Bridges
by Elizabeth Rowandale

Feedback:  Email: bstrbabs@gmail.com
Rating:  Mature
Relationship:  Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Additional Tags:  Angst, Romance, An X-File Case, Mytharc

Summary: A family in a small town in New Mexico appears to 
be suffering the ill effects of an encounter with Black 
Eyed Children. While in the desert to search out the truth, 
Mulder and Scully find themselves confronting more than 
they bargained for, both in the investigation and in their 
personal relationship. Early Season 11, turns AU after 
"This." Past and eventual present MSR.

Disclaimer: Mulder and Scully and the search for the truth 
all belong to Chris Carter and Co. I'm just borrowing them. 
I promise to return them in no worse condition than Chris 
would.

Beta thanks to Annie, without whom I would probably 
still be sitting in a corner feeling sorry for myself and 
refusing to post, and to Erica who has been a wonderful 
addition to the beta team - I owe you both so much!


Copyright (c) 2018

Chapter 5

Waiting for the tow truck, riding back to Las Cruces and 
the local Enterprise office, filling out a claim, being 
assigned a new car, coordinating with the police to have 
their first car examined for tampering before it got back 
into the hands of the rental company, trying to explain to 
the tow truck driver he couldn't just drop potential 
evidence at his local mechanic because he "trusted him"...the 
chaos ate up the rest of their afternoon as well as any 
opportunity for an actual lunch.

They finally emerged from the miasma in a shiny silver Audi 
A6 (a free upgrade in hopes of not getting sued). Scully 
was munching on a breakfast bar from her briefcase and 
sticking an occasional bite into Mulder's mouth as he drove 
when his cell phone rang. Mariela. She was free to talk to 
them between school and work.

"She wants to meet outside her high school," Mulder said 
when he disconnected the brief call. "It's not far from 
here."

Ten minutes later, he was steering the car into the high 
school parking lot against the surging tide of teenaged 
exodus. Less than a third of the spaces in the large side 
lot remained occupied. A smattering of students still made 
their ways to their cars, but the buses had already gone.

Mariela had asked them to meet at the picnic tables behind 
the baseball diamond. Mulder circled the school, then 
parked at the back edge of the blacktop. He and Scully 
walked along the side of the baseball diamond toward the 
wooden tables in the distance, the smell of old popcorn 
strong in the air. It was probably leftover cooking smells 
from the school kitchen, but the scent gave the feeling of 
an active baseball game, and Mulder could almost hear the 
crowd.

In actuality, the field lay deserted. Mulder found himself 
wishing he had a ball and a couple of gloves on him. They 
could have tossed around the ball while they talked. People 
often revealed more when their hands were busy.

The aging picnic tables were nearly deserted. Only three 
students sat on the benches -- two near the edge of the 
field, then Mariela on the table farthest from the parking 
lot. The girl stood as they approached. Her bulky school 
bag sat in the dust at her feet, her phone and a water 
bottle on the table in front of her. 

Mulder held out his hand and Mariela shook it. "Mariela, 
thank you for meeting with us."

The girl gave an incredulous huff. "Thank you for listening 
to me."

Scully offered her hand as well. "We want to hear all 
available information. We're here to make sure nothing gets 
missed if we can help it."

Mariela nodded. "Thanks."

Mulder settled on the near side bench while Scully circled 
the table and took a seat beside Mariela. He gazed out over 
the baseball field and the open ground beyond the high 
school property. A lot of open space beside the highway. He 
turned back and looked down at his own hands. The table in 
front of them was supposed to be yellow, but the weathered 
boards showed years of faded and painted-over letters, 
mostly student couples declaring their undying love or 
trash talk toward neighboring school teams.

Mulder decided to start with the story Mariela probably 
most wanted or needed to tell. The one the other 
authorities didn't want to listen to. "Mariela, can you 
tell us about the night the kids came to your house? Take 
us through it? Would you mind?"


The girl nodded. "Sure." He could see the nervousness 
running through her at the mention of the kids. But there 
was an eagerness, too, just as he had seen in her at the 
hospital. She was keeping quiet about what she knew to try 
to support her mom, her brother. But she knew there was 
more going on, and she was starved for someone to listen.

"Had you ever heard of the Black-Eyed Children before that 
night?" Mulder asked.

"Not really. I might have heard it said around, but...I 
didn't really know what they were. Not enough to know what 
to watch out for. Maybe if I had..." She faded out and stared 
down at the bag resting against her leg.

"Just take your time and tell us exactly what happened," 
Scully said gently.

Mariela drew a deep breath, exhaled heavily, then said, "It 
was about 11 o'clock at night, I think. Maybe close to 
midnight. It was a Thursday. Christian was asleep, because 
it was a school night. But I was still up because I was 
working on a paper I had due for AP History that Friday. My 
dad had fallen asleep on the couch in front of the TV, my 
grandma was in her room, maybe asleep, I don't know. My mom 
was in the kitchen with me. Somebody knocked on the front 
door. It was weird just to have someone knock that time of 
night, you know? We were kind of nervous just because of 
that. But we thought it might be a neighbor who needed help 
or something. My mom went to the door and looked through 
the window to the side of it and she could see it was young 
people. Or at least...short, I guess. She opened the door a 
little but left the chain on at first, and she asked if she 
could help them. I was watching over her shoulder. There 
were two kids. One was pretty young. Younger than Chris, 
maybe six or seven. He was a boy. The older one was a girl, 
maybe eleven I would guess. But I couldn't really see their 
faces well. They had on jeans and dark hoodies with the 
hoods pulled up. The older one did most of the talking. She 
said they needed help. That they were lost and they needed 
to come inside and call their parents. It's not the safest 
neighborhood at night for little kids to be out by 
themselves. It's not bad, but, it's not great, you know?"

Mulder nodded. "Sure. They sound too young to be out on 
their own anywhere, anyway."

"Yeah. The girl's voice was...weird."

"Weird how?" Scully prompted.

Mariela frowned, seeming to look for the words. One hand 
cradled her phone, the other restlessly traced the edge of 
the rip in the thigh of her jeans. Her nails were painted a 
glittered blue. "It was like...like she was saying the 
words-- saying they were lost, that they were cold. Even 
though it wasn't really cold outside. But it was like she 
was reciting lines. Like she wasn't really just talking 
about herself."

Scully drew a thoughtful breath. "Do you think she was 
being coerced? Do you get the impression someone was 
forcing her to do this? Maybe an adult hidden out of 
sight?"

Mariela hooked her glittery nail into the edge of her phone 
case. "I mean...it's possible, but...she didn't seem 
scared. If she were being forced to do this, shouldn't she 
have been scared?"

"Maybe," Mulder volunteered. "Or it could have been a less 
threatening situation. A con artist parent asking their kid 
to play a part in the ruse?"

"It's possible, yeah. But they seemed pretty...self-
assured. Not like needy kids. But it wasn't just that. My 
mom felt it, too. She usually helps kids, like 
*everybody's* kids, you know? She's the type that sort of 
mothers every kid who comes near her. She used to work as a 
school nurse when I was little. And my dad being a teacher, 
there are always kids around. But my mom didn't want to let 
these kids in that night. She kept glancing at me, and we 
sort of looked at each other because we both just knew 
something was wrong. It was like...when there's a storm 
coming and everything just kind of...stops. The birds are 
all quiet, and the air makes the hair on your arms stand 
up."

Scully swallowed a little stiffly. Mariela was too involved 
in her own story to notice any reaction in her listeners, 
but Mulder caught it. He silently logged the observation 
and kept his focus on their witness.

"The kids kept getting more insistent about coming in," 
Mariela said. "My mom asked them to give her their parents' 
phone number and said she would call, but the kids just 
kept insisting they *had* to come inside. Like that was the 
most important thing. My mom had turned on the porch light, 
and when the kids looked up to ask if they could just use 
the bathroom, we could really see their faces. That's when 
we saw their eyes."

"And what did their eyes look like exactly?" Scully asked.

Mariela looked to Scully as she spoke. "They were all 
black. Like...completely black. No whites at all. No pupil 
you could tell from the iris or anything. Just black and 
almost...wet. Like oil. I've seen goth kids with the colored 
eye tattoos or with those creepy contacts that make their 
eyes all black, but...this was different. It looked...organic."

"But it was dark," Scully said, kindly enough.

"It was then, but after they came inside we could see them 
really clearly."

"Your parents let the kids in?" Mulder asked.

"My Dad did," Mariela said. "All the talking woke him up, 
and he came and he just couldn't stand the thought of 
leaving them out there. He didn't understand why we hadn't 
let them in yet. I don't think he talked to them enough 
himself before he said to let them in. He didn't have time 
to realize...that it was...weird."

Mulder nodded. "So, what happened when you let them in?"

"First, Mom pointed them to the bathroom and went to get 
them some juice in the kitchen. Then the kids came out of 
the bathroom and sat on the couch in the living room where 
my dad and I were waiting. They sat right on the edge, 
like...like they weren't used to soft chairs or something. 
It felt strange. My mom brought them juice and asked them 
for their parents' phone number again. She even offered to 
just let them make the call. Then it was even weirder -- 
they just said their parents would probably be out looking 
for them and their parents didn't have a cell phone, so it 
probably wouldn't help to call. The kids each took one sip 
of the juice, then just left the rest on the table. And 
they didn't really ask for anything. They both said, 'thank 
you for letting us in.' I think that's the only thing the 
younger one said."

"How long were they in your house?" Mulder asked.

Mariela shook her head. A gust of desert wind blew her long 
hair across her face, and she reached up to hook it behind 
her ear just as Scully did the same with her own. "That's 
the weird thing," Mariela continued. "Or...one of the 
weirdest parts of all the weirdness, I guess. It seemed 
like only about ten minutes, but when we looked at the 
clock after they left, my dad said it had been an hour 
since he woke up. I was feeling really dizzy, and I thought 
it was just because I'd been working on my paper for so 
many hours and it was so late. But my mom was kind of out 
of it, too, and she just said we should all go to bed. I 
don't even remember going to bed after that. I just 
remember waking up the next morning in my bed."

"Has anything like that ever happened to you before? Have 
you lost time?" Scully asked.

Mariela shook her head. "No. Never. And, no, I'm not taking 
any medication. I don't even drink."

Scully nodded. "How did they leave? The kids?"

"We heard this car outside, and the kids stood up and the 
girl said, 'That's our ride,' like this was all normal or 
expected. And when we went to the door and looked out, 
there was this dark car parked at the end of our driveway. 
We couldn't really see what kind of car, just some sort of 
dark sedan or something. None of us saw a license plate or 
anything. The police asked, but we couldn't remember 
anything. Later I found out Chris had been awake and 
looking out his bedroom window, too, but he didn't see 
anything more than we did. But there were these two people 
standing by the car with sunglasses on. Which was bizarre, 
because it was the middle of the night, and the only light 
was our porch light and the little lamppost in our 
neighbor's yard. Neither of the adults said anything, but 
the kids said right together, 'Those are our parents, we 
have to go with them now.' My parents didn't really want to 
just let these kids go off with some strangers at night, 
but...the truth is we just all wanted those kids out of our 
house. From the moment they knocked, everything just 
felt...dark. Like...when you're in a house where somebody's 
really sick or dying. And all your instincts are telling 
you this isn't a safe place, that something here is bad 
or...toxic. You know what I mean?"

"I do," Scully said, and Mulder was surprised by the simple 
and honest reply. For a moment his gaze lingered on 
Scully's profile, wondering what experience she had 
immediately identified from her own life, but Scully kept 
her attention on the girl.

"Everything changed after that night," Mariela said. "We 
should never have let them in. Do you know about them? Do 
you know about the Black-Eyed Kids?" She looked up at 
Mulder, gaze earnest and piercing, and Mulder gave the girl 
a soft nod.

"I have heard the theories. You're the first witness I've 
spoken to personally."

Mariela turned to Scully. "And did you know about them? 
Before this?"

Scully hesitated a beat, then shook her head. "No. Agent 
Mulder introduced me to the phenomenon when he came across 
your case."

Mariela looked pained. "I'm sorry."

Scully tilted her head and leaned in. "Sorry for what?"

Mariela swallowed hard and looked down at her phone as she 
spoke. "Once you know about them...they're supposed to be 
able to find you more easily. They're more likely to visit 
you. You might be...in more danger now."

Scully narrowed her eyes but didn't speak, choosing 
respectful sympathy over correcting what Mulder knew she 
saw as superstition, and Mulder saw the mother in her he 
had seen since their very first case that had involved a 
child.

"We just want to help," Mulder said. "That's our job. And 
sometimes that means running toward the fire," he added 
with a wistful smile.

Mariela turned her phone face up and pressed the side 
button to display the time. "I have to go. I have to be at 
work by six. Is there anything else you need to know right 
now?"

Mulder shook his head. "You've told us enough for now. Can 
we talk again soon?"

"Sure. Will you tell me if you find out anything before 
then?"

"Of course. I promise we'll keep you in the loop."

The three of them stood, and Mulder again shook Mariela's 
hand while Scully gave the girl a quick but sincere smile, 
thanking her for her honesty. Mariela snatched up her bag 
and hurried off across the parking lot toward an aged Geo 
Metro. Mulder guessed she had bought the car with her own 
money. The kid seemed to be a hell of a hard worker. AP 
classes, a job after school, helping with her brother. And 
losing half her family. Sometimes the world just sucked.

Mulder dropped back onto the wooden bench, facing away from 
the table this time, gazing out over the baseball diamond. 
The wind was picking up, little pieces of paper and old 
soda cups skimming across the rocky ground.

Scully sank to the seat beside him, moving with her usual 
grace and control.

When Mariela's Geo vanished onto the distant highway, 
Scully said, "Have you noticed our observer?"

Indeed he had. A boy, probably another student, had been 
standing half behind a lone tree on the far side of the 
field, observing their conversation with Mariela with a 
singular intensity. He still hovered by the tree, too far 
away to hear, but watching their every interaction. "Yep. 
Do you think he'll approach if we sit here a little 
longer?"

"You think we'll get the frightened rabbit reaction if we 
approach?"

"Could be."

They tried sitting a bit longer, conveying a casual air. 
Mulder pulled out a package of sunflower seeds from his 
coat pocket and started munching. The boy kept watching, 
but made no move to approach. Mulder offered a seed to 
Scully, but she shook her head.

"Is your gun under your blouse or just your jacket?" he 
asked.

"My blouse. Why?"

"Want to take off your jacket and try going in alone?"

Scully lifted an eyebrow. "Mulder, did you just ask me to 
use my breasts as an interrogation tool?"

"Not specifically, although now that you say it, I can 
think of countless applications. But I was thinking no 
jacket looks more casual, less like an authority figure, 
and less like you're hiding something underneath it. 
Well...other than the obvious." He tossed away a seed.

"So...short, female, and non-threatening?"

"Only in appearance. Little do they know."

"Fine. Got my back?"

"Always and forever, bestie."

Scully huffed out a small laugh, and shrugged out of her 
suit jacket.

*****

She made her way across the sparse and gravelly field, 
stepping carefully in her heels and hoping there weren't 
too many goats' heads as she wandered farther away from the 
beaten path around the baseball field. She had lost many an 
expensive pair of shoes to these viscious little desert 
irritants.

The boy was watching her approach, and she tried to strike 
a comfortable balance between acknowledging his attention 
and scanning the field around them until she was close 
enough to speak. He was tall, close to six foot and solidly 
built. His dark hair was short and clean, but unkempt. Or 
perhaps it had just been victim to the wind. Scully stopped 
a good six feet from the boy. The continuing breeze 
fluttered her blouse over her skin.

"Hello," she ventured. "I noticed you watching us. Did you 
need help with something?" She kept her voice as calm and 
considerate as she could manage.

"Do you work for the government?" the boy asked, holding 
onto the tree trunk beside him like he might sidestep and 
use it as a shield any moment. The kid was wired, and that 
meant unpredictable. Scully kept all her observational 
senses in high gear. Her weapon was a comfortable weight at 
her back.

"I do," she replied gently. "My name is Agent Scully, I 
work for the FBI."

"And him, too?" He nodded toward the distant bench.

"That's my partner, Agent Mulder."

The boy's eyes went wide. "Agent *Mulder?* Fox Mulder?"

Scully lifted her eyebrows in question. "How do you know 
Agent Mulder?"

"Well, I don't, not personally. But my dad talks about him 
all the time. He's like...his hero or something."

"Agent Mulder is you father's hero? How so?"

"If you're his partner, you should know."

"I'd like to hear it from you, if you don't mind."

"The..." The boy glanced around them. He seemed to think he 
might be overheard, despite the wind and the wide open 
space surrounding them. "The aliens," he finished in a low 
voice. "My dad...he's pretty sure he was an abductee. And 
Mulder, he's stood up for so many abductees, you know? He's 
tried to help. When the government just...tries to make us 
sound crazy."

"Us?" she prompted.

"Yeah, well...it tends to run in families, you know? But is 
that what you're here about? About the lights?"

"What lights?"

The boy frowned. "You don't know? Are you really Fox 
Mulder's partner?"

"I assure you I am." *More than I have been anything else.* 
"But we are out here looking at a different case at the 
moment. Can you tell me your name?"

He ignored her question. "But you were talking to Mariela. 
She saw the kids."

"And what kids are those?"

"The Black-Eyed kids. They show up more when...they're 
around, ya know?"

"Have you seen the Black-Eyed Children yourself?"

He nodded. "Once. They came to our house. Stared in the 
window. Wanted to be let inside. But we knew better. We 
waited them out until they left."

"And when was this?"

The boy shrugged. "Six months ago, maybe?" He glanced away 
again, shifted his weight between his All-Star low-rises. 
He was dressed in a t-shirt and basketball shorts with a 
dark trench coat over the top. A bizarre combination in the 
afternoon's heat. He didn't have a bag on him, and she 
wondered if he had come from the school. "Look, I probably 
shouldn't be talking about this," he said. "But...ask Agent 
Mulder about the lights, okay? I'll bet he knows. That's 
where you should start. It all goes together. I know it 
does. I gotta go."

Scully took a step forward as the boy started to back away. 
"Wait, can I give you my card? If you think of something--"

But the boy just shook his head as he backed away and said, 
"Ask Ed Monroe. At the garage. He's seen them." Then he 
turned and took off at a run toward the path to a housing 
development on the far side of the valley.

*****

Mulder had been watching every small twitch of body 
language from Scully, every subtle glance his direction, 
every shift of her weight. But he hadn't caught anything 
that told him she was encountering more than she could 
handle, and she had never signaled for him to join in the 
conversation. Now that the boy had bolted, Scully walked 
back toward where he waited on the bench. He rose to his 
feet and tossed off the last of his sunflower seed shells, 
seeing the brisker pace to her step. She was fired up by 
something, and the closer she got the more he started to 
think this was somehow directed at him. *Crap.*

"So, who was our fan?" he asked, keeping his tone casual.

Scully slowed to a halt in front of him, folded her arms 
across her chest. "Appropriate choice of words."

He blinked. "Sorry?"

"That's exactly what he is, Mulder. A fan. Of yours. Or at 
least his father is."

"Scully, what are you talking about?"

She huffed out a breath through her nose and stared up at 
him for a beat. "His father believes he's an abductee. 
Maybe the boy, too. And apparently, they are long time 
followers of your work. They assumed you were out here 
because of 'the lights'. He couldn't believe I didn't know 
about them. He said I should ask you. Should I ask you, 
Mulder?"

Mulder sighed, bit down on the inside of his cheek. "I'm 
not sure how to answer this right now that plays out well 
for me."

Scully let go a sharp breath and narrowed her eyes, not at 
all charmed by his attempt at humor. "Let's start with the 
truth."

Mulder sagged, "I wasn't lying to you, Scully. We're out 
here to help the Garcias and to help Sheriff Aster manage 
the public perception of what has happened to the family. 
It's true, I was looking into a sudden outbreak of reports 
of strange lights in the sky near this area when I stumbled 
upon Mariela's blog. You've read the research, Scully, you 
know sightings of Black-Eyed Children are sometimes linked 
to UFO sightings."

"So, are you out here looking for UFOs? And, if so, when 
were you going to mention that to me? Or better yet, to 
Skinner?"

"Were you listening to me? I just said we are out here to 
help the Garcias."

"And who is Ed Monroe?"

"I have no idea. Who is Ed Monroe?"

"I don't know, but your number one fan thinks you should 
talk to him 'at the garage'. About the lights."


Scully brushed past him and retrieved her jacket from the 
bench, then stalked off toward the parking lot without a 
glance back.

"Scully...hey, Scully, wait up." He jogged until he was 
beside her, again. "Why are you so mad about this?"

"Why? Because I am working a case for which I clearly do 
not have all the information. Because my partner chose not 
to tell me."

"Honestly, I didn't think it was going to come up. Stories 
like this circulate all the time, Scully, and most of them 
turn out to have no basis in fact. You of all people know 
this. I had no reason to think the two events were going to 
turn out to be connected. We still don't know that they 
are. If it came up, I was going to tell you what I had 
read, of course."

Scully shook her head and narrowed her eyes, dangerously 
angry, but she didn't reply. She was still walking fast.

"Did the kid tell you anything else?" Mulder asked, trying 
and failing to keep the irritation from his own voice. 
"Does he know something about the Garcias?"

"He knows who Mariela is, knows she saw...what he calls the 
Black-Eyed Kids. He thinks they're connected to the lights. 
To abductions."

"Did you get his name?"

She shook her head, jaw tight and hard as she continued to 
glare at the horizon. "He wouldn't even take my card." 
Mulder was sure she had more insight to offer from the 
encounter, but every word Scully spoke seemed forced across 
her tongue through a monumental effort of self-control. She 
clearly had no desire to speak to him, but her sense of 
professionalism forced her to provide the essential facts. 
Nothing more.

Mulder sighed wearily as they neared the car. He clicked 
open the locks of the luxury he should have been enjoying 
driving, and Scully climbed into the passenger side before 
he could say another word. She slammed the door with far 
more force than necessary. *This was going to be a fun 
evening.*

*****

Mulder could sit side by side with Dana Scully for long 
periods of time without saying a word, and they could still 
be completely comfortable in one another's presence. 
Silence could be an intimate environment for them.

The silence on the ride back to the motel was anything but 
comfortable. Scully's gaze was fixed in the far gone 
distance, cold wafting off of her like a shimmering 
contrast to the surrounding heat.

Mulder elected to give her her space.

As he drove, he phoned Sheriff Aster and confirmed the 
details of the plan to get their rental car properly 
checked for tampering or damage. He promised they would be 
in first thing in the morning to file the official accident 
report. Then he asked the sheriff if he knew an "Ed Monroe 
at the garage."

"Really?" Mulder said into the phone with a pointed glance 
toward Scully. She returned his gaze on instinct despite 
her anger; always the professional. "Can you text me the 
address and phone number? Thank you. Yeah, we'll be in 
touch first thing tomorrow."

He hung up and turned to Scully. "You remember the sheriff 
left this morning on a domestic call?"

"Yeah. The...Monroes." He saw the idea light behind her 
eyes as she heard herself speak the name.

"Yep, one and the same. Ed Monroe. Aster's sending me the 
number for the garage."

Scully stared at the phone in his hand for a moment, then 
returned her attention to the horizon, withdrawing.

Mulder thumped his head twice on the seat back, then locked 
his focus on the road.

****

"Do you want to stop somewhere for dinner?"

Scully shook her head and turned to look completely out the 
side window without ever glancing his direction. "Just take 
me back to the motel."

Not "us", "me." Mulder felt a little like he was being 
dumped in the middle of a date.

****

Disconnecting his last call, Mulder slipped his phone back 
into his pocket as their steps slowed in front of their 
motel room doors. "No answer at the garage or on the home 
line. We can either call again in the morning or just drop 
by when the place opens."

"And what about the case we're on?" Scully snapped, and 
Mulder realized he hadn't heard any words from her in at 
least ten minutes. "Didn't you tell the sheriff we would be 
at the station to file a report on the accident in the 
morning? In case it's not an accident at all and someone's 
trying to kill us? Or do you think maybe that's aliens, 
too?"

Mulder scrubbed a weary hand over his face. "Scully, I 
never said--Christ, is this--" He was half a breath from 
saying, *'Is this the elevation making you this pissy or 
are we farther through the month than I thought?'* but he 
managed to bite down on this in time. He had dug that hole 
for himself before, he knew just how much shit he had to 
climb over to get back out.

"Is this what?" Scully pushed. She never did help herself.

"You want to know if someone tried to kill us? Fuck the 
lights, Scully, this guy runs the local garage. This is 
Verdad, New Mexico, how many garages do you think there 
are? This guy is tangled up one way or another with what's 
going on in this town, so I don't think it's out of line to 
want to question him, see whether he serviced either of the 
cars involved in the accidents."

"Fine. Whatever." Her words dripped ice.

"What's that supposed to mean?" He never helped himself 
much either.

"It means, Mulder, you're going to do whatever the hell you 
want to, whether I'm part of it or not. Like you always 
do."

"Like I always...I wasn't going to do anything without you! 
I told you, if the subject came up, I was going to tell you 
everything, I just didn't see the point if the two things 
stayed unconnected."

"Right, why would you give me all the information up front? 
Why not always keep me need-to-know?"

"I don't know, how many details do you need, Scully? Did I 
neglect to tell you what I had for breakfast Monday 
morning? Do you need to know exactly how far I was through 
the classic 1960s World Series game I was watching on 
satellite when I paused to phone Sheriff Aster about this 
case?"

Scully shook her head and turned to go, seemingly too angry 
to reply.

He couldn't let it go. "Are you saying we *shouldn't* 
investigate the auto shops in town?"

Scully whirled on him as though about to match his tirade, 
but she only got as far as "I'm say--" before she stopped. 
She froze in front of him, blue eyes blazing. A beat ticked 
by in electric silence. Then she visibly sagged, closed her 
eyes, and exhaled hard. She rested her hands on her hips, 
and he swore he could actually see all the fight draining 
out of her onto the surrounding concrete. "I'm sorry," she 
said softly. "I'm mad at you, but not...like this." She 
hesitated, shifted her weight, and tilted one foot back 
onto her high heel. "I'm upset about something else, and 
I'm taking it out on you. You should have told me about 
this sooner, but, you're right, the auto repair is a 
possible connection, and we should look into it." Her gaze 
was somewhere around his knees, but her tone was sincere, 
if guarded. "We can drop by the garage in the morning on 
our way to the station."

Mulder floundered. He needed a few breaths to switch gears. 
He did have a right to be upset, but her apology had been 
direct and genuine and he wanted to rise to that, match 
what she was offering. He attempted to throw water on his 
anger. "Okay," he said carefully. "Thank you." His words 
felt inadequate.

Scully nodded acknowledgment.

The space around them was too still.

Mulder shifted his weight and fidgeted with the key card he 
had already taken from his pocket. "So...what's really 
wrong?"

Scully shook her head. "It's nothing. I'm tired. I'm 
probably hungry. Maybe I'm getting too old for this. Let's 
just...get some food and some sleep."

"Scully..." His hand reached toward her, but he didn't take 
the step so he could touch. She stared at the ground. "You 
don't want to tell me?" he asked with a shrug.

She breathed. Scully's breath set the rhythm of his days. 
When she exhaled now, there was a whisper of pain in the 
sound. Like she was being wrestled, pulled in conflicting 
directions. "Can we just order a pizza and get some rest?" 
she asked.

After a long beat he decided to take what she was offering 
and let it go. "Okay. You pick out something, I'll buy."

She nodded and then disappeared into her room.

*****

(end Chapter 5)