By Joann Humby
jhumby@ctv.es

RATING: R (language / profanity)
CLASSIFICATION: V A
DATE: Finally completed (years after it was started) Nov 2002!
ARCHIVE: Gossamer, Ephemeral - yes, Others - please ask

SUMMARY:
It's just coming up to the 27th November, 1995. Samantha Mulder has
been missing for 22 years. Fox Mulder is working on an X-File with
Dana Scully

BACKGROUND:
Part of an occasional series posted at:
http://www.ctv.es/USERS/jhumby/shorts.htm

Set during the S3 episode Revelations.
M&S are working on the Revelations/Kevin Kryder case (killer
targeting people with stigmata wounds). This story includes one take
on Fox Mulder's view of religion as handled in the Revelations
episode - the sensitive may not approve.

LEGALLY:
Legally these characters belong to some combination of 1013, CC and
Fox. Mulder's soul belongs to DD.

Thanks to Katherine for her fast beta read.

--------

Survival sounds such a pathetic objective. So anemic, so weak.

But really, it's a talent. Possibly hereditary. Which would be
appropriate, I guess.

Well, anyway.

The first rule of survival is to know your limits and I'm so close
to mine right now that I don't dare even think about where they lie.

Scully's eyes are full of confusion and I can't handle that. I need
them clear and blue and certain. And that may mean I'm weak and
selfish, but oddly enough I just think it means that I'm a realist.

If I could pick and choose, we would not be here today. But a serial
killer has already murdered eleven and he will not stop now. He's
far too busy, enjoying himself far too much, killing his way to own
deliverance. So close now that he must be able to taste the triumph
in every drop of blood he spills.

We have to be here, no choice. Story of my life, one way or another.
Doing things that I don't want to do, because the alternative is
worse. Story of everybody's life, I guess.

But still, if I could pick and choose, I wouldn't be here right now.

If I celebrated every anniversary then my life would be one long
party of self-indulgent misery, a wake that lasts all year. But,
with a rationality that I'm sure Scully doesn't believe that I
possess, I've condensed all the corpses into my own personal day of
the dead.

As befits such a generic festival, the date was chosen for me, back
when I worked for Bill Patterson and the behavioral unit.

Someone slipped me a ticket to watch the Knicks and I went. So the
next profile in the inbox stayed there. The killer chose that night
to finish his campaign by killing his mother, father, kid sister,
brother-in-law, two nieces and a nephew. I didn't even need to turn
in the profile; his last job was to use the gun on himself.

I'm a pragmatist as well as a survivor. If I'm busy on May 7, I save
the celebrations for a quieter day. I'm sure the dead don't mind.
But a seat at the playoffs has never has quite the same magic.

So it is with this other anniversary. iIt's not only the date of
Sam's disappearance - I try to make it generic and movable. My day
of the undead, of the missing, of the recovered.

I've often thought that would be easier if I were Catholic. Light a
candle. Say a prayer. Duty done.

As a rule it's better if I'm on a case, chasing someone else's
demons. But as we visit Kevin Kryder I'm not so sure.

Scully is hovering over Kevin and I keep feeling these little
tremors of nerves.

I'm glad she's in there fussing, trying to take a little of the edge
off the cold inquisition. And it's good that all three of my
partners are ready to do battle for him. Scully the agent, Scully
the doctor, Scully the woman. It's a display of multiple personality
at its best.

And I'm even more impressed because that's a trick that I don't seem
to be able to manage right now.

Why did it have to be a kid? Some Holy Roller pumping tomato ketchup
down his sleeves to impress the gullible would be more palatable.
Work - pure and simple and unadorned. But it's never simple when
it's just an innocent little kid.

I'll admit I'm a little surprised by the turn of events. Scully
normally leaves the kids to me. She doesn't like to see them
hurting. Maybe it's because this one's scars are on his hands not in
his head?

Well, the scars she can see anyway.

Abuse? First by his dad and now by his mom? Or by his mother all
along? Professional distance is a wonderful thing and at this
distance I can stand back and take a good long look.

And it doesn't smell like abuse. And it seems too atypical, too
specific in its details and presentation to be Munchausen's by
Proxy, unless mom is on some Madonna kick. In any case, it doesn't
seem as though anyone saw a mark on the kid when he came into school
this morning.

Which leaves me with one suspect and fortunately he had both the
motive and the opportunity. Kevin did it to himself and he did it
because he wanted to bring his dad home.

A kid will go a long way to try to get his dad to come back.  If I'd
ever believed that a couple of bleeding hands would have done the
job, I'd have done the same thing. No problem.

I watch her carefully as I state my case and she doesn't argue but I
can see that she doesn't want to agree.

I don't think Scully really understands this kind of thing.

Though I guess she might. I should ask her. I wonder, did she ever
feign a limp when Captain Scully was home on leave and she wanted to
get a little extra attention? Did she ever fantasize that he
wouldn't go back to sea if she made herself ill, or went missing, or
got herself in trouble with the law?

No, I guess not. Scully was a good little girl. Melissa jumped
through the attention-grabbing hoops and fell out of the family.
Dana probably learned something from that. I wonder if she would
admit it. I wonder if she knows.

Scully's hesitation about my explanation for Kevin's wounds doesn't
surprise me but the source of it does. It looks almost as if she's
disappointed that I've pointed out the obvious explanation. What was
she expecting?

Fuck this. I do not profile my partner. That's the law. I do not
profile my partner. I'm working. OK.

If I could pick and choose, I would just close my eyes and everybody
would live happily ever after.

But they don't.

If I close my eyes they die and even if I can keep them open, there
are no guarantees. We play percentages and I play survival and
Scully - Scully keeps a clear head and a sense of proportion. That's
who Scully is.

Visiting Kevin's father confirms my prejudices. I think he loves his
son. I think he believes his son has been chosen as one apart. I
think he may once have marked his son to match his view of the
world.

I think Kevin wants his dad back and plans to prove that his father
was not responsible for his scars.

Ironically Kevin's dad didn't just confirm my prejudices, he has
also apparently reinforced Scully's uncertainty. She looked at him
in fascination, as if he held the keys to the castle. Which he may
well do in some pharmacologically enhanced world. But I really don't
think that he knows who is out to kill his son.

He uses those words - those them and they words. Whereas I, I am
most definitely looking for a him. Singular. Very singular indeed.

Which is ironic really, because I use those they and them words to
describe a lot of my own life's little horror stories. And sometimes
I'm right. When they took Scully, I'm sure that was a they. When
they took Samantha, I'm sure that was a they, too. Because if I
wasn't right, I would have caught up with him by now. Wouldn't I?
Because I really am that good at this job. A fair fight and I win.
And if I don't, that's because of them.

Fuck this. I do not profile myself. That's the law. I do not profile
myself. I'm working. OK.

-------

She looks at me for reassurance. Come on Mulder, come see the
miracle, come sniff the roses on Saint Owen's incorruptible body,
come and feel the hand of God cutting holes in a little boy's hands
to show proof of his sanctity.

I can see her need to tell me something more. It dances on the edge
of my peripheral vision, teasing me. So I ask her about miracles.
She believes and I can't help but ask, "Even if science can't
explain them?"

"Maybe that's just what faith is."

Nice one Scully. She changes the rules of the game and of all the
times to do it, she picks now. I'm not going to argue philosophy or
theology with her. Distance is everything. Avoidance is mandatory. I
am looking for a specific man with a specific psychological disorder
and if a miracle can make Owen smell of roses, surely a more useful
miracle would have made him strong enough to fight the man who
strangled him.

I really have no idea what to say to her. Does she want to hear a
list of psychopaths working in the Lord's name that I profiled when
I was at Quantico? Religious fervor was one of my specialties.
Patterson liked the way I could reel off tracts of the Bible during
the interrogations. I could do the Koran as well, but there was less
demand for that back then. And Crowley for that matter - but I'm
sure Scully doesn't think of that as a parallel text.

Kevin's losing his life. Step by step, inch by inch. His father. His
familiar desk at school. The people he knows. His mother's warmth.
His comfortable bed at home. All being quietly stripped away, so
that soon he will have nothing left.

If we win, then he'll still be alive. If we lose, then he dies. And
that's enough motivation for me. I really don't need more.

But Scully wants me sign on to defend God's chosen one and to
protect the world from Armageddon. She asks too much. She wants me
to see more than a little kid. She wants me to see more than a
serial killer who gets his kicks on a religious crusade. She misses
the point.

Look straight ahead. There are monsters in the wings. One monster at
a time.

So I ask her to finish the autopsy and forget the mysticism.

----------

We walk up to the location of a traffic accident that is, because of
its context, too obviously a murder scene.

With the death of his mother the destruction of Kevin's life is
almost complete. And this time there's no hope of recovery to be
offered. His dad might have left that hospital. His mom will not
return from the grave. There will be no happy ending here, not even
the fantasy of one.

When hope dies, what then? Mourn and move on? How often have I heard
that order? Is it better to have no hope left?

Scully looks at a little boy who's lost almost everything and tells
him that we can protect him. He wants to believe her. So do I. It's
not that I doubt her abilities, or mine for that matter. False
modesty was never my style. But he only has his life left and I'm
not sure that we can even protect that.

I know it's futile but I do what's expected and start to warn her
about getting personally involved. It's a standard speech that I'm
sure they reel off in every place from Med School to Quantico. I
have it memorized. I have heard it before. So has she. In fact I've
heard her deliver it.

And I'm only a few days late, but eh, it's the thought that counts
and I will admit I couldn't quite believe what I was seeing.

She's out of her depth, or maybe just out of her comfort zone. And I
should know because it's a familiar place. I just don't want her to
go there.

Well, you know how it is. I fly by instinct. She makes sure the
airport landing lights are switched on when I come home.

I don't really know what to say. Not being believed grows old fast
and today's a reminder of how old I've grown without being believed.
Which wouldn't be so bad if I believed it myself. But I'm stuck with
only wanting to believe.

So now we get to play babysitters to our only witness and the
killer's next target and I'm sure Scully can find a way of making
that sound legal and perhaps even professional in our report. Not
that the procedural niceties matter, it's just that I don't know
what it'll do to her if we fail. I don't know what it'll do to me.

I play along with it, even though we're way past the realm of
personal involvement now. The Bureau, the social services, the local
police and God knows how many alphabets worth of child protection
services could nail us to the wall for this. But they won't - not so
long as the kid makes it out OK.

And if the kid doesn't make it out alive then the wrath of every
agency under the sun will be nothing compared to the purgatory that
we'll make for ourselves. I don't think Scully has actually even
thought about it, but then again I don't think Scully has a choice.
Which leaves me with no choice either.

We will have to save the kid. And if Scully thinks she's saving the
world from Armageddon then let her. Just don't let her try to assign
that role to me.

"How is it that you're able to go out on a limb whenever you see a
light in the sky, but you're unwilling to accept the possibility of
a miracle?  Even when it's right in front of you."

And I snap, because she asks too much and pushes too hard. "I wait
for a miracle every day.  But what I've seen here has only tested my
patience, not my faith."

Imagine that - a revelation. A miracle? Because a miracle's the only
way I'll ever find Samantha.

Scully's frustration is only too apparent. "Well, what about what
I've seen?"

Yeah, well, we could both ask that question, Agent Scully.

------------

How long did we keep Kevin safe for? An hour? Some miracle that was.

Why didn't he bilocate his way out of the bathroom when he realized
that someone was trying to break in? He didn't even fucking scream.

Of course not, that would be too easy.

Scully suggests we visit Kevin's dad and in the absence of some
better alternative, it'll do. At least we'll be doing something.

Unfortunately the psychiatric unit had no idea that their resident
religious nut was our last great hope and our only available
witness. He's so far under the cotton wool haze of Haloperidol that
he can't keep his eyes focused, let alone his brain.

Scully still thinks he's the key. But if he is, then it's not to a
place that I want to visit.

Miracle of miracle, my cellphone brings redemption. Gates was at the
airport less than half an hour ago. Something tangible. Let's go!

But Scully's already racing down some other track that has
everything to do with coincidence and looking for patterns where
none exist, and listening to the ramblings of a psychotic whose only
visions of the outside world come from the printing on the
hospital's trash cans. What next, the chicken on the cornflakes
packet told him so?

It's OK, I've been there before, trying to read the writing on the
wall when all there was was condensation.

"Scully, the man is at the airport.  If he hasn't already killed
Kevin, he's trying to get as far away as he can."

"I don't think so, Mulder."

And it strikes me now that religious fervor is infectious, a kind of
mass hysteria. Albeit so quiet and understated when played back
through Scully that you might almost mistake it for rational
thought. "You think it's you, don't you?  You think you're the one
who's been chosen to protect Kevin."

"I don't know.  Look, if I'm wrong, I'll meet you out at the
airport.  OK?"

OK? Hell, of course it's not OK! But that's OK, we'll play it your
way, Scully. God knows I'd play it my way if I were you.

---------

I let her down. She believed and I punished her for believing.

If she'd told me that she had a hunch, I'd have gone with her
without a second thought. Now isn't that ironic? It was her very
certainty that made me doubt. Her faith in myth that made me trust
only the facts.

She's made no accusations since she returned from her rescue
mission. Between us we covered all the angles and there's no shame
in that.

The shame's in why I wasn't at her side.

I don't want to have faith in a purveyor of miracles who can make
the dead smell sweet but will let a little boy's mother die. I don't
want to know a God who would steal a father from his child just to
paint bloody patterns on his hands.

I don't even want to believe that Scully could accept such a God.
Into her heart. Into her soul.

If I were to believe in things like that then I might also have to
believe that a little girl could be stolen from her family in the
middle of the night, without reason and without hope of return. That
innocence does not protect and that love does not keep the
maybe-dead alive.

"You OK?" I ask, not really wanting to know the answer.

"Yeah, I think so."

"We have a couple of hours before our flight.  I told the sheriff
we'd go down and make a formal statement about Gates' death."

"I'd appreciate it if you'd handle that alone, Mulder. I have an
errand I need to run."

"OK." Never mind that I wasn't there, so my statement will be
something between fiction and hearsay. It doesn't matter. I believe
what she told me of Gates, about their struggle, and her victory.
I'll report it for her as if I know it for a fact. I believe in her
even though I couldn't believe.

"I'll see you at the airport," she adds.

Which I guess is as much of a miracle as I could have hoped for this
week.
 
 
 

END
 
 
 
 
 
 

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