St. Catherine's Chapel of Hope Recovery Clinic 
477 N. 58th street 
Overbrook, Pa 
1:05 pm 

Pulling into the entrance of St. Catherine's, Sam and Scully were 
discussing the specifics of the coming visit -- who would talk with 
whom, where they would meet Mulder -- and Sam almost drove right past 
the decorative name plaque at the edge of the driveway. When her eyes 
finally focused on it -- dreary letters etched into a cold concrete 
slab, she thought of graveyards. 

When she saw the stone cross from her dreams looming over the words, 
her hands tightened on the steering wheel, and she thought of more 
immediate death. The car seemed to slow of its own will; Sam didn't 
notice how her foot eased up on the gas. For a moment, she was swept 
into the vision again, seeing death and danger in shimmering cuts. 

"Sam? Are you listening?" Agent Scully's voice finally broke through, 
snapping her back into the present. 

"Yeah. Seven dorms, 'A' through 'G'," Torrence repeated, not knowing 
where or how she found the words, "cafeteria cuts through C and . . ." 

Cuts . . . snaking across Mulder's body . . . 

Oh, Jesus. Here. He was meeting them here. 

Sam changed the subject in mid-sentence. "Do you see your partner's 
car anywhere?" she asked hurriedly as they reached the lot. 

The question took Scully by surprise, but she pointed out Mulder's tan 
Taurus among the spaces. Torrence's panic was starting to show around 
the edges; she peeled into the space beside Mulder's car, unaware of 
how fast she was going. The car settled with a jolt, and Torrence 
found herself at the wrong end of an ice-blue stare. 

"What is it?" Scully asked as her hand swiftly sped to her side, 
manually checking her sidearm. Her eyes didn't release Torrence's gaze 
for an instant. "Something's wrong, is he in danger?" Scully projected 
a coolness that made Sam shiver, but the detective could see the fear 
behind her question. 

Damn, but the woman was perceptive. 

These two; they were as strange to her as they were familiar. 
Partners. Torrence understood the give and take of law enforcement 
partnerships. Co-operation and communication flowed differently 
between each pair of cops she'd ever seen. And there was so much more 
to these two; they had a bond -- something stronger than anything 
she'd seen before. They communicated without words. Beyond words. She 
saw Scully's eyes focus on the main entrance and knew Mulder was 
there. Maybe just out of sight. In her mind, she pictured Mulder, 
intent on some file or face, pausing for a brief moment and fixing his 
gaze toward the parking lot. She felt his heart beat faster. All those 
cuts. 

Scully didn't bother to wait for an answer; Sam's mute stare was all 
she needed. She was out of the car in an instant. She slammed the 
door, leaving nothing behind but the over-loud silence of a stifled 
echo. 

And Sam made a decision. Mulder didn't deserve her silence. Neither 
did his partner. She reached for the handset and switched it on, 
radioing the local dispatch. Shit, someone had to keep her head around 
here. When the hell did they learn how to call for backup in the FBI? 

"10th precinct. Overbrook, Parkside," came the reply. 

"This is Detective Samantha Torrence, 16th precinct, downtown. I need 
two black and whites at Saint Catherine's Chapel of Hope Recovery 
Clinic, North 58th and Woodbine road." She gave them the details, then 
hurredly exited the car. Despite Scully's small stature, she had to 
hurry to catch up with the special agent; the woman was practically 
running across the parking lot. 

She caught up with Scully at the main entrance to a long, low building 
that reminded her of a small elementary school, except for all of the 
decorative crosses. When she focused on Scully again, she saw tension 
slip from the other woman's frame in a physical wave. Over Scully's 
shoulder, beyond the door, Sam caught sight of Mulder. He was seated 
in front of a desk in the back, talking with a middle-aged Asian 
woman. 

There was nothing wrong. 

Scully turned on her before they went inside. "You want to tell me 
what the hell that was for?" she hissed. "Mulder had you pegged, 
detective, from the beginning. What are you hiding?" 

"This place is dangerous," Sam choked out. "I called for back-up." 

There was a pause, long enough for Sam to take a breath, and then 
Scully asked the million-dollar question. 

"Why are you so convinced?" 

Sam sighed, chasing away the frantic rabbit-heart kicking in her chest 
through sheer force of will, and told as much of the truth as she 
dared. 

"Psychic dreams," she said simply. 

Scully raised an eyebrow, silence conveying her disbelief. 
Incredulity, actually, and Sam realized she'd been just a bit too 
flippant with the woman. Suddenly, she saw years of that remark, or a 
variation, never sincere, from the mouths of countless local 
detectives. 

Somehow, that made it better. Forget that she had maybe started liking 
the woman. Let her be angry. Scully was a professional; she wouldn't 
let her feelings interfere with the job. She was worried about her 
partner, and as far as she was concerned, Sam was just one more in a 
long line of smart-ass locals. 

Good. At least Scully didn't take her seriously. It was almost like 
lying, with none of the guilt. 

"C'mon," Sam said, opening the door. "Let's check this place out." 
There was nothing wrong here. Nothing wrong. 

But as they entered the building, the stone cross still screamed at 
her. For the first time, she realized it was a voice, screaming. His 
voice. 

Screaming her name. 

------- 

The time was close. 

He stood the mop against the wall and walked out of the dormitory, 
letting his feet carry him where they willed. 

------- 

Grace Chiu was searching the morning logs, compiling a small list of 
names on the sheet in front of her. "Usually it's nothing," she said 
tiredly. "They forget to check off the names..." She paused when she 
realized the man in front of her was no longer paying attention. 
"Sir?" 

Mulder had leaned back in the chair, looking over his shoulder at the 
entrance to the clinic. A moment later, he saw them. Torrence was 
aloof as always, her expression guarded. Scully practically stormed 
into the office; her expression was cool and professional, but he'd 
long ago learned to see around the edges of that mask. His partner was 
angry. 

And there was something else. Concern, maybe. He didn't want to think 
of it as fear. 

When they approached the desk, Mulder stood and introduced them to 
Grace, who gave them a polite smile and then continued leafing through 
log books. Torrence eyed the list on the desk. 

"New hires?" she asked. 

"M.I.A.'s, actually," Mulder corrected. "Patients who missed morning 
roll." 

"Gee, I hope they don't get after-school detention," Torrence 
deadpanned, her eyes already scanning the list intently. Despite the 
joke, Mulder could tell Torrence was nervous. What did she suspect? 
Over the detective's gaze, Mulder caught Scully's eyes. 

"Can I talk to you for a minute," Scully started, but was interrupted 
as Sam tapped the paper in front of her. 

"This one," she said succinctly, pointing to a name halfway down the 
list. Tamara McCoy. "Can you pull the file on this one? I want to see 
a picture of her." 

McCoy. An Irish name. He wouldn't have picked it out, but he knew what 
the picture would show. Samantha Torrence's interest had already 
marked the woman's demise. Well, Torrence was through hiding, it 
seemed. His mind searched over the information he'd gathered on the 
detective that morning, and for a moment, Mulder's anger flared. Had 
she known last night as well? Could she have stopped this? 

Grace opened the filing cabinet behind her with a barely controlled 
'clang', flipped through the files in a gesture that spoke of years of 
practice, and retrieved a file and photo of Tamara McCoy. 

A pasty, fevered, African-American face stared into the camera, 
looking sick and defeated. It was the same face he'd seen that 
morning, lifeless, pushed into a plastic tarpaulin off of Route 76. 

"Hellooo Tammy," Torrence said slowly. For once, her sarcasm failed to 
hide the sadness behind her words. 

--------- 

The gun was heavy in his pocket, a physical presence anchoring him. He 
didn't like it. The watcher would move before he could find him. 

--------- 

Scully took one look at the photo and knew it was the dead woman from 
that morning. Years of dealing with corpses had taught her how to 
construct a death mask in her mind's eye from a photo of a living 
person. They never really looked the same, even if the cause of death 
wasn't violence. The difference was at once subtle and pervasive -- an 
unfathomable and irreversible change conveyed through each tiny cell. 

But at least she could understand the process behind it. 

Psychic dreams. It wasn't true. It couldn't be true. It was all a lie; 
the woman was withholding evidence and covering for it with a story 
that would draw Mulder in, hook, line and sinker. 

"How did you know she was our victim?" Scully asked, but Sam's 
attention was drawn to the front of the building again, as four 
uniformed officers stepped through the doors. 

"Ask your partner," she said, heading toward the officers and flashing 
her badge. "Maybe he can convince you." 

As Sam talked with the local police, Mulder drew Scully aside. "She's 
our T. Samuelsson, Scully" he said excitedly. "Samantha Torrence." 

Where had he gotten this? "She's not the killer," she said by way of 
answer, and she knew it was true. Sam had alibis for the first two 
killings, and besides, Mulder would have warned her on the phone if 
the woman was dangerous. Suddenly, their earlier phone conversation 
made more sense. Mulder had wanted to confront Torrence when he met 
them here; he'd wanted to take her by surprise. 

But apparently, the only one who was surprised was Scully. 

"No, she isn't the killer," Mulder asserted, "but I did some checking. 
In the interview, Fisherman mentioned her -- said she remembered his 
dreams even when he forgot them." 

"I don't buy it, Mulder," she said in spite of the alarms screaming in 
her mind. 

"She grew up on Byberry road by Poquessing Creek, Scully, right under 
the nose of Byberry hospital. I think she and Fisherman have a psychic 
link." 

"She's impeding an investigation," Scully hissed, but Mulder didn't 
answer her. Grace Chiu took that moment to draw his attention with a 
small tap to his shoulder. 

"Agent Mulder, I have that list of recent hires you wanted to see. 
Sorry it took so long -- we're understaffed as it is . . ." 

"No, that's fine. Thanks. You've been very helpful, Ms. Chiu," he 
answered absently, scanning the list. 

--------- 

He saw the path clearly now. This was it, then. His feet continued 
unerringly toward the far building. 

--------- 

Parker, Carrie Michelle -- Technician. 
Frank, Abigail Ashley -- Technician. 
Patterson, Charles Fredrick -- Physician. 
Raye, Warren Francis -- Janitor. 
Curtis, Doreen Marie -- Nurse's Aide. 
Halloway, Bradley Carl -- Orderly. 

Six names. Three women and one physician were out. That left the 
orderly and the janitor. 

Bradley Halloway was a university student, studying pre-medicine, 
Grace informed him. 

"And Warren Raye?" he asked. He checked the man's age. Thirty-six. 

She sighed. "We hired him about a month ago. He's -- how do I put it? 
He's simple. Slow. Well," she corrected herself, "not slow really," 
she trailed off. 

Not slow, his mind offered. Subtle. 

This was it, then. 

"It's the janitor, Scully," he said quickly, grabbing his partner's 
attention. "Do you have a picture, Grace?" 

She searched for a moment in the ubiquitous filing cabinet and 
procured a small snapshot. Dull brown eyes. Short, dark hair, like the 
samples removed from Jane Doe number three yesterday morning. An 
angular, expressionless face. 

"My god, he looks so young," Scully said, staring at the picture. 

"Thirty-six, my ass," Mulder muttered. "Except for the eyes, he 
doesn't look a day over twenty." He scrutinized the picture for a 
minute, and then as if coming to a decision, tapped the edge and put 
it on the desk. He called Torrence and her officers over, practically 
overwhelming poor Grace Chiu with the speed of his action. She almost 
didn't catch the question the detective threw at her. 

"I . . . he never turns on his radio. I think he might be over in 
'C'." She pointed vaguely toward the back of the building. 

--------- 

He saw them come out of the main office. Watched them approach. They 
were searching. 

The watcher cried to him, perhaps from a dream, and the short redhead 
locked her gaze upon him. 

Now. 

--------- 

Scully's glance caught the man standing stock still in front of the 
farthest building. 'F', her mind told her. Storage. It used to be a 
dormitory, but that was before funding was cut . . . 

Cut . . . 

For some reason, her mind stuck on the word. Cut. She watched, and 
suddenly the figure came alive. 

The move was unmistakable -- a calm draw from his pocket. She saw the 
glint of silver. CUT!! her mind screamed, but it was not that word 
that made it past her lips. 

"GUN!!!" she screamed, dropping to the ground. 

-------- 

It had begun. He drew in one fluid movement, cocked the hammer, and 
fired. 

-------- 

********* 

Chapter 7 

"GUN!!!" 

At that word, instinct took over and Mulder found himself on the 
ground before he even knew what was happening. The shot echoed all 
around them, bouncing off of the buildings that flanked the grounds. 
Another shot followed in quick succession, stacking echo on echo and 
making his ears ring. He rolled onto his side, noting Torrence and her 
officers to his left, all hugging the ground and scanning for the 
shooter. 

It suddenly registered in his mind that his partner's voice had 
screamed the warning. He sought out her form, finding her in front of 
him, perhaps ten feet away. 

"Scully! where is he!?" he asked frantically. 

A third shot pierced the air. All at once, he heard a gasp to his 
left, and a quick curse from Torrence, and suddenly the sound was 
drowned by another shot. Torrence cursed again. 

"Shit!" 

"Building F as in Foxtrot!" came Scully's reply, fighting to be heard 
over a primal yell of pain from his left. 

"Officer down!" Torrence shouted. 

He chanced a glance to his left and saw the detective on her knees, 
trying to drag a writhing officer to safety behind a woefully thin 
tree. Torrence was spattered with blood, and the cop had taken up her 
litany of curses. He screamed through gritted teeth. 

"Fuck, fuck, FUCK!" 

Mulder whole-heartedly agreed. In less than a minute, one deranged 
janitor had managed to plunge them into a war zone. 

"Building 'F', last one on the right!" Scully yelled, and when he 
looked back, she was by the sidewalk, perched behind a green garbage 
can, weapon at the ready. She pointed -- "Main Entrance!" and he 
scanned the entrance, looking for a gunman and seeing . . . 

"Nothing! I don't see him, Scully!" He was screaming and he couldn't 
stop it; adrenaline fueled his voice, pumped it harsh and hoarse. He 
started to bring his gaze away, but a slow, slight movement caught his 
eye. 

One of the front doors to Building F was swinging slowly shut. 

"I need a doctor here!" Torrence's voice sounded shrilly into his left 
ear. 

"Inside!" Scully confirmed his suspicions. "He ran inside the 
building!" She started to get up, but he stopped her with a quick 
sentence. 

"Torrence needs you, Scully!" he pointed toward the detective and her 
now unconscious charge, and then he was on his feet, heading for the 
building, hearing nothing but the urgent sound of his footsteps on the 
concrete sidewalk. 

-------- 

Sam crouched over the injured officer, putting her full body weight 
into applying pressure to his ribcage. He'd stopped struggling and the 
cursing was gone. He was unconscious, and even though her arms 
screamed with effort, she could still feel his blood seeping through 
her fingers. 

He was dying. He was going to die right in front of her, under her own 
hands. She couldn't see anything except the vivid, cherry-red blood 
soaking his shirt; she couldn't hear anything except his shallow, 
uneven breaths. 

"I need a doctor here!" she cried, trying to still the panic in her 
voice. She looked around, saw Scully heading toward her. She was a 
doctor right? God, she couldn't let it happen again; she was always 
too late to save anyone. She met Scully's eyes with a silent plea, but 
her gaze suddenly focused past the female agent, noted a tall figure 
hurrying toward the far building. 

Alone. 

"Mulder, no!" she cried, but she couldn't move. Her arms were locked 
in a losing battle against the officer's beating heart. As Scully 
reached her side, she nodded frantically toward the other three cops. 
"Follow him!" 

Two obeyed, but the third was already on the way to his fallen 
partner, shock and anger painted across his face like a scar. Sam felt 
a hand on her hands and realized Agent Scully was right beside her. 
Quickly, she focused on the other woman's words. 

". . . keep applying pressure!" 

It was all Sam could do not to scream in frustration. Instead, she 
turned the scream into words. 

"Scully, I need to follow him! Please! It's supposed to be me, I need 
to go!" Her fingers were wet and slipping, and she had to go into the 
building. She had to stop it; it wasn't too late. 

Scully's eyes widened. She and Sam stared at one another for a long 
second. Maybe it was the guilt in her voice, or maybe Agent Scully 
decided to abandon rationalism in favor of psychic dreams. Whatever 
the reason, Scully nodded, and Sam's hands exploded from the prone 
body in front of her, her wrists and elbows aching with the motion. 
She ran toward the far building without so much as a glance behind 
her. 

Slowly, almost as if in a daze, Scully turned her attention to the 
bleeding officer in front of her. The look in Sam's eyes had told her 
more than she wanted to know. 

Mulder was in a kind of danger only Sam could understand. 

The current of this thought coursed through her; she could feel her 
body humming in frustration and fear, even as she calmly and 
efficiently tended to the officer's wound. She forced the waver from 
her voice, addressing the man beside her. 

"You're officer Shenk? This man's partner? Okay, okay Jeff, I need you 
to put pressure on the wound until we can get him in an ambulance . . 
." 

-------- 

The lobby offered Mulder a simple choice: go up the stairs or stay on 
the ground floor. Higher floors would give the advantage in a shoot 
out. Historically, desperate gunmen sought the high ground. Mulder 
squinted into the dim stairwell, looking for any signs that Warren 
Raye had sought the traditional shooter's advantage. No luck. But 
then, Warren Raye wasn't a traditional gunman. 

Warren Raye was Real. Fisher'd said so. Warren Raye was on a quest. 
Everything had a purpose. Everything would fit together. He was far 
from desperate. He'd fired on them to break them apart, and with that 
accomplished, he'd gone on to phase two. 

The gun would be forgotten. He wasn't interested in shooting. 

Raye was still in control. He had sacrificed nothing. Which meant he 
wasn't going to relinquish his exits from this building, either. 
Decision made, Mulder advanced into the ground floor hallway, his eyes 
adjusting to the low light, searching for shadows or hints of 
movement. 

-------- 

Crouched in a dim alcove, he waited patiently, staring at the hallway 
and the man heading toward him. He'd seen this image before, mired in 
the watcher's thoughts. The man drew closer, and he felt the world 
retreating. Ripples and waves. Then nothing. 

Then everything. 

And nothing again. He peered down the backlit hallway, searching for 
the other's wary silhouette. When he found it, his breath caught, and 
the shadows around him stilled. So many cuts! For an instant, he was 
sure the watcher had found him; he was sure the visions were wrong. He 
almost cried out, so close was the prospect of escape. 

But it wasn't so. Cold, aching knowledge surplanted his hopes. The 
search wasn't over yet. He closed his eyes and sought his path in the 
disturbing silence. 

Deep, even breaths. 

The watcher could not come to him in time. 

Focus. 

Two women, dark and light, joined by opposition, with the watcher 
between. One to find him and one to bring him. He opened his eyes, and 
the path was clear. 

Focus. 

He exhaled and began Concentrating on the deepest, ugliest cut he 
could find on the man in the hallway. He needed this one with him. 

This was the path. 

-------- 

Gun, his mind said. 

Mulder paused, checked the safety on his weapon. It was off. Nothing 
wrong there. But the thought was urgent. And there was more. 

You have to get to the gun. 

His footsteps slowed. 

-------- 

The afternoon calm at the clinic was shattered. Torrence heard 
frightened patients crying all around her, and saw many more, for whom 
a shooting was probably routine, cautiously rising from the ground, 
angry and cursing. Patients who'd been indoors were screaming from 
windows with the bewildered anger of those who knew they'd been put in 
danger through no fault of their own. Spattered with blood and running 
like a madwoman, she knew she was doing nothing to ease their nerves. 

She didn't care. The only thing that eased Sam's nerves was the nearby 
sound of an ambulance siren. Blocking out the chaos around her, she 
focused ahead on the far building and sped up. She caught up with the 
two officers as they reached the door. 

"Watch yourselves in there," she said breathlessly. "Our man plays 
mind games." 

The taller officer, James, snorted and replied through gritted teeth, 
"Worse than playing us as a fucking shooting gallery?" 

"Maybe," Sam replied softly, leaving a smear of blood on the door as 
she cautiously pushed it open. "Just watch yourselves." 

-------- 

You have to get to the gun. 

A door behind him opened, sending a shaft of sharp white light into 
the hallway. The movement he heard was slow. Whispering. 

Alien. 

No. A hushed voice sounded behind him. "Check the stairwell!" 
Detective Torrence. Samantha. 

Samantha . . . 

You have to get to the gun they're taking her 
they'retakingherthey'retakingSam . . . 

The light! He turned, his eyes wild, and he heard his sister's 
high-pitched wail. The ground roared and shook. The air hummed. He was 
losing her. 

. . . gun get to the gun they're taking her! 

He panicked. 

"NO! SAMANTHA!" 

And suddenly the light was everywhere. 

------- 

Sam's heart leaped to her throat when she heard the cry, and she lost 
all caution. She sped to the hallway and turned the corner, gun drawn. 

"Freeze!" 

She never said more than that. The hallway exploded in light and 
noise. A screaming pain tore across her head, and she dropped to the 
ground. 

In a haze and far away, she heard hollow voices all around her. 

"You're not taking her! NO!" 

"Drop the weapon, Agent!" 

Forcing her eyes open, she saw a bright blur in the shape of a man. 
Mulder. He was wild; she could see his madness even in the tense 
outline of his form. 

"Samantha!" He cried her name again. No, not her. She remembered the 
vision. His sister. He was seeing his sister. 

A voice behind her. "Drop it!" Shit, she should be getting up. She 
should be saving him. And instead she was down on the floor listening 
to an orchestra of pain radiating from her temple. She blinked, 
chasing the tears from her eyes, and forced herself to focus. 

Mulder had his gun trained on her. With a start, she realized he'd 
already shot her once. She brought a hand to her ear and felt it 
covered in slick, warm blood. 

She heard the officer behind her again. "Drop the weapon!" 

The only reply from Mulder was a mute stare. Now that she could see 
his eyes, she could tell that the agent was terrified. He was pale, 
his gaze flighty and panicked, his hands trembling. Sam stared at the 
barrel of the gun. One wrong move and she would pay for it with her 
life. 

For almost a minute, silence blanketed the scene. Mulder didn't move, 
and the officers seemed at a loss for what to do. Then, in the lull, 
there was a sound. A voice. The low, even whisper swept through the 
hallway, and Sam felt a shiver course through her body. Without ever 
hearing it before, she knew this voice. She recognized the hunger 
behind the words. 

"Turn around, Fox. They're behind you. They're takin' her." 

Mulder's hands tensed. Then, shouting a desperate plea to a lost 
child, he turned and ran. 

Sam tried to stop him, but all that came from her throat was a hoarse 
scream. As she dragged herself to her knees, the two uniformed 
officers rushed past her, giving chase. When she finally looked up, 
they had already disappeared around a corner, and the building was 
eerily silent. Mulder had stopped his cries, or someone had stopped 
them for him. She tentatively stood, and lurched down the hallway 
after them. 

Somehow she already knew what she would see. 

When she turned the corner, her eyes first focused on James, lying on 
the ground in a heap. A gash across his forehead was the only 
testament to the blow which had felled him. His partner, Reynolds, was 
quietly sobbing in a corner, staring into his hands at something only 
he could see. 

"Oh god, I shot him, oh god." 

There had been no gunshot. Sam scanned the hallway, but it was empty. 

Mulder and Raye were gone. 

-------- 

The next two hours were a mass of sirens and questions, and very few 
answers. Scully lived that time in a state of free fall. 

Jane Doe number 3 was a patient who disappeared three days before. No 
patient recalled having seen Raye and the woman together. 

Warren Francis Raye had no records at the clinic save one: a photocopy 
of a New York state birth certificate from May, 1962. The certificate 
appeared genuine. Other than that, he had no memberships, no letters, 
nothing to leave a paper trail. Scully's mind stuck on her partner's 
words from the night before. She almost couldn't focus on the words 
themselves for the sound of his voice. 

"White male, age -- I'm not sure, but not older than forty, loner." 

A night shift janitor recalled Raye staying late some nights, even 
when he wasn't on call. "Sometimes, it's just his car in the parking 
lot -- I take the bus." 

The car? "Blue Ford Pinto. Older one -- ten years old if it's a day." 

"Naw, never talked to 'im. He didn't like to talk -- didn't like bein' 
around people." 

"Wary and untrusting of people; he doesn't like attention." 

She tried telling Mulder to be quiet. She didn't want to admit that 
all he was doing was scolding her, sending her a coy 'I told you so' 
from her own mind. Dammit, if they knew so much, they should have 
known enough to keep this from happening. 

As it was, Mulder had profiled a phantom, who emerged from nowhere, 
swept him away, and just as easily retreated again. 

-------- 

He was so tired. He had held control over the man in the passenger 
seat for over an hour. Add the pressures of driving, and he was having 
trouble keeping his eyes open. He didn't need to talk out loud for the 
Concentration to work, but it helped sometimes. He kept his voice to a 
low murmur. 

"They're takin' her and you can't do nothin' to stop 'em." 

Concentration was a juggernaut. The hardest part was starting it. 

"They're takin' her and they'll hurt her." 

It was not difficult to speak the words. It was not difficult to keep 
the cut open and harsh. But it drained him. He would have to stop 
soon. 

"You ain't never goin' t' see her again." 

Still, for now, it was enough to keep the man beside him within one 
moment. It was enough to keep the man quiet until they reached their 
destination. Then he could rest. The cadence of his voice never 
slowed, but his eyes scanned the highway, searching. 

He knew the path, and he would know the road he needed to take when he 
saw it. 

-------- 

********* 

Chapter 8 

St. Catherine's Chapel of Hope Recovery Clinic 
3:30 pm 

Scully weaved her way through the explosion of black-and-whites 
littering the St. Catherine's parking lot. Each step she took to avoid 
a haphazardly parked patrol car fueled her anger and frustration. Why 
the hell couldn't they park in a normal space? Not like they had to 
hurry to get here. They were too late; her partner was already 
missing, and probably miles away by now, in the hands of a sadistic 
madman. 

She caught her breath and stilled a surge of panic. 

She felt like she needed to be moving. She didn't want to stay in this 
place. Despite all the information she had given detectives and 
officers, despite all the background she had read on Warren Francis 
Raye, she felt trapped and useless here. They had searched the grounds 
intensely; Mulder was not here. He could be getting farther away with 
every minute. 

Another wave of adrenaline and anguish swept through her, and she 
forced herself to think of something else. Her shin caught on the 
bumper of a patrol car, and she let out a small curse that sounded 
more like a cry. 

She had answered all of their questions. She had reacted calmly in the 
crisis. She had even managed to save officer Williams' life. He was 
probably in surgery right now, would most likely have a full recovery. 
She recounted the past hour and all she saw was herself, offering 
information, answering endless third degrees. 

She fixed her gaze to the ambulance parked in front of her. Now, she 
wanted answers. 

Detective Torrence sat on a green bench beside the ambulance, 
flinching as the EMT tried to clean her ear. Suddenly, Sam jerked her 
arm forward, jarring the medical technician and sending an 
antiseptic-soaked cotton ball flying through the air. It landed at 
Scully's feet. 

"Christ! What the hell are you using, liquid fire?" the detective 
hissed. 

"Ma'am, you insisted this be treated on site," the technician started, 
but he trailed off when he realized Torrence was no longer paying any 
attention to him. As she took notice of Scully, Torrence stiffened, 
the pain in her ear apparently forgotten. 

"Agent Scully," she said, and was silent. At least she wasn't trying 
to find words. Scully met the other woman's eyes with a cold glare, 
and for the briefest moment, she was glad to see the detective squirm 
beneath her scrutiny. 

"I want to know what happened," Scully said calmly. "I talked with 
James and Reynolds, and I want to hear it from you." 

She watched emotions play across the other woman's face -- fear, 
sorrow, even anger -- but the display ended quickly as the detective 
resumed control over her psyche. 

"I'll tell you what happened," she said quickly. "Your partner went 
nuts and shot me in the head . . ." 

"Don't even try that this time, detective," Scully spat, interrupting. 
"I don't have time for games. You made your decision -- you told me 
the truth. You're not getting out of it." 

The EMT cleared his throat, muttered something about finding a 
suturing kit, and quickly retreated to the back of the ambulance. Sam 
simply put a hand to her forehead, rubbing her eyes. She sighed 
heavily, struggling to speak. For over a minute, there was silence. 

"It wasn't supposed to happen this way," were the words that finally 
came out. "If I knew he was going to take my place, I never would've 
called you out here." 

Scully was prepared for antagonism. She was prepared for 
confrontation. But for all her preparation, she wasn't ready for an 
admission of guilt. She wanted to be angry at the detective, and 
suddenly, she found herself thinking about her partner. That 
confession was something she expected to hear from Mulder, who took on 
the world and blamed himself when the world won. 

Well, she certainly had experience dealing with the aftermath of that 
battle. 

The EMT returned with a small metal box. But upon seeing both women 
still together, he stopped in his tracks. Scully stepped forward and 
reached for the case. 

"I'll take care of that," she said. Before the technician could 
protest, she added, "I'm a medical doctor. I'm perfectly capable of 
stitching up a simple laceration and I know you don't want to be here. 
Go get yourself a doughnut and take a break." 

He stared for a moment, and then, realizing he had been offered an 
escape, promptly took off. 

Scully returned with the suturing kit and sat beside detective 
Torrence. "Alright," she said quickly, opening the case with a snap. 
She took out a bottle of local anesthetic and a cotton swab. "You 
talk, I sew." 

Sam groaned. "You don't have to resort to torture." 

"That's why they invented novacaine," Scully answered, swabbing the 
detective's bloodied temple. "Talk, and it'll keep your mind off the 
pain. Tell me what happened." 

Scully picked up a needle and suture, and Sam began to talk. 

"I called you two onto this case because I thought you could save me," 
she said, and then gave a wince as the needle went in for the first 
time. "I should have known better." The detective kept her voice low, 
trying not to move the rest of her head as she spoke. 

Scully fastened the suture. Sam sucked air through her teeth when she 
felt the small tug, but she continued. 

"I hadn't heard from Fisherman in years," she continued. "I got him 
out of Byberry fifteen years ago and sent him up to Norristown, and 
they drugged him enough so I didn't have to listen to him." Despite 
the harsh words, Scully could hear the hint of a softer emotion behind 
them. Samantha Torrence was not proud of her past. 

A second stitch went in, and Sam stopped long enough to clench her 
fist. Then, she added, "I suppose Mulder told you I grew up near the 
hospital. Byberry." 

Scully nodded, giving a small "Mmm-hmm". Suddenly, her stomach 
flipped. She remembered reading about the atrocities that had occurred 
in that place. And Fisher was there the whole time. 

The needle went in a bit too deep, and Sam gave a small yelp. 

"Sorry," Scully said quickly. She righted the needle and went about 
fastening the last suture. The other woman didn't acknowledge the 
apology. 

"In every way that matters, I grew up in that hospital," Sam hissed. 
"I know what went on. I witnessed it. I felt it -- starvation, 
beatings, rape -- all from him." She shifted position and gingerly ran 
a finger over the three stitches above her ear, wincing as she did so. 
"And I dealt with it on top of -- " she hesitated; Scully watched her 
fist clench at her side. "Of everything else," she finally said. 

Sam was obviously holding something back. Scully could have pressed 
the issue, but she didn't. Instead, she just let the woman continue. 
When Sam spoke again, her words had a forced sense of normalcy. 

"So it's no wonder I didn't feel like listening to him anymore. As 
soon as I was on my own, I put aside enough money to keep him away." 

"And it worked fine, until when?" Scully asked. "When did you start 
hearing him again?" 

Sam sighed. "When he started tuning in to Warren Raye. Right after the 
Lock Haven murder, I started having dreams again." She paused, and 
finally looked Scully in the eye. 

"I can't see the future. I don't know what's going to happen next. But 
Fisherman does." At Scully's skeptical look, Sam bristled. "He saw 
this, happening here. He saw Mulder in danger -- Mulder with . . . 
cuts," she hesitated on the word. "Your partner has a dark past, the 
kind that leaves scars. And one of those scars is a child. His sister. 
Her name was Samantha." 

For a full minute, Scully said nothing. There was no betrayal in the 
other woman's eyes. But it was easy to listen to someone talk about 
vague psychic links and precognition. It was another thing entirely to 
hear it applied to her partner. 

"You could have read about that in a file," she started. 

"Bullshit," Torrence said. "You wanted the truth and I'm telling you 
the truth. Your partner relived his worst nightmare inside that 
building. He watched his sister being . . . abducted. . . right in 
front of him. That's what happened before, isn't it?" 

Scully nodded mutely, feeling her heart drop to her stomach. Is that 
what he went through? Is that what he was going through now? She 
closed her eyes, and the urgency she had suppressed threatened to take 
her again. 

"How do you know?" she asked quietly. 

"I know because Fisherman knows. He knows that sort of thing. And so 
does Warren Raye. Not only that, but he can turn it on again. He can 
make you relive your past. All the scars, all the cuts that you think 
are healed . . . he can open them all up again." 

The evidence was there. Reynolds couldn't remember anything that 
happened in the building. Instead, his remembered a patrol from five 
years back, when he had shot a kid who pointed a water pistol at him. 

But if Sam knew about the danger . . . ? Scully changed the track. 
"Why didn't you do anything about it? If Fisherman could see what's 
going to happen, why didn't you try to stop it?" 

"You think I didn't?" Sam asked, her voice gaining intensity. She 
stood up, pacing, venting her frustration through movement. "I did! I 
told you, fate doesn't work that way! Fisherman sees snatches of the 
future, he sees images and impressions. He saw blood and a road sign 
for Jane Doe number three. He heard grass, whispering! What the hell 
am I supposed to do with that? She was already dead by the time he 
woke up. And anything I do try and change . . ." 

The detective stopped pacing and sat down heavily. "Your partner's 
blood is on my hands," she said softly, "just like everyone else's. It 
started out as me. I kept seeing myself with all these cuts. I was the 
one Raye took. I thought you two might be able to save me from him." 
She gave a defeated sigh. "But not like this." 

Scully started to answer, but at that moment, Torrence's radio 
crackled to life. She gave a curt greeting, chasing all the emotion 
from her voice. 

"Go on -- what'cha got?" she asked. 

"We put out an APB on the blue Ford belonging to Warren Francis Raye," 
came the reply. "The vehicle was recovered -- an '87 powder blue 
Pinto, at Raye's residence." 

"And he's not there?" 

"No ma'am. The premises were searched thoroughly." 

"Damn. Does he have any other registered vehicles?" 

"No ma'am. The Pinto wasn't registered either. No registration, no 
insurance, and Raye doesn't even have a driver's license. Should we 
focus the search in the vicinity of the car?" 

Sam took a deep breath. "Do a sweep of the neighborhood just to be 
sure. Meanwhile, see if you can dig up anything on the possibility of 
a second vehicle. Something tells me he's still traveling." She worked 
through the details with the other officer, then cut the connection. 

"He's not in the neighborhood, is he?" Scully asked. 

"No," Sam said tiredly. "That's one thing that doesn't change." 

Realization hit Scully in a physical wave. "And now, we don't even 
know what we're looking for." 

They stood in silence, each searching the other's eyes for signs of 
hope. Then, with slow resignation, Torrence offered a solution. 

"Fisherman knows." 

Finally, Scully had somewhere to go. 

-------- 

4:10 pm 

The light was gone, and Fox could see himself curled into a ball in 
the middle of the living room floor. He hovered above his body, and 
yet he could still feel the floor. He could still sense the cold 
November air rushing through the open window and over his frame. The 
useless gun lay just beyond his fingertips. 

He wasn't moving. For a minute, he thought he was dead. 

And Sam was gone. He didn't know how he knew this, but he could feel 
her absence. The newness of it was suffocating. He had no hope; 
somehow he already knew he would not see her again for years. Maybe 
never. He tried to cry, but no sound came out of his mouth. Instead, 
the air around him groaned. 

Why couldn't he save her? 

Sensation was confusing. His eyes were closed, so why could he see 
himself? He tried to bring his arms around to hug his knees, but the 
apparition on the floor did not move. He tried to move again, and 
there was pain all around him, screaming at him from a place he 
couldn't find. 

Something was wrong. He was hurting and he couldn't say why. Sam was 
gone, but this loss was suddenly a familiar pain, a dull ache he had 
lived with for years. 

Then, he finally realized he was dreaming. 

The image melted into darkness, and the pain coalesced into stabs from 
his shoulder blades, and burning wrists. The feel of the living room 
floor was now a cold, hard cylinder against his spine. He was sitting 
on what felt like concrete. He tried to open his eyes and found he 
could not. Only then did he recognize the throbbing pressure around 
his head as a blindfold, wrapped so tightly that his eyes were 
inventing shapes and smears of vision behind closed lids. His temples 
ached. 

Memory returned just before the panic set in. Mulder remembered the 
clinic. He remembered the gunshots and chasing Warren Francis Raye 
into the far building. And then . . . 

Sam! they're taking Sam! The light surrounded him, brought tears to 
his eyes even as his heart kicked frantically in his chest. His sister 
wailed and the house shook. they'retakingher stop it stop it no . . . 

"Oh god," the words came out in a gasp, before he could even think of 
stopping them. "Samantha." He tried to retreat from the memory, but it 
gripped him and pulled him forward in a whirlwind. 

He fought. Focus on now, focus on the smell of this place, focus on 
the pain, the sounds. His voice was small and hoarse, and it had to 
compete with rapid, shallow breaths, but he forced himself to speak. 

"Okay. . . okay . . ." he repeated the litany over and over. The words 
meant nothing; the sound only served to anchor him. Slowly, the vivid 
memory faded. Samantha's cries fell silent, and he was left, exhausted 
and alone, in this new place. 

Exactly where he was, he had no idea. He shifted position, trying to 
reach for the blindfold and take it off, but this move made his wrists 
burn even more, and caused spasms in his shoulders. So instead, he 
leaned his head back and felt it connect with the cylinder. Pipe. Some 
sort of large plumbing pipe. It was dry; either it was a heating pipe 
or it was a water pipe out of use. His hands were drawn behind his 
back, around the pipe, and secured. He stretched his fingers forward, 
but felt nothing. He tested the bonds and the burn increased. It felt 
like something was slicing in to the skin on his wrists. Wire. Some 
kind of wire. 

Suddenly, he thought of cuts, and of the deep angry gashes on the 
wrists of the Malvern victim. He stilled his hands, not wanting to 
cause any more damage. As it was, he couldn't tell if he was bleeding 
or not. 

He needed to see. Rationalism told him sight would be of little help 
if he could not move. Psychological training told him this was a fear 
tactic -- a way for an abductor to stay in complete control. Knowing 
what it was didn't help. He brought his knees up, tried to lean 
forward to work the cloth from his face, and was stopped by a choking, 
sharp presence on his neck. More wire. Leaning forward any more than 
he was doing right now would most certainly cause a gash in his 
throat. Straining in any way would open his veins, and leech the life 
out of him. 

It wasn't worth it. He stilled the panic of sightlessness and instead 
focused on hearing and smell. He didn't trust himself to speak yet. 
The echo of his breath told him the room was not very large. A 
basement, maybe, if it had pipes. It smelled like a basement too; an 
old, musty scent, but tinged with something sharper, something he 
couldn't place. He listened, trying to decipher movement or breath, 
but he heard no sign of his captor. 

Mulder needed to know what he was up against. He was at Warren Raye's 
mercy; his only advantage was knowing how Raye would act and how to 
react. He forced himself to stay calm, to think of anything that would 
help him understand, and his memory offered Fisherman's words from the 
day before. Fisherman already knew the demons lurking in this killer's 
past. Fisherman had all the insight that Mulder needed. What had the 
man said? 

"It was dark, dark and he couldn't move." 

But the moment Mulder focused on those words, they became more. They 
expanded from a simple conversation to pictures and sensations in his 
mind, a frighteningly familiar scene that swamped his thoughts, 
overpowering logic with fear and helplessness. 

His eyes hurt, and the suffocating silence made him want to scream. 
His wrists throbbed and he could feel warm wetness on his fingers, 
punishment for struggling. He could not even remember what he had done 
this time. Time was long lost to him, and all he wanted to do was 
escape . . . 

The vivid scene faded, leaving Mulder shaken and dizzy behind the 
blindfold. That was no profiler's reasoning; it was a full-blown 
memory. And it was Warren Raye's. 

Before Mulder could control his thoughts, they rested again on 
Fisherman's words. 

"Always dark, and then all he could see were the cuts . . . " 

The ground scrolled beneath him at a nauseating pace as the man 
dragged him forward. he couldn't see anything around him except for 
gray, ugly shapes. The wind picked up, stinging his face, and the tall 
grass whispered. The man twisted his arm, forced him down in the 
grass, and he was staring up into a desolate blackness, except for one 
pale glow. The knife beckoned to him, glinting in the moonlight, the 
man spoke, and he felt the sting across his wrists . . . 

In his own world, Mulder cried out, unable to separate this phantom 
pain from the dull burn of his own arms. At the same time, the air 
around him shifted, and he heard a rustle of cloth. The scene faded, 
leaving only a hint of words from the man in the vision. 

"We leave," he hissed, "and we leave together." 

A soft creak chased the vision away completely, and then Mulder heard 
footsteps on the concrete. 

-------- 

Norristown State Hospital 
8th floor ward 
Isolation room 2 

When the woman came in to check him, Fisherman pulled. 

"I need to get out of here." His speech was slurred. The door behind 
her was open. There was a man on a folding chair, in blue and gray, 
right outside the door. 

"I have to escape." 

"Don't we all," the woman answered tiredly. Her hands were swift and 
hard as she checked the straps. 

He pulled again, one line among the masses. "Now. I need to go." She 
had to hear him. She had to help. 

But she just grew angry. "Listen up," she hissed, "I don't need to 
hear this shit from you so you can --" 

There was a jolt and the bed shook. The woman's eyes widened in 
surprise and she fell forward, limp. Behind her stood the man in gray. 
He held the folding chair in two hands, but he quickly set it down on 
the floor. He heaved the woman off the bed and lay her beside the 
chair. 

"Let me get those for you," he said evenly, pointing at the wrist 
straps. 

-------- 

Chapter 9 

******** 

Route 476 
4:20 pm 

Sam sat in the passenger seat, listening to another report from one of 
the patrolmen in the area of Raye's apartment. They'd found a neighbor 
who had sold Raye the Pinto for five-hundred in cash, under the table. 
But Raye had come to town in a much older car. The neighbor didn't 
know make or model; she just described it as "1960's- ish" and black. 
It was not at the residence. Despite an APB, there had been no sign of 
the car, and they were back at square one. 

Sam hung up, but continued to stare at the phone. That left them with 
Fisherman, again, if it wasn't too late. 

. . . have to get away before it's too late . . . escape and find him 
before it's . . . 

"Detective Torrence?" 

". . . too late . . . " 

"Sam? Samantha!" 

Sam opened her eyes -- when had she closed them? -- to find herself 
staring at the glove compartment of the FBI's rental Taurus. She felt 
antsy, almost panicked, but she didn't know what was wrong. There was 
something, but then it was gone before she could focus on it. She 
quickly looked to her left and met Agent Scully's worried gaze. 

"I'm sorry," she said. "Did you say something?" She recognized the 
forced tone of her words, and she was sure Scully did as well. 

"Are you okay? Your were slumping in your seat -- mumbling something. 
I called your name . . ." Scully trailed off. 

Sam didn't respond to the question. Instead, her eye caught the 
dashboard clock. Time. Not enough time. Her stomach rolled, and she 
felt dread in her bones, dread in the pull of the earth on her skin. 

"Can't we go any faster?" she asked. 

Scully didn't reply, but a moment later, Sam felt the slow pull of 
acceleration on her body. It didn't help. She thought Scully might 
leave it at that, but the agent surprised her. 

"What's going on with you? Talk to me, Torrence." 

"Don't call me that!" The words snapped out before she could stop 
them. 

"Detective!" 

"I'm sorry, I'm . . . I hate that name. God, I hate that name." 
Something was getting to her; she felt like she was on the edge of a 
cliff looking down at a massacre. 

"Yesterday when we met, you said 'Torrence' was fine." 

Something was wrong, and stuck in this car as she was, there was 
nothing Sam could do about it. It was an old familiar feeling. She 
hated it. 

"That's because I knew your partner . . . " she stopped and took a 
breath, stilled the urgent need to get away from the confines of this 
vehicle. "I knew Mulder wouldn't want to call me Sam. I knew from 
looking at him, and it was the least I could do. It's just a name, for 
Christ's sake, I should get over it. Shit, we need to get to 
Fisherman. We never should've left him." 

"Calm down, detective." 

"I never should've left him. We need to get to him now!" She couldn't 
stay out of control any more. Before she realized what she was doing, 
Sam lunged across the seat for the steering wheel. Scully yelped and 
the car swerved. The agent managed to wrestle the vehicle to a halt on 
the shoulder, and Samantha's panic swelled. 

"What are you doing!? Don't stop! You can't stop, we don't have enough 
time!" 

"Samantha! What the hell is wrong with you?" 

It took her a minute to calm down. She pushed the urgency aside, 
stilled her shaking legs and crossed her arms in front of her as 
though she were holding on to herself. And maybe she was. 
Helplessness. Fear. Despair. They tore at her, threatened to engulf 
her and send her to a place she didn't want to go. Damn him to hell, 
but she didn't ever want to go there again, no matter what could 
happen. 

When she finally answered the agent, it was through clenched teeth. 

"Not me, goddamn him, it's not me, it's Fisherman. Drive. I won't do 
that again, just get us there before it's too late." 

--------- 

When his ankles were undone, he swung his legs over the bed. There 
were sharp footsteps echoing down the hall. The man in gray blinked at 
him. 

"How . . .?" he started. 

So many lines, so little time. He had to act or it would be too late. 
He pushed the man down. The man let out a cry as he toppled over the 
woman on the floor, and the footsteps from the hallway sped up. So he 
did the only thing he could. He reached for as many lines as he could 
hold, and pulled. Then he ran for the door. 

--------- 

Steeling all of his nerve, Mulder spoke into the darkness. "Kidnapping 
a federal agent is a felony offense . . ." 

"So's killin' yer own mama," came the soft interruption, only inches 
from his face. "An' it don't matter neither." He had a rural accent -- 
Appalachia, maybe. The timbre of the voice was young, but the tone was 
old -- precise and careful. 

"You know," Mulder flinched as something brushed past his face. "You 
know that's not true, Warren." 

"Hush up, now," Raye replied in the same stifling monotone. It stood 
the hair up on the back of Mulder's neck. This was the voice of 
someone who would use a scalpel to skin a cat. As if to confirm these 
silent thoughts, the words were followed by a sharp snap that Mulder 
recognized as a pocket knife being unfolded. His heart pounded hard, 
coursing blood through his ears. 

"Warren, you don't have to do this," he started, trying to keep the 
tremor out of his voice. Despite his plea, the next thing Mulder felt 
was a hand on his forehead, pushing his head back against the pipe. 

"Now hold still." 

"Look, I can help you," Mulder cried as he felt cold steel at his ear. 
"I know who you're looking for, I . . ." 

The knife sliced upward and the agent swallowed a panicked curse. His 
head pounded as the tension around his eyes was released. Raye swept 
the severed blindfold aside, and suddenly the killer's face swam into 
blurry view. 

Mulder blinked in the dim light and saw the same dark hair, strong jaw 
and high cheekbones from the photograph he'd studied. The same 
non-expression. Raye's eyes were distant, focused on something that 
only he could see. It reminded Mulder eerily of his first interview 
with Fisherman, when Fisherman had been lost in his delusions of the 
Real. 

At least, he'd thought they were delusions at the time. Ramblings of a 
fifty-year-old mental patient. 

Now the man in front of him said nothing, just kept a hand on Mulder's 
forehead and stared at his face. At, around, and through, it seemed. 
Mulder had the distinct impression that Raye could study him like this 
for days on end. This thought made his shoulders ache, and he felt the 
killer's scrutiny in the renewed sting of wire at his wrists. 

"I know who you're looking for," he repeated. "I know where he is. If 
you let me go," he paused for the slightest second, "I'll see what I 
can arrange to get you two to meet." He could keep that promise. 

Raye didn't appear to be listening. Instead of answering, he slowly 
brought a hand to Mulder's face, up to his forehead. Then he paused, 
so close to contact that Mulder could feel the heat from the man's 
fingers. 

"Not now. Too late." 

Visual cues accented the monotone voice, and it gave Mulder a sudden 
insight. The tilt of his head, the heft of his shoulders -- it all 
screamed one word at the profiler. Sorrow. Mulder had never seen so 
much sorrow on a frame before; it seemed like the very act of 
breathing made the man ache. 

"He's movin'. Can't find 'im quick enough." 

Then Mulder felt a feather-light touch on his brow. Thoughts came to 
his mind of precise, terrible cuts, snaking cleanly across flesh. 

"One has t' bring him." The hand swept slowly across Mulder's 
forehead, one finger in contact with his skin. Something stirred in 
the agent's mind, an echo of helplessness and fury. Mulder forced it 
away. 

"One has t' reach him in time." The hand traveled down his face, 
tracing his chin. The hand hovered at Mulder's neck, and the agent 
caught the slightest change in Raye's expression. A narrowing of the 
eyes. The voice was as flat as ever. 

"This one . . ." 

The air stank of blood and gunpowder. The blood was everywhere, all 
over the mirror and the floor and the sink and all over his shirt. All 
over his father's body, which lay crumpled in his arms. Some deep 
instinct told him to cast it aside and run away, but he couldn't. He 
couldn't let go. His arms shook as he tried to force his father to 
speak to him, to move, to do anything. But the harder he tried, the 
more blood spilled out on the floor. 

His father's eyes were open. He should close them. He tried, smoothed 
trembling fingers over the lids, but they wouldn't stay closed. They 
wouldn't . . . 

He needed to get away. 

He tried to move and slipped on the tile. Red smearing on the white 
tile. It was thick, a half-inch deep and pooling more. Oh god oh god, 
he was going to crack. His vision blurred, he felt the tears come and 
they would never stop. He brought a hand up smearing red and tried to 
stop the cry that welled inside him by biting hard on the flesh at his 
knuckles but it was already red. So red, there was nowhere to go to 
escape it. Nowhere to go to escape the confines of skin and bone and 
red and empty space and he was going to crack in two. 

But there. A subtle, desperate shift, and suddenly there was a place 
to go, nowhere and everywhere at once. And he recognized it. It 
terrified him; he didn't belong there. 

He shied away, and it was gone. 

Then he felt the walls closing in on him. He tasted the blood in his 
mouth, and he clenched his hands into fists and screamed. 

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

He ran full-force into the nurse in the hallway, stilling her rapid 
footsteps. They fell to the ground, and he stood up first. Behind the 
grate in the hallway, he heard rage and shouting and screams. He had 
pulled, and the ward felt it. He turned and saw faces crushed against 
the grate. Blue faces, and the metal started to bend. He turned around 
again. 

"Freeze!" The man in gray was in front of him, pointing a gun at him. 

He pulled again, and he heard the shriek of twisting metal. He smelled 
the blood and heard the rush of bodies behind him. But the man in gray 
didn't move. 

"Stay where you are!" came over the chaos of screams. But he had to 
get out. He had to get out before it was too late and there was not 
enough time. 

"Just stay where you are!" 

"NO!" Fisherman cried, lunging for the only line he could see clearly 
and pulling with all his might. 

The man in gray stared wide-eyed at him, then aimed the gun and pulled 
the trigger. 

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

In the car, Sam put her hands over her ears and screamed. 

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

The cry echoed across a dim room. Concrete instead of tile. Dust 
instead of blood. The bathroom was gone and he was against the pipe 
again with his eyes closed. There was still a metallic taste in his 
mouth; he'd bitten his lip, but it would be another minute before he 
realized that. 

"Y'come close there." 

His eyes snapped open, and he still half-expected to see red on white 
tiles. But reality was slowly sinking in, and his eyes made sense of 
the dark walls and the dangerous, tragic man in front of him. Reality. 
He forced himself to meet those eyes. 

"Stay away from me," he warned. "Just . . . just stay away." 

"Y'don't have t' be afraid." 

Reality. He knew where Raye wanted to go. More than that, he 
remembered seeing it, when his sister was taken, when his father was 
murdered, when his life's work was destroyed and his partner dying. It 
had always been there, one last terrible, desperate refuge contained 
and reflected in the moment. That was the revelation; that was the 
need for all those cuts. 

The knife in Raye's hand was dulled by darkness at the tip, and Mulder 
recognized a sharp burn at his neck. The physical wound was 
superficial, but that didn't matter. 

"I'm not . . . I'm not the watcher," he pleaded, using Raye's own word 
for Marcus Fisher. How he knew this word, he couldn't tell, but it was 
as clear as the minds of the killers he'd profiled, as clear as the 
intuitions he'd gained from countless leaps in logic. It was catching 
a glimpse of the infinite, knowing the past and the present so well in 
his mind that there could be no other answer than the one he'd 
envisioned. 

"I'm not the watcher," Mulder repeated. The knife moved, winking in 
light and shadow. "Don't do this to me, I won't help you." 

Finally, something in Mulder's words must have reached Raye, because 
he snapped the knife closed. 

"I's waitin' for the watcher," he answered, closing his eyes. "But if 
they don't bring him, might have t' help you understand." 

Mulder let his head fall back against the pipe. At least he'd bought 
some time. Someone was going to bring Marcus Fisher here, wherever 
here was, and they had to wait. And if Fisher didn't come . . . 

He stilled the panic he felt rising in his chest, channeling it to his 
fingers as he blindly explored his bonds again. If Fisher didn't come, 
Raye was going to trap him in his own nightmares, force him mentally 
and bodily to a point where there was no escape but the one he didn't 
want to take. Raye needed him; the killer would cut him into a doorway 
and step through. 

Cut. He hated that word; it made him cringe. 

"It don't hurt no more, after awhile," Raye said. Mulder had said 
nothing aloud, but that didn't stop the killer from picking up on his 
thoughts. Raye leaned slightly to one side, and Mulder realized too 
late that he was studying the agent's hands, unconcerned with his 
search for freedom. 

"It don't matter," Raye continued. "Nothin' here 'cept a place to get 
away from. And soon." 

--------- 

Norristown State Hospital 
8th floor ward 
5:36 pm 

It was like something out of a horror movie. But cinema was only sight 
and sound. Here, there was the smell and feel of it as well. For five 
minutes, Dana Scully stood in the midst of the carnage on the eigth 
floor hallway, absorbing the scene around her and trying to slip it 
past her psyche and let her logic take over. 

Seven. She counted seven bodies. Four still hung against the wall 
where they had been crushed -- their hair, fingers and clothes twisted 
into the mesh grating. Two had made it past the gate as it was 
wrenched off its hinges, only to be trampled -- or attacked, or both 
-- by the rest that had come afterward. 

And there was the cop at the end of the hall who had been shot in the 
head. That made seven. 

She walked forward, starting with the police officer. She bent down to 
examine the body. The man's gun was gone, but Scully noted the powder 
burns on his hands. Two traumatized nurses had testified to the fact 
that only one bullet had been fired. Scully examined the splatter 
pattern and came to the obvious conclusion that the man had shot 
himself. Which made no sense whatsoever. 

"Mul--" she started, then swallowed the word before she could say it. 
Of course her partner wasn't here. She bit the inside of her lip and 
let out a breath through her nose. She stood up, noting the CSU team 
and the smattering of gray-and-blue-clad patrolmen. She would not lose 
it in front of them. She'd seen worse than this. 

She steeled her nerves, and in the next thirty minutes examined each 
of the bodies in turn. But there was nothing to see except mute 
testimony to the animalistic brutality that had taken place in the 
ward. Until that afternoon, twenty-three patients had been housed 
behind the grate. Now six were dead, nine were in the infirmary, and 
seven were downstairs in isolation receiving stout doses of diazepam. 

And one was missing. Scully walked briskly toward the exit, careful to 
step around the sprawled body of the officer, and left the eigth floor 
hallway to the crime lab. When she exited the elevator at the lobby, 
she immediately sought out detective Torrence within the throng of law 
enforcement. But Sam was in a remote corner, cloistered in a 
semi-circle of warmly-upholstered chairs. She leaned forward in her 
seat, staring down at the open notebook in her hand. If she noticed 
Scully's approach, she didn't acknowledge it. 

"He's not on eight," the agent said quietly, taking a seat next to the 
detective. She ventured a glance at the notebook; the page was blank. 

Sam let out a shaky sigh and wiped a sheen of sweat from her dark 
forehead. Scully silently categorized the woman's symptoms as shock. 
The best thing for her to do would be to lie down, elevate her feet, 
and try to drink some fluids. 

"He killed a cop," the detective said, gently closing the notebook. 
Then she raised a hand, gesturing vaguely at the police presence in 
the hospital. "They'll be out for blood." 

"The officer shot himself." 

"Call it what you want." Sam's voice was flat and defeated. "It's too 
late -- Fisherman decided to leave, and he started the riot and killed 
the guard when he tried to stop him." 

"How!?" Scully snapped. She stood up quickly, her frustration getting 
the better of her. "Brain tumors, hypnosis, subliminal suggestion, 
we've -- I've seen it all. So tell me, how did he do it?" 

Sam stared at her hands. "He did it by knowing," she answered. 
"Knowing everything in the moment and everything leading up to it. 
There was nothing else he could do." 

In the following silence, Scully fought back an urge to pick up the 
chairs and throw them across the room. Instead, she channeled the 
energy and intensity into words.

"Damn it, I'm sick of vague visions and psychic dreams, detective, and 
I won't let you sit here and brood about fate when my partner's life 
is at stake!" 

Finally, the detective stirred. She tightened her grip on the 
notebook, her knuckles going pale yellow-white against the spiral 
binding. When she looked up, Scully saw age and sorrow behind her 
eyes, but her words were like a child's, fearful and vulnerable. 

"Have you ever been in a place, Agent Scully, where there was nowhere 
left to go?" 

----------- 

Chapter 10 

**********

. . . ya killed her an' ya ain't worth her spit . . . 

The visions were getting stronger. Whatever path had opened for Raye 
to reach the cuts he saw, it was working both ways. Mulder knew this 
man better than any profiler could. He knew Raye's thoughts where 
before he had only had insights. He saw Raye's memories where before 
he had only made logical assumptions. 

No, not the cellar! Please! 

To keep himself grounded, he catalogued each thought and mentally 
updated the profile he'd started the day before. He grew up rural, but 
not Appalachia -- it was the Catskills. Leave out the dogs under the 
porch, but keep the car -- a '59 Chevy bought at auction for a hundred 
bucks. The mother died in childbirth, and the father never forgave him 
for it. Childhood was one hell after another; there was nowhere to go. 
And one night the man -- he could never call him Pa -- the man took 
him from the basement, tore off the blindfold and led him into the 
field under the full moon. They'd call it madness, but he knew better; 
it was freedom. He saw the knife glint and felt the sting . . . 

. . . soon, they have to come soon and we can reach it again, and I'll 
be free . . . 

After that, there was nothing except cuts. All those cuts -- he 
couldn't take much more of them. Shaking hands picked at the bindings 
on his wrists again. He could tell it was making his wrists bleed, but 
he didn't care. Finally, he had a good grip on the end of the wire; he 
could feel the twist of it beneath his fingers. 

---------- 

Norristown State Hospital 
Lobby 
6:22 pm 

"I don't understand," the agent said. 

It had come to this. She had convinced herself there was nothing left 
to do, that it was too late to stop anything. And so she had thought 
rational thoughts and acted rational acts. But the only thing that 
would save Mulder was the Real. There was no hiding from it anymore. 
Sam closed her eyes. She didn't want to think about it. She couldn't 
go back there again. 

Scully let out a breath, and Sam opened her eyes. The lobby was still 
here, still crawling with cops and detectives and witnesses. But none 
of it mattered. The feeling was both a crush and a release, welcoming 
and terrifying. 

She tried to say the words, but they wouldn't come out. "Every night," 
she managed. "I was in that place every night." The feel of his hot 
breath on her face. The empty glow of the bedside clock. "It was how I 
found Fisherman, because I was like him. My father . . . " 

You don't tell anyone, hear? 

It didn't matter. None of it. "He'd hit me during the day and rape me 
at night," she said flatly. "There was nothing I could do. There was 
no way out of it, no way in the world. And on those nights, I would 
just . . . retreat." 

Those nights, she would fall away, because there was nothing she 
wanted. Time, space, life, death -- she accepted none of it. After a 
time, she had seen something else; there was one way left to go, and 
it was the limit of all things. Past, present and future. Everything 
and more. Nothing and less. She had found Fisherman there, dancing 
along the edge, and they had never really seperated. But she had 
tried. God, how she had tried. 

He was still there. She knew it. 

And Samantha Torrence let herself go. There was nothing else to do. In 
the space of a breath, she let the world forget about her. She saw the 
rush of everything at once, the infinite of the moment. She blinked, 
and it was gone again. But it had put things in focus. 

"You're talking about clinical detachment," Scully said quietly. 
"There's nothing supernatural about it." 

It was all coming together. She spoke slowly, her words urging the 
focal point. 

"I'm talking about Fisherman's Reality. I'm talking about Warren 
Raye's obsession with cuts, and how I can tell what a person is 
thinking and how your partner can know the mind of a killer. Don't you 
see? Mulder and I . . . we would be like them, like Fisherman and 
Raye, if we had made other choices." 

But she hadn't chosen escape. Instead, she had chosen to stay here, 
give life and death a second chance. 

Life and death. Mulder's life. The last piece clicked in to place, and 
she felt calm. She had beaten the cuts. Whatever happened, her father 
would never be able to reach her. 

"I know where Fisherman is," she said simply. "We have to hurry." 

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

Detective Frank Dierker watched Scully and Torrence leave and shook 
his head. Women cops -- he'd never understand it. It's not like he was 
sexist, but they couldn't handle the gore, and God knows what they 
would do in a clutch situation. He sure as hell wouldn't want one as a 
partner. 

His empty stomach rumbled, reminding him none-too-subtly of his own 
reaction to the scene upstairs. So he'd puked, big deal. That was 
different. At least he didn't walk off the scene of the crime without 
so much as a 'by-your-leave.' Damn women cops. Damn women Feds. 

He was still brooding ten minutes later, when his radio crackled to 
life. 

"This is Norristown Dispatch. We have confirmation of an armed suspect 
sighted at the R6 Norristown Transit Center. Suspect matches the 
description of Marcus Fisher. Repeat, suspect Marcus Fisher sighted at 
the R6 regional rail station, Lafayette and Swedes streets. All 
available units are alerted to proceed with caution." 

----------- 

Norristown Transit Center 
728 Lafeyette Street 
Norristown, Pa 
6:41 pm 

It was the tail end of rush hour, but the rail station was quiet. 
Activity flowed with the trains, with the smartly-dressed commuters 
heading home from Center City who debarked, hurried to their cars and 
drove toward the suburbs and better sections of town. 

Scully checked the schedule on the wall. The next train was due at 
quarter of seven. As they headed for the platform, Scully heard the 
sound of sirens in the distance.

Outside, the sirens were more defined, and the sound was getting 
closer. Beside her, detective Torrence furrowed her brow and pointed 
to a set of stairs leading to the underpass. 

"There," she said. Her voice was slow and deliberate. "He's down 
there." 

They approached cautiously. Sam called out, "Fisherman!", and it 
echoed into the tunnel below. There was a flash of light at the corner 
of her eye, and Scully turned around to see the train approaching. It 
made no sound above the wail of the sirens. 

There was no answer from the underpass. The sirens quieted, and for a 
few seconds the air was still as the train neared. Then, a meek voice 
echoed up from the stairwell. 

"Sammy?" 

Samantha gave a sad smile. "Yeah, it's me." 

Scully saw the man then, a dirty, grizzled apparition at the foot of 
the stairs. He was dressed in blue hospital scrubs, and he held a gun 
clumsily in his hand. The detective walked down the steps to meet him, 
her footsteps echoing along the walls. Smooth brown hands reached for 
pale white skin, and Fisherman accepted them tenderly, running a 
finger over the back of Sam's hand to her wrist. 

"Sammy, I need to get to him. I can't stay here." 

"I know," she answered, and there were a hundred meanings behind the 
words. 

"I had to go. He was coming, but he's in the past." 

She paused. "The past?" she echoed intently. 

Fisherman started speaking quickly. "Tracks in the field to the creek, 
Sammy, and he's going into the past . . ." 

The train clacked into the station, pushing the air in front of it, 
and Scully finally took a step down. "Detective . . ." 

"Freeze!" This from the other end of the underpass. Scully jumped. 
Fisherman whirled around, raising the gun, pushing the detective 
aside, and Sam let out a cry. 

"No!" She lunged in front of the older man. 

Scully didn't hear the shot. Behind her, the train stopped with an 
ear-splitting hiss of hydraulic brakes, but to her it seemed as though 
Sam fell in silence. 

----------- 

"She found him in time," Raye said. The man smiled. Mulder could see 
only the glint of his teeth, and in the darkness it looked like a cut. 
He suppressed a shiver and fought against the thoughts that threatened 
to overwhelm him. He was thankful for the dark; it cast everything in 
silhouette and masked his movement. His arms aching, he finally freed 
his hands and felt for the twist of wire around his neck. 

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

She felt the jolt, but there was no pain. She fell backward onto the 
steps. Voices came to her ears, small and disjointed. 

"She jumped in front of it!" 

"Officer down!" 

"Holy shit, you shot her!" 

"Shot her my ass, she jumped!" 

"Officer down, shut the hell up and call an ambulance!" 

There was a hand on her forehead, and he was there. 

Sammy, it's not too late -- you and I can reach it, the two of us 
together . . . 

All those nights, and he had always been there. He had always 
understood. And there was a time when she might have been able to save 
him from his obsession, but no longer. 

" . . . 'm sorry . . ." She had always run away. 

There's still time, he said. 

She tried to raise her hand. She felt him take it in his own. 

Fisherman, I'm sorry, she said. For everything. 

He understood; she could feel it in his fingertips. And he forgave 
her. She was his last refuge in the world, she had betrayed him and 
driven him further into madness, and he forgave her. 

Come with me, he said. 

". . . n-no . . ." she choked out. She had made her choice. " . . . f 
-- " 

Find him, she finished. Hurry. The past. 

"Hang in there, detective!" Scully's voice. The past. If Fisherman 
didn't go there, Mulder would die. 

"Past . . . S-- cully . . . t-take him . . . save M--m . . . " 

It was all she could say. 

"Don't talk, Samantha," Scully answered. "Help is on the way." 

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

"Find him!" Fisherman cried, then was swept from the redhead's side by 
the patrolmen in the underpass. He looked down the tunnel and saw the 
med-techs coming for Sammy. Someone shoved his hands roughly behind 
him and cuffed them. 

He had to find the other. Sammy had told him to hurry. Tracks in the 
field down to the creek. He shuddered. He would find the other in the 
past. The living past. He retreated again, caught the faintest glimpse 
of escape, and as the techs reached Sammy, he saw the line he needed. 

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

"Now the other has t' bring him," Raye said slowly. He turned his head 
away, and Mulder struck. 

He smashed a fist into Raye's temple and watched the man fall. Then, 
dizzy, he turned and fled toward the door with reeling steps. He had 
to get away from here. He couldn't take the cuts anymore. His shoes 
slapped loudly on the concrete floor, and he practically fell into the 
door. Bloody hands slipped around the knob, finally wrenched the door 
open. 

He ran from the room into an empty hallway of concrete walls and 
yellow linoleum tiles. For a moment, he stopped in confusion. He had 
thought he was being held in the basement of an isolated house, but 
the long passage in front of him was no house. 

He felt slick blood at his palms and looked down to see that he was 
absently rubbing his wrists. 

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

"I need to find him," Fisherman said quietly, and Scully looked up 
from the fallen detective. 

Find him. The EMTs reached Sam's side and Scully tried to update them 
on the woman's condition, but she couldn't think of anything except 
those words. She had to find Mulder. She had to find him soon. A hand 
gently led her aside to give the technicians room. She looked down the 
tunnel, met Fisherman's eyes, and everything came together. 

Later, she would remember that it made perfect sense at the time. She 
left Samantha Torrence without a backward glance. As she approached 
the two patrolmen who held Fisherman between them, she had to resist 
the urge to raise her gun. Instead, she took Fisherman's arm. One of 
the uniformed officers at his side gave her a questioning look. 

"Agent Scully?" 

The urgency was almost too much to bear. Mulder and Raye were in the 
past. She had to take Fisherman there. 

"I'm going to have a talk with our suspect," she forced out. 

The past. Fisherman's past. Torrence's past. She heard Mulder's words 
in her head. 

"She grew up on Byberry road, by Poquessing Creek . . ." 

She led Fisherman away from the patrolmen, through the underpass, 
toward the Taurus in the parking lot. She stopped at the end of the 
tunnel and addressed the cops again. It wasn't a lie, not really. 

"Then we're going back to the hospital." 

----------- 

Chapter 11 
********** 

Byberry hospital grounds 
Building 15 (abandoned) 
Philadelphia, Pa 
6:52 pm 

His wrists were bleeding freely, and Mulder hugged his arms in front 
of his chest as he ran in an effort to stanch the flow. It was all he 
could do; after the initial shock of seeing the empty corridor, he had 
set his feet moving and he couldn't make himself stop. He found a set 
of stairs and moved up one floor. By then, there was no mistaking 
where he was. 

The hospital had been deserted for fifteen years, but under the 
graffiti and grime, he could still see the white-on-white of isolation 
doors built to blend in with the walls. What ceiling tiles were left 
were a mottled mix of brown and white from water damage above. Some 
had bowed too far and fallen, adding to the debris on the floor. But 
the doors -- they lined the corridor in front of him, stark hinges and 
handles standing out from the wall and bleak cross-hatched glass 
windows sunken in. The observation windows were all intact, blank and 
staring at him like dead eyes. 

There was a single metal chair at the end of the corridor, silhouetted 
by the low ambient light behind it. For some reason, the sight of it 
set so haphazardly in the hallway made Mulder dizzy. His foot came 
down wrong, and he crashed to the floor with a cry that stole away 
from him in hollow echoes. 

He lay there in the hallway for too long, listening to the pull of 
desperation and helplessness. But when he came to himself again, he 
scrambled to his feet, shying away from the walls. He couldn't stay 
here. He had to get away. It was the cuts; Raye had brought them all 
to the surface again. He could feel the sting of restraints at his 
wrists and the inexorable, terrifying helplessness of drugs invading 
his body. He could feel panic clawing at him and there was no way to 
stop it. And deeper, he could hear the echo of his sister's cries in 
the darkness. He reached the end of the corridor, but the bleak 
hallway stretching off in either direction gave him no hint of an 
exit. No windows, no gleam of light from outdoors. A voice cried out 
inside him, and tried to ignore it. No escape. There was no way out. 

But there. There was always a way out, all he had to do was look into 
it . . . 

No. Not that, anything but that. He pushed the voice aside, but with 
every cut, he could feel himself slipping farther away. Blindly, he 
chose a direction and continued on, listening only to the frantic 
pounding of his own footsteps on the tile. 

--------- 

He awoke to throbbing behind his eyes and the knowledge that the 
watcher was coming. They would come together here or nowhere, soon or 
never. 

He slowly brought himself to his hands and knees, his vision swimming 
in and out of focus. When sight returned, he found himself staring 
down at his wrists. He sat back, his eyes tracing the fine white scars 
left on his skin. So delicate. So perfect. The pain behind them was 
hollow, a dull ache that he felt in every breath and every moment in 
the world. But there. There was always a way out, all he had to do was 
look into it . . . 

No. Not that, anything but that . . . 

For the first time since coming into the world again, he felt fear in 
his memory. 

He couldn't see the path anymore. The visions were silent, and the 
future was shrouded behind the panic of the moment. He couldn't leave 
the pain behind, couldn't let the world fall away to glimpse the 
answers he sought. With a wordless cry, he pounded a fist into the 
floor. These were his cuts! These were the cuts that had set him free, 
this was where he had found his escape. He couldn't lose it now, not 
with the watcher on the way. 

Blindly, he reached for the knife in front of him. It was the FBI man 
-- he was closer than any had come before, but he was resisting. He 
wouldn't understand, and it was drawing them both away. 

"No, no, no," He was murmuring a continuous stream of meaningless 
words. He opened the knife with shaking hands. He had to look into it. 
He had to stop the FBI man before all was lost. If he missed the 
watcher, there was just the two of them left. He drew the knife across 
his wrist. There was nothing here, and soon there would be no way to 
come back to it. 

----------- 

Byberry Road 
Philadelphia, Pa 
7:15 pm 

Two trembling hands gripped her shoulder. 

"Hurry!" Fisherman said. 

The handcuffs dangled uselessly from his left wrist, and Scully had no 
memory of unlocking them. But that didn't matter. What mattered was 
that she drive as fast as she could, and keep her eyes open for the 
path they needed to take. Fisherman knew what it was; he muttered the 
words even now. 

"Tracks in the field, to the creek!" 

In the distance, the headlights illuminated a large wooden sign. 
Beyond the sign was a dark expanse of trees, overshadowed by the 
Center City skyline. The sign proclaimed, BENJAMIN RUSH PARK, in large 
letters, but that was the present. That was not where they were 
headed. 

They flew past the sign in a rush of wind. Fifteen years before, 
Benjamin Rush Park was part of the two and a half square miles of 
grounds at Byberry mental hospital. 

Tracks in the field. In the glare of the headlights, Scully saw two 
rows of trampled brush. Tire tracks. Scully brought the car to a 
screeching halt, then turned off of the road, following the tracks 
into the gloom. Across the field, the shadows of the ragged treeline 
shifted and coalesced into rectangular outlines, tracing the tops of 
abandoned buildings against the sky. 

----------- 

Urgency fueled his muscles; Mulder sprinted around corners and sped 
through hallways without a thought of where he was going. Had he been 
in this corridor before? He couldn't tell; it was all the same. 
Yellowing walls and baleful doors spoke of a past he didn't want to 
imagine. 

I'm not the watcher, he told himself as he ran. I'm not the watcher 
and I will not lose myself in cuts. He repeated this litany in his 
mind, pounding it out to the rhythm of his steps. He turned a final 
corridor, slammed through rusted swinging doors, and came into a large 
open space. Finally, he caught a glimpse of moonlight through 
shattered windows. And, at the other end of the room, a door. 

----------- 

At the end of the corridor, he found a staircase. He stopped long 
enough to open the other cut with a slow pull of the knife. Release 
came with the rhythm of his footsteps on the stairs; the fleeting 
exhilaration of everything contained in the moment left him gasping 
for breath and yearning for more. 

He knew that he couldn't catch up to the other man in time. He 
couldn't run fast enough to overtake the man; in a matter of seconds, 
the FBI agent would be free of the building and heading off the 
grounds. And with him would go any chance of escape. He would take the 
watcher with him if he got away. It couldn't happen. He wouldn't let 
it happen. 

But he didn't know how to stop it. 

He put a hand against the wall to steady himself, and that was when he 
felt it. At first, he wasn't sure how to look at it; it was both 
strange and familiar to him, like an echo or an imprint. But when he 
finally recognized it, he stared in awe at the concrete block beneath 
his fingertips. 

There, on the grimy wall beside him, was a shimmering cut. To his 
eyes, it was a thin line tracing its way across the cinder blocks in a 
delicate, flowing path. To his mind, it was a cry of despair from a 
person long gone. 

He looked up again, and his eyes found them everywhere. On the walls, 
on the ceiling, the floors, the doors -- the doors! They were thick 
with cuts. He could lose the pull of the world a hundred times over in 
these walls, and many had tried. The watcher had tried here, tried and 
failed and added to the misery of cuts before him. And if he could see 
these cuts, the FBI man would see them too. He would understand; there 
was no escape from here, save one. He would understand or die trying. 

This was the path. 

He laughed and raised his hands. Blood traveled down his arms in 
streams, but it didn't matter. He Concentrated, watched the cuts open 
in a wave that swept down the corridor and engulfed the building like 
an explosion. 

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

She blinked and found herself staring at her hands as they gripped the 
steering wheel. She could barely remember getting in the car, but 
suddenly she remembered driving frantically toward the city. She 
looked to her side; the passenger door was open, and in the darkness 
she heard the gentle rush of water. 

Water. Tracks in the field to the creek. With a sharp intake of 
breath, Scully lifted her head and looked around. In front of her was 
the back end of an ancient black sedan with a rusting New York state 
license plate. 

Raye's car. Mulder. She grabbed for the door handle, her eyes 
searching the area for any sign of movement. There. Away to the left, 
heading toward the towering hulk of a building nearest to them, she 
caught sight of a running figure. 

Then she remembered Fisherman. Seven had died in the wake of his 
escape, and she'd brought the man right where he wanted to go. And 
now, he was heading straight for her partner and the serial killer 
that held him hostage. 

Scully thrust open the door and gave chase, heading unerringly for the 
desolate building in front of her. 

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

It started as faint whispers at the edge of his memory. In the middle 
of the room, Mulder stopped. There was a hint of movement at the 
corner of his eye, and he whirled around. The whispers gained 
intensity and became words. 

You don't want it? . . . No, no, stay away from me! . . . motherfucker 
bit me! . . . pretty pretty, crazy girl . . . 

"No," he said quietly, trying to ground himself in words. 

The rusted doors were still swinging slowly back and forth. The hinges 
creaked, and it was the sound of a gurney with one squeaking wheel on 
the tile, the high pitched keening of the new girl at night, a rat in 
the hallway and the static discharge of an electrode into flesh . . . 
and over all of it, the voices. 

You won't eat it? . . . please, please turn on the light it won't 
happen again . . . no call the doctor I don't belong here . . . teach 
you to piss in the hallway . . . pretty little crazy girl . . . You 
don't want it, you can starve . . . 

"No, no, no . . ." He closed his eyes and wrung his hands, digging a 
thumb into the raw cut at his wrist and focusing on the physical pain. 
He couldn't look into it. This would not happen. He was not the 
watcher. He wouldn't give Raye his escape. He opened his eyes, forced 
himself to turn and run for the exit again. 

In a frantic second, he saw movement in front of him at the door. A 
desperate figure rushed headlong into the maelstrom he was trying to 
escape, but it was too late. 

The hospital came alive around him. The voices increased to a driving 
fury in his head, and he saw their faces and their ragged bodies, saw 
living death in each of their eyes. The cuts raged around him, and 
then he saw through their eyes and felt the tiles on the walls with 
their hands and cried with their voices into the darkness. 

I'm not the watcher! 

He heard the words, but they had already lost their meaning. There was 
nothing left of him; he was a thousand people on the brink of madness 
and there was no way to come back. There were only the cuts, and in 
them the subtle escape of the past, present and future in the moment, 
expanding and reforming around him. He could fall forever here -- 
there was always something more beyond his reach. 

But it was faltering. He didn't belong here, and he felt the pull of 
the rational world again, time and space and terror and all those 
cuts. He couldn't go back. But he couldn't stay here; here was 
irrational, incomprehensible . . . 

Real, came the tortured reply. Madness within madness, and another was 
here at the brink. 

Unbalanced, came the sad, soft reply. Sorrow and longing, and another 
was here at the brink. 

But two, came the answer. A fleeting glimpse of opposite directions, 
the balance of positive and negative, as the world rushed around him 
again. He would have to find his way back, but they never would. He 
felt their release in words; it was as if they uttered both a birth 
cry and a death rattle, and then more. 

Two can reach it. 

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

Scully reached the door and hesitated for the barest moment. Three 
figures stood silhouetted in the large room, like statues in the 
moonlight. She expected voices at least -- shouting or talking or 
crying, but the scene in front of her was utterly silent. For a 
moment, she could do nothing but watch. 

Then two of them moved, drawing together from opposite sides of the 
room. She tried to call out to them, but found no words. She tried to 
raise her gun, but found no strength. So she watched. They met at the 
center, under peeling paint and broken windows, amidst rotting chairs 
and rusted cabinets. 

They said no words. There was no movement for a breath. Then, with a 
noise that jolted her to action, the third figure crumpled to the 
floor. She recognized him, then, called his name in the decaying room 
as she rushed to his side. 

"Mulder!" 

When Scully looked up from her fallen partner, the other two figures 
were prostrate among the debris. But she had never heard a sound from 
them, not even the slightest rustle of cloth. 

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

Epilogue 
********** 

University of Pennsylvania Medical Center 
Philadelphia, Pa 
Two days later, 10:00 am

He had been having nightmares for almost fourteen hours; the staff 
could tell from his heart monitor and REM sleeping patterns. But 
though her partner typically wore his heart on his sleeve, this time 
he kept his dreams to himself. He gave no hint of the subject matter 
in either speech or movement. Scully sighed and stretched in the chair 
beside him. The doctor had said the dreams were a good sign. He was 
doing better than when she had brought him in, vacant-eyed, pale, and 
shivering uncontrollably from blood loss and shock. 

Her thoughts strayed to the two patients on the third floor psych 
ward. Both Warren Raye and Marcus Fisher were being held under guard, 
but it was a useless gesture. They weren't going anywhere. 

And after being admitted to the hospital two nights ago, Mulder had 
slipped quietly away from everything. He had spent the next day in a 
state that Scully refused to call catatonia. It was shock, pure and 
simple. For the tenth time, she turned the light-weight manila folder 
over in her hands. She still didn't know what to make of the contents. 

"Is that a dossier in your lap, or are you just happy to see me?" 

She looked up. Mulder met her gaze with tired eyes and his usual 
self-effacing grin. He sounded terrible, but she couldn't help 
smiling. 

"Hey," she said tenderly. "How are you feeling?" 

He let his eyes fall closed for a moment. "That's for me and Freud to 
figure out," he said. Then he put a hand out, stopping for a brief 
second to examine the stitches on his wrist, and reached for the file. 

"What'cha got?" 

"Mulder, slow down," she started. "I'll tell you everything, let's 
just get the doctor in here . . ." 

"Scully, you're a doctor. I'm fine." He tried to prop himself up and 
winced at the pain it caused in his wrists. 

She hesitated. Physically, he did seem allright. The stitches couldn't 
be helped, but his color was good. Still, she knew there were some 
cuts that weren't so visible. 

He caught her stare, and for the briefest moment, his voice rose. "I'm 
fine, just . . . " he sighed. "Talk, Scully, tell me what happened, 
but just get me out of here." 

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

There. It had been so long, but there was the way out. It drew them 
both forward, and they could almost touch it. Just a little closer. 

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

Scully did her best. She didn't complain or argue with him; she just 
brought the papers he needed to sign and dealt with the beauracracy 
calmly and efficiently. Meanwhile, she gave him the manila folder, and 
she told him about Fisherman and Samantha Torrence. 

He found Samantha down the hall, cursing at a candy striper. 

"Damn it, I told them already, I'm not eating this green shit, so just 
get me some strawberry or something if you think it's so important." 

The teen-ager fled into the corridor with a bowl of lime jell-o in her 
hand. Mulder tapped on the door and found Sam propped up in bed, 
breathing heavily from the effort of her tirade. 

"How's the side, detective?" he asked, moving to a chair. She tried to 
shrug, but it didn't work and she only ended up cursing again. 

"Hurts like a bitch," she replied. There was a minute of silence, and 
then she spoke again. Mulder finally heard the fatigue in her voice. 

"Fisherman's gone," she said. "He's not coming back." Fatigue and 
something else. Relief, maybe. 

She closed her eyes. "Christ, seven people." 

"You can't blame yourself for that," he said. 

"Sure I can. I left him there. I gave him no other choice." 

For a while, he wasn't sure how to answer her. Then, "Why did you take 
this case, Samantha?" 

She looked at him, her eyes finally resting on his hands. "You don't 
have to call me that, you know." 

He sighed. "It's just a name. It was a long time ago." It seemed like 
he had forgotten everything about his sister except her name. But he 
couldn't dwell on it. Living in the past was too close to looking into 
cuts. He continued. 

"So why did you take the case? Scully says you saw Raye taking you, 
but only after you took over the investigation. You didn't have to do 
anything. It wasn't your jurisdiction." 

She thought for a minute. "I owed it to him," she finally answered. 
"To Fisherman. And after what he did . . . " Sam gave a hollow laugh. 
"After that, I was sure I was going to die, agent Mulder. My life for 
yours. Right the wrongs and live up to fate and all that -- I saw it." 

"So much for Reality," Mulder said. 

"So much for Reality. So what do I do now?" 

"Do what you've always done, Samantha. Sometimes, things just don't 
get completed. The world isn't perfect, and we all deal with it." 

"Yeah, I saw that on a bumper sticker last week," she said. But there 
was a smile in her words, and she couldn't keep it from her lips. 
"'Life's a bitch and then you die.'" 

Mulder smiled back at the detective. Sam would be okay. They both 
would. 

Scully tapped on the door, waved a piece of paper at her partner. 

"Sign it and you're sprung, Mulder." 

Fifteen minutes later, dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved tee-shirt, 
Mulder stood quietly at the observation window to room 314. It had 
taken four hours and one pulling of rank, and he was out of the 
hospital bed. But he was not out of the hospital. 

The two figures in the room were unmoving and unresponsive, and had 
been so for two days. Mulder lowered his eyes, scanned the lone 
contents of the folder again. It was a three-month-old photocopied 
newspaper article from the Watertown Post. 

Miracle Amidst Tragedy 
The fire that swept through Havilland 
assisted living community last Thurs- 
day left thirteen dead and forty-nine 
wounded, but amidst this tragedy, one 
life began anew. Warren Raye, who 
had spent twenty-two years in a coma 
resulting from injuries sustained in 
an attack from his mentally unstable 
father, finally awoke in what staff 
workers called a bona fide miracle. 

--------- 

But there was the way out. It drew them both forward, and they could 
almost touch it. Just a little closer. 

--------- 

The article went on for a few sentences, quoting some hospital staff 
workers and city officials. It wasn't important, except for the last 
few lines. 

Raye's father Francis, also at 
Havilland, was diagnosed with 
clinical depression and paranoid 
schizophrenia in 1948. He had 
been in a catatonic state since 
his attack on his son. Francis 
Raye was killed in the blaze that 
destroyed building three. 

--------- 

It drew them both forward, and they could almost touch it. Just a 
little closer. 

--------- 

Twenty-two years. Mulder suppressed a shudder, brought his eyes up 
again to the still forms beyond the window. He knew what it was like 
to chase something for that long. There would always be an emptiness 
in him because of it -- he knew the hint of something that should have 
been and was now out of reach. 

"Their heart rates have slowed, and synchronized," came the quiet 
voice beside him. He turned to see Scully staring at his shoes, her 
face hidden by a soft frame of red hair. She continued. 

"Their hair has stopped growing, and they breathe in unison only about 
once every two minutes." She gave a short laugh. "It's, well, it's not 
something you typically see with catatonia. Dr. Preston thinks their 
aging process is slowing down as well. Their cells are living for too 
long." 

They stood together for a few moments in silence. Mulder fingered the 
stitches on his wrist, then stilled his hands. 

"What -- what would make someone just give up on the world like that?" 
he finally asked. Despite everything he had been through, the question 
was still there. He couldn't understand it. 

His partner sighed. 

"They were both mentally disturbed, Mulder. Raye even had a history of 
it in his family." A pause. "But it doesn't explain everything, does 
it?" 

"Sounds like an X-file," he said, bringing his hand up to the window. 

She raised her head, brought a hand tentatively up to the glass. 

"It does," she answered. 

He became aware of the cool smoothness under his fingers from the 
window, and he had to still the urge to take her small hand in his 
own. But she felt his hesitation and looked up, tracing her finger 
down the glass. 

"Mulder, it's good to have you back," she said. 

He answered with a wry grin. 

"Scully, it's good to be back." 

--------- 

They could almost touch it. Just a little closer. 

Just a little closer. 
  Just a little closer. 
    Just a little closer . . . 

---------