DAVE'S 24-HOUR DINER

1:21 PM

The diner is Mulder's favorite kind: unpretentious, hygienically questionable, and tables set with paper placemats. Their waitress's name is Marlene, which is just perfect. She wears bright red lipstick and keeps their drinks refilled.

The meal is an unusually somber and plaintive one for them. Mulder's mind is working at half-speed, it feels like, his thoughts trudging through cold molasses to reach coherency. But there is something niggling there that won't let up. What happened to him in that field? He tries to find evidence, any at all, that it was some kind of intense deja-vu experience or something, but he knows the truth: it had been another tranquilizer-induced event. Up until now, his flashbacks have centered on his childhood: a glimpse of Samantha cowering on the stairs; his mother, red-faced and pacing; the Cigarette Smoking Man. Nothing especially cohesive, but he's made a career of putting little scraps of information together into a detailed story. This most recent flashback, though… this one felt different, more like a short-circuit in the hardwiring of the deepest, most hidden part of his brain. A flashback to a past life.

Scully would never buy it.

He takes a bite of his sandwich. But why shouldn't she? The tranquilizer had helped him to remember repressed memories from his childhood, after all; why wouldn't it aid him in digging a little deeper, a little further back in time?

Okay, so a lot further back in time. His inner psychologist, sounding suspiciously like Dana Scully, starts pushing around the term "suggestive memory". But he can't possibly just dismiss all the evidence to the contrary, all the things he and Melissa didn't know they knew. The belief in reincarnation has been taught for thousands of years and by all the world's major religions, after all. It's not something Mulder himself has ever subscribed to, personally, though he has never rejected the concept outright. Religion just makes him uncomfortable.

Sometimes he envies Scully. He envies her certainty, the mainstream acceptance of her own scientifically unprovable beliefs, and the fact that her life quite literally comes with a guidebook that says do this, this, and this and you're doing things right. Sometimes he doesn't even know how to match his socks to his suit, let alone whether he's making the right life choices.

And ever since his visits to Doctor Goldstein, he's not sure if the truths he previously based his whole life around were ever really even truths at all.

So the idea that this flash of a past life has already been corroborated by someone else who was there makes it feel solid, weighty, like something he can finally sink his teeth into and say with certainty yes, this happened. This matters. We can go somewhere from here.

Scully pushes food around on her plate with the flat side of her fork. She has been notably quiet while they eat, but Mulder is a little relieved. His head feels full of water and lead and he's not much in the mood for an argument, good-natured or not. Instead, he tries to draw her into an easy, pleasantly banal conversation with small talk- how's your mom? What'd you do for Easter?- but her answers are succinct and distracted.

Mulder puts his sandwich down and takes a drink. He looks at her, then, wilted and pale, and reminds himself that not everything is about him.

Scully's hand is resting on the formica tabletop near her plate; he runs his fingertip in a line between the knuckles of one of her fingers to get her attention before tucking his hand back into his lap. She looks up as if she just remembered he was there.

"I know what you're thinking, Scully. But I don't think we should jump to conclusions. Their cancer could be environmental or even coincidental. There's no reason to assume it was the result of abduction until we can gather more information."

She studies him sharply but briefly. "I know that, Mulder." Her tone is harsher than she intended.

Neither of them talk again for several minutes while they finish eating. Mulder feels a little better now that he has some food in him, but there is a dull ache behind his eyes that bursts in pastel shades and ghost images every time he turns his head. He closes his eyes and pushes the tips of his fingers hard above his eyebrows. "I think…" he starts, rubbing his face with his palms, "I think I would like to go back to the motel for a little while."

Scully looks at him, notes the pallor of his skin and the way his eyes keep not quite focusing on her. She nods. "Okay." She wants to say something more substantial but thinks better of it.

BROWNING MOTEL

ROOM 28

2:56 PM

By the time they arrive at the motel, Mulder is weak and taciturn. Scully takes his keys from him and opens the door to his room. "Thanks," he mumbles, grimacing. He collapses on the flowered bedspread and is asleep in minutes.

Scully looks at him for a moment and sighs, involuntarily counting his respirations. She removes his shoes carefully, setting them neatly on the floor near the bed, then gently checks the temperature of his forehead and measures his pulse against her wristwatch before returning to her own room. Leaving the connecting door open just a crack, Scully removes her heels and stretches out on the bed with her laptop.

Her intention is to use this downtime to get some paperwork done, maybe do a little research into the historical significance of the weapons that were found, but her mind feels preoccupied, almost spacey. Two women, living within a stone's throw of each other, both of whom have developed a malignant brain tumor at almost the exact same time. What are the odds?

Pete Stadler said they'd had the water tested. It seemed plausible, that pesticides or chemicals used on the farm could have leached into the water supply and acted as a carcinogen. But the water had come back clean. And why were only the two women afflicted? Why not Pete Stadler, or Ruth Tedlow's husband or sons?

Of course, Scully knows the odds. Or, rather, knows that the chance of it being coincidence is highly unlikely. But there has to be an environmental cause. There has to be. Because the alternative- that they have just located two more abductees- is unthinkable.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23, 1997

TEDLOW FARMS

10:39 AM

Mulder expects the smell of the farm to be unbearable close up, especially because it's warmer today, but it's actually no worse than it was when they were downwind at the Stadlers'. Which, of course, still doesn't mean the smell is in any way tolerable or easy to ignore.

Scully pulls the car to a stop on some grass near a little grove of trees and they both get out. From this high on the hill, Mulder has a bird's-eye view of the entire Stadler residence, including the field where the murder took place. The horses are there again this morning, grazing contentedly. He rolls his sleeves up to the elbows and turns to survey the Tedlow property. There is the farmhouse, where the Tedlows live, which stands next to a large red barn. The barn doors are open and Mulder cranes his neck. It's disappointingly empty, but he hears several loud moos in the distance so the cows must not be far. Next to the barn, almost arranged in a sort of semi-circle, are several more buildings of varying sizes; this, Mulder presumes, is where the Tedlows process cheese. He can see three men working, ducking in and out of buildings, and he guesses that they are Ruth's husband and teenaged sons. Mulder can just see the cow pasture through the spaces between the buildings.

Scully places a hand on the car, balancing as she attempts to brush some of the dirt from the driveway off of her suede pumps, but just succeeds in rubbing the dirt in. She grimaces and straightens. Maybe pumps were a bad idea.

"Ready?" Mulder asks. Scully nods and they make their way to the front door of the farmhouse, skirting the mud that prevented them from parking closer.

Ruth Tedlow opens the door at their knock. Scully's first thought is odd, but she is struck by how perfectly healthy Ruth looks. She doesn't know what she expected, really, but Ruth is tall and tan, with strong, sturdy limbs and big hands, her short blonde hair curling under a frayed baseball cap. There is no outward indication that she is dying from brain cancer.

Scully pulls out her badge. "Mrs. Tedlow? We're Agents Scully and Mulder from the FBI. We wanted to ask you a few things about the murder that took place on the Stadlers' property."

"Hi, yes. Come on in." She waves them through the door. "Don't worry about your shoes. Dirt's just a fact of life here."

They find themselves in a house built for comfort rather than looks. There are mismatched pieces of furniture in the living room, including a threadbare couch that, Mulder thinks, looks like it would be exceptionally comfortable to sleep on. Framed cross-stitches are hung on several of the walls and a homemade quilt hangs on the back of one chair. There is a homey quality to the place; it feels lived in, here, in a good way. Mulder can't help but make a mental comparison to his childhood home in Chilmark, with its coasters and plastic-covered furniture.

Ruth leads them into the kitchen. "This won't take long, will it?" She asks, pulling out one of the chairs at the oversized table and indicating that they do the same.

There are several loaves of warm raisin bread in glass pans cooling on racks at the far end; Scully breathes in the smell and her mouth waters. She sits, leaning forward and folding her hands on top of the table. "It shouldn't. Did we catch you in the middle of something?"

"It's a farm; there's always plenty to do." Her laugh is breathy and thin.

Scully can see, now that she is closer, a pale pink sunburn spreading delicately over Ruth's cheeks and nose. She can't help but check discretely for any indications of chemotherapy treatment in Ruth's skin and fingernails. "We'll try to keep it brief, then." Scully's smile is polite, if a little distant.

Mulder stands in the room's arched entryway behind Scully. He is quiet for a moment, thinking. "Why don't we talk while you get your chores done, Ruth? Agent Scully is very interested in dairy farming. You can show us around."

Scully gives nothing away, just keeps the cordial smile pasted on her face and narrows her eyes a little. She'll wait to kill him until they're back at the motel.

Ruth blinks, taken slightly aback by the request. She wipes her hands on her jeans. "Oh! Um, sure. Let me just grab my boots. Did you grow up on a farm, Agent Scully?"

They both stand. "Mm, no, not exactly."

The outdoors feels muggy after being in the farmhouse; Mulder swats a determined fly away from his head as they follow Ruth to the barn. There is nothing notable inside except for Ruth's husband and sons, but the cool, dark mustiness is a nice change. It reminds him of the damp basement office. He is almost reluctant to leave when Ruth indicates that they should follow her to the next building, an immense structure that is obviously newer.

Mulder walks through the door and immediately finds himself in a very large room. Huge silver refrigerators and other equipment he can't name are packed densely into the space, making it difficult to see enough to judge the scope of the room beyond the high ceiling. The air in here is warm and buzzing with electricity; Mulder's eyes feel like they are vibrating uncomfortably in their sockets.

"This is where we make and store the cheese," Ruth says. "We used to just do one or two different cheeses and sell at a local farmer's market, but since we bought the land we've been able to expand and sell to some restaurants around town. And we're even looking into some wholesale opportunities for the future, if you can believe it." She smiles and shrugs a little, palms up. "This whole thing's been really great for us."

Mulder thinks back to that dark, gritty room, the floor sticky with Kool-Aid and foamy vomit, filled to the brim with the dead bodies of men, women, and tiny little babies. The watery November sun had shone through the bullet holes in the wall, he remembers; belatedly, he realizes that must be the wall Pete Stadler had had knocked down. He feels a flash of anger at Ruth's casual tone and makes a noncommittal noise deep in the back of his throat. Scully shifts her weight uncomfortably.

"Mrs. Tedlow," she says, keeping her voice neutral. "Where was the kidnap victim when you saw her?"

Ruth's smile fades slowly, like the true reason for their visit had just occurred to her. She starts walking out of the far end of the room, past the long line of humming refrigerators, and gestures for them to follow. "Come this way; I'll show you."

She leads them out near the gentle sloping hill that makes up the cow pasture. Thankfully, the ground is still fairly hard and the grass here is dull and long but mostly matted down; it itches a little on Scully's ankles through her pantyhose. Dodging either mud or manure, Scully laments her pumps, which she is about one cow pie away from resigning to the motel trash can. The cows, huddled under several large, shady trees at the far end of the pasture, are completely unconcerned, which is good because she is sure she looks ridiculous.

Maybe when they get back to DC, she'll buy some new pumps and send Mulder the bill.

Wind turbines line the small ridge that overlooks both the pasture and the Stadlers' house a short distance below; there is little wind today and they churn sluggishly. Still, they're impressive, Scully thinks. She shades her eyes and looks up toward the top of the nearest one. Standing this close, she can see that it's much bigger than she would've thought.

Ruth stands in front of Mulder. She points a finger and traces a path in the air along the trees just past the turbines. "She came from somewhere over there. I was up milking the cows and I watched her walk down the hill and into the Stadlers' yard, but I didn't see anything more after that. Just heard some yelling and the gunshot."

Mulder looks from the path to the turbine. He takes a few steps closer to it, moving his suit jacket back and placing his hands on his hips. A mangy-looking barn cat, belly sagging with milk, emerges from a bush nearby and winds itself around Scully's leg. She toes it away discretely. "And you didn't think it was strange that this woman was trespassing on your property at six o'clock in the morning?" Scully raises her eyebrows.

Ruth gives her a slightly impatient look. "Of course I thought it was strange. But to be honest, I thought she was just one of the older girls from the Amish farm a couple miles down the road. She was kind of dressed that way. Like, old-fashioned. She had a long skirt and stuff." She shrugs. "But I know the sheriff checked it out and all their kids were at home, so..."

Mulder turns back to the conversation. Pressure builds in his inner ear but he ignores it. The cat, finding no friend in Scully, trots to Mulder and rubs its face on his pants. He ignores that, too. "Did you call out to her? Try to get her attention?"

Ruth shakes her head. "No. I mean, I thought she was Amish; what was she gonna do? It's not like she was gonna steal my cattle or whatever in a skirt like that. I watched her for a minute or two and then when I saw she was headed that way, I just assumed she was cutting through the pasture to get to the main road. People do it sometimes."

Mulder nods. "I see. Can you tell me about the wind turbines, Ruth?"

Ruth smiles, obviously proud. She shades her eyes and looks up to the top of the nearest turbine. "Aren't they great? We use the electricity generated from them to run most of the electrical equipment on the farm, then whatever extra electricity there is gets sold to the utility company. It's a good arrangement; we've been trying to find ways to save money ever since we started expanding the farm, so this has been working out pretty well so far."

"Are the cows ever bothered by them?"

She thinks for a minute, then shakes her head. "No, they don't seem to be. Sometimes they'll go right up to the base and stand, if there's a little shade."

Scully is quiet, surveying the pasture, while Ruth adjusts her baseball cap. After several long seconds, when she has seen all she needs to, she turns back to Ruth. "Mrs. Tedlow, I think we're done out here. Maybe we could sit and talk somewhere more comfortable now."

Ruth nods, putting her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. "Sure, let's go back to the house. We can chat in the living room." She moves past Scully toward the farmhouse. Scully turns on her heel, mindful of the unsavory things she would rather not step in, and begins to follow. She looks back over her shoulder when she realizes Mulder isn't coming.

"Mulder? What's wrong?" He is standing near the turbine, arms crossed over his chest.

"I don't know. Do you taste that?"

"Do I… What?" She hopes he's not referring to the cows, because that seems to be what is mostly permeating her sense of smell and taste right now and she would prefer not to think about it.

"Like a metallic taste in your mouth?" Scully looks at him quizzically. "No, I feel okay. It's just a weird sensation…" he trails off, looking around the pasture.

"I don't taste anything. Are you sure you feel okay?"

He ignores her question, hesitating. "I think we should do some testing here."

"What kind of testing?"

"When I know, you'll be the first person I tell." He takes one last look toward the turbines. "Come on, Scully."

Inside the house, Ruth pulls off her tall boots. "Let's talk right in here," she says, indicating the room with all the mismatched furniture. "I need to sit down for awhile. I just have absolutely no energy lately." She laughs apologetically.

As she turns into the room, Mulder's eyes involuntarily go directly to the back of her neck, right to the space between her hair and the neckline of her shirt.

Nothing.

There is no bump, no mark. The skin there is smooth and pink, freckled from the sun. Mulder is unsure how to feel about this information.

Sitting on the well-worn couch, he lowers his voice, leaning forward and speaking gently. "Ruth, Agent Scully and I learned from Pete Stadler that you recently were given a difficult diagnosis."

Ruth has taken a seat in an overstuffed chair to their right, tucking her feet up underneath her body. She looks slightly taken off guard by the statement and her smile falters just a bit. "Yeah. Um…" She takes a big breath and tucks her short hair behind her ears. "I'm not sure how much he told you, but, uh… I've got a malignant brain tumor."

Scully can feel her heart beating fast. She tries to ignore it and instead focuses on making her features as neutral as possible. Mulder nods. "How long ago were you diagnosed?" He asks.

"Ah… About two months, I think?" Her eyes are very bright, suddenly, the color offset by a redness appearing at the outer corners. "I don't… I try not to think about it when I don't have to." She barks out a laugh, humorlessly. "I've got so many other damn things to worry about."

"I understand." Mulder shifts a little in his seat. He can feel Scully beside him, tense and stiff and paying very close attention.

She knows what his next question will be, but she doesn't want him to ask it. Not because she's afraid of the answer; the question has become too personal, too weighty. Over the past several months, Mulder has tried his hardest to understand, treating her too delicately at times and focusing his anger as an outlet in the best ways he knows how: taking as much as he can upon himself and searching, always searching. She thinks back on all the occasions he has accused her of being intentionally private or unemotional around him, and decides that, in some ways- at least since her diagnosis- Mulder is exactly the same.

It's not that she is unfeeling. It's that sometimes she feels too much, emotions sparking in her stomach like gasoline and lit matches, and she is afraid that if she opens her mouth, oxygen will seep in and she will explode, scattershot, in reds and greens.

She reaches down inside herself and feels that flame now, constant and red hot. Scully has a strange kind of camaraderie with this woman whether or not she knows it, one Mulder could never come close to understanding, the same she felt with the other women of the MUFON group. She steadies the matches in the pit of her stomach and asks, "Ruth... Have you ever experienced lost time?"

Ruth looks at her, uncomprehending. "I'm not sure what you mean…?"

"Have you ever been unable to account for your whereabouts for an extended period of time?"

She looks confused and frowns a little. "No, I don't think so."

Scully releases a breath and looks at Mulder out of the corner of her eye. She didn't realize until this very moment that she had been preparing herself to hear of Ruth's abduction. She had expected it so fully that she hadn't even considered other possibilities, not really. She looks at Mulder, silently cueing him to take the lead.

Mulder rubs his hands together. "Mrs. Tedlow," he says, standing, "thanks for your time and the tour of your farm. We'll be in touch soon." Ruth unfolds herself from the chair; they make their goodbyes and leave her at the door.

The walk to the car is long and silent. As they get nearer, Scully pulls the keys from her pocket, but Mulder stops her with a hand on her shoulder. "I think it was Sarah."

She turns to face him, confused and sidestepping out of his grip. "What are you talking about?"

"The woman Ruth saw. I think it was Sarah Kavanaugh."

Scully cocks her head to the side. "Mulder-"

"I know, Scully. You don't believe in ghosts. But it kinda fits what we know so far, doesn't it?"

"Except that ghosts aren't real, you mean?" She crosses her arms emphatically, having mostly convinced herself that the visions she saw on their last case- the one involving bowling alley employee and unwitting medium Harold Spuller- were simply creations of her mind brought on through extreme stress and illness and through the power of suggestion. "And what do we even really know? A woman walked through a field. That doesn't exactly narrow it down."

"No, listen, we know she was here during her lifetime. Even Ruth said the woman she saw she was dressed strangely. Would it be such a stretch to put two and two together and assume that the flashback of Sarah and this mystery woman are related, somehow, at the very least?" What he doesn't tell her is that he mostly just has a strong feeling, a hunch, that this is the case.

"...Do you really want me to answer that?"

"Humor me."

Scully shrugs and lifts her eyebrows. "Well, it probably goes without saying that ethereal entities wouldn't be able to manipulate corporeal objects. Like a gun, for instance."

"Yeah, but imagine the autopsy if we found the victim's ghost body." The delight on his face is almost too much for Scully.

"That's a pretty big 'if', Mulder." Scully winces. "You wouldn't really make me autopsy a ghost, would you?"

Mulder puts his hands in his pants pockets. "After four years, you don't know me better than that?" He leans toward her conspiratorially. "I would, yes."

Scully rolls her eyes but makes no move to get in the car. Mulder looks a little uncomfortable, suddenly, squinting against the sun and looking down the driveway to the main road.

"She didn't have a chip, Scully." He says quietly.

Scully sighs, placing her hands on her hips and glancing down at her feet. "I know." She looks up at him. "I checked, too."

"So the cancer could be environmental." Mulder moves to the passenger side and braces his hands on the top of the car. He is starting to feel a little disconnected and fuzzy again. He tries very hard to concentrate on the conversation, but there is a high-pitched buzzing deep in his ear that is hard to ignore.

"It could be, theoretically." Scully pauses. "The obvious question is whether or not the cheese itself is contaminated somehow."

"I think it's unlikely, but it wouldn't hurt to find out when the Health Department was here last. And we could check the hospitals in the area, see if they have an unusually high number of cancer patients." Mulder squints. His vision pulsates with every beat of his heart; he tries very hard to act normally, to convince himself it's just from the heat.

Scully thinks for a minute. "We could check the health data profile for this county. The local health department should have a copy." She shifts her weight. "It would have a record of the types and frequencies of cancer diagnosed here; we could determine if there's a connection."

"Let's do that. Lucky for us they only sell locally, huh?" Mulder slows his breathing, deliberately taking full, deep breaths and focusing on filling his lungs. His breakfast roils in his stomach. In his head, he begs Scully to get in the car. If he could just sit down…

Scully narrows her eyes. "Mulder, are you-?"

He is vaguely aware of pain in his knees as slams into the ground. He is falling forward, his jaw clenched tight and eyes screwed shut, grasping his head.

And then-

-he is Sullivan Biddle, Confederate soldier. His vision wavers for a moment before finally settling, shimmering along the edges of his eyesight, yellows and reds in watercolor smudges. It is dark, or dawn; the world is silent and crisp with cold. He is in the field. There are bodies around him, but they are not dead bodies. Sleeping, perhaps. He is trying to be quiet.

The grass is wet and sticky with hoarfrost; he feels it on his ankles and in his bones, sharp as pins. He gathers the wool of his uniform, heavy and damp, closer to his body. Strangely, wet wool is a smell he has come to find a small amount of comfort in. He sticks to the inside of the treeline and follows the fence.

There is a bulky weight to his pocket and he reaches a hand in to feel a folded piece of parchment paper, soft as buttery leather and thickly creased. He knows with complete certainty that it is for Sarah, that he has written it for her, but he has no memory of what it says. It doesn't matter.

He stops, waits for her. She will come. The darkness and trees will afford them some privacy, for which he is grateful, but he still knows he is tempting fate by meeting her at all.

He waits a long time. She will come.

He leans against a tree and worries until he sees her, cloaked in wool and anticipation. She smiles as she approaches.

"Sullivan," she breathes, the warm air creating a white fog around their faces that makes his eyes water. They study each other for a long moment, saying nothing, until Sarah catches her breath. "It is so heartbreaking to wait." She says. She grasps his wrists, holding them meaningfully still in between their bodies. "I miss you."

The phrase should fill him with longing, with love and tenderness; instead, he feels a crackling of unease throughout his body, one he can't explain. The feeling grows larger and more forceful, squeezing air from his lungs and echoing in his head, bigger and louder until-

-"Mulder!"

He gasps hugely, ripped from the flashback with the force of cannon fire. He coughs and sputters like he is drowning in an ocean and Scully dragged him onto dry land.

He is flat on his back. He can feel that now, the ground hard beneath his head and small little things digging into his spine and shoulders. They might be musket balls, he thinks. Was he shot? "Mulder, can you hear me?" He is panting. It's so hot. He clutches at his shirt, expecting to feel the scratchy wool of his uniform, and is confused when he encounters only cotton. "Mulder?" She says again. His vision seems too bright and flat, cartoonish; he feels like he is floating. Slowly, he finds Scully's eyes and nods.

She notices the physical symptoms of nausea a second before Mulder feels them and turns him onto his side as he vomits. He raises himself up on his elbows and spits, rubbing the sweat from his face with one hand.

"I'll call an ambulance." She helps him sit the rest of the way up, slowly and carefully, propping his back against the car door.

His head feels like it's in a vice. He closes his eyes, pinching them hard between a forefinger and thumb, his elbows resting on his knees. "Jesus Christ, Scully, just get me out of here."

She feels a flash of anger and wants to chastise him for his complete and utter disregard for his own health. She wants to grab him by the shoulders and shake him until he sees reason, or else bodily throw him into the car and drive him to the hospital herself.

Somewhere beneath her anger, though, Scully is introspective enough to realize that it's so easy for her to get angry and blame him for his condition. His seizures make sense, after all. Drill a hole in your head, fill it with tranquilizer, suffer traumatic brain injury. A perfectly logical progression from point A to point B, and in his case, a perfectly preventable one.

But cancer. Who can she get mad at for that?

Mulder registers her silence and leans his head back against the car, eyes closed. "Scully, please. I just wanna lie down for awhile."

She feels her anger falter at his tone, pleading with her not to push it. There's a large, selfish part of her that wants to ask him how he has the nerve to be so reckless with his health right now, right when she so desperately needs him to be passionate and stubborn and insubordinate and heartbreakingly thoughtful, and all the other beautiful things that make him undeniably Mulder, because cancer has made her unsure of everything else in her life. But there's another part of her- more than a little part- that can empathize, that knows too well what it's like to feel out of control of her own body. It's the same part of her that sometimes just wants to be done with treatments and hospitals and MRIs and go home, to her own bed, to finish dying.

Four years ago, when she'd first been partnered with Fox Mulder, it used to break her heart to see the genuine bemusement on his face when she was kind to him. She thinks of that Mulder now, the one who needed a friend more than he needed a partner, and feels what was left of her resolve crumble and break. Slowly, gently, she helps him into the back of the car, where he folds himself delicately onto the seat and closes his eyes.

"What's my prognosis, Doc?"

Scully clicks the penlight off and tosses it next to Mulder on the bed. He'd slept deeply on the ride from Ruth Tedlow's farm to the motel, not even waking when she parked the car, but he'd seemed more steady on his feet when she helped him walk to her room. Scully straightens, crossing her arms and rocking back on her heels. "You'll live until I decide when would be the most opportune time to strangle you."

"Ooh, Scully. You promise?"

"Mulder." She warns, putting her hands on her hips.

"Relax. At the suggestion of our friend Mr. Bruckman, I'd rather not tempt fate." She doesn't respond, just raises her eyebrows. He rubs at his jaw. It is dusky with hair. "How long was I out?"

She hesitates. "You seized for roughly two minutes."

He shakes his head a little before continuing quietly. "This time it was different, Scully. I was Sullivan Biddle. I was experiencing a past life in first person." If she feels any shock at his claim, her face is a blank slate. "I had a letter for Sarah; I was meeting her at that fence." That letter… there's something important about it. There's some kind of answer there, but his brain, frustratingly, isn't making the connections. He can feel it eating away at him.

Scully cocks her head to the side and draws her shoulders up. "Even if what you're saying is true, your past life regression sessions were so full of inconsistencies they sounded like a bad B-movie."

Mulder shifts uncomfortably. "Like what?"

Scully takes a deep breath, which she lets out as she talks like she is a deflating balloon. "Well, for starters, how could the Cigarette Smoking Man possibly have been a Gestapo officer in Poland during World War II? He must be in his late sixties, Mulder. He's too old to have had such a recent past life. And even if he was in Poland at that time, he would've still been just a kid."

"So he ages well."

"Mulder, I'm serious."

"I said evil returns as evil, right? Maybe I was conflating two separate lives."

"Okay," Scully exhales loudly through her nose. "But how do you explain Melissa's alleged past life as Sidney, who lived during the Truman administration, if by your own account she would've been a Polish man detained in a German concentration camp during the same time period?" Scully starts pacing a little as she talks. "And what about your relationship with Melissa in this lifetime? If you really were so important to each other, it doesn't make sense that the reason she holds any significance for you whatsoever right now is only because of the belief that you were connected in the past. Other than that, she could've been any other person we've interacted with at any point in our careers who was in and out of our lives in a matter of days. And, as her husband, shouldn't Ephesian factor into the scenario somehow?"

Mulder bristles, defensive. "Look, Scully, I don't know what to tell you. What about all the other stuff that checked out? You saw the county register yourself at the hall of records." He is more agitated now. "I'm not enough of a romantic to believe Melissa and I are star-crossed lovers or anything-" he ignores the dip of her chin and little 'o' shape of her mouth-"but even despite the inconsistencies in our stories, aren't there enough strange coincidences here for you to at least give the notion of past lives some consideration?"

"Mulder. How do you know you didn't just confabulate being reincarnated with Melissa's soul after she herself suggested it to you?" Mulder starts nodding dismissively as she makes the point, which Scully finds supremely irritating. She makes a sharp point with her tongue and sticks it into her lip at the corner of her mouth. "Let's assume you're right about the past lives. You're still putting your blind faith in visions you're having as a result of seizure activity in your brain that may or may not even be true."

Mulder stands, pursing his lips. "I'm not asking you to stay here with me. If you feel like this is a waste of your time, Scully, if you feel like you have something better to do-"

"Mulder!"

"No. There's something going on with that field. The murder, the cancer, the flashbacks. All the pieces are there, you just refuse to see it."

She tips her chin up, a defiant edge to her jawbone. She enunciates her words very carefully. "There is nothing to investigate here, Mulder. Nothing. You are looking for connections that just aren't there."

"Listen, do me a favor and don't worry about me, Scully, okay? I'm going to go make some phone calls. I'll see you later." He crosses the room to the connecting door. He is almost through it and into his own room when his cell phone rings. Impatiently, with one hand on the doorknob, he takes the phone out of his pocket.

"Mulder." He says sharply. His tone softens slightly when he hears the voice on the other end. "What did you find?" Scully watches him carefully, sees him draw in a breath and hold it in, his eyes betraying nothing. "We'll be right there." Mulder ends the call without waiting for a response. He doesn't look at her when he speaks.

"That was Officer Harrison. They have a positive ID from the DNA they got off of the pocket knife."

"It was human blood?"

He turns the phone in his hand. "Yeah."

"Whose?" Scully asks. She notes his posture and can't help but feel a twinge of unease. Mulder looks up to face her now, his eyes guarded.

"Yours."

Concluded in chapter 3.