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.
Little Author's Note: I'm bringing this subject up only because I've had several reviewers mention this: Holy Communion is a ritual which is in fact practiced in many branches of Christianity, not just Catholicism. The only other branches that are relevent to this story are Lutheranism and Anglicanism, which both practice communion, but it is also practiced in many United, Baptist, Orthodox, Episcopalian, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches, to name a few. The main difference is that Protestant churches believe in consubstantiation rather than transubstantiation; that is, the bread and wine/juice are a representation of the body and blood, rather than becoming the real thing.
- - -
Scully banged the screen door of the Holtz's house behind her as she stepped out onto the porch. She leaned back against a column, sighing softly. Mulder was still inside the house, finishing up the questioning, but Scully needed a breath of fresh air. The emotions inside the house were stifling, the air thick with loss, grief and memories. A voice sounded from the front steps.
"Agent Scully."
Scully jumped slightly, and then turned her head to look over. "Agent Paring. What are you doing out here?"
He shrugged. "The same as you, I guess. It's intense in there."
She walked over and sat down next to him on a painted wooden step. "That was a good idea, the Bible Study question. I really think we should look into that."
He frowned. "I don't need you to tell me I'm doing well, Agent Scully. Believe me, I can figure stuff like that out on my own. I'm a big boy." At her expression, he sighed. "I'm sorry. That wasn't directed at you. I'm just really tired and confused, and just kind of, I don't know, sore." He rubbed his hand over the left side of his chest. Scully smiled sadly.
"I know what you mean. Heartsick. It's tiring to feel so much emotion all the time. I understand."
Paring nodded. He pulled a hand across his eyes, and then reached into his pocket, pulling out a cigarette. He lit it and inhaled slowly, settling back against the railing.
"No, Agent Scully, I don't think you have any idea how I feel. I'm the rookie here. Everyone else is so busy doing their thing, and shoving that godawful camera in my hands, and then there are all these bodies…" His voice broke slightly and he paused, drawing a long breath, the cigarette smouldering in his hands. "And then there's you, Agent Scully. You and the astounding effect you have on Mulder."
Scully furrowed her brow. "Sorry?"
Paring leaned back even further. "Let me tell you a story about Mulder, one I'm sure you don't know. Now, Mulder is a legend, a sort of basement gremlin for new recruits. I heard the story of Spooky Mulder within a week of arriving at Quantico, but instead of finding it frightening or laughable, I found it fascinating. All I could think was: what strength of mind, or strength of beliefs, would enable a man to sequester himself away from his peers, to face their scorn every day, and, defying every principle of psychology I knew, to prefer to be completely and utterly alone? But then I found out something else, something even more perplexing: Spooky Mulder had not always been alone." Paring took another pull on his cigarette. "It intrigued me, and I worked even harder to get into the NCAVC as soon as possible after graduation.
"Meanwhile, Mulder was going through partners like nothing, dropping them within months, weeks, or even days of being assigned to him. He claimed they were too narrow-minded, too open-minded, too opinionated, too spineless, anything he could think of. And, fortunately for Mulder, his reassignment to the BSU had made him a favorite son of the Bureau once again, a golden boy. He captured some of the most notorious killers of the time, developed some brilliant new profiling methods, and got a couple imprisoned killers who refused say a word to the Bureau previously to confess everything and cry on his shoulder like babies. The Director himself came down to talk with Mulder.
"I don't think Mulder could have cared less. He threw himself into his work like nothing I'd ever seen before, but it was obvious that he was the most desperately unhappy man underneath. After about, I don't know, his ninth partner in four years, I begged the section chief to assign me to him, even though it could ruin my career. Mulder assumed I'd pissed someone off, but for some reason he didn't cast me off like the others. We… we worked together, but I realise now what he's been looking for in all those countless other agents. He's been looking for you." Paring glanced away from her. "I guess I was just the closest fit. It's been a bit of a rude awakening." He threw the cigarette butt away with sudden vehemence. His eyes were dark and vulnerable, full of some very deep hurt; and then Scully understood in a single bright flash. She leaned forward, her eyes moving over him with the insight of her new awareness.
"Alex… You're in love with him, aren't you?"
He took a deep breath, the ghost of a smile flitting across his features. He locked eyes with her, pain floating to their surface. "Is it that obvious?"
She put her hand on his arm softly. "No. No, it's not. Take it from someone who's been there, you hide it very well." They smiled at each other, understanding warm between them, as the equally warm summer wind slid through their hair, throwing it across their eyes and blinding them.
- - -
Scully stood in the afternoon brightness of Jamie Holtz's bedroom, the golden sunlight falling in shafts over the chaotic stillness of the room. Nothing had been touched since his disappearance, his mother had told them. She hadn't been able to even go in.
Now Scully stood in the middle of the floor, surrounded by an ocean of belongings. There were clothes strewn on the floor, and a worn paperback still upside down on the bedside table, the black triangle between the two split masses of pages yawning in the light. His baseball cards were still in uneven piles by the bookshelf, the dusty red album sprawled nearby. One of his drawers was still open, hanging from a pale blue dresser decorated with glow-in-the-dark star stickers. A ragged teddy bear was strategically half hidden under the red summer quilt. The room ached with his presence.
Scully began the search with reluctance, meticulously turning out drawers and shoeboxes full of toys, rifling through stacks of papers and school books, scanning photographs of his family and friends, pulling out the backs of picture frames. She went through the pockets of all his pants, checked under his mattress, and hand checked his pillow. Finally, wedged between his headboard and the wall, she found something. It was a small clothbound book, its pages rippled with writing; it was his journal.
Scully assessed the small pile in front of her on the bed. She had taken anything she thought might be useful. There was a photograph of his Bible Study class, his class photo from school, a small wedge of paper found in his pocket that said Church, 6 pm, and the journal. Scully stared at the pile until her eyes blurred, and then she reached over and picked up a t-shirt that had been bunched up at the end of the bed. She caressed it gently and then put it to her nose. She desperately wanted another smell to associate with Jamie other then the stench of decay and the cold metallic ring of the autopsy bay. His warm, hamsterish boy smell filtered into her head, and Scully let the tears fill her eyes, sitting alone in the dying sunlight.
- - -
Later, Mulder sat behind the wheel of the car, his hands gripping at ten and two, knuckles white. Scully was in the passenger seat, Paring in the back, and together they stared at the lonely front of the Holtz's house, all saying their own silent goodbye to Jamie, gazes lingering as Mulder finally pulled out of the driveway and drove away down the darkened street.
- - -
Scully lay flat on her bed in her motel room, staring sightlessly up at the ceiling, watching the shuddering shadows cast by the rotating fan. She held the phone receiver in her hand, a tinny dial done emanating softly from it. Rob's phone had been busy for the last hour and a half. She wondered idly if he was keeping it off the hook out of spite.
Sighing, she rolled over and slammed the phone down in the cradle. She looked around the generic motel room, bored and restless. She could remember a thousand other motel rooms like this on a thousand other cases, but the ones that stuck out in her memory were the ones from her years on the X-Files, the ones that buzzed in her mind with tiredness and wonder, fear and comfort, and, most of all, with the warm unconscious knowledge of Mulder's presence in the adjoining room. Of all of those motel rooms, he had been the constant in a shifting recollection of states, towns, and dates.
She remembered the very first one, in Bellefleur, Oregon, when he'd come to the door in his running suit and baseball cap, identifying himself jauntily as 'Steven Spielberg'. She laughed softly to herself. She remembered her panic when she found the mosquito bumps on her back, the comforting trail of Mulder's fingers on her skin, and the naïve closeness as they had lain in the dark of the thunderstorm, and he had told her about Samantha. Scully could still feel the way she had sent out mental tendrils to him that night, unconsciously building the first tiers of their bizarre connection. She had been so young and sure of herself then. God, was it really ten years ago now?
A sharp knock made her jerk upright, eyes immediately locked on the connecting door. To her guilty disappointment, it had come from the front. Scully walked to it and slid back the chain, opening the door quickly. Mulder almost fell right through, and when a he righted himself a sheepish grin spread across his face. He gestured at the peephole, blushing slightly.
"I always forget those damn things are just one-way."
Scully raised her eyebrow, then ushered him in. "Come on in, Mulder. I wasn't doing anything worth the peephole effort."
He smiled. "Scully, you are always worth a peephole effort."
She laughed lightly, guiltily. She had forgotten how easy he was to talk to. Scully returned to the bed and sat cross-legged on the pillows, and Mulder knelt at the foot. He leaned forward slowly, his eyes intense, his lips frighteningly close.
"Scully…" he murmured, voice husky and thick. She couldn't help it; she leaned toward him. He opened his mouth, slightly, licked his lips, and then spoke: "…Truth or Dare?"
Startled, she laughed right out loud. "You… You…" She searched for the right word. "You girl."
Mulder shoved her shoulder lightly. "I know you are, but what am I?"
"Honestly, Mulder, grow up!" she teased. He lowered his head as if ashamed, and when he raised it again, they stuck out their tongues simultaneously.
- - -
The Canvas was reduced to crying softly, moaning pathetically for its mother and rattling the chains binding it. The man watched it disinterestedly from behind his table far across the broad floor. Its noises only mildly annoyed him, as absorbed as he was in studying it, studying his Art.
These wings were the greatest he had ever created, but they were still not good enough, and, to add insult to injury, he had to leave for the Outside shortly. He despised the way the Outside took time away from his Art, valuable time that could not be made up. The Canvas' shell would eventually degrade from lack of food and water, and after that there was no point in continuing.
After all, what is the point in a Canvas that cannot serenade you with its screams?
- - -
Scully was woken by a buzzing alarm the next morning. She cracked open her eyes to stare at the chinks of light streaming through her curtains, then promptly shut them again. Sighing, she rolled over and struggled out of bed, years of living with a sea captain father permanently imprinted on her sleeping habits.
She dressed quickly, choosing yet another sharply cut, dark toned suit from the soft leather bag. She wondered idly what Chilton would say if she walked into work in the pair of hot pink elephant pants that had practically been her uniform in junior high.
Smiling at the idea, she washed her face and did her makeup at the dingy sink-mirror combination at the back of the room and used the bathroom quickly, then threw her few scattered things into the small overnight bag sitting on the battered armchair across from the bed.
Sighing, she pulled the door of the motel room behind her with a snap. The pavement was shimmering under the sun in the parking lot outside, and Scully was uncomfortably hot as she loaded the trunk of her car. She waved at Mulder and Paring as they left the main building, stale donuts from the 'continental breakfast' firmly in hand. They walked quickly down the overhung sidewalk to her, Paring trying desperately not to spill his coffee. She smiled at them as they arrived.
"Good morning," she said, her strange good mood evident in her voice.
Mulder glared at her, bleary-eyed. Paring just blinked, looking vaguely dazed. Neither of them said a word. Smiling, she dangled the car keys from her fingertips.
"I guess this means I'm driving."
- - -
Fifteen minutes later, Scully's good mood was fading quickly as they pulled into the parking lot of Our Lord Lutheran Church in the heart of Cranden. The lot was nearly empty, and the heat was oppressive as they crossed to the heavy wooden front doors. Scully opened them, and a gust of air flew out at them, heavy with the smells of church: wooden pews, hot glass windows, sweat, and a soft undertone of leather from the Bibles and prayer books. Scully inhaled the familiar bouquet with a mixture of love and trepidation.
They walked down the aisle, footsteps ringing out in the high, empty room, and knocked on the door of the deacon's office. A smallish, balding man in his fifties opened it, peering out at them curiously from behind reading glasses perched precariously on the end of his nose.
"May I help you?"
Mulder stepped forward. "Dr. Alden? I'm Agent Mulder from the FBI, and these are my associates, Agents Paring and Scully."
The man's eyes clouded. "I suppose you're here about poor Jamie."
"Uh, yes sir, we are. Can we talk with you for a few minutes? We're just trying to find out about Jamie's life, find out what was important to him."
The deacon opened the door and ushered them in, clearing papers off some chairs so they could sit down. "Well, I know you'll find that church was very important in Jamie's life. He was a very pious little boy, rest his soul."
Paring furrowed his brow. "Pious? Why would you say that?"
"What exactly do you mean by that, Agent…?"
"Paring. I mean, sir, what was it that made Jamie more pious than the next boy."
Dr. Alden settled himself down behind the desk. "Well, most boys his age would sit in Bible Study and twiddle their thumbs, fidgeting and whispering, and staring out the window. It wasn't God that was on their minds, it was obvious. But not Jamie. He'd sit square in the middle of the class, little face shining out at me, his eyes radiant with joy. He'd have made Bishop someday, I'm sure of it."
Scully caught an idea. "Dr. Alden, is it fair to say that Jamie would stick out in his class? That he would be noticeable to, say, a substitute teacher at the church?"
"I would most certainly say that. He was hard to miss."
"Did you often have substitutes or assistants in the Catechism classes?"
"Sometimes. Some were straight out of the Lutheran seminary, others were almost… roaming missionaries, who wanted to lend a hand with the children." A current of excitement flashed thought the agents. Mulder took up the questioning, his eyes bright with a new thought.
"Dr. Alden, what do you teach in these Bible Studies? What would the teacher have to be an expert on?"
"Well, let's see… the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, Holy Baptism, Confession and Absolution, Holy Communion and Morning and Evening Prayers… Oh and of course, how could I forget… the Disciples' Creed."
- - - - - - - - - - - -
A/N: Hey all! I hope this chapter was okay, and I know not a lot happened. It'll pick up again next chapter (which is already underway, as I have no homework tonight.), I promise it will. Until next time, amigos!
Also, thanks so much for the wonderful reviews. It means so much to me that you like it. Please review if you haven't already!
Ceilidh