When her vision started to clear and the grayness faded out, Scully found herself standing over Samantha's book in Teena's basement. That seemed right, but glancing around and seeing that the formerly nearly empty space half filled was the first clue that something had really happened. Something that couldn't be dismissed as a dream...if it was a dream, how had everything ended up there? She thought she would have noticed if the movers had not only arrived but carted everything down to the basement as some sort of sorting area.

"Scully?" She blinked, startled by the voice. Not that it was the voice where none should be, but that it was his voice.

He soon came into view, smiling easily as he threaded his way through the stacks of boxes. "Are you still down here? I thought you said you were almost ready for that thrift shop to take these things away."

Teena must still be dead, she though, trying desperately not to let hysteria and confusion overwhelm her. "I...got distracted, Mulder. I found a book that must of been your sister's," she said, confused as to how he could be standing there, like he hadn't been missing for months. As if she wasn't terrified that he would never find his way home? How could he stride into the room as if he never really left?

"Samantha's." His face darkened. "My mother and never did forgive me for happened to my sister."

"I know. It's not fair that she blamed you for happened," she said, hoping to soothe him. Poor Samantha. Warning him must have been a dream after all, even if she couldn't explain his abrupt reappearance.

Mulder gave her a strange look. "If I'm not to blame, who is?"

"Well, those men," she stammered, suddenly even more confused. Why did he look like he felt guilty? No one could reasonably expect a twelve-year-old boy to have overpowered the men who'd taken his sister.

To her surprise, he shook his head. "It's not their fault that they couldn't stop in time."

Stop in time? She almost asked what he meant but thought better of it.

He shook his head and sighed. "I should have been paying closer attention when we got to the side of the road and pulled her back before the car got there..."

"Oh, Mulder..." she murmured even as she felt like she was losing her mind. His sister been taken and eventually murdered, so where did the story about a car accident come from?

He roughly scrubbed his cheek with a fist, and only then that she realized that he'd been leaking tears. "The woman had been so sure that we were in danger that I had to believe her," he said roughly and her eyes widened in dismay. "I tried to explain that to my parents after Samantha got hit by the car, but they only berated me for being stupid enough to listen to a stranger-" he broke off and looked up at her. "I'm sorry to make you listen to this all over again."

"No, that's okay," she said desperately wanting him to continue his story. "If you need to talk about it, I'm all ears."

"We don't really have time for rehashing all of that," he said. "Samantha is expecting us in about-" He looked down at his watch. "Half an hour."

"Oh, okay," Scully stammered. From his angst she had naturally assumed that Samantha had not survived her encounter with this mysterious car, but apparently that assumption was incorrect.

Feeling dazed, Scully followed him out of his mother's house, and got into an unfamiliar car. If he noticed that she took an extremely long time to figure out where the seatbelt snap in, he didn't say anything about it.

Glancing over at her, he asked, "Morning sickness any better today?"

That question startled her almost as much as everything else had. She was ashamed to admit it even to her self, but amidst the confusion she had forgotten all about her condition. She let her fingers skim over her belly, reassuring herself that the hard little bump that she was still getting used to was there.

"So far so good," she murmured.

"Good. I was afraid that I was going to have to drive you to the ER for An antiemetic on Friday."

"Sorry."

"It's okay," Mulder told her. He took one hand off the steering wheel and covered hers. It was only as she looked down at their hands did she realize they were both wearing rings.