Title: Amor Caritas I: Grief
Author: Marguerite
Written: April 1999
Rating: PG-13 (disturbing imagery, language)
Classification: S, A
Archive: Yes to Gossamer/Ephemeral, yes also to others, but please let me know where it goes

Summary: The death of Mulder's mother sends Scully undercover to unravel a mystery...and determine her own destiny.

Author's notes will be at the end

St. Joseph's hospital, Sunday

One of the shoes squeaked.

They were the only two people in the hospital waiting room at this ungodly hour of the morning. The sound of footfall was clearly audible against the newly-washed floor, especially since every other step was accompanied by a leathery creak.

Scully watched Mulder pace up and down in his mud-caked running shoes, noticed that it was the left shoe that made the noise, and checked her watch once more. "Someone should be here soon with news. You really ought to sit down."

He looked over at her. "I'm not tired," he said, the words belied by the gray cast to his skin and the shadows beneath his eyes.

"Mulder." Scully got up and planted herself firmly in front of her partner, making sure she had his attention before speaking again. "We drove for hours to get here. You're upset, and you're anxious. I think you should sit down before you fall down."

"That's your medical opinion," he stated in a flat, dry tone.

"It's my opinion as a human being looking at another human being who's trying to maintain inhuman strength. Come on." She took her seat and patted the place next to her.

Mulder's smile was a small arc at the corner of his downturned mouth. He let his shoulder bump against Scully's in a tiny gesture of appreciation as he took the offered chair. In return, Scully smiled and gave his arm a minute squeeze before organizing her thoughts about the evening's events.

It had been a long drive from D.C. to Connecticut, seeming longer because they had traveled by night in a strained, apprehensive silence. Mulder had gone straight to Scully's apartment after he received the call and she had gone with him at once, heading straight to her car because it was the one that had been checked the most recently. There was no sense in putting more people in the hospital, Scully reasoned, guiding the shaken Mulder to the passenger's seat.

Now they were waiting for word on her condition. Scully suspected a stroke, especially given Teena Mulder's history, but there was no word waiting for her son when he arrived. An orderly told them to wait, and wait they did.

Just as Mulder was about to begin another lap around the room, a white-coated woman entered. "Fox Mulder?"

"Yes, that's me. Are you...?"

"Leigh Burns. I was on duty when she was brought in. Mr. Mulder, it appears as if your mother has suffered a small stroke."

He glanced at Scully in silent acknowledgment of his partner's diagnosis. "How's she doing?"

"Pretty well, although she's rather disoriented at the moment. We'll want to keep a close eye on her for a few days. I'm reasonably certain that she should be almost unaffected. The drooping on the left side of her mouth and the weakness of her left arm and leg are already improving. The aphasia was fairly mild; she was even able to talk for a few moments before she went to sleep."

"So...she's going to be all right?" Mulder relaxed visibly, his body going limp with relief and fatigue. Scully put herself beside him, letting him rest his weight against her.

"I'd say so, yes. She's sleeping right now, but you can come and see her first thing in the morning. Do you have somewhere to stay?"

"I booked us some rooms at the Hampton Inn," Scully informed her.

"I'll see that he gets a few hours of sleep, and we'll be by in the morning. If there are any developments, you can reach my cell phone. I'm familiar with her case history." Scully handed a card to Dr. Burns, who studied it carefully.

"Special Agent Dana Scully, M.D. I'm impressed." She smiled warmly at the two exhausted visitors. "I'll keep you informed about her condition. If you don't hear from me, just come in at nine tomorrow morning when visiting hours start."

"Thank you very much." Mulder shook hands with the doctor, then followed Scully out into the night air. The cool breeze made him shiver. Scully saw the tremor and wrapped her arms around his waist.

"It's going to be okay, Mulder," she told him.

His weary smile showed that he believed her with all his heart.

Journal entry, Wednesday afternoon.

We are going to bury Teena Mulder tomorrow.

Of all the strange and puzzling things I've encountered, this has to be among the most inexplicable. Mulder and I saw her the day she died, and she was sitting up in bed feeding herself. She recognized us both and even commented on the change in my hairstyle. When I saw her last, she was holding Mulder's hand and mother and son were talking softly about how sorry they were not to see one another unless there was an emergency.

It seemed as if everything would be all right for them. Finally.

That night, she passed away.

Dr. Burns was agitated and saddened. There was no reason for Mrs. Mulder's death. Her blood pressure was excellent, her EKG almost normal, and she had no sign of reaction to any of her medications. Yet her heart simply stopped in the middle of the night.

My ears still ring with Mulder's outraged cries as they echoed through the corridors, demanding everything from post-mortem tests to Dr. Burns' head on a platter. The only way I could stop him from breaking every piece of furniture in the hospital was to agree to do the autopsy myself.

To do so is a violation of so many codes of ethics that I hardly know where to begin. But I know that Mulder is standing by his door, waiting for my knock, and I will have to use all of my skills to find out what really happened to his last living relative.

May God help me.

St. Joseph's Hospital morgue, Wednesday

Scully reached overhead and rewound the tape recorder, the movement slow and painful to her overworked shoulders. With a heavy sigh, she began to stitch the Y-shaped incision in the cadaver's chest.

Her needle left small, precise tucks in the white flesh; she chose to perform that task herself rather than leave it for an assistant. But this had been Teena Mulder, whose son was waiting outside the door for her verdict. This woman had given life to the man who was probably the only friend Dana Scully had in the world.

Scarcely an hour ago she had held Teena Mulder's heart in her hands, examining it for visible signs of damage. What was undetectable was the damage wrought by a tragic history: a distant, uncommunicative husband, an affair with a man she did not love, a daughter whose fate could never be known, a son whose descent into obsessive near-madness was reminiscent of a hawk spiraling downward in the evening sky.

That heart was forever stilled, and Scully had no idea why.

She ran a gloved finger over the vials and slides that were to be sent to Pathology. Scully's external examination had revealed nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that would account for such a sudden death.

Evidence of two minor strokes, some lung damage from smoking many years ago, and the general deterioration of a body in its sixties were all she could find, and that evidence gave her no insight at all.

Moving on to the abdominal cavity, Scully continued her reconstruction. A frisson of sorrow went through her at the memory of Teena's womb, a womb as dead as her own and for reasons just as unfathomable.

She had to stop, leaning forward on the metal table until the pounding of blood in her ears subsided.

"Snap out of it," she muttered to herself, hearing overtones of her father's voice. She straightened her spine and went back to work. With great respect she shrouded the thin, violated body. She turned to leave, then changed her mind and turned back to lift the white linen gently from Teena Mulder's face. Taking a pair of scissors from her tray, she snipped off a lock of white hair from above the forehead, placed it in one of the little plastic envelopes, and tucked the memento in her pocket.

Finally she disposed of the lab coat, gloves, and cap, turned out the light, and opened the door.

In the hallway, Mulder leapt to his feet. "Well?" he demanded.

"Mulder." She placed her hand over his forearm, forestalling the barrage of questions. "My preliminary findings are inconclusive. For a woman her age, with her medical history, I'd have to say that her death was from natural causes."

"But Scully..."

"Hear me out, please." She looked up at him, at his eyes suffused with pain, and she reached up to place her palms on his face. "I've ordered tests and we may find something there. You'll have to be patient. I'm so sorry, Mulder."

He nodded, scratching her palms with the stubble on his unshaven cheeks. For just a moment he rested his forehead against hers, then he brushed his lips across her temple and pulled away.

"I'm sorry, too. For making you do this."

"It's okay," she whispered. "It's okay."

He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles and looked at the door. "I want to see her."

"I wouldn't suggest it, Mulder."

The lump in his throat was audible as he swallowed. He sagged against the wall, his chin dropping to his chest. Scully could see wetness at the corner of his eyes.

Grief.

"She's not there," Scully whispered. "She's with God. And with you." Her finger rested for a moment above Mulder's heart.

"No, Scully. She's just...gone..." His voice broke and he turned away from her, facing the wall.

Scully pressed his hand, then continued her solitary journey to the pathology lab.

Journal entry, Thursday evening

It was a paltry affair.

Mulder's mother had requested cremation and the scattering of her ashes. My family did the same for Daddy, but we did it with love and reverence. I cannot

find words to describe what I saw today.

Teena Mulder's death announcement was in the newspaper, yet her funeral was so sparsely attended as to be almost a deliberate mockery of her life. A nameless minister intoned the words, and a handful of people watched as Mulder opened the container with a steady hand and let his mother go free. He said nothing to me on the way there, nothing during the service, and nothing when we returned a while ago. He never let me stray more than a few feet from him, yet he never let me touch him.

I listened all last night and this afternoon for any sounds from his room, but there have been none. Mulder has taken his grief and swallowed it whole, putting it so far away from me that I cannot help him.

The pathology results came back negative, frustratingly so, considering that we were pinning all of our hopes for resolution on some microbe, something we could blame for this loss. Mulder came to my room after the funeral and I went over the paperwork with him.

"This isn't right, Scully," he said in a rough-edged voice. "You must have missed something."

That hurt.

Somehow I managed to keep my tone even. "We did everything we could."

"But you must have missed something!" Agitation raised the pitch and volume of the words, making them caustic against the exhaustion and frustration I was feeling.

"I haven't missed anything, Mulder, because there was nothing there to find!" He backed away a little, but I strode right up to him and stared him down. "People die, Mulder, and sometimes it's not a conspiracy or murder or...or anything but the end of a life!"

"NO! She was fine, she was FINE!" He picked up a glass, testing its heft by passing it from hand to hand. For a moment I thought he was actually going to throw it at me, but instead he

threw it at the wall. The shattering of the glass was drowned out by his accusations. "You talked to her. You saw her CHARTS! There's no way she could have just died like that. There has to be something else." He turned completely away from me and began picking up the shards of broken glass. One pierced the web between his thumb and index finger and he hissed in pain. "Son of a BITCH!" He put the injured flesh in his mouth, wincing, and my anger faded away at the sight of his blood.

"Let me see." I tugged at his arm but he didn't move. "Mulder. Let me see."

Reluctantly, he gave me his hand but kept his face averted. He glared at me when I touched the center of the gash.

"There's a piece of glass in there. Hang on." I went into the bathroom for my bag, then returned to find him staring absently at the rivulets of blood that were meandering down his wrist.

I took tweezers and pulled out the tiny shard of glass, applied antiseptic to the wound and bandaged his hand lightly. Mulder said nothing the entire time, but

looked at me with such unabashed helplessness that I wanted to weep for him. Instead I took his injured hand and gave it the barest hint of a kiss.

In that moment of contact, I felt his agony as surely as if it had been my own. There was an insistent knock on the door. I resented every step that took me away from Mulder as I walked across the room to answer it. I took the manila envelope that the bellhop handed me, thanked him tersely, and ran a fingernail under the flap, shutting the door with my hip as I did so.

Inside I found a photograph and a hand-written note from Dr. Burns:

"One of the nurses said that Mrs. Mulder was visited by a nun the evening she died. I took the liberty of acquiring a security camera shot. I doubt that this is significant, but I wanted to keep you informed."

Frowning, I put on my glasses and looked at the picture. It was of a youngish woman, light hair showing beneath her scarf-like headdress. The feeling of recognition was sudden and overwhelming.

"Mulder, do you know this woman?"

He leaned over my shoulder and looked at the photograph, his breath warm in my ear. "I've seen her before."

"Me, too. I just can't place her."

Something else suddenly occurred to me. "You know what's weird?"

Finally, Mulder looked into my eyes as he listened. O"St. Joseph's is actually a public hospital, bought by the city. One of my friends from med school did his residency here. There aren't usually members of religious orders in these hospitals unless the patient specifically requests them."

"My mother was Presbyterian," Mulder added, a spark of interest reviving his eyes. "I don't remember her mentioning any friends who were nuns. And, come to think of it, there wasn't a nun at the funeral, either."

I stuck my finger over the headdress, obscuring it. "Her face..."

Mulder's breath caught in his throat. "Oh, my God. Scully, she's ours - she's FBI. Her name is Broadway...Broadhurst..." he snapped his fingers, trying to get a last name to come to him. "Broadman! She works in VCS, she got there just as I left."

"Get on the phone to Skinner, NOW," I insisted.

"I'll pack and meet you in the lobby in fifteen minutes and we'll go straight back to D.C. If there really is something going on, Mulder, we're going to find it."

He headed for the door, then paused to look at me. "Scully, I'm..."

"It's okay," I said too quickly, needing to head him off. "I'll see you in the lobby."

I threw my things into the suitcase, making sure to bring this journal with me. Out of habit I checked all the drawers to make certain I was leaving no personal objects behind. I opened the nightstand and took out the hotel Bible.

It gave me strength; I caressed its cover before replacing it for the next visitor. The smell of its new leather lingered on my fingertips as I carried my suitcase downstairs.

Mulder wasn't in the lobby, but was already standing outside by the car, his head bowed.

"Mulder?"

I went to his side and looked up into his eyes.

"Amanda Broadman has no record of FBI employment. She has no social security number, no home, no address. She no longer exists, Scully." He looked at me with lifeless eyes. "She's been 'erased.'"

FBI Building, X-Files Office, Friday Morning

There was no remark.

Mulder usually made some comment when he found Scully sitting at his desk, but this morning there was none. Scully saw in his demeanor the signs of a wounded animal, in such pain that there was no thought of territory or domain. Mulder's languid wave stopped her in the midst of rising.

"I'm not staying," he said as he drew nearer. "Skinner found me wandering the halls and told me to get the hell out of here."

"It's probably a good idea, Mulder. You need to take a little time..."

The shared recollection of a similar conversation made them both smile ruefully. Scully thought she felt a phantom caress on her cheek, a recollection of the touch that had surprised her all those years ago, but the hand was real; Mulder was pressing his palm against her face.

"Hello, Pot," Mulder said softly. "I think my friend Kettle would like to meet you."

Scully, grateful for the contact after so much separation, sat still as she spoke. "Are you going to be all right?"

"I have to be. I'm all that's left."

"Mulder..."

She watched in consternation as Mulder left her side to collect his coat and some folders. When he got to the doorway, he turned and tried to smile. "I'm fine, Scully."

A cold chill traveled down her spine.

Seeing the slump of his defeated posture was more than she could bear. With a sigh she took the photograph of Amanda Broadman and put it into a file folder containing the recollections of the few co-workers willing to discuss her. Her sorrowful reverie was interrupted by the trilling of the phone. She dropped the folder, the contents spilling like dead leaves over her feet.

"Scully," she said breathlessly into the receiver. There was a long silence. "This is Special Agent Dana Scully. May I help you?"

The voice on the other end was young and tremulous. "Agent Scully, my...my name is Sharon and I'm at the convent - The Little Sisters of Charity."

Scully jotted down the names and made a note in the margin: "teenager...frightened?"

"Sharon, how did you get this number?"

"She gave it to me." Sharon was speaking in a whisper. "She told me to call you. She says you're the only one who can help."

"Who?"

There was a pause during which Scully sat up very straight in Mulder's chair. Finally, the girl spoke again. "Amanda Broadman. She's with us. And she needs your help."

"Wait. You're saying that Amanda Broadman is actually a nun?"

"No. She came to us in a borrowed habit and said she needed our help. She's hiding from the man who made her...I can't tell you over the phone."

"How did she know to call me?"

"It was your partner's mother that she...that she..." Scully could hear whispering in the background. "He said he'd kill HER if she didn't do it. She needs your help."

"She killed Teena Mulder? How?" The sound of her own heartbeat nearly deafened her. Oh, God, she thought, Mulder was right. "But I performed the autopsy...Let me talk to her, Sharon."

"She can't. But please, please come. I have to go."

The line went dead.

Scully replaced the receiver without looking at it; her eyes were fixed on something that only she could see.

She'd prayed for guidance. For an answer.

But not for murder.

Journal entry, late Friday Night

The girlish voice haunted me all day long. "Please, please come," she begged, and I felt the pull to follow.

I called Mulder and asked if he needed anything. Of course he said he didn't; if he were on fire he'd refuse to ask me for a glass of water to put it out. So I said good night and told him I'd call in the morning.

It didn't take me long to acquire some information on the Little Sisters of Charity. It's a working convent with an orphanage and school attached, with about a hundred sisters living there. Not too many miles from here; I could reach it easily by car. The problem is going to be getting in, but I imagine that Father McCue could do that for me. I've done stranger things at his request, after all.

As I was perusing the information, I felt Mulder's presence at the door. I can't describe how I knew he was there, but he never surprises me any more; something, some unearthly connection is always alerted just before he knocks on my door. By the time my exhausted legs dragged my feet across the room and I turned the knob, he had finally worked up enough courage to knock. "Scully," was all he said, but I heard all of the weary tones on earth in the sound of my name.

I led him in, my heart sinking. He looked awful. The toll of the last few days was visible on his pale, drawn face, and his legs seemed too weak to support his weight. "When was the last time you ate?" I inquired while I pushed him into a chair.

He shrugged.

"Or slept?" He shrugged again.

I ached with him on a primal level, yet I was also incredibly angry that he would choose to do this to himself. He watched me with listless eyes while I went to the kitchen and poured a glass of orange juice. I avoided that distant gaze until I returned and handed him the glass. "Don't throw it," I warned.

"I won't," he promised, in a childlike voice of contrition. He took a few sips and set the glass aside. I noticed that his fingers trembled.

To tell him or to let him grieve in silence...

I crouched down beside him, hoping that he would allow me to touch his hand. My fingers grazed his feverish skin and he did not pull away. But his face, the face I see in daydreams and nightmares alike, was that of a defeated man.

Once I had seen righteous anger in his eyes, in the flare of his nostrils as he spoke of finding the truth. Once there had been fire in his voice, and hope and a form of compassion that was given only to me.

Now he was an empty vessel, and I had nothing with which to fill him up again.

...please, please come...

My imagination overlaid Mulder's silent appeal with the frightened words of a young girl, and a sudden thought of Samantha made me shudder.

Mulder's fingers closed around mine and his head drooped. "Scully," was all he could say in his harsh, broken voice.

Help me, he was saying. Deliver me. Save me. Not for all the world would I have let him see my tears. Instead, I held him for as long as he would let me, not moving except to smooth the rumpled hair that lay in whispers against my cheek.

"Stay here."

I was offering my home.

My body.

If only I could bring him back.

He pulled away, grief embossed on the pale paper of his face. "I can't." He ran his fingers along my jawline as we looked at one another for an endless moment. He rose, kissed my fingers, and disappeared into the night.

Before I knew what was happening, my head was down on my arms and I was weeping, shedding tears for Mulder's rage and my own helplessness. Scully, his friend, was not able to reach him, nor could Dana, the woman, calm the restlessness in his soul.

Only Dana Scully, the sum of the parts, could give him what he must have to survive: not friendship nor love, but evidence.

The irony of it tastes like gall.

Holy Cross Hospital Cafeteria, Saturday Morning

"I'm relieved to find that you want to see me in your professional capacity, Dana," Father McCue told her as he waited for his tea to cool. "When a parishioner says she'll meet me in the hospital, I often fear the worst."

Scully smiled with genuine affection. "I'm sorry if I startled you, Father. Your housekeeper said you were doing rounds here today, so I thought I'd catch up with you." She took a deep breath and forced herself to look into the face of her priest. "I'm unofficially investigating a case, and it turns out that I may need to spend some time at the Little Sisters of Charity."

He looked at her with a grin. "You want to go undercover as a nun?"

"No." She smiled back, then shook her head. "No sister acts for me, Father. But I'd like to arrange for a religious retreat."

"It's a working convent...they don't usually..."

"Father, please."

He looked into her eyes, at the straightforward gaze of a woman who had beaten death and despair, and he nodded. "I'll make some calls. The Mother Superior will need to know who you really are. Who do you WANT to be?"

"Let's keep it simple. I'm Dana Scully, a doctor in need of spiritual guidance."

"Ah." He took a sip of his tea. "Then you want me to tell them the truth."

Scully bowed her head, caught, but she was smiling.

Journal entry, Saturday Night

When in doubt, run. Run as fast as you can.

Those have been Mulder's unspoken words for as long as I've known him. He runs morning, noon, or night, whenever he needs to clear his head. He does it not for his physical health, but for his psychological balance.

I spent much of today searching his favorite hangouts. By early afternoon I was footsore and annoyed, but almost at the stroke of three I found him in Rock Creek Park's cemetery, by a tomb shrouded by shrubberies.

My first view was of the hexagonal slab and the stone benches, shaded and serene. Then I saw Mulder, sitting silently with his hands outstretched.

Then I saw it. The statue.

Grief.

I must have said it out loud. "It's not really called 'Grief,'" Mulder said by way of acknowledging my presence. "It's a memorial to a woman who committed suicide."

"It's beautiful," I whispered as if afraid to disturb the bronze image. The downcast eyes and the hand pressed softly to her cheek reminded me of images of the Virgin. But somehow, this woman was infinitely sadder.

Mulder did not look at me when I came to sit beside him. "Mulder, I'm going away for a while."

He continued to stare sightlessly at his clasped fingers.

"It has to do with your mother. There's a lead, a pretty sketchy one, but I'm going to follow it."

"You don't want me with you?"

I almost smirked at the thought of Mulder in a convent, dressed as a nun. "You can't go. I'm going to be at the Little Sisters of Charity. I think I've found her, Mulder. Amanda Broadman."

"Did she kill my mother?"

Ah, a Mulder-leap of logic. Grateful that I did not have to look at him, I said softly, "I believe that she was coerced into it. And I still have no idea how it was done."

"She could just as easily kill you."

"No. Mulder, she asked for my help. I don't think she'd hurt me. If she were really out for revenge she'd come after you, not me."

He nodded. "When do you leave?"

"In a little while. I just wanted to tell you."

"Thanks for not ditching me." At last he looked up at me, his eyes matching the silvery green of the foliage around him. "Will you call, let me know how you're doing?"

"Every night."

He tried to smile. As I turned around to make my way back to the car, I heard him once more. "Scully?"

I stopped.

"Will you pray for me?"

I couldn't face him, knowing what that request must have cost.

"Every night."

As I have done for so, so long. As I do now, and always.

Journal entry, Sunday Morning

I arrived at the Little Sisters of Charity after a nerve-jangling drive through heavy traffic on the way out of the city. Stepping into their quiet courtyard was like turning off a dentist's drill.

Mother Matthew received me in her study. She looked like the Mother Superior in "The Sound of Music," motherly but with an internal resolve that let me know that an iron fist resided in that velvet glove. I liked her immediately.

"So," she said in her melodious voice, "it is very unusual for us to receive visitors. I've been a friend of Frank McCue for many years, however, and if he says that you need to find solace among us, I believe that it is for the best."

I nodded, realizing that I was studying my shoes.

"You went to Catholic school," Mother Matthew said as if she could read my thoughts. "I can always tell the way the girls look when they think they're in trouble."

The smile on my face felt unfamiliar after the pain of the last few days. "I did go to Catholic schools, yes. It was the one constant in our family's life; we moved fairly often."

"Yes, you're from a Navy family. Frank told me about that. Now, what is it about us that makes you think you belong here?"

Father McCue warned me about the probability of that question, so I was ready. "I'm not really a contemplative person, Mother. I have to be active to think, yet I need to get away from the...insanity of my life. You work here; you do wonderful things for people who need your help. I want to help, too."

"I understand that you are a doctor." She peered over her rimless glasses at me. "What's your specialty?"

I paused for a fraction of a second.

"Path...pediatrics."

Whatever inspired me to tell that lie, I'll never know. And I know that she knew I was lying; I could see it in her eyes.

"Well, then, I'd like to put you to work tomorrow at the school. We have a number of children who have little coughs and sneezes that should be attended to, but we just can't get them all to a doctor. Why don't we discuss it after Mass?"

"That would be fine." I rose and picked up my suitcase. "I appreciate that you were willing to bend the rules for me, Reverend Mother."

"Frank said that you were in need of spiritual guidance. We're in need of a pediatrician. The match was made in Heaven, don't you think?"

I could feel the heat of blood rushing to my cheeks but didn't want to betray myself so early, before I'd even had a chance to find Sharon and ask her what was happening to Amanda Broadman. Instead I nodded my thanks and went to my room.

The cell I was directed to by Mother's assistant was small and tidy, with a narrow bed and one little chest of drawers. The crucifix over the bed was the only ornament. I unpacked quickly and made certain that my medical bag was ready to go - the one I carry on cases with Mulder, since I often end up acting as his personal physician.

Maybe saying I was a pediatrician wasn't so far off the mark.

Sunday Afternoon

Scully sat on the edge of her bed, hands folded, trying to retain the peaceful feeling that had washed over her during Mass. She had been introduced as Dr. Dana Scully and welcomed by the members of the order, although they were surprised and curious as to her choice of locations for a religious retreat. Scully greeted all of the sisters and novices, noticing that one girl seemed particularly intent on meeting her.

When they shook hands the girl whispered: "I'm glad you're here - I'll talk to you as soon as I can." Recognizing the voice as Sharon's, Scully went to find her at the conclusion of the service. The girl was nowhere to be seen, so Scully decided to return to her room for quiet reflection.

So intent was she on her meditations that she jumped when she heard the knock. Quickly and quietly she let her visitor inside.

Sharon was as young as she had sounded on the telephone, a teenager with the last vestiges of baby fat clinging to her cheeks and hands but with the haunted, pained countenance of someone who had endured many tragedies. She managed a weak smile and and looked at Scully through bloodshot eyes.

"I'm so glad you came. Amanda is really scared, and I don't know what to do."

"Start at the beginning, Sharon. How do you know Amanda?"

Sharon saw Scully's offer of a seat and perched tentatively on the edge of the bed. "She lived down the street from me when I was a kid. She used to babysit. She was with me when it happened."

Scully frowned and crossed her arms. "When what happened?"

"My parents sent me to Catholic school because they thought I was a runaway. But I didn't run away." Her voice became tremulous. "I was taken. So was Amanda, one night when she baby-sat me. But my parents didn't believe..."

"Taken? You were kidnapped?" Horrified, Scully sat down next to Sharon and held the girl's hand. "How old were you?"

"I was seven, and Amanda was nineteen, home from her first year in college. They came and took us, but I was too scared to tell my parents anything about it..."

Scully's heart was beating fast as Sharon continued.

"My parents thought Amanda took me joy-riding or something, but that wasn't it, that wasn't it...and they came back and took me over and over again..." Tears flowed down Sharon's face and her breath came in hitching sobs. "There were tests...and bright lights...and it hurt, it hurt SO much..."

Without a second's hesitation Scully took the sobbing girl in her arms and rocked her back and forth, lost in the maelstrom of her own thoughts. ...what did they do to you? Oh, God, no...

She smoothed the hair back from the nape of Sharon's neck and felt the scar, letting her fingertips trace the tiny outline of a computer chip.

...she's been cataloged...just like me...

She whispered, "What about your parents, Sharon?"

"They're dead. Daddy worked for the Federal Emergency...Emergency..."

"Federal Emergency Management Association? FEMA?"

...I have to tell Mulder...

"Sharon, sweetie, listen to me. I have to call my partner at the FBI. Then I need you to take me to Amanda. Can you do that?"

Sharon shook her head. "I can't. She's hiding in one of the attic storerooms."

"But she asked you to call me, didn't you?"

"She...she...I'm so scared!" Trembling and crying, Sharon fell face-down on the pristine bedspread and buried her head in her arms. "She needed someplace to hide. I told her how to get up to the old attic...I'm in so much trouble, I don't know what to do..."

"It's going to be okay, Sharon. Nothing's going to happen to you. Ssh, ssh..." Scully stepped as far away as she could in the tiny room, then took out her cell phone and dialed the familiar number.

"Mulder, it's me."

Sunday Night

Even under Scully's slight weight, the old wooden stairs groaned in protest. Scully had half-expected to find some sort of Gothic turret where Amanda Broadman was hiding inside of an ancient armoire. Instead, she found a well-lit stairway and a large oak door. Scully tapped against the dark wood.

"Amanda? It's Dana Scully." There was no response. "Amanda? I'm here to help you."

The silence was broken only by the sound of pigeons cooing under the eaves.

Scully tried the knob. It turned by itself just as she was pulling her hand away.The hinges creaked and the door opened just far enough for her to get into the room. Darkness wrapped itself around her.

"Amanda?"

Faint moonlight streamed through the leaded glass windows, casting circular patterns of light on both the ghostly, sheet-covered furniture and the spectral figure of Amanda Broadman standing in a corner.

"I'm glad you found me," she whispered. "I wish this could all be over."

Scully took several steps toward her, her shoes making soft sounds in the layers of dust that coated the floor. "It can be, Amanda. But you need to tell me two things - why you did this, and how."

Amanda's rueful smile was cut short by a violent fit of coughing. She held a tattered tissue up to her mouth; even in the dim light Scully could see the red stains that coated it. "I think you can tell why I did it. 'How' is not as easy to explain."

"Is it cancer?" Scully asked, keeping her voice neutral.

"Yes. Naso-pharyngeal, just like yours. And for the same reason."

"You had an implant." Amanda wiped her mouth and jammed the tissue back into her pocket. "Did Sharon tell you what happened to us? We were taken, just the way you were. Neither of us can remember what happened, but we did know one thing - we had those chips put in the backs of our necks. Our parents thought we were crazy or lying...but that doesn't matter now. Remember the mugger in the garage at the Hoover building a couple of months ago?"

"I saw the memo. My partner insisted on walking with me to my car every night...you were attacked?"

"I was the only victim. I was the target. They didn't take my wallet or my keys. All they took was this." She pointed a bony finger at the back of her neck. "Think about it. The 'mugger' struck once. What kind of criminal takes something out from under your skin and leaves money and a car behind?"

"The kind who is using the crime to cover up a larger one." Scully's eyes were adjusting to the low light and she could make out more details of Amanda's face; the sunken eyes, the pallor, the cracked and bleeding lips.

It was a face she had seen in the mirror.

"Not two weeks later, I was diagnosed with cancer. They're giving me another month or so to live, unless I can get what you have."

"Another implant." She came closer and touched Amanda's wrist. "Was that the deal? You kill Teena Mulder, and someone gives you a chance for remission?"

"Something like that." Amanda faced the window, the light giving her already pale skin an unearthly glow. "I hated doing it. I met Mulder a few times when I first joined the Bureau; I liked him. I know that it was hard for him to lose his mother like that." She took in a shallow breath. "But I don't want to die."

"I did the autopsy myself. I didn't detect anything unusual. How did you do it?"

"They gave me a syringe and told me to inject it around a hair follicle, somewhere that wouldn't show. It was a small needle. The smallest I've ever seen."

"What was in the vial?"

"I honestly don't know. But I do know one thing...it wasn't of this earth. He told me that himself."

"Who?"

Amanda's expression gave Scully her answer. She decided to ask another question.

"Do you really think that I'll just walk out of here and tell Mulder that you had a good reason to murder his mother? Do you think you can get away with it?"

Amanda turned to her, the filtered light making a ghostly halo around her thin figure.

"I already have."

Suddenly the light began to intensify, an aching brightness that was too much to bear after so much time spent in the dim moonlight. Blinded, Scully gasped and threw her hands in front of her face, squeezing her eyes shut against the impossible brilliance.

She lost all sense of time or place until she heard the chapel bells ringing.

When she opened her eyes again, the room was dark and Amanda Broadman was gone.

Journal entry, Monday Afternoon

I looked everywhere for Amanda last night, but there were no hiding places in the room. No wall panels moved, no floorboards could be pried up. The windows were locked, and the door was locked from the inside. Why did she have Sharon call me if she was trying to escape? How the hell did she get out of that room? My head pounded as I stood next to the window where Amanda had been standing. I knew damned well how she got out of that room, but I couldn't make myself admit it. I lowered my aching head.

That's when I saw her notebook. It was a small spiral pad with nothing on the cover. But when I opened it I found a note was addressed to me, with instructions to put it into Mulder's hands.

I tucked it in my pocket and was looking for an exit that I might have missed, when the door opened and a surprised Sister Rosario shooed me down for prayers. When I went back, the room was locked once more and I had no way of getting inside to investigate further. I desperately needed to talk to Mulder.

I counted the hours until our meeting time this morning. He caught up with me while I was doing "rounds" at the school, peering into the ears, noses, and throats of second-graders. A voice behind me startled me with its baritone plea: "Can I have a lollipop, Doctor?"

"Will you be a good boy and brush your teeth if I give this to you?" I teased, holding the purple candy just out of his reach.

His smile made him look healthy for the first time since he told me about his mother's stroke. I gave a matching treat to the little boy who was squirming on the table, then patted him on the back and watched as he loped off to play with his friends.

"I'm glad you got here, Mulder. There've been more developments."

"Really?" He closed the clinic door and leaned against it, hands in his pockets. "What have you found out?"

"That Amanda Broadman did kill your mother." I looked up at him and noticed the that he was setting his jaw, bracing himself. "She was an abductee, and she had an implant just like mine. Only hers was taken away, and now she has cancer."

"What does that have to do with my mother?" Mulder asked.

"She was offered a replacement. I don't think I have to tell you who made that offer."

Mulder didn't react. He only said, "I want to talk to her."

"You can't. She's gone."

"She's dead?"

"No." I bit my lip for a moment. "I mean she's gone. Disappeared. But she left this for us."

"By way of explanation?" He looked at me in disbelief. "She hands over a notebook and that makes it okay?"

"No, Mulder, of course not. But it tells how and why, and it give us some idea of what kind of the big picture could be." I flipped through a couple of pages. "He offered her not only a chance to live but also a chance to start over, erasing her past and giving her a future, a chance to beat the cancer that was killing her."

"And the price was right. One woman's life. My mother's."

"But you don't know why she was marked. Read this." I turned a few more pages and pointed to an entry near the bottom.

Mulder produced his glasses from his jacket and put them on before starting to read aloud. " 'The remains of the Consortium, the self-appointed saviors of certain members of the human race, have reason to believe that anyone with any trace of alien life in them must be terminated, in order to stop any chance of an alien-human hybrid being formed.' " Mulder looked up over the rims of his glasses. "My mother wasn't an abductee, though."

"Keep reading."

" 'Teena Mulder suffered a stroke several years ago, one from which she was not expected to recover. A healing man was brought to her...an alien...' " He stopped and stared at the paper, a sign that his mind was working in a dozen directions at once. "That's why you couldn't find anything in the autopsy, Scully...someone like Jeremiah Smith, if just his touch was enough to mark her... those men are trying to eradicate the evidence, and they gave Amanda Broadman a substance to do just that."

"I know." He must have heard the fear in my voice, because he immediately turned back to me.

"Can they counteract the effects of the chip?"

I spoke carefully, trying to reassure us both. "I don't believe that they could. Why bother removing Amanda's chip if they could just give her this substance?"

"Then you're safe," Mulder said quietly.

I felt his concern wrap me up in its soft folds.

"For now," I answered. We sat in silence for several moments.

"I just wish she hadn't asked to be cremated..."

"It wouldn't have made any difference, Mulder; no one would even begin to know what to look for."

He grimaced, his face turning pale at the idea. "What do you think we need to do first when we get back to D.C.?"

I had been dreading this moment. "I'm not going to leave just yet. I still don't know how Amanda disappeared, and I want to check on the girl who called me. She has an implant, too. And Mulder..."

I trailed off. He looked at me, expectant.

"There are children here at the orphanage who have implants. That boy I was examining when you came in, and several others. And Sharon's father was with FEMA. It could be a coincidence, but I want to find out why there are so many orphans with these things stuck in their bodies and if there's any connection to government agencies. So...I need to stay here."

"You may be right," he said slowly, but he turned away from me as if to hide his disappointment. "I'll get the boys to start looking for our missing Non-Nun and do a background check on anyone else in civil service who may have been an abductee. Who knows how many government-subsidized assassins are running around out there?"

He was becoming interested in spite of himself. As he got up to leave he reached out and took my arm.

"You're okay with this? With the children?"

He was so gentle and so sincere that I forgave the last dozen insensitive things he'd said or done to me.

"I'm okay with the children, Mulder."

Satisfied with my answer, he released me and headed for the door. "You may be in a convent, but you should still be careful. Watch your back."

"It's a habit."

He groaned and ducked his head; I heard faint echoes of his laughter as he walked down the corridor and went back into the world without me.

Monday Night

The children's softball game ended when sunset made it impossible to find the bases. Scully helped to usher the sweating, chattering children to their dormitory and walked briskly toward the convent, hoping for enough time to make herself presentable enough for Vespers. She removed her cap as she stepped into her room and was trying to make order out of her wind-swept hair when she heard a scream.

She reached for the weapon at her waist.

"Damn!" she said under her breath when she realized that she'd stored the gun in a drawer, then grimaced at the sight of the crucifix hanging over the bed. "Sorry," she apologized. It took her only seconds to find her gun and she raced out of her room in the direction of the commotion.

The group of terrified nuns who had responded to the scream parted when they saw "Doctor" Scully run up to them with a gun in her hand. "It's Sharon," said one of the women. "There's a man in there...he has a knife..."

"Federal agent! I'm armed!" Scully said loudly outside of the open door. "Is that you, Agent Scully?"

The familiar voice made Scully shudder. She went into the room and found Sharon facing away from her, sitting on the edge of the bed, clearly in pain and shock. A thin trickle of blood flowed from a wound at the base of her neck.

The smoking man sat beside her. A small scalpel was in one hand, while his other held something small between his thumb and forefinger.

Scully motioned for the nuns to retreat, but they stayed in a flock, watching in horror as their guest pointed her gun at the intruder.

The man was calm. "Put that down, Agent Scully. You wouldn't want me to drop the chip."

"You're going to destroy it anyway."

"Not necessarily." He set the scalpel aside and took out a cigarette and lighter. Never taking his gaze away from Scully, he lit the cigarette one-handed and took a long drag from it. "I could be persuaded to let you have this, to let HER have this, in exchange for some information."

"Make it fast," Scully hissed.

"The whereabouts of Amanda Broadman."

"Why? So you can kill her the way she killed Teena Mulder?"

For the first time, Scully saw a look of sorrow pass over the lined visage of her enemy. "I thought I was saving her when I brought Jeremiah Smith to her. I didn't know that it would seal her fate." He took another pull on his cigarette. "But that doesn't matter now. We have to get rid of anyone who has any connection to their technology or abilities. It's the only way to stop the colonization."

The nuns were silent except for the sound of stifled tears.

"Give me the chip and I'll let you walk out of here on your own two feet," Scully said evenly. "Where is Amanda Broadman?"

"I don't know."

"But *I* do," Sharon said weakly from her vantage point. "They took her. She was waiting for them. They're going to save her..." Her eyes rolled up in her head and she collapsed, boneless, on the bed.

Scully felt boundless anger wash over her, the rage at having her own life be made the pawn in a game played by madmen. She remembered the long hours of suffering, her family's agony, Mulder's guilt ridden-caresses, as the cancer ravaged her body.

She looked at Sharon's crumpled form.

She looked at the man on the bed.

She raised her weapon and fired.

The smoking man grabbed his upper arm and slid from the bed to the floor. Blood oozed between his fingers, eventually covering his hand and extinguishing the cigarette he still held.

Scully stood over him, her weapon pointed directly at his head. "Put down the chip," she demanded. "Carefully."

With his good hand he placed the tiny device on the floor. His mouth was slightly open in fear. His breathing was labored but his gray eyes were cold. His gaze was focused just beyond Scully's head. She refused to fall into the trap and turn around.

"Dana." She felt the Mother Superior's touch on her arm. "You've protected Sharon. I'll call the police and paramedics."

"NO!" Her cry bounced off of the stone wall, reverberating for endless seconds. "He's going to tell me WHY he did this, the son-of-a-bitch. You're going to give me answers for ONCE! TELL ME!"

"You wouldn't understand, Agent Scully."

"TELL ME!" Every atom of her being was focused on her trigger finger.

His survival instinct remained intact, making him speak softly and calmly. "Teena was not part of the hybridization program, not like Cassandra. However, she was touched by a 'healer' and that will mark someone as surely as any other encounter."

"Why did you have to kill her?"

"Because we cannot allow any form of hybridized human to survive. Not even the simplest adjustment to the body. Or else it all starts." He looked at his arm, noting that the bleeding had stopped, then back up at her with a smile streaking across his thin lips. "And you've already had a sample of what will happen, haven't you?"

The phantom taste of the alien umbilical cord came back to her and made her retch. The gun wavered in her grasp. "What about the children - the ones you've marked?"

"The chip?" His tone was offhanded. "The chip isn't theirs. It's ours. They're safe...as long as no one does anything rash." He took in a shallow breath, the pain overriding the shock. "You may not believe this, Agent Scully, but I did love Teena Mulder once."

"DID you," she spat, straddling his legs, the gun pointed directly at his head. "I love her SON."

He seemed less surprised by her words than she did.

"I saw what he went through when she died," Scully continued, enraged. "I LIVED it with him! I suffered everything he suffered because it's what *I* felt when you fucked up and murdered my sister instead of me!"

Scully felt her whole body become a wick dipped in oil, set aflame by rage and vengeance. "I'd put a bullet through your heart if you had one, you BASTARD! But this will have to do instead." Her aim was true, her hands steady even though her arms were aching from the weight of the gun.

The weight of the world.

That thought took over her body, making her arm muscles tremble at last and her aim falter. She heard the voice of the Mother Superior: "My child." With a low moan Scully let the gun clatter to the floor, the sound against the hard wood almost as loud as a report. She looked at her prey through acrid tears. "Get the hell out of here," she mumbled.

He used the wall to help him stand. Beside the bed lay the bullet that had grazed his arm and bounced off the crucifix; he kicked it away disdainfully. With studied nonchalance he took out a cigarette and lit it as he passed Scully.

When he was gone she fell to her knees and wept.

Journal entry, late Monday Night

I'm almost too tired to think clearly.

I let him go. I had him right there, staring down the barrel of my gun, and I just let him walk away.

Even after all the years in the FBI, I still hate to fire my weapon. I hate even worse the taking of a human life, no matter what the crime. I believe in the justice system - even though it has failed me more than once.

I believe in God, and He would not allow me to pull the trigger.

I heard his footsteps grow fainter in the hallway as he walked past a long line of shocked women. Sister Rosario, the round-faced Hispanic nun who surprised me in the attic, was the first to come to my side.

"You have to get up now, Dana," she said gently. "You need to help Sharon."

Sharon.

As if sleepwalking I gave the instructions to get her to the infirmary and have someone get bandages and antiseptic ready. The Reverend Mother delicately picked up the chip as Sister Rosario helped me to my feet, bearing my weight as she guided me down the hall.

I felt so cold as I passed the nuns who were standing in the hallway, stock-still and white with shock. "I'm sorry," I whispered to them as I passed, afraid to look into their faces. "I'm sorry."

My self-recrimination took a brief hiatus while I carefully cleaned the chip and put it back into Sharon's neck. As I put the butterfly bandage there, I offered up a silent prayer.

Please let this keep working. She doesn't deserve to die.

I dragged myself back to my cell and sat down on the bed. Someone had cleaned Sharon's room and found the spent bullet, which now sat harmlessly on top of my suitcase.

I held it in the palm of my hand, wondering how in the world I was going to tell Mulder what happened here.

"Dana."

The sound of the Mother Superior's voice was a welcome respite from the accusing voices in my own head. I stood up and walked slowly toward her, genuinely penitent.

"I'm so sorry for everything. For lying to you, for putting all of you in danger. I thought...I thought..."

"I made a phone call to Father McCue and he explained everything to me. But Dana?"

I looked up at her, contrite.

"Dana, I knew from the beginning that you were lying. You don't do it very well." She took my hand between both of hers, warming its coldness with her love and compassion. "This man you shot, is he going to be all right?"

"It was just superficial. He has places to go, people who will take care of him in silence. He'll be better than he deserves." I sighed. "I'm sorry. You don't know what he's done, what he's still capable of doing."

"But God knows, my child." She touched my cheek. "I think He may have sent you to us for our safety. Perhaps He might have done so in a less...dramatic fashion." We both smiled. "But He does what He knows is best, and now we know how careful we must be to protect ourselves and the children. We're grateful for that knowledge, Dana."

"Thank you," I whispered, managing a weak smile for her benefit. "Mother? What will happen to Sharon?"

"I've called her aunt in Pennsylvania. Sharon will stay with them for a while, until she decides what to do with her life." She went to the doorway, then turned and looked at me with sad eyes. "Much as you must do, Dana."

I watched her as she departed, leaving an air of serenity in her wake. I was sick at heart, sick to the very recesses of my soul, and dreading my return to the world.

Even so, I packed my suitcase and called Mulder, asking him to come for me in the morning.

Tuesday Morning

Mulder walked slowly through the herb garden, looking for a flash of red hair, his beacon. "Scully," he said in a loud whisper, wanting to find her but reluctant to disturb the peace of the unseasonably cool morning.

"Over here."

He had not seen Scully's bright hair because she was wearing a hat and scarf with her coat, her hands encased in gloves. Her breath came in little white clouds as she placed sheets over some of the more delicate plants. "It's so cold," she said conversationally.

"Yes. Uh, Scully, I don't think I'm really supposed to be back here..."

"It's okay. There are men who do yard work here, you know."

He leaned against the fence that separated them. "We couldn't find where he went. He's disappeared into the woodwork. Again."

"I'm sorry, Mulder," Scully said in a low, hurt tone.

"He was unarmed and you couldn't shoot. I understand that. But, Scully..."

"Mulder, it's done. Drop it." She looked away from him, at the gray morning sky. "Have you found out anything about a possible connection?"

"It's not easy. No one in civil service is exactly thrilled about putting an alien abduction on their resume. And the children...birth records don't exist, adoption records are closed or missing altogether. Someone's been very thorough with this. So get your stuff and we'll go. I'll fill you in on the way."

"I'm not leaving, Mulder."

He sighed in exasperation. "Scully, I know you want to stay here and look around, but this is not a good time for it..."

"I'm staying."

"I need you back in D.C. There's so much more to this than..."

His voice trailed off, like the clouds of steam that formed from his breath.

Scully turned around to face him then, her eyes the only color in the bleak landscape. "I'm staying," she said gently.

Numbly he whispered, "You...you can't..."

"I am. I went to the Mother Superior a few hours ago. She said that I'm moving too fast," she continued, a tinge of sorrow in her voice, "but that I am welcome to stay here while I consider it more carefully."

He stared at her, his pulse drowning out the chapel bells.

"I don't expect you to understand this, Mulder."

Words finally returned to him, sad and lonely ones. "What about your family?"

"I talked to my mother this morning. She just wants me to be at peace. Mulder, I can't go on with the kind of life I was leading. I can have peace, I can have it here, loving God and serving Him." She saw the anguish on his face and it tore through her. "Mulder, please. Please don't make this harder than it has to be."

She could almost see the words rushing through his mind, written across the endless depths of his eyes...you're leaving me you're leaving me you're leaving me...

"Scully," was all he said, the one word a hopeless, pleading cry.

"I have to go, Mulder." She turned around only to find his hand on her arm, holding fast. "Mulder, please."

"Don't do this," he entreated.

"Mulder, let me go."

She wriggled out of his grasp and he frantically clutched at what he could reach - the end of her scarf. It snapped away from her head, tossing her hat into the wind.

Her hair was shorn away.

Scully let out a tiny cry, covering the rough edges of clipped hair with her hands and staring into Mulder's horrified eyes.

He had seen her frightened, injured, dying. Naked.

But not like this.

Tears stung her eyes as she raced past him toward her sanctuary. Those same tears mercifully blurred her vision, saving her the agony of seeing Mulder's face as he watched her slam the iron gate. The metallic clang resounded like the fall a guillotine, severing her from Mulder.

From her heart.

End

To be continued in "Amor Caritas: Silence"

About the title "Amor" is, of course, "love."

"Caritas" has the obvious translation of "charity," but it can also mean "affection" or "dearness."

About how small the world is: Imagine my surprise when Auburn posted "Go With God" while I was writing this story. She was gracious enough to realize that two people can have the same idea simultaneously, and for that I thank her. The same goes for Dasha, in whose "Increments" Mrs. Mulder also passes on, for her understanding.

Author's Notes: Many years ago, when I was young and foolish instead of just foolish, I wanted to pursue a degree in art history in hopes of becoming a museum curator.

Then I decided that I wanted a place to live. Some food would be nice, too.

I got a teaching certificate and went to work, but I never lost my love of art. Several months ago I re-read some books about Augustus Saint-Gaudens and was struck once more by the beauty and nobility of his work, especially one piece - Amor Caritas. More than a portrait of his lover in the guise of an angel, it has an uplifting quality that cannot be described, only felt.

It was then that I got the idea for this series.

"The Adams Memorial" (which really is in Rock Creek Park in D.C.) served as the inspiration for "Grief."

"Silence," a marble statue in the Masonic hospital in Utica, New York, inspired the like-

d second story in the series. Book covers for them may be found on my site, if you want to see where the ideas came from. (Caveat: I flipped the image of the Adams for compositional reasons, and I put Scully's face on the Amor Caritas angel. I'm a very bad girl indeed. Blame Nascent.)

However, none of this would have seen the light of day had it not been for the saintly patience of my beta readers, Jordan and Barbara D. You wouldn't believe what my stories look like when they get them. Well, if you'd ever seen my kitchen, you would. Trust me, my words only work because of the work THEY do.

Ladies, this one's for y'all, with love, respect, and chocolate.

Title: Amor Caritas II: Silence
Author: Marguerite
Written: July 1999
Rating: PG-13 (disturbing images, language)
Classification: S, A
Archive: Yes to Gossamer/Ephemeral, yes also to others, but please let me know where it goes

Summary: The death of Mulder's mother sends Scully undercover to unravel a mystery...and determine her own destiny.

Author's notes will be at the end

Journal entry, Tuesday Morning

I used to hate my hair.

I never wanted to stand out in the crowds at school. We moved often, and in each new place I heard the catcalls: "Hey, look at the redhead!" If I were seen sneaking a look at a boy, I was called "The little red-haired girl." Every quirk of my personality was attributed to "that red-headed temper of yours."

One day In fifth grade I just snapped, lashing out at the mean girls who yanked my hair whenever the teacher's back was turned. I let loose with some language that Daddy would have been stunned to know I'd overheard, not to mention upending my desk and breaking Howard Black's science project by accident.

After assessing the damage and chastising the unashamed girls, Sister Mary Ignacius called me to the front of the classroom. "Dana Katherine Scully, I am so disappointed in you. All the brains and hard work in the world won't make you a good person if you continue to act in this manner. Perhaps you need to learn to control that red-headed temper of yours."

The ten strokes of her ruler against my outstretched palm...I still feel them whenever my anger begins to overcome me. But it was those words, "I am so disappointed in you," that made the punishment so difficult to endure. To this day I can bear anything but the disappointment of someone I admire.

I remember the hot indignation of standing in front of my giggling tormentors, the difficulty in keeping my chin up (you're a Scully, little Starbuck, and Scullys don't cry...) and in keeping my hand steady. Most of all I remember the genuine regret I saw in Sister Mary's face as she meted out my punishment. I was her favorite, the smartest and the hardest-working, and at that moment I finally understood the meaning of "This hurts me more than it hurts you."

I remember wishing with all my heart that I had Mom's gentle disposition - and her smooth chestnut hair. Later, as I became a woman, I developed a certain pride in its unique hue and even enjoyed some of the attention it got me, but its association with my personality never went away.

"That red-headed temper of yours."

Yesterday I shot the man who is almost certainly responsible for every horrible thing that my family and I have endured since Dad died. I screamed into his face. I fully intended to blow his brains out.

"That red-headed temper of yours."

I wanted to pull the trigger more than I have ever wanted to do anything in my life. Not just for Missy or myself, but for Mulder as well, I wanted to perform that one act, that one sin that would obliterate this man from the face of the earth. I wanted to cut him into little pieces and feed him to the wolves.

But I heard the voice of the Mother Superior.

And I heard the voice of God.

He stopped me. Whether by granting me a moment in His presence or by helping me to remember who and what I am, He stopped me.

Me and my red-headed temper.

He let me feel horror and revulsion for this act of vengeance I had so nearly carried out, then He removed that burden from me. He supported me as I took care of Sharon and comforted the frightened sisters.

I felt His love and peace warm me as I packed my bags.

And then I realized that I could not leave.

I realized that God was telling me that I did not have to be a killer, that He had brought me to this time and place for a reason.

How could I have been so blind, so stupid? I was meant to be in this place where I could heal, not kill. Where I could repent. Where truth is not just an abstract idea meant to placate the gullible.Where love doesn't die.

I wanted to be free of my worldly ties, and I wanted to be free of them now, not three years from now, when I could take my final vows and become one with God and His will, but now.

I took the scissors from my medical bag. There was no mirror in the room, so I did the deed while looking into a pane of glass at my faint white reflection. Snip, and I was freed of one burden. Snip again, and more weight tumbled to the floor.

When I looked back in the window I saw myself as Mulder might see me: wild-eyed, covered in shocks of red hair that stuck to my clothing like thick, bloody rivulets of tears, my head bare except for the the inch-long bristle - a halo made of discarded vanity.

I ran my hand over the rough edges and began to laugh softly.

I was free.

Sister Rosario chose that moment to come check on me. "Oh, Dana!" she cried, "what have you done? Come with me. No, leave the scissors. Oh, Dana..." She ushered me to the kitchen, where the Mother Superior was sitting with a few other nuns, drinking tea and discussing the events of the day.

"Dana!" She was on her feet in an instant, hugging me tightly as she repeated Sister Rosario's stunned words. "What have you done? We should have had someone stay with you..."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean for this to be such a shock. But I would like to stay here with you."

The other nuns were silent, staring at one another with lifted eyebrows.

"Dana, this is not a decision to be made lightly. You must have a calling, a vocation, to take these vows."

"But Mother..."

"No, listen to me." She held me by the shoulders, her wise, kind face filling my field of vision. "You are welcome to remain here until you have made a calm, rational decision. We need your expertise with the children, especially in light of what you've said about these computer chips. We will love you and counsel you.

But as for being in Holy Orders, my child...one haircut does not make a nun."

Disappointment filled me - but I am a Scully and we are a determined family.

"All right," I said after a pause. "I appreciate your offer, Mother. I promise to think about it carefully."

She clasped me to her, touching my head gently, as she were afraid that I felt pain through the remains of my hair. "Go to bed now, Dana, and pray for His guidance. We'll talk more tomorrow."

I hated to leave her, hated to leave the place where I was with others who understood what joy there was in sacrifice. But I obeyed.

Once I had slipped back into the cocoon of my cell, I prayed to God to help me. I prayed for my mother to support me. I prayed for Mulder to understand and let me go.

I didn't know it then, but the answers to my prayers would be swift and sure. What I had forgotten was that His answers aren't always "yes."

Mulder's expression of bewildered sorrow will haunt me for the rest of my life. I wish I could have explained to him this incredible love of God that has taken over my entire being. I wanted to tell him how much I love the sisters here and how grateful I am for the good I will be able to do. I wanted to thank him for the six years with him that I will never forget, and for all the dangerous, foolhardy, wonderful things he's done on my behalf.

I thought it would hurt me more than it hurt him, but I was wrong.

I was wrong.

Tuesday Afternoon

"May I come in, Dana?"

Sister Rosario was standing in the doorway, holding a tray and smiling. Scully noticed the familiar, comforting scent of chicken broth, but her head was as heavy as her heart and she could manage only a small nod.

The tray barely fit on the little table next to Scully's bed. Sister Rosario put it down carefully, letting the aromas waft over to the woman who sat as if carved of marble. "I noticed that you didn't join us for morning prayers. Or for lunch. I took the liberty..."

"Thank you," Scully said in an automatic response. At last she turned her face upward to greet her visitor with a ghost of a smile. "I haven't been much help on my first day, have I?"

"No one expects you to leap into this vocation with a song in your heart, Dana. It's a serious decision, a commitment to God and His work. Everyone who has made this choice has faced conflicts." She knelt by the side of the bed and took Scully's hands in hers. "You have our prayers and our respect. And our ears, if you need them."

The first hint of color spread across Scully's wan face. "I was ready for my mother's reaction - she's always supported me, even when she thinks I'm making a mistake."

"Does she think that this is a mistake?"

"No...I don't think so." Scully took a moment to reflect. "She sided with me when I chose to go to medical school, and again when I left medicine to join the FBI. She knows some things that I've...been through...and she understands why I need to do this, why I have to break away from the life that was really no life at all."

"What about the man who came for you this morning?"

"Mulder." It was a whispered wound, emotion bleeding from between the syllables.

"He ran away from here almost as fast as you ran inside."

Scully focused her eyes on the floor. "He doesn't understand. I don't think he ever will. He has...doubts...about faith...and about me..."

"Dana." Sister Rosario squeezed her hands and peered up into her face. "These feelings don't ever go away. We learn to recognize the sacrifices and love them, the way God loved us and sacrificed for us. But love doesn't stop with these walls. Or with our vows."

"We weren't..."

She stopped cold and stared at Sister Rosario's face.

"Sister?" Scully pointed to her own upper lip.

Sister Rosario took out a handkerchief and dabbed at the blood. Scully saw other fresh stains as well.

"How long have you had those?"

She shrugged, smiling. "A few weeks. It's nothing important."

"Yes. Yes it is, very important." The miasma of unhappiness dissipated, replaced by quick, professional activity. "Let me see something. Please."

She reached behind the wimple "May I?" she asked quietly before removing it, then turned Sister Rosario around so that she could see the back of her neck. There was an old scar there, the line whiter than the surrounding skin. Scully ran her fingernail over the mark in a delicate stroke.

"When did this happen?"

"What?"

"That scar on the back of your neck."

"Oh." There was a long pause, during which Sister Rosario could not meet Scully's gaze. "I...I don't know."

Scully stood up and paced, needing to move, needing to get the blood flowing through her body so that she could think. "Did anything happen to you in the last year or so, something that affected the place where your scar is?"

"I fell down on the ice last winter and landed with my head on the curb. I was in a collar for a while...everyone laughed and said I was trying to look like a priest." Sister Rosario's amused smile vanished at the seriousness of Scully's expression. "Why?"

"I want you to get to a hospital as soon as you can. If this is what I think it is..."

"Dana..."

"I think you had a computer chip in your neck, the way Amanda and Sharon did. It was probably damaged in that fall."

"I don't think...I need to go..."

Scully took her by the arm, forestalling her exit. "Tell me about your parents, about your family. We need to know who did this to you, and why."

The nun frowned and pointed toward the tray with a shaking finger. "Your soup's getting cold," she whispered.

Sister Rosario's expression was as closed off as an old grave.

Scully realized that no answers were forthcoming. "It was nice of you to bring this to me. Thank you."

"You're welcome. I hope you feel better soon, Dana. We'll look for you at vespers."

"Sister?"

She turned toward Scully, her lips quivering. "Dana, no more questions. Please. Please."

She fled, leaving Scully to brood over a bowl of cooling chicken soup.

Wednesday evening

A sudden outbreak of chicken pox at the orphanage demanded Scully's undivided attention. She was there continually for twenty-four hours, napping whenever there was a lull. The sisters in charge of the infirmary were grateful for her expertise, attempting to shoo her off to bed only to be told that there was one more child to be checked for dehydration or one more fever to be brought down.

When at last she was satisfied that the children were suffering from nothing more insidious than a normal childhood illness, she took her leave and walked back to the convent. The cool air refreshed her hot face even as it stung her eyes, leaving them misty when she passed the garden where she had last seen Mulder. With a defiant toss of her head she shook off the melancholy and took long, confident strides up the path to the entrance.

"There she is," came a voice from outside her field of vision. "I'll get her."

Scully stopped in the vestibule.

"Dana?" A tall, thin postulant peered around the door. "I'm glad you're back. Someone's here to see you."

She shivered in the warm pool of sunlight. "Who is it?"

"I didn't get his name. A man. He says he's from the FBI."

Scully closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. Exhaustion returned to her in a crashing wave, weighing down her limbs and weakening her enough to make a confrontation with a disconsolate Mulder seem unendurable. If he had come here to see her, however, she would not back away. With quiet resolve she forced herself to turn around and walk to the parlor door.

She paused for a moment, idly fingering the ends of her butchered hair, then she took a deep breath, walked in, and found herself face to face with Assistant Director Skinner.

"Sir!" she gasped.

He stared, then very obviously looked away, then just as obviously made himself look directly back at her. "I didn't mean to startle you."

The Mother Superior watched the exchange solemnly. "I'm so glad that you will get to see one another. Sister Mary Margaret will let you out when you are ready, Mr. Skinner. Dana, vespers are going to begin shortly."

"I won't forget, Mother," she whispered, never turning away from Skinner. After a pause that seemed endless, Scully motioned toward a table flanked by two chairs. "Please, Sir, sit down."

"Thank you." His tone was so formal as to be uncomfortable, his demeanor stiff to cover his obvious confusion. His dark eyes scanned restlessly, as if searching for the woman he knew but could not find. "I know you are surprised to see me here. When Human Resources called and told me..." He drifted off, gazing at a portrait of the Mater Dolorosa on the opposite wall.

"You wanted to see for yourself?" Scully prompted.

"Yes. Yes, I did." His forehead was creased with frown lines and he licked his lips nervously. "I understand that you had an unpleasant visitor here a couple of days ago. That he was wounded, but not seriously, and that you let him go."

Scully nodded, conscious of the blush creeping up the back of her neck with no veiling of hair to cover it.

"He was threatening a novice, Sir. He removed her chip - I couldn't let him do that to her, knowing what would happen. But I couldn't kill him."

"I understand." He adjusted his glasses, then leaned forward on the table to look more deeply into her eyes. "We haven't found any trace of Amanda Broadman. Mulder doesn't seem to think that we ever will. Do you concur?"

"I..." She broke off. "I'm no longer with the FBI. Of course I'll help in any way I can, but I'm not investigating this. My life is different now."

He smiled, reminding Scully of his reticent entrance to her hospital room the night her cancer went into remission. His voice was full of wistful pride as he spoke. "I can't imagine anything that will keep you from investigating this situation, Agent...I'm sorry, I don't even know what to call you anymore."

She returned his smile. "'Dana' will do fine. And you're right - I have some questions about what happened then and what's happening right now. But they're for someone else to ask."

Chapel bells pealed: an alarm, a signal, a release.

"I have to go," Scully said as she rose. Skinner stood as well, leaning forward a little so that Scully would not have to look up too far at him. "I'm grateful that you came to see me. I know that you deserve more than a letter, after all you've done for us..."

"Us?" Skinner's voice, a dark bass, made Scully painfully aware of her misstep. "You haven't asked about him."

She sighed, a dark and weary susurrence. "Have you seen Mulder?" she whispered.

His shoulders squared under his wool jacket. Scully's face, more fragile now that it was deprived of its brilliant frame, let him know that she would only accept the truth.

"Agent Mulder is currently the guest of Georgetown's Finest."

Scully gaped at him.

"Drunk and disorderly." He paused for effect. "He soaked his ID in gin and set it on fire at a bar. He told the arresting officer that he was sending a beacon to alien nuns who had kidnapped his partner."

"Oh, no..." Scully's horrified tone was overlaid with fond amusement.

"Oh, yes. They called me, of course, in the middle of the night. I told them to let him sleep it off. I'm going to pick him up as soon as I leave here." He put his hands in his pockets and shifted his weight to the balls of his feet. "Agent...Dana. I need to ask you a question. Was there...did you and Agent Mulder have some sort of disagreement? An argument? Something that would make you walk out on him at a time like this?"

Scully shoved the chair into the table so hard that the room resounded with the crack of wood on wood. Her eyes flashed fire at her former superior. "I did NOT walk out on Agent Mulder."

Skinner stood his ground. "He's falling apart. He went to that bar straight from work, where he'd been for forty-eight hours - without food or sleep."

"Sir, I did everything I could. I performed the autopsy; I came here to find Amanda Broadman and get her story..."

He leaned over her, his voice electric with disappointment. "You two were on to something. You were close enough to put them on the run. And Mulder - he went to the ends of the earth for you and you turned your back on him."

"No!" She put her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyelids shut. "I did not turn my back on him! You don't understand!"

"Then MAKE me understand. Why did you do this? Why did you leave behind the chance to bring about the justice you used to believe in?"

"I didn't turn my back on him. I didn't turn my back on justice." Her voice was a tortured echo. "I turned my face toward God."

Skinner gave her an ironic nod, dismissing her as he had done so many times before. "Then go to Him, Dana." As he watched her go through the doorway, his face softened and he called out to her again. "I'm sorry." He was at her side in a few quick strides, his hands hovering just above her shoulders. "I'm sorry."

"Me, too." She turned to him, her eyes troubled but dry. "I'll keep you in my prayers. If you're taking care of him..."

"...then I'll need it." He completed her sentence with a quiet chuckle, then extended his hand to her. "Goodbye, Dana."

She took the offered hand, matching its slight tremor of emotion with her own, and pressed it to her cheek. "I'll never forget you, Sir," she whispered.

As if of one accord, they let their military bearing support them as they parted.

Wednesday Night

The last beautiful "amen" resounded through the chapel, and the marble floors rang with its echo until the nuns retired for the night. Scully, her hands clasped and her head lowered, turned away from the rest of the group, and headed toward the infirmary.

Aware that the head of the infirmary, Sister Michael, had doubtless gone to bed, Scully went straight inside and found Sister Rosario propped up on several pillows as she finished her rosary. Scully watched as the patient's square fingers told the beads and her thin, bloodless lips moved in quiet prayer.

Scully's trained medical eye saw the signs of rapid deterioration, recognizing with chilling sorrow the sunken eyes with dark rings beneath them, the sharpness of the cheekbones and chin, and the unearthly pallor of flesh more accustomed to the darker hues of her Hispanic origin.

When Sister Rosario finished, she fell back in exhaustion and turned her head toward her visitor, motioning with a feeble hand. "Dana," she rasped in a voice as rough as a carpenter's tool.

"I wanted to stop by and say good night," Scully murmured as she helped Sister Rosario sip water from a plastic cup. "I've been worried about you."

"I'm feeling much better."

Scully saw the feverish determination in those dark brown eyes. "I'm glad you feel better, Sister, but I'd feel better if you were being cared for in a hospital. Won't you let us..."

"NO!" The hoarse cry was so unexpected that Scully dropped the cup. A fit of coughing

followed, leaving Sister Rosario drained and pale, blood dripping over her upper lip.

Taking a tissue from the bedside table, Scully dabbed tenderly at the blood, unable to keep up her facade of professional detachment. "Sister, you need proper medical care. Please let me go with you to Mercy or General. I know people on the oncology..."

"No...no..." Her voice was weakening, but her gaze was intense and serious. "Please. Let me stay here one more night. I'll be better. I know I will."

Knowing that the case was lost, Scully watched, frowning, as Sister Rosario fell into an uneasy sleep. She placed her fingers on the nun's bony wrist and took note of the thready pulse, feeling her own heart pumping faster at the memory of being in just this state, hoping against all odds for a miracle.

A miracle.

Scully tucked the blanket around Sister Rosario before striding to the Mother Superior's room, her soft-soled shoes silent against the wooden floor. Her hand shook as she knocked on the door.

"Come in," was the response.

Scully entered and closed the heavy door so carefully that it did not make a sound. The room was immaculate, the bed turned neatly down, and she saw the nun sitting calmly at her desk. "I'm sorry to disturb you, Mother."

The Mother Superior's kind face registered her alarm as she looked up from her prayers. "Dana, whatever is the matter?"

"It's Sister Rosario. I just went to check on her - her condition is deteriorating rapidly and I believe that she should be hospitalized as quickly as possible."

"We had Dr. Banks check on her this afternoon. He said that she's doing as well as can be expected." The old nun rose, her habit whispering against the desk. "I understand that you're very close to the situation, Dana, that you had cancer just over a year ago and that you were cured."

"Not cured. I'm in remission."

"God be praised for it, either way. But because of this, you must feel the weight of mortality in ways that most of us do not."

"Yes, I do. And I know about this type of cancer, about a possible treatment for it. I can't just stand here doing nothing while Sister Rosario dies."

"A possible treatment?" The Mother Superior put her hand on Scully's shoulder, light as a falling feather but warm and comforting. "Father McCue told me that you made your miraculous recovery just hours after you prayed."

Scully touched the back of her neck. "It was also just a day after I had this chip implanted in my neck to replace the one that was destroyed. It's probably the same type as Amanda Broadman's or even Sister Rosario's. I can't say with certainty just what brought about the remission, but I think it's foolhardy to dismiss the idea of traditional treatment out-of-hand."

The nun removed her hand slowly, but never broke eye contact with Scully. "And I think it's foolhardy to dismiss the idea of divine intervention outright, Dana - particularly with what you know about the power of faith."

Scully bit her lip, but held her chin high as she watched the Mother Superior go to a bookshelf and return with a musty, well-worn volume. She placed the book in Scully's hand as gently as if the book were a frail dove.

"Saint Peregrine Agosi," Scully read aloud. "I'm afraid I don't know anything about him."

"He had cancer in his foot and was scheduled to have it amputated, but prayer healed him. I suggest you read this tonight, Dana, and pray to him for Sister Rosario's sake. Remember that it was the love of Jesus that brought us here."

"But..."

"Dana." Scully saw the firmness in the Mother Superior's gaze. "If you are to remain with us, I must insist on obedience. When you say your prayers tonight, include a request for intercession from St. Peregrine. That is all I intend to say on the matter. Good night, Dana."

Scully felt the blood rushing past her ears, the stigma of shame at having disappointed this woman whose guidance she was requesting, yet at the same time her years of knowledge and training pulled at her, telling her that she was making a mistake.

She closed her eyes and tried to calm herself with thoughts of God's love, but Sister Rosario's haggard face continued to haunt her.

God's love, God's will.

Obedience.

Her heavy wool dress could not ward off the chill.

Journal entry, early Thursday Morning

I was doing as Mother told me, reading about St. Peregrine Agosi and keeping my thoughts about Sister Rosario's condition as positive as I could, when my meditations were interrupted by a ticking sound against the window.

Hail? I didn't think it was raining, and the sound was too localized. I got up and let the book close, groaning as the corner of a brittle page broke off and fluttered to the floor. I looked through the clean glass to peer into a darkness almost as profound as that in my own heart.

I ducked when I realized that something was coming at my face. It hit the glass with a faint tick and lay on the windowsill. Gravel.

At last my eyes adjusted to the nighttime darkness and I saw the forlorn figure standing in the flower bed, something clutched in his hand.

Mulder.

Young David in a dark gray t-shirt, throwing pebbles against his own personal Goliath.

I opened the window and leaned out. "How did you know which room was mine?" I asked in a loud stage whisper.

"I've been watching this side of the building all night. I saw you come in."

"But I've been in here for an hour..."

"I thought you might be busy. With...Him." Mulder gestured to the sky.

I couldn't repress a chuckle at the idea of Mulder waiting for a convenient moment to interrupt my conversation with the Almighty. I forced my features into a stern expression as I faced him again. "Mulder, you can't BE here."

"Scully, I have to talk to you. Please." The agony in his voice tore at me, even at this distance. "Please?" he asked again, his tone needier than I'd ever heard it.

I knew I should beg him to leave me in peace.

I wanted to tell him my fears about Sister Rosario's condition and my fruitless conversation with Mother.

I was afraid I'd tell him that his was the first name brought up in my prayers, even before those of my family members.

I had to get him out of the garden before anyone found him and called the police.

Against my better judgment I whispered, "Come back tomorrow evening, and we'll talk then. INSIDE, Mulder."

He seemed to consider this for a moment and I could feel the weight of his indecision. Would his need for me overcome his common sense?

The way it did in Antarctica, for example?

"Okay, Scully," he said at last.

I watched him walk away, his shoulders hunched against something I could only imagine, and I was overwhelmed by guilt. I had failed him as a friend even as I had tried to protect his soul.

I was too disturbed to go back to my readings. I wanted to sleep, but when I closed my eyes I saw myself as if in a mirror, as I had looked those last days when the cancer had almost beaten me. That Dana Scully stared at me and begged me not to abandon those who were not so fortunate.

I could not sleep.

I whispered the words of St. Teresa of Avila: "Let nothing trouble you, let nothing make you afraid. All things pass away. God never changes. Patience obtains everything. God alone is enough."

But nothing could make me sleep.

Thursday Morning

"We are doing her no service by letting her die," Scully argued, her patience at an end with the implacable Sister Michael.

The older woman let Scully have her say, watching patiently through hooded eyes until Scully had finished.

Then she said, "Dana, I appreciate your medical training - which is far greater than my own, and far more recent. However, our Sister has expressed her desire to remain here and we are in no position to countermand that wish."

"I don't believe that she is mentally competent to make that kind of decision. Her blood volume is obviously depleted, so of course her faculties are affected. It's possible that with aggressive treatment, she might..." Scully's hands fell to her sides. "I realize that she probably would not recover, but she could be made more comfortable. She might at least gain enough time to make peace with her family...."

Sister Michael frowned at the word "family" and she wrapped her thin arms around herself as if to ward off a chill.

"Is there someone we should contact?" Scully's persistent question was interrupter by Sister Rosario's rasping, brittle voice.

"My family...is here. Don't...send me...away..."

"Hush, Sister," soothed Sister Michael. "No one is sending you anywhere."

Scully opened her mouth to protest, but was silenced by Sister Michael's stern expression.

"Dana...don't do this..."

Defeated, Scully let her shoulders slump. "It's all right, Sister. Don't worry." She cast a look over her shoulder at Sister Michael, whose face was relaxing. "Stay here with us. Your family."

Only later would she come to understand the look the two nuns exchanged.

Thursday evening

"Oh Great Saint Joseph, you were completely obedient to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Obtain for me the grace to know the state of life that God in his providence has chosen for me. Since my happiness on earth, and perhaps even my final happiness in heaven, depends on this choice, let me not be deceived in making it. "

Scully said the words clearly and with reverence before rising from the kneeler. She brushed stray pieces of lint from her skirt, warming her hands in the folds of gray wool. The rays of the setting sun were just coming through the clear, leaded glass of the little chapel where she had been praying for guidance - and for enough strength to survive her meeting with Mulder.

Sister Joan, a strong, muscular woman in her early thirties, came up behind Scully. "Dana, your visitor is here."

"Thank you," she responded smoothly, not allowing her voice to betray any of her trepidation.

"Dana?"

Scully turned around and saw Sister Joan twisting her hands. "Yes?"

"I just wanted to say...I never told you how grateful we are for what you did a few days ago, saving Sharon from that man..."

Scully saw the nervous gestures - the hands clenching and unclenching the front of the habit, the licking of the lips, the way that Sister Joan looked down at the floor as she spoke. "Sister, is there something else you wanted to tell me?"

"I'm worried...that is...oh, dear. I'm sorry, I'm keeping you from your visitor. Please excuse me." She made a hasty exit through a side door, leaving Scully to puzzle over her words on the way to her appointment with Mulder.

Her steps were heavy. As hard as seeing Skinner had been, this was going to be even worse, and she felt a sharp pang of regret at having given in to Mulder's plea. The parlor door was open and Mulder was standing by the fireplace, both hands stretched out on the mantel and his head drooping as if he were too tired to hold it up.

"Scully, do you still pray for me?" he asked without turning his head.

Not surprised that he recognized the sound of her footsteps, Scully said in a dark and earnest tone, "Of course I do."

"Not to St. Dymphna, for the insane?"

She smiled and walked over to him, leaning against the wall to his right so that he could look at her without moving. "You've been reading up - but no. To Saint Vivian." At Mulder's bewildered stare, she pointed to his head. "For hangovers."

"Oh. So Skinner talked to you."

"Yes. Yes, he did. I'm not racking up any points for solitary meditation at this rate." She ducked a little, forcing him to meet her eyes. "What were you doing that night, Mulder?"

"Burning my bridges," he muttered, turning his head again and lapsing into silence. In the distance they could hear someone playing a recording of Schubert's "Ave Maria."

Scully's breathing quickened, her fingers flexing in frustration. "Mulder, you threw rocks at my window last night and said you had to talk to me. So, talk."

Mulder went to the door and closed it, muting the strains of music. "I can't think with that in the background. It's so sad."

"It is sad," Scully agreed. She took long strides to Mulder's side and caught him by the wrist. "There's a nun here who's dying of cancer. The same kind I had, Mulder."

He looked at her for a moment, his eyes widening. "And for the same reason?"

"I believe so."

"How many nuns here WERE abductees, Scully?" Mulder began to pace the room, and Scully could see outrage adding strength to his limbs.

"I don't know. At least two, maybe more. I haven't been here long enough to hear the whole story - I'm not even certain that I want the whole story. But Mulder, I wish I could do something for Sister Rosario."

He stopped, his heels coming to rest on the metal strip that separated the carpet from the floor. Rubbing his eyes with his knuckles as he rocked back and forth on the uneven surface, he spoke in a dull monotone.

"I could never get back into the Pentagon, Scully. And even if I could, there's no way I could possibly know which chip to take - I could kill her with nothing more than a wrong guess."

"Mulder!" Scully collapsed onto the divan, her hands outstretched. "I would never ask you to do something like that. And besides - we don't know for certain that it WAS the chip that caused the remission."

She regretted the words the instant they were uttered. Mulder said nothing, but he stood absolutely rigid, as if he had been frozen in place, his mouth turning downward in the expression of self-loathing that Scully had seen a thousand times for a thousand reasons.

When at last he spoke, his voice dripped ice. "It didn't help you. That means I didn't help you."

"Mulder, no, I didn't mean that. Please - sit down and listen." She moved enough on the little sofa to give him room to join her, but instead, he took a chair from the table and brought it across from her, his downcast expression sullen.

Using a soft, soothing voice in lieu of an apology, Scully spoke. "I'll never be able to thank you for what you did for me. Whether it WAS the cure or not isn't the point: it's the fact that you even considered taking such a risk."

"I would never have REFUSED to take that risk. Or any risk, Scully, where you are concerned." He met her gaze at last, his eyes large and full of sorrow.

Scully's lips trembled for just an instant before she regained control. "I know that, Mulder, and that's why I pray for you constantly. I owe you so much..."

"So you left me when I needed you most. Strange way of repaying the debt, Scully."

"That's not fair." She heard the rising pitch and forced herself to remain calm. "You want me to love the X-Files more than I love God, and that is just not possible."

"The X-Files." His voice was flat. He got up and turned his body away from her, fumbling with the buttons on his jacket. "Yeah, Scully, that's what I wanted. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a meeting with my mother's attorneys. She's dead, you know."

"You bastard!" She leapt to her feet, grabbing his forearms, looking at her hands and seeing the blood drain from her fingertips. "I was with you for all of that, Mulder. I performed the autopsy on her and I put her back together afterwards, then I put YOU back together. Don't you DARE tell me..."

The shadow of the Mother Superior fell over them like a pall.

The combatants separated. Mulder's face was contrite. "I'm sorry. We shouldn't have been talking so loudly."

"That's not the point, Mr. Mulder. What I'm concerned about is not the decibel level of your conversation, but rather Dana's spiritual progress and the well-being of the Sisters at this convent. We are here to help others, to contemplate and to pray. We simply can't have stray men wandering our gardens at night."

Scully lowered her head, covering her face with her hands. She listened to Mulder's guilty throat-clearing noises as her own embarrassment tore at her conscience.

The Mother Superior continued. "Mr. Mulder, I do understand that you've suffered a terrible loss, and that you feel you have lost Dana, as well. Believe me, you have our sympathies and our prayers. But please, consider what it is you are doing to Dana, the suffering you are causing her."

"But he's suffering, too," Scully found herself saying, the need to defend Mulder as automatic a response as breathing. "You don't know what he's been through..."

"Scully, stop." Mulder finally looked at her, and she saw his eyes, dim but dry, full of tender remorse. He put his hands on her shoulders and leaned forward to whisper in her ear.

"I won't hurt you any more."

She swallowed hard, leaning into his touch to keep her balance.

The floor shook.

"Mulder..." Scully pulled up just in time to see a plaster statue fall off of the mantel. The Mother Superior cried out in dismay as the tiny fragments turned to powder. The chairs and tables rumbled with the sound of an approaching freight train.

"Earthquake?" the Mother Superior managed to ask, but Mulder shook his head.

"No. Not Earth."

The lights were extinguished as if by an enormous, heavy hand as the tremors stopped. A scream filled the ensuing silence. Mulder reached for his weapon and moved into the hallway before Scully, motioning for the Mother Superior to stay behind, but she refused and followed closely in Scully's footsteps.

Nuns raced out of their cells, their pale faces visible in a single thin stream of light that came from down the hall. Mulder and Scully followed the light, their footsteps careful and silent. "What's down there?" Mulder asked in a whisper.

"The...oh, God, the infirmary..."

Scully took one look at the horrified Mother Superior and raced for the door, Mulder at her heels. She threw the door open and had to put her arm over her eyes because of the aching brightness of the light.

The light filled the room, obliterating all shape and color. "Sister?! SISTER?!" Scully cried. She heard nothing except a faint humming sound.

As the sound moved away, the light faded as well. Scully opened her eyes and scanned the room with a quick turn of her head. She saw a shape in the corner, a huddled black form rocking back and forth.

"Mulder!" she called, and they went to the stricken nun, lifting her face.

Sister Michael looked at them, her hands clasped firmly in prayer, her expression filled with rapturous delight. "Oh, Dana, Dana, she was right..."

"Where's Sister Rosario?" Scully asked, her breath coming harshly from her parted lips as she turned to look at the empty bed. "Where is she? Where did she go?"

"She was right...she was right..." She pointed a quivering finger at the window.

Mulder and Scully exchanged a wide-eyed look. "She was right about what?" Mulder asked softly.

The nun looked out of the window into the darkening sky.

"They came."

Thursday Night

Rather than displaying confusion over what they had just witnessed, the nuns were completely quiet as they went about their business. There was no buzz of conversation.

The only sound was the gentle tapping of the Mother Superior's hard-soled shoes along the old wooden floorboards as she walked toward Sister Michael. In silence, letting her outstretched hand speak for her, she offered assistance.

Sister Michael rose on trembling legs, her gaze still turned toward the window. Scully strode in front of her and checked her pulse, looking into her wide eyes. "She's in shock. We need to get her to a hospital."

"That won't be necessary," said the Mother Superior. "She just needs some rest."

"I'm sure she does, but I'd like to find out exactly what she saw."

Mulder spoke from the doorway, his presence vibrant in the small room. "And the best way to do that would be to get her some medical attention as soon as possible."

Scully bit her lip. She helped Sister Michael over to a neatly-made bed opposite the one on which Sister Rosario had lain only minutes before. The nun allowed herself to be covered with a sheet and blanket, oblivious to anything but the encroaching darkness visible through the window.

"We appreciate your concern, Mr. Mulder, but I think we know best how to care for one of our own," the Mother Superior said, her voice firm, but not unkind.

They all turned to Sister Michael. Her face, pale as it was, seemed transformed by an inner joy. "I'm all right," she whispered through trembling, upturned lips. "We're all going to be all right."

"That's right, my child. Now we'll leave you to get some rest." The Mother Superior made the sign of the cross over the bed, whispering a prayer.

Mulder's mouth was set in a tight line of aggravation. He took Scully by the elbow and turned her away from the beds. She looked up at him, nonplused, and spoke in a familiar whisper. "This is exactly what happened to Amanda Broadman. I was there; I saw it. There's something really bizarre going on here, Mulder."

"That's not all, Scully. I came here to tell you a couple of things I've found out. First, this convent has a pretty checkered history. Lights in the sky, strange noises, remote as it is from the city and even its nearest neighbors."

"You think that there's a lot of this going on?" she asked incredulously, peering up into his face.

"Well, look at the sisters. They all came running, but no one seemed particularly surprised. More as if they were curious as to who might be next." His hand tightened on her elbow as if to keep her safe.

"Mulder." She put her hands on his forearms. "Please tell me that you aren't suggesting that all of the nuns here are alien abductees?"

"Well, aren't you?"

Scully blinked, lowering her head to gain physical and emotional distance as she tried to gather her thoughts. "I've told you, I don't have any clear recollection of what happened to me..."

He ducked down to look into her eyes. "Well then, what's your rational, scientific explanation for what just happened, and for what you saw happen to Amanda Broadman?"

"I don't know, I'm not sure yet. Maybe it was...was..." She paused for breath. "I don't know. Maybe we're not meant to know, not meant to understand everything we see around us. Maybe this is about faith, not science."

"Scully!" Mulder's face registered both exasperation and shock.

"What do you want me to say? That I was called here not to serve God, but to 'phone home' with the other abductees?"

"I just want you to consider carefully some of the possible reasons you may have come here." His hand, which had been resting on her shoulder, found its way up and around to the back of her neck. Scully jerked away as if the touch burned her.

"Mulder, just stop it."

Her tone was unintentionally harsh, enough to make Mulder flinch. She regretted the outburst and reached out to cup his cheek in her hand. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

He relaxed into the caress. "I think we're both upset, Scully. Think about what I've said. Call me tomorrow and we can throw around some theories, okay?"

She sighed his name as she felt his fingers wandering across the scar on her neck. "Mulder...okay..."

"No," the voice of the Mother Superior was an unexpected intrusion. She left Sister Michael's side and walked toward Scully, putting a hand on her arm, separating her from Mulder. "Dana is here for a purpose you don't understand, Mr. Mulder. Since you can't seem to comprehend the seriousness of her vows, I will have to ask you not to call here again."

Before Scully had a chance to respond, she heard Mulder's voice, the no-nonsense tone colored with disbelief and no small amount of panic. "I'm a Federal agent," he sputtered.

"And this is a religious institution. Unless you have probable cause, we have the right to be left alone by the government AND its agents."

Mulder remained at Scully's side as his eyes flashed at the Mother Superior. "Reverend Mother, you've had two abductions from this convent in the last few days. Kidnapping is a federal crime."

"Very well. Come back with a warrant and I will cooperate with you. Until that time, I must ask you to leave us - to leave Dana - in peace."

"Don't you want to know what happened to those two women?" The brittle timbre and rising volume was familiar to Scully, who recognized it as Mulder's reaction to loss. She started to reach for him when she heard the Mother Superior's retort.

"Mr. Mulder, we are brides of Christ. When He calls us, we follow. Good evening." Her finger, slender but authoritative, pointed inexorably toward the door.

Mulder glanced at Scully, who could not meet his eyes. She turned one shoulder toward him, missing the proximity, the familiar warmth, but equally drawn to the light of her faith.

She shivered and looked up at the Mother Superior, whose whisper was the

caress she needed. "Dana, you know that you are here to be obedient to God and His will. Wait for me in my study, please, while I see Mr. Mulder out."

"Scully?"

Mulder's pleading voice rent her soul and laid its fabric in ruins. Her gaze, sorrowful but unafraid, turned toward her former partner.

"I'm sorry, Mulder. You'll be in my prayers."

She turned around, scarcely able to see through the thick tears that brimmed and spilled into her lowered eyelashes. Out of her peripheral vision she saw Mulder turn the corridor, his shoulders bowed with the weight she had always borne for him.

Sunday morning, journal entry

I am silent.

Reverend Mother prescribed this for me the night Sister Rosario disappeared, not as punishment but as a way for me to clear away the worldly thoughts that are keeping me from my true duty. I have so many questions I cannot ask, so many avenues of investigation...no. That is no longer my path.

I read St. Teresa of Avila's words last night as I was pondering the career I've left behind: "While recalling the wasted years that are past, I believe that You, Lord, can in an instant turn this loss to gain."

Were those really wasted years, though? Did I spend all that time becoming educated, becoming an officer of the law, for nothing? I've saved lives. Surely that must mean something. I've helped prevent the spread of diseases and conspiracies. Surely the things I've accomplished must hold some meaning.

Now I'm relinquishing that fight to those who maintain that calling. People like Mulder. Yet as certain as I am that I've done the right thing, I am still overcome by feelings of loss.

I feel the loss of my authority as I turn it over to a Power higher than that of any government agency.

My body, my mind, my very soul all turn toward the light and strength of God, and I pray constantly for God's strength to see me through in my weakened state.

I feel the loss of worldly things, of bubble baths and silk and chocolate, but in their place comes the all-encompassing love of God and His will, enough to sustain me through these trying times when the spirit is willing but the flesh is so, so weak.

I feel the loss of my family, who love me and respect my decision even though it puzzles and saddens them. My mother's letters are full of compassion. Bill's are full of confusion, although he's finally convinced that I am safe. Charlie sends me chatty letters about Marianne and the kids and life in countries I will never see. His letters are ciphers; he leaves me to find his hidden messages, spiritual moments tucked away in his journal of the mundane. Bill hates Charlie's letters.

Mulder would love them.

Mulder.

I feel his loss most of all. I miss him more than the comforts of my home, more than driving with the windows rolled down, more than the worn-out comforter I wrapped myself in on cold winter nights. I miss him as surely as he had been one of my senses, or perhaps my heart.

With the second sight that comes from years of partnership, I can see him sitting on his battered sofa, a remote control in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other. He's surfing the channels so fast that you'd think he didn't know what was on them, but he does. He processes images and sounds faster than I thought possible.

Precarious piles of his mother's papers are scattered over the coffee table. There's a copy of the will with coffee-cup rings on it, weighed down with some jewelry in little plastic bags. Somewhere in the mess is a check from her life insurance company that will probably never be cashed, because he knows that to take that money is to admit that his last living relative is gone.

If this had happened six years ago, I'd have accompanied him to the funeral, patted his hand, and made sure he had a casserole in the oven. Four years ago I'd have taken him home to keep an eye on him and force-fed him in spite of his self-destructive wishes. Two years ago, when the cancer was about to claim me as its own, he would have hidden his pain from me, and I would have let him, because my own despair was all-consuming.

If it had happened last year, after he had gone to the ends of the earth to save my life, I'd have taken him into my bed and into my body.

As it stands, he is in my body, in a place next to my heart, closer to me than anyone else I've ever known. But I fear that he does not understand the place he has - that he thinks I've abandoned him when really I'm doing more for him this way than by any other act I could perform. I'm praying for his health, his happiness, his very soul, tending to those areas he's left neglected for so long that they've gone to seed.

But will he ever truly understand?

Will he ever truly forgive me?

Sunday Afternoon

Scully looked up from her Bible, her eyeglasses slipping down her nose as she snapped around to see her visitor. The round face of Sister Joan peered from the doorway. "May I come in, Dana?" she asked, waiting for Scully's welcoming smile before walking into the room. "I have something for you. I should, uh..." she closed the door with an anxious turn of her wrist.

Looking up from her table in confusion, Scully motioned for Sister Joan to come closer. She opened her hand to accept the proffered envelope.

The handwriting was Mulder's.

Scully shut her eyes, weariness and sorrow making her hunch over as if in pain. Sister Joan gave a sympathetic wince and came closer.

"He's been here every day since...since Sister Rosario went away. The Reverend Mother won't let him in. She won't even let him leave a message for you. But he saw me in the garden this morning after Confession. He asked me...he begged me..." She shifted from one foot to another, twisting the skirt of her habit in a work-calloused hand.

Scully opened the envelope and took out the letter. She scanned it, her eyes troubled. Sister Joan's voice made her lift her head.

"I've never disobeyed the Reverend Mother before, Dana. Never. I will have to do penance for this, I know - but I knew this was important, for Sister Rosario, maybe even for all of us...?"

Nodding, Scully rose and embraced the agitated nun.

"Then I'm glad." Sister Joan turned away and left Scully alone with the letter.

She handled it gingerly, tracing a fingernail along the pen marks as she read.

"Scully, "I've been denied even the chance to talk with you. No matter what your reasons are, no matter how hard you try to avoid learning the truth, you need to know what I've found out about the children at the orphanage. Some are orphans of civil servants - everything from DEA to FBI and in between - but most of them have no records of any kind. Birth, adoption, nothing. It's as if they never entered our system. Even the older ones have never been enrolled in school outside the convent - no Big Brother or Sister programs, no medical records other than the ones maintained by the convent.

"And there's no vaccination record. No *smallpox* vaccination, Scully.

"I think you know what this could mean. Any one of these children, or perhaps all of them, could be a hybrid or a clone.

"You've decided to cut yourself off from me, from our work. But you can't cut yourself off from the truth about the children. Use your abilities to get to the bottom of this, Scully. God will forgive you if it's 'disobedient.' Besides, I'm counting on you. THEY are counting on you."

He signed it simply with his initial.

Scully balled the paper up and threw it against the wall with a harsh, wordless exhalation. Her agitation grew as she paced the confines of her room, a caged lioness stalking imaginary prey. Mulder knew, as he always did, exactly what would appeal to her senses of honor and duty. He knew what she would not be able to resist.

The children.

How dare he?

The little bed creaked under her slight weight as she threw herself face-down on the freshly laundered bedspread. The sorrow she had carried in her heart leapt up and placed bitter lead in her throat.

They're depending on ME to save them.

It came to her in a flash of insight, a flaming arrow that pierced not her heart but her mind: no matter where she went or what she did, she would always be called upon to save the helpless and the innocent, the sorrowful and the heartbroken.

The children.

The Sisters.

Mulder.

Before she realized it, she was dressed in black, with flashlight in hand, prepared to visit the unknown.

Sunday Night

There was no dust on the floor of the orphanage, but Scully felt as if there were grit under her feet, making crunching noises to give away her every step.

Moving quickly, she went past the offices and took a few moments to look through the girls' dormitory.

"Doctor Dana! Doctor Dana!"

A dozen girls leapt up and embraced their favorite, the lady who played softball with them and bandaged their skinned knees without chastising them. Scully hugged back and used her proximity to check the upper arms of her charges.

None of the girls, not even the ones in their late teens, bore a vaccination mark.

"Doctor Dana, will you read to us?" A dark-haired girl came up to her with an old hardback copy of "The Velveteen Rabbit."

Scully shook her head sadly, pointing first to the rosary she wore at her waist and then to her closed lips.

"Did Jesus say you couldn't talk?" asked the child with the book.

"No, dummy," an older girl corrected with an exaggerated roll of her eyes. "She's taken a vow of silence. It's so she can become a Sister. Isn't that right?"

"It wouldn't hurt you to take a vow of silence, Fern!" cried another girl in a high, indignant voice, and the group dissolved into giggles and pillow tosses.

Scully got up and gently disentangled herself from the three youngest girls, then strode out the door and down to where the boys were watching television. Their attention was rapt as they watched the flickering images, giving Scully enough time to realize that they were all in long sleeves and that there would be no way to examine them without being barraged by questions.

Examining the nursery would be pointless, since infants were too young to have smallpox inoculations.

She came to the tall iron gate that blocked the stairway to the second floor.

Sister Michael had explained that the building was simply too large and that the upstairs was used only for storage so that they would not have to waste money on living spaces no one would live in. Scully wrapped her hands around the bars, staring absently upwards, chewing on her lower lip.

Why this elaborate barricade with no opening? To keep curious children out? A locked door would suffice, but this heavy obstacle hinted at a more sinister purpose.

Scully examined the crisscrossed pattern of the bars. Each "V" seemed to be placed adequately for a foothold, and there was at least a three-foot clearance at the top. Mouthing a silent prayer of thanksgiving to whoever decided that postulants could not wear high heels, Scully rested the arch of one foot on a section of the gate and experimented with the effects of her weight on the metal. There was only a slight creak, so she proceeded to make the ascent to the top of the gate.

More than once her skirt caught on a bolt and she had to pause and free herself before continuing. A fleeting childhood memory slipped across her subconscious: climbing a tree outside of the Catholic school in San Diego as her siblings watched. Bill had jeered at her for being "a sissy," so she had thrown her books to the ground and grabbed hold of the lowest branch, swinging herself upward to gain a foothold on the massive trunk. Melissa had screamed and Charlie had cried, begging her to come down, but Bill had egged her on higher and higher until finally her slick-soled Mary Janes failed her and she had tumbled downward into a pile of leaves.

She had gotten the wind knocked out of her and a dozen interesting bruises. Bill had gotten the business end of their father's belt and a two-week stint in the "brig," the family term for grounding.

In spite of herself, Scully smiled as she took one cautious vertical step after another. Look at me, Billy, I'm climbing...

She twisted her body and swung her legs over the top of the gate, then began a wary descent. Once safely on the ground, she walked briskly up the stairs and began to look around.

She found herself in a corridor almost identical to the one on the first floor, other than the storeroom that was where the kitchen would have been. The door to the storeroom had no lock. That fact did not surprise Scully, given the difficulty of getting upstairs in the first place. She opened the door carefully and went inside.

Just as her fingers scrabbled over the wall for the light switch, she stopped herself. Even if there were power on this floor, the sudden appearance of an overhead light might alert the sisters to a presence in this "unused" part of the building. Scully took out her flashlight and set the beam on low, aiming it toward the floor.

The room was full of filing cabinets.

Lots and lots of files, she heard in her memory, and her whole body shook.

She concentrated on the evidence. The drawers were labeled with years, dating all the way back to 1948. She opened the file marked "1981" and pulled out the folders. The beam of her flashlight put the short lives of their subjects into a spotlight.

Matthew Nash, born August 24, 1981 to a CIA agent and his wife who died in a car accident three months later. Inoculated against smallpox before being brought to The Little Sisters.

Abbey Maloney, born September 8, 1981, to a doctor whose wife was in the DEA. The parents died in a house fire when Abbey was only two years old. Inoculated against smallpox the day before the tragedy. Sent to live at The Little Sisters.

Sharon Loewe, born September 19, 1981.

Sharon, who had brought Scully into this web with her terrified phone call.

Her parents, listed as a FEMA employee and his wife, died almost precisely one year apart from rare forms of brain cancer. Sharon's disappearances were cataloged with precise dates. One had a serial number next to it. Sharon was being placed in the care of her aunt after "an unfortunate incident" at the convent, but a note in the margin stated that she never arrived in Pennsylvania.

Sharon.

Scully stuffed the folders back in their drawers and went in search of more recent records. She opened the "1991" drawer and took out the information on Fern Cavazos: Foundling, left as an infant at The Little Sisters. No information on her parentage. No inoculation against smallpox.

Stephen Yen, the little boy whose knee she had been bandaging when Mulder came to see her in the infirmary - foundling, left as an infant at The Little Sisters. No information on his parentage. No inoculation against smallpox.

Scully frowned. The older children, all of whose parents seemed connected to the Federal government in some way, were inoculated against smallpox. But the young ones were mostly unaccounted for, were not inoculated, and had no records of parents at all. Did the lack of vaccinations really mean anything, given that smallpox had been declared "eradicated" some years earlier? Scully could not remember. Her heart was pounding as her mind categorized and organized the facts, and all she could hear was the blood rushing past her ears.

And a soft thud.

Crouching on her hands and knees, she made her way carefully past the filing cabinets. She peered into the darkness. A small figure was scarcely visible in the hallway, shivering.

Scully heard a sob, the cry of a child.

Instantly she got to her feet and strode to the door, flashlight at the ready. The light made a halo of Casey Allen's blond hair. He looked up at Scully in terror before she put the light on her own face so that he could recognize her.

"Doctor Dana!" He threw his arms around her and hugged her so tightly that she sank to her knees to look into his terrified eyes. "She won't wake up! I finally found her, but she won't wake up!"

Scully reached for her handkerchief and mopped the sticky tears from the little boy's face. She wondered if he knew about her vow; she wondered if he knew how grateful she was for that vow, which kept her from having to find words to comfort him.

"Everyone was watchin' TV, so I snuck away. I climbed up that big gate. You know the one?"

Scully smiled at him. "You climbed it too? Cool..." The tears started up again and Scully cuddled him until he was calmer.

"I wanted to see Mommy."

Scully wiped his nose as she considered the statement. Most children who were orphaned that young did not realize that their parents would never return to them, but Casey was an exceptionally bright boy. Putting her finger to his lips, Scully stood up and went back into the records room.

Casey had been born on June 10, 1993. The mother of record was a former postulant, now employed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation...

Scully's flashlight clattered to the floor.

...Amanda Broadman.

Sister Joan read the note, her expression suspiciously calm for someone who was receiving news of this magnitude.

Her hands were not as controlled; they trembled enough to make the thin sheet of paper rattle.

Scully watched Casey as he drank hot chocolate with marshmallows, his earlier grief allayed by the unexpected treat. Her fingers drummed an impatient rhythm on the smooth oak table as she waited for a response.

"Dana, I don't know what to say. You're asking me to disobey the Reverend Mother yet again - and worse, to leave the Abbey grounds without permission.

I just..."

Scully's fist landed on the table with a bang. Her expression was one of fury and desperation as she snatched the paper and underlined Amanda Broadman's name.

"Yes, I remember her. We grew up here at Little Sisters - I was a couple of years ahead of her in school, and I'd just taken my final vows when she was deciding whether to stay in the convent. She took a vow of silence and went away on a retreat. A lot of us do that before we take our vows, so it didn't seem odd. I didn't see her for..." Her brown eyes grew wide with horror. "If Casey is her son...it was when..."

Scully pressed an envelope into Sister Joan's hand, beseeching her.

"If I do this...if your friend comes with a warrant...oh, Dana, I don't know!" Her voice was strained with indecision and tears. "Serving God is my whole life. I've never...oh, but if..."

Scully's chair rattled against the floor as she jumped to her feet and grabbed Sister Joan's hand. Casey sidled up against them and tugged at their skirts. "I want my Mommy," he said softly, pointing toward the orphanage.

The three of them made their way back to the gate. Scully and Casey helped Sister Joan make the climb, then the women followed the little boy who longed for his mother.

He led them calmly and quietly, only a little sniffle escaping now and again on the journey.

They passed the storeroom and turned another corridor, coming at last to what looked like a hospital ward. Scully focused her light on the door, which bore no identifying words, then turned the beam inward to sweep the room.

Dozens of women lay on gurneys. IV lines ran like spider's webs up and over them, glistening liquid pouring through the long tendrils into bodies that waited in silence. Scully turned the flashlight on a bag hanging from an IV pole.

Lupron. Synthetic hormone to prepare a woman's uterus to receive an embryo.

Gulping down the bile that rose in her throat, she inspected some of the other bags, finding feeding and hydration substances in addition to the drugs. Some of the women were obviously pregnant, the names of the "donors" typed on their wristbands. Scully felt the backs of their necks, finding the familiar lump in exactly the same location on every woman. Scully took a quick look at the charts and discovered, to her surprise, that the names of donors and recipients matched.

These women were having their "own" fertilized ova implanted into their bodies.

But why?

One corner of her mind registered Sister Joan's whisper as she told Casey to get back to bed and not tell "a living soul" where he had been, and was relieved to hear his pattering footfall receding. The rest of her mind was whirling, trying to assimilate what she was seeing while searching for the woman Casey had called "Mommy."

Finally, at the very end of the room, Scully found the patient she sought. Amanda Broadman's treatment seemed to consist of nutritional support and secobarbital. Scully stared at the labels for a moment, then brushed the hair away from the back of Amanda's neck.

A fresh butterfly bandage covered a tiny red scar. Scully turned away and opened the chart, on which was printed both a bar code and a serial number.

A new implant, a new chance for life.

She started as the door crashed open loudly enough to rattle the windows. Praying silently that Sister Joan was quick enough to hide herself, Scully made her way toward the source of the noise. Out of reflex she reached for the weapon that was no longer at her side, wincing when her hand came up empty.

There had been a time when she could have pulled out her gun and identified herself as a Federal agent.

Now all she could do was hope for a gust of wind rather than a human intruder, but someone had put these women here and someone would be coming by to check on them.

With the snap of current flowing through wires came the bright, fluorescent light of a hospital ward. Scully winced as her eyes adjusted to the brilliant intrusion, then turned when she heard a familiar voice.

"We expect obedience for a reason, Dana."

Sister Michael stood in front of her. She stared down at Scully, her eyes hard and bitter. "You've done a very foolish thing. You know that, don't you?"

Scully's fingers clasped the beads of her rosary. She nodded, trying to scan the room for Sister Joan, relieved when she saw her friend silently rising several feet behind Sister Michael. Sister Joan's eyes were huge and her mouth open as she took in the scene before her. The nun was clearly and painfully torn, but she made up her mind when she read the intent in Scully's eyes.

Run.

Run.

Sister Joan slipped out of the door, unnoticed.

Sister Michael took Scully by the wrist and yanked her toward a huge steel freezer. "Do you know what's in here? Do you?" Not waiting for an answer, she opened the door and pointed toward a small drawer. "We're all here, all of us who were taken. There's even one for you. See?" She pointed a thin finger at a label and read the words aloud. "Scully, Dana Katherine."

A shudder of horror wracked Scully's body as the implications became clear. Mulder had held one of these in his hand the night she had left Scanlon's clinic. She knew they existed, even believed in them after the horror of Emily's death, but seeing her very essence contained in a glass vial, subject to the whims of nefarious, nameless men, made her want to scream.

Scully tried to break free of the grasp, but Sister Michael's hand was as strong as death. The older woman stared at her for a moment, then shoved her violently away. Scully lost her balance, falling to the floor and hitting her head squarely against the steel door jamb.

Through ringing ears she heard the echoing words:

"Perhaps it's time for you to go on your retreat."

Then there was silence.

End

Notes: Eternal thanks, more than I could ever express, to the patient and amazing beta team of jordan and Barbara D. If you could see what I send them and compare it to the finished version, you'd know as well as I that they are pearls beyond price.

Title: Amor Caritas III: Victory
Author: Marguerite
Written: December 1999
Rating: PG-13 for disturbing imagery
Classification: Casefile
Spoilers: Through Season Six

This is the third and final chapter of a series. Previous chapters can be found here: http://marguerite.simplenet.com/wip.html

Monday Morning

Slowly, as if emerging from a deep well filled with muck and mire, Scully broke the surface of consciousness. Her head ached, the pain exacerbated by her prone position. When she tried to turn over on her side, she realized that she was in restraints.

She forced her eyes open. Light flooded her pupils and made her squint until she adjusted to the brilliance. Thin white curtains, the kind she had seen in a hundred hospitals, partitioned her bed from the others in the room. She could see faint outlines of other women, ghostly images that made her shiver even in the warm, bright sunlight that poured over her from a barred window.

The bed creaked as she tried to wrestle free of the straps that held her down. Scully froze, listening to the footsteps that grew ever nearer and watching

a walking shadow loom ever closer.

Sister Michael parted the drape and stood next to Scully's bed. "You're awake. Good." She put her bony fingers on Scully's wrist and took her pulse, then felt behind her head. "It's just a little bump."

"Doesn't feel little when I'm lying flat like this." Scully's voice felt rusty from lack of use. A tickle at the back of her throat turned into a cough and she strained against the leather straps until the spasm passed.

To her surprise, Sister Michael loosened the restraints at her wrists and she was able to pull herself upright. Her vision swam for an instant, then the world righted itself and she could see that she was still dressed in the black sweater and pants she had worn the night before. Pursing her lips, she looked up at her erstwhile sister. "How long?"

"You slept straight through the night. We restrained you because we wanted to make sure you didn't suffer another unfortunate fall."

"We?" Sister Michael's smile seemed forced. "You must have some idea about how special you are, Dana. Surely you realize that many, many people have an extreme interest in your well-being."

"My well-being." She scooted further down on the bed and started to undo the straps around her ankles. "By tying me up like a dog."

"By ensuring that you're cared for by the only people who know exactly what happened to you in the fall of 1994."

Scully's fingers froze on either edge of a buckle.

"No. They're all dead. Betsy, Penny..."

"There was more than one experiment, Dana. This has been going on for years, since before you were born."

"Hybridization." Scully resumed work on the straps until her ankles were freed, then stood on unsteady legs to face her captor. "But I read in Amanda's notebook that the consortium was getting rid of anyone who could possibly be a hybrid. That's why they had Teena Mulder murdered, because her life was saved by...by someone of unknown origin."

"Colonization doesn't seem to hold the same appeal to the remnants of that group. They're trying something different - a vaccine against the black oil." Sister Michael put her hand around Scully's elbow and held it tightly. "That's what makes you so valuable, Dana. You've been exposed to both the oil and the vaccine, and you survived. Your children will be the first to come from this combination, and that makes you different from the others."

"I'm not going to be different for long, though, am I?" Scully gestured with her free hand at the other women, who lay unaware of their surroundings, unaware of their very bodies. "You're going to use me the way you did them."

"It's likely that they'll want to try one more time to make a true hybrid. I, for one, am very curious to see what your children will be like."

Scully's eyes slid shut and she lowered her head. "And if I refuse to cooperate? Do I have an 'unfortunate fall' down some convent stairs? Or do you take the chip and let me die of cancer?"

Sister Michael loosened her grip and turned slightly away. "That's not for me to decide. What I can tell you is that no harm will come to you if you cooperate."

"Is that what happened to Sister Rosario? To Amanda? They didn't cooperate?"

"Amanda was their doing - she was considered dangerous, especially after she explained her role in that murder to Sharon. But I never wanted harm to come to Rosario. She was...she is my friend." Sister Michael's thin face took on a haunted expression. "That was an accident. It wasn't meant to happen that way."

"Was she one of these women?" Scully asked gently, not wanting to lose the advantage of Michael's sudden vulnerability.

"Yes," the nun replied. "She gave birth to a beautiful little girl. I named her Petra, after Rosario's mother."

"And she has no memory of this?"

"They sleep through the entire procedure, from conception to birth and for a few weeks afterward. Periodically, their bodies are exercised by machines, so that when we awaken them they are more or less in the same condition they were when we started. That's when the men from the project come. The ones who implant the memories of a retreat, down to the meals that were served and the names of the other women who were there." She looked over at Scully, her mouth quivering. "I'm not proud of what's done here, Dana. But it's the only way to survive."

"Oh, my God." Scully swallowed and took a deep breath. "Did they do this to you?"

Sister Michael's eyes filled and she blinked rapidly. "Twice. I was close to giving them what they wanted the first time, but my son died. They tried again and said that it was more successful, but they wanted to keep going until they had the perfect child. What made it difficult was that I'd had the wrong vaccine."

"I thought I had the only vaccine..."

"No, the smallpox vaccine. The lots were different, made that way in the hopes that one version would be the right one. Records were carefully kept. Every man, woman, and child who was given that vaccination was cataloged, and those people whose vaccine turned out to be the 'right' one were deemed to be the subjects worth taking."

A flash of memory assaulted Scully: Pendrell leaning over his microscope, showing her the different markers in the vaccinations, leaving her with no explanation for the thousand questions that bubbled in her mind.

She and the others had been marked from childhood, preordained to suffer this horrible fate.

Scully lowered her head, studying the marks her fingertips made on the rumpled white sheets. "Why weren't your memories erased?"

"They tried. I don't seem to be suggestible to hypnosis." She turned away, facing the sunlit window. "The only thing separating me from death was that I had enough medical background to help them. They needed someone on the inside. If I hadn't agreed..."

"They would have removed the chip. Or worse." Scully walked slowly over to where Amanda Broadman lay. "How did she get here?"

"I don't know." Sister Michael's countenance was careworn and weary. "I just came in yesterday afternoon and found her here, like this. It doesn't seem as if they're going to try a procedure on her, does it? She's not on Lupron, just a glucose drip."

"No. It looks as if someone's trying to let her recuperate. And I'm pretty sure that if you could do an x-ray, you'd find a new chip in her neck." Scully gazed into Sister Michael's eyes, trying to read her feelings. "Casey knows that he's her son."

"Oh, dear God." The nun's hands started to shake. "How did he find out?"

"I can't be sure, but I'm assuming that he was poking around in the files and came across his name. He's a bright boy - he was in the infirmary for a week with the chicken pox and was probably bored enough to go exploring when our backs were turned."

"It wasn't supposed to be like this. We were supposed to be helping, saving people from colonization." Sister Michael sat down heavily on the side of an empty cot. "I know what I have to do to survive, to see my own son again. But I don't want to do it, Dana. I know it's wrong and I know that God will punish me."

Scully seized the advantage, taking the nun's hands in her own and holding them firmly. "You don't have to do this. We can walk out of here and we can get help."

"I can't."

"You can. You must." She pulled the rosary beads out of her pocket and fingered the wooden cross lovingly. "It's what He expects of us."

"And what about what I expect?"

The intrusive male voice made both women flinch. Scully straightened her shoulders, knowing before she turned around who the real enemy was.

The stench of cigarette smoke came as no surprise.

"You." Scully strode to the smoking man and stared into his hooded eyes. "I thought you were 'cleaning up' the project, not administering your own clinical trials."

He took a long drag on the cigarette, holding it between his thumb and forefinger in a practiced gesture that was unhampered by the sling that held his arm close to his body. "I have many responsibilities. One or two may be at odds with one another, which gives me room to make decisions as I see fit."

"More decisions than any of these women were given. They came here to serve God."

"Who's to say that I'm not doing His work?"

Scully fought against her surging anger, tamping it down and taking a calming breath. "Your group took us against our will, experimented on us and made us sterile, then implanted a device that could either control our will or give us incurable cancer. That's God's work?"

The smoking man shrugged his good shoulder. "God gives us earthquakes and floods, Miss Scully. He lets disease run rampant. He allows innocent lives to end in pointless accidents every single day. What's the difference?"

"The difference is that people aren't dictating the victims of these disasters. You SELECTED us, you marked us from the beginning and lay in wait for us." She raised her chin and glared at him defiantly.

"You wish you'd killed me when you had the chance, don't you, Miss Scully?"

"It's crossed my mind."

"Dana," Sister Michael said in a low, warning tone.

Smiling faintly, the man extinguished his cigarette against the floor, his sole leaving a crescent-shaped trail of greasy soot as he stubbed out the embers. "Believe it or not, I never planned on this. When you began investigating Teena Mulder's death, it never occurred to me that we'd have an opportunity for this...conversation." He leaned toward her, close enough for her to feel the fetid breath on her cheek. Scully could feel the piercing gaze directed at her but refused to meet it, defying this attempt to gain more power over her. "Something was taken from you. Something you didn't know you wanted until it was gone."

Scully, alert even though her dread was turning to terror, remained silent. Her posture was rigid, military, and she kept her eyes on the smoking man as he continued his flood of poisonous words.

"I'm in a position to give you what you want. The technology is right here in this very room. You're an interesting candidate for this experiment, because your ova were normal when they were removed but your bloodstream now contains both remnants of the black oil and also the vaccine against it. That's a powerful combination." He regarded her for a moment, his expression a cold mockery of compassion. "You like being in power, don't you?"

"It's my right to make decisions about my body." Scully pointed an accusing finger at her nemesis. "You and your people took that away from me and everyone who was taken for your project."

"Those are brave words coming from someone in your situation." He paused long enough to light a second cigarette. The flame from the lighter reflected from his pupils, making them glow for an instant like a cat's, or a demon's. "Believe it or not, I have a great deal of respect for you. And as a sign of that respect, I'm going to give you the power to choose."

Scully saw Sister Michael's shadow draw nearer, the rustle of her habit all that broke the surreal stillness of the room. "Are you offering me a deal?" Scully asked in a brittle voice.

"Of sorts. One thing is not negotiable, and that is your participation in this project. I'm not willing to give up entirely on hybridization, and you're the most likely candidate to give us what we need. You don't think much of the deal so far, I know. But here's the other non-negotiable aspect. No matter what you decide to do, your life will not be in danger. I'm not willing to have Mulder bring down the heavens in revenge."

"So if I say no..."

"That's not one of your choices. One way or another, you will undergo the procedure. You will be treated with the hormone, given an embryo made from your own ova, and you will give birth to a child. The choice I'm giving you is simple: we can treat you like all the other women...or we can let you keep your memories."

Scully's heart pounded and she had to struggle to keep her breathing regular. "I..."

"Afterwards you will need to remain at the convent and take your final vows, of course, and of course your letters will be censored by the good Sisters. But you will be allowed to see your family - with a chaperon, you understand - after you return from this 'retreat.' I could even arrange visits from Assistant Director Skinner." He gave her a knife's edge of a grin. "Or Agent Mulder."

He put his free hand on her shoulder, whispering into her ear. "Your reward will be the memory of this experience, this experience that you can never have any other way."

Don't scream, Scully told herself, the objects in her vision narrowing and darkening as she felt panic crawling under her flesh. Don't scream.

Sister Michael stared at the unlikely tableau before her. "What about her child?"

"Oh, she'll be the child's caretaker. Its physician. Its guardian." He cut his glance back at Scully, coming in for the kill. "It won't be the way it was with Emily."

Scully recoiled as if from an electric shock.

She could still feel Emily's body cooling against her skin, transmuting from fever's cruel burn to the cold nothingness of death, and her own hot anger, anger turned to ice.

"Emily was made from my ova as well. How do I know that this child will be any different?"

"Her birth mother was injected with a trial version of the vaccine. It was not only ineffective but it also caused the...unfortunate birth defect that took Emily to an early grave. I have it on good authority that using the donor as the birth mother produces far more satisfactory results." He reached as if to touch her but she took quick steps backward and braced herself against the supply cabinet.

Images of Emily's coffin assaulted Scully's eyes even as she glanced over at the featureless stone wall at the back of the room. The coffin had been full of sand, slipping through the

fingers that held her cross aloft. Mulder had been there beside her. He had touched her not with his body but with his heart, his anguish almost as great as her own as he watched her suffer, as he watched her remembering her child's suffering, as she stared into a coffin as empty as her own hopes.

Harsh, hollow laughter rang in her ears along with the rush of blood. "Surely, it's a good offer. A child of your own, carried in your body instead of that of a stranger, left under your care and conservation."

"Until you take it away for whatever needs you have."

"Or not." He stubbed out the second cigarette. "After all our exploits, I just might enjoy watching this portrait of domestic bliss for a very, very long time."

Pale and shaken, she looked into the eyes of evil as he spoke once more.

"It's the only way, Miss Scully. Make your choice."

Journal entry, Monday Night

I agreed. One word: "Yes."

He looked at me with those dusty gray eyes and smiled, content with my answer. Without even looking at the other women whose fate rested in his nicotine-stained hands he left the room, saying over his shoulder to Sister Michael: "Start the injections tomorrow. Make sure she's comfortable - and secured."

Sister Michael brought me here, to what was once an isolation ward, behind a locked steel door in a large but windowless room. The walls are solid concrete.

Oh, yes, I'm secured.

I have no idea where my personal belongings are, whether they're sitting in my cell in the convent or if Sister Michael has them and is burning my journals as I write. I found some unused charts and some pencils and stored them under a mattress several cots away from the bed I'm using. Somehow I must keep track of what's being done here, to these women - and to me.

The others at the convent were probably told that I was taking a retreat to pray and meditate on my upcoming vows. No one would be surprised - many sisters take retreats. Some are even real retreats, not living nightmares like this.

My family will hear from me at regular intervals, although Sister Michael will be supervising me when I write. The only time she will not be watching me is when I'm locked up in here. My hours of captivity will be the only time I'm free. I'm to help with the other "patients" starting tomorrow. It's possible that I could be delivering a baby in the next 24 hours. It's also possible that I could be helping the doctors implant an embryo into a someone's body.

And my own treatments will begin - hormones to prepare me for an embryo of my own. With those treatments will come a host of side effects - nausea, mood swings, all the trappings of hormone therapy. Will they be worth it?

I want a child.

I want my child.

But I want the choice.

This is monstrous. I know I can't trust the smoking man to keep his word, and he knows that I know it. This may well be my ova he's using, but what about the rest of the genetic material? Whose body has been violated to give me this child?

I find myself thinking of the possibility of Mulder's genes mixed with mine. His height, but not his nose. His eyes, but without the haunted darkness behind the moss and jade. Is he "here," as well, stolen genes stored in a glass case to be chosen from like a flavor of ice cream? Are there thirty-two flavors of Mulder?

If so, can one of them be mine?

I can't think like this, can't allow myself to fall into the trap of being grateful to my captors. Yes, I've dreamed of motherhood, especially since I learned that it would be denied to me because of what was done, but this is a travesty. It's not a gift - it's a violation. I can't welcome this.

I sink to my knees, getting ready to pray.

Joan, find him. Find him before I let myself be happy with the choice I've made.

Monday Night

"I've brought your dinner," said Sister Michael as she unlocked the door. The hinges gave way slowly and with a grudging squeak, providing Scully enough time to tuck her notepad under the bed and sit back, hands folded demurely across her abdomen.

"I'm not hungry," Scully said acidly, following the words with a curt, "Thank you anyway."

Sister Michael came nearer and placed the tray on the nightstand next to Scully's bed. "It doesn't have to be unpleasant unless you choose to make it so, Dana."

"I'm surprised that you'd even use the word 'choose' around me."

The women gazed at one another, the silence electric with resentment. The nun rubbed her hands together in a gesture that reminded Scully of Lady Macbeth. "I'm going to need some help tomorrow - they're coming to induce labor in two of the sisters and we'll need every pair of hands we can get."

Scully picked up her fork and idly traced patterns on a pat of butter. "Do you wake them up for this? Do they know, even for an instant, what's happening to them?"

"It's not necessary. In fact, it's unwise in the extreme, because it makes the hypnosis that much harder down the road. They have the ability to deliver almost any child without surgery and without the...voluntary assistance of the mother."

"That seems unlikely in the extreme."

"I thought so, too. But they have ways, Dana. You have to trust me."

Choking back her disgust, Scully set the fork down carefully on the edge of the plate before looking up at her erstwhile sister, her captor. She wanted to reach the glimmer of reason that she prayed was still present. "I still say that we can walk out of here and stop this before it goes any further. I believe that."

"I used to feel that way, Dana. But that was before I saw what they do in retaliation. If they can't find the person who went against their wishes, they simply go for the next best thing - someone that person loves. And it might just be one of the children. I can't allow that to happen."

Scully sighed. "Tell me something. The night Sister Rosario disappeared - what do you know about that?"

Sister Michael crossed herself with shaking fingers. "That's not 'them.' It's a miracle."

"I don't understand..." Scully protested, wanting to plead for more information. She held out her hand to catch Sister Michael before she could run out of the room, but she moved too late and the nun went through the door and locked it behind herself.

The room was dark except for the bedside lamp. Scully pushed her cold food aside, turned off the light, and curled up on the bed. She was too tired to pray.

Journal entry, Tuesday Afternoon

I spent this morning in a circle of hell that Dante must have thought about but dismissed as being entirely too cruel.

Early in the morning I was roused from my restless sleep by Sister Michael. All she said to me was, "They're ready." I had no idea what she meant.

Dear God, I wish I still didn't.

When I got into the delivery room I found the two women's gurneys side by side. Their tags read only "Sarah," and "Mary," and a string of identification numbers. Their nutrition bags were still in place but ampules were being emptied into the lines by two men I'd seen before.

Morphers.

These did not have their eyes and mouth sewn shut like the ones on the bridge that horrible night. Rather, they were like the one who tried to kill me on the bank of a river while Mulder fled with Jeremiah Smith. The one who disguised himself as Mulder and took me hostage in exchange for Samantha.

A version of Samantha. I shudder to think of it now.

They showed no signs of recognition but simply looked at me as if at a piece of inanimate equipment. I strained to see a word on the vials they were emptying but none were there.

"What is it?" I whispered to Sister Michael. "Pitocin?"

"It's not necessary for you to know that," said one of the Morphers, his tone even and professional. "You are to monitor their progress. No mistakes, no attempts to convince us that the subjects were stillborn."

Subjects. Merely subjects.

"I can scarcely be expected to supervise them when I don't know what medications they were given," I said, surprised at the even, professional tone in my voice.

Whether they were surprised, I could not tell. One of them looked up from his task and said, "It's to stimulate labor and to hasten its progression. Usually the donors give birth within a few hours."

"Is there an operating theater? What if we need to perform..."

He cut me off. "That will not be necessary. Our methods are effective and quick." Before he even finished the sentence, he turned to Sister Michael. "We will perform the tests on the subjects tomorrow. Make sure she has had her first treatment by then. We will want to test her progress, as well."

He never looked at me while he pronounced my sentence, to be injected with hormones and tested for "suitability" to carry a child. My palms stung as I dug my fingernails deeply into the flesh. After making a cursory check of the IV lines, both men - monsters, both - left.

"What happens now?" I asked.

"Nothing will happen for a while, maybe an hour or two. In the meantime, you're scheduled for your first injection."

Her voice sounded regretful and she walked slowly, as if the weight of her sins were dragging her nearer and nearer to the earth. From a cabinet in the corner she produced an ampule and a hypodermic. I watched as she filled the syringe, her fingers quick and capable.

"It's intramuscular, Dana. This may hurt a bit."

I wanted to ask her if she thought bearing a child against my will wouldn't hurt, either, but decided against it.

She set her lips into a tight, bloodless line. I closed my eyes and willed myself not to flinch when the needle invaded my body.

We waited for an hour before the women's labor became pronounced, faster than I could imagine, nothing like I'd seen in the limited time I'd spent in my ob/gyn rotation. Neither woman awoke nor showed any signs of distress as their bodies worked in an impossibly hyperfast version of the ancient rhythms designed by God. I remembered myself as a young girl, thinking how unjust this punishment was for the descendants of Eve, as I assisted at these curious births, virgin births in their own way, the painless, mindless traces to be eradicated at a later date.

The first baby, a boy, was born less than three hours after the injections were given. The second baby, also a boy, arrived ten minutes later. Sister Michael weighed and measured the squalling newborns and turned them over to me for APGAR scoring, which were quite high for each - an 8 and a 9. Under normal conditions, they'd be cause for rejoicing, the healthiest babies in any conventional nursery.Despite their mothers' conditions, the babies showed no signs of sedation or other ill effects from anesthesia. The scientist in me was alive with curiosity as to how this came about. The "test subject" in me did not want to know.

We did not speak to one another as we bathed and dressed these children and placed them in heated bassinets far away from the women who still slept peacefully, ignorant of the wrong that had been done to them. I am writing these notes in haste while Sister Michael is in her office, writing into the charts her own version of today's events. My best hope is to keep my writings secret, tucked away in my room where I can find them and review them later. I just hope that

(journal entry ends)

Immediately Following

"Dana, you should clean up. It's time to go back to your room."

Scully rose and went to the sink to scrub herself clean, then Sister Michael led her back toward her room without another word. Scully stood outside the door , exhausted and quiet, trying not to look at the sleeping figures all around her. The scraping of the old brass key in the lock made her wince and she flinched. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a stirring in the farthest corner of the room.

A pale hand against the pale sheet, trembling.

"Sister!" she shouted, turning fully away to find herself looking into the wide-open, frightened eyes of Amanda Broadman.

Amanda was sitting up in the bed, staring at her in utter disbelief and terror. Her mouth worked, but her voice had been silent for so long no words would come out. Sister Michael ran to the little refrigerator and scooped ice into a cup, then started giving Amanda the tiniest chips of it while Scully checked her vital signs.

Her pulse was rapid but strong and her breathing seemed normal. After a few hard swallows, Amanda tried again to speak. Her voice was tinny, almost inaudible.

"What happened?"

"I'm not sure," Sister Michael said in a surprisingly gentle voice. "You disappeared from the convent over a week ago. Just two days ago I came in and found you here, on this bed, with the IV lines in place. I have no idea how you got here - I've just been feeding and hydrating you, the same way whoever returned you to us had done."

"Neck's sore," Amanda muttered.

Scully checked her nape and peered under the bandage. "You've had an implant, Amanda. The same place mine was - and I suspect of the same type. Even though you've been unconscious for some time, your color is much better and you've put some weight back on. You look like I did after I had the second chip implanted. I'd say that if we ran some tests, we'd find that your cancer's gone into remission."

Sister Michael gaped at her. "Oh, my God." Amanda slumped back onto the bed, her hand over her eyes. Scully saw a tear trickling down her cheek, then another. As she dabbed at the wet trails with the edge of the sheet, Scully asked again if she had any recollection of what had happened to her. "What's the last thing you remember, Amanda?"

"You were there. I gave you the book." She looked at Scully for confirmation and she nodded. "I was hiding, hoping. Waiting. There were lights."

Sister Michael covered her with the blanket that had been folded at the foot of the bed. Amanda clutched it. "Amanda, can you tell us anything else? Anything at all?"

She took a sip of water, her hands trembling so that she needed Scully's help to hold the cup steady. "I went away. I was with them."

"Who, Amanda?" The anxiety in Sister Michael's voice was palpable.

"Alike. The men were alike, and their faces were..." She broke off and looked at Scully with a little smile. "Their faces were like yours. Like they were your brothers. I asked their names. They said they didn't really have any, but I could call them Kurt."

"Dana?" Sister Michael put her hand on Scully's arm and only then did she realize that she was swaying on her feet. She took a seat on the edge of Amanda's bed, trembling with the recollection of a face so very like hers that he might have been her son. Was her son, in a sense. Mulder had told her that he saw others the night he found the fertility clinic.

"I'm okay, I'm okay." She took a piece of the blanket between her thumb and forefinger, grounding herself in the nubby fabric as it scraped against her skin. "I met one of them, once. My partner met several."

"They're saving us, Dana." Amanda's voice gained strength as her memory returned. "They're finding us and giving us a second chance, like the one you had. A new implant."

"Were there other people there?" Sister Michael asked with a tremor in her voice.

"It was hard to tell, but I heard other voices and saw some other faces. Oh!" She sat up, smiling. "There was a nun there. I've seen her before...what was her name?"

Sister Michael sank to her knees, her trembling hands clutching at her rosary as her lips moved in prayer.

"Was it Sister Rosario?" Scully asked, watching Sister Michael carefully.

"Yes! That was her name. She was sick, as sick as I was, but they gave her an implant and said that she'd come back here when she was better."

Sobs shook Sister Michael's whole body and she toppled over onto the floor, weeping. "She said they'd come, she said they'd save her...I didn't believe it, but then they CAME, you saw it, Dana, you saw it..."

Scully scarcely had time to help her up and comfort her before she was crying, too. She remembered the evening Mulder had talked to her about Survivor Guilt, the inability to appreciate the miracle of her salvation because of the torment of the women who had died.

But now there were two survivors, and who knew how many more?

"Amanda, the men you saw - they are clones, part of the hybridization project between aliens and humans. I was there when you and Sister Rosario were taken, and I can't believe they're so technically advanced. How did they do it?"

Amanda shrugged. "I don't think that they were responsible for how I got there, just for the treatment I received. They were more like doctors." She scrubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands as tears started to form. "I told them what I'd done - that I killed Teena Mulder to get a new implant because I was so scared. But they said...they said..." Her thin frame shook with sobs and Scully wrapped her arms around her, patting her back. "They said it wasn't for them to judge, that they'd save any of us who had been used."

"It's all right, it's all right," Scully murmured, looking over Amanda's shoulder to catch Sister Michael's glance. After Scully mouthed the word "water" to her, the Sister filled the cup and handed it back to Scully. Their fingers brushed and they looked at one another, aware of a turning in the relationship between captive and her unwilling captor.

After Amanda took a few sips, the hysteria subsided as quickly as it had started and she was calm, if somewhat shaken. Scully waited for a few moments, gathering her courage, then asked her one more question. "Amanda, do you know where you were taken?"

With shimmering eyes she pointed toward the window. "Out. Up." She turned back to them with a soft, mysterious smile. "It wasn't a place on Earth, Agent Scully."

Scully's whole body quivered, the words vibrating through her as if she were their medium rather than the cool, sterile air. Not on Earth. Out. Up.

Even with her eyes closed she saw the drill hovering closer to her forehead, like Poe's pendulum swinging downward, ever downward to cover its stainless steel with the stains of her blood.

Painful light.

Someone's arms around her, comforting her. Someone now a ghost. Her eyes taped shut, her lungs pumping foreign, forced air.

Limbs heavy and leaden.

Taken out. Up.

"He saved me, Agent Scully. He's coming to save all of us. Look."

She realized that she'd rested her head on Amanda's pillow, and that the surface was damp with her tears. She felt a small, soothing hand in her hair. Scully turned her head, half-blinded with tears, and found herself scant inches away from soft brown eyes almost hidden behind lenses that twinkled slightly in the fading light from the window.

"Don't cry," said Gibson Praise.

Scully stared at Gibson's grave, concerned face, then looked upward and noted that the horrible scars she remembered were now masked by a mop of unruly hair. Gibson returned her gaze. "I'm glad to see you, Agent Scully," he said in his peculiarly adult voice. "But I'm sorry that you're here."

"Gibson. Are you...?"

Amanda interrupted as she sat up in bed and swung her legs over the edge, opening her arms to hug the boy. He submitted to the embrace without response, his focus never leaving Scully. "I got here as soon as I could. I had to take care of the others, first. They were sick." He twisted out of Amanda's arms and stood between Scully and Sister Michael. His fathomless eyes searched Sister Michael's face. "You didn't do it to her yet, and you don't want to."

She turned away from him as if embarrassed. "I don't have a choice."

"You will." He gestured around the room. "All of you will."

"Help me understand, Gibson," Scully entreated. "Amanda told us you were taking care of the sisters whose implants had been removed. But who's helping you?"

"The clones. They heard what was being done, that the conspirators were shutting down the Project that made them. And me." He rubbed his nose with the cuff of his sweater, at last looking like the young boy he was. "We decided to stop them."

"Where did you get the new chips?" Scully put her hand at the base of her neck as she had a thousand times since the day her cancer had gone into remission, checking for the implant the way she used to count her fingers and toes first thing in the morning when she was a little girl. "Mulder stole mine from the Department of Defense."

"We got the data that the Project had been keeping on all of the abductees. We're learning how to fight what they've done. We can fix almost anything, now. So we came back here. The Kurts want to save their mothers, and the mothers of all the rest of the clones."

Scully took Gibson's hand and he watched her thumb with curiosity as it smoothed the veins under the cool, soft skin. "I saw two women disappear into a beam of light. That's not Project technology, is it?"

The boy shook his head.

"Who's helping you, Gibson?"

He paused, obviously considering whether he should answer the question. After a few tense moments he whispered, "Them. The ones you call 'greys.' I found one when your partner and that other woman left me in the reactor core. We communicated. It told me that it was time to stop the Project. I told you I could communicate with them."

Scully waited, frowning, as she allowed the pieces of the puzzle to assemble themselves in her mind. "That's the place you took the women? To their...ship?" The word tumbled unexpectedly from her lips.

"It was noisy and it made a lot of light, but it was the best way to get them. No one could stop us." He delivered this extraordinary information in a matter-of-fact tone as he walked around the ward, looking at the expressionless faces of the unconscious women. At last he got to the bassinets in the corner. His finger stroked the newborns' cheeks, one after the other, with the gesture of a young boy. "They're close, but they're not like me."

"None of them have ever been like you," Sister Michael whispered. A shiver worked its way up and down Scully's spine and she put her hand over her mouth, her eyes sliding shut to hide the tears that threatened to spill out. With her other hand she reached blindly for Sister Michael, feeling the thin, strong fingers closing around hers. ...They tried again and said that it was more successful...

Scully felt an overwhelming rush of pity for this woman, who had been in her situation and knew no way to escape. She opened her eyes, suddenly aware that her musings were audible to Gibson.

"You don't have to try and hide your thoughts, Agent Scully. I know she's my mother. My birth mother," Gibson amended. "Those people in the Philippines were chosen to watch me, but they didn't treat me like their child. They just wanted to get rich off of my chess playing. I've never been anyone's child." He indicated the slumbering babies. "They'll never be anyone's children, either. That's why I want this to stop."

"They'll be back for the babies soon. We need help to keep them from being taken away. Will you help us?" Sister Michael gazed tenderly at her son as she pleaded for his assistance.

"Why are you so interested in them now? You've been doing this for years and years." His tone was dispassionate, incongruous with his round, childish face.

"Because up until now, you were the only one. You were safe. But if they go through with this, if they do this to Dana..." She straightened her back, her hands adjusting the cross she wore around her throat. "If there's another child, someone they think is closer to the perfect 'specimen,' they'll kill you. And I couldn't bear that. I want all of this to stop. Please."

Gibson looked at her and chewed his lower lip. "The Kurts are going to follow me here. Where can we wait?"

Scully stood up and pointed to the area where she had been kept. Gibson, his pace unhurried, walked to the open door. Just as Scully strode behind him, hand extended, he turned around and whispered to her: "Don't worry. I know they're under the mattress. I won't read them."

In spite of her fear, she smiled.

Wednesday Morning

Sister Michael and Scully had no difficulty in looking busy while they awaited the arrival of the bounty hunters. The two babies were hungry, demanding constant feedings and changings, and their cries kept both women occupied. Scully checked the remaining patients while Sister Michael kept a close watch on Amanda to make sure she stayed in bed and pretended to be asleep.

Before noon they heard men's footsteps in the corridor. Scully busied herself with an IV line while Sister Michael made notes in a baby's chart.

"You've done a good job," the first man said as he peered over Sister Michael's shoulders. "We're ready to begin the tests." He pulled out a small blood typing kit and took out a needle.

Scully backed away from her patient, placing herself between the men and the babies. Just as she did so, the door to the other room opened with a shrill squeal of the rusty hinges, and half a dozen men ran into the room. They moved so quickly that Scully could scarcely make out a blur of red hair as the Kurt clones grappled with the morphing men. She heard the wet, blunt entry of the picks as both clones were hit at the base of the neck, and threw herself across the bassinets as she remembered the terrible effects of the fumes.

"Everyone, get out! Help me get the babies out of here! It's poisonous!" Scully cried above the din.

"Wait!" one of the Kurts shouted as he and two others spread clear, filmy shrouds over the two melting bodies. The hissing died away and the noxious cloud dissipated. "This will contain the...detritus."

Another Kurt stopped in front of Scully. His mouth worked, his eyes drinking in her face. "It's her," he whispered, not even turning his head.

The others crowded around her, keeping their hands to themselves but staring at her as if they could understand some great mystery just by memorizing her face. Scully, tears in her eyes, put her hands out and touched each man's face in turn.

Hybrids. Clones.

Made without her knowledge, without their consent.

Hers, but not hers.

All she would ever have.

Amanda got up from the cot and drew her blanket around her shoulders. She reached for Sister Michael, holding on to her and crying. "It's over, it's over, it's over..."

"It's not over. He'll come back. The smoking man." Scully forced herself to remain calm. "We've got to clean this place out. Remove every single file, every scrap of their work. And we'd better do it fast because you can be sure he knows that two more children were born."

The Kurts started pulling drawers out, handling with ease the frozen vials. Scully closed her eyes and turned away, not wanting to see the destruction of something that could have been so precious to her.

Sister Michael touched her on the arm. "Dana...what about the other women..."

Scully's face crumpled.

As did the door.

Dust flew from the hallway, from the splintered wood. The Kurts and the women put their arms in front of their faces to shield themselves from the choking swirl. "Hands where I can see them!" was the unison shout of half a dozen voices.

"No! Wait!" Scully pushed herself in front of the tall men who tried to protect her with their bodies. The haze was dispersing enough for her to make out faces in the crowd.

Lieutenant Brophy, the SWAT commander who had helped her track Mulder when he was in the clutches of Robert Modell.

Skinner, gun drawn, in perfect firing stance.

Mulder.

Across Mulder's face Scully could see a kaleidoscope of emotions: fear, anger, sadness, swirling into focus and becoming relief.

In three strides Skinner crossed the room and put himself between Scully and the Kurt clones. "Is everything all right?"

"For the moment, sir," Scully said, her voice sounding reedy in the aftermath of such chaos. "But Cancer Man will be back." She heard Mulder's footsteps growing closer and felt the sudden rush of blood to her cheeks. Unable to face him, she fixed her gaze on Skinner. "How did you know? Did Sister Joan find you?"

"She got to headquarters last night. I don't know how she did it, but she did, and she told us what you'd found. I may have busted some asses getting a search warrant for this place, but I should've busted them faster."

"He was here. Cancer Man. He's part of what's behind this."

They turned around to survey the ward, the babies who squirmed in the heat and the dust, and the women who lay peacefully unaware of the turmoil around them.

Or in them.

Mulder's voice broke the stillness. "Scully?"

At last she turned to face him, Skinner's hand keeping a firm, comforting grasp on her shoulder. She could read the question in his eyes, the mixture of horror and hope that was a perfect mirror of her own conflicted emotions.

She shook her head.

Mulder gave her a rueful smile, swiping his hand over his eyes and up into his hair.

Skinner's hand tightened, a reassuring squeeze. "Brophy, go get Sister Joan. And track down the Mother Superior. Try not to arrest her if you don't have to."

"Yes, sir." Brophy paused for a moment. "It's good to see you, Agent Scully. Doctor Scully. Uh...I'm...I'm glad you're okay."

"Thank you," she said, smiling at his obvious discomfort.

Sister Michael and Amanda were already dragging boxes of papers and charts out of the cabinets. "There's an incinerator downstairs. Everything needs to go in it. If there's no trace of the Project..."

"It might not be enough." Skinner looked at the Kurt clones. "Who the hell are you?"

"Part of the Project, sir," Mulder said, coming closer to them. "I met them in Allentown. They're the ones who uncovered Scanlon. The ones who told me what was done to Scully."

"I was one of the ones who met you there." The Kurt who had started covering up the bounty hunters stepped out of the group. "We're here with someone you know."

Gibson peered around the corner before entering the room and walking up to Mulder, who sat on his heels and put his hands on the boy's shoulders. "I thought...I was afraid..."

"You thought I was dead. You and that woman both. But I'm not. I came back to help them." He stopped, turned toward Amanda, then faced Mulder again. "You're angry that I saved her. I'd have saved your mother, too, if I'd been able to get to her in time."

"You can do that? You can heal people?" As he spoke, Sister Joan entered the room. She was using the stiff, white part of her wimple as a makeshift splint around her left wrist. Scully immediately ran to her and embraced her, careful not to jar the injured arm.

"I fell into a ditch when I was hitchhiking into DC," the nun explained.

"Let me look at it," Scully said, her eyes bright with gratitude, but Mulder shook his head and then inclined it toward Gibson.

The boy went to Sister Joan and took her hand gingerly before rubbing his fingers over the break. Sister Joan hissed as if in pain, then her face relaxed and she let Gibson unwrap the bandage.

The bruises went from green to purple, then faded in to the olive of her complexion. There was no swelling.

Sister Michael gasped and crossed herself.

As if he had done nothing out of the ordinary, Gibson walked away from the astonished Sister Joan and went to Scully's side. He looked up at her, blinking owlishly behind his glasses.

"I can heal you, too," he said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Scully bent over and kissed him on the forehead. "I know you can, Gibson."

His voice was small and sad. "You don't want me to."

"I appreciate the offer. But no, I don't."

He nodded, then turned his attention to Skinner. "Are you going to arrest that woman?"

Skinner regarded Amanda, his mouth turned downward. "I wish I could, but we don't have a shred of concrete evidence."

"I'm sorry," Amanda said, her gaze lowered. "I wish I could take it back. I'm sorry. But I can't do anything; I can't bring her back."

"We can't change what you did," Kurt agreed. "But you can make it right. Come with us. Help us." He looked at her with compassion in his bright blue eyes. "There are so many lives to save." Amanda's countenance brightened. She looked nervously from Skinner to Mulder, and back to Skinner, who said, "Can you live with that, Agent Mulder?"

Scully beseeched him with her eyes. Forgive. Forgive.

"I..." Mulder took a deep breath. "I can live with it."

Tears of gratitude fell down Amanda's cheeks and she hid her head on Sister Michael's shoulder. The nun crossed herself and turned to Kurt. "I want to go with you, too. I've done things...terrible things. Please. Let me atone for these sins."

"Come with us," Kurt said, his hand extended toward the two women. He looked at Scully again, a curious smile playing around the edges of his mouth. "I'm glad I got to see you."

She could only nod, as she did not trust her voice. As she watched the Kurts gather up their weapons, she saw from the corner of her eye that Gibson returned to Mulder and said something to him that she could not hear. Mulder smiled at him, ruffled his hair, and whispered something in return.

There was a roar, as if they were under an enormous train, then there was a long flash of impossibly brilliant light. Gibson and the Kurts were gone, along with Amanda and Sister Michael.

Slowly, the remaining people in the room regained their equilibrium. Scully heard the Mother Superior's voice as Brophy led her up the stairs. "This is a storage facility - there must be some sort of mistake. Who...?" She strode into the room, her mouth falling open in horror as she saw the unconscious women and all the medical equipment. "I...no one ever...I..." Her fingernails clicked hard against the wall as she slowly slid downward to her knees. With an anguished cry she folded her hands in her lap and said, "Dear Lord in Heaven, what happened here?"

Scully knelt beside her, taking the work-worn hands in hers. "It's a long story, Reverend Mother. But it's over now, and you'll be safe. All of you."

"Dana, I didn't know!" The Mother Superior's voice cracked as she wept. "All of them...they were under my care and I failed them."

"You had no way of guessing what went on here. Please don't blame yourself. It'll be all right."

Mulder's expression was sorrowful as he asked the question that was on all their minds. "What happens to them, Scully?"

She closed her eyes for an instant, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "Start getting ambulances here. We're going to need neurologists, ob/gyns, and a lot of trauma counselors." With trembling lips she whispered to the Mother Superior. "They'll need to be wakened and told what's been done to them. It's their right."

"And the children? Can they still stay here?"

"I hope so, but that's for the courts to decide. Meanwhile, you need to gather the Sisters and find some way to tell them what's happened, that they may be victims, too."

The Mother Superior looked up at Skinner. "That man. The one who tried to kill Sharon. Will he be back?"

Skinner, hands on hips, frowned slightly, looking out the window before replying. "I have no doubt that he'll try. We'll have agents here to protect you. If he comes back, I don't think he'll be stupid enough to endanger you."

The Mother Superior clutched Scully's hand. "You protected us, Dana. Even before you got your calling, you were here for us and you saved us. I believe with all my heart that you were called by God to this place."

Scully's head drooped and a single tear fell on the crumpled fabric of her sleeve. Only the sound of her breathing, a slight, hitching sob, broke the silence.

"Dana, I would like it very much if you would finish what you started."

What she started.

She looked at Mulder, at the silent sorrow in his eyes.

She looked at the crucifix the Mother Superior wore.

She spoke.

Ten Days Later

Walter Skinner adjusted his tie, watching his reflection in the silver door of the elevator. The typically slow ride to the basement gave him time to consider what he was going to say when he got to Mulder's office. The phone message from his most wayward agent was as vague as could be: "I'm down here with Scully and we need to talk to you."

He remembered the cool brush of Scully's fingers against his when he brought her suitcase out of the convent. Her military bearing made it quite clear that she was capable of handling her own belongings, and he handed the bag to her without even the vaguest suggestion that he would consider it a privilege to carry it for her.

Not Scully.

She had made quiet farewells to the stunned Little Sisters and the weeping children, promising to call soon and to visit as much as she could. The Mother Superior clung to her the longest, kissing her forehead and calling her a "blessed child."

Scully did not look much like a blessed child as she climbed into the passenger seat of the SWAT team car. Her black clothes were caked with dust and rumpled from hours of uneasy sleep. The rough ends of her hair stood up like a crown of thorns.

Skinner scowled at himself, banishing that image.

Two days later, Scully turned up at FBI headquarters as if nothing ever happened. The only concession to her experiences was a decidedly non-regulation hat.

Each passing day brought Scully directly to the basement for work, clad in a sober, professional suit and one of an increasing collection of hats. Skinner, watching her daily progress, noted that she spoke to no one but Mulder, choosing to forward her calls and even her e-mails to her partner. Paperwork came through Skinner's office with Scully's handwriting on it, but he never conversed with her. In fact, one of the only times he even heard her name was when his assistant commented that Agent Mulder must be going broke, buying Agent Scully all those expensive hats.

So that was where they came from.

The elevator bell chimed and the doors opened. Skinner buttoned his suit coat as he walked the few steps to Mulder's office. The door was slightly ajar, and what he saw made him stop in his tracks.

Scully was standing on an upended wastebasket, using the high window as a mirror. Her hair was a scarlet cluster of short, untamable curls, through which she ran one hand as she picked up a blue velvet hat with the other. With a flourish, she placed the hat perfectly at the crown of her head and grinned at her reflection.

Mulder watched her, his features set in the familiar expressionless mask, but his eyes sparkled and there was a slight tremor in his hands. Skinner recognized the longing in Mulder's posture, the way he leaned slightly forward but did not quite reach out for Scully. A lump formed in his throat.

Still looking at her reflection, Scully remarked, "This is nuts, Mulder. You've got to stop!"

"I don't see you putting the hat back in the box," Mulder drawled.

Scully turned toward him as if to say something cutting, but she spotted Skinner and her face went red. She jumped down, her alarm enough to make Mulder spin around, hand on his holster.

"It's just me, Agents."

"Sir. I was...that is, Mulder..."

"I know what you were doing. It's all right. It looks..." Skinner cleared his throat and pushed his glasses back in place while Scully slid the hat off her head and set it carefully on Mulder's desk. "I got your message."

"I want you to look at this," Mulder said. He pulled out a manila envelope and handed Skinner the contents.

Skinner perused the documents. "Lights all over the eastern seaboard. Nursing homes reporting patients disappearing."

"Looks like they're hard at work." Mulder glanced at Scully, as if concerned that hearing the information again might be more than she could bear. "And some of the children at Little Sisters are being put up for adoption."

"The ones whose parents were government employees," Scully put in. "Some of them have been left at the convent. It's felt that they're...closer to their caregivers."

Skinner put the papers down and folded his arms over his chest. "So. What happens now?"

Mulder gave him his most ingratiating smile. "I've heard about a church on the Gulf Coast where the stained glass pictures of the saints change whenever a crime's committed."

Unsure of whether his bullshit detector should be going off, Skinner looked over at Scully. She bit her lip and looked at the floor, a dimple making an unexpected appearance at the corner of her mouth. Sighing a little, Skinner made Scully meet his eyes. "And your take on it, Agent Scully?"

"I think we're being treated to a production of 'The Stained Glass of Dorian Gray,' sir."

With an artificial look of dismay, Mulder sat on the edge of the desk and fingered the little blue hat. "Does this mean we don't get to look in to it, sir?"

"I didn't say that." He paused. "Are you ready for something like this, Agent Scully?"

Her smile was as bright as daylight after a storm. "Yes, sir, I'm ready."

"Then file the paperwork and I'll get back with you." Scully started for the file cabinets outside, where she stored the forms for travel, but Skinner stopped her by grasping her securely but gently by the arm. "And, Agent Scully, I'm getting a little tired of tearing up your resignation letters. Are we understood?"

His gruff voice fooled no one.

Scully looked at him with gratitude. "Yes, sir. We're understood."

Both men watched, lost in thought, as she left the room. Over the whispers of paper being taken from a file, Skinner asked softly, "I've been meaning to ask you something, Agent Mulder. When you were talking to Gibson - what was that about?"

Mulder steepled his fingers, looking just above them into the middle distance. "Gibson was upset that he didn't get to heal Scully. He asked me why she didn't want him to fix her."

"What did you tell him?"

As Scully walked into the room, pen already working over the forms, Mulder leaned close to his superior and smiled. "I told him that she isn't broken."

Skinner watched as Scully neatly tossed the file folder to her partner before picking up her new hat and securing it on her head. The men exchanged a knowing glance before Skinner excused himself with a curt nod.

Out in the hallway, listening to the familiar rhythm of the partners' genial argument, Skinner finally allowed himself to smile.

"I couldn't agree more."

The End