A Hint of Resurrection (3/7) by Ellie Email: windblownellie@yahoo.com Rating: R (for some adult implications, language, and crimes against animals) X-Files/Fringe Crossover Timeline/Spoilers: Post-IWTB/Fringe S1 (but spoilers through S3) Summary: Olivia Dunham examines files from the old X-files Division, and requests a reluctant consult from former agent Fox Mulder. *** Chapter 3 *** The Jeep bounced down the rutted dirt road, the front passenger tire hitting a puddle and sending a shower of mud up over the side of the vehicle. Olivia was glad that Sheriff Flores had taken the lead on the way out here, as she was sure even the GPS would have been inadequate to guide them out to the lone signpost marking the drive to the Van De Kamps' property. Ahead, the sheriff's pickup turned then gained speed on the gravel drive, kicking up rocks and dust that obscured her view as she followed up the winding drive through the low foothills. The white clapboard house and surrounding copse of trees was a pleasant surprise after the stark grasslands they'd been traveling through. Pulling up next to the truck, she stopped and looked over the to couple with her. Mulder was practically leaping out the door, but Scully, in the backseat, had a vaguely green tinge. "Dr. Scully? Are you all right?" Nodding, the woman drew a deep breath and sat up straighter as she unbuckled her seat belt. "I'm fine." Olivia watched for a moment as she slipped out of the door and stood close to Mulder. They did not touch, merely shared a quick glance before turning their gazes on the farmhouse in front of them. Mentally chastising herself for paying so much attention to what they were doing, she reminded herself that they were not the Bishops, and didn't need her monitoring, however odd their dynamic might appear. She exited the vehicle and walked over to Sheriff Flores' truck. "Come on, folks. Mike's good people, he won't bite." The sheriff walked ahead of them towards the porch, not looking back to see if they were following. Olivia hesitated only long enough to make sure Mulder and Scully were moving in the right direction before falling in to step beside Luis Flores. As Flores knocked on the wood frame of the screen door, Olivia surveyed their surroundings. Big wrap-around porch, with wood rockers and a few scattered rag rugs, a water bowl indicating some sort of dog, an expansive vista behind them looking out over the low hill country leading up to the Rockies. Very isolated, which piqued her curiosity. Flores rapped again, but the house was silent. Gradually, she became aware of the sharp clang of metal against metal. "What's that?" She scanned the property she could see from the porch, hunting the source of the sound, one hand edging towards the gun at her hip. With a nod, Flores walked down the porch steps and towards a path leading away from the house. "Sounds like he's down at the barn." Single-file, the four followed the gravel path to the tidy wood barn. The sound of metal striking metal rung across the wide space in front of the building. When they entered the dim light of the building, it took Olivia's eyes a moment to adjust, but it took only second before she realized that the found came from a blacksmith at the other end of the building, where a man stood in the aisle with a grey horse. "Mike!" called Flores, already halfway down the dirt aisle. The man holding the horse turned towards them, raising one hand in greeting. "Hi, Luis. What can I do for you?" "I've got some folks here from the FBI. They've got some questions about the fire over at the Barker's last week." He nodded and began to loop the horse's lead through a ring on the wall, tying an elaborate knot Olivia vaguely recognized. "Kenny, you good here with Sterling while I talk to these folks?" The horse seemed to cast a wary eye over the group as a voice rang out somewhere behind it, "Sure thing, Mike." The clanging resumed, quieter, and the horse snorted as they made their way back out of the barn. Back in the cool autumn sunlight, he turned to the group of visitors. "What can I do for you?" He tilted the hat back a little on his head, lifting the brim away from his eyes and giving them an appraising look. "I'm Special Agent Olivia Dunham," she said, extending a hand, which he shook firmly, and which he extended again as she introduced, "And these are former agents, Dr. Dana Scully and Fox Mulder, who are working as consultants on this case." "Pleased to meet you. Mike Van De Kamp. The agents I spoke with from Denver said they might be sending up some more people this week to ask more questions. Come on up to the house, I'll get us something to drink, and I'll be happy to tell you what I know. Not that it's much." They retraced their steps up to the house, settling into the offered seats on the porch as Mike disappeared inside. Moments later, he reappeared with a pitcher of iced tea and a stack of plastic cups featuring Disney characters. He sat down with the Mickey cup in hand. Olivia hadn't finished pouring her drink before Mulder broke the easy silence. "Did you know of any threats against the Barkers?" "No, around here, they're well-liked. Dave's family's had the farm for a century now, always just cattle until Marsha wanted some sheep. Very crafty, Marsha, with all that knitting. She treated those sheep more like pets than stock, which is why they were in the barn instead of out grazing like all the cattle. Makes it hard to understand why anyone would go after them." "You said you and your son were already headed over there the afternoon of the fire, when you noticed smoke and increased your pace. Why were you going over there?" "Well, sir, Billy's always been pretty fascinated with the sheep. He loves to watch Marsha working with the wool, and she's been teaching him a little about what to do with it. She told him next year, when he's old enough for 4-H, she'd give him a lamb to work with for the year. All her kids are grown now, and she's been a good mother figure for him this last year." He looked down at his cup then, staring at the tea lapping against Mickey. "What happened to his mother?" Scully's voice was quiet, barely carrying across the porch, and Olivia was surprised at how calm she looked and sounded. She could practically see the tension radiating from her, as she sat very upright in the wicker chair. Mike nodded a few times, as if gathering the words, before he answered, still not looking at them. "Kathy and I tried for years to have kids, but she had trouble with fibroids, and we were never able to have a baby of our own. We adopted Billy as a baby, and felt so blessed to have him. Two years ago, one of the fibroids turned out to be malignant." "I'm sorry." Scully's voice was little more than a whisper. Mike nodded, and met her eyes. Olivia cleared her throat after a moment. "So you were headed to the Barker's because your son wanted to visit the sheep?" "Yes. We rode over on horseback. The weather was nice, and I wanted to have a look at the fence line as we went. About halfway there, we saw smoke coming from over the hill, and picked up the pace. There was a pretty good blaze going til we got there." "What else did you see?" "There was a boy didn't recognize running across the barnyard, with a backpack. He didn't look like he belonged on a farm, if you know what I mean. I uh, roped him. Til I dismounted and figured out what was going on with him, I saw Billy riding straight for the burning barn, still at a gallop. I was worried, because he was on Ace, who's always been terrified of fire. I can't even keep him in the barn when Kenny's hot shoeing, the smoke upsets him so badly." "And he didn't spook this time?" Flores leaned back in his chair, eyebrows raised. Mike shook his head. "Nope. Billy galloped right up to the barn, and left him ground-tied out front. Horse didn't move a foot while the boy ran inside. At that point, I was tying the kid I'd roped to Sterling, and trying to get over there myself. What the hell was that boy thinking, running in a burning building like that?" He shook his head again, then continued, "Til I got up there, he was running out, chasing half a dozen of those sheep in front of him. They went right where he sent them, over to the pen where Marsha was trying get the rest of them rounded up and contained." "Did you notice any injuries to your son or the sheep?" "Billy looked fine. Little dirty, but his shirt wasn't even singed. The sheep, though, a couple of them looked pretty burnt. The wool burned almost clear off in patches, and they were panicking like I thought the horse would, but Billy wouldn't get out of the pen with them. Not until I climbed in and dragged him out." "What was he doing in there with them? Talking to them, touching them?" Mulder's expression was neutral, his tone simply conversational. Olivia wondered whether he was questioning as a concerned if anonymous parent, or as an investigator. "He was quiet, wouldn't even respond to me when I was calling his name. He was just walking slowly through the sheep, and putting his palm flat on the foreheads of some of them. Some of those new-agey type horse folks say that'll calm down a horse, putting your palm flat on their forehead between the eyes, but I always figured if you were able to put your hand there, it mustn't be too panicked to begin with." Mike shook his head, "I don't even know where Billy would've heard something like that. But I guess that's what he thought he was doing with the sheep." "Did they calm down?" "Well, they were well out of danger and all together by then, they'd have settled soon enough. It's hard to say." Flores nodded in agreement, as if he saw nothing odd in this recounting. Olivia prompted, "What happened after you pulled your son out of the sheep pen?" "There was a lot going on by then, the fire truck was pulling in, Dr. Harne had just gotten there, Sheriff Flores had the guy I'd roped in custody. There wasn't much else for us to do but get out of everyone's way and let them work. We collected our horses and headed over by the house to wait." Olivia took a long sip of the iced tea, surprised by its sweetness. She pondered which direction to take, now that the questions were bound to get more unusual. And now that she might have to broach the idea of taking this man's son back to Boston with her. Whatever query she might have made was negated by Scully's line of questioning. "Did Billy see a doctor afterwards? Did he suffer any ill effects from entering the burning building?" "Once things settled down, we headed down to the ambulance and one of the paramedics looked at him. He didn't see anything wrong, just told me to keep any eye on him for breathing problems or skin irritation and bring him on in if something showed up. Nothing did. That boy's healthy as the day is long." "He's always been very healthy? No major illnesses?" "No." Mike shook his head. "Kathy was worried about that when we adopted him, that someone might be giving him up because something was wrong. But now that I think about it, I don't think the boy's had more than a sneeze in all his years. Not the flu, not the chicken pox when it went through his class last winter." "We'd really like to speak with him and hear his account of the incident, if that's all right with you, sir," said Olivia. "You're more than welcome to talk with him when he gets home from school. But I don't know that he'll tell you much. All he's told me is that he wanted to help the sheep." "I'm taking them over to the Barker place now, Mike. If we stop by on the way back, Billy'll be home by then, right?" Flores had stood, and begun to make his way to the porch steps. "He's home by three. The bus drops him off at the end of the drive, so depending on how long you're over there, you might have to pick him up coming back up the lane." "Not a problem, he knows me well enough to get in the truck." They were all headed down the porch steps when Mulder turned back to Mike. "Have you noticed anything odd around here lately? Lights in the night?" Mike's brow furrowed under the brim of his hat. "You think maybe those arsonists were camping out in the hills before they did this? It's mighty cold out there at night. Its government grazing land heading out towards the mountains, so you see hikers and campers passing through a good bit. But I haven't seen anyone since summer. Only thing I see in the sky are planes passing over and the occasional northern lights. I got Billy a telescope for Christmas last year, so we could see them better." Mulder smiled. "Thanks for your time, Mr. Van De Kamp." The bouncy, dusty ride over to the Barker farm passed in silence. To Olivia it felt vaguely uncomfortable, now accustomed to the usual chatter of Walter on a case. But neither Mulder nor Scully seemed troubled as they sat together behind her. * From their time on fertilizer detail, Mulder had seen enough incidents of rural explosions and arsons that the scene at the Barker ranch was not at all surprising to him. What he and Scully needed to know, and were ostensibly here to advise on, could not be gleaned from the ashy remains of the family's barn. Agent Dunham, however, spent considerable time in the ruins with Sheriff Flores. Both of them were covered in grime by the time they'd departed the property, and despite Mulder's focus on examining the edges of the property for signs of trespass and other unexplained visitors, he and Scully hadn't fared much better. No signs of extraterrestrials, Bigfoot, or even unwelcome campers. Both were coved in dirt, Scully vainly trying to brush it off her coat as she stood next to the Jeep. "You can't see it on that tan coat, you know." "I can feel it. I feel like I'm coated in it." She pulled the coat away from her body, flapping it so that dust puffed out around her like Pigpen. "I'll help wash it off later," he leered patting his own black coat, now grey with dirt and ash. Grime flew, and he greeted Agent Dunham's return with a violent sneeze. "You sound ready to leave, Mulder." "Ready to go meet Billy Van De Kamp." "Let's head back over then. Sheriff Flores is heading back in to town, so it will just be the three of us. "I thought he was coming along for the ride on that, too." Olivia shook her head, ponytail brushing up a cloud of dirt from the back of her jacket. "No. After we had a look at the site, and I didn't see anything out of the ordinary with what happened there, I told him what I was really here to have a look at. He's fine with our investigating the boy further, but said he had better things to do than worry about 'magical powers' in seven- year-olds." The ride back to the Van De Kamp's was silent. Mulder sat alone in the back seat, turning the situation over in his mind. Agent Dunham certainly seemed more open to the improbable than Scully had ever been when they were working together, but that didn't mean she wasn't without her own interests. In his experience, that situation had never ended well, and he was worried that in this case, it would end badly for his son, who'd been through enough in his life already. If the boy couldn't be with him, Mulder was rather fond of the idea of the kid growing up on a farm, far away from everything that had conspired to send him there. In the front passenger seat, he could see the tension in Scully's neck as she sat carefully still in the bumpy SUV, looking out the window at the passing foothills. He wanted to reach out and touch her, reassure her that this was going to work out for the best, but he couldn't. He followed her blank stare out the window as they headed up the lane to the Van De Kamp farm, where in a grassy field, a brown and white horse suddenly lifted its head, pricked its ears, and began to lope in the same direction they were headed, easily outpacing them. When they pulled in the barnyard this time, they were greeted by Mike and a wary black and white dog. "Hello again, folks. Billy's in the barn with his horse, if you want to talk with him. I told him you were coming and wanted to know about the sheep." Dunham nodded, and said, "Thank you. Would you mind if we spoke with him alone?" "It's fine with me," he answered, pulling heavy work gloves out of his pocket and pulling them on as he spoke. "I've got work to do, and will be around, getting feed ready. I don't think he'd say anything to you alone he wouldn't say with me there, but you're welcome to talk to him." "Thanks. I'll find you when we're finished, if I have further questions." Dunham turned towards the barn, and Mike Van De Kamp turned away, heading for a green tractor parked along the fence, engine cover open. Mulder watched the farmer for a moment, before turning to follow Dunham and Scully in to the barn. In two steps, he was at Scully's side, and briefly caught her fingers in his, giving them a light squeeze. She glanced up at him, resolve in her eyes, as they entered the barn. At the far end of the aisle, where they'd found Mike and the blacksmith earlier in the day, was the brown and white horse Mulder had seen running through the field. It stood quietly as a boy in jeans, green flannel, and a puffy black vest, brushed it. With his arm extended completely, he just reached the top of the animal's back. The horse lifted its head at their approach, and the boy turned to see what had caught its attention. "Hello. Are you Billy?" "Yes, ma'am." The boy put down the brush in a bucket to his right, and stepped towards them. "I'm Olivia Dunham, from the FBI. These are advisers of mine, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully." She extended a hand, and shook with the boy. "Pleased to meet you," he shook carefully, properly, as if trying out formal manners he'd been taught but hadn't had much cause to practice. "Are you all FBI agents? Dad said you were building a case against the man who tried to hurt the Barker's sheep." Dunham's eyebrows rose a bit, but she smiled at him. "Do you watch cop shows with your dad?" The boy shook his head. "No, ma'am. But we've been reading the Hardy Boys." "I remember reading those, too. I'm an FBI agent, but Mr. Mulder and Dr. Scully are retired. They just come help sometimes." "The man who hurt the sheep was bad enough to need special help? Dad said he'd done the same thing to other people, before." The boy's brow furrowed as he tried to put together the pieces, and Mulder almost had to step back at the familiarity of it. "He was a very bad man who hurt other people, farms, and animals, and we've got a whole office down in Denver working on him. We're here to ask you about how you helped." Billy's eyes widened and his brows rose, but he nodded. "Your dad said you'd wanted to go over to the Barker's farm that afternoon. Is that right?" "Yes, ma'am. I wanted to go see the sheep. Mrs. Barker told me she was going to be shearing them for the last time this year, and I wanted to watch. She said if I was really good, she might show me how." Before Dunham could continue, Mulder broke in. "Did you feel like you had to go over to visit? Or did you just want to?" Dunham stared at him for a moment, but the boy looked surprised. As if it never would have occurred to him to lie, he answered simply, "I told Dad we had to go help. He thought I meant the shearing." There was a sharp inhalation from Scully, just behind him, but she remained quiet as he asked, "What did you really mean?" "I didn't know. I just knew we had to go, that something bad was going to happen. Like the feeling before a math test, but worse." Mulder nodded, and beside him, Scully took a step forward, palm extended towards the horse. "Is this the horse you were on that day? Ace?" The horse sniffled her hand, noted the lack of treats, and dropped his head, where she scratched at a spade-shaped white mark on his forehead. "Yes, ma'am." "Is he always so well-behaved for you?" "Dad says he was born broke. Ace was his horse first, for even longer than I've been alive. But Dad said he's the best horse, and should teach me everything he knows." Scully smiled, and Mulder felt his heart melt a little. He wanted to hug all of them, even the horse. Instead, he asked, "But your dad said he's afraid of fire. How was he so good when you rode over to the Barker's?" "He's always been bad about smoke, Dad says he's been scared of it since he bought him as a yearling. But when we had to go help, I just asked him to, for me, and he was good." "What do you mean, 'asked'?" Billy tilted his head and regarded the horse, now staring placidly at them, its ears flicking towards whoever was speaking. "In my head, I just thought we had to, even if it was scary, because I was scared too." "Have you asked him things before?" "I tell him to do things all the time. Foot," he said firmly, and the horse picked up a front hoof. When patted on the shoulder he dropped it again. "But when I can feel him get upset about something, I can think not-upset thoughts for him." "Is that what you did with the sheep?" He turned around and stared up at Mulder. "Yes, sir." He then looked down at the bucket of horse brushes, not looking anywhere near any of them. "You touched them and made them feel better." The boy nodded. "Have you always been able to do that?" He shrugged, still looking down at the dirt aisle. "I don't know." "It's all right, Billy," said Dunham, stepping forward. "Have you talked to anyone about what you're able to do?" "I told my dad and Dr. Harne that when I grow up, I want to be a vet so I can help animals all the time." "Have you ever tried helping people?" "Yes ma'am," he nodded. "When my mom got sick. I tried to make her feel better, but it didn't help." Tears threatened at the corners of his eyes, but he blinked and drew himself more upright, meeting Dunham's inquiring gaze. "Am I in trouble?" "No, not at all. You did something very good, and we would like very much to understand how you did it, so that maybe you can help even more." The boy's head bobbed up and down, slowly, once. "How?" "Well, I need to talk to your dad first, but I'd like you to come in to town tomorrow, and let Dr. Scully run a few basic tests. Depending on what those tell us, I might ask you to come with me to Boston." Mulder cleared his throat, and looked over at Scully, who was staring hard at Agent Dunham. "Can we speak outside, Agent Dunham?" She looked over, and glanced quickly between Mulder and Scully, noting their discomfiture for the first time. "Certainly. Billy, think about it, all right? We're going to go outside and talk to your dad." As they turned to go, Mulder lingered a moment at the barn door, watching the silhouette of the boy by his horse, speaking in a soft voice that barely carried. The animal snorted, shaking its head and rubbing it against the boy. Mulder watched as Billy reached up and rubbed the horse's long ear. ***