Title:  At Dusk
Author: Ainon
E-mail: mulangst@hotmail.com
Rating:   R
Spoilers: 'Paper Hearts', 'Emily', 'All Souls', 'Tithonus'.
Category: V, A
Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully and John Lee Roche are
not mine. They belong to Fox Network and 1013
Productions. No copyright infringement meant. I am
from a foreign country though, so I think I can plead
ignorance.
Feedback: I will be so, so happy if you would.
Summary: Sometimes, maybe hope should be allowed to die.

Acknowledgements: Thanks to Nikki, Tina and the two
esteemed ladies of MBInternational for making me work
harder on this. I owe a lot to Nikki and Debbie for
assuring me that this tale is worth telling, and I owe
a lot to Ten for pointing out to me things that I
never would have seen myself.
And Liz, thanks for telling me how to pronounce
'vignette'.



AT DUSK
by Ainon (mulangst@hotmail.com)


Scully slipped the autopsy photos back into the case
folder, stretched her arms, and then rubbed her eyes
with the heels of her palms. She checked the time
again. It was almost seven o'clock and Mulder still
wasn't back yet. She was getting very hungry, and
debated whether to wait for him or to go get some food
for herself. All he'd said to her earlier was that
he'd be back in time for dinner, but he hadn't
actually promised that the dinner would be with her.

A loud rumble in her stomach helped her decide. There
was a diner within walking distance. She'd go there
for dinner by herself, and once fully satiated, she'd
return here to wring Mulder's neck. She could call him
of course, but she felt a stubborn need to wait him
out. He'd ditched her again, and this time he'd gotten
away with it right under her nose. She wasn't going to
give him the satisfaction of knowing that she was
worrying. She had to be firm and just kill him. It was
the only proper thing to do.

She grabbed her coat and wallet, and opened her door.
As she was about to step out, she stopped. Mulder was
standing in the parking lot in front of their rooms,
beside their rented green Ford. He had his back to
her, and he seemed to be watching something. So intent
was he that he didn't even hear her closing the door.
Or maybe he was pretending not to hear.

Curiosity won over the planned blitz attack. She
walked over to stand beside him, and was rewarded by
his cursory glance at her. There was no guilt in his
expression; could he really assume that she wouldn't
be upset about him galloping off to do his thing while
she was stuck here handling public relations with the
local cops?

He spoke first. "I was watching the sunset."

Scully frowned, and looked up where he was looking. In
the distance the sun was setting but that view was not
for them; they were too far inland. Instead their view
was that of dark treetops silhouetted against a
backdrop of orange-red simmering just below a sky-blue
canvas. Puffy clouds reflected the redness and glowed
like embers, and between breaks in the clouds, streaks
of orange shone through.

It was a very pretty sight, but it was not a good
enough reason to put off the murder of her partner.
Yet the planned deed was again interrupted, this time
because he started to wistfully reminisce.

"I don't know why - I was standing here, watching the
sunset, and I suddenly thought of this cat we used to
have. Not even a cat yet; just a kitten. She climbed
up a tree in our yard, and then she wouldn't come
down. I remember Samantha and my mom getting upset
about it. I think I was about nine or ten. It was
almost dusk and the sun was setting, but that damned
cat refused to come down. So my dad climbed up the
tree to fetch her, and just as my dad was about to
make a grab for her tail, she jumped down of her own
accord. I'll never forget the look on Dad's face. And
Mom she was trying so hard not to laugh. The sky was
turning orange and red, like this, and my dad was a
big dark shadow up in that tree, cursing and thinking
I couldn't hear him."

Mulder stopped suddenly and shook his head. "I'm
sorry. I don't know why I was reminded of the cat. I
preferred the dog." He shot her an embarrassed look.
"Memories pop up at the weirdest times."

His obvious embarrassment at having recounted a tale
from his life made her uncomfortable. She wanted to
ask if he was all right, but the fact that he'd
ditched her still stung, and she wasn't ready to
pretend that all was fine. So she jumped to working
matters as a reminder to Mulder of what he'd missed by
leaving her behind.

"Jody Mason was hit by a car."

"Any chance that we know it's a black car?" he asked,
his eyes riveted to the black treetops against the
orange-red sky.

"That we don't know yet. We found some fibers, some
dust, and some small flecks of undetermined origin on
her body and clothes. We surmised that the car must
have struck her - not as hard as the other two girls
were - but bad enough to cause massive internal
bleeding: her spleen was perforated, and she had four
broken ribs. Externally, she just had cuts and
scratches on her arms and hands. She must have fallen
instead of being flung or scooped up by the car.

"The driver stopped his car, got out, picked her up
and put her in his car. This is where things get
tricky. Was he planning to take her to the hospital,
only to have her die along the way? Did he then become
afraid and take what he thought would be the easy way
out? That road where Jody's body was found leads to
the hospital."

"No fresh evidence from the ditch where she'd been
thrown?"

"No. But she had no massive external injuries. Her
injuries were all internal, and there was nothing to
bleed out. Cause of death was hypovolemic shock. Maybe
she died in the car. We can't be sure. But under the
circumstances, it would be better if she had died in
the car. It was a hot day and there was very little
shade there in the ditch."

"He stopped the car and threw her out," Mulder said
slowly. There was no hot emotion in his tone, just a
dull acceptance of the depravity of human crime.

"Her injuries seem to concur with that fact," she
agreed. "If ever his true motive was to help her after
the accident, he wasn't gentle. We have imprints of
his left thumb and index finger on her arm."

"Able to pull fingerprints?"

"We'll have to wait and see if they're good enough to
use. We might be lucky. Still nothing to tie this with
the other two accidents." Scully paused, wondering if
she should continue. Then she made up her mind, hoping
he wouldn't gloat - though if he were to behave that
way after what he'd done to her today - well, she'd
make him suffer more than what she already had in
mind.

"But I'll admit that there's nothing to show that this
isn't at all connected either."

Mulder nodded, acknowledging the fact that for the
moment at least, there was no need to wrangle over who
needed to disagree and who needed to agree.

"What are you suspecting, Mulder?"

"I'm suspecting that all this is more than just
coincidence."

Well, she should have expected that vague response.
"And what do you mean by that?" she asked. Then she
pressed ahead with gentle sarcasm, "Are you suggesting
that the Men in Black are taking a high-speed approach
to eliminating potentially incriminating little
girls?"

He turned to stare at her. His voice was rich with
humor and feigned disbelief as he said, "You know, I
hadn't even thought of that. I can't believe that you
did, Scully. This is a day that will be recorded by
history: the day Special Agent Dana Scully acknowledges
the existence of the fringe organization known as the
Men in Black, and not only does she admit their existence,
she's connected them to an on-going federal investigation!
Scully, is your tape recorder with you? We have to record
this day."

Her cheeks burned red, and she snapped, "Quit it,
Mulder." The joke wasn't so funny anymore now that
he'd one-upped her. "Seriously, do you realize the
incredible odds here? Accidents happen. Hit-and-runs
and little girls dashing across the streets ... "

"I know the odds, Scully. I was the one who compiled
the statistics in the case folder. Little girls, all
of pretty much the same age and basic physical
description, a black Ford Taurus, no real witnesses to
tell us anything about the car or driver in every
case. Two previous cases - should we assume that these
three cases are related - remain unsolved despite
everyone's best efforts. And not a single sighting of
damaged black Fords anywhere? Odd, all right."

"I'll give you that, that everything is just too
uncomfortably coincidental. So, fine. Let's work with
that. What are you thinking?"

"Serial murder," he replied, as though it were
something plain and simple and obvious.

"By car?" she inquired, unsure if this was a matter
she ought to feel relieved about. At least he hadn't
suggested anything paranormal. If this was his theory,
it helped her understand how Mulder had managed to get
Skinner's approval on this so quickly. A good old-
fashioned serial killer who used his car as the
carriage of death, literally, would be something to be
very concerned about.

"I know it's not a documented method of serial-
killing," Mulder said. "I can't be certain of it
really, at this point. It's not totally unlikely, but
there's something very impersonal about this, and
there are too many unanswered questions. Is the
killer, if we are dealing with one, targeting these
girls specifically, or are they victims of chance?
It's hard to imagine little girls walking along a
street being high-risk victims. So, if he targeted
them then that means we'd expect him to have stalked
them first. If we're talking about chance, then he's
had incredible luck in choosing just the right victim
at the right time every month. I think it's very
strange that none of the police departments was able
to track down a badly damaged black car - accidents
like that, the car would have needed at least some
bodywork repairs. Unless our guy here does his own
repairs in his own shop somewhere. He could be a
mechanic, or maybe he's working in a mechanic's shop."

He paused, as though troubled by the thought. Then he
said, "Anyway, even if we can prove it's the same car,
we still need to spend more time talking to the
parents. And we have to check out insurance details
before we rule out the parents and confirm that we
have a new kind of serial killer on our hands."

"What do you mean?" she asked, feeling a sudden horror
at what Mulder might be implying.

"This could be a hired killer," Mulder suggested
absently, in a tone quite similar to what one would
expect if one were considering whether or not fries
should go with the burger. It was disconcerting, and
she could be wrong, but it struck her that he didn't
seem to think there was anything particularly chilling
about toying with the likelihood of a child's own
parents signing out her death warrant. What kind of a
mind was it that worked instantly to cast suspicion on
a child's grieving parents? Or was she just putting
too much into that fact? As an investigator she knew
that until more proof was forthcoming, parents and
spouses often were suspects at the beginning of a
case; except that in this case, no investigator would
automatically suspect the devastated parents of a
child who'd been found dead and stiff in a ditch.

"A hit-and-run, if effective, is the best way to kill
your kid," Mulder explained. "It'll cost money, but
you can use cash and cut off all trails leading back
to you, and what insurance company won't pay up?"

She had no answer to give him. The idea was just too
horrible to contemplate.

"You think the Masons showed adequate grief?" he
wondered.

"Yes," she replied without hesitation. "I thought they
were remorseful." She had felt their anguish stab into
her heart, and she had silently shared their pain.
They could not have wanted their daughter to perish
like that.

Scully could very well empathize also with one of the
neighbors she and Mulder had interviewed this morning;
the one who'd exclaimed, "The poor, poor parents. To
have her disappear and then find out now that she was
dead all along. Oh God. The poor parents." Mulder
hadn't, now that she thought about it. She had been
looking at Mulder when the neighbor spoke those words
and there'd been a strange impatient look in his eyes
which she later attributed to him wanting to cut the
interview short so that he could perform his callous
disappearing act barely an hour later. She had thought
he was being insensitive; she hadn't considered
that perhaps he'd already formed his own biased
conclusions.

Now, Mulder kept his gaze on the view of the treetop
sunset as he said, "Same impression here. But they did
have a life insurance policy on Jody. We'll have to
look into that; though really, I can't believe that
the Masons have it in them to even think of such a
thing."

She didn't want to broach the subject first, but she
had to know. There were times when the selective need
to know was often as much her weakness as it was
Mulder's. She had to know now what was so important
that Mulder would leave a case he'd put together
himself, and she could see that it was shaping up to
be a bigger case than she'd originally imagined. If
she didn't ask, and he never told, the matter would be
swept under their already very dusty rug. All this
work-related conversation had done wonders to make her
feel friendly and forgiving, if one could feel such
things when the main topic of discussion was really
whether or not a man and a woman may have plotted to
mercilessly run their daughter down.

But she couldn't be so easy on him. She didn't want to
be, this time.

"Where were you?" she asked, deceptively casual.

"Oregon State Prison," Mulder answered. He was
apparently not surprised by the sudden change of
topic. Nor was he in the least bit defensive.

"Oregon State Prison," she echoed. A place she would
never have guessed.

"ISU interview with Kevin Paul Garrison. It's a great
coincidence that we're close enough to Salem when the
approval came through. Two hours driving to get there
and another two hours back. But the interview took
longer than I thought it would. I wasn't expecting to
get back here so late."

She was flabbergasted. Forget about guessing - this
was something totally beyond her.

"When did you start joining in on ISU prison
interviews?" she asked, quite rudely. Such interviews
were conducted by the ISU's own group of profilers,
for the purpose of establishing data on crime
methodology and criminal behavior. What possible
motive would Mulder have to sit in with them? It
certainly couldn't be for the joy of special company.
So did this mean that Mulder had quietly planned the
Jody Mason investigation to coincide with the
interview? Would Mulder be so calculative? He'd been
expecting approval. He must have known?

The sun had set further by now, and the red glow over
the treetops was fading fast. Mulder was looking at
her, but in the pending gloom of dusk shadows, she
couldn't read his expression. She wondered if he could
see her scowl.

"Two years ago," was his answer. "Remember? I know I
told you about James Kelton."

James Kelton, the rapist who attacked sixteen victims
in all, each and every one of them women who were
older than sixty years. Five of the victims died after
the trauma of their attacks. Mulder had indeed told
her about the Kelton interview two years ago, but he'd
also mentioned that he was sitting in with the ISU
agents as a favor. Mulder had still been with the ISU
when he wrote the profile that would eventually lead
to Kelton's arrest. Mulder was already working on the
X-Files by the time Kelton was apprehended. Kelton had
been an impressively elusive killer.

"You told me that it was a favor for the ISU. That the
agents weren't looking to you to join them in doing
this full time."

"Yeah," he acknowledged. "But I requested my own
favor: to sit in with the ISU agents again whenever
they interview anyone I'm interested in talking to.
Anyone who had ever been known to associate with, or
befriend the late John Lee Roche. I must have told you
that too."

She was very sure he hadn't, but she was well aware of
the fact that this was not one of those arguments that
could be won. It'd be her word against his. Still, it
all made sense - he would pursue that tangent if he
could, and he probably would have done it around his
regular work. Mulder had the terrible habit of
'forgetting' to inform her of things when she wasn't
right there with him at the time said things were
occurring.

"You could have told me where you were going just
now," she said, chiding him about the only thing she
could. "How long have you known about this? Was it
that phone call you received this morning? "

He was thoughtful as he answered, "Yes. Well, yeah, I
should have told you. I guess I was busy trying to
think of all the things I wanted to ask, and all the
things I had to know so that Garrison couldn't
bullshit me."

He continued, his voice taking on a harsh sarcastic
tone. "Our late John Lee Roche. He's dead and he can't
tell tales, but a man like him couldn't have kept his
mouth shut for all the time he was in prison. He loved
himself too much not to tell. It's just a matter of
finding who he told all to."

His words sounded rehearsed, as though he'd had to say
it to perhaps one too many curious agent and at least
a few superior agents. In spite of the renewed surge
of annoyance she felt at being one of those who hadn't
heard those words earlier, she was intrigued.

"And was the man you spoke to today the man Roche told
all to?"

Mulder was silent for long enough that Scully started
to think that he hadn't heard her for some reason. But
then he began his tale.

"Kevin Paul Garrison killed two kids - two sisters. He
grabbed them outside their home, and did quite a good
job of that, but he was too obtuse to make it as a
bona fide killer. In the first place, the stupid prick
took them to his workplace, during lunch break. He was
a mechanic's assistant, working at a small dealership,
and his boss walked in on him after lunch. The two
kids were dead by then. You don't need to know what
he'd done to the kids; suffice to say Roche was the
kind of guy he'd aspire to be. Someone smart enough
not to do his killing during the bright light of day
in the space between a broken down Buick and a Pontiac
that'd lost a fan belt. So yeah, Roche told all.
Garrison worshipped Roche and Roche - the son of a
bitch would have loved that." Mulder chuckled, which
sounded oddly like a hitched sob. "Did Roche tell him
all.

"I'd always known Garrison was the one. I bet it took
less than two days for Roche and him to find each
other. He stuck to Roche. Once he was on his own, all
the other inmates were onto to him - he didn't stand
a chance. They had to transfer him out of there. You
know how they hate child killers? Garrison has a
permanent limp now. Poor bastard. No Roche to be the
big fucking protector."

The sprinkling of profanity, mild though it was,
surprised her. It wasn't like Mulder. Yet she sensed
that now was a time for her to just listen. Mulder was
speaking and he wasn't about to stop.

"Motherfucker was planning a movie. All about his life
and the little girls he loved to death." She could
hear his sneer at the horrible pun. "He wanted Tom
Hanks to play John Lee Roche, but he couldn't decide
whether it should be Harrison Ford or Tommy Lee Jones
playing Special Agent Fox Mulder, the son of a bitch
bastard who caught him in the prime of his life. I
don't know if I should be flattered. You think
Harrison Ford is me? Roche wanted to write it all
down, and there'd be so many pretty little girls, and
it'd be a fucking piece of work. He wanted Francis
Ford Coppola to direct. The movie would have won the
fucking Oscar."

Scully realized that Mulder was rambling. He was
making little real sense, and this was one the few
times since she'd known him that he was talking just
to hear himself talk. And perhaps Mulder realized this
himself, because he said no more. He didn't trail off;
he just came to an abrupt stop in his rambling and
simply stood there, staring off at the dark black-blue
sky where orange and red had been glowing less than
ten minutes ago.

She allowed the silence to pass. The evening was
beginning to cool and a breeze was picking up; she
could feel the chill through her jacket. She hugged
herself and looked up, seeking twinkling stars or the
moon itself, but the wind-blown tuffs of clouds were
becoming a thick blanket that blocked the view. She
lowered her gaze and looked at her pensive partner.

It was time to break the silence or they'd be standing
here all night. She couldn't have that. She was
hungry, and though she'd lost her enthusiasm to tear
Mulder limb from limb for ditching her, she still
wished to feel annoyed with him, rather than sorry for
him.

"You wanted to know about Samantha," she said, cutting
straight to the point with a statement she knew he
wouldn't be able to deny. She underestimated him.

"I wanted to know about the last heart," he said. She
had to admire the tight leash he had on his emotions -
outwardly he seemed calm, neither agitated nor sad.
"There's still another little girl somewhere, and her
parents don't know where she is."

"Did you find out?" she asked gently, touched suddenly
by his lack of selfishness.

He hesitated before quietly replying, "I don't know."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I don't know," he responded with a shrug of
his shoulders. He took a deep breath. "I mean ... do
you know how lucky Jody's parents are?"

Scully responded to that with a sharp intake of
breath. She couldn't believe what she'd just heard.

"They're lucky, Scully, they are," Mulder said, and he
was terrifyingly earnest. "Their child is dead. They
know she's dead, they know they'll have to bury her,
they know she'll never dance at her prom. They know
some bastard killed her. They know Jody will never come
back and that it's too late now to wonder if maybe it's
safe to let a seven-year-old girl walk alone to school
along a quiet road where drivers tend to speed. They're
not going to spend the next twenty years wondering where
she is, if she lives, how she lives. They're not going
to spend their lives not knowing. They know. The child
is dead. She will never come back. Do you know how
wonderful it is to know that, Scully? To know that
she'll never, ever come back. Never."

But Scully knew that wasn't true. She'd seen her child
Emily. Not the way she still sometimes saw her sister
if she spotted a slim redheaded woman in a mall - this
was different. She'd heard Emily, for God's sake, and

seen her. There were times when the sight of a blond
little girl would cause her to falter for fear that
the blond child would turn to her with large eyes and
say, "Let me go.". Oh, Emily came back; she hadn't
stayed, but she did come back.

And with sudden insight, Scully knew what the problem
was. Mulder was being driven mad. Yes, that had to be
it. The thought had occurred to her several times
during the case, from the first moment Mulder regaled
her about hit-and-runs and mysterious black Fords,
that Mulder was seeing his sister again in all these
little girls. He wanted to do right because he was,
once again, identifying too closely with the victims.
After all, hadn't she felt some selfish relief when
she saw that all three girls had dark hair and either
green or hazel eyes? She wouldn't be horribly reminded
of Emily - she could keep her professionalism intact -
but Mulder was always getting too involved. He was
always like this. So he ditched her, in order to run
away from the Samanthas that were beseeching him to be
the savior for their souls, but instead what'd he'd
done was run away to confront a man who would fill his
head with more images of Samanthas ...

"Lucky," she echoed, and though she wanted to pretend
to be supportive and understanding because her partner
was again on the verge of a Samantha breakdown, she
was hissing, and the heavy pressure around her heart
was that of suppressed anger. "The child has died. And
you say her parents are lucky."

"Yes," Mulder said, still stubbornly unrepentant. The
night was fully upon them, and the lights from the
motel porch had been turned on. But the light came
from behind them, and Mulder's face was an emotionless
shadow. "There is a finality in the death of a child.
I'm firmly convinced that that finality is a blessing,
even if that finality comes with the price of knowing
that your little girl didn't deserve the death that
claimed her. What matters is knowing that it's all
over, that she'll never draw another breath and laugh,
that she'll never feel pain again."

She couldn't decide whether he was talking about
Emily, or if he was speaking in general terms. She
couldn't decide if the Mulder she thought she trusted
with her life would be this cruel about the issue of a
child's sudden departure from life.

"Hope in a void - it's a terrible thing," Mulder
added.

She knew that it was all about Samantha, that it was
always about Samantha and that forever and ever after,
every little girl he met would be Samantha, and here
he was calling her lucky because her child was dead.
This had to stop before he drove her down that same
path of insanity.

"He told you it was Samantha, didn't he? You believe
him," she said, goading. She had to snap him out of
this cycle of believing every person who uttered the name
'Samantha' to him. Or maybe she had to try to be cruel
in turn.

She shouldn't have asked in the first place. She
should have just slapped him for his sin of ditching,
and then stalked off for her dinner.

"No," Mulder snorted. Through all of this he remained
casually nonchalant, oddly conversational; not at all
rising to the bait for a full-blown confrontation.
He'd just torn and ripped her heart apart and she was
so lucky because Emily was dead. So, so lucky. And
here Mulder was telling her what he knew; damn him for
thinking she would still care.

"Garrison doesn't know about a last unidentified cloth
heart. What he knows is every little girl John ever
had. Every little Christina and Mary and Samantha Ann.
John told him all about his little girls and what he
did with each of them. Kevin loved him for sharing all
that because he knew those were triumphs he would
never accomplish. So Kevin shared what John had. John
had Samantha Ann and John remembered Samantha Ann best
because her initials spelt Sam, and Samantha Ann had a
brother who grew up to become the awful guy who caught
John in the prime of his life. John should have killed
her brother too, but John ... John doesn't do little
boys."

She listened, despite her rage and grief, despite her
instinct to walk away from Mulder and at least stay
away from him for the rest of the night. As she
listened, a different kind of rage welled up, a better
rage, she felt - for this one didn't evoke that pain
in her heart.

"We went through this, Mulder," she said, her voice
shrill with the horrid anticipation of argument and
the chance to cut Mulder down. "Roche had nothing. He
was playing you for a fool after the fact, and he was
obviously smart enough to have planted ideas in this
man's head so that now this man can keep playing you
for a fool."

"Fool I may be," Mulder acknowledged mildly. "But it's
a tough choice to choose the lesser of two evils. Do I
prefer to know that my sister was raped and then
strangled to death by a friendly stranger, or do I
want to have my sister's clones? If I want the latter,
how do I know where to start to find the original
template that may or may not be my sister? Do I really
prefer her dead and buried in a shallow grave, or am I
happy to know she got to live and go to the prom after
all, even if she'd lived that life as the daughter of
the man who had our father killed?

"Every rare once in a while, Scully, I wish my sister
had died of leukemia or that she'd been killed when a
school bus backed into her. Anything - any of the
thousand and one things that can kill an eight-year-
old girl. She'd be dead, buried. I can mourn every day
for the rest of my life but I'd know where her grave
is. If she'd been killed, I'd know I had to find her
killer. I wish that, then I tell myself it's the wrong
thing to wish for, then I start all over again. But
then that's what being lost is all about; just
starting over and over again."

A car passed by on the main road and the headlights
illuminated them. In that brief flash, she could see
Mulder's eyes, which were still cast on the distant
horizon of dark trees against a starless night of a
cloudy sky, and she noticed at last the drawn
weariness of his expression.

But she couldn't feel for him. This was the second
time in her life that a man would so brazenly announce
that death was a lucky thing. That to have life end,
especially at so bright a point, could ever
conceivably be bliss.

Perhaps he read her mind, for he said, "Luck is a
relative thing, Scully. Being lucky means that someone
else is envious, and I am envious. For every moment
that I do not know but which another person gets to
know, I am envious. For every minute of dread I've had
when it comes to coming close to the truth, I think
I'd rather have immediate grief and finality."

He sighed tiredly, and passed a hand over his face.
"Kevin Garrison never knew who I was. The other agents
introduced me as Special Agent Ken Baker. I just got
him to talk about Roche, and Garrison..." there again
was the chuckle that sounded suspiciously like a
hitched sob. "Garrison had memorized every single one
of Roche's victims - names, places and what was done
to each of them. Garrison said Roche had eighteen
victims, but only killed sixteen of them. Two of the
kills weren't properly planned. Garrison doesn't know
their burial grounds - I'm not surprised. Roche
wouldn't have told him that, it would have been too
incriminating if actual proof could be found in his
tall tales. Garrison doesn't know if Roche ever really
actually wrote that movie script. So I'll still never
know."

Another car passed by; this car had its high beam on.
Mulder grimaced as the light briefly blinded them
both, and turned away.

He was facing her now, and the light from the porch
finally came in handy. She stared at him, at the face
was that was drawn and weary, and at the eyes that
were dark and tired.

There was nothing to say to him. He'd ditched her,
he'd gone off to do something on his own that he could
have done with her, he'd abandoned his duties, and
he'd called her lucky for losing her child. She should
hate him, but instead, only a dull pain gnawed at her
heart and she knew that she'd dream of Emily tonight,
just as she knew Mulder would dream of Samantha.

"The child is dead," she said at long last, and
refused to contemplate whether she was trying to
defend the child's memory for Jody's parents or if she
was teetering dangerously close to Emily's abyss.
"There is nothing; not even hope left."

"There is something," Mulder said and smiled, but it
lacked any warm emotion; which was just as well, for
she still felt no compassion for him. "There is always
something. If the child's parents are religious then
there'll be prayer, and the hope that they shall meet
her in heaven, and the belief that the child is now an
angel. Whether or not there are prayers for her soul,
everyone will cherish her memory, her life, and her
forsaken future. Where there's grief, the day will
come when it sinks in that life carries on
nonetheless, that it's okay to let go, that it's
acceptable to laugh and love. The child's life is
over, but her parents and siblings live, and if they
live right, they're living for her." He paused and
when he continued he was heartbreakingly wistful.

"Somehow, there is always something when there is
nothing left."

She responded to that, and as she did she wondered why
she was being so kind to the man who'd broken her
heart and re-awoken her nightmares.

"You still have hope that she lives, Mulder. Death
obliterates the hope for life."

"Sometimes," he answered. "I'd rather not have that
hope pinning me down."

"You held on to your hope for me," she reminded him,
almost accused him, for his contradicting ideals of
hope and life and death and loss were becoming more
than she wanted to handle.

"Yes, I did," he admitted, but his gaze never met
hers. He was looking off at some point over her left
shoulder, and then he dropped his gaze downward and
lowered his voice. "I always would have hoped,
regardless. But I never would have lived."

'So you would have preferred it if I'd been killed?'.
She almost said it, but some wiser part of her stopped
her from forming the words aloud. That wiser part of
her was also telling her that she understood Mulder
more than she'd dare admit, that when it came down to
the crux, she knew exactly what he meant. She could,
if she allowed herself to, empathize with Mulder. She
could, if she wanted to, find a way to comfort Mulder
through this new spate of mangled doubtful truths and
lies and hurts. But she wished none of that. She
refused to allow Mulder's Samantha-tainted madness to
infect her.

So they were both silent. Mulder kept his head down
and started scuffing the earth at his feet with the
toe of his shoe.

"Look, have you eaten?" he asked suddenly.

She wanted to say that he'd helped her lose her
appetite, and remembered that she'd been on her way to
dinner when she had the misfortune of having to
encounter Mulder and listen to his coldhearted
analyses. Yet the aching deal was that her stomach was
empty and she was starting to feel light-headed.

When she didn't answer, Mulder said, "There's food in
the car. I stopped by at the diner on the way here and
had the cook make up some take-out chicken mayo
sandwiches. If you don't mind that for dinner..."

"That's fine," she replied, although things were
anything but fine.

"Sure," Mulder said lightly even as his eyes said
otherwise.

And Scully understood that he knew very well that
things were not fine, and that some things would never
be fine. For just a brief instant she felt for him,
then she quickly clamped down on her emotions. Some
things would never be fine; some things should never
be said. Mulder had strayed beyond that boundary of
decency to say the things that though true, needn't be
uttered aloud. Just as she wouldn't condone his going
off independently to do his own thing during an on-
going investigation, she wouldn't condone his honesty
here.

It wasn't up to her if he had to live his life without
finality and without closure.

Mulder had gone to the car and taken out a paper bag
and his briefcase. He pressed the door lock down and
slammed the car door shut, a loud crack in the night.
He inclined his head towards her room.

"Let's eat, and you can fill me in on what I missed."

Her pride reminded her to refuse a shared meal, but
then she took her first careful look at Mulder in the
light. There was something about the way he was
standing there beside the car: the slump in his
shoulders, the forced casualness with which he awaited
her answer, the searing ache in his eyes, the obvious
pretense that all was well and that he was anxious for
nothing more than just work. And she understood
another thing - that say what he would now, Mulder
would never have wanted her by his side as he
interviewed Kevin Garrison. For that task, he had to
be in the company of strangers who were not aware of
all his deepest secrets and the horrors of his losses.
For such a task, Mulder needed to cling to forced
professionalism, and nothing helped that more than
being amongst fellow agents who were not friends. Just
as there were times when she preferred to be alone
with her work, or alone with people who would respond
to her only as a working agent and not as a friend
careening towards emotional doom. He'd understood that
about her when she'd encountered Emily. The least she
could do was give him the same distance here, even if
she couldn't help him deal with the brutal facts of
Garrison's revelations.

Yet the words were out of her mouth before she knew
it, and it surprised her more than she thought it
would to hear herself say them.

"You think I'm lucky."

Mulder's posture slumped further, and his reply was
low and soft. "Yes, Scully. I think you are."

He looked her in the eye and didn't flinch when she
stared hard back at him. "You had her in life, Scully.
You mourn her in death. You know her soul is safe. I
... " He took a breath and his gaze shifted up to the
dark treetops again, now silhouetted against a night
blanket of dark white clouds. The breeze blew stronger
now, and she saw him shudder against the biting chill.
"I remain lost. I want to mourn, but I don't think I
ever should."

It was her cue, to say that she knew how he felt
though she quite obviously did not, to repeat again
the mantra that he would find his sister some day. But
just as there were some truths that shouldn't be said,
there were some comforting lies that should never be
repeated no matter how kind the intent.

Old habits died hard, though. "You'll find her,
Mulder," she said. "You'll find a way. You're never
lost forever."

His gaze returned to her, and she saw that despite the
emptiness of her words, he was gratified that she'd
made the effort.

Mulder shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
"Your room?" he asked, deceptively casual.

"Sure," she replied, in a similarly light tone.

They were not going to speak of this again. There was
work to do and food to eat, and perhaps disturbed dust
that should be allowed to settle under their mutual
rug. And once work was done, there would be souls in
heaven to pray for.

Scully walked towards her room and Mulder followed.


-End-


_____________________
-Ainon- November 1999