From: krasch@delphi.com
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: *NEW* "No Greater Love" (10/13) by K. Rasch
Date: Mon, 3 Jun 96 05:29:27 -0500
No Greater Love (10/13)
by Karen Rasch
krasch@delphi.com
Yikes! Will this never end?! (Soon, I promise . . .) Read on
McDuff. :)
================================================
"So what do you make of that, Scully?" Mulder asked
as soon as they exited the Sigma Pi house to brave the now
blinding Missouri sun.
Scully pursed her lips thoughtfully and dug her
sunglasses out of her purse, longing for the Taurus and its air-
conditioning. "I'm not sure. I feel as if what JJ told us is
important. I'm just not certain how his confession fits with the
case as a whole."
Mulder reached in front of her and opened her car door
before crossing around to his side of the auto. "Yeah. That's just
about where I am with it. JJ believes he's responsible for Kim's
death. He tells that to Weaver. And all the Reverend does is ask
for directions to the Holiday Inn? If my theory is correct, and
Weaver is capable of murder, JJ should be dead by now."
"So, you think Kim did commit suicide?" Scully queried
as she slipped into the oven warm auto, refraining as she did so
from reminding her partner that 'Weaver as Murderer' was indeed
still only a theory.
"Ow!" Mulder yipped, relinquishing his hold on the
overheated steering wheel. "I don't know. Seems likely, don't
you think?"
Scully's lips flattened. "Seems *convenient* more than
anything. Sorry, I just don't buy it, Mulder. No one, with the
exception of JJ, believes that Kim was capable of such an act."
"A young girl's psyche can be a fragile thing," Mulder
averred as he buckled himself in, taking care to keep his tender
fingers from the apparatus' currently lethal metal pieces.
"JJ himself said he was cruel that evening. Maybe the guilt and
the sense of failure got to her. I mean, here was a girl who had
gone against everything she had been brought up to believe in
for this kid. She had defied her father, her own moral code, and
then the minute she suffers a little doubt the guy not only leaves
her, but indulges in a bit of name-calling before heading out the
door."
"You're being awfully harsh on the boy, aren't you
Mulder?" Scully commented with a touch of curiosity, the
young man's suffering haunting her still.
Her partner started up the car, and gingerly holding
the wheel by the tips of his fingers, pulled into traffic. "Just
being honest, Scully. As far as we know, Jeff Jefferson was
the last person to see Kim alive that night. They quarreled.
She was dead before sunrise. I think his feelings of guilt are
well placed."
"There's still the question of where she could have
gotten the pills."
"Not to mention the alcohol," Mulder agreed evenly
as he flipped on the air. "Of course, I suppose even Holiday
Inns have wet bars."
"I suppose. Or the kids might have smuggled some
in as part of their 'evening's' preparations," Scully murmured as
they wove past flocks of students heading back to campus after
lunch. "I would just be curious to learn where a nice minister's
daughter, a girl who according to her boyfriend didn't even take
aspirin, would track down drugs that potentially deadly."
"She had the time," Mulder reminded her.
"What do you mean?"
"JJ said he left her at 9:00. And Kim's official time of
death was . . .?"
Scully reached into the bag at her feet and pulled out
the file holding the answers they needed. "Now, it's difficult
to pinpoint because of the submersion in water. But according
to the coroner, estimated time of death falls somewhere between
2:00 and 4:00 in the morning."
Mulder considered for a moment, then mumbled
moodily, "Except that nobody reported seeing her leave, right?"
She shook her head. "Not according to the police
report. The Columbia P.D. spoke with a Brian Cox, the motel's
night manager. He said that after Kimberly Weaver checked in
no one saw her again until the maid found her body the
following morning."
Mulder shrugged. "Well, that may not mean anything.
It's not that tough to sneak in and out of a motel."
"Speaking from experience, Mulder?" Scully inquired
lightly.
Mulder waggled his eyebrows at her.
"What exactly did she take?" he asked after they had
driven a block or two in silence.
"Well, judging by what M.E. Perkins found when he
performed the autopsy, Kim drank quite a bit more than her
customary one beer on the night she died. In addition, she
had a significant level of phenobarbital in her system. Not
enough to kill her, but certainly enough to render her
unconscious. Especially when washed down with the beer."
"How long before that would have happened?" he
asked, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully. "How long after she
took those pills before she would have lost consciousness?"
Scully cocked a brow. "Not long. Not given her size,
and the fact that, as far as we know, that night would have been
the first time she had ingested any sort of depressant. With that
in mind, chances are the effect would have hit her particularly
hard."
"It's weird then, isn't it?"
"What is?" Scully asked as the car's air conditioning
finally began to kick in.
"If Kim *didn't* intend on committing suicide, if instead
she was simply trying to forget what had happened, take her mind
off of it, why take a handful of downers then =immediately= hop
in the tub?"
"Well, lots of people take baths to relax," Scully offered
reasonably.
"Speaking from personal experience, Scully?"
Mulder teased, purposefully parroting her earlier question.
"Maybe I should consider bubble bath for your next birthday."
"I'll give you a list of my favorites," she retorted dryly,
refusing to rise to the bait.
He chuckled. "No, what I mean is--Kim was found
clothed, right?"
Scully scanned the report once more. "Um . . . for the
most part. She had on a blouse and her underwear."
Mulder shook his head. "That just strikes me as odd,
you know? As if the whole thing was rushed somehow."
"I don't know, Mulder," Scully said with a wrinkle of her
nose. "Kim wouldn't have been thinking clearly regardless of the
reason she got into that tub. Not with the drugs she'd taken.
She probably wasn't even aware she was still wearing clothes."
"You're probably right," he admitted with a grimace. "I
just can't shake the feeling that we're missing something here.
Some little piece of information that would explain everything."
Scully nodded, her lips pursed in thought. "I just
want to know what happened between 9:00 and 2:00. What
could Kim have been thinking or doing during those five hours
that led to her sitting in that bathtub?"
* * * * * * * *
"I'm sorry, Brian doesn't come on until 8:00."
Scully sighed, tapping the file in her hand against the
countertop in annoyance. Well, she supposed Mulder and she
shouldn't be surprised. After all, Brian Cox was the Holiday
Inn's *Night* Manager. Still, as it was only shortly after 2:00,
that meant that they would be spending the next several hours
cooling their heels in Columbia.
Unless they could get Mr. Cox on the phone.
"I don't suppose you have a home number for Brian,
do you?" she heard Mulder ask the heavy-set gentleman
behind the front desk. The agents hadn't gone into detail when
they had approached the manager on duty, choosing instead to
merely flash their badges. Fred Driscoll, the manager in question
and the man currently eyeing them worriedly, had been too
cowed to ask questions.
"I'll see what I can do."
Striving to remain patient, Scully joined her partner
in leaning wearily on the motel's counter while they waited.
This particular Holiday Inn was more hotel than motel. The
sign on the way in had declared the facility an Expo Center.
The people currently milling about certainly bore that
designation out. Most looked to be business travelers. The
majority were clad in suits; several sported name tags. It was
a nice place. Very upscale.
Apparently, Kim had wanted her first time to be special.
"Here you go," said Driscoll, returning to them with a
scrap of paper in his hand. "Now if you'd both just step down
here to the end of the counter , you can use the courtesy phone."
The partners did as the manager requested. Scully
watched as Mulder placed the call.
"If you don't mind my asking--what is this all about?"
Driscoll asked in a low voice. "Brian isn't in any trouble, is he?"
She turned to the man on the other side of the counter.
Driscoll looked to be in his mid-forties. His dark brown hair was
slicked straight back from his forehead, doing nothing to
camouflage his receding hairline. A lifetime of motel coffee shop
food had his considerable girth pulling at the buttons of his
short-sleeved white shirt, and beads of sweat dotted his
forehead. Although whether the moisture was due to heat or
nerves, Scully couldn't say.
"No, Mr. Driscoll. Not at all. My partner and I are
here investigating the death of Kimberly Weaver."
"Kimberly Weaver?" Driscoll repeated, his brow
furrowed, the name apparently not meaning anything at first.
"Oh, Kim Weaver! That college girl. The one who committed
suicide. Oh, I remember that! Terrible thing. Just terrible."
Scully was just about to comment on Driscoll's outburst
when she noted that the maintenance man who had been
diligently emptying the garbage cans in the small lounge area
directly across from them had looked up with interest upon
hearing the dead girl's name.
I wonder what that's all about, she mused.
"Um, . . . yes, that would be the one," Scully murmured,
her attention now split between Mulder, who judging by his end
of the conversation had succeeded in getting Brian Cox on the
telephone, Driscoll's sympathetic clucking, and the maintenance
man's continued curiosity. "I don't suppose you were working
the night she died?"
"Me?" Driscoll asked. "No, you and your partner have
it right. Brian was on duty that night. I'm strictly days."
The janitor had now worked his way a few steps
closer to the desk. He appeared to be a fairly young man.
Mid-twenties, perhaps. He had long black hair tied neatly in
a ponytail at the nape of his neck. His skin was acne pitted,
and he had a small tattoo on the back his hand. From a
distance it looked to be in the shape of an eagle. Apparently
unaware of the scrutiny he was under, he straightened throw
pillows, adjusted lamps. Anything, just so he could have a
reason to stick close by. Subtle didn't appear to be in the man's
vocabulary, Scully thought with a touch of amusement. Don't
quit your day job, fella. You have no career in espionage.
"Well, that was what we had read in the police report,
Mr. Driscoll," she said with a smile, dragging her attention back
to the man whose elbows rested on the counter near her own.
"Still, I don't suppose you recall anything that might be
helpful to us? Something perhaps that might have occurred
after the night in question. A comment someone might have
made? Something someone might have seen or heard? A
guest. Or maybe even an employee"
Driscoll shook his head sadly. "No, I'm sorry Agent
. . . Scully, is it? But, no. Of course, there was some talk about
it after the fact. Everyone was pretty torn up about it. We've
never had anything happen like that before. But, I don't
remember anything specific being said. Nothing that would
have anything to do with why that girl killed herself. Sorry."
Scully smiled her understanding. She then turned
back to see what their eavesdropper was doing, and just
happened to catch his eye. Both froze. Realizing he had been
found out, and with as much aplomb as he could muster, the
man took off, his bags of garbage in tow. Guessing that
Mulder was going to be on the phone for a few minutes
more, Scully started after the now retreating maintenance man
on her own.
"Excuse me," she called with a smile, noting that while
the man appeared alarmed that she was approaching him, he did
at least stop. "I don't mean to bother you, but I couldn't help
but notice you . . . noticing me."
The man shifted his weight from foot to foot, the
action speaking of an excess of nervous energy. "Yeah.
Well . . . . So, you're a nice lookin' woman. So?"
Scully had to swallow a smile. "Yes, well be that as
it may, I didn't really get the impression you were paying
attention to me so much as you were paying attention to my
conversation. You seemed awfully interested in what Mr.
Driscoll and I had to say. Tell me, were you working here
when Kimberly Weaver was killed, Mr. . . . .?'
The man ignored the agent's ploy, refusing to give
his name. Instead, his eyes looked furtively about. "Yeah.
Maybe I was--listen I've gotta get back to work."
Scully put out a hand to gently restrain the man.
"Sir, I'm a federal agent. Now, you and I can talk here, or I
can call the police and we can borrow one of their
interrogation rooms. The choice is entirely up to you."
The man grimaced, turning his head from side to
side as if looking for an escape route. "Shit! No. No cops,
all right? Listen, I didn't do anything. I just . . . I took an
interest in the case is all."
"And why would that be, Mr. . . .?"
The man sighed. "Fowler. Bobby Fowler."
"Mr. Fowler," Scully said with a nod. "So what was
it about Kimberly Weaver's death that you found so
fascinating, Mr. Fowler?"
"Scully?"
The female agent turned at the sound of her partner's
voice. Mulder walked briskly towards her, his exasperation
evident in the set of his jaw. "Cox gave us nothing. Yes, he
was on duty the night Kim died. And no, he can't recall
seeing or hearing anything that might help us. Just like in the
police report."
"Mulder, this is Mr. Fowler," Scully said with a slight
arch of her brow in Mulder's direction. "He was also working
the night Kim was died. And I have a feeling that he may have
a bit more information for us than Mr. Cox."
Fowler looked as if he wanted the floor to open up
and swallow him whole. "Great, now there are two of you," he
mumbled in disgust. "Look, let's not do this here, all right?
Not in the middle of the lobby. Ol' Fred is just looking for a
reason to fire me."
Shaking his head, he hesitated a moment, then muttered,
"Follow me."
With a sigh of resignation, he turned and exited through
a door marked "Employees Only." The agents trailed behind.
The portal led to a service corridor running the length of the
motel's kitchens. The hallway dead ended into another
passageway. To the left was the entrance to the kitchen itself;
to the right, an emergency exit leading to the parking lot. Fowler
led them to the right, and propped open the door with a cinder
block.
"Listen--I don't want any trouble, okay?" he said,
standing in the doorway and lighting up a cigarette. "You may
as well know up front, I got a record. This is my first gig out
of the joint. It ain't much. But, I don't want to lose it."
"I see no reason why you should, Mr. Fowler," Scully
said calmly, her arms folded, the case file still held tightly in her
grasp. "We're just looking for some information. You said you
had taken an interest in Kimberly Weaver's case. Care to tell us
why?"
Fowler took a drag on his cigarette, his eyes narrowed
against the afternoon sun. "I guess because of her father mostly."
"You know her father?" Mulder asked quickly.
Fowler half-smiled. "Not personally, man. But I saw
him preach once. He came to the state pen when I was there. It
was wild. Never seen anything like that before."
"So you're a fan?" Mulder ventured dryly as he braced
his arm against the door jamb.
That seemed to appeal to Fowler. And he grinned at the
two agents. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess I am."
"So why didn't you come forward with whatever
information you had when the police were investigating?" Scully
asked. "I don't recall seeing your name in their report."
The man laughed humorlessly. "The cops and I don't
see eye to eye, okay? I figure I stay outta their way, they stay
outta mine. Besides, there's no way I was tellin' the cops why
I found out what I found out that night."
Mulder shook his head, clearly losing the thread of the
conversation. "Why don't you start from the beginning."
Fowler took a couple more puffs on his cigarette
before speaking. "I've been workin' here about six months.
Different shifts, different hours. It's a shit job, but it's not like I
could pick and choose, ya know? So, anyway--I was workin'
the night the Rev's daughter died. Didn't see her check in. Hell,
I didn't even know it was her at first. I mean, Weaver ain't exactly
the most unusual name in the world, ya know?"
"So, what did you see?" Scully asked with as much
patience as she could muster.
"Well, I was takin' a break. Had to have been around
midnight. And I went up to the second floor. There's a supply
closet up there. Nobody's got the key for it 'cept the maids and
the maintenance people." Fowler leaned in conspiratorially, and
winked. "We don't have maids working the overnight. And I
was the only janitor on the schedule. So, I had it all to myself."
"And why was that important?" Scully inquired, not
seeing the significance.
Fowler chuckled, and changing his grip on his
cigarette, pantomimed the explanation. "I wanted to enjoy a
little weed. Something the management does *not* approve of."
"So what happened then?" Mulder prodded.
"So, I go up there, and just as I'm gettin' ready to enter
my little sanctuary, this door opens up across the hall."
"Do you remember the room number?" Scully asked,
her excitement mounting.
Fowler nodded coolly. "Yeah. Yeah, I do. Room 214."
The two agents glanced at each other, the same
exhilaration mirrored in each other's eyes.
Kimberly Weaver had stayed in 214.
"And what did you see?" Mulder asked in a low voice,
the intensity rolling off of him in waves.
Fowler paused just an instant. "I see this guy at the
door. He's my age, maybe a couple years older, and he's talkin'
to these two other guys. I couldn't get a good look at them,
though, 'cause they were still inside the room."
"Could you see Kim?" Scully asked breathlessly.
"Not really," Fowler said with a frown, grinding out his
cigarette with the toe of his boot. "I mean I thought I heard a
girl's voice, ya know? Sounded like maybe she had had a few
too many. But I never saw her."
"This guy in the doorway," Mulder said, pushing away
from his resting place and taking a step towards Fowler. "Do
you remember what he looked like?"
"Well, like I said, he was young," Fowler said with a
shrug. "Dark hair. Not quite as dark as mine. Kinda curly. And
a mustache."
"A mustache?" Scully repeated, her stomach suddenly
flip-flopping like a fish on the beach.
"Yeah," Fowler confirmed with a chuckle. "One of
those ones like in the olden days, with the ends all curly.
What do they call those?"
"Handlebars," Mulder supplied quietly, his eyes
flickering to his partner's.
"That's right!" Fowler enthused. "Handlebars!"
"Mr. Fowler," Scully said, searching through the file
in her hand. "Is this the man you saw?"
Fowler studied the picture handed him only a moment.
"Yeah. Yeah, that's the guy. That's the guy I told the Rev about."
Bobby Fowler had just positively identified a picture of
Terry Halprin.
Scully shook her head in amazement. "You told this to
Reverend Weaver?"
Fowler nodded. "Yeah. He came by maybe a month
after it happened. I saw him wanderin' around the lobby, and I
recognized him. So I went up to him, ya know? Introduced
myself." Fowler grinned slyly. "Like you said, I'm a fan. And
I asked him what he was doing there."
"What did he say?" Mulder asked, his eyes once
again straying to Scully's.
"He told me about his daughter. About what had
happened," Fowler said with a lift of his brow. "The guy
seemed really broken up about it. And I put two and two
together, ya know? I mean, I was still on duty the next
morning when the maid found her. And I realized that the
room where the dead girl was, the Rev's kid, and the room
where I had seen this guy leave from--they were the same. So
I told him. Told him what I saw."
"Mr. Fowler," Scully began, her mind positively
whirring with the implications of this revelation. "Do you
recall whether the man you saw said anything to the two men
inside the room? Anything at all?"
Fowler thought it over for a few moments. "I don't
really remember what he said to the two guys in the room. But
he talked me personally."
"He did?" Mulder said in astonishment. "What did he
say?"
Fowler smiled dryly, "He wanted to know where the
nearest liquor store was."
* * * * * * * *
"Oh my god, Scully," Mulder murmured for what had to
be the fifth time since they had returned to the Taurus, shaking
his head in continued amazement as he did so. "Oh my god."
He and his partner were testing the tolerance of the
Missouri Highway Patrol as they sped down U.S. 63 in an effort
to return to Pine Grove as quickly as possible.
"Well, count Terry Halprin among the missing," Scully
said grimly as she slid her cellular back into her purse.
"What do you mean?"
"I just spoke to Backroads' only remaining bartender.
Apparently, Halprin was supposed to meet him this morning to
go over the bar's inventory. The bank had been pressuring him
for the information. But, Halprin never showed."
Mulder raised a brow, and sighed thoughtfully. "Do
you think he's running?"
Scully shrugged, then shook her head. "I don't know.
I would."
Mulder glanced at his watch. They were edging up on
4:00, and still had probably another fifteen minutes before they
reached the Church of Christ's Mercy. Scully and he hoped to
catch Weaver in his office, and get him into custody before the
day was out.
"You know, Mulder, I hate to put a damper on things,"
Scully said with a frown as she watched the scenery fly past.
"But despite everything we learned today, we still have no proof.
There's no way we can pin what happened to Cullins and Halprin
on the Reverend. Hell, we can't even get Terry Halprin for what
happened to Kim. I doubt that Fowler would ever agree to testify,
and he's the only one who even saw the Halprins and Cullins at
the Holiday Inn that night."
"I know," Mulder admitted quietly. "I've been thinking
the same thing. But I have a feeling, Scully. I think that in a weird
way, Weaver may actually be hoping we'll put all the pieces
together."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, I've been thinking about what you said to me
yesterday at the sheriff's office. Do you remember how you said
that you couldn't figure out why Weaver allowed me to detain him
as long as I did?"
"Yeah," she said with a nod. "Do you think that
subconsciously Weaver was hoping you'd be able to break him?"
He shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe. Or maybe he
looked at my questioning as a kind of penance, you know? A
punishment he felt he deserved."
Scully nodded slowly. "Especially after he failed Decker."
"Exactly," Mulder said, glancing her in her direction. "In
any case, Weaver doesn't strike me as the sort whose conscience
would let him live with this for any amount of time. After all, that's
one of the things that made me so suspicious of him. He acts like
a guilty man."
"Like he's hiding something?"
"Yeah."
Scully shook her head, her lips twisting wryly. "I know
what you mean. I thought it was his grief over Kim's death, you
know? I thought he was just trying to be strong."
"That's probably part of it," Mulder allowed with a
grimace as he turned off the state highway and on to the county
road. "I'm sure once he found out that his little girl was partying
the night she died with three men he had basically fingered as
his enemies, the knowledge must have turned him inside out."
"That's what I don't get," Scully said with a frown, her
hands gesturing in frustration. "Surely the two Halprin brothers
and Cullins wouldn't have killed Kim just to get back at her father,
would they? I mean, none of the three of them had ever had more
than a speeding ticket before. I can't imagine they would suddenly
turn to murder just to get revenge against the Reverend for that
picketing he instigated."
"Maybe they didn't," Mulder said with a shrug. "Maybe
it was simply an accident. Maybe they had gotten to drinking,
popping a few pills, the men left and Kim was left to pick up the
pieces. The only problem was, she wasn't in any shape to do so."
His partner shook her head, clearly unsettled by either
scenario.
"Here we go," Mulder said, making the turn into the
church's lot.
The two agents said nothing as they exited the auto
and ventured out into the muggy May afternoon. The
temperature had risen steadily all day, the humidity keeping pace.
Their clothes clung to their backs. They hurried towards the
building and the promise of further air-conditioning.
They were not disappointed. A rush of cool air rolled
over them as soon as they closed the front door behind them.
"Agents," said a familiar voice. "I didn't expect to see
you back here so soon."
Coming down the church's far right aisle was Bev,
resplendent that afternoon in a brightly colored blouse
featuring pansies and daisies, and matching purple pants.
"Bev, is the Reverend still here?" Scully asked politely.
Almost as if she could somehow sense the reason for
the agents' visit, the church secretary paused warily before
speaking. "Yes. Yes, he is. Do you have an appointment?"
"No," Mulder said with a short, tight smile. "But, I
believe he'll see us."
Bev frowned in consternation. "I'm sure you're right.
Well, come along."
Wordlessly, they followed her back up the aisle.
Instead of taking them to the door she had shown them to the
previous day, the one leading to the Reverend's dressing room,
Bev led the agents to the door directly at the end of the aisle.
This was the entrance to the church office itself. Inside, they
found a trio of desks, two battered filing cabinets, bookshelves,
a standard assortment of office equipment.
And Reverend Weaver.
The Reverend sat at his desk, books and papers
surrounding him like a miniature fort. He looked up when the
visitors entered, his expression carefully masked at first. Then,
taking a long measuring look at the people before him and the
determination in their eyes, the mask slipped just a fraction.
"Bev, why don't you go home for the day?" he
suggested softly.
"Reverend, I don't mind--"
"No, no," he assured her just as quietly. "I don't
think I'll be needing anything further today."
Bev looked at her boss, then looked at the two people
facing him. She hesitated as if wanting to argue the point a bit
further. Then recognizing any such protests would be for
naught, she smile a tight-lipped smile, retrieved her purse from
one of the other desks and exited, closing the office door quietly
behind her.
The three people remaining simply looked at each other
for a time.
Reverend Weaver broke the silence first, a sad, weary
smile on his lips.
"Well my friends, judging by the looks on your faces,
I'd say you're here to arrest me."
* * * * * * * *
Continued in Part XI
===========================================================================
From: krasch@delphi.com
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: *NEW* "No Greater Love" (11/13) by K. Rasch
Date: Mon, 3 Jun 96 05:30:00 -0500
No Greater Love (11/13)
by Karen Rasch
krasch@delphi.com
Help! I think this story is sucking my brain dry!!! Sounds like
an X-File. (Oh, yes please, Agent Mulder, won't you investigate
me . . . .) Sorry--slipped into the Muldergutter there for a minute.
:) For those of you who have been thinking, "Enough already!
Just tell me what the heck is going on!"--this chapter is for you.
All will be revealed (and believe me, I have all the faith in the
world that =many= of you are waaaaaaaay ahead of me). :)
================================================
"Reverend, before we go any further, I need to read you
your rights."
"I know my rights, Agent Mulder," Weaver assured him
calmly. "I know them in the eyes of the law and I know them in
the eyes of God. Your repeating them is unnecessary."
Mulder nodded. He glanced at Scully. She seemed no
more surprised by the Reverend's words than he. Well, whaddya
know, he thought with satisfaction. It appeared that he had
guessed right. Weaver wanted to be found out. He wanted it all
to be over.
The suddenness of the whole thing struck Mulder for an
instant. What a difference a day makes, the agent mused with a
touch of wonder. Just yesterday he had been trying to sweat a
confession out of the snowy-haired man before him. And now
today, Reverend Weaver seemed almost anxious to admit to his
part in the tragedy.
But, perhaps they should test that theory just to be
certain.
"Agent Scully and I spent the day in Columbia," Mulder
began, taking a quick peek at his partner for her approval. She
nodded almost imperceptibly. Heartened by her support, he
continued. "While we were up there, we ran into some friends of
yours."
"Really?" the Reverend commented mildly.
"Yes. We spent some time with Jeff Jefferson and
Bobby Fowler. You remember them, don't you?"
Weaver paled slightly, although his expression remained
serene. "Yes, of course."
"They send their regards." Mulder said
conversationally as he crossed to the Reverend's desk and
perched a hip on it, his hazel eyes boring into the watery gray
ones belonging to the man before him. "You know, you really
should have shared with Jeff the truth about what happened
to Kim. That kid's guilt is killing him."
At that, the Reverend's composure crumpled. Hiding his
face in his hands, he just sat there for a time, his elbows planted
against the desktop, his shoulders bowed. The agents met each
other's eyes yet again. Apparently Jeff Jefferson wasn't the only
one well acquainted with guilt. Finally, Weaver looked up once
more, his hands clasped in front of his face, his eyes tired, and
so very, very old.
"Yes, Agent Mulder, you're right. I should have told
him. I should have done so many things. But, now it's too late
to make any of it right."
Weaver leaned back in his seat then, his eyes focused
on the ceiling, his fingers tunneling through his hair, a desperate
sort of laughter bubbling just beneath the surface of his voice.
"But you see, if I were to tell that boy that my daughter did not
commit suicide for love of him, he would then expect to learn the
truth. And although you may not be convinced, it's far kinder to
let him believe the lie."
"Why don't you let us be the judge of that, Reverend?"
Scully suggested softly as she stepped towards the two men,
coming to a halt at Mulder's side. "Why don't you tell us what
you couldn't tell JJ?"
Weaver looked at the young redhead before him, the
one who reminded him so poignantly of the daughter he had
lost. And sighed. For a moment, all resistance, all hesitation
trickled away. "Do you know what we use water for in my
profession, Agent Scully?"
"To cleanse away sin?" she ventured with a tilt of her
head.
Weaver nodded. "Yes. To wash away iniquities. To
make them disappear." A ghastly parody of a smile on his face,
the Reverend's head began to shake slowly from side to side,
the movement slight, almost as if it were a kind of nervous tic.
"Perhaps that's what Cullins and the Halprins had in mind
when they placed my daughter in that tub."
Mulder stole a grim glance at Scully, then leaned
towards the older man, seeking confirmation. "What are you
saying, Reverend Weaver? Why would the men put Kim in the
bathtub?"
"Water doesn't only erase sin, Agent Mulder," said
Weaver quietly, his eyes meeting those of the man before
without flinching. "It washes away evidence as well."
"Reverend Weaver, was your daughter physically
assaulted on the night she died?" Scully asked in a hushed
voice, almost as if she dreaded the answer.
"Do you mean was she *raped*?" Weaver countered
bitterly, his voice rising suddenly in volume. "Did those three
men take her back to that motel room and strip her not only of
her clothes, but her innocence, her dignity? Is that what you
want to know?"
"What I want to know is why you believe that to be
true," Mulder said calmly, his hands braced against the desk.
"How do you know that, Reverend? Did the men from
Backroads confess it to you?"
Weaver laughed, the sound shaky, hollow. "Confess?
No, Agent Mulder. I never heard their confessions. On the
contrary, to hear Roy Cullins tell it, my daughter had it coming.
She'd asked for it. My beautiful little girl--the one who couldn't
even bring herself to go to bed with a boy she adored--
picked up not one, but three men. The youngest of whom
was ten years older than her. And brought them back to that
motel room, willing in every way."
Mulder caught Scully's eye once more, and saw the
same confusion there that was coursing through him. At last,
Weaver was giving them valuable information. Information
they had despaired of ever learning. But it was coming at
them like buckshot. Scattered. In no particular order.
"So you're saying that Kim left the motel after JJ did?"
Mulder began carefully, hoping the question might help to
center the Reverend, give his story shape, direction.
No such luck. Weaver said nothing. Instead, he
looked warily at the couple before him, as if fearing to trust
them with this most personal and painful of tales.
The agents waited. But after the Reverend's initial
outburst, no further information was forthcoming. Instead, he
sat quietly, his eyes studying his hands.
Stalemate.
Then, with a small sad smile, Scully crossed to
Weaver, and kneeling beside him, covered one of his hands
with her own. "Reverend Weaver, don't you think it's time for
the truth to finally come out? I know you're trying to protect
your daughter's memory. But I wonder if Kim would want that.
Especially if she knew the cost."
Mulder watched his partner, her face level with the
Reverend's chest, no judgment in her eyes; but rather, her
expression warm, her voice gentle. He had seen her work her
magic this way before. Sometimes with witnesses, sometimes
with the families of victims, sometimes even practicing some on
him. It never ceased to amaze him how Scully, a woman who
made her living in what was oftentimes such a brutal profession,
could still find within herself the compassion she seemed able to
muster so effortlessly. Mulder would be the first to admit there
was no way he was proof against those wide sympathetic
blue eyes.
And in the end, neither was Reverend Andrew
Weaver.
"Kim went to look for JJ," the older man began
haltingly, his voice hoarse, his hand finding its way to the
auburn tresses of the woman beside him. "I don't know
exactly where she went. Wherever the kids her age go, I
imagine. I do know that she ended up in a bar downtown.
There she met Cullins and the two Halprin brothers."
"What were they doing up here?" Mulder asked,
the question one that had kicked around inside his head
since hearing Fowler's story earlier that day.
"Basketball game," Weaver said shortly, a rueful
glint in his eye. "They had left Backroads in the hands of
one of their employees for the night."
His hand smoothed gently over Scully's hair, his
eyes trained elsewhere, almost as if he were unaware of the
caress, or of his surroundings. "Kim was distraught. She
had searched everywhere for JJ, but couldn't find him. She
longed for a friendly face. And that night, she found three."
He bowed his head a moment. His hand stilled, then
dropped away from the female agent's hair. "As for the men, I
imagine having the opportunity to corrupt the preacher's
daughter appealed to them. To use her to get their revenge
for what I had so childishly tried to do to their business. I
doubt Kim was in any shape to resist them. And their
*kindness*. So she let the nice men buy her a drink. Or two."
"But how do you know this?" Mulder asked again,
his hand reaching out to the man who sat opposite him. "How
do you know that this is the way it happened?"
"They told me. Mark Halprin and Roy Cullins told me."
Weaver's eyes found Mulder's once more. "You see,
I went to them. To Halprin first. After I spoke to Jerry Perkins."
"Jerry Perkins?" Scully murmured, her brow creased
in thought, the name familiar somehow. Suddenly, she made
the connection. "You mean =Gerald= Perkins, the County
Coroner?"
Weaver nodded. "Yes. The man had tried to help me.
You see, he thought he owed me. I had helped his mother.
Years ago. She had suffered from arthritis, and I was able to
ease her pain. Jerry never forgot. And so he thought to
repay the debt."
"I don't follow you, Reverend," Scully said with a
shake of her head.
"Jerry kept the fact that my daughter had apparently
had intercourse shortly before her death out of the official
autopsy findings. He had been worried that such information
might not only cause me pain, but further tarnish our family's
good name, and thus, my 'reputation'."
"So then how did you find out?" Mulder asked.
The Reverend laughed wearily. "Despite his lapse
in judgment, Jerry is a good man. The deceit bothered him,
and he came to me finally with the truth."
Of course, Mulder thought with a sudden burst of
understanding. That would explain the time lapse between
Kim's death and Mark Halprin's. Perkins must have waited
almost a month before going to Weaver with that bombshell.
"Is that why you went up to see JJ?" Mulder inquired,
the pieces beginning to fall into place.
"Yes. I was sure, you see, that he was the one Kim
had been with."
"But Jeff told you differently," Scully said, standing,
her own mental gears beginning to turn. "He told you he had
left before they could consummate their relationship."
Weaver nodded. "That's right. I was puzzled.
Though not for long."
"And so you confronted Mark Halprin," Mulder
murmured, the words a statement rather than a question.
"Yes. And he told me what I told you."
With an unexpected surge of energy, Weaver pushed
out of his chair and walked on shaky legs to the office window,
his eyes averted, almost as if he needed to put some distance
between himself and the two people forcing him to relive his
greatest nightmare.
"He told me many things," the Reverend said, his
voice husky, his hand braced against the window frame. "Things
no father should ever have to hear about his child." He closed
his eyes for a moment, wetting his lips with his tongue before
speaking once more. "According to the elder Halprin, after . . . .
after it was over, reality began to set in. For everyone
involved. The men were more than a little drunk, and Kimberly
. . . Kim was hysterical. Cullins and the Halprins became afraid.
They wanted to keep Kim quiet. At least until she calmed down,
and they had the chance to get out of there."
"So, they gave her the phenobarbital," Scully said
softly, crossing to just behind the Reverend.
"Yes," Weaver confirmed, his eyes opening and
staring without sight through the window at the church parking
lot. "They fed her that . . . poison--'downers', I think Cullins
called it. And just to be on the safe side, they placed her in the
bathtub. Just in case she got it into her head to call the police
and try to press charges. They wanted as little physical evidence
to survive as possible. Halprin swore to me that she was still
awake when they did this, still conscious. And as strange as it
may sound, I believe him."
"And did you kill them, Reverend Weaver?" Mulder
asked, leaving his perch on the desk corner and crossing to the
window to join Weaver and his partner. "Did you kill Mark
Halprin and Roy Cullins?"
"You know the answer to that, Agent Mulder,"
Weaver told him in a voice devoid of life. "But I swear to you
on the soul of my dead daughter, that although I am responsible
for killing those two men, Mark Halprin's death was accidental."
"Accidental how?" Scully queried with a sideways
glance at Mulder, her trademarked skepticism overlaying the
question.
Weaver paced away from them, his eyes focused on
the floor before him, his hands fisted in front of his mouth as he
spoke as if to hold back the words. "I had gone to him, to
Halprin, with what I had learned in Columbia. I expected him to
deny it. And at first he did. But, when he heard I had a witness
that placed his brother and two other men at my daughter's
motel room . . . well, he decided to own up to it instead."
He looked over his shoulder at the two agents, his
face grim, his voice rising in tone and volume. "It was all very
civilized. Halprin explained to me that he and his friends did
nothing to Kim that she didn't invite them to do. He even
apologized for the error in judgment that led to my daughter's
death."
He stopped suddenly, his hands flinging away from
his face. "And I was . . . =enraged=. I didn't know what to do.
I had no recourse. No way to punish them. No real proof that
Halprin's version of the truth was the lie I knew it to be. So, I
came back to the church and I knelt before the altar, struggling
with those feelings of anger, of grief. And . . . and it =hurt=.
My heart =hurt= with the knowledge of what my daughter had
suffered on the night she died. And suddenly, I wanted nothing
more than to make Mark Halprin feel that pain, that awful,
burning, throbbing pain that I felt. I wanted him to know what
that was like."
"And so you made it happen," Mulder murmured with
a touch of awe.
Weaver stepped towards the agents, his hands
reaching out beseechingly; in his eyes, a plea for understanding.
"I had no idea I could do that. I had never thought . . . never
dreamed of using my gift in that way. Never wanted to. I was . . .
was =horrified= when I found out that Halprin was dead.
=Horrified=. I . . . I didn't know what to do, how to make
amends. I went to Backroads . . . . looking for, I don't know--
forgiveness? =Something=."
"And what happened?" Scully asked, her expression
suggesting to Mulder's eyes that his partner already had a pretty
good idea of the outcome.
"Roy Cullins was there," Weaver said as he began
to pace once more, the path short, the gait measured. His voice
rumbled low and dark. "Alone. It was during the day. During
the week. I had gone there, to the men responsible for my
daughter's death hoping to fix things somehow. And Cullins
. . . I know now that he was afraid, that he suspected that
I had perhaps had something to do with the manner in which
his friend had died. But he . . . he came after me, attacked me
--not physically. At least not at first. But verbally. His
words were like bullets. The things he said. . . . about me.
And . . . about my Kim."
He stopped his restless motion, his arms gesturing
weakly, his gaze skittering about the room. "It was unforgivable.
The cruelty. The crudeness. I ran from that place."
He found Mulder with his eyes. "And in the hours
that followed I convinced myself that my God was the God of
the Old Testament."
"An eye for an eye," Mulder whispered, recognizing
the Reverend's reference. And, although doing so a trifle
begrudgingly, sympathizing with the man's need for vengeance.
After all, who more than he would know just how seductive
such a need could be?
"Yes," Weaver whispered back. "Yes. Cullins was my
greatest, my darkest sin. I murdered him. Put him to death.
All the while knowing full well what I was doing."
The worst of his story finally told, the Reverend
wandered back to his seat and buried his head once more in his
hands. "And with that death I tried to tell myself that it was
over. That justice had been served. I had no need to take the
younger Halprin's life. No desire. My bloodlust had been
satisfied. And I could get on with my life. I could redeem
myself through prayer and hard work. Or so I tried to convince
myself. But somewhere along the line I had become as great
a monster as any of those three men. I knew it. And God
knew it. I had taken my talent, my gift from Him, and perverted
it. And so, it became no longer mine to command. God taught
me that painful lesson with Mr. Decker."
The Reverend took in a shuddering lungful of air,
sounding as if at any moment that breath might shatter into a
sob. "I can't do this anymore. The lies. And the pain. I can't
live like this. I don't want to."
Scully crossed to the man who sat, his slender
shoulders curved as if crushed by a great unseen burden, and
gently guided him up from the chair. "It's all right, Reverend.
It's all over now. We need you to come with us. You just have
to tell some other people what you told Agent Mulder and me."
Handling him as carefully, as tenderly, as if he were the
victim of a crime rather than the perpetrator, Scully led
Weaver to Mulder. Her partner took charge of the older man,
keeping his hand on the Reverend's arm and walking him slowly
towards the office door. Weaver allowed this, no argument
raised, no resistance given. His silent, shuffling acquiescence
reminding Scully of a sleep-walker. Someone for whom the
everyday workings of the world had no meaning, no relevance.
She lagged behind slightly, feeling the need to do
something for the Reverend, some small kindness perhaps. So,
meager though the effort was, she turned to close the office
blinds. Then returned to the man's desk to shut down his
computer. The screen saver's flying toasters struck her as
almost unforgivably whimsical given the disclosures to which
she and Mulder had just been made privy.
That poor man, she thought with a subtle shake of
her head as she maneuvered the mouse to bring the computer's
functions to a halt. All he had ever wanted to do was protect
his daughter. To shield her from danger and temptation. That
impulse had even continued after death, she realized ruefully,
her lips thinning at the notion. After all, he had destroyed her
remains, frightened that somehow, some way, her already
battered reputation would be sullied further by the secrets her
body kept. And yet, all his efforts, all his love had failed to keep
Kim safe. Instead, his need to keep her close, to keep her
innocent, had only served to destroy her.
"Scully, I'm going to go on out."
"Go ahead, Mulder. I'll only be a minute."
She watched as the two men left the office. Having
successfully exited from the computer's word processing
program, she brought the machine to its C prompt, and turned
it off. Flicking off the office lights as well, she engaged the
lock on the door, and exited, shutting it behind her.
The church looked particularly pretty this time of
day, she noted as she paused for just a second before following
her partner and his charge up the aisle. Sunlight poured through
the stained glass windows on the wall opposite. Shafts of
vibrant blues and reds and greens blazed to the floor, erupting
in pools of pigment. It was like being on the inside of a
kaleidoscope.
Appreciating the wash of color, she hadn't gone more
than a few feet, hadn't even cleared the altar rail, before she
noted something poking out from behind the pulpit on the far
side of the sanctuary. At first it looked like an oddly placed
handrail, its shape tubular, its color metallic. She took one step
further. And with horror, recognized the object for what it was.
The barrel of a gun.
"Mulder!"
Upon hearing her voice, her partner spun, only to find
his face hit squarely by a blinding ray of gold shooting through
one of the windows on the far wall. Squinting against the almost
painful brightness, he stood, unknowing of the danger, perhaps
five rows ahead of her. Weaver did likewise.
The gunman had that behemoth of a pulpit for cover.
Mulder couldn't see the gun.
Scully couldn't get a shot.
And so, she did the only thing she could do. She ran,
gun drawn, towards her partner. Without thought, she roughly
shoved Weaver to the ground. And stepped in front of Mulder.
Directly into the path of an oncoming bullet.
* * * * * * * *
Continued in Part XII
===========================================================================
From: krasch@delphi.com
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: *NEW* "No Greater Love" (12/13) by K. Rasch
Date: Mon, 3 Jun 96 05:30:35 -0500
No Greater Love (12/13)
by Karen Rasch
krasch@delphi.com
You know, I thought I was going to be able to wrap this up in
12. But Nic, you were right. :) And it appears we'll be going
for lucky 13. Angst warning ahead. Heavy angst warning
ahead. Be prepared. Disclaimers in Part I. All comments to
the above address. Thanks.
===============================================
In the years to come, Mulder would always remember
this, the scene that could have been ripped from the heart of
any one of his most fiendishly malevolent nightmares, in a
series of instants. Impressions comprised of sight and sound.
His name. Called by his partner. Alarm vibrating as if
it were a current through her voice.
Light. Laser bright. Yellow-gold in color. Not unlike
the hue of the sun when drawn in crayon by a child.
Scully running towards him. Her expression, as viewed
through his narrowed gaze, a blur. Only the electric blue of her
eyes registering. The gun in her hand glinting like distant summer
lightning in the sunlight.
A cry of dismay from Weaver. A gasp. A soft muffled
thud as his body hit the floor.
Scully, there before him, her face upturned. Her chest
heaving from exertion. Her lips parted. Those eyes clinging to
his.
Then, the shot.
And suddenly it was as if some enterprising film maker
had collected those stills and others, spliced them together end-
to-end on a reel, and popped the finished product on a projector.
Because all at once, life unspooled again at its proper pace.
Even as it shredded apart before his horrified eyes.
The moment he had heard the gun discharge, Mulder
had instinctively drawn his from his hip holster. He had just
brought the weapon around to the front of his body when Scully
slammed into him, her chest to his ribs, her hands convulsing on
his arms, her Sig Sauer tumbling from her twitching fingers.
Battling for balance in the wake of this, he fired towards the
sound, emptying his gun in the direction of the pulpit. The agent's
frantic attempt to defend himself and the woman before him was
rewarded by a choked cry of pain and the cessation of further
gunfire.
Peering over the cloud of Scully's tousled copper hair,
Mulder spied the face of Terry Halprin as he lay prone just
behind the pulpit. His eyes were open, yet without vision, his
rifle jammed half under his twisted still body, his chest bubbling
red as if he had sprung a leak.
It was over.
They were safe.
But the woman in Mulder's arms had grown heavy. He
looked down at her, his shock at what had just occurred muddying
his ability to comprehend the significance of the moment, to
understand precisely why his partner appeared no longer able to
stand.
Then, he felt the blood.
As he circled his arms around her back to help support
her.
And the fluid oozed hot and sticky through his fingers.
"Scully?"
She gazed up at him, her eyes having gone wide and
glassy, her expression frozen at the moment of impact. An almost
comical surprise warred with her fear for him for dominance over
her features. She tried to speak. To perhaps say his name. Her
lips moved but no words, no sound issued forth. And yet, her
throat worked furiously, the simple action of swallowing
seemingly denied her. For what felt to Mulder like a moment
plucked out of time, they stood there in each other's embrace.
Almost like lovers. His head bowed to hers. Hers tipped up to
meet his.
Then her knees gave out completely.
With a low awful moan that rattled trapped in the back
of her throat like a snake slithering through withered grass, her
head dropped and lolled to the side with the force of a slap.
And folding like a telescope, she sunk slowly down to
the church's red carpeted floor, Mulder cradling her as she fell,
pulling him with her.
They settled in an awkward pile of limbs in the middle
of the aisle, Mulder half sitting, half kneeling. Scully laid
sprawled across his lap, her head and back supported by her
partner's now trembling arms. Weaver sat hunched nearby, his
eyes trained fearfully on the corpse of his would-be assassin
half a church away, not watching the couple beside him at all.
"Get an ambulance."
To the casual listener, Mulder's mumbled instruction
would have sounded almost calm, rational, in control. After all,
he somehow managed to keep his voice level, his volume
moderate. But anyone alert to the subtleties that marked this
man's usual modus operandi, would have seen that his composure
was a patch job at best. His hastily built wall of cool was riddled
with cracks, its plaster flaking.
While Weaver did finally look to his left, at the pair of
agents huddled so closely to him, he didn't respond. Instead,
his brain had apparently shut down, the stresses of the day, the
shamble of his life, contributing to render him mercifully numb.
'GET A FUCKING AMBULANCE!"
Mulder tore his tortured gaze from his partner's face,
from the waxy complexion of her cheeks, the rapid flutter of her
eyelids, to pin it on the Reverend. The urgency, the terror, the
rage captured in the younger man's voice succeeded in finally
piercing the fog enveloping the older man. Weaver blinked,
then looked at Mulder again as if for clarification as to his
duty.
"=Now=."
The single word flew from the mouth of the man
clutching the small fragile looking woman against him with the
same explosive force of the bullet that had wounded her so
grievously. Nervously licking his lips, Weaver hoisted himself
from the floor. And despite his own reservations as to whether
an emergency medical team would in the end make any difference
at all, tripped over his feet as he stumbled up the aisle, hastening
to do Mulder's bidding.
"Mul--Mulder?"
The word was only a thread of sound. Had his ear
been even a couple of inches further away, Mulder doubted he
would have been able to make sense of it. Schooling his features
into an expression meant to instill confidence and hope, he
looked down into Scully's eyes and found them fighting to
meet his. Her lids drooped heavily, the sweep of her lashes
obscuring her pupils, unfocused now with pain. It seemed as if
the effort to simply keep her eyes open was a task requiring far
more strength, more stamina than she currently possessed. He
wanted to tell her to relax, to forgo the struggle. Anything to
ease her.
But he shied almost violently away from the thought
of those eyes closing. Some little evil imp of a fear promising
him that when they did, they would not open again.
"Shh," he crooned, desperate to remain strong for her.
His one hand, the hand he had managed to keep free of her
blood brushing the hair tenderly from her temple. "It's all right.
It'll be all right. Just rest. Rest."
But it wasn't going to be all right. Mulder had seen
enough gunshot wounds to recognize the severity of her injuries.
Blood was pulsing out of the hole in her back with every beat of
her heart, saturating her black cotton jacket and staining his hand,
his cuffs. He could smell the sickening sweet scent of it, the
odor threatening to propel the contents of his stomach up and
out of his body.
But he wouldn't let it happen. Wouldn't succumb to the
weakness. The panic. The fury churning inside him. The need
to rush the altar, to strip it bare, dismantle it piece by piece. To
burn it, to smash the neat ceramic pots of flowers, rip the stems,
to trample on them, to grab the tall silver candlesticks adorning
the table and heave them through the too beautiful stained glass
windows before him.
Those fucking windows, fucking sun, fucking light,
fucking blinding him . . . .
Oh God. . . .
God. . . .
God.
"Who . . . who shot . . .?"
He glanced down at Scully again. She was clutching
at his lapel with one hand, the other lay curled against her breast.
Her face reminded him of ivory now. Cool and slick. It seemed
an almost surreal shade of white. Very nearly transluscent. Her
lips had taken on a blueish cast. And her breathing . . . . the very
act of it seemed to him to be some exquisitely honed form of
torture. Shallow shuddering gasps marked the effort. Her jaw
and mouth rigidly attempting to control the intake of oxygen in
a way her lungs couldn't manage. And yet, she fought for every
breath like a tigress. Never giving up. Never giving in. All her
fierce concentration seemingly focused on the action. He found
himself trying to match his rhythm to hers, the expansion of his
chest and the release to follow. Ridiculous though he knew it
was, he irrationally believed that if perhaps he just tried hard
enough he could somehow manage to breathe for both of them.
He had to do something. She couldn't go on straining like she
was.
"Halprin," he said softly, answering her question, his
thumb tracing the tender rise of her cheekbone, the arch of her
brow, all the while finding it unnervingly difficult to follow the
delicate lines, not with the way his hand continued to shake.
"Halprin did it. He's dead."
The information seemed to satisfy her. She nodded
ever so slightly.
"Cold," she murmured after a moment, her brow
creasing as if with a measure of surprise.
Cold? Christ, how could she be cold, he thought in
amazement. Although the church was air-conditioned, they
were spotlighted in one of the bright pools of sun pouring
still through the wall of windows across from them, this
particular one tinted a rich amber. Rays passing through the
robe of what looked to be John the Baptist supplied the shade.
It's glow suffused everything, even the pale oval of Scully's face
with counterfeit color. The false promise of health and
heartiness. The heat that seeped through the windows with
that light felt to Mulder like that of a fully stoked furnace.
Sweat trickled along his hairline.
Then, the reason for her discomfort pounded into him
like a fist.
Shock.
Such a state would prove both a blessing and a curse.
The former, as it would dull Scully's pain. The latter, as it could
only mean her condition continued to deteriorate.
Just where the hell was that ambulance?
Nodding in acknowledgment of the single softly spoken
word, he pulled her to him, thinking perhaps to share a bit of his
own warmth with her. She quietly sighed, the hushed sound one
of relief, the rigid set of her shoulders relaxing just a fraction.
Although he couldn't be certain, it appeared that she approved
of the notion. Had, in fact, a desire to be close to him at that
point in time, a need that mirrored his own. A yearning to feel
his heartbeat encouraging hers. And so he crushed her carefully
to him, her head tucked beneath his chin, one arm around her
slender waist, his other hand buried in the soft fall of her hair.
This closeness proved a particularly refined torture in
and of itself, Mulder recognized only an instant later as he rocked
Scully gently in his embrace, murmuring mindless words of
comfort in her ear. The opportunity to hold her in this manner
had only ever come in moments of tragedy or profound relief.
Her rescue from Pfaster, the death of Melissa. Any physical
outpouring of affection or support had always been so
ruthlessly controlled by them both; any touches, any caresses
given almost surreptitiously. As if each feared the other
might note what was happening and for some reason offer
protest. And thus, almost as a kind of defense, the two had
pared down such moments of sweet contact, distilled them to
their essences. Kept them simple, streamlined. Safe. A palm
against a cheek. A hand resting on a rumpled head. A squeeze
of tangled fingers. Nothing they couldn't explain away if the
need arose.
He just wished someone could remind him why in God's
name they had gone to all that trouble.
Suddenly, she began to stir in his arms, to fuss.
Although he would not have believed it possible, it seemed
that her breath grew even more belabored. Arduous hiccuping
sounds had joined the gasps accompanying her intake of air.
He could feel her chest pumping frantically against his own in
an effort to accomodate her need for oxygen. With terror
gripping his heart like talons, he eased her away from him
slightly, thinking perhaps she currently needed space more
than she needed warmth. Her eyes were open now, wide with
the pain he had hoped she might be spared. Her hands searched
blindly for purchase, finding it with his dress shirt. She clung to
him, the fabric bunched in her fists. Her back arched. Her neck
following suit, the muscles in her throat standing out in harsh
relief. He held his breath, waiting several long agonizing seconds
until she was able to pull in air before he dared do so himself.
Then, the spasm, the seizure was over, leaving them both shaken.
"Oh my God, Mulder," she whispered, fear and a kind
of awe woven into the words like silken floss.
"Just hang on, Scully. Okay? Just hang on."
But with a terrible sort of certainty he doubted she was
up to it. And yet, at that point, he didn't know what else to say
to her. What other words he could force past the ever increasing
lump in his throat. What encouragement he could impart that
wouldn't sound like bad soap opera cliches.
Oh, he knew he had other things he could say. Should
say. All the secret hidden things. The private things. The
things that had remained stowed away so long in the most remote
recesses of his soul that language had ceased to be a part of
them. And thus, had stolen his capacity to express them. And
yet, she knew them, didn't she? Understood in that wonderfully
empathic way she had all his deepest, darkest mysteries. After
all, he had never been any good at subterfuge, and she was such
an excellent investigator.
She had to know, hadn't she?
Know of the trust.
The devotion.
The absolute need that existed between them. In him.
The sense of wholeness. Completion. The homecoming
he felt whenever he stood beside her.
She must know that, mustn't she?
To be aware of just how much he valued her. Counted
on her.
How fine he thought she was. How strong. How brave.
How much he relished the challenge she presented to
him, her keen mind a goad to his own.
Surely that was a given.
Wasn't it?
And yet, perhaps not.
He was losing her. Could feel her slipping quietly away
even as she clung steadfastly to him in a way that suggested she
was no more willing to leave him than he was willing to let her go.
And he realized that he couldn't take that chance,
that he simply couldn't part from her without sharing with her
the contents of his heart.
So, with the backs of his fingers coasting lightly over
the curve of her cheek, he opened his mouth to tell her.
But, she stopped him.
"Mulder. . . ."
Some of the mist that had dulled her eyes' usual sparkle
had lifted. She was looking at him now with an almost piercing
clarity. Really looking at him. In that manner she alone had of
seeing past his clever words, and outlandish theories. Past the
years and years of carefully constructed defenses, fortresses
and barricades designed to protect his wounded heart, his
battered pride.
Looking for and finding the man inside.
The man who tried not to feel too much, not to get
involved too deeply. The one who preferred to hold the world
at arms's length because that way he was safe. No one could
hurt him by meaning too much. By becoming too necessary.
Only to one day vanish.
But Scully had discovered a breach in his security. And
had slipped right in when he wasn't looking. She had found that
carelessly unlocked door, the one he had so foolish left unguarded,
in the same way she uncovered all her most important revelations.
By searching. Carefully. Methodically. By going over all the
evidence. Considering everything.
And drawing the proper conclusion.
Perhaps her deductive powers did indeed extend to the
jumbled feelings he had for her, the emotions he himself did not
fully understand. Because even now, at this most desperate hour,
she let him off the hook.
She smiled. Just the corners of her mouth turning up.
A look he had seen so many times before. Then, with one hand,
she released the stranglehold she had on his shirt. Trembling,
she stretched her fingers towards his face, able only to reach his
chin, her strength extending just that far. Lightly she caressed
him with the tips of her fingers, dancing against his skin like a
butterfly.
Then, she gave him a gift. The same one he had
thought to grant her. Her lashes lowered over the clear lake blue
depths of her eyes, then raised. And in that moment he saw
something there, shining unabashedly, without shame or
apology. That same something that he had liked to imagine he
had glimpsed there from time to time in the past.
After he had done something that made her fear for
him.
Or had said something that had made her laugh in
spite of herself.
Or, more rarely, during those instances when she had
needed him. When she had dropped her own formidable barriers
and had reached out to him all on her own.
But this was more than a glimpse, more than a quick
peek that only raised more questions than it answered. This
was a surrender. A relinquishing of self, of pride. A complete
and utter baring of this woman's soul.
And what he saw there was familiar. A version of it
dwelt in him.
She let him look at her for as long as she was able.
Until, the effort to keep alert and strong grew too great. She
blinked then, her hand dropping, coming to rest on his suit
coat. The simple shift in positions seemed to signal even
greater changes. And her body began to shake once more.
Still she struggled. For breath. For time. But, her finite
measure of the stuff was at an end. Almost as if sensing it, she
clutched stubbornly at his clothes with the last reserves of
strength. Her gaze held fast to his, as if he had suddenly been
cast as her anchor, her touchstone for this world. Finally,
however, the pull of the other realm became too much to resist.
So, she took one last breath, then whispered, "I'm sorry."
And, she was gone.
* * * * * * * *
Continued in Part XIII
===========================================================================
From: krasch@delphi.com
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: *NEW* "No Greater Love" (13/13) by K. Rasch
Date: Mon, 3 Jun 96 05:31:07 -0500
No Greater Love (13/13)
by Karen Rasch
krasch@delphi.com
Well, by this time you guys are either cross-eyed, or have bailed
entirely. For those of you who have weathered the storm (you
brave souls)--thanks for sticking around. I hope that this, the
final chapter, will make the time you spent with my story
worthwhile. And please know that like most writers, I love
your feedback. All comments, good, bad, or indifferent
(well . . . hopefully not =that= ) can be forwarded to
krasch@delphi.com. Tell me honestly what you think. I'm
tough. I can take it. After all, how can I get better if you don't? :)
Thanks again.
================================================
Reverend Andrew Weaver walked quietly out of his
office and shut the door just as softly behind him. He had been
sitting, thinking, in that room. Behind his desk. Looking around
at the things he had always believed defined his life. His books,
copies of his sermons, photographs of his family ,and other
assorted memorabilia. It was a familiar enough vantage. And
yet, all that was known to him, all that he had counted on as
constants had been removed one by one over the last several
months, like moorings taken from a pier. Leaving him adrift.
Once he had hung up the phone after calling for help,
he had reflected upon this, the strange floating sensation
that seemed to permeate his very existence nowadays. About
the way in which life could so easily be turned inside out and
yet a person was supposed to carry on. To continue as if
nothing untowards had occurred. To somehow survive.
It had been, of course, his own situation he had been
considering. His own train wreck of a life. The one shadowed
by death and deceit. No family. No friends. Or, certainly none
after what he had done was made public. Even his own God had
turned His back on him. Had taken back the wondrous gift He
had once so freely bestowed. Not that Weaver believed he
deserved any less.
But now, as the Reverend reentered his church, he
saw that his ruminations could just as easily have revolved
around the unfortunate Agent Mulder. The younger man sat,
an ungainly heap on the floor. And enclosed tightly in his
arms lay the small still figure of his partner, her bright head
resting against his chest as if in sleep.
But Weaver knew that the young woman didn't
merely slumber. It took no more than an instant to discern
that. The back of her jacket glistened in the strange golden
light in which she lay with the same substance that drenched
the sleeve of the man holding her. Blood. Too much of it
spilled on the floor beneath her, turning the red carpet
black. On the man cradling her, dotting his pants, his coat,
painting his hand.
Too much death. Another soul chalked up to his
account. After all, she had died defending him, hadn't she,
Weaver thought bitterly. And yet, he knew that despite the
fact that he continued to breathe while she did not, the agent's
prime concern at the moment she had rushed to his side,
shoving him out of harm's way had not been him at all.
It had been the man she worked with.
He shook his head ruefully. Although he didn't really
know these people, these strangers who had been sent to track
him down, to expose the awful crimes he had committed, he
somehow doubted if their relationship had been been solely
defined by their work. Oh, he knew about the sort of communion
that was said to exist between those forced to depend upon
each other to stay alive; those in the military, or those who
fought crime or fire. But, he had spent a great deal of time
with law enforcement of late, with Sheriff Lowry and his
deputies, and their counterparts in Columbia. More hours in the
past few months than he would ever have cared to. And he had
never witnessed anything between those men and women that
approached the bond the two F.B.I. agents had shared. Never
seen that spark, that something special that marked any pair of
them as two halves of a whole. Not like the man and woman
who had come to arrest him that day.
Weaver's eyes strayed to the couple once more.
Mulder sat with his body curled around Scully, as if he were
shielding her somehow, making some desperate attempt to
protect her in death in a way he hadn't been able to while she
had lived. He rocked her softly, as if she were a child in need of
comfort, although perhaps it was he who was seeking solace.
His eyes were tightly closed, his lips buried in her hair. To his
surprise, Weaver noted that the younger man's lips moved. He
was whispering to the woman he embraced so tenderly, words
the Reverend couldn't make out. Not that he wanted to. He
already felt like a voyeur intruding upon this almost painfully
private moment. It would have been unforgiveable were he to
be made privy to what was being said, what secrets were being
shared between these two.
And yet, he suspected what the stricken F.B.I. agent
was so urgently trying to impart to his partner. What things he
felt she had to know, even if she was now physically incapable
of hearing them.
Oh, Agent Mulder, Weaver thought sadly, his eyes
welling with sympathy, why didn't you tell her? Why didn't
you let her know all those things that will now lay heavy and
useless inside of you for the rest of your life, weighing down
your heart with their stony mass?
But even as he asked the silent question, Weaver
knew the answer. After all, he had made the same mistake,
hadn't he? With Kim. Had believed he had all the time in the
world to tell her how proud he was of her. What a joy she was
to him. Of course, he had intended to tell her. One day, when
the time was right. But that time, that opportunity, had never
arisen. They had each been so busy. And near the end, so hurt,
so defensive. He had never found the way to say those things
to her. Those words he would now give anything to be able to
speak. If only she was there to hear them.
But now it was too late.
Blinking back tears, the Reverend took a few hesitant
steps towards the agent and his beloved burden, thinking to
comfort the man, to do what he had spent his career doing for
his parishioners. But, apparently Mulder had come to some
sort of decision, and shifting awkwardly, he struggled to his
knees. Weaver hung back, watching the agent as he moved
slowly, precisely, as if he were swimming through quicksand.
Carefully, so carefully, he eased his partner down to the floor,
laying her gently on her back in a spot away from the stained
patch of carpet. His eyes never leaving her face, he arranged
her limbs, making certain her legs were straight, her arms were
adjusted in a manner she might have found comfortable, were
she still aware of such things. In the end, he rested her one arm
across her middle and the other so that it lay on the floor beside
her, palm up as if in supplication. Finally, his hand drifted to
her face once more. At first, he only brushed a fall of hair from
her forehead. Then, his fingertips smoothed along the soft skin
of her cheek. And at last, his knuckles traced the same path.
Over and over, he repeated the caress. The motion turning
urgent, speaking of an almost overwhelming need. And Weaver
knew he couldn't stand silently by a moment longer waiting for
the man to crumble.
"Agent Mulder?"
Hearing his name, he spun around, his eyes wide, and
now that the Reverend got a good look at them, more than a
trifle wild. Tears streaked the man's flushed cheeks.
"Agent Mulder," Weaver began again, squatting
down beside the younger man, his voice soft. "I'm so sorry. So
terribly sorry for your loss."
Mulder frowned at first, like he didn't know the man
before him, couldn't place the face. Then, recognition dawned,
and he looked away, as if unable to stand the pity he saw
reflected in Weaver's calm gray eyes. Instead, his gaze searched
for and found Scully's face again. His eyes swept longingly
over her familiar features. Then, with trembling fingers, he
reached out and captured a strand of her auburn hair, rubbing
it between them, seemingly finding the action soothing. All at
once, he stopped. Went stone still. And returned his eyes to
Weaver's once more.
"Help her."
Now it was the Reverand's turn to freeze, his eyes
uncomprehending. Brow furrowed, he slowly shook his head.
But, Mulder wasn't taking no for an answer. He rose on one
knee, and grabbing hold of the older man's shirt, pulled Weaver
to him so that their faces were only inches apart.
"Help her," he repeated, the words low and hoarse, his
eyes burning.
"Agent Mulder, I can't," Weaver whispered, his hands
covering the agent's, seeking to steady himself. "You know I
can't. She's gone. I'm sorry, but I can't help her now."
"Try," Mulder urged through his clenched jaw, his
entire body shaking with a combination of grief and fury.
"Even if I wanted to, I =can't=," Weaver retorted
heatedly, his voice cracking with his own desperation. "You
=know= that. I don't have my gift anymore. I told you. The
Lord took it away from me. Don't you remember what happened
to Mr. Decker?"
With a wordless muffled cry of anguish, Mulder shoved
Weaver away from him. Not hard, just enough to put some space
between them. The Reverend caught himself with his forearms.
Then, pushed himself wearily to his knees once more.
And found himself looking down the barrel of Agent
Fox Mulder's service revolver.
"Just try," the agent said softly, swaying on his feet,
his eyes feverish, his mouth hard. He stood, both arms braced
before him to hold his weapon steady, and yet despite his efforts,
the gun wavered. "All I ask is that you try. Because you see
. . . right now my partner doesn't have anything to lose. And
quite frankly . . . neither do I."
Weaver merely looked at the man towering over him,
the one who reminded him of a keg of dynamite just aching for
a match. He had never dreamed the polite, soft-spoken agent
who had entered his study just the day before had this sort of
fire in him, this kind of passion. Not even when Mulder had
questioned him with such intensity that Sunday afternoon.
While the Reverend had recognized the man's intelligence, he
had always sensed in him a detachment, a way he had of
stepping back from a situation, and dealing with it as an
observer, not a participant.
Well, Agent Mulder was certainly front and center in
the tragedy that had played out around them that afternoon.
A modern day Orpheus willing to do anything to reclaim his
Eurydice. Weaver looked past the shiny gun barrel, and into
Mulder's eyes. He saw the fear, the nearly all-consuming rage,
and the loss. Most of all, the loss. Those eyes seemed to him
the same ones he had seen staring dully back at him in the mirror
every day since the death of his daughter.
"Please."
The word was almost comically incongruous when
considered with the gun that accompanied it. But Weaver
had no desire to laugh. Not at this man, nor what he asked.
He understood the plea. Had voiced it often enough himself.
And ultimately it was that word, and not the threat of violence
that made his decision for him.
"All right."
With a silent rueful look at the man who asked the
impossible of him, the Reverend settled on his knees beside
the dead woman. Taking a deep breath, he placed his hands
on her abdomen, just above where her own was situated.
Closing his eyes, he concentrated.
And was astounded to feel a little prickle at the back
of his consciousness. A tiny twinge that normally marked the
emergence of his gift. For his part, Mulder merely watched,
every drop of his own considerable concentration focused on
the pair before him, his gun dangling forgotten in his hand.
Weaver strove to tamp down on his excitement,
attempting instead to direct his attention to the woman before
him. The one who most probably was beyond his help, even if
God had decided for some reason to grace him with his gift once
more. Searching for calm, the Reverend breathed deeply, evenly,
settling his essence, his very being into the body of Dana Scully.
Oh, the damage. The pain she must have suffered,
Weaver thought as he directed that part of himself that served
as a kind of scout, a gatherer of information, towards her wound.
With a start, he realized that the bullet that had killed her wasn't
one of the usual kind, the sort he had used when as a boy his
father would take him hunting in the Ozarks. Instead, this
projectile had flattened and bounced around inside her, glancing
off her organs; nicking a kidney here, puncturing a lung there.
The poor girl, the Reverend thought with a pang of sorrow. She
had never stood a chance. Terry Halprin must have wanted him
dead very badly indeed. Grimly understanding now the extent
of her injuries, this woman who reminded him of what his daughter
might have grown up to be. And hoping that the Lord would guide
his hand, his gift, as once He had, Weaver began his preparations.
He bowed his head, silently praying for strength and
wisdom. He did not plan on voicing his entreaties aloud, not
like he would have in the past. The sort of invocations he
normally pronounced during the course of his services were
merely theatrical touches, flourishes learned over the course of
a career. He didn't need them to focus his gift. In fact, at that
moment, when fear of failure still taunted him, such grandstanding
seemed to him an invitation for defeat.
He closed his eyes, slowing his breathing even more,
gathering together every bit of himself and the energy he could
once again sense surging around him. Swirling and popping like
an electrical field. He had never understood just exactly what that
power was. Although he had suspected, of course. He liked to
think of it as God, as some manifestation of His might. That the
Almighty and he worked as a team. And yet, he didn't know.
Perhaps instead it was the force of creation, a raw untamed kind
of current that flowed through all things, a lifeforce. Perhaps, in
reality, his gift was his ability to channel this. God merely gave
him sensitivity to it, access to it. In the end, it didn't matter.
Whatever it was it provided the fuel, the means for him to do
what he did. He hoped it would be enough.
Mulder watched the white-haired man hunched over
his partner, every muscle in the agent's body rigid in anticipation.
But not in hope. He couldn't hope. Not yet. That way lie
madness. For now, all he could do was wait. The Reverend
seemed to be centering himself, getting ready. At the same time,
the atmosphere inside the church seemed to be changing.
Mulder could sense a slight drop in temperature, a quivering
inside him and out, a heightening of some unseen something in
the air. Something that robbed his throat of moisture, that made
his skin feel somehow more sensitive, almost as if it were
sunburned. Everything went still. For an instant, he couldn't
even hear the sound of his own breathing. It seemed as if all
existence was waiting, poised on a precipice.
Then, Weaver threw back his head.
And it began.
Mulder jumped from where he had been leaning against
a pew, his arms folded, startled by the rush of energy that had
suddenly been released within the church's quiet confines.
Amazingly, a force of some kind, a bolt, seemed to fly from
Weaver's hands into Scully's still body. If Mulder narrowed
his eyes just a bit he could see it. Or almost see it. It appeared
that a faint white light was surrounding the Reverend's hands.
Vibrating. Pulsing. Weaver's eyes remained closed. By
contrast, his mouth hung slightly open. He continued to
breathe deeply, swaying over Scully's slender form with the
force of his concentration. Mulder could detect no change in
her condition. Not yet. So, biting back his impatience, he
continued to wait.
It appeared to be going well.
Whatever the hell that meant, Mulder mused a
few moments later, a touch of hysteria coloring his thought.
After all, he had no way to gauge this sort of thing, no
means to judge its success save the reanimation of his
partner. And yet, despite what he had said earlier, it seemed that
Weaver had definitely gotten in touch with whatever force it was
that had given him his reputation as a healer. Although Mulder
didn't understand just what precisely was going on, how this
power was made mainifest, he knew something was at work.
And besides, at that instant, details were irrelevant.
Then, something began to change. Alter. At first,
almost imperceptively. The Reverend began to pale, to shake
ever so slightly, to strain. Alarmed, Mulder pushed away from
the pew, standing upright once more, looking for a cause as to
the older man's distress, for some way in which he could help.
"Lord, grant me this," Weaver mumbled, his eyes still
closed, his head bowed now over Scully. "Please allow me this.
This woman. This life. Please."
The older man's shoulders were hunched as if against
a tremendous burden or nemesis. His brow wrinkled, the pace
of his breathing increased. And yet, although the hazy white
light emanating from his palms had dimmed, it had not
disappeared. Pacing, Mulder strove to remain calm.
"I ask you for your help, Lord. Your power. Your might,"
Weaver murmured, his voice rough and low, sweat slicking his
forehead, his teeth gritted with effort. "I know I am nothing
without You. That you are the wellspring. The source of all life.
And so, I offer myself up to You as Your tool. To be used as You
see fit. Do with me what You will."
With that, the Reverend jerked, his eyes flying open.
They seemed to be focused on something far away, far beyond
the church's walls, beyond Pine Grove, beyond the world. He
cocked his head as if he were listening. Mulder watched him,
anxious to know, to understand what precisely Weaver was
hearing. Then, the older man nodded, a wonderful open smile
on his face. "Yes. Yes, of course." And closing his eyes once
more, he pressed his hands more firmly against Scully's torso.
Then, to Mulder's disbelieving gaze, she jumped. Her
back arching up off the floor. Once. Then again. As if she
had been hit by cardiac paddles. And he couldn't be sure.
Not with that blasted amber light. But he thought a tinge of
pink had returned to her cheeks. He stepped closer, unaware
that tears were once again trickling down his cheeks,and knelt
beside her.
"Thank you, Lord," Weaver whispered, the smile on his
lips still. "Thank you."
And with that, he slumped forward, crumpling gently a
cross Scully's waist. Horrified, Mulder reached down and
carefully turned the man over. His eyes were open, a kind of
wonder shining in them.
"Thank you," he told Mulder softly.
And then stopped breathing.
While beside him, Dana Scully's chest began to gently
rise and fall once more.
* * * * * * * *
Dana Scully came back to herself slowly, the journey
taking a long while. After all, she had so far to travel.
And yet, the trip back wasn't arduous. Instead, she
felt as if she were merely climbing a ladder, up and out the rabbit
hole. Just like Alice. A ladder with nice padded rungs. In fact,
everything around her felt cushioned, pillowed in some way.
Even the hole itself, the place in which she had fallen, was of
this same soft sort of stuff. Black velvet. Infinitely inviting.
And yet, a place she felt compelled to leave.
She had to.
She had someone waiting for her.
She opened her eyes. The action took three or four
tries before she succeeded with it. Awareness trickling back at
a snail's clip, she took stock of the situation.
She was in a hospital. She could tell that immediately.
The smell gave it away. And she had been wounded, although
the extent of her injuries was difficult to discern. She had tube
up her nose to help with breathing, another attached to a vein
in her right arm. And she could hear monitors beeping from
somewhere around her head. Well, whatever had happened
must have been serious. She was having trouble recalling
the details. She hurt, yes. But, the pain was distant, like a
second cousin twice removed. Just a dull throbbing in her
abdomen. I must be on some amazing drugs, she thought with
a touch of rueful humor, thankful at that moment for the medication.
She must have made a noise, although the decision to
do so wasn't a consious one. She herself didn't hear it.
Apparently, her sense of sound was as fuzzy as the rest of her
senses.
But it was enough to alert the man who sat beside her,
his weary head cradled in his hands. And he sprang from his
chair, swaying a bit unsteadily when he came to stand.
"Mulder," she murmured when he wandered into her
line of vision, her throat feeling as if she had been swallowing
sawdust.
"Yeah."
He looked terrible, she thought critically. His jaw was
dark with stubble, his hair wild, and his eyes. . . . Oh god, his
eyes. Whatever he had been looking at was surely not fit for
human consumption. He appeared haunted by it, by visions so
terrible she winced just imagining what they could be. And
his clothes--why was he wearing surgical scrubs?
"Where are we?" she whispered, annoyed that her
voice sounded so feeble.
He licked his lips and crossed to sit on the bed beside
her, his eyes blazing into hers. The corner of his mouth twitched
as if he thought to smile. But the expression was beyond him
at that particular moment, and he didn't try again. He
compensated by taking her hand, holding it as if he feared it
might shatter.
"We're in Columbia. At University Hospital. It was the
nearest trauma center. They lifted you out after . . . after."
She nodded ever so slightly. If she focused very hard
she could remember . . . vaguely, very vaguely . . . a bumpy ride
on a gurney and the roar of helicopter blades.
"I called your mom," he continued softly. "We . . . uh,
we had some trouble getting hold of her. She was up in
Connecticut visiting your aunt. She's arriving tonight. I'll pick
her up at the airport."
She frowned at this. At all the fuss, the bother.
"What time is it?"
Mulder swallowed hard, then glanced at his watch.
"9:20."
Scully looked to her left, out the room's only window.
Sunlight poured in through the blinds. Morning, huh? She
had been out for quite awhile.
"Wednesday."
She stared at him, mouth open in amazement.
"W-Wednesday? Mulder, what happened?"
He pressed his lips together for a moment, then studied
their hands, hers resting in his. When he spoke, his voice
sounded as if he had been sharing her sawdust diet. "You were
shot. In the church. Terry Halprin was trying to kill Weaver,
and you . . . you saved him . . . and me."
She closed her eyes for a minute, willing herself to
remember, cursing the painkillers she had been so thankful for
only moments before. Slowly, like a hot air balloon lifting from
the ground, bits and pieces began to emerge. The sight of the
gun barrel, running to Mulder, the force of the bullet ripping
through her, and the way the man before her had looked
when he had held her in his arms.
She returned her gaze to his once more, now
knowing what had put that tortured look in Mulder's hazel
eyes.
And longing to erase it.
"What are the damages?" she asked quietly, her
hand tightening on his in mute support.
"Halprin was using dummy bullets. Cop killers,"
Mulder said, his voice matching hers in volume, his fingers
squeezing back. "You were hit once. But it . . . it did a lot of
damage. Your lung, kidney, intestinal tract . . . all of them were
affected. You bled . . . a lot. Internally."
She nodded thoughtfully. Wow. It was more serious
than she had thought. But, she didn't feel =that bad=. Sore,
sure. But the kind of injuries Mulder described should have
had her in Intensive Care.
Shouldn't they?
"What's the prognosis?"
"The doctors say you should be fine," he said, his
thumb smoothing over the back of her hand, his eyes now
having trouble meeting hers. "You need to recover from the
surgery to remove the bullet, of course. And they're going to
want to watch you for infection. But, all in all, they expect you
to make a full recovery."
Something was going on here, Scully realized, her
suspicions cutting through the drug induced haze like a knife.
Mulder wasn't telling her everything. If her injuries were as
grave as he had described, she shouldn't be getting off this
easy. And why wouldn't he look at her?
"What aren't you telling me?" she asked him, her
blue eyes challenging him, her voice rising just a bit in
volume.
He grimaced, then shrugged. "Nothing. You're going
to be fine. I told you."
"No," she said with certainty, her hand tightening on
his, demanding his honesty, something he had never been afraid
to give her before. "There's something. Something you're not
telling me."
He ran his hand distractedly through his hair, his eyes
shadowed. Watching him, Scully thought she could guess how
his coiffure had gotten in its present sorry state.
"Scully, you were badly hurt. And Reverend Weaver . . .
well, he . . . he healed you. The damage the bullet had done. . . it
had all been fixed before the doctors opened you up."
Her eyes went wide. "He *healed* me?"
"Yes," Mulder mumbled.
She lay there, silent, digesting this tidbit of information.
Finally, she whispered, "I have to thank him."
Mulder said nothing for a moment, his eyes shining
now with apology. "You can't."
"Why not?"
"He's dead."
She shook her head, disbelieving. "Dead? How?"
Mulder took his time, playing with her hand, holding
it now in both of his. "Scully, I told you that your injuries had
been severe. Well, that's a bit of an understatement."
"What do you mean?"
He looked up at the ceiling, and sighed. "You died."
"I what?"
He looked at her then, his eyes bleak. And all at once
she remembered. Remembered saying goodbye. "I held you in
my arms and watched you die."
"Then, how . . .?" she whispered brokenly.
"Weaver," he said shortly. "I don't know how he did it.
But he brought you back."
Brought her back. She was having trouble now.
Trouble reasoning at all. People didn't just bring other people
'back'. Not from the dead. Not even faith healers.
"You had told me you wanted proof of miracles, Scully, "
Mulder said softly, as if he recognized her agitation, saw the
lack of comprehension in her eyes. His hand cupped her cheek
tenderly. "And, in my opinion, it couldn't have come at a
better time."
"But . . .," she murmured, still trying to make sense of it
all. "But, he's dead."
"Yes," Mulder said, nodding sadly. "But by saving you,
I think he managed to save himself."
"I don't --"
"He found redemption in it, Scully," Mulder interrupted
gently, his smile finally finding its way to his lips. "Weaver found
a sort of peace I believe he had despaired of ever finding again."
He hesitated then, his lips thinning once more.
"It was my idea that he . . . that he try to bring you back.
I was rather . . . insistent. And in the end . . . in the end, he
thanked me for it. He didn't want to go on living, Dana. And I
have to tell you, . . . I desperately wanted you to."
Scully could feel her eyes welling with tears. For Weaver.
For what he had given up for her. And for the man before her.
The man who was looking at her as if she was something infinitely
precious to him.
"I'm not sorry," Mulder told her fiercely.
She looked right back at him, and although she spoke of
another matter, the words were no less resolute. "Neither am I."
He got up from the bed then, and crossed to the window,
away from her. "Scully . . . about that . . .", he began after a
beat, his voice low and hushed, his hands braced on the sill.
"You know, . . . you =know= that I would do . . . anything for
you. . . ."
"Yes," she assured him softly, watching his profile as
it was lit by the mid-morning sun.
"But I can't . . . " He turned back once more to look at
her, his face stricken. "Don't ask me to do that again. Don't do
something like that and expect me to be . . . grateful. To say
thanks and then bring flowers to your grave each week. Don't
ask that of me."
He slowly crossed back to her, his voice no more than
a whisper. "I can't do that, okay? Anything but that."
She nodded, her blue eyes watching him, their
expression bittersweet. "All right, Mulder. But you have to
promise me something."
"What?"
"The exact same thing."
He said nothing. Then, after a moment, he sadly
shook his head.
She smiled a small gentle smile.
"Get some sleep, Scully," he said softly, bending
down to press a kiss to her forehead. "I'll be here when you
wake up."
And she closed her eyes. Knowing that he told her
the truth.
* * * * * * * *
"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life
for his friends." John, 15:13
THE END
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