Title: Canticle

Author: CeilidhO

Summary: Four years after the capture of serial killer George Hoffman, Mulder and Scully's new life together is shattered when an unexpected visitor sweeps them into a new case, more terrifying and deadly than either could have imagined. (Sequel to "Disciple")

Disclaimer: Chris Carter and 1013 own the rights to Mulder, Scully, and all characters and concepts from the series. I, however, am the proud owner of all characters and situations I invented myself. All mine…

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Governor Inn and Suites
Salt Lake City, Utah
October 20, 2007
11: 21 pm

Mulder was sitting cross-legged on the bed when Scully arrived back at their room, a bucket of ice under her arm. He was staring down at a glossy brown folder, brow furrowed behind his glasses. Sighing as she took in the scene, Scully thought wryly that she and Mulder had seen far too many manila folders in their lives, and they never held anything good. Their life was a veritable swamp of folders bearing bad news.

As she closed the door behind herself, Mulder looked up at her and smiled softly. "Hey," he said. "Dan dropped this off while you were gone. It's the Social Services file on Matthew Hughes."

She walked over to the bed and ran her hand over his hair as she leaned over his shoulder to read the file. She still thrilled a little at these small moments, so like when they had been partnered on the X-Files, and yet with all these tiny intimacies that they had never allowed themselves, full of the unspoken knowledge of their relationship.

Forcing herself to concentrate on work, Scully cast her eye onto the pages in Mulder's lap. Her attention was caught by the obligatory photograph of the victim that was paper clipped to the folder, but at her first glimpse of this photograph her heart slammed into her throat and she jumped away from Mulder like an electric shock had passed through her.

"Scully?" Mulder asked with concern sharp in his voice. "What is it?"

"That boy," she said. "That's Matthew? The victim? He can't be more than six years old."

"Six and a half, actually," he replied, and pulled off his reading glasses to see her better. "Scully? You didn't know?"

"I didn't ask," she mumbled, her wild distress still clear in the waiver in her voice. "I just assumed… If they were modeled on the… the others, that the victims would be the same age…" Horror chased nausea through her body.

He stood up and crossed over to her in a few long strides, pulling her into his arms and speaking roughly into her hair. "I'm so sorry, Scully. I had no idea you didn't know…"

She cut him off by stepping away. "It's all right, Mulder. It's not your fault."

She smiled briefly to reassure him, and then she crossed to the bathroom, scooping up her pajamas from the Mulder-unpacked pile on one of the chairs, and closing the door firmly behind her. Inside the bathroom, she threw herself against the wall and slid down to the cold tile floor, her breath coming in thick gasps. She struggled to control her body, to control the physical fear and revulsion that pounded from her heart. Memories of four years earlier pushed at her mental defenses like floodwater at a dyke near to breaking.

A sharp tap at the door and an insistent 'Scully?' startled her to her feet, and she hurriedly undressed and then pulled on her pajamas, opening the door before Mulder could even call her name again. She smiled briefly again, and then passed him, climbing into the bed.

He opened his mouth as if to speak, but seemed to think better of it and went into the bathroom himself, pointedly leaving the door open. When he reemerged he was dressed for bed, and he turned out the light on his way across the room. Scully felt his warm weight settle onto the mattress, and for a moment all she could hear was the persistent hum of traffic in the street outside. Unexpectedly, her eyes prickled slightly. Then Mulder rolled towards her and stretched out his arm, pulling her close. For a small second his lips grazed her ear, and then she felt him settle into his pillow.

He didn't say anything, and he didn't have to.

- - - - At nine-thirty the next morning, Scully stood alone in the FBI Office morgue, facing a gurney that held unbelievably small lump under the sterile sheet. Scully stood with her hand poised above the sheet, unable to move the inch further needed to pull it back. Above her, the microphone hummed with silence and beside her the scalpels and retractors and bone saws stood bright and ready for use, but she could not bring herself to move.

Unexpectedly, the door was opened with a small click, and Mulder stepped into the room, his face set and his eyes resolute. Despite the small bump in her chest at his entrance, Scully let annoyance seep into her voice.

"Mulder, what on earth are you doing here? I'm conducting an autopsy."

He tried his best to smile, and he gestured at the table. "But it hasn't even started yet. I haven't missed any of the credits, and I've brought my own popcorn."

She sighed, but in the end affection won out. "Mulder, you don't need to be here. I'm fine, and I know how much you hate autopsies..."

The fake grin fell off his face. "But I hate the thought of what this is going to do to you even more than any objection to Y-incisions. Scully, what's under that sheet is going to rule our lives for god knows how long, and I want to be here with you, to see the thing we never thought to see again come roaring back to life. I need to be here when it all begins again."

She pinched the bridge of her nose and mumbled a quiet acquiescence. He gently touched the tips of his fingers to her knuckles, and then nodded as well, settling back against the cabinets, bracing himself for the visions that would soon assault their eyes. And then Scully pulled back the sheet.

They both recoiled in horror, almost like they had been slapped. On the metal slab lay a tiny form, mangled and maimed almost beyond recognition as a human being. On his back were the crude, slashed outlines of a pair of wings; deep red gorges hacked into the sagging flesh. The wings were merely roughly triangular patches with horizontal grooves cut in for flight feathers, but the effect was shocking in its immediate brutality. As well, it was clear that the boy had been starved for the total time he had been missing, about three and a half days.

His limbs lay in a sickeningly familiar position: spread-eagled, belly down, head propped up as if on an invisible block. As with all of Hoffman's victims, rigor mortis had frozen the neck in this bizarre position, as if constantly called to attention, pricked like a dog awaiting a command. His eyes were livid red and wide open; the pupils dilated black spots awash in hemorrhaged crimson. A ringed purple and green bruise enclosed his throat, and smaller bands of broken flesh marred his wrists and ankles.

It was everything Scully had begged and prayed never to see again, the sight that haunted the deepest recesses of her mind, and as she stared at the thing on the table the memories broke the surface with a burbling gasp and sucked at her mind and her senses. They were drowning her when she felt the warm press of Mulder's body at her side, and the firm touch of his hands on her shoulders.

"Scully," he was saying. "Scully, it's me. Look at me, Scully, please."

She looked at him, and his hazel eyes were swimming with tears. They inhaled a shaking breath together, and then he kissed her gently. When he pulled back, a single tear shone on his cheek.

"We're not alone," he said, his voice hoarse. "We are together right from the beginning this time, Scully, and we will survive this."

She nodded slowly, and then with a last shuddering look into his eyes, flipped on the microphone and reached for the scalpel.

- - - -

That afternoon, Scully stood with Mulder and Alex Paring on the front step of the Holderman's house, on a quiet residential street, still trying her best to shake the tang of blood and metal from her mouth. She rang the doorbell, and listened to the faint echo of her action sound through the painted wooden door. It opened a few moments later, and Scully was surprised to see a small boy of about three years old standing behind it, a wide grin plastered on his face.

"Hello," he said cheerily. "This is my house."

A frazzled looking woman appeared a second later, running down the stairs. She swept the boy behind her for a panicked second before she recognized the agents. "Oh, it's only you," she said with obvious relief. She turned to the small child, who was now peeking out from behind her and waving. "For goodness sake, Jeremy, what have I said about answering the door when I'm not here?"

Jeremy shook his head and muttered a quiet: "Don't do it."

Mrs. Holderman exhaled with exasperation, and then turned back to the agents. "I'm sorry about that," she said, shooing Jeremy away into the house. "We're just being really careful, really watchful about the children. Please, come in."

They wiped their feet and stepped inside, Mulder introducing Paring to Mrs. Holderman while Scully took in the house. It was large, with a set of cream-carpeted stairs facing them, running directly from the entrance, with a hallway running to the back of the house beside them, leading to what she guessed was the kitchen. On either side of the entranceway were a dining room and a living room. All were tastefully but conservatively decorated, and the air tasted like sandwiches and carpet cleaner when she breathed over her tongue.

A sudden thump above them drew Scully's attention to the second floor hallway, visible where it ran parallel with the top of the stairs, and to the dark shape that was leaning over the banister.

"Hello," Jude said, his face unreadable.

"Hi," Scully answered.

"Jude?" Mrs. Holderman called up. "C'mon down, hon."

The boy pulled a face, but came downstairs, hovering at a good distance from his foster mother. At a look from her, he rolled his eyes and stuck his hand out to Mulder. "Good to see you, sir," he intoned sullenly. "Thanks for letting me stay at your house the other day."

Mulder sensibly just shook his hand back, and quietly introduced Paring. Mrs. Holderman ushered them all into the living room, on their right, and seated them on various chairs and couches, Jude slouching in the armchair next to Scully. They waited in silence for another few moments until Mr. Holderman arrived from the back of the house, wiping something off his hands. He sat down, and gazed around at the agents blankly.

Finally, Scully sat forward. "Well, I suppose the first question is: what happened on the day Matthew disappeared?"

The Holdermans glanced at each other, and then Mrs. Holderman opened her mouth slowly. "As I recall, the day started very normally. The older boys went off to school, and I was here, with Jeremy."

"Exactly how many foster children do you have?" Scully asked.

"We currently have just Jeremy and Jude, but Matthew was in the middle in terms of age. However, we do have an older boy, Cameron, who is in his first year of college right now. Oberlin. Top of the class." She pointed to a photograph on the bookshelf, of a handsome teenager in graduation robes. Scully saw Jude roll his eyes.

Paring furrowed his brow. "Mrs. Holderman, isn't it unusual to keep foster children for as long as you have?"

"Well, we only had Cameron from the age of thirteen, we've had Jude since he was nine, and Jeremy from two, but yes, it is unusual."

Mr. Holderman sat forward, seemingly to provide an explanation. "You see, we offer a rather unique environment as foster parents. Unlike most, we are willing to take children who will likely never be adopted, as in the case of all our boys at the moment." He winked at Jude, who looked slightly stricken. "Now, on the surface, that seems strange, that all these fine children would not be adopted. However, Cameron was too old, Jeremy has acute ADD, and Matthew was the son of a heroin addict. He had been through far too many homes unable to cope with his health problems for any realistic hope of adoption. And Jude… Well, you know Jude's situation."

Anger flared up in Scully, but she tried her best to tamp it down. She could understand, now, why Jude was so sullen at home. This family; they were just so godamned pleased with themselves…

"Mrs. Holderman, if you could continue to tell us about the day that Matthew disappeared?"

"Well, like I said, Jude and Matthew were at school, and when Jude came home Matthew was not with him. He said that he hadn't been able to find him and so had come home alone, but he later admitted that he had left the school without waiting for Matthew at all. They had had a fight at lunchtime, and Jude had been too angry to want to walk home with Matthew as usual."

Understanding dawning in Scully. Jude held himself responsible for Matthew's disappearance, and perhaps the Holdermans did as well. That was what had provoked the rather astounding reaction of fleeing halfway across the country with Mr. Holderman's stolen credit card. In his horrendous guilt, Jude had fled to the only people he knew who could find lost children: Agents Scully and Mulder.

Scully could see from Mulder's expression that he had come to the same conclusion, and was as horrified as she was. Jude seemed to sink further into his chair as silence pervaded the room, and Scully shook herself slightly and prompted Mrs. Holderman to continue, which she did.

"Well, we waited and waited, but Matthew didn't come home. When my husband got home at about six o'clock he drove around the neighborhood but couldn't find him. After that, I called the police. The police searched for two days before we woke up to find Jude's note. We were frantic until you called, and then the police called only an hour later to say that they'd found Matthew… They'd found his body…"

For the first time in the interview, she seemed to lose her composure, her eyes welling and gleaming. Mr. Holderman nodded gently and exhaled loudly.

"That was horrible, really horrible," he said, "having to explain that to Jeremy. He just couldn't understand why Matthew wasn't coming home anymore. And we had to deal with it ourselves, and worry about Jude…"

Paring frowned. "Mr. Holderman, Mrs. Holderman, I think I speak for all of my colleagues when I say this, but… Well, you don't seem as distressed as one would expect from a couple who has just lost a child."

The Holdermans looked at each other, and then she answered. "Well, you see, we had only had Matthew for about five months when this happened. As well, his health problems and the moving from foster home to foster home affected him very profoundly. Matthew was quite incapable of forming relationships, and that made it very difficult to properly bond with him. We even began to suspect he was autistic…"

"That's not true!" Jude shouted, throwing himself out of his chair and speaking for the first time in the interview. "He was capable of forming relationships! He loves me, and I love him, and Jeremy loves him too. The only reason he didn't want to be around you is because you didn't like him, and you treated him like shit!"

Mr. Holderman turned bright red, and stood up as well, a vein protruding from his forehead. Mulder hurriedly placed himself between them, and put a firm hand on the older man's shoulder, pushing him back into his seat.

"I think you should sit down, Mr. Holderman," Mulder said, in the quiet yet deadly voice he used very rarely. "And, Jude, you sit down too. I know you're in pain, and that you're angry, but this is not the time to say things you don't mean." He stressed the last two words and stared at the boy. I believe you, the look was saying, but don't make this worse. After a moment, Jude got the message and sat down, his gaze intent on Mulder.

"Right," Mulder said, resuming his own seat. "So, you suspected he was autistic…"

"But we never got a chance to have the tests done." Mrs. Holderman supplied, her voice quivering as she looked between her husband and Jude. "But, of course, there was another reason that we aren't as stricken as perhaps we should be."

"Oh?" asked Paring, dislike clear in his tone. "What would that be?"

"This isn't the first time this has happened," she said.

"What?" Scully exclaimed. "What the hell do you mean by that?"
"I'm amazed you didn't know." Mrs. Holderman said, looking at them in confusion. "It's the reason we chose to foster Jude. In 2002, we were the foster parents of a ten year-old boy named Peter Laurence." At their blank looks she added:

"Peter Laurence, the seventh Disciple and victim of George Hoffman."

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A/N: Sorry about the delay, yet again… To make it up to you all, another new chapter will be posted tomorrow (Monday) or on Tuesday! Please, please, please review!

Ceilidh