Chapter 7
"I'm fine," Scully said, turning away from him and taking a deep breath. "I just—I had a weird dream, that's all."
"Oh?" He closed the motel door behind him and plopped down on a chair. "The painting of Ophelia again?"
She shook her head. Slowly, the heat on her cheeks subsided, but she didn't chance a direct look at Mulder in case it rushed up again.
"Did you sleep any better?" he asked, his tone uncertain.
"Actually…" She sat up, registering her own body: every muscle felt rested and limber; her mind was clear and sharp. For the first time in almost a week, she felt rejuvenated, replenished. "Actually, yes. I slept very well."
"So it worked?" He glanced at her pillow where she'd stashed the tin coin. "You used the token and it worked?"
She threw her legs over the bed's edge and brushed back her hair again. "It has to be a coincidence, Mulder," she said. "What did you say about Skinner?"
"Eh," he waved a hand. "The intern tipped him off to my snooping, and we have to come in for a stern review, I think. Skinner's probably set to put us on background checks as a show of discipline."
"A review? Today? It's Sunday."
"Tuesday morning, after the weekend's over. Today, I think you should go see Lenaghan again."
She took a deep breath and glanced around. Everything in her pulsed, ready and rested.
"Why?" she asked, still processing how good she felt.
He cleared his throat, glancing pointedly at her chest, and politely away.
"Oh," she looked down. She'd made a mess of her pajamas during her night, and the buttons had come undone, flashing the edges of her bra. "Jesus, Mulder, I'm sorry."
"No, it's, um," he bit down on his thumb to hide his smile, still looking politely in another direction. "It's quite alright."
"Why do you want me to go see Lenaghan?" she asked, buttoning up.
"Regardless of whether or not your change in sleep pattern last night was a coincidence, Lenaghan told you he sold sleep, right?"
She nodded.
"Did he tell you what he charged?" Mulder faced her again when she was all covered-up.
She scoured through the conversation in her mind. "No, he didn't, Mulder… At the time, I assumed he was talking about drugs, and that he charged—you know, cash."
"Yet, he didn't ask you for money for the token? Or give you any future prices?"
"He told me the first one's on the house. That's all." Scully stared at Mulder. "What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking it's not money he charges, but I don't know what else it could be. I was hoping you'd find that out."
She nodded. It was an odd limb to venture out on, but she felt up, and energized, and it was Sunday; there was nothing else to do apart from driving back to DC, semi-empty-handed, to face Skinner's scolding next working hour. Privately, though she didn't want to admit it, Scully, too, wanted to see Lenaghan. He'd said 'If you like how you sleep, come see me again.' If it wasn't a coincidence, her dream, she was curious as to how it was produced exactly… and how it could occur again.
"Sure," she said. "Let's go."
"So, what did you get out of you stake-out last night?" she asked as they sped down a stretch of West Virginia road, past sparse gas stations, chain restaurants, housing developments, and a multitude of flags erected for Memorial Day tomorrow.
"Where he lives," Mulder said. "It's an apartment complex in the shabbier part of Canfield. The apartment manager told me this morning that he was riddled with transient, lawless tenants, but that Mr. Lenaghan was nothing but perfection—pays his rent on time, has no pets, and never makes noise."
"This morning?" Scully shifted to look at him. "Mulder, did you get any sleep last night?"
He chuckled, tapping the lid of his tall coffee cup. "I'm fine. I stayed in the lot until Arnold's closed at two in the morning. I watched Lenaghan leave the bar around two-fifteen." He glanced at Scully. "He was caught up declining a lot of offers on the part of a lot of women to continue the party elsewhere, if you know what I mean."
She remembered the women beating her down with acid stares. How they couldn't feel that repulsion she'd felt at the sound of his voice, she couldn't understand. "And?" she asked.
"He got into the truck," Mulder shrugged. "The aide—who'd remained outside, smoking, for the duration of the show, pulled out. I followed them to the complex where we're headed now. They exited the truck together, went up to the second floor of the building. I saw lights turn on in an apartment window. The lights turned off not ten minutes later, and... That was it."
She frowned. "They live together?"
Mulder opened his mouth and closed it again. "Honestly, I'm not sure. I waited for a full half hour for the aide to come back out, and he didn't. So, maybe they do. The apartment manager, though, didn't know what I was talking about when I asked about the man. He claimed Lenaghan lives alone."
"Even though he's blind?"
Mulder shook his head like he couldn't piece it together either. "The manager knows Lenaghan's blind, but doesn't seem to know much else. When I asked him about who drives Lenaghan to and from whatever errands, the manager simply told me he always assumed it was some government-assigned disability aide. He said he'd never bothered to pay attention."
Scully nodded, thinking. It was curious: she and many other people, it seemed, didn't notice the driver.
Mulder leaned his foot on the brake as they came to an intersection decorated with a check-cashing venue, a mechanic shop walled off with a chain-link fence, and a closed-up pain-management clinic with left-over letters on the awning: DR. M—RAK—OF—CE. An apartment building towered beyond the roofs, and Mulder swung a left toward it. A few men smoking outside of the mechanic shop traced the agents' vehicle, their eyes lingering mostly on the frame and mark of Scully's car, and then they looked away, disinterested, resuming their conversation.
"One odd thing," Mulder said as they pulled into the apartment lot.
"What's that?"
"The aide, Scully." He parked a distance away from the building. "I saw what he wore when he got out here alongside Lenaghan: scrubs. They were green, just like the scrubs you wear when you do autopsies."
She frowned. "And? If he's in health-care at all… I mean, scrubs are just scrubs, Mulder."
"Why would he wear them while he's driving a truck back and forth? And what sort of health-care professional chain-smokes?"
She shrugged and sighed, trying to process everything. "I don't know…"
"The apartment number I got from the manager is 19, on the second floor." He nudged her out of the car. "I'll be here."
Scully walked up a flight of stairs. The space was open, as it tended to be in complexes built in states with constantly warm weather: the back-stairwell was exposed to outside air. A young woman lunged out of the second story and sprinted the steps, looking down, and plummeting into Scully's shoulder on accident.
"Sorry," she twirled about.
Scully gaged her; the girl had bleached hair, greasy, with dark roots that had been untended for months: several inches of chestnut. She wore a stained t-shirt that was torn at the shoulder, and she scratched her arm with a reflexive tick: a junkie, Scully's mind said with cold judgment, an addict.
The young woman zeroed in on Scully herself. "He's not in," she said, with a bitter laugh. "Don't even bother."
The girl turned and rushed down toward the parking lot.
Scully watched her disappear. It had to be a mistake; the girl probably meant someone else in the building—her dealer most likely. Scully turned back and walked up to the second floor. She walked the balcony until the door came into view, and knocked bellow the brass numbers 19.
Nothing.
She knocked again, harder.
A sound trickled from the apartment, foot steps, and then Lenaghan swung the door open. "I told you—I'm sleeping."
He faltered. He didn't look at Scully; he faced ahead, at the space behind her shoulder. "Oh," he said. "I'm sorry. I… Dana, right? Is it Dana?" He stared behind her, his gray eyes never moving.
She swallowed. His voice—it wasn't what she remembered. It was a normal voice. It was laced with exhaustion and a sharp quality belonging to someone who didn't take care of himself, but it was a warm, ordinary voice.
"Yes, Hi," she said, glancing over his features. His curling mane billowed about him, frazzled. He looked tired. He stared over her shoulder with a milky quality to his gray irises, only listening, not looking. "You said to come see you?" she managed.
"Right," he nodded and rubbed his forehead with his fingers. "Right," he sighed again. "Come on in."
He stepped away from the door, leaving it wide-open. Scully peered in, unclipping her holster, just in case. There was no sign of anyone else in the apartment. The space, made dim by drawn curtains, only revealed left-over take-out containers piled on a coffee-table. Lenaghan slumped onto the living room couch and gestured toward the arm-chair across from him, still facing dead ahead. Scully stepped in.
"Good sleep?" he asked, in an absent fashion as Scully settled across the coffee-table.
"Yes." She bit her lip as she registered the wall behind Lenaghan's couch. A large replica of a painting hung behind him: the painting of Ophelia.
Lenaghan grunted, shifting. "I'm sorry to do this, but I'm so tired, and I just… I'm going to have to give you the run-down basics without fanfare. If you're in, you're in. If you're coy about it, and you just came here because you were simply curious, I—I can't do that today. I can't… sell you on it, you understand?"
"On what?" she tore her eyes off the painting.
He sighed, rubbing his face with both hands. "The… dreams," he muttered, facing the space behind her with dead gray eyes.
"I…" Scully cleared her throat. "Did that painting come with your apartment?"
Lenaghan tensed, seeming to pay attention for the first time. He cocked his head, dipping toward Scully's voice. "Ophelia?" he asked softly.
She nodded, and when he didn't show sign of registering her movement, she said, "Yes."
Lenaghan smiled. Again, the smile was not what Scully remembered—not the hollowed out grin, but rather a blushing, surprised, soft smile. "That was Janet's favorite," he said. "The painting behind me—she made it herself, as an homage to the original."
Scully frowned. "Who's Janet?"
He leaned back, still smiling that warm smile. "Janet, my fiancé." He reached over and traced his fingertips along the varnished swirls of brush strokes. He didn't look at the painting, he only traced it as if he could remember every detail—traced his index finger along the wrist of Ophelia.
"Incapable of her own distress," Lenaghan quoted. "…Her clothes spread wide, and mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up… And then," he swallowed, pulling his fingertips off the painting and running them through his hair instead, as he turned back to Scully.
Scully stared at him, as he stared behind her, seeing nothing registering in his eyes.
He rolled his shoulders, getting back to business.
"The dreams, Miss Dana. They come with a price."
She leaned forward. "Which is?"
He sighed. "A procedure—nothing physical: in-dream. You'll just have to go through a bit of a nightmare next time, if you want to continue with this… and you most certainly don't have to continue." He moved as though he was trying to find her in his gaze, but his eyes remained blank, and their reach stretched out beyond her shoulder.
"What sort of procedure?" she asked.
He sighed again, rubbing his forehead. "You'll have a quick nightmare before your next visit. It's imperative—if you want the dreams to continue—that you not wake up," he began, saying the words like they were a practiced phone-greeting. "You'll have two options: if you say that you want to wake up, or even if you just scream or holler, you'll find yourself awake, and our business here will be done. No hard feelings." Lenaghan shifted, tossing his hair back, reciting the rules. "If you think you can handle the short nightmare, you'll have to remain silent. If you feel yourself in need of crying out, the only words you can say to remain within the dream are,"
Lenaghan looked up, his dead eyes still facing the wall behind Scully.
"Cogi Qui Potest Nescit Mori," he said.
