to ask. Scully found herself in the tiny room, looking at a tiny bed, covered in a huge patchwork quilt that hung down to the floor on both sides of the narrow mattress. Slipping out of her shoes Scully sat on the bed and touched the fading calico squares, considering for a moment what fraction of her life Mrs. John Haynes had spent piecing together small squares of cloth too small to be used for anything else, and making out of them not only something useful, but also beautiful. Perhaps time out here, she thought to herself as she slid into her pajamas, was something bigger and slower than time in the rest of the world. Like a sleepy bear or cold molasses. Otherwise how could any human being work so hard and still have so much time? Then she shivered, aware of the cold draft sliding under the door like a snake, and hopped into the bed and pulled the quilt up to her chin. She was still contemplating the pattern when she heard the small tap at the door. "Scully? You awake?" No point in going to the door to open it. Hell, she could practically reach it from where she sat. In an equally low voice she replied, "Of course I'm awake." Mulder, head bent and shoulders stooped as though the door were too low for him, slid around the open door, pushed it to. "Of course you're awake. Back home people are still waiting to see who's on David Letterman tonight. Mrs. Haynes, however, is out like a light, and so is the loquacious Mr. Haynes." "I'm sure she's had a long hard day, Mulder," Scully said, smoothing the quilt. "And so have we, actually." She smothered a yawn. "You realize, though, that the least little sound and either one of them could come shooting out into the hallway in a second. I'm not so dumb that I don't know why I got the room next to theirs. I'm on probation." He waggled his eyebrows at her in such a ridiculous fashion that she had to laugh, but laughed into the quilt. "Don't, Mulder, they'll hear." Then sitting up, "Besides, it's not really funny when you think of people like poor Libby Vernon, watched every day of their lives." "No, it's not funny. So it's 'poor' Libby now." "I'd feel sorry for any woman stuck all the way out here with a husband like Matt Vernon. But Mulder, it's time to come clean." "Huh?" He made a show of examining the backs of his lean brown hands. "I washed before I came up. Mrs. Haynes made a point of showing me the sink." "Why are we out here, Mulder? You have no evidence that there's been a murder except for Mrs. Haynes' opinion. I don't think it's just likely, I think it's probable that Libby Vernon walked to the main road and hitched a ride right out of Matt Vernon's life. There is no body because there is no body." "Only one thing wrong with that hypothesis, Scully; Libby Vernon was eight months pregnant." Scully closed her mouth with a snap, regarded the shadowed profile of her partner for a moment. "Well, that puts a limit on your long hikes." "And a deadline on your escapes." "And eight months -- she must have conceived during the time she was away. I doubt that Matt Vernon is the sort of man who'd take kindly to that." "I suspect you're right. And do consider --" Mulder pushed up off the narrow bed, "-- how interesting that pregnancy would be, if she _had_ spent a month in a UFO." "Oh no, Mulder. I'm not considering that for a second. You consider it, that's your pet hobby." Scully scooted further under the covers to hide the shiver that ran across her spine at the thought, the sort of shiver her mother had always said happens when someone walks over your grave. "Unless you mean -- Interesting to whom, Mulder?" Half in, half out the door, he shrugged a shoulder under his wool sweater. "Interesting to a lot of people." "That's why you brought me all the way out here at Christmastime? Because you think the government's kidnapped a girl pregnant by an alien?" "Partly. Aren't you enjoying the trip, Scully? Out here in the wilderness with a manly man like me? A little adventure, a little wrestling with the elements of nature. You never know what lightning might do." The words tripped away from him in his teasing voice before he realized that she might take them seriously. They regarded one another for a moment around the half-open door like it was a battlement wall. Then Mulder leaned forward. His shoulders seemed to triple in size as they blocked out the light from the small light bulb on the opposite wall and from the hallway; his head, dark, bent down and Scully didn't breathe in or out for a moment. Then he straighted, pulling an afghan up from its folded position at the foot of her bed, and spread it out over the top of the quilt. "Let me know if you get cold during the night, Scully." At that her heart seemed to leap into her throat and to dislodge it she started to speak, but Mulder only said, "Mrs. Haynes showed me where to find some extra blankets, if you want them." "Oh. Thanks." "Don't mention it." He disappeared and closed the door. From: tabron@binah.cc.brandeis.edu Date: 3 Sep 1994 19:34:07 GMT The sun was shining through the frosted glass and Fox Mulder turned over on his bed, considerably larger than the one Dana had gotten. Bless Mrs. Haynes for considering him, he thought when he laid his long frame down to sleep and when he picked it up again after yet another long night. Someday again he'd get a decent night's sleep, Mulder thought to himself as he dragged on yesterday's shirt and jeans. Someday before the end of the millenium. He didn't travel with a robe. He bundled up some clean things and shaving kit in his hand before he padded downstairs in his bare feet; the only bathroom was in the back of the house, off the kitchen, obviously added late in the game when running water had been added to the house's amenities. He expected to be the first one up but the smell of bacon and eggs assaulted him before he hit the last stair. Mrs. Haynes nodded to him as he appeared in the kitchen door. "Please don't go to any great trouble, Mrs. Haynes," he warned her, "neither Agent Scully nor I tend to eat much breakfast." "Nonsense," she replied, as if he'd just claimed 2 plus 2 was 7. "Get yourself a hot shower before the young lady comes down and sees you like that." Mulder's brow furrowed for a minute before he realized that by "young lady" she meant Scully. Well, Scully was pretty young. He rubbed his stubbled cheek thoughtfully. Yeah, shave and a shower. "And then get something on your feet. You'll catch your death of cold." "You sound a lot like my grandmother, ma'am. But then, I bet a lot of people tell you that." He smiled as he slid past her in the small kitchen and made his way to the bathroom. Two things surprised him when he re-emerged: he was indeed hungry, and Scully was already dressed and eating, perched in her chair, wolfing down eggs and toast, but wolfing in a delicate, almost catlike way. Mulder was about to decide how to greet her this fine morning but couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't sound like he was commenting on her eating or sleeping habits -- and Scully's sense of humor in the morning, he had learned, was vanishingly small. All in all it was to Mulder's benefit that a Jeep Wrangler pulled into the front yard about that time and the local sherriff stuck his head in the front door. "Mrs. Haynes?" the man yelled. "Through here, Jeff," Mrs. Haynes called without leaving her post at the stove. The sherriff filled the kitchen doorway. Mrs. Haynes handed him a loaded plate. "I'm just here to see Agents Mulder and Scully, ma'am, you don't have to --" "Nonsense," Mrs. Haynes said again, and the sherriff gave in without a struggle. Dipping a piece of toast into the perfect center of his fried egg, he reported to the FBI agents that there was nothing to report. No results from the picture of Libby Vernon he'd faxed all over the county and neighboring counties the week before, and no results in the body search. "Did you search the Vernon's cabin? Knowing Matt he'd just bury her in the basement," Mrs. Haynes muttered darkly. "We'd need a search warrant for that, Mrs. Haynes," Mulder told her. "And we'd need a reason to search the place to get one." "Well, the girl's missing, isn't she? And Matt Vernon's a mean old pig, isn't he? What more reason do you need than that?" "I'll agree with you that he's a mean old pig, Mrs. Haynes, but that's not quite good enough," the sherriff sympathized. "Does Matt Vernon have any friends?" Scully wondered out loud. She repeated the question after Mulder had switched to his official "FBI Guy" suit and she and Mulder were in the Land Rover on their way to the Vernon's cabin. It wasn't more than five miles away, Mrs. Haynes had said, and indicated the right path; her house sat on a sort of crossroads where three of the dirt "roads" came together. "It doesn't sound like he's very popular, no," Mulder agreed. "Could it be possible that Libby has disappeared without a trace deliberately, to throw suspicion on Matt?" "It could be possible, sure. You heard Mrs. Haynes telling us about the way no Tucker has spoken to any of the Gombrichs from the other side of the valley since there was that argument about seed corn in '38. These people have long memories, and the fact that Matt Vernon is a relative newcomer seems to put two strikes against him already. But from what we know do you think that Libby is that sort of person?" Mulder tossed the ball back in her court. Scully refused to volley. "I don't know, you tell me. You seem to know a lot more than I do about Libby Vernon." Mulder glanced away from the pothole-pocked snow-dirt road to scan Scully's face, which looked perfectly impassive. "OK, the information on her pregnancy came to me through a channel you wouldn't consider -- official." "Fair enough. However, as long as I am your *official* partner, I'd prefer to have key information like that _before_ I begin an investigation, not after." "Fair enough." Mulder concentrated on his driving for a while. Scully could see muscles moving along his jaw as though he were going to say something; she watched his profile. Finally he said, "I'm sorry, Scully. I'm not much of a team player." "I'll accept the apology without the excuse. I think anyone can be as much of a team player as they want to be." "I'll work on it." Anxious to divert the conversation before she began to feel like a mother hen scolding a chick, Scully said, "For instance, that new information leads me to think that we should check with hospitals within the same three-county radius that Sherriff Connelly is searching. A woman who _did_ walk out of here in December and was eight months pregnant would certainly end up in a hospital somewhere. And there's no telling when she might go into labor or need some other medical care." "Good idea." Mulder handed her his cellular phone and Scully managed to catch the sherriff before he left the Haynes house on his way back to town. The sherriff was less enthusiastic about the idea but agreed to make the calls. "Please realize, Agent Scully, that women around here tend to have their children at home, with no prenatal care at all and no one attending the birth but the neighbors. There's no guarantee that the girl will need to or want to go to a hospital." "If she has the chance, Sherriff, she very well might, though." Hanging up, Scully said to Mulder, "I just get the feeling that, given the chance, there are a lot of things that Libby Vernon might do." Matt Vernon was painting his house. That was the first thing about him that surprised the FBI agents, since it didn't fit well with Mrs. Haynes description of him as a lazy person. They left the Land Rover on the patch of unbroken snow that seemed to serve him as a driveway and walked over the grass to him. "Mr. Vernon?" Mulder greeted him. "Yes?" Vernon squinted at the agent, sizing him up. He was a few inches shorter than Mulder but much heavier. He didn't look at Scully at all. "I'm Special Agent Fox Mulder, this is Special Agent Dr. Dana Scully, we're here to ask you a few questions about Libby's disappearance." Scully tried not to look surprised at the addition of "Dr." to her usual titles and let Mulder talk. He went on, "I'm sure you're very distressed right now, but I hope you can answer some questions for us." "Distressed?" Vernon let the paintbrush slosh into the can of paint, folded his arms across his barrel chest. "Oh yeah. Go right ahead." "Can you tell us when you last saw your wife?" "Yeah, week ago Monday. I tol' the cops all that." "What time?" "Had dinner, went to bed, got up, she was gone." "Had you both gone to bed at the same time?" "No." "Do you usually?" "Yeah, I guess. It wasn't any big deal; Libby didn't have the dishes done before I wanted to go to sleep, so I went to sleep." "About what time?" "I dunno, after dark," Matt was starting to sound irritated. Mulder smiled. "Nice place you got here," he remarked. "Thanks." "Isn't it a little cold for painting?" "Well you know." Matt shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, irritation fled. "Gotta keep busy." "Mm." "Get the place lookin' nice for Christmas, too," Matt offered unexpectedly. "Sure. You got any relatives coming for the holidays?" Mulder encouraged him to go on. But Matt clearly had no more to offer on that topic. "No." Scully watched and made mental notes. The exchange reminded her of one of those Russian slapping contests. The object seemed to be to get away with saying the fewest possible words. Mulder tried again. "Do I smell potatoes?" To her amazement, Matt Vernon's face split in an enormous grin. "Maybe you do." He waved them into the house for the first time. The front door opened into a kitchen with a large dining table in it. There were no rugs on the floors as at Mrs. Haynes'; there was a large sink and a counter, and an open cupboard with no door contained a small stack of crockery as well as a large supply of canned goods. There was no table cloth, but the small windows, one on each side of the room, had, of all things, salmon pink curtains. The paint on the walls was peeling. It was almost as cold indoors as out. A stack of potato peelings trying hard to be a couple of feet high peeped out of a plastic garbage sack in one corner of the room. Clearly a lot of potatoes had recently given their lives for something. Matt Vernon grabbed two small glasses out of the cupboard and extracted a large Mason jar from under the sink. Pouring several fingers of clear fluid into each glass, he offered one to Mulder, took the other one up in his beefy hand. "Cheers," he said awkwardly and tossed back the glass. Amazingly, Mulder imitated him. "Smooth," he remarked when he'd swallowed, though Scully thought she could detect a slight bug-eyed look being suppressed. "You make it?" "A 'course. This batch, two months back, it was a good one." Matt eyed the Mason jar and put it back under the sink carefully; it was only a quarter full. "Libby help you with it?" This time at the mention of his wife's name Matt's face showed a distinct flash of disgust. "No, that girl was as useless as they come. And for what I paid for her, too." "Beg pardon?" Mulder's usually smooth questioning face cracked a little. "Anyway, gotta finish paintin'." Matt sort of herded them out onto the narrow porch again, then passed them when they seemed disinclined to move, went back to the can with his paintbrush in it. "If we get any further information on your wife we'll let you know," Mulder followed him out onto the dead winter grass. "Whatever." Matt Vernon picked up his paintbrush and started slapping paint on the wall again. Before they returned to the car Mulder stuck his head around the far corner of the house. The charred stump of a very young tree was the only marker in the strip of yard that extended farther down the hill towards the ever present woods. "What happened to your tree, here?" he called to Vernon. There was a short pause in the slap, slap of the paintbrush. "Lightning," Vernon called back. From: tabron@binah.cc.brandeis.edu Date: 3 Sep 1994 19:36:22 GMT Mulder held the Land Rover door for Scully as she clambered up into the seat, but said nothing till they were back on the road. "Well, that was educational," Scully said first. "Wasn't it though." "Isn't it a little early in the day to be drinking, even for you?" "You're just mad because he didn't offer you any." Mulder smiled out the windshield. "I can't believe you actually drank that stuff. You have no idea what was in that. You could have gone blind or been killed for that matter." "I don't think so. I think Matt has himself a healthy helping every day, and whatever he was, he wasn't blind." "You couldn't prove it by me. I don't think he even looked at me once the whole time we were there." "Now that _is_ hard to believe," and Mulder turned his grin on Scully. "Did you notice the week-old dishes piled in the sink?" Scully grimaced. "I doubt anything in that house has been cleaned since Libby left." "Yeah, I noticed it. I also noticed that Mr. Vernon seems to be under the impression that he _paid_ for his wife? What the hell does that mean?" "I don't have the least idea. We can ask Mrs. Haynes." Scully shuddered. "If I had been Libby I'd have clubbed him in his sleep. Disgusting man." "Mr. Vernon certainly isn't very interested in the disappearance of his wife, except as it personally inconveniences his cleaning and cooking -- and distilling -- arrangements." Mulder also looked as though he'd found Matt Vernon a rather revolting specimen of humanity. "That doesn't interest me half as much, though, as the question of why he's painting his house in December." "Why not?" "Gotta keep busy?" Mulder imitated the mountain twang, then shook his head. "Matt Vernon doesn't care about keeping busy. I'm not sure what he does care about, but I'd like to find out how it drove him to actually painting the outside of his house in the winter. The paint's not going to dry properly in this cold weather. And the inside looks like it needs the paint worse than the outside does." A minute of silence. "I'd also like to know what really killed his tree." Scully cocked her head at her partner. "Don't you believe in the destructive power of lightning?" "Out here, in these mountains? Sure." He glanced at her. "But lightning doesn't incinerate a tree to ashes that way. And why would lightning hit a tree that small, with larger trees just beyond the clearing to attract it away?" After a moment Mulder added, "Do you think he reacted to the fact that you were a doctor?" "I don't think he reacted to my existence at all." "Mm. I think you're wrong there, Scully." "Mulder, is this the right road?" Mulder focused his attention on the drive instead of the suspect. Was it the right road? All the hills and dales -- he supposed those things that weren't hills must be dales --, all the bare trees and snowdrifts looked very similar. At various points other trails or "roads" parted from the one he was on; he remembered thinking on the way to Mrs. Haynes' the night before that he'd have to pay attention to keep from straying on to one of them; there was nothing to differentiate them from the "main" road. "Dammit," said Mulder, and looked back over his shoulder. "I don't remember making any turns." "Maybe it all just looks unfamiliar when you're going the other way," Scully tried to reassure him. "You're the one with the sense of direction, do you think this is the same road?" "Ask me how to get from Dupont Circle to Silver Springs and I'm fine. I can't honestly say that I know exactly where I am out here, though." Mulder checked the odometer. Well, in a few more miles they would find out; if they didn't pass the Haynes house, they would know they were lost. They passed it. Both of them breathed a sigh of relief. "OK, Marshall Tucker's place should be right along this road, then, just three miles away and up the driveway on our right." Scully folded her notebook away. Again she marveled at the way the mountains could hide things. The "driveway" was an almost forty-five degree dirt path that led directly up to the top of the mountain ridge; just over the crest was a small, one-floor house. No one would ever see it from the road -- though the clearing around it would make it visible from the air, Scully thought. She was amazed that Mulder managed to coax the car up the slope. Most of the snow had been scraped away, but still the heavy tires fought for a purchase on the gravel-studded path. A boy answered their knock. They knew from Mrs. Haynes that he was only fifteen but Scully would have placed him at thirteen at first glance -- and at twenty on her second glance. He was short, only a few inches taller than Scully herself, and his face had the smooth look of a teenager, but his dark eyes were sunken and old, and his neck and forearms, where they were revealed by the flannel shirt he wore over a white t-shirt, were corded with the muscle hard work causes. "Marshall Tucker?" Scully inquired, and was relieved when he looked at her and nodded. After the Vernon interview she had been beginning to feel invisible. "I'm Special Agent Scully, this is Special Agent Mulder, I think Mrs. Haynes told you we'd be coming by to talk to you?" "Y-y-yes," he stammered, and stepped outside and closed the door behind him. His jeans were faded nearly white, and his flannel shirt was patched, neatly, at the elbows; his hair, black and straight, needed cut -- it had grown until it didn't look as though it were intended to be short, but hadn't yet gotten to the point where you could call it long. His eyes were also black and swallowed up the questions they tossed at him. No, he hadn't seen Libby Vernon for well over a week. In fact, he hadn't seen her since the last time he gave her and Mrs. Haynes a lift into town, the first week of December. No, he hadn't talked to Matt Vernon since then, either. He didn't know anything that might help them figure out where Libby had gone. He stood outside, in the below-freezing temperatures, in just his shirt and jeans, and though he hadn't folded his arms against his chest Scully got the distinct impression that he would hold off all comers. "Did Libby Vernon have any independent income?" Scully eventually asked him. "Whatdya mean, money that Matt didn't give her? Yeah, a little; she made some money with stuff that she made, like everyone else around here. Once a lady driving through here gave her a hundred bucks for a quilt she'd made that was hangin' in the yard. Stuff like that." With a little spark of a smile he added, "Libby was so good at quilts. Hardly nobody does 'em anymore." "Mrs. Haynes told us you'd lived here all your life," Mulder finally wound up. "Born in this house," and Marshall indicated the door at his back. "Maybe you could explain to us what Matt Vernon meant when he mentioned today that he'd 'paid enough' for his wife?" A spark of red fire blazed up behind the black of the boy's eyes but he looked down at his toes. "No," he mumbled, "I don't know what that meant." Mulder nodded, ready to give in the towel. He'd half-turned to Scully when the boy burst out, "I'll tell you one thing I do know; Matt doesn't deserve a wife like Libby and never did." Mulder looked down at Marshall's face, paused a moment before saying very softly, "Is that all you want to tell us, Mr. Tucker?" Blushing, the boy looked down again, then longingly over his shoulder at the door. "Yep. Uh, I gotta go now. Uh... tell Mrs. Haynes I'll be over to see her tomorrow." "Okay." Scully trailed down off the porch and Mulder followed her to the Land Rover. Marshall disappeared inside the house. "He knows something, Scully, he just doesn't want to tell it to us." "Maybe." Scully climbed into the cab of the car, waited until Mulder had gotten in on his side and shut the door after him. "Maybe he just knows he doesn't like Matt Vernon. That would hardly be a surprise; nobody does." Mulder put the car in reverse, Y-turned and headed back down the lane. "He's almost sixteen, Scully, and he could pass for eighteen in any bar in the state; Libby Vernon is just past nineteen. What does that suggest to you, Scully?" "That they are contemporaries, or close to it; Marshall Tucker would probably be Libby Vernon's closest friend, possibly aside from Mrs. Haynes, possibly not." Mulder nodded. "Don't you think if Libby Vernon were planning to run away from home she'd tell Marshall?" "What makes you think she didn't? I think he was keeping a lot of things from us." "I don't like having to guess at those things. Does he know that she ran away? Or did he even help her? He could have driven her almost anywhere. He says he was home all day the day Libby disappeared; what corroborating evidence could he have?" "Well, we can try to check on it." Scully sounded dubious. Back inside the house Marshall Tucker crossed the front room of his four-room house, went into the kitchen, pushed aside a braided rug and pulled up a trap door. "You can come up, now," he called softly into the dark. Up a tiny staircase built into the root cellar his grandfather had built under the house came a slender young woman with dark circles under her eyes and dark hair pulled back in two barrettes from her pale face. He gave her a hand to help her maneuver her swollen body up the last stair and out of the trapdoor. "They're gone," Marshall assured her. "Marshall, I can't stay here," she whispered in dry, papery voice. "They're sure to come back and I'm going to get you in trouble." "You think I care about trouble?" He snorted, moved over the stove and turned on the heat again beneath the saucepan of hash he'd been warming up for their dinner when he'd heard the Land Rover crunch up the driveway. "Hell, my car's illegal, my skippin' school is illegal, my driving Miz Haynes to get groceries is illegal -- there ain't much I *can* do that doesn't make me illegal. Believe me, you're just a drop in the bucket." "Please don't say that. I'm scared, Marsh, really scared. It's not just Matt any more. There's these cops looking for me now. And look --" She unbuttoned the top button of her collar and revealed a purplish rash, in the shape of an inverted triangle, raising the skin just below her collarbone. "What the hell is that?" Marshall left the stove and came to gingerly inspect it. "I don't know, Marshall," Libby half-sobbed, "It's been coming and going for months now, and I think it's getting worse." "Hey, don't cry," he hesitated only a moment, then put his arms around her, his black head next to her wood-brown one. "Lemme put some calamine lotion on that, you have some dinner and you'll feel better." He patted her back a little awkwardly. In her whispery soft voice she cried, "What are we going to do, Marshall? What are we going to do?" From: tabron@binah.cc.brandeis.edu Date: 3 Sep 1994 19:39:41 GMT "Well, what are we going to do now, Mulder?" Scully asked him. "You tell me. You're the one with an actual theory." "You haven't formed a theory about this case?" "I try not to form theories." She laughed at that one. "Mulder, you're more full of theories than a cat of canaries." "Where on earth did you hear that? That's awful." "I heard it from Mrs. Haynes. It may be old-fashioned but it's accurate in your case." "I'm still waiting to hear your theory." Scully considered. "I see no reason to deviate from my original supposition. Libby ran away. She can't have run far. I think a check of surrounding counties' hospitals will turn her up, and if that doesn't, of motels. She didn't have any friends in the area she could stay with. She had some money of her own, enough to get her a bus ticket and even a motel room or two. Since we have no idea where she might have been going, it's anyone's guess which direction she took." "OK, that's a theory. Let's go to the sherriff's station and start phoning hospitals and bus stations. We'll see if he's had any tips on that photo we sent around." "You don't sound very enthusiastic." The side of his face formed a moving kaleidascope of muscle and bone under smooth dark skin; she watched him think before he said, "I have one question for you, Scully. Where was she the _last_ time she disappeared?" Scully brushed a red curl out of her eyes. "You think she's gone back to wherever she was before?" "All I know is that no one could find her that time, and no one can find her now. I would like a search warrant for Matt Vernon's and Marshall Tucker's house." "On what grounds, Mulder? There is still no evidence that a crime has been committed. You yourself don't think she's dead." "No, I don't. But I don't think she's on a Greyhound bus, either." They put in a frustrating few hours in the dusty Sherriff's Office in the main part of town. It was hard to get through to many of the smaller bus stations; they seemed understaffed or closed for the holidays already. Wary of being caught out after dark, they headed back to Mrs. Haynes' at a reasonable hour. "I'm getting good at this navigation thing," Mulder bragged as they pulled into the Haynes' driveway. "Moss grows on the north side of trees. All that stuff. Think I'll finally make Eagle Scout when we get home?" The smells from Mrs. Haynes' kitchen reminded them that lunch had been sandwiches from the drug store next to the station, faint echoes of actual food. They sat down to a huge meal with the Haynes. Afterward Mr. Haynes once again retreated to the front room and Lawrence Welk; they stayed in the kitchen. "Here, gimme that," Mulder lightly snatched a flowered full apron from Mrs. Haynes' work-weathered hands, and tied it on. "It's my color, too. Have a seat, Mrs. Haynes." "Oh, well, I -- " Flustered, Mrs. Haynes backed into one of her kitchen chairs. "I don't feel right just sitting here while you do the work --" "Funny, it doesn't bother me any," Scully muttered. Mulder was rolling up his blue shirt sleeves and sliding his tie out from under the apron to undo the knot and slip it out from under his collar; he fixed her with a look. "Of course I'll dry," Scully offered out loud, a wry answer on her face. "I just want to ask you one more question before I plunge into the dishes, Mrs. Haynes. Matt Vernon today mentioned in the course of questioning that he'd 'paid enough for his wife.' Can you explain that remark?" Growing still in her chair, Mrs. Haynes paused a minute, then sighed, and the sigh was old and tired, the first sound Scully had ever heard from the woman that made her realize how old Mrs. Haynes must be. "Sit down for a minute, Mr. Mulder. I don't think I can explain this well but I'll only explain it once. You see, I've seen real slavery. I worked in the far south in the thirties, organizing seamstress workers -- I was a seamstress with a shirt factory for fifty years, you may have seen some of my sewing things upstairs in room 1. I heard those girls tell me they wouldn't sit next to so-and-so, 'cause so-and-so's daddy done stole their niggers. These were all white girls, you understand; God knows what they would have done if a black girl had wanted to work too. You can't imagine the elaborate systems of credit those people used to keep their black neighbors under their thumb -- in their possession, as far as they were concerned. And they'd sell credit notes to one another so that a man never knew who would own the rights to his work for the rest of his life. I've seen that kind of evil, is what I'm telling you; and what Matt's talking about is different. But maybe -- maybe, not different enough." She paused and took a breath, as though she'd been running. "He gave Libby's daddy a present when they got married, same as a lot of folks out here do. It was a good bit of cash, because that's what Libby's daddy asked for. He wanted to move right away and the cash would help him do it. Now it's true there's been feuds over presents like that, what was promised, what wasn't promised, whether it was given like it was promised or whether it was small or late. There've been big fights, and it still stops my heart to see Clint Ashburn get out of his truck if Billy Delby is anywhere around, 'cause they've been fighting over what Billy said he'd give Clint when he married Clint's oldest girl for twenty-two years, and they've come to blows about it. And you have to understand, a wife is a thing you need out here. It ain't like you're always in love, though of course, everyone hopes you are. And sometimes, even if you're not in love to start with, well, you get there along the way." She smiled to herself as the strains of Lawrence Welk's orchestra drifted down the hall. "But it does put an awful feeling of indebtedness on your shoulders, I can tell you that." "That's what you meant last night when you said Libby owed Matt a lot," Scully pressed, though her voice was low. "Yes. Well, she was very aware of that." Mrs. Haynes looked off into a far distance, and watched a world that no one else could see, for only a minute. Then shaking off her gloom at least a little she said, "I guess I'll go sit with John for a bit, if you two are going to take care of the dishes." Mulder rose and went to the sink and sloshed a plate into the hot sudsy water. The slap of the water and the crack of the bubbles was the only sound in the kitchen for a few moments. "You going to help dry, or what?" Mulder rasped, his head bent over the sink. When there was no answer, he turned. Scully sat at the table, her hands in her hair, head bent, staring in front of her. "Hey, you OK?" She didn't answer. "Scully, talk to me." He dropped down to look at her, grabbed one of her hands with his. "Hey." She looked at his hand, brown, wet, soapy; a blob of bubbles slid across the glistening back of it onto the table. She shuddered. "It's weird, isn't it? I mean, I've worked ER, trauma units, shelters, all those places doctors go during residency and agents see during their work. I've seen a lot of things done to women by people who claimed to love them. But this --" A shiver ran down her spine again. "God, will I ever be warm again," she whispered. He released her hand, disappeared down the hall; returned with the heavy wool sweater he'd been wearing on their trip yesterday. She took it and shrugged into it gratefully. Squatting down again, Mulder said, in a voice that was pitched low and somehow comfortingly, "There seems to be an almost infinite number of ways that people can hurt one another. It's a drawback of this job that we get to see more than our share." His smile and the light in his hazel eyes were more warming even than the sweater and Scully was grateful for them too. Then he stood again. "Now, are you gonna dry or what?" The Haynes bid them both good night relatively soon after the agents had emerged from the kitchen. Scully curled up with a book for a while, but wasn't seeing the words on the page; she was seeing Libby Vernon's photograph, and a crease formed between her eyebrows as she sat, thinking. Mulder had a folder of maps with red circles and green dots on them and he continually shuffled through them. "Very Christmassy," Scully finally said, commenting on the colors when she noticed the maps. "What have you got there?" "Latest UFO sightings. I phoned some of the hotlines this afternoon. It's been a busy few months in this county." Letting her head fall back onto the sofa, Scully sighed. "Go ahead, tell me." "Nine sightings in the last week in this county alone; five more in connecting counties. Those are just the corroborated ones. Very, very busy. You'll also be fascinated to know that there was a jump in sightings in this county a little over eight months ago." "A jump." "Of course, there's a regular level of sightings in this community. It's not uncommon in rural areas. Not near enough to any big papers or cities for the news to ever get picked up." "That story about Libby got picked up." "Yeah, wierd, isn't it? That was printed in the state capital -- sort of the state's version of the National Enquirer. Mrs. Haynes says she never misses an issue." "I'll bet." "You're right, it *is* cold in here." "It's just that it's fairy tales as usual, isn't it, Mulder? Not one shred of real evidence linking that girl to any sort of extraterrestrial activity. It's just one of the possible answers -- it's the _least_ probable answer." Rubbing her forehead with stiff fingers she added, "And I don't appreciate you taking time from a reasonable investigation of more probable answers to pursue that kind of information, Mulder." She realized how cross she sounded but couldn't call the words back. They hung there in the air, frozen like icicles. Suddenly she tossed down her book. "I'm going to bed." Head held high, feeling in the wrong and therefore very much in need of a strategic retreat, Scully's progress to the door was stopped as she passed the breakfront bearing the Christmas tree. Her head bent, her red hair sliding forward and glinting gold from the tree lights, and one white hand slid over a glossy green-and-red package. "Did you see this, Mulder?" Mulder rose and looked over her shoulder. There were two packages under the tree, matching in size and wrapping; one bore a tag that said, "Merry X-Mas to Fox" and the other "From Santa to Dana". Chuckling, Mulder reached out to touch one too. "She's a fast worker, you have to admit." "That's so sweet." "Mine should say 'From Santa to Mulder'. She doesn't know that I'm the one who believes." She smiled over her shoulder, looking into his warm laughing eyes and realizing that he wasn't angry at her. She was glad. He'd been so reassuring in the kitchen and she preferred that comfortable feeling to a state of armed truce. One side of her lips curling up into a charming smile, she said, "Who's to say I don't believe in Santa Claus?" "A fat red elf with unlimited toy delivery but no Federal Express?" Mulder had caught her infectious smile and his voice had the usual teasing edge to it; he raised his eyebrows at her. "I _want_ to believe." Mulder sat on the couch flipping through his maps. He heard the noises of Dana in the bathroom brushing her teeth, Dana going up the dim steps, Dana settling down in the tiny bedroom at the end of the upstairs hall. It was another couple of hours before he gave up and started up to bed himself. There was nothing in the maps that continued observation would reveal. But he couldn't shake the feeling that they contained some information that was very important for him to have. On the dark stairs, with all the lights out downstairs, he happened to glance out the window and he saw it. A bright white light, barely visible through the evergreen branches, but, closer than the stars and moving faster than the moon, enough to catch the eye. He raced out the front door and stood in his bare feet on the frozen ground and tried to catch another glimpse of it, but it was gone. He was right, he knew it. Whatever was going on was still going on, and it had everything to do with the Vernon woman. He wanted to be in on the finish when it happened. "Scully, dammit, you missed it," he hissed through his teeth, then realized his feet were numb and went back in the house and up to his bed. From: tabron@binah.cc.brandeis.edu Date: 7 Sep 1994 18:34:17 GMT The feeling of edgy expectation didn't leave him all night or the next morning. Mrs. Haynes attributed his absent look to the lowering gray clouds that filled the sky and made it leaden and threatening. "It's going to snow soon, today, most likely, and you need to be careful. If it starts while you're in town, you'd best stay at the sherriff's station; you won't believe how much snow a good blizzard can put down in an hour." Mulder was distracted and preoccupied through breakfast, the ride into town, the phone calls he was making. He couldn't shake the feeling that somehow he was missing the show. He felt like a guy in a theater sitting behind someone with a big hat; part of the picture was obscured, he couldn't quite tell what was going on, but he felt like he ought to be able to piece it together from what he could see. What he mostly wanted was to be back in the woods. Around noon he told Scully he was heading out to Matt Vernon's place again. "Maybe I can't get a search warrant, but I bet I can find something around that cabin that we didn't see before." "Like what?" Scully didn't even look up; she was making notations on her list of hospitals. "I won't know until I see it," he said, more than a little sarcasm creeping into his tone. Then she looked up. "Cheer up, Scully. At least it's a little warmer today." Sherriff Connelly put in from his desk, "It's warmer 'cause it's going to snow. I been listening to the radio all morning, Agent Mulder; that storm is coming right up the valley and it's going to be here soon. You don't want to be out in the woods when it hits." "I'll keep in touch; I gotta go." That was why he was driving in the Land Rover alone on the trails in the mountains when he almost hit Marshall Tucker. All Mulder saw was a flailing arm and a body and the Land Rover swerved violently, half-heading up the enormous slope on the shoulder of the road, then falling back down with a thump when the shoulder snowdrift crumbled and dropped the front wheels back on the road. "Mr. Mulder," Marshall panted as he raced up to the side of the truck, "you gotta come quick. Libby's having her baby." "Get in!" He shoved the passenger door open and Marshall clambered in and slammed the door just as Mulder spun the Land Rover's wheels and the car straighted out and shot down the road. "Tell me when to turn," he instructed the boy tersely, dialing the phone with his other hand. "Sherriff Connelly," a voice said when the line picked up. "Put Agent Scully on the line." Then a female voice. "Yes?" "Scully, Libby's at Marshall's house and she's having her baby." "Oh my God. Is Marshall with you? Where are you?" "We're in the car headed to his place." "Put him on the line." Marshall answered Scully's questions about Libby's state when he left her as best he could, stopping once to yell at Mulder to turn left. Finally he handed the phone back to Mulder. "Mulder, I want you to call me as soon as you reach the house; I'm going to see what can be done on this end." Mulder clicked the phone shut and looked sideways at Marshall Tucker, who was cringing at the opposite end of the car seat. "I think it's time you told me a different story, Marshall." "What's to tell? She's been stayin' at my house. I got enough food. She wanted to leave town but couldn't leave without me drivin' her and she didn't want to get me in trouble and -- I told her to stay with me till after Christmas and we'd work something out. We never figured the cops would look much into it." "Mrs. Haynes was very worried about Libby. Couldn't you even tell her?" "Libby didn't want me to; she said Mrs. Haynes'd make her go home." "I don't think Libby knows Mrs. Haynes very well." Another spinning turn and now they were heading straight up a hillside. Mulder's brow furrowed as he tried not to wonder if he had enough traction to make it. "Well, don't lose your head, Marshall. It isn't everybody who gets to be in on their baby's arrival the way you're about to." "What?" Marshall shook his head like he'd received a blow to the temple. "It's not _my_ baby." "Marshall, don't _lie_ to me again!" Mulder shouted, simultaneously slamming on the brakes and cuffing the boy by the collar to shake him like a sack of potatoes. "I'm _not lying_!" Marshall half-screamed. Mulder let him go; he fell back into the corner of the cab but a angry flash had come into his black, pupilless eyes. The boy looked like he was trying hard not to take a swing at the agent; Mulder decided he didn't have time to let it cool down. "What do you mean? Where was Libby for four weeks when she disappeared eight months ago?" "I don't know, but it wasn't with me. And Libby wouldn't -- we've never -- Libby would never do something like that." "You'll pardon me if I find it very hard to believe that you don't know where Libby was." Mulder restarted the stalled car, put it in first and started the car crawling up the hill again. Over the top, and he could see the Tucker house. "Yeah, well, you'd find it harder to believe where _she_ says she was," the boy muttered. At that, Mulder wanted to grab him by the shirt collar again and make him explain himself, but Marshall jumped out of the car before it had even stopped moving and run for the house. Mulder, his heavy black winter coat swinging behind him, followed. Inside and through a door off the front room and Mulder could see a slight form stretched out on the twin bed in the back room. "Hi, Libby," he said softly and smiled as he came up to the bed. She was pale almost to the point where her skin looked sickly blue, and her hair was straggling across her face; she opened her mouth as if to say something but closed it again immediately. "How are you feeling?" Mulder swung out of his coat and dropped in on the floor, and kneeled next to the bed. Sweeping her hair away from her eyes, he smiled again and said, "I'm Fox Mulder, I've been looking for you, Libby. Mrs. Haynes has told me a lot about you. She's going to be very glad we found you. Can I look at you for a minute? I've got a friend who's a doctor who's been looking for you too and she'd like to know how you're doing." "Go right -- right ahead," Libby whispered in her paper-dry voice, and a shockingly bright flush of red dyed her cheeks. "Good, good," he mumbled and kept up a reassuring stream of noises as he took her pulse, felt her forehead -- she seemed a little cool to the touch -- inverted an eyelid and looked at her pupils. She seemed fine. "I'll be right back, Libby." "Where's your phone?" he demanded of Marshall, who was standing in the door behind him. "D-don't have a phone." Swearing under his breath Mulder darted out to the car in his shirtsleeves. The wind had picked up and seemed to knock the breath out of him; a few tiny white flakes bespattered the car's windsheild. Retrieving his cellular phone, he ran back to the house, dialing the station as he went. With Scully on the phone he asked Libby how far apart her contractions were, found out she had no way of timing them but hadn't had one for a "good few minutes now". "OK, Mulder, here's the bad news. The nearest ambulance is fifty miles away and won't come anyway -- they say the blizzard is in full swing there and it's too risky for them to drive over the mountains in zero visibility. The good news is Mrs. Haynes is only two miles away, says she can walk there in her sleep, and is already on her way. Libby's not going to have this baby for a while yet. I think you should come and get me and I'll stay by the phone where Mrs. Haynes can reach me if there are any problems. It shouldn't take more than an hour to two hours for you to get here and get me back there." "There's no phone here that Mrs. Haynes could use to call you." Scully thought for a minute. "Leave them the cellular." "An hour seems like a long time to me right now, Scully," Mulder said, turning away from the bed so Libby wouldn't hear what he was saying. "And probably to Libby too." "Believe me, it's nothing," his partner replied dryly. Clicking the phone shut and leaving it by the bed, Mulder slid his arms into the coat and prepared to leave. "Mrs. Haynes is coming over to see you, Libby, and you'll be fine with her until I get back with the doctor. I'm going to get her now. Do you think you'll be all right?" Libby nodded vigorously, then whispered, "I would like some water, please, if that's OK." "Of course! Just a little. No problem." Feeling flustered -- Mulder had not attended a delivery before -- he raced out to get a glass of water, shoving past Marshall Tucker in the hallway, then back to Libby's side. Putting an arm under her shoulders he helped her to sit up a little and sip from the glass. That's when the shirt she wore, the top two buttons undone, fell back from her throat and revealed the purplish rash which had not gone away. Libby's hands started to shake when she saw the look in Mulder's eyes, a look of disbelieving... exultation. He took the glass from her and set it on the floor. "Libby, how long have you had this?" he said, a murmur so low Marshall could never hear it, not touching her skin but gesturing with his hand. "A - a while now -- since the baby," Libby whispered, and her voice drifted away at the end like soft sand in an hourglass, too quiet even to be heard. "You're going to be all right, Libby," Mulder said, a little louder, then settled her under the covers. Pausing just a moment to brush her hair back from her face, now a mask of terror, he added, "I know, Libby. We'll make sure you're all right." "But Mr. Mulder I'm -- I'm so scared." Her eyes were huge and tears, too afraid to fall, were trembling in them. "I know, Libby. But it'll be all right." "Mulder, we're lost." Scully tried to keep her voice even but her patience was close to the breaking point. After almost an hour of clinging to the door handle while Mulder coaxed the Land Rover to throw itself through snow drift after snow drift, feeling as though every turn could be their last, and holding her breath through every sickening slide of the tires on loose snow, Scully had had enough. "Dammit, we can't be lost!" Pounding his fist on the steering wheel Mulder brought the car to a halt. He looked wildly all around him, but Scully was right. Nothing looked familiar; the snow, falling thickly and blowing viciously, obscured almost all but the trees right against the road. He couldn't even be sure if he was heading in the right direction. And the plowed snowbanks that had lined the roads for the past two days were obliterated by the crossings and pilings of the new fall. There was no way to tell what crossroads he was passing. "DAMN it! *Why is this happening to me?*" Mulder's shout rang in the closed confines of the car. "Don't lose your head, Mulder," Scully said sharply. "We need to find shelter." "We *need* to get to the Tucker house! I need you to examine Libby Vernon!" "Mulder! *I AM NOT A RESEARCH TOOL!*" Mulder blinked and looked at his partner. She was furious, he realized, and possibly a little frightened. "I'm sorry. You're right. We need to find shelter." "I think I saw a cabin a few miles back, at the end of one of these trails. Can you turn around?" "Sure." Mulder was convinced they were heading into open woods, the Land Rover jouncing over the carcasses of fallen trees and rocks, but at the end of the trail, sure enough, was a small cabinlike house, its windows dark and mostly sheltered by trees on all sides. It was down in a hollow, rather than up at the top of a hill like the Tucker and Haynes houses, and the snow had collected all around it like sugar in a cup. "Let's see what we've got in the car that we can take in," Scully suggested and waded out into the snow. "Ever practical." Mulder followed her. The back of the Sherriff's brother-in-law's car contained three folded blankets, an empty metal canteen, a flare gun, two magnesium flares, a box of shotgun shells, a combination hatchet/shovel, a wrapped hank of thin rope, and a box of dried rations -- venison jerky, some packets of freeze-dried stew, and chocolate bars. At the sight of the chocolate bars Mulder had to grin. "I guess we've died and gone to heaven, Scully. Let's set up house." Just getting to the door was a struggle but opening it was worse; the door opened out, and the heavy snow was determined to keep it pressed shut. Finally they forced their way in. There was a fireplace at one end and a wood beam over it for a mantle. The floor was clean-swept wooden planks. The only piece of furniture in the room was an enormous wooden bedstead. It filled one whole side of the one room and the headboard loomed over Mulder's head. "Wow. You look out for giants. I'm going to get some firewood." Swinging up the hatchet Mulder wrestled his way out the door. The sky was darkening and the trees largely blocked his view of it. He was afraid to get too far away from the cabin, afraid he wouldn't be able to see his way back. First he opened the car again and turned on the headlights. Even from the opposite side of the cabin, he figured, he'd be able to see them for at least tens of feet, even through the falling snow. Then he picked his way back the way they'd driven, looking for fallen branches. A great many dead limbs littered the forest floor, some of them old and decayed, some of them broken off today by the weight of the wet, heavy snow accumulating on them. Some of the lower branches that looked dead succumbed to being tugged and whacked with his hatchet. He returned to the cabin with a heavy armful. Tossing it inside the door, Mulder returned to shut the car lights off and lock it up. Back inside he took some branches and shook the snow off in a far corner of the house. "Let's hope this stuff is dry enough to burn, Scully," he said grimly and laid a fire in the grate. Screwing the top back on the canteen, which she'd just filled with snow, Scully studied the proposed fire critically. "Mulder -- you don't smoke, I don't smoke. Do you have any matches?" He looked up at her from where he was kneeling on the floor. They stared at each other for a tense moment. "There's gotta be matches in this rations box," Mulder insisted, scrabbling through the box frantically. He crowed with delight and pulled out a metal case with a tight lid; it rattled. Opened, it proved to be full of wooden matches. "Any other suggestions from the floor? How about kindling?" Scully bit her lower lip. "Leaves?" "Too wet." Regarding the fire grate, Mulder snapped his fingers. "Give me your notebook." Several pages from Scully's notebook were twisted up tight, to burn more slowly, and placed in strategic locations leading out of the pile of wood. "I hope you know what you're doing, Mulder," Scully murmured at his shoulder. "So do I." There was some more frantic paper tearing and stuffing, but finally the paper dried out a small twig and ignited it, and the dry heart of the wood burned gladly. The flame leapfrogged quickly up to igniting a branch as thick as Mulder's arm. Once it had caught, he relaxed, letting out his breath. "You know what, Mulder, I think they _are_ going to make you an Eagle Scout when we get home." Dana Scully drew a deep breath, slid down the wall behind her, and rested her head on her knees, shrouding herself in her heavy navy coat. "I'm going to deserve it, too." Mulder hung the canteen from a hook on the mantel; the heat of the fire would melt the snow into water. He slid down the opposite wall. They faced each other across the firelight. From: tabron@binah.cc.brandeis.edu Date: 7 Sep 1994 18:34:58 GMT "Well, here we are," Scully said, to break the silence. Mulder was thinking of Libby Vernon's scared face and the mark on her chest. "Yes, here we are. And outside the cabin, reality marches on." Thinking she knew what was distracting him, Scully said, "You know, Libby Vernon is going to be fine. Mrs. Haynes told me she's delivered a dozen babies in this town, and I'm sure she was with Libby a long time ago now. And they've got the phone to call for help if there's trouble. I'm sure if they called the sherriff he could get a helicopter in there from a Columbus hospital, or --" "I'm not worried about Libby, Scully," he interrupted her, and his eyes looked dark in dimming light. "I hate to admit it, but I'm not. I think she's going to deliver her baby with no problem. I just want to know what kind of baby she's going to deliver." "What are you talking about?" "I needed you to see this person, Scully. To photograph her, if possible. She had a raised purple rash in the shape of an inverted triangle, right here." He gestured with his hand at the base of his throat. Scully digested this news in silence. "You may not be aware that such markings have often been found on UFO abductees, sometimes years after the encounter. There is no medical explanation for the skin disorders and standard treatments seem to have little effect. I've got a pile of X-files a foot thick documenting such occurences. Abductees who undergo hypnosis report that their captors told them the marks are for identification or testing purposes. Some have their marks reappear during second or even third encounters later in their lives --in one case, sixty-six years later." "You still think Libby Vernon is an abductee." "No, Scully. I _now_ think Libby Vernon is an abductee." "And the baby?" Mulder spread his hands. "Marshall Tucker swore up and down that it wasn't his baby." "And you believed him?" "He looked too angry for me not to believe him." Scully cocked an eyebrow as if to invite him to continue. "He looked like he -- wanted to be able to say it was his baby." "He denies that Libby was with him when she disappeared the first time?" "He denies it." "And what do you think?" "I think," Mulder said slowly, "that if we had a candle I would put it in the window and see whether or not a couple of wise men wander by." "Mulder, be serious." He looked at her. Her eyes looked silver grey in the firelight, almost the only light left in the room as the snow blocked the setting sun from them. The fire leapt and crackled and seemed to exist only as a reflection of her hair. She was pleading with him to give her an answer she could hear. "I think I am almost serious." Mulder let his head fall back with a thwack on the wooden wall. "But enough about me. Can I offer you a lovely venison jerky and chocolate dinner? The water here has a particularly piquant bouquet." Dinner tasted surprisingly good, after their long day, and afterwards Mulder made another trip out for firewood. This time he went around back of the house, keeping the wall of it almost within reach so as not to wander out into the dark, and almost stumbled into a pile of cut wood. He knocked on the window nearest to him, Scully opened it, and he tossed log after log through it into the house. "There," he said when he came in, "no more trips outside for us." "Well, except for the utmost necessity." Scully looked as dubious as she felt. There was no running water in the cabin. "The great outdoors awaits you any time you feel the need." They stacked the firewood near the hearth after knocking most of the snow off of it, to help it dry out. "Well, do you want room number 1, 2, 3, or the penthouse suite?" Scully asked Mulder, who was eyeing the bed frame thoughtfully. "If only that thing had a mattress. Even a box spring." Scully cocked her head to one side, considered. "Quaker bed frames like that had ropes woven across them to support a hay mattress." "There's that rope in the car," Mulder suggested. "I don't think it would be worth it. There's nothing to put between us and the rope; it'd make an awfully uncomfortable hammock." Mulder went over to the frame, rocked it with his hand. It was as steady as if it had been poured out of concrete. "Well, I think I know why it's still here. It's too well joined to come apart without destroying the rails; it's too heavy to lift in one piece; and it's too big to go through the door!" "What happened to your hands, Mulder?" Scully came up behind him, removed the outstretched hand from the bedpost. It was scratched and scraped, dirt and some blood drying under the fingernails. More disturbingly, it was very warm. Too warm. Scully laid her palm against Mulder's forehead. It was hot and very dry. "I think you've got a fever, Mulder." "Really? That would explain why Libby felt so cool to me. She *looked* like she'd been working up a sweat." "Isn't that just like you. I'm the one who's been complaining about the cold since we got here, and you're the one who comes down with, as Mrs. Haynes would say, 'your death of cold.'" "She'll be so proud. Hey, let's not jump the gun yet. I'm a long way from dead." "And what _did_ you do to your hands?" "Tree-wrestling, hog-tying, tobacco-chawing -- the kind of stuff you do out here. I pulled some of those first branches off some trees and the trees fought back. That's all, Scully. If I weren't such a soft city boy I'da come through without a scratch." She poured water over the scrapes, pulled out a splinter and gave him some Tylenol capsules she found in the depths of her coat. He smiled gratefully. "Thanks, Scully. That's more than a lot of partners would do for me. I'm going to nominate you when we get back for the Girl Scout equivalent of an Eagle Scout. They must have one. I have to find out." "Gee. And I thought I'd reached my peak when I got my M.D. I've got a fee, though." "Yes?" Mulder looked intrigued. "Do you play chess?" They had to give up chess eventually, though; visualizing the moves was tiring, and after Scully won two games Mulder said he conceded the day. From time to time they added logs to the fire, which burned down and warmed the whole one-room cabin. Fortunately it was tightly built and they finally even took off their coats. They talked about cases they'd finished, and then they talked about X-files Mulder wanted to look at, and they talked about people they knew at the Bureau. Personal talk always seemed off-limits between them, Mulder thought. It was all the more obvious now, when there was plenty of time to talk. After a lull in the conversation Mulder volunteered, "I'd like to ask you a question, if you don't mind." "Go right ahead." "What did you mean in the car when you told me you weren't a research tool?" Scully scratched her nose -- a good way to hide your expression, Mulder knew -- and said, "Next question?" "Come on, Scully, I want to know." "I probably shouldn't have said that --" "No bullshit, Scully. Just tell me." Leaning up against the wall, knees drawn up, Scully rested an elbow on one knee and put her chin in her hand. She watched Mulder watch her from where he was stretched out on his side in front of the fire, his shirttails pulled out of his suit pants, one long leg hooked over the other, his arm propping up his head as he looked at her. "I didn't really mean it, Mulder. It just felt to me, at that moment, like I was a... recording object, like a camera or a Geiger counter, that you needed to register evidence for you. Just a camera." "I'm sorry, Scully." He continued to look straight into her eyes. She had learned that when his usual heavy-lidded, sleepy expression disappeared, like now, it meant that he really was sleepy -- and concentrating hard. "I expect you felt that way because that was exactly how I was treating you." "Ah." She couldn't think of any answer to that. "It's not just that I'm not used to working with a partner any more. It's more that -- well, I'm not used to having someone to share my work with. You're not inclined to believe, I know -- but you're inclined to listen. That's so exciting, Scully, it's like... I feel sometimes like a kid with a new toy on Christmas morning, and I can't wait to find out what it will do next." With a funny warm feeling blooming in the pit of her stomach Scully said lightly, "And it's not very flattering to me, is it?" "Not necessarily _un_flattering." Mulder grinned his irrepressible grin. "But I get the general idea. And I'll grow out of it. As of this minute." "Don't strain yourself," she warned sharply, avoiding the full blast of the grin. "I said I was sorry, Scully. How about while we're at it you start giving me a little bit of credit for knowing the difference between a legitimate X-file and normal crime?" "I do." "No, you don't. You always think I'm following the least likely answer. But how many times have the probable answers already been eliminated by other authorities? It's not that I'm not willing to duplicate effort, Scully. I tend to assume that cases with no normal answers need to be investigated with an eye toward the extreme possibilities." "And I tend to assume that if they haven't got what you call a 'normal' answer -- a rational explanation, in other words -- it's because of shoddy work, not because it's time to start chasing down the 'extreme possibilities'." "How many times have we investigated cases other people have shelved, and plowed through a ton of shoddy work, only to find out that the answer was one that the original investigator would never have considered? How many cases do you think get mothballed every year rather than solved simply because some local cop or petty bureaucrat said that they'd exhausted every *reasonable* answer?" "A lot," she admitted. "You're right, it's a lot. I just want to feel like you're not leapfrogging the logical avenue of investigation, Mulder. And I want to feel like I'm your partner, not your witness." Mulder looked into the fire and there was several minutes when the crackling of the logs was all there was for sound. Then in a flatly neutral tone Mulder said, "I'm going to suggest something and I want you to realize that it comes from under my psychologist hat, not my personal hat. OK?" "OK." "Isn't it possible that at least sometimes you feel that way because your job is to be my witness? Isn't it true that your field reports are serving the function of evidence for judicial scrutiny higher up?" Mulder shifted so that he looked directly into her eyes, straight on. Her face was set like stone. She wanted to say no and tell him that was a stupid accusation, but she couldn't because she knew it wasn't. "That has not been my intention, Agent Mulder." "I didn't think it was, Agent Scully." But that wasn't true. He had thought it. She knew he had, when they'd first met and for months afterward. It had been a while before he'd stopped offering her evidence from the X-files like it was a carrot she couldn't appreciate on a stick entirely under his control. Mulder's eyes were still boring into hers. They were hazel, she knew, a shade of moss-green mixed with flecks of golden brown that, in dim lights, looked dark brown, but in certain types of reflected light shone like old coins, or gold-backed mirrors. There was a volume of explanation in those eyes, and they convinced her of his respect and his honesty and his trust. Even though it hadn't really been that long ago, timewise, his eyes convinced her that the time of his mistrust in her had been long, long gone and buried, and that he knew that she also wanted to know the truth. The odd sensation in the pit of her stomach fluttered up and caught in her chest and made it hard for her to choke out, "Thanks, Mulder." He didn't say anything but a smile crept up into the corners of his eyes and made them merry. Suddenly he bounced to his feet. "You sleepy yet? I'm exhausted." From: tabron@binah.cc.brandeis.edu Date: 7 Sep 1994 18:35:39 GMT Scully put her coat back on then wrapped up in one of the blankets. She insisted on giving Mulder both the others, and he insisted on putting her nearer the fire, so both of them got their way. They'd warmed up the cabin quite a bit but Scully awoke sometime in the middle of the night. The fire had burned down and glowing coals dripped out of the grate. Her body temperature had dropped in sleep and the cabin now had a distinct chill that crept right into her bones, through blanket, coat, shoes, everything. Shivering, clamping her jaw to prevent her teeth from audibly chattering, Scully reached to put another log on the fire. She let out a gasp when something grabbed her from behind and drew her away from the fire. "Let me get that," Mulder rasped, his voice husky and deep from sleep, his eyes heavy and bleary. Scully wished in the dim fog of her sleep-blunted mind that she had a thermometer to check his temperature with. He poked the coals till flames licked up the sides of the log again, then regarded the blanket-wrapped bundle of Scully below him. "This isn't working," he mumbled and, picking her up like a piece of furniture, unwrapped his own blankets and took off his coat. He folded one of the large blankets in two and laid it down like a mat. Then he unwrapped her blanket and coat. Her teeth started chattering. "What are you doing, Mulder?" "Fixing this." He indicated that she should lay down on the blanket. Then he spread the smaller of the two remaining blankets over her, then the larger one, folded in half, then his coat lengthwise across her feet and her coat lengthwise across her hips. Then he lifted one edge of this edifice and slid under it, onto the blanket mat, behind her. She was still facing the fire, and closer to it. "Inefficient conservation of heat," he mumbled, and then she suppressed a start as she felt his body, so much longer than hers, against her back. He pillowed his head with one arm and with the other one pulled her closer. "Uh, Mulder..." "You've been cold for three days, now you're bitching about being warm?" he muttered, and she could feel his breath stirring her hair. He felt like a blast furnace against her. Her teeth stopped chattering immediately. She could even feel warmth trickling down to her cold toes, in the depths of her ankle-high boots. He was right; she was _warm_. She worried about his fever, shifted around till she could lay one of her palms against his forehead. And his eyes popped open. She ignored them and felt his forehead anyway, then took one wrist and checked his pulse. To her hands, which she'd kept warm, his forehead did not seem unduly hot, was even slightly cool, and his pulse was normal. She wished she had more Tylenol for when this dose wore off. His face, right next to hers, seemed sculpted out of warm smooth stone. But she'd never seen a sculpture capture the angle of a jaw quite like that, or the curve of a pair of lips quite like those. In the dim firelight he looked... beautiful. She bit her lip nervously, then wished she hadn't. Mulder bore the inspection of his temperature and pulse, in that waking world between dream and reality in which it seems that everything is equally real and equally impossible. The glint of the firelight, dark red on red gold, haloed her hair in brilliant flame, and made her translucent skin seem like ivory silk. He couldn't see the expression in her eyes, darkened and shadowed by the firelight behind her, but her lips, ripe wild strawberries, parted and drew his attention. She caught the lower lip between two perfect white teeth and Mulder suddenly felt the desire to stroke his thumb along it, to free it. Catching himself from falling over the brink into reality, Mulder let his head fall onto his arm and surrendered back into dream. He mumbled something else but Scully couldn't catch it. She turned back over, her back against his chest, and surrendered to the delicious warmth. The windows had lightened with dawn when Mulder next woke. His face felt a little chilly as he lay flat on his back; he assumed the fire had burned down again. But the rest of him was comfortable. Well, a little stiff, he realized, stirring. Then he stopped. His left arm was under Scully's head and wrapped around her shoulders, securing her closely to him; one of her legs stretched full-length against his, the other was thrown across his thighs. At some point she had kicked off her boots and her sock-clad foot pressed against his shin. Her head rested on his shoulder and her hair spread across the front of his shirt and throat. Clearly there had been some shifting during the night. He was now almost entirely off the blanket under them; someone had pushed and someone had pulled, and now here they were. He *was* warm. Disaster. Horror. Crisis of biblical proportions. Scully was going to go stark raving out of her very cool and collected head. Oh well, he thought. "Morning," he said into her hair. Something was rumbling under her ear, like an earthquake. Scully woke up enough to realize it was Mulder. What the hell, the thought sleepily muddled through her head, I'm drooling on Mulder's shirt. Then she sat bolt upright. "Thanks," Mulder said, and sat up rubbing his neck, "I was getting a little stiff." The unfortunate entendres of this remark weren't lost on Scully but she chose to wince, then smile ruefully at him as though there weren't a mariachi butterfly band playing Sousa in her stomach. She rolled over, pretending that she wasn't rolling away from Mulder, and tossed another log on the fire. Running her fingers through her hair and trying not to imagine what it looked like she said, "Venison and chocolate for breakfast?" "Sounds delish." Well, she _was_ taking it in stride. He'd underestimated her. Under that cool, calm exterior there was a woman who really was cool and calm. An irresistable urge to press his limits rose up in Mulder from somewhere in the teenage section of his brain -- a section he'd never managed to lock away completely -- and he said in a husky voice, "It's been a long time since a woman made breakfast for me." Years of dealing with two brothers had given Dana Scully a preternatural instinct for when she was being teased. Her chin dropped, her eyes opened wide and she turned a look of disbelieving -- and amused -- amazement upon him. In tones of utter conviction she said, "Don't push it, Mulder." If the heavy oak rafters over their head had been made of glass or silver they would indeed have rung, as in the proverbial songs, Christmas and otherwise, with Mulder's shout of laughter. "My watch says noon. Snow seems to be slowing. You've got a fever of at least a hundred and some. I'd say it's time to get out of here." Mulder couldn't deny that his head didn't feel as steady as it might. Looking over at Dana and the stack of neatly packed emergency supplies, he shrugged. "It doesn't matter now. I'm sure it's all over." "What, Libby having her baby? Why that's when it all begins, Mulder," she enlightened him and, after he'd struggled to his feet, handed him the pack of food and gathered up the blankets. "I don't know, I just feel like it's all over and we missed our chance. I missed _my_ chance, Scully. It's over." She frowned as they struggled out to the car and plopped the supplies in the back. "Get in and warm it up, Mulder, I'm going to douse the fire with snow and make sure it's out before we go." The Land Rover started right up and Mulder sent a fevered prayer to the god of old cars. It seemed like just seconds and Scully was back with him. Had he dozed? "Mulder. We've got to get out of these woods and somewhere we can orient ourselves. We've got plenty of gas; we just need to get moving. I think you should let me drive." "Miz Scully ma'am, you're welcome to try. This thing has no power steering or brakes. But go right ahead." Oh good. Loads of fun. She indicated that Mulder should shove over in the front seat and got up behind the wheel. "If you ever tell anyone this I'll deny it but I once drove a mowing tractor at my uncle's farm in Maine." "Did you mow in the snow?" "Now would be a good time for you to shut up, Mulder." For a moment after she'd settled herself behind the wheel Scully felt like a ten-year-old pretending to drive. It was only for a moment, then it passed. Gingerly she tried backing up the vehicle. The wheels started to whine; she stopped the gas. Great, they were stuck. Now were they *really* stuck or just a little stuck? The car was too big for Mulder to push alone, even if he weren't half delerious, which she suspected he was fast approaching. Okay, she'd *make* it move. Businesslike, chanting encouragements to the car under her breath, Scully left the car in reverse, tried backing a little, then let the car rock forward. Slowly but surely she rocked the car back to a point when one of the wheels caught on some traction and the car started to move. Quickly before the traction ended she backed up a good twenty feet, then gave it a quick Y turn and headed back out to the main road. Throughout this performance Mulder said nothing, letting his head fall back and keeping his eyes closed; the sunlight, as it began to appear more fully through the now only occasional snow, seemed too bright and cutting for his eyes. Almost like being hung over, he thought to himself, but even worse. He paid no attention to the navigation from then on. It wasn't as though he could help Scully find her way out of the woods anyway. Dimly he wondered if there were a Berlitz course on one's sense of direction. Sort of like learning French in a week, but different. When he felt lucid again it was because he noticed that they were working their way up a hill, and Mrs. Haynes' house sat at the top of it. "Great!" he cried. "Turn left and we'll get to Marshall Tucker's in fifteen minutes! No, go right, go right. I'll bet Libby's gone home. She'll be at Matt's place." Ignoring him entirely Scully turned into the Haynes' driveway. "What are you doing? Scully! Turn right! Stop! I mean, don't stop! What the hell?" She gave the parking brake a firm yank, then slid out of the high seat, marched around to his door and opened it up. He almost fell out of the car on top of her. "Mulder, you are sick. I am officially diagnosing you as sick. You are going to get pneumonia for Christmas if you don't get some drugs in you and get in bed." His lips disappeared as he clamped his jaw shut and started to slide backwards into the driver's seat. "Mulder." It was soft but it was serious. "If it's over, it's over." He blinked at her. His voice was low and urgent in spite of the fog in his eyes. "But Scully, *I need to know if it's over.*" Impatiently pushing her straggling bangs away from her face, Scully regarded him with irritation for a moment; then she disappeared into the house. Mulder's sense of time was completely disoriented by his fever. He couldn't tell if she'd been gone one minute or twenty by the time she came back; he might have dozed off. "Come on, Mulder." She sounded tired, but offered him a hand out of the car. "You're going to bed." "What about --?" "I talked to Mrs. Haynes. There's nothing for you to see that won't wait for you to see it." Mulder couldn't quite figure out what that meant but didn't feel like arguing any more. His eyeballs felt scratchy and a burning pain had started in the back of his throat. He led Dana lead him into the house and up the stairs into the bed Mrs. Haynes had made for him. From: tabron@binah.cc.brandeis.edu Date: 7 Sep 1994 18:36:24 GMT Mulder had no memory of a dark time passing but the light was different when next he woke. It was morning, late morning. He groaned. "Good morning, sleepyhead. You can stay in bed until I examine you, or I can let loose the hounds." Closing his eyes again he felt the slight dip in the edge of the bed where Scully sat. She took his temperature, his pulse, and then laid her ear against the wall of his chest and did a lot of ordering about how he should breathe. "Bronchitis," she pronounced cheerfully. "Not too bad once we can get some antibiotics into you. And of course bed rest, aspirin, the whole spiel." "And call you in the morning?" The rasp in his voice developed into a full-blown cough. "Ve-ry nice. I don't suppose you're going to stay in bed until Marshall gets back from town with your antibiotics?" "No, I don't suppose so." Struggling into a sitting position, Mulder dragged a shirt on over his bare chest before he realized it wasn't his. "Mr. Haynes lent you some things," Scully noted. "Oh." Mulder felt totally drained and exhausted, both physically and mentally. For a minute he just sat there at the edge of the bed, his dark head hanging, trying to catch a full breath and wondering why he felt so depressed, until he remembered. "Scully," he finally half-whispered, "I can't think of any other way to say this that would sound less... well, trivial -- ... but I feel like I've slept through Christmas morning and missed the whole thing." "Well, in one sense, of course, you haven't; in fact it's Christmas Eve today. Merry Christmas. In the sense that you mean..." Her light tone faltered. "I'm sorry, Mulder. We did miss it." "I want to see." The drive to Marshall Tucker's house only seemed long because of the silence. They'd left Marshall with Mrs. Haynes so they knew that no one would be there; still the house's emptiness was somehow disappointing. The narrow bed in the back room had been made with Marshall's few linens. The rest of the house was clean. And just above the house, on the crest of the hill, a perfect circle almost thirty feet wide had been melted through the blizzard drifts, through the rock-hard packed old snow, down to the bare grassless ground. Three equidistant dents had been driven into the ground while it had been somewhat thawed, then frozen in again by the cold. Mulder stood in the center of it, staring around him. He had to fight the urge to fall on his knees and scream out his frustration. Too melodramatic for the Mulder facade, he thought to himself, clenching his fists in his pockets. "Well, what happened?" he finally asked her. "You're not going to like this, Mulder. Mrs. Haynes told me that one, the delivery was perfectly normal and Libby came through it well. Two, Libby and the baby have been removed to a hospital and that Libby appreciates our efforts on her behalf but that the case has been settled." Mulder rubbed tiredly at his eyes, which still felt like sand-covered marbles rolling around in his eyesockets. "I see." He sighed and let his shoulders droop. "And this?" he had to ask, gesturing around at the circle. "Made by the evacuation helicopter." "Of course." Mulder considered this for a few minutes, then had to smile, then laughed out loud until a fit of coughing stopped him. "You know what I think of that story." Scully sighed and folded her arms. "Yes I do, and actually I'd like to know what's wrong with it? Do you find it so hard to believe that a young girl having her first child might need to be evacuated to a hospital? Isn't that why you left them the phone? What is that melted patch you're standing in but physical evidence that intervention was needed and happened, and why shouldn't it have happened just as Mrs. Haynes said?" "Why _should_ it have? How _could_ it have? Dammit, Scully, if you just had had a chance to see the girl --" "I'm sorry, Mulder. I know it won't make you feel any better but I feel I ought to let you know that many women develop odd skin markings and conditions, especially in the later stages of pregnancy --" "You show me documented cases of purple rashes in the shape of triangles being caused by your average pregnancy, Scully, and then show me the helicopter that lands on three feet, and then we'll talk." "We're going back now." Her tone didn't seem to be offering the idea for discussion; Mulder followed her back to the car. A surreal tissue as of red cellophane lay over their last evening at the Haynes' house. Marshall Tucker stayed for Christmas Eve dinner, which featured a turkey bigger than most German Shepards he'd ever seen in his life. Loaded with drugs and hot food Mulder felt considerably better; only his black mood weighed him down. Marshall and the Haynes were still in the kitchen when Scully found Mulder sitting on the inevitable brown couch in the front room, his head between his hands, looking as though he half-hoped the earth might open up and swallow him and he'd be as gone, gone, gone as Libby Vernon. "So go ahead and tell me what _you_ think happened, Agent Mulder. I'm dying to hear your theory." He looked up. Scully curled into the end of the couch opposite him. Her mouth was half-curved in a smile that might have been teasing but her eyes indicated that she did want to hear his theory; they urged him on. He leaned back and sighed. "It's a thin case, Scully, you said so yourself. I have no explanations, only questions. Where was Libby the first time she disappeared? Where did that baby come from? And where is she now?" Scully studied the patch of air over Mulder's shoulder. "For what it's worth I called around again to all the nice friends we've made in three states worth of hospitals. None of them have a patient called Libby Vernon or matching her description." His smile was grim but genuine. "Thanks. I didn't think you'd bother." "I'm as interested in the truth as you are, Mulder. Evidence supports that she was evacuated by helicopter -- but I don't know where to, any more than you do. And I don't know the answers to those other questions either." He winced. "And if it was by helicopter -- whose helicopter? The rest of the world gets the paper too, Scully. Anyone interested in UFO contact would have noticed the way sightings have gone up in this area. You know what Mrs. Haynes told me over coffee tonight? She told me that they pretty much live on their Social Security payments. I mean she told me like she was making a point. And you know what would happen to Marshall if anyone wanted to sic the law on him. They're trapped, Scully, like I'm trapped, but at least they know. I want to know. Who wanted to find out about Libby's baby just as much as I did?" "Don't get paranoid on me, Mulder," Scully said lightly but still her eyes carried the weight of the statement. He shook his head and said, "Dammit -- *dammit*, Scully, she was so scared. I wish I knew that I didn't lie to her, that it is going to be all right." It was the uncertainty that cut too close to the bone, he knew; he couldn't stop the tears that rushed to fill his eyes so he hid them behind a tent of fingers, only letting out the strangled whisper, "Scully, I just wish I *knew*!" "I know." The silence stretched between them for a long while. Scully bit her lip, then said, "Mulder, you know, just a couple of days ago you reminded me that we see a lot of things on this job that most people don't get to see, and we just have to be able to stand it, right? And sometimes those things include unsolved cases. You have to think of it that way, Mulder. It's just an unsolved case." "It's not *just* an unsolved case, Scully." He sighed and the hands dropped from his face. "But you're right, after all." An almost half-grin fought its way to the surface and combined with his tousled hair to make him look like a most unlikely little boy. "As always. I'll try to follow your sage advice." "Well, that'll be a first," she mumbled, but relaxed. The slender boxes from Mrs. Haynes contained fleece-lined gloves for each of them. Their hostess allowed them to open them even though, she explained, it was Christmas Eve and technically early. Scully and Mulder later consulted and both decided they would have to give up working for the FBI since neither of them could figure out when Mrs. Haynes had acquired the gloves or, more importantly, how she had managed to find some that would fit each of them exactly. "Why there's another box up here for you, Dana," Mrs. Haynes said, surprised, after the gloves had been duly admired and the small party was getting ready to call it a night. "Hmm?" Warm from cider and turkey dinner, Scully didn't realize what Mrs. Haynes had said until her hostess dropped the flat little box into her hand. "Merry Christmas to Special Agent Scully from Special Agent Claus" had been written in tiny square print on the gift tag. A russet leather notebook embossed with her initials fell out when she pulled off the paper. "Why thank you, Mulder," she said, bemused. "Just what I need. Especially after you used half of my last one for kindling." "Lucky guess," he waved deprecatingly. Mrs. Haynes was watching him, a smile playing around her mouth; Marshall was watching the Christmas edition of Lawrence Welk with Mr. Haynes. "Lucky guess, huh? So you brought this with you?" He saw the trap coming but couldn't avoid it. "Please reconcile," Dana Scully purred, "with your testimony, and I quote, 'we'll be back long before Christmas Eve.' " "Ah. Well." The bronchitis, the drugs and the lateness of the hour only slowed him up slightly. "I told you days ago I'm working on that Eagle Scout badge. That's my new motto. Always be prepared." "No jury in the world would buy that, Mulder." Her eyes narrowed but she was still fighting off a smile; he could tell he was in danger but not how much. "Fortunately I have some community service just waiting for you back in D.C. to work off your debt to society. It involves a large pile of toys and a truly phenomenal number of batteries." Mulder groaned. "Thank you sir, may I have another?" Scully smiled. From: tabron@binah.cc.brandeis.edu Date: 7 Sep 1994 18:37:12 GMT 9 a.m., the FBI building, Washington, D.C., December 27th, 1993 When Scully walked into the office Mulder was already on the phone. "Yeah, send me the best Xeroxes you can make, and I'll send you a sample by FedEx -- yes, you'll have to sign for it. So sue me." He hung up. "Morning, Scully. Did you have a nice Christmas?" "You mean, after we flew back on a plane so empty I could hear my thoughts echoing, filled that stack of presents with batteries and rushed them over to my nephew's already bare tree? Sure, I had a great time. What did you do?" "Chinese. Here, have a look at this." "What's this?" She opened the manila folder. "Lists of helicopters. Yes, I know, it's riveting. But the U.S. doesn't have a model in service that can melt snow for a radius of 30 feet. In fact, they don't have one that can melt snow at all -- though they seem to have helicopters for every other purpose. I like this one; it's got a can opener AND a laser cannon." "Mulder --" "Of course that doesn't mean there aren't models that we don't know about -- but who do you suppose would be using secret stealth helicopters? Medivac? 911?" "Mulder --" "One of the UFO organizations I spoke to over the weekend sent someone out to where we just were to confirm sixteen sightings on the night of December 22nd. Just two days later and the center would have ignored the whole thing -- they ignore the yearly Santa sightings and 'suspicious looking stars' and so on. They took a Geiger counter out to the Tucker and Vernon places. The results are in there." "Mulder." It was the tone of her voice that caught him in mid-ramble as much as the look in her eyes. "If it's over, it's over." "It's never over, Scully." He pointed at the file in her hands. "I'd appreciate it if you'd take a look at that information at some point, Agent Scully, but of course I realize that there are other cases requiring our attention." She dropped the folder on her desk, extracted a matching one from her briefcase, and handed it to him. "And I'd like you to take a look at my field report. I'll be filing it later on today." He took the file, regarded it for a moment with something close to surprise, then put it carefully on his desk blotter. "I'll do that." He was still looking down when a small glittery package slid into his field of vision. "And I still hadn't given you a Christmas present. I hadn't done all my shopping before I left, since you assured me we would be back 'long before Christmas Eve.'" His thin smile acknowledged the dig. "You're not going to let me forget that one, are you?" "Not anytime soon, no." She folded her arms against her chest, sat back on her desk, and watched him open the small box. Mulder stared at the small fire-engine-red object with fascination. "Hey, I've always wanted one of these." "Every Eagle Scout needs a Swiss Army knife. With dozens of gadgets folded into it that only Eagle Scouts would need. And I think there's a compass in there somewhere. Everything you'd need for a crisis in the woods. After all..." she considered it, then went ahead with it anyway, "you never know what lightning might do, do you?" They were silent for a moment, then the crinkles in the corners of his eyes broke the tension. "Thanks, Scully." Running his finger along the back of the knife he nodded up at her, the smile on his face a gauge of the sincerity of the thanks. "You're welcome. Merry Christmas. And do you have the Bakersfield file?"