Light filters into the basement office through dusty windows, little more than vents. The air is still and musty, settling on open files and half open cabinets. He sits at the scarred oak desk, head in hands. It is the same, always the same: a clue, a lead half whispered from some shadowy government player; the chase for the truth, down dim hallways and through red tape, beauracracy; the inevitable disappointment, the crashing realisation that this always ends in failure.

Samantha. The name haunts him. Her face emerges, half remembered, in the darkest corner of his mind. Her voice, calling to him, wakes him in the grey halflight of those hours before dawn and leaves him breathless and sweating.

"Mulder," Her voice breaks his reverie, bringing him back from there (he is twelve, they are playing Stratego. There is a light...) to here (Scully, gazing at him with those blue, blue eyes).

"Let's go. It's too nice a day to spend it down here, chasing dreams."

She smiles at him. Touches his temple, strokes his hair. He rises and follows, leaving his ghosts behind, for a while.

With her he is Lazarus. He is born again.