It is a little after 2 p.m. when Mulder comes into the autopsy room, where she is leaning with her back against the sink and staring at the dead body in front of her. The man indeed died due to the shots she fired and, apart from some abnormal blood results, there is really nothing unusual about him. Maybe whatever Mulder found out in his own investigation will help her clear her mind.
"Are you okay?"
He asks in a low voice, his right hand rubbing her back slightly. He has leaned against the sink too, she notices, and his presence is comforting.
She nods.
"Yeah, I'm just… confused."
"Does the creature you saw look anything like this?"
He turns to his side and takes a book in his hands, opening it to a page that has been previously marked.
She looks at the image and wonders how it is possible that her brain could have recreated an image she has never seen in her life. The creature is there, its open mouth showing its sharp pointed teeth, its feet the size and the shape of a melon each.
She nods.
"It's called the Sqatari. It is a fictional creature, created by a fantasy writer."
"Is our killer the writer?"
Mulder shakes his head and she braces herself for whatever is coming. She has a feeling she won't like the answer.
"The writer couldn't handle the failure of his book and killed himself a few years ago." He puts the book away and continues, "Now, the focus here is not the writer, Scully, but the story he wrote."
"What's so special about the story?"
"His book is about a wizard who lost the love of his life in an accident. Her body was so crushed that the only thing they were able to save was her heart. He kept her heart in a jar in his bedroom and looked at it every day as a memento, as a way of remembering her."
"Has this wizard ever heard of pictures?"
Mulder chuckles and then continues.
"One day, he realized that maybe he could bring his beloved one back to life. He hadn't even thought about it before because the magic was forbidden but, at this point, he didn't care about being banned from the wizard community or whatever they called it; he only wanted his love back."
Scully is still not sure where this is going, but this story is starting to get too creepy to her liking. He continues.
"So, he started to put his plans into motion but, for that, he would need six different people's body parts – two legs, two arms, one torso and one head. The final part he already had – his beloved one's heart. So, being a person of magic, he found a way of transforming himself into a horrible creature so that he could kill the six women he chose and take out their body parts without being recognized. He even went further than that: he manipulated the weather so that there was always fog and lots of snow when he committed the crimes. That way, no one would ever know it was him doing the killing, since only his victims were surrounded by the fog."
"All fiction and impossibilities aside, this is all remarkably similar to our case."
She says in a low voice, trying to join the pieces of the puzzle together.
Mulder nods.
"And guess who lost his wife two months ago in a horrible car crash, Scully?"
Scully is stunned for a moment, thinking of the implications of it all.
"So you're saying that our killer tried to recreate a fictional story to justify the killing of what would be six women?"
"Not exactly. I'm saying that our killer here believed he could bring his wife back to life by killing those six women. The police found her heart in a jar in his bedroom."
She chuckles softly for a moment. She should have known this was going in this direction. It is Mulder, after all, and this is still an X-File.
"Well but believing and actually being able to do that are two completely different things."
Mulder shrugs.
"Well yeah, but how do you explain the creature you saw? And how do you explain the snowstorm on an otherwise beautiful day and the fact that we were separated by such a thick fog that we lost each other?"
She sighs. The snowstorm and the fog were just a coincidence, there is no other explanation. And the creature… well, the creature was something her brain created out of her fear. Yes, that's what happened. This is what she's going to tell Mulder and what she is going to write in her report.
She is glad Mulder is giving her time to think because she still has many questions and she still has to think them over.
"So, according to the story, he needed six people, right? So far there had been four victims, five counting the one we saved. He would have killed again if we hadn't stopped him."
Mulder nods.
"If YOU hadn't stopped him, Scully. I was just suddenly caught in a fog that only dissipated when I heard you shoot the last time."
"The fog, Mulder, was just a coincidence. No one can really manipulate the weather like that."
"Oh, Holman Hardt would disagree with you on that."
He chuckles and she is glad he is trying to lighten the mood. Plus, he has a point.
"Any clues on how he chose his victims?"
Mulder shakes his head again.
"We only know that apparently he was following the same path the character in the book did and that he chose small women because his wife was small…"
There is something in his voice Scully can't quite figure out, and she waits for him to continue just because she knows he will.
"The thing is, Scully, in the book, the wizard gets lucky when he tries to kill his second to last victim – another woman is around because she heard someone screaming. She is enveloped in the fog by mistake and, although she wasn't originally in his plans, he realizes he doesn't need to keep looking, that the final pieces of his puzzle are both within his reach."
He pauses and drops his gaze to the floor. She understands why before he can finalize his thoughts.
"It could have been you, Scully. You could have been his last victim."
"But I wasn't."
Her left hand moves into his right hand as a way of reassurance that she is still here. He starts caressing her thumb with his absentmindedly as they stay in silence and lost in their own thoughts. She is the first to speak up, and she is not sure why she starts talking. Maybe it is a way to calm down all the voices in her head.
"Do you believe that he really turned into that creature because he believed he could bring his wife back to life?"
Mulder chuckles softly.
"Yes. But in case you haven't noticed, I have a tendency to believe everything."
She chuckles; he continues.
"As horrible as this may sound, I think anyone would keep themselves open to this sort of possibility if they loved someone that much."
She nods because, even though she doesn't believe all this, she agrees that love can make you blind to reality sometimes. The next question slips out of her tongue before she can stop it.
"Have you ever loved someone that intensely?"
Her eyes are still on their locked hands but, out of the corner of her eye, she can see he has turned his head to look at her. She doesn't want to meet his eye, but she does it involuntarily. He is all magnet and she is all iron.
When her eyes meet his, she feels what can only be described as pain, but not a bad kind of pain. This pain is like the butterflies in her stomach are trying to break free but are being held by this invisible barrier she created to keep them safe in there. A safety net of sorts. A cage.
"I do," he finally answers, and she feels the force of these two simple words pierce her soul.
She knows he is not talking about someone else she is unaware of. She knows that this is meant for her and only her. Just like an almost-kiss in his hallway, just like a high-on-meds I-love-you, just like a forehead-to-forehead kiss at his front door. She knows who is in the receiving end of those two words that hold a world of meaning.
She realizes she has tears puddling up inside her eyes and she doesn't know what to do with them. Or maybe she does. Deep down, she knows. But they are in a morgue and there is a dead serial killer with his insides out lying in front of them and… they can't do this now.
She realizes she is not ready for this conversation and its consequences just yet. She wonders if she will ever be. She hopes so.
She suddenly removes her hand from his and he looks away.
She can see he is disappointed, but she knows he won't push her.
"I'd better finish this up or else we'll miss our flight."
She looks away too and walks towards the autopsy table to take the instruments she left there earlier.
She thinks he is going to leave, but she doesn't feel or hear him move at all.
"I won't be long now, I just have to close him up. If you want to go back to the cabin and pack your stuff, I'll catch up with you later."
She looks over her shoulder when she finishes speaking and he is looking at her again, a small smile on his face. It takes him a few seconds to answer, but when he does…
"I'll wait for you, Scully. As long as I need to."
She just nods, tears prickling her eyes again and being masked by the small smile she throws back at him. She knows the double meaning behind his answer. She also knows that he understands her nod is her way of saying 'thank you' to both meanings of his words.
She turns her head back to her dead patient and she is suddenly curious about something.
"There's one thing you haven't explained, though, Mulder."
His answer is merely a hum, waiting for her to continue.
"How did you read that book so fast?"
He laughs now, and she feels all the tension dissipate.
"I didn't. We found the book at our killer's house and we went to the town librarian. Apparently, not many people go in there so she kind of knew the book by heart."
"I wonder if she'll keep rereading it after all this."
As Mulder chortles, she thinks of her next move. Should she?
"One last thing, Mulder."
"Yes?"
"Next time you take me somewhere snowy, it had better not involve any X-File."
She almost adds "or any work whatsoever", but she has done enough bold moves for the past couple of days.
She hears a smile in his voice when he replies quietly.
"Deal."