Title: Antietam Author: Ellie Email: windblownellie@yahoo.com Rating: PG Category: XR Archive: I'd be honored. Just let me know where so I can come visit. Feedback: Is always greatly appreciated, for better or worse. Let me know why you love or hate it. Disclaimer: They're not mine. I'm just borrowing them - I promise to put them back where I found them when I'm finished. Author's Notes: Previously distributed under the name Galatea in 2000, this is a newly revised version. ******** J. Edgar Hoover Building Washington, D. C. August 16, 2000 Scully glanced down at her watch, watching the minute hand inch its way closer to 4 PM. It had been a long week already and it was only half over. She glanced over at Mulder, noting that rather than working on the report for the case they'd spent the day investigating, he was tapping his pencils on the desk before launching them into the ceiling tiles. "Mulder?" He looked sheepishly at her, apparently attempting to act as though he'd been doing anything but. "I think I'm going to leave a few minutes early today," she began, "and just go home and catch up on some reading. If you're in the mood, I'm making lasagna for dinner." Mulder's guilty look turned into a smile at the dinner invitation. "I'll be there. You want me to bring anything?" "Maybe just the information on this newest case. Though I'm not sure I want to discuss more bizarre cattle phenomena over dinner." "Not just bizarre phenomena, Scully, mutilations--" "Whatever, Mulder. Just bring the file along, we might get around to taking a look at it." She hoped her voice made it crystal clear she'd rather find other means of entertainment. "I'll see you at seven then, Scully, file in tow." As she headed towards the office door, he was beginning to gather the scattered paperwork into a file folder. ******** Antietam National Battlefield 5:14 PM The door to Liam Roberts' Jeep slammed shut as he made his way from the parking area towards Bloody Lane. Faded split-rail fencing lined the ridges on either side of the sunken lane and he made his way along the nearest ridge to the entrance to the gully. The area seemed so pastoral, the site of so many men's deaths now covered by rolling cornfields. The corn and cattle covering the battlefield had existed there before the Civil War ravaged the area; once the war was over, they had reclaimed the grounds as their home. Monuments had been erected to the fallen, cannons sat rusting in fields of cattle, and small twisting roads were traversed by tourists looking for a glimpse of a past that had been, in many ways, obscured by an even older, agricultural, history. Liam made his way into the gully, removing the lens cap on his camera as he went. The rays of the setting sun were beginning to shine into the lane, giving it a reddish glow. He raised his camera to capture the scene on film. The snap of his camera's shutter seemed thunderous to him as he noticed too late that it was the sound of a gun, not a shutter, and a bullet tore into his gut. ******** They sat on her couch, CNN's coverage of the day's news and the latest on the Democratic convention turned on low. Mulder was spreading the paperwork and photos detailing the cattle mutilation on the coffee table in front of them. Scully picked up one of the close-ups of the cattle's wounds and carefully studied it. "You say the cattle died from these cuts? They don't appear to be more than superficial lacerations." "Well..." Mulder hesitated and Scully's eyebrow raised as she reached for the pile of papers on the table. "Not exactly, Scully." "Then what, exactly, happened to them, Mulder?" "The rancher reported that she found them wandering around her property 'in a dazed manner' and they'd suffered significant blood loss." "That doesn't tell us much at all. The 'dazed manner' is most likely a result of the blood loss. For all appearances, these cows could have tangled themselves on some old barbed wire the rancher doesn't know about and left a huge puddle of blood somewhere." She tossed the photo and papers back onto the table with a slight frown. "This is a pretty big stretch, even for you." "But it gave me an excuse to be here with you, didn't it?" He grinned at her. "Mulder, you should know by now that you don't need an excuse to be here other than wanting to be." She reached for his hand just as his cell phone started to ring. Mulder's brow crinkled as he spoke to the caller. She could practically see the wheels in his head turning. Eyeing him warily, she waited for the pronunciation of some new, bizarre case. Anything would be better than the "mutilated" cattle, she thought. Her suspicions of a forming case were confirmed when he asked the mystery voice, "What hospital, exactly?" He hung up the phone after an abrupt, "Thank you, we'll check it out." His eyes already twinkled with excitement. "Scully, how would you like to take in a little of rural Maryland over a long weekend?" ******** The construction delays on I-70 west made them close to fifteen minutes late for their meeting with Sheriff Arnsbarger at the county hospital, despite having left D.C. with plenty of travel time to spare. The county sheriff was waiting for them in front of the building. His drab uniform blended in with the weathered concrete facade of the hospital. "You must be Agents Mulder and Scully," he said as he extended his hand in greeting. "Welcome to Washington County." Arnsbarger's graying black hair made him appear a few years older than they. He was in good shape, gripping their hands firmly as he shook them in turn. "I s'pose the first order of business would be for you both to have a look at the body--and the bullet. We've got 'em both downstairs in the morgue." Passing though the hospital's automatic doors, the quiet sterility of the facility consumed them. This could have been any number of hospitals they'd been in over the years, down to the same peculiar smell. It was the scent of birth, death, and all the milestones in between. The sterility was briefly shattered by a child running past them, followed in short order by a harried looking woman with a cluster of balloons. The child and mother disappeared around the corner of the hallway, but the little boy's giggling shrieks echoed back to them as they waited for the elevator. Mulder glanced at Scully, searching her eyes. He found nothing beyond a piqued curiosity. Upon reaching the morgue, they were greeted by the resident pathologist, who introduced herself as Dr. Erin Waterman. She lead them in short order to the body of Liam Roberts, already laid out for examination in the autopsy bay. Before she could begin showing them the body, Arnsbarger spoke up, his face somewhat pale. "Why don't I show Agent Mulder the bullet you removed from the victim? I'm sure you and Agent Scully will get along just fine examining the body." Scully exchanged a look with Mulder, then nodded to Arnsbarger. "That's fine. I'll meet you in the cafeteria afterwards, Mulder." She didn't wait for a response before turning to the sink to wash up for the autopsy. Mulder followed Arnsbarger out of the autopsy bay and into an adjacent office. He seated himself in one of the hard plastic chairs as Arnsbarger unlocked a filing cabinet drawer and removed an evidence bag containing what looked like a chunk of chalk. Arnsbarger tossed it into his lap. "You know what that is, Agent Mulder?" He examined the small, white lump. It was in the classic bullet shape, sized to about the end joint of his index finger. There were reddish stains on the white, weathered surface of the bullet. "It's a bullet from an 19th century rifle. I believe the term for it is 'minnie ball'." He looked up to see Arnsbarger nodding. "That's exactly what it is. A 19th century bullet from a Springfield Rifle Musket, the most common gun used by soldiers during the Civil War. It was removed from Liam Roberts' small intestine last night before he passed away." Mulder noticed the cafeteria boasted the same uncomfortable chairs as the morgue as he and Scully sat down to a lunch of tuna sandwiches and canned iced tea. "So what did you find in your autopsy?" He popped open his can in emphasis, a light mist of tea spraying onto his fingers. She handed him a napkin from her tray. "I'd say nothing unusual for the victim of a shooting, if not for the bullet that caused the wound. He was shot in the lower abdomen, where the bullet pierced his small intestine and he bled to death." Mulder glanced at his sandwich and then back up at Scully. "So is anything about his death abnormal?" She smiled and continued. "The cause of death isn't abnormal, no. However, the bullet, as you saw, wasn't exactly ordinary for a modern homicide. I've sent it down to Washington for analysis, but from appearances, I'd say it's not a recent reproduction." She paused to sip her own tea, grimacing at the can as she swallowed. "While you were elbow deep in our victim, I took a walk down the street to the county library. They've got a good collection of literature on local history." "Find anything of value?" "I did." He winked, keeping his embryonic theory to himself. "And I think it's about time we examined the crime scene." ******** Mulder thought the Visitor's Center looked like an anachronism, too modern in its glass and steel construction to blend well with the greenery and old artillery surrounding it. Contained inside was a large collection of information on the Battle of Antietam, with maps detailing troop movements glowing on the walls between plexiglass-encased antique rifles and fading uniforms. They followed the narrow hallway back to the main office of Charles Young, head of the Park Service officers at the battlefield. He stood from his desk at their entrance, reaching first to shake Scully's hand, then offering his hand to Mulder. He looked, Mulder suspected, like Skinner would in another twenty years, not quite ready to retire from working for the government, but no longer willing to dance the bureaucratic tango. His eyes were friendly as he gestured for them to sit in the chairs facing his desk. "Now I assume both of you have read the reports on the case." They nodded as he opened a file of his own, skimming a finger down the page. "Kimmy Alexander found him last night, as you know. She lives about half a mile up route 63 there." He indicated the road in front of the Visitor's Center with a casual flick of the thumb. "She runs on the high school's cross country team, been jogging here in the early evening all summer to stay in shape. Real good kid. Raced in here last night, eyes big as a deer's, yelling someone'd been shot. We've had a few accidental shootings here over the years, with reenactors or from the stray shot from a hunter. But nothing like this, no one has ever died before." Scully jumped in before he could continue his story. "So there were no reenactors in Bloody Lane yesterday?" "No, ma'am, there were not." He shook his head emphatically. "We haven't had any reenactments in at least a year. Everyone here's at a loss to explain it exactly." "Could you take us down to see the crime scene now?" Mulder gazed past Young as he spoke, hunting Bloody Lane on the map of the battlefield behind him. "I sure can. Would you rather walk or drive?" He eyed Scully's heeled shoes as he spoke. Mulder smiled as he envisioned Scully trudging half a mile through high grass in her pricey pumps. "We'll drive, Sir. We'll take our own car, then you can head on back here if you want, while we're examining the area." Young nodded at them, rising and leading them back down the hallway and out into the overcast parking lot. **** Young smiled and gave them a wave out the window as he slammed the door of his mud-colored park service car shut. "You be sure to give Dottie a call if you're looking for a place to stay. She'll take good care of you." Mulder nodded, folded the piece of paper with the name and address of the nearby bed and breakfast Young had given them, and shoved it into his pocket as Scully eyed the sunken lane in front of their parking space. The tires of Young's car crunched on the stone covered macadam of the parking area as he left them to examine the crime scene. "May I ask what you're expecting to find, Mulder?" He smiled and stepped ahead of her, leading them both into the gully, not giving her an answer. "Mulder." She stopped as he proceeded on a few paces. Glancing around him, he turned to face her. "There are plenty of ghost stories about old battlefields, Scully. If you'll notice where Roberts' body was found," he gestured to a small area surrounded by trampled down grass, "you'll notice it's at the base of that small hill in the lane." She nodded and made her way up to his side. When she had caught up to him, they continued walking towards the area together. "When the Union troops finally made headway into the lane, they came down towards this hill and over it, pushing back the Confederate line. I think the bullet that killed Roberts came from one last soldier defending his position. Or at least his ghost," he concluded with a shrug. "There are no such things as ghosts. Even if there were, why would this one wait until now to start shooting at tourists? This has been a park for over one hundred years, so he would have had plenty of opportunities before now." She surveyed the area as she spoke, locking eyes with Mulder as she finished. He met her eyes and defended his position. "He would have had plenty of opportunities, yes. But those old guns weren't terribly accurate. And I can't imagine one shooter would go after groups of people. This was a lone man paused to take a picture. An easy target. At the library I found reference to three other cases of shootings by minnie balls here. Two of them were early enough in this century that there were still local hunters using those antique guns. The most recent they attributed to someone goofing around with a reenactor's gun." Scully sighed and looked up at the gloomy sky. "I think we should head to that bed and breakfast Young suggested and wait on the analysis of the bullet. It's obvious what killed Roberts, and the rolling around he did after he was shot makes it impossible to pinpoint where the shooter was standing. Once we know the specifics on the bullet, we can begin hypothesizing on who or what made the shot." "Sounds like a plan. One room or two?" He grinned at her as they made their way out of the sunken lane. ******** Scully walked through the door to the inn as Mulder held it open for her. The cooler air from the interior hit her as she stepped inside, Mulder's hand settling comfortably onto her back to guide her to the desk. Before they had a chance to speak, the woman at the desk rose and greeted them. "You must be those FBI agents Charles called me about." Both nodded the affirmative as she continued speaking. "My brother-in-law told me you might be asking for a room here. Told me to take care of you. Am I right?" "Yes, Mrs. Rohrbach, you are." Scully allowed herself a small smile as Mulder exuded all his charm in speaking to this woman. "Mr. Young told us you had some lovely rooms if we were interested." Mrs. Rohrbach smiled at both of them, her crinkling eyes magnified through her wire-framed glasses. "That we do. We have two available now, actually. One's a suite more suited to a family, the other's a lovely room for two, with its own entrance, which might suit the pair of you better." The loose gray curls on top of her head bounced as she nodded at them. Mulder looked to Scully and she inclined her head in agreement. "We'll take it then, Mrs. Rohrbach." "Wonderful, wonderful. It's the door at the very end of the building, with the little porch out front. Here're the keys." She passed ornate keys to each of them and reached out to flip open the guest register for them to sign. **** Scully set the remains of her salad on the small cherry table in the sitting area of their room and reached for her styrofoam cup of Diet Coke. She took a sip as her eyes roamed the room, taking in the rosy colors of the floral bedspread and cherry furniture, the hardwood flooring bordering the oriental rug in the center of the room, the vase of black-eyed susans on the mantelpiece, and the small but graceful chandelier illuminating the room. "I have to admit, so far I'm impressed. This is a lot better than our usual lodgings when you nose around in local investigations." "It's a two in one deal, Scully-a nice weekend getaway and a ghost story all in one." He reached across the table and wiped a smudge of Italian dressing from the corner of her mouth. "Did anyone ever tell you that you work too much, Mulder?" She punctuated her statement by jabbing the French fry she'd stolen from his plate at him. He grabbed her wrist in mid-jab, biting the fry out of her fingers. "I'm trying, Scully. I'm turning this little expedition into a vacation," he said as he finished chewing the fry. "Want to take a walk through town and talk to some of the residents, see if any of them know any ghost stories about the battlefield?" "Fine." She cast a wary glance at the window. Gray clouds covered the sky, rippling in an eerie inversion of a lake's surface. "Let's go now, see if we can avoid the rain." Mulder took her hand as he finished locking the door behind them. ******** An old bell clinked as Scully pushed open the door of the small store. A counter ran down the right side of the store, red vinyl covered stools positioned every few feet. A plump Golden Retriever looked up from under one of them as they entered. Their hard soled shoes resonated on the wood flooring as they made their way past racks of jams, ceramic hand-painted bowls, postcards, and candy. "Can I get you folks anything?" The man behind the counter spoke up. All it would have taken was a red, fur-trimmed suit and she would have sworn he was Santa Claus. "Burger, ice cream, beer?" Mulder splayed out his palm, inviting her to order something. Their eyes traveled over the menu, scrawled on dry erase boards behind the counter. "I'll just have a vanilla snow cone, please." She glanced over her shoulder at Mulder as he skimmed the ice cream choices. "And I'll take a hot fudge sundae." He gave Scully a little leer as the man turned to the snow cone machine. They settled onto the red vinyl stools, Scully's legs dangling in the air. Mulder's curiosity got the better of him before they'd been presented with their desserts. "We're visiting for the weekend and I was hoping you'd be able to tell us a little about how the locals feel about the battlefield, Mr. . . . I'm sorry, I didn't get your name." "I'm Mr. Grayson." He turned and sat Scully's snow cone in front of her. "Lived here all my life. That battlefield sure draws the tourists during the summer. They come in for a day or two, drive around, take a few pictures, oooh and ahhh over the information about the battle that's shown to them on paper. They read those damned historical markers they've put up all over the place, then get in their cars and drive off. It don't matter to them the real impact of the fighting on the people." He turned to the ice cream machine behind him, beginning Mulder's sundae. "Are there any local ghost stories about the battlefield?" Mulder played with a discarded straw wrapper as he awaited Grayson's response. "Ghosts? There're enough stories about 'em around here. Don't know that they're true, but I know some folks who are pretty honest who say they've seen things there." "What sort of 'things' specifically, Mr. Grayson?" Scully worked to slowly turn her snow cone into a cup of vanilla slush. "Well, tourists are always saying they see a lady in real plain dress walking through Dunkard Church. That's right up the road from the Visitor's Center, if you want to see it." He nodded thoughtfully as he poured hot fudge onto the soft vanilla ice cream. "There've been a good number of people claiming to see people in old dress walking around the Burnside Bridge and Bloody Lane, too." The sundae came to rest on the counter with a light thump. "Story that stands out the most to me's one a lady told me about, oh, ten years ago. Was in the middle of summer, so hot you could fry an egg on the sidewalk. She was the only person around the Tower and Bloody Lane. She was snapping pictures from up in the Tower when she saw a man in a gray uniform walk out of the corn on the right of Bloody Lane and disappear into it. She didn't see him walk back out, even walked down the lane herself. You ask me, she needed a nice lemonade and a fan." Scully smiled at his pronouncement. "You've never seen anything yourself in the years you've lived here?" "No, ma'am, I have not. Will that be all for you folks?" Mulder nodded and licked the fudge off his spoon. "Yes, thanks. You've been most helpful, Mr. Grayson." "You're welcome. That comes to two dollars and fifteen cents." The register chimed as he rang up their sweets. Mulder paid the bill and escorted Scully into the cool twilight air. She shivered at the unexpected cold, relaxing as Mulder wrapped his arm around her shoulders, drawing her closer to the warmth of his body. ******** Mulder blearily opened his eyes as the buzzing of the bedside alarm clock entered his consciousness. Twisting even as his arm wrapped around her middle, Scully reached over and switched it off. She turned to face him, running her fingers through his disheveled hair. "What do you have in mind for today?" "Well..." He paused to think, shivering as a breeze blew through the slightly opened windows. "We can go down to breakfast in the main dining room at eight. Maybe call the sheriff's office and find out the results on that bullet. We should take a look around the entire battlefield, walk through Bloody Lane again." "In that case, maybe I should see if I have any footwear more suited to a walking tour." He chuckled. "It might be a good idea. If you try walking through fields in shoes like the ones you had on yesterday, you'll sprain your ankle and I'll end up carrying you around for a month." Scully hit him lightly on the shoulder and threw back the blankets. "It hasn't happened so far, has it? Of all the injuries I've had over the past seven years, I can't remember a sprained ankle among them." She got out of bed and wrapped her robe around herself, heading for the bathroom. He shivered as the cool air of the room hit his chest and pulled the blankets back up, snuggling back into the pillows. "Go ahead and shower, Scully. Wake me up when you're finished." She laughed as she closed the door to the bathroom. ******** Sheriff Arnsbarger handed the flimsy faxed pages of the bullet analysis to Scully. Mulder looked over her shoulder at the slightly blurred printing. Arnsbarger cleared his throat. "So what's the word on our minnie ball?" "The bullet was genuine. Based on the manufacturer's markings on it, the minnie ball was made in 1862. And the blood type determined by the sample on the bullet matches that of Liam Roberts, which was to be expected." Scully skimmed over the rest of the report. "It had also been exposed to the air for some time prior to the shooting, which whitened the lead. There were no fingerprints on it." "So what you're telling me," Arnsbarger paused as he apparently tried to come to grips with the possibility, "is that the bullet we took from that young man was left over from the Civil War?" "That's exactly what I'm thinking, Sheriff." The wheels in Mulder's brain were already spinning in overdrive as the embryonic theory from the previous day began to develop. "I think we're going to take another look at Antietam." "I-I'll pass that information along. We'll keep a close eye on some of the reenactors around here." Arnsbarger was sitting down to his computer as they headed back out the door and into the sunny August day. ******** They stood side by side at the top of the Tower near Bloody Lane, leaning on the thick stone walls topped with bronze plates denoting the structures and battle sites in various directions. The summer breeze, feeling more autumnal, blew Scully's hair across her face as she tried tucking it behind her ears. It was cooler in the shade of the roof than it had been in the sunlit car and she found herself wishing she were standing on the lee side of Mulder. She had to listen carefully as his words were blown away behind him, their sound waves traveling off into infinity across the rolling countryside. He pointed down to the lane. "See that group of tourists?" She inclined her head as he continued. "They're walking about where the body was found. From this vantage point, we can see the cornfield to their right and the open land to the left of the lane. That open land would have been pasture for cattle at the time of the battle." He paused and watched the cluster of tourists, happily oblivious to the death that had occurred in their pathway only two days prior. They stopped to stare at a plaque at the top of the rise and he continued on with his theory. "The ghost would have been standing just on the other side of the hill they're walking up now. To a soldier, Roberts would have been an easy target. He was standing still, raising a camera to his eye. Actually, the camera could have appeared threatening, as if he was raising a weapon to sight it." Mulder paused, seeming to contemplate this for a second. Scully suddenly stood upright, her eyes widening. "The film, Mulder. Do the police still have his camera?" His eyes met hers and he nodded in realization. Scully was grateful she'd put on those walking shoes as they hurried down the spiraling stairs of the Tower. ******** Mulder sat thumbing through a two week old "Time" magazine, stealing glances at his watch. Scully waited patiently beside him, once again reviewing her notes. In the past hour she'd twice told him to stop fidgeting. Sheriff Arnsbarger approached them bearing a pile of glossy 8x10 prints. "Here are the photographs from the film in Roberts' camera. I'm not sure what you're hoping to find." "The camera was found next to the body with the lens broken, presumably as a result of being dropped, one photo taken without the film being advanced, correct?" Arnsbarger nodded to Scully as Mulder took the pile of photos. Scully craned her neck to look at the images as he flipped through them. She glimpsed a shot down the barrel of a patinaed cannon, a group of riders on gleaming horses making their way past a zig-zagging split rail fence, a small herd of black and white dairy cattle grazing next to yet another time-worn cannon, a view from the Tower they'd been standing atop of not two hours earlier looking down on Bloody Lane, all flashing by her as Mulder flicked through the pile, searching. They both froze, so still she could feel the blood being pumped through her inactive limbs. The image was undeniable, there before them in glossy Technicolor. Their eyes met over the photo of Bloody Lane. Standing just behind the rise, facing the camera was the translucent figure of a grizzled man in a fading gray uniform, rifle raised and aimed straight at the camera. The door to the photo lab swung open with a slight creak at Arnsbarger's touch. "Agents Mulder, Scully, this is Bruce Jacobsen. He's a free-lance photographer who does some part- time work for us on the weekends." Mulder nearly laughed as the young man turned around-it was as if someone had spliced together the genes of Frohike and Langly to create a Generation X-er. He suppressed the snicker and extended his hand to the young man. "Hi, nice to meet both of you. Did you have questions about those photos I developed for you?" His face was blank, unreadable. Scully pulled the photo of Bloody Lane from the pile. "Yes, we do, Mr. Jacobsen. About this photograph." She handed it over to Jacobsen who looked at it curiously. "Yeah, I'd wondered about that guy in the photo, but I didn't pay much attention to it." Mulder could imagine Scully's battery of questions ready to be released, aimed at proving the photo to be fake. "Is it possible to fake an image like that? Would it be possible to double expose the film and produce something like that?" She gestured to the photo, which Jacobsen placed under a magnifying lamp. Mulder smiled behind her back as she peered down at the photo. "Well, it would be possible, but very difficult. You couldn't just double expose a photo of the area, one with the man and one without, without using a tripod, because the camera would shift. From the notes I've seen on the case, Mr. Roberts was not using a tripod. Also, if you'll note, there's no shadow on the shooter in the photo." They crowded closer to the magnifying lens to examine the image as he continued. "It would also be possible, using a tripod, to take a photo of a glowing image in the dark and then expose the frame again to a shot of the lane. Except you'd have a glowing edge to the man, which there isn't in this image. It would most certainly be possible to fake afterwards in the developing process, but I can assure you that didn't happen." "Thank you very much for your help, Mr. Jacobsen. Could we get another copy of the photo to examine?" "Sure thing, Agent Scully. If you can wait a few minutes, I can make you one now." ******** Glancing over at the photo as he drove, the ghostly image stood out in bright relief to the greenery surrounding it. Scully sat in the passenger's seat, staring down at the photograph in her lap. He knew she was attempting to reconcile what she knew was true with what appeared before her. He sighed and settled his eyes on the road streaming ahead of him, the yellow dashes in the center blurring together as they flew past. She would talk about the photo when, and only when, she was ready. It didn't mean she wouldn't talk at all, he reasoned. "When we get back to the inn, what do you say we go for a run around the battlefield, maybe clear our heads and explore a little while we're here?" The faintest whisper of a smile passed across her lips before disappearing beneath her neutral mask. "Sounds like a great idea, Mulder. We still haven't had a chance to really look around there." "Scully..." Mulder pleaded and continued to jog in place as she stopped to read the inscription on the monument. "If you stop to read every damned plaque that's around this place, we'll be here 'til next week." She ignored him, entranced with the monument before her. When she was finished reading, she turned back to him. "We're here for the weekend to enjoy the area, not just investigate this murder." He bobbed his head as he continued to jog. He was so exasperating sometimes, she thought. "Yeah, I know, Scully. I just wanted to get a good run in. If you want to look at the monuments, we can come drive around later." She sighed and jogged the few paces to his side. "You seem to imply that you have no interest in the battlefield beyond this case." His reply was simply a light shrug of his shoulders. "Let's go then, I'll drive back over and look on my own later." "I didn't mean that, Scully! I meant..." "You meant what, exactly?" "I've been here before and seen the battlefield. You seemed so curious, I assumed you hadn't been here before. I meant I was willing to take you around to look at everything later, if that's what you wanted." "I'm sure that's just what you meant." She jogged on ahead, then turned to look back at him. "Coming?" "If all goes well," he mumbled under his breath, though not quiet enough for her to miss, as he caught up with her and they made their way past the cornfield that had once been the North Woods. ******** Mulder could still taste the spices from the crabs they'd eaten for dinner, even after brushing his teeth, as he slipped into bed next to Scully. She'd remained contemplative over dinner, despite an outwardly smiling demeanor. She was curled up on the left side of the bed as he wrapped his arms around her from behind. "So what do you think about the photo?" He spoke casually but was well aware of how serious the issues at hand were to her. She kept her eyes focused on the sheets as she answered him. "I...I don't know, Mulder. I just don't know." Her voice was soft, just a trace above a whisper. "There are no ghosts, but that photo is genuine. It's an oxymoron." "Well, oxymorons aren't just contradictory statements. In their contradiction, they reveal a greater truth." She ventured a glance over her shoulder at him before turning away. "What am I supposed to learn from this, Mulder? That ghosts exist? I'm not going to accept that just because of an image I can't explain in a photograph." "That's what I happen to think it is. But our beliefs have never quite meshed, have they?" He knew that would earn him a small smile, even if he couldn't see it. He gave her a little squeeze at the waist. "You've always managed to find your own truth. It may not be what we officially label a case, but you always have some measure of assurance on what something is or isn't. Sometimes it just takes longer to find the answer." "What are our big plans for tomorrow, then?" "If I had my wish, I'd be over there at six AM with a metal detector and a shovel, but I don't know that the National Park Service would be thrilled with me." This time she did turn in his arms, giving him a good-natured glare. "Don't you even try it." "The Visitor's Center is closed tomorrow, so I'll call them Monday and tell them to check the lane over themselves with metal detectors, see if they can dig up any guns to keep the ghost from shooting anyone else. Besides that, there's not a lot more we can do with this. I was thinking we could take it easy here for a while then head back to D.C. after dinner." "That's fine." She stifled a yawn and dropped her head back into the pillows. He knew she was still trying to work out the reality of the ghost in her head as she drifted off to sleep beside him. ******** Rohrbach Inn 8:00AM Mulder awoke with a slight jerk as music he could vaguely label as U2 blared two feet from his head. Beside him, Scully slowly opened her eyes as she reached for the alarm beside her. She smiled up at him as she silenced the music. "I thought this was better than waking up to that buzzing noise." A soft sigh escaped her lips. "So what do you want to do? Breakfast?" "Sounds good. Then maybe we can check out Bloody Lane one last time?" "I think I can allow that. Not that I don't already let you get away with enough." "Don't think that it goes unnoticed." He gave her a gentle push towards the edge of the bed and nodded in the direction of the bathroom. "Since you're so good about letting me get away with things, why don't I let you get away with using all the hot water?" She laughed softly as she rolled out of bed. "I'll take you up on the offer, but I do *not* use all the hot water." ******** Scully walked beside Mulder as they made their way up Bloody Lane, the Observation Tower rising ahead of them, a dull brown contrasted against the bright green of grass and corn and the brilliant blue of the sky. It was quiet save for the songs of birds she couldn't identify and the buzzing of a multitude of summer insects; tourists were most likely still asleep, missing out on the cooler morning hours. Entering the battlefield, they'd passed one jogger and a pair of cyclists, the only people they'd seen since checking out of the bed and breakfast. The lane was fairly shallow where they were walking up the gentle grade of the hill where the ghost had been photographed. "Were you hoping to see the ghost this morning, Mulder?" Her voice seemed loud to her after the silence they'd kept since leaving their car. "Hoping, but not expecting. I also just wanted to take another walk before heading back into the controlled chaos of D.C." He stopped, gazing around them at the cornfields and rolling grass. "This place reminds me of Home, Pennsylvania-a little too good to be true, the sort of perfect place that lulls you into thinking it's still safe to settle down in a cookie-cutter house somewhere with a big stupid dog and raise 2.5 children." She looked up at him as he paused, seeing the whorl of emotions swirling through him reflected in his eyes and face. "You still regret not having that?" She almost hoped he couldn't hear her over the buzz of the cicadas. "No. We've been through a lot since that case." The faintest trace of a sardonic smile passed over his face. "Now I know no where is perfect, and I don't think we're the sort of people who are meant to settle down with a big stupid dog and 2.5 children. Well, I'm not ruling out the possibility of a stupid dog at some point." He chuckled under his breath, waiting for her response. Her arms spread, moving around his waist as a gunshot shattered the serenity. Their heads whipped around in unison, turning up the hill to see the faintest figure of a man racing over the fencing and into the corn. Mulder pulled away from her and ran to where the man had disappeared into the field. She made her way a little more slowly to where she'd first seen him. There was nothing she could see in the soft earth and grass, not the slightest mark of a footprint. "Scully..." Mulder looked down into the deeper grass in the 'V' of the split rail fencing. Cautiously she made her way to where he was standing. She followed his gaze down to see the dull gleam of metal and varnished wood. "If it wasn't lying here, I wouldn't believe it." She reached into her jacket pocket, pulling out her cell phone. She dialed the Sheriff's Department as Mulder continued to divide his gaze between the antique rifle before them and the shadowy rows of corn. "Mulder!" Her admonition did little to stop him from climbing over the fencing and into the corn field. Her mind flashed back to another corn field, both fresh in her mind and light years away, helicopters swarming overhead like the bees they'd just escaped. Here the sun filtered through the stalks, a miniature forest, calm and peaceful. Mulder's head bobbed between the rows as he vainly searched. With a sigh she let him have his search as she moved to where they'd been standing earlier. Her eyes skimmed over the ground where they had been talking. Approximately ten feet behind where she'd been was a small, scorched patch of grass. As she moved closer, squatting down to examine the spot, she could see a hole of exposed earth where the bullet had lodged into the ground. Scully looked around her, grabbing a finger width fallen tree branch and pushing it into the earth to mark the spot. Up the hill behind her, Mulder emerged from the corn. The faint frown on his face as he made his way to her told her all she needed to know. He took in the branch marking the location of the bullet. "It is real then, isn't it?" "As much as I can't believe it, yes, it is." "How long did the Sheriff's Department say it would be until they get here?" "Arnsbarger is supposed to be on his way now." She glanced down at her watch. "Maybe another five minutes. We should go out to the parking area and wait for him." They walked over to the stone stairs leading down into the lane. A plaque rested on the level area at the top and Scully stopped to read it, her gaze moving reverently over the lane as she finished. The sound of tires on the pebble topped macadam broke the silence and Arnsbarger emerged from the black and beige car. He walked with a measured pace up to them, his face wary and his body alert. He didn't waste time with pleasantries. "You saw the shooter?" "Well...yes." She exchanged a glance with Mulder as she spoke. Mulder picked up the story, relieving pressure on her to confirm what she wasn't certain of. "We'd stopped to talk, then moved slightly to one side just as a shot was fired. When we heard the shot, we turned and saw the...ghost from the photo vanish into the cornfield." He gestured to the greenery beside the lane. "We walked up to where he'd disappeared and found a rifle, pretty old by the looks of it." "Well, let's head down here and have a look." He glanced back at their car. "If you're on your way home, you can stop at the station and leave a statement about what happened and we can call you if we need anything else." They headed up to where the rifle still lay in the grass, its surface glowing in the sunlight. "I'll be damned." Arnsbarger froze, his eyes locked on the gun. "I'm going to call some backup down here, and Jacobsen to take photos. Like I said, you can go on up to the Sheriff's Department and make a statement on what you saw, you don't need to stick around here if you don't want." "I think we'd like to stay for a while, see what you find." Mulder's gaze was still locked on the rifle as he spoke. Scully nodded in assent as she pointed to the branch poking out of the middle of the lane. "That's where the bullet hit. You'll want someone down here to remove it, it's lodged into the ground at a decent depth." "Let me go get on the radio." He headed back down the lane to his car, pulling the radio's handset out the door as he looked around him. Mulder turned to her. "What do you want to do?" "I think we should wait until the rest of the investigators arrive. I don't want to leave him here alone, just in case. I'd also eventually like to see the analysis on that rifle and bullet." A smile passed over his face as Arnsbarger chattered into the radio. He lowered his voice, speaking only to her. "I think I know what the analysis will show, and you won't like it." Arnsbarger replaced the radio's handset and made his way over to them. "The whole team is on their way down now, should be here in about fifteen minutes." **** Scully watched as Jacobsen snapped photos of the rifle lying in the grass, carefully circling it to get shots from every angle. He looked up at her as he finished. "You can put it in the evidence bag now, Agent Scully, I'm finished with it." Strands of his dirt colored hair escaped his ponytail and blew about in the breeze as he jogged down to the site of the bullet. She donned her latex gloves and carefully picked up the rifle, noting that it was considerably heavier than she'd expected, though in good condition. Once it had been released from evidence and was cleaned up, it would make a nice addition to the memorabilia collection in the Visitor's Center. She placed the gun into the plastic evidence bag and carried it down the slope to Arnsbarger. "Here's the rifle. Jacobsen is finishing up photos of the bullet site now." He took the rifle from her and carried it to his car, placing it on the back seat with care. She watched as Mulder trailed Jacobsen, examining the site for himself. When Jacobsen finished, Mulder took his time walking up the stairs to where she stood watching. "Ready to go make our statements and head back to the city?" "That's fine. They're almost finished here, they just have to remove the bullet." She started for the car with him trailing her, looking over the deceptively tranquil setting. ******** Once again the highway flowed under the car, the road to D.C. ahead of them, the whole of the country behind them, an ever- changing unmarked point in suburban Maryland currently underneath them. Mulder sat at the wheel, muttering curses at the traffic surging back towards the city after a weekend in the country. Scully sat in the passenger seat, her gaze fixed somewhere out the window on the trees flying past, but he could tell her mind was still back at the battlefield, grappling with the seeming impossibility of a ghostly soldier. He broke the silence for the first time since they'd entered the highway. "Did you see something today?" She tore her eyes from the window and twisted around in the seat to face him. "I saw something. I'm still not sure what it was and my statement to the Sheriff's Department reflected that." She paused, appearing to collect her thoughts. "I know I saw a misty form move towards the corn field. In all reality it would have just been the smoke from that rifle discharging, but then we'd still be left with no explanation of who actually fired it." His eyes flicked from the road to her face and back again. "So you're not saying you saw the ghost who dropped his weapon and fled from us?" He could see the statement of neutrality forming on her lips. "I don't think there was enough evidence to say exactly what I saw today. But I can't say definitively that I saw the ghost of a Civil War soldier fire a rifle at us, no." "So I'm not going to get away with naming a ghost our would-be assassin, huh?" That earned him a small laugh. "Not that would-be assassin." ******** Scully welcomed an escape to the cool basement office after the mugginess of the late D.C. summer. The hair on the back of her neck was damp with sweat after the short walk from her car into the building. As she swung open the door to their office, she wasn't surprised to find Mulder already at work, a file open on the desk in front of him. As her heels snapped on the hard flooring he looked up from the paperwork in front of him. "Morning, Scully. I got the forensics report on the rifle and bullet from last weekend." She sat her briefcase beside the desk and raised an eyebrow expectantly. "The minnie balls were fired from the same gun, apparently the rifle we discovered. The rifle was manufactured in 1861." "What's the local Sheriff's Department done with the case?" "It's closed, no charges filed. I think this may be the last we see of our ghostly soldier." "Or at least the last time he fires on tourists. It would be a little difficult without a weapon." "I think there are enough weapons buried on that battlefield that if our ghost wanted a new one, he could find it." He reached for a pile of manila file folders teetering on his desk as she resisted the urge to roll her eyes at him. "Speaking of weapons..." ******** Fin ******** Author's Notes: My immense gratitude to Shari and Kat, my fabulous betas, who helped guide me through a rather intimidating process. For those of you who would like to know more about Antietam National Battlefield, the National Park Service has a website at http://www.nps.gov/anti/