MONDAY, APRIL 21, 1997

OUTSIDE CHATTANOOGA, TN

6:23 PM

"I haven't been entirely forthcoming with you about this case. Turn right here."

Scully slows and steers the car toward Mulder's outstretched hand onto a narrow, tree-lined road. In the far distance, wind turbines churn sluggishly in the thick Tennessee air. Sometimes Mulder enjoys hoarding information and doling out little details sparingly, she knows, like they are a precious commodity that shouldn't be wasted on inopportune moments, like briefings. Or Monday nights. Or when your partner asks for them. Scully rolls her eyes.

He used to do this more commonly several years ago, back when he didn't know how much he could trust her. She still affords him the small luxury once in awhile, when she is feeling particularly generous or nostalgic, but she admits to herself that it's slightly different now because she trusts his judgement more, too, even if they don't always agree on exactly why they are investigating a case.

But it's still annoying.

The car is hot. Scully feels full of sparks and flame, like a Catherine wheel, and wound just as tight. She turns the air conditioner up. When she's irritated, like she is now, she simply refuses to indulge him, preferring instead to just wait him out. It's a curiously satisfying form of revenge to see him fidget on long car rides, practically begging her to ask for information. "That's not surprising, Mulder, since you've hardly been forthcoming at all."

"Who, me?" The cold air makes his whole body tingle unpleasantly, and combined with the road noise and passing trees, he is starting to feel just a little claustrophobic in his skin. It's harder to concentrate on the map. Mulder angles the vent away from his face and loosens his tie.

If Scully notices his discomfort, she either chooses not to mention it or thinks he deserves it. She wouldn't be entirely wrong.

"I just think an everyday, run-of-the-mill murder and kidnapping is too straightforward to be an X-File."

Mulder closes one eye and rubs his temple, leaning his head back against the seat. "Jesus, Scully, run-of-the-mill? Maybe you need a vacation or something." Outside his window, farmland stretches for miles.

It's obvious he is not going down without a fight. Fortunately, four years of working with Fox Mulder has taught Scully the most efficient way to gather details when she needs to: remove just the right brick, and the whole tower will come tumbling down nicely.

"Well, what did the local PD find at the crime scene?"

There is a subtle shift in the energy inside the car as Mulder suddenly becomes more animated, shifting his weight in his seat and gesticulating with his hands as he talks. Scully's nose tingles with anticipation. "That's just it, Scully, there is no crime scene. Officials were able to find very little evidence that an event of any kind had occurred. There were no footprints, no blood spatters, no bodies; hell, the grass where the suspect ostensibly shot the male victim wasn't even flattened. The suspect was seen forcing a woman to leave the area at gunpoint, but no one has been reported missing recently in the surrounding areas. There's essentially nothing to warrant an investigation. Except," He pauses, Scully presumes, for effect, "a single bullet was found in the grass. From a Colt 1851 Navy Revolver."

Bingo.

"So we are here because…?"

Mulder feels carsick. He closes his eyes and listens to the pavement beneath the tires, the cicadas outside his window. He's been doing this a lot, lately- closing off one sense entirely to avoid being overwhelmed with stimuli. Ever since his disastrous final visit to Dr. Goldstein last week, in fact- which ended with him hallucinating in the attic of his family's old summer house and Scully about twelve inches from a gunshot to the head- he's had to learn to slow down and focus in an attempt to prevent himself from seizing. He's gotten a little better at it. What he has found, though, is that his senses tend to be just a bit sharper, crisper, like someone has fine-tuned a staticky radio station in his brain. Whatever Scully said, the procedure did have some benefits, but he generally agrees with her conclusion in hindsight: he needs trepanation like he needs a hole in the head.

Which is to say, sometimes.

"Mulder?" He feels the back of her fingers rest briefly on his forehead, then cheek.

"I'm fine, Scully. It's not... I just need a second."

Scully sighs. "What you need is bed rest and antiepileptics. It's irresponsible to be pushing yourself like this so soon after such a traumatic brain event."

"Then get ready, because you're really going to hate this. The murder allegedly took place in the large field on the property belonging to two of the witnesses."

"Why is that significant?"

"Because," Mulder says, cracking open an eye to watch her as he winds up for the punch, "it's the property previously owned by our friends in the Temple of the Seven Stars."

There have been a precious few cases that have prompted Scully to momentarily abandon her carefully composed facade. The first one he can recall was that time they were in the woods with all those damn little green bugs. The second time it was probably that flukeman thing. Those moments are funny, now, in hindsight, though they're getting fewer and farther between over the years as her naivete wears off. Still, Mulder secretly relishes them afterwards each and every time they happen because they are a little glimpse back to a different version of her, one whose sense of morality was so much more innocently black and white. It's kind of ironic, he thinks, how those memories can sometimes make him feel homesick for a time when he was missing time. The very plausible state of Oregon can kiss him right on the ass, though.

And here is Dana Scully now, gaping at him from the driver's seat like a dying molly fish. Mulder grins triumphantly.

"Mulder, no. This is crazy. You're crazy."

"I get that a lot."

"Did you even run this by Skinner?"

"You know the saying, 'it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission,' Scully?"

She exhales loudly. "You shouldn't even be at work, let alone investigating a case to which you're extremely likely to have a strong emotional attachment." Scully thinks of Melissa Riedal-Ephesian sitting in the hypnotherapist's office, begging Mulder to remember their past lives together. She thinks of Melissa, poisoned and dead, still warm in Mulder's arms. A chill runs through her.

"Aren't you even a little intrigued?"

She turns to him. "Honestly? No. There are hundreds of battle sites in the south. The bullet is obviously a Civil War artifact. I'm sure people find them all the time."

"Oh," he feigns innocence, annoyingly, "They also found the gun and a bloody pocket knife a couple yards away. I just thought the bullet made a more intriguing story."

God dammit.

"It was probably a case of domestic violence. Maybe a cheating spouse or…" She's grasping at straws and they both know it.

Really, she shouldn't be surprised that they're here. Mulder is a conundrum; he always has been. The contradiction of ego wrapped in self-doubt is one she has long associated with him. She has, on occasion, thought him both a genius and insane and been proven right each time. Mulder does absolutely nothing by halves.

"Come on, Scully. I feel fine. We're already here." He tries very hard to keep from sounding like he's begging for her understanding. Scully seethes quietly next to him. "Tomorrow we'll just go talk to some people, look around a little, and leave. You'll throw around some scientific explanations and we'll be back in DC in time to watch Jeopardy. No big deal."

Scully sighs. "No, it never is."

BROWNING MOTEL

ROOM 28

6:42 PM

Mulder drops his bag on the bed and immediately moves to open the window. This room feels stale, but there is a crackling electricity to the air here that he hasn't felt for a long time, especially not in DC, and it makes him feel edgy. He can't remember if this is the motel they stayed at the last time they were near Apison, but he wouldn't be surprised since its location relative to the areas of interest and its suspiciously low cost would've made Skinner absolutely weep with joy.

Were there roaches? He kind of remembers roaches.

Mulder stands at the window for a moment while a breeze blows through, stirring the heavy curtains and freeing the dust trapped inside. Scully's moving around in her room on the other side of the connecting door. Truthfully, he kind of agrees with her: they probably shouldn't be here, though he would never admit it. Not because of the seizures or anything- he doesn't give a shit about that- but mostly because he should try to be less of a selfish asshole sometimes, just in general, really, but especially now that Scully's sick.

He just feels so lost lately, like he did when he was a kid and no one talked about Samantha after her abduction. A couple months after it happened, he came home from school to find all of Samantha's toys had been packed in boxes and moved to the attic, the new guest room too clean and adult-looking to have ever belonged to an eight-year-old girl. Sometimes, back then, it was like she'd never existed, and he would wonder if he'd even had a sister at all or if he'd just imagined her in great detail. Even as an adult he occasionally finds himself thinking things like Samantha liked The Osmonds, and Nancy Drew books, and the color yellow, like some kind of self-appointed guardian of her memory, because who else will remember all the little things that made her? If not for him, she might have already slipped away.

But it's harder in some ways with Scully, because she chooses not to talk about her cancer, and so Mulder doesn't bring it up, either.

He sighs and moves away from the window to sit on the bed. Melissa Riedal-Ephesian died in the field he and Scully would be visiting tomorrow morning. He'd died in that field, once, too. And now there'd been another murder.

Obviously, he didn't love Melissa… not in this lifetime, anyway. He barely knew her, in fact, although parts of her consciousness certainly seemed to know him, or at least past versions of him. The guilt he felt at her passing had more to do with his frustration at the injustice of her life and death than feelings of loyalty because of a past life spent together, although he thinks those feelings were there, too. But there's something enormously appealing about the idea that, even in his darkest moments, even before Scully, he has never really been alone.

Mulder lays back, eyes closed and hands folded behind his neck. He's intrigued by this case, sure, and regardless of all his emotional, back-and-forth bullshit he does see a legitimate reason for them to be there. But the fact of the matter is he's been stretched so tight these past few months, driven by emotion and always scrambling for purchase. He feels a keen sense of urgency, lately, and whether he will admit it to himself or not, his personal mission statement has been reduced to a very short list for the foreseeable future: find Samantha, cure Scully. If he's being honest with himself, maybe part of the reason he jumped on this case, one that he logically knows he is way too personally invested in, is so he can finally have an outlet for all those other feelings he doesn't allow himself to feel.

Scully hates motels.

She especially hates this motel.

Last time they'd been in the godforsaken state of Tennessee, she'd embarrassingly slept all night in one of these beds with a shower cap on her head because she'd seen a dead roach in the bathroom and she'd be damned if any of those little bastards were going to get in her hair.

Unreasonable? Maybe. But Mulder never found out about the shower cap and management had comped the rooms, so she justified her silliness to herself by mentally reciting the diseases that cockroaches have been known to carry.

This time, the staff at the front desk assures her when she asks at their check-in that the motel has been fumigated since their last visit.

Scully opens the door to her room and immediately kicks off her shoes, spreading her sweaty toes against the thin gray carpet. She has come to have a strong distaste for Apison, Tennessee more in the past few months than she knew it was even possible to dislike a geographical location, though it's certainly not for lack of trying. The scenery is beautiful in its own way and the people generally welcoming, except Ephesian, of course, whose idea of Southern hospitality amounted to offering refreshment in the form of poisoned Kool-Aid. But this place, and Melissa Riedal-Ephesian especially, represent to her a certain level of fate or pre-ordination or whatever that, lately, makes her feel very uncomfortable.

Scully moves to the bathroom and begins removing her earrings. She may not have a psychology degree, but it's not hard to see why Mulder needs this case. He needs closure. It's as simple as that. He needs closure about the murders of Melissa and the rest of the cult members, and he needs to get it in a way that feels like work because otherwise he would never allow himself the luxury of grieving. Who is she to deny him that, at least, regardless of her questions about the validity of the investigation?

Mulder wasn't able to save Samantha, or Melissa, or his father, and there is a tiny little part of Scully that acknowledges it has been a recurring theme in his life, that he has apparently been doomed to lose the people who love him. The thought strikes her like a nail in a coffin and she feels under her nose for blood.

TUESDAY, APRIL 22, 1997

10:27 AM

This morning, their impatience with each other has manifested itself in a petty, fifteen-minute argument about where to get breakfast.

They finally stop at a tiny little bagel and coffee shop simply because it is more or less on the way. A handwritten sign advertising local produce and goods is taped to cooler against the wall; Mulder studies it while Scully approaches the counter and places an order for both of them with the young man working there.

As she is paying, Mulder approaches the counter with something in his hand.

"This was made in Apison?" He asks, holding the brick of cheese out for the young man to see. The label is a plain brown sticker, just the words TEDLOW FARMS, APISON TN in a semicircle around the top with a cartoonish picture of a cow and, beneath in smaller letters, CHEDDAR. Writing along the bottom proclaims, in quotes, "WORLD'S BEST!". Something about it sparks some recognition in Scully, and she realizes that she remembers the last name Tedlow from the police report. The third witness.

"Oh, yeah. There's a dairy farm over there."

"It wouldn't be owned by a woman named Ruth Tedlow, would it?"

The young man shrugs, punching their order into the register. "I have no idea. A woman does deliver it here every week, though, so could be."

Mulder nods and adds the brick of cheese to the counter with the rest of their purchases.

The ride to the local police station is spent mostly in anticipatory silence, except for the few interesting minutes right after breakfast when Mulder had misread the map and Scully lit into him like a firework.

Now, map spread like a napkin in his lap, Mulder sips his coffee gratingly and in regular intervals from the passenger seat. She swallows her annoyance at the sound and instead just tries to focus on the task at hand. It's not really that she's irritated with him, she knows; it's just that she's always found irritation an easier emotion to display than concern or worry, both of which she also feels in abundance. He seems to be a bit on edge this morning… but then again, that's not entirely unusual for him when they're on a case. Scully, on the other hand, can almost feel her own tension radiating from her body in the tautness of her skin, the stiff feeling in her shoulders. She rubs the space between her eyes with one finger.

Scully pulls into the parking lot of the police station and shuts the car off. They make their way to the front of the building, the remnants of winter still clinging to the ground in muddy brown patches and making the dull gray of the concrete look even more morose. She sidesteps a dead plant whose shriveled leaves reach right out onto the sidewalk.

The police chief, a portly blonde man named Harrison who looks young for his age, meets them at the door and leads them to his office. It's a small, hot room at the very back of the station. Scully notes the wall behind the desk, which is dotted with pictures: in one, Harrison, wearing sunglasses and a life vest, proudly shows the camera the fish on his line. The ruddiness Scully noticed in his cheeks when they met looks twice as emphasized by his sunburn in the picture. In another shot, a group of men with large bellies relax at a barbeque, toasting the photographer with brown glass bottles. It all feels a little too personal for Scully. She looks away.

Harrison briefs them on everything they've got. It turns out to be very little. "At approximately 6:10 AM on the morning of April 19th, a call was placed to 911 about an alleged murder at the Apison farmhouse. Officers were dispatched shortly thereafter, and upon seeing no immediate danger began investigating the area and gathering information from the three witnesses." Harrison's voice is the flat, dry monotone of someone who has given this speech a hundred times. Still, he is nothing if not professional in his delivery. "Two of the witnesses, Peter Stadler and his wife, April, reported seeing two males and a female having an altercation before the suspect- one of the males- dragged the second male approximately twenty yards and shot him, leaving him for dead. The suspect then apparently forced the woman, at gunpoint, to leave the area, though the direction they traveled is unclear. Probable kidnapping. All three witnesses heard indistinct yelling."

Scully crosses her arms and shifts her weight to her back foot. "Any information on the woman who was kidnapped?"

"No, nothing yet, ma'am. No one has been reported missing and the Stadlers and Mrs. Ruth Tedlow could only give us a vague description." Harrison scratches his belly absently.

"What about a description of the perpetrator?"

He sighs and shrugs a single shoulder in half-hearted apology. "Male, maybe 30s or 40s. Approximately six feet or so, using the fence as a guide. Longish brown hair and wearing light colored pants. That's all we've got." He puts his hands on his hips and looks at his feet, which he shuffles a bit, shaking his head. "Our first inclination was that it was a group of antique gun collectors or something just out there shooting who may have had an accident. But that wouldn't explain the complete lack of physical evidence or why the gun was left behind. I have to say, we're a little stumped on this one." Harrison shakes his head. His hair is cropped so close that Scully can see his scalp through it when he turns. She imagines the haircut was a practical decision. "And then there's the pocket knife. The witnesses didn't report seeing a stabbing, but there was blood found on it, clear as day."

Mulder nods. "Could the blood have been from an animal?"

Harrison looks skeptical. "Why would it be?"

"Just trying to examine all angles."

Harrison cocks his head to the side. "I guess it's possible, theoretically speaking, but it's not like the perp was going to defend himself with a pocket knife if he had a gun available. Anyway, the lab is working on an analysis right now. We should have some information for you soon, I hope."

"What about fingerprints?"

He scoffs a bit. "What about them? We couldn't pull anything useful off of the gun. The grass was pretty wet that morning, so that may have been a factor."

Scully shakes her head slightly, eyebrows lowered. "Sorry, but where does Ruth Tedlow come into all of this?"

"She claims to have seen the unknown woman in her cow pasture immediately prior to the alleged murder and kidnapping." He clarifies, somewhat impatiently. "I sent several officers to canvass the woods on the Stadlers' property, hoping to maybe find signs of where the perp had taken the woman, but they turned up nothing. The K-9 unit couldn't even pick up any trails."

There is a beat of silence. Mulder crosses his arms and draws out his bottom lip between two fingers.

"Could we take a look at the evidence?" Scully asks.

"Of course. Follow me."

Harrison leads them into a brightly lit room with old lockers lining the walls. He unlocks one and brings out two evidence bags, placing them delicately on a table in the center of the room.

Mulder steps up to the table and picks up the first evidence bag, which contains the gun. The handle is ivory in color, yellowed like old bones or nicotined teeth. The barrel is long, tapered. It's cumbersome and a bit heavy, unlike his own sleek weapon, and Mulder gently sets it back down on the table. It's clearly an antique; there'd be a certain kind of aesthetic appeal in it if he didn't know what it had been used for.

He moves the gun toward Scully and picks up the pocket knife, which is a solid, dense weight in his hand. The handle is polished wood capped on either end with brass; Mulder can feel its smoothness through the plastic evidence bag. He holds it as though he were using it to cut. It's large, but not overly so- maybe three, four inches closed- and Mulder can clearly see dried blood crusting over the hilt and along the blade. The heel of his hand fits comfortably along the shaft, and he realizes that it's because the wood has literally been worn away to accommodate the suspect's grip.

Someone used this knife a lot.

"So we've essentially got nothing to go on." Mulder says, closing the passenger side door and leaning his head against the headrest. He purses his lips together, the only outward display of annoyance he allows himself to exhibit.

Scully tries to stop herself from muttering sarcastically but doesn't quite succeed. "We never had anything in the first place." She buckles her seatbelt and turns the key, issuing a blast of cool air from the vents.

He slouches in his seat a bit. The rental car is stuffy; the smell of the floral air freshener mixed with the old tobacco scent trapped in the seats is giving him a headache. "Don't forget about the World's Best cheese, Scully."

"If that's the only thing that comes out of this case, I don't think Skinner will approve."

"Maybe we can apologize with the World's Best cheese platter."

The drive to Apison is short, just a few miles from the police station, but it's long enough for the sun to make the internal temperature of the car uncomfortable. Scully pulls into the familiar stone driveway, slowing the car to a crawl. Mulder's heart is beating fast. He wishes he could've convinced Scully he was well enough to drive, if only to give him some feeling of control, no matter how small. He didn't anticipate feeling nervous.

The farmhouse comes into view as they round a gentle curve and Mulder is immediately taken aback. It looks larger than he remembers it; cleaner, too, and more welcoming with a bright, cheery coat of white paint. There are yellow and orange marigolds in window boxes and a vegetable garden started along one edge of the long wooden fence, a gas-powered tiller stalled in the middle. An old grey dog sunbathes by the door.

You'd never know there was a mass suicide here six months ago.

Two horses graze in the field near the house; one is a shiny chestnut brown, the other a dappled white. Mulder looks at them only long enough to note that they are there, and then he avoids looking at the field again. Scully, on the other hand, watches the horses for several long seconds, but she doesn't say anything, just smooths her hair behind her ears and opens the car door.

The first thing Mulder notices when he gets out of the car is the stench. He raises his eyebrows. "Something is rotten in the state of Tennessee," He says.

Scully wrinkles her nose in reply. "If I remember my Intro to Shakespeare class correctly, that line was a reference to the political corruption in Denmark's government. Not cow manure."

Mulder grins and halfheartedly waves a hand in front of his nose. They are apparently downwind of the farm at the top of the hill; he sends a silent thank you up to the big guy that it's only a balmy 72 degrees outside instead of 90. The thought of having to smell cow shit baking in the sun while he is drenched in sweat makes his stomach turn.

A couple months ago when he'd told Scully he wanted to eventually settle down in a small town just like Home, Pennsylvania, he'd forgotten about cow shit. Jesus Christ.

They stand for a moment observing the property. Last time they were here, the grass was long and brown, the house a sad dilapidated snow cloud grey. There was a chill to the air; not enough to require a jacket, but a sort of sharpness that cut through to the bone when he breathed in. He'd felt especially lonely that winter, he remembers, the weight of his mother's declining health added to his laundry list of personal-but-also-professional problems. Mulder takes a few steps toward the house and cranes his neck to look around the far side. It looks different here, now, in spring. When the Temple of the Seven Stars was using this place, the front yard was filled with broken machinery and old, rusted oil barrels. A useless decaying school bus sat on cinder blocks. It was a junkyard, inside and out.

But all of that is gone, now. The yard is neat and clean, the grass trimmed or kept low in part by the grazing horses. It's strange for both Mulder and Scully to see it so normal-looking.

The hinges on a screen door sound, catching their attention, and Scully turns just as a man steps out. He's barefoot. She sizes him up as he crosses the yard towards them, telling herself it's purely because she's gathering information, and not because… well, just not because. At the very least, it's certainly not because he is tall and slim, dressed in an old pair of work jeans and an untucked plaid shirt, rolled up at the sleeves. She guesses he is probably in his mid fifties, with hair that is a little more salt than pepper.

Well, the case may be questionable but at least the view is nice.

There's something familiar about the way he walks: straight-backed and broad chested, and, Scully thinks, a little like her father. "Hi, you're the FBI agents?" He says. The lack of a Southern accent is notable but not jarring by any means. The man is carrying a mug of coffee by the rim, which he sips from occasionally, curling his forefinger up over his sizeable nose.

"Peter Stadler?" Mulder extends a hand.

"Pete. Nice to meet you." He turns to Scully. His hand is large and calloused and warm from the mug. "Thanks for coming, really." Scully smiles pleasantly. His eyes are very blue.

"I love what you've done with the place, Pete." Mulder says dryly, indicating the fat old dog, a motionless fixture by the door. Pete looks lost until Mulder takes pity on him. "We were here about six months ago on another case."

"Oh!" A sudden understanding appears in Pete's features. "Yeah, thanks. After the previous owners, uh, left-" Pete waves a hand vaguely- "the bank seized the property and divided it up. My wife April and I moved in not long after. We did a little construction to kind of give the place a fresh start, I guess. Knocked out a couple walls and re-did the living room, things like that. It's a solid house, though. " Pete points to the ridge on a hill not far behind the house. "You see the turbines there?" In the distance, Mulder can see a row of white wind turbines lined up neatly and the pressure in his ears fluctuates with every low whum-whum-whum of the blades. He winces. Scully doesn't seem bothered by it. "Those are all new, too. They bought one of the lots to expand their farm up there. Used to be a small operation before we moved here, from what I understand, but they bought a bunch of dairy cows and now they pretty much only do cheese."

"That would explain the smell." Scully says in an aside.

Pete chuckles amiably. "You get used to it after awhile." He squints against the late morning sun and looks contemplatively into his coffee cup, swirling the grounds a little as he talks. "Pretty wild what happened here before. All those people…" He sucks in air through his teeth. "I'm not trying to be flippant or crass or anything, but…wow. It's so sad. They didn't deserve that."

Mulder's throat feels dry and painful and all he can do is nod.

"When we moved in, April thought it would be nice to kind of create a memorial, you know? So we planted that little flower garden near where the horses are. 'There's rosemary, that's for remembrance,'" He recites, then looks a little embarrassed. "Sorry. 'Hamlet'. I was an English teacher for many, many years."

"What a coincidence; I was an English 101 student for many, many years." Mulder quips.

Pete smiles in appreciation of the joke and pauses to rub the stubble on his chin. "Anyway, the farmhouse by the barn up there is where Ruth lives. I guess you'll probably talk to her soon enough, though."

"Ruth Tedlow?" Mulder has to concentrate to say her name around the thickness of his tongue. His vision suddenly feels very sharp around the edges, images rippling like old glass. It must show on his face because Scully studies him silently for a long moment, eyebrows lowered as she watches him repeatedly contract and relax a fist. He shuffles a little closer to her and away from the field.

"Yeah, she's the other witness. My wife, me, and Ruth." There is a lull in the conversation. "Well, come on inside. We can talk more in there." Pete turns and walks ahead of them toward the door, pausing briefly to lean over and rub the dog's head.

"Married," Mulder sing-songs in Scully's ear.

"Shut up, Mulder." She has the good graces to look embarrassed as they follow Pete to the house. On the cement slab at their feet, a stray cockroach skitters directly into the darkness of a bush. Pete ignores it but Scully sucks in her cheeks and takes a subtle step backwards.

There is a doorknocker mounted on the door shaped like a horse's head with the bridle as the knocker part; it bangs loudly several times when the screen door bounces closed against its frame. Mulder has a moment's hesitation as they enter the little foyer. He can see the large glass door that leads into the house, right to the base of the stairs, the ornate iron work exactly as he remembers. Seeing it again triggers a strange sensation in him, just a little flip of his stomach, the scent memory of vomit and Kool-Aid and the dead weight of Melissa's body in his arms. He almost turns back to the car. Instead, he closes his eyes, breathes deeply, and steps into the house.

Scully's fingers grasp his arm lightly at the inside of his elbow, but any trepidation he may have had about entering is immediately dissolved when he sees the interior. The wood paneling has been stained dark, the walls scrubbed clean and freshly painted. There are bright area rugs covering the hardwood floors to replace the threadbare ones in Mulder's memory, and lots of sturdy antique furniture. He takes another step into the room. The windows he remembers, cloudy and caked with dust and cobwebs, are now dressed in a white, airy fabric that stirs in the breeze. It feels so much lighter in here; the house has changed so much from six months ago as to be almost unrecognizable, and Mulder releases a breath he didn't know he was holding.

Pete points them to a large living room with a view of the front field and directs them to have a seat. Mulder chooses the long, low couch; Scully sits beside him.

"Can I get you anything? A drink or something? I've got a pot of coffee on..." Pete asks. Both agents shake their heads.

Mulder leans back on the couch and crosses his legs. "Pete, I can't help but notice you don't sound like you're from around these parts."

Pete shakes his head as he takes a seat in the chair across from them. "Not originally, no. April and I are from the Northeast. When we retired, we wanted to have a place where we could keep a couple horses, maybe a couple chickens eventually. Nothing big or anything; we've just always enjoyed riding."

"Whereabouts in the Northeast?" Mulder asks conversationally.

"Vermont, near the border." Pete rubs a hand on the thigh of his jeans. With the other hand, he absently spins the blades of a small windmill knickknack that sits on the table next to him. Having exhausted any interest he has in pleasantries, Mulder settles himself deeper into the couch and just quietly observes for a moment. He likes this part, usually. Details are comforting to Mulder, and not only because they are a necessity in his line of work. Little things that might otherwise escape notice- a circular stain left on the coffee table from a wet drink; the ashtray that instead of ashes holds three buttons, a Mercury dime, and a pair of fingernail clippers- tell a story, make these connections more personal. There is a photograph propped against the lamp on the end table; an artfully framed black-and-white of a young woman- April, he assumes- leaning primly against a motorcycle with her hands behind her back. She is dressed in mid-century fashion, long skirt and saddle shoes, her hair the tidy, short curls often forced upon young girls by their mothers. By all outward appearances she is just a nice young lady, except for her expression: she looks off-camera, smirking petulantly, one dangerous dimple carving the youthful roundness of her cheek. Mulder smiles. It's a great moment to have caught on film.

Pete swallows before continuing. "I appreciate you coming. It's unsettling, you know? When the police turned up basically nothing I kind of thought I was going crazy." Scully turns her head and looks pointedly up at Mulder, who pushes his mouth to the side and concentrates very hard on the wall. "But I know what I saw."

Mulder nods. "And what does your wife think?"

"She's terrified. She can hardly sleep at night, she's so nervous."

"Where is your wife, Mr. Stadler?" Scully asks, hooking her hands over the knee of her crossed leg. "Can we talk to her?"

Pete rubs one hand over his face briskly. "Um," he exhales loudly. "She's… not well. She got sick not long after we bought the property." His eyes are flat, expressionless. "She had a bad night last night."

Suddenly, Scully is filled with a feeling of dread; it sits like a heavy weight in the pit of her stomach, rolling and crushing her from the inside. In the past few weeks, she has come to know that look she sees on Pete's face very well. She's seen it on the faces of her doctors, and the nurses, and, on occasion, even her partner. She very decidedly doesn't want to be here anymore. "Sick… how?" She asks, but she already knows.

"Cancer. Brain tumor." Scully leans forward slowly and intently, elbows on her knees. She can feel Mulder's knuckles come to rest casually, unconsciously, against the outside of her thigh, in between their bodies where Pete can't see. "We've been in and out of hospitals for the past six weeks. She's been getting worse lately." Pete laughs once, humorlessly, and rubs his forehead. "Hell, seems like everyone's getting cancer around here. Ruth was just diagnosed a few months ago, too. She's got two teenage boys. We thought maybe the runoff from the farm had something to do with it, so we had the water tested and everything, but it came back normal." He sighs. His fingers travel down the bridge of his nose, pinching at his eyes for a moment. "Ugh, sorry, I don't mean to go off like that. We're all stressed, and then to have this happen on top of everything…"

There is an awkward pause until Mulder stands suddenly and moves to the window. "Is this where the murder happened? At the edge of the field?" When Pete nods, Mulder turns back to the view and studies it quietly.

Peripherally, he notices the old dog has moved from its spot by the door and is turning in tight circles, over and over, a shrill whine splitting Mulder's ears even inside the house. He crosses his arms across his chest and frowns. The dog continues, more erratically now. "Does he do that a lot?"

"The circles? Uh, yeah, that started a couple weeks ago. We think he might be going senile. Poor thing's like a hundred or something in human years." Pete says with a little laugh. Mulder nods. Strange, he's never seen a dog act that way before. Tucking the bit of information away for later, he turns his attention back to the field.

"Walk me through it, Pete. What happened that night?"

"Well," Pete takes a deep breath and joins Mulder at the window. "It was a little after six in the morning, and April got up to use the bathroom. She was gone for awhile and I got nervous- I thought maybe she was sick- so I got up to find her. She was looking out the window and kind of motioned for me to be quiet, so I walked over to see what she was looking at and she pointed out the three people out there by the old fence, right by that broken slat." He points. Scully comes up behind them, listening. She can just see the broken slat, but the view is fairly well obstructed by the several large, leafy trees that taper on the inside of the fence, where the horses are. Beyond the fence the trees are much thicker. The hidden view and relative darkness when the murder occurred makes Scully wonder, not for the first time, how much the witnesses actually saw. "I watched them for a couple seconds before I heard all the yelling, then I went to the kitchen phone and called 911 while April stayed in here to relay what was happening. I heard a gunshot, April screamed, and by the time I ran back into the room, all three of the people were gone."

"So you didn't actually see the murder occur?" Scully says this more like an accusation than a question.

Pete seems embarrassed. He cups the back of his neck with one hand. "Well, no, not really. I mean, April was the one who witnessed it. She saw the whole thing, right from the beginning. I just heard the gunshot."

There is a moment of silence while Mulder surveys the field. "I'd like to talk to her, if we could." He says, turning toward Pete. "Do you think she'll be able to answer some questions in a day or two?"

"You can certainly try. She has good days and bad days." Pete says, then hesitates. "Might have to keep it short, though, if you can. I worry about her overdoing it."

Mulder places his hands casually in his pockets. "We'll be as brief as possible. In the meantime, you mind if we go check out the spot where it happened, Pete?"

"No, not at all. Whatever you need." They move together to the door, where Pete shakes each of their hands warmly. He moves aside for Mulder and Scully to step out. "Let me know if there's anything else I can do. April and I are both worried sick about that woman." He seems like such a genuinely nice guy that Mulder doesn't doubt this statement.

"Thanks, Pete. You've been a big help. We'll be in touch." Mulder nods at Pete before placing his hand low on Scully's back, turning her in the direction of the field.

They walk toward the broken slat in the fence that Pete pointed out from the window. From here, it is somewhat difficult to see the house behind them through the tree leaves. What strikes Mulder most, though, is the complete and utter silence of this area. He stands and observes for a moment, unnerved, before finally placing the cause of his discomfort. "Scully, doesn't it seem weird that there's no signs of any wildlife around here?"

She stops and looks around. "Now that you mention it, yeah. It is a little strange."

"Not even any birds..." He mutters.

"Maybe there's going to be a storm."

Mulder points up at the beautifully clear, sunny sky and raises his eyebrows at her. "Was the FBI your second choice after flunking out of meteorology school, Scully?"

Scully gives him a long-suffering look. She watches the high grass knot over Mulder's shoes as he walks toward the fence. "You know, if it weren't for the gun and the pocket knife, I'd be skeptical that the Stadlers saw anything at all."

"Skeptical? Well, that would go against your MO." He grins at her eye roll.

"Prolonged stress can have incredibly adverse effects on the body."

"Sounds like something I told my college girlfriend one night during finals week."

Choosing not to comment, Scully moves closer to the trees and turns so that her back is to the house. "According to Mr. Stadler, this must be where the suspect was standing during the altercation. The victim would've been just about where you are." Scully squares her feet and crosses her arms. "I've gotta say, Mulder, I'm not convinced anyone would even be able to see what was happening out here if they were standing at that window."

Mulder, his back to Scully, touches the gray wood of the broken slat, running his fingers over the rough grain. "Mmm. You may be right, Scully. We'll have to talk to April Stadler to-"

Suddenly, Mulder's knees give and he is leaning hard against the fence. His head… His vision flickers like a television, his senses overwhelmed by static and snippets of conversation so rapid Mulder can't keep up. So much pressure- He digs the heels of his hands into his temples as the images short circuit through his brain-

"-to Dalton-"

"-so heartbreaking to wait-"

"-in your pocket-"

"I miss you-"

There's a fence. This fence. She's here, she came, it's so early. It's in his pocket, soft paper and he can't reach it. Wet. His head is going to burst, oh god, he just knows it. Everything is grey, blue,

red,

red,

red.

Then dark.

"Mulder!"

When he can focus, he is looking down at his hands gripping the fence, fingers white with the effort of supporting his weight. The post feels hard and rough against his back as he swallows lungfuls of tepid air like a drowning man, but it does little to dissolve the pressure in his head. At least he stayed on his feet this time.

"Mulder? Come on, talk to me." His vision is fuzzy, but he notices her for the first time, leaning down directly in front of him and looking into his face. Her hands are under his arms, pulling. "Mulder!"

"Sarah," Mulder breathes. He feels weak and warm, almost like he has the flu. He blinks hard a few times. Finally, his vision clears enough to see the brief look of confusion on Scully's features. And then, all of a sudden, she realizes: Sarah Kavanaugh.

"Mulder-"

"It's okay," he interrupts, forcing a sense of calm into his voice and affecting a terrible genteel southern accent, "I'm just feeling swoony over Whistlin' Joe back there." He grimaces up at her and grips the fence hard, focusing on the roughness of the wood to give his mind something to ground it back into reality. He winces through the pressure in his temples.

"Swoony?" She punctuates the word with a little upward lift of her brows.

"Come on," he prods, grinning, "I saw the way you eyeballed him." Distract, distract, distract.

She wants to be stern, but the flush in her cheeks kind of ruins it. "I was not eyeballing anyone. And don't change the subject." She pulls him fully to his feet. "We're going to the hospital."

He pulls his arm out of her grasp gently. "Scully, I'm fine. It's just residual effects from the tranquilizer or something." Her lips form a thin line as he brushes seeds off his pants from the tall weeds along the fence. His head is splitting. "We knew this might happen, remember? Besides, I want to interview Ruth Tedlow."

"Later, Mulder. This is serious. If you won't let me take you to the hospital, you at least need to go back to the motel and rest for awhile. I can interview Mrs. Tedlow on my own."

He thinks about arguing with her, even goes so far as to open his mouth in preparation, but stops when he sees the look on her face. "We'll go get some lunch. Okay?" She studies him for a moment, then nods. They start walking back to the car slowly, Scully staying very near to his side.

The ground is muddy and pitted; Mulder's head feels almost like he is swimming as he picks his way carefully through the field. Scully looks up at him with a strange expression on her face. "You shouldn't be here, Mulder. You're obviously still recovering and you're too close to this case."

His teasing voice from before is gone, replaced by one that is quiet and serious and a little sad. "But you are, too, now, Scully."

Scully stops dead, feeling her throat constrict. She touches the back of her neck without thinking but plays it off like she is fixing her hair. "Well, all the more reason for us to get the hell out of Tennessee." Her voice is filled with conviction and emotion and Mulder feels guilt bloom like poison in his chest.

Continued in chapter 2.