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, to Erica who makes me much more 
presentable to the world, and a warm welcome to dear 
Miriam, my Water's Edge beta from way back in the day, now 
back to kick my ass in line once more!



Copyright (c) 2018

Chapter 14


//////////

His fever has risen again as the evening has worn on, and 
now he is lying in bed, dozing in fits of dreams that 
tangle in fragments with glimpses of their bedroom and 
memories of running through a dark street knowing Scully is 
out there somewhere and he can't find her. But that is not 
reality. Or it was, he thinks it was, but it is not 
tonight. Tonight she is safely home, and she has been in to 
check on him multiple times. That is her cool hand on his 
forehead, her soft and worried hum in the back of her 
throat. He knows her doctor's touch from her lover's touch, 
but sometimes it all blends into one when he is the 
patient. This was true even before they became lovers. 
Maybe they have always been lovers.

"Mulder? I need you to wake up for a minute. It's time for 
more medicine. We need to get this fever down."

"'Mmsleep..."

"I know. But you're too warm, and I don't want to have to 
throw you in a bathtub full of ice, so I need you to 
swallow some more ibuprofen. Can you open your eyes for me? 
Come on."

Her tender but insistent hand is cupping the back of his 
neck, and she guides him to rise onto his elbow. God, his 
muscles ache like he has run a marathon. This is just the 
flu, but the news has been saying it is a nasty one this 
year, and fuck they're right. He is grateful Scully has not 
yet said 'I told you so' about his refusal to take a flu 
shot (she is probably waiting until he feels less like 
death). She took hers two months ago. And he is grateful 
for that, too, because he doesn't want to watch her go 
through this.

"Come on. One more..." She is holding the glass of water to 
his lips, and he is trying to hold onto it himself, but she 
is steadying it, and that is probably wise.

His throat burns as he forces down the pills. The water is 
soothing. He is dry as desert sand.

"Good. That's good," she says softly. She sets his glass on 
the nightstand and helps to settle him back into his nest. 
"Just rest some more." One hand strokes his hair back from 
his forehead, and his skin feels prickly and strange, but 
her touch is welcome and calming. The fingers of her other 
hand are subtly counting the pulses in his wrist.

"Couldn't find you," he mumbles into the pillow.

"What? Did you call me before? I was just in the--"

"No. Long time ago. They took you, and I couldn't...I 
couldn't find you..."

She is quiet for a moment, and he almost falls asleep. He 
can't quite keep his eyes open, and part of him thinks he 
might be worrying her, but he can't keep his thoughts 
sorted.

"You found me, Mulder," she says, "I'm right here. I'm not 
going anywhere."

He catches hold of her hand. "Don't go anywhere." His voice 
sounds distant and young.

"I'm not going anywhere," she repeats. He feels her soft 
lips press to his eyebrow, and the scent of her skin 
penetrates the fog clogging his senses. "Just sleep, honey. 
You're okay," she whispers.

"Sleep, sci---slee..."

"Sshh. I'll be right here. I promise."

When he wakes six hours later, his skin is covered in a 
fine sheen of sweat and his thoughts feel like his own. The 
fever has finally broken, and he is left with a grateful 
peace and a desperate fatigue. A thin ray of first light 
bleeds in the window and onto a splash of red hair -- 
Scully, asleep on top of the bedspread beside him, slacks 
and blouse and earrings still on. Her fingers are tangled 
with his. Still here.

He reaches out and strokes the side of her face. He is 
gentle, but she startles awake. She has been worried, on 
watch; the doctor on call. "Mulder? Are you okay?"

"Sshhhh, I'm fine." He keeps stroking her cheek as she 
scoots up higher on the mattress, brings their faces 
parallel. "I'm better," he says.

"Yeah?" Her sleepy, fumbling hand goes to his brow, and she 
just avoids poking him in the eye, but he smiles. "You are 
cooler," she confirms. "That's good..." She sags back into 
the mattress, briefly closes her eyes. Then she rallies. 
"Are you hungry? Do you want me to get you something--"

He shakes his head and smoothes her disheveled hair. "Food 
no longer sounds like a tragedy, but it's okay, sleep some 
more. We'll eat when the sun's all the way up."

"Are you sure? If you're hungry now you should--''

"Hush. I'm fine."

She holds his gaze for a moment. "Drink some water." It's 
not a request.

"Okay." He manages the glass himself this time, and she is 
clearly just tired enough to let him try.

Back on his pillow, he gazes at his lover in the early-
early light, draws a gentle finger down the hollow of her 
cheek. "You're pretty," he says.

Scully snorts and looks away. "You're delusional."

But he just shakes his head and keeps touching her. "Nope. 
It's true."

She draws a breath and lets it go. She doesn't reply, but 
he knows she's taking it in.

"Thanks for taking care of me," he says.

Scully closes her eyes, hums softly. "Maybe if you'd taken 
the flu shot like I told you..."

There it is.

"Come here, Dr. Scully." He helps her out of her slacks, 
unbuttons her blouse so it won't pull, and gets her tucked 
under the blankets beside him. She presses her back to his 
chest, not protesting that he hasn't showered in a while. 
They will clean up together later. She will probably wash 
all the sheets. She tucks into the position he knows she 
loves best and falls asleep before he does. He nuzzles his 
nose into her hair and holds on, because he can. He knows 
how many times he has almost lost her. Years and years of 
playing at the edge of the cliffs and nearly paying the 
price. He replays the crisis points a thousand times in his 
dreams, holding onto her for dear life as she clings to the 
edge. But here they lie, grateful this morning for nothing 
more than the quiet, the birds outside the window, the 
relative safety of their home, and the turning of the tide 
on his simple illness. At the end of his quest there is 
Scully. Only Scully. And no matter how many times he tells 
her this, he knows she never quite believes. But he will 
never stop trying.


//////////



"Mulder, you can't keep using it like that, your finger 
will get cut on the glass."

"Well, it's not too bad if I--ow!"

"Seriously? What did I just say? Let me see it."

"No, I'm fine."

"Let me see."

"It's fine, I...here..."

"Would you stop? We're up next."

The tech behind the counter of the local electronics 
warehouse motioned them forward, and Mulder stopped and 
blinked for a moment as he realized the kid looked exactly 
like a 20-year-old Melvin Frohike should have looked. "Can 
I help you?" the kid droned.

Scully bumped him deliberately with her shoulder, and 
Mulder jarred himself into action. "Yeah, uh..." He held up 
his phone and Scully took advantage of his moment of 
distraction to snatch hold of his free hand and inspect the 
small cut on his index finger. "How fast can you fix a 
cracked screen?"

"Let me take a look," Frohike Kid said, and Mulder handed 
over the phone into the tech's outstretched hand.

As Frohike Kid inspected the damage, he asked, "What 
happened to it?"

"Oh, I just...I dropped it in a parking lot."

The kid looked at Mulder over the top of his glasses, dark 
hair dribbling onto his forehead. "You dropped it? And it 
got this smashed?" The disdain was impressive considering 
just how far up he had to look at Mulder.

"Well...threw it...might be more accurate."

The tech gave a sort of grumphing sound and went back to 
inspecting the phone. "Everything else working?"

Mulder nodded. "As far as I can tell, yeah." He had managed 
to see the missed call from their potential informant, 
managed to return the call and set a time and location for 
the meeting. But the screen was screwed.

The kid inspected the phone for another moment, then 
consulted the screen of a tablet lying on the counter. 
"We're not too busy and our screen guy is here this 
afternoon, so we could probably get it switched out for you 
in about an hour."

Mulder nodded. "That would be great, thank you."

"Okay, let me write up your estimate." He turned his focus 
to the nearby terminal, and Mulder immediately turned to 
Scully, who was inspecting a case of iPods a few feet away. 
He tried to surreptitiously direct her attention behind the 
counter.

Scully frowned, glanced toward the tech, and moved her head 
a fraction, asking what she was looking for.

Muler took a step closer to her. "You don't see it?" he 
said under his breath.

"See what?"

*"Fro-hik-e,"* he whispered.

Scully casually studied MiniFrohike as the tech popped off 
the back of Mulder's phone, presumably looking for 
identifying numbers for his charge slip. Her eyes narrowed, 
and she glanced back at Mulder with a small shrug that 
said, *"I guess so."*

Mulder was incredulous. "You don't see it?" He let his 
voice get louder than he had intended.

Before Scully could properly reply, the kid started asking 
Mulder for name, address, etc., and Scully wandered away 
while Mulder carried out the busywork.

He had gotten used to this early on in their partnership. 
Scully was both an observer and a wanderer. If he started 
talking to a witness, and she did not have an immediate 
burning question to contribute, she would casually drift 
off and start taking in the details of a home or an office, 
touch base with any surrounding persons -- children or 
coworkers -- who might be hovering in the shadows holding 
information that could help their case. At first, he had 
thought her bored or inattentive, but it hadn't taken him 
long to learn that she was absorbing information like a 
sponge on steroids and letting her wander and listen and 
observe could lead to any number of useful factoids he 
might have missed on his own.

Today, however, she seemed to be more focused on sparkly 
iPhone cases and updated eReaders, and maybe she was just 
decompressing after their emotionally taxing afternoon. 
That was okay, too. When he and Scully had first fallen in 
love -- or rather when they had finally acknowledged the 
truth and found their way into one another's arms and 
intimate lives -- fun had been something that had taken 
them a long time to learn. Jokes had always been easy 
between them, little whispers and stolen smiles to balance 
the prevailing darkness in which they had worked. But fun 
for fun's sake, taking a Saturday afternoon to go to the 
park, wandering around a street fair, or renting movies and 
making popcorn; these things had been removed from their 
lives for so long, both by necessity and by choice, that it 
had taken a while for them to understand that carving out 
time to share the simple pleasures was not only okay but 
important.

By her own admission, so much of what Scully truly loved 
had been buried so deeply she had almost stopped 
recognizing it herself. Even before the X-Files had come 
into her life, Scully had often spent her nights off 
working on academic papers or catching up on medical 
research. They had talked about this more than once in 
their years living together (trying to get her to answer 
questions with things other than the likes of "Eleanor 
Roosevelt"), yet even after so much time, Mulder didn't 
really understand what had made her withdraw or how far 
back in her life the tendencies ran. Protecting herself 
from her brothers? From the comparisons to her sister? 
Proving herself to her father? At school? To the boys in 
the advanced science classes? Like the music that had 
remained hidden on her hard drive for so long, many other 
aspects of the woman behind the agent had been tucked into 
corners and private sanctuaries. Scully had been almost 
embarrassed when Mulder had realized she liked how 
sundresses felt on her skin, that she enjoyed having her 
shoulders open to the wind. She was the strongest, 
smartest, most amazing woman he had ever known, yet she was 
also perhaps the most afraid to admit she was anything 
other than the image she had chosen to present to the 
world. He loved every version of her. Every brave moment 
speaking her truths before a senate committee. Every panic 
attack in their kitchen. Every life-saving roundhouse kick 
and shot fired. Every half-asleep moment crawling into his 
arms after a painful nightmare. But today had clearly shown 
him she was still struggling with total acceptance of his 
truth. He would simply keep standing by her until she 
believed, if it took the rest of their lives.

This afternoon, he stood beside her as they thumbed through 
used LPs (and what the fuck, when had his teenaged norm 
become expensive and retro trendy??), then he sat beside 
her in the hot car with the doors open as they read over 
newly filed toxicology reports on the deceased Garcias, 
until MiniFrohike called Scully's phone to tell them 
Mulder's phone was ready to go. Just in time to meet their 
informant.


*****

"Quite a place you've got here," Mulder said.

The studio was the last thing Scully had been expecting. Of 
all the dark and shadowed and strange places Mulder had 
taken her to talk to both credible and utterly incredible 
informants, this was the first time she had found herself 
in the sun-filled and sparkling workshop of an artist.

Jarvis Tarten was a master of blown glass and metalworks. 
The converted garage at the back of his property was a 
veritable wonderland of light and color. Wind chimes and 
mobiles hung from the ceiling, sun-catchers dotted the 
windows. Racks and trays of jewelry lined the tables along 
the back wall, and a large sign propped in the far corner 
looked like one that might stand outside a display booth at 
a convention or a craft fair.

Jarvis sat back against the edge of his work table, arms 
folded across his chest. He was a large man, near Mulder's 
height but more filled out with bulkier muscles. Not at all 
the type one would expect to have such a delicate touch on 
precise work. But the evidence of that contradiction 
shimmered all around them. He was dressed in worn and 
paint-spotted jeans, a loose shirt that made Scully think 
of hippy yoga, and he wore a pair of thin-framed metal 
glasses that kept sliding down his nose, making their 
constant adjustment a tangible part of his movement and 
character. Scully's childhood Vacation Bible School teacher 
had worn a pair like that.

"I appreciate you coming out here," Jarvis said. "I'm sure 
you understand my hesitation in speaking to you. I have 
followed your work long enough to know you know the dangers 
that are out there."

Mulder nodded, and Scully tossed her partner a sidewise 
glance, assessing how much of his manner was sincerity, and 
how much was playing into the man's paranoia to earn his 
trust. "Absolutely, Mr. Tarten," Mulder said. "I appreciate 
you putting yourself out there on our behalf."

The man nodded briefly, but he was drinking in Mulder's 
confirmation of his natural paranoia, and Scully admired, 
as always, Mulder's ability to draw people out. She was 
weaker in that department. She lacked the patience and 
tolerance and she knew it. She could make connections with 
witnesses she already believed in, assure them of her 
trust, break through their defenses. But hiding her 
skepticism to fish for kernels of evidence in a sea of 
delusion had never come naturally to her.

"Your son indicated we should speak with Ed Monroe," Mulder 
said. "We did pay Mr. Monroe a visit, but I have to say, 
the man wasn't very keen on talking to us."

Jarvis scoffed. "Was that before or after he lost his 
marbles and tried to shoot his family?"

"So you heard about that?"

Jarvis shrugged. "Small town, people talk."

"Did you have reason to expect something like this from Mr. 
Monroe?"

"I didn't know him well enough to make that kind of call. 
We all have a little crazy buried in us. Hard to know 
someone else's trigger." The answer was reasonable, but 
even Scully could hear the undertones. There was something 
Jarvis wasn't saying.

Mulder clearly heard the unspoken as well, but for the 
moment he chose to move on, return to territory upon which 
Jarvis seemed more comfortable speaking.

"Are you aware of the Monroes' claims that Vera Monroe was 
an alien abductee?"

Jarvis nodded, like the question was as ordinary as, 'Were 
you aware that Vera Monroe was active in the local PTA?' 
"Yeah, I knew."

"And you believe her?"

"Yeah, I believe her. It makes sense."

"How so?"

"Vera has lived in Verdad most of her life. There is a 
higher percentage of abductees around here than in most 
other places. There are...pockets...of heightened activity 
around the country. Or around the world, in fact. And 
southern New Mexico is a hot spot."

"And why do you think that is?" Mulder asked.

"I can't say for certain." Jarvis pushed up his glasses, 
again. "Plenty of secret government activity going on 
around here. Maybe the aliens are amused by watching our 
pathetic attempts at innovation. Maybe they're working with 
us, feeding us technology just as we're ready for it. Who 
knows? We can only guess what their higher intentions are, 
patch together the little bits and pieces of information 
they've scattered on us. The breeding program is the only 
thing we can be halfway knowledgeable about, and that's 
only because they need us. And for some reason, their 
memory wiping technology isn't perfect. Whether that's a 
flaw in their capabilities or a deliberate choice on their 
part, I don't know."

Scully lingered a few feet behind Mulder, her focus on 
Jarvis still intent. The man glanced toward her every now 
and then as he spoke, and she found herself tensing as she 
always did when these subjects arose. Like people would see 
through her. Like they could somehow know about the chip in 
the back of her neck, the child she had carried, the 
lingering memories of the light...and the pain. "What do 
you mean they need us for their breeding program? Tell me 
more," Mulder asked.

"Surely you know about this stuff," Jarvis said.

Mulder nodded and leaned in a fraction. "I've heard the 
theories. Decades worth of theories. But more often than 
not, the idea is that it's our government running the 
program, hoping to breed in a type of immunity, protect 
portions of the human race from colonization or 
eradication. Not the aliens trying to create a hybrid for 
their own sake. So tell me your story."

"It's true we don't know their motives. Whether they are 
doing this for their own needs or as part of a deal with 
our government; something they're offering the human race. 
Either way, they're the ones running the show, raising the 
hybrids. At least the ones they don't plant down here. But 
that project got shut down a while ago."

This man's conspiracy theories were more elaborate than 
most. Scully found herself imagining an animated 
conversation between Jarvis Tarten and Max Fenig. Max would 
have been older than Jarvis by now. The comparison of the 
two men irrationally warmed her toward Jarvis.

"Tell me what this has to do with the Garcias and the 
sightings of the Black-Eyed Children," Mulder said.

Jarvis glanced between them like this answer should have 
been obvious and they were perhaps suspect for their 
stupidity. "They're the hybrids. The kids are hybrids. 
They're coming to learn."

"Learn what?" Scully asked, adding her voice to the 
interrogation.

"Empathy. Love. How to raise human children and keep them 
alive. Just like they do on the ships, having us teach the 
caretakers when the kids are infants. But now they're 
older, learning for themselves."

"How do you know what they do on their 'ships'?" she 
prodded. "Where are you getting this information?"

Jarvis uncrossed his arms and shifted his weight where he 
sat against his work table. "From the abductees. Where 
else? Like I said, the memory wiping isn't perfect. Most of 
them remember something at some point. You've interviewed 
experiencers. Some of them remember a lot. The women who've 
had their eggs harvested, who've been used to breed...they 
bring them back after the hybrid babies are born. They have 
them show the caretakers what the babies need, how to hold 
them, how to give them the affection and the contact they 
need to thrive." Scully resisted the urge to say, Yes, I 
saw that movie, it had Richard Crenna, because she wanted 
Jarvis to keep talking. And because...somewhere in the pit 
of her stomach, something like a memory was fighting hard 
against her determined skepticism and her skin was itching 
again. "Apparently, their babies don't need that," Jarvis 
continued. "Makes me sick to think how it went for the 
first generations of hybrids, before they figured all this 
out."

Scully briefly closed her eyes.

"I'm still not clear on what you think is happening with 
the Black-Eyed Children," Mulder said.

Jarvis began speaking more slowly, as though Mulder were a 
bit dim. "They're hybrids who've grown. And now they're 
being sent here to help them learn about parent-child 
relationships. That's why they appeal to people's 
sympathies, see how they can convince someone to let them 
in. Have you heard people telling you the kids claimed it 
was cold? Or they were lost or hurt? Alone in the dark 
looking for their mommies? If that's not a set-up study of 
parental caretaking response, I don't know what is."

"So, what does all of this have to do with Ed Monroe?" 
Scully asked.

"Like we said, his wife's been an abductee. Started back 
when she was in college, as far as I know."

There it was, the unspoken something more. "Did you know 
her back then?"

Jarvis nodded. "Yeah, we were friends."

"And did she tell you about the abductions?"

Jarvis shifted his weight, looked a little more 
uncomfortable than he had talking conspiracy theories. "She 
told me some. She called me the night she first saw the 
Black-Eyed Kids."

"Here in Verdad?" Mulder questioned.

"No, no, back when we were in school, up in Albuquerque."

"You were in college with Vera Monroe?" Scully confirmed.

"Yeah. Yeah, that's where we met."

Mulder briefly caught Scully's gaze before he asked, "Are 
you from Verdad originally?"

"No, no. I grew up in Santa Fe. Moved here after 
graduation."

"Any particular reason?"

Jarvis hesitated, broke eye contact, then said lamely, "I 
just like the wind."

Mulder started to ask something else, but Scully took a 
step forward and touched a finger to his arm. This was her 
area of interrogative strength. She kept her gaze locked on 
Jarvis as Mulder fell silent at her signal. "Were you and 
Vera Monroe lovers?" Scully asked. "Were you the one she 
got involved with when she was already with her husband-to-
be?"

Jarvis blinked at them for a moment, clearly a little 
blindsided by the insight, but it took only a moment for 
him to accept the truth for what it was. "I'm not proud of 
it," he said. "But...yeah."

Mulder's eyes narrowed as he played out the forward and 
backward of the story with this fresh insight. "Is that why 
you moved down here after graduation? To be near Vera?"

"If it was, it's not the reason I stayed. I met my late 
wife a year after I got down here. We built a life, raised 
a family. Until she got sick. Since then, it's been Jordie 
and me."

Scully drew a slow breath. "May I ask what happened to your 
wife?"

"Brain cancer."

The ripple from Mulder's skin to hers was like an invisible 
current through the air.

"I'm very sorry," Mulder managed. Then he said, "I don't 
mean to belabor a painful subject, but...Mr. Tarten, did 
your wife consider herself an abductee?"

Tarten nodded. "She's the one who first told me what 
happens to the ones chosen to breed."


*****

"So, what did you think of all that?" Scully asked as they 
made their way across the scruffs of grass to the winding 
gravel path where they had left their car.

Mulder had asked Jarvis a few more questions, but the 
replies had soon started to circle, and he had recognized 
when they were no longer learning anything that could help 
the Garcias.

"I think that was a certain amount of useful information 
buried in a tangle of overblown conspiracy theories that 
make it hard to shovel out the truth," Mulder said.

Scully nodded, gaze forward as they walked. "I'll second 
that. His proximity to the Monroes goes some distance 
toward explaining the continued tension over Vera's past 
betrayal."

"It does."

They took a few more steps in silence before Scully said, 
"For a proponent of such fringe beliefs, Jarvis certainly 
is closed-minded to the other theories out there. From his 
reaction when you mentioned that others believe the Black-
Eyed Kids could be demon hybrids or dark spirits, you would 
have thought you suggested child sacrifice was a valid 
religious practice."

Mulder chuckled. "What, you're not familiar with the 
hierarchy of disdain amongst conspiracy theorists?"

"Well, you seem to be above that hierarchy, Mulder. I don't 
think I have yet found an outrageous theoretical 
explanation you wouldn't be willing to try on for size if 
there was enough evidence pointing in that direction."

"No, it's true, Scully. Like you, I have always been more 
interested in uncovering the actual truth than in pushing 
any personal agenda. I'm just willing to explore a broader 
field of possibility to find that truth," he finished with 
a quick, flirty smile.

He was rewarded with a wry grin laced with affection. He 
knew something in the interview had made her uncomfortable, 
made her withdraw a little, and he suspected it had 
something to do with whatever she had yet to tell him about 
what she had experienced last night. But maybe it had just 
been the mention of Jarvis's wife's abduction history and 
her untimely death to brain cancer. The hard truth still 
danced between them every day, as they lived their lives 
pretending the shadow wasn't ever-present, never 
acknowledging that Scully's continued survival on this 
planet might rest upon a fragile piece of alien technology 
in her neck. But he knew the possibility still haunted her 
dreams.

"Hey, Scully," Mulder said as they approached their car.

"Hmmm?"

From his pocket, he withdrew the pair of blown glass 
earrings he had seen Scully eyeing and had managed to 
quietly buy off of Jarvis when she had been distracted by a 
sun-catcher display. He dangled the card toward her with a 
playful twist of his lips.

Scully blinked, squinted across at him in question. Then 
she reached out to take the unexpected offering. "Mulder? 
Did you...?"

"Gotcha a little somethin'."

Scully held the earrings up to see their brilliant sparkle 
in the midday light. Then she looked at him and smiled. A 
real, sincere, *we're not at work, we're just two people 
out in the sunlight living our lives* kind of Scully smile 
he hadn't seen in far, far too long.

"They're beautiful. Thank you."

Mulder just nodded, but he was returning that smile. When 
they had settled in the car, Scully took out her pearl 
studs and replaced them with the new dangling bits of 
colored glass. They were not exactly her usual low-key FBI 
standard, but they were in the middle of the New Mexico 
desert, and they were going off grid in a lot of ways this 
trip. As he pulled the highly maneuverable car out onto the 
street and her long hair blew back in the wind from the 
open window, for a split second in his peripheral view she 
was his Dana, the lovely vision in a white sundress and 
gold bracelets, sitting in a deck chair on the balcony of 
the beach house they had rented for what they had come to 
call their "anniversary". No darkness. No conspiracies. No 
hospitals. Just warm sun, soft touches, and quiet 
twilights. As he steered the car onto the highway, he 
reached out blindly and grasped for her hand. She caught 
his fingers, and he held on. Reassuring himself that she 
was still here. That he hadn't broken her. That the world 
he had dragged her into hadn't destroyed her spirit. That 
the light inside her still burned to illuminate their way, 
as it had from the first day she had ventured into the 
depths of the basement, and turned his face toward the 
sun. 

*****

(End Chapter 14)