Archive of Our Own

Valerie Hermann listened patiently as the man across from her sobbed through a story he was recollecting about his finacé.  His watery, piercing green eyes grabbed onto hers as he sniffled and let the tears roll unabashedly down his cheeks. She silently nudged the box of tissues on the table between them a little closer to him, but he shook his head and then sucked in a deep breath.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s what I’m here for,” she replied.

He nodded, blew out the breath he was holding, and then his shoulders shook.  He snatched one of the tissues out of the box and crumbled it in his hand before pressing it to his face.  Valerie took the opportunity to steel herself, taking a calming inhalation before sliding to the edge of her seat.  Gently, she reached out and touched the man’s wrist with two fingers, but the overwhelming sadness she expected to find when she did so never came.  Instead, she felt white, hot rage, felt her heart thump so rapidly that it was likely to burst from her chest, felt an ache at the back of her skull that nauseated her, and an intense, powerful urge to destroy something, anything.

With a small gasp, Valerie snatched her hand away and sat back in her chair.  She felt clammy and shaky. The man lifted his head and blinked at her, his eyes suddenly dry and shoulders straight.

“Thank you for listening,” he said.  “They were right, I do feel better.”

Valerie swallowed the bile she felt rising in her throat and nodded a little too profusely.  “Of course,” she whispered. “It’s what I’m here for.”

*****

The elevator dinged and the doors slid open, but Scully took a moment before she stepped out into the dim hallway.  The last time she had been in the office was two weeks earlier when she’d wished Mulder a Merry Christmas as she’d shut everything down for the holiday.  The last time she’d seen Mulder, though, was three days ago when she’d dropped him at the San Diego airport. All morning she’d dreaded coming into work and seeing the pity and sadness in his eyes.

“Hey, Scully,” Mulder murmured without looking up from the file cabinet.  He worried his upper lip between two fingers as he read an open file spread across the top of an open drawer.

“Good morning,” she answered, slipping her overcoat off and hanging it on the rack.

With a few surreptitious glances at Mulder, Scully set up her laptop and waited for the system to boot up.  She noticed that the fluorescent bulb in the panel above her space, that had occasion to flicker, had been replaced.  It was brighter, a different shade of white than the other two bulbs next to it. She’d been trying to get maintenance down to fix it for six weeks without any luck.

“Mulder, did you…?”  She turned to face him, but he was still at the file cabinet, clearly engrossed in whatever he was reading.

“Hm?”

“Nevermind.”

After watching him for a few more moments, she faced her computer again and logged into her email.  It was eerily quiet, save for the flipping of pages and the tap-tap-tap of computer keys. She had been so worried about what Mulder might say to her that she never considered that his silence might be worse.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” Mulder suddenly said.  “We’ve got a case.”

“We do?”

“Yeah.”  He finally closed the filing cabinet and picked up a folder off his desk.  “Ever hear of Bailey’s Crossroads?”

“Is that a person, place, or animal?”

“Little town in Virginia.  Back in the early 1800’s, a man named Hachaliah Bailey bought the land outside of Falls Church to have a place to winter his circus animals.”

“His circus animals...Bailey, as in Barnum and Bailey?”

“A few generations further down the line until we get there, but yes.”

“Don’t tell me I’ll be autopsying another elephant.”

“Not today, sorry.”  He handed her the file he’d picked up from his desk.  “Suspicious death of a 28 year old female, Melody Parker.”

“What makes it suspicious?”  Scully opened the file and flipped the pages without taking more than a passing scan of the contents while Mulder answered.

“Slip and fall on the stairs of an apartment complex.  Appeared to be an accident, however a grief counselor, a woman named Valerie Hermann, filed a report with the local PD claiming that after she spoke to the bereaved fiancé, she’d like it known that Melody’s death was no accident.”

“She’s accusing the fiancé?”

“Mmhm.  Guy’s name is Jared Hoath, aged 33, works as a landscaper.”

“Did he make a confession?”

“That would make our job easier, wouldn’t it?  No, Miss Hermann says she received this information via psychic transmission.”

Scully felt her brows rise in surprise.  Their track record on cases involving alleged psychics wasn’t great.  “You believe her?”

“That’s to be determined.  And why we’re headed to Bailey’s Crossroads.”

“What does the circus have to do with it?”

“Nothing.”  He shrugged.  “Just thought it was a cool story.”

*****

While Mulder drove, Scully delved into the file.  An autopsy had already been performed and nothing particularly noteworthy was in the report.  The medical examiner concluded the fall Melody Parker took resulted in a broken neck and that bruising and lacerations on the face were sustained in conjunction with said fall.  Toxicology was pending.

“Nothing here seems to point to foul play,” Scully said after closing the file.

Mulder cracked a sunflower seed shell under his front teeth and then extracted the seed with a swipe of his tongue.  He threw the husk into a paper cup in the holder next to his seat and nodded vaguely in agreement. “Except for Valerie Hermann’s allegations,” he said.

“Has anyone looked into a connection between Valerie Hermann and Jared Hoath?”

“Like?”

“Like, maybe they’d been seeing each other in secret and Jared broke off his relationship with Valerie after becoming engaged to Melody and now this accusation is being thrown out there for spite.”

Mulder cracked into another sunflower seed.  “Sounds like the plot of a hundred daytime soaps.”

“Doesn’t make it implausible.”

“Of course.  Anything is possible.”

Scully licked the curve of her upper lip and looked out the window.  There was something off about Mulder that she couldn’t put her finger on.  He was subdued and distracted. She could chalk it up to the fact that he seemed less than enthusiastic about the new case, but she’d been on cases with him before that he thought were a waste of time and if anything, he became more vocal and sarcastic than usual, not silent and sullen.

She looked out the side window.  Snow dusted the trees and the road was bracketed by mounds of dirty slush.  The sky was grey and dull, which seemed fitting in a way, as she herself felt grey and dull.  She sighed and straightened, catching a glimpse of Mulder trying to pretend like he wasn’t watching her.

*****

Valerie Hermann lived in a small brick home.  The stone walkway up to the door was clear of snow, while the sloping lawn was hidden under a thin layer of crisp, untouched snow.  Mulder put a hand to Scully’s back and followed behind as they made their way up the row of stepping stones. There was no doorbell, so Scully reached up with one gloved hand and gave the brass knocker a few raps.

It took a few moments, but then a voice called out timidly, “who is it?”

“You think she’d know,” Mulder murmured quietly in Scully’s ear.

“I’m Special Agent Dana Scully with my partner Fox Mulder.  We’re looking for Valerie Hermann.”

Silence followed.  Scully looked back and up at Mulder and he shrugged.  She moved to knock on the door again, but the sound of a deadbolt stopped her and she lowered her hand.  The door opened a crack and Scully tilted her head to head to see into the dark space. She held up her badge and behind her, Mulder did the same.

“I told the police everything I know,” Valerie whispered.

“That’s why we’re here,” Mulder said.  “We have some questions.”

Valerie hesitated, but then pulled the door back.  She was slight, not much taller than Scully, with long, honey-colored hair and dark blue eyes.  Her timidity made her seem young, but there were lines on her face which aged her. By Scully’s estimation, the woman could’ve been anywhere from 25 to 50.

“May we come in?” Mulder asked.

Valerie nodded and stepped back.

*****

There was a grandfather clock in the hall of Valerie Hermann’s home that ticktocked like a metronome.  Shortly after Mulder and Scully were invited in, it struck ten and the chimes seemed to echo loudly through the small house.

“I was just making tea,” Valerie said, showing them to a loveseat in the front room.  “I need to take the kettle off the stove. Would you...care for a cup?”

“No, thank you,” Scully answered first, and Mulder shook his head.

“I’ll only be a minute.”

Valerie shuffled off through a doorway and Mulder walked the room eyeing the furniture and decor.  Everything was a touch on the old side and intensely floral. The couch and chairs reminded him of an elderly aunt he’d once had.  He paused at the fireplace and looked at the framed photos lining the mantle, mostly of what appeared to be a young Valerie and a man he assumed to be her father.

There was something about the room that changed Mulder’s mood.  Though he hadn’t admitted it to Scully, he wasn’t all that interested in this case.  He’d only taken the file off his desk as a means to pretend he hadn’t just spent the last three days poring over every scrap of information he could gather on every doctor, every hospital, every record he could manage to conjure up on Emily Sim and her adoptive parents.  He needed to know as much as he could, not just for Scully’s sake, but for his own, and for that innocent little girl that didn’t deserve the kind of life that was thrust upon her. Moments after walking through Valerie Hermann’s door, he felt less tense and more calm than he had for awhile.  Maybe because it was warm inside the home or that it smelled vaguely of apple pie. He couldn’t explain it.

Valerie returned to the room holding a teacup on a saucer.  There was a slight tremor to her hands and it looked as though it took quite a bit of effort for her to hold on to the cup and the plate.  She sat down in a straight-backed chair across from Scully and rested the saucer on her knee with a sigh. Mulder stayed by the fireplace with his hands in his pockets.

“What can you tell us about Jared Hoath?” Scully asked.

Valerie made a sluggish attempt at bringing the teacup to her mouth and blew across the top, dissipating the swirl of steam vapors that billowed up and out of the hot water.  “He killed his fiancé,” she said.

“How long have you known him?”

“His appointment was on December 30th at one in the afternoon.”

“That’s less than a week ago.  How many appointments has he had?”

“Just the one.”

“And you were able to determine he’d committed murder in that time.”

“Yes.”

“How?”

Valerie lowered her eyes and stared into the depths of her teacup for a few moments.  “I felt it,” she said.

“Psychically?” Mulder asked.  “That’s what you told the police.”

“Yes,” she said after a pause.  “Psychically.”

“Can you describe it?” 

“The murder?”

“Yes.  Can you tell us how he committed the murder?”

“No.”

“How about the way you psychically felt it?”

Valerie looked up and held Mulder’s gaze.  He removed his hands from his pockets and relaxed his posture a bit.  She blinked at him and turned her gaze back to her tea.

“He was angry,” she said.  “More than angry. I could feel it.”

“Feel it how?” Scully asked.

Valerie seemed to mull over the question into her tea and then shook her head slightly.  Mulder couldn’t remember if he’d ever seen anyone so tired and sad looking. Scully looked up at him, her lips pressed tightly together in an expression he knew was of exasperation.  He moved closer to Valerie and crouched down with his forearms resting on his knees and his fingertips touching.

“Isn’t anger one of the stages of grief?” Mulder asked.

“Anger is.  Rage isn’t the same as anger.  Rage is violent .  Rage can feel…”  Valerie paused and balanced the saucer of tea on her knee as she pressed a hand to her chest.  “It feels different.”

“Okay.  Tell me how it feels different.”

Valerie lifted the teacup to her lips and took another shaky sip.  She glanced at Mulder out of the corner of her eye and kept her gaze low.  “If you were blindfolded and someone put an orange into your left hand and an apple in the other, would you be able to tell the difference?”

“Yes, probably.”

“Rage and anger are apples and oranges.”

“Miss Hermann,” Scully said, impatience lacing her tone.  “We need to know exactly what Jared Hoath did or said to you to make you think he murdered Melody Parker.”

“He didn’t do or say anything.”

“It felt different,” Mulder stated, ducking his head slightly to try to get Valerie to look at him.

Scully shifted on the loveseat.  “That doesn’t mean he committed murder.”

“He did,” Valerie whispered.

“The problem is, Valerie, right now all we have is your accusation,” Scully said.  “We need more than a feeling.”

“Isn’t that...your job?”  Valerie glanced up at Scully and took another sideways glance at Mulder before turning her eyes back to her tea.

Scully took a deep, but silent breath and then looked at Mulder.  He stood and pulled a business card the inside breast pocket of his overcoat.  He held his card out to her and as she took it, her fingers brushed his. He felt warmth spread through him, like he’d just received a strong embrace.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Valerie said.

“My what?” he asked.

“The little girl.”

Scully cleared her throat and stood.  Mulder took a step back and put his hands in his pockets again.

“I think we’re done here,” Scully said.

“If you think of anything else,” Mulder murmured.  Give us a call.”

“Sure.”

*****

Mulder was contemplative on the way back to the car.  Scully outpaced him, reaching the passenger door before he’d even made it halfway down the path.  She seemed agitated, antsy. He fished the car keys out of his pocket and threw them to her so she could unlock the door.  She got in the car and then reached over to unlock his door and held the keys out for him.

“I don’t think I need to tell you this,” she said.  “But, she could’ve gotten that information from anywhere.”

“What information?”

“Samantha.”

“Samantha?”  He yanked a little too hard on the seatbelt and the strap jerked back.

“Whatever she was trying to pull with that line about your loss.  I don’t know what she’s after, but-”

“I don’t think she’s after anything.”

“I just...I don’t want to see you go through another John Lee Roache situation.”

Mulder eased his seatbelt across his chest and latched it slowly.  He shook his head and stared out the windshield with his hand on the keys, poised to start the ignition, but he didn’t.  “You’ve got it wrong,” he said.

“Mulder, that woman is no more psychic than I am.”

“I’m inclined to agree.”

“Alright then.  Back to the office?”

“We need to look into this Jared Hoath character a little, I think.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.  A feeling.”

Scully looked away from Mulder and held her breath.  She was silent, but her body language was loud and clear.  She thought he was crazy, but that wasn’t so different than usual.  He started the car, but stayed parked.

“Did you feel...different in that house?” he asked.

“Different?”

“Relaxed.  Lulled, almost.”

“Come on, Mulder.”

The car idled softly and finally Mulder reached past Scully into the glove compartment to pull out the Thomas Guide she had used to navigate them to the Hermann residence.  She eyed him suspiciously as he tried to find their section and then took the book from him with a sigh.

“We can agree that she’s not a psychic,” he said, putting the car into drive.

“So then, why lie?  Take a right at the next block and then another right to the highway.”

“She may believe she’s psychic, I don’t know.  We’re not headed back to DC.”

“We’re not?”

“You’re gonna head to the hospital and see if you can find out anything about Melody Parker that wasn’t in her autopsy and I’m going to check in at the local PD.”

*****

Scully didn’t put up any arguments when Mulder said he was going to drop her at the hospital, even though she didn’t feel like this case had any merit at all.  She needed a break though, and she needed one fast. She had lied when Mulder asked her if she felt different in Valerie Hermann’s house. It was a lie by omission, because technically she didn’t answer, but still, she had lied.  She had felt very different in that house. She’d felt on edge, ready to burst into tears, overwhelmed, and not at all relaxed.

The best way Scully could think of to get them to move off of the case was to review Melody Parker’s records and find nothing.  She was positive Mulder wouldn’t find anything out from the local PD either, unless it was that Valerie Hermann was a known fraud.  He’d told her to call when she was finished and he’d come back for her. The station was only minutes down the same road as the hospital.

The reception area of the hospital was clean and brightly lit.  She was greeted by a friendly woman behind a half-moon desk who directed her to the emergency unit after Scully flashed her badge and told her what she was looking for.  There was only a handful of people in the waiting area, which she bypassed to head to the nurse’s station. She asked for the on-call doctor and was told to wait.

Only a week ago, Scully lay down in a too small hospital bed beside the daughter she never knew and watched her slip away.  Only months earlier, when she thought that she herself was about to slip away, she lay in her own uncomfortable hospital bed while her priest administered last rites.  It seemed now that she sat down in this waiting room, that those experiences had put a dimmer on the surge of confidence she always felt walking into any medical facility.  Since her early days of med school, she’d gotten a bit of a rush being able to speak the same language as the doctors and nurses she interacted with. It always felt important, being able to distinguish herself as not just an FBI agent, but a colleague.  Sure, she was a doctor, but it didn’t make a shred of a difference when it came to her cancer and it certainly made no difference when it came to her own daughter. Walking into this hospital, she only felt one thing, and that was that she didn’t belong here.

“Were you the one who asked to speak with the on-call?”

The woman’s voice broke through Scully’s lapse into melancholy and she stood up out of the hard, plastic chair she’d been occupying for nearly half an hour, by the clock hanging on the wall in front of her.  She hadn’t realized she’d been zoning out for that long. It startled her to her feet.

“Dana Scully, Special Agent with the FBI.”  She opened her badge for the doctor as she spoke.  “I need to speak with you about a woman that was brought into the ER last week.”

The doctor stared at Scully’s badge behind horn-rimmed glasses.  Her dark hair was pulled back into a pony-tail low at her nape, streaks of grey at her temples.  The expression on her face was unreadable and Scully felt like she was being harshly scrutinized in the silence that followed.  Scully folded her badge closed and tucked it back inside her breast pocket. She took a glance down at the nametag on the doctor’s white coat: Eloise Krull.

“Who are you after?” Dr. Krull finally asked.

“A DOA, unfortunately.  Melody Parker.”

“I see.”  

Dr. Krull inclined her head slightly as walked away, indicating for Scully to follow.  She led Scully to a workstation separate from the main nurse’s station and brought the computer screen to life.  She silently clicked away with the mouse and the printer beside her whirred and spit out some paper. When it was finished, she turned to Scully, took a glance at the computer screen, and then at the printouts.

“You know I’m not able to share a patient’s records with you,” Dr. Krull said.  “Not without the proper consent forms.”

“I’m just looking for more information on how-”

“It would be illegal, not to mention unethical,” the doctor interrupted, then glanced at the screen and at the printouts again.  “If you’ll excuse me, I have patients waiting.”

Scully blinked as the doctor moved past her, leaving the computer screen in plain view and the printouts in the tray of the printer.  The doctor caught a nurse’s attention and Scully used the clear distraction as an opportunity to read what was on the screen. Her brows shot up as she skimmed the records in front of her and then she swiped the printouts from the tray without looking at them and quickly folded them and tucked them into her pocket.  She turned the monitor off and headed for the exit, keeping her eyes forward as she passed Dr. Krull.

When Scully got outside, she waited until she’d cleared the parking lot to pull the printouts from her pocket.  After going through each of them, she pulled out her cell phone and called Mulder.

“There might be something here after all,” she said after Mulder answered.

“I’m on my way,” he replied, and then disconnected.

*****

Mulder was already in his car and on his way to the hospital when Scully called.  He had wrapped up an interesting conversation with a young rookie cop only minutes before and he thought he might reach Scully before she reached him.  She was at the far end of the parking lot when he pulled in and she hurried to open the door when he stopped.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” Mulder said.

“You found something?” she asked.

“Let’s just say it’s what I didn’t find.  What’d you get?”

“Admittance records.”  She held up some papers in her hand and passed them over to him.  “Melody Parker had been admitted to the ER eight times in the last three years.”

“Eight times?”  Mulder skimmed the pages Scully had given him.  

“Broken wrist, black eye, cracked ribs…”

“Patient claims contusions are the result of walking into a door,” he read.  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“This is classic domestic violence.”

“I’ll say.  Did you see this part?  Patient refused counsel and became agitated when questioned about bruising on arms.  Checked out AMA when boyfriend arrived and insisted she return home.”

“I think the doctor I spoke with suspected this was happening.”

“She gave you these?”

“Let’s just say, she gave me the opportunity to obtain them.”

“You stole them?”  Mulder batted his eyelashes at Scully.  “Be still my heart.”

“I showed you mine.”

“Well, while you were committing larceny, of which I am immensely proud, I discovered the local Sheriff is not a fan of the proverbial big brother, women in the workforce, or internal leaks.”

“Sorry I missed it.  I take it he has no idea how you got this file?”

“Seems someone went over his head after he refused to have it investigated.”

“Which makes it seem all the more credible.”

“Bingo.”  Mulder gave Scully the papers back.  “And then some rookie kid, whom I’d bet courtside season Knicks’ tickets on being the leak, stopped me on the way out and enlightened me on the relationship between the Sheriff and Jared Hoath and just how big of a creep the guy is.”

“Let me guess.  The Sheriff is his father?”

“Maternal uncle.”

Scully snorted softly and shook her head.  “I don’t get it, Mulder,” she said, looking down at her lap.  “This sounds like everyone knew. And no one helped. They just waited until it was too late and now...now there’s nothing in the autopsy report that’s indicative of foul play and all we have to go on is the allegations of a woman who claims to be a psychic.”

“It was something enough to bring us here.  Look at it that way. And luckily, our young rookie godfather at the police station dropped the name of someone we might want to interview.”

“Who?”

“A neighbor of Melody Parker.  Wendy Abernathy.”

*****

As they crossed the small courtyard of the apartment complex where Wendy Abernathy and the late Melody Parker resided, Mulder scrutinized the layout of the buildings and noted as many details as he could.  The complex consisted of six buildings forming a rectangle around a courtyard, with four apartments in each building, two on the ground floor and two on the second floor. Wendy Abernathy was in a second floor apartment, number 7.  That meant that Melody Parker and Jared Hoath’s door was about ten feet across from where they stood. He looked around for any surveillance cameras and spotted one in the corner of the landing of the stairwell, one flight down from the apartment doors.  

“Let’s try to get that,” Mulder said, pointing to the camera in the corner.

Scully nodded and then knocked on Wendy Abernathy’s door.  A few moments passed in silence and then she knocked again.  Mulder looked at his watch. It almost two in the afternoon on a Monday.  Ms. Abernathy was likely at work.

“Leave your card,” he said.

Scully pulled out one of her cards and was about to stick it in the side of the door, but Mulder stopped her and got out a pen.

“What are you writing?” she asked.

“Please call regarding Melody Parker.”

Suddenly, the door opened and a scowling, middle-aged woman with wild grey hair and hard eyes crossed her arms in front of them.  “Who would you be?” she asked.

“Ms. Abernathy?  Fox Mulder with the FBI, this is my partner, Dana Scully.”

“Too little, too late.  Come in.”

Scully turned her head enough to lift her eyebrow at Mulder as she crossed the threshold into Wendy Abernathy’s apartment.  He followed behind and Wendy swiftly shoved the door closed behind him.

“So, now you want to talk about Melody?” Wendy asked, then gave a deriding snort.

“Anything you can tell us that might be helpful,” Scully said.

“Hah!”  Wendy crossed her arms and stared down the end of her nose at Scully for a few moments and then she turned and stomped out of the room.

“Did your rookie godfather happen to mention we’d be dealing with a hostile witness?” Scully whispered to Mulder.

“Can’t say that he did.”  Mulder shrugged apologetically.

Wendy Abernathy returned to the room as abruptly as she’d left and shoved a file folder into Scully’s hands.  “That’ll be everything,” she said.

“What is that?” Mulder asked, peering over Scully’s shoulder as she opened the folder.  Inside was photos of Melody with varying bruises, mostly on the arms, legs, and back, along with statements accompanying the photos, dated and signed by Melody.

“She knew,” Wendy said.  “She knew one day that sonofabitch would kill her.”

“You don’t think Melody’s fall was an accident?” Mulder asked.

“As much as I believe it’s possible to fart rainbows.”

Mulder had to bite his lip and stifle a laugh by turning it into a slight cough.

“Did you express your concern to the police?” Scully asked.

“Why?  Dwight’d sooner arrest a chicken for crossing the road than his own nephew.”

“The Sheriff,” Mulder supplied for Scully, unnecessarily.

“I see.  Would you be willing, now, to come forward and make a statement on the record what you know about Jared Hoath and his volatile behavior?”

“What good would that do?”

“If we need to get a warrant to search his apartment or even to make an arrest, it may give us enough probable cause,” Mulder said.  “It’d be a help to us, but also to Melody.”

“You people should’ve been here before he had a chance to kill her.”

“With all due respect, Ms. Abernathy, if someone had said something earlier, we would have.”

Wendy pursed her lips.  For a second, Mulder was afraid he’d pushed too far, but he was getting a little irritated with this woman’s attitude.

“Alright, I’ll give you a statement,” Wendy said.

“Thank you.”

*****

It was late afternoon by the time they took Wendy Abernathy’s statement and made an attempt to locate the property manager of the apartment buildings for the security camera footage.  They’d been able to track down a name and phone number, but got no answer when they called. Scully left a message and then they were back in the car, back on the road, on the way home, with plans of returning to the station in the morning, hopefully with enough probably cause to secure a warrant to search Jared and Melody’s apartment.  Scully would be going over the photos and statements now in their possession to make their case.

“You want me to drop you at home or the office?” he asked.

“If you dropped me at home you’d have to pick me up in the morning.”

“I can do that.  We’ll just be driving back out here in the morning anyway.”

“Sure you don’t want to find a motel?”  She was hoping he hadn’t changed his mind about that.  After two weeks away from home, one night in her own bed wasn’t enough.

“Nah, there’s some files I want to look at and maybe do some research.”

“On what?”

“Things,” he said, mysteriously, but then looked over at her and smiled.  “I have a hunch, but I need more to go on.”

“You don’t want to tell me what it is?”

“Gotta get all my ducks in a row first.  Too bad I can’t set up a little portable slideshow for your viewing pleasure on our journey back in the morning.”

“Yes, that is too bad.”

“Should we stop for dinner on the way?  We didn’t even grab lunch, did we?”

Scully hesitated.  She was hungry, but a stop for dinner would mean more time spent with Mulder and casual dining usually promoted casual conversation.  She’d been on edge all day, waiting for him to ask how she was, to scrutinize her in only the way he could and make her feel wholly transparent when she insisted she was fine, or even worse, the eventual suggestion that she take more time.  If she opened the door to dinner, she opened the door to all of the above.

“I’m still a little tired,” she said.  “Jet lag.”

“Right.”

Mulder paused and twisted his mouth a little.  She held her breath, realizing too late she’d opened the door to inquiry about her health and the trip back from San Diego.  He puffed his cheeks out a little and started tapping his thumb against the steering wheel.

“But, if you’re...hungry,” she said.  “We can…”

“I can wait.”

Conversation was limited to Scully’s navigational directions for the rest of the trip back.

*****

Mulder didn’t turn the light on when he opened the door to his office.  He hung up his jacket and then pulled the cord on the lamp on his desk. It was dim, but it was enough.  He rifled through his filing cabinet to find what he was looking for before he sat down. Before he did anything else, he called The Gunmen.

“Turn the tape off,” he told Langley, who answered.

“What tape?” Langley replied.

“Turn it off.”

“Sure, sure.  It’s off.”

“Great, now really turn it off.”

“You’re more paranoid than the three of us put together, you know that?”

“And I plan on keeping it that way.  Did you find anything?”

“You mean since this morning when you called at 5am and pulled poor Fro from his beauty rest?  You know he needs all the help he can get.”

“Did you?”

“We’re dividing to conquer.  Byers has been working on Calderon, Frohike took Prangen.”

“And what are you doing?”

“Analyzing the contents of the psychedelic biohazardous waste you dumped on us.”

“I know you boys are working hard, but could you do me one more favor?”

“Depends.”

“I just need you to run a name for me and send me what you get.”  Mulder flipped his wrist and checked his watch. “If you could get it to me in the next half hour, the next round of pizza and beer is on me.”

“That’s what you always say.”

“So you know I’m good for it.”

“What’s the name?”

“Valerie Hermann, two n’s.”

“I’ll email it.”

“Thanks.”

Langley disconnected and Mulder hung up as well.  He rubbed his eyes and sighed. He had been pretty sure this new case wasn’t an x-file when he plucked it out of the potential files he’d been forwarded.  Of the choices he’d reviewed, this one was close to home and seemed pretty cut and dry. He wasn’t so sure now though. He’d have to wait for Langley’s email for more information, but for now, he opened the first file he’d pulled out of his cabinet to review.

*****

She waited for him outside her building.  When he called and said he’d be around in ten minutes to pick her up, she knew it meant twenty, but had her jacket and gloves on and was locking her door in less than fifteen.  To her surprise, he turned the corner just as she cleared the front steps.  

“Coffee,” he offered, as she climbed into the passenger seat.

“Thanks.”

“I take back what I said yesterday.”

“What did you say yesterday?”

“That this wasn’t an x-file and the circus had nothing to do with it.  Egg and cheese?”

Scully warily accepted the paper bag Mulder held out to her.  He only went all out when he was excited about something and was trying to butter her up, as though he could buy her enthusiasm as well.  It was then that she noticed the array of files on the dashboard. She tried not to audibly sigh as she buckled her seatbelt.

“You weren’t up all night trying to rig a portable slideshow I hope,” she said.

“Visual aids aren’t going to help with this, but I did bring an assortment of reading material for you.”

“I can see that.”

“Ready?”

“Let me hear it.”  She sat back and sipped her coffee.

Mulder pulled the car from the curb and started his story.  “Valerie Hermann was born in 1959 to Edwin and Mary Hermann, nee Pope.  Her father was a musician, died in a car crash when Valerie was 17. Mother Mary was a dancer, but died of a pulmonary embolism when Valerie was just two.”

“That’s a lot of tragedy for a young woman to face.  Siblings?”

“None.  Edwin and Mary were in their early 20s when they married and had Valerie.  Edwin never remarried.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Well now we have to go back in time to the late 1800s, 1881, specifically, when the Barnum & Bailey Circus was founded.  It was then that a family of acrobats and aerialists was brought over from Russia. Called The Phenomenal Popolovich’s, the family was a main attraction in the show for almost 40 years.  Until it wasn’t.”

“As interesting as this tale is, where is it going, Mulder?”

“In the 20s, the family dropped the circus act, changed the surname to Pope, and settled in Bailey’s Crossroads.”

“Exactly what does any of this have to do with Melody Parker’s death?”

“Nothing.”  He grinned.

Scully opened her mouth and stared at him, agape.  He caught her eye when he glanced over and chuckled.  He nodded at the files on the dashboard.

“Folder on the top,” he said.

Scully slipped her coffee cup into the holder between their seats and then swiped the manilla folder off the stack of files and opened it up.  There was a single sheet of paper stapled to the back which looked like a printout of a microfiche record. It was a news article. At the top, in black ink and in Mulder’s handwriting was written: Ohio Gazette - June 18, 1924.

“Disgraced big top family flees town,” Scully read the headline out loud.

“To answer your earlier question, I had the boys run a search for me.  Mostly public records and such.”

“Word spread quickly throughout Wyandot County,” Scully read, “when Anna Popolovich of The Phenomenal Popolovich family with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus was accused of sorcery and mischief by the mayor’s wife, Mrs. Charles Stanley.  Little is known about the charges, but we do know from the posted schedule of events to celebrate the arrival of the big top that the mayor and wife were touring the circus grounds as invited guests prior to the week-end shows. A witness stated that on this touch, Mrs. Stanley encountered Popolovich and was suddenly overcome with a faint that required smelling salts to rouse her.  The witness also says that prior to the faint, Popolovich had touched the mayor’s wife on the shoulder and spoken words to her that seemed to frighten the woman. It’s also been said that this isn’t the first time accusations such as these have come about. Popolovich is not being charged with a crime, but the accusations have been enough to warrant cancelation of the family’s famous act and posters advertising The Phenomenal Popolovich’s have been removed from the circus grounds.”

“Got a real The Crucible vibe to it, doesn’t it?”

“So, what are you going to tell me now?  Melody Parker or Jared Hoath are descendents of an Ohio mayor and this is an elaborate ruse for revenge some 70 years later?”

“That would be an interesting angle, but no.  Not that I know of, anyway. Next file.” Mulder nodded again at the dashboard and then turned the windshield wipers on.  The morning mist had given way to a light rain.

Sometimes Scully lacked the patience for the way Mulder dangled puzzle pieces in front of her, deliberately holding information back from her, but peppering clues now and then.  Today, though, with a long drive ahead of them and no substantial leads to move forward on, she didn’t mind the game playing.

“Valerie Hermann’s employment records,” she said.  “You got this from public records?”

Mulder shrugged and gave her a sideways glance.  “I said mostly.”

“I see.”  Of the ten or fifteen pages inside the file, there were highlighted portions that Scully automatically gravitated to, which she assumed was Mulder’s intention.  “She has...really stellar reviews. From superiors and from people she counsels.”

“You sound surprised.”

“Give the article you showed me I thought she might be on the verge of being run out of town as a heretic.”

“Nothing like that.”

“Alright, so what am I looking for here, Mulder?  I know you don’t believe Valerie Hermann is a psychic, and I’m fairly certain you don’t believe she’s involved in witchcraft either.  Do you?”

“My theory is that she’s an empath.”

“An empath?”

“Someone who can feel the emotions of other people and-”

“I know what an empath is supposed to be, but-”

“But, in your scientific opinion, they don’t exist?”

Scully shook her head.  “It’s a thing of science fiction.”   

“What about intuition?”

“What about it?”

“Do you believe in it?”

“How is that relevant?”

“Because if you want to argue that empathy doesn’t exist because it can’t be scientifically quantified, you’d have to say the same thing of intuition.  I know you have to believe in intuition because we rely on it all the time. We have to. And, I’ve heard you say it before, you know, you don’t know what it is about someone or something, but it gives you a certain vibe.  It’s instinct. It’s primal. I’m just saying that, for some, that biological trigger that turns on intuition can also turn on another more intense form of...connection.”

“Mulder, sometimes your leaps of logic are really…”

“Impressive?”

“That’s not the word I was going to use.”  The energy it took to concentrate on Mulder’s rambling gave Scully an appetite, so she unwrapped the egg sandwich he’d brought her.  “Give me three reasons you believe Valerie Hermann is an empath.”

“I could give you a dozen, but I’ll narrow it down to the top three.”

“Yes, please.”

“Alright, did you notice yesterday that she focused a lot on the tangibility of emotion?  She referred to how things feel a lot, almost in the way that a synesthete would describe how they can hear color, for example.”

She could agree with him on the point that Valerie was focused on emotion, but she wasn’t going to get into a debate on the lack of clear research into synesthesia.  Not now, anyway. She just listened and ate her sandwich.

“Secondarily,” he continued.  “I don’t know if you felt it or not, but as soon as I walked into that house, my mood shifted.”

“Did I feel your mood shift?  I can’t say that I did.”

“Your own mood.  Did you feel...different in the time you spent inside her house?”

Scully licked at a few crumbs she could feel at the side of her mouth.  She’d felt a whole variety of mood swings over the past few weeks, none of which she would attribute to Valerie Hermann or her house, but that being said, there had been an abrupt shift in her level of anxiety she’d been feeling when they’d went to interview the woman. That could just mean she’d finally been able to focus on the case at hand though.

“Even if I did,” she said.  “It doesn’t prove anything.”

“So you felt something?”

“I felt...impatience.  She was evasive and answered direct questions abstractly.  If my mood changed it was because she was exasperating and nothing more.”

“Well, I felt different.”

“How?”

“Calmish.  Like I was anxious, but hadn’t realized it until I felt a little more calm.”

“What were you anxious about?”

“I don’t know,” he said, after some thought, and she knew he was lying.  

“Does it have to do with what she said about your sister?”

Mulder didn’t say anything, but she saw the muscle in his jaw clench and unclench.

“Mulder, I told you, she could’ve come by that information easily.”

“You’re making assumptions on that,” he said, quietly.  “She didn’t say anything about Samantha. And even if she could look it up, when would she have found the time?  It’s not like she knew we were coming.”

“I don’t know.  Maybe she did know.  Maybe that cop you spoke to knows of your work and…”

“And what?  Lured us out here?  Now who’s making leaps in logic.”

“Alright, that may be reaching, but-”

“But, you asked for three reasons.  So, let me give you another.”

“Fine.”

“Did you happen to notice in her records that she only works three days a week and will only counsel two people per day?”

“No, I hadn’t.”

“I think being around people must take an awful lot out of her.  She could barely hold that teacup yesterday.”

“Mulder, even if...even if what you’re suggesting is true, that Valerie Hermann is an empath, how does it help us prove Jared Hoath murdered Melody Parker?  We can’t make an arrest off the simple fact that you believe her. We need something concrete.”

“I know.”

“Well then, ask me what I did last night.”

“What did you do last night?”

“Spoke to the property manager about viewing the security camera footage from the stairwell.”

“And?”

“And we can pick up a copy of the tape anytime after ten.”

“That’s great.  If we’re lucky, it’ll show enough to obtain a warrant for the arrest and we can forego the search.”

“And if it doesn’t, I think we’ll be granted the search warrant with what Wendy Abernathy gave us.  The statements are detailed and clear and as luck would have it, notarized.”

“Damn.”

“What?”  Scully was confused.  Mulder sounded disappointed, but it was good news for their case.

“She was smart enough to get it on paper, with a notary witness.  I just wish she could’ve gotten herself out before it killed her.”

“Yeah.”

“I should’ve been...I should’ve been focused more on that than on pulling cases with suspected empaths.”  He made a vague gesture towards the rest of the files on the dashboard that were still untouched and then rubbed the back of his head with one hand and grimaced.

“Look at it this way, Mulder.  If not for your alleged empath, we wouldn’t be here.”

The muscle in his jaw twitched again, but he didn’t say anything.

*****

It was just after 9:30 when they pulled into a guest parking at the Crossroads Complex.  They decided to wait out the half hour until they could pick up the tape in the car, drinking their tepid coffee while Scully provided a rundown of the contents of Melody Parker’s statements.

The apartment complex wasn’t that much to look at.  It was a dreary day, grey and wet. Eventually, a man came strutting out of the courtyard of the complex.  He was of average height and average build with fair skin and blonde hair, shaggy, but neat. He zipped up a blue puffer jacket as he strode down the walkway.  

Mulder made a slight noise almost like a grunt.  “Nice,” he said.

“Hm?”

“Latest Air Jordans.”

Scully craned her neck a little.  The man had on a black and red pair of shoes that she could vaguely recall seeing advertisements while Christmas shopping.  They didn’t particularly stand out to her, but Mulder was clearly transfixed, watching until he got into a black Toyota 4Runner and drove away.

It was close enough to ten that they got out of the car and headed to the management office.  The door was still locked, but they only had to wait a few minutes for a small, stocky man with thick glasses and a bulbous nose came ambling towards them.

“Mr. Stack?” Scully asked.

“You the FBI lady I spoke with?” the man asked.

“Agent Scully and my partner, Agent Mulder.”

“Well, you best come in out of the cold.”  He opened the door to the management office and then flipped on the lights before showing them inside.  “My daughter should be by any minute. She’s the one has to show you how to work the electronic doodads.  Like some coffee?”

“No, thank you,” Scully answered while Mulder shook his head.  

Mr. Stack puttered around the small and cluttered office to start a pot of coffee.  He took a coffee-stained mug with WORLD’S BEST DAD on it off his desk and rinsed it out as the machine bubbled and percolated.

“Were you here the day Melody Parker had her accident?” Mulder asked.

“I was here in the mornin’, but 2A had a busted showerhead and I was at Mike’s when it happened.”

“Mike’s?” Scully asked.

“Sorry, hardware store down the road.  We got to chitchattin’ ‘bout things and I was there for an hour or so.  When I came back, they were loadin’ that gal into the ambulance.”

“Did you ever notice anything suspicious?” Mulder asked.

“About Melody?  Naw, she was a sweet, quiet gal.”

“What about her fiancé, Jared?” Scully asked.

Mr. Stack hesitated.  “Don’t know much about him.  Sort of a moody fellow. A bit disrespectful at times, but then other times real personable.”

“How was he disrespectful?” Mulder asked.

“Oh, well…”  He paused to check his coffee pot and took a moment to pour his mug full to the brim.  “I remember fixin’ a leak in the kitchen once. I said somethin’ about needin’ a particular tool to complete the job, somethin’ like that, and she said she had a wrench handy and would I like to use it?  Then Jared told her to shut her mouth ‘bout tools, she didn’t know nothin’ ‘bout what I was sayin’. Then he apologized to me for her bein’ so dumb. I didn’t really like that.”

Mulder nodded.  Behind them, the door opened, letting in a small gust of cold air and a petite girl with short black hair and a thin line of bangs running straight across her forehead.  She acknowledged Mulder and Scully with a brief hello and then went and kissed Mr. Stack on the cheek as she shrugged out of a leather jacket.

“My daughter, Beth,” Mr. Stack said.  “Beth, these are the FBI folks that need that camera stuff.”

“Nice to meet you,” Beth said.  “We’ll have to do this quick, I have class soon.  Come on back.”

“What’re you studying?” Scully asked as they followed Beth into a separate room with various monitors and electronic equipment.

“Undecided, currently.  Thinking about computer programming though.  So, my dad said you want copies of stairwell cam from building B.  You have a time stamp?”

“Between 11am and 11:30,” Mulder answered.  

“December 26th?”

“That’s right.”

Beth flipped on a small, black and white monitor and entered a few commands on a keyboard.  A slightly blurred and fishbowl image of the stairwell they’d seen yesterday appeared on the screen.  Beth loaded a tape into a tower of VCRs and pressed a green button.

“Okay,” she said.  “This will play out on the screen here when you press the spacebar and record on the tape I just put in the machine.  When you got what you want, stop it with the red button there and eject. You can stop playback by tapping the escape key twice.  Can you handle that?”

“I think we can manage,” Mulder answered.

“Right then, I’m off.  Nice meeting you and good luck with whatever it is you’re looking for.”

“Thank you, Beth,” Scully said.

“Hey, uh,” Mulder said.  “One thing before you go.  You spend much time around the complex?  With your dad, maybe. You know any of the tenants at all?”

Beth shrugged.  “Not really. Passing greetings.”  She paused and glanced at the still frame on the monitor and then back to Mulder and then Scully.  “I guess you really just want to know if I know Jared and Melody?”

“Do you know them?” Scully asked.

“I heard about what happened.  I think we’ve said hello a couple times, that’s about it.  She seemed nice. He...he just seemed intense.”

“Intense, how?” Mulder asked.

“I don’t know.  He has these like crazy green eyes and he stares at you when he says hello and it’s like intense.”

“Okay.  Thanks for your help.”

Beth gave a nod and then slipped out of the room.  Mulder tapped the spacebar and the image on the monitor flickered once and they waited for something to happen.  

“Dammit,” Mulder said.  “This camera angle isn’t going to show us what happened at the top of the stairs.”

“It’s too sharp,” Scully agreed.  “What do you think that is, second or third step down?”

“Third, at least.  Look how far back the railing is.”

They waited.  Minutes passed and there was no activity on the screen.  Scully checked her watch and the timestamp.

“911 call came in at 11:16 and we’re at 11:07,” she said.  “In Jared’s witness statement he said Melody left for work and he found her five to ten minutes later.”

“Keep your eye on the timestamp.”

And then, Melody Parker fell into the frame, quite literally.  Her body pitched forward down the stairs and was still. Only seconds later, there was someone else they could only see from the ankles down on the first step up in view.

“Air Jordans,” Mulder murmured, glancing at Scully.  “That was Jared.”

“And he lied,” she answered.

*****

They had a disagreement back in the car about how to proceed with the investigation.  Mulder wanted to bring Jared in for questioning right away. Scully wanted to go ahead with the search warrant they’d been planning to obtain.

“At this point, I just don’t see what the search warrant is going to provide us with,” Mulder said. 

“And if we bring him in, he’s going to get suspicious and lawyer up eventually,” Scully countered.

“If we come waltzing in with a search warrant, he’s going to lawyer up immediately.  At least if we bring him in, it may give us a chance to get him to confess.”

“And it may give his uncle the opportunity to protect him.”

“You think he’d destroy evidence?” 

“You’re the one that met him, you tell me.”

Mulder seemed to ponder the question as he stopped at an intersection and tapped the balls of his thumbs on the steering wheel.  “If he did, he’d be brought up on obstruction of justice charges.”

“Meanwhile, we wouldn’t have enough to get a conviction.”

“We’ve got a pattern of behavior established not only from Melody’s statements, but her hospital records, and the testimony of Wendy Abernathy.”

“The hospital records aren’t going to be admissible.  Not with how they were obtained.”

“So we forget them.  Melody’s statements are signed and notarized.  What we’re missing here now is motive, and I doubt we’ll find that in Jared’s apartment unless we know what we’re looking for.  Unless we can get it out of him.”

“What grounds do we have for bringing him in?  He made the 911 call, we have the transcript. We can’t call him a person of interest because his shoes appeared on the video.”

“Discrepancies in his initial statement to police, the call, and the tape.”

“They’re weak.”

“But, they’re discrepancies nonetheless.”

“I think we need more to go on.  But, it’s your call.”

*****

They got lucky in that it didn’t take long to track down Jared Hoath.  A simple call to his employer got them the address of a greenhouse he was working out of that day.  In an effort to avoid the Sheriff’s office back in Bailey’s Crossroads, as well as the Sheriff, Scully had called ahead to the Fall’s Church field office and they were set to bring Jared in for an interrogation as soon as they picked him up.

Jared was stacking bags of fertilizer when they found him.  They recognized him by his shoes and approached with their badges out.  Jared stopped what he was doing and took off his gloves. 

“What’s this about?” Jared asked.

“Nice shoes,” Mulder said.

Jared looked down and lifted his right foot up a little.  “Christmas present from my girlfriend,” he said.

“Melody?”

The grin on Jared’s face faded as he looked back up. 

“We’re wondering if you might come with us,” Scully said.

“Answer a few questions we have,” Mulder added.

“Questions about what?”

“It’s better we do this at the office.”  Mulder took a glance at another employee who was staring at them with interest.

“Well, I can’t just leave work.”  Jared shoved his gloves into his back pocket and crossed his arms.

“We spoke to your boss, Rick,” Scully said.  “He knows you’re coming with us.”

A stony expression crossed Jared’s face when he looked at Scully, but then quickly morphed into something more passive.  He stared at her for a few moments and she understood what Beth meant when she’d said his gaze was intense.

“Just a couple questions,” Mulder said, extending his arm in invitation to lead him out of the greenhouse.

It wasn’t more than a ten minute drive to the field office.  They checked in at the front desk and were shown to a windowless room down a long corridor.  There was a small table and two chairs. Jared sat on one side, Scully on the other, and Mulder paced behind her with a file in his hand.

“I want to ask you about the statement you gave,” Mulder said.  “You said, Melody had left for work the morning of the 27th and you left about five to ten minutes after her.  That’s when you found her at the bottom of the stairs.”

“That’s right,” Jared answered.

“Give me a little more detail on that.”

“What do you mean?”

“What was her mood like?  Was she running late? What was your mood like?”

“I don’t know.  She seemed fine.  Yeah, maybe she was in a hurry, now that I think about it.  She must’ve been moving too fast and that’s when...I’m sorry, it’s still really hard to talk about.”

“Of course.”  Mulder flipped a page in his file and pretended to read for a few moments.  “Okay, so you said, you left about five to ten minutes after she did and that’s when you found her.”

“Yeah.”

“You didn’t hear anything?  She didn’t cry out at all?”

“No, nothing.”

“So, by your estimation, Melody left your apartment, slipped down the stairs, and then you found her five to ten minutes later?”

“Yeah, as best as I can estimate.”

“Alright, well if I told you that there’s a video camera in the stairwell where Melody fell and that we’ve reviewed the tape, is that going to change your story at all?”

Jared didn’t say anything.  

Scully had quietly let Mulder take the lead on questioning and studied the various expressions of false bewilderment and innocence on Jared’s face as he responded.  She tried to find some hint in body language that Mulder might be getting to him, but his poker face was steady.

“There’s an eight minute lapse in time from when you found Melody on the stairs and when you called 911,” Mulder said.  “Not to mention the fact that you didn’t find her five to ten minutes later, you found her about five to ten seconds later.”

“The time on the video must be wrong,” Jared answered with a shrug.

“That doesn’t explain why you lied when you said you found Melody five to ten minutes after she left,” Scully finally jumped in.  

“I think I might have misunderstood the question.”

“What question would that be?” Mulder asked.  “It’s a direct quote from your signed statement.  ‘Melody left for work and about five to ten minutes later I left too and found her at the bottom of the stairs.’”

“Well, what I meant was, it took about five to ten minutes for the ambulance to get there.  I went back inside to get my phone and they were asking me all kinds of questions like was she breathing and crap like that.  How would I know? I’m not an EMT.”

“That’s right.”  Mulder nodded. “You didn’t check to see if she was breathing.  You stood there for seventeen seconds - Agent Scully and I counted and we’re very good with counting and with time - and then you turned around and went back upstairs.”

“Do I need a lawyer?”

“I don’t know, Jared, do you?”  Mulder stared at Jared and he stared passively back.

“I need to get back to work.”

“We’ll take you back when we’re done here.”

Jared stood up and zipped his open jacket half-way closed.  “Must not have much on that videotape if we’re here,” he said.  “If you did, I’d be charged with something.”

Scully took a glance at Mulder.  This was what she was afraid of. Pushing Jared too hard too fast.  He was on to them and she knew by the way the muscle jumped at the back of Mulder’s jaw that he was gritting his teeth in anger, probably with himself.

“We’ll take you back,” Scully said.

*****

Scully drove and Mulder tried to restrain his animosity.  Jared got out of the back seat of the car like he didn’t have a care in the world and strutted back to the greenhouse.

“Relax,” Scully whispered to Mulder.  She could see him clenching his fist against his knee like he was ready to hit something.

“You were right,” he said.  “And he’s going to get away with this.”

“We can still get a search warrant.”

“For what?  Unless he confesses, everything we have is circumstantial at best.”

“We can’t give up so quickly.”

“I’m not giving up, I’m just...I’m just...irritated.”

“What do you want to do?”

Mulder shook his head and then plucked at his bottom lip as he slumped against the door.  The gloom of the car seemed to match the gloom outside. It looked like it might start raining again.  Scully pulled the car out of the parking lot and onto the highway, heading home.

“Wait,” Mulder said, suddenly.  “Valerie.”

“What about her.”

“I want to speak with her again.”

“Why?”

“I think she can help.”

*****

Scully did not like Mulder’s plan and breathed a sigh of relief when there was no answer at Valerie Hermann’s home.  Undeterred, Mulder found the address for her office and directed Scully to drive them there. She did so reluctantly.

Valerie’s office was part of a small clinic not far from her home.  The lobby was only large enough to hold three chairs and two of them were occupied.  Mulder checked in with the receptionist, flashed his badge, and told her they needed to speak with Miss Hermann regarding an ongoing investigation.

The Valerie that came out to lead them to her office was a different Valerie than they’d met in her home.  This Valerie was more poised and confident, not the frail and timid woman who could barely lift a teacup.

“Please, have a seat,” she said, motioning to the narrow sofa that seemed to take up most of the space in the room.

Scully wanted to stand, to let Mulder make his inquiries, and then leave, but Mulder sat and standing felt awkward, so she perched beside him and took a few casual glances around the room.  Valerie sat across from them on the other side of a small coffee table. There was no desk or other furniture in the room besides the table, the sofa, and the chair. On the table was a box of tissues.  The walls were a muted blue-grey, and bare.

“I don’t think you’re psychic,” Mulder said.  

“I told the police the truth,” Valerie answered.

“I know you did, and I believe you, but you didn’t come by that information psychically.” 

Valerie gazed at Mulder, her expression unchanged.  

“You feel the emotions of others,” Mulder said, speaking quietly and leaning forward over the table a little closer to her.  “Take them on as your own. You’re an empath.”

“It’s not as simple as that.”

“I know how hard it must be.”

“Oh, I don’t think you do.”

“I mean, I can only imagine.”

“It’s what I’m here for.”

“What do you mean by that?” 

“It’s something my father always used to say.  He thought it was our responsibility to take this gift and help people.”

“Not your mother?”

“I didn’t know my mother.”

Mulder sat back a little and glanced at Scully.  He seemed caught off guard by the omission, but Scully didn’t see how it mattered.

“Your father.” Mulder said.  “He had the same ability?”

“Yes, but I think it was different for him.  Strong emotions hit him harder and took him longer to recover.  I’m fairly certain it’s what killed him, though the official cause of death is a heart attack.”

Scully looked at Valerie with concern.  If what Mulder said was true, and she still wasn’t quite certain she believed the woman was an empath, but to allow herself to be overwhelmed with such strong emotions in the grief of others couldn’t be healthy.

“Why not do something else?” Scully asked.

“I wouldn’t know what to do.”

“How does it work?” Mulder asked.  “How do you know, for example, that Jared Hoath committed murder and Melody’s death wasn’t just accidental?”

“The same way that I know that you and Agent Scully have lost your fathers.  When I told you he’d died, your sorrow came back at me. If I had to guess, it’s been several years due to how dull of a feeling it is.  It was subconscious.”

“You could have gleaned that with subtle changes in body language,” Scully said.  “Or, you could have come by that information via public records.” Mulder turned and gave her a sidelong glance. 

Valerie shrugged.  “It doesn’t matter much to me how you think I know what I know.  Why are you even asking me any of this? What does it have to do with arresting Jared Hoath?”

“That is the important thing,” Mulder said.  “I read some commendations about what you do and how you help people.  Some of the people you counsel say they walk out of your office feeling like a weight had been lifted from them.”

“So?”

“So, I don’t think your...gift...is a one way street.  I think you might take on the emotions of others, but give something back in return.  If you can give happiness away, have you ever tried guilt? Maybe if he feels persuaded enough by a guilty conscious, he’ll confess to the murder.”

Scully felt her brow creep up and she slackened her face to keep her incredulous expression in check.  

“It took me almost three days to feel normal again after the last time I spoke with Jared Hoath.”

“We would be here.  We’d make sure you weren’t put in any danger.”

Valerie looked uneasy and Scully didn’t blame her.  She wasn’t sure what Mulder was thinking, asking this woman to try to pull a confession out of a suspect, but she wasn’t going to question him in front of a witness.  She hated when he did things like this though, keeping her in the dark about things. It reminded her that it was only a few short weeks ago that he’d dropped the bombshell in her lap about her stolen ova.  He couldn’t keep doing this.

“Why don’t you think about it,” Scully said, standing as to indicate this interview was over.  “We’ll continue our investigation in the meantime.”

Mulder stood as well, though he appeared reluctant to end the conversation and leave.  “You have my card,” he said.

“Yes,” Valerie answered.  She looked up at them, but didn’t get out of her seat.  Suddenly, her eyes cut to Scully’s and she got up, crossing the small space to stand in front of her.  “It’s like quicksand,” she said to her. “Or drowning.”

“What is?” Scully asked.

“Losing a child.”  She reached out and grasped Scully’s hand, giving it a brief squeeze before she released her.  She looked to Mulder for a few moments and then returned to her seat.

A strange feeling came over Scully, one that reminded her of floating on a raft in the sun in the middle of her best friend from high school’s pool.  She was suddenly tongue-tied as Mulder ushered her out.

*****

A fog had come in while they were in Valerie’s office.  The atmosphere felt cold and heavy on their way to the car.  Scully gave Mulder the keys, too dazed to consider driving. She stared out the window, watching the rain and the dark blur of trees going by.  They were back on the road for quite some time before either of them spoke.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were going to ask Valerie to try to induce a confession out of Jared?” Scully asked.

“Because you’d probably tell me it was a bad idea.”

“It is a bad idea.”

“It might work.”

“It’s not her job to confront him.  It’s ours.”

“We did that.  We got nowhere.”

“Mulder, we don’t know why or how Jared Hoath even ended up in Valerie’s office to begin with.  You just promised her protection and for all we know, his uncle has already tipped him off that she’s accused him of murder.”

“You think we should offer her protective custody?”

“I don’t even know.  We have no idea what he’s capable of, we only know that he probably murdered his girlfriend and we can’t prove it.”

“If she’s able to influence him to confess, that’s more than enough to make the arrest.”

“But, Mulder, if Valerie is what you say she is, you heard it from her yourself.  Talking to him put her out of commission for three days. It could hurt her. Is that what you want?”

“Of course not.”

“She shouldn’t be dragged into this.”

“Do you think her abilities are so strong because it runs in both sides of her family?” 

“I’m not convinced she has abilities.”

Mulder sighed.  “Why is it so hard for you to believe?”

“People can’t take other people’s emotions, Mulder.”

“Why not?”

“Because they can’t.”

The rain picked up and Mulder adjusted the wipers.  For awhile, the steady plink plink plink of the rain against the roof and the squeak of the wipers in response was the only conversation to be had.

“She’s playing us,” Scully said after some contemplation.  “I just don’t know how and I don’t know why.”

Mulder sighed again.

“I don’t know how she knows about...about anything,” Scully said.  “Our fathers. Your sister.”

“Emily.”

“Don’t.”

“Were you thinking about her today in Valerie’s office?”

“I said, dont,” she whispered.

“Scully, it...it wasn’t Samantha I had been thinking about.” 

“What do you mean?”

“When we were at her house, I was looking at the photographs on Valerie’s mantle.  They were mostly of her and, I assume, her father. In one of them, she was holding up a drawing of stick figures and smiling.  I had a fleeting thought, just in that moment, of Emily drawing the potato. It made me…”

A lump formed in Scully’s throat and she swallowed it back.  Her stomach burned and churned.

“It made you what?” she asked, voice pinched into a harsh whisper.

“Sad.  I remembered looking at her solemn little face as she colored and vowing to make her laugh, but I never got that chance.  It made me sad.”

Scully could barely breathe, let alone speak.  Her chest felt tight and the car suddenly felt airless and hot.  She couldn’t tell if her vision was blurred by tears or if it was from the rain streaming down the windshield.  Either way, she turned her head away from Mulder and closed her eyes.

“But, when Valerie touched my hand,” he said.  “That sadness...hurt a little less.”

Scully would not admit to the same feeling.  Instead, she stayed silent and kept her focus on the mile markers at the side of the highway, counting them in her head to think of anything but Emily.  The rain finally let up just outside of DC and Mulder turned the wipers down and then off.

*****

When Scully noticed that Mulder was on track to drop her at home, she asked him to take her back to the office.  She wanted to pick up her car and given the current state of their investigation, she didn’t think they’d be back to Virginia tomorrow.  They parted ways in the parking garage, Mulder to the basement and Scully to her car. She realized though, as she was about to back out and drive away, that she had forgotten to check for some autopsy reports that should have been delivered via interoffice mail while she’d been out of the office.  She’d been asked to provide Skinner with a review and though he’d emailed her that there was no rush, to look at them once she was settled in from her vacation, she wanted to get them done as soon as possible.

The basement door was locked, but Mulder’s lamp was on when she opened it.  His overcoat was on the rack and his suit jacket was thrown over his chair, as well as his tie.  She assumed he’d gone up to the 4th floor vending machine or to the restroom, and she breathed a little sigh of relief that he wasn’t there.  She was still tense from their conversation in the car.

Scully searched her workspace for the files and when she came up empty handed, she searched the pile on Mulder’s desk, sifting through them for a manilla envelope with her name on it.  It took her a moment, but her brain registered on what she was looking at and then she backtracked, coming back to the top file on the stack and opening it up. She gasped and the files nearly slipped out of her hands.

“Scully?”

Scully looked up at Mulder, a dark figure in the doorway.  She felt feverish. Hot. Boiling.

“What is this?” she asked, holding up the file she’d been reading.

“Uh,” he stuttered, and then closed the door behind him.  “I’ve been...um…”

“What is this?” she repeated through clenched teeth.

“I’ve been looking into Scanlon.”

“I can see that.  By the looks of it, for quite some time.”

“Sort of.”

Scully gave Mulder a hard, penetrating stare.  She was seething. She’d never felt so angry in all of her life.  “I want answers,” she said. “I want them now.”

“Scully, you have to understand, at the time I...you were deathly ill, and I couldn’t bear to give you another piece of bad news.”

“Is that what this is?”  She gestured to the files she’d just discovered that she hadn’t had a chance to thoroughly examine or process.  “Bad news?”

“I told you in San Diego that I discovered your ova had been taken.  That Emily had been created as a result.”

“Actually, you told a judge, before you told me, but yes, you did.”

Mulder paused and rubbed his lips together for a moment.  “I found them.”

“Found... them ?  Another...child?  Children?”

“No,” Mulder shook his head and held his hands up to clarify.  “No, no. I found your ova. In a government lab.”

“You what?”

“I took them directly to a specialist who would tell me if they were okay.  If…”

“If?”  She shook her head impatiently. 

“He said they weren’t viable.”

She pressed her lips together, nostrils flaring.  “And where are they now?”

“In a cold storage facility.”

“I want them.  And I want a second opinion.”

“Of course.  I’ll...I’ll get them for you.”

“You do that.”  She closed the file and tucked it under her arm.  It was coming with her, that much was obvious.

“Scully, wait.”

“What, Mulder?  What could you possibly say at this point?”

“I...I wanted to protect you.  I never meant to hurt you.”

“Well, you have,” she replied, averting her gaze from him as the awareness of just how deeply she’d felt betrayed wash over her.  It pinched her throat and stung her eyes. “You have hurt me,” she whispered.

“We have to talk about this, Scully.  I know you may not trust me right now, but...you’re my partner.”

The way he said ‘partner’ was like a man pleading with his wife to save a marriage.  It startled her, but she was too angry with him to feel any sympathy for his anguish.

“You don’t know the meaning of the word.”

“I...Scully…”  

“How would you feel,” she husked.  “Mulder, how would you feel if you found out I’d withheld information about your sister?  If I was on track to bring you definitive proof about what happened that night, but I kept it from you.”

“I would be...angry.  Hurt...I would...Scully, I’m...”

“That’s just a fraction of what I’m feeling right now.  And I’m guessing you don’t need to be an empath to understand that.”

Fortifying herself with renewed anger, she swiped at her eyes and brushed past Mulder to open the door.  He made a move towards her, like he was about to stop her, but then stepped back and let her go.

*****

She didn’t sleep that night.  She stayed up reading and re-reading the files she’d taken with her to make sense of it.  The more she searched for answers though, the more questions she had. Mulder’s research was rabbit holes and dead ends.  Part of her couldn’t blame him for holding back on her because he had nothing. He was no closer to the truth of her abduction and the testing she’d gone through than when he’d started.

At 5am, after rousing from a light doze, she gathered up all the papers that she’d strewn over her bed and got in the shower.  She was tired and her head ached from all the tears of frustration that had fallen during the long night. She’d just finished blow drying her hair when her phone rang.  It was Mulder. If they weren’t in the middle of a case, she’d ignore it, maybe even turn her phone off, but she couldn’t do that now.

“Scully,” she said.

“Scully, it’s me.”

She said nothing.  She heard him sigh.

“I think you were right, and I think we need to head back to Bailey’s Crossroads.”

“About which part?”

“I think we do need that search warrant.  And we might be able to do this without bringing Valerie back into it.”

“I’ll be ready in ten minutes.”

“I’ll pick you up.”

“No.  I’ll pick you up.  You’re on the way.”

“Okay.”

She hung up, dropped her phone on the bed, and began to rub her temples.

*****

Mulder was waiting for her when she pulled up, pacing the sidewalk in front of his building.  She didn’t look at him when he got in, just drove away as soon as he’d buckled his seatbelt. There were two coffees in the cupholder beneath the ashtray.  They weren’t a peace offering, but they were a signal that she didn’t intend to let their personal argument get in the way of their professional responsibilities.

“Is that for me?” he asked, reaching out to touch the lid of the cup closest to him with his fingertips.

“One cream, no sugar.”

“Thank you.”

“You want to tell me what changed your mind?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” he said, and took a sip of his coffee.  “I spent a lot of time reviewing the security camera footage.”

“You found something?”

“Maybe.  Melody had a bag with her when she fell.  Not a purse, more like an overnight bag. You can just make it out when she lands, it flies off her arm and hits the corner.  I want to know what was in that bag.”

“If it was something incriminating you don’t think Jared already got rid of it?”

“Maybe.  Maybe not.  I don’t know.  I can’t decide if he’s smart enough to clean up after himself or stupid enough to try.”

“Both, probably.”

“Well, we’ve got to try, right?”  Mulder’s phone rang and he pulled it out of his pocket to answer.  “Mulder. Yes, sir. I don’t know, sir, maybe he doesn’t like the fact his nephew is a murder suspect.”

Scully took a glance at Mulder.  He had the rumpled look of the exhausted.  As he carried on a conversation with who she assumed was Skinner on the other end of the line, he rubbed his eyes with his thumb and third finger.

“That’s what we plan on doing,” he said.  “We’re headed there now to execute a search warrant.  You know me, sir, I always play nice with the locals.”  He hung up the phone. “Damn,” he whispered.

“Skinner?” she asked.

“We’ve got a problem.  Uncle Sheriff is trying to send us to time out.”

“What did Skinner tell him.”

“To cooperate with a federal investigation if he knows what’s good for him and to stay out of our way.”  Mulder’s phone rang again and he fished it out of his pocket once more. “Mulder. Are you sure about that?  Listen to me, I’m ordering you and authorizing you to take Valerie into protective custody on behalf of the United States government, do you understand?  Don’t let her out of her sight and don’t take her to the police station. Second, I need the name of a judge who will sign off on a search warrant for Jared Hoath’s residence as soon as possible.  Someone who isn’t a good fishing buddy of his uncle’s and won’t blow smoke his way. Yes, hang on.”

Mulder tucked the phone between his shoulder and ear and dug into his breast pocket for his notepad and a pen.  He flipped it open and pulled the cap off his pen with his teeth.

“Go ahead,” Mulder said.  “Josiah Millhouse. Falls Church City Courts.  Off the I65. Alright, you do that and call me back when you have her.”

“What’s happening?” Scully asked, as soon as Mulder hung up the phone.

“Remind me to send the rookie godfather a gift basket when this is over.  He overheard the Sheriff ordering another officer to bring Valerie in for making false statements.  It seems this must’ve been after his call with Skinner left him red-faced. Apparently he’s on a rampage.”

“He can’t do that.”

“He seems to think otherwise.  He gave me the name of a judge though who he said would definitely be willing to execute the search warrant.  Seemed to imply there’s a little animosity between him and the Sheriff.”

“Are we heading to Falls Church, then?”

“Not if I can help it.  Let’s see if I can’t get this expedited somehow.”

*****

Mulder spent almost the rest of the car ride on the phone, first and foremost, to get in touch with Valerie to let her know that an Officer Collins was going to come for her and under no circumstances was she to leave with anyone but Officer Collins.  Second, to get the number for the Judge’s chambers, then to reach out to Mr. Stack to ask if he had a fax machine available, who in turn had to call his daughter, Beth, to ask if they had a fax machine available. The time on the phone was time well spent.  The judge was more than willing to sign off on the warrant and his clerk faxed it to the property manager’s offices. It arrived about ten minutes before they did.

“I saw him drive off about an hour ago,” Mr. Stack said, as he handed Scully the warrant.  

“It’ll be a nice surprise for him when he gets home,” Mulder said.

“You don’t need to break the door down or somethin’ do ya?”

“Won’t have to if you have a key.”

“Let me get them.”

They knocked on the door anyway, announcing themselves and their intentions and waiting a few moments in silence.  Wendy Abernathy opened her door across the way and peeked out at them. Mulder gestured to Mr. Stack who opened the door with his key.  The older man backed away and then went across to Ms. Abernathy and began a hushed conversation with her.  

Scully dropped a copy of the warrant on the dining table just to the right of the entrance and then pulled on a pair of gloves.  “Anything in particular I should be on the lookout for?” she asked, passing Mulder a second pair of gloves she pulled from her pocket.  He traded her a banker’s box full of evidence bags for the gloves.

“I feel like we’ll know it when we see it.”  

Scully nodded and wandered toward the bathroom.  Mulder snapped the gloves on and stayed in the small living space, walking the room slowly.  He couldn’t tell from his initial perusal if anything had been altered since Melody had been alive, but his first impression was that the place felt more like a bachelor pad to him than that of a couple.  An entertainment center took up almost all of the wallspace on one side of the room with a large television, an expensive stereo system, and several gaming consoles stacked in the open cabinet. There were no pictures or paintings on the wall, instead two framed posters.  One, for the movie Rocky, and the other for The Godfather.

Mulder took his inspection to the single bedroom and found Scully rifling through the closet.  “Find anything?” he asked.

“Her clothes are still here,” she said.  “Sparse, but here. He takes up most of the space.”

“He certainly does.”  

There was another TV in the bedroom, taking up over half the top of the dresser and blocking the mirror.  Mulder opened up the top drawers and sifted through white socks and underwear. He didn’t expect to find anything and he didn’t.  He was too busy turning over a profile in his mind, trying to get into Jared’s head and anticipate his actions and reactions.

“The bag on the video is here,” Scully called, a little muffled from how she was crouched and searching the back of the closet.

“Empty it out.”

She moved to the bed, but whereas Mulder would’ve dumped the contents immediately, Scully took each item out individually and laid them out in a row.  When she finished, she placed the bag above the contents on the bed and stepped back to view it all.

“Assuming what we have here is what she was carrying with her that day,” Scully said.  “Does it look to you like she was trying to leave?”

“Either that or a long vacation.  And I seem to recall Jared specifically stating she was leaving for work.”

Scully took out the disposable camera they kept with them for occasions like this and took snapshots of the items.  There was a make-up bag, pajamas, underwear, socks, pantyhose, jeans, sweaters, tennis shoes, and a jewelry case. Mulder opened up the jewelry case, but it only contained a few pairs of earrings and two bracelets.

“No wallet or keys,” Mulder stated.  “Or pager. Jared strikes me as the type that had to have access to Melody at all times.  She might have a cell phone.”

“He could’ve tossed those right away.”

“Maybe.”  Mulder looked up as though he’d heard something, but it was only a thought that just occurred to him.  “Jared said his shoes were a Christmas present from his girlfriend.”

“You think he has a girlfriend on the side?”

“No.”  He turned to the closet and looked up at the shelves.  There were shoe boxes stacked up to the ceiling on one side.  A Nike box was at the top. Mulder reached up and pulled it down.  He opened the lid and pushed the tissue paper aside to find a receipt.

“What?” Scully asked.

“Paid by Mastercard the day after Melody died.  You want to bet it’s one of the cards from the missing wallet?”

“You think he might be racking up charges on Melody’s credit cards?”

“And then claim they were either lost or stolen, if he even goes so far to respond to debt collection.  I’m guessing his name isn’t on her credit report.”

“What are you more interested in busting him for, fraud or murder?”

“I’ll take what I can get.”

They searched the rest of the apartment in every nook and cranny they could think of, but didn’t find a wallet or keys.  They found a few other receipts with the same Mastercard as payment for electronic items. They bagged and tagged everything, including the contents of Melody’s bag, along with the bag itself.

Mr. Stack was outside the door looking nervous when they came out.  Wendy Abernathy had her door closed, but Mulder had no doubt she was probably watching through her peephole.  The property manager locked up and Mulder took a few minutes to inspect the area where Melody had fallen, checking the perspective of the camera to how it appeared on the video.  He noticed there was a gap where the railing met the landing. Over the short wall was the back of the first floor apartments, separated by hedges.

“I’m gonna take a look down there,” Mulder said, handing off the box he had carried down to Scully.

The hedges were mostly bare, but densely packed, making them impassable.  Mulder crouched down and scanned the area. He pulled one of the gloves he’d stuffed into his pocket back out and reached into the gnarled branches.  Scully already had a bag out and gave it to him.

“I’ll tag it,” Scully said, taking the bag back.

“There’s something else here.  I can’t tell what it is.” He reached farther into the branches, wincing as the rough twigs poked his face.  He grabbed a silver object that was partially embedded in the soil and splattered with mud.

“It’s a tape recorder,” Scully said, handing Mulder another bag.  “Same model I use for autopsy reports.”

“Rain damaged.”

“The tape should still be good.”

“You have yours with you?”

“In my bag in the trunk.”

Mulder stood and dusted dirt from his damp knees.  They thanked Mr. Stack and headed to the car. Their box of evidence went in the trunk and Scully dug into her bag to get her tape recorder.  It was too chilly to keep standing outside, so they took they sat in the car with the heat on and Scully worked the tape, rewinding it bit by bit, but all they could hear was ambient outdoor sound.

“She must’ve had it recording when she fell and it kept going until the tape ran out,” Scully said.

“Keep going.”

They rewound about halfway through when it started playing what sounded like the middle of an argument.  Mulder recognized Jared’s voice right away and assumed the female to be Melody.

“-always make me do this,” Jared said. 

“I only asked if you wanted to go, you don’t have to,” the woman said.

“So you can go tell all your stupid coworkers that I’m the jerk that won’t go to the Christmas party?”

“No, no.  I’ll just say we have something else that night.”

“You’re so stupid, Melody!  Why are you so stupid?”

“Ow!  Jared, stop!”

“Not until you learn not to be such an idiot.”

“Ow, ow, ow!  Let go!”

There was a thud, followed by what sounded like a slap.  Another thud and then a door slam. Melody sobbed quietly in the background and then there was a squelch and a few beats of silence.  Her voice came back again in a whisper, clearly separate from the previous incident.

“I’m leaving,” Melody said.  “I packed a bag last night and left it under the cupboard in the sink.  I was going to wait until he went to work, but I don’t want to take the coward’s way out.  I’m going to tell him face to face and if he tries anything… Wendy has all my records for safekeeping.  I’m not going to let him do this to me anymore. I found a women’s shelter for people like me. I’m going to let them listen to this tape.  Let them hear…. If they don’t take me I’m not sure what I’ll do, but I’m never coming back here. Never.”

The hushed monologue was followed by the squeak of door hinges, some muffled noise and then silence.

“I’m leaving,” Melody said.

“Whatever, who cares?” Jared answered.  “Be home on time, dinner was late yesterday.”

“I won’t be here for dinner.”

“You better be.”

“I’m not coming back here.”

Jared repeated what she just said in a high pitched, mocking tone.  “Cut the drama queen act. I don’t want any crappy leftovers either.”

“You don’t want to listen to me, that’s fine.  But, I’ve told you, and now I’m leaving.”

“You’re not back here at 6 o’clock sharp, I’m burning all your crap.”

“You’re going to burn my Nintendo and my Sega Genesis and my VCR and my stereo and my CDs and-”

“Those are mine, you idiot.”

“I paid for them.”

“I’ll burn your clothes.”

“Goodbye, Jared.”

“Get back here.”

“Don’t touch me.”

“I said get back here.”

“Let go.”

“You leave me I’ll kill you.”

The door opened.  There was a scuffle.

“I said let go!”  

The sickening thud of Melody’s fall made both Mulder and Scully wince.  Scully bit her lip and Mulder rubbed his hand across his mouth. They could hear Jared coming down the stairs to stand next to her, but the sound was tinny and far away.

“Stupd bitch,” he said.  “Now look what you made me do.”

Mulder stopped the tape.  He’d heard enough.

*****

On the way to the greenhouse to try to find Jared, Officer Collins called to let Mulder know he’d picked up Valerie and taken her someplace safe.  Mulder let him know they were on their way to arrest Jared and to keep her hidden until he gave the word.

“I’m glad we can keep her out of it,” Scully said.

“Let’s hope she doesn’t need to testify,” he answered.

When they pulled into the parking lot of the greenhouse, they noticed right away that the Sheriff’s car was there.  He was easy to pick out, even if he wasn’t wearing his uniform. He was everything Scully imagined he’d be; pot-bellied, balding, saggy jowls and a never-ending scowl.

“You keep your hands off my nephew,” he ordered, stepping between the approaching FBI agents and Jared.

“Step aside,” Scully said.  “Unless you want to be taken in for obstruction of justice.”

“One call to the governor, little lady, and you’ll be back in the kitchen where you belong.”

“You do that,” she answered, stepping up to stare directly into his eyes, not in the least bit intimidated by his ridiculous threats.

“Jared Hoath, you are under arrest for the murder of Melody Parker,” Mulder said, taking his handcuffs out.

Jared smirked.  “Hang on, let me just tell my boss I’ll be back in an hour.”

“Try 20 to life,” Mulder replied.

“Are you so stupid you’re gonna to believe some phony bitch psychic?”

“I’ll tell you who I do believe. Melody Parker.”

“Are you some kind of special idiot?  That bitch is deader than a doornail. She didn’t tell you nothin,.”

“Shut your mouth, boy,” the Sheriff said.  “Don’t talk to these sonsofbitches without a lawyer now.  I’ll call up Jimmy Aberdeen and he’ll get all this straightened out.  He’ll have their badges, I promise you that.”

“Tell him to meet us at the precinct in Falls Church,” Scully said, turning to follow Mulder as he led Jared across the parking lot to the car.

*****

Jared kept his mouth shut in the interrogation room.  His lawyer arrived almost immediately after they did and they went around in circles without getting anywhere.  He wouldn’t make a confession and in fact, he wouldn’t say anything at all. He was booked and held for an arraignment the following day.

It was late in the day when they left the precinct.  They were both tired and hungry, wanting to get home.  Mulder knew Scully must be desperate for food when she pulled into the first McDonalds they came across without hesitation.  The ride home smelled like French fries.

As they neared his apartment, Mulder began to feel anxious.  He’d lost sleep over their encounter the night before and he didn’t want to let things slip by unsaid, festering into something irreparable.  She pulled up in front of his building and he stalled for time, collecting the trash from their dinner.

The car was still running, Scully hadn’t even put it in park.  She stared straight ahead, licking and pressing her lips together.

“Are we gonna be okay?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she answered.

“Do you hate me?”

“No.”

“I guess that’s something.”

“Not everything is about you, Mulder.”

“I know that.  Look, I’m sorry I’m terrible at the really hard stuff.  You’ve been through so much lately and the thought of adding more on top of it was just...you’re right, that was about me.  I didn’t know how to tell you and I didn’t want to.”

Scully said nothing.  She closed her eyes and tipped her head back so it bumped the headrest.  Mulder rubbed the back of his neck, unsure if he was making things better or worse.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said.

“I don’t want you to do anything.”

“But, if I don’t do something...you deserve justice, Scully.  Emily deserves justice.”

Scully finally put the car in park and shut off the engine.  She kept her hands on the steering wheel for a few moments and then turned to Mulder.  “You told me she was never meant to be,” she said. “She deserves justice, but what she deserved more was to be loved and cared for and not created with stolen genetic material and treated like a lab rat.”

“I know.”

“Dammit, Mulder.” She put a hand over her eyes and he could see her chin wobbling.

His heart ached.  He wanted to reach out to her, but he was afraid she would reject him.  He waited quietly until she took a deep breath and put her hand down.

“Scully, I wish I could take this pain away from you.”

“I don’t.”  She shook her head at his questioning look.  “It’s my pain to have. Not yours. Not Valerie’s or anyone else’s.  Maybe I can’t give Emily justice, or the life she deserved, but the least I can do is mourn her.”

“You won’t be alone.”

Scully sighed and rubbed her eyes.  “We need to be up early tomorrow. I’ll pick you up at 7.”

Mulder nodded and went to open the door, but hesitated.  “I do know what being your partner means,” he said. “It means everything to me.  I’m sorry for the times I’ve screwed up and I’m sorry I’m not easy. I know, deep down, that I don’t deserve you on my side, but I know that since you’ve been with me, I’ve been a better agent and a better person.  I also know that, if you want to walk away...if you need to walk away...I’ll understand.”

She didn’t look at him, didn’t seem to react to what he was saying at all, but he saw her swallow once, then twice, and blink rapidly for a few moments.  “I’ll see you at 7,” she finally said, clearing her throat before she spoke.

“Get some sleep.”

*****

Come Friday, they were back in the office.  Jared Hoath did not make bail and the DA was charging him with Murder in the 2nd, fraud, and domestic assault and battery.  She also had enough evidence to confidently charge the Sheriff with harassment and attempted witness tampering. It was a long day in Falls Church, but both of them felt that the tension that had ran between them the last few days had dissipated, even if was unspoken.

Mulder was surprised to find Scully at her workstation when he came in.  There was a coffee sitting on his desk and a white paper bag which could only mean one thing.  She’d stopped for doughnuts on the way in. He couldn’t suppress the smile on his face as he shucked his overcoat.

“You’re here early,” he said.

“I’ve been researching geneticists and fertility specialists,” she replied, fingers going still on her keyboard.  She spoke to her monitor, but her voice was confident and assured. “I’ll be pulling my ova from the cold storage facility and transferring them for further testing once I’ve settled on who I want.”

“That’s...that’s great.  Anything I can do to help, you let me know.”

“I’m not ready to give up on being a mother.”

“You shouldn’t.”

She inclined her head towards him and gave him a brief glance and a nod.  “Got you a jelly doughnut.”

“TGIF.”  He moved to his desk and opened the bag to look inside.

“There’s an email from Skinner.  He’d like us to be at the Lorton Penitentiary by 10 this morning.”

“What for?”

“Robert Patrick Modell was reported as escaped this morning.”

“Modell?  The last time we saw him a tomato had more brain waves.”

“The FBI is putting together a task force.  Since we apprehended him the first time, we’re going to be in charge.”

“I hope this coffee is as strong as it looks.”

“Stronger.”

“I guess we’ve got about 20 minutes until we have to hit the road then.”

“Just about.”

Mulder sat down and turned on his computer, sipping his coffee.  “Oh, hey, Valerie Hermann called me last night.”

“Why?”

“She wanted to thank us.”

“For arresting Jared?”

“No, for sending Officer Collins to her.  Apparently when I told him to take her to a safe place, he took her to his parents.  Apparently his mom knew her mom and their house had a comforting atmosphere and she’s having dinner with them tonight.  Sounds like she’s now a part of the family.”

“That’s...sweet.  Good for her.”

“Yeah.”

“You know, we never found out why Jared even went to grief counseling in the first place.”

“Maybe he was genuinely in mourning.”  Mulder shrugged. “Maybe it was guilt. Maybe he was just trying to appear like a bereaved boyfriend and proving his innocence by false pretenses.”

“Maybe it was the universe’s way of getting justice for Melody.”

Mulder looked up at her, startled.  She shrugged.

“Are you suggesting that Jared Hoath ended up in Valerie Hermann’s office in an act of karma, Agent Scully?”

“There’s no such thing as karma.”

“Mmhm.”

Scully turned back to her computer and began to shut down the machine.  She stood and came around to Mulder’s side of the desk, standing at the corner and tapping her fingers at the edge rather nervously.

“Mulder, if I’m going to insist for you to be honest with me, and not hold things back, then I’m going to need to do the same.”

Mulder sucked in a breath, bracing himself for what he was sure to be her formal resignation from the x-files, maybe even the FBI.  He gnawed at his bottom lip and waited.

“I’ve seen ghosts,” she said.  “I don’t know if I would really...I’ve seen things I can’t explain.  My father, the night he died, sitting across from me when I woke on the couch.  Melissa, directing me to the Sim house. And this case, when you said you felt different when Valerie touched you...Mulder, it was like she absorbed the hurt I was feeling and left something else behind.”

“And you’re afraid to admit that it’s possible the dead are still with us or that an empath can exist because it would mean everything you know to be true would be a little less true.”

“Yes.  There are times...times when your leaps of logic don’t sound altogether illogical.  But, I can’t...I just can’t...”

Mulder got out of his chair and put his hand to her cheek, relieved that she didn’t pull away.  Actually, she leaned into him and closed her eyes.  

“I like it when you try to prove me wrong,” he said.  “Don’t ever stop.”

“Never.”

He brushed his thumb over the apple of her cheek and then down to trace her mouth.  She opened her eyes and he smiled when she looked up at him.

“Should we head out now?” he asked.

“I’m ready when you are.”

The End