"Paranoid Android" by Radiohead, from OK Computer

"One TWO, skip a FEW, ninety-nine a HUNDRED!"

She belts out the words with the precision of a military officer, the beat echoed by the sharp slap of her skipping rope against the wet pavement. Two other girls play hopscotch on the sidewalk, running shoes padding in a counter-rhythm over the fading chalk lines. The rain has washed some of the numbers away, but the game goes on.

The girl with the plastic skipping rope has long dark braids, and for a fleeting instant Mulder imagines that it is Samantha, playing in front of a suburban house, eight years old and happy and alive.

For an instant. The sky hangs, dark and overcast, and the rain is coming again.

"You wanted to talk to me."

Hands thrust into the pockets of his trenchcoat, still damp from the last rain, he can't meet her eyes. Her hair is the brightest gleam of color in the post-storm street; if he looked in her direction, it would burn his eyes.

"Mulder, I know what you're going to say."

He doesn't think she means it. She says it out of habit, with only the slightest hint of condescension. She doesn't mean to be condescending. She wants to be sympathetic. Her voice is hoarse, as if she is the one who has been crying.

Who knows - maybe she has been crying. He wouldn't be surprised. Six years, and her quest is his quest - perhaps it always has been. Maybe she has that same raw, stripped-bare feeling inside, as if in one night someone has peeled away with great care the outermost layer of her skin, leaving her exposed and bleeding in the rain.

That's how it feels.

Their footsteps are a dreary echo of the fading sound of the skipping girl's chants. "Skinner tried to reach you all of yesterday. Your phone was turned off."

"I was chasing a suspect."

Does his voice sound too abrupt? He was in Baltimore, doing a favor for some old sort-of friends in VCS, and it wasn't until the killer was behind bars for nearly an hour that Scully had finally been able to reach him.

Not her fault, he tells himself. And it's not Skinner's either. That doesn't alleviate any of the resentment. He should have been the first to know, and he's the third, and it doesn't change anything...

But still.

"Have you-" His voice isn't working properly. It comes out mangled the first time, a breathless whisper as he finishes, "-seen her?"

"No." She swallows, looks down, looks up. Goes for his eyes but he's still refusing. "Mulder-"

She tries for his hand next, but he pulls away. She can't touch him - he can't let her. His hands are too cold. "Where is she?"

"I don't think it's the best thing if you-"

"No. Scully." At last he meets her eyes, and yes, they brim with tears. How can she cry when his own eyes are still horribly dry?

He is so tired.

"Where is she?"

"Mulder, it's not going to be like how you expected. What you wanted." She winces - it's all coming out wrong for her as well.

This wasn't how it was supposed to be.

"But she's alive."

He keeps telling himself this. He has been doing so, ever since the phone call. If she's alive, there's still hope.

She is still alive.

And this will not be a fairy tale. This will not have a happy ending.

But his quest - their quest, will at least have an ending.

The chalk lines on the pavement reluctantly yield to rain.

Samantha Mulder has come home.

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