Character: Dana Scully

Fandom: The X-files

Rating: PG-13

Prompt: Shepherd Book: Why when I talk about belief, why do you always assume I'm talking about God? Vol 2, week 2

Setting: Season Three Episode "The List

The cold air from Mulder's hotel room smacked into Scully's perspiration-covered face, blowing through her drenched blouse as she found herself toppling over onto his bed quietly without leave or invitation. She managed to avoid the spot where it was clear Mulder had been working, curling gently on the other side, the one closest to his Artic cold air conditioner. For his part, Mulder barely reacted as he stood by the doorway, save for the slightly raised eyebrow and shrug he gave her as he closed the door behind her grand entrance.

"That exciting of an autopsy," he asked as he moved beside her on the bed, adjusting his reading glasses as he picked back up the files he had been reading before she entered. She glanced over at him, comfortable in his rolled up shirtsleeves, not a hint of perspiration on his brow.

"I don't know why they even bother calling that a morgue, it's an oven. By the time I got a chance to get the body to cold storage at the county morgue, advanced decay was already setting in," she sighed in frustration as she plucked at the sticky fabric against her skin. "God, it's hot outside Mulder, whose bright idea was it to come to Florida in late August?"

He smiled mildly as he read through the paperwork but didn't respond otherwise.

"Anyway, Fornier was killed the same way the others were, suffocation, not the trauma of having his head hacked off," she held up the autopsy report in her hand and tossed it in the general direction of her partner. "Green Bottle Fly larva in his lungs."

Mulder's long, aquiline nose wrinkled in clear disgust as he picked up the report. "Is that even possible that quickly?"

"Well it's not likely, but I suppose it's not impossible," Scully admitted slowly as her hair, damp underneath, began to dry itchy to her neck. "But then again it's Dante's purgatory outside, I'm fairly certain anything is possible there."

"Catholic symbolism at its finest," Mulder chuckled as he set down the autopsy report and reached for the files he had been looking at, laying on his lap. "Neech Manley was well versed on Catholic dogma regarding death and purgatory. Buddhist and Hindu too, as well as some Jewish and Islamic texts, even rare Gnostic works not seen since the Middle Ages."

Somehow that didn't strike Scully as terribly surprising. "He was on Death Row, contemplating his own demise. Not everyone can be like Clyde Bruckman, channeling their obsession with death into a psychic power. Perhaps Neech Manley was just trying to find some hope, some meaning for the end that life had dealt him in prison."

"I don't deny that, but what I really want to know is if he really believed the ideas he was formulating in his head. Speranza seemed to think he did…that he actually had begun to believe the ideas he was spouting there in prison about reincarnation and life after death."

"He was a man facing death for a crime he swore he didn't commit, Mulder, looking for some sort of way to rectify the injustice he saw in his life. I don't see why he wouldn't start looking for ways to at least tell himself that this death was just a means to him finally freeing himself from the shackles of this life, to exact his revenge on all of those who did wrong to him."

"How very Old Testament of you, Scully, I like a woman who can handle a little vengeance and smite," Mulder quipped drolly. "Still, from a psychological…even a humanities sort of viewpoint, you have to admit that it's rather interesting how he's turned all these religious, dogmatic viewpoints to fit his own personal idea of reincarnation…everlasting life. When you think about it, many, if not most world religions offer some sort of promise of life after death, a world beyond where one can go if their heart and mind is pure, or if their cause is just."

"And you think that Neech Manley tapped into that somehow with his mish-mosh of bastardized and truncated religious dogma?" Scully, curled on her side facing him now raised herself on one elbow, glancing at the copied pieces of paper Mulder had spread out before him, all snippets of things that Neech Manley had studied while he was in prison. "Frankly, if that's the case why the hell do I bother with going to mass, even just at Christmas and Easter?"

"I keep asking the same thing," Mulder muttered teasingly as he pointed out to one file. "Here he has highlighted a work by Pope Gregory I, also known as the Great, regarding purgatory and the release of a person's soul, and that soul returning to thank those who had prayed for its release. I've read Islamic texts where he has singled out the reward for those great warriors who die for the faith receiving their ultimate reward in heaven, and stories from Maccabees about Jewish martyrs who died for their faith, their persecutors punished in horrible ways for the sin of forcing the faithful to break the covenant between themselves and God."

"And your point?"

"Think about it, Scully, all through human history it has been claimed that those of great faith have been able to perform and do great deeds, like the ones outlined here, based on the strength of their faith alone. What if Neech Manley's faith in his own, piecemeal dogma was enough to actually do what he believed it would…reincarnate him in order to exact his revenge."

Scully blinked mildly at Mulder's insistent face. There had been a time, not so terribly long ago, when she would have rolled her eyes and argued disparagingly with him about the how his own idea sounded even just coming out of his mouth. But she had long ago realized that sort of criticism just tended to bounce off of Mulder, and only fueled his determined belief. "So we no longer believe that Roque is orchestrating these murders on his own and using Neech Manley as a cover?"

"I don't think Roque is the one doing it," Mulder replied, taking off his reading glasses and rubbing his eyes briefly. "I spoke to him today. He tried to use his influence to get protection, to make a deal."

Not surprising for a Death Row inmate. "Did you speak to the warden about it?"

"Not yet, but you know he's going to nix the idea. Roque's on Death Row for the brutal, gangland style murder of three people, there's no way any judge would commute his sentence, even for the lives of three people."

"Still, it's worth some sort of shot, don't you think. I mean there are three people whose lives can be saved out of this."

"Try convincing any judge in Florida that these mean are at risk because of the disembodied, angry spirit of a man they killed months ago," Mulder leaned against the headboard, crossing his arms as he stared off into he distance. "I think Roque is afraid of something…that's why he wants the immunity."

"What…that Neech Manley is out to get him? He supposedly knows the list, Mulder, he would know if he was on it."

"That may not be why he's afraid of Neech," Mulder replied. "And I don't think he's worried about being killed, at least not by Manley's reincarnated spirit."

"By who, then?"

"It's a prison, Scully, lots of things happen in a prison. People slip, fights go down, guards look away. Remember, Jeffrey Dahmer died in prison, bludgeoned to death by a schizophrenic fellow inmate while on work detail, and no one noticed."

"Speaking about God's will," Scully murmured pointedly as she picked up one of the scattered papers, glancing it over idyll.

"God's will or not, Roque knows how it goes in prison. All he needs is for one guard to look the other way, and he's a dead man."

Mulder's theory could be right. Roque could just be leveraging to get himself out of a situation that would kill him before the State of Florida planned to. "Do you think he actually knows anything about Manley's list then, really?"

"Maybe, but he's not talking till he gets his deal," Mulder shrugged as he worried his lip thoughtfully. "But I don't think he's the one orchestrating the murders."

"If not him, who?"

His green eyes slid to hers meaningfully. She should have known the moment she asked the question.

"You know, Mulder, for a man who doesn't buy into God or organized religion, you sure seem quick to buy into their rhetoric when it suits your theories."

"I never denied the possibility of miracles, Scully, only in the person who is executing them," he replied sagely.

"You are such a bundle of contradictions," she snorted, rolling her body off the side of his bed and swinging her legs down as she rose. "I'm going to take a shower and try to feel human again. Then I'd like food, preferably not pizza." She shot him a dirty look that he seemed oblivious too."

"So is that how this works, Scully, you grace my bed and leave?"

She had wondered when he'd get to the inappropriate remarks. He had waited longer than usual.

"I'm hardly the first, Mulder," she grinned as she reached his door. "I'll call you when I'm ready for something real to eat."

"What does a shower and healthy food have that I don't have," he smirked.

"Comfortable reality," she shot back as she closed his door behind her.