The sun was sinking in the sky and the light was growing dusky when Mulder pulled into a curbside parking place in the desolate and industrial area of Central Basin. All Scully could see were vacant lots filled with dried brown weeds and hulking warehouses, and the dark waters of the bay a hundred feet away. The one exception to this grim urban landscape was right across the street. She took in the brightly-painted wood clapboard sides, the strings of twinkling colored lights, and the small palm trees in large pots flanking the entrance and exchanged a look with Mulder at the unlikely scene. He shrugged and walked towards it, and Scully followed, turning over and over again in her mind what she might expect. Did Geoff have a secret life that only Mitfuhlend knew about? Had they indeed succeeded with the experiment? Did Mitfuhlend have any insight as to who took the kids after-all? Given that he'd told her on the phone that she and Mulder might be "the only people in the world who might believe" him, he must think it was something supernatural, unexplainable, or metaphysical. What could that be though, she pondered, at the same time feeling giddy that she would know shortly.

They walked under some hanging wisteria into a dark and kitschy dive restaurant, and it took a moment for Scully's eyes to adjust, before she noticed the slight and reedy scientist at a booth in the corner, with his skinny arm raised. She touched Mulder's arm and tilted her head towards the guy, and they crossed the room and slid onto the same side of the vinyl-upholstered booth, across from Larry Mitfuhlend. His face broke into a self-conscious half grin, though there was still anxious tension around his eyes.

"You came," he said in relief, and Scully nodded.

"With the line you dangled over the phone about having so much to tell us, and that we'd be the only ones who'd ever believe you, whose curiosity wouldn't be piqued?" Mulder asked, squinting at Mitfuhlend as though assessing him again.

"Well, I hope you do," he said nervously, and swallowed hard so that his large Adam's apple bobbed in his thin throat. "I have no idea. But it's the truth."

Before he could continue, they were interrupted by a young and muscular young waiter, who gave the table a half-hearted wipe with a dirty moist rag, then leaned back and asked about drinks. Scully and Mulder ordered water. Larry Mitfuhlend ordered a house white.

When the young guy left, Larry looked down at his hands awkwardly, and a minute or so passed before Mulder shifted impatiently and told him, "You called us here, Larry. What is it that we need to know?"

The man looked terrified, but swallowed again and bobbed his head up and down in acknowledgement. "Umm. . .as you know, I left Hans to join Geoff. . .it was because I knew that with him I could be part of a team that shared a vision, and worked with mutual respect towards that vision. I could tell that I'd be valued as a partner, rather than some lab assistant," he said all in a rush, with barely any space between words.

Scully saw Mulder nodding somewhat hurriedly next to her. They'd already known that.

"Well," Mitfuhlend hastened on, "I guess that Geoff could tell how much I appreciated that, and how much esteem I held for him, because as we worked closely together for several years, he started opening up more and more to me. Late nights, especially, when the rest of the team had gone home and we really felt like we were on the brink of something paradigmatic—"

He was suddenly interrupted by the return of the waiter, who set down the water hard so that it splashed down on the table, then slid the wine towards the scientist.

"At first, he confided in me about his brother. . ." He swirled around the wine then took a long sip. "Which, ah, I guess you two already know about." His eyebrows knit together at that, and he did not look pleased at all. "Well, I thought I was the only one who knew about that, but. . ." A sigh. "But I can say with almost total certainty that he didn't tell anyone this. . ."

He looked up at them, and his eyes widened earnestly. "This is the other thing I've never told anyone—not only out of loyalty, but because I know they wouldn't believe me."

Scully wanted to tell him to spit it out, but didn't want to spook him anymore than he seemed to be already, so she just cocked her head and raised her eyebrow at him instead.

He shook his head and waved his hands like windshield wipers at them. "What you've got to understand is that Geoff didn't even really mean to let it slip. It was really late one night and we'd been working nonstop on this one problem with ions. I guess you could say we were pretty close to exhaustion and delirium, and we were having some pretty ridiculous conversations. So I didn't even believe him at first when he came out with it—I just laughed—but then I saw his expression . . . his face was dead serious. And then he elaborated. It was as if he was venting years' worth of pent up emotion, and it was all just bursting forth. It was pretty overwhelming, actually.

"Then, the next day, he came up to me and made me swear not to tell anyone what he'd said. I asked, 'Why, were you pulling my leg?' but he looked grim and said, 'No, because I was telling you the truth.'

"Now with anyone else, I wouldn't believe," Mitfuhlend confided on, "but with him, I knew it had happened just as he said. Geoff was brilliant but completely sane—not the mad scientist sort. And he had incredible integrity. So I knew it had happened," he repeated again, then laid his fidgeting hands flat on the table and looked each one in the eye as if to assure that he hadn't mistaken his late boss in the gravity and truth of the matter.

Scully wanted to shout, "Knew that what happened?!" since he still hadn't said or given any clue to what this was about, and she could sense Mulder getting ready to prompt him as well, but then he dropped his eyes on his wineglass and took a deep breath.

"So. . .here's what happened. Here's what he told me. . .

"When Geoff was in 8th grade, his family was a wreck. His younger brother had been molested and everyone knew, so he was a pariah at school. Just a few years ago he'd been Mr. Popular, great at sports, smart, charming, so it was hard for him. And he knew he blamed his brother for it, and he's had to live with that guilt. But at the time, he was just ashamed of him, and treated him unfairly. Petey just needed a big brother to look out for him, and support him, but unfortunately I guess Geoff was too immature to comprehend that. If it had happened a few years later, he might have acted otherwise, but he was 13, and he didn't get it."

Scully listened to this all without judgment, but wondered where he was going with this. It sounded like he was setting up a story about a kid who had run away or committed suicide, but then why would they be the only ones who'd believe him?

Mulder, however, said nothing. He sat uncharacteristically quiet and still, waiting for Mitfuhlend to continue.

"They shared a room, and that couldn't have been easy for Geoff either, especially since Petey would frequently wet the bed, and the whole household would be disrupted over it."

Mitfuhlend stopped again, and looked deeply into his wineglass, then took several long sips in a row. During this time, the waiter made his way over to their table to take orders, but Mulder shook his head sharply at him, and he veered away.

"Then," Mitfuhlend finally started again, after one last swallow, "one night, he heard a commotion from the other side of the room, which woke him up. It wasn't totally dark in the room, so he thought that his brother had had another accident, and turned on the bedside lamp, so he tried to cover his head with his pillow and ignore it. But he said he heard odd, unnatural sounds, so he had to look up to see where it was coming from. Then, he saw what was happening."

Scully glanced over quickly at Mulder, whose eyes were wide, and whose mouth was hard, and she knew that he was reliving his own memories too.

Mitfuhlend went on with his story, and Scully visualized the 29-year-old scene as he narrated:

On the other side of the bedroom, Geoff saw two figures standing against his brother's unmade bed, and in the half-light he could see them struggling and grappling with each other. Each of the two forms grunted and panted as if exerting extreme physical labor, and Geoff's heart started pumping painfully in his chest. He couldn't believe this was happening, again, here in their very room. He wanted to cry out, to shout, but he felt rooted to the spot in fear, and he hated himself for it—he was such a coward, but he couldn't help it. There was something deeply wrong with this scene, and he could only watch it in mute horror, and pray that it did not see he was awake and come for him next.

He could see that they were roughly the same size, but that's where their similarities ended. One seemed light and youthful while the other seemed heavy and dark, and when he saw that fused, crippled hand, he knew that That Man had come back for his brother. That was how strong his appetite for his brother was, apparently—not even prison could keep him away. At the time, he was sure—he just knew—that the heavier one was Van Hoek, but later, when he could think more clearly, he remembered Van Hoek was in prison. But in that moment, he was just paralyzed in terror, unable to do anything but watch. He saw as two dark holes opened up around each one of them, and from one hole came horrible noises—scraping, unnatural ones, while from the other, a melodious tinkle, and warm light emerged. He later swore that at this point, the lighter, more youthful one finally won dominance over the other one, and shoved him through the hole, which promptly sealed itself back up and vanished. The figure that had triumphed turned to Geoff, who at this point had actually wet his own bed, and he saw that it was his brother. Except it wasn't his brother as he'd known him over the past 2 years, but the one he remembered from Before. Petey's grief and sullenness were gone and he had a radiant grin on his face, and looked carefree and innocent. And then, with one last smile, he waved at Geoff, then hopped lightly through the hole. Then that one also disappeared, and that was the last time he saw his brother.

When Mitfuhlend finished his narrative he didn't look at them, but continued to look into the depths of his wineglass, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Scully looked over at Mulder, but he was studying Mitfuhlend intently, so she decided to speak up. "And. . .and Dr. Love stood by this? Did you ever talk about it again?"

The scientist glanced up for a moment but then looked quickly down into his glass again. "He did stand by it. Well. . .sometimes he thought he created it all in the trauma of what he could have actually witnessed, but mostly he believes—believed—that he saw what he did, despite how crazy it was."

Larry pursed his lips tightly so that they turned white, and Scully could see him grappling for control as his eyes reddened and grew shiny. Then he took a short breath and leaned forward. "That singular event is what inspired his life's work. After seeing something like that, you never view the world the same again." Scully glanced at Mulder again, but he was looking resolutely ahead at Mitfuhlend, his face blank but set.

"After he saw that," Larry continued breathlessly, "he realized the vast limits to human knowledge, and he knew that it probably wasn't, you know, a demon that he saw, but something that we could eventually come to comprehend. So he made it his lifelong quest to uncover the scientific explanation for what he had witnessed as a boy. He knew it was outside the realm of understanding when he was younger, but he intended to add its explanation to the anthology of knowledge, one day. But now. . ."

As Mitfuhlend trailed off sadly, Scully was left silently astounded: it had been Geoff Love's 'lifelong quest' to find out what had happened to his younger sibling who vanished out of their room when they were kids, but he had gone the route of science to look for an explanation of what had happened, rather than the paranormal. It was as if Geoff Love were an exact blend in equal parts of both she and Mulder. She found that absolutely remarkable, and looked over to exchange a meaningful look about this with Mulder, but he was still looking at Mitfuhlend silently, appraisingly.

They all sat around the table in silence for several long moments, digesting what had been said, and when the waiter took advantage of this lull in conversation to take their orders they all just shook their heads at him until he left again.

Scully turned the story over and over in her head. So, according to Dr. Mitfuhlend, Geoff Love had witnessed his brother fighting with someone who looked just like his imprisoned attacker, before they both vanished through—what?—inter-dimensional portals? It was all so fantastical. And though Mulder was the one with psych training, she didn't think it was much of a stretch to consider that Geoff Love had witnessed something that night, but it was so traumatic that he had constructed this fantasy as a response: one in which his brother's attacker was banished forever, and his brother escaped to a happier, innocent place where he could never be hurt again. She burned to know how Mulder would interpret it, and tried to read his expression again, but it was still indiscernible.

"So that's what you were referring to?" Scully asked, since Mulder was remaining silent. "The thing that only we'd believe?"

Larry Mitfuhlend steepled his fingertips against his wine glass, then looked up at her, nodding. "But. . ." he said with a weary sigh, "there's more."

Scully wondered what else there could possibly be, and she felt her eyebrows rising as a reflection.

"This happened recently. . .just last week, in fact. I'm positive that something deeply scared him, and I suspect that it has something to do with what he witnessed as a kid. He had been thrilled, elated, as he felt that we were close to a major breakthrough. He was so certain that he was about to discover some key element in our work. . .But then after he stayed late by himself one night, that excitement suddenly vanished, replaced by a very subdued and edgy mood. He said that he'd failed, but I could tell that it was fear and shock he was dealing with, not disappointment."

"What happened next?" Mulder asked, speaking up for the first time, and Scully felt relieved to hear his voice. Whatever mood or funk he'd been in, maybe he was coming out of it now.

"Geoff just said that no matter what, he'd try again, but he wouldn't talk about it any further, which is so unusual (because like I said, we were almost like partners on this project). I think he was trying to imply to me that he wouldn't be discouraged, but I could tell how he really meant it."

"That what he had just seen wasn't going to scare him into giving up his work?" Mulder prompted, and the scientist just nodded, wide-eyed.

"And now he's dead, and so is his wife, and his kids are missing," Mitfuhlend whispered hoarsely. "Maybe if I'd forced him to confide in me. Confronted him with my suspicions. . ." He put the heels of his hands against his eyes and shook his head miserably. "Maybe he'd still be alive," he said between his fingers.

Scully looked down at the table, allowing him a private moment, and considered the additional information. Of course, everything he said reflected his own readiness to believe the truth in Geoff Love's story, and his interpretation of that man's behavior. Perhaps he felt that the incredible work they did, and discoveries they made, validated and proved the existence of that childhood experience, but inspiration could come from anywhere—it didn't mean the memory was true.

Just then, Mulder's phone gave a sharp beep, and she raised her head to come out of her thoughts and watch the conversation. He was listening raptly to someone on the other side, and then suddenly he made excited eye contact with her, before telling the other person, "We'll be right there," and hanging up.

"What? What is it?" Scully asked quickly, knowing it had to be something good to get Mulder that expressive. Larry Mitfuhlend looked on nonplussed, as if disbelieving that anything could take away their attention from what he had just confided in them.

"Dr. Mitfuhlend, Agent Scully and I have to get going," he said, turning to the scientist, rather than answering her.

"But-but. . ." he stuttered, still looking jarred and now slightly disgruntled. "What about what I told you?"

Mulder found Scully's eyes and she raised her brows at him questioningly, and she knew he understood that she was asking what the phonecall was about, as clearly as if she has verbalized it.

"We did need to hear that," Mulder assured the scientist, still ignoring her, and she tried to tamp down her impatience. "And it might be the crux of everything. But I'm sorry, we have to go."

Mulder picked up his coat and exchanged a look with Scully as if checking to see if she was on board, and though she had no idea what he was so excited about, she gave Dr. Mitfuhlend a final nod, and grabbed her coat as well.

"Well. . .keep me informed!" she heard him call after them in a wounded, confused voice, and though the images of his story were still imprinted in her mind, and she was still astounded at the thought that Geoff Love had experienced something so similar to Mulder but turned to science, she needed to know what Mulder had just learned over the phone.

As they stepped out of the restaurant and into the night air, she was about to insist upon answers, when he turned to her, his eyes sparking.

"Spill it!" she demanded, and he gave her a small grin and pulled her close against him unexpectedly.

"Mulder?" she asked, trying to regain steadiness after the surprise. He had just been so moody in the restaurant, listening to Dr. Mitfuhlend. What had he heard over the phone?

"That was Montes, Scully," her partner told her, and pressed the car's lock release on his keychain. "And a lot has gone down in the past hour."

Mulder released her, and Scully climbed into the passenger's side, but maintained eye contact with him, and waited for the kicker. She didn't have to wait long.

"The crime lab has gotten a hit off DNA found in both rooms—DNA that doesn't match any of the victims nor anyone else who might have had cause to be in the house."

Scully looked at him in amazement as he navigated the Taurus out into the street. "That's incredible!" she exclaimed, relieved that they might finally have a cold, hard suspect. DNA was distinctly stable, scientific, and non-paranormal, and in a case with its increasingly bizarre twists, that's exactly what they needed.

He seemed to read her mind, because he smirked. "Don't get your hopes though, Scully," he warned, and Scully knew from his expression that things were not nearly as clear as they may seem. Of course they weren't.

"Why, is it unusual in some way?" she asked.

"Nope, it's your average, run-of-the-mill Deoxyribonucleic acid," he said, looking smug. "They even found it in CODIS. . ."

"Mulderrr," she groaned, just wanting the information, and he grinned. Her partner did like his lab results with a little showmanship on the rare occasions that he got to divulge them. "Then what about it has you this excited?" she prodded after another moment.

"Not what—who," he said, casting her a significant look.

Scully gave him a drilling look with him accompanied by a noise of exasperation, and Mulder seemed to finally turn more serious.

"The DNA match comes from a cold case that was opened in the FBI's California Cold Case unit in Los Angeles."

Scully didn't follow, and her face must have displayed her puzzlement, because Mulder nodded slightly, then took a breath and looked over at her again. "Scully. . .the DNA matches to Peter Love. He's still alive."

Shock fogged her brain and she felt her jaw actually drop, and her partner nodded seriously, in agreement with her reaction.

Peter Love is alive? she thought, stunned. So then, had he actually been a runaway as the authorities had originally believed before taking into account Geoff Love's (certainly edited) version of events? Or had he indeed been kidnapped, and was so damaged and traumatized that he'd returned to take revenge on the family he blamed for not protecting him? Her mind reeled and she stared to Mulder with wide eyes, appealing for more information.

"They established the unit about five years ago," Mulder explained. "And presumably the Peter Love case is one of the ones that they reopened for investigation, probably because it was so unusual—I mean, the kid was apparently abducted twice, the second time out of his room and with his previous abductor already in prison. . . So they submitted any possible physical evidence into CODIS just in case they got a hit with other cold or new cases, and sure enough. . ."

"Peter Love is alive," Scully repeated softly, and her mind still couldn't wrap itself around the shock. What has he been up to for the past few decades? she wondered in disbelief, and shook her head at her partner.

"But Scully, Peter Love is not the only one discovered to be alive. . ." Mulder continued, giving her a suddenly intense look. "They found the kids. And they're okay."

Scully was in an entirely different mood when she rushed into this emergency room, pushing the swinging doors open before her like a wind, while Mulder jogged slightly to keep up with her, even with his longer legs.

She still felt overwhelmed by the apparent reality that Pete Love was not only alive, but their prime suspect, and couldn't wrap her mind around how the children had somehow been returned, essentially unharmed. Perhaps the younger Love brother had wanted to preserve their innocence, she thought, while dispensing what he viewed as justice on the parental figures. Maybe he saw Geoff—or parents in general—as a passive participant in the destruction of his own innocence. After all, Geoff had failed to protect his younger brother when he could have, and Pete probably faced abject oblivion after that. . .

And the catalyst? Maybe it was simply that Pete Love had seen his older brother featured in a magazine. . . He was handsome, loved, admired, and outrageously successful, and the immense injustice of that transported Pete into a homicidal rage. The magazines had given an indication of where Geoff and his family resided within the city, and all Pete had to do was narrow it down from there. Well, she mused, he found them.

She spotted Montes and some uniforms leaning against the Nurses' station and made a straight line across the floor, and when Montes saw them he immediately straightened and came forward to meet her.

"Agent Scully," he said, beaming through tired and lined eyes. "Agent Mulder," he added, greeting her partner, who had stepped up behind her. She felt his warmth at her back, and understood that he was assuming a more passive role, so that she could take over in this moment that she had been so anticipating, so hoping for. She registered her appreciation, but the well-being of the children maintained priority in her mind.

"The Loves are being examined by doctors now, but the prelim shows that they appear physically unharmed," he informed her, evidently reading her expression. "They're all crowded into Room 310 since they don't want to separate them after what they went through, and they've also got a Child Services person with them, acting as their guardian. Poor kids," he added, tiredness making his voice hoarse. "They had it all, and now they have nothing."

"They have their lives," Mulder pointed out. "And they have each other." Scully wasn't distracted enough by the return of the kids to miss the subtle sadness in Mulder's tone. If the others had been perceptive enough to detect it they probably would have been puzzled, given the great news the agents had just received, but Scully knew that despite the closure Mulder had received, he would always ache for the lost Samantha.

But instead, there were nods all around at his words, and a moment of reflective silence. Scully broke it when she said, "But it's not through any accomplishment of our own that they're alive," she replied, inclining her head slightly towards her partner. "This was just a gift. We've been lucky."

She left them at that, pushing through another set of double doors and then following the internal signs for Room 310. She could sense that Mulder was not following her, and she sighed with the relief that he knew her well enough to give her the space to do this on her own. She would want him with her later, to act as her sounding board, therapist, and comforter, and he would be there; but for now, she needed to confront this moment on her own, and face the swirling emotions surrounding the successful return with the children on her terms. She vaguely intuited that she might be behaving selfishly, and that Mulder was obviously feeling pain over this as well, but remained consistent and flushed those thoughts from her mind. He was obviously willing to let her take over this new development and address her unresolved issues, and so she would accept it.

As she swept down the generic hospital hall that looked like a thousand others she had known in her life from medical resident, to patient, to investigator, to failed potential mother, flashes of individual moments experienced within walls such as these merged in her mind. The theme seemed to be the elusive motherhood that she'd never burned for until she was denied it: The return from her abduction, when she had just had her chances for children literally ripped from her womb, but hadn't even learned it yet. . .The small, innocent little girl named Emily who was a product of evil manipulation of her ova, but still her precious child nonetheless. . .And then the last, almost the hardest, because it involved Mulder and an impossible and naive hope. . . She'd actually been fool enough to believe that not only was it possible to conceive a child, but that that it would be theirs, and maybe, maybe they could pull off of that metaphorical interstate at last. After everything she had seen, and everything that she had lost, she really should have known better.

She abruptly came to Room 310, and was again grateful that Mulder had not come as she quickly swiped at a few tears. His concern would be tender and protective, but that's not what she wanted now; her need was masochistic, but she believed it would be strangely cleansing, too, like fire.

She needed to burn away this sadness that was projecting itself on another family's tragedy.

She took a composing breath and then rapped on the door smartly, composing herself back into a medical doctor and federal agent, away from the bereft woman she had briefly become in the hall on the way over.

The door was answered by a tall and slightly frumpy woman with large glasses and long, frizzy graying hair. It was the Child Services appointed guardian, Scully would place good money on it.

"Yes?" she asked, blocking the door and staring owlishly down at Scully, who reached for her ID, and identified herself.

"Deborah Kern, Child Services," the woman confirmed, and then stepped aside.

Scully entered the room, and laid eyes on the three Love children, who had been haunting her since this case began, for the first time.

Winnie, Jon, and Mikey Love were huddled together on the exam table, accompanied by a doctor each. They all looked like Platonic images of child innocence, with their wide, trusting eyes, smooth rosy skin and silky hair. Their angelic faces weren't even marred by anxiety or fright. . . If anything, they looked complacent, almost dazed.

"Have you given these children sedatives?" she asked sharply, recognizing the signs. But before she could imagine potential horrors that would require the response of tranquilization, the doctor closest to her turned and shook his head quickly.

"This is how they came to us, Agent Scully. We do suspect that they have been drugged, though, and we've taken blood samples. The lab is running them now to determine if they've been dosed with anything."

Scully nodded and stepped closer to the children, who had dilated pupils and didn't seem to even register the doctors' ministrations.

"Have they been processed for evidence yet, uh, Dr. Sanders?" she asked, reading his ID tag.

He shook his head. "We just want to ensure that they don't require immediate medical attention, first."

"Your guys bagged their clothes when they were changed into hospital gowns, but that's it," Ms Kern informed her, and Scully turned towards the other woman. "Otherwise yeah, the docs will handle it, but they need to be gentle," she stated, her feet planted broadly on the floor, and her arms crossed over her chest. And if they're not, they have to face me, was her clear message.

Scully nodded and faced the children again, and continued her visual inspection. She was searching their wrists for signs of restraint marks or cuts, when she felt a sudden tight flutter of excitement pulse into her chest, and for the first time, she wished Mulder was with her to share this, if just for just this instant. It had been hard to see at first in the muted fluorescent lights of the room, but now that she was aware of it, it was everywhere: The three Love children were covered from head to toe in a light dusting of the identical iridescent powder that had been present in their original crime scene.

She stared at it with open fascination, and Dr. Sanders took notice. "Yeah, it's weird, right?" he said, shaking his head slowly. "Like the guy sprinkled them with fairy dust or something. We'll definitely get you samples of that."

"We've seen it before. . ." she murmured back, wondering if the SFPD lab was any closer to discovering what it actually was, then raked her eyes over the children and was again struck with how unresponsive they seemed.

"So you've ascertained their current state isn't shock?" she asked. "How's their blood pressure, is it high enough? What about Oliguria, Dyspnea, or Cyanosis?"

"You an MD?" the doctor asked, looking up in surprise at her use of the medical jargon, and she nodded shortly. "They show no signs of any of those: the blood pressure in up in a nice healthy range, all three have urinated since they've been here, their skin is warm to the touch, and their fingertips and lips have no sign of blue discoloration."

She reached forward and placed the back of her hand against Winnie's upper arm, and sure enough, it was warm, almost hot, to the touch. And the physician had been right, their fingernail beds and lips were a nice, non-blue color.

She put her hands on her hips and turned again to Ms. Kern. "With your permission, I'd like to interview them as soon as possible," she told the other woman, then waited with somewhat bated breath for the response.

To her surprise, the woman nodded thoughtfully after only a moment. "Yeah. . .okay," she agreed. "We definitely need to find out what happened to these babies. I just ask that it's you who does the questioning, and that you try and wait until they're a little more coherent, so that we don't make them relive it more than necessary."

"Of course," Scully murmured, concurring that the children were in no shape to answer any questions right now. But something had given her a measure of hope that the drugs—or whatever it was—were wearing off and that they were struggling towards cognizance: Winnie had blinked when Scully had placed her hand on her arm, which had been the first sign of acknowledgment among the siblings that anyone had even touched them. She found a chair in the corner where she could watch the doctor finish their exam and begin processing for evidence. Until the Love children came to awareness, she would sit there and wait.