Enveloped by the warmth, dimmed lights, and delightfully heavy scent of diverse spices, Mulder and Melissa settled at a table at Namasté. A CD of ragas played in the background. "I can't believe you've never eaten here," Melissa said, looking around.

Staring at the menu, Mulder replied, "Not much time in my line of work."

"Dana told me how driven you are by your work. Not that she's a slacker, by any means. But Dana is driven by professionalism."

"Well, so am I."

"The difference is that she knows when to stop. And that's with the 'old boys' club' that probably still infests the FBI." Leaning in towards Mulder, Melissa added, "There has to be something more with you, though. What is it that drives you?"

"I want to bring those people to justice."

"You're looking for someone."

Mulder looked up from his menu. "Yeah. The bastards that harmed Scully." He paused. "I'm sorry. Your younger sister."

"Your younger sister," Melissa repeated. "You're making progress."

"What are you, reading my aura?"

Melissa smiled. "I can accept that."

As Mulder looked at Melissa blankly, a middle-aged man in a white shirt and dark pants walked up to the table with a notepad. "Melissa!" he said. "Good to see you again!"

Getting up from the table, Melissa gave the man a hug. "Good to see you too, Ramesh."

"Your sister. Any news?"

"She's recovering."

"So glad they found her, and that she's getting better. I'll keep sending my prayers for her."

"Thank you," Melissa replied.

Ramesh turned to Mulder, then back to Melissa. "Things seem to be looking up. Who's that with you? New boyfriend?"

Melissa smiled somewhat sheepishly as she turned to Mulder. "A friend of the family's." Turning back to Ramesh, she added, "He works with Dana, too."

Mulder got up. "Fox Mulder," he said, extending his hand.

"Ramesh Mehta," the man replied, shaking Mulder's hand. "I own this establishment."

"As owner of this establishment, Mr. Mehta, what do you recommend?"

"Please," he replied. "Call me Ramesh. Any friend of Melissa's is a friend of mine."

"All right, Ramesh. What do you recommend?"

"Everything on the menu."

Mulder nodded with a slight smile. "Can I get an unbiased opinion here?"

"Perhaps your lovely companion can recommend something."

"I'll work on him," Melissa commented.

"Would you like some drinks?" Ramesh asked.

"Water with lemon," Mulder said.

Writing on his pad, Ramesh turned to Melissa. "Jasmine tea."

"Hot, of course?" Ramesh asked.

"Yes."

"I will bring those straight away, then." Before starting back to the kitchen, Ramesh placed a hand on Mulder's shoulder. "Good to meet you, Mr. Fox."

"It's Mulder," Melissa said.

Turning back to Melissa, Ramesh smiled. "I know." After patting Mulder's shoulder a few times, he walked towards the kitchen.

"You that much of a regular here?" Mulder asked Melissa.

"I come here at least once every week."

Lifting up his menu, Mulder asked, "So, can you get Ramesh to make my dish less spicy?"

"Not all the dishes here are that way."

"What do you recommend?"

"The veg vindaloo. Being a meat-and-potatoes man, you'd probably appreciate a dish with potatoes."

"Are the potatoes chopped up?" Mulder asked, looking for it on the menu.

"They're small ones."

Upon finding the veg vindaloo, he noticed three peppers following the name. "That's the hottest thing here, Melissa."

Smiling, she said, "That's a matter of opinion. But I think Ramesh can get them to make it special for you."

Mulder nodded. "Four peppers?"

"So, you're like that off the job, too?"

"Like what?"

"Dana told me that you always make some dryly funny comments whenever you're on a case."

"Keep watching, and I might also do a trick."

"I guess it's a good defense mechanism."

"Defense? Against what?"

"Getting too emotionally involved in a case. Maybe to keep from opening up."

Mulder set down his menu. "I'm pretty open to things. That's why I investigate these... special cases, with your sister."

Melissa's eyes focused on Mulder. "There's still something closed off about you, though. I don't think you know what it took for me to get you to come see Dana, and to let go of what you were going to do instead."

"I know that you visited my apartment and told me what I should do. It just took me a while to decide that I should try what you suggested."

"With the rage and grief you had, with the place you were in, you needed a little extra help to find your innermost intention."

Mulder cocked his head. "I don't understand."

"I think you do, Fox. You just have a hard time believing that aspects of the unexplained can be positive."

Ramesh reappeared with drinks. "Here you are." Turning to Melissa, he said, "Jasmine tea for the lovely lady."

"Thank you."

"And for the gentleman, a water with lemon."

"I'm no gentleman, but thanks," Mulder said.

"I'm sure Melissa would only be seen with a gentleman, even if he sees himself otherwise," Ramesh said.

"Well, that wasn't always true," Melissa commented. Turning to Mulder, she added, "Dana could attest to that if you ask her."

With pen and paper at the ready, Ramesh asked, "So, have we decided?"

"I'll have the aloo gobi," Melissa said.

Ramesh scribbled on the pad, then turned to Mulder. "And for you, sir?"

"The veg vindaloo." Leaning towards Ramesh, Mulder added, "The lovely lady says that you can make it less spicy."

"Of course. But, on one condition."

"What's that?"

"That you acknowledge your gentlemanly ways."

Mulder turned to Melissa, who was smiling at him as she nodded her head. "Well, I guess I could, just so I don't run up your water bill."

"Milk's actually better for that." Ramesh jotted something on the pad. "Some bread?"

"Garlic naan," Melissa said.

"Very good. Anything else?"

Mulder put his hands up. "It all sounds good."

"All right, then. We'll get it to you as soon as we can."

"Thank you," Melissa said as Ramesh walked back to the kitchen.

"It's really too bad your sister can't be here with us. But, I guess that's what brought us here."

"It is amazing how the universe works, and how people are unaware of the forces at work in their lives." Melissa paused for a few moments. "You might find this difficult to believe, Fox, but I think that Dana has psychic abilities."

Mulder smiled. "Psychic? Now, that's funny. She's the last person I'd think of as a psychic, or at least claiming to be one."

"That's because she tells herself she isn't."

"I've never heard her talking to herself."

"What I mean is, Dana's afraid to admit to herself that she might have such powers. Anyway, you study things that can't be explained by conventional science."

"Yes, but that doesn't mean I buy into every UFO and Bigfoot sighting I see on the cover of World Weekly News. What makes you think she's psychic, anyway?"

"I remember, back when she was about 15, she had a series of nightmares. All about the same girl."

"What's so unusual about that?"

"At least since she was about nine, Dana didn't tell anyone about her dreams. Suddenly, after many years, she started confiding in me about these nightmares. How they were more vivid than any dream she had until that time, and how upset they made her."

"What was happening in them?"

"She told me that these men were doing horrible things to this girl, who was about Dana's age. Experiments where she would scream in pain and cry, begging to go home."

"Experiments?" Thinking about what Scully might have experienced while she was missing, Mulder asked, "Are you implying that she predicted what happened to her, with this girl in her dream as some kind of proxy?"

"Dana described the girl to me. She remembered that the girl had long dark hair and hazel eyes."

"Did the dreams stop?"

"They did. The final dream, or the last one she told me about, was very different from all the others."

"What happened in that one?"

"It was the only dream where the girl wasn't being experimented on, and where she actually spoke to Dana. She was in a forest, wearing a long white nightgown. Dana said that the girl noticed her for the first time in any of the dreams and smiled. She walked up to Dana, took her hands, and said something like, 'Please tell Reinhardt I'm okay.' After that, she turned around and walked several feet before disappearing into thin air."

"Did she know anyone named Reinhardt?"

"No, and there were no missing children cases where we were at the time. At least not with anyone matching the girl's description."

"She was 15... that would make it 1979, right? About a year after John Wayne Gacy was arrested. What time of the year did she have the dreams?"

"In the Fall."

"That was also around the time when the Atlanta Child Murders started occurring." Looking out the window, Mulder added, "But the victims in those cases were all boys."

"It had to be something else," Melissa said. "Especially with how those dreams affected Dana. For the first time in many years, she slept with the lights on. She wouldn't admit it to me, but when I would sneak home late some nights, I would see the light through the crack under her door."

Mulder squinted his eyes. "I just wonder..."

"What is it?"

Closing his eyes, Mulder shook his head as if physically removing a thought. Smiling uneasily, he added, "Just some wishful thinking on my part."

"What?"

"Something I want to believe. But I do know that poltergeist activity can be very high around adolescents..."

"What do you want to believe?"

Mulder turned towards the kitchen. "It's very personal. I don't know if your sister has told you yet. But it's like we were talking about earlier. I suppose there is someone I'm looking for, and your sister keeps reminding me of that when we go on missing persons cases."

"Who?"

Turning back to Melissa and looking into her eyes, he said, "We share something in common, Melissa. Only in your case, you got good news." After a pause, he added. "Actually, we both got good news in this case."

"What happened with you?"

"One night, when I was about 12 years old, my parents had gone somewhere. I was at home watching my sister. She was eight at the time. Without going into the details, she was abducted. I couldn't do anything but watch."

Melissa sat upright, a look of surprise overtaking her face. "Oh, Fox." She blinked. "Fox. I'm so sorry." She leaned in towards the table, reaching across to grab his hands. "I can't imagine what it must have felt like."

Mulder pulled back slightly, surprised by Melissa's gesture. "It felt like it was my fault."

"Did your parents blame you for it?"

"They never said anything, one way or the other."

"And no one knows anything, even after all this time?"

"I suspect that some very powerful people know what happened to her, and what happened to your sister, too."

Looking confused, Melissa asked, "But how? Why?"

"That's what I've been trying to find out all these years. And as we got closer to the truth, I ended up placing your sister in danger."

"But it isn't your fault, Fox. Neither was what happened to your sister... What's her name?"

"Samantha."

"Samantha. But at least Dana's back."

"For now. But whoever took her might come back for her again."

"Then why would they have returned her?"

Mulder shook his head. "It's a pattern in some of the cases I investigate. My theories are way out there, Melissa. I can't go into detail about them because they sound too strange."

"But what about my beliefs? You think they're nothing more than New Age platitudes."

"We're talking about two types of unexplained phenomena. What you believe in is more incorporeal. In my case, I have obtained solid evidence for unexplained phenomena, which has promptly disappeared."

"What kinds of things are you talking about?"

"The existence of extraterrestrial life, which ties in with your sister's abduction."

Mulder noticed Melissa's eyebrows incline towards her nose. "What?" Mulder asked, his eyes filled with confusion. "Look, I'm sorry if you don't believe that. But..."

"Samantha."

"Melissa, we already discussed that."

"Why can't you say my sister's name? At least once?"

"Well, I wasn't really thinking about it. We have a professional relationship, and..."

"So, working with someone is a reason you don't refer to them by their first name?"

"It's what I'm used to." Mulder paused. "I've referred to her as Dana maybe a few times. Once after your father passed away."

Melissa nodded. "And what made you do that?"

"It seemed appropriate under the circumstances."

"You could have just called her 'Scully.'"

"It didn't seem right."

Melissa stared at Mulder for a few moments. "For a psychologist who investigates the unknown and the unacknowledged, you still seem oblivious to your feelings about Dana."

Mulder's heart skipped. "What are you saying?"

"I think you care for her a lot more deeply than you realize."

Mulder turned towards the wall. "For the past few years, we have been through a lot. When she was partnered with me, I thought that she was going to do her best to discredit my work. She mercilessly questioned my findings when we were on some cases. And yet, she stayed on. Even if she didn't agree with my theories, she would at least validate the enigmatic nature of the evidence we found on those cases. Knowing her skeptical nature, it just amazes me to think that she would do that, putting her life and career in danger." Turning back to Melissa, he added, "No one has ever put themselves on the line for me. Certainly not at the same level she has."

"It doesn't surprise me, Fox. Yes, Dana doesn't engage in speculation. But, more importantly, she also has integrity. She wasn't a goody-two-shoes, but I remember that Dana would find it very hard to lie, or to stay quiet about injustices whenever she found out about them." Looking down, Melissa added, "I remember, Bill Junior and me locked our little brother Charlie in a closet when our parents were away. Dana saw it, and we told her to keep quiet. She wasn't, and Bill and me were grounded for a week." Melissa looked back at Mulder. "Next time Mom and Dad weren't around, we made sure she got hers. Even worse than Charlie. We locked her in with Bill's pet rat."

"You did something like that?"

"That was 20 years ago, and I was starting to get tired of the good Catholic girl thing."

"And you never went back?"

"I guess I went back through other means, when I learned that being good meant a lot more than doing something without getting caught. But, I still have work to do. I know I'm still bad in other ways."

"Oh, really?" Mulder asked. "Care to share details?"

Melissa laughed slightly. "Not here."

Out of the corner of his eye, Mulder saw Ramesh maneuver towards their table with a basket. "Here's your naan," he said, setting the basket between Mulder and Melissa. "And your dinners should be out shortly."

"Thanks," Mulder said. As Ramesh turned around, Mulder added, "Say, Ramesh?"

"Yes, Fox."

"Do you know anything about Melissa being bad?"

"Fox!" Melissa said, pretending to sound embarrassed.

"She is a paragon of virtue, as far as I know. See no evil, and all that."

After Ramesh turned back around and went back to the kitchen, Melissa asked, "And what did you want to find out?"

"I dunno. I guess that's what siblings are for."

"Does that mean you want to ask me about Dana, or ask Dana about me?"

"I can go either way."

As they progressed through veg vindaloo, aloo gobi, and garlic naan, Melissa recounted some anecdotes about her sister for Mulder. With previously unacknowledged interest, he listened attentively to Melissa's stories about the Scully family and a younger Dana. Through them, he vicariously lived in a household with numerous siblings, as well as parents whose marriage was not torn asunder after the loss of their only other child.

As dinner wound down, Melissa's stories moved away from their years under the same roof, and she started telling Mulder about the men Scully saw as she progressed through medical school and started her career.

"Not very many," Melissa pointed out, "but the ones she did find were usually quite a few years older than her." Mulder recognized one of them, proferring the last name "Willis" when she mentioned someone named Jack. Although he already knew that story, Mulder only told Melissa that he knew Jack Willis had gotten killed in a bank robbery. Despite Melissa's beliefs, he remained reticent about sharing the extraordinary nature of what had really happened.

Noticing the empty plates and basket of naan, Ramesh came up to them. "Will there be anything else?" he asked.

"That's all for me," Mulder replied. "But the veg vindaloo was excellent."

"Thank you," Ramesh said.

"Just the check, please," Melissa added.

"Will sir or madam be getting it?"

"Here," Melissa said.

Reaching into his apron, Ramesh handed the small bifold binder containing the bill to Melissa. "There you go."

As he started grabbing the plates, Melissa opened the binder. Mulder noticed a look of shock on Melissa's face. She then turned to Ramesh. "Oh, Ramesh. You didn't have to..."

"It's all right, Melissa," he replied. "I can do this every so often. You are a customer, yes, but also a friend."

"That's very sweet of you."

"Under the circumstances, it seemed appropriate." After a pause, he added, "Besides, I think you might have gotten me a new customer."

Mulder smiled. "Can I be your friend, too?"

"You already are," Ramesh replied. "But, I would suggest introducing another friend of yours to this place."

"The people I know don't like to go out very much," Mulder said.

"I can think of someone who might appreciate it," Melissa pointed out. "Once she gets out of the hospital."

Ramesh leaned in towards Mulder. "Listen to the lady," he said. "She has your best interests in mind."

"Maybe I can take her here if we're working on a case..."

"Why not just celebrate having her back?" Ramesh asked.

"Well, I am glad to have her back..."

"I don't know what exactly you and Melissa's sister have been through. But it must have been profound enough for Melissa to take the time to bring you here." He held out his hand to Mulder. "I hope to see you here again, Fox Mulder."

Mulder shook hands with Ramesh. "I will. And I'll try to bring Dana around here sometime."

"Don't try," Ramesh said. "Please do." He let go of Mulder's hand before turning to Melissa, who got up and embraced him. "You take care, Melissa. Okay?"

"I will."

After letting go of Melissa, Ramesh added, "And make sure Fox does as well." Stepping back, he folded his hands in front of his chest, and bowed his head slightly. He turned to Melissa, who did the same. "Namasté," they said to each other. Ramesh turned to Mulder and did the same to him. Unfamiliar with the gesture, Mulder more or less followed. "Close enough," Ramesh said afterwards. "I hope both of you have a wonderful evening."

"You, too," Mulder said. Ramesh left them and made his way to the front counter. "I think I've heard of that. Isn't it a Hindu greeting? And did I do it right?"

"Yes, but you need to feel a greater sense of openness to do it properly," Melissa said.

"Openness? To what?"

"Submission. Not in the life-denying sense, but in a sense that affirms your feeling of awe before, and oneness with, the universe. And before other people, it's a kind of mutual submission."

Mulder leaned back in his chair. "That's quite a lot for after dinner."

"Not really. It might just make things less heavy for you."

Looking at his watch, Mulder said, "Wow! It's almost 8:30 already."

"What? You have a hot date tonight?"

"Well... I just thought you wanted to get some stuff for cleansing my apartment."

"Oh, that. They're open until 10 on Fridays."

As they started getting up, Melissa left some bills on the table. "So, what is this place called?" Mulder asked.

"You're not going to make some crack about it sounding New Age-y, are you?"

"No. Just curious."

"Song of the Earth. It's an independent store."

As they passed the counter, Ramesh looked up at them. "Good bye! See you both soon!"

Mulder and Melissa returned some pleasantries to Ramesh before leaving the warmth of the restaurant, continuing their trek on the cold November night.