This is a fiction story based on the characters created by Chris Carter. No infringement of copyrights held by 10/13 Productions, Twentieth Century Productions, or Fox Broadcasting is intended. All unrecognised characters and plot-lines belong to me. Names, characters, and places exist solely within my imagination, or are used fictitiously. No connection to any person, living or dead, is intended, and any resemblance is entirely coincidental. Feel free to distribute, but please keep me as the author. I've borrowed a part of Mulder's hypno-regression session from the series one episode, "Conduit". I apologise if the quote isn't entirely correct, - I was doing it from memory. Rating - PG. Classification - A, (X). Summary - Mulder's world is thrown into chaos when a woman arrives at his apartment claiming she has a message from his sister, whom she saw more than twenty years previously. Minor references to an incident in "Anasazi", and plotline of "End Game. No relationship to the novel "Emma" by Jane Austen is intended. I've read "Emma", and it's a very good novel. Danielle Culverson. Emma Special Agent Fox Mulder picked up a sunflower seed from the bag on his desk, and ate it, throwing the empty shell onto the growing pile at the side of the bag. He leaned back in his swivel chair, and regarded the open case folder in front of him. He ran his right hand through his unruly brown hair, and then lowered it to his shirt collar to pull his tie a bit looser. At her desk on Mulder's left, Dana Scully looked up in slight distaste at his messy habit, and then went back to her work. - If it helped him to think... The two FBI agents worked in the stuffy basement office, amongst piles of papers, the smell of ozone from the photocopier, three filing cabinets, lots of sunflower seed husks, and many photographs of wanted criminals, crime scenes, and UFOs. The computer on the desk in front of Mulder's was on, and a tabloid obituary was showing on the screen. The door to the office was shut, despite the barely moving air. The two overhead lights were on, pushing the shadows of the small room back into the corners. The waste paper basket by the door was overflowing with bits of balled up paper. Mulder turned the page of the report in front of him, and suddenly his eyes lit up slightly. He leaned forward as he read the next few lines, and a slow smile spread across his face. Scully felt the change in the atmosphere around him, and looked over at her partner of nearly four years. "What've you found?" she asked. "What everyone else missed." Mulder replied cryptically. This was his specialty, - applying stereotypical profiles to real cases, and finding links in things which other people had missed. The talent which, along with his belief in the paranormal, had earned him the nickname "Spooky" in the FBI academy now brought him all the cases at Bureau headquarters which had come to apparently dead ends. Nine times out of ten he could start them moving again. Five times out of ten he could solve the case from his desk. "What?" Scully persisted. "Kelly Shaw and Lucas Arnold were married." "Married?" Scully raised an eyebrow. She had heard about the case which Agents Tamworth, Greeber, and Walbrook were working on, and now that Mulder pointed it out, she realised that his suggestion could very well be right. And it threw the case into a whole new light. She smiled slightly, - her partner had one of the best analytical minds in the Bureau, even though he didn't really appreciate it. - He saw it as just what he did. "Yeah." Mulder blindly reached out and picked up a pencil from his desk without looking up from the folder. He wrote a couple of lines in the margin at the side of the page, and then closed the document with a satisfied sigh. He tossed it onto his "Out" tray, and his gaze fell momentarily on the photograph of his sister at the side of the two trays. Then he got up, and went over to the coat-tree. He took down his black overcoat. "I'm off home. - See you tomorrow, Scully." "Bye." she returned, looking up as he went out of the door. Finishing her own work, she got up from her desk, switched off the computer, and shut down the office for the night. * * * Mulder slumped down onto his couch and switched the t.v. on. He flicked across the channels slowly, trying to decide what to watch. The apartment was fairly tidy, for once. From the fish tank came the bubbling sound of his fish eating the food he had just thrown in for them. The rest of the apartment was quiet, except for the noises coming from the t.v. Indeed, the whole building seemed quiet tonight. He loosened his tie and took it off, tossing it onto one of the armchairs. There was a knock at the door, and Mulder groaned quietly to himself as he got to his feet. Reaching the door, he glanced through the peephole to see a petite woman with wavy brown hair that came down just past her shoulders standing outside. She wore a plaid suit, and looked a little uncertain. He frowned slightly, and opened the door. "Mr Fox Mulder?" the woman asked, her hands twisting around themselves nervously as she looked up at him. "Yes?" "I have a message for you. Can I come in?" "A message?" Mulder was cautious, "From whom?" "From your sister." Mulder's eyes widened ever so slightly, and he stood to one side to let the woman enter his apartment. As soon as he had shut the door behind her, he pulled his gun from his hip holster, and pressed it into the top of her back. "Keep your hands where I can see them." "What...?" The woman's voice showed confusion and fear as Mulder pushed her further into the apartment, and subjected her to a rigorous check for hidden weapons. Satisfied that she wasn't armed, he pushed her down onto his couch, and stepped back, his gun still trained on her. "Who are you?" he demanded. "Emma... Emma Jacobs." she answered, her eyes following his weapon warily, "Look,... if you want me to go away..." "Who sent you?" "No-one sent me. I don't understand. - Why don't you trust me?" "I don't trust anyone." Mulder said flatly, and sat down on one of the armchairs. The woman gazed at him with a strange look on her face, and nodded slowly. "No. - I can see that now." she said, "You're so full of pain, it's not surprising you find it hard to trust people." "What do you know about my pain?" Mulder asked harshly. Emma pointed to her head. "That's how I found you. I guess you'll think I'm crazy, but I'll tell you anyway. - I have a very mild telepathic ability. I can see what you're feeling, the pain you are in. It was easy enough to find you once I knew who to look for." "I don't understand what you're saying. - Make sense to me." Mulder's voice was strained. Emma reached into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out a cassette tape Mulder had noticed and dismissed during his search. "I want you to listen to this. Then you'll know why I came, and what my message is." "What is it?" Mulder asked, reaching forward to take the tape. The label on it said "Emma Jacobs, Hypno-regression 14.7.96." He looked up at her, one eyebrow raised. "I went for therapy after having nightmares. - What I remembered under the hypnosis... well, it brought me here, to fulfil a promise I had forgotten I'd made, twenty-three years ago." Mulder looked at Emma for a moment, and then back at the tape. He got to his feet went over to his tape player, and slotted the cassette in. When the tape started to play, he heard two voices. - One was Emma's, and the other was that of a middle-aged man, apparently the hypno-therapist. - Mulder returned to his armchair and listened to the taped session, his fingers templed under his chin. Emma watched him in silence as the tape played, assimilating the emotions she was receiving from him. "Can you see where the light is coming from?" the therapist asked. "Umm... it's above me, I... I can't see what's making it." "Can you hear anything?" "I can hear... a rumbling. - Like a train, but it's coming from behind the light and all around me." "What's happening now?" "I'm floating in the light, up, above the camp-site. I can see my sleeping bag on the ground below me, and my little brother still asleep. And there's a reflection in the lake, - a reflection of the light, and a huge triangle-shaped object." "Lake?" Mulder looked over at Emma. "Lake Okobogee, Iowa. - I was on a camping trip with my family." she answered. "How old were you?" "Nine." Mulder nodded and returned his attention to the recording. "Where does the light take you?" the therapist was asking. "Into the ship." Emma's voice replied in the calm tone of regression hypnosis. "What do you see inside the ship?" "There are... creatures." "What do they look like?" "They're bald. They're quite short, and grey. Their heads are huge, and they have these big eyes... One of them's saying something to me... only it's not talking. - It's like it's in my mind..." "What's it saying, Emma?" "It's saying not to be afraid... It's saying that they don't mean me any harm. Then... then I don't remember any more." "What's the next thing you do remember, Emma?" "I'm lying on a table. The creatures are standing all around, looking down on me. I... I can't move. They... ow!... no!..." The voice on the tape became suddenly pained, agitated, and afraid. The therapist spoke calmly and reassuringly. "Emma, if you don't like what you're feeling, you can go back to that quiet, peaceful place we started from. - Do you want to go back?" "I... I don't want the pain... They're hurting me." "Okay, why don't you go past the pain. What happens after the pain?" "I'm in like... a huge room. There're lots of children in the room. Most of them are sleeping on the floor, but some are sitting up. No-one's moving. It's so quiet... There's a girl sitting near to me. She's smiling at me. She's talking to me..." "What's she telling you, Emma?" "She says her name is Samantha." "How old is Samantha?" "She's my age, - nine." Mulder looked across the room at Emma, and she could feel his pain rising within him, and could see it escaping from his eyes. He held her gaze as they listened. "Do you talk to Samantha?" the therapist asked. "Yes... I tell her my name..." "Tell me what you say, Emma." the therapist encouraged. When Emma's voice spoke again, it was distinctly child-like. "I'm Emma. How did you get here?" "The same way you did, I guess." Emma answered herself in a slightly different tone Mulder took to be "Samantha", "I was at home with my brother, Fox, when the ship came." "I've got a little brother. - I was camping out with him when the light came and brought me here." "Fox is my big brother. - He must be so worried about me. He and my parents both. I heard him screaming my name when the light came. - Emma, if you ever get back, will you contact my parents, and tell them and Fox that I'm alright? Please? - I'll do the same for you." "Sure. - How will I find them?" "We live in Martha's Vineyard, Chilmark, Massachusetts. Do you promise you will?" "I promise." Emma said solemnly, "How long have you been here?" "I don't know. - Not long, I think. You?" "I'm not sure. Before I was here I woke up in a white room, and they... hurt me." "The testing place." Samantha said knowingly. Then a note of fear entered her voice. "They're coming back." "I... I don't remember anything for a while." the adult Emma voice spoke, "then I... no!... please don't!..." Her voice was filled with hurt as she cried out from pain inflicted on her. Then the therapist was soothing her again. "Emma, I want you to go back to that quiet, peaceful place we started from. Rest, close your eyes... and sleep." The tape went quiet. Mulder got to his feet silently and switched the player off. He returned to the armchair, from which he stared at Emma thoughtfully. An expression of wonder and surprise crossed her face. "You believe me!" she exclaimed, "You believe I was abducted!" Mulder nodded slowly, and then spoke quietly, "Has it happened to you since?" She nodded. "I don't remember much yet, but from my first two sessions with Dr. Cliffe we've reached the conclusion that that was the first time, and that I was taken regularly for about ten years." "But you were returned each time." Mulder said in a melancholy voice, "Samantha was never returned." Emma lowered her head, and nodded. "When I remembered my promise to Samantha, I tried to find you and your family. I went to Chilmark, but I couldn't locate your parents. One of your old neighbours told me that you worked for the FBI in Washington. Once back in Washington I reached out with my mind, and realised I could feel you. Then I came straight here." "Samantha's disappearance tore my family apart." Mulder told her quietly, "My mother left Dad, and moved away. Dad died four months ago." "I'm sorry." Emma looked up at Mulder with a pain in her eyes that he felt he almost shared. He held her gaze for a long time before speaking again. "Are you going to try and recover the memories of your other abductions? - Because if you are, I... I'd really like to come along and see if you remember anything else about Samantha." "Of course you can come." Emma said, and then a puzzled look crossed her face. "I'm feeling something... Have you been searching for your sister?" "Ever since she was taken." Mulder answered, "I saw the light come and take her. - She told you I was calling her name as she was taken." "Even though I know you don't trust me, I feel a strong sense of belief coming from you." Mulder gave a sardonic smile, "I've dedicated my life to finding the truth about things other people don't believe in." "Because of your sister." Emma nodded. She glanced at her watch. "I've got to be going. - I've got an appointment with Dr. Cliffe at the beginning of next week. I'll give you a call." Mulder nodded, and fished in his jacket pocket for one of the small white business cards he carried, "Here's my number. You can reach me on that at any time." Emma smiled, and got to her feet. Mulder followed her to the door. "If you ever need to talk to someone who understands what happened to you, you can always come to me." he said quietly as he opened the door. "Thank you." Emma smiled up at him, appreciation in her eyes as she assimilated the emotions coming from him. Then she turned and went out of the door. Mulder watched her go, his eyes damp with unfallen tears. Then he let the door close between them. * * * Dana Scully entered the basement office the next day to see her partner already at his desk. This was not unusual, - Mulder often came and went according to his moods. He held his sister's photograph in his hands, and was listening to a tape on the office cassette player. He looked up at Scully when she came in, and stopped the tape. She saw the odd light in his face. "What is it, Mulder?" she asked, as she shrugged off her dark blue overcoat, and hung it next to his black one on the coat-tree. He beckoned her over to where he was sitting, and she leaned against the edge of her desk as he related what had happened the previous night. "Last night a woman came to my apartment. She said she had a message from my sister, and gave me this tape." he indicated the tape in the player. "It's a copy of her hypno-regression therapy sessions. During therapy she recalled some repressed memories, - memories of abductions which occurred from about age nine to age twenty. This is what came up during her second session." Mulder span the tape on a little bit, and found the bit he wanted. He let it play, and Scully listened with an expression of mild scepticism on her face. "... There's a girl sitting near to me. She's smiling at me. She's talking to me..." "What's she telling you, Emma?" "She says her name is Samantha." Mulder glanced at his partner as he span the tape on a little further. Her eyebrows were raised in surprise and vague worry. "... I was at home with my brother, Fox, when the ship came." "I've got a little brother, - I was out camping with him when the light came and brought me here." "Fox is my big brother. - He must be so worried about me. He and my parents both. I heard him screaming my name when the light came. - Emma, if you ever get back, will you phone my parents and tell them and Fox that I'm alright? Please? - I'll do the same for you." Mulder stopped the tape, and looked up at Scully. She swallowed, and thought carefully before she spoke, knowing how much he must desperately want this to be true. "Mulder, be careful how you approach this, okay? - You don't know that this woman's telling the truth." "I've got the tape!" Mulder exclaimed. "Tapes can be forged." Scully said, and touched his shoulder, "I know how much this means to you, and I hope that it will help you to find your sister, but I just don't want to see you get hurt again over this." "It's her, Scully, I know it is. - The words she used, the phrasing, - it's Samantha." Scully bit down on her lower lip, and squeezed his shoulder gently. "I hope so, Mulder." Mulder took the cassette out of the player, and returned it to his jacket pocket. "Anyway, she's invited me to go to her next session on Monday, so then I'll know more. - Maybe she'll even remember something more about what happened to Samantha. She's mildly telepathic. She might have been able to feel how Samantha was..." Scully took a deep breath, "Please, Mulder, just don't get your hopes up too much. - Remember what happened with the alien clones." Mulder turned away from her, pain swelling in his eyes. The case they had worked on when he had been emotionally manipulated by an alien clone claiming to be his sister had hurt him deeply, and nearly killed him. Scully squeezed his shoulder again. "I'm sorry, Mulder, I shouldn't have said that. - I'm just worried about you getting hurt again." He looked up at her, and smiled bitterly, "I think I can cope with this." Getting to his feet, picking up his jacket which had been discarded on the back of a nearby chair, and tossing it over his shoulder, he left the office. Scully watched him go, and then her gaze dropped to the photograph he had left on his desk. - She hoped this was true, for his sake. * * * Mulder sat in the reception outside Dr. Cliffe's office. The room was empty but for him and the blonde receptionist, who typed at the computer on her desk. In the office, Dr. Cliffe was hypnotising Emma. - He had asked Mulder to wait outside during the process, so Emma's concentration would not be disturbed. Mulder looked around at the plain little room, with the plants on the window-sill to try and make it cheery. He wondered vaguely why places like this were always painted magnolia. - Perhaps decorators were too afraid of offending people by using colours they might not like. - The intercom on the secretary's desk buzzed, and she spoke into it quietly. Then she looked up at Mulder. "Dr. Cliffe says you can go in again now." she said brightly. Mulder nodded his thanks, went to the office door, and stepped inside. His eyes were sparkling with excitement and anticipation. Having an abductee willing to share their experiences with him like this was unusual, and having someone say they had spoken to his sister... "Sit down, Mr Mulder." Dr. Cliffe said quietly, indicating a leather-seated wooden chair near the couch where Emma was lying. Thoughts of his own hypno-regression therapy came flooding back as Mulder took in his surroundings. The office was very like Dr. Werber's. He sat down. Dr. Cliffe turned back to his patient. "Emma, last time we spoke, you told me about what happened to you when you were camping at Lake Okobogee. Has it happened to you since then?" "Yes..." Emma answered in the drawling voice Mulder had heard on the tape, and in so many other cases involving hypnotism. "Did it happen a lot?" "Yes." "Do you remember when?" "Every month or so... till I was twenty." "Okay, we're going to go back to the next time it happened, after the first time. Do you remember that time?" "Yes... I was in my bedroom at home... the light came again..." Emma said slowly. "Did you remember then that it had happened before?" "Not then... later." Emma replied. "I want you to go back to your room that night, and tell me what happened." Dr. Cliffe said gently. "The light comes in through my bedroom window. I get up to look through the curtains, and see what is there. When the light falls on me, I can't move, and I float up off my bed, and out of the open window. Then everything goes dark." "What's the next thing you see, Emma?" "I'm in the white room again." "You remember your previous experience now?" "Yes." Emma answered carefully. "And I remember promising Samantha that I would tell her family she was alright. - I forgot. How could I forget?" Her voice rose a little. "Is Samantha there now?" Dr. Cliffe asked quietly. "No... but she's nearby, I can feel her." "How do you know she's nearby?" "I can hear her in my head." Emma replied, "She's sleeping, - I'm only getting bits of dreams." "What is happening around you now?" "The creatures are all around me again. They've got a huge machine hanging above me. It's moving down towards me. there's a needle on the bottom of it, and it's coming down towards me..." Emma's voice started to rise again. "Why don't you move away?" "I can't... I can't move. I try, but... I can't get away from it! I'm screaming and they're not paying any attention... Owww! They're hurting me!... Please, they're hurting!... Make them go away..." "Emma, I want you to move away from the pain, move past it, to a time when you're not hurting." Dr. Cliffe said gently. Mulder leaned forward in his chair, and watched Emma calm down slowly with a concerned expression on his face. When she seemed to be calm, Dr. Cliffe spoke to her again. "Where are you now, Emma?" "I'm in... a box. - Like a cubicle... I'm lying down." "Are you alone?" "Yes... I can't see or hear anyone... It's so quiet." Emma turned her head slightly, as through listening. "Samantha..." she whispered. Mulder folded his hands under his chin as he concentrated on what she was saying. "I can feel her... in my head. She's... she's in the testing place..." Emma shrank back into the couch, "They're doing the tests on her..." "What tests?" Mulder asked urgently. Dr. Cliffe looked at him in mild annoyance, and then spoke calmly to Emma, repeating the question. "What tests, Emma?" "They... they're holding her right eye open with some sort of mechanical arm. There's another arm above her, telescoping down towards her eye. It's... dripping something onto her eye, and she's hurting... She's crying, and struggling, but they're just continuing with the tests..." Mulder stared at Emma, completely motionless. He wasn't sure he could cope with hearing this. "She's crying in my head... crying for help, but I can't help her.. I..." Emma opened her vacant looking eyes, and stared up without seeing, "They've come back. They've come for me..." she murmured. Then she trailed off. "Is that it, Emma? Do you remember anything else from that occasion?" "No..." Emma muttered. Dr. Cliffe nodded, turned to Mulder, and said in a low voice. "I'll bring her out of it now. We can try again next time." Mulder nodded, and watched in silence as the therapist brought Emma around. * * * A dark-haired man sat alone on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial, staring out across the Tidal Basin towards the centre of Washington. His hands hung loosely over his bent knees, and his eyes were unfocused, giving the impression he was lost in deep thought. Tourists moved around him, walking quickly, talking and laughing, lingering to take photographs. Business-people walked in twos, carrying briefcases in their hands, and talking in low voices. None of them were noticed by the quiet man on the steps. His thoughts were lost in memories. Mulder drifted back in his memories to his own hypno-regression therapy with Dr. Werber. So much of what Emma had said under hypnosis brought back thoughts of his sister's abduction. And when she mentioned Samantha... He almost couldn't bear to think that the tests he had been told about in the past by many abductees might have been performed on his nine year old sister. A flicker of pain ran through his eyes when he recalled Emma saying Samantha had been crying for help in her head, so similar to his own experience. "She's crying out for help, but I can't help her..." Voices from his past assailed him, and he unwillingly let himself sink deeper into the memory, knowing it was the only way to temporarily deal with his pain. "But your eyes are open?" "Yeah, they're open, but it's like... nothing's happening." "Try turning your head." "I can't." "Why not?" "I don't know. I can't... so I don't. I just lie there in bed..." Mulder winced slightly at his past inability to help his sister. He had never been able to get over the guilt of that failure. He recalled Emma saying she couldn't move away when the tests began. "Why don't you move away?" "I can't... I can't move. I try, but..." Mulder bit down on his lower lip, fighting back tears and feelings of inadequacy. His thoughts drifted back to his own therapy session. "Are you scared?" "I know I should be, but I'm not." "Do you know why?" "Because of the voice." "Voice?" "The voice in my head." "What's it telling you?" "Not to be afraid. It's telling me that no harm will come to her, and that one day she'll return." "Do you believe the voice?" "I... want to believe." Mulder's lips formed the words again silently, as he reminisced about the event which had motivated him to work on the X-files, and risk his life again and again searching for the truth. Two tears fell unnoticed from his right eye, as his left brimmed. His lower jaw quivered slightly, and he lowered his eyes from the horizon to stare at the ground at the bottom of the steps. Maybe talking with Emma would help him to find his sister, but maybe it would just bring him more heartache. He got to his feet unsteadily, and walked around the memorial, heading towards Bureau headquarters. * * * Mulder sat in silence on the leather-seated wooden chair in Dr. Cliffe's office. Emma was lying on the couch, already hypnotised. Dr. Cliffe sat on a chair near her head, speaking to her in a low voice. This was the seventh session Mulder had been to. They had been through the memories of Emma's first sixteen abductions, and had established that there was a basic pattern. Each time she was taken, she awoke in the testing place. A series of apparently routine tests were performed on her, and then she was knocked unconsciouss. She would awaken in a cubicle, - she had only awoken in the large room with the other children once, on her first abduction, - and then shortly afterwards be knocked unconsciouss again, and returned to Earth. The tests she described, - always at a distance from herself, as she had been too frightened and hurt at the time to talk coherently otherwise, - were terrible. Her stomach had been distended with fluid, and her organs viewed using some form of light which rendered her skin translucent. Her eyes had been treated with liquids which burned into their delicate flesh, and made her temporarily blind to one colour or another. Her reflexes had been tested using sharp needles on different parts of her body. Probes had been inserted into every orifice in her body, and her body had been shocked by some type of impulse, similar to electricity. Dr. Cliffe had talked with Emma while she was awake, and they had decided to go through her abduction memories searching for anything different to the usual tests. Anything she heard in her head, or any new tests carried out on her. Mulder was mildly disappointed in the decision, as he knew it would mean he wouldn't hear about all her experiences, - but it did mean she would be concentrating on things like hearing Samantha in her head, so it pleased him as well. "Okay, Emma," Dr. Cliffe was saying, "I want you to think back, - back to the seventeenth time the light came. How old are you now?" "Eleven." Emma said slowly. "Now Emma, I want you to move forward in your memories slowly, looking for any time when the light came when something different happened. - Any time when you saw or spoke to someone while you were on the ship. Any time when they did a test on you which they hadn't done before. Anything at all that was new. - Do you understand what I'm saying?" "Yes..." "Okay, move on slowly now." Emma lay still for a minute or so, apparently sifting through her repressed memories. Then her eyes flicked open suddenly. Dr. Cliffe leaned forward. "How old are you now, Emma?" "Nearly twelve." she replied. "Where are you?" "In the cubicle on the ship." "What's happening?" "I can hear Samantha..." Emma said slowly. Mulder swallowed. "Hear her with your ears, or in your head?" Dr. Cliffe asked. "In my head. - She's in the testing place again. They're... they're cutting open her head. Slicing it open with some sort of laser across her forehead. She's still awake..." Emma turned her head slowly and winced at the pain she was apparently receiving from Samantha. Then she cried out. "No! Please..." "What's happening?" Dr. Cliffe asked. "They're pushing some sort of needle into her brain. - It's killing her..." Mulder closed his eyes for a moment, and swallowed. Emma's voice continued, "Now they're removing the needle again. They're firing another laser at her, and it's sealing up the broken skin. It's like it's healing her..." "Is she alright?" Mulder asked desperately. "Yes... she's hurting though." Tears escaped from Emma's eyes as she spoke. "They're just finishing, and... they've knocked her out again." Mulder turned his head away from her for a moment as he battled with the feelings he was experiencing. How much of this could he cope with before his inability to help his sister, just as he had been unable to prevent her abduction, drove him insane? "Emma, I want you to move on again to the next unusual thing that you remember." Dr. Cliffe said gently. Emma closed her eyes, and apparently moved on in her mind. Then she opened her eyes again. "Where are you now?" "I'm in the testing place." "How old are you?" "Thirteen." Emma answered. "Are they testing you?" "Yes. They've done all the usual tests, and I thought it was over, - but they're getting ready to do another one." Emma said, her voice sounding weak, "The machine is coming down towards me again. There's a thin tube on it this time, and it's pointed at my stomach. It's getting closer... it's touching me..." Emma screamed as the tube apparently punctured her skin, and her head tossed from side to side, negating the pain coursing through her. "Emma, I want you to move away from the pain, and just watch what is happening to you. Move away from all the hurt." Dr. Cliffe soothed her gently, and it seemed to help, because when she spoke again she seemed much calmer. "The tube is squirting a thick liquid into my body. My skin is distending. Now they've switched on the light that makes my skin turn translucent. Looking down I can see another, even thinner, tube extend from the first one already inside me, and puncture a little ball-shaped organ low down in my abdomen." "Do you know what organ that is, Emma?" "I think it's one of my ovaries. It looks like the diagram my Mom showed me..." "What are they doing now?" "They're sucking something out of the ovary, into the little tube. Now it's withdrawing again, and the bigger tube is sucking the liquid back out of me. My stomach hurts where they stretched it. One of the tall ones is coming over to me. - Thank goodness, it's got the little patch that makes me sleep. It's over." "Close your eyes now, Emma, and go back to that comfortable place we started from. The place where no-one can harm you." Dr. Cliffe said gently. Emma's eyes closed slowly, and her head sank back as her muscles relaxed. Mulder glanced at the therapist, and then returned his gaze to Emma. - Despite all he had heard, and discovered about abductions, he had never really understood just how awful the experience was for the abductee until these sessions. He stood up slowly, and went to sit outside until Emma was awake and ready to leave. * * * Mulder and Emma walked side by side along the circular path that went around the Jefferson Memorial. They had come to the monument after leaving Dr. Cliffe's office, in order to talk together. Standing side by side, their nine inch height difference was very apparent, but neither of them really noticed it, being too caught up in their own thoughts. The memorial was fairly quiet, and Mulder led Emma to one of the wooden benches where they could sit and look across the Tidal Basin towards the Washington Monument. They sat and looked out across the water for nearly ten minutes before Emma broke the silence between them. "Mulder," she said quietly, "you've got to let out what you're feeling inside. You musn't keep bottling it up. I can feel your pain coming off you, but you're only making it worse by holding as much of it as you can inside." Mulder stared at the ground in front of his feet, still unwilling to place his trust in Emma, despite the bond forming between them through the amount of time they were now spending together. He realised with slight surprise that over the last week he had spent more time in Dr. Cliffe's office than he had in the Bureau basement, and more time with Emma than working with his partner. The X-files no longer seemed important to him. After all, his obsession with the search for the truth had always been fueled by his need to find his sister. Now he had a link to his sister in Emma, and he wasn't going to let go of it. Mulder raised his head again, and looked out into the distance. Emma turned her head to look at his face. "Mulder, please, let it out. I can understand. I might be able to help you. "I don't think I can." Mulder said slowly, "I don't know how any more." "Then let me help you. Today, when we were at Dr. Cliffe's, I remembered them testing your sister. Think back to then, and replay the situation in your mind. Let me feel your response to what I was remembering." Mulder started to think back, and almost immediately drew his breath in sharply, and turned his face away. He didn't want to think back, he didn't want to remember. "It's alright." Emma said gently, receptive to his pain, "It's okay, just take it slowly." Mulder took a deep breath, and then let himself drift back again. He remembered the conversation in his mind. "... She's still awake... No! Please..." "What's happening?" "They're pushing some sort of needle into her brain. - It's killing her..." Mulder winced again as his heart seemed to clench inside his chest. Emma put her hand over his. "Let it out." she urged, "Let the pain out, - it's the only way." Mulder swallowed, battling the feelings inside him, and lowered his head. Tears sprang to his eyes, and he turned his face away from Emma. She lifted her left hand, the right still resting over his left, and turned his face back towards her, forcing him to meet her gaze. When he did, he saw that she had tears in her eyes too. His impassive expression first cracked, and then crumbled, and he closed his eyes as his tears began to fall. "Em, I can't..." he moaned, "I don't want to..." "Shhh, it's alright." she put her right arm around him, offering comfort. His body shuddered as he fought again to hold back the overflowing tide of emotions inside him. Slowly, his sobs subsided, and he shook his head slowly as he pulled back from her. "I'm sorry, Em, I can't." he whispered, meeting her gaze briefly, and then dropping his eyes in shame. "It's okay." she told him, "I understand." And looking into her eyes, Mulder believed her. * * * "Good morning, Mr Mulder." Dr. Cliffe greeted Mulder as the agent entered the therapist's office. Mulder nodded in reply, and his gaze moved to Emma, who was lying on the couch, already hypnotised. He moved to the leather-seated wooden chair he now knew well, and sat down. Dr. Cliffe turned back towards Emma, and spoke quietly to her, taking her back in her memories to when she was fifteen. This was the sixteenth session Mulder had attended, and he was becoming very familiar with the procedure, and the events Emma was recounting. Several times she had mentioned feeling Samantha with her mind, often when the other girl was undergoing tests. "How old are you now, Emma?" Dr. Cliffe asked gently. "Fifteen." "Where are you?" "In the testing place." Emma answered. "What's happening?" "I'm lying on some sort of table, and one of the creatures has got a laser... I... I think he's going to cut my arm off! No!..." Emma gave a shrill scream as the laser apparently started cutting into her arm. Dr. Cliffe, used to these reactions by now, acted immediately. "Emma, I want you to move away from the pain, and watch from a distance." Emma's cries subsided quickly, and Mulder leaned closer to hear what new memory she was going to come out with. She spoke, haltingly at first, and told the two men what had happened. "It's cutting into my arm, like a knife cutting butter... It's chopped my whole lower arm off, from just below the elbow. The creature is lifting the arm, and he puts it into a container of a thin liquid. They're firing something like electricity at it, and the fingers are jerking. I can see them moving from here. The movements are gradually becoming more controlled. I can see my hand waving at me..." Emma swallowed, and fell silent for a few moments. "Now the creature is returning with the container. It's holding my lower arm against the wound below my elbow, and has got another laser which it's using to heal the wound. I can feel the bones and muscles knitting back together. Even the tiny blood vessels are linking up, and healing over. Another one of the creatures is coming over to me. It's got the cold pad, and..." Emma fell silent as she was knocked unconsciouss. Dr. Cliffe spoke again to her. "Now Emma, I want you to move forward to the next new memory." Emma opened her eyes almost immediately, and looked up at the ceiling. "Where are you?" "In the cubicle." "How old are you now?" "Fifteen." "And what's happening, Emma?" "I can hear Samantha in my head. - I don't know *why* I keep forgetting the promise I made to her to tell her family that she's okay. - She's... she's pregnant. They did some sort of experiment on her which made her pregnant. She suspects the baby is half alien." Mulder's eyebrows rose in surprise at Emma's revelation. He had heard many stories about abductees who claimed to have been impregnated during abductions, but he had never had any proof of the phenomenon. He watched Emma carefully as she continued. "She's already two months gone. She didn't realise what they had done to her until three weeks ago when she realised she'd missed her period. Now she's afraid of what will happen to her and the baby when she comes to term." "Is Samantha awake?" Dr. Cliffe asked. "Yes, she's in a cubicle, like I am." Emma replied. "Does she know you can hear her thoughts?" "No. I don't think so." Emma said flatly. Mulder looked away from her, across the room, battling his inner emotions. His little sister... pregnant with the product of an alien experiment? His lips twisted slightly, and he swallowed, unable to maintain his impassive expression in the light of what he had just learned. He just hoped that, at the end of all this, Emma might be able to find Samantha for him. * * * Dana Scully looked up from her desk when her partner entered the X-files office, and a slight frown crossed her face. Mulder hadn't been getting much work done for the last three weeks. More and more often he was taking long lunches to go and talk with Emma, and leaving early to go to the hypno-regression sessions. His careless attitude towards his work concerned his partner, and she was still afraid that he was placing too much faith in Emma's story. "Morning Scully." he greeted her as always, and went to his desk. "Good morning, Mulder." she returned, and watched him critically as he shrugged off his light brown jacket, loosened his tie, and reached for one of the files in his "In" tray. He sat back in his swivel chair, and stared at the papers in front of him for several minutes without seeming to really see them. Finally, when Scully was sure he had had time to read the page he was on five times over, she broke the silence between them. "Mulder, are you alright?" He looked over at her, startled out of the daydream his thoughts had been drifting in, and stuttered, "I... I'm fine." Scully didn't reply. She continued to watch as he tried to return to his work, a worried expression on her face. Finally she gave up trying to pretend that nothing was wrong, and got up from her chair. She went over to her partner, and rested one hand gently on his left shoulder. He jumped visibly. "Mulder..." Scully began. He shook his head in acknowledgement. "I know, - I haven't been myself lately. I've been spending so much time with Emma, - I really think we stand a chance of finding out what happened to my sister, where she is now." Mulder looked up at Scully, and she saw the desperate hope in his eyes. He had been searching for this for so long, - how could she say anything to dampen his spirits? But still she felt the need to make him see the reality of the situation. He was so wrapped up in the possibility of finding his sister now that he was letting everything else in his life fall apart. If for some reason he didn't find her... "Mulder, are you *sure* Emma's memories are real? You know how easy it is for people to come out with fake memories under hypnosis." "It *is* real, Scully." Mulder said determinedly, "I can feel it, inside. I *know* Emma's memories are true." Scully pressed her lips together, and tried to think of another way of putting her misgivings that he wouldn't immediately dismiss. However Mulder seemed adamant that Emma was telling the truth, and her memories were going to help him find his sister. She squeezed his shoulder gently, and he looked up at her. He saw the understanding in her eyes. "Mulder, I hope you do find your sister. Just be careful not to leap before you look, okay?" Mulder smiled up at her, and lifted his left hand to squeeze her right as it lay on his shoulder. "I'll try." he told her. * * * Emma looked around at the busy diner she had never been in before, and then hurried after Mulder, who was heading across the room towards the booths along the side wall. It was a bit quieter there, and a little darker. Mulder slid into one of the empty booths, and Emma followed him. She glanced around herself again, and smiled nervously at him. "Do you come in here often?" she asked. Mulder nodded, "Quite often. - There aren't too many people from the Bureau around here, which is one of the reasons I like it." Emma smiled. The diner was filled with happy chatter, and the smell of bacon frying. Groups of people sat around the tables in the middle of the room, couples and people eating alone mostly staying in the booths that lined one wall, and the window at the front of the diner. Yellow and white checked table-cloths and curtains matched the yellow uniforms and white aprons the three waitresses wore. Laminated cardboard menus stood in plastic stands on each table, with small bowls of sauces in sachets, and glass bottles of salt and vinegar. A short, blond-haired waitress approached their table, her note-pad in her hand, ready to take their order. Emma looked to Mulder to make the decision, and he quickly reeled off a list of items he assured her she would like. The waitress smiled, nodded, and moved quickly away to pass the order through to the kitchen. Emma looked over at Mulder, a faint smile on her face. She watched him for a moment, and he felt the weight of her stare. He looked up, and met her gaze. "Will you tell me what happened when they took your sister?" she asked. Mulder dropped his gaze, and looked at the table between them. Then he looked up at Emma again. "I didn't remember very much afterwards. My parents thought I hadn't done enough to protect her, but I think even they knew there was nothing I could have done. After I joined the FBI, I underwent regression hypnosis, just like you're doing now. It was then that I remembered what actually happened. - I recalled a bright light, and my sister being taken by the light. There's a rumbling sound which I associate with the light. I felt a presence in the room when Samantha was taken, and I heard a voice in my head telling me not to be afraid, and that one day Samantha would be returned. "I sometimes wonder if she's been returned, but has amnesia, and doesn't remember either her abduction, or me, Mom, and Dad." Mulder took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Emma reached across the table, and took his hand in hers, squeezing it gently. "Hopefully when I've got to the end of my abduction memories, we'll have more of an idea where to start looking for her." she said, smiling at him sympathetically, "I know how much you want to find her. - You still feel responsible for not being able to prevent her abduction, don't you?" Mulder nodded slowly, and then looked up as the waitress approached with their meal. "Thank you, Geraldine." he smiled up at her as she put the plates down. She smiled back, and then moved away. Mulder returned his gaze to Emma. "Yes, I do feel responsible, Em. - I was supposed to be looking after her. My parents weren't in when she was taken, and I was her big brother, baby-sitting her." "There was nothing you could have done." Emma reassured him. "Are you sure?" he asked in a melancholy tone of voice. She nodded. "I'm sure. Now eat your lunch. - We'll find out what happened to your sister." * * * Mulder paced slowly up and down the receptionist's office, waiting to be told to go into Dr. Cliffe's office. Emma had been in the inner room nearly fifteen minutes now, and he was growing impatient. The agent's eyes sparkled with the anticipation of possibly learning more about his sister. Mulder looked fairly neat, for once, his hair combed to one side, his collar and tie fastened, his light grey suit neatly pressed. Slight shadows below his hazel eyes spoke of the insomnia which still plagued him. The intercom on the secretary's desk buzzed, and Mulder glanced over at the blonde woman as she pressed a button, and spoke quietly into the microphone. Then she looked up at Mulder, and gestured towards the inner office door. "Dr. Cliffe says you can go in now." she smiled. Mulder nodded and headed for the door. He opened it onto the now familiar scene of Emma already in a trance on the couch, and Dr. Cliffe sitting at her side. Mulder moved quickly to his chair, and sat down. Dr. Cliffe nodded to him, and then began the session. "Emma, I want you to drift back in time to when you were sixteen. Do you remember the summer when you were sixteen?" "Yes..." Emma drawled. "Now move forward slowly in your memories, until you come to a new memory of something which happened when you were taken by the light." Emma opened her eyes after a few moments, and stared blankly up. "Samantha." she whispered. Mulder sat forward eagerly. "She's having the baby." "Where are you, Emma?" Dr. Cliffe asked. "I'm in the cubicle." "And where is Samantha?" "She's in the testing place. - They've given her something that made the baby come. - But... there's a problem. The creatures seem to be worried. Something's going wrong." "What?" Mulder leaned closer. "They... they're trying to save the baby. Samantha's crying 'cause it hurts so much, but they're not paying any attention to her, they're just trying to save the child..." "What is it that's going wrong, Emma?" Dr. Cliffe asked. "I... she doesn't know. She's in a lot of pain. - I'm not getting much that's coherent from her... The baby's coming now... Oh no, - it's already dead. They didn't manage to save it. And Samantha... she's slipping. I can feel her slipping. They're not doing anything to help her and she's..." Emma stopped, and when she spoke again it was with incredulity in her voice. "She's gone. - She's gone and they let her die." Mulder stared at Emma in horror for a few moments. He swallowed, and tears sprang to his eyes. Biting down on his lower lip to keep from crying, he got quickly to his feet. "Excuse me." he mumbled, as he headed hurriedly for the door in a few long strides, and was gone. * * * Mulder sat in silence on his couch, his shoulders hunched forward as he stared into nothingness. His light grey suit was now creased and crumpled. His tie lay on the floor where he had discarded it when he had come in the previous day. The top two buttons of his white shirt were undone. His hands lay limply in his lap. A framed photograph of his sister lay on the couch beside him. There were dried tears on the upturned glass in the frame. He hadn't slept, although his thoughts had drifted into dreams from time to time. He had barely moved at all since he returned from Dr. Cliffe's office, nearly twenty-four hours earlier. There was a knock at the door, and a female voice called, "Mulder?". The tone was slightly concerned, and after some more knocking, the call came again. "Mulder?" A key rattled in the lock, and the door opened to admit Dana Scully. She closed the door, and came into the apartment, her gaze immediately going to her partner. Quickly, she took in the careless appearance, the impassive and yet somber expression, and the melancholy look in his eyes. She moved around the back of the couch to sit down on his left. "Mulder, what's wrong?" she asked. He made no response, not even showing he had heard. Scully moved closer to her partner, moving the photograph as she did so. Her sharp eyes caught the tear marks on the glass. She put her right arm around her partner, offering what comfort she could, and then lifted her left hand to gently turn his face towards her. "Mulder, what's happened?" "Samantha." he said, his voice cracking, "They killed her, Scully. - She's dead, and Emma felt it happen." Tears rose suddenly in his eyes again, and Scully pulled him closer, nestling his head on her shoulder as he sobbed for his loss. After a moment's stiff uncertainty, he welcomed her comforting embrace, and allowed his arms to wrap loosely around her waist, giving him the security he needed to feel. She stroked his hair gently as his body shook uncontrollably with grief. "I'm sorry, Mulder." she said quietly. She opened her mouth to question again his certainty of Emma's trustworthiness, and then closed it again, deciding the last thing Mulder needed now was for her to have any doubts in what had happened. After a few minutes of holding him close to her, Scully felt Mulder pull away slightly, and he disengaged himself from her arms. He looked down at the carpet, his face turned slightly towards her, still wet with tears. "They... they did a test, and made her pregnant. When they induced labour, she had complications. They tried to save the child, but they couldn't, and they made no effort to help her as she died..." Mulder choked back a sob, "She was only sixteen when she died. - I've been searching for the last fifteen years for someone who's been dead all that time..." "Mulder..." Scully fought for the right words to say to her grief-stricken partner, "you weren't to know. You were just doing everything you could to help her." "But it's all been for nothing, Scully. - All this time, and I've not got any closer to getting her back, only further away. Now I don't even have the hope." "But, Mulder, the dream you had... you said your father told you she wasn't dead?" "Come on, Scully," Mulder said bitterly, "You don't believe in things like that. - Maybe I just heard what I wanted to hear." Scully sighed quietly, and took her partner's hand in hers, squeezing it gently. When he looked up at her, the pain she saw in his eyes made her heart ache as well, and she felt tears for him pricking at her eyes, as well as tears for the young girl she had never known. In silence, they shared a quiet understanding that had been present in their partnership almost from the beginning. * * * The door to the basement office opened slowly, and Scully looked up to see Mulder entering the office. His face was shadowed with the stubble of a three day beard, his eyes were dull, and the half-circles of insomnia were beneath them. His suit hung on him like it was two sizes too large for him, and his cheeks were hollow and gaunt. His brown hair was tousled and unkempt. The dejected expression on his face made Scully's heart wrench for him. It had been just over a week since she had gone to see him at his apartment, and during that time she had only seen him once, and spoken to him on the phone four times. "Are you alright, Mulder?" Scully asked, "You shouldn't really be coming in yet, you know. - Take some more time off." "I've taken all the time I need." Mulder replied, and sat down at the computer. He typed a few lines, and then printed off a copy of the document. "What are you doing?" Scully asked, getting up from her seat to go and look at the sheet that had just come out of the printer. She lifted it in her hands, and drew her breath in sharply when she saw what was written on it. >"To Assistant Director Walter S. Skinner, >"Please accept my resignation from the Federal Bureau of >Investigation, effective immediately. >"Sincerely, >"Fox Mulder." Scully turned towards her partner, "Mulder, what are you doing?" "I can't work here any more, Scully." Mulder replied, lowering his head slightly so he wouldn't have to meet her eyes. "Why not? - It wasn't *Them* who took your sister." "I... I just can't. Everything I've worked for has been in the hope of finding her again, and now that hope is gone. How can I search for the truth when I already know far more than I would like about it, and that is too painful for me?" Scully closed her eyes for a moment, and then rested her hand on her partner's shoulder. "Mulder, give this some more time, okay? You don't really know what you're doing yet." "I know exactly what I'm doing..." Mulder began, but Scully cut him off. "Mulder, you're still in shock. You need to take some time off before trying to make any major decisions like this." She indicated the paper, which was still in her other hand. "Please, for me, - just take three months off. Skinner will understand. Take three months, and then we can talk it through properly. Then if you still want to leave... well, we'll take that as it comes." Mulder looked up at his partner, and saw the sympathy in her eyes. He swallowed, and lifted his right hand to squeeze hers, which still lay on his shoulder. He closed his eyes as he tried to compose his tormented thoughts, and finally nodded slowly. "Okay, for now, I'll go home. - But I don't expect it to change anything." "Just keep an open mind, that's all I'm asking." Scully insisted. Mulder smiled slightly, recognising the irony of Scully saying that, when it had always been the other way around in the past. He got to his feet slowly, and glanced around at the office. Then without a word he went to the door, opened it, and left. * * * Scully sighed as she closed up her work for the day. Dropping the folder she had been working on into her "Out" tray, her gaze fell on the sheet of paper she had taken from the printer that morning. Lifting it in her hands, she read the words on it again. She remembered her sister once mentioning that Mulder had tried to resign when she had been returned with an unidentifiable illness after her "abduction" by Duane Barry. She had spoken to Mulder about it a few months later, and he had told her that he had felt responsible for her condition, and unable to carry on in their work without her. - But when he had handed in his letter of resignation, Assistant Director Skinner had made one of his very rare visits to the basement office, to tell her partner that his resignation "as self-punishment" was unacceptable. What had passed between the two men, and Scully's own recovery soon after, had prevented Mulder from re-entering his resignation letter. But now it seemed he felt he was due for more punishment. Scully could understand her partner's feelings. Who wanted to hunt UFOs when their sister had been killed by the creatures inside them? But still she felt that there was something she was missing in the situation. Getting to her feet, she decided that the best person to talk to about what had happened to Mulder's sister, and what he was feeling because of it, was probably Emma. Scully took down her thin black overcoat from the coat-tree and put it on. Then she picked up her briefcase and handbag, and went quickly out of the office. Leaving slightly later than was usual for her, she had less of the normal teasing to put up with from her colleagues as she crossed the ground floor of the building, heading for the main entrance. She walked quickly to the multi-storey car park where she had left her car, ascended to the second level, found her car, and headed towards Emma's bungalow. The streets were already fairly quiet, the night-life not yet really going. Scully drove steadily out of Washington centre, and to Clarendon. She easily found the suburb where Mulder had told her Emma lived, and drove slowly down the road, glancing at the house-numbers she passed, until she spotted 75 Arcacia Avenue. Scully drew up a little way back from the property, as there were already two cars parked outside it, and she didn't want to block the driveways of Emma's neighbours. As she switched off her headlights, she glanced towards the house, and saw that the light in the front room was on. As she turned off the engine, the front door opened, and a figure came out. He was male. Scully could see that immediately. His facial features were obscured by a cloud of cigarette smoke he puffed out as he stepped out of the doorway. Scully saw a petite female figure in the doorway behinds the man, and guessed her to be Emma. As the man turned to make a last comment before departing, Scully saw his profile in the light coming from the front room of Emma's house, and she sucked her breath in sharply. It was him. The cigarette smoking man she had seen many times lurking in the shadows of Section Chief Blevins' office when she had first been assigned as Mulder's partner. The man Mulder called Cancerman. The man they both suspected to have had a hand in several murders, including the attempted murder of Mulder himself. The man Mulder believed had been at the root of her abduction. Scully sat motionless as she watched the man walk away from Emma's house. The woman closed the door behind him before he reached his car, which was parked only ten metres or so in front of Scully's. He got in, started the engine, and pulled away smoothly, his tail-lights glowing red in the dark. Scully let out a hesitant breath, and closed her eyes. * * * "Good morning, Agent Scully. - This is something of an early visit, isn't it?" Byers greeted Scully as she arrived at the office of the "Lone Gunman". The other two "Gunmen" looked up from their work, - Langly was hunched over a computer terminal, and Frohike appeared to be taking apart a personal stereo. "Why, you guys up late last night?" Scully countered. The three looked at each other guiltily. "Nope." Langly shook his head, and shrugged his shoulders slightly. "Did you know, Agent Scully, that small micro-chips are implanted into personal stereos in order to brain-wash the people who listen to them? Using subliminal influences, a whole frame of mind can be induced." Scully raised a sceptical eyebrow in response. Byers shifted a pile of suspicious looking magazines so that there was room for her to sit down. Frohike dumped the semi-demolished machine in his hands on the table in front of him, and leaned forward slightly towards Scully. He raised his eyebrows suggestively as he asked. "So what brings you here, Agent Scully?" "Have any of you seen Mulder recently?" she asked. "No... Why, has he gone missing again? Don't worry, he'll turn up." Langly didn't lift his eyes from the screen in front of him as he spoke. His long hair partially obscured his face from Scully. "No, it's nothing like that. - I was just wondering if you'd heard what happened." Now all three men looked over at her. "What happened?" Langly and Byers asked together. Langly got up from where he was sitting. "Mulder was contacted by a woman a few weeks ago. - She said she had been under hypno-regression, and had recovered memories of abductions. And during her abductions she had met his sister." "Whoa..." Langly exclaimed, awed. He sat down slowly on the edge of the table his computer stood on. "Mulder went to the hypno sessions with her, and he believes she has been telling the truth about her experiences. Just over a week ago she remembered something new. - His sister dying as she gave birth to a stillborn baby, the result of an alien experiment." Frohike raised his eyebrows. Langly looked intrigued. Only Byers remained impassive as Scully continued. "Of course, Mulder is really cut up about it. He wants to resign from the Bureau, but I persuaded him to take three months off before coming to a decision. Yesterday evening I went round to see the woman, in order to find out as much as I could about what had happened. - But when I got there I saw Cancerman leaving her house." "Heavy." Langly muttered. Scully nodded. "So, what are you going to do? Tell Mulder what you saw?" Byers asked. "If I tell him, he won't believe me. Not on this. Not unless I have proof." "He'll believe you." Byers said confidently, "Mulder trusts you." "Anyone would trust you." Frohike added suggestively. "But he wouldn't be able to work on the X-files unless he was sure that what Emma had told him was a lie. - It means too much to him. - I need proof. And to get it I need your help." "We'll help you." Frohike said immediately. Turning to his two colleagues, they consulted quickly, then split up, and collected a few items together. They laid them out on the table in front of Scully. "This will get you proof." Byers said. Langly lifted up the items one by one. "This is a pair of infra-red binoculars, so you can watch what is happening from a distance by dark. - If you alter this control here, you can set the heat setting so you can actually see people inside buildings, as long as the walls aren't too thick between you and them. "This is a transmitting bug, and it's receiver. The receiver will pick up the audio transmission from a distance of about a mile on a good day when the air's not too polluted. "This recorder will record anything that comes through on the receiver, when you attach the two using this lead. That way you'll have recorded proof." "As long as Mulder's "source" says the right things." Frohike put in. "Of course, you'll have to find a way of getting the bug into the house." Byers told Scully, "But that shouldn't be too hard. - She doesn't know you, so you can go right up to her front door, and ring the bell. You just have to think of a reasonable reason why you're doing it." "And when you're done, come back and let us know how it went." Frohike said. "And bring back whatever you can, - it takes time to build things like this." Langly indicated the receiver. Byers produced a cardboard box from under the table, and put the items in it. "Good luck, Agent Scully." he said, "We hope you get the proof you're looking for." Scully looked at the three men, and understood why it was that Mulder liked them. Beneath their paranoid exteriors, their weird theories, and the general hubub of the underworld they lived and worked in, they were kind hearted, and genuine friends to Mulder. She remembered her partner had told her how they rallied round when she was ill, trying to find out what was wrong with her. She smiled at them, thanked them, and left quickly, aware she had work to do. * * * After driving home to change into some more appropriate clothing, Scully drove back to Clarendon, and back to Emma's house. She parked her car a way down the road, so that Emma wouldn't see it, and then got out, a small box in one hand. The box was a charity box left over from some charity fund-raising she had done a few months earlier. With it was the pin she had worn, and she attached this to her shirt as she approached the area where Emma's house was situated. Scully went to the other houses near to Emma's before going to Emma's. She collected a few donations, and then approached Emma's front door. The transmitter bug the Lone Gunmen had given her was hidden in her pocket. She knocked firmly on the wooden door. There was a pause, and then the door opened. Emma was only an inch taller than she was, and had wavy brown hair which reached down to her shoulder blades. Scully smiled brightly, and held out the collecting box. "I'm collecting for the Arlington Animal Rescue Centre." she told Emma, "Would you care to make a donation?" Emma nodded, "I'll just get my purse." The words were softly spoken, but Scully recognised the voice from the tape Mulder had played her. As Emma disappeared back into the house, Scully stepped just inside the doorway, and slipped the transmitter bug out of her pocket. Glancing around, her gaze fell on the pottery umbrella stand. It was quite intricately patterned at the top, and she had no trouble quickly concealing the bug in the lattice work at the back of it. Then she stepped back outside the door again. A few moments later, Emma returned with a handful of change. She dropped it into the box Scully held, and Scully thanked her cheerfully before moving off to go to the next house along. After visiting another five houses, she felt safe to return to her car and wait to see what happened next. * * * Dusk gave way to darkness, broken by the regularly placed street-lights. To Scully's good fortune there was a street-light outside Emma's house, but not one where she had moved her car to so that she could watch the house. The infra-red binoculars the Lone Gunmen had lent her were on the seat beside her as she dozed. Car headlights shone briefly in her rear-view mirror, flashing in her eyes and waking her from her partial sleep. Scully watched as the car pulled up outside Emma's house, and Cancerman got out. His cigarette glowing in one hand, he made his way quickly to the door, which was opened before he even had to knock. Scully lifted the headphones of the receiver which sat on the dashboard. Voices came to her ears clearly, and she listened carefully to the proceeding conversation as she started the recorder going. A smile crossed her face as she heard words which pleased her. - Perhaps all the effort had been worthwhile, after all. * * * Mulder got up off his couch, and headed unsteadily towards the door in response to the agitated knocking. His right foot kicked a beer can out of his path as he crossed the apartment. He winced at the noise it made when it hit the wall, and the insistent thumping on the door. "Who is it?" he asked in a tone which gave the impression he found it too much effort to speak. "It's me, Mulder. - Open the door." Scully. Mulder unbolted and then unlocked the door a little unwillingly, knowing what her reaction to his condition would be. The look on her face as she saw him said it all. "Mulder, are you alright?" Scully came into the apartment, and raised one hand to touch his forehead in order to see if he was feverish. "I'm fine, Scully." he replied, gesturing weakly with his left hand for her to go in. Scully glanced at him in concern, and then went into the apartment. Seeing the several beer cans on the floor, she quickly guessed what was the matter with him, apart from the loss of his sister. "Got a headache, Mulder?" she suggested with a wry smile. Mulder winced, and sat down heavily on the couch. "What do you want, Scully?" he sounded tired. Scully pulled the tape of the conversation she had heard earlier that night from her pocket. "I want you to listen to this." Mulder closed his eyes, remembering how Emma had brought him a tape when she first visited him. "What is it?" "Something I think you ought to hear." Scully answered cryptically. She went over to Mulder's cassette player, and slotted the tape in. Then she started it playing, and went to sit alongside her partner on the couch. She took his left hand in her right as they listened. "... I don't care about that. - I want out, right now. I did what you wanted me to. He's going. I know he is. He was going to finish it today but someone stopped him. - He'll leave the Bureau before the end of the year." "How can you be sure?" Mulder had shown no reaction to the sound of Emma's voice on the tape, but the unmistakable tones of Cancerman aroused his interest slightly. "How can I be sure?" Emma laughed, "Why did you hire me for this in the first place? - Because of my ability. I can feel his pain in my head. Feel his anger. He can't stand to continue with his work now. - Finding his truth has only brought him heartache, and he doesn't want to know anymore." "You're sure he doesn't suspect?" "He doesn't." "So why do you want to leave?" "Why do you want me to stay? - Because we both know that sooner or later he's going to come back to me wanting more information." "Information you don't have." "Information I don't care to risk my life to give when I'm not even making anything out of it." Emma shot back, "I've done what you asked, and completed the deal. You've already moved the therapist out of the way so that Mulder can never find out I wasn't really under hypnosis, - why not me too?" There was a short silence, followed by Cancerman's unwilling agreement, "I'll see what can be done." "And until then?" "Until then maintain the story as you know it. You still remember nothing but what has come up during your therapy sessions." "And Mulder's sister?" "What about her?" "What really happened to her?" "As far as you are concerned, she died after the experiment you told Mulder about." "But she's not really dead?" Emma persisted. "That is none of your concern." Cancerman replied after a short pause. Scully got up from the couch and switched the tape off. Mulder was staring at the carpet a few feet in front of him. "Mulder? Are you alright?" "How... how could I have been so blind?" he asked her, spreading his hands in a gesture of innocence. "They were using Samantha to manipulate me again, and I never even suspected... - You did, though. You kept telling me to be careful, not to trust Emma too much. I... I wanted to believe so much..." "I know, Mulder." Scully sat down and took his hand in hers again. "I know. - But it's alright now. - Now you know the truth." "Or at least some of it." Mulder corrected, "If Samantha didn't die during that experiment, if all the stuff Emma told me was lies, then what did happen to my sister?" "I don't know, Mulder." Scully replied, "But I know a way to keep trying to find out." She pulled the folded letter of resignation from her pocket, and handed it to her partner. He looked at it for a moment, smiled slightly, and then ripped it in half. "Can I come back to work soon?" he asked, a pleading look on his face. Scully smiled. The End. I'd greatly appreciate any comments or constructive criticism from fellow X-Philes. Email me at . Danielle Culverson.