RADISSON HOTEL,

KENWOOD

OCTOBER 30TH, 1997

4.45PM

The late afternoon sun through the wooden blinds at the hotel window cast long contrasting lines of light and dark across the beige carpet. Mulder watched them, mesmerized as they shifted and flickered in the breeze from the open window. In spite of the solemn air pervading the room, Mulder dared to allow himself to feel hope, but even so, he was as restless as the shifting shadows.

He checked his watch again for the third time in as many minutes and inwardly groaned as the hands seemed to move in ever slowing circles. Scully had been in the other room with Samuel for around three quarters of an hour. He had said they would be around an hour for the first session, so she couldn't be much longer now. Scully had taken a little more convincing when Samuel was actually standing in front of her, but at least she had agreed just to speak to him, in private. Mulder was almost beside himself, wondering what was going on behind that door. He just hoped that it was working.

Two hours later, the bedroom door slowly and quietly opened as Scully emerged. Mulder was asleep in the chair facing the window. She silently moved across to him and sat on the edge of the table beside him, watching him sleep and smiling to herself, thinking how fond she was of her Spooky partner. She didn't have the heart to wake him, not after the rough week he must have had, but he would have one hell of a headache if he slept for much longer in the position he was in. She placed a gentle hand on the back of his neck.

'Mulder?'

He awoke with a start, for a moment seeming to be confused about where he was.

'Scully? Jeez, what time is it?'

'About a quarter to seven. Sorry, I didn't think I'd be this long. We just got to talking and then…well, the time kind of fell away.'

'It's ok, don't worry about it,' he said, standing and stretching, trying to ease away the tension across his back and shoulders. 'So what happened?'

'To be perfectly honest, Mulder, I'm not sure. Like I said, we started talking. I felt kind of tired, so he told me to lie down. Relax. I…don't really remember much after that. I was relaxed, warm, peaceful even, but I don't think I fell asleep. It was…' she paused, searching for the right words. 'Odd?'

'Odd?'

'Well, it's hard to explain. It was positive though. Unlike anything, more than just a physical feeling. Like a kind of contentment I suppose. Like everything is working along as it should, and…I'm not very good with this.' She paused and met his eyes. 'And you're smiling again, Mulder.'

'I'm sorry. It's just so great to hear you talking like this. I'm glad it was such a positive experience for you. I hope you got everything that you were hoping for.'

'Yeah,' she nodded thoughtfully, 'I think I did.'

Mulder waited for her to say what he so much wanted to hear. But she said nothing more as they drove back to the hospital for her fitness-to-fly report from the doctor, and then on to the airport. She remained quiet and pensive as they boarded the plane back to Washington. While the flight attendant highlighted the main escape routes, she finally spoke.

'I know what you want to ask, Mulder.'

He played innocent as he pulled off his headphones and hooked them over his armrest. 'Sorry?'

'Come on,' she admonished. 'It's okay.'

'Alright,' he sighed, turning to her. 'Is it… Will you… Is everything going to be…okay?'

'I…I don't know.'

Suddenly he felt sick. A twisting, gnawing pain arose in the center of his chest. He felt like screaming and crying at the same time. All his worst moments from the past week invaded him all at once and grabbed at him, pulling him towards a dark, deep void. This wasn't at all what he wanted to hear. All his hopes that had gradually been raised were cruelly smashed down. It was all he could do to meet her eyes.

'What do you mean, you don't know?'

'It's not gone, Mulder. At least not completely. The progress has been slowed and the tumor has shrunk. My lymph nodes are shrinking again too, at least that's what he told me. I won't know for sure until I get another scan, but I do feel better. I guess that's a start. I know what you were hoping for; what I was hoping for. But I should have known better. All those years of medical training aren't wiped away in one afternoon. Cancer doesn't just disappear.'

He felt as though his heart had been ripped out. What made the blow worse, doubly cruel, was that he believed Scully was well again. Yes, she had been quiet, but she seemed so much more…content. The change in her demeanor couldn't have meant anything else.

She could see the pain in his eyes, and wished she had told him earlier. She realized that he must have really believed that Samuel could cure her; that his friend whom he thought lost to him had been returned. If through her silence she had hurt him then she was truly sorry, and wished that there was something she could say to make everything better, but it was a childish wish born of the hopeless situation in which she found herself.

'No, I guess not,' he whispered, biting his lip and turning to look out the window.

Scully reached over and took his hand.

'But you seemed…different, and…' he began, unable to continue.

'When I went into that room, we spoke for almost an hour about the possible outcomes of the session. He warned me that they are not always successful, and that even though a person may really believe, it's not always enough. He told me that it was ultimately God's will, and if I was destined to be healed then I would be. I was willing to try. I mean, I believe in science without a doubt, but I'm not ignorant of the power of the mind either. He tried so hard, Mulder, tried for a whole hour. He said he could feel my pain, could see it. He said that there was something unnatural about my cancer. Ungodly. I'm not altogether sure what he meant by that.'

Mulder exhaled sharply. He had told her all he felt able to about her abduction, but there was still so much she didn't know. He loved her too much to have her hurt anymore. She knew her cancer may have been given to her, and that there was probably no cure, but when he thought about the way they had kept her for two whole unexplained months, returned her to him with this time bomb inside her, he just couldn't bear it.

As if through a dream, he became aware that she was still speaking to him.

'But he did say that he didn't feel it was my destiny to succumb to it. What I make of that I'm not sure either. I mean, being able to foretell the future, by its very definition implies that the future is set - there would be no point in doing anything because everything is already determined. I can't accept that. I won't accept that, and so…'

'But you said it was a positive experience. I don't understand.'

'It was,' she replied. 'He may not have been able to heal me, but he gave me something else, something just as valuable. Peace of mind. Serenity. Acceptance. He restored my faith that there are greater things than us, greater than our will, our feelings, and what we can prove with our science. There is so much more out there that we haven't even touched on yet, so much to learn, to experience, to understand,' she said passionately, 'and that has given me hope. I'm not beaten yet, there's a long way to go - of that I'm sure.'

His eyes filled, not with despair anymore but with a renewed hope that was just as inexplicable as anything they had encountered before. Somehow, Samuel had touched Scully's life, changed her, renewed the faith she thought she had lost. She was still very ill, possibly dying, but somehow Samuel's influence on her was shifting deep within him too. For just a split second he felt at least a part of what Scully had received from Samuel, and knew that, somehow, everything would work out.

'Everything is going to be okay, Mulder. I promise. I don't know how, or why. I just know.'

He knew it too, though he wished he could understand how.

Nothing else needed to be said. So, they just sat, their fingers entwined, as the plane flew on, taking them home.

THE END