Two hours later, after driving back up north to the city and grabbing an incredibly hurried late lunch, Mulder and Scully were back on the 13th floor of the San Francisco Federal Building. There, Scully gazed out the window of their makeshift office (apparently it belonged to an agent on maternity leave) and took in the stunning panorama of the western side of the city. Since it was the tallest building in the area, the views were unobstructed, and it was a nice change to feel as if she were on the same plane as the expansive world outside. Normally it was the opposite: it felt as if the entire world were bearing down against their tiny office; that they were enduring the same sort of pressure that could transform a lump of carbon into a diamond. And though Mulder was definitely her diamond in the rough, it was refreshing to take a trip to the surface. . . Besides, the case itself was heavy enough.

"Scully?" Mulder was calling, and from his tone she could tell it wasn't the first time. She turned away from the window towards the group of the other agents on the team who were holding a check-in meeting, and raised an eyebrow.

It was clear that they had caught her in a moment of distraction, so Mulder summarized, "Montes, O'Brien, and Jamie say that both Zydek's and Mitfuhlend's alibis checked out. So we essentially agree that they can be ruled out pending further evidence. What're your thoughts?"

Scully nodded her consensus, but couldn't help but think that that should have been a job for SFPD. Couldn't they have been using their time—time that meant everything—running up other leads on the kidnapping case; that is, the actual FBI case? She felt a twinge of frustration towards the absent Agent Park for mismanaging her agents' hours.

"And what you learned down in Sil. Valley, about the brother—that's incredible!" Montes told Scully, and she nodded again.

"I just hope it will actually yield some tangible results," she told them. "So far we've had no shortage of leads, but they've all been unsubstantial or dead ends."

Mulder frowned over at her, but she was too preoccupied with her headache to decipher whether it was in reaction to her apparent negative attitude, or out of concern. She turned her face back towards the window.

"Well we've made a tentative sort of peace with the SFPD chief, so we'll continue to do information sharing," Montes informed them, but when she made no further responses, they seemed to take that as the close of their conference.

Once they had committed to keeping mutually in touch and all filed out, Mulder sank into the desk chair and turned on the monitor. "Okay, Scully," he said a bit over-enthusiastically, clearly trying to break her out of her mood, "let's find out who this Pete Love is."

She grabbed a side chair and wheeled it over to him, but couldn't shake her sense of ennui and foreboding. Sensing it, Mulder gave her a tender look, but said nothing. In the past seven years, she knew that he had developed excellent Scully-reading skills, and could tell when to ask her about how she was feeling. Now was not one of those times, and she was grateful he kept on task.

He opened up NCIC (National Crime Information Center) from the desktop, and typed in his username 'mulderfw' and password, before clicking on the topic of Individuals. In the blank field there he entered Pet Love, in case he was listed under Petie, Petey or Peter, and then sat back and glanced over at Scully. If Pete Love had any sort of criminal or arrest record, they would know about it from this database. If not, though, they'd have to go back to Dr. Mitfuhlend and really press on him, because apparently he was the only one of Geoff's close associates who seemed to know anything about the younger brother, besides his mere existence. She hoped that they'd be able to rely on the more reliable information of the NCIC, though.

After several minutes of suspenseful waiting, during which time the computer clicked and whirred as it labored with combing through thousands of national files, an entire list loaded on the screen. About thirty different Pete/Petie/Petey/Peter Loves had made it onto their system, and each one was organized by subtopic, with their date of birth next to their name. Most had been simply arrested and fingerprinted, a few had been involved in violent crimes, two were runaway juveniles, and three were from the crossover database NCMEC (Center for Missing and Exploited Children).

"You want to split these up between the five of us?" Mulder asked, unhappily taking in all the names, but Scully didn't immediately answer. There was something on the screen that seemed significant, but she couldn't identify what it was exactly, so she continued to stare intently at it.

"Scully—

"Hold on. . ." she murmured, trailing a finger down the screen, until she came to the last category. Then, "Mulder, look!"

She tapped at the first and third names on that section of the list, and Mulder leaned forward, looking to see what she had already noticed.

"Those two have the same DOB," he observed a second later.

"Right," Scully said, feeling some of the headache lift slightly. "Same boy?"

Mulder swiveled around in his chair to raise his eyebrows at her, but she just gestured impatiently for him to get on with it, and so he clicked on the first link.

Peter Andrew Love

Case Type: Endangered Missing

DOB: Dec 08, 1959

Sex: Male

Missing Date: Sept 12, 1969

Age: 9

Race: White

Height: 4'7" (140 cm)

Weight: 73 lbs (33 kg)

Hair Color: Blonde

Eye Color: Blue

Missing City: Half Moon Bay

Halfway through skimming the page, Scully exclaimed, "According to the background info Montes provided, Half Moon Bay is where Geoff Love grew up!" Mulder nodded quickly, and they continued reading.

Missing State: CA

Missing Country: United States

Case Number: NCMC109512

Circumstances: Abducted by Callum Van Hoek. Recovered Sept 15, 1969. Suffered injuries and sexual abuse. Van Hoek sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Mulder turned to share a look with Scully, and with one exchange, they both knew what the other was thinking. Pete Love had survived a harrowing experience of kidnapping and pedophilia when he was a child, and while that was tragic for him, unfortunately the victims of childhood molestation often became abusers themselves in adulthood. Scully didn't want to jump to any conclusions based on this small entry alone, but nonetheless her blood chilled in her veins when she thought of the missing Love kids, and what they might be experiencing.

"Go to the second entry," she prompted, slightly hoarse, and without a word Mulder clicked on the second posting for a Peter Love, DOB: Dec 08, 1959.

Peter Andrew Love

Case Type: Endangered Missing

DOB: Dec 08, 1959

Sex: Male

Missing Date: January 11, 1971

Age: 12

Race: White

Height: 4'11" (150 cm)

Weight: 90 lbs (41 kg)

Hair Color: Blonde

Eye Color: Blue

Missing City: Half Moon Bay

Missing State: CA

Missing Country: United States

Case Number: NCMC109758

Initially classified as 'Endangered Runaway,' but witness testimony by the elder brother (Geoffrey Love) indicates abduction. Previously abducted by Callum Van Hoek (prison sentence concludes in 2009 – See case # NCMC109512). Possibly taken by an associate.

"He was taken again. . ." Scully said slowly, leaning back in her chair and looking at the entry. Her heart was breaking for this unknown lost boy who disappeared decades ago, but also for the children in their current case. Now that they knew Peter Love couldn't be suspect, they were no closer to finding them.

"Maybe that's why Geoff Love didn't like to talk about having a brother, didn't like just casually bringing him up to friends," Mulder mused slowly, also staring at the words. "It was too painful to discuss." He paused, then: "I can relate. . ."

Scully hesitated for a moment, then leaned over the desk to give him a questioning look. "You never suppressed Saman—"

"Yeah I did, Scully," he interrupted, briefly meeting her eyes, then looking back at the screen. "Before you knew me, before I found the X-Files, I was the same way. I never told anyone I'd had a sister."

Scully sat back slightly again, surprised by this sudden mid-day revelation (was he trying to make her feel better by opening up a bit emotionally himself?). The admission itself, though, was not entirely shocking, knowing what she did about his adolescence and young adult life.

"I ran away from it. . ." he elaborated, vocalizing her thoughts. "Went to the UK, then threw myself into work and avoided any real personal life. And even though I went sort of the opposite direction after the regression hypnotherapy —and then everybody knew about her and her abduction—it's just different sides of the same coin, Scully. Just different ways of coping."

"But he named his company after him—"

"Yeah," Mulder nodded, then looked down at his hands. Scully took one of them and he finally looked into her eyes. "There's no way you can ever totally incise someone out like that, especially if you saw it," he explained. "It's impossible, as much as you might try. For me, it was horrible dreams. Along with finding the X-files, it was what made me really decide to do the regression work. I'm guessing for him, that was his very personal way of honoring and remembering his brother, and keeping him in his life in some way."

Scully nodded slowly, appreciating Mulder's openness with her, and his sharing of something so personal, and for a moment she let herself ignore the pressures of the case. Besides the brief reference to Starlight back in DC, he hadn't mentioned Samantha at all since finding out about her death, and she was relieved to see him able to open up now in such a calm and matter-of-fact way.

"Mul—" she started, wanting to let him know that, but he was already off to his next thought.

"We should get a little more background on these abductions, and I'm sure we can get the other guys to help us out on that. . . Like what exactly did Geoff see the second time around? Did they have a list of suspects at the time?" He saw her make a face at that, and correctly read it as her frustration over a complete lack of actionable evidence. "I know, it's not as much as we'd hoped for—"

"That seems to be the trend, here," she sighed, refocusing her attention on the case now, too. "Totally plausible lines of investigation that seem to lead to no where."

He nodded sympathetically, but pointed out: "But this family has a significant history with child abductors; for some reason Geoff's younger brother was particularly targeted. It's certainly possible that someone is coming back for more."

"But why?" Scully challenged, not necessarily to antagonize him, but to act as Devil's Advocate. "Why now, over thirty years later?"

His eyes went into soft-focus for a second, and through them, she could practically see a thousand thoughts flying around in that beautiful mind of his, putting together connections, discarding unlikely scenarios, then forging stronger ones. Then, after only a few seconds, his eyes suddenly snapped into focus, and even seemed to have acquired a keen gleam.

"Scully, we need to get the prison record of Callum Van Hoek," he told her, pushing back from the desk and standing up from the chair so fast that he sent it spinning.

"The first abductor?" she asked, grabbing her suit jacket as he nodded and headed to the door. "The one who's in prison until 2009?"

"C'mon Scully!" she heard him call, already in the hall.

He made an abrupt stop just as she caught up with him, and Scully saw that they were in front of Agent Park's office. Well. This was obviously something rather significant if he was going straight to the SAC, and even though she didn't know what he was thinking yet, her heart started to pound in hope and anticipation. Could it be that he'd found an inroad through their dead ends after all?

He rapped sharply on her door, and after a muffled, "Okay!" pushed it open and strode in to stand at the center of the room.

"Do you have any contacts in the BoP?" Mulder asked her, without preamble, and Agent Park stared at him for a moment, either shocked at his behavior, or trying to get her bearings. It was very possibly both.

"The Bureau of Prisons?" she asked nonplussed, her hand poised with a pen half an inch above some paperwork.

"Or the Parole Commission," Mulder said impatiently. "I just need to you make one quick phone call."

Ohhh, Scully thought. Of course.

"Before I make any call, I need you to explain what's so urgent!" she said, exasperated at being so out of the loop, especially considering she was SAC.

It's par for the course with Mulder, so get used to it, Scully thought.

"Have you learned something, Agent Mulder?" she pressed.

"Look, there's no time to explain the background now," Mulder said, raising his voice impatiently. "I just need to know if a certain prisoner has been given parole."

Agent Park's temper seemed to flair at Mulder's refusal to answer her; she became rigid in her seat, and Scully saw that if she didn't step in, they might lose an important resource in her.

"Please, Agent Park," Scully interceded. "We're running out of time for these kids—if we haven't already—and we need to know if this suspect had access to them."

Park's hard gaze flickered from Mulder to Scully, and there it softened somewhat, but her mouth remained a thin line. "Very well, Agent Scully," she yielded. "I do have a contact at the Parole Commission, as a matter of fact. I'm sure he can call up the record in just a moment. It won't take long," she finished, and for a moment she betrayed her aloof coolness to glare at Mulder.

"So which county is it?" she asked, grabbing another sheet of paper and preparing to jot down notes.

"Actually, it's Federal," Mulder clarified, and she set her pen down immediately.

"Agent Mulder, are you not aware that federal offenses no longer qualify for parole?" she asked, aggravated, but Mulder was shaking his head.

"The Parole Commission remains the parole board for those who committed a federal offense before November 1, 1987," he corrected, and once again Scully marveled at the seemingly-limitless archive of information stored in his mind, ready to access at a moment's notice for any subject. "And this suspect was incarcerated for a 1969 crime, so he applies," he concluded.

Agent Park picked her pen back up, but didn't lift her gaze from the paper. "What's the name?" she asked in a deliberately measured voice, clearly deeply peeved to have been contradicted by Mulder. The fact that she was already irritated with him only made it worse.

Scully quickly spelled it out for her, and she jotted it down on the side of the paper in front of her, then flicked through her rolodex and picked up her phone.

"Yes, this is Carol Park with the FBI," she said to the person on the other end. "Is Edward Reilly available? Mm-hmm, SAC Park.

"Ed! Great, I got in touch with you," she said, a few moments later. "I'm working on a kidnapping case, you may have heard of it on the news. . .right. Anyway 2 of my—2 agents that are helping out with the case have a suspect in mind, but it's contingent on if he's been released on parole or not. . .yeah, exactly, pre-'87," she told him seemingly concentrated on her pad of paper, and Scully cast Mulder slight smirk .

"The surname is Van Hoek. V-A-N space H-O-E-K. First name Callum, C-A-L-L-U-M. . .okay great. Thanks Ed."

"He's looking into their e-files," she told them, finally glancing up for a moment, and studying their taut faces. After several long and suspenseful moments, Park finally seemed to hear the voice back on the other end.

"Oh you did? Fantastic." He found the file, she mouthed to them from the receiver. "Yes, it's quite an unusual name, so that's good, because I don't think we have DOB for narrowing down results; we'd have to track that down, too. . ." Mulder shifted weight from one foot to the other impatiently, and Park seemed to take the hint and asked, "So what does it say?" but shot an irritated look in his general direction.

"Mm-hmm. . .mm-hmm. . ." She wrote something down, and Scully looked over to Mulder and raised her eyebrows. He echoed the expression, and they both stepped closer to the SAC's desk. "This occurred three nights ago. . . Oh really? Okay," Park went on, and Scully's stomach tightened in anxious anticipation, and she tried to read what Park had written from upside-down.

"Do you have that, too, then? Excellent." Park jotted something else down as well, and Scully strained forward. "Well thanks so much Ed, and if you need anything from our end, let me know. . . .Right, the Federal Charity Campaign benefit? Yep, I'll be there. . .Okay, see you then."

Scully was practically having heart palpitations by the time Park finally hung up the phone, though she managed to keep her cool façade maintained as always. She had to clench her jaw rather harder than normal to prevent herself from demanding immediate answers from the SAC, though. She glanced over at Mulder and he looked quite on edge, as well. Park's next words could be the break they were waiting for. . .

"So," Park said briskly, "I have some excellent news." She paused to inhale through her nose, then took a moment to look them each full-on in the eyes. "Van Hoek is indeed out on parole, as of just a week ago. . .you were correct about that, Agent Mulder. He wasn't scheduled for any mandatory support or parole meetings, so as of now, his whereabouts that night are unaccounted-for. So. . .I'm not sure how you made this connection, and I'll need to know all about it soon of course, but for now go ahead and bring him in for questioning. I have his registered address right here."

"Released just a week ago!" Mulder said, smacking the wheel of the rental car as they sped off towards the Hunter's Point neighborhood, a run-down, neglected, and somewhat isolated area of San Francisco. Apparently this was the location of Van Hoek's new home.

Scully nodded enthusiastically, feeling her heart flutter in anticipation. This was the best, most solid lead they'd had yet. They'd notified SFPD, and they were sending squad cars and paramedics to the scene, just in case they needed backup, and medical attention for the kids. They were to wait for the agents' cue though, so as not to tip him off before they arrived.

"Van Hoek had Peter Love for several days before he managed to escape," Mulder said, going over things aloud. "Since he hadn't killed him during that time, he must have formed some sort of attachment for him. Unfortunately, kids used as only sex objects are almost always disposed of pretty quickly. Maybe in his twisted mind, he believed it was some sort of love—he might've watched him for a long time, developing feelings, before he finally made the grab."

Scully nodded him on, fascinated by the developing profile.

"But Peter 'betrays' him, as he sees it, and he's sent off to prison for what will be nearly the rest of his life. Then, he learns that someone else has apparently moved in on 'his' boy, so he'd probably lost his chance to be with him forever. He spends years and years thinking about this, obsessing, working up his rage: not only that it's Peter's fault that he's incarcerated, but that he'll never 'have' him again. Finally when he is released, that pent-up rage needs to go somewhere."

He glanced over at Scully from behind the wheel. "He uses his first few days of freedom to find Geoff," he continued theorizing. "Maybe he looked his name up online (because I'm betting he'd have definitely remembered the brother), and found the same articles on him that we did, and used them to track him down. If he couldn't take revenge on Peter, or possess him himself, he decided to take it out on the next best thing: the family."

"The bodies did display an incredible amount of rage," Scully agreed. "That much was evident."

"Yeah. And he could have it both ways," Mulder proposed. "He'd get his revenge, and he could also fulfill the other thing he'd been obsessing over in prison: his compulsion to molest children. And with Peter's niece and nephews, no less."

Scully grimaced, hoping that the Love children hadn't been sexually assaulted, but knowing that it was a distinct possibility. "And the locked—"

Mulder shook his head immediately, before she could even finish the sentence. "No, I have no theory as to how he managed to get out of the locked room, nor how he managed to grab all three kids. Maybe he had an accomplice there—someone he met in prison. But I do know that the profile seems to fit, so he's our most viable suspect yet."

Mulder's phone chirped, and he picked it up and said several 'yeahs' and 'OKs' in a row before hanging up again. "SFPD is in place around the corner," he told Scully, pulling off the 101 freeway onto their exit. "So we can go ahead and knock on his door and we'll call them if we need them. We're also to notify them just before we go in, and if they don't get a check-in call from us after five minutes, they're also coming in."

Now off the exit, they drove through narrow streets lined with rundown, peeling single story row houses and scrubby brown front yards. In between junky and rusted old cars sat an occasional Mercedes or brand-new Cadillac, speaking to the drug problem that dogged the area.

"Look out for Middle Point Road, and that's a right," Scully told him, holding the directions in her hands, and they both peered up at the passing street signs, until they came to it, and made the turn. Now it was only a matter of coming upon the apartment complex, Hunters View, apparently a notoriously awful place. Agent Park had wrinkled her nose in distaste when she'd handed the directions over to them, and now that they were making their approach, Scully could see why. The building loomed up in front of them, crumbling and barracks-style. Broken glass lay scattered on the grounds, plywood boards covered dozens of windows and doors, and scrawled graffiti plastered every surface.

As they pulled up to the front, they shared a worried look at the groups of people of all ages milling around in the shoddy central plaza. If these bored-looking men were looking for some mid-day excitement and chose to hassle them, the noise could easily alert Van Hoek. Scully warily stepped out of the car and joined up with Mulder on the other side, and a few people shouted a grab-bag of sneers, catcalls, complaints, and friendly welcomes, but no one approached them, or followed them when they started looking for Van Hoek's apartment, D-307.

As soon as they were hidden from sight from the loiterers in small alley between two buildings, they paused for a moment and checked their guns' magazines.

"You good?" Mulder asked Scully with a touch of concern in his voice, after he shoved his back in with a click. She nodded her head back at him, with a small tight smile on her face. At one time the concern would have irritated her, but now she mostly found it affirming; she knew it came out of his feelings for her, not any doubts about her ability to handle something.

Scully looked up at the corners of the building on either side of the narrow path to see a large rusted 'B' fixed to the side of one, and a 'C' on the other. She started walking again, towards Building 'D,' and Mulder fell into step beside her.

"How 'bout you?" she murmured, making her way carefully around a putrid puddle, where what appeared to be raw sewage was bubbling up through grates in the cement.

"Fine," he concurred. "But I'll be even better in a few minutes after we get this son of a bitch." Scully looked up at him and saw that his eyes were hardened flints, and she knew then that he was just as anxious to find the children as she was. She shouldn't be surprised—they were usually in tune like this. It was what made her as 'good' as could be expected going into such a potentially stressful situation; what actually helped to soothe ragged nerves. Her partner had her back, and they wanted the same exact thing.

At Building D Mulder pulled out his cell and dialed a number, then dropped his chin and said into it quietly, "We're in place. We're about to proceed to the suspect's apartment. So go ahead and start the clock." After those brief words he clicked off and replaced the phone into his pocket, and they raised their guns level and made their way up the stairs, step by step, checking in front of them and behind them carefully so they were aware of their surroundings at all times. Scully took in the black mold creeping around some of the crumbling walls, and felt a stab of compassion for all the people who had to live with not only with the filth of fungus and untreated waste, but also the human filth of child molesters like Van Hoek.

Suddenly, just as they rounded onto the landing for the second floor, an elderly woman and a tiny child wearing a big floppy red hat popped out of a door in a rush, and practically collided into them. The woman's eyes instantly rounded like full moons and she inhaled as if to shriek. But before she could even open her mouth, Mulder had gently hustled her and the toddler back inside and shut their door, in one fluid motion. They quickly met each other's eyes and shared a silent exchange ("Good job Mulder, that could've been a problem." "Thanks, though I was in the right place at the right time." "Okay, you ready to keep going?" "Yeah, let's go."), before continuing their slow, cautious crawl up towards the final landing.

Even though Mulder was right next to her, and she was grounded by the knowledge that he'd be level-headed, cool, and skilled in this confrontation, her heart started to pound with the inevitable adrenaline of such a situation. She felt confident that they made the best team possible when facing down a suspect with guns drawn, but there was still no way to know how it would end. Tiny beads of sweat were condensing on Mulder's brow too, she saw, as they moved stealthily along the hallway—and it wasn't a warm day. If Van Hoek was indeed the person who had committed the Love crimes, he was a terribly dangerous and most likely erratic man.

They were at D-313, working their way down in numbers, moving steadily down towards the end of the asphalt walkway, when Mulder suddenly stiffened up. A fraction of a second later, Scully also saw it, and it plunged her heart into ice and seemed to confirm that her greatest fear for the children had come true.

Twenty yards down, just where she'd place D-309, several long scarlet fingers of blood were trickling out from beneath a painted metal door.

After just a second to process what he was seeing, Mulder took action, and got on the phone with nearby SFPD for backup and medical support. Meanwhile, a multitude of different scenarios raced through Scully's head, all of them nightmarish.

Guns now raised into a ready-to-shoot position, Scully followed Mulder closely at a run those last few yards, and once they reached the ugly, battered door they both drew themselves flat up against either side. Mulder lifted his left arm and with his tightened fist he pounded on it. '

"Callum Van Hoek!" he shouted against it. "FBI!"

Not a sound. He pounded again.

"Callum Van Hoek, open this door immediately or we're coming in!"

Still, nothing. But the blood continued to spread outward in dark but glistening rivulets.

"Break down the door, Mulder," Scully told him, breathless with anxiety, and he nodded at her shortly. Grabbing the sides of the doorway firmly, he lifted up his leg and threw all his weight behind a savage kick right above the doorknob, and the metal crunched and groaned, but was designed to take worse beatings than that. Mulder grunted and tried again, aiming all his strength into the same spot, and this time the door clattered inward in a screech of steel, and the darkness in the room suddenly rushed out and seemed to suck the sunlight out of the landing.

As soon as he had known that the door was going to break in, he had ducked back behind the wall in case Van Hoek was planning an ambush, but there was still no sound from within. Scully looked into his eyes, her blood roaring in her ears, and watched closely as he nodded once, twice, three times, and then they both spun into the room with perfect choreography. He crouched low, but aimed up, while she swept her arm in a wide arc into the room at waist-height.

"FBI!" she shouted. "Come out with your hands up!" Though those words had been yelled hundreds of times in childhood games, decades ago, they weren't nearly as fun or cool when the situation was real, and your life was potentially at risk.

"If you're hurt and can't move, make some noise!" she added, slightly shakily as she noticed the trail of crimson that lead up to the front door and then back into the dark of the room.

"We need light," Mulder mumbled, and he straightened from his crouch to run a hand along his side of the wall. Scully did the same with hers, making sure to keep her gun trained on the interior, just in case. The adrenaline hadn't subsided at all; if anything her anxiety had ramped up at the sight of all that blood, and she could feel her heart laboring hard in her chest.

Mulder must have found the switch, because suddenly the cave-like room was illuminated by a greasy-looking, weak, yellow light that made the blood trail seem even more garish and grotesque.

Scully looked desperately around the room for signs of children, but all she saw were mismatched, threadbare furniture in cheap, synthetic materials, a few chip bags and beer cans littered about, and a lone suitcase with a few meager belongings spilling out of it. It looked as if Van Hoek hadn't even unpacked since getting out of the penitentiary—or perhaps he'd started to pack to go on the run, but had decided that he didn't have time and took off light.

Mulder had now entered the room and was methodically sweeping through it, his brow furrowed and his eyes intense. Like a ragged, bloody path, the trail lead through a small side door, possibly a bathroom, but before they could rush in to see who had been hurt or killed, they had to clear the room to ensure that they didn't become the next victims.

"CLEAR," Mulder called just then from his side of the dingy studio, and a moment later she echoed him. Immediately, they moved like one fluid entity to the interior door and yanked it open, guns thrust into a small chamber that did turn out to be a bathroom. There, they both inhaled sharply. Scully had not expected this at all, and from Mulder's expression, she guessed that neither had he. Who could have done this?

Lying in a slowly growing puddle of blood from a series of stab wounds to the abdomen, with one eyelid swollen shut from the attack, and the other black eye staring blankly at the wall, was an old, old man with a deformed hand and few teeth. He would have been completely pitiful if Scully hadn't known how sick he had been. It was Callum Van Hoek.

She bent over to feel for a pulse, but before her finger touched his throat, his entire body jerked, and his one eye focused on her. Suppressing a shudder of revulsion, she rocked back onto her heels and pressed her palms hard into his wounds.

"He came back," the man told her in a croaking, guttural rasp.

"Who did?" she asked him. Though she would normally advise patients to be quiet when so grievously injured, she wanted to know everything this bastard knew before he expired. To Mulder, "Help me out; he's got some stab wounds to his lower abdomen, too."

Mulder didn't bother to hide his disgust, but reholstered his weapon and added pressure to the other injuries.

"It was Peter," Van Hoek screeched, and Scully shook her head in disgust.

"Oh great, he's hallucinating," Scully muttered. Now they'd never get anything out of him.

"NO!" Van Hoek insisted harshly, his voice suddenly much stronger. "Peter was here. He did this to me. . .I deserved it." The old man began to weep, and salty tears mingled with blood, and red streaks dripped down his face. "But it was him. I always knew he'd come back."

"Peter Love?" Mulder asked loudly, leaning across Van Hoek to look into his eye, and he nodded and sobbed harder.

"I—I turned him into a monster," Van Hoek wailed thickly. "Now he's a monster just like me. Just like me. He even had my deformity." He weakly tried to lift up his hand, whose fingers were fused together and crooked over like a single drawn claw. "Now no one will love him just like no one loved me, even if he has the word Love in his name."

Scully clenched her teeth in fury at his rantings, and then interrupted. "Where are Peter's niece and nephews?" she demanded, playing the bad cop to Mulder's sympathetic one. "What did you do with the Love children? Where are they?!"

Van Hoek stared up at her, uncomprehending, and she was so frustrated that she had to physically restrain herself from knocking the back of his head onto the hard tile floor and helping him along in his death.

"I bet Peter has them," he gurgled at last, a glint of knowing coming into his eye. Then he repeated, "He's a monster now, just like me. He really is. A monster."

"God damn it, Mulder!" Scully cried, looking up at her partner to vent her frustration, and he shook his head at her. "He's lost it. We're no closer to finding the kids now that we were before we even got on the plane!"

She looked down with repugnance at the old man, who was immersed in his own world of pain, and it was as if the intense malice she felt for him was his last straw, because suddenly his eyes squeezed shut and he gave a huge rasping wheeze, then began to tremble violently from head to toe. Scully lifted one blood-soaked hand from his chest wounds and pressed them to his throat.

"He's gone into cardiac arrest," she informed Mulder, and cast what she knew would be a futile look around the room for a home defibrillator kit. But then, just as she was about to start CPR, they both heard a commotion in the doorway, and they had already spun into firing position before they heard, "POLICE, come out!"

Scully pushed aggressively through the small crowd of neighbors that had gathered around the ambulance to clear a path for the stretcher, since Van Hoek was still clinging to life and needed a trauma unit as soon as possible. She didn't see how he could possible survive those wounds, especially at his age, but she hoped he did, despite her severe distaste for him. If he lived, maybe they could question him about his attacker when he was a bit more rational, and not going on about some former victim who disappeared thirty years ago.

"I'm sorry we didn't find the kids, Scully," Mulder told her a few minutes later on their way to the hospital, after an unusually long period of silence.

"Me too," she answered, but didn't let herself dwell on the thought. That wouldn't lead to anything positive or useful.

"But. . ." he said, glancing into her eyes in the rearview mirror, "I'm questioning whether Van Hoek ever did have them. . ."

"Maybe he didn't, but maybe he did," Scully replied flatly. "Maybe Peter's second abductor struck again." She tossed him a sarcastic look to let him know she wasn't serious, but he made a thoughtful expression as if mulling it over. She knew he didn't mean it, though—he'd been going another direction when he started the conversation.

"Okay, so who does have them then, Mulder?" she challenged. "He was our best, most realistic suspect yet. I mean, he got out of prison just prior to our double crime! Maybe. . .maybe the kids attacked him and fled," she said, casting out at anything now, grasping at straws.

"Didn't you happen to notice, though?" Mulder asked, in a low, urgent voice.

She averted her eyes out the window and didn't answer, but she knew exactly what he was talking about.

The door had been deadlocked from the inside.

They rolled into the underground lot for San Francisco General after another ten minutes, and Scully made a beeline for the trauma unit, but when she didn't see him being unloaded, she rushed down the hallway, looking for a sign of a bloodied old man. To her great frustration though, there was no indication that he'd arrived, and a nurse she asked confirmed that he hadn't come in yet. Cursing, she turned to head back outside when she nearly collided with Mulder, who was coming in, tailed by one of the EMTs who'd arrived on the scene at the Hunters' View Apartments.

As soon as he saw her, he reached out for her and grasped her forearm bracingly. Immediately, she knew there wasn't any good news.

"He's dead, Scully," he told her gently, his hazel eyes warm with concern and compassion.

"Old dude was a goner basically as soon as we got him in the bus," the EMT elaborated for her, and she nodded at everything he said, though a buzzing sound was taking over her brain. "We tried it all but he was flat-lining for just too long. Doctor called it on the pavement without even going inside, about twenty seconds ago."

"Um, okay, thanks," Scully said, and although she knew she sounded overly bright, and her partner gave her a questioning look, the EMT nodded and ambled back out the door. Once he was gone Scully turned back into the hospital and just walked and walked with Mulder at her heels, until she reached a set of chairs, where she immediately flopped down.

"We're out of leads, Mulder," she told him as she pushed her hands through her hair. "That was out last, best chance." Her brows furrowed and lips curled suddenly as she remembered the circumstances around the last time she'd told him something similar, after they'd failed at In Vitro Fertilzation a few months previously, and a few tears squeezed out from her tightly screwed eyes before she could master control of herself again. She moved to angrily brush them away, but Mulder grabbed her wrist, and in a totally uncharacteristic and abnormal move when they were out publicly on a case, he put his arms around her and drew her close, then kissed her first on the forehead and then on the lips, lingeringly.

It worked. The surprise and delight at his touch managed to help her restore herself, and she even managed a small smile. Just as she was about to lift a hand to brush some hair from his eyes, though, her phone chirped.

Annoyed at the interruption, she glanced down at the caller ID, but it was an unknown number.

Mulder raised his eyebrows but she shrugged and answered the call.

"Agent Scully?" a man's voice asked, sounding hesitant, and Scully pressed one finger to her ear to block out the flurry of noisy activity on her end.

"Yes?" she asked. "Who's this?" The voice seemed familiar to her in its slightly nervous pitch and reedy delivery, and she knew it would come to her in an instant.

"It's Larry. Uh, Dr. Mitfuhlend," the voice said, just as she'd identified his voice herself. "Look, I called the San Francisco FBI office and someone named Agent Park gave me this number."

"Dr. Mitfuhlend. . ." Scully repeated with a slightly raised voice, and Mulder, who had been watching, immediately leaned in over her to put his ear against her phone as well.

"Right. Look," he said again, seemingly as if to steel himself for what he was about to say, and Mulder and Scully exchanged a look of furrowed eyebrows. "I just, um, wanted to apologize for earlier today. You caught me at a bad moment. Now that Geoff's dead, the company is mine, I guess, and I'm just not ready for that kind of responsibility, not ready to show the type of leadership and direction that he did. Um, I guess I was just caught up in all of that."

"Okay. . ." Scully said as she shared another look with her partner. "Sir. . . why are you telling me this?" She clarified: "What's the real reason you're calling?"

There was a long and pregnant silence, and Scully could practically see his large Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed and broke out into a light sweat.

"I. . .wasn't entirely truthful," he finally said in a thin voice. "I didn't know if I could trust you."

"And now you think can?" Scully prompted, as Mulder nodded.

"As soon as you left I did some digging on you and your partner, Agent Mulder," he explained. "Saying I'm shocked and amazed would be an incredible understatement. I can't believe that you're the agents they sent out to me, of all people. Seeing who you are made me do a lot of reflection, and I realize that I need to see you again, and explain everything. Maybe it can help Winnie, Jon, and Mikie. I need to at least try." Finally, his ramble came to an end, and the two agents stared at each other in amazement.

"First of all, what do you mean, 'who we are'?" Scully finally asked. Half a dozen questions were pushing forward in her mind, and from Mulder's impatient body language, he was experiencing the same thing.

"You know, the X-Files," he said in a low undertone, as if afraid someone nearby would hear him.

"Does this have to do with Peter Love?" Scully heard Mulder whisper in her ear, and she repeated the question to the scientist.

The shocked silence at the other end of the phone seemed to answer his question, and Mulder nodded at her knowingly.

At last his voice came back, even smaller, "How did you find out about Peter? I thought I was the only person who knew about him outside of the family."

"No, someone else from your team knew, and it wasn't long before it got around," Scully explained. "So it wasn't long before we found out."

There was an additional period of silence from the other end of the line, and Scully prompted, "Is that what you wanted to tell us?" Another long moment passed. "Hello?"

Then the scientist suddenly blurted out: "But you don't know the important part, the thing that Geoff confided in me for some reason way back at the start of our partnership. I now think you're the only people in the world who might believe me, just as he said I was the only person in the world who'd believe him. Other people might have known he'd had a brother, but they didn't know this." He paused, during which time Scully looked up into Mulder's face, which was becoming alive with the same energy that had imbued it when Van Hoek had given him his final words. Suddenly Larry continued, this time in a stronger and emphatic voice, "Please. Meet me as soon as you can, in an hour if possible. I need to tell someone—I've wasted too many hours keeping it to myself since Geoff died. And I need to feel like I did everything I could to help his children."

Mulder nodded, then mouthed where? to Scully, and she shook her head in agreement.

"We can meet you in an hour, just tell us where," she told the scientist, and he made an audible sigh of relief.

"It's called The Ramp. It's a small restaurant near the docks in the warehouse district. Just off Third St. at Mariposa. I'll be in a booth in the back. In an hour. . ." He took another deep breath. "I have so much to tell you."