Title: Terra Firma
Author: Carolina
Category: D/R UST, DSF
Rating: Still PG-13
Author's notes: All work and no play makes Carolina a dull girl. Thanks to Nicole for putting up with my ignorance.


-TERRA FIRMA 3-


When Skinner walked out of the office, he left both Doggett and Scully with their mouths hanging open, confused. Scully immediately began to search for anything she could on this so-called cult among Mulder's files for a few hours, but as she had suspected, there was no information. Knowing they didn't have much time, if this was indeed a cult case, she quickly walked out of the FBI headquarters with a plan forming in her mind and John in tow. He had been surprisingly quiet since Skinner told them about his theory. In fact, he hadn't said a single word, much to Scully's surprise.

When they entered the garage, he immediately reached inside his pocket for the car keys, but before he could open the door, Scully stood in front of him, hand opened in mid air.

"What?" he asked.

"Give me the keys, I'll drive."

"No," John said and tried to reach the door again.

"John, you're still drunk," she said sharply. "Either give me the keys or you can stay here and I'll do this without you."

He tried to give her that serious look, the one he always used when he tried to scare his way into what he wanted. But so did she. And this time, he lost the fight.

So he shook his head and handed her the keys reluctantly. He walked over to the other side and got in the passenger's seat as she turned on the engine and drove out of the garage.

"Where are we going?" John asked as he rested his elbow on the edge of his window to help him rub his temples.

"Well first we're gonna get you some breakfast."

"I'm not hungry," John replied.

She ignored that. "And then we're gonna try to find something on this cult."

Through the corner of her eye, she caught him shaking his head again, and she knew well that couldn't accept this cult theory. But it was the only lead they had, the only way to get to Monica, and she would help him pursue this venue even if he didn't believe in it.

Some time later, they stopped at a nearby diner where they both ordered breakfast. Despite his earlier claim that he wasn't hungry, Scully watched as he ate an entire plate of eggs, pancakes, hash browns and four cups of coffee. She knew he was getting ready for something it would be hard to endure. She was going through the same process as well. When something bothered John, she was well aware that his best defense mechanism was to go through it by torturing himself as hard as he could, refusing to eat or get any sleep. As worried as she was about Monica, she was probably even more worried about John. Getting drunk and staying up all night would probably drive him insane, and she was scared she wouldn't be able to save him.

She waited until he had finished and rested her cup of coffee on the table to look directly at him.

"John, I know you want to protect Monica, I do too," she began, trying to be careful about her choice of words.

"But if she was investigating a case on her own, I think it's important that you at least let me know."

He stared at her with a frown, mouth partly open, trying to process the accusation while adjusting to the sudden caffeine rush.

Finally he shook his head and looked down at his coffee cup. "She wasn't."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes I'm sure," he said almost furiously.

"Are you sure she'd tell you?"

He leaned back against his chair in an aggressive physical move. Scully knew she was stirring up a hornet's nest, but she had no other option.

He gave her a look she took as unfriendly, and so she let out a sigh and sat back on her seat as well.

"John, what would you have told Monica if she told you she was investigating a cult on her own?"

"What do you mean?" he mumbled.

"I mean, maybe she was scared to tell you she was investigating this cult. Maybe she thought you'd react the wrong way."

He meant to make a rebuttal to that statement. He meant to let her know just how insulting it was to insinuate that he would shut Monica out if she tried to talk to him about her convictions. But he knew, deep down, that what she saying was partly true. More than once, she had been witness to his reactions to Monica's unconventional explanations when they tried to solve a case.

But how would he have reacted this time?

It probably didn't matter. She should have told him anyway. She should have asked for help. And he should have been there to help her.

"So what we have to figure out is how deep she got. If she found out something important, something they didn't like, then that's probably the reason they took her," Scully said.

They took her.

He shook his head, finishing the last drops of his coffee, and then he reached inside his pockets and threw a twenty dollar bill on the table. He didn't know if he was still drunk, or the fact that almost three days had gone by, or the theories that were flying around the bureau, but something inside of him forced him to doubt all of this. Something was fooling him into thinking maybe Monica had gone on a trip without telling him. Maybe she was investigating a case undercover and Skinner made up this lie to protect the investigation. Maybe he just couldn't wake up. He had experienced that before.

Or maybe he was wide awake but refused to open his eyes.

"I don't know," he sighed.

"That's okay, we'll find out. We'll find her," she reassured him with a nervous smile and then once again they were both in the car.

Scully knew that they would need all the help they could get on this case. But she also knew that asking Follmer or even Kersh was out of the question. Follmer most likely didn't know about Skinner's discovery on the case, and she was sure that he wouldn't be pleased when he found out. So asking the bureau for assistance was out of the question.

The realization that they were probably alone on this would have been heart-breaking at a different time, but she was so used to having the FBI fail them, that at this point she wouldn't expect anything else. It had been so long since she investigated a case that as they drove, she became nervous about working on an X-File without Mulder's help.

But she had to do this, not only for herself and John, but for Monica. She wouldn't sit back and wait for another one of her friends to die. As she sat on her seat, she made a vow that, like John, she wouldn't rest until she found her friend.

~*~

Standing in front of the entrance as she had so many times before was almost physically painful. But for once, she ignored all kinds of emotions and waited until they were allowed in with the same precautions as many times before.

"Jimmy," she smiled as the young man opened the door for the two agents.

"Agent Scully, Agent Doggett. Wow, I never thought I'd see you again," Jimmy said with a slight chuckle.

Doggett walked in after Scully and immediately looked around what used to be The Lone Gunmen's headquarters. As bare as it had been before, now, as Jimmy had decided to continue their work, it looked much as it did before they went bankrupt.

It comforted him a little, but not enough.

"We need your help with a case," John heard Scully say and he joined her and Jimmy in front of a computer screen.

"Yeah, whatever you need," Jimmy replied.

Scully smiled as she handed Jimmy a file. "We need to find anything you can on this man."

Jimmy took the file and studied it carefully. "I'll do what I can." He looked up at John's too serious face and frowned. "Can I know what this is about?"

Scully looked at John, as if she needed permission from him to talk about the case. "Agent Reyes was kidnapped-"

"Oh, man," Jimmy lamented.

"This man may be involved, as well as this cult he supposedly belongs to," Scully said.

"Yeah, I-I'll try my best," Jimmy nodded with conviction.

"Please," John finally said after being quiet through Scully and Jimmy's conversation. "Anything you can find, please let us know."

Jimmy looked around the office as he let out a sigh. "It'll take me a while to go through all of this."

"I think we may be able to help," Scully said as she threw John a glance.

"Yeah," John sighed.

"Don't worry, Agent Doggett. I know the guys must have something on this."

Don't worry. If people only knew what the power of those words, what the phrase really meant, they'd probably stop saying it.

But John showed him half a smile nonetheless and watched as Jimmy immediately began to work on the case.

A whole day passed as they tried to find something, anything, on this man and the alleged cult. John tried to read as fast as he could as he went through as many files as his energy allowed. But he knew that going over everything would take them weeks. Scully had been on the phone with Skinner many times during the day to ask how the investigation was going, but Skinner was as lost as they were. At the end of the night, they were more confused than when the case began.

Scully let out a sigh and walked with John to a corner as the sound of Jimmy's fingertips tapping at the keyboard filled the air.

"You really think this is helping?" John whispered. "I feel like we're just wastin' our time here."

"If the FBI has no information on this, the guys must have," Scully replied, watching his face and how the muscles of his jaw contracted as he stared at Jimmy across the room. "John, if Monica was investigating this cult, there has to be some documentation somewhere."

"We didn't find anything in her apartment."

"Did they find her briefcase in the car?"

The briefcase. He hadn't even thought of that.

"So they took that too." Scully sighed. "Something's missing. Someone else has to know what she was up to. How would she get to the middle of this without having someone else help her? There's a missing link in all of this, we just have to find out who he or she is."

As John's thoughts raced around his head, chasing each other, he frowned, feeling a surge of energy go from his toes to the top of his head.

"What?" Scully asked. "What is it?"

He quickly walked over to Jimmy and wrote down his cell number in a small piece of paper. "Call me as soon as you find something."

"Yeah," Jimmy said as he studied the number.

Scully followed John as he practically ran out of the building.

"John, where are we going?"

~*~

This time, she allowed John to drive, partly because he was sober, but mainly because he seemed to know something she didn't.

He drove a little fast and Scully was scared he'd slam them into another car or a wall. Luck seemed to be on their side and they didn't even come across a cop along the way. Sometime later, they arrived at Monica's.

"What are we doing here?" Scully asked as they got out of the car.

John stared at the building next to Monica's and walked over to where Scully was. "I met this guy yesterday; he was there when we arrived at the scene two days ago. At first I thought he was just crazy, but now," he let out a sigh, not really believing he was thinking of this. "Now I think he may know something."

"Who is he?" Scully asked as she walked behind him.

"Some bozo who likes to trick people with cards," John replied.

It occurred to John suddenly that he didn't even know the apartment where this man lived. When they walked inside, he tried to look up his name among the small mailboxes in the lobby, but couldn't find it.

There was an old woman getting her mail, and John walked over, reaching for his badge.

"Ma'am? I'm Agent Doggett, this is Agent Scully."

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

"We're looking for a man named Michael Bonsall."

"Oh, Agent Doggett. I don't know that many people here," she replies.

"He's six feet, maybe. Brown hair and eyes-"

But the lady still looked confused.

John scratched his neck as he thought of something else to say. "I think he works at the park, doing tricks with cards?"

The woman immediately smiled. "Oh yes! Oh, he's such a sweet boy."

Scully smiled. "I'm sure he is, but if you could tell us his apartment number, we'd really appreciate it."

"Is he in trouble?"

"No, we just need to ask him a couple of questions," Doggett replied.

The woman looked around, as if she was sharing a secret, and then looked at John. "Apartment 228."

"Thank you," John said appreciatively and ran up the flight of stairs with Scully close behind.

When they got there, he knocked on the door a couple of times but didn't wait for a reply. "Michael Bonsall? This is Agent Doggett, open the door!"

A couple of seconds later, they heard the chain unlock and the door opened.

Bonsall watched John standing there, with a stranger, and let out a sigh. "Agent Doggett, I told you I don't know anything-"

"I know," John interrupted him. "We just need to ask you a couple of questions."

Bonsall looked from John to Scully. "Am I under arrest here?"

"No, sir," Scully said. "But we really need your help, if you could come with us."

Bonsall was about to close the door and tell these people to never come back. But something in John's face, this desperation, a frail hopelessness, made him let out a sigh and reach for his keys.

"Okay."

When they reached the bureau, John made sure Follmer wasn't around to proceed with the interrogation. But before they could reach a private room, John heard a woman cry out his name and he turned on his heels quickly.

"John!"

"Shit," he mumbled without moving his lips as he watched Monica's mother approach him, followed by her father.

"John, where is she?" the woman cried as she held John's hands desperately.

"I don't know, Clara," John said and motioned Scully to take Bonsall away.

Monica's father was a tall, strong man, but he looked so frail and vulnerable that John couldn't look him in the eyes.

"John, please. We need to know," he asked.

"They said someone took her, John. Where is she?" Clara asked again.

"I don't know, I'm sorry."

John watched as Monica's mother began to cry and he tried to comfort her by rubbing her shoulders slightly.

He had met Monica's parents back when they lived in New York and they had decided to pay her a surprise visit for her birthday. Back then, he had been so broken by his son's death and his marriage's disintegration that meeting these people had been a breath of fresh air. Monica's mother was just like her daughter, bright, kind, and considerate. Even without knowing John well, she had fed him, and taken care of him at a time of emotional tumult as if he was her own son. Seeing her like this, and not being able to comfort her as she had taken care of him, broke his heart to pieces.

He finally looked up at Monica's father. "I'm gonna find her, I promise."

With unshed tears in his eyes, Monica's father patted John's upper arms a couple of times. "I know you will."

John smiled in spite of the stressful situation.

"Clara, dejalo trabajar," he said as he tried to peel his wife off John.

Clara looked up at John and kissed both his cheeks before her husband walked her away.

His hands were shaking.

Before he confronted Bonsall, he had to stop at the bathroom to compose himself. He tried not to look at himself in the mirror, scared of what he might see. But as he began to walk away he caught a glimpse of himself, and suddenly he looked exactly as he did almost ten years before, when his own son slipped away from his fingers.

A sudden urge to drown his sorrows as he had the night before crawled through his skin, but he leaned against the wall of the bathroom until he talked himself out of it.

When he reached the interrogation room, Scully was waiting for him outside.

"Are you okay?" she asked in a low tone.

"Yeah," John replied, looking through the small glass window of the door at Bonsall, who sat in a chair, playing with his fingers nervously.

Scully stroked John's arm for a second and then took a small breath. "I'm gonna see that Monica's parents get settled in a hotel. Are you going to be okay here?"

"Has he said anything?"

"No," Scully said as she handed him the file. "I'll be in the lobby if you need me."

When John walked inside the room, Bonsall was pressing his forehead against the palm of his hands. When he heard the door close, he turned around to see John standing there, looking slightly disturbed.

But his face immediately turned serious and he walked over to hand him a file.

"Do you know this man?"

Bonsall opened the file and stared at the picture for a second. Then looked up at John and shook his head, "No."

"Have you seen him walking around your neighborhood?"

"Agent Doggett, do you know how many people live around that area?"

"Have you seen him or not?" John asked sharply.

"I'm not good with faces," Bonsall replied and gave the file back to John.

John walked around to the other side of the table to lean into it as he did every time he interrogated someone. He hoped that at least his physical posture would scare Bonsall into telling him the truth.

"I know you know something, and if you don't cooperate, you know what that makes you? That makes you the only suspect we have. So if you don't wanna spend the next couple of years in jail you better tell me what you know."

Bonsall shook his head. "I told you-"

"If you don't know anything, then why did you come with us?" John interrupted.

Bonsall took a breath as he found himself not knowing how to respond.

"I think you do know something," John began again. "But if you're scared of what you saw-"

"You have no idea what you're talking about, Agent Doggett. You can't even imagine."

"What am I talking about?" John asked as he watched Bonsall's breathing speed up a little.

"You can't even imagine," Bonsall whispered as he looked up at Doggett with weary eyes, speaking every word carefully. "So please, just leave it alone."

"I'm not gonna leave it alone," John said as he felt the anger beginning to rise. He was surer now than ever that this man knew something, probably was even involved, but wasn't cooperating.

"I don't care how big this is, I'm not gonna leave it alone."

Bonsall shook his head. "I can't help you, Agent Doggett. I'm sorry." He rose to walk out, but his body jerked when he felt John's hands grasp the back of his shirt.

John slammed Bonsall against a wall and grasped his hands on the man's shirt, pressing his fists against his cheat and getting his face close to Bonsall's.

"Tell me where she is or I'll kill you, you bastard!"

"I can't!" Bonsall yelled.

"You can't or you won't!!" John hissed.

"I can't!" Bonsall repeated. "You're too late!"

John didn't move, didn't even flinch. His eyes stared intensely into Bonsall's and for a moment he was scared he'd lose control and kill this man. His breathing was labored, and he was beginning to shake. But that only made his grip tighter on Bonsall's shirt, pressing him so hard against the wall that his knuckles were beginning to hurt.

"What are you talkin' about!" he yelled again.

"Agent Doggett?"

John heard Scully's voice and saw her standing by the door with his peripheral vision, but he didn't even move.

"John, let him go," Scully said. Her eyes went from John, who looked like a madman, to Bonsall, who looked like a small animal being hunted.

She could hear John's breathing where she was, so she walked over to make sure he had heard her, make sure he knew she was there. "John."

John pressed Bonsall's body against the wall so hard that the man could barely breathe. "This son of a bitch knows something and he ain't telling."

"Let him go, John. He's innocent," Scully said.

John finally looked over at Scully, and his grip on Bonsall loosened up just slightly. "What are you talkin' about?"

With a motion of her head, Scully indicated him to follow her out. She left the room first, and John turned his stare to Bonsall again.

"I'm sorry Agent Doggett," the man said.

In a quick move, John pressed his arm against Bonsall's neck, getting close to his face again. "If something happens to Monica, I swear I'm gonna kill you."

Bonsall pushed John's arm away and grasped his neck, breathing hard. He looked down as John walked out of the room and closed the door behind him.

John walked out in time to hear Scully tell one of the agents to let Bonsall go.

"What are you doing?"

Scully tried to ignore that and walked down the hallway as John followed her.

"Skinner may have found something."

"What?" John asked.

"He wants us to go down and investigate a house in the country out in Maryland. A report came in last night from a woman complaining of too much noise-"

"That's it? Some noise? What does that got to do with the case?"

"Only this house has been abandoned for years. This woman claims she was driving by when she heard some weird noises. She thinks there's something strange going on inside."

John stopped walking to look down at Scully. "You really believe this cult theory?"

"It's the best thing we've got, John."

John let out a sigh, looking around the hallway.

"John, I know how you feel."

He let out a mocking chuckle at that, shaking his head.

"I do. Mulder used to-"

"This isn't about you and Mulder, Mulder's gone. This is about Monica," John said harshly.

Scully looked at him for a moment, hurt by his statement, and then decided to leave herself out of this, but stay close enough to try to help. She knew deep down that John didn't mean what he had said, that his anger had taken over him. But it hurt nonetheless, especially since he was right, Mulder was gone, and she was in this alone.

So she nodded, and changed the subject. "Skinner assigned some good agents on the case, they're ready to go."

"Yeah," John mumbled as he turned to leave, aware of what he had said, but not able to repair the damage.

As they walked into the lobby, they watched as Follmer appeared out of nowhere, walking towards them.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Follmer asked Doggett immediately, with a less than pleased look on his face.

"I'm stayin' out of your investigation," John said and began to walk away again but Follmer stopped him.

"I said stay away from the investigation, not start a new one."

"I'm only tryin' to find my partner," John said.

"I am in charge of this case, Agent Doggett. If you don't know how to follow instructions let me know so I can suspend you."

John was going to walk away, but then he reached inside his pocket for his badge, held it in front of Follmer's face, and let it drop to the floor. He watched the anger on Follmer's face for a second, and then walked away with Scully close behind him.

"Agent Doggett!" Follmer called out furiously.

John didn't even look back.

~*~

As Scully drove into Maryland, John watched as an orange hue in the sky announced the rising of the sun. The clock on the dashboard indicated it was six am.

Three days.

Three days again, and on his way to find something he knew would show everyone he had failed. Again.

"Time shouldn't scare you into giving up hope."

Monica's words back then had given him something to hold on to, faith. But this time they failed. Just as he had.

A line of cars drove out of the main road and into a small path that led to an old, abandoned house. Agents and cops immediately walked inside the house with guns. The rest walked around and to the back of the house. John followed closely as the face of the sun peeked through the small clouds that walked through the sky.

But the day was cold, too cold for his taste. He looked around the backyard of the house, where it seemed like there had not been a human being around for years if not decades. The ground was wet from the overnight showers, and he could feel the almost frozen dirt through the soles of his shoes. All around him, men were shouting. They hadn't found anything, but they shouted to communicate with each other.

He wished they would stop. He wished the only shouting he could hear was, "We found something. We found her." But that was never shouted. Yet they shouted.

His head was pounding, and he knew it was a product of the sleepless hours he had spent reading the case over and over, reviewing their leads, calling the many police stations around the city, asking strangers on the streets if they had seen this woman, goes by the name of Monica Reyes, 5'8, around 130 pounds, dark hair, hazel eyes. Have you seen her? Are you sure? Will you please look at the pictures again? Every hour the same ritual would start, over and over.

He had to keep moving. He knew that the moment he sat down and let his mind wander, he would start thinking of her, the way he treated her the night she was taken away. He'd think of the look on her face when he told her off, the way she picked up her umbrella and walked out of the office. He'd think of what she must have been thinking back then. He'd think of her walking towards her apartment, a blow to the back of her head, the sound produced when her flesh met the side window of her car.

Then nothing.

And he would think of her current state. Was she cold? Was she hurt? Hungry? He couldn't allow those thoughts into his head. The image of Monica hurting, bleeding, crying, dead...

Out of the corner of his eye he caught a shine, something on the ground. A quick flick, and it was gone. He was about to walk away when it came back, for a second, and then it was gone. He walked towards it, or where he thought it was. Looking around the damp dirt, he finally spotted something silver, almost completely buried underground. Crouching in front of it, a huge void inside of him made his stomach painfully aware.

"Agent Scully!?" he called out, and digging inside his pockets, he grabbed a pair of gloves.

Scully came over quickly, but remained standing. "What is it?"

John removed dirt around the edges, and finally dug the silver object out, leaving a ring print on the ground.

"What is it?"

"It's her ring," John breathed, looking it over, all around.

Scully looked at it closely, trying to remember Monica ever wearing a ring like that. "Are you sure?"

"She wears it on her middle finger, every day, ever since I've known her," John said, in his voice a glimmer of hope, but also fright.

Scully raised her eyebrows in doubt looking around the area. "John, this place has been abandoned for years. That ring..."

"This is Monica's ring," John said decisively, desperately trying to convince her, and himself, that his testimony was right. "Maybe she left it here for us. Maybe she knew we were comin'."

Scully let out a sigh of reluctance. She wished he wouldn't build his hopes up like this. They had been looking for Monica for three days, and this was the closest thing they had found, an old ring, that probably wasn't even Monica's but John's desperation fooled him into thinking so.

"Well, if there were any finger prints, the rain surely washed them away," Scully said.

"This is Monica's ring, Scully. She was here," John said.

In his eyes, she saw insecurity, fear, and they begged for her to believe him, what he said. They implored her to back up his theory, to assure him that Monica was okay, this was her ring, and they would find her soon. Scully didn't want to disappoint him, but she didn't want to lie to him either. If John was absolutely certain this was Monica's ring, then what could she do? She did remember Monica wearing silver, but she never paid attention to such things.

The rain had probably washed the finger prints away from the ring, true, but nonetheless, Scully reached inside her pocket for a little plastic bag and let John drop the ring inside.

He looked at her with gratitude, and she could tell by the more pronounced lines on his forehead that he was losing his sanity. It was okay. She was losing hers as well.

"Agents?" one of the cops said as he walked over.

"D'you find anything?" John asked.

"Well, we know this house has been abandoned for years. The only people who come here are junkies; they shoot up, clear the evidence and leave."

"What about the calls of complaint we received last night?"

"Let me tell you something about folks around here, Agent Scully. There's nothing exciting going on around town. This house has been abandoned for more than thirty years. When houses are abandoned people like to make up stories of ghosts and strange noises to make themselves believe there's something special in town. But I can assure you, I've been here more times than I can count, and I've never seen any ghosts."

He took a breath and continued. "However, it seems like there was someone here last night, there's some footprints on the floor, the plumbing has been used…"

"The bathroom?" John asked.

"And the sink," the cop said.

"There's running water?" Scully asked.

"I guess the city never really shut it off," the cop said.

"Or someone paid to leave it on," John said.

"No way. The house has no documents, no owners, no bills. We can try and look for prints, but whoever was here made sure the place was clean before they left," the cop said. "Doesn't look like they left too long ago, though."

"How d'you figure?" John asked.

"There's footprints on the mud in front of the house, they seem fresh, and I can tell you right now, they're not kids'. Do you remember what kind of shoes Agent Reyes wore that night?" the cop asked.

John looked at Scully, expecting her to have the answer. Men never noticed these things, how was he supposed to know? He remembered what she was wearing, some black suit with a white shirt underneath. Fashion sense dictated she must have been wearing black shoes, but how the hell was he supposed to know? He was supposed to know. He was her partner, for Christ's sake. He was her friend, for Christ's sake. He was an agent, an FBI agent. A bad one at that.

"She was wearing black boots, we can go to her apartment later to get her shoe size," Scully said.

"Let us know as soon as you do," the cop said and walked away.

John looked at Scully, even more confused than he had been before. Suddenly he turned around, and headed inside the house.

"John," Scully followed. "What are you thinking?"

John didn't say anything, but walked inside and began to look in every room sometimes decisively, sometimes hesitantly.

"John, what are you doing?" Scully repeated.

John suddenly turned around, looking lost and almost disoriented. "Maybe... maybe there's..." he took a sigh and let it out quickly. "Maybe she left somethin' else behind, some... some hair, or..."

"The evidence team is already working on that," Scully said, placing her hand on his upper arm. His muscles tensed up immediately. "John, you need to get some sleep."

"They couldn't have gone far... if they just left. Maybe we passed them down the road, maybe we even saw 'em," he said.

"John, please go home. We'll call you as soon as something comes up," Scully said.

"NO!" John yelled, and with that, punched the wooden wall. A shooting pain traveled from his fist to his brain, but he didn't pay any attention to it.

Scully jumped back, and everything in the house went quiet. Everybody turned to look at him, at them, and looking around, Scully motioned for them to go back to work. Very gently and cautiously, she put her hand on his arm again. He didn't move. His head was bowed, eyes closed, fist pressing against his mouth. She knew that if he moved, if he even blinked, he'd break down. So she gave him a couple of minutes, where they both stood motionless. Finally, she pressed against his muscles softly.

"Come on," she almost whispered, trying to get him to move.

John finally looked up, the clarity of the day making his eyes dilate. Without looking at Scully or even acknowledging her, he walked a quick pace out of the house.

She watched him go, and let out a long sigh. Looking around, she nodded at one of the agents. "If you find anything."

He nodded back at her and she walked out to find John on the side of the car, forehead pressed against the side of the door. She let out a sigh of frustration at her inability to help a friend in need. John stood in front of her practically falling to pieces. And Monica, for all she knew, could be dead. She hated this feeling, this feeling of uselessness, of helplessness. She had lived through this when Mulder was gone; she wasn't sure she could go through it all again.

"Agent Doggett!"

She watched as John practically jumped up, trying to find the voice amongst the many agents combing the area.

When he did, she ran behind him, and they approached a young agent who stood in front of a crop field.

"You should come see this," he said in a serious tone.

"What is it?" John asked quickly, and the young agent suddenly walked into the field. The grass was so tall that they could practically get lost in it and never come out. John picked up his pace and practically walked in front of the agent, letting him know he was in no mood for riddles.

Finally, the agent reached a spot and knelt down in front of a burned piece of land.

"What is this?" John asked, kneeling down and touching the burned ground with his fingers, and then inspecting the ashes closely.

"Someone seems to have burned it," the agent said.

Scully rolled her eyes. 'Thanks, Captain Obvious.'

"And?" John asked irritably.

"Well it, it seems to have been done recently." Both John and Scully gave him an exasperated look, and the young agent recoiled slightly. "I-I think."

Scully watched as John gave her a look. She herself looked around, walking forward and clearing some grass out of the way. The burned spot seemed to follow into a path, almost like a road. She frowned, watching as there was still a little smoke coming out of the burned grass.

Suddenly she walked away, towards the abandoned house. She felt someone follow and immediately assumed it was Doggett and sure enough, he asked her what she was up to.

"I don't know," she murmured. When she reached the house, she asked for assistance, and after finding an old ladder, she carefully made it up to the roof with John's constant questions following closely.

"What the hell are you doing up here?" he asked once more as he reached the roof shortly after her. He watched her let out a sigh. Not a sigh of frustration, or tiredness. It was something different, explicable when he followed her eyes to the sight in front of them.

His own breath was taken away as they both stared at a giant crop circle. There was still slight smoked rising from some of the areas. Its unusual pattern immediately convinced Scully that this had gone from a simple kidnapping case, to something much more complicated.

She felt John's tension increase as he fought against his own convictions over the sight they both saw in front of them. He could practically feel Monica slipping farther away from his fingers and his own frustration suddenly took an air of its own, almost suffocating him and Scully as well.

A simple kidnapping case they could solve. But this. This…

Doggett looked at Scully, breathing heavily, and shook his head at her as she gave him a knowing look.

And then he finally understood Bonsall's words.

You're too late.


To be continued…