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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FBI Field Office
Salt Lake City, Utah
October 22, 2007
10: 20 am

"How the hell did we miss it?" Mulder exclaimed, for the thousandth time that morning. "We lived in those files for the whole investigation. Why didn't I notice the name? Holderman isn't that common!"

Scully sighed and rubbed her forehead, pausing for a moment in rifling through the box of files. "Once again, Mulder, we all missed it somehow. It's no one's fault."

"It's my fault," Paring intoned grimly. "It says right here that I was the one to call them in 2003 to notify them of Hoffman's capture. For god's sake, I've actually talked to them before."

Dan looked up from his folder and rubbed his eyes. "No, it's my fault," he said. "I've been on this investigation longer than you all have. I should have noticed before now."

"Will you all just be quiet?" Scully cried. "It's no one's fault! Just look through your files."

It was the day after their interview with the Holdermans, and they had been amassing materials on them ever since. The Salt Lake Field Office was, however, in the middle of a technological crisis and the archives were down, so they had to collect information the old fashioned way.

The file storage room had been raided and they were now sequestered in the basement office that had been their headquarters four years earlier. A crime scene photograph of Matthew marked the start of the victim timeline on the far wall, and they had ripped off the plastic sheeting that had covered everything in the tiny office, sneezing and coughing from the accumulated dust. They were now seated around the room, boxes and folders scattered around them.

"Here we go," Paring said. "Okay, they've been married since 1983…"

"We knew that already," Dan said heavily.

Alex ignored him. "They've had almost twenty foster children since '86, almost all of whom they kept until legal emancipation, at twenty-one. They've never had a major problem with social services, but did indeed have one foster child die under their care, but they were completely blameless. That's all this says. It's just a basic inventory report filed by Salt Lake County in 2003. Anyone else got anything better?"

"We knew all of that before," Mulder said from his perch on the desk. "All I've got from this pile of… let's see… twenty-six IRS documents, is that they always pay their taxes. Every year, for the twenty-six years since they both turned eighteen, every foster child deducted properly, every receipt accounted for. They've been audited once, when they received their first foster child. Everything was in order then, just as everything is in perfect order now. These people are perfect."

"Except that two small boys have been murdered in their care," Scully said grimly. "That's too much to be a coincidence."

"You know I don't believe in coincidence, Scully," Mulder said automatically. "There's always a reason."

"But, Dana," Dan said. "You're not suggesting that Hoffman wasn't the one who murdered those boys…"

"No!" she replied forcefully. "Not by any stretch of the imagination. It's just too much for there not to be a connection…"

Mulder sat up straighter. "Okay, so we know the killer idolizes Hoffman's crimes," he said rapidly. "What if he targeted Matthew not only because of the name, but because of his family."

Scully frowned. "But who on earth would know who Peter Laurence's family was? How would they track them down? There was a publication ban on the names ordered by the first Agent in Charge, remember?"

"If he's devoted to all things Hoffman, he'd find a way," Mulder responded. "Somehow he'd find a way."

- - - -

The night air was chill and sharp on his face as he stepped out into the parking lot. The stars shone above him like tiny diamond-hard droplets of ice, burning with cold fury millions and millions of miles away. That was the way he had always seen the stars, cold and angry and remote; where others saw wishes or guardians, guides and angels, he saw judgment light the heavens. They were always judging him, and he was always convicted.

The only warm spot in all of the determining night was the plastic container in his pocket, rescued from the ceiling of his room. He was finding it harder and harder to go anywhere without it, without its warm presence and sickening thrill. Tonight he was going to the library, and on this particular trip, it had seemed impossible to leave it behind.

He walked through the parking lot and down the hard concrete sidewalk, the desert night crisp and cold in his nostrils. The library was still open, its hours extended because of the clientele, and he slipped inside with a gust of warm air, making his way through long practice to the back end of the resource room, where the ancient microfiche machines still stood.

He seated himself in front of one, starting the power, entering the search, and whirring through the negatives of the articles that he craved.

'UTAH KILLER'S DEN OF HORRORS!' screamed one headline, and he settled back to read the familiar and yet frantically exciting text. In his pocket, the warm red matter swirling in the plastic container seared its deadly, moist heat into his skin.

- - - -

Scully woke up the next morning, Saturday morning, to an empty hotel room and a flashing red light on the hotel room phone. Pushing her hair back from her face, Scully patted the bedside table, located her glasses, and wearily climbed out of bed. She wandered around the room for a moment, looking for Mulder, and then finally found him on the overhung walkway outside, looking down over the parking lot below.

"Hey," she said softly, moving to sit down on the chair beside him. He put up his hand to stop her, and squinted up at her in the morning sun.

"There's a rather singular invitation waiting on the answering machine," he said flatly. "You should go listen to it before getting comfortable out here."

Her stomach suddenly uneasy, Scully searched his face for further information, but finding none, she turned and went back into their room. She scooped up the phone and hit the voice mail button. After a pause, a hesitant voice drifted out.

"Hi, Dana…"

Her heart stopped. Her body was thrown into a cold panic, and the rest of the message drifted past unheard as she tried to calm herself. That voice… It had been so long, but she'd know it anywhere. For two years she'd lived for the unique happiness that voice could bring.

Rob.

Realizing that with a flush that the message had finished, she hit replay and listened again, trying desperately to stay focused.

"Hi, Dana," it said. "I was just calling to say hi… Last night I saw on the news that you're in town on this case, and… I was just, y'know, wondering…" There was a heavy pause. "All right, this fake casual bit isn't working," the message continued. "This is me, and I'm talking to you, and that's certainly not casual. The point is, I wanted to know if you and… Mulder… wanted to meet Jenna and I for breakfast this morning. We're going to be at the Spring Lake Road Pancake House from about eight to ten. It's really close to your hotel, so stop by if you want to. All right… Bye."

Scully hung up the phone with shaking hands, and glanced at the clock. 7:52 am. They had time.

She slipped into the bathroom and got dressed quickly, a simple blouse and jeans, fitted her contacts, and brushed her teeth and hair. She let herself out of the bathroom, and glanced at the clock again. 8:01. She walked out of the room, and sat down next to Mulder, who was still staring off sightlessly.

"Did you listen to the whole thing?" she asked.

"Yes," he said tonelessly. "Are we going?"

"I don't know," she replied. "I suppose that depends on you, Mulder."

"I'm not sure about that, Scully. I didn't sleep with him for two years; you did."

She slammed her hand down on the arm of the chair and stood up fast, turning to face him. "For god's sake, Mulder," she exclaimed. "That is so unnecessary. Please just say what you want without becoming completely passive-aggressive and defensive."

He bent his head, and when he looked up again his expression was chagrined. He reached up a hand and put it on her hip, pulling her down towards him. She resisted out of principle at first, but quickly relented and allowed herself to be settled in his lap.

"I'm sorry," Mulder murmured into her hair, his voice scratchy from sleep. "I am. I know I'm an asshole about it, Scully, and I have no right to be."

She kissed his forehead and laughed low in her throat. "You are an asshole, Mulder, but of the absolute best kind."

He spoke again, and this time his voice was thick from restrained emotion. "He calls you Dana," Mulder muttered. "I don't know why, but that bothers me more than anything. It's idiotic, I know."

She smiled. "At any time, Mulder, I would rather hear you say 'Scully' in that perfect way you do, than hear any stranger who can read my name call me 'Dana'."

- - - -

Less than fifteen minutes later, Mulder and Scully walked into the Spring Lake Road Pancake House, and with a small bump of nervousness Scully recognized Rob in one of the far booths. She set off towards it, Mulder a step behind her, and as she got closer Rob looked up and spotted her. In a second he was standing and clasping her in warm hug. To her surprise she responded and hugged him back. It wasn't as strange as she'd thought.

Rob shook Mulder's hand as well, and he smiled around at both of them. "It's wonderful to see you," he said, grinning and gesturing to the brunette woman in the booth. "I'd like you both to meet my wife, Jenna. Dana, you've met her once before, right?"

"That's right," she said, with all the warmth she could muster. Two years ago, she'd been invited to Rob's wedding, but had delayed coming until after the event itself. When Scully had finally met the woman a year and a half ago, she had found her vapid and boring, with no discernable ambition of any kind, except to be a housewife and have an excessive number of children. It had been disappointing; she'd thought better of Rob. That had been the last time she'd come to Salt Lake City.

"And this," Rob said, leaning down into the booth. "Is my daughter Sarah."

Scully felt a brief pang. Never did she feel her own inability to conceive more painfully than when she was confronted with her friends' children, especially their daughters. Before her internal sight there always rose the specter of the tiny three year-old that she had barely known. Emily.

Nevertheless, Scully put on a broad smile and reached out to touch the baby's arm. "Hello, Sarah," she said. Mulder touched the small of her back lightly, with sympathy.

Rob gestured them into the booth, and they slid along the vinyl bench until they were directly across from the other couple.

"So…" Rob began, and then trailed off.

"So, how have you been?" Scully attempted.

"Oh, we've been great," Rob said with forced cheer, turning to lock eyes with his wife. "The family's been great too. Lots of new neices and nephews, and the old ones are doing well. And can you believe it? Tyler's started High School this year. He's fourteen."

Scully actually couldn't believe it for a moment. It seemed impossible that the cheerful, miscievious little boy she'd known could possibly be that old, that he could be a teenager. She could remember him pulling faces when Rob would kiss her, protesting her lack of devotion to baseball… It was strange, she thought, how one day you could be an integral part of someone's life, could be there for them and watch them grow, and have them matter to you and you to them, and the next day you're gone and out of their life forever.

"That's incredible," she said finally. "He's still so young in my mind."

There was a long, awkward pause, and then Rob said: "I'm actually spending more of my time with my younger nephew, Thomas. He's a great kid; I'd love for the two of you to meet him. Maybe you'd come to one of his ball games with me and Tyler sometime before you go back to Washington."

"Um," Scully murmured, glancing over at Mulder, "That would be great, sometime."

Silence settled over the table.

Thankfully, midway through the coffee, which Jenna had refused ("No thank you, it just poisons the breast milk."), Scully's cell phone rang shrilly. She excused herself from the table, and stepped outside the diner, Mulder's worried eyes following her.

"Dana Scully," she said as she flipped open the phone.

"Dana? It's Dan."

Fear flashed through her. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"Now, we're not sure if it means anything yet, but Agent Mills from the office just called me at home. He said that they've just received a missing person's report from the southeastern area of the state, from the San Juan County Sheriff's Department. A family in a town called Aneth near the Arizona state line has reported their seven year-old son missing. Their son's name is Simon."

A passage forever seared on her memory flashed suddenly into her mind:

And He appointed the twelve and laid the name Peter… and James son of Alpaheus and Thaddeus and Simon the Zealot…

Scully's heart was pounding. "I'll come into the office right away. Are we going to Aneth?"

"As soon as possible. Alex and I will stay here to work on the patterns involved, try to find a way to determine where he's keeping the boy, if it is our guy. I'll meet you and Mulder downtown in twenty minutes to go over the missing person's report."

"All right. See you soon."

"Bye."

Scully snapped the cell phone shut and charged back into the restaurant. "Mulder," she called from the doorway as she marched down the aisle. "We've got to go right now. She grabbed her purse from the bench and turned to Rob and Jenna briefly. "Thank you for inviting us to join you. Congratulations on Sarah. I'll stay in touch, Rob." Then she turned on her heel and back out into the parking lot, Mulder close behind her.

"What is it?" he asked as he slid into the driver's seat of their rental car. "What's going on?"

"A missing seven year-old boy," she replied. "With a Disciple name."

The car screeched out of the parking lot and into the shattered peace of the morning streets.

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A/N: And here's your almost instantaneous update! I think this is the fastest I've ever done it… Please reward me by reviewing. Please?

Ceilidh