TITLE: "LEGACY" AUTHORS: Suzanne Bickerstaffe and dtg EMAIL: ecksphile@earthlink.net, dgoggans@earthlink.net RATING: PG-13 CONTENT: Casefile; mytharc; Concludes in the first episode of Virtual Season 11. SPOILERS: Allusions to mytharc episodes prior to Season 8, and to Virtual Season 10 mytharc episodes. Specific reference near the end of Act II to events in Circles and Patchwork. SUMMARY: The case of a missing fourteen year old girl forces some memories to surface, with momentous results for Mulder. THANKS: To everyone who supports the Virtual Seasons, either by contributing their talent or their feedback; and to the most amazing bunch of women ever brought together by the love of the work. FEEDBACK: To the authors at the email addresses above, and to the Virtual Season 10 feedback page DISCLAIMER: You all know it, you've heard it a million times. The X-Files, Fox Mulder, Dana Scully = not ours, just borrowing, will return to their ungrateful owners (Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, 20th Century Fox) when we're done. DISTRIBUTION: This story belongs exclusively to the Virtual Season 10 site for two weeks; thereafter, please contact the authors for permission to archive. TEASER *It's like being a child again, knowing the monsters in the closet are real, hearing them scratch and scrabble in the dark, and never being able to make anyone believe. I'm fourteen years old, and still afraid to be alone. Afraid of monsters that have escaped the confines of my closet to roam my waking world. The worst nightmares are the ones that find you even in the light of day.* *Yet I risk the shadows whenever I can gather enough courage. It's the only control I still have over the spiraling catastrophe my life has become. I sit in the dark, as I'm doing now, with only the shaded desk lamp's circle of light to hold back the darkness. When it's quiet like this, the scratch of my pen against the soft ivory pages of my diary gives me comfort. The childish fears I can't bring myself to tell anyone else, I can write here. Memories that come to me only in flashes, I record in as much detail as possible. Maybe someone will find this book someday, and begin to understand. I still hope that reading these words over and over may someday help *me* understand what's happening to me. Maybe even help me find a way to escape.* In her right hand, she held hope in the form of an endless stream of words that flowed in multi colored ink across the page. In her left, she twisted a long strand of dark hair like a child would do, looping the tress around her fingers until it tugged against her scalp. She caught a glimpse of herself in the vanity mirror, and paused to study her reflection. The light coming from the desk lamp gave her a spooky look, as if she were holding a flashlight under her chin, ready to say "Boo!". She twisted her face into an experimental snarl that quickly dissolved into quiet giggles. "G'night, sweetheart." Her father's voice from the doorway made her jump a foot. She slapped the book shut and turned to show him a sunny smile. "G'night, Daddy." "Don't stay up too late. You've got school tomorrow." "I won't, Daddy." She knew he loved it when she called him that. He thought she was too young to call him 'Dad'. As *if*. She kept the smile on her face until he closed the door behind him. Then she opened the book and picked up her pen. *I know they're coming for me again. I can feel them getting closer, their thoughts reaching out for me in the dark. I'm going to hide this book so they can't find it. To whoever is reading this now, I need your help.* Maddie re-read the last entry and nodded. It would be her final one, and she wanted it to be right. After a moment, she closed the book and walked to the bed. Lifting one corner of the duvet, she tucked the book between the mattress and box spring. When she put the duvet back in place, she made sure to leave a corner of the book poking out. She turned out the desk lamp, plunging the room into darkness. Then, she sat down on the bed to wait. * * * * * Act I Shelton, CT April 23, 2003 11 AM "Madison Sage Spencer, aged 14. Disappeared from her home last night, hasn't been seen since around ten PM. No sign of forced entry, no signs of violence, no sign that any of the girl's things or anything else in the home is missing. No one saw or heard anything." Scully shut the file folder and watched as the scenery on the Merritt Parkway flew past. "Madison? Sage? Isn't anyone named Debbie or Susan anymore?" Mulder glanced over at his partner, but she noted that the gleam of mischief that normally would have accompanied that kind of remark was absent from his eyes. Missing children, thought Scully. Every time they went out on a missing child case, he was a different person. Even now she sensed the quip was more for her benefit, in its way a kind of reassurance that so far, he was fine. But then, they'd only had the case for a few hours. She took the photograph from the dossier they had brought with them from Washington that morning. The missing girl's uncanny resemblance to what Samantha surely would have looked like at fourteen was already having its effect on her partner. Usually one to hide his reactions, at least in front of everyone but her, he had turned white as buttermilk and a gasp had escaped his lips when Skinner first passed him the photo. She broke her silence. "Mulder, are you sure about this?" He paused for a moment, opting not to say the first thing that came to mind. It bothered him when it seemed as though she felt he couldn't be objective and professional on this kind of case. And as a professional, and a damned good agent at that, her concern about him stung. But he also knew she was only thinking of his welfare, and he had to admit there were times he was on the ragged edge.... "Mulder?" "Sorry, Scully. Just thinking. In answer to your question, yes, I'm sure about this. And even if I weren't - who the hell else are they going to give it to? Supposedly the girl had told several friends that she was convinced she was about to be abducted by aliens – and not for the first time. The parents - not that I can blame them - are almost hoping that is the case since it seems, to them anyway, a more bearable alternative than what human monsters can do to girls of that age." His partner sighed. "I know, Mulder. But –" "I'll be fine, Scully." He glanced over, his expression softening. "Really. And thanks." She gazed at his face before nodding tightly. She might be able to believe his reassurance better if he didn't look like he had aged ten years since their meeting with Skinner early that morning. Mulder took the exit ramp and eased his way onto the main road. Moving from suburbia to a more rural area, they entered an expensive sub-division and drove slowly along tree-lined roads bracketed by lovely houses set on perfectly landscaped lots. "Willow Brook Lane. This is it, Mulder. Turn left, then it's the fourth house on the right. Or so our directions say." The marked and unmarked law enforcement cars took up nearly all the parking spots on the road. Mulder slipped into the last spot, earning the glare of one of the residents. As they approached the house, Scully could feel her partner tensing with each step. Mulder rang the bell at the entryway of the beautiful Georgian home. A middle-aged man, dressed casually but expensively, swung the door open. "Mr. Spencer?" "Yes?" "I'm Special Agent Fox Mulder, and this is Special Agent Dana Scully, from the FBI. We're here about your daughter's disappearance." The man's tired face lit up when he heard their names. "Oh... you're the experts Lieutenant Nickerson spoke of! Please, come right in. Priss – they're here!" Flashing an astonished 'Can you believe this?' look at his diminutive partner, he allowed her to lead the way into huge living room, with its fieldstone fireplace and soffits and skylights. They sank into the leather sectional and Scully pulled out her notebook. "Mr. Spencer, we have the report of the Shelton Police Department on the statement you gave when you found that Madison was missing. What else can you tell us?" The man looked confused. "Like what? Everything happened just the way I said. My wife went in because Maddie hadn't come out for breakfast, and found she was gone...." The man's voice broke and he took a second to steady himself. "We were beside ourselves." "The police report said that Madison's bed hadn't been slept in," Mulder commented mildly. "That's right. She was there around ten o'clock last night, because went in to say good night to her and she was there. But for some reason, she never went to bed." "How can you be so sure, Mr. Spencer? This is very important, because it may give us an idea about what time Madison disappeared," Scully reminded him. "Oh, there's no doubt. After she gets up, it looks like a bomb hit her bed. You don't know how many housekeepers we've had that have commented on it," Spencer said, shaking his head. "But the duvet cover though – that was just a little mussed, kind of pulled up at the corner. That's how I was able to find it." "Find it?" Scully prompted. "Her diary. I found it peeking out from between the mattress and the box spring. While we were waiting for the police to come, I took a look, to see if maybe I could find any clues." The man flushed. "Normally, nothing could make me invade Maddie's privacy like that, but I guess I was hoping that there might be something about a boyfriend in there, someone she may have run off with. Not that I would have been happy about that, but in view of the alternatives..." He trailed off. "And was there?" Mulder asked. Grimly, Spencer shook his head. "No, nothing like that. I gotta say, though, I wasn't prepared for what Maddie had written." "Tell us about that, Mr. Spencer." "Better than that, I can show you." He went to a beautiful writing desk that cost more than Mulder earned in two months and scooped up a little book, presently residing in a plastic evidence bag. "Here it is. Oh, Lieutenant Nickerson -- the FBI agents have arrived and need to see Maddie's diary." A tall, heavy-set man walked over and grasped Mulder's hand. "Nice to have an... er... expert with us on this one, Agent Mulder." The words were not quite genuine, but Mulder was more accustomed to that than Spencer's comparatively effusive greeting. "Thank you. About that diary...?" Nickerson took the bag from Spencer and pulled the book out. "It's been dusted for prints. Nothing on it but Madison's. No reason you can't use it." "Thanks. I'll take it with me to look over later, if that's alright." The police lieutenant nodded his assent. "Maddie says in her diary that she felt she was about to be abducted by aliens. That she was abducted by them before and had been returned," Charles Spencer volunteered. "And what do you think about that, Mr. Spencer?" Scully asked neutrally. "Well, my wife and I, I guess we're more open-minded to that sort of thing than most people. We're believers, you might say. I have been ever since my college days. Priss and I even honeymooned in Roswell. We met at a convention-- Sorry, I'm rambling." "Priss is Mrs. Spencer? Maddie's mother?" Scully asked, jotting down notes. "Well... yes to the former, no to the latter. Priss is my second wife. Maddie's mother is an international banker, in the Far East at the moment. We've been trying to get in touch with her. She left us when Maddie was about three. They've never been particularly close. I married Priss almost three years ago." Mulder pondered for a moment, then said, "Mr. Spencer, we're at a disadvantage here. What can you tell me about Madison? Her likes and dislikes, interests, that sort of thing?" Spencer gestured for the policeman to take a chair and sat back down himself. "Maddie is incredibly intelligent. Gifted. Her IQ is over 170. Not that her grades reflect that." The man frowned briefly, then continued. "I think it's just that she's so smart, it's difficult for a school – any school – to challenge her sufficiently to hold her interest." "Chuckie... you've got to be honest with them." A lovely blonde no older than thirty came into the room and introduced herself to the occupants. "Hi, I'm Priscilla Spencer," she said, her words lightly inflected with a Southern accent. "I'm so glad you've come to help us get Maddie back. But you'll have to forgive my husband. Where Maddie's concerned, it's real hard for him to be objective." "Priscilla! You know Maddie's had it rough." "I know that, Chuckie, but that doesn't excuse everything. Maddie didn't exactly approve of her Daddy's marriage to me at first," Priscilla confided to the group. "She could be real... well, difficult, you know? Teenagers can be tough at the best of times, and under the circumstances.... Well, let's say Maddie was a challenge. But the past six months or so, we've gotten to be friends. I really think she was coming around." "I'm sure we understand how you feel, Mrs. Spencer," Scully said sympathetically. "You said Maddie could be difficult. In what way?" "Well, Chuckie's right when he says that her intelligence has sometimes made things hard for her. Hard to fit in with other kids, that sort of thing. Even teachers sometimes resented her. Maddie could be pretty tough if she thought her teachers weren't of her intellectual level. She gave me a hard time at first, thinking I was a dumb bunny from Nowhere, Georgia. But once I showed her my Mensa card, she backed off a bit." If Scully hadn't been sunken into the Italian leather couch, she probably would have fallen over. She would have bet Priscilla Spencer wouldn't have known how to spell 'Mensa'. Or 'card', for that matter. Priss continued, "Frankly, having met some of her teachers, I gotta say Maddie wasn't far wrong in her assessment of some of them. But she was also willful. I know what kids can get up to at that age – I think I just about made my Daddy's hair turn white with some of the shenanigans I got up to. But she could still... well, let's just say that Chuckie lets her get away with things I would have earned a real whooping for, from my Daddy." "Kind of a handful." Mulder smiled. She nodded. "Exactly. But she's Chuckie's daughter, and we want her back." "Do you think she might have run away?" ventured Scully. Both the Spencers shook their heads. "My daughter has lived a very sheltered life, Agent Scully," Charles said. "I don't think she could catch a bus on her own. She's intelligent, but not in the least street-wise, and frankly, I have coddled her. Not only do I think she wouldn't have a clue how to run away, but for the life of me, I can't see why she would want to. Leave all this?" He gazed around at the evidence of wealth that surrounded him. "What do you think about Maddie's diary, Mrs. Spencer?" Mulder asked. Priscilla Spencer eyes opened wide. "I really don't know what to think, Agent Mulder. I mean, I believe that aliens regularly visit our world, and have taken earthlings aboard their space ships, and performed experiments on them. We even talked to some of them at that last convention, didn't we, Chuckie? Talked to the abductees, I mean, not the aliens. But to have that happening right here in our family? I just don't know. Maddie didn't confide in us, but I doubt she would. Not to me, anyway. Maybe to Chuckie." There was no failing to notice the touch of hurt in her tone. Her husband shook his head. "She never mentioned anything about aliens to me. But I did notice something in her diary about the previous time she talked about, when she said 'They' took her before – it was last summer when she was at camp in the Adirondacks, so we wouldn't have been around in any case. And she never mentioned anything about it after she came home from camp." Mulder nodded his understanding. "Mr. Spencer, what do you do for a living?" "I'm a stockbroker." The agent's eyes scanned the room and its furnishings. "You've done well in these unsettled times." The man nodded. "That's because I have the sense to take my own advice, Agent Mulder. Sometimes you have to play the game conservatively. When your clients insist on trying to revive the boom times single-handedly and think they know more than their broker, bad things can happen." "Bad enough that one of them might think at getting back at you through your daughter?" He shook his head vehemently. "No. No way. Most of the people I deal with can well afford to take a few losses, Agent Mulder. There've been no threats, no unpleasantness of any kind. If you like, I can put you in touch with the staff in my office, and they'll corroborate that." Mulder nodded. "And you, Mrs. Spencer?" "I'm in IT. I design business software, working from home so I can be here for Maddie and her younger brother Kirkland. He's with Chuckie's sister right now. He was real upset," she explained earnestly. As gently as she could, Scully said, "You both obviously earn a good living. What makes you so sure that your daughter wasn't taken for ransom?" The Spencers reached out for each other then, grasping hands. "We're praying that's not it.... Of course, it's not the money – we'd give all we have to get her back. But we know what the chances are of having her returned to us if she was taken for ransom. That or if one of these s-sexual p-p-predators—" Tears filled Priscilla's eyes and she trailed off. "We know it's not good, and that the more time passes, the less chance Maddie has. But if it's something else, even if it's something bizarre or paranormal, well, then we can have hope." Mulder stood, helping Scully fight her way out of the deep couch. "Mr. and Mrs. Spencer, we will do everything in our power to bring back your daughter. Now, if Lieutenant Nickerson can show us Maddie's room, we'll take a look and then we'll be on our way. I'm sure he can fill us in on the other information we need. We'll stay in touch." The missing girl's room conveyed the schizophrenia of adolescence – side-by-side posters of Eminem and Stephen Hawking, a small mob of stuffed animals warring for space with issues of Cosmo and Marie Claire. Mulder scanned the books in her bookcase and CDs in their rack while Scully went through the girl's dresser. "Window?" he asked Nickerson. "Locked, just like you see. We dusted for fingerprints and came up with just the housekeeper's and the girl's. Nothing in the flower beds beneath the window, and the ground is soft enough that it would have taken a great impression, if anyone had been around there. But – nothing." "Lieutenant Nickerson, you don't really believe the girl was taken by aliens, do you?" Scully asked. Red-faced, the big man pulled at an ear. "Well... I guess weirder things have happened – but not many. No, I'll tell ya, I was just about blown away when Mr. and Mrs. Spencer told me about the diary and started going on about aliens and all. I dunno. If it was Mr. and Mrs. Joe Blow, I would have them figured for wackaloons. But these people are upstanding members of the community and big contributors to the local Police Athletic League. They're best buddies with the mayor, half of the town council, and their State Senator, and they're on a first name basis with the Governor. So if Mr. Spencer tells me he wants to explore all angles on this, including alien abduction, well then, I'm gonna do it. I am not ignorant of the potential political fallout from this. After all, I wasn't born yesterday." "I understand completely, Lieutenant," Mulder said. "Now, can you give us a list of her teachers, friends, anyone who can give us some insight into Maddie?" "Got it right here for you, including directions." "Thanks. Here's my card, with my cell number. Call us if you hear anything. You know, this is probably exactly what it looks like – a kidnapping for ransom or some sexual predator." "I know. I'll call you, don't worry." He shook his head. "I only wish it was aliens. But I haven't lost sight of the fact that it's much more likely that some scumbag who should have been locked away years ago probably took her. We have the men of five local police departments beating the bushes for this girl. If we turn up anything, you'll be the first to know." He hesitated for a moment. "What do you make of it, though – what she wrote in the diary?" Mulder smiled slightly. "Nothing yet. But I'm working on it." ******* Six hours later, they wearily picked up food from a diner and headed back to the motel. Their interviews with Madison Spencer's teachers and friends had left them no closer to solving the girl's disappearance. Her friends characterized her as smart and usually fun, but with a wild streak that was unnerving at times. All mentioned that Maddie had started talking about aliens and her fears about being abducted a few weeks previous. They thought at the time she was just trying to get attention. Madison's teachers were a different matter. While obviously shocked and dismayed that the girl was missing, they were straightforward to the point of bluntness in their opinions of her – and 'difficult' was about the most restrained comment concerning her behavior. The exhausted agents entered their rooms, then opened the communicating doors between them, accustomed by this time to the charade they needed to maintain. Scully kicked off her heels and Mulder dispensed with his tie. Then they sat down at the table in Mulder's room to eat. "So what do you think?" Tiredly, he shook his head. "I don't know. I don't know what to think. I'll know better when I've spent some time looking at the girl's diary. I have a feeling all the answers are there, Scully. In the diary." Scully sighed. Mulder already looked like he hadn't slept in weeks, and this was only the beginning. If it turned out the girl had been taken by a sexual predator.... Hell, even if she had been taken by aliens, would that be any better for Mulder? Could he deal with that result any better, after what happened to his sister? "Mulder...." "No – it's all right, Scully. Really. I'm okay. Maybe I'm just deluding myself, but I have a feeling about this case. Now, why don't you finish dinner, shower and then we can journal." She closed the cover of the white styrofoam box, not even pretending to eat what she had no appetite for, and stood. "You're going to stay up all night, aren't you?" He picked up the girl's diary. "Only if I have to...." ****** AmeriSuites Hotel Shelton, CT April 24, 2003 7:20 am Scully awoke and stretched, her hand coming into contact with the cool sheets beside her. Groaning, she remembered coming out of the shower the previous night, looking forward to that 'together' time Mulder had promised, to find him already completely engrossed in Madison Spencer's diary. She surrendered to the inevitable and had watched some inane movie on TV until she drifted off to sleep. She sat up, not at all surprised to see her partner in the chair he had occupied since they had returned to the motel. His head was thrown back and he was softly snoring, the diary dangling precariously from his hand. Finally, it fell to the floor with a soft thud, but it was enough to wake him. "Gmph.... Oh, g'morning, Scully." She sighed. "Good morning yourself. You know, Mulder, you can't help anyone if you run yourself into the ground--" "Yes, Dr. Scully." He grinned at her – a real grin, for the first time in over twenty four hours. She cocked her head to the side suspiciously. "Mulder?" "Yes?" "You've figured it out, haven't you? And it's not what we thought." Smiling, he nodded. "Help yourself to some of the in-room coffee, made not more than..." he consulted his watch "...two hours ago. Then come and join me and see if I made any major blunders in reasoning." Scully pulled on a tee shirt. Crossing to the bureau, she drained the little pot, pouring coffee for both of them. She sat at the table and pushed his cup across to him. "Okay – here's the diary. Examine it, read it, whatever. I'll wait." She did so, as she did everything – carefully, deliberately, thoughtfully. Finally, she looked up at Mulder. He was stretched back in his chair, his long legs straight out in front of him. "So... what did you notice?" "The handwriting," she replied without hesitation. He nodded encouragingly and she went on. "It changes with each entry – the pen color changed from black to blue to lavender and green and back again, the handwriting was slightly larger and rushed-looking in one entry, smaller and neater in another, but all done with the same hand." "And from that you infer...?" "It's too perfect, Mulder. Too... conscious, I guess would be the word. This is exactly what I would expect to see if an intelligent person were trying to pull a fast one. Based on what I see here, I would say Maddie Spencer sat down and wrote all the entries in this diary over a very short period of time – a few hours or a few days, perhaps, but certainly not over the ten months supposedly recorded in this journal." Mulder smiled. "My take on it precisely, Dr. Scully." "So you're thinking she set up her own disappearance?" Mulder nodded. "And I agree. So that lets out the alien angle, which is what she wanted everyone to believe, for some reason. Maybe thinking that we wouldn't be looking for her if we thought she had been taken by aliens, and she would have more time to cover her tracks. She might even be thinking of trying to pull some sort of a ransom scam on her parents. But Mulder, that doesn't completely rule out her having been grabbed by some deviant. Or someone out to get her parents, for that matter." Mulder stood and stretched, then began peeling off the clothes he had worn for over twenty four hours. "Yeah, that's true... but that would be one hell of a coincidence, don't you think? That on the very night she's planning to run away, she gets grabbed by someone out to get her parents? No, Scully, I think the only person out to get Mr. and Mrs. Spencer is Maddie. She's acting out a lot of anger and frustration and teenage angst, some of it justifiable, some of it the product of a spoiled rich kid with too much intelligence and too little discipline." He frowned. "Not that she's necessarily any safer. Charles Spencer said his daughter wasn't street-wise. If he's right, she may have managed to find herself in a world of hurt by now." "So what are we going to do?" He flipped her his cell phone. "Call Lieutenant Nickerson. Tell him to put out an APB on the girl in Hartford, New York City, and Bridgeport. And in New Haven, which is where we'll be looking for her. Tell him to concentrate on areas favored by runaways. Oh – and tell him she may have disguised herself. I would look for short blond hair." "So that's what *I'm* going to do. What are *you* going to do?" He pushed his boxers down over his hips, kicking them on top of his other discarded clothes, and pulled her into his arms. "I am going to take a long, hot, very overdue shower. And then, Agent Scully, you have a choice – food at the diner down the road, or something even more overdue and satisfying...." ****** It was a bit more than ninety minutes later that they began slowly driving along Chapel Street. The huge number of Yalies basking in the Spring sunshine in front of the University Art Gallery made their task both easier and harder. While it was difficult trying to find Maddie among so many other young girls, there was no shortage of people to show the missing girl's photo to. Finally, after it seemed they had interviewed everyone under the age of twenty-five in New Haven, they struck paydirt. "Yeah, I've seen her." The young man handed the photograph back to Mulder. "My girlfriend, Beth, is getting her PhD in Sociology. She works with runaways, and sometimes brings one or two of them back to sleep at her place – especially when they're really young and she figures they'll get into big trouble without someone looking out for them. We were supposed to go out and catch "Bowling for Columbine" at a midnight show last night, but she showed up with this kid and another girl, and begged off. Said she didn't want to leave them, thought they'd take off." "Do you know where she is now?" Scully asked. The young man stole a look at his watch. "It's still pretty early. You might catch them at her place. Otherwise try the Runaway Center run by St. Raphael's." Mulder got the addresses and directions from the student, and thanked him. It was only a five minute walk to the brownstone that housed Beth's apartment. "Ah, the life of a student, Scully. Only students and musicians think eleven in the morning is 'early'." "Let's hope we're early enough to get the worm, Mulder." They were about to climb the steps to the brownstone when Scully glanced up the sidewalk. She broke into a sprint towards three female figures who were strolling away from her. "Beth!" One of the females stopped, and turned questioningly. Her companions waited, but were obviously impatient to be on their way. Scully caught up with the trio. "Hey Beth, remember me?" The pretty brunette smiled but shook her head. "I'm sorry, I can't quite place...." Scully returned her smile. "No, I'm sure you can't." With a lightning quick move, her hand encircled the wrist of one of Beth's companions, a young-looking girl with a very bad blond wig. Instinctively, the girl tried to pull away. "What the hell do you-" Beth began angrily, glaring at Scully. Mulder skidded to a stop by the group, brandishing his badge. "Ma'am, we're Federal agents. This girl is Madison Spencer, missing from her home and up to now, presumed kidnapped." Beth took his badge and examined the ID carefully before handing it back to him. "Fox Mulder, Dana Scully," Mulder said by way of introduction. "Your boyfriend told us about your bringing a young runaway in off the streets last night. We were hoping it might be Maddie." "Maddie's parents undoubtedly owe you a debt of gratitude," Scully told the student. "As do you, Maddie." "Why don't you go fuck yourself," the girl replied sullenly. She pulled the wig off and ran a hand through her dark hair, fluffing it. Mulder sighed. "Not the witty repartee I would have expected from seeing your Stanford-Benet scores, Maddie." * * * * * ACT II Yale New Haven Medical Center April 24, 2003 6:44 pm When they got to the medical center, Maddie's father was waiting just inside the ER door with Priss at his side. The man was shaky with relief, as Mulder expected. The step- mother's reaction to the news was much more equivocal. Standard procedure called for a medical examination, which Maddie steadfastly refused to permit. Her father expressed his wishes firmly but gently. "Sweetheart, we have to make sure you're all right." He placed himself pointedly between his daughter and his wife. Priss looked as if she wanted to slap some sense into her stepdaughter. Maddie was playing to the FBI agents, but some of her tirade was most certainly aimed at her father's wife. "What for? I hope you don't think you're making sure I'm still a virgin, because that ship sailed a LONG time ago." She crossed her arms and stuck out her chin. It made her look very much like her father. Mulder saw the flush rise in the man's face, but he kept his voice calm and steady. Years of practice, Mulder supposed, dealing with his daughter's defiance. "You're not impressing anyone with this, Maddie. Go into the exam room and behave yourself. We'll wait for you." She went, but not without gracing everyone in her immediate vicinity with a withering look. When the door closed behind her, there was a communal sigh of relief. Charles Spencer turned to the two agents with a pained expression that Mulder could completely understand. The man would have to take that hostile bundle of teen angst home with him. "Agent Mulder. Agent Scully," he shook their hands in turn. "I don't know how to thank you." Scully smiled. "There's no need, Mr. Spencer. We're very happy to have helped." The man nodded. "We have a long road ahead of us, I'm afraid. I guess we haven't paid enough attention to her, and this is the result." Mulder doubted the problem was a lack of attention, but he let it pass. "She's a very strong-willed young woman, but there's a lot of potential there. You might work on redirecting all that creative energy into something more positive," Mulder offered. Charles Spencer surprised them all with a chuckle. "Agent Mulder, you are being much too generous, but I appreciate the sentiment." He and Scully made their escape a few minutes later. They still had another hour or so of reports to file before it was truly all over, but just being outside in the warm afternoon sunshine was having a decidedly positive effect. He saw Scully from the corner of his eye, watching him stretch the kinks out of his back. She looked more relieved than 'Chuckie' Spencer. "What?" She suddenly looked self-conscious. "I--." Whatever she was going to say got edited somewhere between her heart and her mouth. "Do you have the car keys? I want to drive." He studied her face for a moment, then dug the keys from his pants pocket and dropped them in her upturned palm. She'd been worried about him. He didn't have to quiz her to know that. "You can drive if I can pick where we eat dinner." She rolled her eyes, of course. "Chili dogs and cheese fries. God help us all." That wasn't what he had in mind, but he let her suffer for awhile. It served her right for giving him such a hard time. He waited until they were leaving the field office, reports properly filed, before he gave her the name of his chosen restaurant. Her entire face lit up with delighted astonishment. "Mulder! Real food?" That smile could make up for just about anything. "Cheese fries *are* real food." He couldn't resist one last jab. Mulder gave her directions to the restaurant, then called ahead to make a last minute reservation. Their luck was holding, because the maitre 'd was able to seat them immediately. The atmosphere was perfect, the food wonderful. Scully had given him a vaguely alarmed look when he gave the waiter his selection, but she'd kept her comments to herself. He'd ordered the weirdest entree he could find, just to get that very look from her. It was worth a little heartburn, he decided. It was almost ten o'clock when they got back to their motel. Scully had let him drive, and she was sound asleep by the time they arrived. He considered carrying her in, but thought better of it immediately. She'd have his head on a stick, but the mental image of her tucked in his arms made him smile like an idiot. That was the expression she saw when her eyes opened a moment later. "Do I dare ask what prompted that look?" She looked at him, one eyebrow arched as she unsnapped the seat belt. His grin broadened. "I don't think you'd like the answer." She gave him a playful smack on the arm and got out of the car. It was a beautiful night, pleasantly cool with a soft breeze, and he wondered if they could sleep with the windows open. Cuddled under the covers, sharing body heat. His grin was beginning to make his face ache. "Hey, Scully! Where are you going?" She was headed for her own door. When he called to her, she looked back over her shoulder but didn't slow down. "I need a shower, Mulder." She wrinkled her nose at him. "And so do you." And with that, she was inside. The door closed softly behind her. Mulder stood in the parking lot, hands on his hips, mouth hanging open in shock. The door opened again a moment later, and Scully peeked out at him wearing a very familiar smile. "Mulder, you are *so* easy. Get over here." Evil woman. Evil. "Yes, ma'am." * * * * AmeriSuites Hotel Shelton, CT April 25, 2003 1:34 am Scully was awakened by soft murmurs that escalated into cries of distress before she could untangle herself from his arms enough to raise up and look at his face. "Mulder, wake up. You're dreaming." She touched his forehead and his eyes snapped open, wild and unfocused. "Mulder, it's me. It's all right. It's just a dream." She said it over and over, stroking his face as his breathing slowed. He turned his head, finally looking at her with concern. "Are you all right? What's wrong?" "Mulder, I'm fine. You were having a nightmare." His expression moved from concern to confusion. He pulled away from her gently and sat up against the headboard, scrubbing at his face with both hands. "I woke you up." She sat up, too. "It's okay. Do you want to talk about it?" "In a minute." He shivered and pulled the sheet up to his chest. "In a minute," he said again, very softly. Scully brushed the backs of her fingers over his cheek, thinking he might have a fever. His skin was cool and dry. Not a fever, then. Shock? From a dream? "I'll get you some water." She got up and headed for the bathroom. "She came to me, Scully. My mother." The matter-of-fact way he said it sent a chill down her back. She stopped and came back to the bed. "You were dreaming about your mother?" "No... I ... I don't know." He hugged his arms tight to his body and shuddered. "I'm cold." She took the blanket from the foot of the bed and wrapped it around him. Mulder clutched at it, pulling it around his shoulders. Scully sat down on the edge of the bed next to him, rubbing his arm trying to warm him. "What do you remember?" "I thought I was just remembering when I saw her in the woods after the accident." He touched the cast on his left wrist, as if she might not remember the night two weeks ago, or the accident that had nearly killed them both. "But it wasn't that." He went silent again, staring into space until she squeezed his shoulder. "Mulder, talk tome." The blank stare swung over to her, coming slowly into focus. "This is different, Scully. I don't know how to describe what I'm feeling." Nightmares were nothing new, though they had become much less frequent over the past couple of years. She was an old hand at seeing him through their aftermaths. But this... this was something completely outside her experience. "Let me give you a sedative, Mulder. Just a mild one, so you can sleep." He was shaking his head before she finished speaking. "No pills. Scully, I need to work through this." Before she could react, he was out of bed and across the room, picking up her laptop from the desk. "I'll just take this in the other room so you can sleep." Even for him, it was a stunningly abrupt mood swing. He was halfway to the connecting door before she found her voice. "Wait." He stopped and turned around. "Go to sleep, Scully. I'm all right. I just need to think." He smiled. "I'll come back to bed when I'm finished." "You won't leave?" She'd meant it as a statement of fact, but it came out a question. "I won't leave. Get some rest." He opened the connecting door and stepped into the other room. Before she could say good night, he closed the door softly behind him. She lay down on the bed on Mulder's side, surrounded by his sleep-warm scent. The television came on next door, broadcasting a snippet of music before the volume was muted. She fell asleep to the sound of keys tapping in the other room. When she opened her eyes again, the room was filled with sunlight, and the bed next to her was still empty-- or empty again, she wasn't sure which.. Scully rolled over and put her hand on the rumpled sheets. Cold. And no water running in the shower. She raised up on one elbow to look around. The connecting door was closed. He'd probably decided to sleep in his own bed rather than risk waking her again. Or, he could be gone. A rush of panic drove her out of bed. She went quickly to the door, pressed her ear against it, and listened. He was tapping keys again. Or still. She opened the door. "Have you been up all night--" She started toward him, but he looked up with an expression that froze her in place. "Mulder, what...?" He turned the laptop so she could see the screen, then he stepped back and watched as she read the first few lines. It was a medical information web site, and the topic displayed made her heart sink. "Paget's disease, Scully." "I see that." She also saw how upset he was, despite the calm facade. "Why are you doing this to yourself?" "Why didn't you tell me the truth?" She felt the ground shift under her feet. "What are you talking about?" "I remembered what woke me up, Scully. My mother whispering in my ear. Not tonight, and not in the woods a few weeks ago. It was three years ago, when I was in Sacramento with Harold Piller. Do you want to know what she said?" She'd heard that tone many times over the years, watching him interrogate a suspect. Never directed at her. "Yes, I'd like to know what she said." "There are none so blind as those who will not see." Scully waited for the punch line. "And?" "I told you back then that she was trying to tell me something. Do you remember that?" "Of course." He snorted. "You remember telling me I was imagining it?" "Mulder, where is all this going?" "She left me something, Scully. That's what she was trying to tell me. Something that will explain what happened to Samantha. What happened to you. To me. I don't know what it is yet, but I'm going to find out." The Spencer case could not have put him in this frame of mind. Then, what...? "Why are you doing this to yourself?" "I had a lot of help." His voice was dangerously soft. "What are you saying?" "Paget's isn't a death sentence." He gestured at the computer screen. "My mother could have lived for years before developing any of the debilitating symptoms. *Years*, Scully. Why didn't you tell me the truth?" He walked to the unused bed and sat down heavily. His voice fell to a whisper. "Why didn't you just tell me the truth?" "Mulder, I... I told you what I believed. I still believe it. Your mother killed herself because--" "--was *made* to kill herself, Scully. Just like Greta Wilson and all those other women in Clayville. Those women had-- were *given*-- the same disease my mother had. We know their suicides took place after they received phone calls. Suicides that came as a total shock to their families. Just like my mother. How can you not see what I'm seeing?" Deep breath. "Okay. Let's say for the sake of argument that there is a connection. Tell me how that leads you to conclude that your mother left you some secret information?" He was shifting his weight from one foot to the other, impatience in every line of his body. "Scully, I can't tell you why I'm so certain. I just am." She took a step toward him, but he was already moving. He grabbed his suitcase and coat from the bed. She hadn't even noticed that he was packed. "You can take a cab to the airport. I'm taking the rental car." He had his hand on the doorknob before she found her voice. "Mulder." He stopped and turned around. "Where are you going?" "To my mother's house in Greenwich. It's about 45 minutes west of here. If I don't find anything there, I'm going to Quonochontaug." He pulled the door open. "I'll call you." "Let me come with you." She was already mentally packing her suitcase. "I'm not planning to do anything stupid, Scully. Please trust me to work this out on my own." Her instincts were screaming at her to stop him, but the plea in his eyes overrode them. "Are you sure you're all right?" "I'll call you," he repeated. And then he was gone. * * * * Greenwich, CT 8:50 am Scully had told him once that the human mind naturally seeks meaningful patterns and configurations in things that don't inherently have them. *Mulder, if you're given the suggestion of a particular image, you can't help but see that shape somewhere.* That was what she thought he was doing now, he knew. Searching for meaning in his mother's death by suggesting to himself that she'd left him something after all. That she hadn't just erased herself from his life without a backward glance. He'd spent the past forty minutes telling himself Scully was wrong. The house looked exactly as it had the last time he was here. It had been spring then, too, the air scented soft green with the promise of summer. He'd returned from his mother's funeral, emptied out the refrigerator, hauled the non-perishables to a local food bank, and locked the door forever. He'd contacted a realtor the next day, intent on getting rid of this house as well as the ones in West Tisbury and Quonochontaug. It would be his break from the past. One that had been long overdue. Except that he couldn't do it. After several broken appointments, the realtor had come to the same conclusion and stopped calling. Mulder arranged for someone to come in twice a month to keep the dust under control, hired a lawn service to maintain the grounds, and renewed his promise never to set foot here again. Fate, it seemed, had other plans. The contrast between the warm spring sunshine and the shadowy stillness inside the house made him shiver. He walked through the living room into the kitchen, opening drapes as he went, letting in shafts of sunlight that pushed back the chill. He stopped in the doorway. The tape was gone. The oven door was closed. All evidence of his mother's death was erased, but the images were burned into his memory. Her body had been found here on the floor in front of the oven, her face turned toward the open door. *Placed here facing the door.* He had suspected it then. He was certain of it now. All he needed was the proof she left for him. He searched the drawers and cabinets, then moved to the basement, pawing through boxes and crates, through stacks of newspaper and shelves filled with the long-forgotten miscellany of his mother's life. In the storage nook under the stairs, he rediscovered an Electrovac Princess vacuum cleaner and the memories that went with it. He put the cleaner and the memories back where they belonged and headed upstairs. He looked behind picture frames, inside lampshades, under the sofa and chair cushions. He rifled the contents of every drawer; every closet. Upstairs, he removed the mattresses on all four beds, upended furniture, and tapped on every wall looking for hidden panels. When he had looked in every conceivable hiding place, he went back to the beginning and started again. He was on his third tour of the basement when he heard something upstairs. Footsteps coming toward the basement door. He was halfway up the stairs, gun in hand, when the door opened. "Who's down there!?" A very frightened female voice. The woman was backlit by the sunshine streaming in the kitchen behind her. "It's okay. I own the house." He holstered his weapon and raised both hands. "You're Mrs. Harrison, right? I hired you." She flipped the light on, one hand pressed to her breast. "You scared me half to death!" She backed up as he reached the top of the stairs. "I called the police when I saw the mess." She held up her cell phone. "Then I guess we better call them back." As he said the words, someone began banging on the front door. With a heavy sigh, he went to answer it. Even after he identified himself to everyone's satisfaction, he was the object of some very odd looks. There was no disguising the chaos he'd made of the living room, after all, and no good explanation he could offer for creating it. He simply let them think what they obviously thought, and bade them a good afternoon. Judging by the expression on Mrs. Harrison's face as she was leaving, he would be in the market for a new housekeeper. Mulder closed the door and wandered back to the kitchen, stepping around the mess. He was going in circles here with no idea what he was looking for, though his conviction that 'it' existed hadn't wavered. It could be photographs. Or a tape recording. Or letters. Papers of some kind. A *journal*. How could he have forgotten? He knew she had kept diaries when she was a girl. She'd actually showed them to him one fall afternoon when he was helping her clean out the attic. A whole box full of leather-bound dreams. He'd also watched her burn them, one by one in the living room fireplace, a few months after Samantha had disappeared. Might she not have kept one as an adult? A private place where she could confide all the pain and rage she could share with no one else? There was nothing here. He was sure of that. If she'd realized she was in danger, she would have hidden the journal. Quonochontaug would be the perfect place to do just that. Close enough to still be accessible, but away from the first place they would look. Scully would be on her way back in D.C. by now. Worrying. Or thinking about having him committed. He pulled out his cell phone and punched speed dial 1. As he waited for voice mail to pick up, he tried to mute his excitement. She already thought he was on the edge. Her recorded voice spoke in his ear, soothing him. He waited for the beep. "Scully, it's me. I'm still here in Greenwich, but I'm leaving for Quonochontaug in a few minutes. I know what I'm looking for now. I can't believe it took me this long to figure it out, but I'm sure there's a journal. I'll call you when I get back tomorrow night. Don't worry." That last part was wishful thinking. He knew she'd worry until she saw him again. He hung up the phone and stuffed it back in his pocket. Mulder made one final pass through the house, securing doors and windows. Mrs. Harrison... or her replacement... could do the rest. He pulled the drapes shut again on his way out. ****** ACT III Quonochontaug, RI April 25, 2003 7:12 pm Mulder pulled the car into the gravel drive, allowing the vehicle's momentum to carry it almost to the door of the weathered garage-workshop before turning off the engine. He got out and took a deep, appreciative breath of the air, redolent with the scents of sea and conifer and Spring. Grabbing his overnight bag and a sack of groceries from the trunk, he crunched up the gravel pathway to the summer cottage that had for so long been in his family. Now it was his, to do with as he pleased. Positioned on the water, with its own strip of private beach and little dock, it would have sold for a small fortune, even in a rotten economy. But Mulder didn't need the money, and in truth, he was tempted to keep the summer house. Both he and Scully could use a refuge from Washington and the frustrations of their jobs. And he knew how fond his partner was of the sea. They could get a small sailboat and generally live an idyllic existence. But before the cottage could become that refuge for them, the ghosts already in residence had to be exorcised. And one of the keys to that exorcism was finding out what his mother was trying to tell him – about her death and possibly so much else. He took a deep breath, as if to fortify himself against the memories within, and unlocked the door. Inside, the air smelled stale and musty, mute testimony to the fact that the housekeeper had not been in for several weeks. Putting the bags on the table by the door, he cracked open two of the living room windows, despite the chill of the oncoming dusk. Quickly and purposefully, he moved from room to room, removing dust sheets and opening windows, as if just by those acts he could dispel the ghosts that resided there. He brought his bag into his old room, the bed now looking ridiculously small for his tall, lanky frame. Still, it would have to do. Nothing could have induced him to move to the more spacious bed in his parent's old bedroom. He took the groceries – mostly microwavable fast food – into the kitchen, and put them away on autopilot. The utilities were on, as his mother had always found it more convenient to be able to drop in at the summer house whenever she wanted without having to arrange for the power and water to be turned on each time. Mechanically, he ground some coffee, dumped it into a filter and poured water into the coffeemaker. But rather than on these mundane tasks, his mind was focused on his epiphany.... She had been there – in the driving snow and sleet and bitter cold. He had seen his mother and she had truly been there, talking to him, prodding him, telling him where to go. Saving his life.... He frowned in frustration. As always, his visual memory was better than his aural one. He had been barely conscious, his injuries and hypothermia making it so hard for him to move and to think. But he remembered everything about what he had seen - what she was wearing, how her hair looked, her face. However, as his injuries from the accident and hypothermia faded, so had his memory of what he had heard, of precisely what it was that she had said to him. And somehow, he felt that it was very important that he remember. He poured a mug of the coffee that was now ready and took it into the living room and sat down. 'There are none so blind as they who will not see....' He remembered that. Mulder grimaced as he swallowed the steaming hot brew. Next time be a little less vague, Mom. If you want me to do something, just tell me straight out. And if you want me to find something, tell me where the hell it is.... Maybe her words to him had no meaning, maybe he was making too much out of it. It was a quotation, but not so unusual in its context, after all. She had been reaming him out for... something. Something he wasn't doing, or seeing. Yeah, seeing. Something she wanted him to see, but he couldn't. Something about.... Yes, the pictures of himself and his sister. Why she had burned them. And her death... and the fact that it was not as it seemed. Well, he had always surmised that. He had fought against the evidence that his partner had obtained from the autopsy, not able to bring himself to believe that his mother had killed herself. Teena Mulder's life had not been easy, despite the fact that she always had all the material wealth she might want. Marriage to his father – talk about a tough life! Mulder snorted bitterly. What the hell had she ever seen in him, he wondered. Losing a daughter, the strained relationship with her son. Then the divorce, which was a prolonged and ugly affair. Years of living on her own. And then the stroke. But she was strong, she had gone through all those terrible experiences, and had survived them. So it had been hard to think she had killed herself, without a final goodbye to him and leaving so much between them unsaid. But inexorably, Scully's logic and the terrible diagnosis his mother had been given wore him down, and created enough doubt that he began to believe that she had committed suicide rather than face a long, painful, undignified death. Once again, as he had throughout the drive to Rhode Island, Mulder thought about his conviction that his mother had left a journal. He'd been so confident a few hours ago, but now he was second-guessing himself. Maybe it was an after-effect of the Spencer case. If his mother kept a diary, why the hell hadn't she mentioned it to him, either before her death, or when she came from beyond the grave to save his life several weeks ago? 'There are none so blind as they who will not see'. Great. How about 'Hey Fox, I have a diary with all the answers you've been looking for, and it's hidden in the cookie jar on the kitchen shelf of the summer house'? Now *that* would have been helpful.... Suddenly the anger of a childhood full of accumulated heartbreaks brimmed over. Mulder put his mug down with a thud that sloshed coffee over the sides. "Enough!" he said aloud. "I've been over it and over it. I don't know what the hell she expects me to see. You hear that, Mom? I don't know what you want me to find!" He held his head in his hands, letting himself begin to sink into the lethargy of depression. But as always, the arguments and doubts kept springing unbidden into his mind. If she were the type to kill herself, she would have done it long ago. Teena Mulder was many things, not all of them good, but she was not a coward. Her visitation, what she said, and the fact that she was annoyed with him – oh, yes, that had come through loud and clear from beyond the grave – they all had to be for a reason. The many shared aspects of her death with those of the quilters in New Jersey should have set off alarm bells immediately. He surged to his feet. No! I'll tear this place apart, searching for whatever the hell it is, he decided. If by then I haven't found it, then maybe Scully was right, maybe there wasn't anything to find. Or maybe whatever it was, was found and destroyed by the people who killed her. But I'll be damned if I give up on this before I've finished. He headed for the basement. Let's apply some organization to this, he mused to himself. Treat it like the search of a crime scene. Start from the bottom up, missing nothing. The basement was unused, for the most part. So close to the shoreline, it was impossible to keep dampness out of the cellar or anything stored down there. So it had just been a place for him and Samantha to play when the weather was too inclement for them to go out to run off the excess energy of childhood, and their mother was trying to get some peace and quiet. Which she required frequently, Mulder now remembered. He wasn't really expecting to find anything down there, and he wasn't surprised when he didn't. He climbed the stairs and walked to the furthest end of the house, down the hall to the last room – Samantha's. As in the basement, he was pretty sure he was wasting his time here. His mother had barely been able to bring herself to enter the room after Samantha was taken. She hadn't even packed up her daughter's belongings from the summer house, but had merely instructed the housekeeper to bundle them up and give them to one of the charities in town. Mulder doubted his mother would have spent enough time in the unnaturally silent and empty room to hide anything in there. And unless she had become sufficiently handy with power tools as to create a secret panel in the wall, there wasn't much there to hide anything in. He checked the small closet and dresser, more to be thorough than because he really expected anything to be there. Next was his parent's bedroom, but he moved to the opposite side of the hall to his room instead. It was as if time had frozen. The Mulders hadn't been back as a family after Samantha's disappearance and the subsequent divorce several months later. While his sister's room had been cleared out, his remained as he remembered it the summer he was eleven, before everything had gone to hell. His model planes, the microscope, the magic set – all were still neatly arranged on the shelves. The thin layer of dust was the only testimony that the items had not been placed there that very morning. He tore his mind from the past with an effort. He started with the closet, but there was nothing there but a collection of old sneakers on the floor, a long-outgrown suit hanging on the rack, and stacks of board games on the shelf above. Then he went around the room clockwise - scanning, touching, and shifting everything he came into contact with – from floor to ceiling. Again, he found nothing to raise his suspicions. He took deep, steadying breath before turning the know to the door of his parents’ bedroom. He could feel the echo of his parents' unhappiness and disastrous marriage every time he sent foot in this room. In truth, he felt almost like bolting, so great was the feeling of misery emanating from the place. Or, he admitted to himself, it's your imagination, coupled with having a pretty miserable childhood largely caused by two unhappy people who should never have had children. He steeled himself, and again did a painstaking examination of the room, including lifting the mattress to check for anything hiding between it and the box spring, as he had in the other rooms. But nothing there or in the contents of the drawers and closets was what he was looking for, and there were no secret compartments in either floors or walls. He gave a cursory check of the bathroom, checking for loose tiles that might hide a space large enough to hide something in, and finding nothing unusual. Then he went into the kitchen. There, the myriad cabinets and drawers lent themselves perfectly to hiding things. Feeling the pressure to find what his mother wanted him to find, fearing that he would be unable to, made his search more frenetic. Any attempt at neatness was abandoned as drawers were now pulled out and their contents dumped unceremoniously out onto the kitchen table. After pawing through the pile, he dumped the contents back into the drawer, ordered sufficiently only so that they could be slid back into the hole in the woodwork they had come out of. Everything that had been in the cabinets was put on the kitchen counter. Mulder climbed on a stool to be able to reach back into the furthest confines of the cabinet, his hands sweeping every surface, vainly looking for anything that might have been hidden there. Finally, he stood with his hands on his hips, surveying the mess around him with annoyance and growing doubt. If what he was looking for wasn't in Greenwich, and it wasn't here, then he was at a loss as to where else he might be able to look for it. It had to be here. It had to. By now it was dark, and the air blowing in from the open windows was chilly. He lowered the windows and snapped on the lamps in the living room, not bothering to draw the curtains. He looked around the room. Short of taking a knife to the comfortably upholstered couches and chairs, there wasn't a lot to search through here. He moved the cushions and felt deeply into the crevasses of the seats but came up empty-handed. He pulled back the rug, looking for any sign of a trap door or loose floorboard, but was disappointed. The tall, thin cupboards that flanked the fireplace checked out free of anything suspicious. He felt up along the fireplace flue as far as he could, finding only a lot of soot and the desiccated bones of a few unfortunate birds that had died in there. After washing most of the greasy chimney soot from his hands and arms, he checked the drawers of the end tables, finding nothing. He shook his head. Too obvious. She'd never hide anything in such an obvious-- But maybe she would. Mulder began to smile. "The Purloined Letter!", he said aloud, on his way to the study. The study had always been his mother's favorite room, her refuge from her husband and children. Fox and Samantha had been allowed in there only rarely, and only to choose a book to read from the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. His mother was an inveterate reader, and Edgar Allen Poe had been one of her favorites. "The Purloined Letter" was a story about how to hide something so it wouldn't be found. Poe's thesis was that the best hiding place was the most obvious one, either because people wouldn't bother looking there, or if they did, what they were searching for would blend in so perfectly as to be invisible. In Poe's story the hiding place for an important letter had been in among other letters. He snapped on the lights and looked at the walls surrounding him. Three of the four walls were lined with books – thousands of them. He doubted the Quonochontaug Town Library had this many volumes, which was probably why his mother had surrounded herself with these books, here in her summer home. Finding her journal – if it existed – among this virtual library would be an enormous chore. That was the bad news. The good news was that Mulder was now positive he was on the right track. Four hours later, he was still positive. He was positive, and tired, and sweating, and he was also surrounded by hip- deep piles of discarded books which covered the surface of the room's Berber carpet. It hadn't begun that way. He had started by taking each book, leafing through to quickly inspect the contents, replacing it and pulling out its neighbor on the shelf. But it didn't take long to occur to him that the task would take days the way he was going about it. More draconian measures were called for. That's when the books began to come out by the armload, to be hurriedly inspected for any sign that they were not what they were, discarded on the rug, and covered by the next load. One wall of shelves had been stripped, and the top half of another. Half done, and nothing out of the ordinary had turned up so far. Mulder flung himself on the couch and immediately winced, pulling an errant book out from under his butt and tossing it to the floor at his feet. That'll leave a mark, he thought. He was exhausted, having had almost no sleep the night before they broke the case, and his sleep wracked by dreams the previous night. Plus the argument with Scully – that always took a lot out of him. And his ghost-filled search in Greenwich. He sighed. It was here. He was no less sure of it. And somehow he had the feeling it was crucial that he find it, the sooner the better.... But he was so damned tired. Maybe if he just closed his eyes here for a minute.... ******* The dark-clothed man cut the engine before he was within sight of the cottage, pulling off the road and letting the BMW drift to a stop behind a privet hedge gone wild. The summer house was not more than three hundred feet away. The spotter who phoned in this report would be rewarded well, if it turned out to be true. If it wasn't, the guy would pay dearly for the chartered jet and the drive it had taken for him to get here. In blood, not money. Charles Scully closed the car door softly. He was lucky – this time of year was a bit early for the summer folks to have taken up occupancy. In July or August, there would still have been plenty of people out and about at this time of night. But now, with few year-round residents, all that could be heard was the pound and hiss of the surf and the chirping of crickets. He had no trouble attributing some of his success to luck. He *had* been lucky. His rise in the organization had been meteoric, and luck was a part of that. But so was intelligence, know-how, instinct and a complete lack of scruples. He walked along the road, keeping to the soft tufts of turf which muffled his footsteps. Around the bend in the road, the summer house came into view, the lights blazing and illuminating the front yard. Good thing I don't depend entirely on luck, Charlie thought, crossing the road. He continued past the house, darting for cover in the shadows by Mulder's car and the old garage. Almost silently, he worked his way along the darkened far side of the house to the back, where he would be unseen by casual passersby. He tried the back door, but the knob resisted the twist of his hand. A flash of annoyance crossed his face. All right, so this wasn't going to be as easy as it might. He crossed the patio to peer through the French doors, jerking back automatically when he spotted the dark head inside. Cautiously, he looked in again. Gazing through the opacity of the curtains that stretched top to bottom over the glass panes, he could make out the back of a navy blue sofa, and the back of a dark head resting on it. In front of the sofa and to the left, at least as far as he could see, were built-in bookshelves, denuded of the books that once lined them. He could see some of the books lying on the floor. Charles Scully pulled away into the shadows and bit his lip, thinking. He didn't want to over-react – that could be disastrous. Mulder was clearly tearing the place apart, searching for something. But why now? It had been months since Charlie's encounter with Mulder, and far longer since Teena...died. What could have him up here, tearing the summer house to bits? But there had been that twenty-four hour gap just before her death that Teena had eluded her watchers. God only knew what she had gotten up to. Could she have gotten back here to leave some sort of a message for her son? Some sort of evidence that could bring down not only the group, but more importantly, Charles Scully? Yes, it was a fortunate thing he had taken the report seriously, Charlie decided. Whether Mulder has found it or not, he's obviously on the trail of something, and it's in my best interests to see that nothing comes of it. Quietly, he moved back to the French doors and tried the knob, finding it locked. Disappointed, Charlie backed away from the doors. You had to get in there some way, Wonder Boy, and I'm betting you didn't take the time to lock up after yourself. And while you're taking a little nap, now might be the best time to pay a visit.... Charlie moved around the side of the house, ducking as a car went by, its headlights piercing the darkness. When he was sure the vehicle was not going to stop, he moved to the front, using the newly-tended shrubs for cover.... ******* His eyes slowly opened, and with a start, he looked at his watch. God, he had been asleep for longer than he thought. He sighed and sat up. Time to continue his task. Maybe he should make some coffee first.... His eyes drifted down to the spine of the book he had inadvertently sat on earlier. "Polite Conversation" by Jonathan Swift. Another of his mother's favorites— Suddenly his heart began to thud in his chest. 'There are none so blind as they who will not see'... wait a minute, that quotation was from "Polite Conversation". Hardly able to breathe, Mulder bent down to pick up the book and opened it, somewhere in the middle. Not print, but script. His mother's writing. A diary. He had found it. Hands trembling and tears welling in his eyes, he pulled the book closer and tried to pick out the words his mother had written in her neat but cramped script. "... his terrible betrayal. He knew how I felt, yet he ordered me to..." Mulder flipped through the pages. "...I swore I would see him disgraced and dead if it was the last thing..." Again he feathered the pages. "..knew the true purpose of the Consortium...." And "...a new wrinkle in the always- changing politics of the group, and the impact Char—" A weird noise from the front of the house made Mulder's head shoot up. Quickly, he brushed away the tears that clouded his vision. He reached automatically for his service weapon, remembering only when his hand came up empty that he had taken it off in the kitchen, to crawl under the sink. Slowly, soundlessly, Mulder took the small, precious volume in his hands and shoved it into the middle of one of the piles of books. He crept to the kitchen and, picking up his Sig Sauer, made his way quietly to the living room. His eyes swept the room, finding nothing amiss. He walked over to the front door, noting that the lock was on. Still, something had made that noise. Mulder opened the wooden front door and peered out through the window of the storm door. There – that sound again, outside and to his left. He went outside, turning in the direction of the sound. The unmistakable click of a gun being cocked inches from his ear froze him in mid-step. "I'll just take that gun, if you don't mind." Mulder raised his hands, and the Sig was quickly snatched away. "I don't suppose you'd like to tell me--" A gun barrel pressed tight to his temple ended the question. "Don't move." The gun moved away from his head. An instant later, he felt a sharp sting just behind his right ear. A needle...? He was falling... ******* Quickly, Charlie went inside and put out the lights in the living room, then dragged Mulder's unresisting form inside. "Can't have anyone driving by and see you passed out on your front lawn, now can we, Mulder?" he said pleasantly to his unconscious captive. "Whatever would the neighbors say?" Knowing Mulder would be out for a couple of hours, Charlie went into the study, pushing books out of his path with the toe of his shoe and surveying the mess with distaste. What the hell were you looking for, Mulder? And more importantly, did you find it, Charlie wondered. The wreckage gave him no clues. He was probably, though not certainly, looking for some sort of a book. Or perhaps just something hidden in a book, or behind the shelves – which didn't narrow things down a hell of a lot. Charlie was faced with searching for anything from a microdot to .... who the hell knew. He went back into the living room. Mulder showed no signs of rousing. Decision time, Charlie thought. He settled in a comfortable armchair to ruminate. What are my options here? I suppose I can wait until Foxxy Boy wakes up and beat it out of him. That would be amusing, but knowing Mulder as I do, bound to be unproductive in the end. And likely to be both noisy and messy. So what else? I could torch the place, I suppose.... Charlie considered that for a few minutes, discarding the idea reluctantly. While the idea of Fox Mulder perishing in a fire certainly had its satisfying ironies, fires brought investigations which almost always turned up telling evidence. Charlie cursed his rapid departure to Quonochontaug which prevented his laying out a plan and bringing along the proper equipment to carry it out. Charles Scully was above all things a planner; it was one of the things that had contributed greatly to his success. He disliked having to improvise. Improvisation led to sloppiness and sloppiness led to... well, that didn't bear thinking about. The longer he remained here, the greater the risk of exposure. Whatever he did he had to do quickly. There was no guarantee that even Mulder knew what he was looking for, or that what he was looking for even existed. They had kept a pretty tight watch on Teena. Charlie shook his head. He was probably just being paranoid. Now – what to do with Mulder. He could just leave him here – to wake up with a bad headache. But what if he were wrong about what Mulder was looking for? What if some evidence existed that only the agent knew about? If he couldn't identify what Mulder was searching for and eliminate it, he could just eliminate Mulder. But how? Not with violence, unfortunately. A little town like this would go batshit if one of its citizens was carved up in the sanctity of his own home. The next thing he knew, the State Police would be called in and there'd be a major investigation. But Mulder was flake, right? And everyone knew it. He had taken his mother's death exceedingly hard, and coming back here, how could the memories not be overwhelming, driving him to a terrible act? It probably wouldn't fool his sister Dana, but.... Too bad this place has an electric stove instead of gas, Charlie thought suddenly. Could have been 'like mother, like son' – at least to all appearances. His gaze fell on Mulder's car keys on the table by the door. Ah! That might work. Charlie went out to where Mulder's car was parked. Inserting the key but not yet turning on the engine, he was gratified to see the gas tank register almost full. "Well done, Foxxy!" Charlie murmured. He got out of the car and opened the garage door, noting with satisfaction that his luck was holding – there was just enough room in the cramped building to pull Mulder's car in, which was the next thing he did. Leaving the engine running, he pulled down the garage door, exiting by a door in the back of the outbuilding. He went back to the house and extinguished all the lights. He couldn't erase signs that someone had been there, but then, he didn't need to. It wouldn't matter if people thought that Mulder had gone berserk and trashed the cottage and then killed himself. He just didn't want someone coming by at four in the morning and, wondering why the lights were on in a house where no one lived, stop to investigate. The longer he could put off the discovery of the car in the garage, the longer the exhaust would have to do its job. He had always preferred to work with his mind rather than his muscles, but that didn't mean he wasn't strong. It took only a little effort to pull Mulder up and over his shoulder. He left by way of the French doors in the rear of the house, retracing his steps from the garage and back in through the back door. The exhaust was already starting to build up in the small building, stinging Charlie's eyes and making him cough. He put Mulder in the back seat – it wouldn't do to have him flop over onto the car horn and wake up everyone within a mile. He made sure all the car windows were open and the garage windows closed, and left by the back door. He came around to the front of the garage, kicking dead leaves and pine needles into a pile along the seam where the door met the pavement, ensuring that not a wisp of exhaust escaped. Stepping back to admire his handiwork, Charles Scully murmured, "Goodbye, Mulder. It's been real. Say hi to Teena for me." Then as quietly as he had come, he made his way back to the car hidden by the side of the road, started the engine, and drove away. End of Legacy Concludes in VS11 Season Premiere