Amazing Grace (4/5) by manderinne Email: manderinne@gmail.com Characters: Mulder/Scully Category: Post-IWTB, written for xf_bigbang Author's Note: Huge thanks to all_shine_on for being an amazingly helpful beta, without whom I would've quit back in July, and to flashikins for her awesome art here. Summary: Is the temptation of Samantha worth more than the life they have painstakingly eked out in an unremarkable house somewhere in Virginia? Scully, fresh out of faith, can't see how it will be worth it in the end. *** Despite the darkness and lull of the air-conditioner, Scully wakes before sunrise from an uncomfortable dream in which she had forgotten to go to a basic anatomy exam. It had been a scene-for-scene recreation of the actual day in her first year of college, complete with the conflicting feelings of fear and odd satisfaction. She remembers her teenaged self, standing at the top of a deserted lecture hall clutching her books against her pounding heart, and she smiles into the goose-down pillow. For now, she is content to curl around another pillow and doze in the shallow sea of pleasant memories. She reaches a hand behind her to pat the lump beneath the duvet which emits snores like clockwork. Later, after a room-service breakfast of fresh pastries and various kinds of melon, Scully showers and wraps herself in a sumptuous towel while she searches for an iron. She is immensely glad she had the foresight in her packing frenzy to shove a white blouse and knee-length skirt into her bag. She pushes the curtains open to let some light in as she examines herself in the mirror, a wry smile curling her lips. Freshly ironed, blow-dried, and with slight trepidation about calling on Skinner, she feels some kinship with the Scully of old. Mulder, though, has no qualms about visiting his old boss dressed in jeans and a grey t-shirt. He picks up his black jacket on the way out the door. They leave the car in the hotel parking garage and find themselves swathed in the sunshine of another cloudless day as they step out of the foyer and are led to a waiting cab. A bellboy farewells them with what can only be described as a salute, and Scully and Mulder exchange a look as the cab pulls away down the long circular drive. The city around them is already cloaked in haze. Once they have their visitor passes and have been swept for bugs, Scully can no longer pretend they are mere tourists visiting a national landmark. The J. Edgar Hoover Building swallows them whole. Despite having returned to the FBI six months ago, Scully still feels a tremor of unease as the elevator empties them out into the hallway amongst a clutch of sober-faced agents. They pass once-familiar doors on the way to what was once Kersh's office but now belongs to Skinner. The assistant director rises from his chair as his secretary ushers them through the door, a genuine smile on his face, and Scully feels a rush of affection for Skinner. "Mulder, Scully," he says, holding out a large hand and drawing Mulder close enough to clap him on the back. Scully offers him her hand and is surprised when he pulls her in for a brisk but heartfelt hug. "It's good to see you both again, under happier conditions," says Skinner with a smile, letting Scully go as he gives them a once-over. "Take a seat." "Bureaucratic life suits you, sir," says Mulder innocently as they sit, eyeing the outstretched wings of a bronzed eagle on the shelf behind Skinner. He may not be dressed like the old Mulder, but his casual slouch and the wickedness around his eyes makes him seem ten, fifteen years younger. Scully watches Skinner narrow his own eyes, as though suspecting bedevilment. Mulder tilts his head. "Ever go out in the field anymore?" "Rarely," answers Skinner. "This bureaucratic life, as you put it, keeps me busy enough as it is." He leans back in his leather chair, thumbing his chin, and Scully hides a smile at the familiarity of the pose. "You've been all right?" "Well enough, for a free man." "Keeping out of trouble?" Mulder sneaks a look a Scully. "Mostly." "Why do I feel like I'm not getting the full story?" says Skinner. "I thought I smelled an air of d‚j… vu. Scully, would you kindly fill me in, as per usual?" "Well, sir," she begins, giving Mulder a thoroughly arched eyebrow, "we need your help. Mulder needs a DNA test done." Skinner frowns. "I thought you sorted that mess out. Spender--" "Yeah," Mulder says, cutting off the obviously unpleasant reminder. "No, the test isn't for me. It's, uh..." He gnaws his upper lip and with a small sigh of resignation, Scully takes pity on him. "There's a possibility--a small possibility--that Samantha is still alive," she says reluctantly, trusting that Skinner will know what she is talking about. From the speed at which his lips thin, she guesses he does. Mulder clears his throat and pulls the plastic bag from his jacket pocket. "I have a sample of her blood, sir, and I'd appreciate it if you could just have someone run the test and see if her DNA matches the sample we already have." "I would also appreciate it very much," adds Scully, somewhat austerely. Skinner leans his elbows on the desk blotter, his gaze boring into Mulder. "Look, Mulder--" "With all due respect, Assistant Director, I don't need a lecture," he interrupts, dumping the plastic bag of evidence in front of Skinner. "I need an answer. Please." He pushes his luck with a grade-school photograph grin, Skinner narrows his eyes back at Mulder, and Scully tries not to roll her own eyes at the both of them. "Fine. It'll take a few hours." Skinner's expression softens. "I suspect it'll be less painful for all of us in the long run if I can help you out." "Thank you, sir," says Mulder, reaching across the telephone to shake his hand. "I don't mind waiting in here..." He falls back into the chair with an encouraging expression on his face. Skinner snorts and inspects the crudely-stored evidence. "It would be best for my sanity if you didn't." "Well, would you mind if I went down to the basement? Mosey around the old office?" Skinner finishes his cursory examination and drops the bag beside his computer keyboard. "You're welcome to; it's only storage now." He points a thick finger at Mulder. "But remember you'll be frisked on the way out." Mulder clicks his tongue as though his feelings are hurt. "Sir, if I didn't know better I'd say you didn't trust me." "Imagine that," Scully mutters, and Mulder waggles his eyebrows in anticipation. "Scully? Feel like taking a trip down memory lane?" She nearly laughs at that. "I think I've had enough of that the last few days, but thanks. I'm taking a different road." She stands up to leave and Skinner pushes his own chair back. He comes to stand before her, places his comforting hand on her shoulder, and she marvels at how he hasn't changed. A little less hair, perhaps, but he remains as solid and dependable as ever, and she is grateful. "Good luck, Scully," he says, and she nods, her mouth twisting a little in sadness. "See you at the hotel," she says to Mulder lightly, feeling sure that her face is betraying everything she cannot put into words: hope and fear in equal amounts. "Be careful," he says as she pulls the door closed. *** Scully stands on the sidewalk outside her old workplace and watches the warm summer wind ripple the stately procession of American flags. After a long moment punctuated with the usual scrabble of traffic, she turns away and stretches out her arm to hail a cab. An angular, yellow cab ducks in front of an unforgiving line of cars and pulls neatly into the curb before her. She slides across the seat and begins to recite Samantha's address but something stops the words before they come out. It sinks in that she is in Washington, the closest thing to home she's ever known, and she is free. And on the heels of that thought comes another; despite her comments to Mulder, a kind of morbid fascination beckons her down memory lane. "Where to, miss?" asks the impatient driver, scratching his forehead, and Scully finds herself absurdly pleased at being called as such. She shakes her head at such vanity and makes up her mind. "Take me to Georgetown." Within fifteen minutes, Scully is looking up at the stately facade of her old apartment building, at the wide jutting windows and deep doorways, and wondering when she became so sentimental. She asks the driver to wait, not knowing exactly what her plan is, and climbs out of the cab, clutching her bag over her shoulder. It might as well be graffitied across the red brick: *William was here,* for that is what screams out at her from inside. The other ghosts are quieter, whispering from the walls; Scully stands on the sidewalk and tells God yet again that she hopes he's taking good care of her sister. She thinks of friends and enemies alike, people who crossed her path for good or evil, who left a stamp on her life. She thinks of her mother and the baby shower she threw years ago, the friends she'd brought along to coddle and coo over her poor, knocked-up, husbandless daughter. She thinks of Mulder, knocking on her door at three in the morning, and the way he used to smile when she yanked open the door with mutiny on her sleep-creased face. She thinks of herself, younger, stronger, and damn it all, happier, and it tears at her heart to remember that girl. But the dead and the gone are not the only ghosts inhabiting her apartment, and she takes a backward step when someone inside pulls the curtains open to let in the morning sun. She gets back in the cab and thinks of her baby all the way to Virginia Avenue. The same desk clerk from the previous day greets her with greater wariness, his eyes darting to her waistline in search of a gun, and he primly asks to see her ID. She pulls out her driver's license and waits while he peruses it, his lips pursed. "I'll have to call up and see if she's home," he says, sliding the card across the counter. "That's fine," says Scully, tucking it and her purse away. She studies the off-white angles of lobby as covertly as possible, searching for any indication of surveillance equipment beyond the usual security, but nothing appears out of the ordinary. Further examination of the scene is impossible for so many reasons, so when the clerk nods for her to go straight up, she thanks him and goes to the elevator. The forest painting watches her grimly from the wall. Samantha opens the door so quickly that Scully wonders if she'd been hiding behind it in wait. Scully arches a brow at the sight of her, at the pink bloom of her cheeks and the way her eyes are lit up like fake blue Swarovski crystals. "Huh. I mean, hi," she corrects. "Hey, Dana," says Samantha, her color receding a little. She coughs four, five times. "Come in." "Were you expecting someone?" she asks as she steps inside the apartment, her skin tightening in the dry heat. "You don't seem surprised to see me. Or were you expecting someone... who is not me?" Samantha smiles and replaces the chain on the door. "Fox mentioned yesterday that he would come back." "Oh, did he? Well, Fox can be a very thoughtful man." "Come in," says Samantha, leading Scully into the living room. Scully peels off her jacket, her blouse already clinging to her back with unpleasant dampness, noticing that Samantha is swathed in jeans and a long, knitted sweater. Just looking at her makes her neck flush with sweat. "I was just making tea," says Samantha. "Did you want some? I have more cookies if you'd like." "Ah, no. Thank you," replies Scully, wondering how anybody could fathom drinking tea in such heat. "It's very hot in here, Samantha. Why don't you open a window?" "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean for you to be uncomfortable," Samantha says, touching her elbow, and Scully is stunned at how cold her fingertips are. "I guess one opened window couldn't hurt." "You know what, it's fine. I'm fine." Scully smiles to show she insists, draping her jacket across the back of an armchair. She follows Samantha into the tiny kitchen, which is festooned with more Oriental rugs and art deco prints in mismatched frames. Anxious to get to the point, Scully clears her throat, tapping her fingers on the countertop. "How are you feeling today?" "Fine," says Samantha, as the fluorescent light pulses into existence, making the white pine of the cupboards gleam. The kettle rumbles as it boils. Samantha stoops to pull a half-full bottle of milk from the fridge. "I feel fine." She holds her free hand to her mouth as she looses a phlegm-clotted cough. "I see," says Scully, recognizing another kindred spirit in denial, and maybe her skeptical tone shakes something loose in Samantha, because she slams the milk onto the counter and wheels around. "I'm dying." Scully nods slowly. "I know, Samantha. The blood in your lungs... you have TB." Samantha takes a long time to correct her. "Extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, to be exact," she says, clearing her throat convulsively. "I keep the windows closed because I get cold so easily and my body takes a long time to warm itself up again. A breeze could kill me, isn't that ridiculous?" It sounds like a rhetorical question but Scully nods anyway, instinctively knowing that Samantha needs somebody to commiserate with, someone to simply acknowledge the unwarranted horror of her illness. "I don't want to die, Dana." Scully traces a whorl in the spotless rug with the tip of her boot, hands gripping the counter behind her. "I know. And I know it won't be much comfort to you, but I do understand what you're feeling." "You said that yesterday," says Samantha listlessly. In the silence that follows, Scully considers just keeping her mouth shut and listening to Samantha talk, but then she realizes that she too wants to be heard by somebody who doesn't already hold all of her secrets in the palm of their hand. "About ten years ago I was very ill with cancer." Her hand hovers over the bridge of her nose, her fingers brushing the little smooth space between her brows. "It was here, pushing against my brain, and completely inoperable. I had to learn to let myself die." "I don't want to do that." Her teeth worry at her bottom lip. Scully makes a conscious effort to avoid doing the same. Telling Samantha that she must learn to die is redundant, as she surely is aware of the fact. "It's okay to be afraid, I was--" "I'm not afraid!" Samantha exclaims in a voice like steel wool. "I've worked for five years, every lonely, hurtful day for five years, to get my life back and now I don't have a choice, it's just going to be taken from me." She takes a choked breath. "I'm not afraid, Dana, I'm angry." Scully realizes how patronizing her words must have sounded. "Yeah," she says simply. "Furious." She sinks into a chair by the dining table, unable to look at Samantha. "You try to live with it but soon enough your own body starts to betray you. You try to accept it but other people can't; they treat you like you're going to fall apart at any second. And through it all you're asking, what did I *do?"* Her voice has become brittle, like a sheet of glass, and she is mortified to hear it crack on the last word. The shards slice her throat into ribbons as she swallows. "And eventually you learn that there is no reason. No-one has it in for you, it isn't all a part of some great personal cosmology. Life is just unfair, and bad things happen to good people every day." Even as she speaks, Scully isn't quite sure where the bitter words are coming from, as they have never consciously surfaced in her mind. Though she supposes it has been lurking within her for some time, she is shocked to hear herself voice her utter lack of faith. "I'm sorry," she says in a more even tone, staring at the table. "That ended up in a different place than I intended. I didn't mean to project my own feelings onto your situation, when you have a genuine cause for concern, and I know my diatribe probably made you feel worse than before..." She stops herself from digging an even deeper hole and looks up at Samantha, standing stock-still next to the refrigerator. "I'm sorry." "Don't apologize," says Samantha as she steps closer. She rests both hands on the back of an empty chair and leans forward. "Dana, are you all right? I can listen if you want to talk..." "I'm fine," says Scully abruptly, and Samantha straightens her spine. "I see," she replies, mirroring the disbelief of Scully's earlier words, and both women smile despite themselves. "Samantha..." says Scully into the easy silence, "you should see a doctor, go to a hospital. There's still hope for you yet." The smile tightens, and Scully hears how ragged Samantha's breathing is. "Whether I like it or not, I am dying, and unlike me, the bacteria destroying my lungs can't be killed. Medication has no effect on the pain and I won't spend the rest of my days in a bed, hooked up to some machine." She sits down hard in the chair, her face stark white. "I guess I will have to learn to let myself die." Scully feels her heart sag. "I wish I could be of some help to you," she says, placing her hand on Samantha's. Samantha's cough morphs into something resembling a smile. "You have, more than you know." Scully is shrugging back into her jacket by the front door when Samantha holds out a small black book printed with flaking gold leaf. "I don't know if you're Episcopalian, and I won't be so rude as to ask, but I thought you could use this." Scully takes the shabby Book of Common Prayer and lets it fall open in her hands. She fingers the wafer-thin pages filled with columns of miniscule print and looks at Samantha, speechless. "Forgive me for saying so, but I think you need it more than I do," says Samantha. "I have another, anyway." "I can't take this," says Scully, closing the book. "I insist you take it, on the condition you read it once in a while." Overcome, Scully impulsively hooks her free arm around Samantha's neck and gathers her in for an awkward, bony hug. When she steps away, in control of her emotions, Scully touches Samantha's cheek in farewell and it is warm like smoldering coals. Her thoughts cloud her so much that she doesn't immediately notice a stocky young man walking toward her when she exits the apartment. She tucks the book away in her bag, her fingers brushing against the cool barrel of the gun. The man tugs on the brim of his cap as he passes her, halfway down the hall, and she thinks it odd and old-fashioned enough to turn her head for a second look. Her heart jumps into her throat and a zap of ice-cold adrenaline leaves her momentarily frozen. The cap doesn't cover all of his black curls. The man touches his chin to his shoulder furtively and sees Scully standing still not ten feet away. Their eyes meet, he flees for the elevator, and Scully is shocked back to conscious thought. Yesterday she was caught on the back foot, running scared, and furious because of it. Today she draws the gun with frightening precision and levels it at the centre of the man's flapping green jacket. Her bag falls to the carpet. "I will shoot you," she calls. Her heartbeat resonates over and over like a plucked string, growing faster and louder, crescendoing towards something irrevocable. The black-haired man is five, four, three feet, a pair of footsteps away, swearing and slamming the elevator button with his whole hand, and the rational Scully asks herself why he doesn't make for the stairs. But the rational Scully is locked away with wailing, struggling mercy. No longer caring about the neighbors or anything except the corrosive anger inflaming her chest and the man in front of her, Scully pushes the gun barrel into his temple. "Stop," she says, so calmly that it sounds like a plea. In the face of cold steel, with an eager bullet just inches from his brain, the man sobers instantly. His fingers hover over the button, as though tempted to push it once more for luck, before he groans and lowers them. "Stand up properly," she says. His hand drifts toward his midsection and Scully pushes harder, feeling his soft black hair against her hand. He freezes. "Hands up, stand up slowly." The man straightens his shoulders and raises his hands up to ear height. One of them is clutching something small. "Drop whatever you're holding," says Scully, and the man lets the object fall to the carpet, where it rolls against the wall. Scully looks down in confusion at a completely average shot glass. For some reason, this infuriates her more than anything, and the hand gripping the gun begins to tremble. "Who are you?" she demands. "What were you doing listening outside that door? Who are you?" Somehow, between the beginning and end of that tiny sentence, her voice has risen to a shout. "I didn't mean to spy," cries the man. "Please don't shoot me." "Why are you here?" Scully says in a strangled shout. "What do you want with Mulder?" "Who?" "Tell the truth!" "I swear to God, I don't know who you're talking about, lady. Please let me up!" Somewhere in the recesses of her fevered mind Scully hears a door open behind her, and she shifts her body to hide the gun from nosy neighbors. With her free hand, she grabs the man's collar, yanks him to his feet, and shoves him in the direction of the fire stairs. "Are you crazy?" yelps the man, his voice echoing off the concrete walls of the stairwell. He stumbles to the ground, his cap skidding down the stairs. The door bangs shut. "I'm asking the questions," she hisses, training the gun down at him in case he makes a bolt for it. "Why were you spying on us?" "I don't have to answer you," he says, thrusting his trembling chin out. "I'm asking the questions and I've got the gun, so I think you do. Who do you work for?" "Which question should I answer first?" The sight of his pudgy, sweating face makes her ache to hurt him somehow, to make him a scapegoat for all her long pent-up fears. Whether it is plausible or not, that face represents to Scully the faceless horror behind the Samantha letters, the threat of discovery and death which has hung over Mulder's head for six years. They have come too far and sacrificed too much to have it all taken away from them again. The man spreads his palms against the wall behind him, trying to catch his breath. Such a young face, younger than the first glimpse had told her. She suspects he is barely out of his teenage years. And despite the challenging front, deep in his brown eyes lurks fear and thus, damned humanity. Her surety begins to fail. She tries to grab hold of her raging anger. "Who do you work for?" she demands. "Okay, easy," says the man. "Papa John's on Pennsylvania, I'm a delivery boy." Scully shakes her head like she has water in her ears, feeling sure she misheard, or maybe hallucinated. The young man nods eagerly to try and dispel her disbelief. "Yeah, Papa John's Pizza on Pennsylvania. It's good pizza, best in DC." "I've eaten there," she says stupidly. "Yeah," he enthuses. "It's good." "You don't work for the government? Or the military?" He shakes his head at each query, his eyebrows jumping to his hairline in confusion. "No! I'm a freaking grad student with a delivery job, that's it, I swear." "Okay, fine," says Scully, waving away his protestations with the gun. "Why were you listening to Mulder and I?" "She never gets visitors and I was... curious." Scully finally feels safe enough to lower the gun. "Samantha, you mean." The young man sighs and relaxes against the wall. He wipes his forehead with his sleeve. "I live the next apartment over. I hear her coughing at night until she throws up; she never, and I mean never, leaves her apartment... I'm scared she's gonna die in there all alone. I'm scared that one day she'll stop coughing, and then I'll know she'd dead." "You don't know who I am," Scully realizes out loud. "Some kind of insane cop?" he mutters, rumpling his dark curls, and Scully lets out a husk of a laugh. "You don't know who I am," she repeats, relief and the illumination of her foolishness creeping over her. "No, I don't have a clue who you are, but can I get up now?" Scully tucks the gun in her belt and strides over, trying to ignore the way he attempts to shrinks back into the concrete. He stares up at her like a white mouse cornered by a spitting tomcat. Scully extends her hand and he looks down his nose at it, nearly cross-eyed. "I'm sorry," she says. "I assure you, I had good reason to be cautious." "I'll take your word for it," he says, grasping her wrist and pulling himself up. "My hat..." Scully descends a few stairs and fishes the cap from its resting place, slapping it against her leg to rid it of dust, her cheeks beginning to burn. "I am sorry." He crams it onto his head. "Forget it, I was being nosy. Probably didn't deserve a gun shoved in my face, but... I did wrong, officer, and I promise I won't do it again." "I'm not a cop. My name's Dana." "Wade Butterman." Scully taps her fingers against her side, frowning as her brain tries to remember something. She notices Wade watching her warily and makes an effort to smooth her expression. "If you were worried about Samantha, you could have just knocked on her door." He wags a finger. "Ah, but that would've made too much sense, Dana." He pulls the heavy fire door open and Scully follows him back into the hall. "I figured she didn't want to be bothered by a kid like me." Scully stops by the elevator and pushes the button. "You'd be surprised. I'm sure she'd be happy to meet you." He pulls up short. "What, now?" The elevator announces its presence and Scully notices her handbag crumpled on the floor outside Samantha's door, its contents making a concerted effort to spread themselves across the hall. She sees the little black prayer book and makes a split-second decision. "Why not?" She tries to smile as normally as possible. "I know for a fact she makes good chocolate-chip cookies." He snorts. "Does she serve them with icy cold milk, too?" "Let's find out," she says, striding toward her scattered possessions. "So nice all of a sudden," says Wade, falling into step with her. "You sound like my mom." Now it is Scully's turn to snort. "Yeah, well I've got a lot of guilt to work through. Come on." She knocks on Samantha's door and turns to Wade. "I'm--" "--sorry?" Scully clears her throat and bends to reassemble her handbag, her face hidden by curtains of strawberry-blonde hair. "Yeah." The door opens and Scully stands, clutching her bag. "Dana," says Samantha, surprised this time, her gaze drawn to the young man beside Scully, turning his cap in his hands. "Samantha, this is Wade. He lives next door, and he wanted to come say hello." "Oh, really?" "Hi," he says, proffering a fat paw. "Pleased to meet you, Samantha." "Call me Sam," she says distractedly, shooting a questioning gaze at Scully as Wade shakes her hand. Scully shrugs. "Well, come in, I guess," says Samantha. "Dana?" "Just for a minute." The three of them shuffle into the living room and Scully offers to make the tea. Samantha touches her hand in gratitude and shifts The New York Times off the couch before sinking into her chair. In the painfully clean kitchen, Scully finds the kettle still warm from earlier but puts a little more water on to boil. She digs around in the cupboards until she discovers a fresh package of cookies. "Hope my TV doesn't keep you awake at night, Wade." Samantha's scratched voice carries on the warm air. "I watch terrible game shows when I can't sleep, no matter what the hour." Wade laughs. "No, your TV doesn't wake me up. I can hear you coughing though." Scully reappears with the tea tray and Samantha turns to her in relief. "I'm sorry about that," she says to Wade, hiding behind her steaming mug. Scully slides the tray across the table and sits. "You don't have to apologize for something you can't help. Have you been to a doctor? They could give you cough medicine or--or something to help you sleep, at least." Samantha breathes a laugh. "The optimism of the young. Doctors are too busy saving people to find a cure for an old woman's disease." "Oh yeah, I know how it is. My father's a doctor in Virginia, and when he was in the ER he was on the clock fourteen, fifteen hours a day." Wade scoops up a pair of cookies and munches as he talks, cupping his hand beneath his chin to catch crumbs. "I wrote him about you, actually, asking if he could come up here and give you an examination. That was probably rude of me, to presume you would be okay with that, but I guess it's a moot point because he never got back to me on the subject." "Wade, a thousand doctors couldn't put me back together," says Samantha, the fire banked in her pale blue eyes. "But nevertheless, even though it didn't work out, I appreciate that you thought of me." "You're welcome." Scully suddenly feels as though she is chewing on woodchips rather than a chocolate-chip cookie. His last name is Butterman. She swallows with some difficulty and tries to get her head around the information Wade has revealed so guilelessly. "Wade, your father is a doctor in Virginia?" "Mm-hmm. He's a geriatric physician at a small Catholic hospital near Richmond." Scully's throat constricts. She doesn't even want to consider the astronomical odds. "Is his name Gerald Butterman?" "Whoa. And you accused *me* of spying!" "I don't believe this. I don't believe this," she whispers like a mantra, stuffy air clamping her throat and nose and sending blood rushing to her head. "You're W. *You* wrote the letter. Wade... I know your father. He's a colleague of mine at Our Lady Of Sorrows, where I work." She takes a shallow breath, thinking of the round, cheerful Doctor Butterman who always smiles at her in the halls. "I don't believe it. I can't believe it." "Small world," Wade marvels. "Yeah," gasps Scully as tears prick her eyes. She has the absurd desire to laugh until she cries. "Must've faxed the note to the wrong number," he muses. "Your number. I did wonder why he didn't contact me." Off Samantha's look, he adds, "No phone." "How do you manage to send faxes, then?" she asks. He swallows an entire cookie in one bite. "Kinko's, just down the road." "Tell me, Wade," says Scully, throwing caution to the wind at last. "Just out of curiosity. Do you know anything about colonization?" She searches his good-natured face for a twitch, a spark, a fidget of recognition, just as Mulder had searched Samantha's the day before, but he shakes his head like a child and she knows with absolute and final certainty that he is innocent. "I mostly slept during History in high school," he admits with a lopsided shrug. "The wars were the only good parts." "Typical boy," says Samantha, and he grins at her as she drains the last of her tea. "Can I take your mug?" he says, standing up. "After feeding me milk and cookies, the least I can do is the washing-up." Scully feels numb, like she is watching everything from space. *** It is just after the lunchtime rush when Scully returns to the hotel in a daze. She allows the eager-to-please maŚtre d' to lead her through the blue-and-gold wallpapered restaurant, following a winding path around vacant white tables laden with regimented silverware and bright crystal. She takes a seat near a wide bay window, accepts the wine list and just sits and lets the sunlight fall upon her face. On a whim, she takes the Book of Common Prayer from the depths of her bag and slowly thumbs the pages through to Psalms. She skims the lines full of despair and answering hope until one in particular catches her eye. *Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.* After reading and re-reading the line, trying to make herself believe the words, Scully closes the book and drops it into her bag where it will remain out of sight. When the waiter returns, she orders a bottle of wine and decides, in stubborn defiance of her better judgment, to drink as much as she wants. Two big glasses dull her senses and four makes her sleepy enough to slump in the chair, so after picking at her Ni‡oise salad, she drags herself up to the room and curls up under the blankets with the air-conditioning on and the curtains drawn. She wakes to find Mulder perched on the edge of the bed, his hands cupped in his lap. She draws her knees up to curl around him like a shrimp. "Hi," he says softly. "Hi." Her mouth is dry like velvet and she swallows to clear it. "How did it go?" He hesitates in the dim light before shaking his head, as though he can delay the inevitable. "The test came back negative, or close enough. A few shared genes, but not enough. Not a match." His mouth opens and closes a few times before he presses his lips together. "Not her." Scully places a hand on the small of his back. "I'm sorry, Mulder. It's not fair on you." "Yeah, well..." he trails off in a sigh. "You did warn me." Her fingers trace the curves of his spine. "I'll tell you something, though," she muses. "I was half-convinced myself. I did want to believe it, for your sake and for her's." He squeezes her other hand. "Thanks. How was she?" "Up and down," Scully says, with a contemplative sigh. "Lonely, angry at God's injustice... happy, even, at times. Still coming to terms with everything." She pauses. "She is very sick, and she will die, and nothing short of a miracle will change that." "Miracles have been known to happen, Scully," he reminds her, and she rolls onto her back to stare at the plaster ceiling. "We can only hope," she says, feeling his eyes on her. "In any case, she wants to live the rest of her life on her terms, and I don't blame her in the slightest. It's her choice." "As it is the unalienable right of every human being." "She does not want to die in a hospital bed, Mulder." She meets his gaze. "And I don't think she'll be alone at the end, after all." His brows crease. "You think her family will come for her?" "No." Scully shuffles upright, arranging herself against a couple of pillows, her feet mounding the snowy blanket. "But she does have a friend in the building, after all." Her chews his bottom lip in contemplation, thoughts obviously elsewhere. "Will she be in a lot of pain?" She hesitates to answer the question, still reeling from the knowledge that a death sentence hangs over Samantha's blameless head. "Tuberculosis is a treatable disease, even in poorer countries," she says, shaking her head in disbelief. "Less than eight hundred people a year die from it in the US. It's... it's the worst luck in the world that she contracted the only strain which is completely resistant to treatment." That seems to remind him of something and he digs around in the pocket of his jeans. "Look what I found," he says, holding up a glass eye like a proud kid at show-and-tell. "Mulder!" says Scully, taking the thing from his hand. A number of questions run neck and neck through her mind but the only one that manages to escape is "Why on earth would you keep somebody's glass eye?" "That's not just any old glass eye. That little beauty once belonged to Henry Weems," says Mulder, nodding at it. "The luckiest man in the world, remember, Scully?" "Mmm," she says, tapping the blue iris with a fingernail. "Why is Henry Weems' glass eye in your possession and not his?" "He got a replacement because this one kept escaping. It's a dud. I--well, I took it from his desk for safekeeping," he says with an air of modest pride at committing such a morally commendable act. "Right." "I kept it in a drawer in my desk; must've rolled behind the filing cabinet when the FBI razed our office. I thought it would make an interesting souvenir of an... interesting time in our lives." Scully raises her eyebrows in amusement. "That, and..." "Do you need another reason?" he says, leering at her. She pushes his shoulder. "It reminds me of something you said, actually," she informs him. "I guess it kinda stuck with me." "Well, I say many wise things, my Scully." "Shut up, please." The glass eye winks in a shard of sunlight which slips through a crack in the curtain. "You told Weems that his spate of bad luck might not be so bad, that he wasn't in a position to tell one way or another." "Yeah, he couldn't see the forest for the trees," says Mulder. "I sorted him out, though." "And the conclusion of a string of awful and seemingly random occurrences ended up saving that little boy's life." The grin slip from his face like melted butter. Scully, thinking of another little boy who couldn't be saved, notes his contrition in passing but doesn't pay it much attention until he speaks. "Maybe everything does happen for a reason, whether we see it or not," he offers, and her mouth wavers. "You mean faith." He shrugs. "As George Michael said, you gotta have it." She picks at the satin hem of the soft blanket and considers the concept. Such a small word, encompassing the most infinite of ideas. Could it be possible that Christian's death was one microscopic cog in an inconceivable machine, just one step in an unknowable plan constructed by somebody who has had the endgame in mind for all eternity? She thinks of William and her mind darkens a little. No endgame was worth losing her child. She wonders if believing a thing of such magnitude is too difficult, too painful for her cracked and shifting heart. The organ in question thuds rhythmically in her chest, as though proving its worth. Having faith means not blaming herself for things which are beyond her control. It means placing her trust in someone other than herself, or Mulder. It means learning to stand on her own two feet again, knowing that she'll never be truly alone. And she isn't sure if she can do all of that. The blue glass eye sits in her palm and fixes her with its unblinking scrutiny. She closes her own eyes for a moment. "This is the best present you've ever given me," she says, lifting her face to Mulder and tracing his stubbled jaw with one finger. "I don't know about that," he says, his eyes serious. "What about 'Superstars of the Superbowl'?" *** Onward to the final part!