Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Miss Guthrie, do you know why we’ve asked you here?” 

Paige fights back the instinctual urge to correct them. She’d worked hard for that degree. Instead she forces a smile onto her face and does her best to hide her accent. “I believe it had something to do with my assignment?” 

“You came to us two years ago from medical school, didn’t you Miss Guthrie?” 

“Yes- I was recruited out of medical school. My mother still thinks it’s an act of rebellion, but joining the bureau just felt….right.” 

“Are you aware of an Agent Jonothan Starsmore?” One man asks suddenly. 

“Yes. He had quite the reputation.” Paige says, fighting back a smirk. Quite the reputation. 

“What do you know about him?” 

“I know that he’s an Oxford educated psychologist who wrote the monograph on serial killers and the occult. He was a legend at the academy.” Sam had trained her in a ‘do as I say not as I do’ school when it came to keeping your mouth shut when you don’t have anything nice to say. But Paige had never been very good at listening to Sam, so she continued on. “His nickname at the academy was Spooky ….I also know that he’s developed an all-consuming fixation on the supernatural.” 

“Agent Starsmore has been engaged with a branch of the FBI known as the X-Files. These are…not cases that leadership is keen to have made public. We would rather have Starsmore’s theories disproven .” 

“And you aim to use my scientific expertise to do so.” Paige says. She’s slightly annoyed at being used, and her ‘special’ placement. 

“Yes. Miss Guthrie, you will send your reports to us. And you will , I’m sure, find evidence to disprove your partner.” 

Paige looks between them, making a mental note already to not reveal everything to these men. “When do I start?” 

The basement of the FBI was not somewhere Paige had ever intended to see, but here she was anyway. The stairs had been difficult to navigate with her box of desk items and the plant Mel had gotten for her. Yet still, she managed. The “office” she had been directed to was clearly an old storage closet of some kind. She sighed, pushing down on the door handle with her elbow before slowly managing to open the door. Inside the room there is only one desk, piled high with neatly organized papers and files, and a cup of pencils that is being steadily depleted by the man sitting behind it. 

The first thing Paige notices is that he’s long . His head is tipped back and dangling over the back of the reclined chair, and his long legs are propped up on the desk. Rather than dress shoes, a pair of combat boots adorns his feet. His suit jacket has been thrown rather haphazardly onto a chair. His dress shirt is black, the sleeves rolled up to his forearms. Under the button up is a turtleneck with the neck rolled up so it covers his mouth and nose- like a surgical mask or the cowls her family wore when hunting. He was busy doing nothing, throwing the sharpened pencils from the cup into the ceiling. 

“Hello?” She asks. 

He sits up suddenly and awkwardly, legs flying at all angles as he sits properly at the desk. He reaches for a small device that looks like a word processor. “Oh. Hi.” A mechanical voice reads. 

“I’m Agent Guthrie.” She says, adjusting the plant on her hip. “I’ve been assigned to work with you.” 

His fingers tap lightly on the keyboard but no sound comes out. It’s like he’s in a trance, staring at her. 

“Lost your voice?” She tries to joke. It doesn’t land and she winces. “Bad- bad joke. You were just…not typing…and the lightwriter…” 

“You know what this is?” He types, eyebrows raised in surprise. 

“I’m a medical doctor.” Paige says. 

“A scientist.” He types. Paige can tell he knows exactly what’s been asked of her. He blinks suddenly and quickly types. “Here, let me help you with that.” 

Paige startles as Starsmore takes the plant from her, climbing a precarious stack of boxes and chairs to place the pot high up in the one windowsill so that it will actually get sunlight. 

She feels awkward suddenly- or more awkward than she usually does. “Thank you.” 

He nods, and there’s a twinkle in his eye when he climbs back down. He grabs the lightwriter and types. “You must feel special. Who’d you piss off to get stuck with this detail, Guthrie?” 

Paige forces herself to smile. It doesn’t reach her eyes. “I’m actually looking forward to working with you. I’ve heard a lot about you.” 

The twinkle is still in his eye, unnerving her. “Really? I was under the impression that you were here to spy on me.” 

Her eye twitches. “If you have any doubt about my qualifications-” 

Starsmore takes a paper out from under the phone on his desk, passing it to her. She rolls her eyes when he hands her her own C.V. “You’re a medical doctor, you teach at the academy. You have undergraduate degrees in physics and psychology…’Einstein’s Twin Paradox, A New Interpretation, Paige Guthrie Senior Physics Thesis.’ That’s something, rewriting Einstein.” 

Paige’s expression and voice are equally dry. “Did you bother to read it?” 

“I did.” He types, despite the robotic voice she can tell that he’s amused. “I liked it.” 

Starsmore takes a moment to set up a slide projector before inserting a canister. “It’s just that in this office and in our field of work- the laws of physics rarely seem to apply.” 

He walks past her to turn off the lights and she glares- has half a mind to trip him. When he returns to the projector he pulls up a slide of a young woman’s corpse, face-up.

“What?” She asks. “No flying saucers or little green men?” 

“Her name is Karen Swensen. An Oregon female, age twenty-one, no explainable cause of death.” 

“The autopsy-” 

“Came up empty. Zip.” The robotic voice interrupts. The twinkle in his eye is gone, she notices. He changes the slide to an image of two raised identical pink bumps on a stretch of skin that she immediately assumes must be the girl’s back. “There are, however, these marks on her lower back. Can you identify them? Doctor Guthrie?” 

He’s the first person here to remember that she’s a doctor , or maybe not remember but to take it seriously, to treat it as something she has expertise in. She smiles slightly, despite herself. “Needle punctures maybe? Animal bite? Electrocution?” 

She approaches the viewscreen, now standing next to him, the heat radiating from his body is intense and if he didn’t appear in perfect health, she’d be worried that he has a fever. 

“How’s your chemistry?” He asks, changing slides. “This substance was found in the surrounding tissue.” 

“It’s organic.” She says. “But I can’t place it. Is it some kind of synthetic protein?” 

“Beats me.” He types, shrugging. “I’ve never seen it before and I’m not a scientist.” He switches the slides a few times, typing on his lightwriter with one hand- he must have had to use one for a while, part of her brain supplies. “But here it is in Sturgis, South Dakota, and again in Shamrock, Texas.” 

“And I suppose you have a theory?” She says, eyebrow raised. 

“I have plenty of theories.” Drones the lightwriter. “But you’re the spy- maybe you can tell me why it’s  bureau policy to label these cases as ‘unexplained phenomenon’ and ignore them.” 

Her eyes narrow. “I assure you, I do not.” 

Starsmore seems to turn the volume down on his lightwriter before typing his next words, a sort of mechanical whisper. “Do you believe in the existence of extraterrestrials?” 

“Logically,” Paige says. “I would have to say ‘no.’” 

He nods, eyes crinkled in amusement. She ignores him and continues. “Given the distances needed to travel from the far reaches of space, the minimum energy requirements would exceed a spacecraft’s capabilities. Any hypothetical spacecraft.” 

He kindly doesn’t point out the thing they both know is true, that she must have thought about it in order to know that. “Conventional wisdom.” Starsmore concedes. “This girl, Karen Swensen- she’s the fourth person in her graduating class to die under mysterious circumstances. So far conventional wisdom and science have gotten us nowhere. Don’t we owe it to them to expand our horizons and consider the fantastical?” 

“This girl obviously died of something. If it was natural, it’s plausible that there was something missed in the post-mortem. If she was murdered, it’s plausible that there may have been a sloppy investigation.” Paige says, making direct eye contact with him. “What I find fantastical is any notion that there are answers beyond the realm of science. The answers are there. You just have to know where to look.” 

Starsmore sits back down at his desk, legs propped up on its surface. He makes eye contact with her as he types. “I’m told that’s why there’s an ‘I’ in ‘F.B.I.’. I’ll see you tomorrow Guthrie, bright and early…We leave for the very plausible state of Oregon at eight A.M.” 

Paige smiles, turning to leave the room. “I’ll see you then.” 

The flight to Oregon is not only Paige’s first time on an airplane, but it’s also not how she anticipated it going. She had expected to talk to her new partner about the case on the way there. Instead, Starsmore is laid out across several seats, sleeping, the headphones in his ears are blaring rock music at an alarming volume that reminds Paige of Sam from his rebellious phase. 

She sits nearby, reading glasses falling down her nose as she flips through Starsmore’s file on the dead teenagers. There are newspaper clippings, autopsy reports, forensic data, interviews with classmates and families and suspects- everything that should have led investigators somewhere . She flips through the reports, eyes focusing on the one repeated name of “Dr. Nemman,” who seems to have done every autopsy but the latest. 

The pilot’s voice echoes over the loudspeakers. “I would like to ask all passengers to fasten their seatbelts, we are about to make our descent…” 

Paige begins to put the file away in her bag and then the plane begins to shake violently . Other passengers, clearly more experienced in air travel than her, start to scream and some even toss their belongings. Paige grips tightly to her seat, eyes wide and knuckles white as she looks over to Starsmore. He’s certainly awake now, looking at the ceiling curiously as he continues to lay down calmly across the seats. 

The pilot brings the plane under control and the descent smoothes out. Paige sighs in relief. Starsmore turns his head to look at her more fully, fingers tapping away at the lightwriter settled over his stomach. “This must be the place.” 

They’re standing outside of their rental car, the two of them just staring at each other. He has the keys hooked around one finger. 

“Give me the keys.” She says, holding out her hand. 

“I can drive.” He types. His entire stance is defensive, in the same way that her kid siblings get defensive when she asks them to let her drive the truck back at the farm. 

“You’re an adult man. I should hope so.” She says. “Give me the keys anyway .” 

“Why?” 

“Well maybe I think it might be nice to talk to you while we drive, and you can’t type if you’re driving.” It’s the sort of sentence that makes her accent threaten to slip out and she just barely manages to avoid it. 

Starsmore’s eyes widen in shock, like he’s not used to this kind of basic consideration. Though- her eyes flicker to his perpetually covered face, to the medical alert bracelet peeking out from under his sleeve, to his eyes- maybe he isn’t. He tosses her the keys. “I’m a shite navigator.” 

He spends the first several minutes of their drive adjusting the radio until he can find a rock station. She snorts. “Didn’t get enough on the plane?” 

“Never.” He types immediately. 

Paige rolls her eyes, glancing out the driver’s side window as they pass a sign that reads ‘Welcome to Bellefleur, Oregon.’ “You know, yesterday, you didn’t say that this case had already been investigated.” 

He nods. “F.B.I. got involved after the third death when locals failed to turn up any evidence. Our boys showed up, had a week’s vacation, enjoyed the salmon dinner, which was apparently served with a lemon twist that was just to die for if you’ll excuse the expression- and then without warning, were called back in. Case was reclassified and buried as an X-File. I found it last week.” 

“And you found something they didn’t?” Paige asks. “From your desk in Washington D.C.?” 

He shrugs. 

Paige sighs. “The autopsy reports of the first three victims, show no unidentified marks or tissue samples. But those reports were signed by a different medical examiner than the latest victim.”

“That’s pretty good Guthrie.” 

“Better than you expected or better than you’d hoped?” She asks. 

“We’ll see.” he types. “I’ll let you know when we get past the easy part.” 

She laughs. “What do you think? Is the medical examiner a suspect?” 

He looks over at her, eyebrows raising when he catches her looking back at him. “We won’t know until we do a little gravedigging. I’ve managed to arrange for one of the other bodies to be exhumed to see if we can get a tissue sample to match Karen’s. You're not squeamish about that kind of thing, are you?”

“I don’t know.” Paige says, her mind filled with memories of butcherings over the years, of being eight years old and being asked to kill a chicken for dinner, ten and being told to help her brother slaughter a hog. “I haven’t had the pleasure.” 

Paige’s hands jerk and the car swerves as suddenly the song on the radio begins blaring. Some rock song Paige doesn’t know. Starsmore leans forward to try to lower the volume, and as he turns the dial the clock changes. Paige pulls over to the side of the road, covering her ears with her hands. Starsmore instead looks to the sky. 

“What’s going on?” She asks.

Almost before the car has stopped, he jumps out of the car, and Paige follows, trying to get away from the incessant sound. Starsmore runs to the trunk, opening it and pulling out a can of pink spray paint- he walks calmly over to where the occurrence began. Without a word he sprays a large ‘X’ on the ground before tossing the can back into the trunk and covering it with a suitcase before getting back in the car. 

“What was that?” Paige asks, staring at him. 

“Angry Chair by Alice in Chains.” He types, looking at her calmly. 

“No.” She says, more harshly, gesturing to the giant ‘X’ on the road behind them. “What the hell was that about?” 

Starsmore glances at her and shrugs. “Oh, you know- probably nothing.” 

Paige follows the map into town, then follows the signs to the town’s cemetery. She pulls up on the side of the road, as close as possible to where she can see a group of men standing around a crane. 

One of the men walks up to the car, immediately going to speak with Starsmore. “Mr. Starsmore, John Truitt, County Coroner’s Office.” 

Starsmore shakes the man’s hand, and then types out. “Yeah, hi. This is Agent Guthrie.” 

Paige reaches across him to shake Truitt’s hand. “Hi.” 

Starsmore types out. “How soon can we get started?” 

“We can start now.” Truitt says. 

Paige blinks in surprise. “Oh. Great.” 

Truitt turns around to look at the men standing around the crane and suddenly yells out. “Okay, Vinnie!” 

Paige snorts and mutters under her breath. “I thought we were in Oregon, not New Jersey.” 

Starsmore at least seems to enjoy the joke, shoulders shaking in what seems to be amusement as he types. “Were you able to arrange for a…uh…” 

“Examination facility.” Paige supplies, smiling slightly in Starsmore’s direction hoping he knows she wasn’t interrupting him because of the device but to supply the term. 

Truitt nods. “Yeah, I think I have something for you.” 

Paige braces herself slightly as another car approaches and moves into their lane. A middle aged man and his daughter are in the car, the girl looks both scared and mortified in the passenger’s seat. Paige can relate. The man gets out of the car angrily. 

“Excuse me!” He yells, marching towards the group. Starsmore climbs out of the car and Paige follows quickly, trying to convince herself that she doesn’t feel out of the loop. “Excuse me!” 

The passenger side door of the other car opens and the angry man turns around, quickly trying to move his daughter back into the passenger’s seat. “No. Please stay in the car…let me handle this. I just want to talk to them.” With the girl back in the car, the man once again approaches the officials. “I just don’t know who you people think you are. You just think you can come up here, and do whatever you damn well please, don’t you?” 

Starsmore looks the man up and down, then types. “I’m sorry, you are…” 

The man’s face twists up in anger and frustration. “I’m Dr. Jay Nemman. I’m the county medical examiner.” 

Paige looks between Starsmore and Truitt before turning to Nemman. “Surely you must have been informed of our intentions to come here.” 

Nemman swallows hard. “No, uh, no. We’ve been away.” 

Starsmore doesn’t roll his eyes but it’s a near thing as he types. “Oh. Well that answers the question we had. Why you hadn’t done Karen Swensen’s autopsy. Are you aware of the tissue sample that was taken from her body?” 

As Starsmore types and the robotic voice of the lightwriter slowly speaks, Nemman looks more and more frustrated. “Can’t you talk like a person?” 

Paige’s eyes narrow and her voice is cold when she replies. “If you’re dissatisfied with the way that my partner communicates, perhaps you can talk to me instead. Scientist to scientist. It’s been a pleasure meeting you Dr. Demman, I’m Doctor Guthrie.” 

Nemman’s face grows red. “Wha-wha- what is the insinuation here? Are you saying that I missed something in these other kids’ exams?” 

“We’re not insinuating anything, sir.” Paige says. 

“Wait a minute.” Nemman says, stepping closer and grabbing Starsmore’s arm harshly. “Wait a minute, see, well I think you are. And if you’re making an accusation, then you’d better have something to back it up.” 

Nemman’s daughter climbs out of the car, stumbling up the hill towards her father. “Daddy, please, let’s just go home.” 

Nemman waves his daughter away, trying to make her wait. 

“Let’s go home, please .” She says. She’s visibly scared and nervous, staring between her father and Truitt. 

Nemman sighs, and walks his daughter back to the car, his hands on her shoulders nearly forcing her back into the vehicle. He glares at them as he drives off. 

Starsmore tilts his head to the side in consideration, then types. “Guy obviously needed a longer vacation.” 

Paige snorts, instinctually shoving him further up the hill towards the crane, as if he was one of her brothers. As they stand by the graveside, the agents watch as the excavator crane starts removing the dirt above the coffin. Paige opens the file and begins reading loudly, hoping to be heard over the whirring of the machinery. 

“Ray Soames was the third victim. After graduating high school, he spent time in a state mental hospital where he was treated for post-adolescent schizophrenia.” 

“Soames actually confessed to the first two murders.” Starsmore types, the lightwriter barely audible over the excavation. “He pleaded to be locked up - but there was no evidence that he committed any crime. Did you happen to read the cause of death?” 

“Exposure.” Paige reads, leaning into his space. “His body was found in the woods after he escaped from the hospital.” 

“Escaped?” Starsmore types, raising an eyebrow at her.

“It was a hospital where he couldn’t discharge himself.” She says, one eyebrow similarly raised. “Isn’t that the kind of place you escape from?” 

Paige doesn’t know what Starsmore has under the scarf but she’s fairly certain he’s smirking as he types. “Hear hear. He was missing for only seven hours in July. How does a twenty-year-old boy die of exposure on a warm summer's night, Doctor Guthrie?”

Paige doesn’t respond, instead watches the workers jump into the open grave and attach a harness to the coffin, allowing it to be lifted from the ground. She gasps, hand flung against her chest as half-forgotten childhood superstitions race through her mind when one of the straps snaps and the coffin tumbles to the ground. 

Starsmore grabs her by the shoulders and pulls, just barely saving her from being crushed by the heavy wooden box as it rolls down the hill. She means to turn to thank him but by the time she collects herself he’s already walked away, down the hill and towards the broken coffin where it sits, resting against now-tilted gravestones. Tilting at windmills, tilting at gravestones , she thinks, watching the scene with mild, morbid fascination, at least in Don Quixote there was a difference .

Starsmore reaches for the lid of the coffin, clearly meaning to open it, but Truitt grabs his arm. 

“This isn’t official procedure.” 

Starsmore pulls out the lightwriter from his pocket and types with one hand, balancing the device on Truitt’s hand as he rolls his eyes. “Really?” Paige would be upset at his lack of professionalism if she wasn’t so impressed that she could actually see the eye roll from this distance…Sam could take notes. 

Starsmore opens the coffin as Paige jogs over to kneel beside him for a closer look at what’s inside, unwilling to be left out even if she doesn’t necessarily agree with his current methodology. Inside the coffin is a being that never could have been a boy. Its skin is gray and seems to have had no access to modern embalming practices as it appears mummified. While the corpse appears mummified, and Paige knows that such a process can make a body look artificially underweight, based on the amount of skin and tissue within the coffin, it is highly doubtful that the body inside ever weighed the same as Ray Soames had at the time of his death. The limbs are long, with spindly sticks that almost look like firewood, but it’s safe to say that even with post-mortem shrinkage the body would have been several inches shorter than Ray Soames in life. 

Around them the workers are gagging and covering their mouths. Performatively nauseous , Paige thinks, this is why things don’t get solved in small towns .

“I think it’s a safe bet that Soames here never made the varsity basketball team.” Starsmore quips, looking at her with a raised eyebrow before looking at Truitt. “Seal this up, right now! Nobody sees or touches it but us! Nobody!” 

It’s far too late to be doing this, it’s too late to be up at all if Paige is being honest with herself- but an autopsy at nearly eleven at night while Starsmore shines a flash camera in her face and into the field of surgery is really far too much. 

He fortunately has to put down the camera in order to talk to her every few minutes. “This is amazing, Guthrie! You know what this could mean? It’s almost too big to comprehend.” 

Paige ignores him, grabbing the tape measure and taking yet another measurement from the corpse. “Subject is a hundred and fifty-six centimeters in length, weighing fifty-two pounds in extremis. Corpse is in advanced stages of decay and desiccation. Distinguishing features include large ocular cavities, oblate cranium... indicates subject is not human… Starsmore if you don’t point that thing away from me- ” 

Starsmore deflates some but puts the camera away immediately when asked, pulling the lightwriter back out of his jacket to type. “If it’s not human then what is it?” 

“Well it’s certainly mammalian.” Paige says. “My guess would be something in the ape family. A chimpanzee? An orangutan? I’m not a zoologist.” 

“Buried in the city cemetery?” Starsmore asks, moving around the table so that he can look her in the eye. She hates that he’s bent down to look at her. “Try telling that to Ray Soames’ family. I want tissue samples and x-rays. Blood-type, toxicology, full genetic work-up.” 

Paige’s eyebrows shoot up into her hairline and she can’t keep the incredulity out of her voice. “You’re serious?” 

“What we can’t do here we can order to go.” 

“You can’t honestly believe this is some kind of extraterrestrial.” She says, thinking about pulling off her gloves. “I grew up in a small town- this is obviously somebody’s idea of a sick joke. My brothers would have done something similar had they been given half a chance!” 

“We can do the x-rays here, can’t we? Is there any reason we can’t do them right now?” Starsmore asks, and Paige is startled to see the deadly serious look in his eyes. “Look, I’m not crazy Guthrie. I have the same doubts that you do. Promise.” 

Back at the hotel, it is still far too late to be awake, but Paige can’t sleep. She’s choosing to ignore the time on her laptop clock and has covered the alarm clock with a towel so she doesn’t have to look at the red numbers staring back at her. The case report on her laptop is dry, she’s added nothing of note other than that the body they exhumed for perfectly logical reasons had clearly been the subject of a small-town prank. It feels wrong somehow though- she knows that both Starsmore and the men present at her placement meeting want more from her, but that what they want and what she can in good conscience record are different things. 

She stretches, leaning back on the bed with her legs still crossed to try to crack her back, one arm reaching over to the side table where she picks up a small glass vial, rolling it between her fingers. Inside the vial is a small, grey, metallic object that rattles against the glass as it moves. 

“What are you?” She whispers. 

Paige jumps when there’s a knock at the door, ignoring the desire to put her hand to her chest. “Who is it?” 

A robotic voice on the other side of the door faintly says. “Steven Spielberg.” 

Paige laughs, throwing herself off of the bed and walking quickly to the door, opening it with a smile. Starsmore is on the other side, dressed in a pair of sweatpants and a baggy Pearl Jam t-shirt. With him dressed like this she can see the bandages that wrap around his face, neck, and upper chest- she tries not to stare, it’s none of her business….but she hopes that if he would need anything he would remember that she’s a medical doctor and not just someone qualified to do an autopsy. 

“I’m wired.” He types. “I’m going for a run, do you want to come?” 

Paige considers it, remembering how she had become an avid runner in college- her undergraduate mornings spent on brisk early morning runs that annoyed her roommate. In a lot of ways she’s the same person- still so eager to prove herself. But in many more ways she’s changed into someone nearly unrecognizable. “I’ll pass.” 

Starsmore shrugs. “Figure out what that little thing up Soames’ nose was yet?” 

Paige yawns. “No…and I’m not gonna lose any more sleep over it. Good night.” 

She closes the door behind him and flops back down on the bed, picking up the x-ray taken before the metal object had been removed from the subject’s nose. She sighs, staring at it for a moment before putting it down and rolling over, turning off the light and trying to will herself to sleep. 

Starsmore walks quietly next to her as they follow Doctor Glass around the grounds of the Raymon County State Psychiatric Hospital. The grounds and building look clean and nice, with green lawns and nice landscaping- but it reminds Paige of suburbia, the mindless sameness that has always made her want to claw her own eyes out. She understands why Soames would have tried to escape. 

“Ray Soames was a patient of mine, yes. I oversaw his treatment for just over a year for clinical schizophrenia. Ray had an inability to grasp reality. He seemed to suffer from some kind of post-traumatic stress.” Doctor Glass says. 

“Is that something you’ve seen before?” Starsmore asks. 

“I’ve treated similar cases in Ray Soames’ classmates.” Doctor Glass says. Paige’s eye twitches, while it isn’t a law that he can’t tell them- she finds it to be in poor ethical taste to share the information so blatantly. 

“We’re trying to find a connection between the deaths.” Starsmore says. “Can you tell us what treatments you used? If you’re still treating any of them?” 

“I’ve mostly used medications for treatment.” Doctor Glass says. “I’m currently treating Billy Miles and Peggy O’Dell. They’re both long-term, live-in patients.” 

Starsmore looks twitchy, his hands flexing oddly at his sides. Paige glances at him out of the corner of her eye and then walks a bit faster to keep pace with Doctor Glass. “They’re here at this hospital?” 

“Going on four years now.” The doctor says dryly. 

“Would it be possible for us to talk to them?” Paige asks. 

“Well,” The doctor says. “You might find it difficult. Certainly, in Billy Miles' case.”

Doctor Glass leads them inside the hospital, taking them directly to a room where a young man lays in a hospital bed. His eyes are open but he is completely still- the only indication of life is the beeping of the EKG machine connected to him. A young woman sits in a wheelchair next to him, reading a book aloud into the room. On the other side of the room, a nurse is changing bedsheets. 

“Billy is experiencing what we call a waking coma.” Doctor Glass says, gesturing broadly to the young man. “Functionally, his brain waves are flat and he's a persistent vegetable.”

Starsmore’s hands twitch, forming fists so tight his knuckles audibly crack. His gaze is steely and cold when he looks at the doctor, typing on his lightwriter. “How did it happen?” 

“Both he and Peggy were involved in an automobile accident out on State Road.” Doctor Glass says, then turns to the young woman. “Peggy? Peggy, we have some visitors, would you like to talk with them for a moment?” 

Peggy glances up at them through her eyelashes and bangs then stares back down into the book. “Billy wants me to read to him now.” 

Starsmore kneels down in front of her, placing her physically above him as he looks up at her, typing quickly. “Does he like it when you read to him?” 

She smiles at him, small and secret. “Yes. Billy needs me close.” 

Starsmore nods and looks at her with his eyes squinted in what seems to pass for a smile. “Peggy, would you mind if we did a cursory medical examination on you? We’d like to see if you share one of the characteristics that your classmates had.” 

Peggy’s eyes go wide in terror and she throws the book directly into Starsmore’s chest before tipping the food tray and beginning to wheel around the room, knocking into things and people. 

The nurse sighs. “Peggy, what are you doing?” 

The doctor’s voice is harsh and accusatory. “Get an orderly!” 

The nurse and Glass reach out to grab Peggy harshly by the arms. She screams and reaches for her nose. 

“Nobody’s going to hurt you.” Starsmore types, looking at Peggy with nothing but concern in his eyes. “Nobody’s going to hurt you.” 

Peggy moves her hand away from her face and Paige fights the urge to recoil with the realization that the poor girl is covered in blood. Peggy lurches forward, the dead weight of her own body causing her to fall forward out of her chair, Starsmore tries to catch her and just barely manages to stop her face from hitting the floor as she screams. 

“This is an emergency!” Doctor Glass yells. “Somebody call for an orderly! Get an orderly! Nobody’s going to hurt you Peggy. The nurse is here.” 

Starsmore gestures for Paige to help him, and together they gently help Peggy back into the wheelchair. In the process the young woman’s shirt rides up in the back and the two agents look at each other, Paige’s eyes significantly more surprised than Starsmore’s when Peggy O’Dell has the same marks on her lower back as Karen Swensen. 

Peggy pushes at them. “Stop it! Stop it!” 

Starsmore holds his hands up in surrender, backing a bit away from her. 

Doctor Glass glares at them. “It’s alright, Peggy.” 

The nurse looks at them with something akin to contempt before adding. “You’ve had these nosebleeds before Peggy. You’re going to be fine, now calm down .” 

Paige huffs a frustrated breath before storming out of the room, heading towards the stairs out of the building. 

Starsmore follows, his longer legs making it easy for him to catch up with her. “What his name- Billy. Billy’s sorry he didn’t get to say goodbye.” 

Paige whirls around to face him, backing him up against the wall of the staircase landing. “How did you know the girl was going to have those marks?” 

“I don’t know.” He types. “Lucky guess?” 

“ Cut. The. Crap. ” She hisses. “What is going on here? What do you know about those marks? What are they?”

“Why?” He asks. “So you can put it down on your little report? I don’t think you’re ready for what I think. I don’t know that you’re ready to consider it.” 

“I am here to solve this case.” She says, pushing her index finger into his chest. “Same as you. I want the truth .” 

“The truth?” He asks, and for the first time Paige realizes that he’s defensive. “I think those kids have been abducted.” 

“By who?” 

“By what?” Starsmore corrects. 

Paige swallows back the instinctual anger at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. “You don’t really believe that.” 

“Do you have a better explanation?” 

“I’ll buy that Peggy is suffering from some kind of psychosis. Whether it’s organic or caused by those marks, I can’t say. But to say that they've been riding around in flying saucers? It's crazy, Starsmore, there is nothing to support that!” 

“Nothing through conventional science, you mean.” 

“There has got to be an explanation.” Paige says, leaning more into his space. “You've got four victims. All of them died in or near the woods. They found Karen Swenson's body in the forest in her pajamas, ten miles from her house. How did she get there? What were those kids doing out there in the forest?”

Starsmore’s eyes crinkle in a smile. “That’s what we’re here to find out.” 

These woods, here in Oregon, are a far cry from the woods of her childhood home in Kentucky, but are still familiar nonetheless. What makes it uncomfortable for her is not the knowledge that young people, not much younger than herself really, are being murdered here in these woods, but that she knows that there is a good chance that she and Starsmore will have to split up. It’s not that she thinks he can’t handle himself in the woods- he’d clearly come prepared with well-worn hiking boots and a windbreaker that had been sun-bleached around the shoulders. It’s more that she isn’t sure that she likes the idea of them splitting up at night in unfamiliar woods where people are getting murdered. 

Starsmore gestures towards her and marks that he’s going to be going in a different direction, she follows him with the beam of her flashlight, watching as he checks his compass. 

“It’s out of control.” He types. “I’ll keep walking in this direction. We’ll meet up in a few minutes.” 

She watches him until he disappears behind a tree and then turns in the opposite direction, walking through the dark woods. In a clearing, she frowns as the soil feels different under her feet and crouches down, picking up some of the dirt. It feels odd in her hand- powdery, and in the light of her flashlight it’s almost grey- far from the dark rich earth she’s seen in the rest of these woods. She collects some of it in a baggy and shoves the bag in her pocket. She freezes as the world around her seems to shake, a deep, booming rumbling sound echoing through the trees. 

“Starsmore?” She calls out, nervous, it’s starting to rain. She stands to her full height and draws her weapon, walking backwards until her back is pressed against the rough bark of a tree. She swallows hard as a bright light shines through the trees. “Starsmore, is that you? Starsmore?” 

The silhouette of a man approaches through the trees, Paige’s mouth goes dry as she sees the silhouette of a shotgun rising to its shoulder. In a flash she’s reminded of the Cabots- the anxiety that used to come with waiting up for Sam to come home at night, seeing the glint of headlights on metal as he was flanked by Cabot boys on his way up the farm-lane. Bobby John and Abraham Lee had never much cared for a Guthrie who wasn’t afraid to defend his family against their threats- and Sam had never known fear a day in his life. It had been one of the reasons Paige had wanted to join the FBI in the first place- to finally be able to deal with men like the Cabots…to make them pay for the terror they wrought. And now that she’d reached her goal, she still found herself frozen when faced with just the memory - that just won’t do. 

Paige lifts her firearm, swallowing hard before yelling. “Special Agent Paige Guthrie, FBI. Drop your weapon.” 

A man steps into the light, his gun still directed at her. “ I'm with the County Sheriff's Department. You're trespassing on private property here.”

“We are conducting an investigation.” Paige says, voice even and measured, each consonant enunciated with venom. The last thing she needs right now, here in the north, is to have her accent out, just because she’s scared. 

Starsmore appears next to her, almost a blur before he stops suddenly, his own firearm drawn. The rapid beating of her heart slows some. Part of her, it seems, had been nervous that he wouldn’t be there if she’d needed support, their numerous disagreements at the forefront of her mind. But here he was here beside her, ready and willing to defend her along with their work. 

“Get in your car and leave, both of you, or I'll have to arrest you. I don't care who you are.” The man says. 

Starsmore looks at her somewhat helplessly, glancing between his occupied hands and then her face. Paige feels warm- which surely has nothing to do with the fact that he’s trusting her to be his voice. 

“Now hold on.” She says. “This is a crime scene!” 

“Did you hear what I said? You are on private property without legal permission. Now, I'm only going to say it one more time, get in your car and leave.” The man gestures with the gun towards the source of the light, the direction from which she and Starsmore had entered the forest. 

Starsmore lowers his gun and flashlight first, and then Paige follows suit, walking behind Starsmore as he leads the way under the yellow crime scene tape. They pass a truck with a large searchlight in the back. 

Without thinking through the action, Paige throws up the middle finger at the men as she opens the driver’s side door of the car- Starsmore’s shoulders shake with silent laughter. She starts the car and then drives off, back in the direction of the hotel. 

“What’s he doing out here all by himself?” Starsmore types as they drive. 

Paige pulls the little baggy of dirt out of her pocket and tosses it at him. “Maybe it has something to do with this…what do you think it is?” 

“I don’t know.” He types. “Is it from a campfire?” 

“It was all over the ground. Something has to be going on out there….some kind of sacrifice maybe? What if these kids are involved in some kind of occult and that man knows something about it?” From the corner of her eye, Starsmore’s face makes some kind of offended incredulous look, but Paige ignores him and presses on. “I wanna come back here.” 

Starsmore’s brow furrows and he pulls out his compass to look at it again. He then looks at his watch, clearly making note of the time. 

“You, okay Starsmore?” 

“Yeah.” He types. “I’m just-” 

He looks up suddenly through the windshield. 

“What are you looking for?” She asks. And then all of a sudden there is a similar sensation to the light in the forest. A loud roar of sound and a bright light that fully engulfs the car. Things seem to stop - and then the light fades and the car comes to a stop. Paige tries to restart the car, and groans when the engine stalls out. “What happened?” 

“We lost power, brakes, steering, everything.” He types. He looks at his watch. “We lost nine minutes!” 

Starsmore practically leaps out of the car, standing in the rain with his arms spread out towards the sky, seemingly basking in the cool night rain. 

“We lost what?” She yells to him, getting out of the car to try to figure out what exactly he’s looking at.
“Nine minutes. I looked at my watch just before the flash and it was nine-o-three. It just turned nine-thirteen.” Without warning, Starsmore runs down the road, pointing to the pavement. Paige groans when she sees the pink ‘X’ painted on the pavement. “Look! Yes! Come on Guthrie, look! Abductees... people who have made UFO sightings, they've reported unexplained time loss.”

“Oh come on .” She grumbles. 

“Gone! Just like that.” He types, looking manic as wet curls stick to his forehead, his eyes look wide and wild. 

“No, wait a minute. You're saying that, that time disappeared. Time can't just disappear, it's- it's, it's a universal invariant!” Paige protests. She jumps when the car starts and the headlights shine on them. 

Starsmore’s eyes squint in a smile and he types. “Not in this zipcode.” He runs back to the car, hopping into the passenger seat and then leans over and honks the horn at her. 

Paige sighs, looking at the ‘X’ for a long moment before walking back to the car. 

Back in the hotel room, Paige sits on the bed, wrapped in a bathrobe, and speaks aloud as she types up her report. “Agent Starsmore’s insistence of time loss due to unknown forces cannot be validated or substantiated by this witness….” 

A loud clap of thunder rings out and the room goes dark. Paige sighs. “Great.” 

She pulls several candles out of the cabinets and lights them. She uses the candle light to guide her path to the bathroom where she begins to draw a bath. As she lowers the bathrobe to the floor her fingers brush the small of her back and she freezes. Quickly she tries to twist around in the mirror, and her heart-rate increases rapidly when she sees the two spots, little raised bumps just like Karen Swensen and Peggy O’Dell…

She quickly pulls the bathrobe back on and ties it tightly, and shuffles over to Starsmore’s hotel room, knocking lightly.

Starsmore opens the door, holding a lit candle in his hand. “Hi.” He types. 

“I want you to look at something.” She whispers, visibly shaken. 

“Come on in.” He types. 

Paige enters his hotel room quickly, and turns away from him, slowly lowering the robe again. She turns her head to look back at him, and then nods in the direction of her lower back. His face is red as he approaches, calloused fingers gently running down her back and tracing over the bumps. “What are they?...... Starsmore, what are they? ” 

“Mosquito bites.” He types, despite the blush, he looks amused, gentle hands lifting the bathrobe up so it rests over her shoulders once more. 

“Are you sure?” 

“Yeah.” He types. “I got eaten up a lot myself out there.” 

She gasps in relief, quickly tying the robe closed before spinning around and wrapping him in a tight, lingering hug. His arms wrap around her in surprise and after several long moments he types awkwardly. “You okay?” 

“Yes.” She whispers. 

“You’re shaking.” He types. 

“I-I need to sit down.”

“Take your time.” 

He pulls back and she sits down carefully on his bed. He sits in the chair across from her and rests his head on his hand. 

Talking to Starsmore, it turns out, is easy . And worse than that- she even likes him as a person. 

He’s moved from the table and uncomfortable wooden chair to the floor, leaning his head back against the mattress to look at her where she lays on the bed. 

“I was sixteen, when it happened.” He types, gesturing with one hand to his mouth, throat, and chest. “I was out late with my girlfriend at the time- we’d gone to a concert. She- there was light, white and hot and awful and I saw her being lifted off the pavement and I- I couldn’t stop it.” 

Paige frowns. “Starsmore-” 

“Jono.” He types. “Please, I prefer being called Jono.” 

“Jono.” She says, testing out the name on her tongue. “Was she-” 

“She disappeared for a while.” Starsmore- no, Jono types. “Vanished. No note, no phone calls, no evidence of anything other than what had been done to me…..I was- they pronounced me dead at the scene initially…I apparently came to in the ambulance, missing half of my chest. I was in a medically induced coma for over a year before I was fully stabilized.” 

Paige’s stomach drops, her eyes raking over his form. She knows what that looks like, can very easily imagine him, perfectly still in a hospital bed, connected to machines that offer his family little hope beyond a stable heart-beat. “And your- your girlfriend?” 

“Gayle reappeared a few weeks later…she’s now- she’s a lot like Peggy O’Dell now.” He types. “Her parents blamed me…and I can’t blame them. Until then I’d never- I’d hated them and their tory wealth hoarding but now- they can afford private services for her and I’m- I’m glad she’s taken care of.” 

“Jono-” 

“It’s fine.” He types. “Really.” 

“How did your family- I have eight siblings.” She says. “My older brother- Sam, he’d have lost it if I’d ever gotten hurt like that.” 

He shrugs. “No one would talk about it. There were no facts to confirm, nothing to really offer any hope. They were surprised that I was alive.” 

“What did you do?” 

“Studied, got into university and managed to find work with the bureau. Seems I had a natural aptitude for applying behavioural models to criminal cases. My success allowed me a certain freedom to pursue my own interests. And that's when I came across the X-Files.”

Paige swallows hard, watching as a shadow moves in the bushes outside. It’s probably a bird or a squirrel or raccoon or something. Maybe an opossum, she’d always liked opossums. “By accident?” 

He turns his head to the side to look at her. “At first, it looked like a garbage dump for UFO sightings, alien abduction reports, the kind of stuff that most people laugh at as being ridiculous. But I was fascinated. I read all the cases I could get my hands on, hundreds of them. I read everything I could about paranormal phenomena, about the occult and…”

“What?” She asks, leaning forward, closer to him. 

“There's classified government information I've been trying to access, but- I’m getting blocked.” He types. He looks dejected, like a kicked puppy as he types. 

Paige sits up a bit, brow furrowed as she talks to him. “Who? I don’t understand.” 

“Someone at a higher level of power.” He shrugs. “The only reason I’ve been able to continue my work is because I’ve managed to make connections with politicians in congress.” 

Paige frowns, annoyed on his behalf. “And they're afraid of what? That- that you'll leak this information?”

“You’re part of that agenda.” He types. “You know that.” 

“I ain’t part of any agenda.” She snaps, her accent slipping out with the force of it. “You hafta trust me. I’m here just like you, to solve this . That’s my agenda.”

Jono rolls around, changing his position so he’s kneeling beside the bed, looking up at her as she lounges- almost like he’s praying . Paige enjoys that thought almost too much, and tries to convince herself that she only enjoys it to spite her mother. “ I'm telling you this, Guthrie, because you need to know, because of what you've seen. In my research, I've worked very closely with a man named Dr. Heitz Werber and he's taken me through deep regression hypnosis. I've been able to go into my own repressed memories to the night Gayle was taken, to the night I was hurt. I can recall a bright light and a presence. I was paralyzed, unable to respond to Gayle’s calls for help. Listen to me- this thing exists. It’s real.” 

“But how do you know?” She asks, realizing suddenly that it’s come out in a drawl. “How do you know that what you’ve seen in these hypnosis sessions are real?” 

“The government knows about it, and I got to know what they're protecting. Nothing else matters to me, and this is as close as I've ever gotten to it.”

Paige opens her mouth, has half a mind to tell him that his seems like a very sad existence indeed, when the phone rings. She glances at him, and then picks up the phone. “Hello? What? Who is thi-” 

She stops, blinking as the caller hangs up. A moment later she puts the phone back on the receiver. 

“Who was it?” Jono asks. 

“Some woman…she wouldn’t identify herself….she just said that Peggy O’Dell was dead…” 

Paige drives them to the location described by the woman on the phone, the side of a highway outside of town. There are flares on the pavement as officers mill around- a man sits on the steps of the cab for his eighteen wheeler, his head in his hands as an officer stands before him. 

“What happened?” Jono types, approaching the men. 

“She ran right out in front of me.” The truck driver says, voice small and rough sounding- like he’s been crying. 

“Who are you?” The officer asks. Upon closer inspection they can see that he’s a deputy.

“She was running?” Jono asks. “On foot?” 

Paige looks around until she sees what must be Peggy’s body. Gently, she uncovers the girl’s face, being mindful not to react to the neck brace, the tubes, or the general bloodiness of the girl’s face. She looks at Peggy's watch, eyes widening in recognition when she realizes that it’s stopped at 9:03. She looks up, hoping to see Jono standing near her, but instead he is over talking to the deputy. 

She approaches them quickly. “We need to ask you a few quest-” 

Jono surprises her, by grabbing her by the arm instead. “Let’s go. Let’s just go.” 

She looks at him in confusion as he leads her to the car. “What?” 

Once seated he looks at her, typing seriously. “Somebody trashed the autopsy bay in the lab and stole the body. We’re going back to the motel.” 

Her face twists up in confusion as she starts the car. “What? They stole the corpse?” 

The scene back at the hotel is even more chaotic than the highway had been. All around the parking lot are police and firemen. Both Paige and Jono run over to a deputy and show their badges. 

“F.B.I.” Paige says, stopping in her tracks to stare at the blaze ahead of them that had, not even an hour ago, been their hotel. “Well there goes my computer.” 

“The photos and x-rays.” Jono types. He closes his eyes, frustrated and angry- and as such nearly misses the young woman stepping out of the crowd to approach them. 

“My name is Theresa Nemman.” She says softly. “You have to protect me.” 

Jono opens his eyes and looks at her. “Come with us.” 

Jono had insisted that they take Theresa to a diner. Paige can’t say that she disagrees with the idea of meeting with her in a public location- the people they’ve met so far in this town haven’t exactly been trusting….not that her hometown would have been better. Jono had asked for his food to be blended, and the waitress had been pretty rude when he’d taken his food to the back of the restaurant in order to feed himself without bringing unwanted attention to them. Paige feels bad for him- but mostly angry at whoever made him think that he had to hide something as simple as drinking his food. 

He’s back with them now, sliding in across from where she and Theresa sit on the same side of the booth.

“This is the way it happens, I don't know how I get out there. I'll just find myself out in the woods.” Theresa says quietly, she’s staring at Jono nervously, like he might hold the answers. 

“How long has it been happening?” He types. 

Theresa stirs the straw in her drink, staring at a wrapper on the table. “Ever since the summer we graduated. It's happened to my friends too. That's why I need you to protect me. I'm scared I might... die like the others, like... Peggy did tonight.”

“Your father’s the medical examiner.” Paige says softly. “You were the woman on the phone….the one who told me Peggy O’Dell was dead…” Theresa nods and Paige continues. “Your father knows about this, doesn't he? About what happened.”

“Yes, but he said to never tell anyone about it. He-he wants to protect me. He thinks he can protect me, but I don't think he can.” She answers. 

“Do you have the marks?” Jono asks, his hands are shaking. They haven’t stopped since they saw Peggy’s body along the highway. 

“Yes. I'm going to die, aren't I? I'm gonna be next?” Theresa says quietly, then gasps, hand rushing up to her nose as blood gushes from her nostril. 

“Oh God.” Paige says, rushing out of her seat and over to a neighboring table to grab more napkins. As she turns to pass the napkins back over to Theresa she freezes, eyes narrowing some as Dr. Nemman and another man enter the diner. 

“Let’s go home, Theresa. Theresa, come on.” Despite not being on the same side of the booth as Jono, Nemmen pushes him aside. “Come on honey.” 

“I don’t think she wants to leave.” Jono types. 

Nemman glares at him. “I don’t care what you think. She’s a sick girl.” 

“Your father wants to take you home. He’ll get you all cleaned up.” The other man says, and Paige’s brow furrows when the voice sounds familiar. 

“I'm going to take you where you'll be safe, Theresa. Detective Miles and I won't let anything happen to you, I promise.” Nemman says, pulling his daughter to her feet, arm wrapped firmly and tightly around her shoulders to prevent her from running. 

Jono stares at the other man. “You’re Billy Miles’ father?” 

“Yes. And you stay away from my boy.” He snaps. 

Paige steps in between Jono and the locals, watching somewhat helplessly as they get Theresa into the car. She watches them until the car turns and the vehicle moves out of sight. 

“You gotta love this place. Everyday's like Halloween.” Jono snarks. 

“They know.” Paige says. “They know who’s responsible for the murders.” 

“They know something alright.” Jono types. 

“Dr. Nemman's been hiding medical evidence from the beginning. He lied on the autopsy reports and now we find out about the detective. Who else would have reason to trash the lab and our rooms?” Paige snarks, rolling her eyes at him as they climb into the car. 

“Why would they destroy evidence? What would they want with that corpse?” Jono asks, then a moment later, while Paige is still trying to figure out how to answer him. “Makes you wonder what’s in those other two graves.” 

For the second time that night, they’re wandering around in the dark with flashlights. Paige is dragging Starsmore by the arm through the cemetery, looking until they can find the graves of the other two victims. Her heart beats wildly when they find the second grave, just as empty and recently unearthed as the other. 

“They’re both empty.” Jono types. 

“What’s going on here?” Paige whispers, incredulous. 

Jono starts dragging her back towards the car, he types first unintelligibly, then more understandably. “I think I know who did it. I think I know who killed Karen Swenson.”

“The detective?” 

Jono shakes his head, giving her a look that says she might just be stupid. “The detective’s son. Billy Miles.” 

“ The boy in the hospital?! Billy Miles, a boy who's been in a coma for the last four years, got out here and dug up these graves?” Paige asks, starting the car as Jono buckles his seat belt. 

“Peggy O'Dell was bound to a wheelchair but she ran in front of that truck. Look, I'm not making this up, it all fits the profile of alien abduction.”

“ This fits a profile?” She says, doubt more evident in her voice than anything they’ve found so far during this investigation. 

“Yes. Peggy O'Dell was killed at around nine-o-clock, that's right around the time we lost nine minutes on the highway, I think that something happened in that nine minutes. I think that time, as we know it, stopped. And something took control over it.” He stops, catching a glimpse of the amused but frustrated smile on her face in the streetlights they pass. “You think I’m crazy.” 

Paige’s face falls and she bites at her lip, worrying it between her teeth. 

“What?” He asks. 

“Peggy O'Dell's watch stopped a couple of minutes after nine. I made a note of it when I saw the body.” 

“That's the reason the kids come to the forest, because the forest controls them and summons them there. And, and, and the marks are from, from some kind of test that's being done on them. And, and that may be causing some kind of genetic mutation which would explain the body that we dug up.” He types, looking at her seriously. He means every word. 

“And the force summoned Theresa Nemman's body into the woods tonight?” She asks. 

“Yes, but it was Billy Miles who took her there, summoned by some alien impulse. That's it!”

Paige laughs and shakes her head, making an abrupt turn and heading back into town, in the direction of the hospital. “Jono- you better not be fucking with me.” 

“Where are we going?” 

“Finding a new hotel to regroup at. Tomorrow, we’re going to pay Billy Miles a visit.” 

Paige sits at Billy’s bedside, looking at the boy’s fingers, while Jono tries to get information from the nurse. 

“Now, we could stand here until the second coming, waiting for Billy to get out of this bed. It ain't going to happen. He blinks and I know about it.” The nurse snarks at him, beginning to change out Billy’s IV. 

“Were you the nurse on duty for him last night?” He asks. 

“Yeah I changed his bedpan.” She snaps. “Nobody else was gonna do it.” 

“Did you notice anything unusual? Do you remember what you were doing last night around nine-o-clock?” 

“Probably watching tv.” 

“Do you remember what you were watching?” 

“No.” She deadpans, then turns to look at Paige. “What is she looking for?” 

Paige lifts the blanket off of Billy’s feet and gestures for Jono to join her as she scrapes some strange dirt off of the bottom of the boy’s feet into a small glass vial. 

“Do you know who was taking care of Peggy O’Dell?”

“Not me, it's not my ward. Not my aisle of the produce section. I do have a job of my own to do... what is she doing now?” 

Paige stands and smiles, closing the vial. “Thank you for your time ma’am.” 

“Good day.” Jono adds for good measure, following his partner out of the room. 

Paige can practically feel herself thrumming with energy and excitement as she leads Jono out of the building. “That kid may have killed Peggy O’Dell. I can’t believe it.” 

“Guthrie-” 

“It’s crazy! He was in the woods!” 

“You’re sure of it?” Jono types, opening the car door for her as she gestures excitedly. 

“This is the same stuff that I took a handful of in the forest!”

“Then we should take it and run a lab test-” 

“We lost the original sample in the fire. What else could it be?” She asks, smacking him in the chest with it. 

He looks at her with some unreadable expression in his eyes. “All right. I just want you to understand what it is you're saying.” 

“You said it yourself.” 

“Yes.” He says. “But you have to write it down in your report.” 

Paige sobers. “You're right. We'll take another sample from the forest... and run a comparison before we do anything.”

Paige drives them to the forest. Jono is the first to notice Detective Miles’ truck, unbuckling his seat belt and pulling out his flashlight and weapon. Before she can even finish parking the car, he’s hopped out, shining the light into the cab of the truck. 

“He’s here then. What do you think?” 

A woman’s scream rings out in the woods. It could be a fox- but Paige had lived near the Cabots long enough to know the difference. She and Jono split up, running through the woods in search of the scared woman. A blur of motion comes at her from behind a tree, and she’s hit on the head with the butt of Detective Miles’ weapon. She falls to the ground and looks up at the detective, head throbbing.

“You wouldn't listen to me. I told you to stay out of this.” He says, taking advantage of her momentary weakness to run off, leaving her behind. 

There’s another scream. Paige can hear Jono stumble up ahead and then watches, struggling to stand as Miles cocks his gun and points it at Jono’s head. 

“Hold it right there! You got no business out here!” 

“There were screams.” Jono types, one handed, the other holds his weapon steady, and his eyes are flickering back and forth between Paige and the detective. 

“Down on the ground. Now .” 

“You know it's Billy. You've known it all along.” Jono types, staring at Detective Miles. 

“I said down.” 

“How long are you going to let it happen?” Jono kneels, wincing when the woman screams again. “He’s going to kill her!” 

Miles looks in the direction of the screams and then runs off. “Billy, no! Let her go! Leave her alone!”

Billy Miles stands in a clearing bathed with light, holding Theresa Nemman still by the shoulders. Detective Miles once again points his gun at Jono and tackles him, a shot ringing out as the men wrestle on the damp ground. Paige flinches but runs towards the sound anyway, struggling to keep upright with what she’s pretty sure is a concussion. From the distance, she can see the two men stand, bathed in a light that soon completely washes them out. Finally the light fades and the wind dies down, and Billy Miles stands alone, Theresa Nemman on the ground at his feet. 

“Dad?” The boy asks quietly. 

Detective Miles rushes forward, pulling his son into a tight hug. “Billy! Oh, God.” 

Jono stands suddenly, looking frantically back towards where Paige is stumbling towards the group. “Guthrie!” 

She meets him halfway, crashing into his chest and leaning into him for support. “Jono- what happened? There was a light.” 

“It was incredible.” He types, resting his chin on the top of her head. “I’ll fill you in once we get you checked out.” 

Paige sits on the other side of the one-way glass from the interview group. Jono is sitting in on the interview with Billy Miles. He’s watching intently, taking notes in a little notebook. 

Jono’s friend, a man he’d introduced her to as Doctor Werber, sits across from Billy. “If you can hear me, please raise your right hand.” Billy raises his hand slowly and the doctor smiles. “Tell me about the light, Billy. When did you first see the light?”

Paige knows that she’s technically there to watch Jono, to take note of how gullible he seems, how quick he is to believe Billy’s statements about the light. And she doesn’t like what Billy has to say- about the light putting things in noses and wanting to destroy things- about his fear that it will come back. But she isn’t here to watch Billy. And she doesn’t want to watch Jono. So she watches the other men. The ones in the room with her who want her to sabotage her partner’s work. Eventually the men file out of the room she shares with them. She knows that Jono can’t see her or any of them through the glass, these rooms are designed in a very particular way- but even still, she can swear that she can feel his eyes on her through the glass as she stands to follow the men out. She has a meeting with them to uphold. 

The section chief stares her down. “What we've just witnessed, what we've read in your field reports... the scientific basis and credibility just seem wholly unsupportable, you're aware of that?”

“Yes sir. My report was personal and subjective, and also had to be re-done in sections due to the arson. I don't think I've gone so far as to draw any conclusion about what I've seen.” She says, offering them a faux pleasant smile. 

“Or haven't seen, as seems to be the case. This, uh... time loss... you did or did not experience it?” 

Paige’s smile turns wry. “As mentioned in my report, sir . I cannot substantiate it.” 

“What exactly can you substantiate, Agent Guthrie? I see no evidence that justifies the legitimacy of these investigations.”

“Well, there were, of course, crimes committed.” She says.

“Yes, but how do you prosecute a case like this? With testimony given under hypnosis from a boy who claims that he was given orders from some alien force through an implant in his nose? You have no physical evidence.”

Paige breathes deeply through her nose, steadying herself as she pulls the vial containing Ray Soames’ nasal implant from her pocket, putting it on the table before her. “This is the object described by Billy Miles as a communication device. I removed it from the exhumed body. I kept it in my pocket, it was the only piece of evidence not destroyed in the fire. I ran a lab test on it, the material could not be identified.”

“And what does Agent Starsmore think?” One of the men asks pointedly. 

“Agent Starsmore,” And calling him that feels wrong now. “He feels that we are not alone.” 

The men stand to dismiss her. “Thank you Agent Guthrie. That will be all.” 

Paige lays awake in her apartment, blankets pulled tightly up over her. The quilt that Jay had mailed her that still smells like the cedar chest at home does little to comfort her- not when all she can think about is how her mother would react to any sort of update about what she’s up to at work. The disappointment would be so much worse. 

The phone rings and she checks the time, seeing it change from 11:21 to 11:22 P.M. “Hello?” 

Jono’s lightwriter speaks awkwardly and softly through the phone. “Guthrie it’s- fuck can you even hear this? It’s me. I can’t sleep. I talked to the D.A.'s office in Raymon County, Oregon. There's no case file on Billy Miles. The paperwork we filed is gone. We need to talk, Guthrie.” 

“I can hear you Jono.” She sighs, fingers tracing over the quilting stitches her grandmother had put so much love and care into. It feels suffocating all of a sudden. “And call me Paige.” 

“We need to talk, Paige.” 

She nods, despite knowing that he can’t see her. “Y-yeah. Yeah. Tomorrow. Goodnight, Jono.” 

She hangs up before she can catch his response, rolling back over and pulling the quilt over her head. Maybe this time she’ll be able to sleep. 

Chapter Text

“Guess who I ran into from our class at Quantico?” Monet says, sitting across from Paige at a nicer cafe in the city. Monet holds her coffee cup against her lips in a way that Paige knows is designed to look mischievous and dramatic. “Marty Neill.” 

Paige huffs a soft laugh. “J. Edgar Jr.?” 

“He got promoted .” Monet groans. “Foreign CounterIntelligence. Supervisory Special Agent in New York City .” 

Paige pats her arm consolingly. “Supervisory?” 

Monet sighs, dramatically. “You heard me.” 

“We’re two years out of the academy. How’d he swing that?” Paige asks, looking up at Monet curiously. 

“Lucked into the World Trade Center bombing.” 

Paige’s eye twitches some at the blase way that Monet talks about things like this, thinking to herself that the other woman’s attitude might have something to do with the fact that she hasn’t been promoted, but for now she’ll keep that to herself. “Well, that’s good for Marty.” 

Monet’s face falls. “Come on Paige, that guy was a loser. We should be there, not him!” 

Paige smiles, though it doesn’t reach her eyes. “I heard that the psychological profile you wrote for the Washington Crossing Killer led straight to the suspect. Apparently, you’re going to be on the fast track for the violent crimes unit.”

Monet smirks, and Paige is suddenly reminded of why she and Monet don’t hang out much. “So how are you doing? Have any close encounters of the third kind?” 

Paige’s eyes narrow. “Is that what everyone thinks I do? Is that really what you think I do?” 

Monet doesn’t flinch, but it’s a near thing. “Of course not…but you do work with Spooky Starsmore.” 

“Jono’s ideas might be unusual .” Paige says. “But he’s a great agent.” 

“ Jono ?” Monet asks, leaning in, interested. “You’re on a first name basis?” 

“He prefers it when people use his first name.” Paige says quickly, not quite snapping at her. “Are you done, Monet?” 

Monet clears her throat, looking to the side for a moment before addressing Paige again. “I have a case that’s unusual. Baltimore PD wants our help on a serial killer profile. Six weeks ago a series of three murders started. Victims vary in age, race, gender- they don’t have any connections to each other.” 

Paige’s lips draw into a thin line- of course this is an unofficial consult. “I take it there’s a pattern?” 

Monet bites her lip, annoyed. “A lack of a point of entry.” 

“Well how would that work?” Paige snips. She’s not trying to be rude- but she’s also spent far too much time shooting down Jono’s theories as of late. 

“The first victim was killed in her dorm room, some awful ten by twelve cinder block cell. She was found with windows locked and the door chained from the inside.” Monet’s expression makes it abundantly clear that she’s annoyed, both at the situation and at Paige’s response to her. Paige hopes it’s mostly the situation. “The last victim, two days ago, was killed in a high security office building. Nothing showed up on the security cameras, the janitor spoke to the victim minutes before death, and he didn’t report anything out of the ordinary.” 

Paige’s brow furrows. “Could they be self-inflicted? Do we know anything about their mental health histories?” 

Monet opens a folder at her side and then slides a photograph across the table. Paige swallows hard around the bite of her sandwich when she looks at it. “They all had their livers ripped out, Paige. No cutting tools.” 

Paige raises an eyebrow. “Bare hands...this sounds like an X-File.” 

“Don’t get carried away Guthrie. I’m still going to be the one to solve the case.” Monet says firmly. “But maybe you could look over the case histories? Visit the crime scenes?” 

“Do you want me to ask Jon- Starsmore?” She corrects herself too late.

Monet’s eyes narrow as she gathers up her belongings, standing to leave. “Okay, if he wants to come and do you a favor, great . But make sure that he knows this is my case. If I can break a case like this, I’ll get the promotion I deserve. And who knows? Maybe you won’t have to be Mrs. Spooky anymore.” 

Paige watches her go, eye twitching. “I am not ‘Mrs. Spooky.’” She mutters under her breath. 

Jono stands next to her as they examine the newest crime scene. The victim’s office looks fairly neat with the exception of the obvious forensic evidence that has yet to be cleaned. Paige would love to say that her partner is currently exemplifying her claim that he is a great agent. However, he seems to have come here to frustrate her instead. 

“So why didn’t they ask me?” Jono types, looking at her expectantly, almost like he’s upset that he was a second choice. Like he didn’t practically live in the basement of the FBI because nobody wanted him around. 

“She’s a friend of mine from the academy.” Paige says, dismissive. “I’m sure she just felt more comfortable talking to me.” 

Jono’s brow furrows. “Why would I make them uncomfortable?....is it the lightwriter?” 

Paige’s heart sinks . “No! No, it…probably has to do with your reputation.” 

“My reputation? I have a reputation?” 

Paige sighs. “Jono- St. Croix plays by the book. You…don’t. They feel that your methods, your theories are…” 

“Spooky?” He types, nudging her with his elbow as he turns down the volume on his lightwriter, making this more intimate. “Do you think I’m spooky?” 

Monet rushes into the room, smoothing her hands over her blazer. “Paige, sorry I’m late.” 

“It’s fine.” Paige says, smiling tersely, trying not to let Jono’s teasing get to her. “We just got here….uh Jono Starsmore, Monet St. Croix.” 

“So, Starsmore .” Monet drawls. “In your ‘expert’ opinion, is this the work of little green men?” 

“Grey.” He types, turning the volume back up on the lightwriter. 

Paige silently pinches the bridge of her nose as Monet blinks. “What?” 

“Grey, you said green. Reticulans have grey skin tones. They’re actually notorious for stealing human livers, due to the iron deficiencies in the Reticulan Galaxy. They particularly seek out humans with hemochromatosis- as I’m sure Paige could tell you.” 

Paige glares at him. 

“You…..you can’t be serious.” Monet says, staring at him incredulously. 

“Do you have any idea what an offal pie goes for on Reticula?” Jono types. He looks annoyed, and Paige feels guilty despite not having done anything to cause offense. “Excuse me.” 

He walks away to start looking around the office, taking an interest in the wall behind the victim’s desk. Monet glances at him warily and then turns her attention back to Paige. 

“Paige, I’ve been thinking about this and I have a theory. I think it might explain what’s going on.” Monet says, grabbing Paige by the arm. “I want your opinion. So what if the guy is entering-” 

Paige is paying attention to Monet, listening to the words her friend is saying- but she’s also watching Jono as he walks around the room, sure footed and determined in a way she hasn’t yet seen him. He bends down, pulling a pair of tweezers out of his pocket and picks up what looks like a piece of metallic thread. From the floor he looks up, eyes narrowing as he focuses on the air vent high up on the wall, above the victim’s desk. 

“-Paige, what is he doing?” 

Paige doesn’t answer, watching as Jono stands, lifting a brush and dusting over the sides of the air vent. Inwardly, she prays to a God she doesn’t believe in that he won’t try to blame this on aliens just to win some sort of dick measuring contest with Monet. 

“Starsmore.” Monet says tersely. “That vent is six by eighteen inches. Even if a reticulan could crawl through, it’s screwed in place. Stop messing around.” 

Jono turns around, pulling the lightwriter out of his pocket to type. “Then why did I find a fingerprint?” He points to the grate, and though Paige hates to admit it, he’s right- although it doesn’t look like any fingerprint she’s ever seen. 

In their office, Paige sits on top of Jono’s desk, leaning back with her legs crossed in a most unladylike fashion as she looks at the lightbox Jono’s set up in the middle of the room. Multiple “fingerprint” scans are shown against the lightbox, though they’re elongated and misshapen.

“This is the print I took yesterday.” Jono says, pointing to one of the scans. “The others are from an X-File. Ten murders in the Baltimore area- same M.O. Undetermined point of entry, each victim had their liver removed…these prints were discovered at half of the scenes.” 

Paige frowns, sitting up some. “ Ten murders? Monet didn’t mention-” 

“She probably doesn’t know about them.” Jono says. “Two of them were lifted five years before he was born, some place called Powhatan Mill? I don’t think the lightwriter is pronouncing that correctly…and then the others were lifted- probably before her mother was even born.”

Paige can’t help it, she laughs. “Are you sayin’ these prints are from the ‘60s and ‘30s?” 

Jono’s eyebrows quirk up in what she’s come to realize is his version of smirking. “There was another murder with an extracted liver in 1903 but fingerprinting was still in its infancy then.” 

“Of course.” Paige says, voice dripping with faux sweetness. She sounds like her mother addressing a Cabot at church- she wants to rip out her own vocal cords for a moment. 

“With five murders every thirty years….that leaves two more to go this year.” Jono says. 

“Copy-cats?” Paige says. “Who’d want to copy-cat a murder that doesn’t even have a name attached to it, there’s no notoriety in it?” 

Jono’s eyes are twinkling with something like admiration. “Now Paige, what did we learn on our first day at the academy? Each fingerprint is unique- and these are a perfect match.” 

Paige sighs heavily and stands, pushing herself off the desk and walking up to Jono, invading his personal space so that he can more clearly see her level of exhaustion with his theory. “Are you suggesting that I go before the Violent Crimes unit and present a profile declaring that these murders were done by…what did you call them, Reticulans?” 

Jono rolls his eyes. “Of course not. I find no evidence of extraterrestrial involvement.” 

“Then what? That a hundred year old serial killer was somehow capable of overpowering a perfectly healthy six-foot-two business man?” 

Jono’s eyes twinkle with mischief. “And he should stick out in a crowd with ten-inch fingers.” Paige has half a mind to punch him. 

She sighs, stepping away from him and smoothing out her skirt. “Bottom line Jono, this is Monet’s case- I’m not- I’m not going to give her a spooky answer to what is likely a very mundane case.” 

Jono’s eye twitches, and something almost like betrayal flashes in his eyes. “Our file dates back to 1903! We had it first!” 

Paige pinches the bridge of her nose and paces, biting her lower lip to stop herself from speaking before she’s ready. She does anyway. “Jono, they don’t want you involved. They never did. Monet doesn’t want to hear your theories, she doesn’t- she doesn’t think you’re a serious agent. That’s why they have you hidden away down here.” 

He flinches, and his fists clench at his side so tightly that Paige can hear his knuckles crack before he types. “You’re down here too.” 

Paige feels like she’s betraying her friend, which is ridiculous because she’s standing next to Monet in front of the Violent Crimes Unit. She smiles tersely, gripping the print out of her profile so tightly that it bends the paper. She swallows hard before speaking. “After a careful review of the murders, I believe the killer to be a white male, twenty-five to thirty-five years of age, with above average intelligence. 

“So far we have been unable to detect his manner of entry. This might be because he has some superior knowledge of the building layout, including the ductwork and service corridors. Or he might hide in plain sight, serving as a delivery man or maintenance worker. 

“The extraction of the liver is the most significant detail of these murders. The liver possesses regenerative properties, it cleanses the blood. Through taking this trophy, the killer is attempting to cleanse himself of his own impurities. To me, this reads as a compulsion, but without speaking to the killer, we cannot know for certain. 

“Because the victims are unrelated, we have no manner of predicting who might be next. We must also recognize that a killer is not always successful in finding a victim that suits their needs. When this occurs, it is documented that a serial killer might return to the sight of a previous murder, hoping to relive the emotional high of that moment. It is my opinion that we should target those crime scenes.”

She stumbles over some of her words, her accent threatening to slip out the more she reads. She’s better than this. She’s usually better than this. But instead of reading ahead, all she can hear in her mind is the robotic sound of Jono’s lightwriter- You’re down here too . 

Monet’s section chief looks at her for a long moment and then speaks. “Thank you Agent Guthrie. If there are no objections, I’d like to begin our stakeouts of the murder sites tonight. We’re looking for a young white male, wearing a uniform- Agent Guthrie…I know you’re assigned to another area, but if you don’t mind some overtime, you’re welcome to come aboard with us.” 

Monet smirks, knocking her shoulder into Paige’s. “That is if you don’t mind working in an area that’s more down-to-earth.” 

Paige had agreed to tag along before she had remembered how much she hates stake outs. She sighs, blinking tiredly as the walkie talkie goes off. “Position ten, do you check?” 

“Position ten, I copy.” 

There’s a noise outside and Paige startles into a more upright sitting position, cautiously grabbing her weapon and getting out of the car as quietly as possible. She’s careful when she plants her feet, Daddy and Sam’s voices blending together in her mind as they walk her through how to not startle her prey while hunting. She hears footsteps and closes her eyes for a moment, pinpointing where they’re coming from and aiming in that direction. She opens her eyes just in time to see a tall man jump through a large circular hole in the wall. 

The man turns to her and pulls something out of his jacket- her heart stops for a moment until she hears the robotic voice of a lightwriter. “You wouldn’t shoot an innocent man, would you copper?” 

Paige lets out the breath she’s been holding and leans against the car. “Jono!” 

“Hi Paige.” He types, walking towards her. 

“What are you doing here?” Paige hisses. 

“He’s not coming back here.” Jono says. “He gets his thrill from the seemingly impossible entry. He’s beaten this place. If you’d read the X-File on the case, you’d have reached the same conclusion.” 

Paige glares at him. “You are jeopardizing my stakeout.” 

He reaches into his pocket and hands her an unopened bag of sunflower seeds, ranch flavored. “Seeds? You seemed like a seeds person. I didn’t know what flavor you liked so I guessed.” 

“ Jono .” She hisses. 

He raises his hands in the air in surrender before typing. “You’re wasting your time out here. I’m going home.” 

Paige climbs back into the car and watches him walk away, grumbling under her breath in a manner that is far too reminiscent of Sam for her comfort. Several minutes later, once Paige’s pounding heart has settled back to a normal rhythm she frowns as she sees Jono’s sprinting form making its way back to her. 

“Paige,” He types, lightwriter barely audible through the glass window of the car. “Call for back-up and get over here!” 

Paige grabs the walkie talkie and calls for back-up before following Jono towards what he had seen. He guides her to a section of wall, overlooking the ventilation ducts. 

“In there.” He types. 

Paige’s eyes, still adjusting to the darkness, catch a glimpse of movement in the ducts and she draws her weapon. “Federal Agent.” She yells. “I’m armed. Proceed down the vent. Slowly .” 

A foot kicks open the vent and Paige’s hands shake as a man exits the duct hatch. Slowly the figure stands up and turns around, putting his hands up and over his head. Paige stands frozen, barely aware of the agents swarming around her and Jono, apprehending the man from the vents. 

“Get him!” Monet yells, now it seems, suddenly ahead of Paige, directing other agents to arrest the man. 

“FBI- don’t move. Keep your hands up. You have the right to remain silent…” One agent barks, more aggressive than Paige would like. 

She swallows hard, and slowly lowers her weapon. 

Jono reaches over to squeeze her wrist gently, a soft touch that brings her back to herself, back to reality. “You were right.” He types, one handed and awkward. He squeezes her wrist again, warm fingers brushing over the sensitive skin of her palm as he pulls his hand away. “I’m sorry for doubting you.” 

Paige would like it known for the record, that she hates polygraph tests. They’re boring to watch, difficult to interpret, and they are not admissible in court. 

I hate this . She writes on a piece of paper, passing it to Jono, who’s sitting next to her, attention fixed on the boring, baseline questions being asked of their suspect. He ignores her, glancing at it briefly and then shoving it back towards her. I’m going to mess up your desk because you made me sit through this. She writes, shoving the piece of paper towards him again. He puts a finger to his mouth and glares at her from the corner of his eye. 

The examiner sits in front of the suspect, reading in monotone from a list of questions: “Were you ever enrolled in college?” - “Were you ever enrolled in medical school?” - “Have you ever removed the liver from a human being?” - “Have you ever killed a living creature?” - “Have you ever killed a human being?” Paige has tuned most of them out. Of course he’s going to deny anything incriminating. Nobody who goes to such great lengths to conceal evidence at a crime scene would admit to the crime under a polygraph. 

The examiner pauses before asking the next question. “Are you over one hundred years old?” 

Monet shifts awkwardly in her seat. “That must be a control question.” 

“I had her ask it.” Jono types. 

“Have you ever been to Powhatan Mill?” The examiner asks. 

“I knew the lightwriter didn’t pronounce it correctly.” Jono types, turning down the volume and tilting the device towards Paige as the suspect answers in the affirmative. 

“In 1933?” The examiner asks. 

Monet sighs loudly, loud enough that Paige can’t hear the man’s response, but she can tell that Jono must have read his lips because he tenses beside her, upset. The suspect must have denied being alive somewhere around thirty years before he’d have been born. 

The examiner stays behind to talk to them in the hallway, thrusting the folder of test results towards them. Jono and Monet both reach for them at the same time. “He nailed it.” She says. “As far as I’m concerned, he didn’t kill those people.” 

Monet relinquishes her grip on the folder to take a call from her superior, her face immediately taking on a far grumpier expression as she listens. She hangs up, sighing heavily. “Maintenance staff at the office building have confirmed the call to animal control about the bad smell. They found a bad smell in the ventilation ducts on the second floor.” 

“It still doesn’t explain what he was doing there so late.” Paige says. 

“One of the few civil servants with any initiative and we busted him for it.” Monet grumbles. 

“He was crawling up an air duct, by himself, without alerting security! Doesn’t that seem odd to you?” Paige protests. 

“Paige,” Monet sighs. “He passed the test, his story checks out, he’s not the guy. It doesn’t mean that your profile is wrong.” 

“Paige is right. That is the guy.” Jono types, looking at Monet with a sort of defensiveness that surprises Paige. 

“What do you have Starsmore? Some kind of basement dweller to basement dweller ESP?” Monet snarks. 

“He lied on questions eleven and thirteen.” Jono types, moving to stand slightly in between Paige and Monet. “His electrodermal and cardiographic responses are off the charts!” 

“What’s that? The hundred year old question?!” Monet says, voice raising in volume. “I also had a response to that stupid question! And what’s this Powhatan Mill thing?” 

Jono flips open the folder, showing the recorded data from the test. “Two murders with matching M.O.s happened at Powhatan Mill in 1933! Just look at the chart!”

The examiner tries to interject. “My interpretation of those reactions-” 

Monet steps closer to Jono, getting in his face, using their similar height to push into his space. “I don’t need you or that machine telling me that he was alive in ‘33.” 

“He’s the guy.” Jono types. “If you don’t believe me, believe Paige.” 

Monet glares. “I’m letting him go.” As she leaves, she turns back to look at Paige. “You coming?” 

“Monet,” Paige says, mouth suddenly dry. “I wanna thank you for letting me spend some time with the Violent Crimes Unit, but I am officially assigned to the X-Files.”

Monet shoots a rude glare at Jono, then looks at Paige firmly. “I’ll see what I can do about that.” 

“Monet, I can look out for myself.” 

Monet huffs and walks out, the clipped sound of her heels on the tile floor echoing behind her. Paige grabs Jono roughly by the arm, pulling him back to make him look at her. “You knew they wouldn’t believe you, why did you push it?” 

“Maybe I thought you had the right guy.” Jono types, making direct eye contact with her. It’s unnerving- the brown of them seems to go on forever, illuminated from within like there’s some sort of fire in his skull. “And maybe I run into so many people who are hostile just because they can’t open their mind to the possibility that they might be wrong…and sometimes the need to mess with their heads makes me ignore the threat of humiliation. I sound like this already, Paige, there’s not much lower I can go.” 

Paige ignores the last comment, she’s learned in the last few weeks that arguing with Jono about the fact that he doesn’t deserve the assumptions made about him due to his disability is a lost cause. “You just…” She sighs. “You seemed like you were acting territorial . I don’t know, forget it.” 

She turns to walk away from him but he stops her, his hand on her wrist shocking her. He pulls her closer. When his hand pulls away from her wrist, her skin tingles. “Of course I was.” He types. “In our investigations- you may not always agree with me. But you respect the journey, you respect me. I didn’t like the way she talked to you but- but if you want to continue working with them….I won’t hold it against you. You didn’t choose the basement. I did.” 

He turns to walk away from her, heading up the stairs. Paige stares after him for a moment, mouth involuntarily agape. She blinks rapidly a few times, and takes a steadying breath before rushing to follow after him, bumping her hand with his when she falls into step beside him on the staircase. “I don’t know…if you have something more than your interpretation of pseudoscience to back up this theory…I want to see it.” 

“Jono.” Paige says, standing behind him as he messes around on his computer, trying and failing to pull up the fingerprinting software. “Do you know what you’re doing?” 

Jono immediately throws up the middle finger at her as he struggles to display the fingerprint scans. Finally , in about four times the time it would have taken Paige to do the same, he gets things situated on the screen to his liking. “These are Tooms’, our suspect’s, prints.” 

“Mhmmm.” Paige hums, kicking the back of his chair. “Go on.” 

“This is the fingerprint I took from the latest victim’s office.” He says, pointing with one hand to the elongated print on the other side of the screen. “This one matches the old ones from the X-Files.” 

“Well they don’t match.” Paige says dryly.

“Obviously.” Comes the dull drone of the lightwriter. “But if we elongate it somehow. Stretch it out-” 

Jono manages, with some difficulty, to squash the print sideways, distorting the image. A minute later he manages to drag one image over the other. The software shows a 100%  match. 

Paige leans forward, her chin almost resting on his shoulder as she gets a closer look- the gold chain of her cross necklace a sharp contrast to the leather of his jacket. “How- how could that be?” 

“Maybe he’s stretching himself.” 

“Hypermobility? What like Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome?” 

Jono turns around to look at her, an almost mean look in his eye. “No. Nothing like EDS, my best friend has EDS.” 

“Sorry,” Paige says quietly. “I was just using it as a point of reference…..what do you know?”

“All I know,” Jono types, “is they let him go.” 

It’s Paige’s idea to crash Monet’s crime scene. Although, that exact verbiage was Jono’s and not hers….even if that was mostly because Paige wanted to keep plausible deniability in the event that they were reprimanded for this. 

From the other side of the door, Paige can hear Monet speaking. “Let's run a check on liver transplants in the next twenty-four hours, maybe this is connected to the black market.”

“St. Croix, it was ripped out. That’s not-” 

“Well at this point, I’m willing to give any theory a chance!” Monet interrupts the other agent, frustration clear in her voice. She sighs, back going stiff when she turns at the sound of the opening door to see Paige and Jono. “Any sane theory. Sorry, Guthrie- I only want qualified members of the investigating team at the crime scene.” 

“What’s the matter St. Croix?” Jono types, walking by her breezily. “Afraid I’m going to solve your case?” 

Monet grabs him roughly by the arm and Paige steps forward. “We have authorized access to the scene. A report of you obstructing another officer’s investigation might prevent you from getting that promotion.” 

Monet lets Jono go but turns to glare at her, as mean and ugly in spirit as Paige knew she could be when provoked. “Whose side are you on, Paige?” 

Paige squares her shoulders, standing just a little straighter. “The victim’s.” 

Jono walks around the fireplace, leaning and bending at awkward angles to try to get a clear look at the dusted fingerprints. 

“God’s sake.” One of the agents said, looking at him with a face pulled back in a grimace. “Where’d you learn to balance like that?” 

Jono, still leaned back at an outrageous angle simply typed. “Goth bars. And no- before you ask, I can’t drink.” 

Adverse medication interactions . Paige’s mind immediately supplied before she could walk over to follow him. “What did you find?” 

“What do you think?” He types, standing up straight. “It’s our guy.” 

Paige stares past him to the top of the mantle, where the outline of a circle in dust sits, some of the grime disturbed by small, barely there fingerprints. “And he took something.” 

It’s weird to look at Jono hunched over the microfiche machine- weirder still that it makes her think of the embarrassing pictures Sam keeps in his wallet- she really needs to steal it from him and burn that picture he took of her in the library. 

She coughs to get his attention. “Baltimore PD checked out Tooms’ apartment. No one has ever lived there. And he hasn’t shown up for work since he was arrested.” 

He gestures for her to come closer, pointing to Tooms’ address on the screen of the microfiche reader.  “I found him. I think this is where it began in 1903. Exeter street…there have to be better programs for pronunciation on these things.” 

“I’ll help you find one.” Paige says mindlessly, leaning over his shoulder to read the screen. “The first murder….he killed the guy who lived above him?....can’t say I don’t understand the urge.” 

Jono looks at her out of the corner of his eye and Paige can’t immediately tell if it’s judgement or amusement. “Maybe the guy played the Victrola too loud.” 

“Well this- this has to be Tooms’ great-grandfather.” Paige says. “Don’t even give me that look Jonothan- the genetics might explain the swirl patterns on the prints.” 

“Jonothan?” He types, raising an eyebrow. “Alright, I’m humour you. The genetics might also explain the sociopathic behaviors and attitudes. If you’re raised in it-” 

“The anti-Waltons, or an evil Brady Bunch...or just normal Little House on the Prairie.” Paige says, then noticing Jono’s expression. “There’s too many kids in my family, okay? What do you think?” 

“I think we need to track him down. Four down and one to go the next attacks will be in-” 

“2023.” Paige says quickly. 

Jono’s eyes squint in a smile. “And you’re going to be head of bureau by then. So what do you say you take census records, I’ll look at weddings and the like?” 

By the time Paige realizes that they haven’t eaten dinner, the sun has set, casting a dark shadow over the records room. “Find anything?” 

“Never born, never married, never died.” Jono types. “You?” 

“Disappeared off the face of the earth.” She responds dryly. “But- I did find the current address of the ‘33 Powhatan Mill murder investigator.” 

Paige rather immediately decides that she does not like the old detective. 

“I’ve waited twenty-five years for you.” He says, pointing to Jono alone, as if Paige hadn’t been the one to call, and as if she had not explicitly told him that it had been her idea to contact him. 

“Uh?”

“I called it quits in ‘68. But at Powhatan Mill, I was a sheriff, and I’d seen my fair share of bloody murders, but y’know you shrug ‘em off, go throw a baseball around with the boy.” He looks Jono in the eye. “You gotta be able to do that or you'll go crazy. But Powhatan Mill- hoo boy I walked in and my heart went cold, my hands were numb. I could feel it .” 

“Feel what?” Jono types, looking just as uncomfortable as Paige feels. 

“It's like all the horrible acts that humans are capable of, somehow, gave birth to some kind of human monster. That's why I say I've been waiting for you. Aah, there's a box in the trunk here, get it for me, would you please.”

Paige glances at Jono from the side of her eye as he bends over to pick up the box, setting it down the bed. 

“Now,” the detective says. “This is all of the evidence I’ve collected both officially and unofficially.” 

“Unofficially?” Paige asks, eye twitching. 

“I knew the murders in `63 were by the same person as in `33. But by then, they had me on a desk, pushing papers and they wouldn't let me anywhere near the case.”

Paige nods, choosing to keep her mouth shut rather than say something derogatory. She reaches into the box and pulls out a jar filled with yellowed amber liquid and a piece of tissue. She looks towards the man with barely restrained disgust. “A piece of the removed liver?” 

“Yes, but you know, that's not the only trophy he took with him. Family members reported small personal effects missing in each case. A hairbrush in the Walters murder, a coffee mug in the Taylor murder.”

Paige opens her mouth to comment but Jono beats her to it, typing before she can speak. “Have you heard the name Eugene Victor Tooms?” 

The man nods, reaching into the box and pulling out some photographs. “When they wouldn’t let me help in ‘63, I went rogue and took my own surveillance photos. This is Tooms-” He hands the photos to Jono. “Of course, this was him thirty years ago- comin’ outta his apartment at-” 

“Sixty-six Exeter Street?” Jono types. 

“Well yes.” The detective says, smiling at Jono. He turns to Paige and wags his finger at her. “Now you stay with him missy, I’m sure he’ll keep you busy with the paperwork.” 

Paige blinks at the man and is incredibly thankful when Jono grabs her by the hand and pulls her out of the detective’s apartment. 

“I’m buying you a drink after this case is over.” He types once they’re outside the building. 

She smiles at him sadly. “I’ve had worse.” 

Jono bumps her shoulder with his and leads the way back to the car. 

Paige leads their walk into the rundown, empty building that is 66 Exeter Street. Jono looks up and around the hallway as they enter, taking in the details. 

“Here’s one-oh-three.” Paige says, bumping into the door with her shoulder, frowning when it opens on its own. 

Jono follows her into the room. “The old man was right, you can feel it.” 

Paige has her gun drawn, but Jono doesn’t as they walk around the main room of the apartment. “There’s nothing here, Jono.” 

Jono stares for a long moment at a mattress leaned up against the wall and then kicks it down with one booted foot. Behind the mattress is a large hole in the wall that leads to a dark space below, a ladder providing the only way down….or back up. “Check this out. What do you think is down there?” 

Paige holsters her weapon. “I don’t know….let’s find out.” 

Jono gestures towards the hole. “Ladies first.” 

Paige flips him off, but climbs down the ladder, one handed as she and Jono shine their flashlights down into the dark expanse. “It’s just an old coal cellar.” 

Jono now takes the lead, shining his flashlight further into the cellar as he walks, brows furrowing when he sees a table covered in objects. “Odd place for a boot sale.” 

Paige raises an eyebrow but steps forward towards the table, picking up a glass vase. “The base is the same as the missing item at the last victim’s house.” 

“The detective did say he collects trophies.” Jono says…do you think he lives here?” 

Paige shines her flashlight further ahead and recoils a bit. “The wall’s deteriorating. Nobody should live here.” 

“No….no….somebody made it.” Jono types, stepping forward into the beam of Paige’s light. “It’s a nest, see- it’s made of rags and newsprint.” 

“This looks like an opening-” Paige starts, only to stop in disgusted awe when Jono touches the substance, hand coming away with a yellow slime. “Oh my God , Jono- it smells like bile .” 

Jono makes a grand show of attempting to balance his lightwriter on his knee to type one-handed. “In your medical opinion, Dr. Guthrie, what’s the fastest way to get this off my hand without betraying my incredibly suave exterior?” 

Paige ignores him, shining the flashlight further around the space, trying to identify the boundaries of the nest. “Nobody could live like this.” 

Jono flicks the slime off of his hand, attempting to wipe it off on a solid part of the wall. “I don’t think he lives here- I think he just hibernates.” 

“Now is not the time-” 

“No, just listen.” Jono types. “What if there were some genetic mutation that would let a man wake every thirty years-” 

“ Jono .” 

“What if the five livers sustain him, give him whatever regeneration he needs for that period. He’d be some kind of…twentieth century genetic mutant.” 

Paige sighs. “Well he’s not here now, but he’s gonna come back.” 

“We’re gonna need a surveillance team.” Jono types, following her back towards the ladder. 

“Yeah, that’ll take some finesse.” Paige snarks under her breath. 

“You go downtown and see what you can finesse and I’ll stay here and keep watch?” Jono types, his longer legs putting him just a bit ahead of her. 

Paige stops suddenly. “Ugh, I’m snagged on- oh got it.” 

“You okay?” Jono asks, letting her go ahead of him on the ladder. 

“Yeah- just old buildings- never know what you’ll get caught on.” She says, shaking herself slightly before climbing up the ladder. 

Paige is double checking that she has everything she needs for the stakeout, making sure to bring extra latex gloves and disinfectant wipes just in case Jono decides to touch anything again. 

Monet sits across from her. “We need to talk.” 

“I have to meet Jono.” Paige says, voice clipped. 

“That’s what we need to talk about.” Monet says, stare firm. “You’re using two of my men to do what? Babysit a condemned building?” 

“We aren’t interfering in your investigation at all.” Paige says.

“You know Paige, when I invited you to lunch, I was really looking forward to working with you. You were a good agent. But after this man ? I can’t keep you far enough away. I had the stakeout called off. Don’t bother going.” 

“You can’t do that.” Paige says, pushing herself up to a standing position. 

Monet mirrors her, towering over Paige’s shorter form. “You’re right, but my regional special agent in charge can. Especially after I called to let him know about the irresponsible waste of man hours.” Paige reaches towards the desk to grab the phone but Monet beats her to it. “No, let me call Starsmore, I want to be the one to tell him the news.” 

“Is this what it takes to rise to the top, Monet? Tearing everyone else down so you look better by comparison?” 

“All. The. Way. To. The. Top.” Monet says, but though her voice is sure and firm, Paige can see something like doubt and regret in her eyes. 

Paige shoves the desk towards Monet, smirking when it catches her friend off guard. “Then I can’t wait ‘till you fall off and land on yer fuckin’ ass.” 

Paige unlocks the door of her apartment, hanging up her purse and her keys by the door before moving to the phone, taking her hair down as she walks. She leans against the wall, ignoring a message from Sam and instead calling Jono. 

“This is Jono Starsmore. I can’t come to the phone right now. Please leave a message.” 

Paige sighs. “Jono, it’s me. You must have gone out before you got the news that Monet benched us. Bitch . I say we file a complaint against her- I’m furious . Call me when you get back. Bye.” 

She rolls her shoulders and shakes her head with a yawn before kicking off her shoes and padding her way to the bathroom. She plugs the drain and turns the faucet on, adjusting the bath water until the temperature is right, then walks away to get her pajamas set out on her bed. Several minutes later she returns to the bathroom in a robe, pulling a towel off the rack before turning off the taps. She reaches towards the shelf next to the bath for a bottle of scented oil. As she goes to open it, something warm and slimy and ochre and vile smelling drips onto her hand. 

Paige freezes and fights back the urge to vomit. Slowly, so slowly she looks up at the ceiling, from the corner of the vent there is an unmistakable patch of bile. Paige bolts out of the bathroom, rushing into her bedroom where she had left her gun. She grabs it, turning the safety off before beginning to quietly stalk around her apartment, never removing her back from a wall if she can help it as she looks for Tooms. Her heart is beating fast, too fast, and she tries to will it slower- she can’t afford to be light headed right now. In her dining room she stares at the vent in the floor, aiming her gun at it. This is the first time she’s ever been upset at having central heating…but there’s a first time for everything. 

She breathes deeply and moves to step away from the vent when a hand shoots out of it, grabbing her ankle, pulling until she falls. She drops the gun, flinching when it hits the floor but relieved that it doesn’t go off. She grabs the door frame with white knuckled fingers, using every last muscle borne of farm chores and wrestling boneheaded brothers to pull herself free of her assailant’s grasp. 

Tooms practically slithers out of the vent, and Paige, still on the floor, panics- crawling backwards until she’s back in the bathroom. He chases after her and straddles her, holding her legs down with his body weight. Paige tries to punch him with one hand, which is blocked, but she manages to hit him square in the jaw with the other- a solid left hook that would have made Sam proud. She swallows hard and shoves her thumbs into Tooms’ eye sockets, pushing until he screams. She’s too cocky though, and despite his own pain, he grabs her arms and pushes them to the floor above her head, both her wrists held in one, stretched out- vice-like hand. He opens her robe, exposing her midriff, fingers hovering over her liver. 

The door to Paige’s apartment busts open and she screams, twisting in Tooms’ grip. Startled by the sound, Tooms’ gets off of her and breaks the bathroom mirror. Jono stands in the doorway of the bathroom, his gun pointed at Tooms, her golden cross necklace dangling from this weapon hand. Paige wastes no time, immediately getting up and grabbing the man before he can escape out the window. Tooms grabs her by the throat, attempting to choke her. Jono reacts by cuffing one of Tooms’ wrists, but finds himself knocked to the ground momentarily after a blow to the bandaged part of his chest. He makes a wheezing sound as he goes down. Tooms turns to advance on Jono, but Paige grabs the other end of the handcuffs, stopping him from getting closer to her partner. She feeds the handcuffs through the taps of her bathtub and then secures his other hand in the remaining cuff. Jono stands, shakily and points his gun at Tooms who is struggling to break free. 

Jono isn’t even looking at Tooms- he’s staring at Paige making eye contact, trying to see if she’s alright. 

Paige wraps the robe tightly around her again, breathing heavily as she leans against the wall. She offers Jono a weak smile. “I’m - I’m fine. He- he ain’t gonna get his fuckin’ quota this year.” 

Paige rounds the corner of the jail, sighing as she sees Jono watching Tooms through the glass. She stands next to him, watching as the man tears apart a newspaper, licking each strip before layering them- like he was creating some kind of vomit induced paper mache project. 

“He’s building another nest.” Jono types. 

“You’ll be interested to know I ordered some genetic tests.” Paige says. “The medical exam showed abnormal development in the muscular and skeletal systems, as well as a continually declining metabolic rate. It dips way below the levels registered in deep sleep….Jono are you even listening to me?” 

Jono and Tooms are locked in a staring match, where the other man has stopped his nest building- he stares for a moment longer before going back to his nest. 

Jono shudders, then types. “People spend so much money every year, trying to feel safe…I look at that guy and just think- it’s not enough.” 

Paige shrugs. “We don’t even lock the doors back home. Maybe the problem up here is you don’t know your neighbors well enough to know which ones would steal from you.” 

Jono looks at her with something almost like confusion and then lets out a sigh through his nose. “Well, I said I owed you a drink, where are we going?” 

Paige laughs, starting to walk back down the hall she’d just come from, back to the exit. “Jono, it’s eleven am.” 

He wags his eyebrows playfully. “So we can also get lunch, keep up Guthrie- don’t you ever have fun?” 

“No goth bars.” She says, pointing a finger at him. “I don’t know you like that.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He types. “You’d just embarrass me there anyway.” 

Paige sticks out her tongue at him and laughs when he drapes an arm over her shoulders. “There’s this one place I’ve been meaning to try since I moved here. The Old Ebbitt Grill? It’s on 15th street? Not too far from Lafayette Square?” 

Jono rolls his eyes but lets her lead him out to the car.

Chapter Text

Paige enters their office coming in at a nice and early 8:30 on a Friday morning and fights back a sigh as soon as she sees Jono at the desk. Paige has come to understand Jono as an almost obsessive thinker- a hard worker who’s deeply committed to the X-Files and to uncovering the mysteries within them. She also knows that he has a collection of teenage-boy-esque avoidant behaviors- one of which is being put on display now as he leans back in the desk chair, booted feet propped up on the desk as he reads some magazine titled Punk Planet , fully engrossed. 

Paige rolls her eyes before speaking, leaning over the desk so that her hair falls over the magazine, obstructing his view. “Workin’ hard or hardly working?” 

Jono squints his eyes in a smile and puts the magazine down on the desk. He pulls the lightwriter over from where it had sat to the side of him. “There’s an article in here about a woman who claims to have been abducted by aliens and kept in anti-gravity suspension for three days without food or water.” 

Paige stares down at the photo of the woman in the article and the long spikes of her hair where they stick out of her head. “Anti-gravity’s right- how’s she do that with her hair.” 

Jono types quickly, almost automatically. “Knew a guy once who used wood glue, pomade, egg whites…” 

Paige’s lips curl up at just the thought of wood glue or egg whites on her scalp. “ Anyway - sorry to interrupt your clearly serious and life-altering investigation here, but I have something that’s gonna blow your socks off.” 

Jono raises his eyebrows in surprise. “Oh?” 

“There’s a lot of weird stuff happening in New Jersey.” She says. “Crops failing, streams supposedly boiling and evaporating away, cows not giving milk…and some people are attributing it to a devil .” 

Jono’s interest is palpable. “Where in New Jersey?” 

“Near the pine barrens, nearby to Atlantic City.” 

Jono stands and shrugs on his jacket, picking up the lightwriter again and winking at her. “Feeling lucky?” 

“Relative to whom?” Paige asks, before realizing his meaning. “Jono, no- this isn’t even a police case- and more than that local authorities haven’t requested our involvement and why would they in an agricultural matter?” 

“Yet.” He types one-handed, digging through one of the filing cabinets with the other. “They haven’t requested our involvement yet.” 

“An X-File?” Paige says, accusatorially. “Jono, this is insane. What do we have to do with an environmental concern that’s probably connected to agricultural run-off?” 

“Ever hear of something called the Jersey Devil?” He asks, passing her the file.

“Yeah, our family friend Lewis used to tell me the story to scare me out of wanting to go north as a kid. It’s a folktale, a myth.” 

“I heard the story as a kid too.” Jono types. “Only I believed it.” 

Paige watches him walk out of the office and sighs heavily, resigning herself to following him, swearing to herself that it’s only so he doesn’t do something stupid and get himself killed. 

While Paige drives them up to New Jersey, Jono makes a very odd phone call on his cellphone, thanking someone named ‘Charles’ for telling him which farm the investigators are taking samples from today. 

“Who was that?” Paige asks. “They sounded important.” 

“Oh.” Jono types. “My old mentor from Oxford, Charles, he moved to New York a few years ago and has a private laboratory where he and his girlfriend study a frankly alarming number of things. They’re sometimes asked to consult or run samples for things like this because they’re less backed up than government or university labs. I thought he might have some information for us and I was right.” 

Paige struggles to breathe evenly through her nose without coming off like she’s seething, which she is. Everyone she’s met in D.C. has had connections that simply don’t exist in Eastern Kentucky- that she’d never quite figured out how to make when she was attending Yale. 

“My family doesn’t know his. I’m actually not even sure he’d be willing to set foot in the area I grew up in.” Jono types, though he’s staring out the window, refusing to look at her. “I worked for him while I was at university. That’s the only reason I know him….he was one of the few professors who would hire me. He’s wheelchair bound, said he understood.” 

“Oh.” She says quietly. “Sorry.” 

“It’s fine.” But he still won’t look at her, staring out the window. “I got the address for the farm.” 

“It’s the strangest thing.” One of the scientists says. “A whole herd of jersey cows and not a single one giving milk.” 

“It’s not that strange.” Paige says. “All sorts of plants are poisonous to cattle and can stop them from producing milk. Did you check for milkweed? Water hemlock? Pokeweed?” 

Jono stares at the soil sample data that the scientists have given him, and when Paige spares him a glance out of the corner of her eye she nearly laughs at how obviously fake his understanding of the science is. He looks up as another sleek, black, government issue car pulls up to the farm and a man in a suit steps out. 

He makes a beeline for Paige and Jono, approaching them with an uninterested external demeanor. 

“Hi,” Paige says, hoping that if she speaks before Jono she might be able to smooth things over, jurisdiction-wise. “I’m Special Agent Paige Guthrie and this is Agent Jono Starsmore.” 

The man narrows his eyes, lowering his sunglasses so that Paige can see his glare. “I don’t remember anyone calling in the FBI on this.” 

“We’re not here in an official capacity.” Jono types, and Paige has the sudden and overwhelming desire to slam her head into a wall. “Dr. Guthrie is-” 

“ Not a veterinary doctor.” Paige says, rather firmly. “We’re here out of professional curiosity.” 

“I’m sorry.” The man says. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave. We have an investigation to complete.” 

“And who are you?” Jono asks. “I thought this wasn’t a police matter?” 

“EPA Special Agent Thompson.” The man says, reaching into his pocket to pull out his identification, rather underhandedly using the action to reveal that he too is armed. “We have jurisdiction here.” 

Paige bites her lip anxiously, watching Jono nervously when she sees his eyes shine with mischief. 

“Any suspects yet?” Jono types, making direct eye contact with Thompson. 

“I don’t work for you.” Thompson replies coldly. “And unless you hear differently through the proper government channels, this is an environmental matter.” 

“Come on.” Paige says, grabbing Jono tightly by the elbow, making him wince. “Let’s go.” 

“There’s no need to be bent out of shape.” Jono types. “I mean-” 

“On the contrary.” Thompson says, voice dripping with venom. “I think I’ve been exceedingly polite.” 

Paige drags Jono back to the car and practically forces him into it. She climbs into the driver’s seat and turns the key, driving them back towards Atlantic City and then towards the highway. 

“What’s eating that guy?” Jono asks. 

“He was perfectly within his rights.” Paige asks. “He’s not only from a different agency, but the FBI has no jurisdiction over agricultural or environmental matters.” 

“We investigate people who order too much fertilizer.” Jono points out.

“Besides-” Paige says, ignoring him. “You’d feel the same way if someone was closing in on your work.” 

Jono crosses his legs, pouty. “Well chances are, he doesn’t have a clue.” 

“Yes.” Paige says dryly. “You missed your chance, Jono. You could have really humiliated him and told him what the culprit really is- the Jersey Devil.” 

Jono’s eyes squint slightly in a smile. “Hey, what do you say we grab a hotel, take in a punk concert, drop some coins in the slot, and do a little investigating?” 

Paige blinks slowly and then opens and closes her mouth, in a frustrated sort of surprise. “What?” 

“Okay,” Jono types. “We can skip the punk concert- you’d stick out anyway.” 

“I…have plans in D.C. tonight.” Paige says awkwardly. 

Jono freezes a bit, almost like he’s short circuiting. “Like a date?” 

“No.” Paige says quickly. Too quick. “I- God this is more embarrassing than if it were a date.”

Jono sits up straighter in the passenger seat, turning to look at her in interest. “Go on.” 

Paige sighs. “...My older brother’s junior high penpal lives in D.C. now, and apparently my brother is able to meddle from nearly four hundred and fifty miles away and somehow convinced his friend to invite me to a dinner party.” 

Jono makes some kind of facial expression that Paige can’t really read, looking around the windows as they drive into the city. “Could you drop me off then?” 

“What?” She asks. “What are you doing?” 

“Just plodding around some.’ He replies. “Might make a weekend of it.” 

“Jono- don’t-” She groans, hands jerking on the wheel as she realizes that he’s unbuckled his seat belt and is starting to open the car door while she’s still driving slowly in traffic. “ Jonothan Starsmore ! Oh come on! It’s an almost four hour drive back by myself!” She rolls down her window and continues to yell at him as he walks away. “In Friday traffic!”

The streets of Atlantic City seemed to Jono how it must feel to live inside of a tourist trap themed snow globe. Not that D.C. could be much better, but those streets were paved with a different kind of greed. 

He wanders into a casino, if only because he has the idea that anyone who works there will have an idea of what is going on in the area- the good, the bad, and the ugly. Instead he finds the environment to be loud and overstimulating- loud enough that the staff he tries to talk to cannot hear his lightwriter at full volume to answer him. He attempts to write out a question for one woman on a piece of paper she had graciously offered to him, but she can’t read his handwriting. He can’t blame her- there was a reason he had never received a pen license. 

“I’m sorry hon.” The woman says, though she doesn’t look all that bothered. “You might have better luck outside.” 

Jono nods and puts his fingertips to his chin before arcing his hand down, and away from his face- signing “thank you.” 

Outside, Jono is certainly more audible- but now he has a different problem. Out on the sidewalk and the streets, he is no longer a potential customer to sink his meager savings into rigged money machines, but instead just a disabled man. He knows better than to assume that he’ll be listened to. 

Sam had only told Paige a thousand times that she should under no circumstances bring alcohol to the dinner party. But he had also told her that she “of all people” should by no means cook something. And Mamaw’s voice rang in her ears reminding her that it was an insult of the highest order to bring something store bought to someone’s house for a gathering. Which meant that Paige stood outside of the modest but well-cared-for house holding a full jug of sweet tea. 

The man who opens the door is a giant - he must stand at least seven feet tall and could be a bodybuilder to rival Schwarzenegger. “Oh,” he says in a voice far more warm and friendly than she had expected. “You must be Sam’s sister. Come on in.” 

Paige forces her lips into a smile and follows him into the house. “It’s a lovely house.” 

“Thanks- oh sorry, Paige right? I blanked on your name for a second. I’m Jimmy, Sam’s-” 

“Penpal.” She says awkwardly. “I know.” 

“Sorry.” He replies, just as uncomfortably. “I’ll uh, introduce you to the rest of the group.” 

A lovely red-headed woman pokes her head out of the open doorway to the kitchen and beams. “Oh, is Paige here?” 

Paige immediately knows that this has to be Terry, the woman that Sam’s penpal is apparently smitten with but afraid to properly ask out. “Hi, uh Terry, right?” 

The woman nods and steps out to take the jug from Paige’s hands- everything about her demeanor is warm, but Paige can tell that there’s some darker edge in the flint of her eyes. “Right- Jimmy says you work for the FBI? Me Da works there.” 

“Oh, that’s great.” Paige says, mentally making a note to talk to Sam about what all he shares with his penpal that he’s never met in person. “Do you know where he’s assigned?” 

“Some sort of desk job here in D.C.” Terry replies breezily. “We don’t talk about work much.” 

“Terry’s a botanist.” Jimmy says. “She’s responsible for most of my garden.” 

Terry blushes, bashful. “Enough about me. We need to introduce her to everyone else.” 

Terry takes her arm and guides her into the dining room where a group is sitting at the table, excitedly talking. Terry points to each of them, whispering conspiratorially to Paige about who they are and what they do. “That’s - well his real name is Gaveedra but we all call him Star ‘cause of the birthmark, he’s a fencer with a good shot at the ‘96 Olympics. Next to him is Julio, they’re glued at the hip, he owns a club in Baltimore. There’s Roberto, he’s inherited his father’s company in Brazil, but is looking at opening an office here in D.C. Next to him is Tabby, we’re pretty sure they’re seeing each other. Jimmy’s friend Rahne , who I hate, and who…somehow knows Roberto but I can’t remember how they know each other. And then they’re both friends with Doug, who’s a linguist- Doug’s also been helping Jimmy with some stuff for work-”

“Terry, are you going to introduce us?” The blond man, Doug, says smiling softly at them. 

“Oh, yes sorry- everyone this is Paige, I was just filling her in on your names.” Terry says sheepishly. 

“There’s a seat next to me if you want it.” Doug says kindly. 

Paige thanks him quietly and sits next to him, slowly calming down and finding herself more at ease as the night goes on. Throughout the discussion and dinner, it becomes more and more apparent that Jimmy and Terry are together and that Sam is an idiot. 

“So how long has it been now?” Roberto asks them, taking another bite of dessert. 

“Six months.” Jimmy answers immediately, a small fond smile on his face as he glances over at Terry. 

“What about you Paige, are you seeing anyone?” Terry asks. 

Paige smiles, though it's more of a grimace. “When am I supposed to find the time?”

Tabby laughs. “Well it helps if you can find a man.” 

“Know of any?” Paige quips back instantly. 

“What about that guy you work with? Starsmore?” Jimmy asks, casually enough that Paige knows he means no harm with it. It still makes her muscles tense. “Sam says that you said he was cute or something.” 

“He’s a jerk.” Paige replies instantly. “Okay no, he’s not a jerk he’s- he- he’s obsessed with his work.” 

“So Terry, Jimmy, are you going to have kids?” Tabby asks, thankfully changing the subject, waggling her eyebrows at the couple.

Terry’s face goes bright red. “I don’t know Tabs- are you ? Is Paige?”

Paige goes very still, swallowing hard around her bite of dessert. She thought she’d pushed past the childhood conditioning that made her think she was a failure to be unmarried and childless at her age. But inside her head is a battle between the societal pressure to have an army of children with some man who would die of black lung before he was fifty and her terror at the idea of turning into Sam. Sam, who had sacrificed his childhood to make sure that the rest of them had one. Sam, who had started working a job that was poisoning him at sixteen so that he could provide for a family he had never asked to have. Sam, who had given up his way out to make sure that she got to leave….Her stomach turns when she realizes that she didn’t think once about her mother. 

“I uh- I’m sorry, it was a long day, drove to New Jersey and back for a case- I - I think I might head home.” She says, barely a whisper. 

“I’ll walk you out.” Doug says gently. “I should be heading home myself.” 

Paige thanks him softly and follows him out, then pauses watching him stop by his car. “Doug?” 

“Yes?” 

“Would you like to get dinner on Monday?” 

“I’d love to.” He smiles, walking towards her and handing her his card. “Give me a call so I know where to meet you?” 

Jono hated that it sounded like his lightwriter was glitching out. He walked through the streets, repeating over and over and over again. “Can you tell me anything about the Jersey Devil? Do you know of any recent Jersey Devil sightings?” Only to be met with silence, being shoulder checked out of the way, or mean stares. It wasn’t the first time he’d been treated like this, and he knew it wouldn’t be the last. 

Finally , someone responds to him kindly. A homeless man leans forward, away from the wall he had been leaning on. “What d’you wanna know?” 

“Do you know of any recent Jersey Devil sightings?” Jono asks. 

“You a cop?” 

Jono’s brow furrows. “I’m F.B.I.” 

The man’s face twists up in thought for a minute then he nods. “I’ll show you something.” 

Jono follows the man into an alleyway, looking around the sleeping arrangements that are set up in the dead-end area. 

“I need money.” The man says. 

Jono agrees with him, and immediately pulls out his wallet, grabbing some cash and handing it to the man. “What can you show me?” 

The man holds up a finger and then rustles around in his makeshift shelter, reaching into a trash bag, pulling out a ziplock bag, from which he pulls a piece of paper. The man unfolds the paper, holding it out to Jono, showing him a childlike drawing of something that appears to be a mix between a bat, a goat, and a kangaroo. 

“What…what is this?” Jono types, taking it awkwardly with one hand. 

“Found it in the pocket of a jacket I found.” 

“Does it mean anything to you?” Jono’s brows are furrowed as he studies the drawing. He wants to believe, but this…this might be pushing it. 

“I’ve seen it.” The man says. “Right here. Digging in the trash.” 

Jono blinks for a second before responding. “Right here? Are you pulling the wool over my eyes?” 

“Swear to God.” The man says, holding up both hands. 

“Has anybody else seen it?” 

The man nods. “Oh yeah, most of us are pretty freaked.” 

“Anybody told the cops? The parks department?” 

The man scoffs. “You think they don’t know?”

Jono looks around for a moment, glancing at the dumpsters and the haphazard sleeping bags and shelter walls. “Where are you sleeping tonight?” 

“You’re standing in my bedroom.” 

Jono only hesitates for a second before digging around in his pocket, pulling out a hotel room key. “You know the Galaxy Gateway? Room seven-fifty-six, all yours.” 

The man takes the key with shaking hands, looking at him for some sign of a prank, finding none he then asks. “Hey- they uh- they got HBO?” 

Jono wheezes a laugh through his nose. “I think so.” 

Later that night, Jono sits in the man’s bedroom, a threadbare blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He’s nearly nodded off when he’s startled to alertness by the sound of dogs barking and loud clattering. At first, he can’t see anything, his eyes still adjusting to the dark as he stands and begins looking around his surroundings, cautious, one hand over the holster on his hip. 

There’s a darker shadow at the end of the alleyway, perched precariously on the lip of the dumpster, almost like a vampire in a campy horror movie. He hears the creature sniff loudly and then with a powerful thrust of its legs and the flap of its wings, it’s off. 

Jono chases after it, knocking into trash cans and hitting his arms off of windows to make noise to try to draw the creature’s attention. It pauses, hooves hitting the roof of a building with an audible noise as it turns back to look at him out of one monocular eye. Behind him, a police siren blares, and the creature stares at him before pushing off the roof and flying away. The tires of the police vehicles crunch on the asphalt behind him as they come to a stop, he turns around, squinting as he’s blinded by the headlights. 

An officer gets out of the car. “Sir.” 

Jono points up to the roof, pulling out his lightwriter. “There’s something up there.” 

“Nothing to worry about.” The officer says. “We’re gonna give you a warm place to sleep it off.” 

The officer grabs Jono by the arm and his brow furrows, ripping his arm out of the man’s grasp. “Back off.” 

“Calm down, sir.” The officer says, faux placatingly. 

“I’m telling you. I don’t drink.” Jono types. “You’ve got something on that roof!” 

“Get in the car.” The officer says. “ Now .” 

Jono sits in a small interrogation room at the local precinct, tapping idly on his lightwriter keys, just enough to make a sound but not enough to make it speak. Through the small window on the door he can see Agent Thompson peek into the room before entering. 

“ What do you think you’re doing Agent Starsmore?” 

Jono stares coldly ahead of him. “Enjoying the nightlife here in beautiful Atlantic City.” 

“You’re obstructing an investigation.” 

“I wasn’t anywhere near the farm.” Jono types. “I was in the city, taking in some sights. But if you’d like to get the D.A. involved by all means, I’d love to talk to her about withholding evidence.” 

“What are you talking about?” 

“The statements given to you describing a creature that’s been seen all over South Jersey.” 

Thompson pinches the bridge of his nose and lets out a long suffering sigh. “ This is the fishing trip they get me up at three in the morning for?” 

“Why else would anyone be sweeping the streets right now? You know it’s out there.” 

“It’s Atlantic City on a weekend- there are hundreds of reasons to sweep the streets.” Thompson says. “We have a job, to keep people safe.” 

“Not to keep the dice rolling and the buses full? If those casinos aren’t filled, this town disappears.” Jono glares at the man. “I’ve seen it.” 

Thompson sighs. “Seen what , Starsmore?” 

Jono reaches into his back pocket and pulls out the folded up drawing of the creature- he unfolds it and shows it to Thompson. Thompson immediately begins laughing cruelly. “You’ve been spending too much time in supermarket checkout lines.” 

“Well I won’t be responsible if this thing decides to attack people again. When you lose your first tourist, this will be on you.” 

Thompson leans over the table, attempting to make himself more physically imposing compared to Jono. “No. Because this has nothing to do with any devils or any creatures, or silly un-scientific superstitions. If you want to go on a safari, go to Africa. In the meantime, enjoy the rest of your weekend.” 

Monday mornings at the Bureau are always interesting, with no shortage of agents milling around frantically trying to tie up loose ends that should have been finished on Friday. 

“Agent Guthrie-” One of the agents in the bullpen says as she makes her way to the basement stairs. “Agent Starsmore, line three.” 

Paige frowns and takes the phone. “Hello?” 

“Hello ma’am.” The voice on the other side of the line says. 

“You’re not Agent Starsmore.” Paige says. “Where is Agent Starsmore.” 

“Not far from where you left him, ma’am.” 

Paige’s mouth pulls into a thin line. “He’s still in Atlantic City?” 

“Yes ma’am, at our police department. I’m an officer on duty.” The voice says. “I- I’m sorry, I’m having trouble reading his handwriting. I think it says something about this morning?” 

Paige sighs. “Put him on the phone- he should be able to use his lightwriter over it, he’s done it before.” 

“His what?” The man says. 

“His lightwriter - it’s a device that allows him to talk.” 

“Oh we confiscated his computer, ma’am. It might have been connected to an explosive device.” 

“You- you confiscated his lightwriter? ” Paige says through gritted teeth, seething. “I’m coming up there. Where is he? ” 

“He’s in the drunk tank.” The officer says. 

“ The drunk tank! ” Paige says, too loudly, drawing the stares of the agents in the bullpen. She then quiets down and hisses. “The drunk tank? He doesn’t even drink!” 

Jono can hear Paige well before he sees her. His chest warms as he listens to her lecture the officers about the ADA- her voice raising as she even threatens to sue them for removing an assistive device from him. 

It’s a touching display, until it’s turned on him . Instead of a greeting, or asking him if he’s alright- she tosses him the lightwriter. “Well, I can see how they’d mistake you for a vagrant.” 

“Are you going to rag on me or can we get something to eat?” Jono asks. “Remarkably they didn’t have anything for someone who can’t fully open their jaw.” 

Paige’s face immediately falls and he regrets saying it. She drags him up by the arm, pulling him out of the precinct and marching him towards a diner. “Did you at least drink water?” 

“Yes.” He promises. “Paige it’s-” 

“It’s not fine Jonothan.” She spits. “Now tell me what you want so we can order food. I’m paying.” 

Paige watches sadly as Jono moves to a back corner of the diner once he has his blended food. She swallows hard when she sees him unwrap the bandages from around his face so that he can eat. She knows that most people would be upset by…whatever it is he’s hiding- but she thought that he knew he could trust her not to be. She sighs, awkwardly sipping her coffee while she waits for him to rejoin her. 

Jono is finishing tucking in his bandages around the back of his ear when he sits back down across from her. He pulls his lightwriter closer, eyes gleaming with excitement now that he no longer feels starved. “It was amazing Paige. It had wings and it could fly if it pushed itself off the ground with these incredibly muscular legs! It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before!” 

“Jono-”
“What?” 

“What’s going to happen when word of this gets back to the bureau?” Paige says. “It could-” 

“They dropped the charges, they were bogus anyway. That EPA guy had them run me through the system just to spite me.” 

“I’m not- I’m talking about the Jersey Devil thing.” 

“I saw it!” Jono says, leaning forward to look her more fully in the eye. “It was just like the legends describe - it came out of the pine barrens. Maybe it was looking for food.” 

“I’ll say.” Paige says dryly. 

“It was picking through the garbage Paige!” Jono says. “If it really wanted to hurt people- why didn’t it come after me? Did I make it feel threatened in some way-” 

“Jono, listen to yourself.” Paige sighs. “You’re already ascribing motive to something that we haven’t confirmed to exist yet.” 

Jono’s fingers hover over the keys of the lightwriter, staring at her for a long moment. “But you do believe that I saw something. Don’t you?” 

“You saw something . I’ll give you that. But I’m not going to go in and sell it. Not off of a brief sighting in a dark alley.” 

“I’ve still got a hotel room I’m paying for.” Jono says. 

“Well… I have to get back to D.C. by seven-thirty…so we should head home.” 

“Got another dinner party?” Jono asks, raising his eyebrows. 

“No, I uh- I actually have a date.” Paige says awkwardly, standing up from the table. 

Jono looks up at her, and she shakes her head a bit- it must be a trick of the mind that his eyes look sad. “Can you cancel?” 

Paige swallows and presses her lips together tightly. “Unlike you, Jonothan. I would like to have a life.” 

Jono’s brow furrows. “I have a life!” 

It startles a laugh out of Paige and she grabs onto his ear, tugging on it to encourage him to get up. “Come on, there’s someone I want you to meet on the way home.” 

Paige leans against a table in the office of a University of Maryland folklorist, Dr. Diamond. Jono stands much closer to the man, seemingly enraptured. 

“Every culture has their malevolent spirits- nuckelavee, oni, nian, ammit, leshy, yedua-” 

“Why?” Jono asks, taking detailed notes in a small notebook. 

“We all rely on agriculture to survive- it thus follows that it would be pretty universal to fear changes to our environment or damage to our crops. They’re symbolic of the human fear of the loss of control.” 

Jono nods and looks around the room, eyes focusing on a chart that the professor has hung up in his office. “What’s this?” 

Diamond gestures Jono to come closer, happy to talk about his work. “This is a chart showing the major malevolent spirits from different cultures around the world- incomplete of course, but a helpful reference.” 

“And what if one of them was real?” Jono asks. “What if we could capture proof?” 

“Then that would be a very exciting discovery. But it’s highly unlikely that what Agent Guthrie has described to me could exist in South Jersey and not have been discovered by now.” 

“Highly unlikely, but not impossible.” Jono says, glancing between Diamond and Paige. 

“Well…..” Dr. Diamond says, glancing guiltily towards Paige. “It would be an amazing discovery.”

Jono sits in his desk chair in his and Paige’s office in the basement and leans back, so far that there’s a real possibility that he’ll tip over and land on his head. From this angle he can see the clock on the wall behind him, and though he’s seeing it upside down, he can read the time as seven-thirty. Paige will be on her date now. 

Jono sighs through his nose, sitting up in the chair and resting his head in his hands. He’d been down in the basement for so long- why did it now feel empty when it was just him? Paige was wrong, he had a life, he had friends- she just hadn’t met them yet…because they didn’t hang out outside of work. He’d have to fix that- they were friends now…or at least friendly. 

Mindlessly he shuffled through the files on his desk, organizing and reorganizing the next cases he wants to look at while his mind wanders. He just needed more evidence- that’s all. If he could get concrete evidence nobody could call him crazy or stupid. He spins around in the chair aimlessly before turning back to the desk. He pulls out the drawing of the Jersey Devil and stares at it, thinking. 

“I’ve just always had an affinity for languages.” Doug says, smiling at her from across the table. “It seemed like a no-brainer to pursue linguistics in college.” 

“How did you know what careers would be available to you?” Paige asks. 

“My dad’s a lawyer, and my mom had a French degree- they were friends with a few linguists.” Doug says, taking a bite of his steak. “What about you?” 

Paige smiles tersely. “Oh, uh- I just knew that I wanted to help people. Was lucky enough to figure out that medicine was something I was good at- and then ended up liking the idea of the FBI.” 

“That’s great.” Doug says earnestly, and Paige is relieved that there’s no judgement, no pressing questions about her family. “So…am I allowed to ask about the case you’re on? Or can’t you say?” 

Paige pauses awkwardly, as she watches him cut into his steak. “Uh-”

Throughout her mind she replays the ways that she’s seen people respond to Jono- the laughter, the sense of superiority, the immediate lack of respect…Paige might not believe the same things as Jono, but she does believe in him. Doug doesn’t know her well enough for that. 

“Uh-” She finishes. “I don’t think it’s something we should discuss over dinner.” 

Doug laughs good naturedly. “I don’t suppose you’d want to hear about my favorite verb conjugations, would you?” 

Paige ducks her head in a quiet laugh, going back to her meal. 

Jono puts the picture down and rubs his eyes, jumping slightly when the phone rings. He answers it on speaker, putting his lightwriter as close to the phone as possible. “Starsmore.” 

“Starsmore, this is Special Agent Thompson with the EPA? There is a matter we might need your help with.” 

Jono immediately sits up straighter. “What is it?” 

“I’ve been told that there’s nobody better at the FBI when it comes to worries about the occult. In our more rural communities out here, we’ve had people starting to turn on each other. Some little mobs of ‘vigilante justice’ about anything these people have decided is degenerate and making God punish them…” Thompson says, he sounds exhausted. “We can’t get any work done with them going around like this.” 

Jono can feel himself waking up- coming back to life. “I’ll talk to my partner. We can be there in the morning.” 

Thompson sighs in something like relief. “Thank you. And Starsmore? I’m sorry they arrested you- I never asked them to do that.” 

Jono hangs up on Thompson and immediately sends a message to Paige’s pager. “CALLME.” 

Paige jolts in her chair as the pager clipped to her purse goes off. She smiles sheepishly at Doug, excusing herself from the table. She approaches the restaurant’s hostess, quietly explaining that she’s an FBI agent who received a message from her partner to call her and that she needs to use their phone. The hostess is gracious and lets her step into a side room where there’s a phone to allow her some privacy. She calls their office and extension, not at all surprised when Jono picks up at eight pm. “Jono.” 

“Paige.” The lightwriter reads out, barely audible through the phone static. “Sorry to interrupt your evening.” 

Paige bites her lip for a second, contemplating how to answer. “That’s okay. What’s up?” 

“I just got a call. Thompson from the EPA wants us back in New Jersey. Apparently there’s some kind of witch hunt they need us to fix.” 

Jono doesn’t ask about the date and Paige doesn’t volunteer any details on the drive to New Jersey. Paige actually doesn’t even talk for most of the drive, deep in thought.

“Are you okay?” Jono asks. 

“Fine.” Paige says, swallowing hard as they park. “Just thinking about home. Don’t worry about it.” 

Paige sighs as they approach a church where it seems that a large group of people have chosen to gather on a Tuesday morning. She touches the gold cross necklace around her neck and sighs again. “I hate churches.” 

“This might be a stupid question.” Jono types. “But you’re wearing a cross?” 

“My dad- my dad bought it for me. He died when I was a kid.” 

Jono freezes and reaches out to grab her hand, squeezing gently before dropping it. “I’m sorry.” 

“Yeah, well let's just get this over with.” Paige sighs again. “Let’s see who saw Goody Proctor at the Devil’s Sacrament.” 

Jono huffs a laugh through his nose and follows her into the church. 

Rather than a pastor at the front of the sanctuary, there is an austere looking woman dressed in work clothes speaking animatedly to the crowd sitting in the pews. 

“First they tried to poison our children with rock music to sneak the devil into our homes. Then they advertised satanism as a game with that Dungeons and Dragons nonsense! We tried to protect our children from their sins- to make sure that they would never take them for their nefarious purposes. But Satan persists and he targets us still - and someone has let him into our community and he has blighted our crops, dried up our streams, and have stopped our livestock from letting milk. We must -” 

“Uh excuse me.” Paige says firmly. “I’m Agent Guthrie and this is Agent Starsmore, with the F.B.I. Could we talk to you?” 

The woman stares at Paige for a long moment before her eyes settle on Jono, gaze hardening. “ That is not an agent of law and order.” 

The crowd cheers, their gazes now fixed angrily on Jono. 

Paige sighs. “Ma’am, I assure you he is an F.B.I. agent. And I would like to-” 

“There is no evidence of any connection between the occult and crime.” Jono types into his lightwriter. “Nor is there any inherent connection between rock music and satanism- or Dungeons and Dragons and Satanism. The game is inspired by Lord of the Rings, which was written by a devout Catholic.” 

“Wrong thing to say.” Paige mutters under her breath as the crowd begins murmuring about ‘papists’ and ‘paganism.’ 

One man stands from the pews and reaches out to grab roughly at Jono’s jacket, pulling hard on the leather. “Devil-worshipper!” 

Someone even throws a Bible at him, hitting him square in the back of the head in a way that reminds Paige of the time Sam started a fight in church. 

Jono stumbles, long limbs jerking awkwardly at the treatment. Paige reaches out to steady him. “Why don’t you take the car and go investigate and I’ll handle the church crowd?” 

He nods quickly, extricating himself from the angered grasps of the crowd as Paige presses the car keys into his hand, before slipping out of the church. He easily climbs into the car and starts it, driving in the direction of the latest local stream to be boiled to the point of total evaporation. When he parks by the woods, he goes into the trunk of the car, pulling out a pair of wire cutters so that he can cut a hole for himself in the fencing. Further down the road he can see what appears to be a park ranger’s truck, but ignores it- continuing to venture into the woods as he steps carefully, trying not to make a sound. 

The woods are quiet save for the rustle of leaves in the breeze and the sound of bird calls. The closer he gets to the stream, the louder the bird calls become- sounding almost frantic as he pushes forward until he sees it again. The creature stands on the bank of the stream, leaning down awkwardly to drink, the water by its mouth bubbling as though the creature itself is hot with hellfire. He steps closer, accidentally snapping a twig and the creature whips its head around to stare at him. 

Jono lifts his hands in what he hopes is understood to be a gesture of peace and continues to step forward. He makes no move for his weapon, and steps forward, pushing through the brush as he approaches it. The creature bares its teeth and makes a bleating sound, its muscular legs flexing and twitching with each stop Jono takes.

He steps onto the bank, boots sinking into the damp earth and takes another step towards the creature. He’s maybe ten-twenty paces away from it, and then it jumps . The full weight of the creature slams into him, making connection with his chest and knocking him over. All of the air is knocked from his lungs and he wheezes, trying to sit up. The creature looks panicked, like it’s more afraid of him than he is of it. It jumps again, hooved feat landing on his chest and scraping through his shirt and bandages- leaving a cut on the skin of his chest. He reaches out a hand, trying to grab the creature before it leaves but it bites at his hand- its breath hot enough to make him pull his hand away. 

He drops back down against the cool earth and struggles to breathe slowly so that he can fill his lungs with air again. A dog barks in the distance and a shot rings out and then the creature jumps into the stream- running in the opposite direction. Jono turns his head to the side and watches in confusion as the water in the stream begins to boil rapidly, and soon the shallow stream is gone- the thump of the creature’s hooves hitting the creekbed and the bubble of water the only sounds he can focus on for a long moment. 

Footsteps approach with a jingling sound, and a dog begins panting over his face, licking him. Jono tries to sit up- but winces, laying back down when it hurts too much. He blinks upward at the figure above him, attempting to block the dog’s face with his arms. 

The figure crouches down beside him, pulling the dog to heel, and Jono is instantly relieved to see the park ranger uniform above him. 

“You okay?” 

Jono gestures to his face, pointing at the bandages, before trying to clearly sign ‘mute’ to the man. He holds up his hand, palm open and facing towards his mouth and slowly pulls it across his mouth to the left. It wasn’t an official sign, and he really needed to finally learn ASL rather than BSL since he now lived in the states- but he hoped it would get the message across. 

The ranger frowns for a moment and then seems to realize that Jono either can’t hear or can’t speak and helps him sit up, letting Jono lean against his chest for support. Jono reaches weakly into his pocket and pulls out his lightwriter. 

“Thank you.” He types. “It went downstream. Call- call my partner, Dr. Guthrie- her number is-” 

Paige sits next to Jono in the ambulance, lips pursed tightly as she watches the paramedics strip his bandages and tend to his wounds. She’d known that something horrible had happened to him- there was no other reason that a healthy teenage boy would have been in a medically induced coma for over a year- but it was something different to see the results of it. Jono’s jaw looks like it had at one point been separated from his skull, the burn scars appear to have been second or maybe even third degree. But it’s the incision scars that scare her the most- haphazard and crooked like someone tried to flay him apart . She understands now why he hides it- she wishes he didn’t feel like he had to. 

“It was….it was grotesque.” Jono types to her. His eyes haven’t left her face since she arrived- he’s avoided looking towards his own body at all. “Paige it could have killed me but it didn’t- it viewed me as a threat, it looked scared.” 

“Jono.” Paige sighs, one hand instinctively reaching out to pet his hair before she stops herself, hand hovering awkwardly. “It attacked you and it seriously injured you. I’m going to have to monitor you in case anything ruptures.” 

“If the blood’s inside my body, that’s where I’m told it’s supposed to be.” Jono types, then as Paige’s face falls he types. “Bad joke- sorry.” 

“Jono.” Paige looks pain, the set of her jaw is firm. “What happened out there?” 

“I think it’s afraid of people.” Jono types. “Maybe urban sprawl is impacting it- most- now that I think of it, most Jersey Devil sightings are coming during periods of mass immigration or urban growth. There’s that one origin myth- about it being an unwanted child- maybe it has issue with humans because-” 

“Oh my god.” Paige breathes out. “You didn’t tell me it hit your head too.” 

Agent Thompson pulls up in his car, getting out and immediately approaching them. “Sorry to interrupt, but I’ve just received a call from a park ranger who says he’s seen your creature- and he’s verified your stream boiling story.” 

“Let’s go.” Jono says, pushing himself up and out of the ambulance seat, wincing as he moves. He reaches for his shirt and throws it back on, forgoing the bandages for the time being. 

“Jono- you’re injured.” Paige protests, jumping out of the ambulance after him. 

Jono’s already reached Thompson’s car. He turns to look at her, a man in search of a monster - a man who’s likely been called one. “And you’re a doctor. You won’t let me die. Come on.” 

Paige grumbles but rushes after them, following the men as they climb into the car. 

They meet the ranger by an outcropping of rocks looking over the stream. Jono’s breath wheezes as they hike, holding tightly onto Paige’s shoulder for support on the uneven terrain. She can’t look at him for too long- too aware of the smell of blood seeping through the temporary bandages the paramedics had placed on him. She can fix that later. She has to keep reminding herself that he trusts her to fix that later. 

The ranger points it out to them, and while Paige can’t see it clearly from their vantage point, she can see that Jono was right- it is grotesque. It looks small- and from this distance all she can really see are the wings and the goat-like snout. 

“You can take it alive.” Jono types, leaning heavily against her. His eyes keep unfocusing with the pain, and they flit, staring either at the creature, or at the rifle in the park ranger’s shaking hands. 

Thompson reaches over to the ranger and takes the rifle from him, aiming it carefully at the creature. Jono freezes against her, his hands shaking over his lightwriter. He types as the agent squeezes the trigger. The lightwriter reads out “no” as the shot goes off.

Jono collapses against Paige, silent tears streaming down his face. The lightwriter slides off of his lap to the soft bed of leaves on the ground. With shaky hands he holds out his left thumb and forefinger, his right index finger dragging down over the skin of his hand to his wrist. Paige stares at his hands, long fingers heavy with silver rings. He does it again- and her brow furrows, realization dawning on her that he’s making a ‘y’ - that he’s asking “why?” He does this over and over and over and over until Paige has to pull his hands apart- keeping them steady and warm in her own as he shudders against her with silent sobs. 

A few days later Paige walks downstairs and smiles wryly as she enters their office, watching as Jono flips through the newly updated file on the Jersey Devil, the images of its corpse just barely visible before he sighs through his nose, and puts the file away. 

“Hey,” she says softly. “This just came in. The preliminary posthumous exam of the creature’s body. Now I’m not a veterinarian- but I’m pretty sure this says that they believe it’s a mutated hammer-headed bat.” 

“That wasn’t what it was.” He types. “I saw it, Paige. I was right there.” 

“Jono- I know you saw something . But the report from a veterinary scientist says that this is what it is.” 

Jono shakes himself, wincing some as he grabs his coat. “It wasn’t a hammer-headed bat. They’re native to central Africa- they wouldn’t survive in New Jersey’s climate. The winters would kill it. And a bat doesn’t account for what I saw.” 

Paige blocks the door, trying to keep him in the office so he’ll hear her out. “Jono, just- will you do me a favor? Will you just go out and do something fun ? Will you take the day off? I’ll cover for you- just…just please take some time for yourself?” 

“Thanks for the offer, but I have an appointment with an ethnobiologist at the Smithsonian to talk about what I saw.” The phone rings and he answers it, brow furrowing in visible frustration before he hands it to her. 

Paige takes it. “Uh, hello?” 

“Hey Paige, it’s Doug.” The voice on the other end says. 

“Oh, hi!” She says awkwardly, still trying to block Jono’s exit. It’s unsuccessful and he slides past her into the hallway. 

“Sorry to call you at work, but I stumbled onto some Cirque du Soleil tickets…and I was wondering if you’d want to join me…” 

When Paige catches up to Jono he’s chatting pleasantly with the woman at the car requisition desk. He barely startles when she slides in beside him. “Who was that on the phone?” 

“A guy.” She says. 

“A guy?” He replies. “Same guy you had dinner with the other night?” 

“Same guy.” She replies breezily. 

“You going to have dinner with him again?” Jono asks, quirking an eyebrow towards her. 

“I don’t think so.” 

“Not interested?” 

“Not right now.” Paige replies, snagging the car keys as the woman behind the desk puts them on the counter. 

“What are you doing?” Jono asks. 

“I’m going with you to the Smithsonian.” She says, smiling. 

“Don’t you have a life, Guthrie?” Jono teases. 

“Keep it up and I’ll attack you like that creature.” Paige shoots back, grinning.

Chapter Text

“I suppose that’s one of the luxuries of hunting down aliens and genetic mutants. You rarely get to press charges.” Jono types, and though the voice from his lightwriter is as monotone and robotic as ever, his very posture makes it sound more dejected. “They didn’t listen to me, Paige.” 

Paige pats his shoulder in performative consolation as they approach their car. “No Jono, they listened- they just didn’t believe you.” 

She puts her books on top of the car and then pulls the keys out of her pocket to unlock it. Jono, impatient as always, pulls on the handle, brows furrowing when it opens. 

Paige tries her door and similarly finds it open. “That’s weird, I swear I locked it.” 

Jono winks and then climbs into the passenger seat. Once seated he types. “Must be an X-File.” 

Paige climbs in after him, and twists around to put her books in the back. When she turns back around she follows Jono’s gaze to a cassette tape sitting on the dash. 

“What’s that?” He asks. 

“I told you, I locked the door.” Paige says, reaching out cautiously to grab the tape, taking it out of its case to inspect it closer. “What do you think it is?” 

“Not my kind of music.” Jono answers, taking it from her and putting it into the car’s cassette player. 

As soon as he hits play, a voice with a British accent comes through the car speakers. “Greetings Agent Starsmore. Six months ago, British Minister of Parliament Reggie Ellicott received an audio cassette much like the one you are listening to now.” 

Jono seems to recognize the voice and immediately starts looking around, visibly annoyed. 

“Unfortunately for Mr. Ellicott, when he popped the tape into the car stereo, he armed a device, which, when he tried to exit the car, created an explosion that was heard five miles away. The Scotland Yard Forensic Team could only identify the poor bastard by his dental records. If only he hadn't reached for the door handle and triggered the detonator. But then how was he to know he was sitting on enough plastic explosive to lift the car forty feet in the air and deposit the engine block on top of a three-story building?” The voice continues through the speakers. 

The back door of the car opens and Paige jumps, one hand clutching at her chest. 

The woman grins, reaching an arm forward to touch Jono’s shoulder. “Looking ghostly aren’t we?” 

Paige watches as Jono schools his expression into something intentionally neutral, he types with one hand as he opens the car door again, stepping out. “It’s an old friend.” 

“Aren’t you going to thank me?” The woman asks, looking at Jono expectantly, following him out of the car and onto the sidewalk. 

While his facial expression is neutral, Paige can see the tension in the long lines of his body as he types. “For what?” 

“Saving your life?” The woman says. “One tends not to make the same mistake twice.” 

“I’ll try to remember that.” Jono types. “Fortunately I have a dependable partner to remind me if I forget.” 

The woman rolls her eyes. “Oh come on, don’t tell me you left your sense of humor in Oxford?” 

“No actually.” Jono types, no longer hiding his annoyance. Paige swallows hard, staring at him as his gaze hardens. “It was one of the few things you didn’t drive a stake through.” 

The woman smiles and kisses his cheek. “You know some mistakes are worth making twice.” 

Paige feels her stomach churn and squeezes the steering wheel tight enough her knuckles go white before stepping out of the car to look at them. Jono’s expression is unreadable when she looks at him. 

“Paige Guthrie, this is Harley Davis- the terror of Scotland Yard.” He types, making eye contact with her. “Harley, this is my partner, Paige.” 

Harley smiles. “Hello.” 

Paige clenches her jaw, forcing out a stiff. “Hello.” 

Harley leans into Jono’s space, stage whispering into his ear. “She hates me.” 

Jono ignores her statement, still looking at Paige when he asks. “So, what brings you to the colonies?” 

Back in the office, Harley sits in the chair across from Jono, where Paige usually sits. 

Paige hasn’t smiled once since they entered the room. She’s never really had reason to be jealous before- she was the least favorite kid and given how Sam and Jay handled Lucinda’s favoritism that seemed to be a good thing. There were only so many kids in their school who cared about their grades to befriend. She hadn’t been interested in any of the boys who had wanted to make her their little housewife in high school- or the guys on a surgeon track who had wanted her to give up her career to raise kids in medical school. She’d never been so green with envy. And it was stupid - because it didn’t matter at all to her that Harley and Jono had clearly dated in the past. It had nothing to do with her professional relationship with him or their potential outside of work friendship . Even still, she wanted to bash this British woman’s head in. 

In front of her, in the desk chair, Jono is sitting and inspecting several photos of severely charred corpses. Paige leans forward over his shoulder to get a better look. 

“Some clever bastard has been giving the aristocracy a good scare. Killed off a ranking member of Parliament or three for good measure. Set Windsor Castle ablaze in 1992.” Harley says, seemingly assessing Jono and Paige as much as the case. 

“Your car bomber?” Jono types without looking up. 

“No. This one likes to burn their victims alive. Can't figure out how they do it either. Not a crumb of evidence left at the crime scene. The last one died in his front garden, his poor young wife watching helplessly as he went up in smoke.” Harley sighs. “Our suspect likes to send love letters to their victims’ sons .” 

Harley stands up, pacing some in the room before leaning over Jono’s desk, bracing her arms against the wood. “Sent one to Sir Malcolm Marsden’s son a month ago. Three days later his lordship narrowly escaped a fire in his garage, place was burned to the ground. The family’s now renting a place on Cape Cod for an extended holiday until we can catch their arsonist.” 

“Think your pyro’s that determined?” Jono asks. 

“Given the success rate, I’d say there’s a certain pleasure in it for them.” 

“And the detour to Washington D.C.?” Jono asks her, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. 

“I figured my friend Starsmore couldn’t resist a case where honeysuckles were embracing thorns.” She smirks. 

Jono doesn’t share her amusement. “I’ll run it past our arson specialist.” 

“I’ll call London and let them know.” Harley smiles, grabbing her bag and coat before heading to leave. Suddenly, she seems to remember that Paige exists and turns to face her. “Oh. Goodbye.” 

Paige waves her off and then relaxes as soon as the other woman is gone. Immediately she turns Jono in his desk chair, making him face her. “Honeysuckles embracing thorns?” 

“That’s…that’s uh, that’s from Wuthering Heights . It’s a private joke.” He types awkwardly. 

“How private?” Paige asks with a raised eyebrow. “She seems pretty comfortable with you.” 

“We knew each other in school in England. She was brilliant and I got in over my head….I definitely paid the price.” He types, chest shuddering with a slow deliberate breath. 

“Jono,” she teases. “You just keep unfolding like a flower.” 

“It was like ten years ago, Paige.” He says. She doesn’t have an idea of what his voice would sound like, but she’s sure that if he had one, he’d sound petulant. 

“Mhmmm.” She hums. “And you dropped everything in order to help her out.” 

“Extending a professional courtesy.” He types quickly. 

“Oh? Is that what you were extending?” 

His hands are shaking as he types, and she can’t tell if it's anger or embarrassment. “Look, I’m just going to run this by the arson guys and then she’s on her own.” 

Paige huffs a breath through her nose and then watches as Jono gathers his things to leave. “I don’t think you’ll be getting rid of her that easily.” 

He opens the door, looks at her for a long moment and then walks out. He doesn’t bother to close the door behind him. 

Paige didn’t necessarily like arson investigators. Growing up in a rural area where barn arsonists were a cyclical issue, she’d never had much trust in them. After meeting the arson guys at the FBI…she couldn’t really say that her opinion had changed much. 

“Beautiful.” The specialist says, staring at the projected images supplied by Harley. Jono stands in the back next to Paige. “Oh, just beautiful. Look at that. Salmon red flames. This is fourteen-hundred, fifteen-hundred degrees. This is a work of art. Was there any kind of incendiary device used?”

“Yes actually.” Harley says. “The victim’s body.” 

“Spontaneous combustion?” He asks, looking to Jono for support. Jono doesn’t even look at him. 

“He was murdered. However, we've turned up no evidence that tells us how the body caught fire.” Harley says, shutting off the slide projector. 

“Huh.” The specialist says. “That’s odd. People don’t normally catch on fire…I mean, we burn, but we don't conduct all that well. There's usually some kind of extraneous fuel involved like candle wax, gasoline, something flammable and incendiary that adheres to the skin.” 

“So an accelerant.” Jono types, not even looking up. 

“Like an accelerant. Yes.” The specialist says. 

“But we didn’t find anything.” Harley says. “Just a bit of magnesium at two of the sites.” 

“That's aliphatic pyrolysis. It's a residue remaining after an exothermic reaction.” The specialist says apologetically. “There’s been some arsons in Seattle and Pennsylvania that have burned so hot that firemen hosing them down only makes it worse…we don’t know for sure what accelerant they're using. Maybe rocket fuel? That burns so clean there’s hardly any residue… It’s hard to prove arson. Drives the insurance companies nuts…” He looks over at Paige’s unimpressed expression and then adds. “Well…that’s- that’s the only explanation I can give you.”

Jono shifts awkwardly against the wall before typing. “Well, there have been cases of pyrokinetics. People who can control and conduct fire.” 

The arson specialist’s face scrunches up in a momentary demonstration of disbelief. “Well, I've seen fire bend around corners, seen it bounce like a rubber ball. Fire's got a certain genius, you know? A certain demon poetry. It's like it's got a mind of its own. But I've never seen one that can defy the laws of physics, not when you figure it out. You've, uh…” He looks between Paige and Harley then back to Jono, smirking a bit. “You’ve got quite a case for yourself, Starsmore. I almost wish I could be in your shoes.” 

Jono doesn’t dignify the man with a response and walks out of the room. 

Paige sits in their office alone, monopolizing Jono’s desk chair and the free use of the open expanse of his desk to look over some of the X-Files that do interest her. There’s a number that worry her, more for her sake than Jono’s- ones that would pull them deep into Appalachia where she’s afraid that she won’t be able to run from what she was raised to be. She nervously twirls a strand of hair around her finger as she looks into Jono’s slapshod notes about Kentucky’s Pentecostal churches. 

He walks into the room, shutting the door behind him so quickly and quietly that Paige knows, instinctually, that she’s not going to like what he says. 

“You’re off the hook on this one.” He types, sitting across from her in what is normally her chair. 

She frowns, sitting up straighter. “What do you mean?” 

“I’m not putting you through this.” He says, making eye contact that he quickly drops. 

“Through what , Jono?” Paige says. “Your little reunion?” 

“Through Harley’s mindgames.” He says, staring at the woodgrain of the desk. 

“Speak plainly or don’t speak.” Paige snaps, then winces when she realizes it came out meaner than intended. 

Jono doesn’t say anything for a moment, but stands and moves to one of the filing cabinets, sitting down cross legged beside it as he opens a drawer to dig for a file with one hand, the other typing. “There’s- it’s stupid….but I hate fire.” He puts the lightwriter down for a bit, finding the file he wants and then dropping his hands in his lap. The awkward silence lasts a whole minute before he types again. “Hate it. Scared to death of it.” He sighs through his nose. “When I- when it happened- the doctors- they said it was like I’d been set on fire from the inside. Almost like I’d swallowed a bomb even though I hadn’t. For years I’ve had nightmares about burning alive- night terrors about waking up to watch myself explode again….” 

Paige is silent for a moment- the doctor in her is mentally going over what she’s seen of Jono’s injuries- the scars that look like tears and burns that litter his face and chest- but she’s also his friend. And when she looks at her friend she sees him more drawn into himself than she’s ever seen him before. “And she knows about this?” 

“Classic Harley.” He says, shrugging. He’s trying for nonchalant but Paige can see the stiff line of his spine. “Ten years it’s taken me to forget about her. And then she comes at me with a case like this.” 

Paige licks her lips and draws them into a thin line. Her accent is out in full force when she responds. “So what? She knows the power she’s got over you and she wants t’make you walk through fire?” 

There’s a twinge in Jono’s cheek that might be the hint of a smile, but could just as easily be a flinch. “Harley is fire. But thanks for your concern.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you?” 

Jono stands. He doesn’t look at her when he responds. “Sometimes, a man has to face his past.” 

It’s weird having Harley stand where Paige should be. Weirder still that it bothers him. The FBI had never given him a partner before, and at first he hadn’t wanted one- but Paige had grown on him, and now it felt weird to be on a case without her. 

“I pull this report from the wire.” He types, standing in the waiting room of Boston’s Mercy Hospital. “Witnesses are saying that a man caught fire in the bar last night but that there wasn’t a body.” 

Harley smirks at him. “Any indications of an accelerant or am I supposed to believe this was spontaneous?” 

Jono sighs through his nose, passing the report to her and then signing them in on the clipboard. “The bar's across the street from the fire station. It burned to the ground before they had a chance to even respond. The fire marshall said it burned so hot, it turned the concrete foundation into sponge cake. This woman was in the bar.” 

Jono leads them into the woman’s hospital room, sitting down on the chair next to the bed quietly. “Hello. Miss Kotchek?” 

She turns to him, eyeing the machines around the bed and then him warily. “Yes?” 

“I’m Special Agent Starsmore with the FBI and this is Inspector Davis. Can we talk to you for a minute?” 

Harley stands on the other side of the woman’s bed and Jono bites back a comment about how he thinks it’s pretty rude to make a burn victim turn from side to side just to look at the people who intruded on her space. “Can you tell us what happened in the bar last night?” 

Kotchek continues to look at Jono as she talks and he jots down notes in a small notebook, not making as much effort to make sure other people can read it as usual. “There was this guy. I'd had a few drinks, so... he sat next to me and he did this thing. It was like a magic trick where he lit his finger on fire….and then I turned around and he went up in flames.” Jono swallows hard as Harley asks the woman to describe the man. “He was good looking I guess? Blond hair.” 

“Long or short?” Harley asks, making sure that Jono is writing it down. 

Kotchek turns her head slowly, looking up at the ceiling. “I’ve already given the police the information.” 

Jono doesn’t lean forward to make eye contact with her. “Do you think that you could work with a composite artist to get a sketch for us?” 

“I had a few drinks.” She whispers. 

“What about your full name and address?” Harley asks. 

“I-” Kotchek licks her lips, looking on the verge of tears. “I live with someone…he thinks I was at school last night.” 

Jono looks to where her hands shake against the mattress, the tremor in her voice, the water pooling in her eyes. “That’s no problem.” He types, wishing he could speak to her gently. “You can come down to the field office and work with somebody there. I'll give you a minute to think about it, okay?”

The woman responds with a small nod and Jono responds in kind, standing and beckoning Harley out the door with him. 

“Well done.” Harley says. “Casually disregard her indiscretion. Firm but polite until she agrees.” 

“It’s a technique I learned from my relationship with you.” He types. “But that’s not what I was doing. She was scared and I was understanding- that’s it.” 

Harley audibly swallows. “Yes, well I see that you didn’t lose your sense of humour after all. It’s still mean.” 

Jono doesn’t look at her. “It was a cheap shot. I don’t want to dredge up the past. Let’s just focus on the case.” Harley takes the notebook from him and walks away without a word. He hates that he feels like he’s chasing after her. “Harley-” 

“Ten years is more than enough time to forgive and forget a youthful indiscretion, Jonothan.” She says quietly. 

“My friend tells me I have the memory of an elephant.” He responds, tactfully choosing to leave out the fact that Angelo would then add ‘like me’ to the end of that statement. Harley didn’t need to be privy to his inside jokes. 

She smiles, touching his arm and then trailing her hand up to his shoulder playfully. “So then you haven’t forgotten another youthful indiscretion? Atop Emily Brontё’s tombstone in Haworth in West Yorkshire?”

Jono stiffens some. “Like I said. Just stick to the case.” 

Harley sighs. “You know, it has occurred to me that we’re going through an awful lot of trouble to find a man who was burnt to a crisp.” 

“If they’d found a body, then maybe I’d be able to agree with you.” He says. He steps back into Kotchek’s room. “Can we count on you?” 

She turns her head to him and nods. “Oh- I uh- I remembered something else about the guy. He had an accent- kinda sounded like Crocodile Dundee.” 

Paige did not like the office when Jono wasn't around. His organization system was textbook perfect and she hated it . While it made sense as an archive- she didn’t appreciate the structure of the system or the fact that she couldn’t really see anything with it all put away. She’d already read through three of his Punk Planet magazines, had taken several pages of the legal pad on the desk to draft her own X-Files organization system, and had called home to check on her siblings and she was bored . 

Jono might have “let her off the hook” for this one, but that didn’t mean she had to listen to him. He wasn’t her boss - he was just a man. And she was worried about him. 

“Tell me your ex came across an ocean just to manipulate you and then tell me to sit it out.” She grumbles, flipping open the copy of the file she had made for herself when Harley had first approached Jono. She reads through the autopsy and crime scene reports for an hour- pouring over them with a fine toothed comb, a highlighter, and a fairly solid understanding of fire and thermodynamics. 

She sighs, plopping her head onto the desk. She groans. “There’s still two things that don’t make sense...what kinda accelerant would be this untraceable? And then, they’ve all burned around loved ones in their homes…how did the arsonist get access to multiple victims without being noticed as a common thread? Feels like a lousy investigation…” 

She groans again, resigning herself to having to talk to the arson specialist again. She groans louder, remembering his thinly veiled comment about her and Harley. She really wishes she didn’t have to do this. She forces herself out of the chair, grabbing the file as she heads out of the office and upstairs. 

She pokes her head into the arson lab, knocking lightly on the door. “Uh- excuse me?” 

The man looks up from where he sits at his desk, circling things on a photograph. “Yes?” 

“Special Agent Paige Guthrie…Can I steal a moment?” 

He doesn’t seem to recognize her from earlier. “Oh yeah sure, come in- I’m just looking at a Mafia torch fire.” 

Paige walks in and coughs awkwardly. “I’m uh- I’m working with Agent Starsmore?” 

He nods, not looking up from his current work. “Oh yeah, wild case. What can I do for you?” 

“You mentioned something about rocket fuel?” Paige asks hesitantly. “That could be used as an accelerant-” 

“That was just a theory.” He cuts her off quickly. “Speculation. It still doesn’t explain how he ignited it.” 

“Well…what if he put some of it in like…a hand cream or-” 

He turns around in his chair, pulling off his glasses to fix her with a firm look. “Listen, you’ve got to understand. Even the smallest traces of this stuff can produce temperatures of over three-thousand kelvin.” He snaps his fingers some, a nonsense pattern that seems to help him think. “I mean…..it’s probably not impossible . It would have to be extremely diluted- but I mean….you’d still need some way to light it.” 

She nods. “Thanks, I’ll uh- leave you to it.” 

She steps out of his office, and then makes her way back down to the bullpen, thinking through how the accelerant could have been used- what might have ignited it. As she walks through she hears other agents asking to cross-check employment records or immigration records to determine suspect validity. Her eyes widen in realization and she rushes down the stairs to the office. Once downstairs, she immediately fires off an email, asking for immigration information of anyone who came with the Marsdens. She then makes a phone call, contacting authorities in the UK asking for a list of household staff of each victim to cross-check. She knows all too well how invisible the working class can be. 

It’s raining in Boston- it had rained the last time that Jono was in Boston, and the time before that, and the time before that. He was fairly certain it was a curse of some kind. The only consolation is that damp wood is harder to light. 

“Do you remember the reports I told you about? People who can control and conduct fire? Pyrokinetics?” He types. He’s huddled under Harley’s umbrella so that he can still talk while staying dry. 

“Faintly- where are you going with this?” 

“I think,” he says, mind racing over the report they received from Miss Kotchek about the man’s abilities. “I think this guy just sent us a message that he’s far more exotic.” 

“I’d say so.” Harley replies, less sarcastically than Paige would have. “I mean, he can set himself on fire.” Jono doesn’t respond immediately, walking awkwardly next to her. It feels wrong. She sighs. “What?” 

“Just not used to someone so quick to agree with me.” He replies. 

Harley looks at him like she’s looking through him. “Oh.” 

“What kind of protection does the family have?” Jono asks. “Did they opt for private security?” 

“Their driver is a very capable bodyguard.” Harley says. 

Jono thinks that a singular bodyguard is probably not enough to stop a fire but keeps that particularly scathing thought to himself. “Well, the Marsdens should look into getting some additional men and limiting their public exposure.” 

“Oh.” Harley says. “Well they’ve got a party being held in their honour tonight in Boston…I suppose they’ll have to cancel.”  

Jono sighs and his nose twitches. “Unless you want to set a trap.” 

Harley smirks, opening the car door. “Well…we’ll have to be discreet . The party starts at eight-o-clock at the Venerable Plaza. I’ll be travelling with the family but you could go ahead and take a look?” Jono nods as Harley begins to collapse the umbrella, leaving him out in the rain. “Oh, and Jono? I’ve taken a room at the hotel for the night.” 

He sighs through his nose as the rain soaks into his hair, the curls weighing down against his forehead and falling in his eyes. 

Jono’s always found nice hotels to be an awkward experience. He’s perfectly capable of identifying numbers, using a key, and carrying his own bag thank you very much . Nonetheless, he gives the bellhop a bill from his wallet and thanks him with a quick sign as he enters the room. The fact that it’s technically Harley’s room makes him feel uneasy- queasy in a way that reminds him how much more unpleasant vomiting has become since the incident. He’ll have to watch what he eats. 

He sits down on the queen sized bed and sighs through his nose, watching his boots sink into the thick carpet. He rocks his feet back and forth on his heels for a moment, trying to identify the sinking feeling in his gut. He jumps when his cell phone rings, startled out of his contemplation. 

He quickly answers, relaxing some when he hears Paige’s voice. He drops the phone on the bed and puts the lightwriter next to it, letting her know the name of the hotel and the room number to call. She calls him back quickly on the hotel phone, and he’s grateful to be able to use the speakerphone. 

“Hey, it’s me.” Paige says. “Where are you?” 

“Boston.” Jono replies. “Why?” 

“I’ve got something I need to show you.” Paige says, and he can hear the sound of her shuffling papers around. He does not want to know what she’s done to his desk. “I’m coming up there.” 

“What have you got?”

“I might have some information on the identity of your arson suspect.” Paige says. “Are you there Jono? The signal in this basement is awful.” 

“Yeah, yeah I’m here.” He types. “But listen, Paige-” 

“Can I meet you somewhere?” 

“Yes but well- I’m afraid that I have to anticipate having my hands full.” 

Paige sucks in a sharp, pained breath on the other end of the line and Jono pretends he doesn’t hear it. 

Jono’s always hated posh parties. He hated them when Gayle took him to them when they were teenagers, he hated having to attend them at Oxford, he hated when Charles insisted he come to his functions- he hated it . A flute of champagne sits, untouched in his hand as he leans against the wall by the buffet table he can’t eat from. 

“Enjoying yourself?” Harley asks, sauntering up beside him, touching his shoulder. 

“What do you think?” He signs. 

She laughs and for a second he can almost forget how she treats him. “Do you think it’s safe enough that we could indulge ourselves in a dance?” She doesn’t wait for him to reply, merely pulls him away from the wall, dragging him into a dance, his hand barely managing to leave the champagne on the table. 

Jono doesn’t know how to slow dance- and he makes a point of telling her so, his signing as pointed and annoyed-looking as possible. 

She ignores his protests. “It doesn’t look like our arsonist is going to make an appearance…but that doesn’t mean there won’t be any fires to put out. You know- I’ve thought of you often…”

Paige enters the building, following the sound of classical music until she stumbles upon the open door of the ballroom. She pauses in the doorway, looking around the room for Jono and Harley. Her stomach  churns when she sees them dancing together- although she’s not sure that Jono’s arms should be doing that in a waltz. She sighs and rolls her eyes, preparing to turn around to leave before realizing that Jono is signing to his dance partner. She can’t understand him- and she realizes that he hardly ever signs around her . She looks back towards them, just in time to see Harley plant a kiss on the fabric over where Jono’s mouth would be. Her eye twitches and she looks away- not seeing where Jono immediately pulls himself away. 

She takes a deep breath, trying to collect herself in the hallway. A beeping sound is coming from one of the sensors on the wall and she stares at it. It looks to be some sort of control panel, with a list of floors and lights for smoke and fire sensors. Both of the sensor lights are lit for the fourteenth floor. She sighs and then rushes into the ballroom, grabbing Harley and Jono by the arms and pulling them out of the room with her. 

“There’s a fire upstairs.” Paige says. “Fourteenth floor.” 

Harley goes very still, and then whispers in a hushed voice. “That’s where the children are.” 

Jono makes eye contact with Paige for a long moment and then shoves both her and Harley towards the entrance of the hotel, while he himself makes a beeline for the stairs. Paige makes an effort to chase after him, her mind running the chances of additional damage to his lungs and throat due to smoke inhalation, of his fear, of the fact that she knew that some of his scars were from burns even if he didn’t. Harley drags her back, pulling her out of the building as she sees the Marsdens running towards the exit. 

Jono rushes up the stairs as quickly as possible, he’s in decent shape but he can hear his doctor’s voice in his head- “you’re not seventeen anymore Jonothan, your body won’t be as resilient if you push yourself too hard.” His head pounds as his nostrils fill with smoke, the heat of the fire making him sweat, and his heart pounds dangerously fast as he grows lightheaded, holding himself up against the wall that burns his hand with the heat of the fire. He tries to wrap his jacket sleeve around his hand when he turns the doorknob, and then falls to the floor, wheezing. He looks up and can see the oldest Marsden son trying to protect his younger siblings from the flames, pushing towards the exit and the stairs slowly but surely. Jono tries to stand but collapses to the floor, lungs burning, unable to send enough oxygen to his body. He tries to crawl the other way, squinting into the smoke and shadow. 

Firefighters rush up the stairs, grabbing the younger kids and carrying them out of the fire while a third man without protective gear, puts his arm under the oldest son’s armpits and helps him out. Jono can feel the man’s eyes on him as he leaves. 

Another firefighter makes it up to the fourteenth floor and grabs him, carrying him downstairs. “Here we go. Come on buddy, come on. Come on, here we go…” 

The firefighter does him the dignity of setting him down and helping him stumble out of the building when they get to the first floor, so at least he doesn’t have to face the indignity of being carried out. Ahead, he can see the man without protective gear being thanked by the Marsdens as he keeps one arm protectively around their adult son’s shoulders. The firefighter sets him down next to the ambulance and he collapses, watching Harley approach the man with the Marsdens and shake his hand. Paige rushes to his side. 

She grabs his face in her hands, wiping the ash away with her thumbs. “ Jonothan. Evan. Starsmore .” She scolds, accent thicker than he’s heard it yet. “Don’t you ever do that shit to me again, y’hear?” 

He wheezes, leaning into her touch. He tries and fails to successfully sign, “I’m fine.” But his hand shakes as he signs the “fine.” 

“I can’t understand a word of that.” Paige huffs. “But don’t you fuckin’ lie to me. I’m a doctor , and I ain’t blind.” 

His wheezing turns into a poor attempt at laughter and he squeezes her shoulder weakly. Paige helps the paramedic put an oxygen mask over his face, taking the time to make sure his curls aren’t pulled by the elastic. The rest of the night is a blur.

Jono wakes in an unfamiliar hotel room, he’s disconcerted to find that his shirt is off and panics when he sits up, wheezing some. Paige sits on the bed next to him, she’s cross legged and pouring over some files. She passes him a glass of water, which he takes gladly. As his eyes adjust to the morning light he can see his leather jacket and some of his clothes are sitting over the armchair in the room. His lightwriter sits on the nightstand next to him. He takes it. 

“How did you- where are we?” 

“My hotel room.” Paige answers, without looking up. “I talked the firefighters into letting me into your room to look for anything that was FBI business to see if it could be salvaged. I left with your bag.” 

He freezes. “How did you do that?” 

“Southern charm.” She answers, rolling her eyes. “I have something to show you, if you’re awake enough to think…did you know that you snore?” 

He can tell that it’s a deflection. Her eyes are red-rimmed and he can’t tell if it’s from lack of sleep or from crying or both. He adjusts himself and leans closer to her. “Are the kids okay?” 

“Fine.” She says. “Everyone’s fine but you…. Harley’s down the hall.” 

“I’m doing better now.” He types, sheepish. 

Paige sighs. “What- what happened last night Jono? Why did you-” 

“There were kids up there.” He types. “And then I panicked and froze.” 

“That could have happened to anyone-” 

“Yeah, but it happened to me. I hared out. Plain and simple.” He types. “What did you want to show me?” 

Harley comes into the room through the unlocked door and smiles when she sees him sitting up. “Oh good, you’re alright.” 

“Hi.” Jono types, uncomfortable. 

Paige seemingly comes to the rescue. “I was just about to ask Jono. What do we know about the man who saved the kids? The driver?” 

“I already checked him out.” Harley says. “He's worked on the property for a few years. He’s a good friend of their oldest son. No record. His references checked out. They were lucky he was there. But the man we’re looking for is English .” 

Paige hums in suspicion but bites her tongue. 

“Jono.” Harley says. “We’re all eager to get back. The Marsdens have made travel arrangements to return to England the day after tomorrow…I’ll be going with them, but I’ll give you a ring at the bureau before I leave.” 

“Yeah,” He types. “Bye.” 

He watches Harley leave with a strange feeling in his stomach that he’s choosing to attribute to the smoke. 

“You okay?” Paige asks softly. 

“Yeah.” He types. “What did you want to show me?” 

She smiles a bit and scoots a hair closer to him on the bed. “Well, I did a little checking of my own. I didn't know a whole lot about arson or arsonists so I took the opportunity... for my own edification, of course.” His chest feels warm and he nudges her with his elbow. “I ran a profile of possible incendiary fuels and accelerants that could have been used in the crimes. I also took the liberty of running a search through Interpol of all the gardeners, manservants and domestic help that were hired by the murder victims at the time of their death.”

“And?” Jono asks. 

“And none of these fucking people can apparently tie their own goddamn shoes.” Paige spits. “There were over two-hundred names. And not a duplicate. Except one. A ‘St. John Allerdyce.’ He worked as a gardener for two of the victims.”

“What did you find on him?” 

“Nothing.” 

“So he’s clean?” Jono asks, eyebrow raised. 

“Apparently, he was questioned by Scotland Yard and they released him but I dug a little further. St. John Allerdyce is a documented citizen of Australia, paid his taxes, never been on the dole, a model citizen until he died in 1981 in a Sydney tenement fire.” Jono’s eyebrow raises higher and he leans in closer, trying to read over her shoulder. “I know, that's what I thought. So, I checked a little further. St. John Allerdyce came up again. In fact, it came up twice. First, on a list of death certificates listed among a group of children who died in ritual sacrifice by a satanic cult in 1973 in Canberra, Australia.”

“Where else did you find him?” Jono asks. 

“You're going to love this. On immigration paperwork to England about eight years ago. And- on a list of recent visas issued by the British government. Allerdyce's passport was stamped by U.S. immigration officials two weeks ago at the port of entry in Boston.” Paige says, turning to him with a small smile. 

Jono types without thinking. “Paige you’re better than all of Scotland Yard and I could kiss you for it right now.” 

Paige stares at him. “What?” 

Jono realizes what he’s said and goes red. Forcing himself up from the bed as he types with one hand. “Call the local field office in Boston of the F.B.I. and get them to fax to you the composite that the witness did of the man who burned down the bar and then get them to fax it to every local law enforcement agency in the area.”

He hastily starts pulling on his pants and tugging on boots as Paige watches him. “What are you going to do?” 

“I'm going to try and catch Harley, this guy could be waiting for them.” He types out. 

Paige stands and grabs him by the shoulders, pressing him down into the chair. “Of course you are, after I properly bandage your dumb ass.” 

Jono thinks about protesting, but this close to Paige’s face, he’s pretty sure that her eyes are red from crying- and the only thing that makes sense is that she was crying over him . So he lets her wrap fresh, new, bandages around his chest tightly, her hands steady and sure and practiced. When she’s done and has tucked in the end of the bandage she gives him a small nod. “ Now you can put on your shirt.” 

Before he leaves the hotel room, Jono gives her a brief, but tight hug. He then grabs the car keys from the table and rushes out the door. 

Paige stares at the door as it closes behind him and then shakes herself- heading to the phone where she does as Jono requested and calls the local office, requesting a composite of the arson subject. After sitting on hold for over fifteen minutes, the machine in the room finally whirs and the image comes through. She grabs the page and looks at it, realization dawning on her. “Shit- it’s the driver.” 

She immediately reaches for her cellphone and dials Jono’s number. A robotic voice speaks, but it’s not the one she wants to hear. “We're sorry. The cellular customer you are trying to reach is out of the area.”

Jono pulls up to the Marsden family’s Cape Cod house, walking through the front doors to find Harley and Lord Marsden embracing on the stairs. He stares at her coldly. The couple pull away from each other and Lord Marsden clears his throat, excusing himself upstairs. 

“His name is St. John Allerdyce.” He types. 

“Who?” Harley asks. 

“Your arsonist. Paige found him, no thanks to you.” He types. “Where’s the rest of the family?” 

“They went outside for a walk.” 

“Well go find them.” He types. “We’ve got to get them packed and out of here.” 

Harley looks at him oddly for a moment before listening and going outside to find the family. She returns a few minutes later, ushering the family inside. The family goes upstairs to pack, and Harley and Jono watch each other distrustfully. A knock at the door startles them both, but Jono opens it to reveal Paige on the other side. 

“It’s the driver.” She says. “I tried to call you.” 

“I know.” Jono says. “He disappeared.” 

Wordlessly, he and Paige both seem to have the same idea and she grabs his arm. The two of them rush to the garage, looking around until Paige finds a can of what she proclaims to be argotypoline.

“It’s one of the accelerants he could have used.” Paige says. “We’ll have to tell them.” 

They return to the main house, watching as Harley talks to the Marsdens about Allerdyce. They don’t even seem to recognize the man, just his name. Paige sighs, and pulls the composite sketch out of her pocket, handing it to Lord Marsden without any attempt to veil her contempt. Jono spares a fleeting thought to the fact that she’s pretty when she’s pissed off about the existence of aristocracy. 

“Oh.” Lord Marsden says. “Robert’s…hired friend. He isn’t our driver, he’s the caretaker. He looks after the younger children.” 

Lady Marsden grabs her husband’s arm tightly. “And he’s upstairs with them now!” 

Paige rushes up the stairs with Jono hot on her heels. The room is empty but Paige quickly checks the attached bathroom, her breath hitches and Jono’s soon behind her. 

“Well,” She says, voice measured as they stare at the charred husk of a man hunched over the toilet. “I think we found the driver.” 

Harley’s voice calls them from the next room and Jono grabs Paige’s wrist, dragging her with him to the other room. When they arrive Jono’s chest feels uncomfortably tight at the sight of the curtains on fire. 

Harley looks at Jono, his own panic reflected in her eyes. “They just went up all by themselves.” 

Jono looks around the room, hoping for something to use to smother the fire. As he looks, a painting above the bed bursts into flame. Paige grabs a sheet off the dresser and tries to smother the fires, shrieking in surprise when the bed catches fire as well. Harley starts pulling them out of the room. Paige smells the sheet in her hands as she’s dragged. “...it’s fuel.” 

Paige drops it when it catches fire and Jono kicks it away into the room, closing the door behind him as he’s yanked into the hall. 

“I think he rigged the house.” Paige says. She looks panicked for only a moment and then it seems as though it’s passed. “Harley go make sure the family is out of the house, Jono and I will try to find a fire extinguisher.” 

He knows that’s not what she really means. That she wants to take this guy down herself, and he isn’t about to deny her that. So he nods. 

“What about the children?” Harley asks. “Lady Marsden will-” 

Jono points firmly at himself, and then gestures for Harley to leave. He and his partner can handle this. 

Paige starts to clear the upstairs, cognizant of Jono’s health, even in this situation. He makes a note to buy her flowers for this when things are back to normal as he canvasses the downstairs, checking each room for the children. A dog barks behind a door and there’s a thudding sound. He tries the doorknob but it’s locked, children’s coughing inside. Jono tries and fails to break the door open by slamming it with his shoulder. 

A cold voice speaks from behind him at the end of the hallway. “Time to call 911.” 

Jono turns around to face the voice, gun drawn. Allerdyce stands at the end of the hallway, Marsdens’ oldest son, Robert, behind him. Allerdyce grins and raises his hands in faux surrender, snapping his fingers. The hallway explodes into flames, Jono backs up cautiously, back against the locked door as the walls near where he was standing also catch fire. 

Robert’s eyes look wet with tears. “St. John- Johnny- just stop. My siblings- this isn’t necessary- they didn’t do anything wrong-” 

Allerdyce turns around to look at him, pausing when he notices that Paige is at the top of the stairs. Her voice echoing down to the hallway. “Freeze! Federal agent!” 

“You won’t shoot me.” Allerdyce says, taking a step towards her. 

Paige, in a move that shocks him into stillness, slides down the bannister of the staircase to get closer to her target. Now much closer to the arsonist. “ Stay right where you are.” 

Allerdyce takes another step towards you. “You won’t shoot. Because you don’t know that the spark from your gun won’t blow the whole house.” 

Paige starts to pull the trigger on her weapon but hesitates, just long enough for Allerdyce to smirk, pulling Robert along by the wrist to walk past her. Harley appears from the side, throwing the can of accelerant onto Allerdyce. Paige lowers her gun slightly, looking at Harley in something almost like approval. Allerdyce staggers out the door, trying to wipe the accelerant from his face. The women follow him out, Harley dragging Robert with her, ensuring his safety. 

Jono sinks down to the floor, looking at the fire all around him. The children in the room are now screaming. With each time he pounds on the door he winces and wheezes in pain, his hands burning with each strike. Finally he’s able to burst the door open. The children rush into him with tears in their eyes. He takes a steadying breath and then picks them up, one in each arm and runs out of the house as fast as he can. 

Outside, Jono lets the children down, relieved when they run to their parents’ arms. Allerdyce turns around to watch the house burn, spinning around and laughing in obvious glee. “You can’t kill me!” He yells, bursting into flame himself. “You can’t fight fire in fire.” 

Paige wraps an arm around Jono’s waist, helping to support him as his lungs still scream for air because of the smoke inside the house. “Fucker doesn’t know all that much about fire, does he?” 

Paige thinks that what she’s doing is probably a little mean. But she’s also decided, as she silently tiptoes into the doorway of their office, that she doesn’t really care.

Jono’s  sitting at the desk, wire-framed reading glasses on the bridge of his nose as he reads something, it looks like a real book and not one of his stupid magazines. 

Paige smirks to herself and then speaks, putting on a fake British accent that she’d practiced over the weekend. “Care to take me to lunch?” He jumps and she grins at him. “Scare you?” 

“You have no idea.” Jono types, but now that he knows it’s her, he looks somewhat amused. 

“Where’s Harley?” Paige asks, sitting down on the edge of the desk, craning her neck to try to see what he’s reading. 

“I don’t know.” He answers, looking at her pointedly, as if he knows exactly what she’s doing. 

“You don’t know?” She asks, suddenly much more interested. Really she’s almost glowing with the knowledge. “She didn’t call?” 

“No.” He types. He reaches into the desk drawer and places a tape on top of the desk. “Had this delivered to me though.” 

“Did you play it?” She asks, grabbing it and looking it over. 

“No.” 

“Don’t you want to know what’s on it?” She asks, placing it back down in front of him once she’s sure that just looking at it won’t give her any answers.

“Not particularly.” He responds. “Not my kind of music.”