Title: Exorcist Stairs (1/1)
Author: Elanor G
Email: ElanorG@yahoo.com
URL: http://www.geocities.com/elanorg/
Distribution: Wherever you wish! Please send me an
e-mail, just so I know.
Spoilers: Post-ep for Orison
Rating: R - violence, language
Classification: X-File
Keywords: Angst, UST

Disclaimer: The X-Files is the property of Chris
Carter, Fox, et al. I'm writing this simply to amuse
myself - and a few others, I hope.

Summary: Scully is adrift and on her own after the
events of Orison. A chance encounter forces her to
confront the banality of evil...


XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX


The thing was over and done, and Pfaster was dead by
Scully's hand, and everyone except for Scully was
content. Everyone except for Scully.

Two days since the hearing that exonerated her of any
wrongdoing in the death of Ronnie Pfaster. And Mulder
had not even lied, not really. He didn't need to.
Pfaster had no mourners, no supporters, no family or
friends. Some counseling had been suggested for
Scully, but there was no suggestion that she was unfit
for duty in any way. No psychologist had testified
that Scully had not been responsible for her actions.
Her soundness of mind was not in question. She was
thankful for that, at least. The humiliation of that
would have been too much to bear, in addition to
everything else. 

She has been on leave ever since the shooting. Skinner
had strongly suggested to Scully that she use more of
her accumulated leave after the hearing. At the time
she didn't have the energy to protest. So she has been
using the time productively. The mirror has been
replaced, the rooms cleaned and cleaned, and the
apartment is now back to normal. Unfortunately, she is
not.

The third day dawns overcast and cold. Scully looks
out the window, restless and ill at ease. It's time to
get out. Here alone in her apartment she has nothing
to do but think, and she's tired of that. Maybe if
Mulder were here, she could better channel her
thoughts and her energy. 

But Mulder is away. He's in Dallas, testifying at a
drug trafficking trial - in their purgatory away from
the X-Files, they had worked surveillance on one of
the defendants. He emailed Scully last night to
complain about Dallas and ask, tentatively, how she's
doing. She wrote him a long message in response but
never sent it. When he's not with her the words never
quite come out the way she intends. So instead, she
told him that she's fine.

Enough of this, Scully thinks. Her apartment is back
in shape, now it's time to do the same for her body.
She puts on her running clothes and heads out at a
brisk trot, ignoring the protests of stiff aching
muscles and healing bruises. 

Georgetown is quiet today. A few students, a few
strollers on the rough brick sidewalk. She decides to
head for the canal towpath and runs down 36th Street.
As she moves, she takes in her surroundings and
marvels at how little she knows her own neighborhood,
even after all the time she's lived here. 36th ends
abruptly at Prospect Street and she stops. A steep
hill separates her from Canal Road, and the canal
itself, and the Potomac River beyond. The shortest way
is down those long stone stairs. 

Those infamous stairs.

It's been a long time since she's even gone by this
macabre local tourist attraction. Scully puts her head
down and jogs down the stairs, her quadriceps shaking
a bit with the effort. Damp stone and brick walls loom
on either side. Absurdly she finds her heart is
beating quickly, not from the exercise but from half-
remembered images from a horror movie she saw once in
high school. Stop that, Scully tells herself. After
counting 75 steps, she emerges on the street and takes
slow deep breaths.

Soon Scully is running down the towpath next to the
canal. The clean damp air banishes her dark thoughts.
A few geese soar in the gray sky. The Potomac, visible
through a screen of trees, is bloated with rain and
melted snow. There are only a few runners on the path
today. The only sound is the clean crunch of feet on
gravel.

And a thin distant scream.

Without thinking Scully runs faster, toward the sound.
She turns a bend and sees a small clump of people at
the side of the path. One of them, a young woman,
turns and runs. "Does anyone have a phone? Does anyone
have a phone? Please call the police," she yells.
Scully speeds up. 

She grows close and the group turns to look at her
with pale horrified faces. People in running clothes
like her, an older woman out walking her dog. "I'm a
federal agent," Scully says. They fall away from her
and she steps forward.

The body lies tangled in the weeds growing by the edge
of the canal. Only her face and shoulders rise above
the muddy green water. Dark lank hair. Pale skin
mottled with bruises. A young, young face, perhaps a
student.

And, selfishly, Scully's first reaction is anger. Not
anger at the horror and injustice of it all, but anger
for herself. Another place ruined for her. My God, she
thinks, will death follow me everywhere now? Out for a
jog, going to the Safeway for orange juice, what next?

"Okay, everybody," she says, pulling away from the
sight. "Let's move away." The small group pulls back
obediently, except for the woman with the strangely
silent terrier.

"Samson just started barking and barking," the woman
says numbly. "He never barks like that. He got away
from me and I chased him. And then I saw her. Oh my
God."

Scully does not answer, but reaches for the cell phone
stashed unthinkingly in her jacket. 


XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX


The day has turned darker. The scene has devolved into
the jurisdictional mess typical of the District. The
body was found on the C&O Canal, and so the National
Park Service Police were the first to arrive. Now DC
cops also swarm around the scene. The media hang
around the edges, prowling for pictures. 

At least the cameras weren't rolling when the young
woman's body was gently retrieved from the water by
the DC Coroner's office. The girl has been tentatively
identified as Kim Somers, a law student at Georgetown
missing for several days. She was severely beaten and
probably sexually assaulted, but the cause of death
was a small, neat bullet hole near her temple, hidden
by her hair.

As always there are the spectators, curious and bored
and frightened. Scully keeps an eye on the shifting
clusters of people.

Next to her stands Lieutenant Moses from the MPD. He
has just finished taking her statement. His dark face
is tired - this will be a high-profile case, and the
pressure from the public and the city's politicians
will be enormous. Moses yawns and rubs his eyes.

"Is there anything else I can do? Let me know if you
want me to come in for a formal statement downtown,"
she says.

"Nah, that shouldn't be necessary." He frowns as he
watches uniformed and plainclothes officers sift
through grass and weeds and mud. "I hate these red
ball cases," he murmurs. "I fucking hate these red
ball cases from the bottom of my heart."

But at that moment Scully isn't listening. Because her
eyes on the crowd catch a shape. 

She squints a little to get a better glimpse and sees
the form weave in and out of the spectators, ignored
by everyone. Something sharp and angular that her eyes
can't quite focus on, a nightmare thing barely caught
out of the corner of her eye. For an instant it turns
and to Scully it is the face that loomed out of the
dark. The hideous face that leered at her like a taste
of madness as the closet door shut out the light.

She gasps and the vision passes. The half-glimpsed
face melts into ordinary features before vanishing
into the crowd for good. Moses looks at her sharply.
"You okay, Agent Scully?"

"Uh. Yeah." She tries to calm down. Her pulse races
beneath her skin. "Sorry. Just tired."

"I bet so," answers Moses, and briefly she wonders at
his tone. Does he know about Pfaster? Her name has
been carefully kept out of the news media: Notorious
serial killer Donnie Pfaster was killed in self-
defense by a female FBI agent when he broke into her
apartment. It was a tidy story with a bit of poetic
justice and the media had not delved further.

But when Scully looks at Moses she sees only
weariness. Only the grim knowing look of a big-city
homicide detective who has seen plenty of death. The
murder of a white woman in a nice neighborhood will
attract the attention and the pressure, but she is
just another in a long string of ruined lives. "There
is something," he says. "I'm not a proud man. Help is
help. I've learned that working in this city. They're
gonna put a lot of extra manpower on this kinda case.
But you live around here, and you keep your eyes open.
So you so let me know if you see anything."

"Certainly." Moses hands her his card and turns away.
Scully holds it, turning it over and over in her hands
as she watches the crowd on the edges of the police
tape. 

I'm losing my mind, she thinks.


XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX


Of course Scully does not tell Mulder about any of
this. It would just worry him, and she's tired of
being worried over. After it happened Mulder treated
her like a breakable object, despite his best
intentions. But she was not feeling particularly
fragile and she did not accept it gracefully.

Instead, in her email to him that night, she asks him
questions. What does he think about possession,
demons, evil as a tangible force slipping in and out
of souls and minds? They talked about this sort of
thing, briefly and haltingly, after she killed
Pfaster, but never brought it up again. They've never
seen eye to eye on this whole subject anyway. At least
now they both respect the strength of each other's
experiences.

Still, she never sends the message.

After a troubled night, a clear and chilly morning
comes as a relief. Again restlessness propels Scully
out of her apartment. Her back and legs are sore, so
she decides against another jog. But it's good to
walk, it's good to feel her stiff muscles work.

On the way out the door Scully stops and returns to
her bedroom. She takes her gun out of the top drawer
and looks at it for a moment, feeling its comforting
weight and smoothness. She slips it into her holster,
then puts her coat back over it.

At first her wandering is aimless. The streets are
quiet today, oddly quiet for such a pretty morning.
After a while, Scully finds herself retracing her
steps from the day before, past the campus, past the
restaurants, until she is standing at the top of the
stairs again. They are deep in shadow, a black stone
stripe in the sunny day. She pauses briefly, then
walks down, keeping her eyes on her feet.

Soon she is back on the canal towpath, turning the
same bend that she took yesterday morning. The scene
is still cordoned off with garish yellow tape. The
canal has been drained and rubber-booted police
officers wade through the muck, sifting for evidence
and picking up trash. Old shoes, bottles, cans, even a
twisted old shopping cart decorate the green mud. 

A small crowd watches them work. Scully scans the
backs of their heads, not sure what she's looking for.
Is she watching for that twisted nightmare shape to
appear again? Does she really want to see it? She is
untethered, working without a net, and it's an odd
feeling. She's not sure she likes it.

"Agent Scully?"

She was so intent on the crowd that the voice near her
ear makes her jump.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."

"Do I know you?" she asks, making a quick recovery.
This young man is unfamiliar to her. Maybe 25, brown
hair, pleasant unremarkable features. Slim, not too
tall. His smile is shy.

"Oh, um, my name's Joseph. Joseph Winner. I'm really
sorry. I recognized you from the pictures."

"What pictures?" asks Scully, her stomach beginning to
churn.

"Back when you testified against the death penalty for
Donald Pfaster. I'm in the poli sci department at
Georgetown, but I took a course at the law school on
the death penalty. I found an interesting article
about you when I was doing research for a project."

"I see," says Scully. Her heart sinks. At least he
doesn't know, she thinks. At least he doesn't know how
it was all for nothing. "That's nice. I need to be
going - "

"I don't want to bother you, but I was hoping I could
ask you about something."

All Scully can see is slight embarrassment in his
earnest face. Is it a face she's glimpsed around
Georgetown as she's rushed from home to work and back?
Maybe walking around with books, kicking a soccer ball
in the park, drinking a latte at Dean and Deluca?
"About what?"

"Oh, I don't want to be a pest." Winner turns and
begins to walk away from the scene, back toward the
main part of Georgetown. Scully walks next to him,
curious now. "I wanted to ask about...forgiveness."

"Forgiveness?" she repeats, surprised. Well, you've
come to the wrong place to learn about that, says the
cynical voice inside her head.

"Yeah. I just..." He pauses again, his eyes downcast.
"I read the transcript - it was just so amazing that
you would defend his life like that. That you could
forgive him, even after what he did to you. Your
testimony made a huge impression on the court. On me
too." His voice is quiet. "I want to understand why."

Scully remembers testifying, remembers Pfaster's
strange face as he listened to her speak in that
courtroom. His features were almost handsome, but
subtly askew, making him more disturbing than any
monster or freak. "It had nothing to do with
forgiveness," she tells him. "It wasn't my place to
forgive. There were the families of his other victims.
And the only ones who could truly forgive him were
dead."

Joseph Winner gives her a swift, searching look.
"Then...I don't understand. Why?" 

"Because I was tired of death." She thinks some more.
"I was tired of *him.* I thought that he would have a
greater hold over me dead than alive." She smiles a
little at the grim irony. "And, I thought, there was
some good that could come out of it. By simply
destroying him, we could never learn anything from
him. We could never understand why we became who he
was. We don't get many chances to study evil like
that." Scully takes a breath - she's said too much.
She didn't mean to talk like this, she didn't mean to
reveal so much. Now it's really time to extricate
herself from this odd conversation.

But Winner stops abruptly and stares at her until she
becomes quite uneasy. They have walked back along the
towpath, until the police and the crowd out of sight.
They Key Bridge arches overhead, joining DC and
Virginia. The traffic thrums above, the dark river
moves beneath. Here there are no bikers or joggers,
despite the sunny day.

"It's funny that you should mention evil," Winner says
at last. "Like it's something separate from the
person. It seems like such an old idea. You hear the
word evil, you think about demons, possession, stuff
like that. Usually, when someone's truly sick,
mentally ill, we say he's not responsible for his
actions" He clears his throat and looks up at the
bridge. "But evil's a sickness, don't you think? Can
you hold someone responsible for evil?"

"Evil is something that can work through people, just
like good," Scully says neutrally. Is this what I
believe, she wonders. She imagines huge unknowable
forces at work, occasionally finding temporary vessels
to enter, use, and abandon.

Winner exhales loudly. "It's such a relief to talk
about this with someone who understands," he says.

Scully cuts him off, suddenly very tired. "Look,
Joseph, is it? It's a very troubling subject, believe
me. But I have to tell you that I'm as confused as you
are. So, it's been nice talking to you, but -"

Winner continues as if he didn't hear her. "Because
this is what I keep trying to tell them but they won't
listen." He looks into the distance, down the empty
path.

A cold breeze comes off the water, but it's not what
makes Scully shiver. "'Them?'"

He turns back to face her. There is a light behind the
mild eyes that Scully did not see before. "The
voices," he explains reasonably. "They keep telling me
it was my fault but it wasn't. It wasn't my fault at
all."

Scully's body tenses. "What are you saying?"

"I mean, I can't even remember what happened," Winner
says. "We hooked up that one time but I guess it
wasn't good enough for her. She came by to see my
housemate, she needed to return a book or something.
But I was the only one in the house that day, everyone
else was out of town. Kim was acting so bitchy to me.
I don't understand why she had to be that way." He
shakes his head regretfully.

"Are we talking about Kim Somers, Joseph? Is that what
we're doing?" Carefully she stretches out a hand. "Why
don't you go talk to the detective. I can take you to
him. He's the one you need to talk to."

"But I don't need to," Winner says, a petulant note
creeping his voice. "I didn't do anything. I was just
talking to her, that's the last thing I remember. And
then it was like I was asleep or something, because I
woke up on the floor in my room and she was there on
my bed. And she was...she was so messed up. I wouldn't
ever do anything like that, to her or anyone else. It
couldn't have been me." He swallows. "It's just so
totally of character for me."

I don't want to hear this, Scully thinks.

"So I cleaned up the blood and showered. And I used
the little gun I bought in Arlington to, you know, to
finish it."

"To finish it," repeats Scully. Horror and revulsion
threaten to overwhelm her but she tries to force her
emotions away down and keep her mind clear.

"I didn't want her to suffer," explains Winner "She
was still breathing a little bit, but she wasn't going
to last much more anyway. I was able to wrap her up
and get down the canal. But maybe I should have put
her in the river instead. Guess I wasn't thinking too
clearly. The voices were so loud." He rubs eyes as if
they burn. "The voices are always trying to tell me
that I did it, but I didn't do it." He's talking
faster now, his eyes shining. "I'm not responsible.
It's like you said, there was something working
through me, using me. It's not fair to punish me for
something I didn't do."

"Joseph," she begins, her voice hoarse. "Joseph.
Please. I want you to come with me now." Rage now
rises in the back of her throat like bile.

Something like astonishment crosses his face. "But
Agent Scully, you can't think I'm responsible." His
expression changes to ugly fear. "Don't you
understand?" He backs away some more and his hand
moves to his jacket.

"No," Scully says. She reaches behind her with
instinctive speed, feels her weapon solid and
reassuring in her hands. "Take your hand away from
your jacket, very slowly. Keep your hands where I can
see them."

Winner's eyes never leave hers. He pulls his hand from
his jacket. He holds the little gun loosely in his
right hand. "You have to believe me. I thought you
would believe me, you of all people. Something evil
came into me and made me do that. I just had to clean
up after it, that's all."

"Put the gun down now."

"I'm not responsible. It's not fair." His voice cracks
and his pleasant features are distorted. "Please, you
have to forgive me." He waves the gun vaguely at
himself, at Scully, at the ground.

"PUT THE GUN DOWN NOW."

"Forgive me," he whimpers. With a slight motion of his
wrist he tosses the gun into the canal. It hits the
mud with a soft plop. "I just wanted to be forgiven so
I could go on with my life. I just want the voices to
forgive me." He sinks to his knees. 

And it would be so easy to shoot him now, Scully
thinks. Her finger moves slightly, slightly on the
trigger. So easy, so *right*, to rid the world of
another monster. The path is empty, the rumble of
traffic on the bridge would muffle the noise. She
looks at him, his face dissolving into tears, and
tries to see the nightmare shape. She tries to see the
shifting demon face that lurks at the edge of her
memory, that lurks around the edge of everyone's
buried fears.

But she can't see it.

Instead all she sees is a medium-sized young man
pathetic and groveling in the dirt in front of her. He
begins to weep, his face twisted in fright. Scully
feels the rage fade, leaving behind weary disgust.

"You have the right to remain silent," she says.


XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX


"And so..." Mulder prompts.

"And so the ballistics match, and traces of her blood
were found in his room, along with matching hair and
fiber. A DNA analysis is being performed on the semen
found in her body, but I don't think the results will
be too much of a surprise. He's at St. Elizabeth's
now, being evaluated. It's unlikely that he'll even be
considered competent to stand trial."

They are walking down Prospect Street on their way to
dinner. Her first day back at work has been a quiet
day of catching up. She picked up Mulder at National
Airport early that evening.

"I can't believe it," says Mulder again, shaking his
head. When she first told him about it, his face
froze, as it usually did when he was worried or angry.
Seeing her strong and whole mitigated his anger. Now,
as they walk to dinner, he is almost recovered.
Almost. "I'm sure Skinner was thrilled. I don't think
this is what he had in mind when he asked you to take
time off."

"I think if he had his way he would have placed me
under house arrest." As they walk the dark sidewalk,
she watches the bricks beneath her feet. "But I had to
know. I couldn't leave it alone. I had to understand
what I saw."

"What *did* you see?" Mulder asks, his breath steaming
in the cold night. His tone is light but his eyes are
serious.

"I don't know. And, to be honest, I don't know if I
need to know." His face has that open, listening look,
encouraging her to continue. "There are forces at work
in us, Mulder. Good, evil, God, the devil - whatever
you want to call them. We give them many names.
Sometimes we catch glimpses of things we aren't meant
to see. But we can't - *I* can't - live life wondering
about them. I can't let them paralyze me. All I can
do...all I can do is try to do what's right, what's
just." She stops and looks up at Mulder imploringly.
"And if I fail, then I have to move on, and keep
trying. Do you understand?"

They stand under the streetlight, hands in pockets.
Mulder nods. "But Scully, you always have to rely on
your instincts. Always. You have...a radar for evil."
She raises an eyebrow. "I'm sorry, but I can't think
of a better way to phrase it."

"I don't think it's a gift I really want," she says.
"I always thought that's what you had. Your intuition.
The way you can reconstruct people and their
thoughts."

"No, you have something different." He searches her
face with warm, wondering dark eyes. "You have
something that I don't understand. Not yet. Maybe
someday." Standing close, he touches her face
contemplatively, his warm thumb brushing just beneath
her cheekbone. A very slight smile curves his lips.

They start walking again, slowly. "So where are we
going for dinner?" Scully asks. The subject is done,
for now.

"There." Mulder points down the block to 1789
Restaurant. It's in remodeled 18th-century building on
36th Street, the kind of place with fireplaces and
different flatware for different courses and before-
theater menus. A group of well-dressed people walks
laughing to the front door.

Scully looks at the restaurant's lit windows, warm and
inviting in the cold night. She raises her eyebrow
again. "Mulder, are you aware this place uses cloth
napkins?" 

He grins. "I'm willing to expand my horizons." A hint
of smugness enters his voice. "I made reservations
from National."

Scully shakes her head, a small grin of her own
forming. "And what's the occasion?"

"To celebrate. I've escaped from Dallas. You're back
at work." He makes an expansive gesture with his arms.
"Just because."

They cross the street and pass by the Exorcist stairs.
The Rosslyn skyline shines from across the Potomac.
Scully notices how Mulder picks up the pace - she has
to jog a little to catch up. "Mulder...?"

"They give me the creeps." He nods toward the stairs.

"What, because of the movie? Oh please..."

"Scully, all I know is that I snuck in to see it with
some friends when I was thirteen and I had nightmares
about spinning heads for weeks afterwards." He gives
her a sidelong glance. "But the puking thing was
pretty cool. Come on Scully, you must have seen it.
Don't tell me you weren't scared."

"I don't know, Mulder. I saw it, but I wasn't scared."
She returns his glance, amused. "At the time, I
thought it was too implausible."

He laughs as he opens the restaurant door for her.
Then he follows her in, shutting the door against the
cold night.


End


XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX


So I saw the re-release of The Exorcist last weekend -
great flick. I remembered Scully lives in Georgetown,
where it was filmed, and inspiration struck. The
Exorcist stairs exist, near the corner of Prospect and
36th - kind of a local landmark.

This might be a good time to mention that The Exorcist
is a Warner Brothers movie written by William Peter
Blatty and directed by William Friedkin. I'm just
drawing inspiration from the setting, that's all...

Please let me know what you think about this odd
story. Thanks for reading.

EG
ElanorG@yahoo.com
http://www.geocities.com/ElanorG

    Source: geocities.com/elanorg