Title:  Embers
Author:  syntax6

XxXxX

Chapter Eight

XxXxX

I was alone on a vast beach.

The salted sea breeze whipped my long skirt against my legs 
while the ocean tickled my ankles, its white surf swirling in 
and out with the tide.  I curled my cold toes into the sand 
even as it slipped out from under me.  Eyes closed, I 
listened to the rhythmic rush of the waves and the chatter of 
the sea gulls overhead.  Their cries grew closer, more angry 
and raw, until they weren't birds at all but human screams.

I gasped as my eyes flew open.  Silence.

There was no beach and no screams.  Just my bedroom, draped 
in shadows, and Mulder's heartbeat creating the ocean sounds 
beneath my cheek.

I released a slow breath as my pulse dropped back to normal, 
wrapped safe in the covers with Mulder.  His tee-shirt was 
soft and sleep-warm against my bruised cheek, and I closed my 
eyes again, listening to the rain pattering against the 
windows outside.  I drifted as the seconds slowed. 

Mulder sighed in his sleep, his legs mingling with mine as 
his faint breath stirred my hair.  Blinking sleepily, I 
stretched with care and my sore joints registered their 
immediate protest.  All traces of my dream faded as the dull 
ache of reality began throbbing at the back of my head.  I 
rolled from Mulder and slipped free of the heavy quilt, 
staggering in the semidarkness toward the door.

The floorboards were cold and smooth beneath my feet, the 
first gray haze of dawn making long shadows on the wall.  In 
the bathroom, I swallowed a pair of Tylenol tablets with the 
lights still off and then shivered back to bed.  Mulder 
stirred under my added weight, squinting at me in the fuzzy, 
indigo light.

"Hey," he said in a hoarse whisper.  

I shifted to face him.  "Go back to sleep, Mulder.  It's 
still early."

"Mmmm."  His fingers threaded through my hair, touching my 
scalp lightly.  "How's your head?"

I closed my eyes under his gentle massage.  "Okay."  His 
fingertips smoothed in rhythm from my crown to my temples, 
easing the ache until I was near purring with pleasure.  The 
backs of my ears grew warm and tingled.

After a few more glorious seconds, he slipped his hand down 
to palm the curve of my face.  I nuzzled my cheek against him 
in answer before covering his hand with my own and drawing 
his arm back under the covers.  He hid a large yawn in his 
pillow, and I realized that the rocky night had taken its 
toll on him as well.  His hair stood up on one side and his 
eyes were bleary from lack of sleep.  "Thank you, Mulder," I 
said, giving his fingers a slight squeeze. 

He answered with a slow blink.  "For what?"

"For being here.  For taking care of me."

He rolled over on his back, withdrawing his hand from mine.  
We stared at the ceiling together for several long moments 
while the wind swept sheets of rain against the window.  "I 
had a book," he said at last, speaking more to the ceiling 
than to me -- whispered words meant only for this strange, 
expansive time between night and day.  "On cancer."

My skin rippled in fear at where the conversation would lead, 
places inside that burned too bright to look, wounds too raw 
to touch.  Words of my own tumbled forth but I kept them 
closed and secret, waiting with shallow breaths to see how 
far Mulder would go.  He tilted his chin at the ceiling.

"It had things you were supposed to do to help if...if you 
knew someone with cancer.  Like recipes for special foods and 
stuff to bring to the hospital.  But I couldn't see any way 
for me to do those things.  It never said..."  He stopped 
short and shook his head.  "I don't know why I bought it."

"Mulder..."  I reached out to touch his arm but he didn't 
seem to feel it.

"So white and brittle," he whispered.  He twisted on the 
pillow, his black eyes boring into mine.  "Like if I touched 
you, you would shatter into a million pieces." 

I could not speak.  All at once, I realized how different it 
had been for Mulder, how vast was our separateness on this 
matter.  I'd kept the cancer close to me, deep inside where 
it lived and grew away from sympathetic, prying eyes.  I had 
told Mulder first, had thought he understood how much it 
meant to me that he knew and that he shared in my fight.  My 
partner in all things.  Only now, in the absence of my 
desperate tunnel vision, could I see how far away he had 
been, and how hard he was still struggling to catch up.

"It's okay now," I murmured, pulling him to me.  He came 
willingly, like a sleepy child, and I folded him in my arms.  
His breath whispered against my neck as I stroked his long, 
lean back.  "It's okay."

I thought about telling him the number of times I had called 
him from my bed during those awful days, paralyzed under the 
weight of my headache or gripped in the claws of nausea.  The 
words, "Mulder, come over," had hovered on my lips, and I'd 
imagined him sitting with me, cool cloth in hand as he 
distracted my pain with gentle chatter.  But to relent to 
that need would have cost me my equality, forcing Mulder to 
choose between pushing me harder or pulling me back.

And I'd needed to be pushed more than held.

I wondered if he had sensed that need and disregarded his 
own, letting me set the terms of our relationship even when 
there was so much left unsaid.  I ran my hands up and over 
his shoulder blades and tangled my fingers in the silky 
spikes of his hair.  "Mulder," I said, "you did the best 
thing possible.  You never let me get complacent.  You showed 
me how much there was left to do and let me shoulder my share 
of the work.  You...you let me see you waiting on the other 
side of this illness, making sure there would be something 
left for me to return to when it was over."  I brought my 
lips down to his forehead, kissing him fiercely.  "And 
Mulder, it is over.  You've got to believe that."

He squeezed me hard and buried his face in the curve of my 
shoulder.  "For now," he said, muffled.  "But what about the 
next time?"

"We have no reason to think it will come back," I answered, 
relieved to hear that my voice did not belie my own nagging 
worry.

"I'm not talking just about the cancer, Scully," he said as 
he pushed himself up to look into my eyes.  "It could be 
anything -- another illness, a stray bullet...maybe they'll 
just blow up the basement one day and take care of both of us 
all in one shot."

"Mulder, stop it."

"No," he insisted, still pinning me to the mattress with his 
considerable weight.  I squirmed to get away, but he trapped 
my arms in his.  "Listen to me, Scully.  You told me once you 
wouldn't change a day.  Maybe you still believe that, even 
now.  But one day it will change, one day it will be too much 
and you'll regret it."

I frowned.  "Is that the voice of experience talking, 
Mulder?"

"Maybe."  He sighed.  "I just don't want to be here when that 
day comes for you, Scully.  I don't want to be part of your 
regret."

His expression was sad and open, letting me see the truth 
behind his words.  I tightened my lips together to keep my 
chin from trembling.  "That would never happen," I whispered 
finally, and he dropped his forehead down to mine.  My hands 
slid around his ribcage, seeking more contact.  Our breathing 
slowed as Mulder relaxed into me once more.  I stroked the 
soft hairs at his nape.  "Mulder, four years ago you made it 
clear that I was not going to stand in the way of your search 
for answers.  I can't be the reason you stop now."

He pulled away again. "Just for a little while," he 
whispered, fingering the hair by my cheek.  "I didn't realize 
how fast the years have been.  I never expected..."

"What?" I asked, breathless.

He hesitated, then ducked his head.  "I never expected to 
stop and find you here."

My heart quivered in my chest as I caressed his stubbly 
cheek.  "Where I've always been, Mulder," I told him in a 
cracked whisper.  

He pressed his lips to my palm, my wrist, my neck, and I 
brushed my fingertips over the shell of his ear, our lips so 
near they merged in the space of one breath.  The rain 
rustled the trees outside while we remembered each other with 
kisses, slow and soft.  I curled my legs and arms around him 
like a loving vine.  I ached to bring him inside my heart, 
where he could see the place carved for him over the years by 
moments of sharp terror and melting sweetness. 

"We shouldn't."  Mulder broke away, lips swollen around his 
parted mouth.  "You're hurt."

"No, it's fine," I murmured, hands sloping down his 
shoulders.  He jerked his hips, and I parted my legs further, 
welcoming the press of his erection through our thin layers 
of clothing.  He closed his eyes and met my gentle rhythm. 
Arousal was a pleasant ache, a languid river that lapped at 
my edges until I was wet and open.   

"Please," I said, and used both hands to guide his mouth down 
to mine, holding him in place for my lips and tongue.  He 
hummed with pleasure and I vibrated to my toes.

"Slow," he cautioned when we paused for breath.  "We have to 
go slow."

I signaled my agreement with another lingering kiss, and he 
opened my pajama top one-handed, the other hand still 
threaded in my hair.  As the last button slipped free, satin 
slithered to my sides and Mulder brushed warm fingers on my 
breast bone.  He dropped light kisses on my face while 
stroking long lines down to my belly button. 

"Oh!" I gasped when he found my nipple, his tongue soft as he 
licked it, fat and swollen in his mouth.  I touched his 
cheek, the littlest finger sliding down to graze his lips.  
He pulled me in with a wet moan, and my eyes slipped closed, 
my jaw open as he rubbed my fingertip and nipple in concert.

My hands restless, I stroked him everywhere I could reach -- 
the slippery skin of his ribcage, the sleek muscles under his 
shoulder blades, the slight peach fuzz at the small of his 
back.  Squirming downward, I teased my fingers there along 
the elastic waistband of his boxers, then slipped down inside 
to hold him stiff and curved in my palm.

"Oh, God."  He squeezed his eyes shut, his upper lip curled 
in concentration.  I closed my fingers around him, watching 
the pleasure play across his face as I stroked him root to 
tip.  Our previous encounters had been too frenzied for me to 
notice the fine arch of his neck, the sheen of his brow, the 
perfect "O" of his mouth.  

The front of his boxers grew damp, Mulder hot and hard in my 
hand.  He choked on a breath.  "Enough...enough.  I can't 
stand it."  I stopped my rhythm but kept my fingers pressed 
against him, tangled in his underwear.  He kissed me again, 
mouths open wide as his tongue slipped in for deep, soft 
licks.  I felt him tugging on the waistband of my pajama 
bottoms.

"Ever wonder," he breathed as he worked, "what it would've 
been like to have just this?  What would've happened if we'd 
met somewhere besides a dirty basement?"

I lifted my hips to oblige him.  "Like where?  On the street, 
or some social event?  Somehow I don't see it, Mulder.  You 
would have spent all your time chatting up the leggy brunette 
in the corner."

"Hmmm," he said, planting tiny kisses along my throat.  "You 
may have a point.  Then I guess we'll have to meet at the 
bar, when we both go for refills at the same time.  What are 
you having?"

I smiled into his shoulder, pleased at the warmth in his 
words and the certainty behind them.  This was one place I 
was willing to follow Mulder into fate.  "Ah..." I shivered 
as he stroked me through my cotton panties, my fingers biting 
into the strength of his upper arms.  "Um...kahlua and 
cream."

"Ah, there's my opening, then."  He slid my underwear down to 
my knees, and I wiggled until I could toe them off.  "I would 
want to know why a no-nonsense type woman such as yourself 
was drinking such a sissy drink."

"Very funny."  My eyelids fluttered closed, my lips parting 
as he slipped nimble fingers along my folds.  "I...uh, 
what...what are you wearing?"

"Huh?"

"At the bar," I said, licking my lips while trying to picture 
it.  "When you're hitting on me, what are you wearing?"

"Oh.  Why?"  He added a little more pressure to his caress.

I opened my eyes and smiled at him.  "Because I have to 
decide whether I should go back to Raoul from Puerto Rico or 
keep talking to you."

"I see.  Well, what would you say if I told you I was wearing 
jeans and a black tee shirt?"

I closed my eyes again as he added his thumb between my legs.  
"I would say, 'Don't knock it 'til you've tried it.'"

"Hmmm.  But what if I don't want the whole thing?  What if I 
just want..."  He leaned down and licked my ear. "...a 
taste."

"I think...that could be...arranged."  My mind spun fantasies 
of us necking like mad in a shadowed corner of the bar, 
mixing with the feel of Mulder's touch between my thighs.  I 
felt hot, needy -- the beginnings of a breathless spiral I 
recognized.  I hadn't expected to come, not with my aches and 
pains, but all of a sudden I was right on the edge.  
"Mulder."  

I reached for him, pulling him over me, needing him inside.  
He tugged off his boxers and climbed over me once more. My 
hips jerked with anticipation as his erection brushed the 
skin of my inner thighs.  He slipped over me several times 
before finally pressing inside.  We clutched each other, 
murmuring nonsense, as he slid the full length into me.

When he moved, I felt a pinch of pleasure deep inside and 
gasped as it melted white-hot between my legs.  "Close?" he 
breathed, the word fanning hot across my face.  I nodded and 
arched against him.  He shifted to ride higher against my 
body, giving me access to the salty skin of his neck.

The pressure of his penis sliding inside me and its slippery 
caress against my clitoris soon had me moaning into the curve 
of his shoulder.  I felt tight and lightheaded at the same 
time.  "Mulder," I blurted, surprised that it was happening 
so fast.  He kissed my temple as the orgasm began in earnest.  
I shook and panted for long moments while he pumped with my 
slowing rhythm.

After a few moments of dizzying recovery, I stroked my hands 
down the length of his back, cupping his ass and encouraging 
him to move again.  He moved to thrust hard and deep, holding 
me close as his breaths tickled my cheek.  When he went rigid 
in my arms, I moaned with him at the wracking pleasure.  We 
lay in a quivering tangle for several long minutes.

 "Scully," he said at last, sounding both dazed and reverent.  
"You okay?"

Actually, my head was throbbing in time with my heartbeat and 
there was pain shooting down my arm from my elbow.  "I'm 
fine," I said, meaning every note of it.  I hugged him tight.

A few minutes later, he rolled to his side, bringing me with 
him.  He smoothed the hair from my eyes and smiled.  "So 
who's this Raoul guy?"

"Nobody you have to worry about," I answered, snuggling 
closer.  His hand smoothed up and down my arm.  "Mulder..."

"Mmmm?"

I hesitated, toying with his fingers.  "I love that you're so 
sure about this...that you believe it was meant to be so much 
it would have happened no matter what the circumstances."

He shifted so he could see my face.  "Scully, whatever else 
I've doubted, whatever questions I might still have...none of 
it's to do with you.  You must know that."

"I do."  I held his face in my hands, rubbing my thumbs along 
his cheeks.  "But I can't be everything, Mulder."

He turned away, and for a moment I thought he might leave.  
But instead he lay down beside me again, tucking me into the 
warmth of his body.  

I slept.

XxXxX

The phone yanked us both awake with a jolt at seven-thirty.  
Mulder sat up, rubbing his eyes, as I fumbled for the 
receiver.

"Hello?"  Silence.  Mulder frowned and I tried again.  
"Hello?"

"Agent Scully?  It's Lee-Lee.  Lee-Lee Centara?"

"Of course.  What can I do for you?"  Mulder made a 
questioning gesture and I shrugged at him.

"Um, I need to talk to you about the fires," Lee-Lee said, 
sounding like she might bolt at any moment.  I climbed out of 
bed.

"I can meet you right now."

"No!  No, I can't.  Meet me later, behind the diner at 
eleven-thirty, okay?  That's my break."

"Eleven-thirty, got it."  I paused.  I could not quite 
believe she was my attacker, with her thin frame and 
demurring demeanor.  But still -- best to let her know she 
wouldn't be taking another whack at me, if that was what she 
had planned.  "Agent Mulder and I will see you there."

"Okay, but..."

"But?"

"Don't bring my brother," she said in a rush, then hung up 
the phone.

XxXxX

End chapter eight.  Continued in chapter nine. 



XxXxX

Chapter Nine

XxXxX

Mulder let me have the first shower that morning.  It was a 
small kindness given without thought, without the knowledge 
that it might later cost him his life.  He had some phone 
calls to make anyway, he'd said, his tone businesslike but 
his mouth soft from our kisses.  He wanted to call Tiburton 
High School to ask about Lee-Lee's behavior around the time 
of the murder.  Maybe if I had been there to hear the 
entirety of his conversation, I could have seen the terrible 
conclusion coming in time to stop it.  But it wasn't until 
later that we understood the importance of the information 
he'd received, and by that time it was too late.

So I left him in my room with the phone and stepped into the 
cold, claw-footed tub to wash the last traces of blood from 
my hair.  It was a slow process.  The pelting drops of the 
shower felt like a thousand tiny hammers pounding on the lump 
at the back of my head, and I sucked in painful breaths as I 
worked soapy fingers over my scalp.

When I returned to the room, my bruises washed clean with 
Ivory and masked by a fluffy white robe, Mulder was jotting 
some notes on one of my legal pads.  "Find anything?" I asked 
as I toweled the dripping ends of my hair.

He pushed the pad away from him and sat back in his chair, 
leaning precariously on two legs so that I could only 
concentrate half of my attention on his words; the other half 
was waiting for him to crack his head open on the hardwood 
floor.  "It's what I didn't find that's more interesting," he 
said at last.

"What's that?"

"Well, the Purcells would have us believe that Lee-Lee was a 
teenager on the edge, pushed to near madness by her uncle's 
sexual advances and then plunged over the edge when he was 
executed by her mother.  But I talked to a couple of teachers 
who knew her at that time and not one of them noticed any 
signs of trouble before Abe's death."

I sat on the bed.  "So she was good at keeping everything 
inside but snapped when her uncle was murdered."

Mulder shook his head.  "I've seen incest cases before, 
Scully, and if Lee-Lee was under the kind of stress everyone 
says she was, there would have been indications of that -- 
grades slipping, cutting school, withdrawing from friends and 
activities.  Signs that she was coming unglued."

"You're saying she wasn't abused."

"I'm saying the timeline is off," he corrected.  "Whatever 
caused Lee-Lee Centara's breakdown happened the night of the 
murder, not before.  Her teachers describe her as a good 
student, sociable if not popular, and eager to please.  
Everyone was stunned by what happened."

"Ted Bundy's neighbors were stunned, too, Mulder.  No one 
ever looks across the backyard fence and imagines a murderer 
on the other side."

He looked at me curiously.  "You think she's a murderer?"

"I think the evidence points to that conclusion, yes.  The 
fires started within days of her return to town, she had my 
phone number here and easy access to my whereabouts 
yesterday."

"True, all true," he said, nodding and leaning further back 
his chair.  He waited, watching me, and I knew he was 
anticipating the other half of my argument.  After four years 
together, he could hear the "but" coming before I even opened 
my mouth.  

I tossed the towel on the bed next to me and sighed.  "But 
it's the motive that's troubling me."

"Oh?" he said in an exaggerated tone that suggested it had 
been bothering him, too.  "How so?"

"If Lee-Lee is setting these fires to avenge her mother's 
conviction by murdering those involved, all the while 
attempting to bring to life a local ghost story...well, 
Mulder...she'd have to be crazy."

"Yes," Mulder said flatly, at last bringing all four of his 
chair legs back down on the floor.  I breathed out in relief.

"And she's not crazy," I said as I stood to find clothing for 
the day.  "I think she's lying to us.  I think she's scared, 
confused, and angry.  But I don't think she's crazy."

"Agreed.  But that seems to leave us with three options," he 
said, ticking them off on his fingers.  "One, we're wrong and 
Lee-Lee Centara is the most sane-appearing crazy person ever 
to walk the earth; two, she's got another motive we haven't 
uncovered yet; three, someone else is doing these murders and 
setting her up for the fall."

As it turned out, there was a fourth option, one so twisted 
and terrible we couldn't see it at that point.  It was 
lurking in Mulder's narrative as he relayed the rest of the 
information he'd obtained from the school -- Lee-Lee's brush 
with acting in the school play, Andy's multiple suspensions 
for fighting; Jeff's star quarterback status and full 
scholarship to Harvard.  All ruled by a domineering Carson 
Purcell who appeared to take glee in playing his children off 
one another.

But the pieces were still too scattered, and Mulder only 
relayed to me the details he thought were important.  He 
couldn't have known.  No one did.

Not Andy.

Not Jeff.

Not even Lee-Lee could have put everything together at that 
point.

But dead men do tell tales, if you stop long enough to 
listen, and Abe Centara's story wasn't finished yet.

XxXxX

It was overcast outside but the downstairs kitchen glowed 
with buttery warmth, the scent of coffee and blueberry 
pancakes wafting out into the hall.  I heard Kazdin's gruff 
voice and Cathleen's answering laugh coming from inside.  She 
was still smiling when I entered the room.

"Good morning," she said.  "How are you feeling?"

Kazdin turned in his heavy oak chair to look at me, and I 
touched the back of my head in a self-conscious gesture.  
"Better, thank you."  I watched as Cathleen leaned on one 
crutch and flipped two golden circles with her free hand.

"Pancakes?" she asked.

It wasn't my custom to eat a lot in the morning; large 
breakfasts left me feeling bloated and sluggish.  But my 
stomach rumbled around in my mid-section in answer to her 
question, and I remembered that I had skipped dinner the 
night before.  "Yes, thank you.  It smells wonderful."

"They are," Kazdin said, patting his stomach.  I saw he had a 
plate drizzled with maple syrup remnants in front of him.  He 
poured me a glass of orange juice from a crystal pitcher as I 
slid one of the chairs out from the table.  "Mulder, too?" he 
asked.

"He's still in the shower," I answered, and then stopped 
short, feeling my face grow warm at the intimate words.  Not 
a confession, exactly, but my easy reply was suggestive 
enough to make Kazdin grin.  Cathleen just gave me a gentle 
smile.

"We'll keep his pancakes in the oven, then."  She limped from 
the stove to hand me a plate stacked high with fluffy cakes, 
each dotted with a liberal amount of fat blueberries.  Kazdin 
received three more without even asking.

"Do you talk shop over food?" he asked around a mouthful, and 
I almost smiled.  

"I'm an M.E.," I reminded him.  "I have a strong stomach."

He grinned at me again and then looked at Cathleen, who had 
pulled up a chair at the table.  "You mind?"

She rolled her eyes.  "Have I ever?"

Satisfied, Kazdin wiped his hands and stretched a couple of 
folders across the table to me.  "Sorry to say we've turned 
up empty on the guy last night.  The lab boys weren't able to 
pull any prints from the bar, and the note on your windshield 
was clean as well.  As for the garage, it's so dirty that 
there isn't much hope for identifiable evidence there."

I looked through the meager reports and nodded.  I'd expected 
as much.  The folder underneath was thicker, yellowed and 
worn at the edges, and I glanced at Kazdin as I pulled it 
out.  "What's this?"

"That."  He frowned and shifted in his chair.  "That I pulled 
from Andy's personal cabinet early this morning.  If he finds 
out, it's my job.  Or worse."

I opened the folder and found old police reports, from back 
in the days when typewriters were the norm.  The date at the 
top read July 21, 1981, and it appeared to be the original 
paperwork on Abe Centara's death.  "Chief Purcell had these 
in his personal files?"

"Yes, Ma'am.  It's not standard procedure, that's for sure, 
but I guess I can see why he wanted to keep them private.  
Hard to maintain authority when the boys can rifle through 
your dirty laundry any time they want."

I started sorting through the pile myself.

Abe Centara was killed outside the Purcell family home at 
around nine p.m., shot once in the back of the head with a 45 
mm handgun registered to Carson Alan Purcell.  There were no 
witnesses to the shooting itself, but Jeffery and Andrew 
Purcell and Katherine and Lee-Lee Centara were all on the 
premises at the time.  Carson Purcell seemed to have arrived 
later, shortly before the police showed up. 

Included in the folder was a thin manila envelope, and I 
looked at Kazdin as I moved to open it.  He looked away.  
"What is it?" Cathleen asked, leaning toward me.  I let the 
contents spill into my palm.

Pictures.  Lots of them.  Lee-Lee Centara at fifteen, naked 
as the day she was born and posing legs-spread for the 
camera.  Beautiful and horrible frozen in the same shot.

"Oh my God," Cathleen murmured.  I flipped through the photos 
in rapid succession and then set the stack face down on the 
folder.  

"The pictures were in the house that night," Kazdin 
explained.  "Jeff and Andy found them and took them to 
Katherine.  Supposedly that's why she went nuts."

"Who went nuts?"  Mulder entered the room at that point, and 
Cathleen got up to get him breakfast.  He took the plate from 
her with a smile and pulled up a chair alongside me.  The 
hairs on the back of his neck were damp, and I could smell 
the sharp, clean scent of his shampoo.  "What's going on?" he 
asked, nodding at the pictures.  I handed them to him, and he 
looked them over as Kazdin filled in the details.

"The background there is from Abe's studio.  He was a 
professional photographer, which explains the high quality of 
the prints.  It's also how the family figured out he'd been 
messing with Lee-Lee."

"How did the photos get in the house?" Mulder asked.  "Did 
Lee-Lee have them?"

I consulted the reports in front of me.  "Apparently.  Jeff 
found them first, in an envelope in the family room, and he 
took them to Andy.  The boys decided to take the matter to 
their stepmother."

"Not their father," Mulder observed.  "Interesting."

"It says here that Katherine was furious when she found out 
and summoned Abe to the house, where neighbors say they had 
an impressive fight.  Around nine, as Abe was leaving, 
Katherine took the gun from Carson Purcell's study and shot 
him in the driveway."

"Gun powder residue on her hands?"

I scanned the pages and shook my head.  "No tests were run.  
She confessed shortly after the police arrived."

Mulder looked at the pictures again for a long, silent 
moment.  "No wonder they didn't want Lee-Lee on the stand.  
She looks like she's having the time of her life."

"Maybe that's the answer to her breakdown," I suggested.  
"Her mother shot her lover, and she just didn't know how to 
process that.  It could also explain her guilt over the 
murder."

"Could be," Mulder answered, sounding distracted.  He was 
studying one of the photos with interest.  "What do you think 
this is?" he asked me after a moment.

I squinted at the proffered image.  It was black and white 
and showed Lee-Lee spread out on a couch, the slopes and 
curves of her young body captured in a perfect "V" of light.  
I looked in the corner that Mulder had indicated, behind her 
head, and saw a rumpled piece of dark clothing draped over a 
chair.  There was a white blur at the edge of the cloth that 
I could not make out.  "I don't know," I said.  "Why?"

He shrugged.  "Could be nothing.  It's in a few of these 
shots, though.  I'd like to know what it is."

"I can probably have the guys at Ritz Camera Shop blow it up 
for you," Kazdin said, taking the photo.  "They do stuff for 
us all the time."  He glanced at his watch.  "Look, I've got 
to get going.  My shift starts in ten minutes, and if I'm not 
there Andy will kill me."

As Cathleen walked Kazdin to the door, Mulder picked up one 
of the photos left behind.  "Kill him," he murmured.  "Funny 
choice of words."

"What?"

"Well, call me crazy, but..." He handed me the picture and 
tapped the white blur.  "...I think that just might be an 
'A.'"

"'A' as in 'Abe,'" I pointed out.

He nodded. "Or as in Andy."

XxXxX

At eleven-thirty, Mulder and I stood behind Kit-n-Carl's 
Caf, next to the dumpster's stench of rotting melon rinds 
and coffee grounds, waiting for Lee-Lee Centara to make an 
appearance.  It was cold.  The wind from the ocean was damp 
and sharp, whipping past my coat to scrape along my bones.  I 
shifted from one foot to the other while Mulder chewed a 
sunflower seed he had unearthed in his pocket.  "She said 
*behind* the diner, right?" he asked as he spat out the 
shell.

"Yes, Mulder.  The blow to my head wasn't so hard that I 
can't remember a simple phone call."

"Hey, I was just..."

"Agent Scully!"  A voice hissed at us from behind a nearby 
shed, and I turned to see Lee-Lee peeking around the corner.  
She beckoned us toward her.  

Once we were hidden between the shed and a high wooden fence, 
she turned to face us, arms wrapped around her middle in her 
customary pose.  Her eyes flickered over my face, then away, 
and I knew she had checked out my bruises.  For my part, I 
had trouble looking at her thin frame and shapeless green 
sweater without seeing the seductive teenager pictured in 
Abe's photographs.

She cleared her throat, hugging herself tighter.  "Andy and 
Jeff don't know about this, right?"

"That's right," I said.  "It's just us.  What did you want to 
talk about?"

Lee-Lee scuffed her sneaker in the dirt.  "It's her," she 
said, her whisper swallowed by the wind.  "I...I didn't want 
to believe it at first.  I mean, how could it be, right?  
She's dead."  She broke off in a hysterical, disbelieving 
laugh.  "But then after Andy told me the names of the people 
who burned in the fires, we knew.  We knew it had to be her." 

"You're talking about your mother, about Katherine," Mulder 
said.

Lee-Lee nodded.  "The first place she burned was the old 
police station out on Sheffield Road; it took them all night 
to get the flames out, and Andy said they couldn't tell what 
caused it.  It was like the whole place just lit up all at 
once.  You should have seen Andy shaking when he told me.  I 
think he must have guessed it was her from the start."

"Ms. Centara," I said, "if those are your stepbrother's 
suspicions, he's never mentioned them to us."

"Of course he hasn't," she replied.  "Carson would probably 
have his badge if Andy ever opened his mouth on the subject.  
And Jeff, he hasn't written about it in the paper, either, 
but we all know it's true.  Stan Garber, Regina Tuttlesworth, 
Joe Bowman -- they were all involved in her trial and now 
they're all dead."

"Killed by your mother," I said, and Lee-Lee nodded, looking 
stricken.  I took a deep breath.  "Okay, let's suppose for a 
minute that she could come back from the dead.  Why set the 
fires and kill those involved in her trial?  It doesn't make 
sense.  She confessed to Abe's murder and the trial was fair.  
What is there to avenge?"

Lee-Lee hesitated.  "Andy said her lawyer did a bad job, that 
he should have gotten her off."

"That might explain Stanley Garber's death, but it doesn't 
account for the others."

"You don't understand," she whispered, shivering.  "You don't 
think it can happen, but I've seen it." 

"Seen Katherine?" Mulder asked intently.

Lee-Lee's tone was hushed, her expression caught between awe 
and horror.  "No, the other.  Elysian.  When I was seven, my 
mother took me at night to this place in the woods.  I 
remember clutching her hand so hard my knuckles hurt because 
it was dark and I couldn't see.  It seemed like we walked 
forever, and she wouldn't tell me where we were going.  She 
just smiled and started humming.

"When we came to a clearing I could see the moon.  I stared 
up at it as my mother gathered logs and piled them high 
inside a stone circle.  After a while, she added a match and 
sat with me on her lap while the logs began to burned.  The 
flames made my face hot, and the smoke watered my eyes.  I 
wanted to get up, but she held me tight and talked to me as 
the flames climbed higher into the sky.  That was the first 
time I heard the story of Elysian.

"Mom finished with the threat, about how Elysian would come 
back to burn everyone in the town, and just as she stopped 
the fire made this...kind of exploding noise.  I screamed 
because I thought it was reaching out to burn us.  But Mom 
yelled, 'Look, look!' and she was laughing, so I peeked out 
from my hands and saw her there in the fire."

"Elysian?" Mulder asked.

"Yes.  She had long, dark hair -- it was a mess hanging all 
the way to her waist -- and her skin was smudged with dirt 
and ashes.  Her dress was torn, and her hands were tied 
behind her back with rope."

I looked over at Mulder, whose cheeks were pink and eyes were 
bright with interest.  Remember the sketches, Mulder, I 
willed him silently.  These details of Elysian are straight 
from those drawings, right down to the rope around her hands.  
It's a fairytale, not evidence.

But Mulder did not seem to be receiving my frequency.  "What 
happened then?" he asked Lee-Lee.

"Nothing.  She just stood there, flickering in the flames, 
and then was gone."  Lee-Lee's gaze was fixed past me, her 
dark eyes shining as she relived the fire.  I glanced at 
Mulder and saw that he was looking, too.

"Ms. Centara," I said.  They both turned.  "Two days ago 
someone called my room and threatened me.  Last night, I was 
attacked in a parking garage after finding another threat 
tacked on my windshield.  I assure you that the force behind 
these acts is 100% human."

She curled her fingers into the cuffs of her sweater.  "Yes."

Mulder moved closer and touched her sleeve.  "Lee-Lee, do you 
know who is responsible?"

"N-no."

"I think you do," Mulder said softly.

She closed her eyes and shook her head.  "No. I don't know."

"But you suspect," I said, catching on to the vibe Mulder had 
sensed.  She glanced over her shoulder.

"It's my fault," she whispered.  "I'm the reason she killed 
him.  I should have testified, I should have told them she 
was..." She trailed off with a small sob, clasping her wool-
covered hand over her mouth.  "It might be Jeff."

"Jeff attacked Scully?"

Lee-Lee's shoulders sagged and tears filled her eyes.  "I 
don't know, I don't know anything.  But he's been kind of 
crazy since this started happening.  He, he..."

"He what?" Mulder pressed.

Lee-Lee gurgled a choked laugh, though her face was drawn 
with horror.  "He thinks he might be next."

"What the hell is going on here?"

Lee-Lee jumped as Andy Purcell appeared around the corner.  
Mulder ignored him, grabbing her elbow in a tight grip.  
"What do you mean, Lee-Lee?  Why does he think he might be 
next?"

She shook her head vaguely, her eyes on Purcell.  "I'm sorry, 
Andy," she whispered.  "They had to know.  They have a right 
to know what they're dealing with."

"Shut up!" he roared, yanking her from Mulder.  "Just shut 
up!"

"Hey!"  I moved toward them but Purcell held up his hand.

"I told you not to bother her."  He ground out each word from 
his gut.

"She contacted us," I replied, watching Lee-Lee's face.  She 
looked defeated but not in any pain, so I kept my distance.

"What the hell were you thinking?" he muttered near her ear.  
She winced.

"It's her, Andy.  You said it yourself."

"Shut. Up."  He glared from her to us.  "I believe my father 
already requested that you direct all further questions to 
our family attorney."

"She's free to speak with us any time she wants," I said.

"Yeah, well, she knows better now, don't you?"  He gave her a 
slight shake, and Lee-Lee nodded, her eyes filling with tears 
again.

"Sorry," she said, and I wasn't sure which one of us she was 
addressing.

"Are you going to be all right?" I asked, my eyes on 
Purcell's purple face.  She nodded.

"I have to get back to work."  She slipped from Andy's grasp 
and walked toward the edge of the shed.  "It's the truth, you 
know," she said, her back to us.  "Ian McNairney knew it, 
too."

Purcell scowled.  "Get on with you," he said.

"Who's Ian McNairney?" I asked.

"The prosecutor on Katherine's case," Mulder answered.  "He 
left town two months ago."

Lee-Lee turned, her fingers on the corner of the shed, her 
eyes wide and dark as she met our gazes once more.  "After 
Regina died," she said.  She looked toward Andy.  "He knew 
the truth."

And then she was gone.

XxXxX

Mulder and I tried all afternoon to find Jeffery Purcell, but 
he seemed to have disappeared.  So eight o'clock found us 
camped outside his apartment building, hoping he might show 
up there.  "What do you think Jeff meant by 'he might be 
next'?" Mulder asked.

"We don't know he did say it," I pointed out.  "It's only 
Lee-Lee's word, and for all we know, she has him marked next 
on her list of victims."

"Yeah, but suppose it's true.  Suppose he does think it's 
Katherine out to get him.  Why?"

I looked at him for a moment.  "You're asking me why, if 
Katherine came back from the dead, would she target her 
stepson along with the people who helped convict her?"

"Uh-huh."  He tossed a shell into the ashtray.

"Well, he did find the photos that put everything in motion.  
If he'd just kept quiet about the affair, none of this would 
have happened."

Mulder sat up in his seat.  "That's a good point, Scully.  I 
wondered earlier why Andy and Jeff took those photos to 
Katherine.  Why not confront Lee-Lee or Abe directly?  Why 
bring out the affair at all?"

"They thought she was being abused."

"Okay, so why not go to their father, who was on the police 
force at the time?"

"Maybe they thought Katherine would handle the matter more 
delicately."  Even as I said the words, I had to doubt them.  
Katherine Centara had had a fireball temper that landed her 
in trouble often.

"Maybe."  Mulder didn't sound convinced, either.  "Or maybe 
they wanted her to handle it just the way she did.  Maybe 
they wanted Abe dead."

He had no sooner said the words when a siren call wailed in 
the distance.  Fire.  Mulder rolled down his window and 
sniffed the air.  "It's close," he said, and I shivered.

Getting out of the car, we saw how close.

The smoke was coming from Jeff Purcell's home.

XxXxX

End Chapter Nine.  Continued in Chapter Ten


XxXxX

Chapter Ten

XxXxX

The front windows of Jeff's second story apartment glowed 
with flickering orange light as the first pumper truck 
shrieked to a stop next to our car.  Men in black coats with 
yellow reflective tape poured out of the fire truck, boots 
slapping against the pavement as they unfurled the hoses and 
began snaking them toward the house. "Looks like Jeff was 
right," Mulder said to me, his breath crystallizing in the 
frozen air.  "He was next."

"Anyone still inside?"  One of the firefighters paused, axe 
in hand, and I again scanned the clusters of onlookers for 
Jeff Purcell.  He had not been among the people who had 
stumbled from the old house a few minutes earlier, coughing 
and clutching their nightclothes.

"Could be Jeff Purcell," Mulder answered, pointing at the 
portion of the house lit in flames.  "That's his apartment, 
there."

"We might have a man inside!" the fireman hollered.  "Get the 
ladder!"

Kazdin arrived with the second truck, his cruiser sending 
spinning light through the craggy tree branches overhead.  
"Holy Jesus," he said as he joined us at the curb.  "Is 
Purcell in there?"

"Don't know yet," Mulder replied.  "But I'd be surprised if 
he was.  Scully and I have been sitting out here for three 
hours, and we didn't see any sign of activity in the house."

"No one in or out?" Kazdin asked.

"Someone could have entered through the rear," I conceded.  
"But no lights were turned on."

The firefighters attacked with fat plumes of water,  which 
slapped against the building like a summer rainstorm.  Stray 
drops pelted my face as the smoke choked air from the sky.  
The  wood warped and crackled; the flames bowed.  I imagined 
Jeff Purcell inside, black and rigid as his bones flaked away 
into ash.

"What the hell is this?" Andy Purcell demanded as he came 
puffing up the hill.  "I was on my way home when I heard on 
the radio that this place was on fire.  What's going on?  
Where the hell is Jeff?"

"We've been unable to determine that," Mulder said.  "But it 
doesn't seem like your brother was inside."

Kazdin peered past his boss down the road to Purcell's car.  
"You come from the stationhouse, Andy?"

"Yeah, there should be two black and whites rolling up any 
second now."  He glared at me and Mulder.  "You were here 
when this started and you didn't see anything?  What the hell 
are you good for, then?"

He stalked off muttering insults that would have spun J. 
Edgar Hoover in his grave, and a few seconds later we heard 
him trying to force his way into the smoldering apartment.  
As two of the firefighters held him off, a third stuck his 
head out of one of the windows and signaled the "all clear."  
Kazdin turned to us with a faintly horrified expression on 
his face.

"I wonder what happened to Jeff," he said, hesitating for a 
moment.  Then he shook his head. "You know, it's funny, but I 
could have sworn..."

We didn't get to find out what he thought because at that 
moment Lee-Lee came running up the street, screaming, "Jeff!  
Oh, my God, Jeff!"

"Easy, easy."  Mulder caught her by the shoulders as she 
tried to rush past.  


"I told you he was next!  I told you!"  

"It's all right," Mulder said, holding her tighter.  "Jeff 
wasn't in the house.  It's okay."

She sniffled, her face chalk white under the street light's 
glare.  "He's all right?"

"He wasn't in his apartment," Mulder repeated.  "But we're 
still having trouble finding him.  Do you know where he is?"

She shook her head in slow-motion, going limp in Mulder's 
grasp.  "No.  I haven't seen Jeff in two days."

She was swaying as though her knees might buckle at any 
moment, so Mulder walked her over to the curbside grass and 
sat down with her at the edge.  Kazdin wandered away toward 
the house, but I chose to sit at her other side, my coat 
tucked between me and the cold, wet ground.  Lee-Lee 
shuddered inside her sweater.

"You've got to find him," she whispered through thin, white 
fingers.  "Please, you've got to find him.  I don't think 
Andy is even looking."

"We'll find him," Mulder said, but she did not look 
convinced.  "You said this morning that Jeff thought this 
might happen, that he suspected he would be the next target."

She nodded.  "Yeah, that's what he told me a few days ago.  I 
think that must be why he left town."

"Lee-Lee," I said, trying for a reasonable tone, "you also 
said that you thought your mother's ghost was settings these 
fires.  Even if there were evidence to support that claim, 
it's hard to understand why Jeff would be a target."

Lee-Lee was silent.  She sucked her hands inside her sweater, 
chewing on the knit cuff.  "I...I don't know, either," she 
said finally.

"I think you do," Mulder replied, and she shook her head.

"No.  No, I don't remember."

I met Mulder's eyes as I realized she had just confirmed his 
statement; he didn't seem surprised. "Remember what?" I 
asked.

She fidgeted on the stone curb.  "The murder.  I remember Mom 
and Abe arguing.  Sometimes in my dreams I hear a gunshot.  
But mostly I just remember being outside afterward and seeing 
Abe on the ground."

"What else do you see in your dreams?"  Mulder asked, edging 
closer to her.

"Not much.  Abe and my mother, yelling when I was in my room.  
I hear sirens and see the blood on the driveway.  And 
footsteps.  There are footsteps in the sky that aren't really 
there."  She ducked her head.  "I know that sounds stupid, 
but that's the only way I can explain it."

"You were outside after the murder," I said.  "Did you see 
anything then?  Was Jeff there?"

"I saw Abe," she whispered.  "He was dead.  That's all I 
remember.  I was pretty out of it at the time."  She folded 
her limbs inward like a card table, her chin buried in her 
knees.  

"Could Andy or Jeff have seen the murder?" I asked after a 
moment.

She unscrunched herself long enough to consider the question.  
"I don't know..." she replied slowly.  "We were all in our 
rooms at the time.  Andy and I were next door to each other 
on the second floor, in the front.  I doubt he could have 
seen anything, since I couldn't.  But Jeff...he had the attic 
apartment because he was the oldest.  He could have seen the 
driveway, I guess."  She looked from me to Mulder, her eyes 
huge and dark.  "Do you think that's it?  That's why he's 
next?"

But before we could answer, Kazdin reappeared, looking grim.  
"I think you should come see this."

We followed him up to the house, where firefighters and 
uniformed cops were milling around in equal measure.  Even in 
the dim light I could see the black scorch marks on the side 
of the old white house.  Jeff Purcell's neighbors in the 
building stood around in their nightclothes, looking dismayed 
as they took in the damage to their home.  

"We got it early enough this time that the roof didn't cave 
in," Kazdin said as we squished our way through the water-
logged glass.  "I'm afraid I owe you folks an apology for 
ever dragging you into this mess."

"What do you mean?" Mulder asked at the front door.

Kazdin gestured up the staircase.  "Come see for yourself."

Upstairs, Jeff Pucell's apartment reeked of charred wood and 
melted plastic.  The floorboards were soaked beneath our 
feet, and the walls glistened under the sweep of our 
flashlights.  Drops from the ceiling rained on my neck, and I 
shivered.  "The fire started in here," Kazdin said, leading 
us to the bedroom.  "Careful where you walk.  See these black 
marks on the wall?"

We inspected the V-shaped pattern branded on the far wall of 
Jeff's bedroom.  "It seems to come to a point here at the 
bottom," Mulder observed, stooping to run his hands over the 
peeling, blistering paint.

"Yeah, there's one here, and another over on that wall 
there," Kazdin answered as he shifted his flashlight beam to 
indicate the other scorch marks.  "The fire started at those 
two points worked its way out.  The blisters and scoring on 
the wall there is called 'alligatoring,' and it usually means 
there was an accelerant used to give the fire some gas, so to 
speak.  Whoever set this thing wanted it to burn hard and 
fast."

"You're saying it was man-made," I said.  Mulder stood up and 
wiped his hands on his overcoat.  I waited for him to object, 
to put some paranormal spin on this latest evidence, but he 
merely walked over and peered out the side windows.  A man 
who no longer believed in impossible things.

"'Fraid so," Kazin replied, sounding rueful.  "I've never 
heard of witches using chemicals to start a fire.  Plus, 
there's this."  He walked us around to the back, where we 
navigated through puddles on the linoleum to see that someone 
had jimmied Purcell's kitchen door open.  "They must have 
climbed up the fire escape," Kazdin said.  "Can't imagine a 
witch doing that, either."

"Well someone wanted us to imagine it," Mulder said.

"Yeah, well the question is who," Kazdin groused, toeing a 
nearby puddle.

"No," Mulder replied.  "The first question is why."


XxXxX


Later, as Cathleen fed us warm butter pecan cookies and 
ginger tea in her kitchen, she had the same question.  "Why 
would anyone want to frame a dead woman for murder?"

"It's not about the dead, it's about the living," Mulder 
answered before stuffing an entire cookie into his mouth.  
"Someone wants Lee-Lee and her brothers to think that 
Katherine Centara is back for blood."

"So then maybe the purpose of burning Jeff Purcell's 
apartment this evening was to cement his belief that he would 
be the next victim," I suggested.

Mulder looked thoughtful.  "Convince him or us," he agreed.  
"One thing is for sure -- tonight's fire was very different 
from the previous ones.   Jeff's role in this whole situation 
is still unclear; he didn't even testify at Katherine's 
trial.  I think it's revealing that he wasn't in the 
apartment tonight."

"You think he left town because he was scared?" Cathleen 
asked, sipping her tea. 

"Could be," Mulder answered in a neutral tone, but I 
understood the real possibility in his words.  Arsonists, we 
both knew, often gave themselves away by removing the 
valuables from the property they were about to burn.   
Photos, heirlooms and loved ones had a suspicious way of 
escaping the flames.  Jeff's escape seemed particularly 
suspicious.

"The person setting the fire tonight would have known Jeff 
was not at home," I explained.  "Therefore, murder can't have 
been the motive."

"Right," Mulder said.  "Either the person knew ahead of time 
that Jeff wasn't home..." 

"...or it was Jeff himself," Cathleen breathed in sudden 
understanding.  "My God."

I set down my empty cup.  "Lee-Lee's right -- either way, 
we've got to find him fast."

"First thing in the morning," Mulder agreed.  "Which is in 
about six hours, so I think I'm going to head upstairs now."  
He thanked Cathleen for the tea and stood to leave, looking 
faintly concerned when I did not move to follow.

"I'll be up in a minute," I told him, feeling every one of my 
leftover aches and pains.  I was exhausted, but Cathleen 
looked equally tired, and I didn't want to burden her more 
than we already had.  I offered to help clear away the 
dishes.    

After we had rinsed and dried, Cathleen leaned against the 
counter.  "It's just so hard to even contemplate," she said.  
"Jeff was the golden boy at our school, you know?  Smart, 
handsome, star football player and Harvard-bound brain.  All 
the girls I knew wanted him desperately."

This description did not fit the angry, desperate man I had 
seen in Carson Purcell's office, and I wondered briefly what 
had happened to Todd Pierce, the boy wonder from my high 
school years.  How sad it would be to have your life peak at 
age eighteen.

"We don't know yet that he's guilty of anything," I reminded 
Cathleen.  

She looked away, tossing the dishrag down on the countertop.  
"Well, if he is guilty, I hope you catch him and put him away 
for what he did to those poor people.  Regina had two kids, 
you know."

"We'll do our best," I promised, but she still looked sad.  I 
took a step closer, hesitating a moment.  "Did they ever 
catch the person who hit you?" I asked softly.

"What?"  She jerked her head to look at me.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have pried..."

"No," she said, her voice less sharp.  "I just...there is no 
someone.  I'm the someone."

"Oh."  It was a stupid, awkward thing to say, but I couldn't 
manage anything else.  

"I was at a wedding," she explained.  "There was champagne, 
lots of it, but I thought I was still okay to drive.  It was 
dark...I didn't know the road.  The usual story."

"I'm sorry." 

"No," she said with sudden fierceness.  "Don't be sorry for 
me.  I nearly took out a car full of teenagers.  It was just 
sheer dumb luck that I hit the tree instead."  She pushed 
away from the counter and walked to the window.  I could hear 
the rain had started again.  "You know the amazing part?" she 
continued after a moment.

I watched the stiff set of her back, the slight tremble in 
her arms.  "No, what?"

"The judge let me off," she said.  "Can you believe that?  I 
nearly kill four people, and he doesn't even give me a slap 
on the wrist."

"Maybe he thought you'd been punished enough," I murmured, 
and she turned around.

"You mean this?" she asked, holding her crutches out in front 
of her.  "This is nothing.  You should have seen my mother's 
disappointment.  You should have seen the look on John's face 
when he came to the hospital."

I remembered him, white-faced and chain-smoking outside of 
the hospital the other evening.  "I don't about that," I told 
her after a moment.  "All I know is how he looks at you now."

Her lips twitched as if she were holding back tears, her eyes 
on the carved oak table that gleamed in the center of the 
room.  "He made that for me," she murmured.  "I used to bring 
him coffee while he worked and tease him about how long it 
was taking.  He said I wouldn't laugh when it was done, 
because he was making it strong enough to last forever."

"An admirable goal," I said.

"Yes," she sighed, "but an impossible one."

I had no more words of comfort.  My head throbbed and my 
fingertips felt ready to fall off from fatigue, so I said 
goodnight, leaving her alone with her reflection in the table 
of impossibility.

XxXxX

On my way back from the bathroom, I saw that Mulder had left 
his bedroom door partway open in invitation.  Soft light 
spilled into the hallway, grazing my toes as I stood deciding 
what to do.  I peeked in and saw him sitting up in bed, hair 
mussed and glasses on as he pored over a file.  My decision 
was made.

"Hey," I said, pushing the door wide as I entered.  He smiled 
and put aside the folder.

"Hey, how's your head doing?"

I sat on the bed.  "It's fine.  What were you reading?"

"More notes on Abe's murder.  I'd like to check out the old 
Purcell family home tomorrow."

"Oh?"

"Yeah.  Pull up a pillow."

I pulled my feet up and eased back against the fluffy down, 
conscious of the lump on the back of my head.  The sheets 
fluttered over my legs as Mulder shared his covers.  I 
couldn't see him, and it took me a minute to realize that 
this was because my eyes were closed.  I blinked.  "You want 
to see the house?"

"Yes, to get the layout of where everyone was at the time of 
the shooting.  But we can talk about that in the morning."

"Hmmm...okay."  He disappeared again, but this time it was 
because he shut off the bedside lamp.  As he twisted to get 
comfortable, I thought about what Cathleen had told me and 
how easily I had made the wrong assumption about her 
accident.  I had a nagging feeling that I had made the same 
mistake with Lee-Lee and her family, that there were truths I 
couldn't see because I'd been too busy inventing them myself.

Abe's death.  The trial.  The fires and the lies.  Lee-Lee's 
mysterious dreams, and now Jeff's disappearance.   "There has 
to be one true thing," I murmured to Mulder as he gathered me 
close.  "A place to start."  I tucked my nose in his warm 
shoulder, already half asleep.

I felt his hands on my back, his lips in my hair; I heard him 
whisper, "This is."

XxXxX 

In the morning, I decided to make a list of the things I 
could be sure were true about the case while Mulder visited 
the old Purcell house and tried to track down the photos of 
Lee-Lee that he'd had enlarged.  My list was pathetic in its 
brevity: 

1. Abraham Centara was shot to death in the driveway of the 
Purcell family home the night of November 11, 1981.

2. Present at scene were Katherine and Lee-Lee Centara, Jeff 
and Andy Purcell.

3. Katherine confessed to the shooting.

I stared at number three for a long minute; here was my first 
major assumption, that Katherine had shot Abe.  But there was 
nothing more than her word on that, since no parafin tests 
had been run on her hands.  I considered the possibility that 
she had lied in her confession.  To protect Lee-Lee or her 
stepsons?  Lee-Lee seemed the more likely bet.

Around noon, my phone rang and it was Mulder on the other 
end.  "Scully, I'm on my way over to get you," he said.  "I 
think I've solved the invisible footsteps problem, and I know 
who killed Abe Centara."

"What?" I said, my notes sliding from my lap.  "Who?"

"Five minutes, okay?  I'm at Cedar and Main right now.  I've 
got the enlarged photos but I want you to seem them for 
yourself."

"Mulder."

"Five minutes," he repeated, clicking off.

I snapped the phone shut and swallowed a curse.  After all 
these years, Mulder still took a perverse delight in making 
me guess.  And, as always, I played along.

So five minutes later, I was waiting on the front porch for 
Mulder, ready to go three rounds.  Thirty minutes later, I 
realized with a sinking feeling that our game had a new, 
unwelcome player.

Mulder never arrived.

XxXxX

End Chapter Ten.  Continued in Chapter Eleven.

XxXxX

Chapter Eleven

XxXxX


I found Mulder's car at the bottom of an embankment on Gull 
Road, its rear end crushed and its tires to the sky.  The 
driver's side door flapped in the strong wind, giving me a 
full view of the marshmallow air bags pressed into every open 
corner.  Mulder was gone.

I picked my way down through the mud and bramble to the 
wreck.  Crouching low, I found a smear of blood on the inside 
of the door and flattened grass that suggested Mulder been 
dragged free from the car.  There were tracks leading all the 
way back up to the road.

Close inspection of the dents in Mulder's car revealed 
streaks of a darker paint, perhaps black to Mulder's navy.  I 
fingered the cold metal ridges where he'd been hit as I 
worked my way around to the back.  His fender was dislocated, 
hanging low and scraping the sodden grass. The trunk was 
crumpled up like a paper fan.  More black paint striped the 
surface, and I counted least three different points of 
impact.

We had run out of warnings.  No note, no phone call.  Just a 
silent, twisted heap of metal.

The sounds in my head were ghostly in the whistling wind -- 
screeching tires, shattered glass, the grinding of the cars 
as the other driver sent Mulder over the edge -- but none of 
this would help me figure out who took him and why.

Why.  Mulder had said this was the first question to ask.

Why would someone run him off the road?

To stop him from getting wherever he was going.

He was going to me.  With the pictures.

"The pictures," I said, rushing back to the front of the car.  
I bent down by the open door, wrestling the swollen air bag 
with one hand as I felt around on the roof for fallen 
pictures.  I tried both sides but came up empty.  Swallowing 
a curse, I began combing the nearby marsh grasses for 
anything that might have been thrown free in the crash.  The 
ground squished beneath my feet.

"Dammit, Mulder."  His guessing game with the photos was 
costing both of us precious minutes.  I found his left glove 
and a torn street map in a tangle of underbrush, but there 
was no sign of the photographs he had mentioned.  I was about 
to abandon my search when the reeds rang, sending a small 
flock of birds fluttering into the sky.

I fished Mulder's phone out from the mud.  "Hello."

"Agent Scully?"  Detective Kazdin sounded confused.  "Did I 
get the right number?"

"This is Agent Mulder's phone," I explained.  "Someone ran 
his car off of Gull Road, and now he's missing."

"What?  When?"

"About an hour ago, I would guess.  When I last spoke with 
him he was on his way to show me the enlarged photos of Lee-
Lee Centara.  Whoever attacked Mulder must have also taken 
the pictures; I can't find them anywhere."

"Speaking of finding, we've had no luck turning up Jeff 
Purcell.  And no one has seen Andy yet today, either.  He 
didn't show up for work, and he's not answering his home 
phone.  I was just calling to see if you or Agent Mulder had 
heard from him."

"No, I haven't.  But with both brothers missing, it might be 
a good idea to pick up Lee-Lee."

"I'll send someone right over," Kazdin agreed.  "And I think 
I'll also take drive out to Andy's place...see what's up.  
You need a hand down there with the crash?"

Crash.  Just the word made my stomach churn.  I took a deep 
breath and tried not to throw up.

"Someone should search it more carefully, yes.  I'm going to 
see if the photo shop has copies of the pictures they 
enlarged for Mulder.  Maybe then we'll have some idea who the 
other driver was."

And where Mulder is, I added silently.

"Keep in touch, okay?" Kazdin said.  "I'll do the same."

We hung up, and I walked around the skeleton of the car once 
more, noting the teardrops of blood that ran down the side.  
"Hang on, Mulder," I whispered.  "I'm coming."  Then I 
followed Mulder's tire tracks out of brush, ready to walk 
backwards in his footsteps to the place where he met the 
killer.  I prayed I could get there in time.

XxXxX

"What, again?"  At the EZ Photo Shop, the man behind the 
counter scratched the tufts of gray hair on top of his head.  
"First Andy comes to pick up the originals, and then I just 
printed copies for an Agent Mulder from the FBI.  Don't you 
folks ever talk to each other?"

"Chief Purcell picked up the photos?" I asked.  "When?"

"This morning, about ten-thirty.  Agent Mulder came in about 
twenty minutes later asking for the same thing.  Of course I 
still had the scans in the computer, so I printed him out a 
copy."

"I would also like copies, please.  Quickly."

He lifted his eyebrows at me but moved to the computer 
workstation in the rear.  "Blowing up naked photos of a young 
girl like that," he muttered.  "It isn't right, dragging 
everything up again after all these years."

"Three people are dead," I said, hoping to encourage some 
speed.  "And Agent Mulder is missing because of those photos.  
Now I'd like to know what's in them."

The man halted his puttering with the mouse.  "Missing?  He 
was here not two hours ago.  How far could he have gone?"

"The enlargements, please."  Behind him, the red second hand 
was sweeping minutes off on the clock.  The man shrugged, and 
I paced in front of the counter while the printer hummed its 
work.

"Not much to see," he said as he handed me copies of two 
photos.  "Certainly nothing worth killing over."

I scanned the prints and had to agree with his first 
statement.  Any hope I'd had of an instant answer was crushed 
by the photos before me.  The smudge in the corner that 
Mulder had pointed out was not an "A" but a "4."  That was 
it?  That was his big clue?

"Four what?" I asked aloud, annoyed and afraid by my 
inability to decipher the hidden meaning.  Mulder had been 
gone for over two hours now.  The man craned his neck over 
the counter to squint at the photo with me.

"Looks like a letter jacket," he said.  "You know -- the kind 
the high school kids wear."

Just then, my phone rang, and I fumbled with my left hand to 
answer it.  "Scully."

"Agent Scully, it's John Kazdin.  I'm at Andy Purcell's place 
and I think you ought to come out here straight away."

"What is it?"

"I don't think I ought to say on an open line.  How soon can 
you be here?"

I checked my watch.  "Give me ten minutes."

"Fine.  Did you get the pictures?"

"I have them now," I replied, ringing the bell on the door as 
I left.  "Does the number four mean anything to you in terms 
of a letter jacket?"

"No."

"Andy or Jeff didn't play sports in high school?"

His voice crackled as I started the engine.  "Oh, 
yeah...yeah.  Jeff was our star QB for three years.  There 
was talk of him going pro."

"Uh-huh."  I had the car going sixty miles per hour in under 
ten seconds.  "You remember his number?"

"Sure.  He was forty-two."

I pushed the needle up to eighty.

XxXxX

Kazdin was sitting hunched on the hood of his police cruiser, 
waiting for me.  "Any word on Mulder?" he called as I pulled 
to a stop next to him on the muddy driveway.

"Nothing.  What have you got?"

He slid down and dusted his hands on the back of his jeans.  
"Well, I didn't want to say anything last night, not until I 
was sure."

"About?"

"When Andy showed up at the fire at Jeff's place last night, 
he said he'd heard the call go out on the radio.  But I 
checked -- his car radio was broken last week and is in for 
repairs.  I saw the yellow slip myself.  And then I cam out 
here and found this."

I followed him around back to a weather-beaten old shed.  The 
door stuck until Kazdin threw his full weight against it, and 
the scent of rotting wood and gasoline wafted out to us.  
Kazdin threaded his way through the yard tools into the 
darkness.  I followed, but metal clawed rakes caught my hair 
as I tried to find a square foot of space.  "What is it?" I 
asked, squinting to where Kazdin fumbled in the back.

"This," he said, hoisting up an industrial-sized container 
full of clear liquid.  There must have been at least twenty 
gallons.  "And there's two more back here just like it," 
Kazdin added.  

I ducked past a hoe and a weed-whacker to join him behind the 
Ride-a-Mower.  "Accelerant?" I asked, removing the cap as he 
held the jug in place.

"That's my guess," he answered grimly.  "Check out the gadget 
in the corner, there."

I followed his gaze over my shoulder to a large metal object 
that looks like a cross between a blow torch and the 
Supersoaker water guns my nephews loved.  "A flame thrower," 
I guessed, and Kazdin nodded.

"I think it might be him," he murmured after a moment. "God 
damn."

I sniffed the opening of the jar and could detect only a 
faint sweet scent.  "It's essentially odorless, probably an 
adulterated alcohol," I said.  "No wonder it's been hard to 
trace."

"Why?  I just don't get it.  Why would Andy set those fires 
and kill those people?"

"I don't know that yet," I replied.  "But I have one more 
piece of the puzzle.  The photographs that Mulder had 
enlarged show a letterjacket in the room with Lee-Lee.  It 
has the number '4' on the sleeve."

"Jeff," Kazdin said immediately.  "He was the one sleeping 
with her, not Abe."

"That's what I'm guessing," I said.  "But with both brothers 
missing, there is only one way to know for sure.  The same 
person who might know where they are -- Lee-Lee Centara."

Mulder had been right about that, too.  In the end, it all 
came back to Lee-Lee.

"I sent Ken Bailey over to pick her up at the diner," Kazdin 
said.  "I have to stay here until the evidence boys can bag 
this stuff up, but you're welcome to check her out down at 
the station.  I'll meet you back there in a bit, okay?"

"Fine."  I wove my way around the yard tools and back out 
into the wind.  I didn't tell him that I had no plans to 
interrogate Lee-Lee Centara in a stationhouse closet.   She 
had taken the first step in returning to Tiburton, but I was 
prepared to take her all the way.

Back sixteen years, to the scene of the crime, to the night 
someone had become a murderer.

XxXxX

End chapter eleven.  Continued in chapter twelve.

XxXxX

Chapter Twelve

XxXxX

Lee-Lee sighed.  "I really don't think this will solve 
anything.  I've already told you everything I remember."

I glanced at her, slumped in her seat and pressed against the 
car door, and realized I'd been wrong in my thinking.  I 
wasn't pulling her back; I was trying to join her in a place 
she had never really left.  Thirty-one years old, and her 
body language, her thinking, and her speech all belonged to a 
teenage girl.  She traced invisible lines on the window pane 
as I extracted the photo enlargements from my pocket.

I tossed them on the dashboard in front of her.  "What's 
this?" she asked, sitting up.

"You tell me," I said.  "They were in your home the night Abe 
was murdered.  That's his studio, isn't it?"

She nodded almost imperceptibly.  "I didn't think anyone 
would ever see these," she whispered, curling them in her 
hands.

"Except you and Jeff."

"Yes.  We swore never to tell anyone."  

"But..."

She bit her lip.  "Abe found out.  We borrowed his studio one 
afternoon to take the pictures -- just for fun, you know? -- 
but then we forgot to take the negatives with us.  Abe sent 
Jeff the photos and said we'd better stop seeing each other, 
cause we were family."  She looked sharply at me. "But we're 
not really.  We're not related by blood."

"Go on," I said as I pulled the car into the driveway of the 
old Purcell home.  We were inches from the place where Abe 
had died.

Lee-Lee shuddered.  "I...it's too horrible."

"What happened that night?  Did Abe come over to confront 
you?"

"No no no."  She covered her eyes with her hands, moaning 
softly.  "Mama called him over after Jeff showed her the 
pictures.  He had this plan to blame Abe and told her it was 
Abe who was messing around with me.  Abe tried to explain to 
her, you know, tell her it was Jeff all along.  But she 
wasn't listening.  They...they were screaming so much the 
house was shaking."

"And after that?"

"I don't know.  It's like I said before, I don't remember 
anything until after he was dead.  Oh, God.  She killed him 
because of me."

I almost stopped right there.  The story was disgusting and 
sad and just twisted enough to be true, but I heard Mulder's 
voice inside my head, arguing his role in absentia.  

*There's got to be more, Scully.  As horrible as her story 
is, there's something even more terrible in those missing 
minutes.  What happened in between the fighting and the 
gunshot?*

"Get out," I said, opening my car door.

She looked over at me through her tears.  "Wh--what?"

"I want you to take me through that night, step by step.  I 
need to know exactly what happened."

"Shouldn't you be looking for your partner?" she asked as she 
stood up on wobbly legs.  Her hands still clenched the 
photos.  "Shouldn't we be looking for Andy and Jeff?"

"My partner is missing because of what's in those photos," I 
said, "and because of what he knew about your uncle's murder.  
Whatever that is, I think you know it, too."

"No. No, I told you--"

"Andy is the one who has been setting the fires."

"What?"  She opened and closed her mouth three times in rapid 
succession.  "No, no that can't be.  Andy wouldn't do such a 
thing."

"Detective Kazdin and I found odorless accelerant and a flame 
thrower at his house," I said.

"You're lying.  Andy's a good person.  He...he looks out for 
this town, he took care of me when I was sick.  He would 
*never* have set those fires, never!  Someone must have 
planted that stuff at Andy's place."

"Who?" I asked gently.

"I don't know," she said, sticking out her chin.  "I just 
know you're wrong about Andy.  He's been nothing but good to 
me all those years in the hospital, and watching over me when 
I got out.  Besides, what motive could he have for setting 
the fires?"

"I don't know.  That's what we're here to try to find out.  
When we figure out why, maybe we can figure out where he 
went."

"You think he's with your partner, is that it?" she asked as 
we climbed the shallow stone stairs.  "You think he might 
have been the one to run him off the road?"

Visions of Mulder's mangled car flashed through my head, 
crushed metal and blood streaks.  "I think he might have 
been, yes."  I pulled out my lock pick and went to work on 
the Purcell's heavy wooden door.  The lengthening shadows 
made it difficult to see, and anxiety played hell with my 
timing.  It took me three tries, but at last the lock clicked 
free.

"No, I can't," Lee-Lee said when I swung the door open.  She 
hung back on the porch, her hands balled into fists at her 
side.  "I won't go back in there."

I pulled out my flashlight and cast its beam into the dust-
covered hallway.  The real estate records had indicated no 
one had been inside since the month Abe had died, sixteen 
years earlier.  Incest and murder did not make for a winning 
sales campaign.  I turned back to Lee-Lee. "You said no one 
wanted the murderer caught more than you.  This is your 
chance to make that happen."

She gave me a ferocious glare.  "It's not Andy!"

"Then you don't have anything to worry about, do you?"  I 
held the door open wide.

After another moment of hesitation, she stepped over the 
threshold.  I followed her into the narrow hallway, and the 
wind slammed the door shut behind us, causing the walls to 
shudder from floor to ceiling.  

"It's so cold," Lee-Lee whispered.  "I don't remember it 
being this cold."  

"It hasn't been heated in years," I reminded her, but she 
wasn't listening.  She melded into the darkness ahead of me.  

The air smelled stale, a mixture of dust, tarnished wood, and 
mildewed draperies.  Mice scuttled away from my ray of light 
as we moved deeper into house.  "What is the last thing you 
can remember from that night?" I asked.

Her voice floated back to me.  "I was in my room."

"Where is that?"

"Upstairs," she said, squinting as I pinned her with the 
flashlight beam.

"Then let's start there."

The house was full of twists and turns, low arches and narrow 
passages.  Stray pieces of furniture remained scattered 
throughout the rooms, ready to snag a sleeve or trip a foot 
in the dark.  I cast the light in front of Lee-Lee as we felt 
our way to the back stairs.  "These would have led to the 
servants' quarters in old times," she whispered.  "I wasn't 
surprised that Carson stuck me in the maid's room."

The railing had the smooth feel of wood worn down by human 
touch, and I kept one hand on it as I followed her up the 
steep, winding stairs.  They creaked under our weight, a 
rippling protest that gave the illusion of another person 
behind us, but my light turned up only cobwebs.

Lee-Lee balked at the door to her old room until I pushed 
past her over the threshold.  She inched her way to the 
center and froze, while I explored the perimeter.  Stripped 
nearly bare, it contained only a battered pink chair and some 
ragged posters that had fluttered to the ground years before.   
Sean Cassidy's perfect smile was coated in grime, and the 
garish faces of KISS curled up at the ends.  The daisy 
dropped wallpaper was peeling from one corner.  

"What is the last thing you remember from this room?" I 
asked, as I peered out the window into the shadowed yard 
below.

"I...I was playing records," she said, "and trying not to 
hear then fighting downstairs."

"And did you hear them?"

She nodded, her gaze on the floor.  "Mom was telling Abe she 
didn't ever want him coming around here again."

"Then what?"

"Then all of a sudden they stopped.  I was glad it was over."  
Tears had begun rolling down her face, and she swiped them 
away wither her fingers.  "I was lying on my bed, wondering 
if maybe I should tell Mom the truth -- that Abe hadn't taken 
those pictures -- when I heard the gun go off."

"And?"

"That's it," she sniffed, drawing in a shaky breath.  "That's 
all I remember until I was outside."

"Try harder.  You heard the gunshot and went outside.  How 
did you get there?"

She looked over at me, startled.  "I...I don't know.  The 
same way we came up, I suppose.  The back staircase."

"All right, then let's go that way."

We crept down the dark stairs, which again creaked around us 
like ghostly footsteps.  "Invisible footsteps," I whispered, 
and Lee-Lee came to a halt in front of me.  She pulled her 
hand from the banister as if burned, staring at it in the 
sharp, angled light.  "What is it?" I asked.

"I got a splinter," she said.  "That night, I was running so 
fast I tripped.  I caught the railing on my way down and got 
a splinter."

"What about the footsteps?" I asked.

She shook her head, seeming confused.  "I don't know, I don't 
know.  They were supposed to be but weren't.  I can't explain 
it."

"Okay, just keep going."  I was frustrated now.  I was ninty-
nine percent sure that Andy had Mulder -- maybe Jeff, too -- 
and digging around in the past was not getting me any closer 
to finding them.

Outside, the wind jerked tree branches around like puppets on 
a string.  Lee-Lee staggered through the swirling leaves 
toward the driveway, barely aware of me any more.  I kept my 
flashlight trained on her back like a bullseye so as not to 
lose her in the night.

"I...I came out here, and Abe was lying on the ground with 
blood coming from his head.  I walked over to him..."

She took a few steps closer to the pavement.  "I saw...I saw 
a gun!"

"Where was the gun?"

"Next to Abe.  And..."  She stopped, shook her head.  "No, 
no, it's not right."

"What isn't right?"

"Jeff is here.  He's standing by that tree.  Now Mom, now 
Andy...Oh, God."  She broke off with a low moan.  "No, no.  
God, please no."

I reached her just as she sank to the ground, rocking back 
and forth with her head in heads.  "What is it?  What did you 
see?"

"Jeff," she said brokenly.  "Jeff was here, but there were no 
footsteps.  Oh, God."

I wasn't following.  "Footsteps on the driveway?"

"No, in the house.  His room was in the attic.  I would have 
heard him on the stairs, after the shot.  He would have been 
coming down right with me."

"Unless he was already here," I finished for her.

"Ohgodohgod," she said, still rocking.  "He killed him, 
didn't he?  All those years I thought it was Mom.  Oh, God.  
Jeff, why?"

I didn't have a concrete answer to that, but I suspected it 
had something to do with Abe's laying down the law about Jeff 
and Lee-Lee's affair.  The Harvard-bound favorite son may not 
have wanted his future tarnished by threats of exposure.  
"Listen," I said, grabbing Lee-Lee by the arm to get her 
attention, "what about Andy?  Could he have known that Jeff 
killed Abe?"

She sniffled.  "I don't think so.  I didn't even know it -- 
not really, anyway -- until now.  Andy's always been real 
protective of the family, you know?  Especially me.  Jeff and 
I were extra careful to make sure he didn't find out about 
us."

I thought of the pictures that Andy had picked up this 
morning that revealed the true identity of Lee-Lee's lover.  
"What if he did find out?" I asked.  "What then?"

"I'd kill him."

We jumped and turned.  Andy Purcell loomed over us in 
silhouette, a gun in hand.  Lee-Lee frowned.  "Andy, 
what...?"

"Stand up," he ordered.  "And shut your lying face."

"Andy, please," she said as we stood.  "Don't do this."

"Shut up!"  He aimed the gun at her chest.  "You were fucking 
him the whole time!  I did everything for you, and you were 
screwing him behind my back."

"No, Andy, I swear it was over a long time ago..."

"SHUT UP!" he roared, the gun trembling with the force of his 
rage.  "Shut up or I will you kill you right here!"

The clouds parted a bit and the moonlight caught the edge of 
his face, sweaty with matted hair and crazed eyes.  There was 
blood on his hand -- his or Mulder's?  I licked my lips, 
keeping one eye on the gun barrel as I tried to talk him 
down.

"Andy, listen to me.  No one needs to get hurt.  Put the gun 
down and..."

I felt the pain crush my cheek before I even registered his 
movement.  The gun barrel caught me directly under the left 
eye, bruising the socket and splitting the skin.  Blood 
trickled warm and wet down my cheek as I struggled to regain 
my balance. 

"Andy, stop this!" Lee-Lee shrieked.  "What are you doing?"

He ignored her, his weapon trained on me.  "Lose the SIG," he 
ordered.  "Two fingers with your left hand, and take it real 
slow."

I did as he ordered. 

"Now drop it on the ground and kick it away.  Good."  He 
disappeared into blackness again as the clouds reconvened.  
"Let's all go inside, shall we?"

"Is that where you have Mulder?" I asked as we walked through 
the tall grass.

"You FBI folk ask too many damn questions.  Mulder will get 
what's coming to him, and so will you."

"Andy, this is crazy," Lee-Lee said tearfully as she tripped 
on the back steps.  Purcell jerked her up by her hair.

"I've got cause to be crazy!" he snarled.  "I waited sixteen 
years for you, only to find out that you're my brother's 
whore!"

He gave her a rough shove into the back hall, then pushed me 
in after her.  It was cramped and dark in the narrow corridor 
as we stumbled blindly toward the front of the house.  Lee-
Lee choked on her tears.   "She was right, wasn't she?" she 
said to him.  "You were the one setting all those fires.  
God, Andy, you're a murderer!"

"That didn't seem to put you off Jeff," he said, and I felt 
the gun barrel graze my ribs.  I squeezed Lee-Lee's arm in an 
effort to shut her up, but she pulled away.

"I didn't know he killed Abe.  I thought it was Mom."

"Well, we both know better now, don't we?  Get in there."  He 
pushed us into the remnants of the parlor.  Mulder was 
nowhere to be seen.  Lee-Lee seemed to make the same 
realization, only in another direction.

"Andy, where's Jeff?  What did you do to him?"

"'Where's Jeff?'" he mimicked in a sing-song. "'Where could 
Jeffy-boy be?'"  He withdrew a length of rope from his 
jacket.  "He's keeping Agent Mulder company in another room.  
'Course, I doubt very much he's holding up his end of the 
conversation."

"Jeff's dead?" she whispered.

He held up his weapon.  "Did him just like he did Abe, the 
sonofabitch.  One shot to the back of the head."

My heart pounded painfully against my ribs, and for a moment 
I thought I might pass out.  Purcell had no to reason to keep 
Mulder alive, especially if he had been a witness to the 
shooting.  "Agent Mulder..." 

"...was in no condition to stop me," Purcell finished with a 
sneer.  "I dragged him from that wreck just to buy me some 
time.  Figured he could bleed to death here just as good as 
anywhere else."

Think, I told myself.  Do not let his words distract you.  
Mulder is still alive.  

As he approached Lee-Lee with the rope, I looked around the 
room for anything I might use as a weapon.  But there was 
only a dingy mirror on the wall and a few stubby candles on 
the mantel.  He pinched Lee-Lee's chin, turning her face to 
his.  

"Such a pretty face," he murmured as he traced her cheek with 
the gun barrel.  

"Please," she whispered.

"I tried to please you," he replied, his grip tightening 
until she squirmed.  "I tried everything to show you I was 
the one you needed.  The fires burned, and you came running 
to me, just like I thought you would."

"I never wanted those people to die, Andy."

"And I never wanted you to whore yourself to my brother."  He 
shrugged.  "But it's too late now."

He pushed her down on the hardwood floor, so hard I heard her 
chin crack.  Again, I cased the dim room for anything I could 
use to overpower him -- loose boards, heavy objects of any 
sort.  There was nothing.

With a few quick motions, Purcell had Lee-Lee's wrists and 
ankles tied.  She whimpered.  "Please don't kill us, Andy.  
I'll do anything you want, anything..."

He ignored her and withdrew another length of rope.  It was a 
move I didn't understand.  Why tie us up just to shoot us?  

"Down on the floor," he said, gun to my head.  I had no 
choice but to comply.  The rope was coarse and biting around 
my wrists, and the sharp fibers scratched against my ankles 
as he pulled the last knot tight.

When he lifted away from me, I smelled it.

It had been underneath the stale, dusty odor the whole time, 
but I had not noticed until my face was pressed low to the 
ground.  

Faint and sweet.  Like the colorless liquid we had found in 
his shed.

Oh God.

He stood over me, grinning, and I could tell he knew what I 
was thinking.  He pulled out a silver rectangle and waved it 
at me.  "Want a light?" he asked.

Lee-Lee gasped.  I struggled against my bonds.  If he dropped 
that lighter, the whole house would be engulfed in a matter 
of seconds.

He left me and walked over to Lee-Lee.  For a moment, I 
thought he might kick her in the ribs.  Instead, he crouched 
down low and stroked her hair.  "You'll burn longer than I 
could ever manage," he whispered.  He turned and left, his 
heavy footsteps echoing through the house.  They faded into 
the distance. 

Wide-eyed and still, Lee-Lee and I watched each other from 
across the floor.  Silence stretched out the seconds until I 
could barely breathe.

Nothing.

         Nothing.

                  Nothing.

                             A click.  A whoosh.  Boom.

XxXxX

End chapter twelve.  Continued in chapter thirteen.


XxXxX

Chapter Thirteen

XxXxX

Fire swept into the room in an instant, crackling up the 
walls and igniting the drapes.  Lee-Lee coughed.

"What are we going to do?" she yelled.

I twisted around, searching for an answer.  Even if it were 
unlocked, the door was framed with flames.  "Can you stand?" 
I yelled back.

"I don't know!"

I wiggled on the floor like a worm until I found a way to 
brace my legs enough to reach a kneeling position.  From 
there, I rocked backwards onto my feet.  Lee-Lee followed my 
lead.  "We can't hop out of here!" she said.  "It's too far.  
We'll never make it!"

The heat was making it hard to think.  Sweat ran down my neck 
in rivulets, and the smoke felt like acid in my eyes.  "Hang 
on, hang on!"

I spotted the mirror again, the one hanging over the mantel.  
Like the expert hop-scotch player I'd once been, I jumped my 
way across the room.  

"What are you doing?" Lee-Lee screamed.  "We've got to get 
out of here!"

I slide my head under the heavy gold frame until I had 
sufficient force to lift it from its hanger.  It slid three 
inches up the wall, and then I ducked out of the way.  It hit 
the floor with a crash and shattered into several large 
pieces.  "Come here!" I yelled to Lee-Lee.  "Hurry!"

Red-faced and breathless, she hopped within a few inches of 
me.  "What?"

"Grab this,"  I knelt down and snatched a large shard of 
glass for her to hold.  "Keep the pointed edge facing out."

Back to back, we positioned ourselves so that the ropes 
around my wrists slid along the makeshift blade.  The flames 
crept higher as we began a frantic, awkward dance.  The wall 
paper was peeling like a bad sunburn, and smoke was pressing 
down on us from above.

And somewhere in the house, Mulder was dying.

"Faster!" I hollered.

"I'm trying!"

Several times we missed the rope and sliced into my hand 
instead, but I barely registered the pain.  At last, the 
knots began to give way.  I twisted my hands to speed the 
process, and within seconds, I was free.

"Now me, now me."

I took the glass to Lee-Lee's knots and released her with 
just a few judicious strokes.

"Oh thank God," she breathed, rubbing her wrists.

We bent and loosened the ties at our ankles.  The ropes 
slipped away. 

"The only way out is through that door," I said, nodding at 
the fire-ringed archway.  "Tuck your hair inside your shirt 
and stay low to the ground." She nodded, and we prepared to 
walk through the flames.  

At the door, with the fire swaying and popping, Lee-Lee 
hesitated.  "You first."

I pulled my coat up over my head with shaking fingers.  
Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and ran into the 
flames.  It took less than a second to cross, but I felt the 
piercing heat sear all the way to my skin.  My face was 
burned, and the end of my coat caught fire.  I stamped it 
out.

"Come ON!" I yelled to Lee-Lee.  I could see her frozen in 
place behind the wall of fire.  At last, she darted across 
the threshold, emerging with an armful of flames.

"Ahhh, get it off me!  Get it of me!"  She ran around in a 
circle until I tackled her to the ground, rolling her so the 
fire was extinguished.  She shivered under me.

"It's hot and cold at the same time.  How can I be cold?"  
Her voice was hoarse, and her eyes were glassy. 

I needed to get her out of there before she slipped into 
shock.

I needed to find Mulder.

"Get up," I said, pulling her to her feet.  She stumbled, 
leaning on me heavily as the walls began to groan around us.  
I remembered suddenly what Kazdin had said about the roof 
caving in.  "Let's go," I ordered, marching her toward the 
hall.  Smaller fires reached out with fronds of orange, 
grabbing at us hungrily as we walked past.

The front door finally appeared in view, seeming to bulge and 
wobble through the haze of smoke.  As we drew nearer, it 
shattered with a crack.  One piece swung inward on its hinges 
while the other splintered on the ground.  In the doorway, 
stood a man with a mask and a large axe.

"Oh, thank God," Lee-Lee said, sagging against me.  A second 
man appeared in the hall.  He took Lee-Lee and began leading 
me out of the building. 

"No!"  I pulled out of his grasp.

He turned, looking at me with wild eyes. "Come on!" he said 
through his mask.  "It's gonna collapse!"

"Mulder!" I hollered, backing away.  He lunged for me with 
his free arm.

"You're crazy!"

The smoke was filling up the hall, and he lost me in the 
clouds.  Coughing madly, I dropped to the floor and began 
crawling back the way I'd come.  My eyes were almost swollen 
shut.  "Mulder!" I screamed as loudly as I could.  "Mulder, 
it's me!  Where are you?"

There was no answer.

My lungs burned as though I had swallowed the flames, and I 
could feel my throat closing off.  "Mulder..."

I reached the front hall, which was ablaze from three sides. 
Whichwaywhichway?  There were stairs and two doors, but only 
one right choice.  I was fuzzy, light-headed, in desperate 
need of oxygen.  Blinking through my tears, I considered my 
options.  "Oh, please," I whispered.  "Mulder, where are 
you?"

The flames danced and swayed.  

I chose the door on the left.  

I began inching toward it, my palms blistering on the hot 
wooden floor, when a shape emerged from the fire.  A woman, 
nearly transparent in the glow of the fire.

She was tall, with a tattered dress and long black hair.  
Elysian, I realized.  I watched, paralyzed, as she drifted 
past me and up the stairs. 

Mulder. 

I gulped as much air as I could and followed her.  

The smoke was thicker upstairs, black and bitter like 
yesterday's coffee.  I slunk along the main hall but found no 
trace of Elysian.  "Mulder!" I yelled once more.

"Scully!"

Oh, thank God.  My relief energized me to push through the 
billowing waves and reach the next door.  Inside, I could 
barely make out Jeff's body, and Mulder, alive and bound with 
rope in the corner.

"Scully," he said, breaking off into a rattling cough.  "Over 
here."  I crept toward the sound of his voice.

"Hang on, Mulder.  I'm going to get you out of here." 

I reached his foot first and followed it up to the rest of 
him.  He was sweaty and shaking, but managed a weak version 
of his trademark smile.  "You were really going for the 
dramatic rescue this time, weren't you, Scully?"

I felt his pulse.  It was racing, but his respiration was 
shallow.  There was blood on his collar.  "Where are you 
hurt?" I asked.

"Hit my head on the side of the door in the crash," he said, 
coughing again.  "Maybe sprained an arm, too."

"Let's get you out of here."  My fingers were raw with burns, 
and I struggled with the knots around his wrists.  He groaned 
as I released him.  "You okay?"

"Can't...breathe."

I pulled the ropes off his ankles, giving him a slight 
squeeze.  "We're getting out of here right now.  Come on."

Our air pocket had disappeared; the carbon monoxide was 
making me weak, dizzy.  As I crawled toward the door, I could 
hear Mulder wheezing behind me.  His injured arm was making 
it difficult for him to move.

"This way, Mulder," I said to encourage him.  "We've got to 
hurry."

He coughed.  "Coming.  You...keep...going." 

I waited for him in the hallway, where fiery pieces of 
molding were dropping from the ceiling.  He emerged from the 
haze with a gasp.  I curled my fingers around his good arm.  
"Come on, come on.  We're almost there."

It was a lie, and he knew it.

"Scully...you go.  Get help."

"No."  I knew with certainty that if I left him he would die.  
"You can make it, Mulder."

Chest heaving, he crawled into the hallway with me.  "I'll 
slow you down."

"We'll both go slowly, Mulder, but we're leaving here 
together."

He laid his head on the ground, looking up at me through 
slitted eyes.  "Bossy."

"That's right, and I say we're going.  Now move."

He staggered up on all fours again.  "Which way?"

There was a crash from below, followed by a groaning sound, 
but I could not see anything through the black smoke.  The 
back stairs and the front were equally clogged.  When I 
glanced at Mulder again, he was collapsed on the ground.  

"Mulder!"  I choked as I shook him.  "Wake up.  We're going."

"Mmmm."  Mulder began to follow me with sluggish movements, 
and I knew we were running out of time.  The carbon monoxide 
was stealing all the oxygen from our blood.

"Keep going, Mulder."

We had advanced only a few feet when I saw her again, 
standing by the back stairs.  Mulder froze, gagging.  I 
tugged him harder, certain now that we were going the right 
direction.  The ghostly image lingered for several moments 
before evaporating into the swirls of smoke.  Seconds later, 
my fingers slid over the first step.  "This is it," I said.

Mulder went down first, slipping feet-first around the first 
bend.  His motor control was almost gone.  Every cell in my 
body was screaming for oxygen, but I kept moving.  At the 
bottom, the fire reappeared with a vengeance; it was like 
walking into the sun.  

"Scully," Mulder rasped as he extended his hand back to me.  
Our palms met, slick with sweat.  "C'mon."

The kitchen was melting, the cupboards scorched and the 
linoleum curled.  We faltered several times en route to the 
door, but at last we found the opening where someone had 
chopped it down.  

Air.  It hit us like a ton of bricks, and I thought my lungs 
might burst right through my chest.  I sucked in huge breaths 
but it was too late; the world was starting to go black.

Mulder collapsed right on the threshold.  I made it as far as 
the yard.

"I need the EMTS now!" someone yelled over my head.

The next thing I knew, men in crisp white shirts with the 
Caduceus symbol on the sleeve were kneeling over me.  "Agent 
Scully, can you hear me?" one of them asked, enunciating each 
word like I was a small child.

I tried to answer but couldn't speak around the oxygen mask.  
"Mmmfine," I said, beginning to struggle.

"Lie still," the man soothed.  "You're dehydrated and you've 
inhaled a lot of smoke.  We need to get some fluid and oxygen 
back into your body before you can go anywhere."

He pressed the mask back into place, but I tugged it away 
again.  "Mulder."  The word grated against the swollen 
tissues in my throat.  

"He's been taken to Lawrence General Hospital, and they're 
taking very good care of him, I'm sure."

We wrestled with the mask again as I tried to get more 
information out.  "He's okay?"  

The EMT shot a glance at his partner that I recognized 
immediately -- how much should we tell her?  He's dead, I 
thought briefly, in a panic.  They're lying to keep me calm.  
I had dim memories of him falling in the doorway, a curtain 
of fire at his back.  Oh, God.

I sat up between them, displacing my blanket and tangling my 
IV line.  "Tell me."

"Easy, easy.  Your partner is in bad shape, I won't lie to 
you.  He was upstairs, with the worst of the smoke, and the 
carbon monoxide had more time to get into his system."

At his words, the past hour came flooding back in a hot, 
painful rush.  Jeff was dead.  Mulder was hurt.  Andy was 
missing.  I needed to get up.

"Agent Scully, you need to go to the hospital."  The EMTs 
tried to restrain me as I fumbled with my blanket.  "You need 
to stay on the oxygen for at least another hour, and there 
are burns on your hands and face."

Vaguely, I knew this.  My face was stretched taut with the 
burns, and my hands were raw and swollen.  "I'm fine," I 
croaked.  "Let me up."

The EMT looked flustered.  "Agent Scully, please..."

I ignored him and staggered to my feet.  Turning around, I 
saw the fire still raged out of control.  My dizziness held 
me paralyzed as the flames seemed to spin in circles before 
my eyes.  I searched the swaying fire for any sign of the 
figure I'd seen inside, but she had vanished in the orange 
light.

Orange.

The color of insanity.

xxx

I shiver under my blanket, chilled despite the fact that my 
skin is scorched taut by my ordeal in the flames.  The hair 
on my arm is singed black and dissolves into ash at my touch.

Eventually, Kazdin comes over and touches my elbow.  I jump 
at the contact.  "Sorry," he murmurs.  "Are you okay?"

Fresh tears sting my injured eyes; they clog my throat with 
welling pain.  "No," I whisper.  "I'm not."

He moves to stand between me and the dwindling fire, 
wrenching my gaze from it at last.  "What I can do?" he asks.

Abe Centara's story is finished.  There is no more I can do 
here.  "I need to go to the hospital," I said.  "I need to 
see Mulder."

XxXxX

The burns on my hands are worse than I'd realized, and I 
leave the emergency room like a mummy in training.   They 
offer me a bed, which I accept but don't use, and a portable 
oxygen tank, which I do.  I drag it like a vacuum cleaner 
through the waxy halls until I reach intensive care.  The 
staff there must have seen some horrific things, because they 
don't look at all shocked by my swollen eyes, bandaged hands 
and blistered skin.  Instead, a blonde woman with tiny 
freckles takes me aside and speaks softly to me about Mulder.

"Considering the length of his exposure, your partner is 
doing very well.  Did they explain to you downstairs the 
primary danger of smoke inhalation?"

I nod.  "The carbon monoxide binds to the hemoglobin in the 
blood in place of oxygen; without oxygen, the body's tissues 
begin to die."

"That's right.  And this often triggers an injury response in 
the lungs that can cause congestion and eventually 
respiratory failure.  This is what happened to Agent Mulder.  
We have put him on a ventilator to assist his breathing, and 
we're treating some moderate burns in his nose and throat 
area."

I feel numb, nodding with her words but wishing only to see 
Mulder.  "Will be he all right?"

"His blood oxygen levels have been improving steadily.  We'll 
know more in the next twelve hours, when the lasting tissue 
damage will be more apparent."

"Can I see him?"

She smiles.  "Of course.  Just don't be too shocked by what 
you see."

It can't be worse than anything I've seen before, I think, 
but I am wrong.  It is a hundred times worse.  This time is 
he is hurt because of me, because I was careless at the house 
and let Purcell get the better of me.  If I had paid more 
attention to the smell, if I had done a more thorough 
exploration of the house instead of playing memory games with 
Lee-Lee, Mulder would not be lying in the hospital now.  If I 
had not taken her from the station without backup, without 
letting anyone know where I was going, Andy Purcell would not 
have escaped.

I made a grievous mistake, and Mulder is paying the price.

I close the door behind me, lingering near the threshold as I 
force myself to look at him.  His color is ashen gray, and 
there is a pink tube emerging from his throat.  Beside the 
bed, his heart monitor beeps a slow but steady cadence.  I 
find myself counting the sounds inside my head.

One...
Two...
Three...

Just keep counting, Mulder.

I tug my oxygen with me into the room and maneuver as close 
as I can to the bed.  "Mulder, it's me," I say, awkwardly 
patting his arm with one my gauze mittens.  "I'm okay.  We 
made it."

I don't really expect him to answer, but the silence pierces 
my heart all the same.  There is a plastic chair against the 
wall, and I scrape it across the floor to the bed.  Resting 
my cheek on the cool sheets, I study the delicate arch of his 
fingers.  

He sleeps.

I keep counting.

XxXxX

On the third day, I am discharged from the hospital.  What 
this really means is that I am no longer paying for my space 
on the couch in the waiting room for Intensive Care.  Mulder 
is breathing on his own but is not yet awake.  The doctors 
continue to worry about pneumonia and infection.

I exist in a strange state of limbo between night and day, in 
the pale green room with its under-stuffed couches and 
omnipresent fluorescent lighting.  Cathleen provides some 
rhythm by dropping in every afternoon.  She coaxes me to eat 
with homemade vanilla pudding, vegetable broth, and other 
foods that don't scratch or burn the inside of my throat.  
Today she brings something more than food.

"Hey."

It's Lee-Lee.  She hangs back in the entryway as Cathleen 
sets a tupperware container full of chicken noodle soup on 
the magazine table in front of me.

"I'll be right back," Cathleen whispers, and Lee-Lee and I 
are left alone.

She rubs the toe of her sneaker into the worn carpet.  "Bet 
I'm the last person you want to see right now."

"Not at all.  I've been wondering how you were doing."

"They haven't found Andy yet."

"I know.  Detective Kazdin has kept me updated."

"Yeah, he wants to keep me here in protective custody in case 
Andy tries to kill me again, but..."  She shrugged.  "I can't 
do this anymore."

"Do what?"

"Live in this town, where everyone knows.  I walked into the 
diner today to get my last paycheck and everyone stopped 
talking.  My friend Sharen could hardly look at me."

I want to tell her it's not her fault, but somehow, with 
Mulder lying burned and battered in intensive care, I can't 
get the words out.  "You're not responsible for your 
stepbrothers' actions," I say instead.

She looks sad.  "Aren't I?  All I know is that if I hadn't 
come back to Tiburton, four people would still be alive.  You 
wouldn't have gotten hurt, and your partner wouldn't be here 
in the hospital."

I let that pass with silence.  "You cleared your mother's 
name," I point out finally.  "That's something, right?"

"Something I should have done a long time ago."  She sucks 
her hands inside her sleeves and rocks back on her heels.  
"There's a lot of things I should have done a long time ago.  
I'm not going to wait anymore."

"Maybe you should stay for a few more days," I say, a little 
afraid for her.  "Kazdin is right that your stepbrother is 
still a danger to you."  

She shakes her head.  "No, it's okay.  I have a friend in San 
Francisco who's letting me crash at her place until I figure 
out what I'm going to do next.  And if Andy does find me...I 
guess that will mean it's meant to be.  I'm prepared to 
suffer the consequences."

"Lee-Lee..."

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to go looking for it.  But 
I can't help thinking that it's not right that I'm the only 
one to walk away."  She broke off, looking at the floor.  "Or 
maybe that is my punishment, who knows?  Anyway, I just came 
here to say thank you.  You put yourself on the line for me 
when I gave you no reason to.  So...thanks."

"You're welcome."

She leaves without another word, and a moment later Cathleen 
returns.  "I found frozen yogurt today," she says, setting 
her crutches aside and taking the seat next to me.  I accept 
a cup but then pick at the chocolate peak with my plastic 
spoon.  "How did it go with Lee-Lee?" she asks after a 
moment.  

"It was strange," I reply, and give her an abbreviated 
version of our conversation.

"I don't blame her for leaving," Cathleen says when I've 
finished.  "There were many days when I thought I'd pick up 
and leave, too.  People never forget around here.  You're the 
same person from cradle to grave, no matter what." She 
shifts, and her braces rub against the chair.

"But you've decided to stay?" I ask.

"Yeah," she says, her voice soft.  "For the same reason I 
almost left.  I liked the person I was before the accident, 
and I think maybe staying here is the only way I'll ever get 
her back."

She smiles, and I force myself to return it.  "What about 
Kazdin?"

"Oh, he's staying, too," she answers, her smile widening.  
"And that's good enough for now."

We ate for a few moments in silence.  "So maybe it was true 
after all," she says at length.

"What was?"

"The legend.  The story said Elysian would come back and 
bring Tiburton to its knees.  The way folks are walking 
around in a daze right now, I'd say she did a damn good job."

I remember the silent figure I'd seen floating in the fire.  
"No, I think the legend is wrong.  I think Elysian never 
really wanted revenge."

"No?"

"I think maybe all she ever wanted was justice."

XxXxX

I am roused at 2 a.m. by the night nurse gently shaking my 
shoulder.  "He's awake, dear," she whispers.  "But don't let 
him talk too much, okay?"

I don't care if he says a single word.  I just want to see 
those eyes brimming with life again.  

When I reach the room, his head is turned toward the door, 
his eyes open, waiting for me.  I make no attempt to hide my 
smile.  "Hi," I say, joining him near the bed.  "Welcome 
back."

His lips curve in answer, and he touches my bandaged right 
hand with gentle fingers.  "Look at you," he says, as though 
speaking through sand paper.

"Shhh, Mulder, don't talk.  It's not good for you."

The look he gives me says knows this, but when has he ever 
done anything that's good for him?  "You really okay?," he 
croaks, and because I'm exhausted and giddy inside, I let him 
get away with it.

"I'm all right.  So is Lee-Lee.  Jeff's dead, of course, and 
no one has been able to figure out what happened to Andy."

He frowns but keeps his mouth shut.

"The doctors say you're doing really well," I tell him.  "But 
they are going to want to keep you herefor at least another 
week, maybe two."

I'd expected him to start fussing at that news, but instead 
he raised his hand to cup the side of my face.  His smile is 
soft and affectionate.  "Walk through fire for me, Scully?"

I take his hand and kiss each finger.  "Always."  His eyelids 
begin to droop, so I reluctantly pull away.  "You get some 
sleep," I say, brushing his hair back as best I can with my 
wrapped hand.  "I'll see you in the morning."

As I reach the door, I hear the rasp of his voice again.  
"Scully."

I turn.  "Yeah?"

"You saw her?  Elysian?"

I hesitated a moment, then nod.  "Yes, I saw her."

His eyes are full of a wonder I have not seen in months.  
"Me, too," he whispers.  "Me, too."

XxXxX

End chapter thirteen.  Continued.


XxXxX

Epilogue

XxXxX

A light February snow is falling as I leave the hospital.  I 
take this as a sign that I should stand in the parking lot 
and watch while the silent flakes glide around in the yellow 
beam of the street lamp.  

This snow could have been falling on my grave.

Instead, my oncologist has just shaken his head at my latest 
round of tests and said he wished he was in as good shape as 
I was.  Just hearing the words again in my head makes me 
stick out my arms and twirl around with a laugh.  I hope that 
Morley-sucking bastard is watching.

After another few minutes in the brisk winter air, I climb 
into my car and contemplate my destination.  Mulder had been 
at the hospital earlier for his check-up, I know.  He'd even 
offered to car pool.  But I'd been wound tight as a spring 
all week, just anticipating this day, and hadn't wanted to 
bear the stress of his anxiety as well.  If it had been bad 
news, I would have needed some time to figure out how to tell 
him.

Now, in the chilly confines of my dark car, I feel strangely 
bereft.  It was a clean bill of health so amazing I should 
have wanted to shout the news from the rooftop.  But there is 
only one person I really want to tell.  Warming my engine, I 
decide I'm craving red-curried chicken from The Green Papaya.

Which just happens to be three blocks from Mulder's house.

"Scully, come in."  He gives me such a pleased smile that I 
am instantly contrite about shutting him out earlier.  Maybe 
next time I will muster enough strength to let him hold my 
hand in the waiting room.

"I brought food," I say to assuage my guilt.

"Smells like curry," he answers with an appreciative sniff.  
"I'll get the plates."  

"Make it fast or I might eat your share here in the living 
room.  As it was, there was a near miss in the elevator."

I bring the bag to the table, and as I'm removing the piping 
hot containers, he calls back to me.  "So how did it go?"

Such a casual question.  So careless and unconcerned that he 
has to ask it with two rooms between us.  "Fine, Mulder.  
Completely and absolutely fine."

For once, I don't think he minds the word.  "That's great!" 
he blurts, and I hear a dish hit the floor.  "Um, really 
wonderful, Scully."

"Mulder, do you need a hand in there?"

"No!  I'll be right out.  Hey, why don't you dig some candles 
out of the bedroom?  We can celebrate in style."

In his room, I see there are fresh sheets on the bed and 
realize Mulder's celebration does not end with dinner.  I 
grin as I retrieve the candles from his bookcase.  On my way 
out, I catch a glimpse of his wall of boxes and stop short.

One has been opened.  

The lid is still off, and the contents have clearly been 
rifled.  Even more intriguing, there is a map of Texas pinned 
tacked on the wall.  Squinting, I can just make out a circle 
around the name "Chaney."  Very interesting indeed.

Mulder is waiting with the table set and the wine poured when 
I return.  He lights a match, and the candles cast our table 
in a warm glow.  His eyes darken to match his sweater.  The 
view is so distracting that it takes me a moment to remember 
the food in front of me. 

After two bites, I remember something else.  "Mulder, how did 
your appointment go?  What did the doctor say?"

He shrugs.  "There's some lingering damage in my left lung, 
but that should go away in the next couple of months.  I'm 
healing."

"That's really good to hear," I say, squeezing his hand.  He 
kisses my knuckles.

"A toast," he says, raising his glass.  "To being healthy at 
the same time."

"I'll drink to that."  We clink the rims together and 
swallow.

"So Mulder," I say a few minutes later.  "What's in Chaney, 
Texas?"

The edges of his mouth curve in a mysterious smile.  "In the 
morning," he replies.  "I wouldn't want to waste my slides."

As he nudges me under the table with a sock-clad foot, I can 
feel a familiar tingle starting in my spine that has almost 
nothing to do with his tickling toes.  

Mulder has slides.  

XxXxX

Zee End

Thanks to my wonderful beta team: Alicia, Jerry, Jintian and 
Gwen!  I owe them and many others for kind words and 
continued support over the last few months.  Like Mulder, I 
have some "slides" with which to better illustrate. :-)

http://www.omniscribe.com/thanks.html

I've learned a lot from this story and hope you've enjoyed 
the ride, too.  All types of feedback are welcome at 
syn_tax6@yahoo.com (the right address this time <g>)

Thanks for reading!

Syntax6