Title:  Embers
Author:  syntax6
Rating: NC-17 to be safe
Classification:  SAX, MSR
Timeline: Season five, post Redux II
Disclaimer:  Nope, not mine. No money being made here.
Summary:  Tiberton is a town rife with buried bodies and buried 
secrets. But at least one of the two won't seem to stay down.
Thanks:  To a crack team of betas who have already proven invaluable.
Alicia, Gwen, Jerry and Jintian, you make me a whole person.  (Okay, a
whole writer.)  I am grateful.
Feedback is always welcome at syn_tax6@yahoo.com

XxXxX

Embers

XxXxX


Orange is the color of insanity.  

This sentiment, imparted to me many years ago by a drunken, 
would-be painter eager for us to "share the rainbow palette," 
resurfaces now as I stand mesmerized by the wall of flames 
licking tall into the night sky.

It seems fitting that this story should end in a blaze of 
orange.  Like a signal flare seen miles around, it is 
testament to the madness that consumed generations of one 
family and burned others who ventured too close to the flame.

One man has already died here tonight.  

Some would call it justice, saying that he finally got what 
he deserved.  Others might call it vengeance, though they, 
too, would probably be happy to watch him burn.

I shiver under my blanket, chilled despite the fact that my 
skin is scorched taut by my ordeal in the flames. The hair on 
my arm is singed black and dissolves into ash at my touch.  

A nervous EMT hovers near my elbow with an oxygen tank at the 
ready, prepared to leap in if I show any signs of passing out 
again.  I struggle to remain upright, though my lungs feel as 
though they have collapsed in on one another, smothering me 
from the inside out.  The acrid taste of smoke still lingers 
bitter in my mouth, and the sour tang of it makes me cough in 
deep, wracking heaves that nearly bend me over with their 
force.  This movement sends my EMT into immediate action with 
the oxygen mask, but I wave him away.  

He shuffles back a few feet, still standing specter-like in 
my shadow, watching me with worried, fearful eyes.

I have shocked them all with my earlier actions, I know.  No 
one is quite sure what to expect from me anymore.  They 
probably fear that I have lost my mind.  Maybe I have. 

I would be in good company, were it to be true. 

My gaze returns to the red-gold conflagration, blurring now 
from the stinging tears that cloud my vision.  Sudden, loud 
cries erupt from the fire-fighting team as a three-story wall 
tumbles inward with a groaning crash, sinking slowly into the 
raging flames.  The fire roars and pops as it devours this 
latest course of rotting wooden beams.

I know I should go to the hospital, but I cannot seem to 
leave this place of pretty pandemonium.  This place where I 
last saw Mulder alive.

Men in great black coats weave to and fro with the hose, 
while another sits perched high atop a truck, barking 
commands through a megaphone as though he were directing some 
bizarre form of square dance. 

Eventually, the flames will be extinguished and I will have 
to explain myself.  The men who are now scurrying around the 
harborside are going to want some answers.  How did I know to 
come here?  Who had started the fire?

When they ask, I am not at all sure what I can tell them.   
The events of the past few days are so jumbled in my mind 
that I cannot fathom how to construct from them a cogent 
narrative, especially one that will provide an acceptable 
explanation for the loss of life suffered here.

How does one go about extracting truth from madness?  And 
whose truth should I tell?

Mulder, if he lives, would probably begin the story in the 
seventeenth century with a tale of lies and witches.  For her 
part, Lee-Lee Centara would probably say that the horror 
started in 1981, with the death of her uncle Abe and the 
trial that had set everything in motion.   The others...well, 
they have all been permanently silenced, their stories buried 
forever by the bright orange shroud.

So it is up to me, and I can tell the story only one way.  It 
begins ten days ago, when I awoke in Mulder's bed with the 
stubble scratches still fresh and tingling on my skin.

XxXxX


XxXxX
Chapter Two
XxXxX

The sex was not new but the bed sure as hell was.
  
I had not intended to sleep.  I had not intended to be there 
at all, really, but Mulder obviously had greater foresight.  
He had bought a bed.  Boxes of file folders, once strewn 
about the room, now sat neatly stacked against the far wall.  
The sight of them sitting idle caused my heart to squeeze.  
"Oh, Mulder," I whispered.

At first I'd thought our present lackluster caseload was 
because of my recent illness; I'd thought he was giving me 
time to recover my strength.  Now I wasn't so sure who really 
needed the recovering.

I blinked and shifted a bit, which caused the hair on his 
legs to tickle the backs of my knees, and he snuffled into my 
neck.  Under the tangled sheet, one heavy arm lay warm and 
solid across my hip, keeping me snuggled firmly in a 
possessive embrace. I stroked his arm, playing with his long, 
tapered fingers and enjoying the silken texture of his sleep-
warm skin.  

I could not make myself sorry that it had happened again.  
Lord knows I'd wanted this, and if the bed was any 
indication, Mulder wanted it, as well.  Maybe too much.  The 
taste of last night's desperation lingered on my lips, as 
stinging as it had been two months ago. 

That first time had been fast because circumstances had 
dictated that it must be; last night had been fast because we 
could not be joined quickly enough to satisfy my overwhelming 
hunger.  Last night, he had leaned in close to study my new 
haircut and murmured, "You have a few loose hairs here, 
Scully," as the warm pads of his fingers brushed against the 
side of my neck.

And from that first touch, we were gone again.  

I think I passed out with him still inside me, too tired to 
come any more, but unwilling to surrender to my body's need 
for rest.

Now in the morning light, the memory of his hands on me 
caused a new ache to form--on my lips, my breasts, and 
between my thighs.  Anywhere he had touched, I began to burn.  
It was time to go.

I moved his arm over my hip and back onto his side.  I had to 
do this twice, because the first time he grunted something 
unintelligible and encircled me again.  Ever so slowly, I 
inched over to the edge of the bed, at last swinging my feet 
onto the cold, bare floor.

I rubbed my arms against the morning chill and began casting 
about for the remnants of my clothing, which lay strewn 
across the floor, mixed with Mulder's garments in an 
obscenely intimate fashion that spoke volumes about the 
activities that had taken place the night before.  

My panties were a scrap of lace that peeked out from under 
his rumpled shirt.  I flushed as I remembered standing nearly 
naked, clutching Mulder's head as he kissed me through the 
thin, damp material. 

I shook off the vivid memory and collected my clothes with 
renewed efficiency, eager to get as far away from the scene 
of the crime as possible.  The silk blouse smoothed over my 
memory-sensitized skin in a whispery caress, and I shuddered, 
slipping the tiny buttons closed with shaking fingers.  I 
glanced nervously again at Mulder, half-hoping he would wake 
and change my mind about leaving.

Almost done, almost done, I chanted inwardly.  The muscles in 
my legs protested as I tried to balance on one foot long 
enough to slip into my wrinkled pants.  After smoothing my 
clothing into place as much as possible, I scooped up my 
shoes and walked with silent steps toward the door.

But the boxes, stacked three deep along the wall, stopped me.  

There were easily two dozen of them, all topped with lids 
bearing labels like, "Supranumeral limbs and psychic 
ability." I fingered their dusty edges and wondered how long 
they had been sitting there, stagnant and shadowed. 

I'd told Mulder that they had given me the cancer to make him 
believe, but amazingly my cure seemed to succeed where my 
illness had failed.  After four harrowing years, they had 
finally reined him in.  These days he reminded me of a kid 
kicking rocks up and down the street -- bored and restless, 
with a dangerous lack of purpose. 

I glanced at the bed again.  Well, maybe not entirely without 
purpose.  But that was part of the problem.  Mulder was 
settling.

For half-truths.
For the status quo.
For me.

Tears stung my eyes and I blinked them away.  I had stayed 
too long already.  Under a weight of sadness, I moved slowly 
towards the door.  

"Leaving so soon?"

I jumped.  His words made my ears burn, and I hesitated 
before turning around.  "Mulder...hi."

"Hi," he answered, propping himself up on one elbow.  He 
nodded in the direction of the boxes.  "Are you looking for 
some bedside reading, Scully?  'Cause I could go get the 
Sunday paper."

I felt myself flush under his curious gaze.  "I was just 
admiring your new filing system.  It's very...organized." 

He patted the bed at his hip.  "Had to make room somewhere," 
he said, offering me a crooked smile.  I stood paralyzed on 
the threshold, shoes still dangling from my hand.  Mulder sat 
up against the pillows.  "What's going on, Scully?" he asked 
softly.  He was lean and golden in the morning sun.  It 
almost hurt to look at him.

"I...I have to get going.  Mass starts in a couple of hours 
and I have to get changed first."

He smiled again.  "You look just fine to me."  The words 
floated over me like a caress.  

"Mulder..."

"Scully."  He stretched one arm toward me, his fingertips 
grazing the edge of a slanting sunbeam.  "Come here."

I shook my head, but already I could feel our invisible 
rubber band snapping me back into place.  My hand found his 
without my willing it.  He tugged me unceremoniously onto the 
bed with him.  "I really have to go," I murmured as he traced 
a figure eight pattern on my knee.

"I know," he answered, but he did not stop touching me.  I 
rubbed the crisp cotton sheet between my thumb and 
forefinger.

"When did you get this bed, Mulder?"

He ducked his head, his fingers smoothing over the sheets. "A 
while ago, after the first time."
 
"Really?"  

"Well, the kitchen table is fine occasionally, Scully, but as 
a routine it lacks a certain romance, don't you think?"

I thought back to that night.  The night Mulder had asked me 
to lie for him.  "A lie to find the truth," he'd said.  We 
were working with borrowed minutes -- Mulder, who was 
supposed to be dead and me, who nearly was.  I remembered 
sitting naked from the waist down, the cool wood of the table 
under me as we kissed repeatedly, tongues parrying in the 
same sweet rhythm of Mulder's hips as he moved himself inside 
me.

"So was it hard enough for you?"  

My head snapped up. "What?" 

"The mattress.  Too hard?  Too soft?  I can never tell."

"Oh."  I cleared my throat.  "It was fine. It's just that..." 
I hesitated, not sure how to phrase my question.

"What?" he asked finally.  

"Well, I'm a little puzzled by your recent redecorating, 
Mulder.  You used to have six projects at once tacked up on 
the walls.  And what happened to your need to have all the 
files spread out for easy access?"

He shrugged. "They're still here.  I can access them any time 
I want."

"But you haven't accessed them," I pointed out.  "I can see 
the dust from here."  He frowned and pulled away from me with 
a sigh. 

"Don't you ever get tired of spinning your wheels in the mud, 
Scully?  Don't you get tired of chasing all the lies?"

"Is that what you think we're doing?"

"Well, isn't it?"

I considered our four years together.  "I guess I always 
thought we were chasing the truth, Mulder.  I was under the 
impression that's what you thought, too."

He was quiet for a long time, then stretched out to touch his 
fingertips to mine.  "I don't know what the truth is 
anymore," he said at last.  "At this point, I'm not sure I 
would recognize it even if I found it."

This was it, I thought.  This was the time to ask the 
question that had been bothering me for weeks.  I pressed 
against him so our fingers formed a makeshift bridge.  
"Mulder, did something happen?  Did something happen to you 
while I was in the hospital?"

He frowned.  "I told you there was a deal and that I turned 
it down.  Nothing's changed since then."

I searched his face for more information, but his features 
were carefully neutral.  "No, something has.  You just won't 
tell me what."  He looked away, hoarding his secret, and I 
withdrew my hand.  The distant sound of church bells bounced 
off our silence, reminding me of my stated purpose.  "I 
should go."

I slipped on my shoes and headed for the door.  The sheets 
rustled as he scrambled out of bed after me, but I did not 
slow down.  He caught me anyway, right at the front door.

He grabbed me by the shoulders.  "Wait a second, Scully.  
Please?"  I hunched in response, and his hands slid down to 
my neck, his thumbs rubbing teasingly over the fine hairs 
there.  Frozen under his rhythmic touch, I stood with my eyes 
squeezed shut and listened to the ragged sound of his 
breathing behind me. His hands took up a gentle massage of my 
shoulders, and he leaned in to lay his cheek against the top 
of my head.  "Scully..." he breathed.  "Don't go."

It was difficult to think when he was this close.  Part of me 
wanted to stay so badly, and the feeling only grew stronger 
as he held me. I could feel the heat of his skin warming me 
through the thin layer of my blouse.  Biting back a moan, I 
dropped my head forward, searching for the resolve to take 
those last steps out the door.

Mulder used the opportunity to kiss the base of my neck, a 
light brush that was clearly intended to be reassuring and 
not passionate, but I jumped all the same.

"Mulder, stop."  I pulled away from him, turning around so 
that he could see my face and know I meant it.

He stood before me barefoot and bare-chested, with the sheet 
cinched around his waist so that the ends trailed behind him 
on the floor like ceremonial robes.  My own pagan god of 
debauchery.

"I'm sorry," he said.  "I just thought..."

"I know, I know.  And you weren't wrong, Mulder, but..."  I 
groped for the right words but came up empty. "Now isn't the 
time."

His face scrunched up as his eyes grew sad.  "When will be 
the time?" he asked, and the mournful question vibrated in 
the air between us.  I had no answer to give him. 

"I'll see you tomorrow, Mulder, okay?" 

He nodded. "Yeah, okay."

With a shuddering breath, I opened the door and walked 
through it, closing it gently behind me. I lingered for a 
minute in the hallway, trying to catch my breath against the 
constricting pain in my chest.  I stared at the "forty-two" 
on his door until tears blurred my vision.  Blinking them 
back, I drew my fingertips down the smooth wood, offering one 
last caress to the man on the other side.

Then I left.

XxXxX

I did not see Mulder at all on Monday morning.  I could lie 
and say it was because I had too much work to do, but the 
truth was that on an ordinary Monday, I would have stopped in 
at his office first thing to share a cup of coffee and chat 
about the weekend.  This time, however, I knew only too well 
how Mulder's weekend had gone, so I concentrated my efforts 
on a pile of menial tasks that suddenly seemed of the utmost 
importance.

By two in the afternoon, I had triple checked the expense 
report from our latest foray into the field, alphabetized my 
stack of computer disks, changed the background pattern on my 
desktop monitor, and separated a chain of paper clips that 
had mysteriously appeared in my top desk drawer.  My phone 
had rung only once.  It was Skinner, wanting to know if I had 
seen my partner at any point that day.  

I held back my instinctive reply, which would have been to 
state once and for all that I was *not* Fox Mulder's keeper, 
and answered instead that I had not seen him anywhere.

I did not add that this was on purpose.

Skinner clicked off in his usual abrupt way, offering no 
"good-bye" and no explanation as to why he was looking for 
Mulder.  Apparently he was MIA somewhere.  Hardly unusual.  I 
wondered if perhaps Mulder was still on the premises, holed 
up in the basement and ignoring his phone because it might be 
me on the other end.

I headed downstairs, intent on getting our first contact out 
of the way, but his office was dark and shut up tight. I 
entered anyway, searching for any sign that he had been there 
earlier.  But since Mulder would never be mistaken for Mr. 
Clean, it was impossible to tell if anything had been 
disturbed recently.  I returned to my desk with the mystery 
unsolved.

Sometime late afternoon my computer beeped, informing me that 
I had new mail.  It was from Mulder, through his work 
account, and appeared to be a quote.

"'History has little to do with truth; it is merely one 
version of events, told by the men lucky enough to live to 
write it down.'"

I pushed my glasses further up my nose and leaned in for a 
better look, in case I had missed something on the first 
pass.  But the same cryptic sentences reflected back at me.  
What the hell?

I was unsure how I was supposed to interpret the words.  
Mulder was not one to distribute internet frivolities, so I 
suspected that the message was more than your standard Quote 
of the Day.  Was it a reference to what had happened over the 
weekend?  

Confused, tired and jittery from too much coffee and too 
little sleep, I was not in the mood to trade word riddles 
with Mulder.  I banished his message to cyberspace with one 
click of a button.

The action brought me some satisfaction, and I leaned over my 
stack of paperwork with renewed vigor, determined not to give 
Mulder's witticism any more thought.  

But ten minutes later, I was drumming the end of my pen 
against the desk and glancing idly around the room.  He wins 
again, I thought with disgust, and opened my web browser to 
begin tracking down the source of the quote. 

My search for "history" revealed wisdom for the ages, with 
pithy remarks by everyone from Joseph Stalin to Woody Allen.  
I scrolled through them quickly, scanning each one for a 
match with Mulder's message, but none seemed to even 
approximate his words.

It was time for another trip to the basement.

This time, the door was wide open, with light streaming into 
the hall.  The smell of Chinese food wafted from within the 
room, reminding me that I had skipped lunch. I found Mulder 
at his desk, feet up as he shoveled what looked like Kung Pao 
chicken into his mouth straight from the container.

"'Bout time you got here," he grumbled around a mouthful of 
hot peppers.  How he could eat them like that, I would never 
know.

"If you wanted to speak with me, you could have indicated 
that in your message," I replied.  "I didn't realize it was a 
summons."

He scraped a last bite of sauce-laden chicken from the bottom 
of the container and popped it in his mouth before replying.  
"Here, take a look at this," he said, sitting upright and 
handing me a battered book with the American flag emblazoned 
on the cover.  We were careful not to touch hands in the 
exchange.

"United States History," I read aloud as I flipped through 
the pages.  The text was large and accompanied by frequent 
photos, pictures and drawings of the major figures and events 
that comprised American history.  "It appears to be a 
children's history text, Mulder.  What of it?"

"It's *my* American history book, to be precise," he 
answered.  "From fourth grade with Mrs. McIvor."

I glanced once more at the textbook.  Sure enough, it read 
"Property of the Fitzpatrick Elementary School, 1971."  

"Is this where you got the quote?" I asked, surprised.  
"'History has little to do with the truth' doesn't seem like 
a sentiment one would find in a fourth grade textbook."

He fiddled with a pencil, his brow furrowed.  "No, the quote 
is from my father," he said at last.  

I lifted my eyebrows at him and took a seat on the edge of 
his desk. "Go on."

"He said that to me one night when I was studying the Civil 
War at our kitchen table, right from this very book."  For 
emphasis, Mulder waved the thick text in the air with one 
hand.  "He made quite an impression on me, too."

"How so?"  

"You see, I'd never thought about it before, that the stuff I 
read in school might not be the whole truth.  I just assumed 
that if I saw it in a text book, it must be true."

"You and all the other ten year-olds, Mulder."  I was still 
confused about where he was going with this story.

He gave me a wry grin.  "Yeah, I know.  Most kids have other 
things to think about than truth and history--believe me I 
did, too.  But I never forgot what Dad said that night, and I 
never looked at history the same way again once I realized 
that it was always the winners who got to write the story."  
He shrugged.  "I thought it was unfair."

I shrugged back.  "To the victors go the spoils."

His eyes met mine and for a long silent moment we just looked 
at one another.  My skin tingled.  I was just about to speak, 
to ask him where he had been all day, when he stood and 
walked over to the fax machine.  As if on cue, it started to 
hiss and beep.

"I kept the book," he said, watching the machine and not me, 
"because I always wondered which stories didn't make the 
cut."

I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to halt the beginning 
of a tension headache.  "Is there a point here, Mulder?"

He nodded at the book on his desk. "Page one thirty-eight," 
he said.

I flipped to the designated page with exaggerated impatience, 
scanning the bold text.  "The Salem witch trials?"

"Fascinating stuff, isn't it?" he asked as he pulled several 
sheets of paper off of the fax machine.  "Some girls playing 
parlor games cry 'witchcraft!' and the next thing you know, 
twenty innocent people are dead, victims of mass hysteria."

I moved from the desk to a chair.  Apparently, we were going 
to be a while.  "Okay, Mulder, I give up.  What do the Salem 
witch trials have to do with anything?"

"Not the Salem trials, Scully," he replied.  "Those are well-
documented and duly recorded.  I'm interested in the one that 
didn't make the books."  He stretched out one long arm to 
hand me the papers he had retrieved from the fax.  The top 
one appeared to be a sketch of a dark-haired woman, about 
twenty-five years old, dressed in traditional Colonial 
American attire with a bonnet and long dark dress.  I looked 
at Mulder questioningly.

"Her name was Elysian," he said, downing a half a bottle of 
ice tea in one swallow. "She lived in Tiburton, Massachusetts 
at about the time that all hell was breaking loose in Salem."

It was then that I noticed the woman was not just standing 
demurely with her hands behind her back.  She was on a 
platform with a wooden railing at her waist, and I could see 
the end of a piece of rope peeking from around her skirt, 
indicating her hands were probably bound. 

"She was on trial for witchcraft?" I asked.

Mulder shuffled some papers around his desk, piling them into 
a folder.  "I don't know that there was a formal trial, but 
Elysian was accused of collusion with the devil and burned at 
the stake in 1692."

I glanced again at the stoic woman in the sketch.  "Who were 
her accusers?"

He handed me another sheet of paper, this one also an old 
black and white sketch, depicting a stern looking couple and 
three small boys.  "Sarah Pritchard, wife of Jacob Pritchard, 
the town minister.  The Pritchards were also Elysian's 
employers.  Apparently, they met her on a trip to Barbados in 
1690.  Elysian's husband had died, so she took her daughter 
to live with the Pritchards way up north."

"So what happened?"

"Exactly?  I can't say.  The good citizens of Tiburton were 
the ones writing this story, and they buried the details 
along with the body.  These sketches are about all that 
remain.  I got them from a woman named Cathleen Duncan.  She 
lives in Tiburton and has apparently made quite a study of 
its history.  It's her opinion that no one ever really 
believed Elysian was a witch.  She thinks they just wanted 
her gone."

"Well, they certainly got their wish." I exhaled a long 
breath and set the papers down on Mulder's desk.  He 
immediately scooped them into a pile.

"Maybe.  Maybe not," he said cryptically.

"What are you talking about?"

He paused his shuffling to look at me.  "The last thing that 
Elysian said before they lit the logs was that she would be 
back to punish them all, to make sure that the good people of 
Tiburton paid for their sins.  Now, accounts vary on the 
exact wording of her threat, but most people I've talked to 
seem to agree that she promised to burn Tiburton to the 
ground."

"I can understand her anger," I said.  "But I hardly know 
what she could do about it."

"I suspect that's what the people in Tiburton thought, too, 
right up until six months ago."  He glanced over at me again, 
preparing for the punch line.

Always the straight man, I parroted my line. "And what 
happened six months ago?"

"The town of Tiburton started burning to the ground."

"Arson?" 

"Dunno. Ten fires so far, and three deaths.  Each fire is of 
undetermined origin, and there are no suspects and no 
witnesses."

"Mulder..." I began to prepare my usual spiel, the one about 
how there was no such thing as ghosts, how every fire did 
have an earthly origin, even if it was undetermined, but then 
I stopped.  "Mulder, if it is Elysian setting these fires, 
why now?  Why would she come back for revenge over three 
hundred years later, when the people responsible for her 
death are long buried?"

He tilted his head at me and closed his briefcase with a 
snap.  "Excellent question, Agent Scully.  If we find her, we 
can ask that one first. John Kazdin of the local PD tossed 
the case our way this morning."  

"So that's where you've been all day?" I asked. "Researching 
this?"

He nodded.  " I figure if we're going to chase lies, they 
should at least be interesting ones."

I suddenly felt unbelievably foolish.  I had presumed he was 
off sulking somewhere, obsessing over what had happened 
between us, but instead he had been working while *I* was the 
one having a hard time letting go.  I felt my cheeks go hot.  

"I've got tickets for seven tomorrow morning," he said, "if 
that's not too early."

"No, it's fine."  I fingered the edge of his tattered 
textbook as I stood.  "Can I take the files home with me 
tonight?"

He handed me the papers wordlessly, and I made it to the door 
before he spoke again. "Scully?"

I turned around.  "What?"

"Was it a mistake?  The bed?"

Everything went so still that I could hear my heart beat in 
my ears.  Images of tanned limbs and white sheets spun 
through my mind, and I swallowed them down as I met his eyes.  
"I hope not," I whispered finally.

I led that hope out of the basement with me, took it home and 
wrapped myself with it as I waited for sleep to come.  

XxXxX

End chapter two.  Continued in chapter three.

XxXxX

Chapter Three

XxXxX

Mulder was driving, but I was no longer sure where we were 
going.

At ten-thirty on a cheery November morning, Tiburton did not 
seem like the setting for a witch's playground.  Sun-dappled 
trees lined the streets with arching gold and crimson 
branches, and the local schoolyard teemed with laughing, 
screeching children. The passing houses were looming 
Victorian-era structures with sloping roofs, hanging eaves 
and rounded towers.

Mulder pulled to a stop outside one large house, set in from 
the road on a hill.  "We're here," he announced, and I 
followed him out of the car.

"This is a motel?" I asked, wrinkling my forehead in doubt. 
With the sun at its back and a pointed iron fence at its 
front, the house cast a formidable and ominous shadow.  "The 
owner isn't named Bates, is he?"

Mulder looked almost amused as he slammed the trunk shut.  
"Duncan."

"Duncan?  As in the woman who gave you the drawings of 
Elysian?" 

He nodded.  "Convenient, isn't it?"  After a bit of fumbling, 
he managed to open the catch on the gate and we walked up the 
path to the house.  As the shadows faded, it appeared more 
welcoming, and I admired the potted copper mums that 
decorated the stone staircase. 

The inside was like stepping into the pages of "Anne of Green 
Gables." There was a generous foyer, with low ceilings and 
crisp white walls.  Dark molding edged the room, and a gold-
trimmed oval mirror hung to our left.  To the right, a large 
fireplace sat dark and silent, though the faint scent of 
burnt pine in the air suggested recent use. 

There was a desk near the stairs, and a woman with wire-
rimmed glasses peeked out from behind a computer monitor.  
She glanced from me to Mulder, inching her frames downward 
for a better look.  "Agents," she said with perfect 
confidence, "welcome to Tiburton."

I gathered we did not blend in with the local color.

"Cathleen Duncan?" Mulder asked.  The wooden floors were 
uneven and creaked as we walked on them.

"That's me."  She smiled and adjusted the thin black sticks 
holding her hair on top of her head.   "You must be Agent 
Mulder." 

"Yes, and this is my partner, Dana Scully."

"Pleased to meet you," she said, extending a slim hand to me.  
I found it warm and strong.  She gave us each a form to fill 
out and watched over the rim of a green mug as we scrawled 
our information.  "Are you here to search for witches, too?" 
she asked me, and I saw Mulder's pen freeze in mid-signature.

"I'm here to try to find out who is setting the fires," I 
replied.  "Which in my experience tend to have decidedly 
human motives behind them."

She regarded me with curious eyes.  "Like revenge?"

"Well, yes.  Revenge could be one possible motive.  But 
statistically, arson is more often motivated by profit, the 
desire to cover up another crime, or pyromania.  I have 
trouble attributing any of these motives to someone supposed 
to be a witch."

Ms. Duncan smiled as she took our forms.  "As do I."

"Really."  I glanced at Mulder, who looked at me the way our 
cat Tigerlily used to when she presented me a dead mouse.  
Instead of a headless rodent, Mulder had found me a fellow 
non-believer.  Good boy.

"I told Agent Mulder yesterday I didn't think Elysian was a 
witch.  I think she was a lonely woman in the wrong place at 
the wrong time."

"You said you thought the townspeople just wanted her gone," 
Mulder broke in, leaning across the counter.  "Why did you 
say that?"

She pushed her glasses up on her nose and hit a few keys on 
her computer, entering our data.  "Are you familiar with the 
term 'mulatto'?" she asked after a moment.  Mulder nodded.

"It's an old-fashioned name for a person of mixed race."

"Exactly.  Elysian's father was white and her mother was 
black.  Needless to say, people in Tiburton at the time were 
not especially forgiving of such unions."

"But the Pritchards must have been comfortable enough with 
her background to hire her," Mulder said.  "They brought her 
all the way from Barbados."

"Oh, I'd say Jacob Pritchard was really comfortable with her.  
He was comfortable with her at least a dozen times before 
Sarah Pritchard found out."  She looked up from her monitor.  
"Jacob confessed, said he'd been tempted by the devil, and 
Sarah forgave him because in 1695 she had no other choice."

"But she didn't forgive Elysian," I said as the story became 
clearer.  

"No."  Ms. Duncan's voice grew soft.  "They murdered her with 
the townspeople's blessing."

"What about the threat Elysian made?  The promise to come 
burn Tiburton to the ground."  Mulder sounded curious, but 
the question lacked his usual edge.

Ms. Duncan shrugged.  "The words of an angry woman.  I 
believe she *wanted* to make them pay.  I hope they believed 
it, too.  I hope the Pritchards lived the rest of their days 
waiting for their house to go up in flames."

"Ten fires in the past six months with no determined motive 
or origin," Mulder said after a moment.  "What's your 
theory?"

She tilted her head.  "Don't know.  Maybe it's coincidence.  
Maybe it's someone obsessed with Elysian's legend."

"Know anyone like that?" he asked.

"Many folks around here know the story well."

"But none so well as you."  

Her color heightened, and I shot Mulder an appraising look.  
He would not meet my eyes.

"I wish I had the stamina to run around starting fires," Ms. 
Duncan said finally.  "But I'm afraid you'd have better luck 
with Elysian."

There was an odd clanking sound as she rose from her stool, 
and in a moment I understood why.  Ms. Duncan wore braces on 
both legs and used modified crutches to walk.  "Please excuse 
me for not accompanying you upstairs," she said as she 
retrieved a pair of keys from the back wall.  "But I don't 
think you'll have any trouble finding the rooms.  They're on 
the second floor in the east corner."

The key was cold and solid in my hand, its long round body 
and tiny flagged ending a delicious contrast to the usual 
plastic card I received.  Mulder and I retrieved our bags and 
moved toward the narrow staircase, but Ms. Duncan stopped us.

"Agent Mulder."  We turned in unison, and I wondered when it 
was we began to answer to each other's names.  She shifted on 
her crutches.  "Agent Mulder, seriously...did you really come 
here expecting to arrest a witch?"

There was a silence, and I held my breath, as if even the air 
in the room depended on his answer.  He managed to avoid a 
real one.  "John Kazdin seemed to think it was a 
possibility," he replied.

Ms. Duncan twisted her mouth in a parody of a smile and 
looked at the floor for a long moment.  "I'm afraid John 
believes in many impossible things," she said at last.  She 
raised her head again.  "Enjoy your rooms.  I'll be in the 
kitchen if you need anything."

Upstairs I found my room was the color of clotted cream, with 
a thick quilt on the bed and bright sunshine cascading 
through the lace curtains.  It smelled of cinnamon, and there 
was a painting of sailboats on the wall.

I opened the window, tilting my face to the wind.  The sea 
breeze tickled my nose as it tickled my memory, and for a few 
moments I was ten years old again, running along the wooden 
pier with my brothers, our shouts mingling with the cries of 
the seagulls overhead. 

"Do you like it?"  I turned to find Mulder standing next to 
the cherry dresser.  I let my smile answer for me and 
returned my gaze to the leaves swirling their way down to the 
backyard.

He came to stand with me at the window, leaning out so that 
his shoulder touched mine through the heavy fabric of our 
coats.   A group of brown-spotted birds flitted back and 
forth from the trees to the roof of a small well sitting in 
the yard.  "A wishing well," Mulder remarked, his eyes 
following mine.  "I haven't seen one of those in years."

"Well, then maybe we should stop by on our way out."  The 
cancer gone, my blood renewed, I was ready to believe in 
wishes again.

He turned his head to me, squinting in the sun.  When the 
wind blew my hair across my face, he brushed it away with one 
leather-clad finger.  "I think I've used up my wishes for 
this year," he said, his eyes bright.  

As he pulled away, the sharp wind replaced his warmth.  I 
turned and watched as his black coat melted into the dark 
hall.   It was a long time before I followed. 

XxXxX

We stopped at the Tiburton police station only to find that 
Detective Kazdin was on break at Kit-n-Carl's Caf around the 
corner.  It turned out to be less of a French-style lunch 
spot and more of an old-style diner.  A regular slice of 
American pie.  It was painted blue with a shiny silver base 
and a faded pink neon sign on the roof.  I was willing to bet 
that it had been years since all the letters lit up.  Mulder 
smiled at me as we approached the door.

"Buy you a cherry Coke, Scully?"

I had a brief flash of him as a teenager, with gangly legs 
and an awkward smile.  The boy you thought you knew because 
he made smart-ass jokes from the back of the class.  I smiled 
back. "Vanilla, Mulder.  Always vanilla."

A bell jangled when we entered, and all conversation ceased 
as four dozen eyes froze us at the door. A mix of cigarette 
smoke and black coffee perfumed the air, and the pop of bacon 
frying echoed off the surrounding Formica while we lingered 
there -- a black-cloaked contrast to the denim and flannel 
crowd.  

"Agent Mulder, Agent Scully!"  In the back corner, a 
uniformed cop beckoned to us.  Mulder leaned into my hair.  

"Check it out, Scully," he whispered.  "It's the place where 
everyone knows your name."

Mulder and I had worked cases in small towns before, towns 
where our presence was almost as noteworthy as whatever 
oddity had drawn us there in the first place.  But it was not 
curiosity that made the diner seem so claustrophobic.  The 
bearded men, the frazzled mothers, the apron-clad staff -- 
all tracked us in unison as we moved through the room.  Their 
silence seemed incestuous, their eyes daring us to expose the 
family secret.

"Detective Kazdin?" Mulder said as we approached the green 
plastic booth.  

"It's John," he said, and his words broke the spell.  Our on-
lookers at least gave the pretense of returning to their own 
food.  Detective Kazdin indicated the other side of his 
table.  "Please, won't you sit down?"

Mulder slid in first.  "I take it you don't see many 
unfamiliar faces in here."

Kazdin smiled.  "Well, let's just say you and your partner 
have a particular presence.  Did you find a place to get 
settled?"

"Cathleen Duncan is putting us up," Mulder said, already 
fiddling with a straw wrapper.  "You were right to point us 
in her direction, by the way.  She's been very helpful with 
the background on Elysian's story."

"You're staying at Cathy's?"  Kazdin looked at us in 
disbelief.

"She volunteered her place when I contacted her about the 
sketches," Mulder said.  "Is there a problem?"

"No, no.  Not at all.  It's just..."  He broke off and looked 
out the window.  "I was just surprised, that's all.  She 
hasn't taken many visitors since the accident.  Forget I said 
anything, okay?  I'm sure she'll treat you real nice."  His 
tone suggested the topic was closed. 

"Why don't you tell us what you know about the fires," I 
suggested in the silence that followed.  Kazdin looked 
relieved.

"Mulder told me your background is in pathology," he said, 
turning green eyes to me.   His lashes were thick and dark, a 
beauty that was wasted on a man with a ten-dollar hair cut.  

"Yes, that's right.  I understand you've had three deaths 
connected to these fires."

He took a long swallow of coffee as he nodded.  "Two in July 
and one just last week, the night before Halloween.  You're 
welcome to take a look at Joe Bowman's body, if you like, but 
there's no doubt to the cause of death."

"Smoke inhalation?"

"Burned.  All three of them, over 90% of their bodies."

I could feel Mulder watching my face, trying to gauge whether 
this finding was normal.  I hadn't decided that question for 
myself yet.  "Were the fires explosive?"

"Well, that's not clear at this point.  As I said yesterday 
on the phone, the state fire marshal has not been able to 
determine the point of origin of these fires.  Some of them 
have been complicated by the roof falling in, and the one at 
Bowman's Autoshop blew up half a dozen tanks of gasoline."

At this point, a waitress brushed past our table, and Kazdin 
halted his narrative.  "Hey, are you hungry at all?  They 
serve a mean blueberry muffin here."  Without waiting for our 
answer, he touched the woman's sleeve.  "Lee-Lee, help these 
people out, would you?  They've had a long trip today."

She turned without a word and pulled a pad from her apron 
pocket.  "Yes?" she said, a whisper hidden in the diner 
chatter.  Mulder ordered coffee and a muffin, not sparing her 
a second glance, but when her eyes met mine I could not look 
away.  She was too gaunt for someone who spent her days 
surrounded by food; the shapeless blue sweater nearly 
swallowed her whole.  Her hair was short, with wide dark 
curls, and she brushed her cheek as if to tuck it behind her 
ear, a habit that suggested she'd recently had it cut. 

Beautiful and hiding it, I thought, searching her gray eyes 
for the reason why.  She must have felt me probing because 
she ducked her head and broke contact .  The moment I placed 
my order she slipped away.

"Lee-Lee's the best," Kazdin said as she left.  "Her 
stepfather is the mayor and her brother Andy is our Chief, so 
there's always great service here for the boys in blue."

I wondered how the stepdaughter of the mayor and the sister 
of the police chief wound up waiting tables in a greasy 
spoon.  

"What about the victims?" Mulder asked, pulling me back to 
the case at hand.  "Any connection there?"

"Well, they all knew each other, but that's not saying much 
around here.  Like I said, Joe Bowman worked at the Autoshop.  
He was a good mechanic and generally a good guy.  Ran up a 
couple of friendly debts playing poker, but nothing serious.  
No reason for anyone to want to kill him that I could find."

"So you're pursuing this as a murder investigation?" I asked.  

"We're trying to cover all angles.  But the Coroner did say 
it was unlikely that the bodies would have been burned as 
much as they were in the fires without some help.  They were 
a little too 'well-done' if you get my meaning."

"And the other victims?" Mulder wanted to know.  "Any leads 
there?"

"Not a one," sighed Kazdin.  "Regina Tuttlesworth was a nurse 
at the local hospital.  Husband died two years ago, kids 
grown and scattered around the country.  Stanley Garber was a 
defense attorney.  He was the first one to die, and we 
figured maybe he had a client who got shafted and wanted a 
piece of Garber's hide, but so far nothing has panned out.  
Besides, why would the perp go after Regina and Joe, too?  It 
doesn't make sense."

Lee-Lee returned with our food and would have disappeared 
again if a broad-shouldered man in a tweed jacket had not 
stopped her.  "Hey, Lee-Lee, how's about a cup of coffee?"

"Sure, Andy.  Just a minute."  She withdrew from his hands 
with a graceful twist.

"Morning, Chief," Kazdin called, and the new arrival 
sauntered over to our table.  "Have you had a chance to meet 
Agents Mulder and Scully?"

"Can't say I've had the pleasure," he said grinning at us, 
and we did another round of hand pumping.  "Chief Andy 
Purcell.  Glad to have you aboard.  I'm not much for this 
witch nonsense Johnny's been selling, but a fresh perspective 
on the case couldn't hurt.  Folks are scared, and I wish to 
God I had something to tell them.  But we've followed almost 
every damn lead that's come our way, and so far we've got 
bupkis."

Lee-Lee appeared with a steaming cup of coffee and a plastic-
wrapped blueberry muffin, which she tucked into the pocket of 
Purcell's coat.  He squeezed her hand.  "Thanks, sweetie, I 
appreciate that.  Listen, has Jeff been through here this 
morning?"

"Haven't seen him since last Tuesday."  She glanced around 
his shoulder to see if we were listening.  "He must be off on 
some story...you know how it is."

"Yeah."  The word was gruff and laced with steel.  Chief 
Purcell was not pleased.  "Well, if you see him, tell him I'm 
looking for him, will you?"

Lee-Lee nodded and vanished into an arriving party of five.  
After a pause, Purcell turned around again with his fake 
smile back in place.  "Now where was I?"

"Following leads," said Mulder.  There was a new edge in his 
voice, as well.  "You said you followed 'almost every' lead.  
Which ones didn't you pursue?"

The smile faltered a bit, and he waved the air with his hand.  
"Well, you know.  Sometimes we get calls from obvious 
crackpots - the kind who say they saw Elvis setting the 
fires.  I can assure you we followed every *real* lead.  But 
this is a small town, with limited resources.  We can't be 
answering every fruitcake looking for attention."

"You have a record of these crackpots?"

Purcell shot Kazdin a hard look.  "Well, sure we do, but..."

Kazdin broke in.  "You can check the files if you want, Agent 
Mulder, but the Chief is right.  These individuals are either 
confused, lonely people or kids playing tricks.  We had one 
old woman call in and say her cat was starting the fires."

Mulder gave a smile I recognized -- quick and bright and 
three steps ahead of everyone else.  "Perfect," he said.  
"Let's start there."

XxXxX

Mulder and I traveled the twenty-five miles to the Spaulding 
Home for the Elderly and the Infirm alone, as Purcell and 
Kazdin remained unconvinced that a cat could be connected to 
the fires.  We found a plump woman at the front desk, 
answering the phone in front of a wall plastered with smiling 
Turkeys and shiny Pilgrim hats.  Her eyes softened when we 
told her our business. 

"I'm sorry, but Mary Centara is no longer with us.  She 
passed on about a month ago.  Heart failure."

Mulder looked disappointed.  I wondered if he really believed 
the nonsense about the cat.  "Mary called the Tiburton Police 
Department on September 12 in response to a news program 
about the fires taking place there.  Do you know anything 
about that?"

"I'm afraid not.  There is a phone available on the floor, 
but I don't know if Mary used it.  I can't imagine what kind 
of information she would have had about those terrible 
fires."

"She said she knew who was setting them."  Mulder was going 
all the way with this one.  I watched the woman's face for 
her reaction as he named the suspect.  "She said it was her 
cat."

"What?"  She chuckled and gave Mulder an indulgent look.  
"For land's sakes, dearie, you came all the way out here for 
that?  Mary was a sweetheart, but she didn't follow reality 
very much at the end.  She mistook me for Elizabeth Taylor 
and thought Bill the laundry man was stealing her 
undergarments.  Besides, Mary didn't have a cat, a fish or 
any other kind of pet.  It's not allowed."

"Oh."  Mulder frowned but made no effort to leave, so I took 
over the reins.

"So then you have no idea what motivated Mary to call the 
police about the fires?"

"And say it was her cat?  No, it seems to me...oh, wait.  
This is Mary Centara you're talking about, right?  Then she 
probably meant *Kat* not 'cat'."

"Excuse me?"

The woman sighed.  "Well, of course.  That makes a little 
more sense anyway.  Kat was Mary's daughter, short for 
Katherine.  If I remember correctly, Kat got into some 
trouble over a fire when she was a teenager.  Poor Mary must 
have seen the report and gotten mixed up."

Mulder straightened at my side, listening intently now, and I 
felt my own pulse quicken.  Maybe Mary was not as confused as 
everyone thought.  "What happened to Kat?" I asked.  "Is she 
still in the area?"

"Well, loosely speaking, yes she is.  Kat died about ten 
years ago."  She lowered her voice and leaned closer to us.  
"She was in prison.  For murder."

"Murder?"

"Killed her own brother, that's what they say."  She paused 
and began rustling around on the desk.  "I think Mary kept a 
picture of her someplace.  We've called a half dozen times, 
but we can't anyone to come fetch her things.  Ah, here it 
is!"  She held up a silver key.  Mulder and I stared at the 
drooping red and brown streamer in the hall as she 
disappeared into the backroom.  In a few minutes, she 
returned with a small box.

"There's not much.  Just some costume jewelry, a nice watch 
and a few photos.  Here...this would be the one you're 
interested in."  She handed me snap shot of a young woman 
leaning against a tree.  It was black and white, but I 
recognized the eyes immediately.

"Mulder, this is the woman from the diner.  Our waitress."

His breath tickled my cheek as he leaned down for a closer 
look.  "Sure looks like her, doesn't it?"

"Lee-Lee," I said, remembering her pale face and trapped 
expression.  The woman at the desk shook her head.

"No, that's Katherine," she corrected.  "Lee-Lee is her 
daughter, Mary's granddaughter.  Course, around here Mary 
used to call her by her given name -- Elysian."

Mulder jerked his head up.  "Elysian?"  

"Yeah, you know...like that old witch story.  Sad name for 
the poor child."

The wind howled, rattling the doors behind us, and the 
picture fluttered from my hands to the floor.

XxXxX

End chapter three. Continued in chapter four.

XxXxX

Chapter Four

XxXxX


Detective Kazdin and Chief Purcell were drinking coffee and 
discussing a recent mugging when Mulder and I returned to the 
station.  "Well, did you arrest Fluffy?" Purcell asked with a 
grin.  "Maybe she left some catnip at the scene of the crime 
-- that would really nail her."

"We didn't get to speak to the initial complainant," Mulder 
said.  "Mary Centara died a few weeks ago."  He cocked his 
head at Purcell.  "But then again you already knew that, 
didn't you?  Mary was your grandmother."

Purcell halted in mid swig.  "I didn't realize it was Mary 
who had called about the fires.  But to answer your question, 
no.  She wasn't my grandmother.  She was Katherine's mother."

"Kat's mother," Mulder agreed, and Kazdin sputtered in his 
coffee cup.

"Kat?  The Kat?"  He recovered and cast a swift look at 
Purcell.  "Sorry there, Andy...it's just, well...shit.  You 
know."

Purcell frowned.  "I don't know.  Frankly, I don't see how 
this has anything to do with anything.  Mary was a sick 
woman, and my stepmother died many years ago."

"Is this her?" I handed over the picture from the nursing 
home, and Purcell nodded once before thrusting it back at me.

"Excuse me if I don't include it in the family album."

Mulder made himself at home on the corner of Kazdin's desk.  
"You and Katherine didn't get along?"

"We got along fine."  Purcell set his mug down and folded his 
arms over his chest, sizing Mulder up.  "You want to tell me 
why my family history is suddenly FBI business?"

"We talked to someone who said Katherine was involved in a 
fire setting incident when she was young," I said, and 
Purcell jerked his gaze to me.

"Katherine is dead," he said, narrowing his eyes. 

"But her daughter isn't."  I held up the photo again, and 
Purcell snatched it away.

"You leave Lee-Lee out of this.  It's got nothing do with 
her, and I will not have you bothering her with this 
horseshit, understand?"

"Easy, Andy."  Kazdin got up from his chair.  "They're not 
saying she did anything wrong."  He looked at us.  "Are you?"

"No, but we think she may have been at the fire on September 
twelfth," I said.

"And then Mary saw her on the news," Kazdin concluded.  "It's 
a possibility.  The fires always draw a pretty big crowd."

"So maybe she was there," Purcell said.  "So what.  Like John 
said, we get a hundred gawkers at every one of these things."

I glanced at Mulder to see what he thought of this argument, 
since Purcell did have a valid point.  Purcell caught our 
silent exchange and scowled.

"It's about her name, isn't it?  Kazdin here put a bug up 
your ass about witches, and now you're thinking Lee-Lee had 
something to do with those fires.  Look, Katherine was the 
one obsessed with that story, not Lee-Lee.  Lee-Lee's never 
had a dishonest day in her life, and she's paid a high price 
for what her mother did.  Now, you poke around the fire sites 
all you want, question folks up and down Main Street -- I 
don't care.  But you stay the hell away from Lee-Lee."

He stalked off in the direction of his office, and Mulder 
turned to Kazdin.  "What did he mean about Lee-Lee paying for 
her mother's actions?  Katherine went to prison, didn't she?"

"Murder one.  I was in high school at the time, but her trial 
was big news around here."  He craned his neck around to 
glance at Purcell, who was visible through the glass windows 
of his office.  "Come outside with me for a minute.  I could 
use a smoke."

He picked up a pack of Marlboros from his desk, and we 
followed him out the front door.  It took half a cigarette 
for him to talk again.

"The woman at the home...did she tell you why Kat got sent 
up?  I mean, did she tell you any details?"

"No," Mulder said, hunching against the wind.

Kazdin nodded and took another long drag.  "Thought as much.  
Folks don't talk about it anymore, especially now that Carson 
Purcell is the mayor."  

I hadn't considered the political aspect.  "It's hard to 
believe the town would elect a man whose wife was a 
murderer."

"Oh, no...that's just it.  Deep down I think folks felt sorry 
for him.  Sorry for the whole family, really.  Kat may have 
been a little crazy, but people understood why she did what 
she did.  I mean, imagine how you would act if you found out 
your brother was sleeping with your fifteen year-old 
daughter."

"What?"  I felt my stomach turn over.  Suddenly I understood 
why the young woman in the diner had looked like she wanted 
to disappear inside her clothes.

"Yeah, the whole mess came out at the trial.  Kat found some 
dirty pictures and figured out it was Abe who took them.  She 
shot the sonofabitch that night."  He shook his head.  "Poor 
Lee-Lee, she took it real hard.  Had some kind of a nervous 
breakdown.  She was in the hospital until a few months ago, 
which is probably why Andy doesn't want you talking to her." 

"She was in a mental hospital for fifteen years?" Mulder 
asked.

Kazdin shrugged.  "Like I said, she took it hard.  Seems okay 
now, though."

As Mulder had done the math in one direction, I was 
subtracting in the other.  "When was Lee-Lee released?"

"Let's see now..."  Kazdin scrunched his face as he thought.  
"I guess it was back in April.  Yeah, that's right.  Andy and 
me and some of the other guys went to opening day at Fenway, 
and Lee-Lee came along."  He grinned.  "The Sox trounced the 
Tigers, eight to two."

Seven months ago, I tallied.  Just weeks before the first 
fire.  From the grim set of Mulder's mouth, I could see he 
had made the connection as well.  Kazdin wasn't far behind.

"Shit."  He stomped out his cigarette on the ground, then 
shook his head.  "No, I can't believe it.  What's her 
motive?"

"I don't know," Mulder answered.  "But I think it's about 
time someone asked her."  He touched my elbow and drew me 
aside.  "Scully, I think you should be the one to go talk to 
her.  I'll go with Kazdin and check out the fire sites."

"You don't want to talk to her?"  This was Mulder's forte, 
drawing out stories from wounded women.  A few sympathetic 
questions and they would spin their life history for him.  
Maybe that was one reason I kept my own painful memories 
tucked away inside -- I wasn't ready to be just another 
victim, another medium he used to contact the unexplained.

"No, I definitely want to talk to her."  Mulder kept his 
voice low, his back to Kazdin.  "But if what he says is true, 
Lee-Lee might respond better to a woman.  Besides, she likes 
you better anyway."

"What?"

"You got the bigger muffin," he said.

So I went to the diner alone.

XxXxX

Lee-Lee's shift was over at the diner, but the manager 
directed me to her house. It turned out to be a pale blue 
Cape with white shutters and a neatly trimmed lawn.  A green 
Ford Explorer was parked in the drive.  Either Kit-n-Carl's 
had some impressive tippers or her family was helping with 
her living costs. 

I was about to ring the bell when I heard voices coming from 
the inside -- a man and a woman, and they were arguing. "What 
good would it do now?" said the man.

I did not catch her response, but the man was not pleased.

"That's shit, Lee-Lee, and you know it!" 

"Andy said..."

"Fuck Andy.  This isn't about Andy.  Look, you've just got 
to..."  He lowered his voice so I missed the rest of his 
instructions.  A few seconds later, I heard him mention 
"investigation" and "the FBI."  Must be my cue.

I rang the bell, and the door opened to reveal Lee-Lee 
Centara.  She was older than I'd thought originally, nearer 
my own age.  Her face was white and her eyes were tired, but 
there was no trace of the tears I had expected from the sound 
of the argument.  Perhaps she was tougher than she looked.  
"Can I help you?" she asked, wedging her body in the door so 
I could not see inside.

"Dana Scully," I said as I showed her my ID.  "I'd like to 
talk to you for a few minutes if that's okay."

"About the fires?" I nodded, and she bit her lip.   "I'm 
afraid I can't help you."

I raised my eyebrows a touch.  "Can't or won't?" 

"Can't," she replied with more fortitude, squaring her 
shoulders in the doorway.  "I don't know anything."

"Then it wouldn't hurt to hear my questions, would it?"

She hesitated a moment, then glanced behind her into the 
house.  "No...I guess not."

"Lee-Lee, who's at the door?" called the voice from inside.  
She didn't answer but moved so I could enter.  I stepped into 
the tiny entryway and found myself facing a slimmer, blonder 
version of Andy Purcell.  "Who are you?" he asked, frowning.

"Jeff, please."  A hint of color crept across Lee-Lee's face.

"Dana Scully, FBI," I answered.  "Who are you?"

"Jeff Purcell.  I'm her stepbrother.  Does Andy know you're 
here?"

"Yes," I lied, and he narrowed his eyes at me.

"What do you want with Lee-Lee?"  

"I just want to ask her a few questions."

"About the fires," Lee-Lee added, and he turned his gaze on 
her.  "I told her I didn't know anything."

"Of course you don't.  But then what's with the questions?  
Lee-Lee, you know you don't have to talk to her.  She's got 
no legal right to be in here, and you don't have to answer 
anything you don't want to."

It seemed to me that he was the one who didn't want to answer 
the questions.  Lee-Lee must have sensed my curiosity rising 
because she began herding him towards the door.  "It's fine, 
Jeff.  If I don't do this now, she'll just come back another 
time."

Jeff balked in the door as she handed him his coat.  "I don't 
like this, Lee-Lee.  You should have someone here with you.  
You should call Andy or Dad and..."

"It's just a few questions," she insisted.  "Let me handle 
this, okay?"

He sent me a cutting glare and turned so she was hidden 
behind his back.  "This is the big time, Lee-Lee," he said in 
a fierce whisper.  "The Feds don't mess around.  You should 
have someone here to protect your interests."

"I know what my interests are," she replied clearly, making 
no effort to match his hushed tone.  "I promise I'll be 
fine."

There was a tense moment of silence, then Jeff stepped around 
her to the door.  "I'll call you later," he said, and to me 
it sounded like a warning.  

Lee-Lee seemed relieved to have him gone. "Sorry about that," 
she said.  "He and Andy have been pretty protective of me 
ever since..."

"Ever since you got out of the hospital?" I finished gently.

She hesitated and then gave a quick nod.  "I guess I don't 
blame them, but it's frustrating sometimes.  I feel like I 
just got my life back, and now it should be up to me what to 
do with it, you know?"

I did know.  I remembered the breathless seconds that 
followed my doctor's announcement, how it felt to live a 
miracle.  "What do you want to do?" I asked as I followed her 
to the sofa.

She shrugged and ducked her head.  "I don't know.  When I was 
young I wanted to travel.  There were pictures in our 
geography book of India, China...places that seemed so 
different from here.  I used to imagine what it might be like 
to live somewhere else."

I thought of the trial and the allegations of incest.  No 
wonder she had wanted to get away.  "Perhaps now you can find 
out," I said.

"No."  Her face became shadowed.  "No, I can't."

"Why not?"

"I just can't."  She drew her legs up under her and sucked 
her hands into her sweater sleeves.  "So what did you want to 
ask me?  I told you I don't really know anything."

"Yes, I know what you said, but you also didn't seem very 
surprised to have me show up here this afternoon." 

"Wouldn't you expect it?  You're not the first one to wonder 
about my name.  Jeff said you would probably be coming 
around."

"You think I'm here because of your name?"

"Aren't you?"  She looked confused.  "Haven't you heard the 
story about her?"

"Yes, I've heard the story.  I think it's very sad."

Lee-Lee nodded and turned to look out the window toward the 
setting sun.  The light turned her eyes almost black.  "My 
mother believed it, you know.  She believed Elysian was a 
witch and that she would come back one day to burn the town.  
That's why she named me after her, so that I might escape the 
fire."

"So far it seems to be working."

She jerked her gaze back to me.  "I'm not setting those 
fires."

"I didn't say you were.  But you were there when they 
happened."

"Afterward, yes.  Everyone was there."  She twisted her hands 
in her lap.  

"The fires started just a few weeks after you came back to 
live here.  Doesn't that seem odd?"

Her eyes filled with tears.  "I'm well now," she said 
miserably.  "Everyone said so.  It wasn't supposed to be like 
this."

She sniffled and I searched my pocket for a tissue.  I found 
several with deep creases from where they had been wedged 
aside, suddenly and wonderfully useless. 

"You think your illness has some connection to the fires?"  I 
asked as she wiped her eyes, and I made a mental note to talk 
to her doctors about her stay in the mental hospital.  Maybe 
it hadn't been just a nervous breakdown after all.

"No, not like you think.  I just..."  She broke off with a 
sniffle.

"Just what?"

"Sometimes...sometimes I think maybe I shouldn't have come 
back here.  Maybe it's too late."

Jeff had been saying something along those lines when I 
arrived, but I still didn't understand the reference. "Too 
late for what?"

She shook her head.  "I'm sorry.  I wish I could help you, 
really I do.  No one wants this to stop more than me."

"Then help us catch the killer.  Anything you've seen or 
heard that might help, no matter how small it seems, please 
tell me."

"I don't know anything."  For the first time since the 
conversation had started, I felt sure she was lying to me.  
But I had no proof, no leverage with which to push her.  She 
got up from the couch and went to stand near the door.  "I 
think you should go now."

I searched for some way to keep the conversation going but 
found none, so I stood to leave.  As I reached the door, I 
handed her my card with the hotel number scribbled on the 
back.  "If you think of anything, please call me."

She studied the FBI logo for a long moment.  "I heard you 
investigate impossible things," she said.

"In a way, yes.  But I would say the cases are surprising, 
not impossible."

She looked at the card again and then back up at me.  "Do you 
think if you believe in something hard enough you can make it 
true?"

"I believe you should be careful what you wish for."

She shut the door behind me without a reply, but I could feel 
her watching as I drove away.

XxXxX

Back at Cathleen Duncan's house, I decided to go for a run 
before Mulder returned.  It was an activity I'd embraced with 
gusto since my recovery.  No longer fatigued or nauseated, I 
relished the feel of the pavement pounding against my feet as 
my legs carried me swiftly along.   With each step I was 
making friends with my body again, believing in its strength 
and sweating out the sense of betrayal.   

I did six miles and met Mulder in the hall on my way to the 
shower.  Dressed only in sweatpants, he was leaving the 
bathroom as I was heading in.  I tried not to watch the 
errant droplets sliding along his collarbone.  "Hey," he 
greeted me as he rubbed his head with a towel.  "How did it 
go with Lee-Lee?"

"It was interesting.  I got to meet stepbrother number two."

"Oh, yeah?"

"They were arguing when I got there but hushed it up quickly 
after that.  He was not thrilled when he found out the 
purpose of my visit."

"Did he let you talk to her?"

"Yes, she kicked him out, and I think it's a safe bet he ran 
to Chief Purcell with the whole story.  I'll tell you all 
about it after I shower, okay?"

He nodded.  "Should be a good conversation.  I've got my own 
two cents to add."

I took over the bathroom and stripped out of my robe.  As I 
stepped into the tub, my nipples hardened, kissed by Mulder's 
steam.  My body warmed to the wet embrace, and when I turned 
the slippery handle I groaned with the pipes as the hot spray 
came to life over my head. 

The shower lasted a little longer than usual.




When I returned to my room he was sprawled on top of my bed, 
but at least he had added a tee-shirt to his attire.  "Hot 
shower?" he asked, and I was glad the water had already 
pinkened my skin.  

"I have to get dressed, Mulder."

"Who's stopping you?"

"Mulder."

"Okay, okay."  He got up and pulled a stack of print outs 
from my bedside table.  "I just wanted to show you these."

As he handed me the images, he stood so close I could smell 
the traces of soap on his skin. "What am I looking at here?"

"These are crowd scenes printed from news footage from each 
of the fires.  Kazdin slipped them to me after our tour of 
the crime scenes."

I searched the grainy faces for Lee-Lee. "Any luck?"

"Yup, right there."  He tapped the paper in my hand.  "And 
here..." He pulled out another page.  "And here...all in all, 
Lee-Lee Centara shows up at seven of the ten fires."

"She denied setting them," I said as I studied the images, 
"and right now I don't think --"

"Hello?"  There was a knock at the partially-opened door, and 
Cathleen Duncan poked her head in.  "Oh, excuse me," she said 
when she caught sight of us.  Mulder stepped back, and I 
smoothed my robe self-consciously.

"No, it's fine," I said as she started to back away.  "What 
can we do for you?"

She halted awkwardly in the door.  "Oh, I was just wondering 
if you would like to join me for dinner.  I've got more 
vegetable soup and biscuits than I know what to do with."

It was the best offer we'd had all day, so Mulder followed 
her to the kitchen while I threw on some clothes.  When I 
joined them a few minutes later, Mulder was chopping parsley 
as Cathleen set the table.  "Can I help?" I asked, but she 
waved me aside.

"Sit, sit.  Everything is about done, anyway."  She set out 
the glasses.  "I don't know what I can offer to drink -- 
there's only juice, milk and water around here."

"Water is fine, thank you.  It smells absolutely amazing in 
here."

Cathleen grinned.  "These big old kitchens are just made for 
day-long cooking.  I'm happy to have the chance to do it 
again."  She put down her crutches and sat next to me as 
Mulder ladled out generous portions of soup.  I leaned over 
to inhale the rising scent of herbs and vegetables.

Mulder shoveled in several mouthfuls before proclaiming the 
soup magnificent.  It was the first time in weeks that he 
seemed more focused on his own plate than how much I was 
eating.  Perhaps we were both finally healing.

"How is the case coming?" Cathleen wanted to know.  "Have you 
found Elysian yet?"

"Actually, yes," Mulder answered.  "She works at the diner 
downtown."

Cathleen's eyes widened.  "Oh my goodness, I'd forgotten all 
about Lee-Lee.  No one in school ever called her by her given 
name."

"You went to school with her?" I asked, breaking apart a 
fluffy biscuit.

"She was a year ahead of me, but yes, I knew her.  No one 
could believe what happened."

"So it's true about her uncle, then?" Mulder said.

"Well, I guess it was.  That's what came out at the trial, in 
any case.  I was always a little surprised that they charged 
Katherine with first degree murder given the extenuating 
circumstances.  If you ask me, her attorney should have been 
able to negotiate a better deal."  She sighed.  "But no one 
ever said Stan Garber was the sharpest knife in the drawer."

Mulder coughed on his water.  "Stanley Garber was Katherine's 
attorney?"

"Yes, why?" Cathleen asked. 

"He was one of the people who burned to death in the fires."  
He sat up in his seat, leaning eagerly toward Cathleen.  
"What about Regina Tuttlesworth or Joe Bowman?  Any 
connection there?"

Cathleen gave a helpless shrug.  "Not that I know of, but I 
was fourteen at the time of the trial.  I don't remember all 
the details."

"Mulder, what are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking revenge might have been the motive all along, 
Scully.  Maybe we've just been working the wrong century."

XxXxX

That night, an explosion rocked my sleep.  I awoke with a 
jolt, sitting straight up in bed, but there was no noise.  No 
screams, no crashes, not even a whisper.  A ghostly silence 
swallowed all sound, leaving me with only the pounding of my 
heart.  A dream?

I waited, tense and expectant.

After a few seconds, strange light flickered through my room.  
I tangled myself in the covers, dragging the sheet with me in 
my race to the window.  Mulder's footsteps sounded in the 
hall.

"Scully?"

"Fire!" I shouted to him, not turning around.  The flames 
danced just out of my range of sight, so I couldn't identify 
the source of the blaze.  "Find Cathleen and call 911!"

I opened the window and shivered in the blast of icy wind.  
The smell of burning gas and melting rubber wafted toward me 
in clouds of black smoke, and I coughed as I recognized the 
frame of our rented Taurus between the roaring flames.

Someone had set fire to our car.
Someone who might still be outside.

"Mulder."  I grabbed my gun from its holster, searching the 
floor for my shoes.  I was almost out the door when the phone 
ran, its jangling blending with the wail oncoming sirens.  
Hesitating,, I snatched up the receiver.  "Hello?"

"Get out of Tiburton."  The voice was low and raspy, 
punctuated with shallow breaths.  

"Who is this?" 

"You've been warned," it said again, and the line went dead.

XxXxX

End Chapter Four.  Continued in Chapter Five.

XxXxX

Chapter Five

XxXxX

The air was thick with the noxious stench of burning gas, 
melting rubber and charred leather.  Red lights from the fire 
trucks swirled through the smoke billowing into the sky as 
Mulder and I stood on the front lawn, wool coats covering our 
thin nightclothes in the bitter November night.  The heat 
from the fire melted the frost at our feet.  Beside us, 
Cathleen Duncan was rigid with anger.  A few yards closer and 
her 300 year-old house would have been in danger from the 
blaze.  

"This wasn't any witch who did this," she said, her fingers 
clenched on her crutches.

"Not unless witches have taken to making telephone calls," I 
agreed, and Mulder looked at me sharply. 

"What?"

I sighed.  "Someone called me a few minutes ago.  He or she 
wanted to make sure we got the message."

"Let me guess," Mulder said, eyeing the flames devouring our 
car, "quit the case or next time we might be in the car when 
it gets barbecued." 

"Well, the caller didn't have your way with words, but yes, 
that was the basic theme of our exchange."

"You didn't recognize the voice?"

"No," I replied, irritated because I couldn't give a better 
answer.   "It was raspy, like a whisper.  Probably male but I 
couldn't say for sure."

Just then a police car jerked to a halt in front of the 
house, its front right tire hopping the curb onto the 
sidewalk.  John Kazdin leapt from the driver's side and 
pushed past the gathering crowd to join us on the lawn.  
"What the hell happened?" he demanded as he climbed the hill.  

"Someone torched our car and then called Scully to gloat 
about it," Mulder answered, but Kazdin did not seem to hear 
him.  His eyes were on Cathleen.

"Cathy, are you okay?"  He enclosed her in a fierce, brief 
hug, careful not to knock her off balance.  The familiarity 
of the embrace, the instinctive tilt of their bodies into a 
moment of perfect unity, told me all I needed to know about 
their prior relationship.  She patted his back and shifted 
away.

"I'm fine, John.  No one got hurt."

His face shadowed with disbelief, Kazdin gave a quick nod, 
and I recognized this pas de deux as well.  It was a dance 
Mulder and I had perfected in the last year -- perfunctory 
questions with automatic answers.

"You two pissed someone off pretty good," Kazdin observed as 
he moved to stand next to Mulder.  The dying flames danced in 
the black of his eyes.

"Everyone's got to have a talent," Mulder answered.

Kazdin ignored him.  "Witnesses?"

I shook my head, stepping in line with them.  "None so far.  
But the explosion was enough to wake the dead."

"Hey!"  We turned in unison to find an overweight man of 
about sixty trudging up the path.  It was two in the morning, 
but he wore a suit. 	

Kazdin straightened his shoulders as the man drew near. 
"Mayor Purcell," he said by way of greeting, and Mulder and I 
exchanged a look behind his back.  Apparently we were now 
important enough to draw out the big guns.

"Kazdin, what's happening?"

"Car fire, Sir.  No witnesses so far."

Purcell nodded as though he'd been told the secret of the 
ages, then squinted at Mulder and me.  "You the FBI?"

"Agents Scully and Mulder," I answered, and he gave my hand 
the politician squeeze. "It was our car that blew."

He raised his eyebrows.  "Connected with the case?"

"We think so, yes."

Purcell nodded again, clasping his hands behind his back and 
rocking on his heels.  We watched together as the 
firefighters hosed down the blackened shell of our Taurus.  
"I understand you've been questioning my family," Purcell 
said after a few moments, his eyes still on the scene below.

"I talked to Lee-Lee this afternoon," I replied.  "But 
there's been no formal inquiry."

He jerked his head around to me, his chubby cheeks puffed 
with repressed anger.  "Damn straight there's been no formal 
inquiry.  You people ought to be ashamed of yourselves, 
dragging her into this mess on account of some old ghost 
story.  Lee-Lee's a good girl.  She didn't have anything to 
do with these fires."

Mulder scratched the back of his head.  "So your family keeps 
telling us," he said, and I saw him glance at the remains of 
our car.

Mayor Purcell scowled.  "You don't get it, do you?  Lee-Lee's 
a sensitive girl.  Your questions...the stress..."  He broke 
off with a muttered curse, grinding his toe into the grass at 
his feet.  "I just don't want to see her get hurt again."

The crowds in the street were beginning to break up as the 
firefighters reined in their hoses.  I wondered if my caller 
was somewhere in the shadows, watching the last tendrils of 
smoke curl into the night sky. 

Purcell interrupted my thoughts with quick, sharp words.  
"You talked to her," he said, meeting my eyes.  "You must 
know she couldn't do this sort of thing."

"Mr. Purcell, I don't know your stepdaughter well enough to 
answer that question.  But I will say this -- she's stronger 
than you think."

The wind, tinged with black smoke and gas fumes, sliced 
through our little circle and made Purcell's thin hair stand 
on end.  "One o'clock tomorrow in my office," he said.  "I'll 
have Lee-Lee there and you can ask all the questions you 
want.  Then I expect we will consider this matter settled."

He huffed his way back down the hill without waiting for our 
answer.  Cathleen shivered in his wake.  "I don't care how 
many votes he gets every year," she said.  "He always seems 
like a bully to me."

"Aw, he's not that bad," Kazdin protested.  "He's just 
protecting his family, that's all."

Cathleen stuck out her chin.  "Don't kid yourself.  Lee-Lee's 
not his family...those boys are.  Men like Carson Purcell, 
they know the difference."  She pulled her coat tight around 
her body, then adjusted her position on the crutches.  "I'm 
going inside.  There's hot tea in a few minutes for anyone 
who wants it."

She was careful not to look at Kazdin as she made the 
invitation, but even in the darkness, I saw his jaw tighten.  
"I can't," he said.

"Of course," she answered softly.  And then she was gone.

"Shit," Kazdin said in her absence.  There didn't seem to be 
any good reply to that, so Mulder and I kept quiet.  After a 
moment, he turned to face us.  "I didn't realize you 
questioned Lee-Lee," he said, his tone somewhat accusing.

"Not extensively," I countered.  "We talked for a few 
minutes."

Kazdin shook his head.  "You don't get it.  It doesn't work 
like DC here.  You can question folks all you want, but you 
aren't going to get any answers until you understand where 
they're coming from."

"And where is that?" Mulder asked.

"Here," Kazdin answered, spreading his arms.  "Most people 
have lived in Tiburton all their lives.  Their parents are 
here, their grandparents are here..."  He took a deep breath.  
"Look, I'm not saying you can't push.  But you've got to be 
subtle about it.  You want to come in here and shake things 
up, but whatever falls loose, these folks are going to have 
to live with the consequences."

"They are already living with the consequences," I said.  
"Someone is setting these fires for a reason."

"Yes, I get that.  But for someone -- maybe more than one 
person -- the fires are not as bad as the reason behind 
them."

Mulder tilted his head to one side.  "You think she's doing 
it, don't you?"

Kazdin looked away for a long minute before replying.  "Let's 
just say I'd like to be at the meeting tomorrow afternoon."

"Fine by me," Mulder said.  "But I don't know how much we'll 
get from Lee-Lee if her pit-bull relatives are around.  Hey, 
I wanted to ask you...Joe Bowman and Regina Tuttlesworth, 
were they connected to Katherine Centara's trial in any way?"

Kazdin looked at the stars as he considered.  "I was fifteen 
back then so the details are pretty fuzzy.  I know Stan 
Garber was her attorney, but..."  He looked back at us 
suddenly.  "You know, I think Regina might have been involved 
in the trial.  The name does sound familiar.  I can check and 
let you know, okay?"

"Great," Mulder said, and we moved a few steps closer to the 
house.  Kazdin halted as we reached the path.

"I'll be in touch," he said.  He glanced from us to the 
house.  "Give Cathy my regrets."

"Sure," I said.

But I suspected she already had them.

XxXxX

Back in bed, I could not sleep.  The moon pushed eerie white 
light into my room, and I flipped under its glare for twenty 
minutes before rising from my tangle of covers.  The glowing 
shafts drew me to the window, where I squinted up at the pan-
flat face in the sky.  I followed its beams to the earth and 
found a familiar figure hunched inside his black coat, 
leaning against the well in the yard.

I was not surprised by our shared restlessness; Mulder's 
movements had long had the power to make my senses hum.

My coat and shoes were still handy from my last outing, so I 
slipped them on and went to join him in the moon-lit yard.  
The air was a strange mix of burned car and dead leaves.  
Remnants of both crunched under my feet as I made my way 
across the lawn.

He looked up at my approach and slid aside without a word so 
that I could have a piece of the well.  "Find a wish after 
all?" I asked as I took my place.  He shook his head slowly.

"I was thinking about what Kazdin said...about living with 
the consequences."

"And now you think we shouldn't push Lee-Lee?  Mulder, what 
he said was--"

"I found Samantha."

"You what?"  I turned to look at him.  He tightened his lips 
and turned his eyes to the ground.

"Well, 'found' might not be the best word for it.  More like 
she was dangled in front of me in exchange for my 
cooperation."

"The deal," I said, with sudden realization.  "The one you 
told me about."

He let out a long breath and nodded.  "Just like getting a 
toaster with your new checking account -- bank with Morley & 
Company and get one free sister and the cure for cancer."

My fingers flew automatically to the back of my neck.  I 
rubbed the tiny scar as my stomach folded in on itself.  "I 
thought you said you didn't take it," I blurted, unable to 
look at him.

"I didn't."

"Then how...?"

"A freebie.  A tease.  Maybe part of some greater plan.  I 
don't know."

"I can't believe you didn't tell me."  My voice was sharp as 
the wind and brittle as the leaves.

"Oh, you must have known," he answered, pushing away from the 
well.  "Where the hell did you think the chip came from?  Did 
you think I just found it under my pillow one morning, like 
the tooth fairy?"

"No, but..."

"But nothing!  You knew, Scully.  You knew but you couldn't 
bring yourself to ask.  You didn't want to hear the dirty 
details, and I can't even blame you."  He paused, his angry 
breath evaporating in the night air.  "Consequences, Scully," 
he said more softly.  "You didn't want them."

I felt the my face flush hot. "How can you speak to me about 
consequences?  I live them every day, Mulder!  I've lived 
them in hospitals, in cemeteries...even inside my own skin.  
Maybe I don't talk about the things I've lost, but that 
doesn't mean I'm not aware of them.  It doesn't mean that I 
don't want answers, that --" 

"Scully..." He tried to cut me off.

"--that I don't want justice.  You've convinced me, Mulder.  
You said this work was important, and I've seen more than 
enough to believe you're right.  I'm in this as deep as you 
are, maybe deeper.  And now you seem like you're just giving 
up, and I don't understand that, and --"

"Scully!"  He grabbed me by the shoulders.  I stopped, trying 
to catch my breath, and he squeezed me hard.  "I know.  I 
know what you've risked, Scully...what you've lost.  No one 
knows more than me."

I wilted, suddenly spent.  "Then why are you stopping?"

"Why aren't you?"

Our eyes held for a long minute before he dropped his hands.  
I swayed at the loss of connection, unaware he had been 
holding me up.  He turned away with a jerk and returned to 
his spot against the well, arms folded over his chest.  I 
stood rooted in place, staring dumbstruck at a Mulder who was 
no longer there.   When movement returned, I resumed my 
position at his side.

"Is it because of Samantha?" I asked after a minute.  "You 
know the truth and so that's it for you?"

He snorted.  "Some truth.  Let me tell you how it was."  I 
listened as he recounted the painful conversation, complete 
with her tearful exit.

"So you think it was really her?" I asked when he fell 
silent.  I couldn't imagine it was.  I couldn't imagine that 
she would just walk away if she were the real thing.  

Mulder considered my question for a long time.  "I don't 
know," he whispered at last.  "I always thought I would know, 
that I could be sure...but now..."  He shrugged.  "Maybe 
there have been too many lies.  Maybe you've convinced me, 
too, Scully, and now I need proof."

"We can find that proof," I said, my throat aching at his 
defeated tone.  He shook his head.  "Mulder..."

"I've been trying to figure out why I didn't follow them, or 
why I haven't made any effort to track her down.  I could do 
it, I suppose.  I could find a way to get to her, maybe prove 
she was a fraud...maybe find she wasn't.  Maybe she really is 
a suburban mom with a husband and a life that doesn't need 
disrupting."

"You can't really believe that.  If that woman was really 
your sister, she has a right to know the truth.  So do you."

His hands clenched, he dropped his head, the fine arch of his 
neck pale in the moonlight.  "She doesn't remember what I 
remember, Scully.  She doesn't seem to want to remember.  And 
maybe I don't have the right to question that, because..."

I waited, watching his shadowed profile for several long 
moments.  "Because?"

"Because even if it's her, even if I do find Samantha...I'm 
never going to get her back.  Not really."  He looked up at 
last.  "And that's the truth."

I moved closer to him, the cold, hard stone digging into my 
lower back.  Our shoulders touched, warm and solid, and we 
were silent for a long time.  I let his sadness seep into me, 
absorbing it and making it my own the way I always did with 
Mulder's pain.  This sense of loss I understood.  My sister 
was had not vanished the way Mulder's did.  There was no 
endless quest on her behalf, no chasing traces of her around 
the world.  Melissa was forever still.

This year I turned thirty-three, the age Melissa was when she 
died.  Next year, I would be the older sister.  There weren't 
words sufficient to describe the heartache that gripped me 
whenever I thought of that.

But Mulder knew.

His hand crept across to find mine, and he squeezed it hard 
before releasing me with a sigh.  "I'm tired, Scully."

"It's late," I replied, forcing myself to take the easier 
meaning of his words.  He nodded and let me keep my 
illusions.

We crept inside the dark house and tried not to make too much 
noise on the creaking staircase as we returned to our rooms.  
Mulder murmured good-night to me outside my door, brushing my 
fingers with his, and I hurried inside before I could give in 
and pull him with me.  As I burrowed under the covers, I 
realized the moon was gone from my window.  I was plunged 
into darkness once more.

XxXxX 

End chapter five.  Continued in chapter six.

XxXxX

Chapter Six

XxXxX

The crack of dawn parted to reveal a bitter gray sky with 
low-slung clouds, as if the ashes from the night hung 
suspended in the air over us.  The wind rattling the panes of 
my window, I shivered into my clothes with haste and escaped 
into the quiet shadows of the hall.  Mulder's door was still 
closed.  I debated a minute whether to knock, but then 
decided I should search out some coffee before searching out 
Mulder.

Downstairs, the kitchen radiated warm light and the scent of 
cinnamon and black coffee.  I gathered that either Cathleen 
was an early riser by nature or the events of the previous 
evening had troubled her sleep.  I felt a prick of 
conscience, remembering my talk with Mulder about 
consequences.  It seemed unfair of us to drag ours into her 
home.

Nearing the door, I stopped short at the sound of voices 
coming from within the kitchen.  Kazdin had apparently 
decided it was okay to set foot inside the house and was 
saying something about the sink.  "...just need another U-
joint and a new valve here.  It would be no problem for me 
to..."

"No, John.  It's fine.  I'll take care of it."

There was a short pause and the sound of his boots scuffing 
on the hardwood floor.  "Silly to pay someone when I can do 
it in an hour."

"No.  I appreciate the offer, really.  I just don't think it 
would be appropriate."

"Appropriate?  I must have put months of my life into this 
place by now.  What does one more hour--"

"Amy Quinlan."  Her voice was so soft I nearly didn't hear 
her.  But Kazdin did.

"Makes no difference," he answered tightly.

Cathleen sighed.  "She's good for you, John, and I think -- "

"No!  I do not want to have this conversation with you."

I felt trapped, having listened too long but unable to break 
away. When at last I turned, I bumped into Mulder's chest.  
His hands gripped my arms.

"What's going on?" he asked in a low voice.

"Kazdin's here."  I could tell from the look on his face that 
he'd drawn the same conclusions about Kazdin's relationship 
with Cathleen.  "We should go."

Mulder nodded, but before we could move, Kazdin pushed into 
the hall.  "Hey," he said, crowding with us into the narrow 
space.  He cleared his throat.  "I, uh...I dropped off a car 
for you to use while you're here.  It's nothing special, just 
an old department Chevy, but it'll get the job done."

"Thanks," Mulder answered, and we all found cracks in the 
wall to study as the awkward moment lingered.  Finally, 
Kazdin spoke again.

"I checked some old newspaper clippings this morning, and 
Regina Tuttlesworth was involved in Katherine Centara's 
trial.  She was a neighbor who testified about the time of 
the gunshots coming from the Centara's house.  She also saw 
Lee-Lee running out the back door a few minutes later."

"What about Joe Bowman?" I asked.

Kazdin shook his head.  "Don't know yet.  I'll search the 
official records today and let you know what I find."  He 
held out his hand, dangling the keys between us until Mulder 
reached for them.  "See you at noon," he said, and then 
stalked out the front door.

"High noon on Main Street," Mulder murmured after he left.  
"I hope you remembered to pack your white hat and spurs, 
Scully."

"No, but I've got my six shooter."

"My hero," said Mulder, and we went into the kitchen for 
coffee.

XxXxX

The rain arrived before we finished breakfast, so Mulder and 
I waited out the hours before our showdown with the Purcell 
family at Cathleen's house.  She set us up in her own living 
room with a roaring fire --dutifully contained by an iron 
screen -- and plush golden chairs.  I let the warmth from the 
hearth chase away my chill as I pored over autopsy reports, 
but Mulder stood with the floor lamp by the window, as
far away as possible.  Between the howling wind and crackling 
fire, I could only hear snatches of his phone conversation.   
I knew he was trying to get through to Dr. Vitton, the man 
who had treated Lee-Lee after her breakdown.

At eleven-thirty, he finally sat down, his eyes on me and not 
on the fire. "We should get going soon."

"Did you reach Dr. Vitton?"

"Yes."

The rain filled his silence, pattering against the window
panes.  "And?" I prompted eventually.  "Did he talk to you?"

"Some.  He's very fond of Lee-Lee.  You can add him to the 
list of people who think she's incapable of committing these 
crimes."

"Fifteen years is a long time to be hospitalized for a mental 
disorder, Mulder.  There must have been something wrong with 
her."

He nodded.  "Vitton said she had some kind of dissociative 
disorder, presumably brought on by the abuse from her uncle 
and the trauma of his murder.  Lee-Lee didn't speak for 
almost a whole year after that night.  Since then, she's had 
recurring panic attacks every time they push her to talk 
about the details."

"It sounds vaguely like post-traumatic stress disorder," I 
said, and Mulder agreed.  "But then that doesn't make sense 
with the length of her hospitalization," I continued.  
"People with PTSD are usually out-patients."

Mulder leaned back in the chair and tapped his cell phone on 
his knee, looking thoughtful.  "What if I told you that 
Mayfield Hospital was a private institution?"

"You mean her family was paying to keep her there all those 
years?  Why would they do that?"

He shrugged.  "Maybe they know something about her that the 
doctors didn't.  Or maybe she knows something about them.  
All I know is Dr. Vitton was ready to release Lee-Lee three 
years ago.  He said she was nervous but looking forward to 
leaving."

"What happened?"

"She had a nice long visit with her family and the panic 
attacks started up again."

"So the implication is that they were keeping her sick.  If 
that's the case, why let her out now?  What's changed?"

"I don't know," he said, looking into the fire at last.  "I 
don't think we'll be able to answer that until we find out 
what happened the night Abe Centara was murdered.  There may 
have been a verdict, but there's been no resolution for these 
people.  Just look at the way they all treat Lee-Lee like 
she's still fifteen years old.  Time goes forward but not the 
Purcells -- they're still stuck in that one night."

His face was carefully neutral, but I could feel the 
undercurrent in his words, hear the sense of recognition.  
"So what do we do about it?" I asked.

"Only one thing we can do."  He stood up, his face grim as he 
studied the dying flames.  "We unstick them."

XxXxX

The rain had dissipated by the time we reached City Hall, but 
the wind had doubled in force.   It howled around us and 
shook leaves off the trees like a schoolyard bully as we 
hurried inside from the storm.  Carson Purcell's secretary, a 
woman with small eyes and a cloud of silver hair, gave us a 
frosty smile as we presented ourselves.  She picked up the 
phone.

"Sir?  They're here."

A moment later a door to our left opened and Purcell 
appeared, beefy hand extended.  "Right on time," he said as 
he pumped Mulder's hand.  "I like that -- shows respect.  You 
want some tea or coffee?  Soda?  I can have Evelyn fix you up 
in just a minute."

"No, thank you," I said.

He nodded, pleased with my answer.  "Just right," he said.  
"Just right.  Best to get down to business straightaway."

Just as he started to shepherd us toward his office, the 
front door flew open and Jeff Purcell lurched into the room 
out of breath.  "What the hell is going on?" he demanded, 
glaring from me and Mulder to his father.  "I stop by the 
station to talk to Andy and find out he's here with Lee-Lee 
for some hush-hush meeting you cooked up.  Funny, but my
name seems to have been left off the guest list."

Carson Purcell frowned.  "Calm down, Jeffrey.  It's not what 
you think.  The Feds have some questions for your sister, and 
I felt it would be better for her to answer them here than at 
the station."

"You already asked your questions," he said, scowling at me.  
"She told you she doesn't know anything."

"There's been another fire," I answered, and that revelation 
stopped him short for a minute.

He blinked.  "Where?  When?"

"Our car was torched last night," Mulder said.

"And you think Lee-Lee did it?  That's bullshit."

"Jeff, please.  Not here, not like this."  Carson Purcell's 
voice was low and steely.  I cast a glance at Evelyn, who was 
devouring the scene with clasped hands and eager eyes.  
Better than the daytime soaps.

"Fine," Jeff growled, straightening his wind-blown coat.  
"Let's go inside, then."  He started toward the office, but 
Purcell stopped him.

"It's crowded enough as it is.  If you want to wait here, you 
can, and I promise I'll fill you in afterward."

Jeff jerked his arm free.  "You're kicking me out?  I can't 
believe this!"

"Jeff, listen to me..."

"No, you listen!  I don't know what you and Andy think you're 
doing, but I am NOT going to sit in the yard like some 
goddamn dog while you manipulate Lee-Lee with touchy-feely 
interviews!  Just because I moved away, just because I got 
OUT of this shit hole doesn't mean you get to tell my side of 
the story."

"Is there a problem here?"  Andy Purcell emerged from the 
office. Drawn to his full height, he was a good five inches 
taller than his brother and heavier by about thirty pounds.

But Jeff was not backing down.  He pushed right into Andy's 
face and said, "Finally got what you wanted, little brother?  
You the man in charge now?  Did you hold her hand and promise 
it would be okay?"

"The fuck you know about it," spat Andy, pushing him away.  
"Where the hell have you been the past fifteen years?"

"Not here!" Jeff's voice was on the edge of tremble.  "So I 
didn't hang around on Dad's coattails.  So what!  You think 
this makes you better somehow?"

"That is enough!" Purcell cut in sharply.  He yanked Jeff by 
his elbow until his son stumbled backward a few steps.  "Get 
out," he ordered.  "Now."

The fury in Jeff's eyes was so strong that for a second I 
thought he would charge at Purcell, knocking him flat on the 
plush gray carpet. But the rage died impotent, and instead he 
stalked toward the door, kicking over a chair along the way.  
The door closed behind him with a reverberating slam that 
stirred our clothes with its breeze.  Purcell made a low 
noise in his throat and tugged at his tie.

"Sorry for that," he said, nodding at Evelyn to retrieve the 
errant chair.  "Shall we?"

His office was dim thanks to heavy red drapes and the clouds 
outside, and it smelled faintly of stale cigarettes.  Lee-Lee 
sat at the far end of a black leather sofa, huddled inside a 
beige trench coat.  Purcell lowered himself down next to her 
and squeezed her knee.  "Don't you worry, honey.  In a few 
minutes we'll have this all straightened out."

Mulder, Andy and I sat in the chairs provided, and then there 
was a short silence as we tried to figure out where to begin.  
To my surprise, Lee-Lee made the opening gambit.

"I didn't do it," she whispered, raising her eyes to mine.

"Do what?" Mulder interjected.

"The fire at your house last night.  Or any of the ones 
before, either.  Why can't you just believe me?"

"We believe you, honey," Purcell said soothingly, and patted 
her again.  Andy's jaw tightened as he nodded.

"Where were you last night?" I asked.

"Home in bed," she answered.  "I went to sleep early because 
I worked double shifts at the diner yesterday.  I didn't know 
about the fire until Andy called me this morning."

Before we could question her further, there was a short, loud 
knock on the door and John Kazdin burst into the room.  I had 
forgotten that he was supposed to be present for this 
discussion.  "Sorry I'm late," he said, his breathing uneven.  
"But I thought you might like to see this."

Mulder was closest, so he accepted the piece of paper Kazdin 
offered. He looked at it for a few seconds and then handed it 
to me without a word.  Purcell frowned.  "What is it?" he 
demanded.

It was a computer printout of the names of the men and women 
who had served on the jury that convicted Katherine Centara 
of murder in 1981. Number eight, circled in red ink, was  
Joseph Bowman.  I passed the list to Purcell and turned my 
attention back to Lee-Lee.  "What did you think of your 
mother's trial?" I asked.

She looked stricken.  "I...I wasn't there.  I was in the 
hospital."

"But you must have heard about it," I countered.  "You knew 
she was convicted, didn't you?"

Lee-Lee bowed her head and then nodded slowly.  "Yes."

"I don't see what this has to do with anything," Purcell 
broke in with a huff.

"Sir, you said you would let us ask all the questions we 
want," I told him.

He narrowed his eyes.  "Within reason."

Mulder leaned forward in his chair.  "Well, with three dead 
people connected to your wife's murder trial, I'd say these 
questions are not just reasonable but obvious."  He looked at 
Lee-Lee.  "What did you think about your mother going to 
prison?  She was trying to protect you, wasn't she?"

Lee-Lee's eyes filled with tears, and she covered her mouth 
with her hand.  "It's all my fault," she whispered through 
her fingers.  "I should have been there."

"Been where?" Mulder pressed.   Lee-Lee shook her head, mute.  
"You
were there the night of the murder, weren't you?  Regina 
Tuttlesworth testified that she saw you running out of the 
house after the gunshots."

"Can you blame her?" snapped Andy.  "Kat had just shot Abe in 
our driveway, for chrissake!"

"Did you see the shooting?" Mulder asked her.  "Is that why 
you ran?"

"I don't remember," she answered, swiping her eyes with 
delicate fingers.  Tears shimmered on her lashes.  "I don't 
remember that night.  But...but I should have been there, at 
the trial.  If I had been there, maybe they would have 
understood..."

She trailed off in an aching whisper, but I wanted the rest 
of the thought.  "Understood what?"

"My mother was a good person.  She never meant for this to
happen...none of us did."

I glanced sharply at Mulder to see if he had caught the odd 
phrasing of her words, and he gave me a tiny nod.  "What do 
you mean, 'none of us did'?" I asked.  Lee-Lee drew back, a 
little too quickly.

"Nothing, I...I just meant..."  Floundering, she looked to 
Andy for help, and he jumped right in.

"All right, that's enough.  This interview is over."  He 
stood and extended a hand to Lee-Lee.  "It's all horseshit, 
anyway."

"Mayor Purcell," Mulder started, but Purcell held up a hand 
to stop him.

"I think my son is right," he said as he rose.  "Lee-Lee has 
been through enough this year, and I don't want her bothered 
with this ridiculous theory any further."

Mulder looked to where Lee-Lee was being led from the room by
Andy.  "With all due respect, I don't know if that's going to 
be possible.  Someone is burning your town to the ground, and 
they don't show any signs of stopping."

Purcell wiped his palms on the front of his suit and moved to 
stand behind his sprawling oak desk.  He began shuffling 
papers around, and for a minute I thought he wasn't going to 
answer.  When he spoke, his voice was soft, his eyes still on 
his busywork.  "You've got nothing. A theory, that's all.  If 
you get more, you can come back and we'll talk again.  I'll 
be here."  He paused and looked up at last.  "And so will my 
lawyer."

We were clearly dismissed, so Kazdin, Mulder and I left the 
office under the watchful eye of Evelyn.  "Bye," she called 
with false sugar but true relish.  I would bet good money I 
knew where Purcell made his bed at night.

In the hall, Kazdin let out a long breath.  "I didn't want to 
believe it," he said, "but then I got that list and something 
inside me just went cold.  I'm thinking maybe you're right 
about Lee-Lee, that maybe she's been boiling over her 
mother's conviction all these years and now she's finally 
getting revenge.  I mean, hell, she always seemed sweet to 
me, but they didn't lock her up for fifteen years for 
nothing, right?"

"Right," answered Mulder, but he did not sound too sure. 
"Would it be possible for me to get transcripts from 
Katherine Centara's trial?" he asked as we walked down the 
steps toward the front door.

"Sure.  Ride back with me, and I'll get you the police 
records, too."

"Great.  I'll be with you in just a sec."

Mulder and I stood by the doors as Kazdin braved the wind and
rain.  "What are you looking for?" I asked.

"Fishing, mainly.  I don't know."  He scratched his head and 
moved a little closer.  "Scully, when she said that part 
about none of them meaning it to happen...what did you take 
that to mean?  We're talking gut reaction."

I hesitated.  "Well, it could mean anything, I suppose, but I 
had this flash..."

"Yeah?"

I took a deep breath.  "For a second it sounded like her 
relationship with Abe was consensual."

"Exactly."

"You think that's what everyone is trying to hide?"

"Could be.  It might help explain Lee-Lee's guilt over not 
testifying at her mother's trial."

"As in, perhaps the family didn't want her to testify.  
Interesting." I checked my watch.  "While you're chasing the 
court transcripts, I think I'll head over to the morgue and 
check out Joe Bowman's body."

"Good idea," he said, palming me the keys to our borrowed 
Chevy.  "I'll catch you back at Cathleen's then."

And we went our separate ways into the rain.

XxXxX

It was dark when I left the coroner's office, and the rain 
had begun to freeze.  Shivering under my umbrella, I walked 
across the slick street to the municipal parking facility to 
retrieve my car for the half hour drive back to Tiburton.  
The garage was nearly deserted, filled with long shadows and 
the stench of gas fumes and concrete.  The hollow echo of my 
heels on the pavement underscored my isolation, and I picked 
up my pace.

My heart contracted with relief at the sight of my car.  I 
slammed the door and leaned against the steering wheel for a 
moment, feeling ridiculous for letting the jitters get to me.

But I jumped at the sound of my cell phone just the same.

"Scully," I said, leaning back in my seat and running a hand 
through my hair.  Seven-thirty and it was already a long 
night.

"How was the dead guy?" Mulder asked.  I could hear him 
cracking sunflower seeds, and my stomach rumbled in empathy.

"Still dead.  I didn't get anything more than the county 
coroner.  In all likelihood, the killer used some form of 
accelerant on the body, but with the chemicals from his auto 
shop that blew with the fire, I can't say for sure.  Maybe 
the killer brought his own mix, maybe he just improvised."

"Well, the transcripts make interesting reading."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah.  Guess who blew the whistle to Katherine about Lee -
Lee's involvement with Abe?"

"Jeff?"

"You're half right.  It was a joint effort by Jeff and Andy."

"No kidding."  I yawned, and when I opened my eyes I noticed 
a piece of paper sitting on my windshield.  Had it been there 
all along?  "Mulder, hold on a second."  I craned my neck 
around but could not see anyone.

"What's going on?"

"There's something on my windshield," I said.  "A paper of 
some sort." I looked around again and decided to retrieve the 
slip from outside the car.  Phone to my ear, I got out and 
pulled the paper free from the windshield wipers.  It was a 
hand written note, penned in big block letters.

YOU WERE WARNED.

"Well?" Mulder said.  "What is it?"

"Mulder, I think..."  I was stopped by the sound of my own 
skull cracking.  Bright lights flashed in front of me as I 
fell to the ground, chin scraping the pavement while the 
phone skittered away.

Then all went black.

XxXxX

Continued in Chapter Seven.

XxXxX

Chapter Seven

XxXxX

I clawed my way out of the black unconsciousness, blinking 
against the radiating pain in my head.  My teeth throbbed as 
my stomach roiled, and dirt and stale exhaust fumes from the 
pavement stung my eyes.  The memory of my attack came 
flooding back, followed by a bolt of panic.  Maybe I still 
had company.  Gingerly, I lifted my head from the ground to 
see. 

Big mistake.  The world spun around me like a merry-go-round 
from hell, and I scraped my fingernails against the concrete 
in a vain effort to hold on.

"Scully! What's going on?  Scully, answer me!"

It was Mulder's voice.  He sounded far away, like he was 
talking through a sea-shell, only the roar of the waves was 
inside my head.  "Mulder?" I whispered, swallowing my rising 
nausea.

"Scully!  Answer me, dammit!"

"Mulder."  My cheek still resting on the cold, gritty 
pavement, I opened my eyes again and saw the source of his 
pleas.  It was my cell phone, which had slid under my car 
during the attack and now lay just out of reach.  I stretched 
my fingers toward it.  "Mulder, I'm here," I called, inching 
along the ground.

"Scully?"

My fingertips brushed the phone and caused it to turn a 
pirouette on the oil-stained concrete.  I slithered closer, 
trying to keep my head as still as possible.  Halfway under 
the car, I finally made full contact.

"...hell is going on? Scu--"

"Mulder."  I lay flat again, eyes closed.

"Finally," he snapped, but I heard the relief in his voice.  
"What the hell happened?"

"Someone hit me from behind...knocked me out."

"Jesus," he choked.  "Are you okay?"

"Mmm, okay.  A little dizzy, s'all."

"Don't move.  I'll get help, all right?  Just stay still."  I 
could hear him pounding down the stairs of Cathleen's house.  
"Where are you?  Is the guy still there?"

I opened my eyes again, squinting into the shadows of the 
garage.  "I don't know," I whispered.  "I never saw him."

"Okay, just hang on.  Where are you?"

The waves in my head rolled as I struggled to come up with 
the name.  "Lawrence," I said finally.  "The parking garage 
across from the county coroner's office."

"Just a second."  I heard the phone muffled against his chest 
and the sound of voices in the background.  In a moment, 
Cathleen came on the line.

"Dana?"  She sounded worried but calm.  "Mulder's calling 911 
right now.  Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," I insisted, attempting to sit up again.  Pain 
lanced through my head, blazing against the back of my 
eyeballs.  I bit back a moan.

"Just lie still," Cathleen said.  "Don't try to get up." 

There was blood on my hands from where I'd scraped them in 
the fall, and they shook slightly as I tried to rise.  
"No...it's okay, really.  I'm..."   I stopped short as my 
vision blurred, the world fading to black.

"Help's on the way right now," Cathleen said, her voice 
sounding distant and tinny over the ringing in my ears.  
"It'll be okay."

I didn't have the energy to answer, so I lay limp and dazed 
while she babbled about the skill of the Lawrence EMTs who 
had taken care of her last year.  So tired, I thought, 
fighting to follow her words.  I felt like I was sinking into 
the concrete.  After another few moments, Mulder came back on 
the line. "Scully?   Scully, you still there?"

"Yes."

"There should be someone with you in under five minutes," he 
said, "and I'm on my way."

"Mulder, you don't have to..." I trailed off when I heard a 
car door slam.  Dimly, I realized he must have asked Kazdin 
to drive him.

"Fifteen minutes, Scully.  We're going to run the siren."  He 
was trying for humor, but I caught the frayed edge of fear 
underneath.  I imagined him leaning forward in his seat with 
the phone pressed against his ear, his free hand gripping the 
door handle as he prepared to leap from the car the moment it 
stopped.

I'm fine, I tried to reassure him.  No fuss necessary.  But 
the words got lost in the dizzy twirl inside my head.

"Scully, talk to me.  You've got to stay awake."

"M'awake," I managed, beginning to shiver on the cold, hard 
ground.  The rain had started again in full force; I could 
hear it rushing past the garage opening, the hissing sound 
wending its way into my semi-consciousness.  So sleepy.  I 
wondered if I was in shock.  

"Scully, we're...few...the...road block...around, okay?...on."  Mulder 
crackled in and out on a wave of static.

"What?"

"...Sc...re me?"

My fingers ached with cold, numb around the phone.  "I can't 
hear you, Mulder," I whispered, drifting further away.

"...ly!"

A crack of thunder exploded, shattering the air around me, 
but I didn't open my eyes.  This is the way the world ends, I 
thought.

And the phone slid from my grasp.

XxXxX  

I awoke to the sound of sirens echoing in the garage, and 
within seconds there were two EMTs and a pair of uniform cops 
buzzing around me.  The ones with the blankets had as many 
questions as the ones with the guns, each side pushing me for 
answers about the attack.

"Did you see the guy before he hit you?"

"Do you have any pain in your neck?"

"Anyone suspicious hanging around when you walked in?"

"Can you follow my finger, please?"

"When did you first see the note on your car?"

Still shivering, I did my best to answer them all as I was 
strapped onto a gurney bound for Lawrence General Hospital.  
The screech of tires on the entry ramp caused us all to jump, 
but then I recognized a familiar door slam.  "Scully!"  
Mulder pushed his way through all my inquisitors until his 
face was directly over mine, his worried eyes taking in my 
bumps and scrapes.   "You okay?" he asked, breathless.

I nodded and regretted it.  "It's not that bad.  I'll be 
fine." 

Just then one of the cops appeared with a length of lead 
pipe.  "Found this in the back stairwell," he said, holding 
it out for our inspection.  Mulder's lips tightened and he 
stepped a little closer to me, as if the threat was somehow 
still real.  "It's got blood on the end here," the cop 
continued.  "Looks like some hair, too."

The sight of the pipe waving in the air made my head throb 
and my stomach roil.  Kazdin took one look at me and tugged 
the cop aside.  "Let's just get it bagged, okay?"

"Time to go," declared one of the EMTs, opening the back 
doors of the ambulance.  Mulder frowned.

"I'm coming with you."

"No," I protested weakly.  "Someone needs to stay here, find 
out what happened..."

"I'm on it," Kazdin said, stepping into my line of sight.  
"I'll run this down to the end, I promise."

So Mulder followed the gurney into the ambulance, hunching 
next to me on a bench as the ambulance lurched to a start.  
Seconds later, we were swaying gently en route to the 
hospital.  I opened my eyes a bit and saw Mulder chewing on 
his thumbnail. "I don't get it," he said when he caught me 
looking.  "Why you?  First the phone call, now this...it 
doesn't make sense."

Shaky as I was, I still felt a flash of anger.  Of course it 
made sense.  No matter how hard I pushed, at the end of the 
day I was still smaller and weaker -- a more horrific victim 
with my slim hands and curves than Mulder was in his broad-
shouldered strength.  But the worst part was always 
afterward, when Mulder himself looked at me with fresh 
knowledge of my vulnerability.  I vowed not to let him do it 
this time.  "Well, you weren't exactly an easy target 
tonight," I said.  "You were off with Kazdin and then back at 
Cathleen's."

He did not answer me, so I closed my eyes again, shivering 
under my damp clothes and scratchy blanket.  "Cold?" Mulder 
asked, and moments later I felt his hand groping for mine.  
He gently extricated my whole arm, setting it onto the warm 
denim of his lap.  I let myself doze for a few seconds as he 
rubbed some heat back into my stiff, frozen fingers.  He 
brought me back with a sharp tug.

"Got to stay awake," he murmured, slipping back into a 
rhythmic caress.

"Trying."

"Keep talking, it'll help."  He paused.  "You didn't get any 
look at the guy?  Not even on your way into the garage?"

Guy, he said, assuming my attacker was male.  I'd done the 
same thing.  But a sudden thought troubled me.  "Mulder, what 
you said...about me getting the phone call."

He scooted closer.  "Yeah?"

"It was the bedroom phone, not my cell.  I doubt that number 
is listed."

"Probably not.  So?"

"I gave it out that day," I said, "to Lee-Lee Centara."  

Mulder didn't answer, his face grim.  We did not speak again 
for the remainder of the ride, and no amount of Mulder's 
rubbing was enough to chase away my chill.

XxXxX

The memories rode in immediately, on a scent wave of latex 
and starch.  My skin felt suddenly hot and tight, even as my 
blood ran cold.  There were too few days between me and my 
last trip into the war zone of my health; I wasn't ready for 
another tour just yet.   With bright lights in my eyes and 
pricks in my arm, I was poked, prodded and scanned by a half 
dozen doctors. They took pictures of my brain while I churned 
my secret terror -- what if it was back?

My results came back clean.  I know because we looked at them 
together -- the ER doctors studying the small hemorrhage at 
the back of my head as I searched the middle for any traces 
of a tumor.  Their brows wrinkled in concern, but I lay back 
in relief at my continued suspended sentence.  Around eleven, 
the doctors were debating in the hall whether to keep me, but 
I had had enough.

"Hand me my clothes," I said to Mulder, who was lurking by 
the window with an aura of ennui, staring at the incandescent 
raindrops as they slid down the glass.  

"What?"

"My clothes," I repeated, easing out from under the thin 
sheets.  "I'm fine, and it's time to go."

He blinked at me for a few seconds and then reluctantly 
gathered my rumpled suit from the chair.  "Scully, the 
doctors said -- "

"Mulder."  I waited until he met my eyes.  "No hospital."  

He searched my gaze and saw I meant it.  "All right," he 
murmured, relenting.

Mulder stood with his back to me as I wriggled into my suit, 
the discarded cotton hospital gown lying in a warm heap at my 
feet. I swayed as my balance slipped, but finally managed to 
get both legs into my pants.  My main doctor, Peter Newton, 
entered just as I was brushing the worst of the parking lot 
grit off of my jacket.

Dr. Newton had a round, pink head that was trimmed with white 
fringe.  Like Santa without the beard, I thought, and guessed 
he was probably popular with children.  "Well," he said when 
he saw me.  "We were just trying to decide if we should keep 
you tonight for observation, but I see you've already made up 
your mind about that one."

"I'm fine, really," I said.  "I'm not even dizzy any more."

"Hmm," he answered, looking at my chart.  "It really would be 
better to have someone keep an eye on you tonight, just to be 
sure.  Head injuries can sometimes be unpredictable."

"I'll keep an eye on her," Mulder volunteered, and I turned 
to look at him.  His expression was unreadable.  Dr. Newton 
squinted at him appraisingly.  

"You'll have to wake her every hour or so.  And if there's 
any double vision, disorientation or slurred speech she'll 
need to be back in the ER immediately."

"I can do that," Mulder agreed with no hesitation. 

Dr. Newton thought for another second, then nodded.  "Okay, 
then," he said as he handed me the list of warning symptoms.  
"At least let me write you a prescription for the pain, just 
in case it gets worse later on."

"Not necessary," I said, retrieving my coat.  Dr. Newton 
frowned, and Mulder placed a hand on my back.

"I'll give her a bullet to bite," he said, deadpan.  I didn't 
quibble so long as we kept moving in the direction of the 
door.  By the time we reached the glowing red exit sign, my 
breathing had eased considerably.

Outside we found Kazdin, smoking under the front awning as 
rain dripped all around him.  From the lines on his face and 
the number of butts at his feet, I guessed I wasn't the only 
one with painful hospital memories.  He crushed out his 
cigarette when he saw us coming.  "What's the word?" he 
asked.

"I'm fine," I assured him.

"As hard-headed as they get," Mulder drawled, and I glared at 
him -- but not too long.  His terror had clearly not worn off 
yet if he was still reduced to such obvious punch-lines.

"The Lawrence PD has agreed to turn the case over to us," 
Kazdin said.  "They're sending us the reports and stuff in 
the morning.  In the meantime, I can drive you home."

Mulder and I waited, surrounded by the cold and the sound of 
dripping rain, while Kazdin retrieved his squad car.  When he 
pulled up, I climbed in the back and was surprised when 
Mulder followed me in.  "You don't have to martyr your knees 
like this," I told him wearily.  "I'm not going to fall into 
a coma on the way home."

"I know," he answered, and I was too tired to argue further.  
I slumped down in the black leather seat, fishing around in 
my pockets for a packet of Tylenol.  I was prepared to 
swallow them dry, but Mulder withdrew a half-full water 
bottle from his coat and handed it to me silently.  I drained 
the remainder of the tepid water, then eased my head back 
against the seat, wincing as my lump made contact.

"Sorry about the grate," Kazdin called through the iron mesh 
separating us.  "I'll have some heat back there for you in a 
sec."

I huddled deeper into my coat, fatigue settling over me like 
a lead blanket.  My eyelids drooped, but I stubbornly forced 
them open again.  In my lap lay Dr. Newton's parting orders, 
and I knew the fine print without having to read it:  there 
was a small but not infinitesimal possibility that I could 
drift off and never awake again.  Rationally, I knew I 
shouldn't worry.  But trapped like a prisoner in the back of 
a squad car and reeling from the pain in my head, the 
niggling fear inflated from party balloon size to loom over 
me like a Macy's Thanksgiving Parade float. 

My head jerked in my struggle for wakefulness, and Mulder 
slid closer to me on the seat.  He smelled like rain.  
"Shhh," he whispered, his fingers warm on my face.  "Sleep, 
Scully.  I'll wake you when we get there."

On the strength of his promise, I tucked my cold nose into 
the warm wool of his shoulder and slept.

XxXxX

Back at Cathleen's, Mulder and I declined her offer to heat 
some leftover soup.  All I wanted was a hot shower and to 
pour myself into bed.  Taking his surrogate doctor role 
seriously, Mulder objected.

"Showers are slippery, and you're exhausted.  Why not wait 
until morning?"

"Mulder, please."  I rubbed my eyes and tried to think of 
words to explain to him the dirt I felt in every pore.  "I'll 
be fine.  It's just for a few minutes."

"Um, you could use mine if you want."  Cathleen had been 
standing in the front hall with us, listening to the 
argument.  She shifted on her crutches.  "It's got railings 
and a stool inside."

"Oh, no, thank you," I said.  "It's very kind of you to 
offer, but we've been more than enough trouble all ready."

"No trouble," she answered simply.  "Follow me."

I hesitated another moment, but the desire to wash the grime 
from my skin proved too powerful to resist.  Easier to follow 
Cathleen than waste time and energy fighting with Mulder.  He 
went upstairs while I trailed Cathleen to the linen closet.

"Here you go," she said with a smile, handing me a fluffy 
peach towel.  I managed a tired smile in return.

"Thank you.  You've been more generous than Mulder and I 
deserve, given the mess we've dragged into your home."

She shook her head in a dismissive gesture.  "I'm just glad 
you're all right.  And besides, it's actually nice to have 
people in here again.  I've been rattling around by myself 
ever since --"  She stopped abruptly, then turned back to the 
closet to smooth out some towels.  "Ever since last year," 
she finished a moment later.

"Detective Kazdin said you'd been in some kind of accident," 
I said quietly.  She nodded.

"Car accident."  Her lips tightened, her fingers curling in 
on the pile of towels.  "Drunk driver."

My eyes swept over the braces on her legs.  "I'm sorry," I 
murmured, and she shut the closet door with an angry snap.

"So am I."

She left me to my shower, and I sat under the hot spray for 
long minutes.  Many thoughts swirled out of me, mingling with 
the water before flowing down the drain.  I thought of 
Cathleen and her accident, of Lee-Lee and the way she had run 
from the house the night her uncle died.  I thought of Mulder 
in the backyard, unraveling a little more of his pain as 
Samantha dimmed further from memory.  I thought about how 
easy it was to shatter a life, and how many of us were 
walking wounded -- the shrapnel of yesterday still curled 
under our skin.

XxXxX

In my room, Mulder hovered while I got ready for bed.  "Here, 
let me do that," he said, reaching for my robe when I tried 
to hang it.

"I've got it."

I bumped into him twice in between brushing my teeth and 
swallowing more Tylenol.  He set an extra glass of water on 
the nightstand.  "Sure you don't want to eat something?"

"I'm fine, Mulder."  I moved to turn down the bedcovers, and 
something in the motion caused a wave of dizziness to sweep 
over me.  I flattened my hand on the mattress.

"You okay?"  

"Yes, I just need to lie down," I answered, crawling slowly 
into bed.  Mulder lingered by my feet.

"Are you sure?  Maybe we should call Dr. Newton.  It says on 
the sheet that dizziness--"

"Mulder, stop it!" I snapped.  "I told you I'm fine.  Why 
can't you just back off and--"

"Because I don't know whether I can believe you!" he 
interrupted angrily.  I just stared at him.  "You were 
*dying*, Scully, and you never said a damn thing!  You fucked 
me and sent me on my way without ever opening your mouth 
about the metastasis."

My face felt like it would crack from fatigue, but I managed 
a protest.  "I told you I had cancer...I told you it was 
serious."

"Bullshit!  You let me walk out the door thinking everything 
was the same, and I come back to find you hooked up to a 
ventilator, Scully -- fucking life support!  And they 
said...they said you might not wake up again."  He broke off, 
turning his head away from me.  "And then to find out that 
you knew all along..."

I could have lied and said I'd wanted to spare him further 
worry -- there was nothing he could have done about it, 
anyway -- but the truth was more hollow, more selfish.  I 
hadn't wanted to speak of death for fear the words might 
bring it into the room.  I'd imagined it lurking in the 
shadows, waiting for me to whisper my defeat.  Instead, I'd 
reached for Mulder and buried my fears in him.

The silence stretched between us, and I searched the fog in 
my head for something that would fill the gap.  "I'm fine 
now," I said as steadily as I could.  "Really."

He narrowed his eyes at me, then nodded.  "Whatever."  
Shutting off the light, he slid between the sheets next to 
me.  I could tell by the frequent rustling that he was still 
upset.

"Mulder," I whispered.  "I'm sorry. I had no idea you were 
angry about that."

The rustling stopped.  "Neither did I," he admitted finally.

"You're right, I should have told you."

"Yes."  He paused.  "But maybe I wouldn't have listened."  
The words were small and light, floating away from us in the 
dark.  He took my hand and pressed a kiss to the center of my 
palm before folding my fingers over it.  "Sleep now," he 
murmured.

I opened my hand again and touched the rough stubble of his 
cheek.  "Goodnight, Mulder." 

Through the night he wove in and out of my dreams, pulling me 
from sleep with whispered words and soothing me down again 
with gentle hands.  But it was disorienting, almost painful, 
to be woken so often, and by the sixth time I was near tears 
of frustration.  The covers were twisted at my feet, scraping 
against my skin, and my pillow was hot under my cheek.  The 
room seemed to tilt on its axis every time I moved my head.  

Only Mulder was holding still.

"C'mere," he said, curling his body into mine.  I burrowed 
closer as his hands swept my back with long strokes.  Limbs 
quivering, I squeezed my eyes shut. "Shhh," he whispered.  
"It's okay.  Just breathe with me."

So I concentrated on the rise and fall of his chest against 
my cheek, matching my rhythm to his.  In. Out. In. Out. 
Slower.  Slower.

I slipped into sleep a final time, Mulder's hands reshaping 
me, smoothing back the pieces of myself I had lost along the 
way.

XxXxX
XxXxX

Chapter Eight

XxXxX

I was alone on a vast beach.

The salted sea breeze whipped my long skirt against my legs 
while the ocean tickled my ankles, its white surf swirling in 
and out with the tide.  I curled my cold toes into the sand 
even as it slipped out from under me.  Eyes closed, I 
listened to the rhythmic rush of the waves and the chatter of 
the sea gulls overhead.  Their cries grew closer, more angry 
and raw, until they weren't birds at all but human screams.

I gasped as my eyes flew open.  Silence.

There was no beach and no screams.  Just my bedroom, draped 
in shadows, and Mulder's heartbeat creating the ocean sounds 
beneath my cheek.

I released a slow breath as my pulse dropped back to normal, 
wrapped safe in the covers with Mulder.  His tee-shirt was 
soft and sleep-warm against my bruised cheek, and I closed my 
eyes again, listening to the rain pattering against the 
windows outside.  I drifted as the seconds slowed. 

Mulder sighed in his sleep, his legs mingling with mine as 
his faint breath stirred my hair.  Blinking sleepily, I 
stretched with care and my sore joints registered their 
immediate protest.  All traces of my dream faded as the dull 
ache of reality began throbbing at the back of my head.  I 
rolled from Mulder and slipped free of the heavy quilt, 
staggering in the semidarkness toward the door.

The floorboards were cold and smooth beneath my feet, the 
first gray haze of dawn making long shadows on the wall.  In 
the bathroom, I swallowed a pair of Tylenol tablets with the 
lights still off and then shivered back to bed.  Mulder 
stirred under my added weight, squinting at me in the fuzzy, 
indigo light.

"Hey," he said in a hoarse whisper.  

I shifted to face him.  "Go back to sleep, Mulder.  It's 
still early."

"Mmmm."  His fingers threaded through my hair, touching my 
scalp lightly.  "How's your head?"

I closed my eyes under his gentle massage.  "Okay."  His 
fingertips smoothed in rhythm from my crown to my temples, 
easing the ache until I was near purring with pleasure.  The 
backs of my ears grew warm and tingled.

After a few more glorious seconds, he slipped his hand down 
to palm the curve of my face.  I nuzzled my cheek against him 
in answer before covering his hand with my own and drawing 
his arm back under the covers.  He hid a large yawn in his 
pillow, and I realized that the rocky night had taken its 
toll on him as well.  His hair stood up on one side and his 
eyes were bleary from lack of sleep.  "Thank you, Mulder," I 
said, giving his fingers a slight squeeze. 

He answered with a slow blink.  "For what?"

"For being here.  For taking care of me."

He rolled over on his back, withdrawing his hand from mine.  
We stared at the ceiling together for several long moments 
while the wind swept sheets of rain against the window.  "I 
had a book," he said at last, speaking more to the ceiling 
than to me -- whispered words meant only for this strange, 
expansive time between night and day.  "On cancer."

My skin rippled in fear at where the conversation would lead, 
places inside that burned too bright to look, wounds too raw 
to touch.  Words of my own tumbled forth but I kept them 
closed and secret, waiting with shallow breaths to see how 
far Mulder would go.  He tilted his chin at the ceiling.

"It had things you were supposed to do to help if...if you 
knew someone with cancer.  Like recipes for special foods and 
stuff to bring to the hospital.  But I couldn't see any way 
for me to do those things.  It never said..."  He stopped 
short and shook his head.  "I don't know why I bought it."

"Mulder..."  I reached out to touch his arm but he didn't 
seem to feel it.

"So white and brittle," he whispered.  He twisted on the 
pillow, his black eyes boring into mine.  "Like if I touched 
you, you would shatter into a million pieces." 

I could not speak.  All at once, I realized how different it 
had been for Mulder, how vast was our separateness on this 
matter.  I'd kept the cancer close to me, deep inside where 
it lived and grew away from sympathetic, prying eyes.  I had 
told Mulder first, had thought he understood how much it 
meant to me that he knew and that he shared in my fight.  My 
partner in all things.  Only now, in the absence of my 
desperate tunnel vision, could I see how far away he had 
been, and how hard he was still struggling to catch up.

"It's okay now," I murmured, pulling him to me.  He came 
willingly, like a sleepy child, and I folded him in my arms.  
His breath whispered against my neck as I stroked his long, 
lean back.  "It's okay."

I thought about telling him the number of times I had called 
him from my bed during those awful days, paralyzed under the 
weight of my headache or gripped in the claws of nausea.  The 
words, "Mulder, come over," had hovered on my lips, and I'd 
imagined him sitting with me, cool cloth in hand as he 
distracted my pain with gentle chatter.  But to relent to 
that need would have cost me my equality, forcing Mulder to 
choose between pushing me harder or pulling me back.

And I'd needed to be pushed more than held.

I wondered if he had sensed that need and disregarded his 
own, letting me set the terms of our relationship even when 
there was so much left unsaid.  I ran my hands up and over 
his shoulder blades and tangled my fingers in the silky 
spikes of his hair.  "Mulder," I said, "you did the best 
thing possible.  You never let me get complacent.  You showed 
me how much there was left to do and let me shoulder my share 
of the work.  You...you let me see you waiting on the other 
side of this illness, making sure there would be something 
left for me to return to when it was over."  I brought my 
lips down to his forehead, kissing him fiercely.  "And 
Mulder, it is over.  You've got to believe that."

He squeezed me hard and buried his face in the curve of my 
shoulder.  "For now," he said, muffled.  "But what about the 
next time?"

"We have no reason to think it will come back," I answered, 
relieved to hear that my voice did not belie my own nagging 
worry.

"I'm not talking just about the cancer, Scully," he said as 
he pushed himself up to look into my eyes.  "It could be 
anything -- another illness, a stray bullet...maybe they'll 
just blow up the basement one day and take care of both of us 
all in one shot."

"Mulder, stop it."

"No," he insisted, still pinning me to the mattress with his 
considerable weight.  I squirmed to get away, but he trapped 
my arms in his.  "Listen to me, Scully.  You told me once you 
wouldn't change a day.  Maybe you still believe that, even 
now.  But one day it will change, one day it will be too much 
and you'll regret it."

I frowned.  "Is that the voice of experience talking, 
Mulder?"

"Maybe."  He sighed.  "I just don't want to be here when that 
day comes for you, Scully.  I don't want to be part of your 
regret."

His expression was sad and open, letting me see the truth 
behind his words.  I tightened my lips together to keep my 
chin from trembling.  "That would never happen," I whispered 
finally, and he dropped his forehead down to mine.  My hands 
slid around his ribcage, seeking more contact.  Our breathing 
slowed as Mulder relaxed into me once more.  I stroked the 
soft hairs at his nape.  "Mulder, four years ago you made it 
clear that I was not going to stand in the way of your search 
for answers.  I can't be the reason you stop now."

He pulled away again. "Just for a little while," he 
whispered, fingering the hair by my cheek.  "I didn't realize 
how fast the years have been.  I never expected..."

"What?" I asked, breathless.

He hesitated, then ducked his head.  "I never expected to 
stop and find you here."

My heart quivered in my chest as I caressed his stubbly 
cheek.  "Where I've always been, Mulder," I told him in a 
cracked whisper.  

He pressed his lips to my palm, my wrist, my neck, and I 
brushed my fingertips over the shell of his ear, our lips so 
near they merged in the space of one breath.  The rain 
rustled the trees outside while we remembered each other with 
kisses, slow and soft.  I curled my legs and arms around him 
like a loving vine.  I ached to bring him inside my heart, 
where he could see the place carved for him over the years by 
moments of sharp terror and melting sweetness. 

"We shouldn't."  Mulder broke away, lips swollen around his 
parted mouth.  "You're hurt."

"No, it's fine," I murmured, hands sloping down his 
shoulders.  He jerked his hips, and I parted my legs further, 
welcoming the press of his erection through our thin layers 
of clothing.  He closed his eyes and met my gentle rhythm. 
Arousal was a pleasant ache, a languid river that lapped at 
my edges until I was wet and open.   

"Please," I said, and used both hands to guide his mouth down 
to mine, holding him in place for my lips and tongue.  He 
hummed with pleasure and I vibrated to my toes.

"Slow," he cautioned when we paused for breath.  "We have to 
go slow."

I signaled my agreement with another lingering kiss, and he 
opened my pajama top one-handed, the other hand still 
threaded in my hair.  As the last button slipped free, satin 
slithered to my sides and Mulder brushed warm fingers on my 
breast bone.  He dropped light kisses on my face while 
stroking long lines down to my belly button. 

"Oh!" I gasped when he found my nipple, his tongue soft as he 
licked it, fat and swollen in his mouth.  I touched his 
cheek, the littlest finger sliding down to graze his lips.  
He pulled me in with a wet moan, and my eyes slipped closed, 
my jaw open as he rubbed my fingertip and nipple in concert.

My hands restless, I stroked him everywhere I could reach -- 
the slippery skin of his ribcage, the sleek muscles under his 
shoulder blades, the slight peach fuzz at the small of his 
back.  Squirming downward, I teased my fingers there along 
the elastic waistband of his boxers, then slipped down inside 
to hold him stiff and curved in my palm.

"Oh, God."  He squeezed his eyes shut, his upper lip curled 
in concentration.  I closed my fingers around him, watching 
the pleasure play across his face as I stroked him root to 
tip.  Our previous encounters had been too frenzied for me to 
notice the fine arch of his neck, the sheen of his brow, the 
perfect "O" of his mouth.  

The front of his boxers grew damp, Mulder hot and hard in my 
hand.  He choked on a breath.  "Enough...enough.  I can't 
stand it."  I stopped my rhythm but kept my fingers pressed 
against him, tangled in his underwear.  He kissed me again, 
mouths open wide as his tongue slipped in for deep, soft 
licks.  I felt him tugging on the waistband of my pajama 
bottoms.

"Ever wonder," he breathed as he worked, "what it would've 
been like to have just this?  What would've happened if we'd 
met somewhere besides a dirty basement?"

I lifted my hips to oblige him.  "Like where?  On the street, 
or some social event?  Somehow I don't see it, Mulder.  You 
would have spent all your time chatting up the leggy brunette 
in the corner."

"Hmmm," he said, planting tiny kisses along my throat.  "You 
may have a point.  Then I guess we'll have to meet at the 
bar, when we both go for refills at the same time.  What are 
you having?"

I smiled into his shoulder, pleased at the warmth in his 
words and the certainty behind them.  This was one place I 
was willing to follow Mulder into fate.  "Ah..." I shivered 
as he stroked me through my cotton panties, my fingers biting 
into the strength of his upper arms.  "Um...kahlua and 
cream."

"Ah, there's my opening, then."  He slid my underwear down to 
my knees, and I wiggled until I could toe them off.  "I would 
want to know why a no-nonsense type woman such as yourself 
was drinking such a sissy drink."

"Very funny."  My eyelids fluttered closed, my lips parting 
as he slipped nimble fingers along my folds.  "I...uh, 
what...what are you wearing?"

"Huh?"

"At the bar," I said, licking my lips while trying to picture 
it.  "When you're hitting on me, what are you wearing?"

"Oh.  Why?"  He added a little more pressure to his caress.

I opened my eyes and smiled at him.  "Because I have to 
decide whether I should go back to Raoul from Puerto Rico or 
keep talking to you."

"I see.  Well, what would you say if I told you I was wearing 
jeans and a black tee shirt?"

I closed my eyes again as he added his thumb between my legs.  
"I would say, 'Don't knock it 'til you've tried it.'"

"Hmmm.  But what if I don't want the whole thing?  What if I 
just want..."  He leaned down and licked my ear. "...a 
taste."

"I think...that could be...arranged."  My mind spun fantasies 
of us necking like mad in a shadowed corner of the bar, 
mixing with the feel of Mulder's touch between my thighs.  I 
felt hot, needy -- the beginnings of a breathless spiral I 
recognized.  I hadn't expected to come, not with my aches and 
pains, but all of a sudden I was right on the edge.  
"Mulder."  

I reached for him, pulling him over me, needing him inside.  
He tugged off his boxers and climbed over me once more. My 
hips jerked with anticipation as his erection brushed the 
skin of my inner thighs.  He slipped over me several times 
before finally pressing inside.  We clutched each other, 
murmuring nonsense, as he slid the full length into me.

When he moved, I felt a pinch of pleasure deep inside and 
gasped as it melted white-hot between my legs.  "Close?" he 
breathed, the word fanning hot across my face.  I nodded and 
arched against him.  He shifted to ride higher against my 
body, giving me access to the salty skin of his neck.

The pressure of his penis sliding inside me and its slippery 
caress against my clitoris soon had me moaning into the curve 
of his shoulder.  I felt tight and lightheaded at the same 
time.  "Mulder," I blurted, surprised that it was happening 
so fast.  He kissed my temple as the orgasm began in earnest.  
I shook and panted for long moments while he pumped with my 
slowing rhythm.

After a few moments of dizzying recovery, I stroked my hands 
down the length of his back, cupping his ass and encouraging 
him to move again.  He moved to thrust hard and deep, holding 
me close as his breaths tickled my cheek.  When he went rigid 
in my arms, I moaned with him at the wracking pleasure.  We 
lay in a quivering tangle for several long minutes.

 "Scully," he said at last, sounding both dazed and reverent.  
"You okay?"

Actually, my head was throbbing in time with my heartbeat and 
there was pain shooting down my arm from my elbow.  "I'm 
fine," I said, meaning every note of it.  I hugged him tight.

A few minutes later, he rolled to his side, bringing me with 
him.  He smoothed the hair from my eyes and smiled.  "So 
who's this Raoul guy?"

"Nobody you have to worry about," I answered, snuggling 
closer.  His hand smoothed up and down my arm.  "Mulder..."

"Mmmm?"

I hesitated, toying with his fingers.  "I love that you're so 
sure about this...that you believe it was meant to be so much 
it would have happened no matter what the circumstances."

He shifted so he could see my face.  "Scully, whatever else 
I've doubted, whatever questions I might still have...none of 
it's to do with you.  You must know that."

"I do."  I held his face in my hands, rubbing my thumbs along 
his cheeks.  "But I can't be everything, Mulder."

He turned away, and for a moment I thought he might leave.  
But instead he lay down beside me again, tucking me into the 
warmth of his body.  

I slept.

XxXxX

The phone yanked us both awake with a jolt at seven-thirty.  
Mulder sat up, rubbing his eyes, as I fumbled for the 
receiver.

"Hello?"  Silence.  Mulder frowned and I tried again.  
"Hello?"

"Agent Scully?  It's Lee-Lee.  Lee-Lee Centara?"

"Of course.  What can I do for you?"  Mulder made a 
questioning gesture and I shrugged at him.

"Um, I need to talk to you about the fires," Lee-Lee said, 
sounding like she might bolt at any moment.  I climbed out of 
bed.

"I can meet you right now."

"No!  No, I can't.  Meet me later, behind the diner at 
eleven-thirty, okay?  That's my break."

"Eleven-thirty, got it."  I paused.  I could not quite 
believe she was my attacker, with her thin frame and 
demurring demeanor.  But still -- best to let her know she 
wouldn't be taking another whack at me, if that was what she 
had planned.  "Agent Mulder and I will see you there."

"Okay, but..."

"But?"

"Don't bring my brother," she said in a rush, then hung up 
the phone.

XxXxX

End chapter eight.  Continued in chapter nine. 



XxXxX

Chapter Nine

XxXxX

Mulder let me have the first shower that morning.  It was a 
small kindness given without thought, without the knowledge 
that it might later cost him his life.  He had some phone 
calls to make anyway, he'd said, his tone businesslike but 
his mouth soft from our kisses.  He wanted to call Tiburton 
High School to ask about Lee-Lee's behavior around the time 
of the murder.  Maybe if I had been there to hear the 
entirety of his conversation, I could have seen the terrible 
conclusion coming in time to stop it.  But it wasn't until 
later that we understood the importance of the information 
he'd received, and by that time it was too late.

So I left him in my room with the phone and stepped into the 
cold, claw-footed tub to wash the last traces of blood from 
my hair.  It was a slow process.  The pelting drops of the 
shower felt like a thousand tiny hammers pounding on the lump 
at the back of my head, and I sucked in painful breaths as I 
worked soapy fingers over my scalp.

When I returned to the room, my bruises washed clean with 
Ivory and masked by a fluffy white robe, Mulder was jotting 
some notes on one of my legal pads.  "Find anything?" I asked 
as I toweled the dripping ends of my hair.

He pushed the pad away from him and sat back in his chair, 
leaning precariously on two legs so that I could only 
concentrate half of my attention on his words; the other half 
was waiting for him to crack his head open on the hardwood 
floor.  "It's what I didn't find that's more interesting," he 
said at last.

"What's that?"

"Well, the Purcells would have us believe that Lee-Lee was a 
teenager on the edge, pushed to near madness by her uncle's 
sexual advances and then plunged over the edge when he was 
executed by her mother.  But I talked to a couple of teachers 
who knew her at that time and not one of them noticed any 
signs of trouble before Abe's death."

I sat on the bed.  "So she was good at keeping everything 
inside but snapped when her uncle was murdered."

Mulder shook his head.  "I've seen incest cases before, 
Scully, and if Lee-Lee was under the kind of stress everyone 
says she was, there would have been indications of that -- 
grades slipping, cutting school, withdrawing from friends and 
activities.  Signs that she was coming unglued."

"You're saying she wasn't abused."

"I'm saying the timeline is off," he corrected.  "Whatever 
caused Lee-Lee Centara's breakdown happened the night of the 
murder, not before.  Her teachers describe her as a good 
student, sociable if not popular, and eager to please.  
Everyone was stunned by what happened."

"Ted Bundy's neighbors were stunned, too, Mulder.  No one 
ever looks across the backyard fence and imagines a murderer 
on the other side."

He looked at me curiously.  "You think she's a murderer?"

"I think the evidence points to that conclusion, yes.  The 
fires started within days of her return to town, she had my 
phone number here and easy access to my whereabouts 
yesterday."

"True, all true," he said, nodding and leaning further back 
his chair.  He waited, watching me, and I knew he was 
anticipating the other half of my argument.  After four years 
together, he could hear the "but" coming before I even opened 
my mouth.  

I tossed the towel on the bed next to me and sighed.  "But 
it's the motive that's troubling me."

"Oh?" he said in an exaggerated tone that suggested it had 
been bothering him, too.  "How so?"

"If Lee-Lee is setting these fires to avenge her mother's 
conviction by murdering those involved, all the while 
attempting to bring to life a local ghost story...well, 
Mulder...she'd have to be crazy."

"Yes," Mulder said flatly, at last bringing all four of his 
chair legs back down on the floor.  I breathed out in relief.

"And she's not crazy," I said as I stood to find clothing for 
the day.  "I think she's lying to us.  I think she's scared, 
confused, and angry.  But I don't think she's crazy."

"Agreed.  But that seems to leave us with three options," he 
said, ticking them off on his fingers.  "One, we're wrong and 
Lee-Lee Centara is the most sane-appearing crazy person ever 
to walk the earth; two, she's got another motive we haven't 
uncovered yet; three, someone else is doing these murders and 
setting her up for the fall."

As it turned out, there was a fourth option, one so twisted 
and terrible we couldn't see it at that point.  It was 
lurking in Mulder's narrative as he relayed the rest of the 
information he'd obtained from the school -- Lee-Lee's brush 
with acting in the school play, Andy's multiple suspensions 
for fighting; Jeff's star quarterback status and full 
scholarship to Harvard.  All ruled by a domineering Carson 
Purcell who appeared to take glee in playing his children off 
one another.

But the pieces were still too scattered, and Mulder only 
relayed to me the details he thought were important.  He 
couldn't have known.  No one did.

Not Andy.

Not Jeff.

Not even Lee-Lee could have put everything together at that 
point.

But dead men do tell tales, if you stop long enough to 
listen, and Abe Centara's story wasn't finished yet.

XxXxX

It was overcast outside but the downstairs kitchen glowed 
with buttery warmth, the scent of coffee and blueberry 
pancakes wafting out into the hall.  I heard Kazdin's gruff 
voice and Cathleen's answering laugh coming from inside.  She 
was still smiling when I entered the room.

"Good morning," she said.  "How are you feeling?"

Kazdin turned in his heavy oak chair to look at me, and I 
touched the back of my head in a self-conscious gesture.  
"Better, thank you."  I watched as Cathleen leaned on one 
crutch and flipped two golden circles with her free hand.

"Pancakes?" she asked.

It wasn't my custom to eat a lot in the morning; large 
breakfasts left me feeling bloated and sluggish.  But my 
stomach rumbled around in my mid-section in answer to her 
question, and I remembered that I had skipped dinner the 
night before.  "Yes, thank you.  It smells wonderful."

"They are," Kazdin said, patting his stomach.  I saw he had a 
plate drizzled with maple syrup remnants in front of him.  He 
poured me a glass of orange juice from a crystal pitcher as I 
slid one of the chairs out from the table.  "Mulder, too?" he 
asked.

"He's still in the shower," I answered, and then stopped 
short, feeling my face grow warm at the intimate words.  Not 
a confession, exactly, but my easy reply was suggestive 
enough to make Kazdin grin.  Cathleen just gave me a gentle 
smile.

"We'll keep his pancakes in the oven, then."  She limped from 
the stove to hand me a plate stacked high with fluffy cakes, 
each dotted with a liberal amount of fat blueberries.  Kazdin 
received three more without even asking.

"Do you talk shop over food?" he asked around a mouthful, and 
I almost smiled.  

"I'm an M.E.," I reminded him.  "I have a strong stomach."

He grinned at me again and then looked at Cathleen, who had 
pulled up a chair at the table.  "You mind?"

She rolled her eyes.  "Have I ever?"

Satisfied, Kazdin wiped his hands and stretched a couple of 
folders across the table to me.  "Sorry to say we've turned 
up empty on the guy last night.  The lab boys weren't able to 
pull any prints from the bar, and the note on your windshield 
was clean as well.  As for the garage, it's so dirty that 
there isn't much hope for identifiable evidence there."

I looked through the meager reports and nodded.  I'd expected 
as much.  The folder underneath was thicker, yellowed and 
worn at the edges, and I glanced at Kazdin as I pulled it 
out.  "What's this?"

"That."  He frowned and shifted in his chair.  "That I pulled 
from Andy's personal cabinet early this morning.  If he finds 
out, it's my job.  Or worse."

I opened the folder and found old police reports, from back 
in the days when typewriters were the norm.  The date at the 
top read July 21, 1981, and it appeared to be the original 
paperwork on Abe Centara's death.  "Chief Purcell had these 
in his personal files?"

"Yes, Ma'am.  It's not standard procedure, that's for sure, 
but I guess I can see why he wanted to keep them private.  
Hard to maintain authority when the boys can rifle through 
your dirty laundry any time they want."

I started sorting through the pile myself.

Abe Centara was killed outside the Purcell family home at 
around nine p.m., shot once in the back of the head with a 45 
mm handgun registered to Carson Alan Purcell.  There were no 
witnesses to the shooting itself, but Jeffery and Andrew 
Purcell and Katherine and Lee-Lee Centara were all on the 
premises at the time.  Carson Purcell seemed to have arrived 
later, shortly before the police showed up. 

Included in the folder was a thin manila envelope, and I 
looked at Kazdin as I moved to open it.  He looked away.  
"What is it?" Cathleen asked, leaning toward me.  I let the 
contents spill into my palm.

Pictures.  Lots of them.  Lee-Lee Centara at fifteen, naked 
as the day she was born and posing legs-spread for the 
camera.  Beautiful and horrible frozen in the same shot.

"Oh my God," Cathleen murmured.  I flipped through the photos 
in rapid succession and then set the stack face down on the 
folder.  

"The pictures were in the house that night," Kazdin 
explained.  "Jeff and Andy found them and took them to 
Katherine.  Supposedly that's why she went nuts."

"Who went nuts?"  Mulder entered the room at that point, and 
Cathleen got up to get him breakfast.  He took the plate from 
her with a smile and pulled up a chair alongside me.  The 
hairs on the back of his neck were damp, and I could smell 
the sharp, clean scent of his shampoo.  "What's going on?" he 
asked, nodding at the pictures.  I handed them to him, and he 
looked them over as Kazdin filled in the details.

"The background there is from Abe's studio.  He was a 
professional photographer, which explains the high quality of 
the prints.  It's also how the family figured out he'd been 
messing with Lee-Lee."

"How did the photos get in the house?" Mulder asked.  "Did 
Lee-Lee have them?"

I consulted the reports in front of me.  "Apparently.  Jeff 
found them first, in an envelope in the family room, and he 
took them to Andy.  The boys decided to take the matter to 
their stepmother."

"Not their father," Mulder observed.  "Interesting."

"It says here that Katherine was furious when she found out 
and summoned Abe to the house, where neighbors say they had 
an impressive fight.  Around nine, as Abe was leaving, 
Katherine took the gun from Carson Purcell's study and shot 
him in the driveway."

"Gun powder residue on her hands?"

I scanned the pages and shook my head.  "No tests were run.  
She confessed shortly after the police arrived."

Mulder looked at the pictures again for a long, silent 
moment.  "No wonder they didn't want Lee-Lee on the stand.  
She looks like she's having the time of her life."

"Maybe that's the answer to her breakdown," I suggested.  
"Her mother shot her lover, and she just didn't know how to 
process that.  It could also explain her guilt over the 
murder."

"Could be," Mulder answered, sounding distracted.  He was 
studying one of the photos with interest.  "What do you think 
this is?" he asked me after a moment.

I squinted at the proffered image.  It was black and white 
and showed Lee-Lee spread out on a couch, the slopes and 
curves of her young body captured in a perfect "V" of light.  
I looked in the corner that Mulder had indicated, behind her 
head, and saw a rumpled piece of dark clothing draped over a 
chair.  There was a white blur at the edge of the cloth that 
I could not make out.  "I don't know," I said.  "Why?"

He shrugged.  "Could be nothing.  It's in a few of these 
shots, though.  I'd like to know what it is."

"I can probably have the guys at Ritz Camera Shop blow it up 
for you," Kazdin said, taking the photo.  "They do stuff for 
us all the time."  He glanced at his watch.  "Look, I've got 
to get going.  My shift starts in ten minutes, and if I'm not 
there Andy will kill me."

As Cathleen walked Kazdin to the door, Mulder picked up one 
of the photos left behind.  "Kill him," he murmured.  "Funny 
choice of words."

"What?"

"Well, call me crazy, but..." He handed me the picture and 
tapped the white blur.  "...I think that just might be an 
'A.'"

"'A' as in 'Abe,'" I pointed out.

He nodded. "Or as in Andy."

XxXxX

At eleven-thirty, Mulder and I stood behind Kit-n-Carl's 
Caf, next to the dumpster's stench of rotting melon rinds 
and coffee grounds, waiting for Lee-Lee Centara to make an 
appearance.  It was cold.  The wind from the ocean was damp 
and sharp, whipping past my coat to scrape along my bones.  I 
shifted from one foot to the other while Mulder chewed a 
sunflower seed he had unearthed in his pocket.  "She said 
*behind* the diner, right?" he asked as he spat out the 
shell.

"Yes, Mulder.  The blow to my head wasn't so hard that I 
can't remember a simple phone call."

"Hey, I was just..."

"Agent Scully!"  A voice hissed at us from behind a nearby 
shed, and I turned to see Lee-Lee peeking around the corner.  
She beckoned us toward her.  

Once we were hidden between the shed and a high wooden fence, 
she turned to face us, arms wrapped around her middle in her 
customary pose.  Her eyes flickered over my face, then away, 
and I knew she had checked out my bruises.  For my part, I 
had trouble looking at her thin frame and shapeless green 
sweater without seeing the seductive teenager pictured in 
Abe's photographs.

She cleared her throat, hugging herself tighter.  "Andy and 
Jeff don't know about this, right?"

"That's right," I said.  "It's just us.  What did you want to 
talk about?"

Lee-Lee scuffed her sneaker in the dirt.  "It's her," she 
said, her whisper swallowed by the wind.  "I...I didn't want 
to believe it at first.  I mean, how could it be, right?  
She's dead."  She broke off in a hysterical, disbelieving 
laugh.  "But then after Andy told me the names of the people 
who burned in the fires, we knew.  We knew it had to be her." 

"You're talking about your mother, about Katherine," Mulder 
said.

Lee-Lee nodded.  "The first place she burned was the old 
police station out on Sheffield Road; it took them all night 
to get the flames out, and Andy said they couldn't tell what 
caused it.  It was like the whole place just lit up all at 
once.  You should have seen Andy shaking when he told me.  I 
think he must have guessed it was her from the start."

"Ms. Centara," I said, "if those are your stepbrother's 
suspicions, he's never mentioned them to us."

"Of course he hasn't," she replied.  "Carson would probably 
have his badge if Andy ever opened his mouth on the subject.  
And Jeff, he hasn't written about it in the paper, either, 
but we all know it's true.  Stan Garber, Regina Tuttlesworth, 
Joe Bowman -- they were all involved in her trial and now 
they're all dead."

"Killed by your mother," I said, and Lee-Lee nodded, looking 
stricken.  I took a deep breath.  "Okay, let's suppose for a 
minute that she could come back from the dead.  Why set the 
fires and kill those involved in her trial?  It doesn't make 
sense.  She confessed to Abe's murder and the trial was fair.  
What is there to avenge?"

Lee-Lee hesitated.  "Andy said her lawyer did a bad job, that 
he should have gotten her off."

"That might explain Stanley Garber's death, but it doesn't 
account for the others."

"You don't understand," she whispered, shivering.  "You don't 
think it can happen, but I've seen it." 

"Seen Katherine?" Mulder asked intently.

Lee-Lee's tone was hushed, her expression caught between awe 
and horror.  "No, the other.  Elysian.  When I was seven, my 
mother took me at night to this place in the woods.  I 
remember clutching her hand so hard my knuckles hurt because 
it was dark and I couldn't see.  It seemed like we walked 
forever, and she wouldn't tell me where we were going.  She 
just smiled and started humming.

"When we came to a clearing I could see the moon.  I stared 
up at it as my mother gathered logs and piled them high 
inside a stone circle.  After a while, she added a match and 
sat with me on her lap while the logs began to burned.  The 
flames made my face hot, and the smoke watered my eyes.  I 
wanted to get up, but she held me tight and talked to me as 
the flames climbed higher into the sky.  That was the first 
time I heard the story of Elysian.

"Mom finished with the threat, about how Elysian would come 
back to burn everyone in the town, and just as she stopped 
the fire made this...kind of exploding noise.  I screamed 
because I thought it was reaching out to burn us.  But Mom 
yelled, 'Look, look!' and she was laughing, so I peeked out 
from my hands and saw her there in the fire."

"Elysian?" Mulder asked.

"Yes.  She had long, dark hair -- it was a mess hanging all 
the way to her waist -- and her skin was smudged with dirt 
and ashes.  Her dress was torn, and her hands were tied 
behind her back with rope."

I looked over at Mulder, whose cheeks were pink and eyes were 
bright with interest.  Remember the sketches, Mulder, I 
willed him silently.  These details of Elysian are straight 
from those drawings, right down to the rope around her hands.  
It's a fairytale, not evidence.

But Mulder did not seem to be receiving my frequency.  "What 
happened then?" he asked Lee-Lee.

"Nothing.  She just stood there, flickering in the flames, 
and then was gone."  Lee-Lee's gaze was fixed past me, her 
dark eyes shining as she relived the fire.  I glanced at 
Mulder and saw that he was looking, too.

"Ms. Centara," I said.  They both turned.  "Two days ago 
someone called my room and threatened me.  Last night, I was 
attacked in a parking garage after finding another threat 
tacked on my windshield.  I assure you that the force behind 
these acts is 100% human."

She curled her fingers into the cuffs of her sweater.  "Yes."

Mulder moved closer and touched her sleeve.  "Lee-Lee, do you 
know who is responsible?"

"N-no."

"I think you do," Mulder said softly.

She closed her eyes and shook her head.  "No. I don't know."

"But you suspect," I said, catching on to the vibe Mulder had 
sensed.  She glanced over her shoulder.

"It's my fault," she whispered.  "I'm the reason she killed 
him.  I should have testified, I should have told them she 
was..." She trailed off with a small sob, clasping her wool-
covered hand over her mouth.  "It might be Jeff."

"Jeff attacked Scully?"

Lee-Lee's shoulders sagged and tears filled her eyes.  "I 
don't know, I don't know anything.  But he's been kind of 
crazy since this started happening.  He, he..."

"He what?" Mulder pressed.

Lee-Lee gurgled a choked laugh, though her face was drawn 
with horror.  "He thinks he might be next."

"What the hell is going on here?"

Lee-Lee jumped as Andy Purcell appeared around the corner.  
Mulder ignored him, grabbing her elbow in a tight grip.  
"What do you mean, Lee-Lee?  Why does he think he might be 
next?"

She shook her head vaguely, her eyes on Purcell.  "I'm sorry, 
Andy," she whispered.  "They had to know.  They have a right 
to know what they're dealing with."

"Shut up!" he roared, yanking her from Mulder.  "Just shut 
up!"

"Hey!"  I moved toward them but Purcell held up his hand.

"I told you not to bother her."  He ground out each word from 
his gut.

"She contacted us," I replied, watching Lee-Lee's face.  She 
looked defeated but not in any pain, so I kept my distance.

"What the hell were you thinking?" he muttered near her ear.  
She winced.

"It's her, Andy.  You said it yourself."

"Shut. Up."  He glared from her to us.  "I believe my father 
already requested that you direct all further questions to 
our family attorney."

"She's free to speak with us any time she wants," I said.

"Yeah, well, she knows better now, don't you?"  He gave her a 
slight shake, and Lee-Lee nodded, her eyes filling with tears 
again.

"Sorry," she said, and I wasn't sure which one of us she was 
addressing.

"Are you going to be all right?" I asked, my eyes on 
Purcell's purple face.  She nodded.

"I have to get back to work."  She slipped from Andy's grasp 
and walked toward the edge of the shed.  "It's the truth, you 
know," she said, her back to us.  "Ian McNairney knew it, 
too."

Purcell scowled.  "Get on with you," he said.

"Who's Ian McNairney?" I asked.

"The prosecutor on Katherine's case," Mulder answered.  "He 
left town two months ago."

Lee-Lee turned, her fingers on the corner of the shed, her 
eyes wide and dark as she met our gazes once more.  "After 
Regina died," she said.  She looked toward Andy.  "He knew 
the truth."

And then she was gone.

XxXxX

Mulder and I tried all afternoon to find Jeffery Purcell, but 
he seemed to have disappeared.  So eight o'clock found us 
camped outside his apartment building, hoping he might show 
up there.  "What do you think Jeff meant by 'he might be 
next'?" Mulder asked.

"We don't know he did say it," I pointed out.  "It's only 
Lee-Lee's word, and for all we know, she has him marked next 
on her list of victims."

"Yeah, but suppose it's true.  Suppose he does think it's 
Katherine out to get him.  Why?"

I looked at him for a moment.  "You're asking me why, if 
Katherine came back from the dead, would she target her 
stepson along with the people who helped convict her?"

"Uh-huh."  He tossed a shell into the ashtray.

"Well, he did find the photos that put everything in motion.  
If he'd just kept quiet about the affair, none of this would 
have happened."

Mulder sat up in his seat.  "That's a good point, Scully.  I 
wondered earlier why Andy and Jeff took those photos to 
Katherine.  Why not confront Lee-Lee or Abe directly?  Why 
bring out the affair at all?"

"They thought she was being abused."

"Okay, so why not go to their father, who was on the police 
force at the time?"

"Maybe they thought Katherine would handle the matter more 
delicately."  Even as I said the words, I had to doubt them.  
Katherine Centara had had a fireball temper that landed her 
in trouble often.

"Maybe."  Mulder didn't sound convinced, either.  "Or maybe 
they wanted her to handle it just the way she did.  Maybe 
they wanted Abe dead."

He had no sooner said the words when a siren call wailed in 
the distance.  Fire.  Mulder rolled down his window and 
sniffed the air.  "It's close," he said, and I shivered.

Getting out of the car, we saw how close.

The smoke was coming from Jeff Purcell's home.

XxXxX

End Chapter Nine.  Continued in Chapter Ten


XxXxX

Chapter Ten

XxXxX

The front windows of Jeff's second story apartment glowed 
with flickering orange light as the first pumper truck 
shrieked to a stop next to our car.  Men in black coats with 
yellow reflective tape poured out of the fire truck, boots 
slapping against the pavement as they unfurled the hoses and 
began snaking them toward the house. "Looks like Jeff was 
right," Mulder said to me, his breath crystallizing in the 
frozen air.  "He was next."

"Anyone still inside?"  One of the firefighters paused, axe 
in hand, and I again scanned the clusters of onlookers for 
Jeff Purcell.  He had not been among the people who had 
stumbled from the old house a few minutes earlier, coughing 
and clutching their nightclothes.

"Could be Jeff Purcell," Mulder answered, pointing at the 
portion of the house lit in flames.  "That's his apartment, 
there."

"We might have a man inside!" the fireman hollered.  "Get the 
ladder!"

Kazdin arrived with the second truck, his cruiser sending 
spinning light through the craggy tree branches overhead.  
"Holy Jesus," he said as he joined us at the curb.  "Is 
Purcell in there?"

"Don't know yet," Mulder replied.  "But I'd be surprised if 
he was.  Scully and I have been sitting out here for three 
hours, and we didn't see any sign of activity in the house."

"No one in or out?" Kazdin asked.

"Someone could have entered through the rear," I conceded.  
"But no lights were turned on."

The firefighters attacked with fat plumes of water,  which 
slapped against the building like a summer rainstorm.  Stray 
drops pelted my face as the smoke choked air from the sky.  
The  wood warped and crackled; the flames bowed.  I imagined 
Jeff Purcell inside, black and rigid as his bones flaked away 
into ash.

"What the hell is this?" Andy Purcell demanded as he came 
puffing up the hill.  "I was on my way home when I heard on 
the radio that this place was on fire.  What's going on?  
Where the hell is Jeff?"

"We've been unable to determine that," Mulder said.  "But it 
doesn't seem like your brother was inside."

Kazdin peered past his boss down the road to Purcell's car.  
"You come from the stationhouse, Andy?"

"Yeah, there should be two black and whites rolling up any 
second now."  He glared at me and Mulder.  "You were here 
when this started and you didn't see anything?  What the hell 
are you good for, then?"

He stalked off muttering insults that would have spun J. 
Edgar Hoover in his grave, and a few seconds later we heard 
him trying to force his way into the smoldering apartment.  
As two of the firefighters held him off, a third stuck his 
head out of one of the windows and signaled the "all clear."  
Kazdin turned to us with a faintly horrified expression on 
his face.

"I wonder what happened to Jeff," he said, hesitating for a 
moment.  Then he shook his head. "You know, it's funny, but I 
could have sworn..."

We didn't get to find out what he thought because at that 
moment Lee-Lee came running up the street, screaming, "Jeff!  
Oh, my God, Jeff!"

"Easy, easy."  Mulder caught her by the shoulders as she 
tried to rush past.  


"I told you he was next!  I told you!"  

"It's all right," Mulder said, holding her tighter.  "Jeff 
wasn't in the house.  It's okay."

She sniffled, her face chalk white under the street light's 
glare.  "He's all right?"

"He wasn't in his apartment," Mulder repeated.  "But we're 
still having trouble finding him.  Do you know where he is?"

She shook her head in slow-motion, going limp in Mulder's 
grasp.  "No.  I haven't seen Jeff in two days."

She was swaying as though her knees might buckle at any 
moment, so Mulder walked her over to the curbside grass and 
sat down with her at the edge.  Kazdin wandered away toward 
the house, but I chose to sit at her other side, my coat 
tucked between me and the cold, wet ground.  Lee-Lee 
shuddered inside her sweater.

"You've got to find him," she whispered through thin, white 
fingers.  "Please, you've got to find him.  I don't think 
Andy is even looking."

"We'll find him," Mulder said, but she did not look 
convinced.  "You said this morning that Jeff thought this 
might happen, that he suspected he would be the next target."

She nodded.  "Yeah, that's what he told me a few days ago.  I 
think that must be why he left town."

"Lee-Lee," I said, trying for a reasonable tone, "you also 
said that you thought your mother's ghost was settings these 
fires.  Even if there were evidence to support that claim, 
it's hard to understand why Jeff would be a target."

Lee-Lee was silent.  She sucked her hands inside her sweater, 
chewing on the knit cuff.  "I...I don't know, either," she 
said finally.

"I think you do," Mulder replied, and she shook her head.

"No.  No, I don't remember."

I met Mulder's eyes as I realized she had just confirmed his 
statement; he didn't seem surprised. "Remember what?" I 
asked.

She fidgeted on the stone curb.  "The murder.  I remember Mom 
and Abe arguing.  Sometimes in my dreams I hear a gunshot.  
But mostly I just remember being outside afterward and seeing 
Abe on the ground."

"What else do you see in your dreams?"  Mulder asked, edging 
closer to her.

"Not much.  Abe and my mother, yelling when I was in my room.  
I hear sirens and see the blood on the driveway.  And 
footsteps.  There are footsteps in the sky that aren't really 
there."  She ducked her head.  "I know that sounds stupid, 
but that's the only way I can explain it."

"You were outside after the murder," I said.  "Did you see 
anything then?  Was Jeff there?"

"I saw Abe," she whispered.  "He was dead.  That's all I 
remember.  I was pretty out of it at the time."  She folded 
her limbs inward like a card table, her chin buried in her 
knees.  

"Could Andy or Jeff have seen the murder?" I asked after a 
moment.

She unscrunched herself long enough to consider the question.  
"I don't know..." she replied slowly.  "We were all in our 
rooms at the time.  Andy and I were next door to each other 
on the second floor, in the front.  I doubt he could have 
seen anything, since I couldn't.  But Jeff...he had the attic 
apartment because he was the oldest.  He could have seen the 
driveway, I guess."  She looked from me to Mulder, her eyes 
huge and dark.  "Do you think that's it?  That's why he's 
next?"

But before we could answer, Kazdin reappeared, looking grim.  
"I think you should come see this."

We followed him up to the house, where firefighters and 
uniformed cops were milling around in equal measure.  Even in 
the dim light I could see the black scorch marks on the side 
of the old white house.  Jeff Purcell's neighbors in the 
building stood around in their nightclothes, looking dismayed 
as they took in the damage to their home.  

"We got it early enough this time that the roof didn't cave 
in," Kazdin said as we squished our way through the water-
logged glass.  "I'm afraid I owe you folks an apology for 
ever dragging you into this mess."

"What do you mean?" Mulder asked at the front door.

Kazdin gestured up the staircase.  "Come see for yourself."

Upstairs, Jeff Pucell's apartment reeked of charred wood and 
melted plastic.  The floorboards were soaked beneath our 
feet, and the walls glistened under the sweep of our 
flashlights.  Drops from the ceiling rained on my neck, and I 
shivered.  "The fire started in here," Kazdin said, leading 
us to the bedroom.  "Careful where you walk.  See these black 
marks on the wall?"

We inspected the V-shaped pattern branded on the far wall of 
Jeff's bedroom.  "It seems to come to a point here at the 
bottom," Mulder observed, stooping to run his hands over the 
peeling, blistering paint.

"Yeah, there's one here, and another over on that wall 
there," Kazdin answered as he shifted his flashlight beam to 
indicate the other scorch marks.  "The fire started at those 
two points worked its way out.  The blisters and scoring on 
the wall there is called 'alligatoring,' and it usually means 
there was an accelerant used to give the fire some gas, so to 
speak.  Whoever set this thing wanted it to burn hard and 
fast."

"You're saying it was man-made," I said.  Mulder stood up and 
wiped his hands on his overcoat.  I waited for him to object, 
to put some paranormal spin on this latest evidence, but he 
merely walked over and peered out the side windows.  A man 
who no longer believed in impossible things.

"'Fraid so," Kazin replied, sounding rueful.  "I've never 
heard of witches using chemicals to start a fire.  Plus, 
there's this."  He walked us around to the back, where we 
navigated through puddles on the linoleum to see that someone 
had jimmied Purcell's kitchen door open.  "They must have 
climbed up the fire escape," Kazdin said.  "Can't imagine a 
witch doing that, either."

"Well someone wanted us to imagine it," Mulder said.

"Yeah, well the question is who," Kazdin groused, toeing a 
nearby puddle.

"No," Mulder replied.  "The first question is why."


XxXxX


Later, as Cathleen fed us warm butter pecan cookies and 
ginger tea in her kitchen, she had the same question.  "Why 
would anyone want to frame a dead woman for murder?"

"It's not about the dead, it's about the living," Mulder 
answered before stuffing an entire cookie into his mouth.  
"Someone wants Lee-Lee and her brothers to think that 
Katherine Centara is back for blood."

"So then maybe the purpose of burning Jeff Purcell's 
apartment this evening was to cement his belief that he would 
be the next victim," I suggested.

Mulder looked thoughtful.  "Convince him or us," he agreed.  
"One thing is for sure -- tonight's fire was very different 
from the previous ones.   Jeff's role in this whole situation 
is still unclear; he didn't even testify at Katherine's 
trial.  I think it's revealing that he wasn't in the 
apartment tonight."

"You think he left town because he was scared?" Cathleen 
asked, sipping her tea. 

"Could be," Mulder answered in a neutral tone, but I 
understood the real possibility in his words.  Arsonists, we 
both knew, often gave themselves away by removing the 
valuables from the property they were about to burn.   
Photos, heirlooms and loved ones had a suspicious way of 
escaping the flames.  Jeff's escape seemed particularly 
suspicious.

"The person setting the fire tonight would have known Jeff 
was not at home," I explained.  "Therefore, murder can't have 
been the motive."

"Right," Mulder said.  "Either the person knew ahead of time 
that Jeff wasn't home..." 

"...or it was Jeff himself," Cathleen breathed in sudden 
understanding.  "My God."

I set down my empty cup.  "Lee-Lee's right -- either way, 
we've got to find him fast."

"First thing in the morning," Mulder agreed.  "Which is in 
about six hours, so I think I'm going to head upstairs now."  
He thanked Cathleen for the tea and stood to leave, looking 
faintly concerned when I did not move to follow.

"I'll be up in a minute," I told him, feeling every one of my 
leftover aches and pains.  I was exhausted, but Cathleen 
looked equally tired, and I didn't want to burden her more 
than we already had.  I offered to help clear away the 
dishes.    

After we had rinsed and dried, Cathleen leaned against the 
counter.  "It's just so hard to even contemplate," she said.  
"Jeff was the golden boy at our school, you know?  Smart, 
handsome, star football player and Harvard-bound brain.  All 
the girls I knew wanted him desperately."

This description did not fit the angry, desperate man I had 
seen in Carson Purcell's office, and I wondered briefly what 
had happened to Todd Pierce, the boy wonder from my high 
school years.  How sad it would be to have your life peak at 
age eighteen.

"We don't know yet that he's guilty of anything," I reminded 
Cathleen.  

She looked away, tossing the dishrag down on the countertop.  
"Well, if he is guilty, I hope you catch him and put him away 
for what he did to those poor people.  Regina had two kids, 
you know."

"We'll do our best," I promised, but she still looked sad.  I 
took a step closer, hesitating a moment.  "Did they ever 
catch the person who hit you?" I asked softly.

"What?"  She jerked her head to look at me.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have pried..."

"No," she said, her voice less sharp.  "I just...there is no 
someone.  I'm the someone."

"Oh."  It was a stupid, awkward thing to say, but I couldn't 
manage anything else.  

"I was at a wedding," she explained.  "There was champagne, 
lots of it, but I thought I was still okay to drive.  It was 
dark...I didn't know the road.  The usual story."

"I'm sorry." 

"No," she said with sudden fierceness.  "Don't be sorry for 
me.  I nearly took out a car full of teenagers.  It was just 
sheer dumb luck that I hit the tree instead."  She pushed 
away from the counter and walked to the window.  I could hear 
the rain had started again.  "You know the amazing part?" she 
continued after a moment.

I watched the stiff set of her back, the slight tremble in 
her arms.  "No, what?"

"The judge let me off," she said.  "Can you believe that?  I 
nearly kill four people, and he doesn't even give me a slap 
on the wrist."

"Maybe he thought you'd been punished enough," I murmured, 
and she turned around.

"You mean this?" she asked, holding her crutches out in front 
of her.  "This is nothing.  You should have seen my mother's 
disappointment.  You should have seen the look on John's face 
when he came to the hospital."

I remembered him, white-faced and chain-smoking outside of 
the hospital the other evening.  "I don't about that," I told 
her after a moment.  "All I know is how he looks at you now."

Her lips twitched as if she were holding back tears, her eyes 
on the carved oak table that gleamed in the center of the 
room.  "He made that for me," she murmured.  "I used to bring 
him coffee while he worked and tease him about how long it 
was taking.  He said I wouldn't laugh when it was done, 
because he was making it strong enough to last forever."

"An admirable goal," I said.

"Yes," she sighed, "but an impossible one."

I had no more words of comfort.  My head throbbed and my 
fingertips felt ready to fall off from fatigue, so I said 
goodnight, leaving her alone with her reflection in the table 
of impossibility.

XxXxX

On my way back from the bathroom, I saw that Mulder had left 
his bedroom door partway open in invitation.  Soft light 
spilled into the hallway, grazing my toes as I stood deciding 
what to do.  I peeked in and saw him sitting up in bed, hair 
mussed and glasses on as he pored over a file.  My decision 
was made.

"Hey," I said, pushing the door wide as I entered.  He smiled 
and put aside the folder.

"Hey, how's your head doing?"

I sat on the bed.  "It's fine.  What were you reading?"

"More notes on Abe's murder.  I'd like to check out the old 
Purcell family home tomorrow."

"Oh?"

"Yeah.  Pull up a pillow."

I pulled my feet up and eased back against the fluffy down, 
conscious of the lump on the back of my head.  The sheets 
fluttered over my legs as Mulder shared his covers.  I 
couldn't see him, and it took me a minute to realize that 
this was because my eyes were closed.  I blinked.  "You want 
to see the house?"

"Yes, to get the layout of where everyone was at the time of 
the shooting.  But we can talk about that in the morning."

"Hmmm...okay."  He disappeared again, but this time it was 
because he shut off the bedside lamp.  As he twisted to get 
comfortable, I thought about what Cathleen had told me and 
how easily I had made the wrong assumption about her 
accident.  I had a nagging feeling that I had made the same 
mistake with Lee-Lee and her family, that there were truths I 
couldn't see because I'd been too busy inventing them myself.

Abe's death.  The trial.  The fires and the lies.  Lee-Lee's 
mysterious dreams, and now Jeff's disappearance.   "There has 
to be one true thing," I murmured to Mulder as he gathered me 
close.  "A place to start."  I tucked my nose in his warm 
shoulder, already half asleep.

I felt his hands on my back, his lips in my hair; I heard him 
whisper, "This is."

XxXxX 

In the morning, I decided to make a list of the things I 
could be sure were true about the case while Mulder visited 
the old Purcell house and tried to track down the photos of 
Lee-Lee that he'd had enlarged.  My list was pathetic in its 
brevity: 

1. Abraham Centara was shot to death in the driveway of the 
Purcell family home the night of November 11, 1981.

2. Present at scene were Katherine and Lee-Lee Centara, Jeff 
and Andy Purcell.

3. Katherine confessed to the shooting.

I stared at number three for a long minute; here was my first 
major assumption, that Katherine had shot Abe.  But there was 
nothing more than her word on that, since no parafin tests 
had been run on her hands.  I considered the possibility that 
she had lied in her confession.  To protect Lee-Lee or her 
stepsons?  Lee-Lee seemed the more likely bet.

Around noon, my phone rang and it was Mulder on the other 
end.  "Scully, I'm on my way over to get you," he said.  "I 
think I've solved the invisible footsteps problem, and I know 
who killed Abe Centara."

"What?" I said, my notes sliding from my lap.  "Who?"

"Five minutes, okay?  I'm at Cedar and Main right now.  I've 
got the enlarged photos but I want you to seem them for 
yourself."

"Mulder."

"Five minutes," he repeated, clicking off.

I snapped the phone shut and swallowed a curse.  After all 
these years, Mulder still took a perverse delight in making 
me guess.  And, as always, I played along.

So five minutes later, I was waiting on the front porch for 
Mulder, ready to go three rounds.  Thirty minutes later, I 
realized with a sinking feeling that our game had a new, 
unwelcome player.

Mulder never arrived.

XxXxX

End Chapter Ten.  Continued in Chapter Eleven.

XxXxX

Chapter Eleven

XxXxX


I found Mulder's car at the bottom of an embankment on Gull 
Road, its rear end crushed and its tires to the sky.  The 
driver's side door flapped in the strong wind, giving me a 
full view of the marshmallow air bags pressed into every open 
corner.  Mulder was gone.

I picked my way down through the mud and bramble to the 
wreck.  Crouching low, I found a smear of blood on the inside 
of the door and flattened grass that suggested Mulder been 
dragged free from the car.  There were tracks leading all the 
way back up to the road.

Close inspection of the dents in Mulder's car revealed 
streaks of a darker paint, perhaps black to Mulder's navy.  I 
fingered the cold metal ridges where he'd been hit as I 
worked my way around to the back.  His fender was dislocated, 
hanging low and scraping the sodden grass. The trunk was 
crumpled up like a paper fan.  More black paint striped the 
surface, and I counted least three different points of 
impact.

We had run out of warnings.  No note, no phone call.  Just a 
silent, twisted heap of metal.

The sounds in my head were ghostly in the whistling wind -- 
screeching tires, shattered glass, the grinding of the cars 
as the other driver sent Mulder over the edge -- but none of 
this would help me figure out who took him and why.

Why.  Mulder had said this was the first question to ask.

Why would someone run him off the road?

To stop him from getting wherever he was going.

He was going to me.  With the pictures.

"The pictures," I said, rushing back to the front of the car.  
I bent down by the open door, wrestling the swollen air bag 
with one hand as I felt around on the roof for fallen 
pictures.  I tried both sides but came up empty.  Swallowing 
a curse, I began combing the nearby marsh grasses for 
anything that might have been thrown free in the crash.  The 
ground squished beneath my feet.

"Dammit, Mulder."  His guessing game with the photos was 
costing both of us precious minutes.  I found his left glove 
and a torn street map in a tangle of underbrush, but there 
was no sign of the photographs he had mentioned.  I was about 
to abandon my search when the reeds rang, sending a small 
flock of birds fluttering into the sky.

I fished Mulder's phone out from the mud.  "Hello."

"Agent Scully?"  Detective Kazdin sounded confused.  "Did I 
get the right number?"

"This is Agent Mulder's phone," I explained.  "Someone ran 
his car off of Gull Road, and now he's missing."

"What?  When?"

"About an hour ago, I would guess.  When I last spoke with 
him he was on his way to show me the enlarged photos of Lee-
Lee Centara.  Whoever attacked Mulder must have also taken 
the pictures; I can't find them anywhere."

"Speaking of finding, we've had no luck turning up Jeff 
Purcell.  And no one has seen Andy yet today, either.  He 
didn't show up for work, and he's not answering his home 
phone.  I was just calling to see if you or Agent Mulder had 
heard from him."

"No, I haven't.  But with both brothers missing, it might be 
a good idea to pick up Lee-Lee."

"I'll send someone right over," Kazdin agreed.  "And I think 
I'll also take drive out to Andy's place...see what's up.  
You need a hand down there with the crash?"

Crash.  Just the word made my stomach churn.  I took a deep 
breath and tried not to throw up.

"Someone should search it more carefully, yes.  I'm going to 
see if the photo shop has copies of the pictures they 
enlarged for Mulder.  Maybe then we'll have some idea who the 
other driver was."

And where Mulder is, I added silently.

"Keep in touch, okay?" Kazdin said.  "I'll do the same."

We hung up, and I walked around the skeleton of the car once 
more, noting the teardrops of blood that ran down the side.  
"Hang on, Mulder," I whispered.  "I'm coming."  Then I 
followed Mulder's tire tracks out of brush, ready to walk 
backwards in his footsteps to the place where he met the 
killer.  I prayed I could get there in time.

XxXxX

"What, again?"  At the EZ Photo Shop, the man behind the 
counter scratched the tufts of gray hair on top of his head.  
"First Andy comes to pick up the originals, and then I just 
printed copies for an Agent Mulder from the FBI.  Don't you 
folks ever talk to each other?"

"Chief Purcell picked up the photos?" I asked.  "When?"

"This morning, about ten-thirty.  Agent Mulder came in about 
twenty minutes later asking for the same thing.  Of course I 
still had the scans in the computer, so I printed him out a 
copy."

"I would also like copies, please.  Quickly."

He lifted his eyebrows at me but moved to the computer 
workstation in the rear.  "Blowing up naked photos of a young 
girl like that," he muttered.  "It isn't right, dragging 
everything up again after all these years."

"Three people are dead," I said, hoping to encourage some 
speed.  "And Agent Mulder is missing because of those photos.  
Now I'd like to know what's in them."

The man halted his puttering with the mouse.  "Missing?  He 
was here not two hours ago.  How far could he have gone?"

"The enlargements, please."  Behind him, the red second hand 
was sweeping minutes off on the clock.  The man shrugged, and 
I paced in front of the counter while the printer hummed its 
work.

"Not much to see," he said as he handed me copies of two 
photos.  "Certainly nothing worth killing over."

I scanned the prints and had to agree with his first 
statement.  Any hope I'd had of an instant answer was crushed 
by the photos before me.  The smudge in the corner that 
Mulder had pointed out was not an "A" but a "4."  That was 
it?  That was his big clue?

"Four what?" I asked aloud, annoyed and afraid by my 
inability to decipher the hidden meaning.  Mulder had been 
gone for over two hours now.  The man craned his neck over 
the counter to squint at the photo with me.

"Looks like a letter jacket," he said.  "You know -- the kind 
the high school kids wear."

Just then, my phone rang, and I fumbled with my left hand to 
answer it.  "Scully."

"Agent Scully, it's John Kazdin.  I'm at Andy Purcell's place 
and I think you ought to come out here straight away."

"What is it?"

"I don't think I ought to say on an open line.  How soon can 
you be here?"

I checked my watch.  "Give me ten minutes."

"Fine.  Did you get the pictures?"

"I have them now," I replied, ringing the bell on the door as 
I left.  "Does the number four mean anything to you in terms 
of a letter jacket?"

"No."

"Andy or Jeff didn't play sports in high school?"

His voice crackled as I started the engine.  "Oh, 
yeah...yeah.  Jeff was our star QB for three years.  There 
was talk of him going pro."

"Uh-huh."  I had the car going sixty miles per hour in under 
ten seconds.  "You remember his number?"

"Sure.  He was forty-two."

I pushed the needle up to eighty.

XxXxX

Kazdin was sitting hunched on the hood of his police cruiser, 
waiting for me.  "Any word on Mulder?" he called as I pulled 
to a stop next to him on the muddy driveway.

"Nothing.  What have you got?"

He slid down and dusted his hands on the back of his jeans.  
"Well, I didn't want to say anything last night, not until I 
was sure."

"About?"

"When Andy showed up at the fire at Jeff's place last night, 
he said he'd heard the call go out on the radio.  But I 
checked -- his car radio was broken last week and is in for 
repairs.  I saw the yellow slip myself.  And then I cam out 
here and found this."

I followed him around back to a weather-beaten old shed.  The 
door stuck until Kazdin threw his full weight against it, and 
the scent of rotting wood and gasoline wafted out to us.  
Kazdin threaded his way through the yard tools into the 
darkness.  I followed, but metal clawed rakes caught my hair 
as I tried to find a square foot of space.  "What is it?" I 
asked, squinting to where Kazdin fumbled in the back.

"This," he said, hoisting up an industrial-sized container 
full of clear liquid.  There must have been at least twenty 
gallons.  "And there's two more back here just like it," 
Kazdin added.  

I ducked past a hoe and a weed-whacker to join him behind the 
Ride-a-Mower.  "Accelerant?" I asked, removing the cap as he 
held the jug in place.

"That's my guess," he answered grimly.  "Check out the gadget 
in the corner, there."

I followed his gaze over my shoulder to a large metal object 
that looks like a cross between a blow torch and the 
Supersoaker water guns my nephews loved.  "A flame thrower," 
I guessed, and Kazdin nodded.

"I think it might be him," he murmured after a moment. "God 
damn."

I sniffed the opening of the jar and could detect only a 
faint sweet scent.  "It's essentially odorless, probably an 
adulterated alcohol," I said.  "No wonder it's been hard to 
trace."

"Why?  I just don't get it.  Why would Andy set those fires 
and kill those people?"

"I don't know that yet," I replied.  "But I have one more 
piece of the puzzle.  The photographs that Mulder had 
enlarged show a letterjacket in the room with Lee-Lee.  It 
has the number '4' on the sleeve."

"Jeff," Kazdin said immediately.  "He was the one sleeping 
with her, not Abe."

"That's what I'm guessing," I said.  "But with both brothers 
missing, there is only one way to know for sure.  The same 
person who might know where they are -- Lee-Lee Centara."

Mulder had been right about that, too.  In the end, it all 
came back to Lee-Lee.

"I sent Ken Bailey over to pick her up at the diner," Kazdin 
said.  "I have to stay here until the evidence boys can bag 
this stuff up, but you're welcome to check her out down at 
the station.  I'll meet you back there in a bit, okay?"

"Fine."  I wove my way around the yard tools and back out 
into the wind.  I didn't tell him that I had no plans to 
interrogate Lee-Lee Centara in a stationhouse closet.   She 
had taken the first step in returning to Tiburton, but I was 
prepared to take her all the way.

Back sixteen years, to the scene of the crime, to the night 
someone had become a murderer.

XxXxX

End chapter eleven.  Continued in chapter twelve.

XxXxX

Chapter Twelve

XxXxX

Lee-Lee sighed.  "I really don't think this will solve 
anything.  I've already told you everything I remember."

I glanced at her, slumped in her seat and pressed against the 
car door, and realized I'd been wrong in my thinking.  I 
wasn't pulling her back; I was trying to join her in a place 
she had never really left.  Thirty-one years old, and her 
body language, her thinking, and her speech all belonged to a 
teenage girl.  She traced invisible lines on the window pane 
as I extracted the photo enlargements from my pocket.

I tossed them on the dashboard in front of her.  "What's 
this?" she asked, sitting up.

"You tell me," I said.  "They were in your home the night Abe 
was murdered.  That's his studio, isn't it?"

She nodded almost imperceptibly.  "I didn't think anyone 
would ever see these," she whispered, curling them in her 
hands.

"Except you and Jeff."

"Yes.  We swore never to tell anyone."  

"But..."

She bit her lip.  "Abe found out.  We borrowed his studio one 
afternoon to take the pictures -- just for fun, you know? -- 
but then we forgot to take the negatives with us.  Abe sent 
Jeff the photos and said we'd better stop seeing each other, 
cause we were family."  She looked sharply at me. "But we're 
not really.  We're not related by blood."

"Go on," I said as I pulled the car into the driveway of the 
old Purcell home.  We were inches from the place where Abe 
had died.

Lee-Lee shuddered.  "I...it's too horrible."

"What happened that night?  Did Abe come over to confront 
you?"

"No no no."  She covered her eyes with her hands, moaning 
softly.  "Mama called him over after Jeff showed her the 
pictures.  He had this plan to blame Abe and told her it was 
Abe who was messing around with me.  Abe tried to explain to 
her, you know, tell her it was Jeff all along.  But she 
wasn't listening.  They...they were screaming so much the 
house was shaking."

"And after that?"

"I don't know.  It's like I said before, I don't remember 
anything until after he was dead.  Oh, God.  She killed him 
because of me."

I almost stopped right there.  The story was disgusting and 
sad and just twisted enough to be true, but I heard Mulder's 
voice inside my head, arguing his role in absentia.  

*There's got to be more, Scully.  As horrible as her story 
is, there's something even more terrible in those missing 
minutes.  What happened in between the fighting and the 
gunshot?*

"Get out," I said, opening my car door.

She looked over at me through her tears.  "Wh--what?"

"I want you to take me through that night, step by step.  I 
need to know exactly what happened."

"Shouldn't you be looking for your partner?" she asked as she 
stood up on wobbly legs.  Her hands still clenched the 
photos.  "Shouldn't we be looking for Andy and Jeff?"

"My partner is missing because of what's in those photos," I 
said, "and because of what he knew about your uncle's murder.  
Whatever that is, I think you know it, too."

"No. No, I told you--"

"Andy is the one who has been setting the fires."

"What?"  She opened and closed her mouth three times in rapid 
succession.  "No, no that can't be.  Andy wouldn't do such a 
thing."

"Detective Kazdin and I found odorless accelerant and a flame 
thrower at his house," I said.

"You're lying.  Andy's a good person.  He...he looks out for 
this town, he took care of me when I was sick.  He would 
*never* have set those fires, never!  Someone must have 
planted that stuff at Andy's place."

"Who?" I asked gently.

"I don't know," she said, sticking out her chin.  "I just 
know you're wrong about Andy.  He's been nothing but good to 
me all those years in the hospital, and watching over me when 
I got out.  Besides, what motive could he have for setting 
the fires?"

"I don't know.  That's what we're here to try to find out.  
When we figure out why, maybe we can figure out where he 
went."

"You think he's with your partner, is that it?" she asked as 
we climbed the shallow stone stairs.  "You think he might 
have been the one to run him off the road?"

Visions of Mulder's mangled car flashed through my head, 
crushed metal and blood streaks.  "I think he might have 
been, yes."  I pulled out my lock pick and went to work on 
the Purcell's heavy wooden door.  The lengthening shadows 
made it difficult to see, and anxiety played hell with my 
timing.  It took me three tries, but at last the lock clicked 
free.

"No, I can't," Lee-Lee said when I swung the door open.  She 
hung back on the porch, her hands balled into fists at her 
side.  "I won't go back in there."

I pulled out my flashlight and cast its beam into the dust-
covered hallway.  The real estate records had indicated no 
one had been inside since the month Abe had died, sixteen 
years earlier.  Incest and murder did not make for a winning 
sales campaign.  I turned back to Lee-Lee. "You said no one 
wanted the murderer caught more than you.  This is your 
chance to make that happen."

She gave me a ferocious glare.  "It's not Andy!"

"Then you don't have anything to worry about, do you?"  I 
held the door open wide.

After another moment of hesitation, she stepped over the 
threshold.  I followed her into the narrow hallway, and the 
wind slammed the door shut behind us, causing the walls to 
shudder from floor to ceiling.  

"It's so cold," Lee-Lee whispered.  "I don't remember it 
being this cold."  

"It hasn't been heated in years," I reminded her, but she 
wasn't listening.  She melded into the darkness ahead of me.  

The air smelled stale, a mixture of dust, tarnished wood, and 
mildewed draperies.  Mice scuttled away from my ray of light 
as we moved deeper into house.  "What is the last thing you 
can remember from that night?" I asked.

Her voice floated back to me.  "I was in my room."

"Where is that?"

"Upstairs," she said, squinting as I pinned her with the 
flashlight beam.

"Then let's start there."

The house was full of twists and turns, low arches and narrow 
passages.  Stray pieces of furniture remained scattered 
throughout the rooms, ready to snag a sleeve or trip a foot 
in the dark.  I cast the light in front of Lee-Lee as we felt 
our way to the back stairs.  "These would have led to the 
servants' quarters in old times," she whispered.  "I wasn't 
surprised that Carson stuck me in the maid's room."

The railing had the smooth feel of wood worn down by human 
touch, and I kept one hand on it as I followed her up the 
steep, winding stairs.  They creaked under our weight, a 
rippling protest that gave the illusion of another person 
behind us, but my light turned up only cobwebs.

Lee-Lee balked at the door to her old room until I pushed 
past her over the threshold.  She inched her way to the 
center and froze, while I explored the perimeter.  Stripped 
nearly bare, it contained only a battered pink chair and some 
ragged posters that had fluttered to the ground years before.   
Sean Cassidy's perfect smile was coated in grime, and the 
garish faces of KISS curled up at the ends.  The daisy 
dropped wallpaper was peeling from one corner.  

"What is the last thing you remember from this room?" I 
asked, as I peered out the window into the shadowed yard 
below.

"I...I was playing records," she said, "and trying not to 
hear then fighting downstairs."

"And did you hear them?"

She nodded, her gaze on the floor.  "Mom was telling Abe she 
didn't ever want him coming around here again."

"Then what?"

"Then all of a sudden they stopped.  I was glad it was over."  
Tears had begun rolling down her face, and she swiped them 
away wither her fingers.  "I was lying on my bed, wondering 
if maybe I should tell Mom the truth -- that Abe hadn't taken 
those pictures -- when I heard the gun go off."

"And?"

"That's it," she sniffed, drawing in a shaky breath.  "That's 
all I remember until I was outside."

"Try harder.  You heard the gunshot and went outside.  How 
did you get there?"

She looked over at me, startled.  "I...I don't know.  The 
same way we came up, I suppose.  The back staircase."

"All right, then let's go that way."

We crept down the dark stairs, which again creaked around us 
like ghostly footsteps.  "Invisible footsteps," I whispered, 
and Lee-Lee came to a halt in front of me.  She pulled her 
hand from the banister as if burned, staring at it in the 
sharp, angled light.  "What is it?" I asked.

"I got a splinter," she said.  "That night, I was running so 
fast I tripped.  I caught the railing on my way down and got 
a splinter."

"What about the footsteps?" I asked.

She shook her head, seeming confused.  "I don't know, I don't 
know.  They were supposed to be but weren't.  I can't explain 
it."

"Okay, just keep going."  I was frustrated now.  I was ninty-
nine percent sure that Andy had Mulder -- maybe Jeff, too -- 
and digging around in the past was not getting me any closer 
to finding them.

Outside, the wind jerked tree branches around like puppets on 
a string.  Lee-Lee staggered through the swirling leaves 
toward the driveway, barely aware of me any more.  I kept my 
flashlight trained on her back like a bullseye so as not to 
lose her in the night.

"I...I came out here, and Abe was lying on the ground with 
blood coming from his head.  I walked over to him..."

She took a few steps closer to the pavement.  "I saw...I saw 
a gun!"

"Where was the gun?"

"Next to Abe.  And..."  She stopped, shook her head.  "No, 
no, it's not right."

"What isn't right?"

"Jeff is here.  He's standing by that tree.  Now Mom, now 
Andy...Oh, God."  She broke off with a low moan.  "No, no.  
God, please no."

I reached her just as she sank to the ground, rocking back 
and forth with her head in heads.  "What is it?  What did you 
see?"

"Jeff," she said brokenly.  "Jeff was here, but there were no 
footsteps.  Oh, God."

I wasn't following.  "Footsteps on the driveway?"

"No, in the house.  His room was in the attic.  I would have 
heard him on the stairs, after the shot.  He would have been 
coming down right with me."

"Unless he was already here," I finished for her.

"Ohgodohgod," she said, still rocking.  "He killed him, 
didn't he?  All those years I thought it was Mom.  Oh, God.  
Jeff, why?"

I didn't have a concrete answer to that, but I suspected it 
had something to do with Abe's laying down the law about Jeff 
and Lee-Lee's affair.  The Harvard-bound favorite son may not 
have wanted his future tarnished by threats of exposure.  
"Listen," I said, grabbing Lee-Lee by the arm to get her 
attention, "what about Andy?  Could he have known that Jeff 
killed Abe?"

She sniffled.  "I don't think so.  I didn't even know it -- 
not really, anyway -- until now.  Andy's always been real 
protective of the family, you know?  Especially me.  Jeff and 
I were extra careful to make sure he didn't find out about 
us."

I thought of the pictures that Andy had picked up this 
morning that revealed the true identity of Lee-Lee's lover.  
"What if he did find out?" I asked.  "What then?"

"I'd kill him."

We jumped and turned.  Andy Purcell loomed over us in 
silhouette, a gun in hand.  Lee-Lee frowned.  "Andy, 
what...?"

"Stand up," he ordered.  "And shut your lying face."

"Andy, please," she said as we stood.  "Don't do this."

"Shut up!"  He aimed the gun at her chest.  "You were fucking 
him the whole time!  I did everything for you, and you were 
screwing him behind my back."

"No, Andy, I swear it was over a long time ago..."

"SHUT UP!" he roared, the gun trembling with the force of his 
rage.  "Shut up or I will you kill you right here!"

The clouds parted a bit and the moonlight caught the edge of 
his face, sweaty with matted hair and crazed eyes.  There was 
blood on his hand -- his or Mulder's?  I licked my lips, 
keeping one eye on the gun barrel as I tried to talk him 
down.

"Andy, listen to me.  No one needs to get hurt.  Put the gun 
down and..."

I felt the pain crush my cheek before I even registered his 
movement.  The gun barrel caught me directly under the left 
eye, bruising the socket and splitting the skin.  Blood 
trickled warm and wet down my cheek as I struggled to regain 
my balance. 

"Andy, stop this!" Lee-Lee shrieked.  "What are you doing?"

He ignored her, his weapon trained on me.  "Lose the SIG," he 
ordered.  "Two fingers with your left hand, and take it real 
slow."

I did as he ordered. 

"Now drop it on the ground and kick it away.  Good."  He 
disappeared into blackness again as the clouds reconvened.  
"Let's all go inside, shall we?"

"Is that where you have Mulder?" I asked as we walked through 
the tall grass.

"You FBI folk ask too many damn questions.  Mulder will get 
what's coming to him, and so will you."

"Andy, this is crazy," Lee-Lee said tearfully as she tripped 
on the back steps.  Purcell jerked her up by her hair.

"I've got cause to be crazy!" he snarled.  "I waited sixteen 
years for you, only to find out that you're my brother's 
whore!"

He gave her a rough shove into the back hall, then pushed me 
in after her.  It was cramped and dark in the narrow corridor 
as we stumbled blindly toward the front of the house.  Lee-
Lee choked on her tears.   "She was right, wasn't she?" she 
said to him.  "You were the one setting all those fires.  
God, Andy, you're a murderer!"

"That didn't seem to put you off Jeff," he said, and I felt 
the gun barrel graze my ribs.  I squeezed Lee-Lee's arm in an 
effort to shut her up, but she pulled away.

"I didn't know he killed Abe.  I thought it was Mom."

"Well, we both know better now, don't we?  Get in there."  He 
pushed us into the remnants of the parlor.  Mulder was 
nowhere to be seen.  Lee-Lee seemed to make the same 
realization, only in another direction.

"Andy, where's Jeff?  What did you do to him?"

"'Where's Jeff?'" he mimicked in a sing-song. "'Where could 
Jeffy-boy be?'"  He withdrew a length of rope from his 
jacket.  "He's keeping Agent Mulder company in another room.  
'Course, I doubt very much he's holding up his end of the 
conversation."

"Jeff's dead?" she whispered.

He held up his weapon.  "Did him just like he did Abe, the 
sonofabitch.  One shot to the back of the head."

My heart pounded painfully against my ribs, and for a moment 
I thought I might pass out.  Purcell had no to reason to keep 
Mulder alive, especially if he had been a witness to the 
shooting.  "Agent Mulder..." 

"...was in no condition to stop me," Purcell finished with a 
sneer.  "I dragged him from that wreck just to buy me some 
time.  Figured he could bleed to death here just as good as 
anywhere else."

Think, I told myself.  Do not let his words distract you.  
Mulder is still alive.  

As he approached Lee-Lee with the rope, I looked around the 
room for anything I might use as a weapon.  But there was 
only a dingy mirror on the wall and a few stubby candles on 
the mantel.  He pinched Lee-Lee's chin, turning her face to 
his.  

"Such a pretty face," he murmured as he traced her cheek with 
the gun barrel.  

"Please," she whispered.

"I tried to please you," he replied, his grip tightening 
until she squirmed.  "I tried everything to show you I was 
the one you needed.  The fires burned, and you came running 
to me, just like I thought you would."

"I never wanted those people to die, Andy."

"And I never wanted you to whore yourself to my brother."  He 
shrugged.  "But it's too late now."

He pushed her down on the hardwood floor, so hard I heard her 
chin crack.  Again, I cased the dim room for anything I could 
use to overpower him -- loose boards, heavy objects of any 
sort.  There was nothing.

With a few quick motions, Purcell had Lee-Lee's wrists and 
ankles tied.  She whimpered.  "Please don't kill us, Andy.  
I'll do anything you want, anything..."

He ignored her and withdrew another length of rope.  It was a 
move I didn't understand.  Why tie us up just to shoot us?  

"Down on the floor," he said, gun to my head.  I had no 
choice but to comply.  The rope was coarse and biting around 
my wrists, and the sharp fibers scratched against my ankles 
as he pulled the last knot tight.

When he lifted away from me, I smelled it.

It had been underneath the stale, dusty odor the whole time, 
but I had not noticed until my face was pressed low to the 
ground.  

Faint and sweet.  Like the colorless liquid we had found in 
his shed.

Oh God.

He stood over me, grinning, and I could tell he knew what I 
was thinking.  He pulled out a silver rectangle and waved it 
at me.  "Want a light?" he asked.

Lee-Lee gasped.  I struggled against my bonds.  If he dropped 
that lighter, the whole house would be engulfed in a matter 
of seconds.

He left me and walked over to Lee-Lee.  For a moment, I 
thought he might kick her in the ribs.  Instead, he crouched 
down low and stroked her hair.  "You'll burn longer than I 
could ever manage," he whispered.  He turned and left, his 
heavy footsteps echoing through the house.  They faded into 
the distance. 

Wide-eyed and still, Lee-Lee and I watched each other from 
across the floor.  Silence stretched out the seconds until I 
could barely breathe.

Nothing.

         Nothing.

                  Nothing.

                             A click.  A whoosh.  Boom.

XxXxX

End chapter twelve.  Continued in chapter thirteen.


XxXxX

Chapter Thirteen

XxXxX

Fire swept into the room in an instant, crackling up the 
walls and igniting the drapes.  Lee-Lee coughed.

"What are we going to do?" she yelled.

I twisted around, searching for an answer.  Even if it were 
unlocked, the door was framed with flames.  "Can you stand?" 
I yelled back.

"I don't know!"

I wiggled on the floor like a worm until I found a way to 
brace my legs enough to reach a kneeling position.  From 
there, I rocked backwards onto my feet.  Lee-Lee followed my 
lead.  "We can't hop out of here!" she said.  "It's too far.  
We'll never make it!"

The heat was making it hard to think.  Sweat ran down my neck 
in rivulets, and the smoke felt like acid in my eyes.  "Hang 
on, hang on!"

I spotted the mirror again, the one hanging over the mantel.  
Like the expert hop-scotch player I'd once been, I jumped my 
way across the room.  

"What are you doing?" Lee-Lee screamed.  "We've got to get 
out of here!"

I slide my head under the heavy gold frame until I had 
sufficient force to lift it from its hanger.  It slid three 
inches up the wall, and then I ducked out of the way.  It hit 
the floor with a crash and shattered into several large 
pieces.  "Come here!" I yelled to Lee-Lee.  "Hurry!"

Red-faced and breathless, she hopped within a few inches of 
me.  "What?"

"Grab this,"  I knelt down and snatched a large shard of 
glass for her to hold.  "Keep the pointed edge facing out."

Back to back, we positioned ourselves so that the ropes 
around my wrists slid along the makeshift blade.  The flames 
crept higher as we began a frantic, awkward dance.  The wall 
paper was peeling like a bad sunburn, and smoke was pressing 
down on us from above.

And somewhere in the house, Mulder was dying.

"Faster!" I hollered.

"I'm trying!"

Several times we missed the rope and sliced into my hand 
instead, but I barely registered the pain.  At last, the 
knots began to give way.  I twisted my hands to speed the 
process, and within seconds, I was free.

"Now me, now me."

I took the glass to Lee-Lee's knots and released her with 
just a few judicious strokes.

"Oh thank God," she breathed, rubbing her wrists.

We bent and loosened the ties at our ankles.  The ropes 
slipped away. 

"The only way out is through that door," I said, nodding at 
the fire-ringed archway.  "Tuck your hair inside your shirt 
and stay low to the ground." She nodded, and we prepared to 
walk through the flames.  

At the door, with the fire swaying and popping, Lee-Lee 
hesitated.  "You first."

I pulled my coat up over my head with shaking fingers.  
Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and ran into the 
flames.  It took less than a second to cross, but I felt the 
piercing heat sear all the way to my skin.  My face was 
burned, and the end of my coat caught fire.  I stamped it 
out.

"Come ON!" I yelled to Lee-Lee.  I could see her frozen in 
place behind the wall of fire.  At last, she darted across 
the threshold, emerging with an armful of flames.

"Ahhh, get it off me!  Get it of me!"  She ran around in a 
circle until I tackled her to the ground, rolling her so the 
fire was extinguished.  She shivered under me.

"It's hot and cold at the same time.  How can I be cold?"  
Her voice was hoarse, and her eyes were glassy. 

I needed to get her out of there before she slipped into 
shock.

I needed to find Mulder.

"Get up," I said, pulling her to her feet.  She stumbled, 
leaning on me heavily as the walls began to groan around us.  
I remembered suddenly what Kazdin had said about the roof 
caving in.  "Let's go," I ordered, marching her toward the 
hall.  Smaller fires reached out with fronds of orange, 
grabbing at us hungrily as we walked past.

The front door finally appeared in view, seeming to bulge and 
wobble through the haze of smoke.  As we drew nearer, it 
shattered with a crack.  One piece swung inward on its hinges 
while the other splintered on the ground.  In the doorway, 
stood a man with a mask and a large axe.

"Oh, thank God," Lee-Lee said, sagging against me.  A second 
man appeared in the hall.  He took Lee-Lee and began leading 
me out of the building. 

"No!"  I pulled out of his grasp.

He turned, looking at me with wild eyes. "Come on!" he said 
through his mask.  "It's gonna collapse!"

"Mulder!" I hollered, backing away.  He lunged for me with 
his free arm.

"You're crazy!"

The smoke was filling up the hall, and he lost me in the 
clouds.  Coughing madly, I dropped to the floor and began 
crawling back the way I'd come.  My eyes were almost swollen 
shut.  "Mulder!" I screamed as loudly as I could.  "Mulder, 
it's me!  Where are you?"

There was no answer.

My lungs burned as though I had swallowed the flames, and I 
could feel my throat closing off.  "Mulder..."

I reached the front hall, which was ablaze from three sides. 
Whichwaywhichway?  There were stairs and two doors, but only 
one right choice.  I was fuzzy, light-headed, in desperate 
need of oxygen.  Blinking through my tears, I considered my 
options.  "Oh, please," I whispered.  "Mulder, where are 
you?"

The flames danced and swayed.  

I chose the door on the left.  

I began inching toward it, my palms blistering on the hot 
wooden floor, when a shape emerged from the fire.  A woman, 
nearly transparent in the glow of the fire.

She was tall, with a tattered dress and long black hair.  
Elysian, I realized.  I watched, paralyzed, as she drifted 
past me and up the stairs. 

Mulder. 

I gulped as much air as I could and followed her.  

The smoke was thicker upstairs, black and bitter like 
yesterday's coffee.  I slunk along the main hall but found no 
trace of Elysian.  "Mulder!" I yelled once more.

"Scully!"

Oh, thank God.  My relief energized me to push through the 
billowing waves and reach the next door.  Inside, I could 
barely make out Jeff's body, and Mulder, alive and bound with 
rope in the corner.

"Scully," he said, breaking off into a rattling cough.  "Over 
here."  I crept toward the sound of his voice.

"Hang on, Mulder.  I'm going to get you out of here." 

I reached his foot first and followed it up to the rest of 
him.  He was sweaty and shaking, but managed a weak version 
of his trademark smile.  "You were really going for the 
dramatic rescue this time, weren't you, Scully?"

I felt his pulse.  It was racing, but his respiration was 
shallow.  There was blood on his collar.  "Where are you 
hurt?" I asked.

"Hit my head on the side of the door in the crash," he said, 
coughing again.  "Maybe sprained an arm, too."

"Let's get you out of here."  My fingers were raw with burns, 
and I struggled with the knots around his wrists.  He groaned 
as I released him.  "You okay?"

"Can't...breathe."

I pulled the ropes off his ankles, giving him a slight 
squeeze.  "We're getting out of here right now.  Come on."

Our air pocket had disappeared; the carbon monoxide was 
making me weak, dizzy.  As I crawled toward the door, I could 
hear Mulder wheezing behind me.  His injured arm was making 
it difficult for him to move.

"This way, Mulder," I said to encourage him.  "We've got to 
hurry."

He coughed.  "Coming.  You...keep...going." 

I waited for him in the hallway, where fiery pieces of 
molding were dropping from the ceiling.  He emerged from the 
haze with a gasp.  I curled my fingers around his good arm.  
"Come on, come on.  We're almost there."

It was a lie, and he knew it.

"Scully...you go.  Get help."

"No."  I knew with certainty that if I left him he would die.  
"You can make it, Mulder."

Chest heaving, he crawled into the hallway with me.  "I'll 
slow you down."

"We'll both go slowly, Mulder, but we're leaving here 
together."

He laid his head on the ground, looking up at me through 
slitted eyes.  "Bossy."

"That's right, and I say we're going.  Now move."

He staggered up on all fours again.  "Which way?"

There was a crash from below, followed by a groaning sound, 
but I could not see anything through the black smoke.  The 
back stairs and the front were equally clogged.  When I 
glanced at Mulder again, he was collapsed on the ground.  

"Mulder!"  I choked as I shook him.  "Wake up.  We're going."

"Mmmm."  Mulder began to follow me with sluggish movements, 
and I knew we were running out of time.  The carbon monoxide 
was stealing all the oxygen from our blood.

"Keep going, Mulder."

We had advanced only a few feet when I saw her again, 
standing by the back stairs.  Mulder froze, gagging.  I 
tugged him harder, certain now that we were going the right 
direction.  The ghostly image lingered for several moments 
before evaporating into the swirls of smoke.  Seconds later, 
my fingers slid over the first step.  "This is it," I said.

Mulder went down first, slipping feet-first around the first 
bend.  His motor control was almost gone.  Every cell in my 
body was screaming for oxygen, but I kept moving.  At the 
bottom, the fire reappeared with a vengeance; it was like 
walking into the sun.  

"Scully," Mulder rasped as he extended his hand back to me.  
Our palms met, slick with sweat.  "C'mon."

The kitchen was melting, the cupboards scorched and the 
linoleum curled.  We faltered several times en route to the 
door, but at last we found the opening where someone had 
chopped it down.  

Air.  It hit us like a ton of bricks, and I thought my lungs 
might burst right through my chest.  I sucked in huge breaths 
but it was too late; the world was starting to go black.

Mulder collapsed right on the threshold.  I made it as far as 
the yard.

"I need the EMTS now!" someone yelled over my head.

The next thing I knew, men in crisp white shirts with the 
Caduceus symbol on the sleeve were kneeling over me.  "Agent 
Scully, can you hear me?" one of them asked, enunciating each 
word like I was a small child.

I tried to answer but couldn't speak around the oxygen mask.  
"Mmmfine," I said, beginning to struggle.

"Lie still," the man soothed.  "You're dehydrated and you've 
inhaled a lot of smoke.  We need to get some fluid and oxygen 
back into your body before you can go anywhere."

He pressed the mask back into place, but I tugged it away 
again.  "Mulder."  The word grated against the swollen 
tissues in my throat.  

"He's been taken to Lawrence General Hospital, and they're 
taking very good care of him, I'm sure."

We wrestled with the mask again as I tried to get more 
information out.  "He's okay?"  

The EMT shot a glance at his partner that I recognized 
immediately -- how much should we tell her?  He's dead, I 
thought briefly, in a panic.  They're lying to keep me calm.  
I had dim memories of him falling in the doorway, a curtain 
of fire at his back.  Oh, God.

I sat up between them, displacing my blanket and tangling my 
IV line.  "Tell me."

"Easy, easy.  Your partner is in bad shape, I won't lie to 
you.  He was upstairs, with the worst of the smoke, and the 
carbon monoxide had more time to get into his system."

At his words, the past hour came flooding back in a hot, 
painful rush.  Jeff was dead.  Mulder was hurt.  Andy was 
missing.  I needed to get up.

"Agent Scully, you need to go to the hospital."  The EMTs 
tried to restrain me as I fumbled with my blanket.  "You need 
to stay on the oxygen for at least another hour, and there 
are burns on your hands and face."

Vaguely, I knew this.  My face was stretched taut with the 
burns, and my hands were raw and swollen.  "I'm fine," I 
croaked.  "Let me up."

The EMT looked flustered.  "Agent Scully, please..."

I ignored him and staggered to my feet.  Turning around, I 
saw the fire still raged out of control.  My dizziness held 
me paralyzed as the flames seemed to spin in circles before 
my eyes.  I searched the swaying fire for any sign of the 
figure I'd seen inside, but she had vanished in the orange 
light.

Orange.

The color of insanity.

xxx

I shiver under my blanket, chilled despite the fact that my 
skin is scorched taut by my ordeal in the flames.  The hair 
on my arm is singed black and dissolves into ash at my touch.

Eventually, Kazdin comes over and touches my elbow.  I jump 
at the contact.  "Sorry," he murmurs.  "Are you okay?"

Fresh tears sting my injured eyes; they clog my throat with 
welling pain.  "No," I whisper.  "I'm not."

He moves to stand between me and the dwindling fire, 
wrenching my gaze from it at last.  "What I can do?" he asks.

Abe Centara's story is finished.  There is no more I can do 
here.  "I need to go to the hospital," I said.  "I need to 
see Mulder."

XxXxX

The burns on my hands are worse than I'd realized, and I 
leave the emergency room like a mummy in training.   They 
offer me a bed, which I accept but don't use, and a portable 
oxygen tank, which I do.  I drag it like a vacuum cleaner 
through the waxy halls until I reach intensive care.  The 
staff there must have seen some horrific things, because they 
don't look at all shocked by my swollen eyes, bandaged hands 
and blistered skin.  Instead, a blonde woman with tiny 
freckles takes me aside and speaks softly to me about Mulder.

"Considering the length of his exposure, your partner is 
doing very well.  Did they explain to you downstairs the 
primary danger of smoke inhalation?"

I nod.  "The carbon monoxide binds to the hemoglobin in the 
blood in place of oxygen; without oxygen, the body's tissues 
begin to die."

"That's right.  And this often triggers an injury response in 
the lungs that can cause congestion and eventually 
respiratory failure.  This is what happened to Agent Mulder.  
We have put him on a ventilator to assist his breathing, and 
we're treating some moderate burns in his nose and throat 
area."

I feel numb, nodding with her words but wishing only to see 
Mulder.  "Will be he all right?"

"His blood oxygen levels have been improving steadily.  We'll 
know more in the next twelve hours, when the lasting tissue 
damage will be more apparent."

"Can I see him?"

She smiles.  "Of course.  Just don't be too shocked by what 
you see."

It can't be worse than anything I've seen before, I think, 
but I am wrong.  It is a hundred times worse.  This time is 
he is hurt because of me, because I was careless at the house 
and let Purcell get the better of me.  If I had paid more 
attention to the smell, if I had done a more thorough 
exploration of the house instead of playing memory games with 
Lee-Lee, Mulder would not be lying in the hospital now.  If I 
had not taken her from the station without backup, without 
letting anyone know where I was going, Andy Purcell would not 
have escaped.

I made a grievous mistake, and Mulder is paying the price.

I close the door behind me, lingering near the threshold as I 
force myself to look at him.  His color is ashen gray, and 
there is a pink tube emerging from his throat.  Beside the 
bed, his heart monitor beeps a slow but steady cadence.  I 
find myself counting the sounds inside my head.

One...
Two...
Three...

Just keep counting, Mulder.

I tug my oxygen with me into the room and maneuver as close 
as I can to the bed.  "Mulder, it's me," I say, awkwardly 
patting his arm with one my gauze mittens.  "I'm okay.  We 
made it."

I don't really expect him to answer, but the silence pierces 
my heart all the same.  There is a plastic chair against the 
wall, and I scrape it across the floor to the bed.  Resting 
my cheek on the cool sheets, I study the delicate arch of his 
fingers.  

He sleeps.

I keep counting.

XxXxX

On the third day, I am discharged from the hospital.  What 
this really means is that I am no longer paying for my space 
on the couch in the waiting room for Intensive Care.  Mulder 
is breathing on his own but is not yet awake.  The doctors 
continue to worry about pneumonia and infection.

I exist in a strange state of limbo between night and day, in 
the pale green room with its under-stuffed couches and 
omnipresent fluorescent lighting.  Cathleen provides some 
rhythm by dropping in every afternoon.  She coaxes me to eat 
with homemade vanilla pudding, vegetable broth, and other 
foods that don't scratch or burn the inside of my throat.  
Today she brings something more than food.

"Hey."

It's Lee-Lee.  She hangs back in the entryway as Cathleen 
sets a tupperware container full of chicken noodle soup on 
the magazine table in front of me.

"I'll be right back," Cathleen whispers, and Lee-Lee and I 
are left alone.

She rubs the toe of her sneaker into the worn carpet.  "Bet 
I'm the last person you want to see right now."

"Not at all.  I've been wondering how you were doing."

"They haven't found Andy yet."

"I know.  Detective Kazdin has kept me updated."

"Yeah, he wants to keep me here in protective custody in case 
Andy tries to kill me again, but..."  She shrugged.  "I can't 
do this anymore."

"Do what?"

"Live in this town, where everyone knows.  I walked into the 
diner today to get my last paycheck and everyone stopped 
talking.  My friend Sharen could hardly look at me."

I want to tell her it's not her fault, but somehow, with 
Mulder lying burned and battered in intensive care, I can't 
get the words out.  "You're not responsible for your 
stepbrothers' actions," I say instead.

She looks sad.  "Aren't I?  All I know is that if I hadn't 
come back to Tiburton, four people would still be alive.  You 
wouldn't have gotten hurt, and your partner wouldn't be here 
in the hospital."

I let that pass with silence.  "You cleared your mother's 
name," I point out finally.  "That's something, right?"

"Something I should have done a long time ago."  She sucks 
her hands inside her sleeves and rocks back on her heels.  
"There's a lot of things I should have done a long time ago.  
I'm not going to wait anymore."

"Maybe you should stay for a few more days," I say, a little 
afraid for her.  "Kazdin is right that your stepbrother is 
still a danger to you."  

She shakes her head.  "No, it's okay.  I have a friend in San 
Francisco who's letting me crash at her place until I figure 
out what I'm going to do next.  And if Andy does find me...I 
guess that will mean it's meant to be.  I'm prepared to 
suffer the consequences."

"Lee-Lee..."

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to go looking for it.  But 
I can't help thinking that it's not right that I'm the only 
one to walk away."  She broke off, looking at the floor.  "Or 
maybe that is my punishment, who knows?  Anyway, I just came 
here to say thank you.  You put yourself on the line for me 
when I gave you no reason to.  So...thanks."

"You're welcome."

She leaves without another word, and a moment later Cathleen 
returns.  "I found frozen yogurt today," she says, setting 
her crutches aside and taking the seat next to me.  I accept 
a cup but then pick at the chocolate peak with my plastic 
spoon.  "How did it go with Lee-Lee?" she asks after a 
moment.  

"It was strange," I reply, and give her an abbreviated 
version of our conversation.

"I don't blame her for leaving," Cathleen says when I've 
finished.  "There were many days when I thought I'd pick up 
and leave, too.  People never forget around here.  You're the 
same person from cradle to grave, no matter what." She 
shifts, and her braces rub against the chair.

"But you've decided to stay?" I ask.

"Yeah," she says, her voice soft.  "For the same reason I 
almost left.  I liked the person I was before the accident, 
and I think maybe staying here is the only way I'll ever get 
her back."

She smiles, and I force myself to return it.  "What about 
Kazdin?"

"Oh, he's staying, too," she answers, her smile widening.  
"And that's good enough for now."

We ate for a few moments in silence.  "So maybe it was true 
after all," she says at length.

"What was?"

"The legend.  The story said Elysian would come back and 
bring Tiburton to its knees.  The way folks are walking 
around in a daze right now, I'd say she did a damn good job."

I remember the silent figure I'd seen floating in the fire.  
"No, I think the legend is wrong.  I think Elysian never 
really wanted revenge."

"No?"

"I think maybe all she ever wanted was justice."

XxXxX

I am roused at 2 a.m. by the night nurse gently shaking my 
shoulder.  "He's awake, dear," she whispers.  "But don't let 
him talk too much, okay?"

I don't care if he says a single word.  I just want to see 
those eyes brimming with life again.  

When I reach the room, his head is turned toward the door, 
his eyes open, waiting for me.  I make no attempt to hide my 
smile.  "Hi," I say, joining him near the bed.  "Welcome 
back."

His lips curve in answer, and he touches my bandaged right 
hand with gentle fingers.  "Look at you," he says, as though 
speaking through sand paper.

"Shhh, Mulder, don't talk.  It's not good for you."

The look he gives me says knows this, but when has he ever 
done anything that's good for him?  "You really okay?," he 
croaks, and because I'm exhausted and giddy inside, I let him 
get away with it.

"I'm all right.  So is Lee-Lee.  Jeff's dead, of course, and 
no one has been able to figure out what happened to Andy."

He frowns but keeps his mouth shut.

"The doctors say you're doing really well," I tell him.  "But 
they are going to want to keep you herefor at least another 
week, maybe two."

I'd expected him to start fussing at that news, but instead 
he raised his hand to cup the side of my face.  His smile is 
soft and affectionate.  "Walk through fire for me, Scully?"

I take his hand and kiss each finger.  "Always."  His eyelids 
begin to droop, so I reluctantly pull away.  "You get some 
sleep," I say, brushing his hair back as best I can with my 
wrapped hand.  "I'll see you in the morning."

As I reach the door, I hear the rasp of his voice again.  
"Scully."

I turn.  "Yeah?"

"You saw her?  Elysian?"

I hesitated a moment, then nod.  "Yes, I saw her."

His eyes are full of a wonder I have not seen in months.  
"Me, too," he whispers.  "Me, too."

XxXxX

End chapter thirteen.  Continued.


XxXxX

Epilogue

XxXxX

A light February snow is falling as I leave the hospital.  I 
take this as a sign that I should stand in the parking lot 
and watch while the silent flakes glide around in the yellow 
beam of the street lamp.  

This snow could have been falling on my grave.

Instead, my oncologist has just shaken his head at my latest 
round of tests and said he wished he was in as good shape as 
I was.  Just hearing the words again in my head makes me 
stick out my arms and twirl around with a laugh.  I hope that 
Morley-sucking bastard is watching.

After another few minutes in the brisk winter air, I climb 
into my car and contemplate my destination.  Mulder had been 
at the hospital earlier for his check-up, I know.  He'd even 
offered to car pool.  But I'd been wound tight as a spring 
all week, just anticipating this day, and hadn't wanted to 
bear the stress of his anxiety as well.  If it had been bad 
news, I would have needed some time to figure out how to tell 
him.

Now, in the chilly confines of my dark car, I feel strangely 
bereft.  It was a clean bill of health so amazing I should 
have wanted to shout the news from the rooftop.  But there is 
only one person I really want to tell.  Warming my engine, I 
decide I'm craving red-curried chicken from The Green Papaya.

Which just happens to be three blocks from Mulder's house.

"Scully, come in."  He gives me such a pleased smile that I 
am instantly contrite about shutting him out earlier.  Maybe 
next time I will muster enough strength to let him hold my 
hand in the waiting room.

"I brought food," I say to assuage my guilt.

"Smells like curry," he answers with an appreciative sniff.  
"I'll get the plates."  

"Make it fast or I might eat your share here in the living 
room.  As it was, there was a near miss in the elevator."

I bring the bag to the table, and as I'm removing the piping 
hot containers, he calls back to me.  "So how did it go?"

Such a casual question.  So careless and unconcerned that he 
has to ask it with two rooms between us.  "Fine, Mulder.  
Completely and absolutely fine."

For once, I don't think he minds the word.  "That's great!" 
he blurts, and I hear a dish hit the floor.  "Um, really 
wonderful, Scully."

"Mulder, do you need a hand in there?"

"No!  I'll be right out.  Hey, why don't you dig some candles 
out of the bedroom?  We can celebrate in style."

In his room, I see there are fresh sheets on the bed and 
realize Mulder's celebration does not end with dinner.  I 
grin as I retrieve the candles from his bookcase.  On my way 
out, I catch a glimpse of his wall of boxes and stop short.

One has been opened.  

The lid is still off, and the contents have clearly been 
rifled.  Even more intriguing, there is a map of Texas pinned 
tacked on the wall.  Squinting, I can just make out a circle 
around the name "Chaney."  Very interesting indeed.

Mulder is waiting with the table set and the wine poured when 
I return.  He lights a match, and the candles cast our table 
in a warm glow.  His eyes darken to match his sweater.  The 
view is so distracting that it takes me a moment to remember 
the food in front of me. 

After two bites, I remember something else.  "Mulder, how did 
your appointment go?  What did the doctor say?"

He shrugs.  "There's some lingering damage in my left lung, 
but that should go away in the next couple of months.  I'm 
healing."

"That's really good to hear," I say, squeezing his hand.  He 
kisses my knuckles.

"A toast," he says, raising his glass.  "To being healthy at 
the same time."

"I'll drink to that."  We clink the rims together and 
swallow.

"So Mulder," I say a few minutes later.  "What's in Chaney, 
Texas?"

The edges of his mouth curve in a mysterious smile.  "In the 
morning," he replies.  "I wouldn't want to waste my slides."

As he nudges me under the table with a sock-clad foot, I can 
feel a familiar tingle starting in my spine that has almost 
nothing to do with his tickling toes.  

Mulder has slides.  

XxXxX

Zee End

Thanks to my wonderful beta team: Alicia, Jerry, Jintian and 
Gwen!  I owe them and many others for kind words and 
continued support over the last few months.  Like Mulder, I 
have some "slides" with which to better illustrate. :-)

http://www.omniscribe.com/thanks.html

I've learned a lot from this story and hope you've enjoyed 
the ride, too.  All types of feedback are welcome at 
syn_tax6@yahoo.com (the right address this time <g>)

Thanks for reading!

Syntax6