Kevin by Justin Glasser Chapter I: Divine Possibilities "Open your souls to the divine possibilities . . . " Reverend Finley "Revelations" Apartment of Dana Scully Alexandria, Maryland Monday, April 20, 1998 10:27 pm He had said she would see him again, but those had just been words, idle hopefulness from a boy who didn't want to lose her, didn't want to leave another person behind. Then he had vanished in the haze of social services and court-ordered guardians. Kevin Cryder had gone on to a place away from prophecy and his lunatic father, away from deformed handymen and dire predictions, into a world of fourth grade--cursive, long division, kickball. But now he was back. Dana Scully stood next to the end table, listening to his voice on her answering machine, wondering how long it had been since she had last spoken to him. There had been a few letters right after she left, written in a ten- year-old's scrawl--"Dear Miss Scully, How are you? I am fine. I am living with a nice family now. I go to school at the same place I did when you were here. We are studying plant cells and it is fun. I miss you. Your friend, Kevin Cryder."- and an e-mail when his class learned about the internet, and a postcard when his foster family went to Florida, and she had answered them all happily and dutifully, but he had never called before. He was older, now, thirteen or so. He sounded different on the machine, more mature, but also hesitant, as if he wasn't sure what he was doing. She remembered his voice, high and afraid, turning toward her in the hallway of a house he would never enter again: "are you the one that was sent to protect me?" She had wanted to tell him yes. Yes, she was the one, his protector, his savior, but she couldn't. Listening to Kevin's subtly altered voice in the comfortable spring warmth of her living room, Dana remembered what she had thought in the instant that Kevin had asked for her protection: no, not me. Not me, but Mulder. But Mulder hadn't believed. For once, Mulder hadn't even wanted to believe and it was left to her, skeptic, doubter, scientist, to save Kevin. She had, but she wasn't sure how or why, and the moment of clarity she had had staring at the white arrows on a plastic recycling container had vanished into fear and confusion. But she had saved Kevin, and she had loved him in a muted way, and she still thought of him more and more often since Emily and those poor hunted girls. What would happen to a boy like Kevin in the world she knew now, a world where children were destroyed as a matter of course? Scully sat in the yellow light of her table lamp, resting her chin on her hand. Although the tape had stopped, she still heard Kevin's voice: "Miss Scully, I think I need your help." She could only imagine what Mulder would say when she told him. Kevin's case had been the beginning of the on-going . . . disagreement they had about religion, the first time that she had been foisted into the role of believer. Mulder hadn't even bothered to consider that Kevin might really be a stigmatic, and his dismissive attitude had continued through every case that bore even an hint of the miraculous in the divine sense. He hadn't considered that Kevin might be touched by God, just as he hadn't even heard her suggestion that those poor deformed girls might be something different, although normally he was so quick to pick up on the slightest allusion to the paranormal in her analyses. And she couldn't say he was wrong. That was the worst part of his rejection: she didn't know the truth. She didn't want to argue in favor of seraphim and stigmatics and God's Hand, but she sometimes thought she might believe in them. Might want to, anyway and for some reason, Mulder didn't. It frightened him, she thought, the possibility that there was a higher intelligence, a Being who could orchestrate all things. It would mean that Someone had done all of these things to him, taken his sister, made his parents pull away from him and from each other, left him alone. Most of all, Scully thought, proof of the existence of God would mean that everything wasn't Mulder's fault, and that probably frightened him more than anything else. What she didn't say to him, what she didn't admit to anyone but herself and her confessor, was that the idea of God frightened her, too. Now, after Emily, after the vision she had seen last week, she felt the desire to talk to Kevin again, a sudden tug in her gut, an almost physical emptiness. She longed not for a miracle, but for human contact, for the touch of another person, someone who needed her. She remembered the feeling of his small hand in hers, the cup of his palm, the thin warm arcs of his fingers when he said goodbye. She wanted to feel that again. But Kevin was no longer a fourth grader, he was a teenager. He wouldn't want to hold her hand. He did want to talk to her, though, about something that sounded important. He needed her help with something. He was asking her advice as . . . as a friend, perhaps. An older friend. An adult sister. Scully looked at the clock. It was too late to call him now, after ten. Even if he wasn't in bed, it was late enough to annoy parents, foster or otherwise. She picked up the phone and dialed. "Mulder." "Mulder, it's me." "What's up, Scully?" "Kevin Cryder called me." There was a pause. "Kevin Cryder?" "The stig-" "Yeah, sure, from Ohio, right? What did he want?" "He left a message." "Are you going to call him back?" There it was, the coolness in tone that she had been expecting since she mentioned Kevin's name. She paused, knowing her answer, but hesitating to say it. "Why do you think he called?" Mulder asked when she did not speak. "I don't know, Mulder. I guess I'll find out tomorrow." "Let me know." "Good night Mulder." "Scully?" "Yeah?" "What are you wearing?" "Good night, Mulder." "Let me know," he repeated as she hung up. Somehow she had made the decision--she would talk to Kevin Cryder tomorrow. It was probably nothing, something about girls maybe, although the thought of Kevin being old enough to like girls made her feel lonely. She remembered the feeling of his thin boy's shoulders beneath her hands, wrapping him in a blanket after his mother died, knowing somehow that their relationship had changed. She had belonged to Kevin then, as a substitute, as something approximating a mother, and if he needed her, she would belong to him again. She hit the rewind button and Kevin's voice drifted from the machine, thin and tinny in the still apartment. "Hi, Miss Scully. This is Kevin Cryder. I called to say hi . . . I'm doing fine. School is okay . . . I guess I called because school really isn't, um, okay. I'm having some problems, I guess. I don't know why I'm telling you this but Nathan said maybe I should call you. . . Miss Scully, I think I need your help. Strange stuff is happening, and I think I need your help. Call me please. Okay, bye." ***** That night, after erasing a boy's request for help from her answering machine, Dana Scully had a dream. Kevin stood in the front yard of a white two-story house. Kids rolled past on bikes and in-line skates, skipped by with jump ropes. He was watching her as she approached, his eyes following her car as she cruised up in front of the picket fence. Hi, Kevin, she said, but the words did not come out of her mouth, they came from her head. He smiled. His smile changed, gradually, as if he were under water, and his finger reached toward the sky. Scully looked over her shoulder and saw it, an inky blackness with eyes of gold, shapeless, and she was out of the car, running, sprinting through the gate, head down. If she could reach him first, she thought, if she could reach him first. But she couldn't, and Kevin was swooped up in a tornado of hot wind with fangs or teeth, and Scully grabbed for him, catching only one white tennis shoe. The kids at the edges of the fence laughed and pointed. Missed him, missed him, now you have to kiss him, they cried. And she cried out, too, watching the shape recede in the distance. I know you'll come for me, Kevin said, from within that darkness, from within the heart of evil. She woke up sweating. Part 02 of 02/12 The Messenger "I'm merely a messenger." Mr. Cryder "Revelations" Office of the X-Files, FBI Headquarters Washington, D.C. April 23, 1998 4:30 pm Scully picked up her office phone and dialed the number from the scrap of paper in her purse. She and Mulder were going witness hunting in a half hour, so if she wanted to call Kevin it would have to be before they left for an early supper. She ignored the thin tremble of her fingers on the buttons. One ring. Two. "Hello?" A boy's voice, not Kevin's. "Hi, my name is Dana Scully and I'm calling to--" "KEVIN!" the boy yelled. Scully grimaced, holding the phone away. Apparently this kid knew who she was. She could hear his mild breathing into the phone, then his mumbling to someone else in the room. "Miss Scully, Kevin's not here right now. He's at soccer practice or something, I guess. Can I have him call you back?" "Sure. I won't be home tonight, but he can try tomorrow." "Okay, I'll--" "Can I ask you a quick question?" "Yeah." "What's your name?" "That's your question?" The boy snorted into the phone. "FBI. I'm Nathan, Kevin's foster brother." "Nathan, do you have any idea what's bothering Kevin? He said he needed my help with something." "He's been having some problems with school and stuff lately. I guess some kids are making fun of him, you know, teasing him. I don't know why he'd call you about that, though." She could hear the slight derision in his voice. That Nathan wasn't as worried as Kevin had sounded reassured her somewhat. It couldn't be that serious, if his family wasn't concerned. "Didn't you suggest that he call me?" "He said that? . . . Well, yeah, I did, but just to make him feel better. I mean, I didn't think you could help or anything, but he always talks about you. Sometimes Kevin takes things way too seriously. I mean, way." Scully choked back a sarcastic remark. The idea of Kevin Cryder taking things too seriously made her want to laugh out loud . . . or cry. This kid had no idea. "What kind of teasing?" she asked. "You know, normal guy stuff. They make fun of him because of his dad in the nuthouse, or say is he gonna bleed on them, you know? A couple of kids chased him home last week, but they left when I came outside. I'm sixteen," he said, in a patient and explanatory way. Scully could hear the pride in his voice. Mulder came in, coat in hand, and stopped just inside the door. "Kevin?" he mouthed silently. She shook her head, holding up her hand. "Do you know why Kevin would want to talk to me?" She heard Nathan's sigh, felt him shrug over the phone. "I guess he just thought it would make him feel better. He likes that he has friends that are important. Sometimes he talks about you to the other kids." Scully smiled to herself. She had heard a phrase used by older people, her grandmother for one--"I remembered you to him, Dana," she had said once, referring to a distant cousin. That's what Kevin was doing, remembering her to other people, people she had never met. He was remembering her so well that this sixteen-year old on the other end of the phone recognized her name right away. She wished she could talk to Kevin himself, right at this moment. She missed him, suddenly and happily. "I have to go, Nathan, but thank you for your help. Kevin's very lucky to have someone like you around." "Don't I know it," he said, and Scully's smile broadened. "I'll tell him to call you." "Thank you." "Kevin?" Mulder asked again, as she hung up and went for her coat. "No, actually. That was Nathan, Kevin's foster brother." She followed him out the door and down the hall. "Apparently Kevin's having some difficulty in school." "What does this have to do with you?" "That's the question. His brother doesn't seem to think it's serious, but that Kevin just wants to talk to me so he feels better." "And you don't think he's right?" Mulder leaned in front of her and punched the elevator button. "I don't know. Why would call me over something like that? It doesn't make sense." "Maybe he thinks you'll give him an ego boost." She followed Mulder into the elevator, acutely aware of the floor lurching beneath her feet. It matched the nervous rolling of her stomach. Somethng was wrong, something she couldn't put her finger on. "That's what Nathan said, but Mulder . . ." she sighed, trying to wrap her head around the phantom information she had. The dream. She wished Kevin had been home. "Why would he call me about something like this, when he's never called before? Why is this different?" She trailed him into the parking garage and out to his car. It didn't make sense. Why would Kevin call her now? He hadn't called when he was going through social services, moving from one family to another like an unwanted dog. He hadn't called when he was in the hospital with a broken collarbone (a fact Scully had been apprised of when she called his social worker on a whim). He hadn't called countless other times when she was sure there had been a thousand other things bothering him, so why was he calling now because some kids were making fun of him, calling him names, after all he had been through? "Can I ask you something?" she asked after a couple minutes of silence. "Shoot." "Were you ever teased as kid?" "Wasn't everyone?" "Yeah, but did it ever get bad?" "Bad enough for me to call a pretty lady in the FBI?" Mulder smiled over at her. "Not really. But I was always pretty much of a loner." "Samantha?" "Sure, but even before that. I was not the paragon of charm and popularity you see before you today." Scully snorted. "Thanks for your glowing admiration," he said, turning into a parking lot near the restaurant. "It's not that, Mulder. I just . . . this bothers me." "Were you ever teased as a kid?" "Only by my brothers," she smiled, remembering. "They'd beat up anyone else who tried." "Take it from me, Scully, kids can be pretty mean. Maybe Kevin just wants to feel like he matters. It's got to be hard being the only kid who . . . who's had something abnormal happen to him. We fear the strange and unexplained, Scully, and what's more unexplained than God?" Mulder reached over and rested his hand on hers. She was surprised by how warm it felt in the cool April air. "It'll be fine, Scully," he said. "Just wait until you talk to Kevin." He got out of the car, a dark and dramatic sweep of black suit and overcoat in the Washington dusk. A shapeless blackness. After a shudder, Scully followed him. She was sure that he was right: Kevin would be fine, everything was fine. Fine. Kevin (03/12): The Guardian Angel "I'm your friend, Kevin. You have to trust me. Just think of me as your guardian angel." Owen Jarvis "Revelations" Apartment of Dana Scully Alexandria, Maryland Monday, April 23, 1998 11:21 pm She hadn't expected to see the message light flashing when she opened her door--she had told Kevin's brother that she wouldn't be home, after all. Although she was certain it wasn't him, she smiled when she saw the light blinking. It was her mother, or one of her girl-friends who hadn't been in touch for a while, or Mulder calling with some irrelevant detail of the investigation that could wait until the morning. She dropped her purse and briefcase on the floor near the door and hit the button. Kevin. "Hi, Miss Scully, how are you? Um, Nathan told me that you weren't going to be home but . . . " his voice sounded younger, more like she remembered it. Afraid. "But I need you to call me, no matter what time. It's really important. I think--I think they're after me again, and I don't know what to do. My mom and dad--I can't tell anyone but you, Miss Scully, you know the truth. I've been bleeding again. Please call me back, tonight if you can. I'll explain it to my mom and dad. Please call me back." The click of Kevin's phone on the tape sounded abrupt and hurried, as if he had been startled or interrupted, although his message seemed finished. She sighed. She could call Kevin now and risk irritating his parents, or she could wait, something Kevin obviously didn't want her to do. For a split second the impulses warred in her stomach, but she couldn't resist. Her days had been so dark lately; she had been plodding from one thing to the next, fighting just to keep the despair at bay. Kevin's phone call had helped a little, helped her to stop thinking about herself, about the gaping hole inside her where her possible children used to be. Here was an actual boy who needed her, who only wanted her to call. She picked up the phone. Suddenly, there was another voice in the room, another message from the machine, another teenage boy asking for help. "Miss Scully, this is Nathan, Kevin's brother. I talked to you today and--Miss Scully, I don't know if this is, like, your jurisdiction or what, but if there's anything you can do--he's gone, and we can't--" She didn't hear the rest of the message because she was in the bedroom, yanking her overnight bag out of the closet. She had to get there, now, yesterday. She should have known when Kevin called her yesterday that it wasn't some stupid teasing thing. This was Kevin, and he needed her. She grabbed her cellular while she pawed through her underwear drawer. "Mulder." "Mulder, we have to go. He's been taken and I have to get there. Pack your--" "Who? Who's been taken?" "Dammit Mulder! Kevin, Kevin Cryder. His brother left a message and Kevin is missing. I'm going to Ohio." "Scully--" "If you don't want to come, Mulder, that's fine, but this is my decision, and I'm going." "Do you want me to book the flight?" "Fine." "I'll pick you up in half an hour." She hung up. Half an hour. Thirty minutes. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to ignore the images flashing behind her eyes, like frames on a horrific filmstrip: Kevin dangling above the blades of a newspaper shredder, Kevin pulling his shirt up to reveal the scratch on his ribs, Kevin getting pulled through the melted bars of a motel bathroom window without time to even make a sound. Kevin, Kevin, Kevin. Half an hour. She forced herself to walk into the bathroom and pull out her travel case, checking for all its essential components. Compact, mouthwash, an extra razor, tooth brush and paste, floss, an old hair brush, lipstick, tampax, pony tail holders from when her hair was long enough to hold them, clear nail polish, facial wash, makeup sponges, mascara. She found herself going through it again and again, seeing the same endless litany of cosmetics. Twenty seven minutes. Kevin was fine. He wasn't really missing--he had just gone to a friend's house and forgotten to tell his parents. She was getting all worked up over nothing. She walked back into the bedroom and picked up the phone, then realized she'd have to get Kevin's number out of her purse. She didn't know his phone number by heart. She hadn't seen him in over two years. She shouldn't be worried. Kevin was fine. Scully dialed. The phone rang four times, five, and then a machine picked up. Kevin's voice. "Hi, you've reached the Cornell residence--" She hung up. They were probably out to dinner or something at--she looked at the clock--at eleven pm on a school night. Sure. Just a late family dinner to punish their wayward foster son for riding over to friend's house and not calling home. Twenty-four minutes. Where the hell was he? She should have made the reservations. Even if he had been taken, it was probably by someone only interested in Kevin because he was a beautiful boy. She remembered thinking that when she first saw him--Oh, he's going to be a heart breaker, she had thought when she first met him, assessing his big blue eyes and fair child-smooth skin. He had turned his face to her and gazed desperately into her eyes. She remembered noticed that his adult teeth were still growing in, crooked and too big in his child's mouth. She didn't want to hope that the person who had kidnapped her boy was just a child molester, just someone who would rape and kill Kevin for his looks and not his . . . his mark. Kevin could protect himself from someone like that, she hoped. Something like that wouldn't be allowed to happen, not to Kevin, probably. She hoped. Twenty minutes. She went back into the bedroom and opened her suitcase, mentally cataloguing what she found there. She had packed the top half of the beige silk suit without the skirt, only one of the black mid-heel pumps, and no stockings whatsoever. She was panicking. Kevin was fine, or he would be as soon as she got there. She would come in to his middle income ranch house and he would be sitting there on the couch watching tv, or frozen in front of the Nintendo moving only his fingers, eyes rapt on the screen, and she would make dinner and they would be happy and Kevin would be fine and she would be fine and she would never have to worry about losing him again, no matter where he went or what he thought about his sister. He would always be around when she called and she would tuck him into bed at night, and be there when he came home from Washington for milk and cookies and help him with his homework. She could do autopsies in the basement, like her dad had done woodworking, and ship the results all over the country and be a world famous forensic scientist and a mother and a lover and there would be no distinction because Kevin was fine and he was fine and they would always be-- Doorbell. She realized she was standing in the middle of the bedroom with a shoe in one hand, tapping its sole gently against her palm. Doorbell. Mulder. She hurried to the door and opened it just as he was getting ready to use his key. "Sorry, I was packing. I'm almost ready." "Scully, are you okay?" "Fine, Mulder. I'm fine." "What did the message say?" "It's still on the machine," she called over her shoulder. She shoved the shoe into the bag and zipped it. For a moment she simply stood at the foot of her bed with her eyes closed. God, let him be okay, she thought. It wasn't really a prayer, not in the sense that she had been taught to pray, but she thought it anyway, several times in a row, her fingers locked together at her waist. "Hey Scully, what's a moloch?" "What?" She grabbed the handle of the bag and hauled it to the living room. "Moloch. Kevin's brother mentions a moloch in his message." "I didn't listen to the whole thing," she admitted. Mulder looked at her for a moment, then turned and pushed the button on the machine. "Miss Scully, this is Nathan, Kevin's brother. I talked to you today and--Miss Scully, I don't know if this is, like, your jurisdiction or what, but if there's anything you can do--he's gone, and we can't--I don't think we can find him. He said he was afraid of the moloch and I didn't believe him . . . Miss Scully, please." Click. The machine whirred in rewind, and shut off, light glowing placidly. "You don't know what that is?" she asked. Mulder shrugged. "Can't know everything, I guess." She paused, holding her bag with both hands. "Moloch. It sounds familiar, Mulder. Are you sure it's not in the X-files?" "No, but standing here isn't going to answer that question." His tone was casual, but his hand on her back was solid and warm. "Come, Miss Scully, your chariot awaits." He took the overnight bag from her and held open the door. The moloch, she thought as she shut and locked the apartment. I know I've heard of that before. The moloch. Kevin 04/12 The Witness "We must witness the miracles of the Lord without question." Reverend Finley "Revelations" Somewhere over the Mid-Atlantic United States April 22, 1998 1:16 am The plane was crowded and hot and seemed to be moving at a crawl. Every time she looked at her watch it was only a minute ahead. Even when she closed her eyes and counted to one hundred, time seemed to slow to frustrate her--no matter how long it seemed to take for her to reach the magic number, her watch only showed a minute or two of progress. What was happening to Kevin in these minutes? How did he feel? Did he know that she was coming after him? Did he have even the minuscule comfort of believing that she would be there? She wanted to scream. The last time she had felt this way had been in the hospital with her . . . with Emily. Pressed up against the glass, watching as the little girl drew her shallow breaths, Scully had longed to touch her, feeling that if only she could love her enough then Emily would be spared. Except she hadn't been able to save Emily. No matter how much she loved, something was at work in Emily that could not be stopped, not by love or science or even God himself maybe. But if anything was at work in Kevin, though, she thought it might be divine, and so maybe she could help. She could save Kevin, if only she could get off the goddamn plane and get to him. She could save him. She could. "I guess asking you not to get emotionally involved would be beside the point." Scully started at her partner's words. He was watching her, his eyes large and soft with concern. She could feel him wanting to touch her face, or her hand, to reassure her. To comfort her. She hated it. He didn't understand, he never had. He didn't want to understand how she felt about Kevin Cryder. When she had been with Emily, so had Mulder--she could feel his support, his earnestness, his steadiness. In California, she had been able to count on him, to know that if he didn't feel what she felt, then at least he understood. But Kevin . . . Mulder was too busy running from the possibility of God to see how she felt about a ten-year-old boy who had been marked and then sent out to suffer alone. Mulder didn't understand that Kevin was as much her emotional child as Emily had ever been. Maybe more. Maybe. "A boy is missing, Mulder," she said, attempting to keep her voice low and calm. "And yes, I am emotionally involved. He called and asked for my help. If you don't want to be involved you don't have to stay in Ohio." She wanted to sound reasonable and composed, but she knew she didn't. She wouldn't apologize, not when Kevin was missing. Mulder could just take it for a change. Kevin was missing. Last week she had seen an angel. A seraphim. Supposedly. She'd seen something, something when she was under severe emotional distress, something that could have been a result of her own desire to make sense of her--of Emily's horrible death. None of it seemed as real at this moment as her memory of Kevin's hand gripping hers as she pulled him out of danger. That had been right, good. Clear. Unlike the hazy miasma of that time in the hospital, or the light that called to those girls. If Mulder didn't want to come on board, that was fine with her, but she would stay until Kevin was found. She had an obligation. Scully glanced over at Mulder, almost apologetic, but he had already tilted his seat back and loosened his tie, falling into his standard flight-long doze, or pretending to. Eventually, he would lean over and rest his cheek on her hair, maybe drool on her a little, and she would shrug him off, just like this were any flight on it's way to any case. As if it weren't Kevin. She leaned back in her seat, wanting to cry and knowing that she would not. ***** Akron/Canton Airport, Ohio 2:07 am They saw him immediately when they got off the plane in Ohio, the only teenager who looked like he wasn't waiting to get on a plane, the only one without a bag. He didn't walk towards them, but asked "are you Miss Scully?" when they approached. "You can call me Dana," she said, longing to slug Mulder for his barely concealed amusement. "This is my partner, Fox." That ought to do it, she thought. "Are you Nathan?" "Un huh. Kevin described you, that's how I knew." He shifted awkwardly, his hands in his pockets. He was tall, almost as tall as Mulder, but thinner, undeveloped. His blond hair hung over his forehead in a soft wave, and Scully fought the impulse to reach out to him. He looked . . . lost. "My dad said I should take you back to our house so you could see Kevin's room, unless you want to go right to the motel. They're with the Social Services people still." "Nathan?" Mulder's voice kept the boy from turning away. "What do you think happened to Kevin?" Nathan shrugged, his face miserable beneath his fine yellow hair. "They took him," he said. "Who took him?" "The devil." "The devil?" Mulder sounded disbelieving. "Like Satan, Lucifer?" Nathan flicked his eyes from one of them to the other, as if he were judging how much he should say. He shrugged again. "Whatever." As they followed the boy to the rental counter, Scully leaned in close. "You're not catching the next flight out?" "Are you kidding, Scully? It's not often I get the chance to dance with the Prince of Darkness." He smiled at her for a second, waggling his eyebrows. She wanted to punch him again, but in a good way. She hadn't wanted him to go, no matter what she had said on the plane. She knew she was dangerously close to this case and Mulder's acidic humor and resistance would keep her from tipping over the edge. Scully watched her partner walk and chat idly with Nathan Cornell, and for no reason at all she suddenly suspected that things were going to get worse before they got better. ***** "Thanks for riding with me," Nathan said as Mulder slid into the passenger seat. "I've only got a learner's permit." "No problem." "How come Dana didn't ride with me?" Mulder smiled. "She likes to drive." Nathan nodded, pulling out of the parking lot and watching his rear view mirror to make sure her lights were behind them. "Me, too." The truth was that Scully had whispered to him at the counter that he should go with Nathan, see if he could find out what the boy knew. "Why?" he had whispered back. "You're the point woman here." "I want . . . I don't want to be alone with him, Mulder. Just do it." She didn't want to be alone with him for reasons Mulder could only guess at, but at the top of his list would be coincidence--the coincidence that their one witness just happened to have a younger sibling abducted in the course of some events which may or may not have been supernatural, just like her dear friend and partner. What luck. Maybe Scully didn't want to be alone with Nathan Cornell for her own reasons, but more likely to Mulder's mind was that she did want him to be alone with the kid. So here he was, although what he said was also true--Scully did like to drive. "So if you've only got a learner's permit, how'd you get to the airport, Nathan?" Nathan grinned a little, glancing over, his face lit then dark, lit then dark in the pattern of the streetlights. "I figured if I got a ticket, Kevin would get you guys to get rid of it." Mulder nodded, turning his grin away. "So you think he's all right then?" Nathan's face became impassive, like stone. "Yeah. I'd know if he weren't, I think." "What happened to him?" Nathan blew out his breath in an irritated puff. "I told you. They took him." "Who, Nathan? Who took him?" Mulder inclined toward him, straining slightly against the seatbelt. Nathan Cornell knew something and if he had to pressure the kid a little to get it out of him, Mulder wasn't above it. Scully was wedded to finding Kevin Cryder and Mulder would help her, but the sooner they got the hell out of this case, the better he would feel. The tear creeping from the corner of Nathan's eye startled him. First one, then another, and another, and another, and the boy was suddenly sobbing, crying so furiously that Mulder reached over and took the wheel with one hand, easing the car to the side of the road. "Nathan," he said, once the car had rolled to a stop. "Tell me what you know. You can't help Kevin if you're hiding something." Nathan shook his head. His hands lay still in his lap, a sight which disturbed Mulder more than the tears. Anyone would have cried about his little brother being taken, Mulder knew, but this kid was a teenager--he should have been wiping his face, fidgeting, hiding, doing something to cover himself up, defend against these emotions, but he wasn't. He was just sitting there with his eyes squeezed shut and his mouth open a little. The kid was in trouble. Mulder saw Scully's flashers come on in the rear view mirror, and then the dim flash of her door opening. She could handle this blubbering kid, he thought, he was only along for the ride. But as he thought it he knew it wasn't true. This was what he had been sent to do, what he meant to do the whole time, since sliding into the front seat, since the first question, perhaps since making the flight reservations. He wanted to put an end to this, to ease his partner's mind. "Tell me what you know, Nathan," Mulder said again, killing seconds until his partner could reach the door. "It's--"Nathan gasped, chest hitching. "I . . . it's my fault!" And then his hands did come, Nathan's covering his face, and Mulder's over the back seat to wave Scully off. "What do you mean, it's your fault?" he asked. "I was supposed to meet him," Nathan mumbled through his fingers. "At the ice cream stand after I got done with my math. But . . . I didn't and by the time I got there he was gone." "Why were you late?" Mulder kept his voice low and persuasive. The kid would tell him anything now in the hope that he would be absolved. He wouldn't be. "Amy called." The tears stopped, and Nathan wiped his face in slow deliberate strokes like a cat grooming itself. "This girl from school. By the time I got there the guy at the counter said that Kevin had left with his friends. I--" His chest hitched again. "I was suh-supposed to be there. He--I was supposed to watch out for him. He was my responsibility." A fresh bout of sobs shook his shoulders. Mulder felt his stomach knot up. My responsibility. My fault. The words were like a homecoming to him. If they didn't find Kevin Cryder alive and relatively whole, they would become a place of residence for Nathan as well. "Nathan, it's not your fault," he sighed, knowing that the boy would not believe him. How many times had Mulder heard those words? How empty and used up could a set of words be? "Do you have a little brother?" Mulder looked into angry, blotchy, embarrassed eyes. "I have a younger sister." "Then you know." Mulder nodded, looking out the back window at Scully, standing patiently at the bumper of the car waiting for his signal. "I know," he said. Nathan nodded at him and dug some ratty tissue out of the pocket of his over-sized pants. After a moment, Mulder leaned back in his seat, waggling his fingers at his partner. "Is it possible he did leave with friends? Maybe he got tired of waiting for you and went off with them." "Kevin didn't have friends, Fox. He was different." "Hey," Scully leaned her head down by Mulder's half opened window. "You guys okay?" "Sure," Mulder said, watching Nathan. "Just a little car trouble." Nathan managed a smile. "It just runs a little hot sometimes, Dana. We're fine." "Okay." She slapped the door lightly and headed back to her car. Nathan turned the key and began scanning traffic, looking for a break in the lights large enough for both cars to pull out. "Can I ask you something else, Nathan?" "Sure," he said, easing the car onto the pavement. "You said Kevin was different. What did you mean by that?" Nathan glanced over at him, a wry smile twisting his mouth. "Kevin said you guys knew, but maybe he just meant Miss--Dana. Kevin's from God." ***** "So what was that all about?" she asked him as they sat in the Cornell's comfortable living room waiting for Nathan to return. He had gone to call his parents at the police station and when he returned he was wearing ratty red sweatpants and a t-shirt with a hole at the neckline. Boy's pajamas. "You can stay if you want" he said before heading to his room just off the hall. "My mom said she'd give you the guest room and the couch. They should be home in a half hour." "Thank you Nathan, but we'll probably go to the motel after we see your parents," Scully said, smiling at him. "It was nice to meet you." "Yeah, see ya," he murmured, running his hands through his hair. When she was sure he was in his room, she asked again. Mulder shrugged, resting his elbows on his knees. "He thinks it was his fault. He was supposed to meet him." Scully whistled her breath out, sitting comfortably close to him on the couch. "You don't have to stay, Mulder. I'll have Kevin's parents bring me to the motel." He shrugged. "There's a couple of things I want to ask them anyway." She waited. He would come out with it as long as she didn't ask. "He said Kevin was from God, that the devil took him. Whatever actually happened to Kevin Cryder, his brother's convinced it has something to do with the stigmata." "What do you think, Mulder?" she asked, but her partner's answer was interrupted before it began by a scream from Nathan's room, and they were both on their feet, both remembering a ten-year old boy ripped from a bathroom with a barred window in only a minute of carelessness. They burst through Nathan's door, Mulder in the front, and found the boy standing in the dark, his back against the window, arms outstretched. He screamed again as they entered, and it looked as if something was holding him up there, pressing his back against the cold glass. "Nathan!" Scully yelled, and his head whipped forward like a dog responding to his name. He moaned, and took two steps, falling forward into Mulder, dragging him down to the floor. "Nathan?" She asked again, kneeling beside them, reaching out for his arm. As he had fallen he had brought his knees up, somehow hooking them around Mulder's back, wrapping himself around Mulder's neck and waist in a death grip. Nathan shook, trembled, his cheek pressed against Mulder's shirt front, his eyes wide open in shock. "Nathan," she said, again, touching his forehead. "Nathan, what happened?" "I saw him," he whispered. "I saw him. He was on the cross." He turned his face from her, into the cotton of her partner's dress shirt. She glanced at Mulder over Nathan's tousled hair. He looked back, his face miserable and pained, and she knew he was unsure of what to say, what to do. She watched her partner and the disconsolate boy in his lap and knew--if she was the one sent to protect Kevin Cryder, then surely Mulder was the one who would save Nathan Cornell. ***** Starlight Motel Bethlehem, Ohio 4:10 am Scully knocked on the open connecting door between the two rooms, pushing it wide without waiting for his response, but she paused just inside the room, squinting at him. Mulder lay on his side across the bed diagonally, head propped on one hand, tv flickering over his face. "Hey," he said. "You look like Nathan Cornell," she said. He glanced down at his posture and smiled, his face wan and drawn in the artificial light. "You finally responding to my boyish charms?" She ignored him, moving to sit behind his shoulder, resting herself against the thin lumpy motel pillows. Mulder rolled onto his stomach so he could see her. He was so comfortable in himself sometimes that it startled her. He twisted himself into convoluted and unmasculine postures, sitting indian-style on a bed, pulling his legs up into an armchair, sprawling on the carpeting like a kid. She envied him that comfort, keeping her knees together, legs crossed at the ankle. "What do you think, Mulder?" she asked. He sighed, hanging his head between his shoulder blades. For a second, Scully considered resting her hand there, near the base of his neck, feeling the warmth of his skin just above the open collar of his shirt. He had come because of her, she knew, and regretted her sharpness on the plane. Her hands stayed in her lap. "I don't know," he said. "I know what Nathan believes, and I know what you thought last time Kevin Cryder was missing, but this seems straightforward to me. A kidnapping. We follow the leads and hope something turns up." She nodded. "I wasn't suggesting we wait for a vision, Mulder. We have an appointment at the secondary school tomorrow to meet with the boys who saw Kevin last." He looked up at her, nodding. "How's Nathan?" she asked. The smile faded a little. "He's okay." She nodded, understanding the meaning behind the words: he's okay, for now. Contingent on the recovery of his brother. After Nathan's parents had returned and answered a few wearily proffered questions, she and Mulder had moved to leave, passing through the living room where Nathan lay on the couch, watching television in the darkened room. Mulder had gone and sat on the edge of the sofa, murmuring to the boy in an unintelligible voice for a couple of minutes. In that instant, she had envied him and longed for Kevin, for a child who looked up at her the way Nathan had looked up to her partner. "What'd you say to him before we left?" she asked. Mulder's smile returned, full-force. "I told him to call me Mulder." She smiled back, and slid to her feet, graceless and heavy with sleep. "I'm going to bed." "Want some help?" he asked. It was a rote question, but she hesitated, hovering near the edge of the mattress, and considered crawling back into his bed, curling up against him, resting on the solid sympathy of his body. Sometimes the only thing she wanted was to be close to him, the only one who knew what she had been through, who understood, forever. She settled for brushing her fingers over his hair. "Good night, Mulder," she said, and staggered to her room for a night of fretful dreams. Kevin (05/12): The False Prophets by Justin Glasser "The others were all false prophets. You're the only one among the twelve."BR> Simon Gates "Revelations" ***** Bethlehem Secondary School Bethlehem, Ohio Thursday, April 23 10:03 am They sat in a semi-circle, seven boys on the cusp of adolescence, shoulders slumped in defiance, eyes rolling. Scully watched them through the window, only half listening to her partner explaining their purpose to Vice-Principal Vickers. They leaned back and forth among themselves, whispering, conferring perhaps on the details. These were they--the last people known to have seen Kevin Cryder, the ones he had left with from the ice cream stand only minutes before Nathan had shown up. They knew what had happened to Kevin and they held it under their tongues, the way oysters held pearls. She wanted to pry their jaws open and force the truth from their throats. Mulder shook hands with the VP and came over to look through the window. She could see a ghost of him in the glass. "Tell me again why we're questioning them together?" she asked. It had been his idea to lump them in a bunch rather than pull them each alone into a room and intimidate the hell out of them, which was what she had planned. "Trust me, Scully." "Humor me, Mulder." He smiled grimly. "If we took them in one-by-one they'd shut up like clams. They'd stare at us and roll their eyes and they wouldn't say a damn thing until their parents got here and then they'd lie. If these kids know anything, they're under a lot of pressure to keep it quiet. If we keep them together, it's going to be Lord of the Flies in there in a second, and we get to listen in." "You don't think they're in there getting their stories straight?" "I don't think it'll matter. C'mon. Follow my lead." The boys fell silent as they walked in, casting their eyes downward. Mulder took one of the industrial plastic chairs and swung it around, straddling it and crossing his arms over the back. Scully, who had a skirt on, and was too short to straddle a chair anyway, sat sideways, legs crossed at the ankle. She held a pad with their names on it. "Andrew Richter?" she asked. A skinny kid with red hair looked up at her. "Peter Marlowe." A tall boy with dark hair and a long nose scowled, but did not lift his head. "Lawrence Wolf." "Call me Larry," said the kid on the far side of the room. He was big for thirteen, and hairy. He reminded Scully of an ape rutting behind glass. George Junger was the chubby boy picking his fingernails. Scully thought he might want to put one of those fingers up his nose if he thought no one could see. Samuel Eidel was the one slouched with his arms over his chest, his mouth pursed in boredom and disgust. Edward Brutus sat next to Samuel, closest to Scully, imitating, consciously or not, the posture of his talle fabric of his t-shirt. "Now that we've got the names straight," Mulder said, "why don't you guys tell me what happened to Kevin Cryder?" "What's your name?" Peter asked, eyes narrowing. "What's her name?" Larry asked. Scully met his eyes and stared him down. Little pervert. "I'm Agent Mulder; this is my partner Agent Scully." "What's your real name?" Peter asked. "What's your first name?" "What happened to Kevin?" Mulder asked, directing his question not to Peter, but to Edward Brutus, crouched little and dark in a yellow plastic chair. He wrinkled his nose, but did not answer. "You," Mulder said, singling out George. "Did you tease Kevin Cryder?" George glanced around at the other kids, shrugged. "Sure. We all did." "Why?" Scully asked. George smirked. "The kid was freak, man. He walked around here like he owned the place, when he didn't." "His dad's in the nut house," Gerry added. "He's not really anyone's kid." "Did you hurt him?" Mulder asked. Gerry smiled. "Like I'd tell you." Mulder smiled back, that predatory grin Scully recognized from so many interrogations, the grin that said "you don't have to tell me now, but you will tell, you will beg to tell." "What did you do to him?" Mulder asked. "Nothing he didn't deserve," Peter answered, folding his arms across his chest, and Scully felt her heart bump against her rib cage. What did these kids think Kevin deserved? She saw the looks go around the room again, the smug glances, the prideful sneers that said they had gotten something over on the adults, on the authorities. "Where is Kevin now?" Mulder asked, turning again to Edward, who drew away at the question. Scully leaned in. "Can't talk, Edward? Maybe I'll ask your friend Samuel, here. He's probably the smart one." She shifted her gaze to Samuel, who simply smirked at her. "They don't talk unless I tell them to," Peter said. His voice was loud in the dead room. "Really? You the boss here, Peter?" Mulder asked. "None of these other guys have anything to say about it?" He looked from face to face. "Andy?" "He's not the boss," Andy said, pushing his hands into his pockets. "Shut up, Andy." "Fuck you, Peter, cock-eater. You're not, you know." "Are you the boss, Andy?" Scully asked. The question brought a puff of laughter from George. She tilted her head toward him. "Yeah?" "Andy's not the boss," he said, smiling at his own private joke. "Shut up, Junger," Peter said again, louder. "Neither are you," Ed retorted, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. "I am when he's not around, so shut up!" Peter demanded. Mulder and Scully sat back in unison, distancing themselves from the boys. This was what they had waited for--all they needed to do was stay out of the way. "Said who?" Larry demanded. "I'll kick your ass, and then I'll be in charge." "Try it," Peter hissed. "Just fucking try it." "Shut up, both of you," Samuel said, not stirring from his slump. "Both you assholes know who's in charge--we all know it." "Yeah," Ed added. "Mr. Chancey could kick both of you guy's asses, so shut up." The only sound in the abrupt silence that followed was Samuel Eidel's soft curse. Mulder and Scully exchanged a glance. "So tell me what happened to Kevin Cryder," Mulder said, lacing his fingers together. Scully suppressed a smile. If these kids thought they had given up a secret they probably had, but the way to get them to tell wasn't to ask about it, to let it go like it wasn't important. She wrote "Chancey" on her notepad, underneath the names of the boys, followed by a question mark. She wondered if this Mr. Chancey had a record. "Nothing happened to him," Larry answered. "Where is he?" Scully asked. "Wouldn't you like to know?" Peter responded. Scully squeezed her pen, but kept her face motionless. She was beginning to detest Peter Marlowe, even if he was only thirteen. He was the brightest, as far as she could determine, and he was hiding something. "Yes, I would," she answered. "But you don't have to tell me." "We know you were the last people to see Kevin Cryder," Mulder added. "We know that you left the ice cream stand with him. We found Kevin's blood on the pavement outside, and we found a shoe print in it. So, all we have to do is match that print to one of your shoes and we have probable cause to arrest one of you boys for kidnapping. Anyone care to guess how long after that you'll all be in trouble?" He smiled. They were watching each other, glancing back and forth as if they were passing messages along invisible wires, but were not receiving them. Scully noted that Ed kept his head down, only peering sideways out of the corner of his eye. Weak link, she thought, and they all know it. "If you know what happened to Kevin, you should tell us." She paused and then played a hunch. "It's all Mr. Chancey's fault, anyway. We know that." Ed's head shot up, his eyes full of hope. "It is!" he cried. "Mr. Chancey made us do it. He said if we didn't he would punish us." "Made you do what, Ed?" she asked, keeping her voice low and sweet under the cacophony of shouts from the boys. She opened her eyes wide at him, urging him to tell, although she wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. Ed hunched under the verbal onslaught from the other boys. Andrew Richter was actually up out of his chair, fists clenched at his side, yelling something about kicking the shit out of the little faggot. Scully stood and took Ed by the shoulder. His arm was thin and bony. Fragile. She wanted to twist it and she wanted to feel this again, feel Emily's tiny bones, Kevin's arm under her hand. She wanted to be grateful to this boy for telling, but all she felt was a mild distaste, a sour flavor in the back of her mouth. "C'mon, Ed, let's go talk outside." She urged him out the door, and into the hands of a waiting police officer. "Ed is willing to cooperate," she said. "Make sure that he's kept away from the other boys." Mulder stepped up next to her as Edward Brutus was taken out of the office. "I'm going to take the other kids down to the station," he murmured. "I think we'll get some more out of them now." "You lied to them about the blood, Mulder." "Yep." He smiled. "You gonna rat me out?" "I'm going to follow up on this Mr. Chancey," Scully said, turning to face him. "I think he's the key." He nodded. "I'll see if I can get an address out of one of them." "Fine." She turned to leave, to get a phone book from a secretary, to get on the phone to the FBI database, to get away from the little monsters in that room masquerading as children. Mulder's voice on her name called her back. "I think he's okay," he said. She did her best to smile. Kevin (06/12): The Faithful by Justin Glasser ***** I don't question His word. Whatever He asks of me, I'll do." Owen Jarvis "Revelations" ***** Cornell Residence Bethlehem, Ohio Thursday, April 23 11: 52 am Scully paused for a moment before ringing the door bell, rubbing her fingers into the corners of her eyes. She wanted to say something positive to the Cornells, but there was nothing to say. Mulder hadn't called from the police station, and she hadn't been able to get a lead on any Mr. Chancey in the five county area. The man simply didn't exist as far as the federal government was concerned. She rang the door. Mrs. Cornell opened the door, her face a pale round map of sleeplessness and anxiety. They had met last night, only moments after Nathan had collapsed. Kneeling by the side of the hysterical boy, trying gently to untangle him from her partner, Dana Scully had glanced up to see Mrs. Edith Cornell in the doorway of her son's room, frozen in shock. "Nathan?" she had asked, her voice high and querulous. "Nathan? What happened to him? Who are you?" Scully had stood up and taken the woman into the living room, had tried to answer all of her questions and those of her sturdy laconic husband, David. Last night Mrs. Cornell had reminded Scully of Aunt Bea from the Andy Griffith Show, the type of woman who would always bake cookies and send pies to new neighbors. She still looked like Aunt Bea today, in her flower-printed house dress and apron, but it was if Aunt Bea had been to war--Mrs. Cornell looked ravaged, as if Mayberry had been attacked by alien invaders. "Oh, Agent Scully. Come in. Is there any news?" It was always the first question. "We do have a few leads, but we're still working on them. I was hoping to speak to Nathan. Is he here?" "Of course, of course." Mrs. Cornell was twisting the loose fabric of her dress in one hand. "Are any of these leads good ones?" She seemed embarrassed to be asking, begging for scraps about her son. "We don't know that yet, Mrs. Cornell. I'm sorry." "Oh, it's all right." She waved her hand at Scully in a shooing gesture. Scully took a seat and the shooing stopped. "I told David I'd call if there was any news. He went to work today, so as not to think about it, but I told him I'd call." She headed into the hall, stopped, turned back to the agent. "I know Kevin's not ours, Agent Scully, but we love him. We've only known him for twenty months. It seems like such a short time to be so attached, but . . ." Her chin wobbled. "Kevin's a special boy," Scully said, trying to remain neutral. "He and Nathan didn't get along at first, you know?" Mrs. Cornell remarked. "Nathan didn't want another boy in here, but they're thick as thieves now." "Why did that change, Mrs. Cornell?" The heavy woman sighed, remembering a happier time. "Kevin needs someone to look out for him. He's--" "--innocent," Scully finished. "Yes, yes, he is. And I guess Nathan needed someone to look out for." "Mrs. Cornell, do you believe what people say about Kevin, about the religious connotations of his marks?" Mrs. Cornell scrutinized her for a moment. When she finally answered, her voice was chilly with reserve. "Agent Scully, I've never been a religious woman. When I see Kevin I see a boy who lost his parents, a boy who needs me and my family. Everything else will have to wait." She paused. "You'd think," she began, stopped, began again. "You'd think that someone God had chosen would get a break once in a while. I'll get Nathan for you." You'd think that, wouldn't you? Scully thought, rubbing her temples with the tips of her fingers. A moment later, Nathan appeared in the doorway, ragged and fragile. "My mom said you had some questions for me." "I do, Nathan." She gestured to the couch next to her, and the teenager flopped down, sighing. "Are you okay?" Scully asked, fighting the impulse to put her hand on his forehead. He just turned his blank expression toward her, impaled her on his red rimmed gaze. "Where's Mulder?" he asked. "Following up on some leads, which leads me to what I wanted to ask you. When we were questioning some of the kids that saw Kevin last they gave us a name, Mr. Chancey. That name doesn't appear in any database that I have access to. Do you know who Mr. Chancey is?" "Sure. He's the creep that runs the magic store downtown. That's not his real name is how come you couldn't find it." "What's his real name?" Nathan shrugged. "The store's called Take a Chance, so the kids call him Mr. Chancey. He's a creep." "Could you explain that?" Nathan ran his hands through his hair. He seemed like a faint shadow of a boy. "There's just stories, you know? Like, I heard that he worships the devil and stuff, and he sells witchcraft stuff in his store. And this kid at school told me he takes little kids in the back room and touches them. Crazy shit. You don't think he has Kevin?" he said, concern blooming on his face like a rash. "We don't know," she said, putting her hand on his arm. "Do you think these stories are true?" Nathan shrugged again, lolling his head back against the couch. Scully could see the pulse throbbing fast under the thin skin of his throat. "I don't know. I mean, no one's ever said anything like it happened to them. It's always, like, 'I know this kid who knows someone who said,' you know?" Scully nodded. "But you're going to go and check on him, right?" He relaxed a little when she nodded again. "Good. Like I said, I haven't heard anything for sure, but those kids that saw Kevin, they hang out at his store a lot, and Dana,--" She watched his bleak face, saw his adam's apple bob as he swallowed. "--I heard them say once that Mr. Chancey killed a kid." She was struggling to know what to say when her cell phone chirped. "Scully." "Scully, it's me. Where are you?" "I'm with Nathan. I've managed to get an address for Mr. Chancey, a magic shop called Take a Chance downtown." She looked over at Nathan, who nodded. "Any luck on your end?" "They're singing like birds," Mulder said, and she could hear his smile in the air. "All except Peter." "What have they said about Kevin?" "They took him downtown with them last night, to that shop to see Mr. Chancey. Samuel Eidel says that they left him there at about ten p.m., alone." "Mulder, there are rumors that Chancey abuses children." "I'm afraid that they're more than just rumors, Scully. Four of the boys have testified to having sexual contact with Mr. Chancey." "I'll meet you," she said, and hung up the phone. "Something wrong?" Nathan asked. "No . . ." She shoved the phone into her coat pocket and stood up. "Can you give me directions to Take a Chance?" "Can I come with you?" Nathan did not beg, did not gaze up with hope in his eyes--he was beyond hope. It was just a question. One she knew he had to ask. She paused, looking down into Nathan's open face. She shouldn't. It was against Bureau policy to let family members tag along on investigations, it was bad practice to take a witness to a possible crime scene, and it was just plain stupid to take Nathan to the man who might be hurting his brother, foster or not. Scully sighed. "Come on. But you're staying in the car." ***** Take A Chance Magic and Novelty Shop Downtown Bethlehem 12:31 pm Nathan was out of the car before Scully had the key out of the ignition, strolling up to Mulder with his hands in his pockets. She followed, noticing with amusement that the boy had unconsciously adopted her partner's pose, turned slightly toward the cluttered shop fronts, looking over his shoulder at Scully and the car. "Mulder," Nathan said, nodding. "Nathan." "Nathan," Scully said. "All right, okay." He held up his hands in surrender and went back to the car, sitting in the driver's seat with the door open. After a second, Scully saw him fiddling with the radio. "Why'd you bring him?" Mulder murmured. "I think you have an admirer, Mulder." She watched him changing stations for a second. "He asked." Mulder nodded, as if she had answered his question. "I told you we know that Chancey has had contact with at least four of the boys. What I didn't tell you is that none of them are pressing charges." "What!" He nodded, turning his back on Nathan. "None of the parents are willing to press charges, so--" "--we have nothing to hold him on. Damn!" "I know." "Mulder, he's got Kevin, I know it." "We've got nothing." "Then let's go get something," she answered, striding toward the shop door. ***** From the outside, Take a Chance Magic and Novelty Shop looked like a hundred dingy magic shops in a hundred dusty corners of a hundred forgotten towns. On the inside it seemed a lot larger, two wide aisles separated by a half-wall lined with displays: magic tricks, novelties, masks and costume jewelry. There was a counter at the back of the store, with an old fashioned cash register, the kind where the total popped up on little cards behind a pane of glass. The shop seemed completely empty. "What do you think, Scully?" She turned and found Mulder in a gorilla mask. Then she walked away. Eventually, she heard Mulder trailing after her, picking up things and putting them back. The counter was spotlessly clean, white formica flecked with gold and silver flake. A small silver bell squatted next to the cash register with a politely lettered index card: please ring bell for service, it read, sotto voce. She tapped the bell and it chimed, a melodic cheerful sound in the empty store. "Hello?" A short round man peered from the back door, pushing his glasses up with one pudgy finger. "Hello. I'm Special Agent Dana Scully and this is my partner, Agent Mulder. We're from the FBI." She pointed and noticed that Mulder was trying on Groucho Marx glasses. He waved. Once again she felt the almost irrepressible urge to punch him. "Oh . . ." the man stepped up to the counter, wiping his hands on his apron. "How can I help you?" He looks like Mr. Whipple, she thought. Only he squeezes little boys instead of toilet paper. The thought made her grimace. "We're looking for a Mr. Chancey?" The man smiled, chuckling. "Sure. That's me, I guess." "Would you mind if we asked your real name?" Mulder asked, coming up behind her. Mercifully, he'd put the glasses down. "Simon Malachai, a nice biblical name. It means messenger of God. But most folks just call me Mr. Chancey. You can too, if you like." He smiled at Scully, and, unbelievably, she found herself trying not to smile back. The man was harmless. He was fat and jolly and completely, utterly innocent. Of everything. "We're here looking into the disappearance of Kevin Cryder," she said, regaining herself. "Kevin Cryder?" Mr. Chancey put a finger to his pursed lips. "Kevin Cry--oh, yes! Kevin! Sure. He's a lovely boy, very nice. You say he's gone?" "Mr. Malachai--" Mulder began. "Chancey, everyone calls me that." "Mr. Chancey, a number of boys claim that they left Kevin here last night," Scully said. "We'd like your permission to search the premises." "They said that? Really? Silly boys." He smiled again. "That would be Eddie and Samuel, I'm sure, the troublemakers." His lighthearted tone told them he didn't mean the words. "You see, Miss Scully, those boys like to come around and learn magic. I show them tricks when I'm not busy, which is most of the time, I'm afraid." He chuckled a little. "I caught Samuel and Eddie stealing a few days ago and had to ask them to leave. They're just trying to play a prank." "Did you catch Andrew Richter and Gerry Bell stealing, too?" Mulder asked, resting his elbows on the clean counter. "Andrew and Gerry? Why, no. Why?" "Because all four of them accused you of sexual assault." Mr. Chancey laughed, laughed and laughed, like Mulder had whispered the funniest joke in the world right into his ear. His fringe of white hair bobbed from the effort. "Oh, I'm sorry," he said, removing his glasses and wiping them on his apron front. "I just . . . well, shouldn't I be under arrest, then?" Mulder stood back, his bluff called. Scully sighed. "Yes, well." Mr. Chancey beamed. "What did the other boys say, hmm? George? Lawrence? Darling Peter?" The agents watched him, silent and sullen. He knew, Scully thought. Somehow he knew they didn't have anything to hold him on. "Do we have your permission to search the premises?" Scully asked again. Mr. Chancey smiled. "Miss Scully, Agent Scully, Kevin is a charming boy, a lovely boy, and if he were here, I am sure you would find him. Please, feel free to search, but I don't know what you think you'll find." "We hope to find the truth about Kevin Cryder, Mr. Chancey," Scully answered as Mulder flipped open his cell phone to call the police. "Really?" He bent over the counter, eyes sparkling, as if he were about to whisper to her. "Sometimes you have to come full circle to find the truth, Miss Scully. Isn't that what they say?" He picked up the box he had set down when he came from the back and sailed past Mulder (who was talking urgently into the phone) out onto the floor, leaving her gaping after him. ***** Take A Chance Magic and Novelty Shop Bethlehem, Ohio 2:43 pm Nothing. They had nothing. Mulder left the small cluster of officers near the door of the shop and headed back to the car, shoving his hands in his pockets as he went. Nathan was still sitting in the front seat, pretending to listen to the radio, secretly eavesdropping on everything. "Find anything?" he asked as Mulder slid into the back seat. "Not yet. Scully says you heard some rumors about him." "Yeah, but nothing real. Is it true, what those kids said about him? Touching them?" Mulder nodded. Nathan blew out his breath in a gust, bending his head to his hands. "Hey," Mulder said. "You didn't do this." Nathan looked up at him, his fingers pushing lines into his cheeks. "People keep saying that to me." "Maybe you should believe them." "Do you?" Mulder watched the cops in the bright afternoon light. Watched his partner order them, set them to tasks like a diminutive drill sergeant. Mulder knew what she would say, and he knew what he *should* say, and he also knew how it felt to have someone ripped away, someone you were supposed to look out for, someone who annoyed the shit out of you, following you around, asking you stupid questions, invading your privacy and touching your stuff. Someone who you loved anyway. Mulder didn't answer. "I know you think I'm nuts, Mulder, 'cause of what I think about Kevin. Man, I think so myself, sometimes. " He laughed a little. "But when I first met Kevin, I knew. I hated him for awhile, for making me think things, about God, about heaven and sin and all that crap that other kids don't even think about, but that's not him. Kevin's just a kid, Mr. Mulder. He's not all that other stuff, the bleeding and prophecies and the hand of God. He's just my little brother, you know?" Nathan's hands crawled up over his face again. "If you start crying again, I'm leaving," Mulder said, and was rewarded with a muffled chuckle and sob simultaneously. "Fucker," Nathan mumbled. After a quiet pause, during which Nathan swiped the tears off his face, Mulder turned to him again. "You just knew, huh?" he asked. Nathan bobbed his head. Mulder laced his fingers together between his knees. "What'd it feel like?" Nathan smiled, a full blinding smile for the first time in the twenty or so hours that Mulder had known him. Nathan's face was blotchy from weeping, his eyes red and swollen, his nose running, and suddenly Mulder knew what Nathan looked like when he was happy. "Ask her," Nathan said, nodding at Scully, who had just come back out of the building with a grim smile on her face. "She knows." Scully marched up to the car. "We found blood in the basement, Mulder. We're arresting Chancey. Let's go." Kevin (7/12): The Forces of Darkness by Justin Glasser "Since the day he was born they've been watching him . . . the forces of darkness." Mr. Cryder "Revelations" ***** Starlight Motel, Room 108 Bethlehem, Ohio 4:10 pm "We should take him home, Mulder." Her partner looked over at the kid sprawled on his bed, chin in one hand, remote in the other. Nathan flipped channels idly, a connoisseur sampling from every dish. Scully sighed. They weren't going to take him home--she could see it in the consideration on Mulder's face. He should be with his parents, with the nice, solid, worried, middle class people who had raised him, but Nathan wanted to be here, in a dingy motel room, with two FBI agents fast running out of leads, and Mulder wanted to let him stay. In a strange way, Nathan seemed as if he belonged there, lost just like she was, just like Mulder. "What have you come up with?" he asked, leaning up against the cheap motel table on which Scully had set up her laptop. "Nothing. He doesn't seem to be in any of the databases, Mulder, not as Chancey and not as Simon Malachai. He's nowhere." She had run searches on every database and search engine she could think of, had called in favors from other agents, other departments. She wondered if the Lone Gunmen were in. Mulder closed his eyes, templing his fingers in front of his mouth. "Try alternate spellings," he said, giving her an apologetic look. She said nothing, but her fingers moved over the little keyboard. Simon Malachay. She felt him slink to the side of the bed and knew he had nothing to offer. He was doing his best, they both were, but Chancey wasn't talking, and if those lab results didn't come back on their side, they would have to let the bastard go. Simon Malichy, she typed. Nathan was flipping channels with monotonous regularity, through ESPN, through MTV, through Baywatch. Flip. Flip. Flip. He was watching everything and nothing. She still thought they should take him home, but it comforted her to know that someone was still convinced they could do something. Symon Malachai. "What about the blood?" Nathan asked, not shifting his eyes from the screen. Of course the boy had been listening. "We don't know whose blood it is, yet." Mulder answered. "It could even be his." "So you only arrested him on that, whatchacallit, um, probability clause?" Scully smiled a little, ducking her head. Simon Malachey. "Probable cause," Mulder corrected. "Right. So he could get out?" Mulder nodded. "Tonight?" Simon Makela--Malekai. "You said you have a sister." It was a statement, but Mulder answered anyway. "Samantha." "Anything like this every happen to her?" Scully paused in her typing. "Anyone ever told you you're a perceptive kid?" "Kevin." Nathan laughed a little, and Scully felt her stomach clench. She turned her head slightly so she could watch them. Mulder sat with his elbows on his knees, hands dangling. Nathan did not look at him, but stared resolutely ahead, his shoulder close enough to touch the agent's thigh. Poor kid. "She was taken when I was twelve." "But you got her back." Nathan's face stayed bland and serene, toward the television, but his fingers tightened around the remote. "It's a long story." "I've got time," Nathan said. Mulder sighed, and Scully fought to keep her mouth closed. She found herself leaning forward, longing to answer this question for her partner. She knew what to say to this boy who wanted so desperately to be reassured, and the right answer did not include alien abductions or government conspiracies. "Okay," he said. "For a long time I was convinced that Samantha had been abducted. By aliens. I don't believe that now. This year I met a woman who says she's Samantha. She might be." Scully exhaled. Samantha. She wondered if Mulder had heard from that woman again, since the night in the diner. Since the night with the Cancer Man. At least she had the cold comfort of Emily's certain death. "You're bullshitting me! Aliens?" Nathan really laughed this time. "How stupid do you think I am, Mulder?" Scully returned to her search. Mulder had reached familiar ground. She heard the channels start flipping past again. After a while she realized that Mulder had not answered. "So you got her back," Nathan said finally, his voice gritty with determination. "You could say that." You could, Scully supposed, but it didn't feel that way. In some ways, it seemed to her like Samantha was farther removed than ever, since Mulder had seen her. If that woman really was his sister, then she had been closer to Mulder when she was just a memory, but that wasn't something you said to a sixteen-year-old kid who needed someone to tell him everything would be all right. She returned to her typing. Simon Malechay. "We might not find him," Nathan said. His thumb worked on the remote control. Flip. Flip. "Kevin might be dead or gone." Flip. "The moloch might have gotten him after all." Flip. "The what?" Scully heard the sudden interest in Mulder's voice and paused again. That was the name from the message Nathan had left, the one Mulder asked about, the one that she was sure she had heard before. Moloch. Why was it so familiar? "The moloch." Nathan's lip quivered and he brushed his hand over it. "It was like the bogeyman for Kevin. When he first moved in with us, he had dreams about the moloch taking him away. My mom said that it was because of what happened with his parents and that religious freak, but they started again last week. Kevin didn't want me to tell." "Scully." Mulder was up off the bed. "Moloch. Simon Moloch." She typed, hit enter, and the icon on the screen swirled. There was a pause, and then a face on the screen. "Fuck!" Mulder swore in jubilation. Scully felt no jubilation, only a sudden sinking in her gut, a chill of nausea. Mr. Chancey, a.k.a. Simon Malachai, was also Simon Moloch, Simon Molech, and Simon Milcorn, wanted in two states on charges of sexual misconduct with a minor, aggravated rape, and first degree child abuse. There were fingerprints, warrants, separate and discrete dockets of corroborated evidence, enough to hold Chancey for forever. Enough to indicate that if Kevin was still alive he was in more danger than she had imagined. She found herself gazing blankly at the screen. And then she saw it. "Mulder, there's more." She pointed at the highlighted word, the blue word she hadn't noticed at first because of the multicolored images on the screen. Moloch. Mulder crouched next to her chair, arm resting along her back. She clicked. The page was a calm light grey, the font normal, but the picture on the screen was a reproduction of her nightmares, a dark swoop of a figure hovering over a boy child offered up on the stone arms of a statue. A figure with teeth, surrounded by flame. "'Moloch is Hebrew for king," she read in a voice muffled by her hand, "and is also thought to be the ancient god of the Ammonites. He is often equated with the god Baal, and the golden calf worshipped by the Israelites when Moses when up Mount Sinai to receive the ten commandments. Moloch was a god of seven sacrifices offered in order of value and importance: flour, doves, a lamb, a ram, a calf, an ox, and a male child.' "'Some Biblical scholars contend that children were thrown into bonfires or crucified as sacrifices, while others claim that Moloch was worshiped via hollow bronze statues. Children were placed inside the statues which were then heated from below while drums played to muffle the screams. More recent research has turned up evidence that the phrase "passing through Moloch" which appears in the Bible meant that the male children were given up to become temple prostitutes.' "'Although the Lord forbid worship of all false gods, Moloch was one of the few mentioned by name, the regular sacrifice of children being especially heinous in the eyes of Christianity.'" Silence. Scully's cupped her hand over her mouth, tasting the bile on her tongue. "Oh my God, Mulder," she murmured. Suddenly, she knew where she had heard it before--in church, when she was a little girl. In church, where the Sunday school teacher had told a naughty little Dana Katherine Scully that children who wet their pants would be taken by the Moloch and devoured by a mouth of fire. Moloch, the demon god. She glanced over Mulder's shoulder, but for once Nathan appeared oblivious, lost in the gyrations of some music video. "We need to get a hold of the details of these other charges," he whispered. "Find out why they believe Chancey is responsible. His modus operandi. He might be following a pattern of escalating violence, moving from abuse to murder. If Chancey thinks that he's the incarnation of--" The chirp of the cell phone interrupted his whisper. "Scully," she said, struggling to find her voice. "Agent Scully, this is Officer Johnson from the Bethlehem PD." Officer Johnson, the young patrolman, so proud of his uniform, eager to do as she asked at the scene. Chancey was probably his first big perp. "I just thought you should know that we've released your suspect--" Scully felt reality swim before her. Chancey gone, released, when they had so much proof . . . but the Bethlehem PD didn't know about the aliases, about the warrants, and they didn't know about Moloch, the god of child sacrifice. "--tests came back, but the blood was Peter Marlowe's. He says . . . he says it was voluntary, Agent Scully. We couldn't keep him." "You listen to me, Officer Johnson. The man you know as Simon Malachai has warrants out for his arrest in at least two other states. He is a known child molester and a possible child murderer. I need your every resource devoted to finding and capturing him or we may not find Kevin Cryder alive. Do you understand me?" She heard her voice from a distance, as if someone else were using it, someone lucid and coherent like her father had always been in a crisis, someone who wasn't churning and boiling inside, someone who wasn't afraid that she would fail a boy who had asked for her help. She hung up without waiting for a response, and grabbed her jacket. "We have to go, Mulder. Chancey's out." Kevin: All Souls (08/12) by Justin Glasser ***** Mulder: "These forces, what do they want?" Mr. Cryder: "To claim all souls." "Revelations" ***** Residence of Nathan Cornell Bethlehem, Ohio 4:24 pm "Get out of the car, Nathan," Mulder said again. "But why can't I come with you? He's *my* brother. I can help--" Mulder opened his door and stepped out, yanking open the rear door with one fierce pull. "Out." It had started to rain while they were at the hotel. First one, then a second drop splashed coldly on the back of his neck. Tears, Mulder thought, randomly. "Mulder . . . " Nathan groaned, but slid over the seat toward the agent. Mulder took his arm and pulled the kid to his feet. "Hey!" Nathan protested, trying to yank his arm out of Mulder's hand. Mulder persisted, tightening his grip around the boy's thin bicep. Nathan was tall, but he hadn't grown into his height yet, and Mulder knew that this was still a kid he was dealing with, a boy who could be controlled. Protected. "Listen to me," Mulder said, his voice a hum next to Nathan's ear. "Chancey is dangerous. You are not coming. Every minute we spend arguing about this is another minute that we take away from your brother. Understand?" Nathan nodded, struck mute. Mulder saw the shame bloom in the kid's eyes, the sudden awareness that he had forgotten how serious the situation was, the guilt. Mulder sighed. He wanted to hug the boy, to say the words that he had never heard when he was twelve--"It will be all right."--but he couldn't. He couldn't make a promise like that without knowing for sure. "I'm sorry, Nathan," he murmured. "Go inside. Be with your parents. We'll find Kevin." Nathan nodded again. "I trust you," he mumbled, brushing his hair out of his eyes. Mulder released his arm and let him go, watching him for a second before getting back in the car. Scully was sitting patiently, hands folded into still flesh patterns in the lap of her dark slacks. She waited until they were on the road to Chancey's shop before speaking. "I suppose asking you not to get emotionally involved would be beside the point," she said, her face turned toward the dingy houses and shops rushing past the car window. Again, Mulder said nothing. ***** Take a Chance Magic and Novelty Shop Bethlehem, Ohio 4:37 pm When they got to the tattered front door, all they found were drawn shades and another index card with perfect penmanship wedged into the door frame. "Not here," it read, " but somewhere else. Not now, but very soon. Revelation 22:13. Take a chance on me." Scully felt her heart sink. "'I am the Alpha and the Omega,'" she quoted, "'the first and the last, the beginning and the end.' It's one of the most recognized passages in the Bible," she said in response to Mulder's raised eyebrows. "Uh huh. I don't suppose it tells you where he is?"he asked as they headed back to the car. "He said something to me when we were in the store earlier, something about coming full circle to find the truth. It didn't seem important at the time." She tossed her umbrella into the backseat, not meeting his eyes. "Our suspect quotes our victim's insane father, and this doesn't seem important to you?" Mulder's voice smoldered in the car. He was angry, she knew, but it had just been a coincidence, or a planned effect. Chancey had gotten a hold of the case file, and planted the phrase to make himself look more mysterious, more frightening. It didn't mean anything. She didn't bother voicing any of these rationalizations to her partner. And then she knew. "The recycling plant, Mulder! Full circle to find the truth." That had been almost fifteen minutes ago, one third of the way to the plant in Jerusalem, Ohio. Scully didn't expect Mulder to say anything at all. The wipers swished slowly back and forth, whisking rain from side to side, lulling her fears, her guilt. "Tell me how it feels," he said. Scully gaped at him, dumbfounded. "How what feels?" "How it feels to be chosen." Horrifying, she thought. It's horrifying. "What do you mean, Mulder?" "I've been watching you, Scully. You're on a mission here, some kind of quest, and I just want to know what it is that has turned you into such a believer." "I wouldn't think you'd have a problem with my belief, Mulder. I would think you'd be pleased that I was opening myself up to extreme possibilities." He glared at her. "Funny. My answer is the same as it was when you were head over heels with Luther Lee Boggs. I wouldn't have a problem with it, except for the fact that I've seen nothing to indicate that it's warranted. We're here on a whim, because you're convinced that you're this kid's personal savior." She considered that for a moment, trying to suppress the anger she felt at his unjust accustion. A whim. After all of the things they had been through together, all of the trials she had been forced to endure to prove herself to Mulder, he wouldn't just follow her. He couldn't trust her instincts, her own personal crusades. Kevin Cryder had been the first example of Mulder's stubborn resistance to belief, and now he was the latest. Finally, she answered. "I went to church last week, Mulder, to confession, to reconcile myself to what happened with Emily, with Roberta Dyer and her sisters. The priest asked me whether or not I could reconcile my belief in God with the physical fact of their deaths. As a doctor, as a scientist, I can't. But as a human being, Mulder, as a person, I believe that God lives, that the divine has a place within the mundane. That's what faith is, Mulder. You of all people should know that. It's belief in the face of convention, it's opening myself up to extreme possibilities, it's everything you have been asking me to do for the past five years, and I want to use it to save Kevin Cryder. Why can't you give me this, instead of fighting me every step of the way?" Mulder's voice was dark and flat in the rain-beaten car. "What if we don't get him back, Scully? What if Kevin Cryder dies? What happens to you?" Tears surged behind her eyes, sudden and unexpected. What would happen? She remembered the endless despair of her days in California, her struggle to find reasons to wake up every morning, to shower, to get dressed. She recalled how the visions of her . . . her daughter wrung her heart, made her cry in an instant of anguish. She knew that she had clawed herself back from the brink of desperation, not once but twice, and the last time only eight or nine days ago; she was still not all the way out yet. She could feel the void yawning beneath her. If Kevin Cryder died, could she resist its bleak lure? "I don't know, Mulder," she whispered. His eyes were on her, she knew, although she couldn't bring herself to lift her gaze from the hands that lay in her lap. They were simple and flesh colored, their outline sharp on the dark material of her overcoat. They were real. She found herself tracing the lines and patterns of her fingerprints over and over again with her eyes, getting lost in the swirls, pulling away from her own empty thoughts. "I'll be fine," she said, aware that time had passed, but not sure how much. Mulder did not answer. Instead, he reached over and took one of her hands, folded his fingers around hers, ran his thumb over the thin skin on the back of her hand. And he drove. ***** 21st Century Recycling Plant Jerusalem, Ohio 6:18 pm The plant squatted in front of them, a bleak troll dressed in the tattered yellow ribbons of police tape and hooded by thunderheads. Scully pushed her jacket back and pulled out her gun, resisting the lure to shoot the building just to see if it would recoil in pain. This had been the Omega the last time she was here, the place where she had come alone to pull Kevin from the clutches of death. She felt her heart racing in her chest, speeding up in anticipation of meeting Chancey, and in fear of what she would find once she opened the door. Up ahead, Mulder pressed his back against the wall next to the entrance, gun up. As she sidled up next to him he spun out and around the corner, pointing his weapon through the broken window. He looked at her, shook his head. Nothing. He reached through the window and opened the door. It was only after they got through the reception area and into the back office where the large plate glass window over the plant floor had been busted out that they heard the chanting. The sound was muffled, fading in and out of her hearing, high-pitched and taunting. It sounded like ghosts whispering torturous secrets. She peeked out around the edge of the window frame. Nothing. Once she cleared the window frame, the chanting became high and clear, like a boy's choir. It must have been coming from behind the large storage bins to the right, because there was no sign of anyone except those eerie voices. She opened the office door and headed out, gun first, crouching behind the minimal protection of the handrail. She was exposed, vulnerable, but the chanting did not waver, and somehow she didn't feel that the danger lurking in this place would be from a gun. She ran lightly across the floor, her shoes brushing through the debris--the old newspapers, the shredded plastic, the rat refuse--gun held ready in her hand, Mulder close behind her. The chanting grew louder, reaching for a peak, some indescribable horrific climax. Scully pressed her back against the rough metal of a recycling bin and took a deep breath. "FREEZE!" she shouted, spinning around the edge of the bin into the open, gun level and in two hands, Mulder at her back. "FBI!" The chanting stopped and seven boys stood staring at her. They were in a circle, six of them, dirty and dressed in the same clothes she had seen them in this afternoon. Ed Brutus had a black eye and a split lip, but he was grinning with the rest of them: Andy, Larry, George, Samuel and Gerry, all standing with their hands loosely clasped, smeared with dirt and something rusty red. Peter stood in the center of the circle, a filthy rag in his mouth. "What are you doing here?" Mulder demanded stepping to the edge of the makeshift circle. "What are you doing here?" George mimicked, his voice high and freakish. "What are you doing here?" "Where's Kevin Cryder?" Scully demanded. This time they all picked it up, singsonging the name--"Kevin Cryder, Kevin Cryder"--all except for Peter, who was still gagged. Infuriated, she pushed through their weak connection and pulled the rag from his mouth. Peter was the ring leader, their alpha wolf. If he talked, they all would. But her question was stopped short by the scrap of fabric she held in her hand, not a gag, but a simple doll, sewn out of two pieces of material, face drawn with a magic marker, a lock of hair tied to its head, and red paint smeared on its blunt hands and feet. A doll, a child's doll, with a crudely drawn smiley face and blood-- "Is this his BLOOD?" she shouted, shaking the doll in Peter Marlowe's face. "Is this Kevin's blood?" Peter smiled at her, his red-smeared lips parting over orthodontically- perfected teeth. She slapped him, hard and with her open palm, knocking him back and setting his own blood flowing, mixing with that of his victim. "Scully!" Mulder was behind her, grabbing her arm. He didn't have to do that, of course. She wouldn't hit the kid again. "Where is Kevin Cryder?" she asked again, but this time the circle did not mock her. She raised the doll in Peter's face, shook it under his nose, and was gratified when he flinched. "The Alpha and Omega," he muttered, turning his face away. "You have to go full circle to find the truth. To the beginning." She turned and left, aware at some level that Mulder was following her. She ignored the wounded catcalls the boys shouted after them, even as she heard them. She had no time for monsters trying to salvade their dignity. "Mr. Chancey knew you'd be here!" they called. "He'll kill you all!" "Kevin Cryder deserves everything he gets." They faded away behind her. She was thinking of more important things than a wolf pack of children. The beginning, the Alpha. Where did this begin? What had started the whole thing? "Mulder, what started this?" she asked as they climbed back into the car. "What's the Alpha, the instigating event?" Mulder turned the key, and sat, considering. "We were brought on because of the stigmata. The mark," he said. "But where does that get us? If the stigmata is the beginning, what does that mean?" Mulder sighed, tapping his fingers on his thighs. "I don't know. I never believed Kevin was marked in the first--" Scully almost felt the connection, the wheels turning in her head and locking into place. Without belief there was no mark, only coincidence. Without belief-- "Mulder, the church! The stigmata is only the mark of God in the eyes of those who believe, in the eyes of the church." "How many churches are in Bethlehem?" Scully didn't answer. She was on the phone already, explaining herself to the police, demanding the names and locations of all of the churches, of all the places where Chancey might be. Unnoticed, a vulgar doll, sullied with the blood of a child, fell to the floor in the front seat of the rental car and left its mark on the carpeting. Kevin (09/12): Sacrifice by Justin Glasser "Just because you don't understand sacrifice, because you're unwilling, don't think for a moment that you set the rules for me." Owen Jarvis "Revelations" ***** Somewhere between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, Ohio 7:11 pm Dana Scully didn't want to talk on the way back. She wanted the phone to ring, to hear an officer's voice on the phone saying that Chancey was found, wanted even more to hear that Kevin had been found, safe, alive, warm, but that wasn't happening and the waiting silence pounded against her ears in time with her heart, so she spoke, asked the first question she came up with. "How long has it been since you've been in a church?" she asked. "I mean not for . . . not with me." Mulder glanced over at her. "Almost five years, I guess. Why?" She considered not answering him, letting the question fade like so many other questions between them. "Why don't you believe, Mulder?" she blurted. "I understand not being religious, not belonging to a church, but why are you so resistant to the possibility of God?" "It's a cliche, Scully, a mythology left over from days when humanity needed reasons for the rise and fall of the tide, for dawn and sunset, for flood and famine, for bad things happening to good people." "But why don't you believe, Mulder? I don't want a rational explanation, I want a reason." "I want to believe," he said and his smile was hollow. "Fine," he sighed. "You want to know?" Scully knew she was nodding and knew that even if she wasn't, even if she had changed her mind about this particular question, he would tell her anyway. She had opened the gates and the words were stampeding toward her. "I tried, Scully. After Samantha, I tried. I prayed a thousand times a day, not those kid prayers like 'let me pass this test', but actual prayer. My knees were black and blue from supplication. I went to every church I knew of--Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox, Jewish Orthodox and Reform, Northern and Southern Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Unitarian . . . I even fucking went to the snake handlers, and I asked them all the same question- was God hearing me, and if He was, why didn't He answer? "That was the kicker, Scully, the thing that really got to me. It wasn't that I was denied in my pleas for my sister; I could understand denial, but what I got was silence. Emptiness. And do you know what they all said? Every single one of them?" "God works in mysterious ways." His eyes locked on hers, then drifted back to the road. "Exactly. But that's not good enough. It's not good enough when the only thing you want is an answer, not a yes, not a miracle, just an answer." She could see the tears glimmering in the corner of his eye, but he kept driving, jaw clenched against the words. "So you want to know why I don't believe. God doesn't work in mysterious ways, Scully. I found that out when I was thirteen years old. God doesn't work at all." "Is that what you think, Mulder?" She could not take her eyes off him, off the misery etched in his face. His hands clutched the wheel. Finally, he shrugged. "I don't know, Scully." They rode the rest of the way in silence, hearing nothing but the sound of the rain on the roof and windows, and the metronome swish of the windshield wipers. ***** St. Peter's Catholic Church Bethlehem, Ohio 7:26 pm It was an instant that Dana Scully would remember for a million nights of bad dreams, a split second that would haunt her at random for the rest of her days: when she burst into the basement of St. Peter's Catholic church and saw Kevin Cryder for the first time in over three years, she froze. The Bethlehem police had found him through the elimination of the eleven other churches in town, and surrounded the building, waiting for some sign. They had attempted to enter the church, but shots rang out whenever they approached the door, and Mulder and Scully found the cops hunkered down behind open car doors, service pistols out and vests on. "Watch," Officer Johnson said, as another team of officers approached the building, hunched like a string of trolls. Scully watched. As the first officer stepped onto the grass in front of the church's sign, he was met with a barrage of bullets. She heard the whine as one passed her ear, heard the crash and shatter as they fragmented the trees above her, and sent branches and leaves fluttering to the ground. She dropped behind the car door, squinting through the open window to see the officers do the same, then bolt back away from the lawn. "It happens every time," Johnson said, "But there's something strange going on." Scully exchanged a look with her partner. "Explain strange," Mulder said. "No one's shooting. We hear the bullets, we see the effects, and one of our guys said it felt like he got hit, but there was no wound, and we haven't been able to find a single shell. It's like . . . like an illusion." Scully heard Mulder's soft murmur--"Smoke and mirrors." Officer Johnson's face twisted in frustration. "No one's been hurt, but there's procedure for this kind of thing, and--" And it was clear that Bethlehem police would not be attempting to storm the building. Scully looked at her partner, then back at the officer. "We'll go," she said. ***** After some short deliberation about techniques and procedure, Bethlehem's finest were left outside to watch for Chancey while Mulder and Scully donned flak jackets and actually entered the building, hunched over as they ran toward the edge of the property. Scully flinched as she hit the lawn, waiting for the shower of gunfire. There was none. They raced across the well-manicured lawn, slid through the heavy doors and slunk through the vestibule into the church unmolested, walked up the center aisle like a guerrilla bride and groom, and found nothing. The church seemed entirely deserted. Mulder headed off to the right, to check out the priest's closets. "Clear," he called softly, and after a moment came back through the engraved doors. Scully sighed. Where was Kevin? She could feel herself growing more and more desperate, wondering where she had messed up this time, what kind of wild goose chase she had led them on, what was happening to Kevin while she was in error. The crucifix loomed large and impassive behind the altar. Here at St. Peter's they had opted for the passive and suffering Jesus lit beatifically by a shining back light, not the massacred one, face stiff in a rictus of pain. This Jesus had His face lifted to heaven. He was at peace. Scully paused before the crucifix, mind racing. Kevin was here somewhere, here. What other explanation was there for the dog and pony show outside, for the boys at the recycling plant. Kevin was here. She found herself staring up into the face of the icon, thinking over and over again, like a rosary--Please, Kevin has to be all right. All right. Kevin has to be all right. She bowed her head suddenly, Mulder's voice only background noise as her hand painted the age old design across her chest. Please, let him be okay, she thought as she genuflected, and when she opened her eyes they followed the shadow of the crucifix cast by the back light. At it's edge, she saw the black outline of the trap door. She would have walked right over it in another step or two. It was embedded in the hardwood floor, its thin border partially concealed by the persian rug that lay under the altar. The ring that would pull it open lay almost directly under her foot. For a spilt second she was lost in a recollection of the sunny dust motes in Owen Jarvis's kitchen over three years ago, and the plastic circle on a string that pulled down the attic stairs. Alpha and Omega. The first rescue and the last. "Mulder," she said, pointing. He came over, and nodded. As he crouched down and grabbed the ring, she readied her weapon, stepping quietly to the side of the door and pointing it down and forward. Anyone aiming up through the trap door would shoot right past her. Mulder pulled up on the ring. No one was aiming. She peered down into the darkness and saw nothing. She eased herself down the wooden ladder, keeping her gun out and pointing, one eye on the rungs beneath her feet. When Mulder started down, she had a chance to step back and survey the surroundings. Then she saw him. Kevin. O, Kevin. Like a beaten angel, he hung from the wooden beam that supported the ceiling, his arms outstretched on a crossbeam, hands crusted thick with blood. He was an arrow pointing downward, a martyr, a mark of her failure dressed only in loose and soiled jeans, and his own blood. His chin sagged against his chest, and his hair fell limply in his face. His mouth hung open. Dirty light from a small basement window slanted across his body, lining the bruises and scratches that decorated his pale skin. He did not move. Dimly, Scully felt Mulder's hand on her arm. "Kevin," she choked, gulping back tears. Later she would not remember moving, but she would know that she was at his side, reaching up, relieved to find that Kevin was only bound to the beams with thick rope, not nailed as she had feared. She would remember tugging at the rope around his feet and feeling the boy slump over her shoulder as Mulder freed his arms. She would remember his dead weight through the heavy throb of her tears, her lowering him to the grimy floor and crying out his name over and over again, and the rush of relief that bathed her when blood flowed fresh through the wounds of the stigmata because blood meant life. And she would remember the hot and frightening joy that burned within her when Kevin opened his eyes, his beautiful blue eyes, and saw her, and gripped her hand with his own blood-slick fingers, when he pulled her toward him to whisper in her ear: "I knew you'd come." And she would remember how her blood ran cold when she heard the voice behind her, placid and amused, echoing Kevin's very words in a parody of intimacy. "Well, Miss Scully, Mr. Mulder," Chancey said. "I knew you'd come." And she would remember him laughing. Kevin (10/12): Armageddon by Justin Glasser "You must understand--this is the great war between good and evil." Mr. Cryder "Revelations" St. Peter's Catholic Church Bethlehem, Ohio 8:02 pm "You want to kill me, don't you?" Chancey asked. His tone was conversational, as if he had just asked about the weather. He propped his elbow against the ladder. He smiled. "I would want to kill me, too, if I were you. I'm a bad man." Mulder stood slowly. Chancey watched him, his smile intact. "You know all about bad men, don't you Mr. Mulder?" he asked. "I think you do. That's why you want to kill me, why you want to kill us all. But you won't. You had your chance to do it, and you let him go. And you will let me go, too, you poor, poor man." Chancey chuckled a little. Mulder knew that his gun was in his hand, that it hung limp from his fingers, he could feel its weight, its smooth grip. He couldn't lift it. He couldn't. He couldn't take his eyes from the pleasant chubby old man who laughed so much. "You wanted to know the truth, Mr, Mulder. That's why you don't shoot me now--you have doubts, questions. Things only I can tell you. It's quite amusing when you think about it." It wasn't amusing. Mulder could feel the sweat on the back of his neck, inching its way down his spine, a liquid worm of frustration. One little traitorous corner of his mind whispered for him to do it, to ask the question, to sell his soul to this Mephistopheles for the knowledge he wanted. For the answer to the unanswerable question: is there a God? Do you know Him? "Mulder." Scully's voice rose to his ears. "She believes, Mr. Mulder," Chancey said. "She thinks she knows the answers to all of your questions. I always found that annoying myself, people who think they know everything. Especially women. Show-offs." He grinned. "I'm an old fashioned man myself. I'm sure you're more accepting of that than I would be." "Mulder," he heard her say again, and this time he felt her hand on his thigh, pressing just above his knee. "Mulder, don't listen to him." "Oh no!" Mr. Chancey laughed. "Don't listen to me, Mulder! What do I know? Who am I? I'm just a shopkeeper who sells novelties, silly tricks." His hands moved, and a bouquet of paper flowers bloomed. One coin after another spun from his fingers and clinked to the cheap linoleum floor. "I'm just a joke with a dark side, but I won't bore you with the details of that. I'm sure Kevin can fill you in later, if he lives." "Shut up," Mulder mumbled. Perspiration ran on his face. "Mulder, don't listen to him." Scully's hand on his pants leg tugged, pulled at him. "She's right, Mulder. Don't listen to me. Listen to him." Mulder came back into himself, confused. Him? He looked down, but Kevin was still hardly conscious, eyes closed, breathing though his mouth. Scully shook her head. Chancey rested casually against the ladder, elbow propped on a rung, smiling. There was a bump, a shuffling movement from above, and Mulder understood. "No, NO! Nathan, stay back!" he shouted. "Mulder, is that you?" Nathan's faint voice moved closer. "Nathan, stay back!" he shouted again. "Did you find Kevin? Is he okay?" Closer still. "Nathan, stay away from the trap door!" Scully hollered. "Is he okay?" Nathan asked again, from right on top of them. Mulder found his gun again, poised in his hand. He brought it up and fired, twice, at Chancey's head. The fat man ducked and giggled a little. "Oops!" he cried quietly. "Missed." "Mulder!" Nathan yelled out, and the light from the trap door was blocked off. "Nathan, NO!" he screamed, but it was too late. In one swift and impossibly smooth motion, Chancey reached up and pulled Nathan down by the ankle. There was a brief struggle as Nathan fought for purchase before falling, and Mulder heard the smack of the boy's chin on a rung. When he opened his eyes (he had closed his eyes? When had he closed his eyes?), he saw that Chancey had Nathan in an embrace like that of a dancer, holding the boy against him with one palm in the center of his back, keeping him motionless with the pressure of a small knife at the side of his throat. It looked like a snake, small and silver and deadly, the tip pressed into the flesh of Nathan's neck. Mr. Chancey's breath whooshed in and out, forcing Nathan's back to rise and fall with it. Mulder wished that Chancey had held the boy the other way, so he could see his face, so he could reassure him, know that he was okay. The thin column of Nathan's neck seemed tender and vulnerable. Mulder's fingers tightened on his gun. The sound of Chancey clearing his throat drew Mulder's eyes back to his face. "I believe this is what's known as a standoff, Mr. Mulder. You should have killed me when you had a chance." "What do you want, Chancey?" Scully asked. Chancey beamed at her, pushing the point of the dagger until it dimpled Nathan's skin. Mulder heard the muffled whimper. "What do I want?" Chancey pursed his lips and made smacking noises in Nathan's ear. "Hmm, what do I want? That's an easy question, Miss Scully, because I already have what I want." Mulder saw Chancey's tongue, fat and wet, lick a path up Nathan's throat, saw the boy's horrified squirm. "I cause trouble, Miss Scully, that's what I do, and I've certainly caused some trouble for you." Chancey paused, eyes bright. "Why, that's a rhyme. I'm a poet, and I didn't know it!" He laughed, a hearty belly laugh that shook Nathan's body. "My work here is done, so I guess I'll run. How easy it is!" He glanced up at the ladder, ascertaining its location. Mulder kept his gun up. Chancey couldn't carry Nathan up the rungs, not with only one arm. This was their chance to get the bastard. Their last chance. "One more thing," Chancey said. "A parting gift for the golden boy, if you will. It's been so much fun. Say goodbye, Nathan," he said. And drew the dagger down the side of Nathan's pale throat. Kevin (11/12): God's Hand by Justin Glasser "I believe in the idea that God's hand can be witnessed." Dana Scully "Revelations" St. Peter's Catholic Church Bethlehem, Ohio 8:23 pm, Thursday, April 23 "NO!" Scully saw Mulder leap across empty space, clawing at the ladder, but Chancey was up and gone, slamming the trapdoor in his face. Mulder banged his shoulder against it once, twice. It did not even rattle. She scrambled to Nathan's side, her doctor's fingers reaching through the darkness, encountering slickness. "Mulder," she cried. "I need your help!" She knelt beside the boy, pushed his hair back from his ear, squinted in the faint light from the dirty window. The blood spread in an inky pool beneath Nathan's head, blackness on the dark floor. She could hardly make out its borders in the murky light. "Come here," she grabbed Mulder's wrist and pulled him down next to her. "Hold him up. I have to see." She lifted Nathan by the shoulders, thrusting him into Mulder's arms so that the wound on his neck faced the window. She squinted into the shadows, fighting to see something, anything, that would give her hope for Nathan's survival. She wanted to hope. Chancey had moved so quickly, the cut could be superficial, it could only seem bad because of the poor conditions, her inability to examine the injury. She ignored the warm wetness seeping into the knees of her pants, the stickiness that coated her hands. "Dammit!" she whispered. She couldn't see the depth and extent of the wound, not really, but she was pretty sure that Chancey had sliced right through the carotid artery: Nathan's blood was being pumped right out of his body. It ran in thin streams down his shoulder, over and through his t-shirt. He would live for maybe a minute or less. She could not help him. Her chin trembled as she met Mulder's eyes over the pale shadow of Nathan's tangled blond hair. She shook her head, and even through the darkness she saw the pain bloom fresh on his face. His arms tightened around the boy. Was this the price then, for saving Kevin? Was there always a sacrifice? Last time it had been Owen, and Kevin's own mother, this time was it Nathan Cornell. Who would she watch die the next time Kevin's life needed saving? "Nathan?" Kevin's voice rasped from near her left hand. He had crawled over, voice rough from disuse, shaky with emotion. "Is he going to be okay, Miss Scully?" She pulled her fingers away from Nathan's throat. He wasn't dead, not yet but any second. He had called her Dana. And his blood was on her hands. "No, Kevin." Her voice cracked. "He won't be." Kevin paused beside her for a moment, head bowed, completely still. "Help," he said, and she dragged him up into her lap so that he could remain upright. He swayed even in her arms. "Nathan," he said. "Nathan." His fingers roamed over his brother's arm, his shoulder, his bloody throat. "Oh, Nathan," Kevin Cryder said, and in the dim light she saw the shimmer, the glistening in the palms of his hands that told her Kevin's own blood had begun to flow once more. ***** Mulder sat in the dark, on a cold and dirty floor with a dying boy in his arms, and the tackiness of cooling blood on his fingers. His shoulder ached from slamming it into the trapdoor, and Nathan's weight was cutting off the circulation in his leg. He felt everything, from the pins and needles tingling in his toes, to the crick in his neck from the awkward position, but most of all he felt the aching emptiness in the middle of his chest, just under the place where Nathan Cornell's cheek pressed, chilly with death. Empty. This was it, this was where belief got you--a locked room in a false church with an innocent kid who got killed by a psychopath just because he was there. This was faith. He heard Kevin's voice, felt his fingers dance over his own arm before finding that of his brother. Scully should stop him, Mulder thought, when Kevin's fingers moved higher, onto the throat. She didn't though, and Mulder didn't say anything, just kept his eyes on her shadowy form. After a moment, he realized that he could see her eyes, glowing blue and shimmering with tears, and her face, and the glimmer of the cross on her neck. And he could see Nathan's blond hair, sticky with gore. And Kevin's bruised and dirty face, his eyes closed, and the ceiling of the room and the far corners, bathed in an eerie blue and steady light that seemed to emanate from everywhere and nowhere. Nathan's body jerked in his arms. Kevin leaned forward, closing his hands around his brother's throat, his lips moving. It looked as if he were strangling Nathan, wringing his neck, except Kevin was crying a little, and rocking back and forth in Scully's grasp. "Scully," Mulder said. She shook her head, eyes wide, lips parted. She placed her hands on Kevin's thin forearms. "Kevin," she said. "You can't--" "Guh!" Nathan cried, sitting abruptly forward, breath coming in little pants. Mulder jerked away. Impossible! his mind cried. Nathan was . . . impossible. Nathan turned, eyes rolling, throat and shirt streaked with gore. "Kevin," he gasped, and fainted. Despite the fact that Mulder was shaking, he caught the boy. Kevin (12/12): Full Circle by Justin Glasser "Sometimes you have to come full circle to find the truth. Why does that surprise you?" Scully's Confessor "Revelations" The rest was a blur, as the endings of things always are, a cursory and unsatisfactory conclusion to events that would have to be digested later, alone. ***** They came out of the church together, Nathan slumped in his arms and Scully at his side propping Kevin up by sheer force of will. The red and blue lights of the police cars and the ambulances seemed impossibly far away. For a moment, Mulder closed his eyes. In that instant, everything seemed clear. The smell of blood drying on his clothes, the brush and whisper of the breeze on his face, Kevin's harsh breathing rattling at his side, it was all precise and illuminated, pure. And then they were surrounded, swamped by police and paramedics and officials. He was faintly certain that they had taken Nathan from his grasp, that Scully was shouting something at the EMTs, but he really saw and heard nothing. Later, in the hotel room, he would think about telling Scully about that moment, about that wonderful and perfect second when he was where he was supposed to be, doing what he was supposed to be doing. Where he belonged. Where all of his questions and his pains and his doubts were erased in a single epiphany of destiny so great it left no room for anything else. He would consider thanking her for putting him in its path. He ended up not saying anything at all, but he never forgot. ***** May 12, 1998 Hey Mulder-- What's up man? Sorry I didn't write sooner, but I've been kind of busy. My dad said he would pay half on this '68 Mustang we saw in the paper but guess who has to pay the other half? I got a job at the auto parts store so that when we start fixing it up I can get a discount. It should be sweet. I'll send you a picture. I don't know if you know this or not, but Peter Marlowe, that weird kid who used to hang around Mr. Chancey? Well, he went into the nuthouse last Monday. He started showing up to school with cuts in his hands and on his forehead and I guess they found him in the bathroom with a razor blade. The kid was whacked. How is Dana? Fine, I hope. Kevin says that she might be coming to visit in a month or two. You can come too if you want--I could reserve your old rooms at the motel, or maybe this time you can share one. (wink, wink) Later, Nathan ***** From the final report of X-file X759862KF The Matter of the Kidnapping of Kevin Cryder written by Special Agent Dana Scully April 30, 1998 . . . at that time, Agent Mulder and I had no choice but to attempt to determine Simon Malachai's intentions in taking Nathan Cornell hostage. When asked about said intentions, Mr. Malachai responded with a rhyme, and appeared to cut Nathan Cornell's throat with the aforementioned knife (see Appendix B). Upon initial examination, Nathan Cornell's wound appeared quite serious, involving a complete severing of the carotid artery and surrounding tissue on the left side of the throat along the vertical (see Appendix C). Upon later examination, however, no trace of a wound was discovered although large quantities of blood were found, both on Nathan Cornell's clothing and on the floor of the church basement. A full battery of tests reveal the blood to be that of both Nathan Cornell and Kevin Cryder (see Appendix D). As Nathan Cornell did not have any other wounds besides a small abrasion on his chin, there is no scientific explanation for this anomaly. Local police did not see Simon Malachai on the premises at any time, nor did they see him leave. Agent Mulder and I also could not find any witnesses to Nathan Cornell's arrival at the church, although any such witness' hesitation to come forward can be understood in light of the events which followed. At this time, federal agents have found no further trace of Simon Malachai. He has not re-appeared under any of his former aliases, not does it seem likely that he will. The events surrounding the kidnapping and subsequent retrieval of Kevin Cryder remain a mystery. While Agent Mulder is convinced that Simon Malachai's expertise with slight of hand allowed him to deceive us regarding the seriousness of Nathan Cornell's injuries, it is my opinion as a medical doctor that Nathan Cornell did indeed suffer a severe if not fatal injury at the hands of Simon Malachai and then underwent some sort of regenerative healing process the nature of which cannot be explained by science at this time. Further research into this matter is required. Signed by Dana Scully, Special Agent, Badge Number 2317-616 ***** They came out of the church and into the loveliness of a spring evening. The rain had stopped. As they crossed the manicured church lawn toward the cacophony of emergency vehicles, Scully tilted her face to the black sky. Kevin Cryder staggered, beaten but alive and whole, under her arm. Nathan Cornell drooped unconscious and bloody in her partner's shaking grasp. And Mulder . . . she glanced at his profile, lined red and blue in the lights from the cars, twisted into a grimace from the strain. Mulder was Mulder. Dana Scully lifted her countenance to the heavens and gave thanks. ***** Akron-Canton Airport Sunday, April 26 2:47 pm They stood in the wide and brightly lit corridor of the airport terminal, dark storks against the sun splashed walls. Two teenaged boys stood with them. "How do you feel?" Scully asked. Kevin shrugged. "Good, I guess. Better." He smiled up at her. He was fine: she knew that. As she had sat by chewing her lip until it bled, Kevin had suffered an examination done by one of the local doctors which revealed the boy as dehydrated, malnourished, and beaten severely and repeatedly, used in every way except sexually (Chancey had told the boy he was saving the best for last), but Kevin would be fine. Eventually. Even now some of the bruises were fading, ghosts of what they had been. Of the stigmata there was no sign. There had been no sign the last time, either, when she had turned his hand over in hers. She remembered saying goodbye to him in the communal bedroom of the orphanage, running her thumb over his smooth palm. He was taller than he had been three years ago, of course, and his adult teeth had grown in, but he was still Kevin, still a sensitive show-off of a boy with a longing to be liked. "You going to be okay?" she asked, although she knew the answer he would give. He nodded. Without warning, he reached out and took her hand. His fingers curved around hers, warm and slightly damp, larger than she recalled, stronger. Scully resisted the impulse to pull him close. "So, maybe I'll see you again sometime," she said. Kevin's smile transformed into a grin--he remembered. She hadn't known if he would. "You will," he said, and this time she didn't resist, but folded her arms around him, pressing her cheek against his. Kevin's arms came up around her neck. "Thanks," he whispered. Scully released him and stood back, blinking rapidly. "Next time, call sooner," she said. Kevin nodded again, doing some fast blinking of his own. "Ready?" Mulder asked, coming up next to her. "Sure." As they walked down the corridor toward the gate, away from Ohio and the boys who watched them, Mulder leaned over. "You okay?" he asked. "I'm fine, Mulder." She paused and handed her boarding pass to the gate attendant, looking up at her partner, although he was looking away. "We'll talk," he said finally, his eyes skimming over hers and coming to rest on his shoes. She nodded. Leading the way down the boarding ramp, she mulled over his statement. They probably wouldn't talk, she knew, not about Kevin, not about what had happened. Things would come up, more important things, like cases, like possible answers for Mulder's endless questions, and this one possibility would be forgotten, repressed, like so many other moments between them, and Mulder would never bring up what had happened in a church basement in Ohio. That was okay, Scully thought, sliding into her seat near the window and fastening the seat belt over her lap. They didn't have to talk about it. There was no proof anyway, no evidence for the miracle she was certain they had witnessed, nothing demonstrably out of the ordinary, except for the fact that Nathan Cornell had somehow survived a fatal wound without any medical treatment whatsoever, and three days after the event didn't even have a scar. No evidence at all. Unbidden, the words of the priest came back to her, the priest from right here in Ohio, the confessor she had gone to the last time. "Maybe it was only meant for you." And she knew the truth. More importantly, she knew Mulder knew. No matter what he said in his report, no matter what he didn't say when they didn't talk about what didn't happen in Ohio, he knew. When he leaned over in his sleep about halfway through the flight and rested his cheek on the top of her head, she didn't pull away. ***** Epilogue Summer Bethesda, North Dakota He went in on a dare from the other kids, and because it was the first store to open in Bethesda since he could remember. Most of the stores in town were closing, not opening with big banners and an ad in the Bethesda Tribune. He wanted to be the first to see what was inside. Inside were toys, rows and rows of them, some of them toys he had only seen on television because none of his friend's parents had money to waste on superheroes or Barbies. He was wandering around in the squirt gun aisle, fingering a Super Splasher 2000, when the man came up to him. "Why hello, young sir! Who are you?" "Josh. Josh Keller." The man was short and fat and wore square glasses like his grandfather wore. Bifocus, Josh thought they were called. "And how old are you, Josh Keller?" "Eleven." "Oh, to be eleven again!" The man sighed and laughed a little. Josh laughed too, although he didn't think what the man said was funny. "Well, Josh, how do you like my store?" "It's okay. Who are you?" "Hmm, good question. I guess since my store is called The Daredevil's Playground, you could call me Mr. Dare. Mr. Simon Dare at your service!" The man stuck his hand out, and Josh shook it gingerly. This guy was too weird, too happy. Most of the adults Josh knew spent most of their time frowning and talking about the money they owed the bank. Especially his dad. "You like squirt guns, Josh?" Mr. Dare asked. "They're okay." He shrugged. "If you think these are okay, wait until you see what I have in the back. They're lovely!" Mr. Dare turned and hustled down the aisle toward the door in the back. He reminded Josh of what Santa Claus would look like on his days off, if Santa Claus were real. Mr. Dare paused only to glance over his shoulder. "Well, come on if you want to see," Mr. Dare said, curling his finger toward himself. "Come on. I don't have all day, do you?" That was something Josh's dad said when he thought Josh was dragging his heels, but Mr. Dare didn't sound annoyed, and he smiled as he said it. Josh wavered, hands in the pockets of the jeans. His mom had always told him not to go places with strangers, but the back room wasn't exactly a different place, and he already knew Mr. Dare. He owned the toy store. Josh turned and followed. After all, he wanted to see. *****end 12/12*****