DISCLAIMER:  The characters recognized as part of "The X-
Files" are property of Fox Broadcasting and 1013 
Productions.  Any other characters and the situations into 
which I have placed them are of my own creation.

CATEGORY:  XRA
RATING:  NC-17
ARCHIVAL:  My site only, please.  Feel free to link -- 
just drop me a line to let me know.  The story URL is 
http://alanna.net/fanfic/chips.html
SPOILERS: Specific spoilers for "Sein und Zeit" and 
"Closure"; however, this takes place a few weeks after the 
episodes.
SUMMARY:  "What are you afraid of? That you'll find her?  
That you'll have to deal with it?" -- Harold Pillar in 
"Closure".

AUTHOR'S NOTES: I have borrowed the case Mulder wants them 
to pursue at the end of "Never Again".  I'm not sure if 
any other fanfic writers have used this before; if so, my 
apologies if my scenario is similar to yours.  That 
concept for an x-file has stayed with me over the years, 
and it has special resonance this season.  

My deepest thanks to Jintian, who is beta-reading 
sunshine.

Feedback would be dearly appreciated -- emmalanna@aol.com


CHIPS OF WHEN
by alanna

death(having lost)put on his universe
and yawned:it looks like rain
(they've played for timelessness
with chips of when)
that's yours;i guess
you'll have to loan me pain
to take the hearse,
see you again.

Love(having found)wound up such pretty toys
as themselves could not know:
the earth tinily whirls;
while daisies grow
(and boys and girls
have whispered thus and so)
and girls with boys
to bed will go,

 - e. e. cummings

+++++

Shelby Residence
Hattiesburg, MS
February 29, 2000
10:49 A.M.

"After a while, you learn how to move on."

Debra Shelby turns her head and looks out the window, her 
face covered with a thin veil of embarrassment and 
contemplation.  He has seen this face before, a mask worn 
by witness, victim, and criminal alike.

"I did it for her sake," Shelby continues, nodding toward 
five-year-old Madison, playing in the front yard.  "I was 
a child psychology major in college, and was a school 
counselor for years before Kenzie was born.  Did I already 
mention that?"

He glances over at Scully, then back at the woman in the 
soft chair opposite him, trying to remain straight-backed 
and not sink into the throw pillows and floral upholstery.  
"No, Mrs. Shelby, you didn't."

"I was." She turns back to face Mulder, and gives the soft 
smile of a woman turned sage too young.  "Maddie was only 
a baby when it happened.  Kenzie would try to climb in my 
lap while I was nursing her sister.  She was so cute when 
she did that.  Jealous, like she was the only one allowed 
to cuddle with Mommy."

This is the moment where a woman will traditionally begin 
to cry, but Debra Shelby surprises Mulder by keeping the 
same reminiscing smile on her face.  Some stories are told 
forever in one's life, and each time the yarn is spun, the 
frayed edges grow smoother.

"Kenzie was gone and I still had a baby to take care of.  
It took up all my time.  I was distraught, of course, but 
Craig did most of the panicking for the both of us.  I 
wouldn't let myself cry or show any anger in front of 
Madison, even though she was too young to realize what was 
happening.  She barely knew she had a sister, much less 
realized that the sister was gone.  I didn't want her to 
grow up in a house with all that pain."

Mulder winces.

"After a while," Mrs. Shelby continues, "It was as if 
Kenzie had never been with us.  I regret that deeply, but 
I had to carry on for Maddie's sake.  Sometimes she asks 
us who the other baby in the photos is, and we just tell 
her that it's the baby who was with us before she came."

"I understand, Mrs. Shelby," Mulder begins to say, but the 
other woman cuts him off.

"Do you?"  He hears her gasp.  "I'm sorry.  That was 
uncalled for."

He remembers the various times when he has told his story 
to a victim in a similar situation.  It always begins the 
same: "I had a sister once, and I lost her."  He remembers 
saying it to Bill Scully in a long-ago hospital hallway, 
and wonders if, in his attempts to help the man identify 
with him, he was alluding to Melissa or Dana.  It couldn't 
have been the latter, because he had refused to claim 
ownership of the possibility of Dana's impending death.  
But it also couldn't have been Melissa, because despite 
Bill's words, Mulder was so focused on Scully's illness.  
Just like Mackenzie Shelby, Melissa had been gone several 
years by then, and the memory of her death had faded away 
like those frayed strands of yarn.

This is a moment where there is nothing to say.  Lost in 
the threads of her memories, her patterns of second-
guessing her actions of five years ago, Mrs. Shelby is in 
her own dimension, one to which Scully and Mulder are 
denied access.  But despite the agents' inability to say 
much to console, to show her they understand, to agree, he 
knows these feelings will be revisited tonight in an 
unmade bed standing in the center of an anonymous motel 
room.  This is the same anonymous place where a hundred 
such catharses play out then are left behind when the room 
key is dropped into the lobby slot, and discreetly filed 
as the plane back to D.C. takes off.

"Like I said, after a while you learn how to move on.  
Mackenzie disappeared five years ago, and Craig and I have 
moved on.  We've been good parents to Madison, I think.  
We have a beautiful home," her hand arced around the 
living room, leaving a trail of middle-class comforts in 
its wake, "and we've tried to make the most of our lives.  
We were nervous wrecks that first year, but when they told 
us Mackenzie was probably dead and they'd caught the man 
who had done it, we grieved then scavenged what we could.

"Then this happened, and it's all coming back."  She 
sighs, and Mulder hears the falter of her voice.  "I just 
don't know what to do.  I don't know how to tell Maddie 
that the sister she never really knew might be out there 
somewhere, and I don't know how to answer the questions 
that I know everyone will ask.  How can I tell them that 
we didn't give up hope, when that's exactly what we did?"

+++++

J. Edgar Hoover Building
Washington, D.C.
February 28, 2000
3:27 P.M.

It is too much, too soon.  Another case of a missing 
child, appearances of visions of the child, a search for 
what really happened to a three-year-old little girl.  
Life runs in cycles, of course, with certain themes 
repeating themselves, but this theme is a 78-rpm record, 
coming around far too quickly for either of them.

And this is a case which they cannot ignore no matter how 
recently the same theme had overtaken their lives.  Scully 
remembers Skinner's voice when he told them of the 
assignment.  Rather than sending a 302 and a short 
description note to their office, courtesy of a messenger 
or e-mail, he personally phoned down that afternoon, a 
week after they'd returned from Sacramento.  His voice had 
been quiet but businesslike: "Could I please see you and 
Mulder in my office immediately, Agent Scully?"  It was 
the voice of bad news, of "I'm sorry to have to tell you 
this," and she felt the too-familiar fear move through her 
body as if her arteries were carrying it with her blood.  

"We have another kidnapping," he began after staring at 
them across his desk for a few moments.  "This one is an 
older case, a girl who was abducted nearly five years 
ago."

He paused, and Mulder interjected, "Why isn't another 
department handling it?"  She knew it was too soon to ask 
the question.  It should have waited until Skinner 
finished his explanation, but Scully also knew it was a 
reflex, a sense of "Not again, I can't do this again so 
soon."  Although she knew this, she had been surprised by 
the immediacy of his response.  She herself was too taken 
aback to speak that soon.

Skinner sat back in his chair and Scully saw the pity on 
his face.  She wondered if he felt the same parental need 
to protect Mulder that she did.  A smaller, less-easily-
acknowledged part of her wondered why, in the fifteen 
seconds since he had first opened his mouth, this had once 
again become all about Mulder.  She was no stranger to the 
sadness of investigating a missing child.  Its tragedies -
- potential and realized -- affected her just as deeply.  
But she was better at hiding them, moving forward and 
maintaining the aura of professionalism.

"A week ago, some people reported seeing the image of a 
child's face on a billboard in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.  
A segment was aired on the local news, with the reporters 
making light of it.  The parents of Mackenzie Shelby, who 
was abducted in 1995, saw the report and said that the 
image was that of their daughter.

"They contacted the local police, who discounted any of 
their claims, saying they didn't see any image of a child 
on the billboard.  The Shelbys then called the Mississippi 
Department of Safety, who referred them to the Jackson FBI 
Field Office.  The SAC there didn't see much of a case, 
but gave them enough of the benefit of the doubt that he 
called this morning and asked if I would send the two of 
you down to investigate."  Skinner paused.  "Off the 
record, SAC Jennings is Debra Shelby's uncle, and he wants 
to make sure they're taken care of, even if he doesn't 
think that this image of his niece is real."

Scully and her partner sat in silence, processing what 
Skinner had told them.  Another missing child, another set 
of grieving parents.  "Has any formal investigation at all 
been done?" she asked.

"No, it hasn't.  I doubt that you'll find much of 
anything, but Agent Jennings said that his office would 
cover your expenses in their budget and that he would 
greatly appreciate any assistance you could provide."

She turned to look at Mulder, who was sitting in his 
chair, facing straight ahead with his eyes wide but 
unseeing.  Sometimes she imagined she could slip into his 
mind, knowing what he felt almost before he did, but not 
at times like these when even he didn't seem to have any 
idea of his emotions.  

And she wanted to speak for the both of them, to tell 
Skinner "no", that they couldn't handle another missing 
child right now.  Her psyche and especially Mulder's could 
not deal with it barely a week after the case of Amber 
Lynn LaPierre and whatever Mulder had seen in that field, 
be they dancing children or the ghosts of his own demons 
finally escaping from where he had carried them in his 
soul for so long.  

Mulder had told her, "I'm free" of the hauntings of his 
sister, but she still couldn't quite believe him.  Not 
when he would seem to lose himself in thought and when she 
had seen the tracks of tears on his face in the early 
mornings.  She'd tried to rinse the tears away with a soft 
washcloth in his bedroom, or tried to love them away with 
a quiet touch as he slept beside her.  

But this was Skinner making the request.  Skinner, who had 
shown them such compassion lately and who knew the 
potential ramifications of this case but who felt they 
should investigate anyway.  She said Mulder's name softly, 
a question in her voice, and he replied, "We'll take it.  
Could you please have your secretary make the travel 
arrangements for tomorrow morning?"  Skinner nodded and 
Mulder stood, with her walking behind him out of the room.

She held him tightly that night when they returned to her 
apartment, eating a dinner which neither had much appetite 
for, and let her hands on his bare skin soothe him even 
though it wasn't a night for lovemaking.  He said little 
and she didn't press for answers.  In times when she was 
the one trying to make peace with ghosts, she couldn't 
talk until she was ready, and even though he was the one 
more forthcoming with emotions, she gave him the time he 
needed to find a voice to speak to her.  

He had waited twenty-seven years.  She could wait at least 
that long.

+++++

The directions are written on a scrap of bright white 
computer paper.  She turns it over in her hand, looking at 
the data for an expense report.  Hattiesburg P.D., fourth 
quarter, 1999, page 4 of 7.  Law enforcement is a 
business, really, with projects and plans and expenses to 
be reported to the officials in charge.  

The other side is startlingly blank, compared to the 
laser-print precision of the report.  Det. Watts has a 
neat scrawl, the kind often seen on slips of prescription 
paper.  

"Left out of the station pkg lot
Down Hall Ave 7 blocks to fork, go right
Broadway until Hardy Street (Exxon at corner) turn left
Go down Hardy a ways until you hit I-59.  About 2 miles.
Get on freeway going north, follow signs.
Billboard is past 1st exit @ Hwy 49.  1 mile.  Blank, w/ 
phone number on it."

Significant places to those who live here.  She thinks 
about all the places they have traveled over the past 
seven years.  Those places were home to their residents, 
but they were simply places to her and Mulder.  Younger 
Dana had often thought of what "home" was when she was 
growing up, moving from one naval base to another, ringing 
the edges of the country like a kid playing duck-duck-
goose, tapping one on the head when it was time to move 
in, then fleeing the mush pot when she was tagged and they 
had to relocate.  She glances over at Mulder, who has said 
he spent most of his childhood in two or three different 
houses, but one place.  He seldom speaks of it as "home," 
however; she wonders if he considers it as such, if he 
remembers the Vineyard-equivalent of things they'd just 
driven past, like the dry cleaner which used to be a Pizza 
Hut, or the historical marker, whose remembrances their 
speed blurred, save the fleeting words "Battle of" and 
"1864."  Did soldiers in faded navy uniforms and ragged 
grey clothing fight to the death, only to have their blood 
fertilize ground which would one day give birth to asphalt 
and a Taco Bell?

The interstate is recessed into the ground, an overpass 
arching above it.  It is lined with trees, as if to keep 
away the creature comforts of the city so that drivers 
could imagine they were back in the country, away from 
commercialism.  But the billboards encroached upon the 
land, of course, mimicking the tall green pines they 
brushed against.  They are unremarkable, hawking car 
dealerships and motels which imagined themselves unique 
but which look just like other dealerships and motels in 
California, Michigan, and Connecticut.  

In the late afternoon light, the white billboard races 
toward them, motion in a static setting.  Mulder slows 
down the car, speed unspooling around them, having nowhere 
to go.  Pulling onto the shoulder, the two right wheels on 
the grass, the car shivers to a stop.  Scully feels it in 
her bones.  

They open their doors and step out carefully, other cars 
speeding past them on their way to who knows where.  She 
doesn?t consciously steel herself for what she expects to 
happen; knowing that she will be the one to watch while 
Mulder throws himself into a new mystery to be explored is 
so familiar that she slips into the mode without thinking.  

Scully feels strange standing next to a highway; it's not 
a normal thing to do.  She feels exposed, obvious to the 
cars and their passengers.  She's reminded of an article 
she read in Time or Newsweek about the psyches of young 
teenagers, and the "imaginary audience" they believe is 
watching their every move, confounding their wants of 
privacy. What does that imaginary audience see when they 
look at me, she wonders.  Do they see me for who I think I 
am, or just a short red-haired woman standing behind her 
partner, with a roll of her eyes and a doubting look on 
her face. 

Though she knows much better, it still seems like the 
people on the highway are watching her and Mulder, 
sneering at the two people who got out to see the 
billboard where all those kooks think some kid is 
pictured.  But a few wilting bouquets of flowers ring the 
steel bottom of the billboard, their petals scattered like 
ashes, and a piece of paper is tacked to the metal with 
masking tape.  A woman must have sat at her computer, 
making that with a graphics program.  "We miss you, 
Kenzie," in bright letters with a childish font, and a 
cartoon of a smiling little girl surrounded by a mother 
and father, all of them primitive in their drawn-
happiness.

Neither she nor Mulder speaks; through years of practice 
they've developed the ability to work without talking, 
comparing notes later when theories are better meant to be 
shared.  She's more interested in watching him as he 
cranes his head back to look at the billboard, walking 
backward without losing his balance.  No need to look up, 
herself.  Nothing is up there.  She catches the thought as 
it passes through her mind, and wonders when automatic 
denial gave way to not bothering to pursue at all, and 
chastises herself for that.

And so she walks toward where Mulder is standing, then 
turns around to face the billboard.  Her examination 
begins at the base then follows the column of steel toward 
the top, to the large expanse of whitewashed wood with 
faint etchings of water stains like an old handkerchief.  

In a week's time when she sits down to type up her report, 
she'll replay this afternoon like a videotape.  By then 
she'll have several explanations.  Good ones. She had 
looked at the photograph of Mackenzie Shelby for too long, 
until it had imprinted itself on her mind.  She was 
letting herself be swayed by this case more than was 
normal.  The light played on the billboard in such a way 
that false outlines were visible.  She had been thinking 
about Mrs. Shelby's quiet grief over her lost daughter and 
transposing it with her own fading memories of Emily Sim. 

But in the present, she sees the face of Mackenzie Shelby.  

On the billboard is a little girl with blonde hair and a 
dimpled smile, bright blue eyes and a braid in her hair.  
It could be any girl, yes, but Scully knows that it is 
Kenzie.  The image is not as clear as day.  It is faded, 
washed-out like it has been left in the rain too long with 
the colors having bled together, but she sees it 
nonetheless.

Scully closes her eyes to the image.  

Beside her, Mulder says something, his words picked up by 
the rush of wind from a passing car, scattered before they 
can reach her ears.  "What?" she calls out.

"I think I see her.  I see some blonde hair in a ponytail 
and some blue eyes."

The little girl's hair is down, framing her face.

Mulder is the best and worst kind of dreamer, she thinks.  
He wants to believe so badly, almost to the point of 
hallucination.  It's an attractive quality much of the 
time.  She remembers a night years ago, when he told her 
about the legend of the loki, as it pertained to a case 
they were investigating.  He sat opposite her in a coffee 
shop, his hands punctuating his words and his eyes infused 
with light and life, and she thought, "I could fall in 
love with a man like this."  And she had. 

But being a dreamer is not always good.  He lets himself 
get carried away and loses sight of what is true and real.  
He seeks the stars, the unexplainable.  She watches him 
staring up at the billboard, his eyes squinting and face 
strained, nearly convincing himself he sees the image of a 
child on the whiteness.

He hasn't yet asked her if she sees what he thinks he 
does.  She knows he will, but she doesn't know how to 
respond.  Maybe this is all in her imagination.  Someone 
has painted the picture on the billboard, or else created 
tricks of light to make it appear that way.  Maybe it's a 
remnant of an old "Have you seen this child?" poster.  

"Do you see it?" he asks, confirming her prediction.

She nearly stutters the beginning of her response, but 
takes a deep breath and hopes the wind smothered the 
noise.  "I can see where some people believe that 
Mackenzie Shelby's face is up there.  If the light hits it 
just so, then that could be visible.  Perhaps that, or 
maybe some remnants of an earlier billboard."

"Perhaps."  His voice is somewhat bemused, with a hint of 
sarcasm.  Mulder pulls a disposable camera out of his 
pocket and takes a few pictures.  She watches him do so, 
noticing the war the wind wages with his hair and how it 
can't conquer even the new close-cropped cut.  

They'll be somewhere else soon, she knows.  She'll have 
time to come up with an explanation for what she saw, both 
for his benefit and for her own.  

+++++

Hattiesburg Police Department Headquarters
February 29, 2000
4:45 P.M.

Detective Watts is a very nice man, all told.  This is 
their first time meeting him.  When they'd picked up the 
directions earlier, he had left them with the department 
receptionist, and they've returned to the police station 
in order to speak with him about the original 
investigation into Mackenzie Shelby's disappearance.  

Mulder looks around the small division office.  It's 
quiet, with a handful of officers and detectives at desks 
or milling about, discussing cases or whatnot at their 
desks or the water cooler.  Sometimes he imagines being a 
detective in a police department like this.  Not 
Hattiesburg -- he can appreciate the South but does not 
love it -- but maybe somewhere in New England.  Despite 
having grown up there he doesn't have a bone-deep love of 
the area, yet so many years spent in Massachusetts has 
attuned him to the nuances of the land and its people.  

He wonders what his life would be like if he were to go 
back there and get a job at a police department in Mass or 
Rhode Island, buy a house, settle into a very normal life.  
He'd be a detective, investigating very ordinary cases 
like the disappearances of women who neglected to tell 
their husbands they were leaving him, or arson.  Better 
suited to being a staff psychologist, he is, but such 
small towns had no need for one of those.  Scully would be 
there, though he doesn't know in which capacity.  Maybe as 
a pathologist, or else a physician in private practice.  
He just knows that she would be with him.  The alternative 
is incomprehensible.  

Despite these idle musings which always seem to pop up 
when he sat in an office like this one, they never gel 
into a true fantasy.  For all the grief it gives him, he 
can't fantasize a life other than the one he owns.  

He fantasizes about others' lives, though.  Until two 
weeks ago, he often dreamed about what Samantha's life was 
like.  Maybe she was a mother with small children, a 
professor in a college somewhere, a legal secretary.  
Somehow he'd always seen her as a caver out west, leading 
the occasional tour group and spending her free time 
climbing just for the love of it.  Strange occupation, 
yes, but some of the strongest memories he has of their 
childhood together were of her climbing the towering oak 
tree hanging over their front porch, shouting in triumph 
when she scrambled upon the roof, blithely shushing him 
when he threatened to tell Mom, yelping in fear when her 
footing slipped and she tumbled to the soft earth without 
breaking a bone but with bruises painting her child's 
flesh.

He doesn't fantasize about what Scully's life would be 
like without him.  He did once upon a time, when the guilt 
would become too much to bear.  But not now.  Imagining 
something different from their present relationship is too 
frightening and painful. 

She sits next to him in a matching cheap office chair, and 
the urge to take her hand in his is tamped down only by 
the need to remain professional.  Does she fantasize about 
what her life would be like had she never met him?  He 
hopes she does not, but knows that occasionally wondering 
is a normal human trait.  

Detective Watts is speaking to them, and his voice is 
garbled like the absent teacher in Peanuts cartoons.  
Mulder chastises himself for letting his attention fall 
away, and focuses on the man sitting at the desk opposite 
them. 

"Despite the fact that we never found a body, the 
disappearance of Mackenzie Shelby seemed open-and-shut.  A 
few months after her kidnapping, we charged a man named 
Howard Williams with the abduction of two other girls a 
few years earlier, and circumstantial evidence appeared to 
prove that he had also kidnapped the Shelby girl.  The 
other children's bodies were found and he confessed to 
those, but maintained his innocence with regards to 
Shelby.  We had enough for the death penalty on those 
other counts, and because of the lack of hard evidence and 
the fact that Williams was already going to the Death Row 
for the other murders, the District Attorney convinced the 
Shelbys not to pursue a conviction for this third murder."  
He leaned back in his chair, a 'good old boy' look on his 
face but not without kindness.  "If I had it to do over 
again, I'd have pressed the D.A. to go for the third 
conviction, but Williams is already dead.  He went to the 
gas chamber a year ago."  

Mulder looks past Watts' shoulder at a collection of 
family photographs on the credenza behind him.  Would 
Watts have initially done the same if his little boy had 
been the one kidnapped?  Mulder knows it's not fair to 
second-guess the detective's motivations, but he can't 
help himself.

"So the Shelby kidnapping case was closed, then?"  
Scully's voice is professional, and Mulder thinks about 
the lack of noticeable variation between her professional 
and casual voices.  That voice is who she is.  But he has 
heard her intimate voice and he still gets a small thrill 
from knowing that it is saved only for him.

"Yes it was, Agent Scully."  Watts leans in closer.  "I've 
known the Shelbys and Agent Jennings for years.  We just 
had no evidence for them, and this explanation seemed the 
most plausible.  They'd gone through so much, and they 
needed closure.  This gave it to them."

Everyone needs closure, don't they? he thinks.

"What do you think about this billboard thing, Detective?" 
Mulder asks.  

Watts begins to chuckle, but stops himself with a slight 
cringe.  "I've been out to see it.  I think it's a bunch 
of people who are letting themselves get carried away, and 
I feel bad for the Shelbys that they're getting their 
hopes up like this.  But I do appreciate your coming down 
here to investigate.  I don't think you'll find anything, 
but if it makes Debra and Craig feel better, I'm glad."  
He leans back in his chair and crosses his arms over his 
chest.  "But -- and this is off the record -- don't get 
their hopes up unnecessarily, Agents.  They've been 
through a lot.  If you find something, that's good.  But 
please don?t let them get hurt, all right?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Mulder sees his partner nod, 
and she says, "Of course, Detective Watts.  We're here to 
investigate, but we will tell them the truth, whether 
that's good or bad."

"Thank you," he replies.  He picks up the phone and says, 
"Candy, could you come in here for a sec?"

Candy is quite efficient, arriving in less than five 
seconds.  "Yes, Bill?"  Mulder is amused by the lack of 
formality.  In those imaginings of a life in a small town 
police department, would the secretary say, "Yes, Mulder?" 
or insist on calling him Fox in a show of familiarity?

"Could you run off a copy of the final case report for 
these agents?" He hands her a thick file.  Candy leaves 
and Watts stands.  "I'm sorry, but I have to leave now.  
My son Cody has his first Little League practice tonight, 
and I promised my wife I'd be there for it."  He leans 
across his desk to shake Scully's hand, then Mulder's, and 
shows them where Candy's desk is.  Scully tells the 
detective where they'll be staying tonight, and then Watts 
is back in his cubicle, getting ready to leave to watch a 
small boy hit his first baseball.

They wait patiently while the file is copied, and Mulder 
once again looks around the office.  In the few minutes 
when they were speaking to Watts, most of the other 
detectives have left.  No need to stay late in a town 
where petty crimes are often the hardest investigations to 
pursue.

He tries to imagine himself making an office like this his 
home, but he can't.  He has too much tying him to his life 
in D.C.: an apartment, a career, a search for a grand 
truth to the universe, and a beautiful partner who holds 
his hand when they are alone.

+++++

She tries to banish the image from her mind, knowing that 
to think about it is pointless and can only cause grief, 
but she can't.  She is lying back on the plush bed in this 
too-quaint bed and breakfast, and when she closes her eyes 
she hears the crack of the ball against bat, sees the 
cheering of parents.  Does Cody Watts' coach chant "hips 
before hands" with him?  

Children seem to be everywhere these days.  Happy families 
all around, except where she is concerned.  Tara has 
discovered the Internet, and the night before they flew 
down to Mississippi, Scully sat in her living room and 
forced herself not to cry when she looked at the photos of 
two-year-old Matthew proudly displayed on the web page his 
mother has created.  She loves Matthew, not because she 
should love her nephew, but because he is a kind, charming 
youngster.  Tara and Bill have done an excellent job 
raising him, and Dana made a point of telling them so when 
she replied to Tara's e-mail giving the web page's 
address.  Scully is determined to be the best aunt she can 
be, just as she has always tried to spend the proverbial 
quality time with Charlie's kids on the rare occasions she 
sees them down in Florida.  She feels sorry for herself, 
because Matthew will always carry the burden of so many 
painful memories for her.  She will never let him know 
about them.

Her eyes still closed, she thinks about Samantha.  Mulder 
has told her what he saw out there in that forest, that he 
believed Samantha had come to him and given him the 
closure he needed.  She knows he has not been set free 
from the guilt, though.  That day might never come.  He 
doesn't seem to worry about it as much anymore, the way an 
amputee might eventually stop dwelling upon a lost limb.  
Nothing can be done now.  He needs to make his peace in 
his own time.  He has seemed so peaceful these past two 
weeks, but Scully knows better than to believe that he is 
truly free.  He's experiencing depression in his own way.  

She saw Samantha's diary tucked into the side pocket of 
his attach? when they boarded the plane.  Scully is 
anxious to read it, but wants him to read her the rest of 
it in his own time.  It wouldn't seem right unless he 
shared it with her.  The diary is representative of the 
same painful memories that Matthew holds for her, but 
those short bits Mulder read to her made her realize that 
Samantha knew about those painful memories, even though 
she might not have understood them.  That is the 
difference between Scully's situation and Mulder's.  
Matthew is her constant reminder of lost opportunities, 
but she has to put on a brave face for her family's sake.  
Mulder can face those same feelings when he reads 
Samantha's diary.  He doesn't have to pretend.

That image of children playing baseball plays upon her 
mind once again.  She is lying, fully-clothed, on a bed in 
a hotel room, the lights dimmed and the bedcovers still 
made, but she can feel the wind on her face.  She can see 
Detective Watts sitting in the stands with the wife she 
glimpsed in the photographs, cheering their son on.  
Another entry in a long list of things Scully will never 
experience.

Times like these make her want to cry, and she can't 
decide whether to hold back tears or let them flow.  Her 
hand rests on her belly, with a uterus destined to always 
be empty.  She doesn't really mourn not being able to have 
children for her own sake.  She likes the idea of babies, 
of watching Little League games from the stands or 
happening upon a daughter's hidden diary, but the 
potential for them is never to be realized.  She has come 
to accept this, and can deal with them if she doesn't let 
herself hope for something which will never happen.

She deeply mourns not being able to give Mulder children.

Their physical relationship is still new.  They've had 
only a handful of nights together since that first one 
back on January 1st.  They want more, even going so far as 
to plan when they'd next be able to make love, but life 
intervened and they seldom had the chance.  That seems 
strangely appropriate -- if work and its related issues 
intervened so much as to keep them from acknowledging 
their love for seven years, it doing the same to their sex 
lives makes sense.  

Their third night together, she lay in her bed, his arms 
wrapped around her and his body pressed into her back.  It 
was January 3rd, back when making love every night seemed 
like a real possibility, before real life took charge and 
conspired against them.  She has always been the type to 
fall asleep right after sex, a fact which pleased some of 
her earlier boyfriends who dreaded post-coital cuddling.  
But falling asleep after making love with Mulder wasn't 
possible.  She was enthralled.  

Yet that night she blinked back tears, glad that he 
couldn't see them.  But her back must have shivered with 
silent sobs, and he murmured, "What's wrong?" She could 
hear the suppressed quip in his voice, and wondered if he 
wanted to say, "Was I that bad?"  That brought a slight 
smile to her face, but the tears remained.

"I'm sorry I can't give you babies," she whispered.  His 
seed still rested in her abdomen, and she was reminded of 
how she'd always hated the term "barren".   

He was silent for a long time, the only noise in the room 
the slight sough of his fingertips against her forearm.  
"It's okay," he finally said.  "That's not important right 
now.  And if someday we decide it is, we can adopt, use 
in-vitro, whatever."  He paused.  "It's okay."

She wondered who he was trying to convince.

Speaking of their relationship with such permanence had 
surprised her at the time, but it also made sense.  She 
couldn?t imagine him with anyone else, nor could she 
imagine herself the same.  She doesn't think about the 
practicalities of parenthood, only the emotions and what 
it means to their lives.  Scully didn't see herself or 
Mulder with babies, a home in the suburbs, a quiet family 
life, but tears for the choice which had been denied them 
still smarted at her eyes.  She blinks them away.

She lies on a bed in a hotel room.  She thinks about 
children playing baseball, of a smiling nephew on a web 
page, and of a diary in an attach? case in a room down the 
hall.  She wonders if she will wear this sorrow for the 
rest of her life, or if it will eventually shed like 
another layer of skin.

She hears a knock at her door.  

She raises a hand to her face and notices she has no tears 
to dry.  

She walks over to the door and opens it.

+++++ 

He feels the loss of his family now, for the first time 
since the news of his mother's death reached him and since 
he stood in a grove of trees and said goodbye to Samantha.  

He feels alone, but not lonely.  His mother has been a 
stranger to him for years now, and he can mourn her death 
with filial sadness but also with comfort.  In the rage he 
felt upon first learning of her death, he was angry that 
her life had been cut short.  But two weeks have given him 
perspective.  He's able to see the fullness of her life, 
for better or worse.  He can second-guess and criticize 
her motivations and actions for years to come, but the 
knowledge that she lived her life the way she chose and 
died on her own terms has finally come to him. He believes 
Scully's autopsy report now.  Albertina Ruth Mulder has 
gone on to whatever better place the God in whom she 
believes has designed for her.

Mulder stands in the hallway of the bed and breakfast 
which SAC Jennings had booked for them.  His partner's 
door is marked not by a number but by a antique 
reproduction photograph: "Beauvoir, 1893."  A smallish 
plantation house stands firm, surrounded by solid oak 
trees and sepia-toned crepe myrtles.  A similar photograph 
marks the door of his room: "Wilder Hall, 1901."  He 
remembers sitting in his aunt's living room when he was a 
teenager, flipping through a book of Southern plantation 
homes she kept on her coffee table, waiting for his mother 
to finish gossiping with Aunt Lena over coffee in the 
kitchen.  He had never been invited to gossip back then, 
not that he would have wanted to.  Perhaps his mother was 
already beginning to distance him from his family.  He 
realizes that beyond his mother's sister and his father's 
two brothers, he knows little of where he comes from, 
despite the fact that the house in which he grew up had 
been in the Mulder family for five generations and that 
Fox was his maternal grandmother's maiden name.  

Perhaps that distance is what keeps him from feeling 
devastation at her death.

He continues to stand before Scully's door.  He wants to 
knock, but not just yet.  Becoming lost in his thoughts 
gives him a strange sense of comfort.  Debra Shelby's 
words still ring in his ears:  "After a while, you learn 
how to move on."  

He has no mother now.  His sister is finally gone from his 
life.  He is coming to terms with both losses, and the 
woman who is helping him learn how to move on is on the 
other side of this door.  

Mulder feels the burden these past two weeks have placed 
upon Scully.  She is mourning alongside him, in her own 
way.  She is acting like a wife, he realizes.  She is 
sharing his grief and standing by his side in the way 
one's life partner does.  He knows she would have done 
this even before they became lovers, and this knowledge 
makes him adore her more.  

The sound of scales being played on a piano downstairs by 
Mrs. Chastain, the bed and breakfast owner, floats through 
the air around him.  It is a comforting sound, with a 
rhythm like a heartbeat.   He raises his fist and taps 
softly on the door, watching the frame rattle slightly 
with the impact.

Scully opens the door and he looks at her, head to toe.  
Her bathrobe is knotted at her waist and her face is 
scrubbed free of makeup.  Eyes bright, he wonders if she 
has been crying or if she is merely glad to see him.  But 
she looks sad.  He wonders what she mourns tonight.

Before he can ask if he can come in, she opens the door 
wider and steps aside, welcoming him.  He walks inside the 
room and she shuts the door, the sound of the piano 
disappearing.  The only sounds now are their breaths and 
the faint tick of the old-fashioned clock opposite her 
bed.  

"Stay with me tonight, Mulder," she says. 

He is surprised that she is the one who needs him.  He 
thinks that she is the one who has been comforting him 
these past few weeks, and he wonders what makes her need 
to be held.  He wants to ask her, but doesn't want to make 
her cry.  

So instead of asking her, he brings a hand to cup her jaw, 
feeling her pulse under his palm.  

She doesn't feel small anymore; this surprises him.  
Before, when he'd imagined them making love, he'd thought 
his large body would overwhelm her, and it did their first 
time together, his body covering hers like a blanket.  She 
is no larger now than she was two months ago, but her 
physical presence seems to match his own, even standing in 
bare feet with the top of her head barely reaching his 
shoulder.  She is shorter, and standing like this, he 
can't kiss her comfortably.  So with his right hand on her 
jaw, he puts his other arm around her shoulders and leads 
her to the bed.

The room is dark, but streetlights shine through the 
dormer window, making the soft blues and oaks of the bed 
appear silvery.  The world has been leached of color, and 
her skin shines like the rarest platinum, her hair white 
gold.  Lying on the bed, she looks as if she is a painting 
on a canvas, the artist's muse beckoning him to her.  

He slips out of his clothes quickly, then folds his pants, 
boxers, and shirt and lays them on the chair, the way he 
does when they are at home.  As he walks over to the bed, 
the sight of a small step-stool makes him realize how high 
it is, and the four posters remind him of an old canopy 
bed from the days when this house must have been new.  He 
climbs onto the bed next to her, folding his legs 
underneath him so that he can lean over her as he pulls on 
the belt of her robe.  His hands push away the terrycloth, 
and she is bare before him, save the cotton panties she 
always wears.  She lifts her hips when he places his hands 
on either side, and he nudges the panties down her legs 
and off, then tugs the robe away when she raises her 
shoulders.  He watches her abdominal muscles clench with 
the motion, the faded red of the scar on her stomach a 
too-familiar part of her body, something more than a 
memento but less than a souvenir.  Mulder scoots off the 
bed, then takes the robe and underwear and places them 
alongside his own clothes on the chair.  Even in a hotel 
room miles away from their homes, the scene still feels 
domestic.

Returning to the bed, he lies down next to her, his 
fingers resting on her belly, tracing the skin around her 
scar but not touching it.  He had touched it their first 
night together, brought his mouth to it and sucked on its 
smooth tightness.  She shivered and told him the 
sensations were strange, unpleasant, despite the 
intentions behind them, and he had not repeated the action 
since.  But he has to touch it now and feel the skin 
around it.  He does not know why.

Raising up on one elbow, his hand moves lower, to the 
smooth, pliant skin where her legs join.  She lets her 
legs fall slack, opening them to him.  He traces her labia 
and pushes a finger through.  She is not wet yet, and he 
is surprised.  But her face is still inviting, and she 
whispers, "Kiss me first."  He does, his body long and 
lean against her own and her lips cool against his.  The 
kiss is long, motionless, their tongues resting against 
one another and lips sucking gently.  

They have moved before during lovemaking, have worked 
their bodies into a frenzy.  They have laughed too, 
playing lovers' games and discovering where their 
inhibitions lie and testing the walls guarding them.  They 
have also made love quietly, slowly.  This will be one of 
those times.  

She turns on her side and throws her leg over his hips.  
Still kissing her, he moves his hand from her shoulders 
and back down to where she had been dry before.  She is 
slowly becoming wet, and his fingers play along the nerves 
there, drawing more wetness from her.  As he does so, he's 
reminded of how they are coming to terms with their losses 
in this way, the comfort of their bodies allowing their 
minds to find peace.  This is a beautiful thing, he 
thinks.

Soon she is atop him and he is inside her.  She moves 
against him slowly, and he reaches up to touch her 
shoulders.  Her trapezius is taut, relaxing and 
contracting even as she does around his cock.  He 
remembers being surprised the first time they made love 
that lying down they are the same size.  He has long legs 
and she has a long body, and they perfectly match, as if 
her God had designed her for him and vice-versa.  She 
draws a climax from him, and as he is on its verge, he 
looks at her face, still calm but loving.  He begins to 
wonder whether she will reach it too, then he does, his 
hips thrusting up into her but with a strangely calm 
motion, like a ribbon unfurling.  

She presses her face into the crook of his neck as he lets 
himself be overtaken by the waves of pleasure.  Then as 
his breathing returns to normal, she takes his hand in her 
own and pulls it down to her clit, rolling off his body so 
she lies next to him.  He slowly raises up on one elbow, 
the motion an almost painful stress on weakened, satiated 
muscles.  Together, their fingers rub the knot of nerves, 
and he thinks, "We are doing this together."  

Even in the dim light of the room, he can see her face as 
she comes.

He lets his hand rest with her own, feeling the wetness of 
their fluids.  Her body feels hot now, and as he leans 
over to kiss her he can feel the blood warming her lips.  
Mulder can feel his semen trailing over her upper thigh, 
and he presses his hand to her labia, as if this could 
keep it inside, as if by doing so they can make her body 
be fertile again and expand the family they have created.  
He will never tell her he wishes this, but he thinks she 
knows.  

She is quiet for a long time, and he watches shadows shift 
over her naked body as wind blows the trees outside.  Her 
eyes are closed but her breathing is controlled; she is 
not asleep.  

"I didn't tell you the whole truth today," she whispers.  
He smiles softly at their strange pillow talk, then 
realizes what she has said.

"Yes?"  

She becomes quiet again, and his curiosity is piqued.  She 
says she has not told him the truth, but he still trusts 
her.  She is his family, after all.

"I saw Mackenzie Shelby on that billboard."  

He is startled by her words.  As they sink in, he realizes 
that this strange pillow talk of theirs is her 
confessional, when she is able to speak her heart once her 
inhibitions have been lain aside.  He remembers other 
confessions in bed -- when she told him she feared she 
couldn't sleep in her apartment again after Pfaster, that 
she was worried about how they would appear on that 
television show after being filmed in L.A., that she had 
nearly wept when her autopsy had shown that his mother had 
killed herself and she hadn't known how to tell him or how 
he would react.  That she mourned not being able to give 
him children.  

And so as much as he wants to forget work tonight, he 
allows her to confess.

"You did?"

"Yes," her voice rises from a whisper.  "I can't begin to 
explain why, but I clearly saw her face up there.  And 
Mulder," he hears her hesitation, "I don't think you did."

He has been found out.  

"What you described to me," she says, "isn't what I saw up 
there.  I think you wanted to believe so much that you 
visually projected it.  I didn't want to see it, but I 
did.  I wish I knew why."

He moves his hand from where it still rests between her 
legs, and brings it to her face, pushing away the hair 
which has fallen into her eyes.  "Maybe you were meant to 
see her, Scully."  The sudden thought -- "Why is she meant 
to see these things?  Why not me?" -- enters his mind, and 
he winces, pushing it back away. 

"I don't know, Mulder."  Her voice wears a resignation and 
weariness she is far too young to feel.  "Maybe I am, 
maybe I'm not.  I suppose that we'll find out tomorrow 
what is really going on."

He notices that her skin is cool again, and he sits up, 
pulling the covers up from where she had turned them down 
earlier, and arranges them around their bodies.  "Yes, we 
will." 

There is nothing more to say, he thinks, not tonight.  She 
has made her confession and he has no absolution to offer 
her.  All he can give her is his arms to hold her tight as 
she sleeps, and all she can give him is the comfort of 
simply being her, as together they learn how to move on.

+++++

She has a new perspective on the world from fifty feet 
above it.  The cars still rush by, yes, but the loud roar 
of engines has dissipated somewhat and she hears the 
cacophony like an echo of blood in her ears rather than as 
an overpowering noise.  She is onstage up here, but the 
audience takes no note of her performance.

Mulder has convinced her to climb the billboard with him 
for an up-close examination.  When he asked her, his voice 
difficult to hear over the traffic, her only hesitation 
was from wondering how she could make it up in her heels.  
One arm on his shoulder for balance, she stepped out of 
her shoes and chose not to think about ruined hosiery as 
he hoisted her up to the first rungs and she flexed her 
biceps, grabbing onto the steel.  She climbed steadily, 
and frivolously wondered if he admired the way the muscles 
of her back moved and the way her legs pushed upward.  He 
followed her up, and though she knew it was wind, the air 
on the back of her neck felt like his breath.

They stand together on the cage-like platform where 
workers put together advertisements.  Technology has made 
the creation of billboard advertisement easier and slicker 
than ever, with latex-covered large tarpaulins the new 
form of display, but, standing eighteen inches away from 
the wood, she can see the layers of glue and paper which 
had been here in earlier years.  

Scully cannot see the image of Mackenzie Shelby like she 
had yesterday, even if she cranes her neck so far back 
that her head pushes against the top of her spine, 
shooting sparks of pain along her trapezius.  She is glad 
for this, as it makes the investigation less distracting.  
But this also saddens her; she wants to see that little 
girl again.  

Mulder walks over to her.  His steps are measured, his 
hand grasping at the bottom of the wooden planks for 
balance.  It is a difficult task but he manages it with 
grace.  She wishes she had known him as a child, had been 
able to see him perched in a tree, one hand attached to a 
branch while the other was flung outward, proclaiming 
himself ruler of a kingdom of saltbox houses and fierce 
Atlantic waters in the distance.  A dowager queen in the 
house gossiping with neighbors, and a little sister whom 
he insisted was his serf but who tried to be his princess.  
He told her once about how Samantha loved to climb trees, 
and that he was the brother who had taught her how.

She wonders when he lost the ability to balance.

"I still don't see anything, Scully."  The wind masks the 
nuances of his voice; she can't tell whether it is matter-
of-fact or regretful, so she looks at his face for clues.  
But he is still staring upwards at the white paper, his 
eyes squinting and lips slightly parted.  He looks like he 
does when we make love, she notices.  

"I don't either," she replies to him, and her voice does 
hold regret.  If she squints harder or finds a way to 
climb higher would she be able to see that child with the 
blue eyes and braid in her hair?  Perhaps yesterday's 
apparition was all in her mind.  This wouldn't be the 
first time she had imagined something, only to have it 
taken away.

She negotiates her way across the catwalk to the corner of 
the billboard, where the edges are frayed from too many 
layers of plastered paper.  With one hand clutching the 
wooden backing, she begins to peel away the first few 
layers of paper, trying to keep her balance as her hand 
tugs harder.  

"What are you doing?" Mulder calls over to her.  

"I'm going to take this into the police department and see 
if they can have the chemicals in the glue analyzed," she 
replies, but he continues to squint.  Her words must have 
been swallowed by the wind.  His weren't, she thinks, and 
she wonders if she could make her voice loud enough to 
overcome that wind.  But the dryness of the air makes her 
throat scratchy, and yelling isn't worth the effort.  

Scully manages to tear off three feet of paper, and she 
pivots until her back is against the billboard so she can 
use both hands to fold the paper and tuck it inside her 
waistband, pulling her jacket over it to keep it from 
falling.  Mulder is next to her now, and asks if she is 
ready to go back down.  She nods and she lets him go first 
down the ladder.  He can catch me if I fall, she thinks.  
She can admit that potential weakness.

The ground is too firm beneath her feet, and she sways a 
bit before regaining her balance.  When she was six years 
old, Dad took them out on a sailboat for the first time.  
She'd been on ships before, usually seeing him off on one 
of his tours of duty, but the solidity of a USS battleship 
was very different from the rolling of swells on a 30-foot 
sailboat.  Ahab had borrowed it from another officer, and 
she remembers seeing his face as he told his children 
about how the sailboat had been in the other man's family 
for three generations.  They had boarded it on the shores 
of the Chesapeake and taken it out to the Atlantic before 
turning it back around.  

It had been her first experience of the Atlantic, and 
they'd borrowed the boat only once during the six months 
the Scullys were stationed there while Bill Scully 
completed his final officers training course at Annapolis 
before assuming the Captains rank he held until his 
retirement the summer she graduated from college.  Seven-
year-old Dana had stood on the edge of the sailboat on her 
summer before second grade, and imagined that she would 
become a big girl if she could only get her "sea legs", as 
Daddy had called them.

She has her sea legs now, but she is miles from the sea.  

There are so many ways to interpret that, she thinks as 
she follows Mulder to their car, her legs still adjusting 
back to terra firma.  While I was on a sailboat, Mulder 
was climbing trees, she thinks.  We were both trying to 
find balance.  We are still trying to find balance.  We 
will continue to do so for the rest of our lives.

She settles her body into the passenger seat and feels the 
rumble as the engine turns over.  Motion is good.  It 
keeps the earth from being too still.

She takes one more look at the billboard as the car pulls 
back on the highway.  She still does not see Mackenzie 
Shelby's face.  Yesterday had to have been a fallacy, 
something she let her imagination conjure because of other 
images floating through her conscious.  That is the only 
logical explanation she can find.  It's an easy 
explanation to believe.  

But when she blinks she can still see a smiling little 
girl on a backdrop of old white paper.

+++++

Police departments seem to have their own unique rhythms 
of motion and inertia, and this one is no exception.  
Mulder looks around, imagining that given enough time and 
perspective he could distill the rhythm of this place.  
Standing at the reception desk and looking at the large 
space beyond, he and Scully seem attuned to the same 
proverbial wavelength, breathing in and out in the 
collective pace of everything around them. 

It's funny, he thinks, how the universe spins off in so 
many directions, with infinite tangents.  When did his 
tangent diverge from the norm?  Perhaps when Samantha was 
taken.  Perhaps before.  Perhaps he was never part of the 
same sphere as the rest of the world.  He has always felt 
a little bit alien.

And years ago in a small house somewhere, her tangent 
diverged in precisely the right way to bring her here, 
next to him at this moment.

They're finally called back to Detective Watts' office.  
The conversation is short, Watts apparently lacking time 
and/or patience this morning, and the FBI agents get the 
copy of the complete file, which Candy had made this 
morning.  

"Do you think Watts is being cooperative?" Scully asks as 
they walk out to the car.

He looks over at her, noticing the way her cheeks are 
gaining a springtime flush after the bleak midwinter of 
the Mid-Atlantic.  Maybe it's due more to exercise than 
the warm Mississippi sun on March 1st, but she seems more 
alive this morning.  As if this vitality is contagious, he 
feels it seeping into his pores, giving him a color and 
quickening-of-breath which has seemed so far away since 
California two weeks ago.  He realizes now that he has 
missed that feeling.  If it is contagious, he's glad that 
he has caught it from Scully.

They've walked all the way back to their rental car before 
he answers, not wanting to voice a reply while they might 
still be within earshot of police personnel.  "I think he 
is, Scully, given the circumstances.  I mean, look at it 
from his perspective."  Mulder unlocks the car and they 
both get inside.  "This isn't a case worth investigating 
to him.  He thinks it's all superstition.  He knows we're 
here as a favor to some Bureau guy up in Jackson, so he's 
cooperating to keep from looking bad.  But he has no real 
interest in seeing this supposed case resolved, as long as 
it doesn't hurt the Shelbys."  As he turns the key in the 
ignition, Mulder pauses for effect.  "You know what, 
Scully?"

"What?"  Her face is lowered but her eyes look up at him, 
piercing and wry.  

Is it possible to feel your eyes twinkle?  "He's acting an 
awful lot like you."

Mulder waits for her customary eye roll, and she rewards 
him.  

She opens the local map and begins to navigate their way 
to the University of Southern Mississippi, where Watts has 
recommended they take the scrap of billboard paper for 
analysis.  Mulder can't imagine that the university would 
have adequate facilities, but Watts said that the 
department usually sends complicated evidence to a 
forensics lab in Jackson, and Mulder doesn't want to 
either wait for it to be sent and returned or to make the 
ninety-minute drive up there.  The university will have to 
do.  

Once they're on a stretch of road without any turns for a 
mile or so, she folds the map and places it in her lap.  
"Do you think we're being disrespectful by making light of 
this case?" she asks.

He is quiet as he ponders his answer.  "I don't think we 
are.  It's a normal human reaction, especially given that 
we've investigated so many cases like this over the 
years."

She doesn't speak for nearly a block, and when they stop 
at a light he turns to look at her.  "I guess I just 
thought," her voice lowers to a whisper, reluctance in her 
tone, "that you'd be more... affected by it, after what 
you found out about your sister."

The changing of the traffic light punctuates her 
statement.  He is thrown for a loop, and is suddenly at a 
loss for words.  Composing replies in his head, his first 
is 'how do you expect me to react, Scully?'  But he 
doesn't say that.  He knows exactly what she expected.  
His world is supposed to have been torn apart, and he 
should be grieving hard and painfully.  Not this almost 
too easy acceptance. 

Perhaps making his peace with Samantha's death has come 
easily because it's false -- that he is too far into 
denial to have come to any closure.  Or maybe the simple 
surety of Scully's presence with him is easing the 
transition and making him feel safer in this strange new 
Samantha-less world.  She fills the void that the end of 
his search has created, and the lack of a void has brought 
him peace.

He realizes he still hasn't given her an answer.  He still 
doesn't know what to say.  The street where they're 
supposed to turn is approaching, and he begins applying 
the brakes.  Finally he says, "I'm still trying to figure 
out how I feel about what happened, Scully.  And even 
though you might not feel like you're helping, you are.  
Just being here with me helps."  They're on a straight 
stretch of road again, and he reaches over and puts his 
hand on her knee, where she clasps it in her own.  "My 
world has been turned upside down, Scully," he whispers, 
"but you make me feel safe."

Mulder sees the glint of tears in her eyes.  His heart 
suddenly feels too big for his chest to contain.  This is 
the most beautiful thing I've ever said to her, he 
realizes.  I don't know which end is up anymore, or where 
our search will go from here.  But Scully keeps me safe.  

+++++

She likes this neighborhood more than most of the ones she 
has seen over the past seven years of near-constant 
travel.  The houses are set far back from the street, with 
large trees reaching over the road like a canopy of green.  
The atmosphere is quiet and very Southern, though given 
that she has no real concept of what "Southern" is, she 
doesn't know why it feels this way.  It simply does.

Mulder pulls the car into the Shelbys' driveway and kills 
the engine, parking behind a battered old Honda station 
wagon, a gleaming SUV nestled in the garage.  The front 
porch has a clean fastidiousness, with a dried floral 
arrangement on the door and a wooden crate of toys hidden 
away in a corner.  Scully follows her partner to the door 
and waits while he presses a finger to the doorbell.  As 
they wait for it to open, she hears a high-pitched yell 
of, "I'll get it!" followed by, "No, you won't, Maddie."  
Debra Shelby pulls the door open and a waist-high pixie 
lurks just behind her.

Scully's eyes focus on five-year-old Madison, who stares 
up at her with wide blue eyes.  These are the same blue 
eyes she saw on that billboard yesterday afternoon.  

Somewhere in the haze of being entranced by a little girl, 
Scully hears the mother's voice welcoming them inside.  
She gathers her thoughts and follows Mrs. Shelby into the 
same living room where they'd sat yesterday morning.  She 
and Mulder settle on the sofa while Debra tells her 
daughter to go play in her bedroom, please, and don't 
disturb Mommy and the visitors.  Scully watches Madison 
sulk out of the room, her feet dragging on the carpeted 
floors as she throws one last glance at the mysterious 
strangers. 

The little girl is the same age Emily would have been now.  
Scully pulls a notebook out of her jacket pocket to keep 
herself from dwelling on that.  She refuses to look at 
Mulder right now; surely he would be able to see what is 
going through her mind.  She doesn't want to know if 
Mulder is also watching Madison and thinking of little 
girls they will never have.

The mood changes when Scully steels her shoulders and 
begins to once again discuss the case with Debra Shelby.  
The other woman sits in the same chair, a replay of 
yesterday's interview.  

"Did you go out to the billboard?" Debra asks, her voice 
calm but with an undercurrent of reluctant interest.

"Yes, we did, Mrs. Shelby.  Yesterday afternoon."  Scully 
lets her partner begin their part of the conversation.  
She's always intrigued by the way he's able to approach a 
witness with just the right mixture of sympathy and 
interest, without being off-putting or ill at ease.  She 
wishes she had the same ability; despite years of 
practice, she still feels awkward in the initial stages of 
an interview, until Mulder sets the rhythm and she can 
join it.

"Craig and I weren't going to go out there," Debra says, 
leaning back in her chair.  "My parents did when one of 
our friends first called us about it, and Mom said she 
didn't see anything up there.  I took her at her word.  We 
were out of town for the weekend when that TV report 
aired, and I was glad not to see it.  There are some 
things you just don't want to see, you know?"  Scully 
nods.  "I'll admit that I was curious, and Craig was too.  
But it wasn't a good kind of curiosity.  We were just 
hoping that all the talk about that billboard would go 
away, so we could be left in peace."

Scully can see sorrow mixing with world-weariness on the 
other woman's face.  She remembers a time almost a month 
after Emily's burial in San Diego.  The Gunmen had been 
apprised of the situation and sent her an e-mail saying 
that they'd found a newspaper writeup in the San Diego 
newspaper about Transgen's biotech research, and included 
a link in case she wanted to read it.  Scully had stared 
at that link for nearly fifteen minutes, her hand on the 
mouse and the cursor positioned over the link, daring her 
to click it.  She was curious, so curious, but couldn't 
bring herself to click.  So she sent Langly a quick reply 
thanking him for the info, then deleted the e-mail.  She 
had been trying so damned hard to make her peace with 
Emily's death, and couldn?t face another reminder.  Debra 
Shelby's words remind her of those emotions.

"What made you decide to go see the billboard, Mrs. 
Shelby?" she asks.  What had finally overcome the other 
woman's reserve?  Why had she decided to disrupt that 
peace she said she had found?

Debra Shelby looks at her hands.  "I didn't go see it 
intentionally.  One afternoon last week I was driving 
Maddie to a birthday party, and we drove right by.  I 
nearly had a wreck."  A short, low laugh comes through her 
voice, which quickly becomes serious again.  "I was so 
relieved when I didn't see anything -- when I didn't see 
Mackenzie up there.  It was just a big white rectangle."

"Do you know that your uncle, Agent Jennings, requested 
that Agent Scully and I come down here?"  

"Yes, I know that," she replies to Mulder.  "I don't know 
whether I'm glad or not.  Uncle Henry means well, he 
really does.  I think he wants an answer more than we do.  
He searched for Kenzie for so long.  I don't think he ever 
believed that that Howard Williams man was the person who 
kidnapped Kenzie.  After Williams was convicted of those 
other two little girls' deaths, we asked Henry to let go 
of his investigation -- to let her memory rest in peace.  
He said he would, but I don't think he ever stopped 
searching."  

Debra's voice is pensive and sad, but Scully is struck by 
its peaceful tone.  She wonders why this woman has been 
able to let go so completely, then she remembers that it 
has been five years since Mackenzie's disappearance.  Time 
heals wounds for some people, and coming to terms with 
loss like the Shelbys have done is more normal than 
holding onto that loss for years....

The way Mulder has done. 

Neither method of coping with loss is more correct than 
the other.  It all relies on how we choose to remember the 
one who is lost.  The Shelbys found their peace because of 
certainty of their child's fate.  Mulder never had that 
certainty, and he couldn't cope.  Despite his earlier 
words, she still wonders if his "vision" in those 
California woods gave him certainty, or if this is yet 
another stage in his grieving process.  Is he really 
letting go, or is he just convincing himself that he has?

She has lost herself in musing, but they still have 
questions to be answered.  Scully says, "Why do you think 
some people say they see Mackenzie's face on that 
billboard, Mrs. Shelby?"

"I think that --" 

She is interrupted by Madison wandering into the room, her 
hand clutching one of those Furby dolls so popular last 
year.  "Mommy, I need new batteries for Bee."  Her voice 
is whiny but needy, the tone of a child who wants some 
attention.  

Her mommy pulls Madison up on her lap, where the child 
squirms for a few seconds before settling down.  "It's 
okay, honey.  I'll get you some new batteries when these 
people leave, okay?"  

"Why are they here?" Maddie looks at the agents with wide, 
accusing blue eyes.  

Debra brushes hair away from her child's face.  "They want 
to ask me some questions about Kenzie, Babydoll."  

"The baby who was here before me?" 

"Yes, Maddie."  Scully senses this is a conversation which 
Mrs. Shelby has had before with her daughter.  

Mulder leans forward on the sofa.  "Is that your Furby, 
Maddie?"  His voice is calm, interested.  He has such a 
wonderful way of relating to children, Scully thinks.  
This makes her sadder than she had felt when listening to 
Debra Shelby's tragic story.  Mulder will only get to use 
that voice with other people's children, but never with 
his own.  She pushes the melancholy aside, and focuses her 
attention back on the mother and child sitting opposite 
her.

"Her name is Bee," Maddie proclaims, but makes no move to 
show Mulder the ugly stuffed animal.  

"That's a good name, Maddie," Scully replies.  She's 
ashamed to discover her voice has dropped to a whisper. 

"You asked why I think some people think they see Kenzie's 
picture up there, Ms. Scully?" Debra asks, bringing the 
conversation back into focus.  "I don't know.  But the 
Lord works in mysterious ways, doesn't He?"

"Yes, He does," Scully replies.  Yes, He does.  He takes 
away some little girls, but He brings others into this 
world, to brighten up our lives even if it's only for a 
too-short time.  He brought Samantha to Mulder, and Emily 
to me.  He brought this image of Mackenzie Shelby to a 
billboard in Mississippi, and she is helping to open my 
eyes, and Mulder's too.  Mysterious ways, yes.  Mystery 
can be beautiful, even if its explanation is rational.  
Perhaps that's the meaning behind all of this.

Mulder asks Debra Shelby a few more questions about the 
billboard, and the woman dutifully responds, although she 
seems distracted by the squirming child on her lap.  
Scully wants to suggest that Debra let Maddie go play, but 
it is not her place to do so.  She is not the child's 
mother.  

After another ten minutes, the agents make their leave.  
Scully and her partner walk out to their rental car, past 
a porch swing and a box of toys.  She feels dwarfed by the 
towering trees which seem to reach up to heaven.  She 
thinks about God's mysterious ways, and of images and 
memories of little girls.

+++++

She settles into the opposite side of the booth, her body 
wiggling as it tries to find the most comfortable 
position.  Even her wiggling is efficient, without 
superfluous motion.  Her hands disappear under the table, 
but he knows they are clasped in her lap, waiting for the 
menus to arrive so her hands will have something to do.  
The menus do arrive and she holds hers open in one hand, 
the other placed flat on the table.  He wonders how she 
would react if he reached over and held her hand.  It's 
such a simple, adolescent thing to do, but the curve of 
her palm and fingers is too damned tempting.  

And so he picks up his menu and begins to study it.

They're having a late lunch at a generic "all-American" 
style restaurant in town.  It appears to be a local place, 
but the d?cor blends with another dozen restaurants 
they've visited in a dozen other towns.  He can order 
without even looking at the menu, but gives it a cursory 
glance nonetheless before choosing a chicken sandwich.  
When the waitress comes back to take their order, he 
fights the urge to mouth "Cobb Salad" when Scully orders 
it.

When they walked in, Scully requested a corner booth away 
from other patrons, and the nearest people are a good 
fifteen feet away.  They need privacy, of course, if they 
plan to discuss the case in a public setting, but he 
admits to liking the intimacy of this secluded booth.  
This will be a business lunch, its receipt later attached 
to an expense report, but he wishes they could go out like 
this more often without making it part of their per diem.  
Just escape somewhere where they don't know the local 
hangouts, and take in a meal where the only business is 
their relationship.  

After the waitress leaves, Mulder pulls the file from his 
briefcase and places it on the table.  Scully pushes aside 
napkins and silverware and begins to spread out the 
contents.  He opens the final case status report while she 
thumbs through some forensics data from the original 
investigation into Mackenzie Shelby's disappearance.  They 
read in silence for a few minutes.  Just another day on 
the job.

The summary report tells him many things.  Mackenzie 
Shelby was three years old when she was taken from her 
great grandmother's home on May 18, 1995.  The elderly 
woman had been napping in an easy chair while Kenzie was 
playing with some neighborhood children in the fenced 
backyard.  The other kids ran next door to swim in an 
above-ground pool.  Kenzie followed them after going back 
into the house to get her bathing suit from the bag her 
mother had packed for her.  She was never seen again.  
Suspicion soon fell on Howard Williams, a worker on a 
local chicken farm who was already suspected of the 
murders of two school-aged girls found murdered in a field 
about five miles outside of Hattiesburg.  No evidence 
linking him to the Shelby disappearance was found in the 
backyard, but the other girls had disappeared under 
similar circumstances and Williams was unable to provide 
an alibi for the afternoon of May 18th.  

A handwritten footnote to the case report says that the 
great grandmother died of natural causes a month after 
Kenzie's disappearance.  Mulder remembers his great aunt 
dying not too long after Samantha was abducted, and can 
still hear his grandmother saying something about a broken 
heart.  

The report is succinct and well-documented, despite the 
fact that the case should technically be labeled 
"unsolved."  Williams' involvement was never proven, but 
since he was convicted and sentenced to death for the 
other two murders and, strangely, chose not to appeal his 
case before being executed last year, the Shelby 
disappearance is treated as if it is closed.  Mulder 
remembers Samantha's case file, which Scully brought back 
to his apartment after doing his mother's autopsy.  She 
showed him Spender's long-lost signature on the orders not 
to pursue the case further, as if by closing the case 
everything would be solved in the minds of his family.  He 
knows the fallacy of this belief; he has lived that 
fallacy for nearly thirty years.  But then, he was the 
only person for whom the case was still open.  The Shelbys 
did not keep open their case.  They found their closure 
and tried to move on with their lives.

None of this, of course, explains why Mackenzie Shelby's 
face has suddenly appeared on a local billboard.  Missing 
child posters were never displayed on billboards, and 
Mulder didn't see any chemicals or residual paint on the 
billboard to suggest it was tampered with.  The 
university's chemical analysis also turned up nothing.  
Perhaps it all comes down to faith.  The city never 
satisfactorily resolved the disappearance of a beautiful 
little girl, and this is giving people some sense of 
closure.  Or perhaps something paranormal is at work.  
Maybe that little girl's image is a clue, a sign from the 
beyond telling them to look further for answers they'd 
never expected to find.

The waitress arrives with their lunch, and Mulder sets the 
case report aside.  He watches Scully neatly placing the 
photographs she'd been examining back in the file folder, 
which she then slides off the table and onto the seat next 
to her.  He realizes that neither of them has said a word 
in the past fifteen minutes, but this does not surprise 
him.  They don?t talk much in moments like these.  But now 
he misses her voice.

Over chicken sandwiches and leafy greens they update one 
another on what they've found in the case file, and agree 
that it really doesn't shed much light on why the child's 
image is supposedly appearing on the billboard.  The lack 
of evidence gives them few leads to investigate about the 
actual disappearance, and finding Mackenzie nearly five 
years after she was kidnapped doesn't seem likely.  They 
agree that they'll wait and see if the university lab's 
paper analysis turns up any new information, and if it 
doesn't, they'll return to D.C.  He regrets the necessity 
of this course of action -- he hates having to leave 
another family with a missing daughter with unanswered 
questions -- but really, there is nothing they can do.  

Then, as he finishes the last bites of his chicken 
sandwich, a new idea comes to mind.  "Scully, do you 
remember the phone number on the billboard?"

"The advertising company's number?"

He nods.  "Let's go back to the hotel and call them, see 
if they'll tell us who last rented the billboard.  I don't 
know what that might tell us, but it's worth a shot."  She 
agrees, and he makes a note on his mental to-do list.  

Mulder watches his partner as she spears a cherry tomato 
with her fork.  They have nothing more to say at the 
moment about the case, so he takes the opportunity to look 
at her, at the way her jaw moves while she chews and how 
her hand holds her fork in the European fashion.  He 
wonders where she learned that quirk.  It is another in 
the list of things which make her unique, unlike any other 
woman with whom he might ever fall in love.  The list is 
filled with strange nuances and habits which combine to 
create this woman whom he holds so dear.  

He stores those nuances in his heart, as if by keeping 
them there they will sustain him in those moments when she 
is away from him. 

+++++

The hotel room is washed clean of the previous night.  His 
bed is made and the towels replenished, with a fresh-cut 
blue Gerber daisy lain across the pillow.  When they'd 
walked into the bed and breakfast's lobby, Mrs. Chastain 
asked if they still wanted to keep both rooms.  Scully had 
nodded "yes", and pretended not to see the woman's knowing 
smile. 

She'd left her bag in the car by accident, and Mulder 
volunteered to go back down and get it.  Before he left, 
he asked her to get the file out of his briefcase.  Now 
she sits on the edge of the bed, opening the leather 
attach? to find the manila folder.  As she pulls it out 
the bag slips from her grip and she clutches at it.  A 
small book falls out of a side compartment.  

Samantha's diary.

The book falls open to a page filled with a young girl's 
handwriting.  She reaches down to pick it up and her gaze 
is drawn to the paper, all curly loops and little circles 
dotting the I's.  Trying not to look at it is a futile 
endeavor; her eyes are drawn to the words.  Mid-entry, the 
page begins with, "is my birthday.  At least, that's what 
Cassandra says.  She gave me a red sundress that I think 
she made herself, and the Grease soundtrack.  She's a 
space cadet!  Mindy and I bought that record at the mall 
last month and I've been playing it every day.  Her card 
was signed 'Mom and Dad.'  She still acts like she's my 
mom, as if I don?t know better.  I don't know who my mom 
is, but she isn't Cassandra."  

Scully wants to shut the book and place it back in the 
briefcase, but she can't bring herself to stop reading.  
The words seem to leap off the paper, drawing her into the 
life of this long-lost child.  Dana had a friend named 
Mindy when she was in junior high, and she also remembers 
playing the Grease soundtrack until the vinyl wore thin.  
She's taken aback by the knowledge that Samantha was the 
same age as she was, and had the same interests.  It makes 
Samantha more real to her -- a person instead of a myth.  

And so she continues to read, turning the papers slowly as 
if they are sacred parchment, relics of a very important 
history.  Scully doesn't realize how engrossed she has 
become until she looks up and sees Mulder walking across 
the room, his face grave and his steps slow.    

"It was her birthday, Mulder," she whispers, her face 
awed.  

"When she got the Grease soundtrack?" Mulder asks, a sad 
smile playing around the corners of his mouth.  

Scully nods then turns back to the previous page, glancing 
at the date.  "July 28, 1978."

"Her birthday is in November," he says in a monotone.  
"She knew that the Spenders were lying to her."  

"Yes..."  Her voice trails off, and she shuts the book.  
Mulder sits down beside her, his arm curling around her 
shoulder.  She leans into him, feeling how solid and warm 
his body is.  Tears smart at her eyes, and she blinks them 
back.  This child's life was suspended in 1979, but life 
went on and created this amazing man who is holding her so 
gently.  

"I want you to read it, Scully. I want to share it with 
you," he says in a whisper.  "Can we do that tonight?" He 
places his hand over hers, still resting on the book.  His 
thumb begins to trace patters on the back of her hand, and 
she shivers.  

"I'd love to," she replies, then turns her head and places 
a kiss in the curve of his neck.  "We'll do that when we 
get back tonight."  His neck is soft against her lips as 
she says the words.

Mulder takes the book from her hands and places it back 
into his briefcase.  She turns and picks up the file from 
where it has been on the bed next to her, and starts 
looking for the scrap of paper where she'd written the 
phone number on the billboard.  

Scully doesn't want to admit to herself that she's looking 
forward to reading the diary with Mulder tonight, but she 
is.  She wants to learn more about Samantha's life before 
she died, and she wants to share that with Mulder.  But 
first they have to learn more about the disappearance of 
another child, one too young to put her thoughts to paper 
before she disappeared.

+++++

He has a feeling about this.  A hunch, an intuition, or 
maybe just poor digestion.  Whatever it is, it gives him a 
strong sense that the phone number he holds in his hand is 
the key to what happened to Mackenzie Shelby.  

As the sound of water running from behind the closed 
bathroom door filters into the hotel room, Mulder looks at 
the number one last time then picks up the phone and 
dials.  

"Stewart Outdoor Advertising," a disembodied female voice 
on the other end of the line answers.  

"Yes, may I please speak to the accounts manager?"  As 
Mulder asks the question, Scully emerges from the 
bathroom, smoothing her hands over her skirt.  

"Which city would this account be in, sir?"  He realizes 
from her question that since this is a toll-free 877 
number, Stewart Outdoor Advertising could be anywhere.  

"Hattiesburg, Mississippi," he replies.  Scully walks over 
to sit next to him on the bed.  He's asked to wait one 
moment, please, and as Muzak echoes through the phone, he 
turns to whisper the name of the company to Scully.

"This is Betty Matthau.  How can I help you?"  

"Ms. Matthau," Mulder begins, "My name is Special Agent 
Fox Mulder with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  I 
need to ask you some questions about a billboard you own 
in Hattiesburg."

"The one with that little girl's face?"  Ms. Matthau 
sounds like a grandmother, all warm tones and slow speech.  
"I saw that on the local news."

"Where is Stewart located?" 

"I?m in Birmingham, Alabama.  Our corporate offices are 
here."  

"I need to ask you some questions about the previous 
companies which have leased the advertising space."  
Scully wordlessly hands him a notepad, following the 
conversation even though she only hears one side.  When 
Ms. Matthau tells him she'd be happy to help, he says, 
"Could you give me the names and phone numbers of the last 
three companies which have rented the billboard?"

He hears clicking over the line.  "Hold on a few minutes.  
I'll look it up on the computer.  It's the one on Highway 
49, right?"  Mulder confirms.  The clicking continues for 
another minute, then Ms. Matthau says, "Do you have pen 
and paper, or would you like me to fax this to you?" 

"You can tell me now."  He poises the pen over the 
notepad.

"The last company was Southern Coast Properties."  She 
gives him a Hattiesburg phone number.  "They're a home 
builder in this region.  The previous two were John Burton 
Ford and Comfort Inn."  Mulder writes two more phone 
numbers on the notepad. 

He thanks her for her assistance and gives her his cell 
phone number in case she has any more questions, then as 
he hangs up the phone, he jots down the name "Betty 
Matthau", for further reference.  The pieces of the puzzle 
begin to fall into place.

Mulder sits up straight and notices for the first time 
that Scully's hand has been resting on his lower back 
throughout the phone call.  It reminds him of what he does 
with her, has done for years.  Even before they became 
lovers, touching her at the small of her back helped -- 
barely -- to satisfy his need to be in contact with her, 
to feel her body under his hand in ways he could only 
dream of someday being able to do.  Feeling her hand in 
the same place is good, very good, he decides.

He turns to look at her, amazed once again at how the 
light streaming through the window hits her hair just so, 
like July 4th fireworks.  She's my own sparkler, he thinks 
with a smile.  

"I have a theory.  Want to hear it?" he asks, and sees the 
sparks spread to her eyes.  

"Yes?" The word is drawn out, a question and a light 
taunt.

"Well, it's not much of a theory at this point," he 
admits.  "We need to go out to Southern Coast Properties.  
I think they have a connection to Mackenzie Shelby's 
disappearance, even if they don't know it.  Perhaps she 
was taken there during her abduction.  Something like 
that.  I haven't figured out the details yet." 

She looks at him for a long moment, her face seeming to 
puzzle him out.  "That's not much of a theory, Mulder."

"I didn't say it was."  He can't help but grin.  "But it 
is a pretty big intuitive leap, right?"

Scully stands and looks down at him.  He likes the change 
of perspective.  "Intuitive leap?  Sounds logical, not 
intuitive."  Her voice is sarcastic, not scolding. 

"You're just jealous."  Yes, she is being playful, and 
he's giving it right back to her.  He likes this Scully.  
He likes her a lot. 

"I?m going to go use the bathroom.  Could you call 
Southern Coast and get their address?"

As he walks out of the room, he hears her say, "Close the 
door, at least.  The good people don't need to hear you 
flush."  

He laughs and shuts the door behind him.  They've 
officially hit Old Married Couple status.  He looks down 
at his hands and sees seven years of experience and growth 
in every line.  He has seen the same in her hands.  They 
are a matched set.  

When he emerges from the bathroom, Scully is sitting on 
the bed, Samantha's diary in her hands.  It is unopened.  
His heart stills for just a beat.  He does want to share 
it with her, more than anything.  He has wanted to share 
it with her for two weeks, since they read those few pages 
together in a late night diner.  But the time never seemed 
right, and he didn't know how to approach it.  It feels 
more "right" now.  The diary isn't as new and intimidating 
as it once had been.  Now it's more comfortable, like an 
old love letter.  Yes, he wants to share it with her 
tonight.  

She notices his presence and carefully puts the diary back 
into his briefcase.  "You ready?" she asks in a subdued 
voice, the playfulness gone.  He nods.  He can't help 
feeling interested and glad by the low, sad tone of her 
voice after having touched the diary.  Seeing that it has 
a hold on her too makes him realize once again the 
strength of their connection, and makes him fall a little 
bit in love with her over again.  

The air between them whispers a soundless wedding vow:  
"What's mine is yours: heart, mind, body."  

He places his hand on the small of her back as they leave 
the room.

+++++

Mounds of reddish-brown earth dot the gently sloping 
hillside like fresh graves.  She is disheartened that the 
first analogy that comes to mind is such a morbid one.  
But then, isn't her occupation about death and its 
reasons?  If she looks at it that way, imagining death in 
a construction site is apropos.  

When she'd called Southern Coast, they told her that their 
billboard ad was for a new subdivision they were building 
on the outskirts of town.  Mulder wanted to pay the site a 
visit, and so here they are.  Twenty-two lots are arranged 
along a road ending in a cul-de-sac.  A dozen homes are in 
the process of being built, in varying stages of 
completion.  Amber-colored wood frames stand out against 
the brown trees which are just starting to become green.  
Dead pine needles crunch underfoot as she and Mulder make 
their way to the trailer which serves as the site 
manager's office.  Their reasons for being here seem 
spurious; she doesn't know just what Mulder hopes to find 
here, but she trusts his intuition.  After all, he is -- 
as he once took pains to point out -- right 98.9% of the 
time.

The trailer's door is open.  She asks a man in a hard hat, 
"Michael Rainey?"  

"I?m on my way out to meet him.  I'll tell him you're 
here."  The man heads toward a cluster of people at a 
house down the street.  

The agents step inside and look around.  Cheap plywood 
siding covers the walls, and a desk with an old computer 
barely fits into a corner.  Everything is utilitarian, 
except the large water cooler and the Ferrari 2000 
calendar on the wall.  They stand in the trailer for a few 
minutes, shifting on their feet because they have nowhere 
to sit.  Mulder finally walks back out the door, but comes 
right back in as he says, "Mr. Rainey?  I'm Agent Fox 
Mulder with the FBI."

Scully sees a very familiar unease on the man's face.  
He's young, and might be attractive if not for the 
weathered tan skin of his face and the torn flannel shirt 
he wears.  His eyes dance a tango between the two agents, 
and he says, "How can I help you?" in a voice she suspects 
is normally not that high-pitched.  

"Are you familiar with the Mackenzie Shelby kidnapping 
about five years ago?" she asks Rainey.

"Never heard of it," he says quickly.  "I just moved down 
here last year from Meridian."  

She looks over at Mulder, and sees the grin he's doing a 
good job of hiding.  "Don't worry, Mr. Rainey.  You're not 
under suspicion.  We think that her disappearance might 
have something to do with this building site, or else your 
company."

"Don't know nothin' about it," the man replies in a rough, 
less nervous voice.  He squeezes around Scully and sits at 
his desk.

"Have you or your workers found anything unusual during 
your excavation?" Mulder asks.  "Some child's clothing, a 
weapon, anything like that?"

Rainey's posture begins to relax.  "Nope, I haven't seen 
anything, but you can go ask the men if you want."  

Mulder takes a step toward the door.  "Thank you for your 
help, Mr. Rainey."  Scully pulls out one of her business 
cards and hands it to the foreman.

"Hey, wait," she hears as she's negotiating the trailer's 
wood steps.  She turns and re-enters the trailer.

"We did find something yesterday."  

Scully's eyes readjust to the dim artificial light, and 
she sees his face become interested.  "Yes, sir?"

"Arturo -- he's one of the Mexicans who lays foundation.  
It's all legal and registered with the INS, by the way.  
Anyway, he found some bones yesterday while we were 
digging up lot 18."  

Her pulse quickens.  "Bones?"

"Yeah."  His face lights up, pleased to be of help.  "We 
thought they were maybe dog bones.  That's probably what 
they are.  We find animal bones out on building sites all 
the time.  We dug 'em up and put them in a box.  Manuel 
was going to take them out to the dumpster this morning, 
but we had a problem with the cement mixer and I think 
they're still out there.  I'll take you out to them if you 
want to see."  

Mulder says, "Thank you, Mr. Rainey." He is already out 
the trailer, walking down toward where the workers are 
gathered.  Scully and the foreman hasten to catch up.

"Yeah, dog bones.  We've found them before.  You'd be 
amazed what kind of weird shit you can dig up out at a 
building site.  We found a carburetor and some silverware 
when we were laying out the driveway."  

Scully tunes out Rainey's babbling, listening only to the 
important facts filtering through.  They fall into stride 
with Mulder, her legs working overtime to match his quick, 
long gait.  "Over here," Rainey says, and the agents veer 
left to follow him.  

He pushes aside a tarpaulin, and reaches down to pick up a 
cardboard box.  Mulder takes it from him and she moves to 
her partner's side, leaning over to look into the box.

In the pile of yellow-gray bones, she sees a small human 
pelvis and femur, the approximate size of a three-year-old 
child.  Their lean edges are warped slightly from age.

She picks up the femur, and knows without doubt that this 
is Mackenzie Shelby.

+++++

Trust is knowing you will be taken care of.

That realization first occurred to him a few years ago.  
It wasn't during any time of great stress in his life, or 
at a watershed moment in his relationship with Scully.  
He'd simply been in the car with her, driving to some 
place or another, and realized that he trusted her because 
he knew that whatever happened, she would take care of 
him.  Such a weighty word can be based on such a simple 
knowledge.  This makes him happy.

They are once again in a rental car.  Three hours ago they 
took the box of bones to the Hattiesburg Police 
Department, who hastily assembled a small excavation.  
Scully carried the bones into the small forensics lab in 
the police department's basement, and she and the 
department's forensics expert began testing and 
identification procedures with latex gloves on their hands 
and grim expressions on their faces.  Mulder went up to 
Detective Watts' office and pulled Mackenzie's dental 
records from her file.  Scully and the forensics expert 
matched them against the tiny skull in the morgue.  The 
remains were of Mackenzie Shelby.

Now, Scully and Mulder sit in the rental car, parked in 
front of the Shelby's house.  This is, by far, the most 
difficult part of their jobs.  He remembers all the times 
when someone has come to him bearing bad news about 
Scully.  'She's been shot.' 'The cancer has metastasized.' 
'She's in critical condition.'  He can find some sort of 
acceptance of the news when he is on the receiving end, 
but giving that news to others sometimes becomes too much 
to bear.  

Madison is walking down the sidewalk with another little 
girl and a woman, all of them holding hands.  Perhaps she 
is coming home from a play date.  Madison sees them and 
walks up to the car.  Scully glances at Mulder then pushes 
a button to roll down the window.  

"Come back here, Maddie.  Don't talk to strangers," the 
little girl's mother says.

Madison looks back at her.  "I know them, Kayla's Mommy.  
They're not strangers."  She stares up at Scully, a solemn 
expression on her face.  "Why are you here again?"

From what Mrs. Shelby has told them, Madison has been 
sheltered from the hard facts of her sister's 
disappearance.  Debra said that she and her husband have 
tried their best to keep her from feeling the loss, to 
make her feel loved and wanted.  But as he looks over at 
the five-year-old's serious face, he sees childish 
accusation in her eyes.  Children know so much more than 
parents want to believe.  He recognizes the expression on 
Maddie's face.  It's the same stare he gave strangers when 
he was fourteen, and slowly coming to terms with 
Samantha's disappearance.  'Why are you here?  Why are you 
doing this to me?'

"We're here to speak with your mommy and daddy," Scully 
replies.  

The mother asks, "Are you the FBI agents here about 
Kenzie?"  

Scully nods.  Maddie holds her gaze for a few seconds, 
then hears Kayla's mother calling her back and the three 
turn and walk up the driveway.

Mulder watches them go.

The window is still open, letting in the early spring 
breeze, but the air inside the car feels heavy and 
oppressive.  Scully says, "Are you ready to do this, 
Mulder?" 

He wonders why she is asking him this.  He has tried to 
convince her that he is okay, that he has come to terms 
with his own loss and that he feels more free than he has 
since childhood.  But Mulder wonders if she knows that 
that is not entirely true.  

He wonders why she is the one asking him.  He should be 
asking her if she can handle it.  A sadness, a longing 
have been on her face since they arrived in Hattiesburg to 
investigate this child's disappearance.  She might not 
realize it is there, but he has seen it etched in the grim 
line of her mouth, the solemnity of her eyes.  But he 
knows that if he were to ask her this, it would cause her 
more pain.  So he nods his head and says, "Let's go."

They get out of the car and begin the uphill climb to the 
porch.  As they traverse the front steps, Debra Shelby 
appears at the door, along with a man about her age, who 
must be her husband, Craig.  "You're back," she says.

"May we come in, Mrs. Shelby?" Scully asks, her voice 
steady and smooth.  

Debra steps aside and Craig holds out a hand, shaking each 
of the agents' hands.  Mulder can feel a slight tremble in 
the handshake.  He and Scully follow the couple inside, 
and sit on the now-familiar sofa.  

Kayla's mother steps forward.  "Is everything okay, 
Debra?"  The little girls standing next to her look 
frightened.  

"Sue, could you take the girls upstairs, please?"  Mrs. 
Shelby asks, and Sue leads the two little girls out of the 
room.

The room is silent for a few moments, then Craig says, 
"You found her, didn't you?"

"Yes, Mr. Shelby." Mulder replies.  "We have."

He doesn't know what reaction to expect.  He remembers 
another case three years ago, when he told another little 
girl's father that the body of his daughter, missing many 
years, had been found.  Mulder sees that same slow, 
shocked reaction in Craig and Debra Shelby's faces.  

"We investigated the last company to rent that billboard," 
Scully explains, "and discovered that it was a local 
builder.  Agent Mulder suspected it had something to do 
with your daughter's disappearance, so we went out to 
their building site early this afternoon.  The 
construction foreman informed us that some bones were 
uncovered yesterday.  We took them to the police 
department and checked them against your daughter's dental 
records.  They were a match."

The parents opposite them both close their eyes.  Mulder 
sees Debra's lower lip tremble, Craig's jaw clench.  The 
room is deathly silent.  Children's laughter filters down 
from upstairs.  

After a few moments, Craig says, "Mackenzie is at the 
police station now?"  His voice catches.  "Her bones, I 
mean?"

"Yes, Mr. Shelby," Mulder replies in as steady a voice as 
he can manage.  "You and your wife may go down there when 
you're ready."

Neither he nor Scully speaks for several moments.  He 
knows from far too much experience that he needs to let 
these parents absorb this news on their own time, on their 
own terms.  

Finally, Mrs. Shelby looks up at them, her eyes full of 
tears, but her shoulders squared.  "Thank you," she says.  
"Craig and I appreciate all you've done to help."  

Her husband rises and moves to stand behind his wife, 
placing his hands on her shoulders.  "Thank you, Agents, 
for helping us to find Mackenzie."

+++++

Trust is knowing you will be taken care of.

Mulder said this to her once, when the cancer was rapidly 
attacking her body.  She lay in a hospital bed, struggling 
to catch her breath, imagining that if she concentrated 
hard enough, she could keep her heartbeat steady and the 
cancer at bay.  He was telling her of his suspicions about 
who was behind the conspiracy at the Bureau, and that he 
was having a more difficult time than ever trying to 
decide who to trust.  

"How do you know you can trust someone?" she had asked 
him.

He had looked at her, certainty in his eyes, and 
whispered, "Trust is knowing that you will be taken care 
of.  I trust you, Scully, because I know that whatever 
happens, you will take care of me.  And I will always take 
care of you."

The remembrance alone is enough to make tears smart at her 
eyes.  

She lies now in a bed in the "Beauvoir" room of a 
beautiful bed and breakfast, the arms of the man she 
trusts circling her as she leans into his body.  She feels 
each breath he takes, his chest pressing lightly into her 
back.  Samantha's diary rests on the nightstand next to 
the bed.  It will be read later, but now they are taking 
time for the two of them only, to re-connect and settle 
down after the day's events.  

"You okay?" he whispers in her ear.  She likes the way his 
voice sounds, full of whiskey and sorrow in the cool night 
sky.  Scully shifts, leans back further into his body, 
feels how solid his body is under hers, which has gone 
soft from fatigue and wine with dinner.  These are the 
moments she likes best.  They are the bang and the whimper 
of life.

The beginnings of a beard scrape against her cheek as she 
nods then turns and places a light kiss at the corner of 
his mouth.  She begins to say that she's fine, but she's 
not.  The sorrow of the past few days - months -- has 
caught up with her.  She can feel it inching its way 
through her body, with her arteries carrying it back to 
rest in her heart.  

Mulder asks, "Anything I can help with?" 

"I'm just thinking about everything that's been happening 
lately - you finding Samantha, this case - all these 
things happening to us."

He is quiet behind her for a long moment, each breath 
still pressing into her body.  She finds herself breathing 
in unison with him, letting them melt into one another as 
if they are sharing the same blood and air.  Finally, he 
says, "It doesn't all have to be sad, Scully."  

"No, it doesn't."  She kisses his cheek again.  And it 
doesn't have to be sad anymore.  If he has found the peace 
he needs and deserves, she should accept that along with 
him.  She can't make him mourn in the way she believes he 
should.  He will do this on his own time, in his own way.  

Mulder places his hands on her shoulders and nudges her 
upright, then slips from behind her.  He moves on the bed 
until he is facing her, sitting between her legs.  Taking 
her hands in his own, he squeezes them and says, "Our 
lives are always going to have a measure of sadness in 
them.  That's simply who we are, Scully.  But we can find 
our own happiness."  He places a kiss on one of her hands. 
"Don?t you agree?"  

She nods, enthralled by the serene, hopeful look on his 
face.  Yes, this is the man she fell in love with.

He sits back, folding his legs Indian style.  Letting go 
of her hands, he trails his fingers down her legs, to her 
feet.  Strong fingers massage the soles of her feet, and 
she lets her body fall back onto the pillows still warm 
from his body heat.  Scully closes her eyes as his hands 
work magic on her feet then slowly move up her legs, 
rubbing the tension from her muscles.  Her eyes open again 
as his hands find the waistband of her pants and begin to 
nudge open the clasp.  He encounters interference with the 
inside button, and she can't help but chuckle as he 
continues to tug at the button.  Her hands come down to 
help him with it, then she eases down the zipper.  
Mulder's fingers hook around the waistband of her 
underwear and pantyhose, and soon she is bare, the 
garments fallen to the floor.  His clothes follow, save 
the white shirt she feels against her palms.

Kisses are long, slow, unhurried.  He leans into her body, 
the soft cotton of his dress shirt brushing against her 
breasts and belly.  Separate sensations -- lips, skin, 
hands -- combine to create a whole of arousal and 
intense... softness, like champagne tickling her tongue 
then slipping down her throat.  She likes this strange 
mixing of impressions; only he can create this feeling in 
her.  

They move from kisses to slow, long thrusts like honey 
dripping down a plate of glass.  Motion is almost an 
afterthought as they lie within one another.  Climax 
becomes part of the destination, not the final goal. And 
when they come, it is a part of nature dictated by science 
and God.  She feels his love and life move up through her 
body, all the way to her heart.  He fills her.

He moves off her body, stretching out to lie beside her.  
She reaches for him and pulls him into her arms.  His 
warmth still fills her womb.  Each time they make love, 
she can't help but think that something more has to come 
of this.  That love is enough but the overwhelming feeling 
of life he gives her must mean more.  But unlike most 
other couples, they cannot create a child by making love.  

She tells herself it's okay, that this isn't the right 
time, might never be the right time... except timing 
matters little when the possibility doesn't exist.  Scully 
tells herself that it doesn't matter because they love 
each other regardless, and when she closes her eyes she's 
almost able to convince herself that this is the truth.  
His arms tighten around her and she hopes he's not 
thinking the same thing.  Mulder never mentions it; maybe 
he isn't as preoccupied as she is.

Thoughts of children are foremost in her mind right now; 
perhaps this is why she is thinking of her fertility, or 
lack thereof.  When she closes her eyes Scully can still 
see Mackenzie on the billboard, juxtaposed with Debra 
Shelby's face when she heard that her child's body had 
been found.  Another child's legacy rests on the bedside 
table.  She mourns the child's loss, even though Scully 
never knew her.  Thank Heaven for little girls who come 
into our lives, even for a short period.  

The sounds from the street slowly fade away; she feels the 
approach of midnight.  Mulder's breathing is like a 
lullaby.  The quiet is broken when he asks, "Would you 
like to read Samantha's diary now?"  

Her hand roots around for his, then clasps it.  "Yes."

He squeezes her hand, then leans over and takes the diary 
from the table.  She sits up and scoots back to lean on 
the pillows piled against the headboard.  As she does so, 
she catches Mulder's eye and he whispers, "Scully...."  
She knows what he is asking, and she moves to sit between 
his legs, leaning back against him with his arms around 
her, holding the diary.  They will read together.

Mulder's fingers reverently turn the pages.  She reads the 
first page aloud.

"Jeffrey already knows about my other diary.  It's the one 
I'll use to talk about all the boring things in my life.  
I'm going to keep this one a secret, though.  I have to 
talk to somebody about these terrible things that are 
happening to me.  I wish I had a friend to talk to, but 
none of my friends would believe me.  And even if they 
did, if I told them then Charles and Cassandra might find 
out and that would be terrible.  So I'll pretend that this 
new diary is my friend, and I'll tell it everything."

Tears do not yet smart at her eyes, but she knows they 
will come soon.  They continue to read about Samantha's 
feelings about the tests, how she felt adrift in a family 
which cared little about her, how she was just like any 
other adolescent, trying to find her place in a world 
which wouldn't accept her.  The tears begin to flow down 
her cheeks.  When they reach the passage about her 
birthday, she smiles, but her soft laughter is mixed with 
a sob.  Mulder still holds the diary in one hand, but the 
other comes up to her face, wiping her tears away.

Then they read about her lost memories.  Samantha says, 
"Sometimes I dream of a whole other life, with a family 
who loves me and won't let doctors touch me and make me 
cry.  But I cry just thinking of my other family, and how 
much I miss them."  

She turns to look at Mulder, and sees her face reflected 
in his shining eyes.  Placing a kiss on his damp cheeks, 
she whispers, "She remembered you, Mulder. Deep down, she 
remembered."  

"Yes, she did."  His voice is a whisper, but it carries 
strength.

They continue to read aloud, Mulder's voice sad but 
steady.  They read about Samantha's fears, frustrations, 
and the final crisis which led her to escape.  Scully's 
heart breaks for a girl who ran away in pain, knowing that 
she might not return alive.  And her heart breaks for the 
man who holds her, his life devoted to finding the young 
girl so that he might take away both their pain.  

As he turns the final page, he says, "In the midst of all 
this, she found her own peace."  

"Yes, she did," Scully answers.

Mulder closes the book, but keeps it in his hands.  "I'm 
still trying to find my peace with this, but you're 
helping me, Scully.  Thank you."

"You're welcome, Mulder," she replies.  She turns around 
and kisses him, his lips warm on hers.  "And thank you for 
sharing this with me."  He smiles his answer.

He sets the book aside and they shift their bodies until 
she lies in his arms, his long body spooned around hers.  
They lay together, breathing in unison, as the night 
stretches into morning and sleep comes.

+++++

END, "Chips of When"

NOTES:  I couldn't have done this without the beta-reading 
talents of Jintian.  Special thanks to the handful of 
readers who sent feedback, and particularly to Karyn, who 
sent me that first inspiring e-mail ?. 

The lines, "Sometimes I dream of a whole other life, with 
a family who loves me and won't let doctors touch me and 
make me cry.  But I cry just thinking of my other family, 
and how much I miss them," are from a Closure outtake 
posted on Proof Undeniable -- you can find a link at 
Haven.  (Thanks, archivist!)