OF WATER AND THE STARS (Intro and 1/5)

The characters and situations of the television program The X-
Files are the creations and property of Chris Carter, Fox
Broadcasting, and Ten-Thirteen Productions, and have been used
without permission. No copyright infringement is intended. This
work is not to be forwarded to any newsgroup, FTP, or WWW site
without the permission of the author.

Rating: PG (No sex, no profanity, no relationship development,
some violence. US3 spoilers.)

Classifications: T A

Summary: Why is everyone suddenly looking for Missy's diary?

Comments to: Anne Elliott, christiano@aol.com

BEGIN 1/5

"Hi, Dana. Remember me?"

"Terry. Of course. How are you?"

"I'm fine. Your brother asked me to drop this off." Her visitor
handed Scully a thick, paper-covered parcel.

"Bill? What is it?"

"It's Melissa's diary."

"Missy's diary? Where did you get it?"

"She mailed it to Bill just before she died. Bill was holding it
to give to your mother when he thought she was ready to see it.
But over Christmas he decided it wasn't time yet, so he gave it
to me and asked me to keep an eye on her. He said to use my own
judgment about when to give it to her. I guess I just kept
putting it off. I didn't want to bring up bad memories for her.
She's a great lady."

"I rather think so, myself."

"Anyway, Bill called early this morning. He said there had been
two break-ins at his house in the last few days. The first time
he was just glad nothing was stolen. The second time he caught
the guy in the act and got the truth out of him. The man had been
hired to steal the diary, but he claimed to have no idea why.
Bill turned him over to the local police to try to trace his
employer, but so far no luck. So Bill called me and asked me to
bring the diary to you. He'd been over it several times and
had never seen anything that would explain all this interest. He
thought you would have a better idea how to proceed than your
mother would. Besides, he said, you carry a gun."

Scully nodded. "He's right, there. Thanks for bringing this over.
How's your family?"

"They're all fine. In fact, they're waiting in the car for me
now. I told the kids as long as I was coming in to town anyway,
we'd make a day of it and hit a couple of museums. So I have to
run."

"OK. Thanks again, Terry."

After Terry left, Scully remained standing by her desk for
several minutes, Missy's diary in her hands. Reaching a sudden
decision, she picked up her purse and went out, locking the door
behind her.

Mulder, returning from Skinner's office, was surprised to find
the door locked and even more surprised not to find any
information on Scully's whereabouts on his desk. He debated
calling her cell phone, but decided to wait a while first. She
probably wouldn't be gone long.

By noon, Mulder had changed his mind about calling Scully, but
repeated calls went unanswered. A quick search of her desk and
computer revealed nothing except the somewhat reassuring fact
that she had apparently gone out voluntarily. Mulder gave up and
went out to lunch.

After lunch Mulder found that Scully was still AWOL. Worse, she
had missed a meeting with someone from Forensics who was supposed
to be giving her the findings necessary to close the Sherman
investigation. This last piece of information worried Mulder more
than anything else. Scully was usually punctilious to a fault
about that kind of detail.

Mulder picked up the forensics report, added it to his material
for Skinner, and ran the results upstairs to keep the Assistant
Director off his back while he went hunting. His first stop
provided one piece of solid information. Scully had had a visitor
that morning, a local man named Terry Gleason. Mulder searched
his memory without result. Taking a chance that this Gleason
would be familiar to Mrs. Scully, Mulder called her.

"Why, yes, Fox. He's the son of one of my neighbors. He's a good
friend of my oldest son, Bill. But I don't know any reason why
Dana should be checking on him. He's never been in any sort of
trouble that I know of."

"I don't have any reason to believe he is in trouble, Mrs.
Scully. I came across the name and Scully isn't in right now to
explain it to me. She's probably just checking some background.
But I wanted to clear it up before I left in case it was
something serious. Now that I know it's a personal note, I can
leave with a clear conscience." Or not, Mulder thought to himself
as he hung up.

* * *

Scully left the service bureau with a distinct sense of
achievement and headed for the library. On her way, she stopped
briefly at an office supply store to lay in a good store of legal
pads and pencils. Three sets of vari-colored 3x5 cards completed
her purchases.

At the library, Scully chose an unoccupied table in the deepest
recesses of the stacks. Settling herself comfortably facing the
door, she reached into her purse and turned down the ringer on
her cell phone to avoid drawing attention to her presence. Next
she made sure her shopping bags thoroughly concealed her vending
machine stash from any passing librarian and set to work. A quick
scan of the number of blank pages proved Missy had not sent the
book off because it was full. There was nothing to explain why
she had decided to ship it out so short a time before her death.
In this particular instance, Scully was willing to rule out
coincidence. So why did this book merit two break-ins months
after the event?

There were, unfortunately, no date divisions. Most of the pages
were filled with Missy's neat, leisurely scrawl, but here and
there cramped, hurried-looking passages stood out. Scully sighed
and began at the beginning.

This was clearly only the latest in a long series of journals and
Scully made a mental note to go through her sister's belongings
to see if she could locate the previous volumes. The first page
began in the middle of a paragraph with no heading and no verb:

". . . that night. The moon was full, but hidden by clouds. The lake
lay quiet, with no hint of ripple to mar the still surface."

Scully read on, finding as she had suspected that Missy had used
the journal to record the results of her meditation periods and
her dreams rather than the routine aspects of daily life. Most of
the imagery was undefined and remained unclear to Scully, though
she hoped an examination of earlier journals might shed more
light on the question. For the time being, she contented herself
by taking copious notes and making up blue index cards for any
image which appeared repeatedly or in a context that placed
particular significance on it. Proper names went on pink cards,
while white was reserved for the few hard facts such as dates and
addresses which she was able to glean from the diary's pages.

Four hours of steady work left Scully stiff and mind-fogged, but
not entirely discouraged. A few of the symbols were beginning to
form patterns that made them seem tantalizingly familiar, like
bars of music she could remember but not quite place. Deciding
that in this case "sleeping on it" was a reasonable prescription,
Scully collected her belongings and made her way out of the
library. She realized as she stepped out into the evening rush
hour that she had lost all track of time. Somewhat surprised that
Mulder hadn't called, she remembered turning down the ringer on
the phone. Reaching into her bag she turned it back up and
debated calling her partner. Deciding that would only result in
demands for explanations she was not yet prepared to provide, she
chose instead to head for a nearby restaurant and some solid
food. She also decided not to risk going back to her apartment. A
nice, anonymous hotel room might give her more breathing space.
Reading her dead sister's thoughts had left her more emotionally
drained than she had anticipated. She missed her sister so much.
And her father. Both had been taken from her without warning and
in Missy's case she also had an overwhelming sense of guilt to
deal with. No, she wasn't ready to talk to Mulder yet.

END 1/5

OF WATER AND THE STARS 2/5

Disclaimer and ratings, see part 1.

Comments to: Anne Elliott, christiano@aol.com


BEGIN 2/5

When Scully didn't turn up for work the next morning, Mulder
started running through an only-too-familiar checklist: Cell
phone; home phone; stop by the apartment. Nothing but dead ends
met his efforts. He decided against calling Mrs. Scully again,
but did manage to get in touch with Terry Gleason. Smiling wryly
to himself, he thought that he wasn't an FBI agent for nothing.
Gleason's information at least provided a rationale for Scully's
disappearance, though the word on the break-ins was unsettling.
Nothing at Scully's apartment appeared to have been disturbed,
however, so she was probably still ahead of the curve.

The next problem was what to tell Skinner.

* * *

Scully dropped by her mother's house only to discover that her
mother was out shopping. Scully let herself in and headed up to
the attic, thankful that her mother's long experience as a Navy
wife meant even things in storage were well packed and clearly
marked. Finding Missy's old diaries was easy; but her personal
effects were missing. A few minutes' thought led Scully to her
mother's bedroom closet, where she found a box marked "Missy" in
bold black letters. Rummaging through the box, Scully found what
she was looking for and left again (after neatly resealing the
box to keep her mother happy).

Returning to the library, Scully started working her way backward
through the diaries, somewhat relieved to discover that only two
of them seemed to be relevant. She took a quick break for lunch,
then went back to work and by evening had managed to reduce the
problem to manageable proportions. Stepping out onto the sidewalk
again, she saw a tall man running for a bus. Reminded of Mulder,
she pulled out her cell phone and dialled.

"Mulder? It's me."

"Scully? Where are you? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. Listen, I'm sorry I didn't call earlier. I've been at
the library and I turned the phone down to avoid disturbing the
other patrons."

"Do you know what day it is, Scully?"

"I only left yesterday, Mulder. I've already told you I was
sorry. But a neighbor brought me Missy's diary and I've been
reading it."

"I found the copy on my computer and I talked to Terry Gleason,
who told me about the break-ins."

"My, you've been busy."

"So have you. Who did you send copies to, anyway?"

"Everyone I could think of. I'm so sick and tired of cover-ups
that I decided to make it impossible for them to hide this any
more. What good they think it will do anyone is beyond me, but
obviously they want it enough to send people to break into my
brother's house to retrieve it, so I decided to put it in the
public domain."

"You know, you could retire on this."

"Skinner can't be that mad already. It's only been a day and a
half."

"That's not what I mean. There are already two bids on your
computer from New Age companies that want to put Melissa's diary
material out as a board game."

"Hey, pick the better one and go for it," Scully laughed.

"Why don't you come in and pick one yourself?"

"Oh, no, you don't. I'll be back soon, but I don't know exactly
when. What did you tell Skinner, anyway?"

"One of your nephews had a bad accident and your mother had to go
out to help cope. You got caught getting her ready to go. I told
him to count it against your personal time."

"Did he buy that? And did you warn my mother?"

"He did, but only because it was you and not me that was AWOL.
No, I haven't talked to your mother because I didn't know where
you were." Accusation definitely tinged Mulder's voice.

"Come on, Mulder. You drop out for weeks at a time. What's a day
or two?"

Mulder had to admit that was true enough. It was also true he
didn't relish being on the receiving end. He held the patent on
obsession; no other applicants accepted.

"When are you coming back?"

"I already told you I don't know yet." Scully was doing her best
to sound conciliatory, but not succeeding too well.

"Where are you staying? You haven't been home."

"Mulder, I really don't want to talk about this on a cell phone.
If you know about the break-ins, you know I don't want to be
found right now. I'll call you tomorrow or the next day. Oh, and
don't worry about my mother. I'll call her myself."

"Scully . . . ."

"Good-bye, Mulder." Scully hung up and started wondering where to
continue her research, now that the library was out.

* * *

Mulder glared at the offending instrument. There was zero chance
that Scully would answer it again any time in the immediate
future and he badly wanted to talk to her about some of the
emblems in Melissa's visions. That eagle was much more important
that Scully probably realized. For the first time he regretted
having taught his partner so many tricks for staying underground
and out of sight. And by now he was probably being followed
himself.

* * *

Scully awoke from a nightmare in which she was being chased by a
fire-breathing dragon. Four unfamiliar walls confronted her,
leaving her confused for a long moment before she remembered
checking into the hotel. When reality reasserted itself, she knew
she wasn't going to get back to sleep right away. Scully turned
on the light and climbed out of bed, intending to go back through
Missy's diaries looking for dragon passages. Instead, she found
herself opening her bag and pulling out the pyramid crystal she
had retrieved from her mother's bedroom. Even in the weak light
from the bedside lamp, it glowed faintly blue in her hands.
Scully stared at it, thinking about her dream.

"Green and shining and deadly." That was how Missy had described
her dragon and it certainly fit the one that had chased Scully.
Scully tried to remember if she had seen any of the other animals
Missy had mentioned. Picking up her file cards, she flipped
through them quickly. She probably wouldn't remember any of the
commoner types, she decided, and she had no idea what a griffin
would look like in real life. Muttering to herself discontentedly
at what her definition of real life had become, Scully started
ticking off wildlife on her fingers. Fox. Yeah, sure. She'd told
them not to call him Fox. Panther. Komodo dragon. What was this
hang-up with dragons, anyway? Eagle. She had a vague impression
of a bird winging through the edges of her sleep, but had no idea
whether or not it had been an eagle. Deer? Scully gave up. Only
the dragon was clear in her mind. But it definitely matched the
one in Missy's vision. Probably it came from spending so much
time on the diaries. Scully returned  the crystal to her bag and
went back to sleep.

* * *

The next morning it was pouring rain, which made a day outdoors
on a blanket impractical. Scully, strung-out from a combination
of lack of sleep and grief deferred, decided to go for broke and
use Mulder's apartment. Based on long acquaintance with Mulder's
eating habits, she stopped by the grocery store on her way.

* * *

When Mulder returned home, disgruntled from a day spent dodging
Skinner and fruitlessly investigating libraries, he found part of
a casserole in the oven and a note on the desk. In spite of
himself, he almost laughed. He had to admit Scully was doing a
better job of reassuring him than he ever considered doing for
her. That reminded him how he badly needed to talk to her and the
laughter died. Melissa's diary had him pegged all right, the fox
dashing from one clearing to another and not accomplishing
anything by it. Pulling the casserole out of the oven, he dropped
it on a hot pad by his computer and went back for a fork and a
glass of iced tea. Which problem should he tackle first?
Reviewing Scully's research on the diary should be his first
priority, but he was more than slightly curious how she had
managed to bypass the warning system the Lone Gunmen had
installed for him. A flashing icon should have warned him at work
as soon as she logged on his home computer. He didn't remember
ever mentioning that little precaution to Scully, either. It
bothered him that she knew him well enough to predict he would
have made such an arrangement when he found himself unable to
predict her moves at all. She could find him halfway across the
world on four hours' notice, but he couldn't find her in downtown
D.C. with two full days to do it in. There were unpleasant
implications buried there, all right, but with a mental shrug he
turned his back on them. He knew he would undoubtedly be in a
mood to dig them all up and gnaw at them masochistically in the
wee hours of the morning. Right now he had better things to do.

Scully's notes mostly duplicated material Mulder had pulled out
of the diary himself, but she had also left copies of additional
entries. Mulder wondered if the extra information came from
Scully's long association with her sister or if she had found
another source. Her introductory memo said that she had earlier
diaries to work from. Maybe that was it. Mulder found himself
definitely uneasy about other possible ways in which Scully could
be getting her material. She wasn't as used to becoming immersed
in another personality as he was. Would she know where to draw
the line? He wasn't exactly a world-class example in that regard.

END 2/5

OF WATER AND THE STARS (3/5)

Disclaimer and ratings, see part 1.

Comments to: Anne Elliott, christiano@aol.com

BEGIN 3/5

That night Scully had another nightmare. This time she and a dog
were being chased by a panther and a hyena under the watchful eye
of an eagle. She shot the hyena, but the panther was nearly on
top of her when she woke up. Flipping through her cards, she
found only brief references to the hyena and panther: "slinking
through the brush"; "snarled around the edges" (of the fight);
"nearby" (with the rat). The hyena had shown up only at the end
of Missy's diary. Did that give it special significance? Did she
associate it more closely with her sister's death?

The rational part of Scully's mind told her she was running
around in circles. There was nothing more to be gained from a
study of the diaries. She had done all she could by making the
last one public. She should go back to work and forget all this.
Mulder could play with the symbology. He was trained for that
sort of thing, after all, and it would give him a hobby. Anything
had to be better than those fish.

Almost unconsciously, Scully got up again and went over to the
dresser. Missy's crystal drew her as if by holding it she could
touch Missy herself again. She opened the curtains, since she had
not bothered to turn on a light, and admired the blue glow of the
pyramid against her skin. Turning the crystal in her hands, she
discovered she could use it to focus the light coming through the
window. If she held the pyramid just right, with one flat face
toward the light source, a blue beam came out another side to run
over the floor.

"My blue path of water and the stars." Another phrase from
Missy's diary leapt into Scully's mind as she made small
adjustments to the crystal's position and watched the beam jump
in response. Scully pulled on her clothes and headed out to find
the nearest pond.

* * *

"Scully?" Mulder was unsure whether or not she had heard him
approach. He stopped several feet away and softly repeated,
"Scully?"

She scooted to her left to make room on the bench, but otherwise
did not respond to the greeting. Mulder sat down quietly and
waited for her to make the next move.

Scully waited for the clouds to move away from the face of the
moon, then lifted the crystal from her lap, positioning it
carefully in front of her. When she got it right, the familiar
blue beam struck out across the surface of the water. Sharp-edged
and clear, the lighted path was still sheer enough that the
reflected stars shone through it. Mulder nodded.

"I think I can do it," Scully almost whispered.

"Do what, Scully?"

"I think I can walk Missy's blue path."

"No, Scully." This was a side of Scully that Mulder almost never
saw, and it always frightened him when he did. She looked fey in
the full and dangerous sense of the term and Mulder had no doubt
at all that she could walk Missy's path. He was also sure
she would be killed in short order if she did.

Scully glared at him. "Does that mean you don't think I can do
it, or that you don't think I can handle it if I do?"

"I just want to be sure we both know what's involved here."

"Save the psycho-speak for your reports, Mulder. You don't think
I can deal with this on my own, do you?"

Mulder hesitated, then gave in to his own building anger. "No, I
don't think you can. Obviously Melissa got in over her head, even
though she'd spent years studying this kind of thing. You have no
background whatever for it. You've done exactly what you're
always accusing me of doing - going off on your own with no one
to watch your back when you don't know what you're looking for or
what will happen if you find it.

"Melissa was right. She'd found your center, not her own, and she
didn't know what to do with it. Since it is your center, you can
understand the symbols in a way she couldn't, but that doesn't
mean it's safe or even wise for you to try to deal with this
alone. I haven't seen the earlier diaries you mentioned in your
note, but I can make a pretty good guess what most of the
representations stand for, and they mostly stand for trouble."

"There's no reason why they should mean trouble for me, Mulder.
The only reason they could have been searching for the diary is
that they were afraid what might be in it. Now they know. It's
been all over the Net for days. There's nothing more for them to
be afraid of."

"Nothing but what you might find out by following that path."

"They can't know about that. I haven't even tried it yet."

"They know you might. What do you think that eagle stood for?"

Scully's mind went back, not only to the eagle Missy had so
frequently noted, but to her own recent nightmare as well. "Some
sort of watcher? What sort of watcher could get inside Missy's
head?"

She regretted the question as soon as she had asked it, but
Mulder answered before she could go on. "A psychic observer. A
mind reader. A Watcher." Scully could hear the capital W as he
spoke.

"Mulder, that's ridiculous. Why would someone be spying on Missy?
Even allowing that it were possible, which I don't for a minute
believe."

"Scully, the Soviets studied this type of power for years. They
checked out the whole range of paranormal abilities for their own
military and intelligence purposes. How do you know they didn't
come up with something - or someone? We know we're dealing with
an international group here, a group that would have access to
anything the Soviets uncovered."

"Mulder, Missy couldn't have cared less about the international
intelligence community."

"I don't think that stopped her from tuning in to something -
something dangerous enough to kill for."

"Mulder, Missy was killed in my place."  Scully was really angry
now. How could he drag her through all this again? She'd spent
the last three days realizing how much she missed her sister, how
much she regretted not having spent more time with her, learned
the tenor of her mind better, loved her more. "You read about all
those doors in the mountains - especially the one at the top. The
door she thought she would find answers behind. That was the door
of my apartment, Mulder. Missy opened my door and fell off the
edge of the world."

Scully was beyond caring who heard her yelling. She was also
beyond caring what anyone else thought she should do. The only
thing keeping her from following in Missy's steps right away was
the fact that she was shivering too violently to hold the crystal
in place.

"Scully! When did Melissa's diary entries start?" Scully became
aware that Mulder had taken her arm and was shaking her to get
her attention. "When did they start?"

"What earthly difference does that make?" She threw her rage in
his face. "Let go of my arm!"

Mulder released her arm, but continued to press his question.
"When did the entries start?"

"I don't know! She didn't date them. You know that."

"You said they went back through at least two other diaries. She
must have included some events you could use to time it."

"About five years ago, all right? Go home, Mulder. This is my
path, to walk or not, as I choose."

"I know it's your decision, Scully. But listen to me for just a
minute. If the entries go back five years, they pre-date your
coming to the X-Files."

Scully frowned. She had never thought to make that particular
connection, but Mulder was right. By contrast, the fact that his
comment made sense in turn made non-sense of all her other
assumptions. She had assigned meanings to a lot of the symbols
she had come across: the panther; the fox (obviously); the
injured deer; the rat, even. The lights made less sense. But if
none of these were connected with her work at the Bureau, what
did they represent? "You said it was my center she was
envisioning."

"It was. But she apparently had her own connection to whatever
we're involved in. A connection which formed before you ever
started to work with me. Maybe it even influenced the choice they
made to use you to spy on me."

"I was being used as a pipeline to Missy rather than the other
way around?" Scully's anger had vanished, submerged in the new
possibilities before her.

"At first. I think you've earned your own place on their list of
people to watch out for, though."

Scully ignored the mild compliment, following her own line of
thought. "But if it was Missy they were watching one way or
another, then . . . ."

"Melissa may have been their intended target all along."

"She was shot in my apartment, Mulder. And they didn't stop to
make sure she was dead, either."

"Maybe she was shot in your apartment just to confuse the issue,
Scully. They didn't want to draw attention to her and to any
information she might have left until they had had a chance to
clean up after themselves. They may not even have told the
shooters who the real target was. Or they may not have cared
which Scully sister they got first. Skinner always thought
Melissa was in danger in the hospital, though it was obvious she
couldn't have identified the shooters even if she had lived.

"Besides, I don't think these people have just one agenda. They
lie wholesale and retail. They lie to us, to each other, and
probably to themselves. One man warned you about a plot by
another part of his group. Maybe he felt especially threatened by
Melissa and decided to make the attempt on you into an attempt on
Melissa without telling the others what he was doing. The
Consortium has one overriding purpose - and it must be incredibly
important to them to have kept them working together this long -
but they all have their own plots and counterplots going all the
time, too. It's probably the only thing that has kept us alive
this long."

Scully was silent again and Mulder didn't press the point.
Looking down at her hands, he noticed they still appeared blue
even though the moon had gone behind the clouds. "She's cold," he
realized, and pulled off his jacket to wrap around her.

The movement startled Scully and broke her concentration. She
blinked at Mulder in confusion, then registered the warmth on her
arms. "Um, thanks," she muttered, then looked at him somberly.
"How did you find me anyway?"

"I started checking all the bodies of water near Melissa's
house."

Scully winced. She hadn't realized her choice of location was
dictated by the nearness of Missy's former residence. Her mind
drifted backward as she lost herself in her memories.

"You owe me a pair of shoes." Mulder wanted to regain Scully's
attention and get her somewhere warmer and away from the water.

"Huh?"

"Do you know how many small bodies of water there are in the
Greater Washington Metropolitan Area? I don't know what all the
fuss about wetlands is about, unless they want the whole country
to look like the D.C. suburbs."

"If you knew you were looking for small bodies of water, why
didn't you wear boots?"

"I wear boots to go hiking, Scully, not to walk around somebody's
backyard. By the way, I don't know whose backyard this is, but
I'd rather be out of it before the sun comes up."

"This is a public park, Mulder, but I guess there's not enough
night left to count, anyway."

Scully got up rather stiffly and the two agents headed for their
cars. "So where do we go from here?" asked Mulder.

"You could always go to the office and get a headstart on your
filing," said Scully calmly.

"There's a 24-hour restaurant a couple of blocks over," Mulder
retorted. "I'll follow you."

In view of the implied threat, Scully decided to keep the jacket.
Besides, she was cold. "All right."

* * *

Over a hot breakfast, Mulder pinned his partner with a direct
gaze. "Scully, don't shut me out of this. I know Melissa and I
didn't get along very well . . . ."

"I never did understand that, Mulder," Scully broke in. "You were
both such believers. Why couldn't the two of you work together?"

"It was the wrong time, Scully." Mulder pushed his eggs around on
his plate, trying to find words to explain the inexplicable.
"When you were abducted, I spent three months walling off that
side of myself - the side that believed in extreme possibilities,
in aliens, in supernatural phenomena." He paused again, partly to
give Scully time to adjust.

Scully sat in stunned silence. This was a turn of events she had
never suspected. When she had been returned, Mulder had seemed
just like Mulder - perfectly happy to believe in anything that
had no scientific basis and nothing that did.

"It wasn't some sort of rational decision I reached in the course
of my search for you," Mulder went on shortly. "I reported
immediately that I had seen black helicopters there on the
mountain."

Thinking back on what she had learned after her return, Scully
knew that was true. She was surprised she hadn't picked up on it
before.

"If you had disappeared like Samantha, if you had been abducted
by aliens . . . then there was no way I could get you back. I've
been looking for Samantha for years. You'd be out of my reach
forever, just like her. I had to make sure you and Samantha were
in different categories. I had to believe I could find you using
standard investigative techniques: questioning suspects,
evaluating evidence, checking leads. My reports would have done
the VCS proud. To admit any extreme possibility would have meant
losing all hope of finding you . . . and I couldn't have lived
with that. Not again. So I blocked it all off, at least as far as
you were concerned. I became Mr. FBI.

"Then they sent your body back. But you weren't in it. You were
off somewhere else. And I still couldn't risk believing. I was
too close. That's when Melissa and I crossed paths. She wanted me
to believe and I couldn't afford to. She wanted me to break down
my wall when the wall was all I had left to believe in. I told
myself you were more likely to respond to a scientific attitude
than to a non-scientific one, but the truth was I wasn't willing
to take the risk. If I had, things might have gone differently.
But there was too much at stake for me to change my approach
then. I needed you back too much."

Scully reached out and laid her hand over Mulder's on the
tabletop. "I had no idea, Mulder."

"Well, by the time you were ready to work again, all bets were
off and I was back to 'Spooky' Mulder mode. But I never had a
chance to mend things with Melissa and I'm sorry about that. She
was right about a lot of things."

"She was wrong about a lot of things, too, Mulder. She was wrong
about you."

Mulder shook his head slightly. "Regrets won't help us now,
Scully. What we need to do is look at those diaries and see what
we can make of them."

END 3/5

OF WATER AND THE STARS (4/5)

Disclaimer and ratings, see part 1.

Comments to: Anne Elliott, christiano@aol.com

BEGIN 4/5

Having reached an unspoken agreement, the two agents returned to
Scully's motel, where Scully took a hot shower followed by a nap
while Mulder caught up on the diary entries he had not yet seen.
Looking over Scully's file cards, he added a few notes of his
own, then started dealing the cards out into piles. The first two
attempts ended when he swept the stacks up to try again, but the
third time he left them as they lay.

"What time is it?"

"Almost noon. Feeling better?"

"I'm fine. What about you? You didn't get any sleep at all."

"Now, Scully, you know I never sleep."

Scully huffed, then came over to find out what he had made of her
notes. "What are the piles?"

"I tried sorting your symbols into groups. I think there are four
categories of people or things represented here."

Scully picked up the piles and flipped through them one at a
time. "Mythological animals. Wild animals. Domestic animals.
Other symbols. All right. Those seem reasonable enough, even to
me. What do you think they stand for? I wondered if the domestic
animals were supposed to represent the friendly forces, but since
the rat has 'Krychek' written all over it, that seems unlikely."

"I think what we have here is a division by level of power or
influence, not by friendly or unfriendly. The mythological
animals I think represent the highest level of power in an
organization. The only one of that group that I think we can pin
a label on is the griffin."

"What exactly is a griffin, anyway?"

"It's a cross between a lion and an eagle. Frequently the symbol
of the griffin was connected with the idea of a close watcher or
a guard. I think the man you met at my father's funeral is
probably the one Melissa saw that way."

"He certainly seemed to be watching or guarding me. I thought
maybe that made him the eagle in your system."

"No, I think the eagle is a mid-level watcher. Someone who was
spying on Melissa, either physically or psychically. According to
the diary, he was around a lot, keeping an eye on her."

Scully shivered and Mulder glanced at her sharply. "I've seen the
eagle, too."

At Mulder's inquiring look, she remembered she hadn't told him
about the nightmares. Wishing she had kept her mouth shut, she
described them briefly. Mulder made some rapid additions to the
cards in front of him, which didn't entirely cover his worried
look. Scully chose not to re-open the question of her own
sensitivity at the moment.

"If the wild animals are mid-level people, how many do you think
you can name?" she asked.

"Well, I think the panther is our Mr. X. Black is an easy
identifier and he does tend to slink around the edges and hide in
the underbrush."

"If you think Missy was picking up on physical characteristics,
do you think CancerMan is the dragon? I thought you could only
pin a name on one of the mythological group."

"I think CancerMan is the Komodo dragon, not the real thing, if
you'll pardon my use of the word 'real.' I don't think he's
anywhere near the top of the Consortium in power. He'd
undoubtedly like to be the dragon, but he hasn't got what it
takes, at least not yet."

Scully remembered Missy's words. "The Komodo dragon keeps showing
up, trying to scare me off, breathing into my face as if it
actually expected smoke and fire to come out of its mouth." She
nodded unwillingly.

"The wild stallion I think is Skinner," Mulder went on working
his way through the pile of cards.

"Skinner? Well, my mother likes him. I guess Missy did, too. But
she seemed to think the stallion was sick."

"Not sick, exactly." Mulder thumbed through the xeroxes of diary
entries and found the passages he wanted. "She said it had 'an
abnormal bony growth under the skin' between the eyes. And later
she said the lump seemed to be growing."

"Sounds sick to me," Scully retorted.

"That's because you're a doctor. Everything sounds like a symptom
to you. To me it means the stallion was changing into a unicorn."

"A mythical beast?"

"Cancerman once said I was becoming a Player. If the wild animals
are Players, we might call the mythical ones Principals and the
lower echelon Pawns. Skinner seems to be moving up from Player
level to Principal level."

"That's only three categories and you have four piles."

"Right now I'm just dealing with the animals."

"All right. Whose side do you think Skinner is on?"

"We can't tell from this. But historically horses and unicorns
have both been considered friendly beasts."

"We can only hope. Who's next?"

"Let's see. The eagle we've assigned a function, if not a name.
The deer I think was DeepThroat."

"Much as I hate to admit it, that part actually makes sense. The
deer does seem to have died."

"That leaves the hyena and the fox."

Scully laughed. "I think I can work the last one out on my own."
Catching Mulder's eye, she repeated her earlier statement. "She
was wrong about you."

"Not in this case. I was definitely chasing my tail," Mulder
shook his head ruefully. "Well, we're agreed that Krychek is the
rat, and the rat and the hyena were among the few mid-level
animals around at the end." He looked to see if Scully was all
right with the turn of the discussion and she nodded at him to go
on. "I wasn't sure until you told me about your dream, but I
think the hyena is the man who shot Melissa."

"And in turn I killed him in my dream."

"Right. Of course, you didn't actually kill him, but you did send
him to his death inadvertently by catching him and getting him
incarcerated."

"That leaves the domestic animals and the inanimate symbols."

"There's only one of the domestic animals I can label at all, and
I'm none too sure of that." Mulder's voice was oddly tentative.

"So spit it out."

"I think your mother was the dog," Mulder admitted, putting a
little extra room between himself and Scully just in case.

Scully eyed him with some disfavor, but only said, "I hope you
have something to back that up."

"Very little, beyond the fact that the dog seemed to be
protecting Melissa and was generally supportive. When the dog
came back after a brief absence, Melissa wrote that she called
your mother afterward. I think it's a reasonable identification."

Scully was not entirely appeased, but settled for asking, "What
do you make of the other symbols, then? The non-animal group?"

"I think those are alien presences. The bright lights would be
connected with the alien abductions and the black slick Melissa
connected with the rat would obviously be the alien that took
over Krychek for a time."

"Oh, right. Obviously. What could I have been thinking of?"

"Scully, I know you don't like this turn of events. You never
expected to have to deal with anything like this. Just the diary
itself would be a shock, without all the unpleasant surprises it
holds. But this genie can't be stuffed back in its bottle.
Obviously the Consortium found out about the diary somehow. We
may never know how. Now they know that Melissa had some
understanding of them and their purposes. If I'm right about the
eagle, and I'm certain I am, they know that you are a danger to
them, too, now."

"So what do you expect me to do, Mulder?" Scully's earlier belief
in her ability to walk her sister's path had disappeared with the
moonlight and the stars. Grief and bitterness rushed in to fill
the void.

"Do you expect me to turn into some sort of channeller for my
dead sister? The only reason I had those dreams was because I had
been immersing myself for three days in her diary. I used the
symbols she used because they were on my mind. It would have been
more surprising if I hadn't dreamt about them. You're just taking
Missy's emblems and applying them to my experience. She probably
had a totally different set of meanings for them. This stuff
could probably be applied fifty-seven different ways by
fifty-seven different people and no two of them would overlap at
all."

"Scully, what I want is for you to go to Skinner and get the name
of a good sleep therapist."

"A sleep therapist? How is a sleep therapist supposed to help?"

"So far, you've only seen the eagle in dreams and a sleep
therapist can help you learn to control your dreams to some
extent. At least he can help you learn to wake up when the eagle
appears. I don't know if it will convince the Consortium that
you're not spying on them, but at least it will keep them out of
your mind."

"It will also close off any possible leads that might develop out
of my subconscious." Scully knew she was switching sides
deliberately to bait Mulder, but she wasn't going to give him the
satisfaction of admitting to the other episodes she had
experienced. She had never explained exactly what she saw while
he was undergoing the Navajo healing ceremony and she never
intended to.

"Scully, even the few truly gifted, experienced, and dedicated
psychics often come up with ambiguous results. Interpretation is
frequently clear only in hindsight, as you love to point out. You
are neither experienced in nor dedicated to this kind of work,
and under normal circumstances you would object violently to
being labelled gifted in it. I don't believe it's an angle you
can safely pursue and I do believe you need to take precautions
to keep this eagle out of your mind. Whoever he is, he has all
the signs of being one of the gifted few. Before Modell, I would
probably have sought out a meeting with him using any avenue I
could find. Now I know better than to expose myself or you to
that kind of a risk."

Even through her own emotional turmoil, Scully realized what an
admission like that must cost Mulder. Unwilling to risk further
revelations, she withdrew by standing up and moving to the
window. It crossed her mind briefly that this was an unusually
popular motel. Most places didn't have a noon rush unless they
featured an hourly rate.

Past experience kicked in a second later. "Mulder!"

"What is it?"

"I think the Marines just landed, and they're not on our side."

Mulder took one quick glance out the window and headed for the
bathroom. "Good thing this is a narrow building. You've got a
window here, too. Grab the cards and let's go."

END 4/5

OF WATER AND THE STARS (5/5)

Disclaimer and ratings, see part 1.

Comments to: Anne Elliott, christiano@aol.com

BEGIN 5/5

"What about the diaries?" called Scully, thrusting the cards and
Melissa's crystal into her purse as she ran.

"Forget the diaries. Come on!"

Mulder gave Scully a boost out the window and followed her in
time to see a tall man in a business suit round the far end of
the building. Fortunately for the two agents, the man was too
busy counting windows to notice as they sprinted for the shelter
of a nearby dumpster. As running footsteps approached from the
other side, Mulder and Scully shared a quick glance and faded
into the shrubbery that separated the back of the motel from the
adjoining subdivision.

"What do we do now?"

"Well, it looks like the fun is all over, so maybe we should go
back to work."

Scully looked up at Mulder in disbelief. "We can't just go back
to work after all this."

"Why not?"

"They must have warrants out on us to stage a raid like that. I
don't know how they managed to get anything past a judge, though."

"Dereliction of duty?" asked Mulder with a raised eyebrow. "I
don't think those were policemen, Scully. I don't think they were
agents, either. Didn't that whole affair seem a little sloppy to
you?"

"Thankfully, yes."

"I think it was another bungled attempt at damage control. The
eagle must have gotten some inkling of where you were and
somebody thought he could take you out and get his hands on the
diaries at the same time."

"That was awfully public for a damage control operation."

"Midday at a suburban motel is usually fairly quiet. They
probably had some sort of cover in case they got stopped, but you
notice they avoided causing a lot of noise even when they missed
us."

"That's true. No shots, no shouting, no wild car chases. I guess
we won't make the lead-in on the six o'clock news tonight. But
that doesn't necessarily mean it's safe to go back to work,
either."

"They've got the diaries now. They know you're on to them. My
guess is they'll go back into hiding and see what the eagle can
learn. You have the cards?"

"And the crystal."  A slight tremor in Scully's voice led Mulder
to stop walking and look down at his partner.

"What's wrong, Scully?"

"I've lost three of Missy's diaries. And Mom never even got a chance to
read the last one."

"You can at least give her a copy of the contents."

"It's not the same thing." Scully shook her head and resumed
walking. "And the other two are completely gone. I never had a
chance to put them up on the Net. I left the older ones in the
trunk of the car, and they'll probably be all right, but not the last
three."

"I'm sorry, Scully. I know it's not the same. But in a showdown
between you and Melissa's diaries, I'm sure your mother would
prefer to have you back in one piece even at the cost of the
diaries." It was cold comfort, as Mulder well knew, but it was
all he had to offer her.

Scully surreptitiously rubbed her nose and tried to smile. "Well,
since we left both cars at the motel, how do we get to work?"

"There's a Metro stop on 16th."

"Good. Maybe we'll get lucky and run into some muggers." Scully
sounded more than half serious and Mulder found himself walking a
little faster.

* * *

The next two days passed in a welter of paperwork and guarded
explanations as Mulder and Scully made up for lost time at the
Bureau. By Friday, they could no longer feel Skinner glaring at
them through the floor of his office. Mulder in particular had
been a model of propriety, coming in and leaving on schedule. He
was even signing reports legibly, a fact that raised more than
one eyebrow in the Records Room.

Having established a record of good behavior, and with the
weekend looming before him, Mulder felt compelled to re-open a
delicate subject. "Scully, what did you do with the crystal?"

"It's safe." Full stop.

"Scully, I . . . ."  Mulder hesitated, overwhelmed by the
possible endings to that sentence. I don't want you to use it
again. I do want you to use it again. I worry about you. He
settled for coming around the desk and staring down at his
partner, hoping his near presence would pressure her into going
on.

Scully stared back without expression. Mulder felt a cold shiver
of recognition creep over his shoulder blades. He could have been
looking at his own eyes in a mirror. This wasn't the Scully he
counted on to cover his back and put her own concerns aside to
bolster his quest. Instead, this woman had her own plans and
would keep her own counsel. He wanted to demand that she give him
the crystal, or at the very least, that she promise to tell him
before she used it again. But an innate sense of justice stopped
the words in his throat. Mulder turned on his heel and walked
out.

* * *

On Monday Scully found a thick manila folder on her desk. She
started to open it, only to be stopped by an uneasy-looking
Mulder. "Um, Scully . . . ."

"Mulder, has the cat got your tongue? You never seem to finish a
sentence any more and you look like an intern waiting to hear if
he got his residency or not." Her own expression turned wary.
"If you've finally talked someone into financing a new expedition
to the Icy Cape, . . ."

Mulder snorted and waved a hand. "No, go ahead. Look at it."

Sitting down, Scully opened the folder and glanced at the first
page. Her quick intake of breath told Mulder she recognized the
words immediately. Unable to believe what she saw, Scully flipped
quickly through the remaining pages, then returned to the
beginning and began reading carefully. After a few minutes, she
stopped and asked quietly, "Mulder, where did you get this?"

Scully's obvious amazement had allowed Mulder to recapture his
own normal calm. "I read Melissa's diaries that morning in the
motel while you were catching a nap. The transcripts aren't
complete because I skimmed some parts, but most of it is there. I
know it's not the same thing as having the actual books she
wrote, but I thought maybe it would help."

"Mulder, I don't know what to say. This is incredible. Thank
you." Scully searched for something to add to prove how much she
appreciated his gesture. "I made an appointment with the sleep
therapist Skinner recommended."

"That's good." Mulder kept his voice even, trying very hard not
to push the issue, but Scully looked up at him ruefully anyway.

"We just have to live with it, Mulder, both of us. We'll work it
out somehow."

Her partner, by no means reconciled to the situation, found
himself wondering what Skinner would say if he knew he now had
two obsessed agents on his hands. Despite himself, Mulder grinned
at the image of a bald unicorn with worry furrows and glasses,
tapping one hoof on the grass and saying, "Agent Mulder," in
Skinner's best "I've had enough of this" tone. The picture was
marred only by a small black speck in the background that could
have been an eagle.

THE END

Thanks for reading.
Anne