Title: Disciple
Author: CeilidhO
Summary: What if Scully had accepted the transfer to Salt Lake City? Five years later, a horrifying murder case reunites her with Mulder, even as it threatens to rip apart her life.
Disclaimer: I own nothing and no one here that were not on the show. The rest are mine. I make no money from this. The X-Files and its world belong to the Man, Chris Carter.
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The man was becoming impatient. He knew he had to remain calm if he wanted the boy to be better then the last, but it was hard. He longed for a fresh canvas.
This boy had to be better then all the others.
This boy was a prelude to his masterpiece.
Scully was woken from her restless dozing by the sharp trill of the phone. She rolled over, eyes gritty, and slid the receiver into her hand. Her body felt shaky from lack of sleep, and her tongue was thick in her mouth.
"Hello?" She managed to blurt.
"Dana?" The voice was concerned and caring, the image of its owner seeming to float down the connection. Scully wrenched herself to attention.
"Yeah, Rob, hi. What time is it?"
"8:30. I wanted to catch you before you went off to work. What's wrong? You sound like crap."
"That's pretty much how I feel."
"What happened?"
"Too much to tell now. Can I see you tonight?" Her emotions were hard to get out. She wanted him to know how much she wanted to see him.
"Of course, yeah. My place or yours? Or maybe a restaurant?" She smiled faintly, as much as her stiff mouth would allow.
"Surprise me."
"Deal. Seven-thirty?"
"Better make it eight. I've got some lab stuff to do today."
"Autopsy?"
"You got it… Rob, you there?"
"Oh, yeah." He sounded distant. She forced herself to think.
"Is something wrong?"
"No, nothing…" Another pause. "I'll see you at eight. I love you."
"I love you too." The dial tone sounded in her ear.
"'Bye." She mumbled into the buzzing receiver. She forced herself out of bed and into a plain blouse and pant set. The cut was sharp, accenting her figure. Damn. She hadn't meant to do that, and there was no time to change now. Scully grabbed an apple on the way out the door. Her mouth was cold inside, and the fruit tasted like dust. She threw it, half eaten, from the window of her car as she passed a grassy island in the road.
200 South was clogged as usual with the stream of commuter traffic into the heart of the city, and it took Scully almost ten minutes to travel the five blocks from there to the intersection of 200 East and 200 South, where the FBI tower loomed on the northeast corner. She was fiercely glad of the grey sticker on her windshield that let her park anywhere she wanted, but today she felt like braving the leering garage attendant. Last week she had had a rather messy incident with melting video rentals, and had made a mental note not to leave her car in the full glare of the blazing Utah sun for seven hours ever again.
She smiled wanly at the greasy man in the ticket booth, who routinely made kissing faces at her as she took the thin slip of paper from his hand each morning. Whenever she confronted him, he claimed not to speak English. Scully knew for a fact that he was born and raised in Philadelphia.
In the cool walk from the car to the elevator, Scully steeled herself for the task to come. Not only was she going to have to work with this disturbing new Mulder, she was going to have to cut open a small boy, a small dead boy. She had taken an antacid before leaving the house, just in case, as she hadn't had to do an autopsy for months, and she had only had to perform the procedure on two children in her career. Her stomach flopped awkwardly.
The smell of the building comforted her as she stepped into the familiar parking elevator, gently pressing the worn round button for the lobby, feeling the elevator softly lurch upward. She flared her nostrils slightly, drawing solace from the scent of order, unconsciously seeking to quiet the chaos the previous day had incited in her.
The calm shattered when the elevator reached the lobby, spitting her out into the bustle of an early morning workday. A large group of tourists were having their cameras confiscated before they could begin their tour, half of them lining up for a backpack search, the other half waiting to be blinded by a camera flash, and to have their pale, slightly gormless looking picture sealed onto a visitor's pass. Scully headed straight for the pale brown arch of the metal detector, passing her two guns through, and then breezing through herself, waving hello to the guard, Michael, as she went. A few of the tourists looked over enviously.
In the elevator, Scully hopped on one foot as she tightened the strap on her ankle holster, something, she remembered with a pang, that she had picked up from Mulder. Only he would be paranoid enough to bring a second gun to work.
She hoped fervently that no-one else would get on the elevator. She imagined their faces as they took in the stoic Agent Scully, hopping up and down, trying to get on a holster for an unnecessary second gun. When she regained her balance, she slipped the sawed-off pistol into the holster, and buckled it down, doing the same for the standard handgun at the back of her hip. Suddenly, the doors slid open, and Scully was more than mildly surprised to find the lobby still in front of her. Then it struck her: she hadn't pushed the button. She smiled thinly to the surprised tourists outside.
"Going up?"
She got off at the third floor, which housed some of the labs and the two small autopsy bays. Scully scrubbed in the outer room, adjusted her itchy mask, and snapped on her gloves. Holding her hands in front of her, she braced herself and stepped into the room.
The steady, blue tinted lights illuminated the small body on the metal table, as well as the three men standing around it. Dan Morris was busy setting up the technical equipment in the far corner, while Mulder talked quietly with Agent Paring. Paring had his camera ready, and was fiddling with the flashbulb. Scully could see his hands shaking from the doorway.
Scully walked over to the body, gently pulling back the sheet from him. He was still on his front, the thick blond hair matted with dirt and blood. Rigor mortis had frozen his head in its slightly raised position, and someone had placed a small block under it to lessen the strangeness of the pose. Scully sighed, and pulled down the microphone, flicking the small black switch to turn it on. She cleared her throat.
"This is Special Agent Dana Scully, badge number JTT0331613, performing autopsy on a John Doe, case number G-3809/F. Follow up on crime scene exam. Witnessing are Special Agents F. Mulder, D. Morris and A. Paring. It is now… 9:45:07 am, June 4, 2003. The subject is a minor, approximately nine years old, 55.3 inches in length, and weighs…" Scully checked the preliminary report. "… 68 lbs. Seriously underweight. No single, immediate cause of death is apparent, but there do appear to be ligature marks around the neck and wrists, as well as extensive blood loss from lacerations on the subject's back, which reach from the upper shoulders to the junction of pelvis and spine." Paring looked away as he shot the pictures of the wounds.
The rest of the exam was textbook. Time of death was estimated to be late afternoon on June 2, a day and a half before the discovery of the body. He appeared to have been held for at least four days before that, from the extent of the body's emaciation. The cause of death was strangulation, from the marks on the neck and from the haemorrhaging in the eyes, but serious blood loss was also a major factor.
Scully felt filthy when she finished the exam.
After she had slowly changed out of her scrubs, Scully headed down to the basement. The door of room 312 was slightly ajar, and she slipped through. The sight that met her eyes was sickening. The walls were covered with photographs of the bodies and crime scenes, loosely organized by victim. On the far left wall was a timeline of victims, staggered by date, grisly shots of their bodies on one side of the line, and toothy, grinning school photos on the other. Scully put her hand to her mouth.
Mulder didn't pause in tacking up a photo.
"Get used to it, Agent Scully. This is how we work. If you can't handle it, find your own office."
Scully's eyes flashed with anger. "You know I can handle it."
He glanced over blankly. "Fine. Then give us a hand." He shoved a pile of photos into her hand. "Number six. Goes over there, between five and seven, in case you were confused." She took a deep breath. Be professional.
The pile was topped by a school portrait of a smiling redheaded boy of about ten. The small caption underneath said: 'Matthew Carmichael, #G-3806/F'. She gazed at his face, seeing a slight similarity to her brother Charlie, wondering if she was making it up. She felt so tired. Scully hung him on the wall, fighting back tears as she did.
Their work was interrupted as AD Chilton banged into the room. His face bright, he waved a folder in the air.
"We have on ID on the kid! He's Jamie Fredrick Holtz, out of Cranden, Montana. He's still in our jurisdiction, thank god. Been missing since May 29. I've got the fax on him right here." Dan reached for it first. Chilton excused himself, heading back to his office to finish the paperwork on the boy.
Scully quietly rubbed out 'John Doe' on the whiteboard they had posted the victim timeline on, slowly writing out his name. Something occurred to her, and she turned around.
"Jamie, that's short for James, right?" Dan, who was holding the file on him, glanced down and nodded.
"Yeah, why?"
Scully shook her head slightly. "I'm not sure. Something just… tickled, if that makes sense." Mulder looked over at her sharply. Agent Paring smiled a little.
"That's the feeling I get right before an idea comes clear. It's almost like needing to sneeze, right? Don't push it. It'll clear up." He nodded reassuringly. Scully narrowed her eyes, stepping back to analyse the whiteboard, trying not to see the gruesome images surrounding it. Meanwhile, Mulder turned to the others.
"I know it's all been done before in this case but we need to try and find a pattern in here somewhere, in the locations of the abduction sites, crime scenes, the hometowns of the victims, or even their names."
"Names…" Scully breathed. Mulder ignored her.
"Any little detail might have significance, and-" He was distracted by Scully racing for the bookcase in the far corner of the room, thrusting aside the papers and furiously scanning the titles. Pulling out a thick, cloth-bound edition of the Bible, she flipped through it quickly, arriving after a few moments at the place she sought. Scully read quickly out loud:
" '…And he appointed the twelve, and laid the name Peter on Simon; James son of Zebedee and John the brother of James, and he laid on them the name Boanerges, which is sons of thunder; Andrew and Philip, and Bartholomew and Matthew and Thomas and James son of Alphaeus and Thaddeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who even gave him over…' " She looked around at the men. "That's Mark 3:13-19. It names the Twelve Disciples." She was almost breathless. "Now, look at the names of our nine victims." Her finger danced over the whiteboard. "Thaddeus King, James Mortimer, Bartholomew Olsen, Philip McKenzie, John Redmond, Matthew Carmichael, Peter Laurence, Simon Keene, and our latest, the second James, Jamie Holtz. There isn't one who is not named after a Disciple. That's how he's choosing them."
Mulder raised his eyebrows. "Don't you think that's a bit of a leap?"
Scully smothered a laugh. She felt almost tipsy. Paring was beginning to look excited.
"No, wait, Mulder, I think she's onto something. Think about the back mutilation. We all agreed it was angel wings, and all the victims have it, although they vary in sophistication. This could be a very religious man; it very well could be how he's choosing them! And if it is…" His expression mirrored Scully's. She nodded.
"This might be how we catch him."
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A/N: Hey all! Sorry about the delay getting this one up. I hope it was worth the wait! Huge thanks to everybody who reviewed; you've all made my day(s). Oh, and to the person who asked who Tyler was, he's Rob (the boyfriend's) nephew. He was in the first chapter. Thanks again!
~ Ceilidh
P.S.: Let me know if you think I should extend the autopsy scene so that we see the whole thing. I wasn't sure about it.