<![CDATA[
From: krasch@delphi.com
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: *NEW* "No Greater Love" (1/13) by K. Rasch
Date: Mon, 3 Jun 96 05:15:58 -0500
"No Greater Love" (1/13)
by Karen Rasch
krasch@delphi.com
Hi! Sorry I haven't written. :) This is something a little different
from me. It's not the usual romance/erotica thing you're used to
seeing me post. It's a case file. Now, this isn't to say that I
refrained from inserting =healthy= doses of UST into the mix. I
didn't. Sorry to the anti-relationshippers in the crowd. I writes 'em
as I sees 'em. And I can't look at Mulder and Scully without
believing them to have for each other feelings that extend beyond
simple friendship. Okay, Warning One out of the way. (phew!)
Warning Two: this story centers around a kind of religious theme.
I did this because it worked for the tale and also because I
believe there is a lot more to be investigated about our heroes'
spiritual lives. But, religion is a tricky subject. As a rule, it
provokes strong emotions. If you're easily offended in this regard,
I suggest you skip this story. Why put yourself through the
discomfort? If you decide to take a chance on it after reading this
disclaimer, no fair flaming! :) Warning Three: This story was
started in the midst of the Rift (remember, waaaaay back then,
before "Pusher" <bg>). Elements of that infamous time have
found their way into the story. Bear with me though, I promise
M & S don't spend the entire tale fighting. As far as rating this
one goes--I don't know, PG? There's basically not much here to
shock. Certainly nothing you wouldn't see on the show. The
language may be a bit saltier. But, that's it. As usual, Mulder
and Scully are most certainly not mine. They belong to Chris
Carter, 1013, and Fox. I use them totally without permission, but
with great respect and affection. I would like to thank all the folks
who wrote me really nice funny little nudge notes along the way
asking things like, "Where the hell have you been?" and "Are
you still alive?" (The answers would be "sitting in front of my
#*!!%&# computer every night!" and "barely".) It's nice to
know that people notice if you aren't around. Many, many thanks
are also due to LindaJ, formerly Delphi's Keeper of Secret Nurse
Things for all her medical know-how and input. And finally, this
story is dedicated to my band of readers/editors. Feeling a bit
unsure about this one, I relied on their insight and encouragement
like it was a lifeline. Eowyn, Jenni and Teresa were kind enough to
offer their thoughts on Chapter One. Nicole, Paula, Connie, Kelly
and Michele (the world's greatest nudge--but that's another story)
put up with my sending them the rest of the thing. Thank
you all so much. Comments/criticism--as always, please send
them to krasch@delphi.com. I love to hear from you guys. Enjoy!
===============================================
"You know, Mulder, if the trip here was any sort of
indication as to how this case is going to shape up, I vote for
turning the car around and heading back to the airport now."
"I must have something wrong with this ear, Scully.
Because I could swear I just heard you worrying about 'omens'."
Dana Scully leaned her head back against the
passenger seat of the Taurus she and her partner had just
finished renting, and wearily closed her eyes behind her black
Raybans. "I know," she murmured dryly, her lips barely moving,
almost as if the effort to speak were too great. "Spooky, isn't it?"
Fox Mulder smiled fondly at his partner, then returned
his attention to U.S. Highway 63, the road heading due south,
right through the center of Missouri. They had been traveling
since breakfast and yet still had nearly another hour before they
reached their destination, the tiny town of Pine Grove, just
southeast of Jefferson City, the state capital.
He checked his watch. 6:53. Jesus, with as long as we've
been on the road, we should be in Guam by now, he thought wryly.
His gaze flickered back with sympathy to the woman beside him.
Poor Scully.
She had not been having the best of days.
It had all started with her alarm clock.
Or rather, the lack of her alarm clock.
The storm that had rocked D.C. the previous night had
knocked out the electricity to her building while she slept.
Consequently, looking like a winded, rumpled imitation of her
usual polished self, she had met him at Dulles that morning
with only seconds to spare before their flight was scheduled to
leave for St. Louis. As luck would have it, however, her haste
was ultimately for naught. The remnants of that same storm had
conspired to anchor their plane solidly on the ground.
For more than two hours.
Her headache had begun sometime after the first half
hour. And as far as he knew, lingered still.
"How you feelin'?" he asked as they sped past
surprisingly tall limestone bluffs dividing fields just beginning
to sprout with that season's crop.
Her eyes remained closed. "Have you ever seen those
really intricate kinds of clocks, the ones that have figures that
come out with little mallets to beat out the hour? You know . . .
the kind they have in Munich?"
"Yeah?"
She grimaced. "Well, it feels like one of those little
bastards with the mallets escaped, and has set up shop directly
behind my right eye."
"Beating out the hour?"
"Seconds. He must love his work."
At that moment, she doubted she could muster the
enthusiasm necessary to echo that particular sentiment. What
a day! First, the delay in D.C., then her headache, then they had
touched down at Lambert only to discover they had missed their
connecting flight to Central Missouri Airport. Finally, after
waiting hours in St. Louis for the next puddle-jumper out, their
commuter flight had been forced to fight startling gusty head
winds all the way in. Consequently, the trip had taken twice
as long as it should have, the comfort level being somewhat
akin to a toboggan ride down a rock pile the size of Mt. Everest.
She listlessly lolled her head against the seat, and eyed
the man who was now fiddling with the radio, searching for a
station playing something other than country music, her lids
feeling as if the little timepiece refugee had brought along some
pals to hang from her lashes. Mulder had survived their taste
of travel hell far better than she. The blasted man's suit wasn't
even wrinkled. How did he do that? She, on the other hand,
felt like a walking dirty clothes pile.
"You know the worst part of this, Mulder?"
"Hmm?"
"Now, I'm going to have to play catch-up."
He glanced at her, an eyebrow arched. "What do you
mean?"
She met his eyes through her darkened lenses. "I didn't
get a chance to go through the file like I had planned to. I
skimmed it at home last night. But, that's it. And with this
headache, there's no way in hell I'm going to be able to study it
tonight."
He shrugged blithely. "What do you want to know?"
She scowled at him. "Mulder, it isn't as if we're in high
school, and I need you to let me peer over your shoulder for the
answers on a test. I need to be able to go over the information
in that file and draw my own conclusions."
The corner of his mouth turned up at her grumpy tone.
He caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye. The
woman could be positively endearing when her lips pursed in
a little bow like that, he mused.
Not that he would ever share that observation.
Not if he wanted to continue living.
Deciding to pursue instead a far safer course of action,
he strove to make his voice as soothing as possible. "You can
draw all the conclusions you like once you've had the chance to
sleep this headache out of your system. In the meantime, if you're
interested, I'd be happy to share my impressions. You may not
agree with all of them. In fact, I would count on it. But, it'll give
you some place to start when you finally have the opportunity
to dig into the stuff on your own."
She considered for a moment, sitting up a bit straighter,
and turning her head to look at him squarely. "You're sure you
don't mind?"
He shook his head. "Nope. Nothing good on the radio
anyway. Just think of me as your very own private Cliff's Notes."
She smiled in spite of herself. "Okay. But rather than
you lecturing me--"
"I never 'lecture' you."
"Says the man with the slide projector," she countered
lightly, her lips curved, but her look pointed just the same. "As
I was saying, why don't you let me tell you what I do remember,
and then you can fill in the blanks."
"Fine," he agreed evenly, stinging a bit from the 'lecture'
comment, but willing to chalk it up to the headache talking.
"Whatever works for you."
She took a deep breath, and leaned back against the
seat once more, although this time her eyes remained open. With
a speed born of practice, she mentally sifted through what she
had gleaned of the case at hand thus far. "Okay. First--we've
got three deaths."
Mulder nodded. "None of which have officially been
declared a murder."
She nodded as well. "Not yet."
No, she thought, not a conventional murder in sight.
Instead, all evidence pointed to an accidental drowning, a
heart attack, and a brain aneurysm claiming the lives of three of
Pine Grove's citizens.
"Of course, there has been some speculation that the
drowning may have been a suicide," he said after a beat, his
gaze still focused on the road.
"=May= have been," she acknowledged. "Although
there was no note."
The corner of his mouth quirked. "I thought you had
only skimmed this."
She smiled dryly. "Don't be impressed just yet. It all
turns hazy on me rather quickly."
Mulder's smile broadened. Several words sprang to
mind to describe his partner's thought processes. Hazy wasn't
one of them.
"According to members of the community, two of the
victims knew each other well. Were business partners, in fact,"
she continued, her brow furrowed in concentration as she strove
to remember every last detail possible.
"Right. Mark Halprin, our deceased with the apparently
bum ticker, and Roy Cullins, a man who, it would appear, had
been thinking either too much or too hard. Together, with Mark's
brother Terry, they owned 'Backroads'--"
"--A bar on the county road running between Pine Grove
and Jefferson City," Scully murmured, watching the scenery fly by,
finishing Mulder's sentence with that uncanny fluidity they each
shared, were now so used to, they took it for granted. "Victim
number three is a different matter, however. According to friends
of the deceased, she knew the other two only in passing."
"Kimberly Weaver," Mulder said, seamlessly supplying
the name. "A college student, who, judging by the police report,
spent the last hours of her life in a bathtub."
So dulled by a combination of alcohol and barbiturates
that she forgot to remove her clothing before climbing into said
tub and eventually drowned there, Scully thought, nodding in
grim agreement as to the circumstances of the co-ed's death.
The agents were silent a moment, each considering the
girl's sorry end.
"And yet," Mulder ventured, his eyes sliding over to
steal a look at the woman beside him. "Even though it would
appear at first glance that these three had no shared connection.
They do, in fact, have one thing in common."
"Kimberly's father," Scully said shortly. "The Reverend
Andrew Weaver."
"Who, if you believe the locals, is a bona fide faith
healer."
Scully grimaced. Yet another reason why she wasn't
looking forward to this particular case. Once again, she and her
partner were being thrust into an investigation involving the
Almighty, or at the very least, His supposed servants.
Mulder caught her look. "What?"
She gazed at him through her sunglasses, striving to
keep a bland countenance. Any conversation regarding religion
was bound to turn personal. It always did. And from there, it
was only a short hop, skip and a jump to disbelief, accusations,
and defensiveness. Territory she and Mulder knew far too well.
She didn't want to visit there again just yet. Her poor head
couldn't stand the added aggravation. "Nothing."
He saw through her smokescreen instantly. She had
never been able to lie to him. "Nothing?" he challenged.
She shrugged in discomfort. Take a hint, Mulder.
"Nothing *important*."
It was as if she had slammed a door.
Then thrown the lock for good measure.
The man beside her fell mute. Instead, he merely eyed
her when he felt it safe to let his gaze stray from the road,
disbelief and perhaps . . . disappointment? . . . painted on his face.
Her head pounded with a slow steady rhythm as she tried
to ignore his voiceless demand for her to speak. Damn it, Mulder,
she silently groaned. Let it go. I'm not in the mood for this.
Sparring with you always takes all my concentration and double
my usual wit. And I'm only able to get my hands on about half
my supply of either right now. Besides, we've been down this
particular path before. There's no way we're going to reach a
middle ground. No way in hell.
She waited. Mulder finally abandoned his study of her,
and instead scrutinized the road before them with an intensity
that bordered on the fanatical, his lips absent-mindedly twisting.
Miles passed. Neither said a word, each stubbornly clinging to
their solitary stances. At long last, however, the oppressive
silence got to Scully. She sighed, giving in. "I just get tired of
being assigned to the God Squad."
Mulder's eyebrows lifted.
When the woman beside him had refused to divulge
what precisely was bothering her, he had promised himself that
he wasn't going to push. Or at least, not far. Much as the walls
she had constructed wounded him, he strove to respect his
partner's need for privacy. As close as they were, as greatly as
they relied on each other, Scully and he had limits, boundaries
neither would allow the other to cross. He had assumed that
her reticence served as another of her Do Not Enter signs. To
his regret, these had become more plentiful recently and had
begun guarding territory far more vast than either of them had
ever before realized existed.
Now, however, her flip comment suggested something
else. What, though? Embarrassment? A degree of chagrin?
Or was her unexpected choice of words simply an attempt to
derail his inquiry? He couldn't say for sure. These days he
found himself, with a touch of dismay, unable read her clearly;
not nearly as easily as he had once flattered himself he could.
"The God Squad?"
Her lips tilted wryly. "I know--not exactly the most
respectful of terms. But that's what it feels like to me sometimes."
Okay, Scully was talking to him. Good. An almost
palpable sense of relief rolled through him. He hated those tense
silences that had begun insinuating themselves of late into their
conversations. Deciding to match her bemused tone and smile
in the hopes of encouraging their tentative yet promising
discussion, he mildly shook his head, his brow wrinkled in mock
confusion. "Why does that sound as if I should be sporting an
afro and your hair should be a lot longer and blond?"
She smiled outright, seemingly glad they were taking
this tangent. "Is this your subtle way of telling me that gentlemen
actually do prefer blondes, Mulder?"
"Only when there are no redheads around." He leered at
her comically.
She chuckled. Mulder smiled back.
This was more like it, she thought with no small measure
of relief. This she could handle. The easy, ever so slightly loaded
banter that had once flowed so effortlessly between them was a
welcome diversion.
And one that she had dearly missed.
The lack of it was understandable, of course. The past
year or so had been hard on them. So damn hard on Mulder and
her. Her abduction, Mulder's near death in New Mexico, the
murders of his father and her sister--all had scarred them and
their relationship. Had altered them in ways she wouldn't have
believed possible such a short time before. Oh, they still had
each other. Still clung tenaciously to that sense of trust and
communion that their years as partners under the most difficult
of circumstances had forged. But they weren't as free with each
other as they once had been. Weren't as close.
No. That wasn't true. They were still close, closer
perhaps than ever before. Bonded together in ways she couldn't
even begin to describe, let alone understand. And yet, at the
same time, shielded from each other somehow. Almost as if
each realized that the very thing that strengthened them, gave
them the courage to face the challenges laid out before them--
their partnership--also had the potential to hurtle them down
into a world of pain. Daily, they danced along the lip of that
increasingly slippery slope. The one that taunted them with
all the vigor and cruelty of a schoolyard bully.
<You need him/her. He/she is essential to your peace
of mind, your sanity. No one knows you, understands you,
understands this, your world, your sphere, like him/her. He/she
is your partner, your friend, your family. Your confidante, your
conscience, your cheering section. Your harshest critic, your
staunchest ally. The one you turn to, rely on. Know will be there.
No matter what it takes. No matter what the cost.>
And they both knew the cost, didn't they?
Each had suffered the lesson being driven home in ways
so vivid that their waking hours, their rational minds couldn't
contain the memories, the imagery instead spilling over into their
dreams.
And so, as a means of self-preservation, they had
each taken a step or two back. Just enough to allow them range,
enough room to breathe, enough distance to protect themselves.
And each other. Or so they hoped. And if that added space
proved great enough for insecurities, frustrations, and various
and sundry other minor irritations to weasel in between them, well . . .
Surely that was the lesser of two evils.
She took her glasses from her eyes and squinted out
the window, trying to ignore the relentless rhythm that pulsed in
time to her heartbeat behind her eyes. The sun had dipped low
enough over the horizon that her sunglasses had become more
affectation than necessity. She put them away, wishing she
could put away other, more messy accoutrements as easily.
Longing to banish the feelings of loss, guilt and regret that
haunted her when she least expected them. The ones that
slipped up behind her when she wasn't looking and tapped
her on the shoulder as if to say, "Don't forget about us.
Because we won't ever forget about you."
She shivered at the thought.
And the fear. The fear that she would be forced to
learn those painful emotions in still more intimate ways. That
her trials weren't over. But were instead only beginning.
Sometimes, such dark musings didn't even seem
possible, let alone likely. She had already given up so much,
had been compelled to offer up such tremendous sacrifices.
What did she have left to lose?
"Are you going to leave me hanging with that cryptic
comment?" Mulder asked softly, slicing through her reverie so
sharply that it was all Scully could do to keep from jumping in
her seat. "Or do you plan on explaining to me just what you
meant by the 'God Squad'?"
She licked her lips and shot him a smile. Not one of
her most convincing ones, but she caught a break as her
partner was more focused on the increasingly shadowed
road ahead of them than on her. "I guess I was referring to
these crimes we keep running across . . . the ones that
supposedly involve religious phenomenon. I don't know.
Crazy as it sounds, sometimes I feel like we're being asked
to police God."
"You think this case sounds like the work of divine
intervention, Scully?"
"Mulder, we don't even have a case. Yet," she
retorted more sharply than she had intended. "We're here
because the brother of one of the deceased claims that his
sibling did not die of natural causes--"
"Right. But instead was murdered by a man using the
flip-side of his supposed God-given talent for healing," Mulder
responded with an equal edge to his voice, turning his head
to pin her with his gaze.
She studied his hazel eyes for as long as they held her
own. "Do you believe that Reverend Weaver murdered not
only Cullins and Halprin, but his own daughter as well?"
Mulder took a deep breath and swung his eyes once
again away from his partner's, focusing instead on the gently
rolling blacktop before them. He hadn't meant to snap that way.
What was it about cases such as these that pushed his buttons?
He would have liked to have told himself that his
mistrust of organized religion resulted from his bone-deep
hatred of hypocrisy, his need to expose corruption of all kinds,
regardless of how lofty the institution it protected. And yet,
this very aversion to lies kept him from doing so. It wasn't just
the false hopes it fostered that damned the Church in Mulder's
eyes. It was the betrayal he felt he had suffered at its hands.
Because he had once bought into such hopes. And
he now knew them for the empty promises they were.
"Scully," he began carefully, making a conscious effort
to keep from saying anything his partner might construe as an
attack or an affront. "I don't know what I believe. Not about this.
I look at the file, I read the reports from the sheriff, the coroner,
and I don't see a crime. But, Terry Halprin does. And he's going
around telling people about it. The first thing you know, the
county sheriff panics, turns to his cousin the senator, and
before you can say 'Elmer Gantry', we're plunked down in the
middle of the Show-Me State to check it out."
She nodded, her expression thoughtful. "So, you think
that when Sheriff Lowry requested our presence here he was
looking for help with damage control more than anything else?"
Mulder shrugged. "I don't know. Could be. It probably
wouldn't hurt his image in the community to be able to say that
he had called in the FBI for consultation. But, maybe it's worse
than that. Maybe our toughest job will be to protect the good
Reverend from his congregation."
"Rather than vice versa?" she ventured dryly.
"Stranger things have happened."
"Especially to us."
Her light bantering tone pulled his eyes to hers once
more. They held. Each of the car's occupants smiled, the curve
of their lips subtle, yet warm. It was over. They had passed
through yet another rough patch, Scully acknowledged with an
inner sigh of relief. Not unscathed, but yet unbowed. That
seemed to be the best they could hope for these days.
Mulder slowed the car, and finally flipped on the
headlights. A sign just coming into view announced the turn-off
for Pine Grove. He took it. Not long after leaving the main
highway for the county road, Scully spied a gas station with a
small convenience store attached to it.
"Can we pull in there? I need to pick up some aspirin.
They should carry it--don't you think? I took the last of mine in
St. Louis."
"Sure. Maybe somebody there can point us in the
direction of a motel while we're at it. We're getting close."
"Hmm. Aspirin and a motel bed. Why does that
combination sound like just this side of heaven to me?" Scully
murmured with a wry smile as they pulled into the station.
Mulder drove the car to a stop right outside the quick
mart's front door and glanced over at his partner. She was paler
than she should have been, her tailored slacks suit creased, her
hair tucked a bit haphazardly behind one ear. He could see quite
plainly in her eyes the strain under which she had labored all
day. A sense of regret poured through him unexpectedly.
You never go easy on her, Mulder, do you, accused an
insistent little voice inside his head. You knew she didn't feel
well, and yet you couldn't resist the urge to go one-on-one with
her.
He never meant to do that--to butt heads just for the
sake of butting heads, to vent his frustrations on her simply
because she was handy and he knew she could take it. And yet,
it happened more often than he cared to admit. It was just that
she was so strong, so centered, so sure that he forgot sometimes
that she wasn't indestructible. Watching Scully wearily climb
out of the Taurus, swaying for a moment when she finally stood,
stretching to her full yet slight height, he promised himself he
would be more sensitive to that in the future. To the vunerability
his partner hid behind her nimble mind and penetrating eyes.
She felt his gaze on her, and turned to look at him over
the roof of the car. He looked back at her for a moment, saying
nothing. She smiled, her expression gentle, softer than he had
seen it all day.
Some little something inside of him crumbled just a bit.
"Come on," he said with a tiny jerk of his head, his
voice low, hushed, indicating they should go inside and make
their purchases. She nodded, but before turning to proceed
him into the store, she lingered just a instant, looking as if
perhaps she might speak.
At the same time, Mulder felt as if her hesitation
invited him to say more.
Something.
Anything.
But, for the life of him, he couldn't figure out what.
* * * * * * * *
Continued in Part II
===========================================================================
From: krasch@delphi.com
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: *NEW* "No Greater Love" (2/13) by K. Rasch
Date: Mon, 3 Jun 96 05:16:47 -0500
No Greater Love (2/13)
By Karen Rasch
krasch@delphi.com
Disclaimer stuff in Part I. This is just story. :)
================================================
"Good morning."
Mulder came to a sudden halt in the dining room
doorway. Sunshine poured through the room's large picture
window, bathing his partner in soft honey colored light. She
sat at a polished yet well used farmer's table that had to be a
century old. Papers, photographs, and open file folders
surrounded her in a neat semi-circle. An empty coffee cup sat
at her elbow, as did a small china plate with a single triangle of
toast atop it. A matching cereal bowl holding only an spot of
milk and a few dispirited corn flakes lay abandoned as well,
an arm's length away.
Scully had obviously been at this for awhile.
He checked his watch. Nope. He hadn't overslept.
6:57. Jesus. So, exactly what time did they start serving
breakfast around here?
"Well, I take it the headache is gone?" he ventured
dryly, the corner of his mouth turning up as he crossed to sit
at the place setting opposite her.
"Yes," she said with relish, flashing him one of her
high wattage smiles. "I woke up this morning without a trace
of it. I feel like a new woman."
"Oh, I hope not," Mulder said, his eyes warm as he
reached for the carafe of coffee stationed between them, and
poured himself a cup. "I was kind of attached to the old one."
Her smile mellowed, but the light in her eyes did not.
"Actually, I believe I have you to thank for this, Mulder," she
murmured, pushing her coffee cup forward for him to refill as
well. "I'm sure I would never have recovered so quickly if you
hadn't found this place for us to stay. It's heads and shoulders
above your usual Motel 6 wannabes."
He shook his head, a self-deprecating smile on his lips.
Much as he would have liked to, he couldn't take credit for their
stumbling across Twin Orchards, the bed and breakfast at which
they were currently lodged. For that stroke of luck, all thanks
had to go to Kathy, the pony-tailed blond behind the counter at
the gas station the night before.
While Scully had scoured the aisles in search of aspirin,
he had taken the opportunity to ask Kathy directions to the
nearest motel. The young woman had grimaced in reaction.
"Oh, wow. There really isn't one around here. I mean
. . . not one that =I= would stay at," she had said, shivering
delicately. "There's Seven Acres out on Route P, but that's a
resident's motel. And to tell you the truth, it's pretty scary. You
and your wife don't want to stay there."
Mulder had smiled wryly, glad that Scully was at that
point peering into the cooler, studying the store's selection of
bottled water, and thus thankfully out of earshot. "Well, what
would you suggest?"
"Um . . . . Well, I guess you could stay in Jeff City
. . . .," Kathy had suggested unenthusiastically, her brow and
nose both wrinkled in chagrin. Then, inspiration had struck. "Or
. . . you know, my boyfriend's aunt has a place a few miles from
here. . . . It isn't far from town at all. . . . Normally, she doesn't
open until Memorial Day weekend. But, that's like only a couple
of weeks away, right? I bet if I called her . . . ."
The now smiling clerk had spun around, her pink smock
flaring bell-like with the motion, and enthusiastically picked up
the telephone, her course of action set. Not twenty minutes later
Mulder had pulled up outside a large, rambling farmhouse. The
building's white painted exterior had shone like a beacon in the
rosy rays of the setting sun, its newly planted flower boxes and
bright red awnings giving the structure a homey, welcoming air.
A hand painted wooden sign had heralded the property's name
and business. It had taken the tired agents no more than an
instant to recognize their good fortune.
"Yeah, well my usual choice of motels may not have
down comforters and four poster beds," Mulder admitted to his
partner, helping himself to her remaining piece of toast, and
smiling as he remembered the pleasure that had washed over
Scully's face upon seeing their accommodations the night before.
"But, they do have--"
"Overflowing roach motels? Stained mattresses?
Cracked bathroom mirrors? Paper thin walls?" She teased merrily
over the rim of her cup.
"Adult Pay-Per-View," Mulder countered with a wicked
arch of his brow before taking a sip of his own coffee.
The young redhead only smiled. "I repeat: paper thin
walls. You can't fool me, Mulder. Those movies may not be
known for their dialogue, but I've always been told that the
actors in them are far from *silent*. Somehow, I have a feeling
that if you =were= spending the tax-payers' money on that sort
of entertainment, I'd be sharing the experience with you."
Mulder dipped his head to hide a smile of his own.
"You know, Scully, one of the first things we learned at the
Academy was that the best way for a partnership to remain
strong is for the two agents to share."
She lifted her eyebrows in amused reproof. "Mulder--
in this, I encourage you to be greedy."
"Oh there you are, Agent Mulder. Agent Scully
thought you might be down about now. Your breakfast will be
along in just a minute."
Ginny Barker, Twin Orchards' owner and resident
chef bustled out of the establishment's kitchen, wiping her
hands on the apron covering her jeans and faded checked
blouse as she walked. A tall big-boned woman with close
cropped hair more gray than brown, she crossed to the table
to check the amount of coffee remaining in the carafe. Shaking
her head upon discovering how little was left, she said briskly,
"I'll bring you both some more coffee too. Can I get you
anything else, Agent Scully?"
"No. Thank you," Scully replied politely. "Everything
is fine. You have a lovely place here."
The woman's homely face split with a grin. "Why,
thank you. I appreciate that. It's a lot of work, but I enjoy it."
"Believe me, we appreciate your letting us stay,"
Mulder assured her with a small smile. "I know that Kathy
said you weren't officially opening for another couple of weeks
yet. If you don't mind my asking, what kind of people do you
normally have staying out this way?"
The twinkle in Ginny's warm brown eyes told the
agents that she had been asked that question before. "Well, I
know it doesn't look as if there's much out in this neck of
the woods. But, you'd be surprised. We've got a real pretty
stretch of hiking trail that winds through the wetlands preserve
about three miles north of here. That brings in a lot of
bird watchers, walkers, that sort of thing. And the river you
drove over just before the turn-off into my place is popular
with floaters, canoeists. So, when the weather turns warmer, I
get my fair share of them too. Then, of course, I get some of
Reverend Weaver's people from time to time."
"You mean people come from out of town to attend
Reverend Weaver's services?" Scully asked in some surprise.
A dry smile crossed Ginny's lips. "Oh, folks come from
all over to hear ol' Andy Weaver preach. He's quite a celebrity
in these parts."
Mulder matched her smile. "It sounds as if perhaps
you don't share their enthusiasm, Mrs. Barker."
"Call me Ginny," she instructed with a playful wave
of her hand. "Even after 30 years of marriage I never did get
over the need to look around for my husband's mother every
time I heard that name."
Scully's lips curved. "Have you ever been to one of
Reverend Weaver's services yourself, Ginny?"
The woman shook her head, a bemused look in her eye.
"'Fraid not, Agent Scully. I was born and raised a God-fearing
Methodist. We don't go in for all that holy-roller stuff."
Mulder's smile broadened. Scully could tell he was
getting a kick out of Ginny's disdain for the object of their
investigation. "The Reverend gets kind of theatrical, does he?"
he asked mildly.
The big woman's lips pursed. "Well, like I said, I've
never actually set foot in the Reverend's church, so I don't
know for certain. But from what I hear, yeah--you go to church
at Christ's Mercy and you see quite a show."
Scully nodded thoughtfully, hesitating a moment before
she spoke. "Have you heard anything else regarding the
Reverend? Any stories circulating as to this trouble with the
Halprin brothers and their bar?"
Ginny snorted and shook her head. "Now there's a
pack of trouble if ever I saw it."
"The Halprins?" Mulder inquired.
"Them and that Roy Cullins," Ginny confirmed with a
nod, warming to her subject now, resting her hands on the back
of one of the table's ladder back chairs, and leaning in towards
her two guests. "Those boys are from around here, you know.
I've known them since they were in kindergarten. Terry was in
my boy, Bill's, class. And let me tell you, those three--Mark,
Terry, and Roy--they were wild from the get-go."
Scully frowned, and began leafing through the sheaves
of paper before her. "Were they ever in trouble with the law?"
Ginny shook her head. "Nothing serious that I know of.
Though I wouldn't be surprised if they had their share of speeding
tickets and the occasional night in the drunk tank on their records.
But, no. I never thought of those boys as criminals. They just
liked to have a good time."
"Which is why they opened Backroads?" Mulder asked
before taking another sip of his coffee.
"Well, I'm not a mind reader," Ginny reminded the agents
with a small smile, her hands held out before her as if to say 'take
this with a grain of salt.' "But, it seems to me that for three young
fellas who spent every Friday and Saturday night of their adult
lives drinkin' and shootin' pool, the ideal business would be to
open up a place of their own."
"Is it successful?" Scully asked, having begun to jot
down notes on the legal pad before her.
"Far as I know. I'm not a drinker, myself," Ginny told
them with a wink. "It's that Methodist upbringing, don't you
know. But, from what I've been told, Backroads is jumping on
the weekends. Or was, until all of this."
"All =what= exactly?" Mulder prodded.
"Reverend Weaver's crusade," Ginny said simply,
scooping up the nearly empty carafe, and preparing to return to
her kitchen. "He and his parishioners have been determined to
shut the place down."
* * * * * * * *
"Oh yeah, Reverend Weaver has been on the proverbial
mission from God over Backroads."
Fox Mulder leaned against the battered wooden desk
facing Sheriff Steve Lowry's newer metal one and crossed his
arms solidly against his chest.
He did not like young Sheriff Lowry.
Of course he had to admit, even before he had met the
man he was prejudiced. It wasn't fair, he knew. But, Mulder
found it awfully hard to keep an open mind about a law
enforcement professional who had turned to a relative with
political connections the minute things got a little rocky. He
looked at Lowry measuringly, wondering why the sheriff had
believed himself ill-equipped to handle the conflicts apparently
rocking his community. Surely, he wasn't under the delusion
that he was physically incapable of handling the task. Lowry
was big; built like the former fullback he was. He had probably
a couple of inches on Mulder's own more slender frame, and at
least thirty more pounds. Sandy brown hair styled in that bristle
cut that Keanu Reeves had made fashionable in "Speed" crowned
a head complete with bright blue eyes, a lantern jaw and cleft chin.
The man practically had "All-American" stamped on his forehead
the same way a penny was imprinted with "In God We Trust,"
Mulder mused darkly.
But, it wasn't Lowry's frat boy good looks that sealed
Mulder's opinion of the small town sheriff.
It was the way the young, former football star was ogling
his partner.
From the moment the two agents had entered the County
Sheriff's office, Lowry had been letting his eyes drift speculatively
down Scully's body, skimming over the curves covered by her navy
blue linen suit, and settling with obvious male appreciation on the
swell of her hip.
It was all Mulder could do to keep from decking the guy.
For her part, Scully appeared oblivious to the sheriff's
interest. Presently, she stood beside him, her nose buried in yet
another file. Apparently, she had meant it when she had told
Mulder she felt as if she needed to play catch-up.
"What exactly have the Reverend and his people been
doing to get the place shut down?" she asked, finally lifting her
eyes to gaze at Lowry intently.
The sheriff shrugged, then offered the redheaded agent
his very best smile. "Well, at first Weaver directed his attack
from the pulpit. You know, lots of sermons about demon rum
and the sins of the flesh."
"Did people listen?" Scully asked mildly.
Lowry tilted his head noncommittally. "Some. You've
got to understand, Agent Scully. This is a real funny part of the
country. On the one hand, you're standing right on the
northern edge of the Bible Belt. The church plays a real
important role in the lives of the people around here. Why,
in this county alone we've got everything from Lutherans to
Southern Baptists to Pentecostals."
"And on the other hand, Sheriff?" Mulder drawled,
dragging his eyes from the wall of photographs which lay
behindthe sheriff's desk chronicling the man's gridiron career
to pin him with his gaze.
Lowry's brow furrowed in confusion for a moment.
Mulder suspected that the thinly veiled animosity he harbored
for the man was no doubt the cause of the sheriff's befuddlement.
And yet, the agent felt little guilt. The man was encroaching on
his partner. And that just wouldn't do.
Apparently unable to put his finger on what exactly was
prompting Mulder's less than kindly stare, Lowry gave up his
momentary contemplation of the matter, and decided to instead
forge on, a sheepish grin in place. "*On the other hand,* folks
around here like to blow off a little steam after putting in a day's
work. Just like anywhere, I expect. This is mostly farm country.
Men finish a hard day in the field, they like to come into town and
share a beer with their friends, talk over the weather, feed prices,
whatever. Besides, let's face it--there isn't much else to do around
here. Pine Grove's three bars get plenty of business."
"Three bars?" Mulder asked in surprise.
Lowry nodded. "Three if you count Backroads.
Although it is technically outside the city limits."
Scully cocked her head. "So why target Backroads?
Is Reverend Weaver also trying to close the other two places?"
The sheriff turned once more to the petite redhead
beside him, seemingly much happier to direct his focus to her
intense blue eyes than to her partner's stony hazel ones. "Not
that I know of. He never seemed to pay much attention to them
at all."
"So why pick on the Halprins? Did they have some
kind of history with Weaver?" Mulder asked, moodily eyeing
the way Lowry leaned in to Scully, almost as if he were getting
ready to whisper something not at all professional in her ear.
Lowry straightened again at the male agent's tone.
"Well, that's what folks wondered. Rumor was the whole thing
started because of Kimberly."
"Reverend Weaver's daughter?" Scully queried.
"Yeah," Lowry confirmed shortly. "Kim was a good kid.
But she had a bit of a wild streak."
"So what--are you saying she took to hanging out at
Backroads?" Mulder asked a bit impatiently, longing to just get
the information they needed and then get out of there. Lowry
wasn't telling them much more than Ginny Barker had been
able to impart. Mostly just hearsay and gossip. Mulder wanted
to interview the actual suspects in this case. If they could get
the sheriff to move it along, he hoped to get over to the Church
of Christ's Mercy before the day was done and talk to the
Reverend himself, or perhaps visit the families of Mark Halprin
and Roy Cullins. Anything, rather than just standing around
chewing the fat with this Howie Long look-alike. But, Scully
didn't seem to be in any great hurry. Perhaps, she believed
that the sheriff might actually have some pertinent information
to share.
Surely, she wasn't lingering because she enjoyed
Lowry's attention.
"From what I know of the situation, yeah," Lowry
retorted, the edge in his voice suggesting he was getting a bit
tired of Mulder's less than friendly attitude. "We've had a
problem with Backroads letting in underage patrons. We'd
sweep the place from time to time, talk to Terry and Mark, but
you know how it is. We had bigger things to worry about
than a few kids sneaking a couple of beers before their
twenty-first birthdays."
"Oh, yeah. I imagine this place is a regular *hotbed*
of crime," Mulder murmured, his eyes daring the sheriff to
convince him such a statement had even a grain of truth to it.
The agent's disdainful challenge was, for the sheriff,
the last straw. Having finally reached his limit of tolerance,
Lowry bristled as sharply as his hair. "Listen, Agent Mulder--
I've got a handful of men trying to patrol an entire county here.
A county filled with roads that aren't even on the map and plenty
of wide open spaces. We've got a hell of a lot of area to cover.
And my men and I do our jobs with only a fraction of the
resources you feds take for granted. So don't try to tell me--"
"Sheriff Lowry," Scully said, smoothly cutting into his
tirade, and stepping forward to neatly insert herself between the
two men whose testosterone levels had somehow inexplicably
spiked. "If we go with the assumption that Reverend Weaver was
intent on closing Backroads to keep his daughter from frequenting
there, how did he go about it?"
Lowry glared at Mulder for a good second or two more.
Mulder met his eyes, the agent's gaze frankly amused. Although
Lowry might have the physical edge on him, Mulder thought he
was more than capable of holding his own against the sheriff in
a battle of wits. The thought cheered him immeasureably.
Lowry cleared his throat, paused a moment, getting
himself under control, then continued. "Well, like I said, first
he just preached about it. Told his people to stay away from
the place. Then, first thing you know, signs started appearing
all over town. Posters tacked to anything that wasn't moving.
But it didn't all come to a head until the picketing."
"Picketing?" Mulder questioned, unable to keep a
chuckle from coloring the query.
Lowry wasn't prepared to let go of his glower just yet.
"Yeah. Picketing. Every weekend, Weaver would show up
with a van load of people out at Backroads. If he could get
enough of them together, they'd make an appearance during
the week too. They never really did anything, just stood
around outside with signs and bibles and asked the folks
going in to reconsider the error of their ways. Kinda like the
sort of thing you see done outside of abortion clinics. It got
nasty from time to time, though. We had to break up more
than a couple of fights."
Mulder shook his head, clearly amused. "How long
did this go on?"
The sheriff shrugged. "I don't know. Since March.
Maybe even the end of February."
Scully flipped through the legal pad she had earlier
set on Lowry's desk. "And Kimberly Weaver died . . .?"
"March twenty-seventh," Lowry supplied smoothly.
"Mark Halprin died almost a month later to the date, April
twenty-fifth. Roy Cullins died a week after that."
"May third," Scully murmured, her brow creased in
thought as she considered the information before her, looking
as if she were trying to put together a sort of timetable for the
supposed crimes. Lowry took advantage of her absorption,
and leaned in to peer over her shoulder in a move designed to
appear as if he wanted to get take a peek at her notes himself,
but in reality, Mulder recognized, served to surreptiously give
the sheriff a commanding view down the front of the
unsuspecting woman's blouse. The thought made something
grow heavy and hard low in Mulder's stomach. And so, feeling
as if he really just had to say *something*, the agent opened
his mouth to protest Lowry's tactics. Yet, while Scully's
concentration was focused on something other than the tall,
wide-shouldered man towering over her, she wasn't comatose.
And before her partner could ride to the rescue with one of
his patented cutting remarks, she merely glanced at Lowry
with a mild yet far from gentle expression, a brow arched. To
his credit, the sheriff took the subtle hint, and eased off.
Mulder smiled in open satisfaction.
"Is the Reverend still at it?" Mulder inquired, crossing
to stand beside his partner, wanting for some undefineable reason
to reaffirm their connection to Sheriff Lowry. To in some small
way warn the other man away.
Apparently, the message got through. Lowry took a
step back. Scully's bemused gaze swung first from the
lean, lanky dark-haired man on her left to the taller, brawnier
man on her right, then back again.
In reply to his partner's unspoken query, Mulder merely
offered her his blandest, most innocent face. He wasn't certain
it worked. But in the end, Scully decided to let the moment pass.
It was all Mulder could do not to sigh with relief.
Noting the silent communication between the two
agents and yet unable to read what specifically was being said,
Lowry hesitated for a moment. Then, offering a pained smile, he
continued. "No need to keep at it. Reverend Weaver did what
he set out to do. Backroads is in trouble. Not that Terry Halprin
is worried about that right now though. Hell--let's face it--pouring
a few less drinks on a Saturday night is the last thing on his mind.
His brother and best friend are dead, and he's scared shitless
that the same thing is going to happen to him. Oh--sorry, Agent
Scully."
"Don't worry about it," she murmured with a tiny smile.
"Scared of what exactly?" Mulder asked, catching his
partner's eyes with his own, and mirroring her smile. "That
Reverend Weaver is coming after him next?"
Lowry ducked his head as if acknowledging the
absurdity of what he was about to say. "You smile now, Agent
Mulder. But you may not find the idea so far-fetched once you
meet the man."
* * * * * * * *
Mulder would have given anything to learn that day
if Lowry's assessment of Pine Grove's resident celebrity was
accurate.
Alas, it was not to be.
Instead, at the end of one of the most tedious days in
recent memory, the FBI's best known believer sat, a mound of
pillows cushioning his back, against the headboard of his
sturdy mahogany four poster and moodily popped another
sunflower seed into his mouth, unable to believe his and his
partner's recent string of bad luck.
The whole trip felt cursed.
With narrowed eyes, he worried the seed with his tongue
and studied the meager collection of notes he had struggled that
day to collect. God, he and Scully would have had better luck
interviewing those directly involved with the case from their
basement office in the J. Edgar Hoover Building than they
were having in Pine Grove, Missouri.
Soon after Sheriff Lowry had made his enigmatic
comment regarding the Reverend and his supposed abilities,
Mulder and Scully had separated for the day. Scully had accepted
Lowry's offer to drive her to Jefferson City where the bodies of
the deceased were awaiting her perusal, thus allowing Mulder
to keep their car and begin his half of the investigation in town.
Unfortunately, the people he most wanted to talk to
failed to hold up their end of the bargain. Try though he might,
Mulder was unable to make contact with any of the people on
his "most wanted" list.
Reverend Weaver was in Springfield speaking at
Southwest Missouri State University.
Terry Halprin was in Columbia meeting with the bank
that held the mortgage on Backroads.
Mrs. Cullins, Roy's mother and only living family
member, was visiting friends in Florida.
Stymied, Mulder had been forced to improvise. Sticking
out like a heron among sparrows, he had roamed the half a dozen
blocks which constituted beautiful downtown Pine Grove,
questioning the locals, and trying to get a feel for the town and
its most famous citizen.
It had not proven to be the most enlightening afternoon
of his life.
Now, with the clock inching towards 9:00, and his
impatience with the case in general and that day in specific
growing exponentially with every tick-tock, he yearned to
share his frustration with his absent partner.
Where the hell was she?
Not that he begrudged her the time spent in the
autopsy bay. Scully had been thrilled to learn she was going to
be able to get a look at the bodies of the supposed victims.
When it came to using her medical expertise to hunt for clues,
his physician partner was more than in her element. Mulder
envied her that. At least Scully got to do what she did best
to help move the investigation along. By contrast, he felt as
if he had spent the day slogging in an ever narrowing circle
through mud.
From outside his half opened window he heard a car
pull up. He pushed himself from the bed and crossed to
investigate, spitting out the husk of the sunflower seed into
the room's wicker trash basket as he passed it. He peered through
white eyelet lace curtains and spied the county sheriff's tan
sedan. Although night had fallen thickly on the Missouri sky,
the porch light was bright enough to highlight Scully's hair as
she raised her hand in farewell, then turned to climb the steps
leading to Twin Orchards' entrance. Good. She was back.
Mulder felt something ease in the center of his chest.
He returned to his previous resting spot on the bed.
Half-heartedly scanning the pages before him, he heard Scully
climb the stairs to the second floor, the click of her door, her
light tread across the floorboards in her room. They were
lodged at the end of a long hallway, in chambers separated
by a bathroom they both shared. Ginny had apologized for
the inconvenience, and explained that with over two weeks
before she had planned on officially opening the inn for that
season, she had decided to do a little sprucing up of the bed
and breakfast's accommodations. She had managed to get the
two rooms in which they were presently staying completed,
but the rest of the floor was still in the midst of redecorating.
He waited, wrestling with his restlessness for Scully
to come to him. Eventually, she did, her soft knock at what
Mulder thought of as his bathroom door alerting him to her
presence.
"Come on in."
A tired smile on her face, Scully crossed into the room,
her suit jacket off, her blouse untucked, the top button freed
from its hole, her feet bare.
"Hi."
He smiled back at her. She looked exhausted. Rubbing
the back of her neck wearily, she surveyed the oddly ordered
chaos of papers and files that littered the comforter upon which
he sat. Shaking her head in bemusement, she padded softly over
to perch on the side of his bed, even with his knees, and reached
up to undo her hair which was secured at the base of her neck in
a low ponytail.
The whole thing struck Mulder as almost astonishing
intimate.
He glanced away from her for an instant, touched by
just the smallest amount of chagrin, unable to escape the
sensation that the opportunity to see his partner in this manner
--her clothes disheveled, somewhere between dressed and not;
her movements languid with fatigue; her face thoughtful;
her gaze soft--was something he wasn't meant to view. And yet,
at the same time, was exactly how he longed to see her.
"How'd it go?" he asked in an effort to cover his
strangely unsettling thoughts, pleased when his voice failed
to betray him.
She shrugged. "I had a few surprises."
"Such as?"
"Such as I had only two bodies to look at instead of
three."
Mulder arched a brow in question.
Scully raised hers as if silently answering him. "It seems
that Reverend Weaver decided to have his daughter's body
cremated. The funny thing is he came to this decision nearly a
month after her death."
* * * * * * * *
Continued in Part III
===========================================================================
From: krasch@delphi.com
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: *NEW* "No Greater Love" (3/13) by K. Rasch
Date: Mon, 3 Jun 96 05:17:28 -0500
"No Greater Love" (3/13)
By Karen Rasch
krasch@delphi.com
More story. Thanks!
================================================
"He had the body cremated?"
Scully nodded, wishing she weren't quite so exhausted
and thus could better appreciate the look of utter incredulity
currently gracing her partner's face.
"That's right. On April 26, Reverend Weaver put in a
request to have his daughter's body exhumed. Within the week,
her remains were returned to Berrier Brothers Funeral Home, the
place where she was originally prepared for burial, and promptly
cremated."
Mulder's gaze darkened with frustration. "Well, there
goes =that= lead. I don't suppose you were given any
explanation as to the Reverend's sudden change of heart?"
Scully shook her head. "No, I have no idea why. I
inquired at the morgue, but no one had any answers for me.
In fact, nobody seemed to know anything about it, period. Not
Gerald Perkins, the County Coroner and M.E. of record, and not
Sheriff Lowry. Although, to be honest, I don't know why any of
this should surprise me. After all, these are the same people
who believed the destruction of Kimberly Weaver's remains
wasn't important enough to mention in the paperwork they faxed
over to us in the first place."
Although she appreciated the sympathetic grimace
Mulder was at that moment sending her way, it did little to
alleviate the annoyance and disappointment that had coursed
through her veins since learning of this latest stumbling block
early that afternoon. Damn it! She had thought she was going
to be able to get at a look at the bodies of all the so-called victims.
But, because of the suspicious yet entirely legal actions of their
chief suspect, that avenue of investigation had been compromised.
Scully knew with a sort of intuition she normally associated with
Mulder that Kimberly Weaver's body had held secrets.
Information which would have shed some much needed light on
their case; a theory that was more than substantiated when she
took into account what she had learned from the remains of Mark
Halprin and Roy Cullins.
"Any other surprises?" Mulder asked glumly.
Scully tucked a leg beneath her, and cocked a brow.
"One or two. And these I think you're going to love, Mulder."
"Good, I could use a little cheering up," he murmured
wryly, his lower lip poked forward just a bit for effect.
She smiled at his assumed peevishness, more than
appreciating the sentiment. It had not been an easy day. For
either of them, she suspected. Her lower back might feel as if
sometime during the hours spent standing on the morgue's
unforgiving tile floor a stainless steel spike had been driven into
it, but Mulder looked as if their hours apart had been no kinder to
him. He sat facing her, his long legs pressing into her hip, dressed
in the remains of his slate colored suit. The jacket, tie and shoes
were missing. Only the white dress shirt, carelessly unbuttoned
at his throat, and creased gray slacks remained, both undeniably
the worse for wear, wrinkled in a way only the dry cleaners could
repair. Her partner's usually intense hazel eyes were a less than
attractive combination of sleep-tinged and red-rimmed. The
latter apparently the result of trying to rub the former away.
His hands had also seemingly found their way into his hair,
strands of which presently poked skyward at strangely
endearing angles.
All in all, Mulder looked like a little boy who had
played too hard and was now way too tired to go to sleep.
Smiling in sudden surprise at the unnerving trend her
thoughts were taking, Scully looked away from the man opposite
her, feigning interest in the delicate stitching woven into the
comforter upon which she sat. Taking a deep breath, she
resolutely pushed aside her exhaustion and the peculiar effect
her rumpled partner was having on her, striving instead to
remember with precision what she had intended to share with
Mulder when she had first entered his room. Finally, raising her
eyes once more, she plunged in. "Although both Cullins and
Halprin appear to have indeed died in the manner in which the
coroner reported, I did find some irregularities."
Mulder's interest piqued immediately. He leaned
forward slightly, his gaze intent. "What sort of irregularities?"
She shrugged slightly. "I've never seen anything like
it. And to be completely frank, I'm not at all sure I can explain it."
"Sounds like an X-File," he said with the smallest hint
of a smile, the weariness that had only moments before clouded
his eyes lifting ever so slightly. "Run it by me, Scully."
Her eyes smiled back in reaction to his enthusiasm.
"What do you know about coronaries?"
"Other than this job will likely give me one? Not
much."
Her appreciation of his humor reached her lips.
"Heart disease is genetic, Mulder. Most sufferers uncover a
history of the disorder in their family."
"Not so with Mark Halprin?" he guessed.
"No. Not a trace of it," she confirmed with a quick
shake of her head. "Now, that in and of itself is not tremendously
unusual. After all, it wouldn't be beyond the realm of possibility
for a distant relative to perhaps be afflicted with the disease.
Someone whose medical history wouldn't readily have made its
way into his file."
Mulder nodded his understanding.
"However, this supposed cause of death does become
a trifle more odd when you take into consideration the man's age
and physical condition. Halprin would have turned 35 this year.
He didn't smoke. He was a cross country runner, and according
to his brother Terry, a swimmer as well. A man in excellent shape."
Humor twinkled in her partner's eyes. "Are you trying
to tell me I should worry, Scully?"
She shook her head, a subtle smile still curving her lips.
"Not at all. Under normal circumstances, Mark Halprin would
not have been considered a likely candidate for a heart attack."
"Normal circumstances?"
She dipped her head. "That's just it--when I opened
him up what I found was far from normal."
"How do you mean?"
"A heart attack can occur in a number of ways.
Usually, however, some sort of clogging of the arteries will be
evident--plaque or clotting of some kind."
"Let me guess--Halprin's were as clean as a whistle."
"Good guess. But that wasn't what was *really* strange."
The corner of Mulder's expressive mouth raised just a
fraction. "You know, I never thought of you as a tease, Scully,
but right about now--"
She arched a brow and gave him one of her trademarked
looks. "The heart looked beaten, Mulder."
"Beaten?" he echoed, his brow furrowed in confusion.
She nodded. "Most times, in cases such as Halprin's,
you'll find what is called a myocardial infarction--a bruising of the
heart. But, this usually occurs in one location. =One=. Halprin
had them all over his heart, almost as if the organ had been
pummeled. One of the ventricles was even ruptured."
Mulder didn't understand all the intricacies involved,
but he got the gist of it. "Any idea what would cause something
like that?"
She shook her head. "Not a clue. But it gets better."
"Scully, I just knew that sharing a bed with you would
make my day."
Her eyes widened, then sharply narrowed at his quip.
Mulder's only defense was his grin, which he employed
shamelessly. Luckily for him, his partner was too exhausted to do
more then gaze at him, thunderclouds intensifying the already
vivid blue of her eyes. Ultimately however, the threatening
storm dissipated before it reached fruition, blown aside by her
own reluctant bemusement at his sally. "Cullins' brain exploded."
Mulder blinked at her without comprehension. "Excuse
me?"
"My sentiments exactly," she murmured dryly. "Any
medical textbook will tell you that an aneurysm essentially
involves a weakened area of blood vessel, normally occurring
in the Circle of Willis."
"Okay," Mulder said, not really following her, but
willing to take her word for it. "So what--are you saying that
Cullins had some sort of a massive blowout of blood vessels?"
"No. That's just it. Cullins had =no= blood vessels
compromised. Not a single one. And yet, when I spread his
cranium, it was filled with blood."
The man sitting opposite her shuddered in distaste.
"How is that possible?"
"I wish I knew," she replied with a degree of apology.
Mulder's eyes slid away from hers for a moment, his
mind whirring. "Are there any kinds of drugs that could bring
about this sort of damage?"
"No."
"Could Halprin and Cullins' injuries have been inflicted
in any way from outside the body? Through a blow or wound of
some kind?"
She shrugged again, wishing she had some better
answers for him. "No, not that I know of. Besides, there were no
markings on the surface, no indication of any physical injury from
an outside source."
"And Weaver wasn't present at the deaths of either of
these two men?" Mulder asked softly, his question rhetorical;
his partner recognizing that his gaze had now turned inward,
centering on that place where his mind put together patterns
and theories faster than any other agent in the Bureau.
"No," Scully assured him, her fingers playing with the
barrette in her hands, the one that had held her thick fall of hair
away from her face while she had performed the examinations
they were discussing, and now served as a kind of worry-stone,
a tool of sorts to help channel and order her own jumbled thoughts.
"Not that we know of. Cullins died on the job--at Backroads--in
full view of a bar load of customers. No one was standing
anywhere near him, and Reverend Weaver and his picketers
weren't even on the premises that night."
"And Halprin died at home?"
"Mmhmm," Scully murmured, stifling a yawn behind her
hand. Lord, she was tired. The day had taken its toll. She
wondered if she would even feel the pillow beneath her weary
head before she nodded off. "Alone. The Reverend was at his
church at the time. Members of his congregation's bible study
class confirmed his alibi."
Mulder nodded, his brow still creased in thought, his
eyes focused on some point beyond Scully's shoulder, his teeth
gnawing restlessly on his lower lip.
The young redhead watched him patiently, intrigued as
always by the manner in which his brain did its job, wondering
just when all the little pieces of his latest theory would tumble
into place with an almost audible click, her equally agile mind
already composing counter-hypotheses.
"Scully, what if the whole God angle doesn't figure into
it at all? What if Weaver has some sort of psychokinetic ability?
What if he was able to kill Halprin and Cullins simply by
reaching into their bodies and causing them to short circuit?"
Scully stared at him dumbly. None of the theories
she had been busily constructing had quite taken into
consideration this angle. "Psychokinesis?"
Mulder's eyes gleamed. She knew that look. The man
believed he was on to something. "Sure. It makes sense. Not
only about these murders, but about his entire faith healer
shtick."
She frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Think about it, Scully," he instructed as he leaned
towards her and shifted to sit cross-legged so that their knees
nearly touched. "Weaver has made a living out of curing the
sick and giving the credit to the Almighty. But what if all along
=he= was the one with the power? He was the one who was
going in and manipulating tissue, blood chemistry, whatever.
Hell, he may not even realize it himself. He could have some
highly developed sort of psychokinetic talent and not even be
aware of it."
"Mulder, the kind of psychic ability you're describing
is almost unimaginable in its power. Researchers studying
extrasensory perception become ecstatic when they discover
a subject who is able to bend a spoon, and yet you're
suggesting that Reverend Weaver has the power to alter at a
cellular level a person's physical being."
"Just because it's never been documented doesn't
mean it's not possible," Mulder reminded her swiftly.
Shaking her head, Scully continued relentlessly.
"It's not only the magnitude of the power necessary to
accomplish what you're proposing Weaver is able to, it's the
medical knowledge he would have to possess in order to do
what you believe he can do. He would have to have a
detailed understanding of the human body, its structure, the
workings of its various systems--"
"So, he's a medical buff," Mulder countered carelessly,
shrugging away her protests as if they were merely troublesome
gnats. "Maybe he got As in college biology, or subscribes to
the American Journal of Medicine. I don't know. Maybe, he
doesn't need to know the particulars in order for the changes
to take place. Perhaps all he has to do is focus on an area and
think 'good thoughts'."
Scully stared at the man before her for a moment,
chewing on the inside of her cheek, her expression vexed.
"Mulder, =think= what you're suggesting. We have no motive,
no evidence. And yet, you've jumped to a conclusion that's so
. . . . so . . =out there.= This explanation actually sounds
plausible to you?" she asked with more than a touch of disbelief.
"While you find it more believable to assert that
Weaver makes a living and does away with those who cross
him by asking God for favors?" Mulder countered mildly,
holding her gaze effortlessly with hazel eyes afire with
challenge.
Scully's own turbulent blue eyes clung to his with fierce
resolution, almost as if she thought that dropping them would
be admitting some kind of weakness, some sort of doubt
regarding both her theories and her own judgment. Finally
however, she raised her eyebrows and lightly shook her head,
her voice hushed and tightly controlled. "I never said that,
Mulder. I never said that I thought the Reverend was some sort
of avenging angel. And besides, precisely when did we decide
that not only had murder been committed, but that Weaver was
indeed our prime suspect?"
Mulder recognized that his rebuff had angered her,
and yet he wasn't quite prepared to let it all go. "You're the
one who came up with the proof, Scully. The one who
discovered that everything wasn't as cut and dried as we had
been led to believe."
"Mulder, what I found today proves =nothing=."
He persisted. "Then explain to me how Halprin and
Cullins' bodies came to be in the shape they're in."
"I can't!" she shot back at him, the stresses and strains
of the day fueling her frustration with her partner and his pig-
headedness, propelling her voice upwards in both volume and
tone. "You know that. I can't explain what exactly killed those
men anymore than you can to prove to me that Weaver did it by
thinking 'bad thoughts'!"
For a moment they simply glared at each other, both
breathing hard.
Finally, shrugging his shoulders as if trying to
physically banish the unexpectedly heated disagreement he
and his partner had both just shared, Mulder said in a tone
designed to placate, "Well, regardless of which theory is
eventually proven right, one thing is for certain."
Scully cocked her head, not meeting his eyes. "What?"
"The need for proof," he said shortly. "Neither theory
has any hope of becoming anything more without hard evidence."
"Which we are notably lacking," she agreed with a little
nod, now considering the man before her, the one that infuriated
and fascinated her, both in equal measure. Neither agent said
anything for a moment, instead mulling over all that had already
been said. Then, Scully ventured quietly, "So, what about you?
What did you learn today?"
Mulder smiled dryly. "Nothing quite so colorful, I
assure you. Although, the afternoon was *not* without its
revelations." He leaned over to the night stand and selected
another sunflower seed from the bag resting there, popping it
into his mouth, then offering one to Scully. She declined, even
as the tilt of her head invited him to continue. "For instance,
did you know that The Coffee Cup does a really excellent BLT?"
Only Mulder had the power to make her emotions turn
so sharply on a dime, Scully thought with a rueful twinge of
self-knowledge. Not a moment before she had wanted to throttle
him, both for his flights of fancy and for the almost spooky talent
he had for getting under her skin when he put his mind to it. But
that desire had passed, just as it had so many times before. Oh,
he had struck a nerve with his jab over her willingness to believe
in miracles. But the attack hadn't been malicious. She knew that.
It was just hard to remember it sometimes when he hit that close
to home. Now, however, his bizarre sense of humor had kicked in.
And, as a result, the corner of her lips quirked. "Why no, I
hadn't realized that." she murmured, gazing at him with a raised
brow. "Thank you, Mulder. That's good to know."
He nodded, a healthy dose of self-deprecating humor
lighting his eyes. "Especially since The Coffee Cup is Pine
Grove's one and only restaurant."
"So, are you trying to tell me that lunch was the
highlight of your day, Mulder?"
He dipped his head again. "Sad, but true."
Scully smiled in sympathy. "I take it the locals were not
forthcoming?"
"Oh, I wouldn't say that," he countered, even as the look
in his eyes assured her that was =precisely= what he would say.
"They were more than willing to tell me that Kimberly Weaver
was a nice girl. A good girl. A credit to her father and her
community, and a person who is sorely missed."
She chuckled over his sing-song recitation. "Shocking.
What did you learn about the Reverend?"
"Oh, nothing quite as juicy as I learned about his
daughter," Mulder assured her with heavy irony, bending down
to spit out the seed shell with a sharpshooter's accuracy into the
waste basket beside the bed. "Although I did find out that people
seem to respect him and this 'gift' he has. Nearly everyone I spoke
with had some story they had either witnessed themselves or had
heard regarding Weaver's healing ability."
"You weren't able to track down the Reverend himself?"
"I tried," Mulder protested, with an exasperated flailing
of hands. "But Weaver skipped town with the rest of this case's
principal players."
He quickly filled her in as to the whereabouts of Weaver,
Halprin, and the rest of their absent interviewees. She smiled her
condolences, and lightly patted his calf in comfort. "Well, as
Scarlett O'Hara said, 'tomorrow is another day'."
Mulder looked at the hand resting atop his pants' leg for
a beat before meeting his partner's sleepy blue eyes. "You expect
me to be cheered by the words of a woman who made her living
room curtains double as evening wear?" he murmured with a dry
smile. "No. As with everything in this case, I'm afraid it's not
that easy, Scully. True, if all things go according to plan, we'll
finally get our opportunity to speak with the elusive Reverend--a
man who, may I say, is turning out to be as mythical as your
two brothers. But, first we're going to have to sit through an
hour or two of the PTL Club Live. I'm not so sure it's an even
trade."
"Well then, we better get our rest," she said with a small
smile as she rose from the bed and crossed to the connecting
door. However, once she reached the portal, Scully paused, her
hand on the knob, her body turned only slightly towards the man
on the bed. "Mulder, these people you spoke with today--
you said they seemed to respect Weaver's supposed gift. But . . .
did you find that most of them believed in it?" she asked
hesitantly, her eyes not quite meeting his.
He shrugged, a bit uncomfortable with the direction
in which the conversation was headed. "Well, it's not as if I
was with Gallup, Scully. My poll was informal at best."
"I know," she said with a little nod, her gaze still not
engaging his directly, her hands once again busy with her
barrette. "But, I'm curious. What did people say?"
He couldn't lie to her, although saying the words didn't
come easily. "Most people bought it. The whole routine. It
appears that Ginny is in the minority. Most of the people I
spoke with thought that Reverend Andrew Weaver was the real
McCoy. A genuine holy man."
Scully nodded, saying nothing.
"Does that matter?" he asked, his intent gaze revealing
how much her answer mattered to him.
She waited a moment before replying, almost as if
weighing her words. "No. No, not at all. Like I told you, I'm
curious, that's all."
He nodded, studying her shuttered face.
For a moment they said nothing.
"Go to sleep, Scully," he told her quietly after their eyes
had silently asked all the questions hanging in the air between
them only to find the answers no less elusive than before.
She nodded once more but still made no move to leave
the room. Finally, she spoke. "Mulder, I'm okay with this. You
know? I don't want you to think--"
"I know that, Scully," he said swiftly, softly, cutting
through her assurances to him with a ruthlessness that illustrated
how unnecessary he believed them to be. "I'm not worried. I
never doubt your abilities. Never."
"Good," she said, her voice low, her eyes fierce. "I
just wanted you to know."
"I do," he said without hesitation, leaning forward once
more, almost as if his body were drawn to her somehow even
without him being consciously aware of it. "I know I can count
on you."
She smiled, quick and tight, and exited, shutting the door
carefully behind her.
Mulder sat for a good long time after she had left him,
staring at the wall separating their rooms and wondering about
all the things he and his partner never said.
* * * * * * * *
Continued in Part IV
===========================================================================
From: krasch@delphi.com
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: *NEW* "No Greater Love" (4/13) by K. Rasch
Date: Mon, 3 Jun 96 05:18:14 -0500
"No Greater Love" (4/13)
By Karen Rasch
krasch@delphi.com
Still more. Enjoy.
================================================
Mulder was awakened on that Sunday morning by the
sound of his partner entering the bathroom. He wasn't surprised
to discover that it was Scully's muffled movements which had
stirred him from slumber. Although she had somehow managed
to get ready the morning before without alerting him, he knew
himself to be a man whose mind was far too active and whose
suspicions ran far too deeply to be easily seduced by sleep.
So despite her best efforts to be quiet, by the time Scully
turned on the shower all pretense at dozing was at end.
Hello world, he thought sardonically.
He rolled towards the night stand and looked at the
travel clock atop it. 6:07. Services didn't start at the Church of
Christ's Mercy until 10:00. Scully and he were going to have
some time to kill. Maybe they could get to Weaver before the
festivities began. That way they could skip the actual ceremony.
Oh, who was he fooling? With the way this case was going, not
only would he undoubtedly be forced to sit through a lengthy
hellfire and brimstone sermon, but he'd probably be compelled
through nefarious means to join the choir as well.
His lips twisting in wry amusement at the thought, he
glanced out his bedroom window. The sunny seasonable weather
they had been enjoying since arriving in the nation's heartland
was apparently at an end. The sky looking in on him was an
ominous gun metal gray. Droplets of rain spotted the panes of
glass separating him from the elements. And he could detect
quite plainly on the portion of his anatomy not covered by the
handmade comforter bundled over him a chilly draft snaking in
through the open window.
He scowled. The bleak blustery day matched his mood.
Mulling over that realization, Mulder stared at the
ceiling, annoyed with himself and the world at large. He
had no reason for the disquiet coursing through him. No
*real* reason. True, the case had certainly proven tedious.
From the time they had set forth from Washington, events had,
with a sort of gleeful malice, consistently failed to unfold
smoothly. Questions were raised without hope of answer,
roadblocks thrown up simply to see what it would take for him
and Scully to surmount them, beliefs challenged, relationships
strained. . . .
Relationships strained.
That was the real problem, wasn't it? The actual cause
of the foul temper he acknowledged sat poised at the edges of
his consciousness, like a predator waiting to strike. God, he
hated it when he and Scully were at odds! Despised it. Loathed
it.
But for crying out loud, she really didn't expect him to
swallow that load of bull about Weaver's partnership with God,
did she?
Mulder, did she ever once say outright that she believed
the Reverend to be in cahoots with the Almighty?
Well, not in so many words, he silently allowed. But she
was intrigued by the notion. Of =that= he was certain. And
besides, she sure as hell dismissed out of hand his own theory
regarding psychokinesis
As well she should, argued the really annoying little inner
voice. What kind of proof do you have? None. Motive? Nothing
compelling enough to warrant the deaths of three people, one of
whom was the only family the supposed murderer had. Hell,
despite what Scully found, you still don't even know for certain
that a crime has been committed, let alone that Weaver is the
culprit.
Then, how do you explain the bizarre details surrounding
the deaths of Roy Cullins and Mark Halprin, and the convenient
destruction of Kimberly Weaver's remains?
I don't. You do. It's your job.
"Easy for you to say," Mulder murmured aloud in an
effort to silence the smug interior speaker, stretching his lanky
frame with abandon as he did so.
Much as he hated to admit it, all the objections his
conscience raised were fitting, and perfectly justified given the
less than perfect case he was constructing against the still
unseen Weaver. But he =knew=, felt in his bones the same way
an arthritic senses a rainstorm that the rash of unexpected
deaths currently plaguing Pine Grove, Missouri was caused by
unnatural circumstances, and was far from random. He just
wished he could figure out how the murders had been committed.
And why. The investigation was in dire need of a motive. The
one they had just didn't wash. Weaver, who by all accounts had
been a strict but loving father, didn't seem the sort to kill his
only child in cold blood simply because she had disobeyed him
by frequenting a local bar. Neither did it seem likely that the
Reverend's wrath would extend to Backroads' owners, fueled
solely by their practice of occasionally serving minors. No. There
had to be something else there. If only he could figure out what.
While he was at it, he also wished he could come up
with a way to deal with the unexpected banks and turns his
partner's mind was taking of late. He knew that their
relationship had recently suffered its share of hills and valleys,
but none had plagued him so insistently as their current impasse
over the issue of Pine Grove's resident miracle worker. Mulder
just didn't know how to approach Scully on this. He couldn't
get a handle on what precisely would set off her alarms.
Christ, he wasn't even certain what would set off his *own*
warning bells. His tolerance level was next to nil when
it came to "big-haired preachers" and their cronies. And yet,
in some sort of twisted cosmic payback, matters of the spirit
were the one thing that coaxed Dana Scully to believe.
He considered that for a moment. Wondering with a
touch of wistfulness just what it was that drew his skeptical
partner to the sacred. He knew from various comments she
had made that at least part of her schooling had taken place
under the tutelage of the Catholic church. He smiled as he
pictured for an instant a young Dana Katherine Scully, clad in
her plaid school uniform, her face scrubbed, her knee socks
pulled high, brightly polished mary-janes adorning her feet.
With her classic Irish good looks, she would have been the
ideal poster child for parochial education, he mused fondly.
And yet, when he had questioned her mother as to
reason for Scully wearing her ever-present cross, Mrs. Scully
had denied any sort of devout belief on the part of her daughter,
stating instead that she wore the necklace merely for sentimental
reasons. He had no real excuse for doubting that. From what he
could glean of his partner and her behavior, she didn't frequent
church. She wasn't one for openly praying in times of stress.
And while she was far from gutter-mouthed, Mulder knew with
absolute certainty that he had heard her use the Lord's name in
vain from time to time.
However, despite her apparent lack of conventional
religious devotion, there remained about her a calmness, a
serenity that suggested to Mulder a spiritual foundation he
knew, with a bittersweet sort of regret, he would never possess.
This core gave Scully her strength, and perhaps even the courage
which he recognized he relied on as much as she. She would
have had to call on both to survive the horrors she had been
asked to endure as his partner--all the scares, the injuries, the
sicknesses, the loss of loved ones, the almost unimaginable loss
of her own life.
How might her own near death have affected Scully's
views of God and her role in His universe, Mulder wondered, his
gaze holding fast to the ceiling above his head, his hands linked
behind his neck to support it. How ironic. He too had come
perilously close to death not so long ago. And yet, although
he had experienced his own sort of spiritual epiphany, God, in
some perverse manner, hadn't really entered into it. No.
Instead, upon passing over, he had come face to face with his
past. A decidedly secular past filled with family and friends
who welcomed him, gave him advice and solace, yet said
nothing about the Creator. He had been tempted to stay with
them, certainly. But not because of any sort of peace to be
found, any desire to remain clutched to God's bosom, any
sense of homecoming. Not at all. He had only toyed with
remaining there with his father and Deep Throat and the rest
because he had been tired. So terribly tired of the lies, of the
deception, of fighting the good but seemingly doomed fight.
Only two things had brought him back.
The confirmation that, despite all evidence to the
contrary, Samantha was not dead, but merely lost.
And the knowledge that Scully was in danger, and
needed him.
Yes, he had been willing to walk away from death to
return to his partner's side, a notion that while he recognized
it as true, quite frankly scared the hell out of him. As much he
cared for Scully, he didn't relish her holding that sort of influence
over him.
And yet, you hope against all hope that you hold that
same kind of sway with her, don't you Mulder, piped up that
wicked little voice again. You wished with everything you had
on that certain November night, the night when you could
literally feel her life slipping away through your fingertips that
the thought of you being there beside her might be enough to
tempt her back.
Mulder turned over onto his stomach in a sudden swoop
of movement, bile threatening to flood his throat as memories of
that hellish night at Northeast Georgetown Medical Center
flooded his brain. God, would he never be free of those images--
the sights and sounds and smells he linked so irrevocably with
the near loss of someone whose value to him he dared not
contemplate too closely. The tangy antiseptic odor of
disinfectant, the steady hum of countless monitors and machines
all charged with the duty of keeping those most fragile of patients
alive, the dull muted colors that he knew had been chosen to be
soothing to the eye, but instead only served to remind him that
life, like the vivid hues missing from the walls, the furniture, the
bedclothes, was fading away around him.
Her life.
Scully's life.
All right, he admitted in silent confession, his arms
wrapped around his pillow, his chin resting on its case. Yes. I
had hoped that my being there would be enough to keep Scully
alive.
Did you pray?
Did he? He must have. And yet, for the life of him, he
couldn't recall what words had been spoken, what entreaties
had been employed, what promises had been made.
<PleaseGodI'llDoAnythingAnythingAtAllJustPlease
PleaseDon'tTakeHerFromMeDon'tHaveBroughtHerBackJustTo
MakeMeWatchHerDie>
Foxhole religion, he thought dismissively, more than a
trifle chagrined over the accidental pun the phrase brought to mind.
Angrily, he shoved away memories of that time, and the fear and
vulnerability that never failed to accompany them. When all was
said and done, desperate times had called for desperate measures,
that was all. And he had taken a chance. Thrown caution to the
wind. He had called upon the Almighty for assistance and been
answered.
Scully had been returned to him. Well and whole.
So why couldn't he believe?
The answer came readily enough.
He didn't trust it. Didn't have faith that this particular
bounty had been granted without provisos.
The Lord Giveth And The Lord Taketh Away.
Striving to convince himself that the shiver which at that
moment was creeping its way down his spine resulted from the
draft seeping in through the window beside his bed and not
from the alarming turn his thoughts had taken, Mulder faintly
heard the shower being turned off on the other side of the wall.
Not long after, the scratch of plastic curtain rings sliding along
the metal bar above the tub sounded through the door. Then,
he heard Scully softly knock.
"Mulder?"
"Yeah?"
She eased open the door and peered into the room, her
small face dwarfed by the towel she had wrapped turban style
around her head.
"I tried not to take too long. I think there's still some
hot water left," she said with a small smile.
"Thanks," he replied with a yawn, sitting up so the
comforter pooled at his waist.
"Is there anything you want to do before we head off
to the church?"
"Actually, I'd like to see if we can't catch Reverend
Weaver before the service," Mulder said, running a hand
through his hair and noting with bemusement the way his
partner's bare toes peeked out from around the door's sharp
corner. "I'm thinking we'll have a better opportunity to speak
with him before his congregation gets there rather than after."
She nodded. "Okay. I'd like to see if maybe I can't get
Mrs. Cullins on the phone before we leave as well. She was in
town when her son died. Maybe she can remember something.
Something she forgot to mention when Lowry questioned her."
"Sounds like a good idea."
"Okay. See you downstairs."
As soon as Scully returned to her room, Mulder rose
from the bed, stretching once more for good measure as he
crossed the floor clad merely in his flannel boxers, and entered
the bathroom. His partner had left the window closed in
deference to the chill permeating the early morning air.
Consequently, steam misted the vanity mirror, obscuring his
reflection, and condensation glazed the porcelain like dew.
But what struck him most profoundly was the way the
hot moist room smelled.
Like her.
Like Scully.
It hit him all at once. In a wave. The impossible to
define yet instantly recognizable alchemy of soap and
lotion and skin and woman. The scent hung heavy around him;
a scent that he knew with a kind of fatalistic certainty he would
be able to pinpoint in a stadium full of similarly sweetly smelling
females. Intensified by the seemingly innocent mingling of
water and heat, it clung to him, settling on his body like fog,
seeping its way into his pores as if attempting in reverse to imitate
his own sweat. He stood for a moment, his eyes closed, breathing
deeply, taking the air inside him. And musing for just an
instant over the sexual connotations of the act.
Then came the knock.
"Mulder, can you hand me my brush?"
Blasted from his reverie in a way no less jarring than
being doused with ice water, he crossed to the toilet tank,
retrieved the item she requested, then padded over to her,
and placed it in her outstretched hand.
"Thanks a lot," she said from behind the door where
she stood in an effort to afford him privacy, her hand
disappearing into the sanctuary of her room, her brush clutched
tightly in its grasp.
Shaking his head, he closed the door once more, then
leaned against it as if for support, a rueful smile flickering
across his lips as he considered just how close he had come
to getting caught indulging in the forbidden.
That's all right, Scully," he murmured, his voice rough,
the volume just above a whisper, wishing that indeed everything
was.
* * * * * * * *
"So what did she say?"
Dana Scully tossed her umbrella to the floor, buckled
herself into her seat belt, and with a sigh, settled back against
the Taurus' passenger seat. Mulder, anxious to allow them
enough time at Christ's Mercy to interview Weaver before his
service, had gone outside to start the car while she had wrapped
up her telephone conversation with Roy Cullins' mother, Eileen.
Now, satisfied that his partner was safely ensconced within the
car, he pulled away from in front of Twin Orchards, the Ford
crunching lustily down the gravel drive, the windshield wipers
swishing briskly to and fro.
"Well, to begin with, she doesn't believe her son was
murdered," Scully said mildly, patting her hair into place in an
effort to repair the damage the windy wet weather had wrought.
"No?"
"Uh-uh," she confirmed shortly, turning to look at the
man behind the wheel. "Apparently, Terry Halprin tried to
convince her otherwise, but was unsuccessful. Although
Mrs. Cullins isn't a member of Reverend Weaver's church, she
said--and I quote: 'I just can't believe the Reverend would do
something like that'."
Mulder smiled dryly as they exited Ginny's place and
turned on to the county blacktop. "No doubt about his ability,
huh? Only his inclination."
Scully shrugged. "Apparently. However, she did
mention that Roy came to her before he died, acting rather
peculiarly."
"Peculiarly, how?"
"Afraid," she said succinctly. "Mrs. Cullins said that
her son visited her home less than a week before he died.
According to her, he was almost frantic, certain something
terrible was going to happen. He even went so far as to map
out for her how his finances stood--bank accounts, safety
deposit box, the deed to his home, the title to his car--"
"In case anything should happen to him?" Mulder
queried, shifting to meet her eyes.
Scully nodded.
"Gotta love a guy who looks out for his mom."
His partner smiled.
"So what =does= she think happened?" he asked after
they had driven a moment or two in a silence punctuated only
by the thwap of the wiper blades.
Scully chuckled. "Oh, she has her own eerie take on
the situation."
Mulder stole a look in her direction.
Scully returned his gaze, amusement twinkling in her
eyes. "Mrs. Cullins believes that her son had a premonition of
his death. That God spoke to him, warning it would happen."
"Where did she get that idea?"
"From something Roy said," she explained with a wry
smile, digging into her purse to retrieve the notebook in which
she had detailed the conversation in question, and deftly
flipping to the proper page. "When he was at her home, she
remembers asking him repeatedly what was wrong, why he was
so upset. At first, he wouldn't answer her. Then, when he finally
did, Mrs. Cullins said that the words he spoke sounded nothing
like Roy. She got the feeling he was quoting something. Or
someone."
"Why?" Mulder asked, clearly intrigued. "What did he
say?"
Scully scanned her notes. "Let's see . . . Ah--Now, this
*should* be pretty accurate. Mrs. Cullins said the whole thing
made a awfully big impression on her. Supposedly, Roy told
her, quote: 'The sinner always believes that he is the one who
will escape God's judgment. That his deed was done while the
Lord blinked. But the Almighty's eyes never shut. He sees all.
And punishes those who defy His teachings' unquote."
Mulder's lips twisted as if physically trying to hold back
the commentary Scully just knew was begging to be allowed
release. She had to give him credit. In the end, her partner
restrained himself, uttering only a heartfelt, "My!"
She chuckled once more, shutting her note tablet with a
snap as she did so. "I thought you'd like that."
"So Roy Cullins saw himself as a sinner, eh?"
"So it would seem," she agreed. "Now the question is,
just which of the Ten Commandments did Cullins break?"
* * * * * * * *
The Church of Christ's Mercy wasn't what Scully had
thought it would be. Although, in truth she couldn't say exactly
=what= she had expected as she dashed between raindrops
towards the structure in question, Mulder dogging her heels.
Probably something like a cross between the Taj Mahal and Notre
Dame.
In the heart of central Missouri.
The reality was far less grand, however. The church
stood apart and alone, situated on a modest hill overlooking an
unpaved parking lot and a stand of trees which helped delineate
its property. Single-storied, the simple white painted building
had few garnishments save a plain wooden cross straddling its
roof , a glass paned board announcing office hours, schedules
and sermon topics, and a series of tall narrow windows featuring
stained-glass whose design she had been unable to discern
through the rain.
Having ducked inside, she stood in the vestibule,
shaking the excess water from her umbrella and clothes, her
partner doing likewise. The skies had opened up on their drive
over, flooding the church's sandy car lot and liberally anointing
the two agents, despite their umbrellas' best efforts, as they exited
their car.
"Can I help you?"
Scully turned and saw a woman, who while no taller than
she, had to have an additional forty pounds on her. Butter blond
hair swirled atop her head like a Dairy Queen cone, the petite
newcomer looked to be in her early forties, her perfectly applied
make-up and candy apple red nails an intriguing complement to
her pink polyester pants with its matching pink and white striped
blouse.
Suddenly, Scully's own neutral colored tailored suit felt
almost unspeakably bland.
Mulder glanced at Scully, his eyes vaguely bemused.
Without him having to say anything, she felt certain that his
merriment arose from their welcoming party's unfortunate
resemblance to cotton candy. "We're looking for Reverend
Weaver."
"Oh! I'm sorry. The Reverend can't see you just now,"
the diminutive woman said, real regret in her voice, her head
shaking from side to side in sympathy. "Services begin in a
little over an hour. He's getting prepared."
"We understand that, Ms. . . ." Scully said gently,
letting the sentence trail off in the hopes of getting the woman's
name.
The tiny blond smiled brightly. "Bev. Bev Blevins.
I'm Reverend Weaver's secretary."
Mulder nodded. "Ms. Blevins, we realize that the
Reverend is a busy man. And we promise that we won't keep
him from his duties. But, it's imperative that we speak with him."
Bev took in the serious, no-nonsense expressions of
the two people before her and frowned in consideration, the
resulting lines marring her baby-doll features. "May I ask what
this is reference to?"
Scully pulled out her badge from her purse. "We're
with the F.B.I. I'm Special Agent Scully, this is Special Agent
Mulder."
"Oh!" the secretary squeaked in alarm, her hand
fluttering to her ample bosom. "Oh dear. . . . I'm . . . Oh! I had
no idea. Oh my. It's just--I don't suppose this could wait, could
it? The Reverend so needs this time . . ."
"We won't take long, Ms. Blevins," Mulder said
soothingly, reaching out a hand towards her as if attempting to
calm her agitation. "And as much as we'd like to oblige, we really
can't hold off any longer. We've been waiting to see Reverend
Weaver for two days as it is. Besides, I'm sure it would be far
easier for us to speak with him now, rather than waiting until
after his service when the church is filled with people all hoping
to have a minute of his time."
"Oh, yes," Bev said with a pained smile, nodding her
understanding, but still not happy about the situation. "That's
true. Things do tend to get a bit out of hand around here.
Especially on the Sabbath. I'm just worried . . ."
Mulder stopped her with a smile. That gentle, hesitant
smile that had worked its magic so often on Scully that she
couldn't believe she hadn't built up an immunity to it, like
patients did certain medications. Thank god the man didn't
fully appreciate its affect. If he did, she doubted the female
population of the planet would stand a chance.
"Ms. Blevins, you don't have to worry about a thing,"
he said quietly, the subtly potent smile still in place. "We'll be
sure to tell the Reverend you tried your best to keep us from
him. Now if you don't mind--?"
Bev nibbled on her lips and mulled over her choices,
clearly aware that she was between a rock and a hard place.
Mulder held her gaze, waiting. Scully hung back, watching
them. Finally, the pink-clothed blond sighed, her resolve
ultimately melted by the persuasive manner of the man before
her.
Scully was pleased to see that she wasn't the only one
to fall victim to Mulder's understated charm.
"All right," Bev said, a tiny smile of her own teasing
her pert lips. "I'll take you back. But mind that you give him
some time, now. The poor man needs it. And don't forget to
tell him this wasn't my idea."
Mulder's smile broadened. With a hand on the small
of his partner's back, he ushered her after the woman who was
walking with the resigned air of the condemned down the
church's center aisle. "Don't worry, Ms. Blevins, I'm very
good at taking blame."
As she and Mulder followed along towards the
front of the church, Scully took the opportunity to study its
decor. The pews were unadorned, plain light colored wood,
with missals scattered amongst them. A deep red carpet
covered the floor, muffling their steps. The stained glass she
had glimpsed from outside fit right in with the functional
simplicity of the church's design. Rich colors highlighted familiar
scenes--Mary at the tomb, the miracle of the loaves and fishes,
the healing of Lazarus--all in a modest yet affecting manner. The
sanctuary itself was raised, separated from the nave by an altar
bar and three hardwood steps with a scarlet runner flowing
down the middle. The altar was made of wood a shade darker
than the pews, flanked on one side by what appeared to be an
roomy choir space, and on the other by a series of folding
chairs. Flowers dotted the area. But not the hothouse lilies she
had so often seen decorating her family's church at Easter.
Instead, a charming mixture of wildflowers and daisies had been
artlessly placed in a number of white ceramic pots, their bright
hues and light floral scent doing wonders to enliven the dull gray
day.
But, it was the pulpit itself which really caught her eye.
Constructed of wood identical to that which comprised the altar,
the stand rose a good eight feet above the sanctuary floor, a
massive cross carved into its front panel. As they crossed
around in back of the structure, she spied a mini-circular
staircase which led to the pulpit's platform. Scully
remembered reading somewhere that such stands had first
come into being not only for sight-line purposes, but because
raising the priest or minister up had been thought to
symbolically bring them closer to heaven.
Impudent though it was, she couldn't help but muse
that while standing in such a lofty position, churchmen might
not only appear nearer to their God, but could be seen as looking
down on their fellow men and women as well.
"Here we are," Bev said in a voice just above a
whisper when the trio came to a halt outside a door tucked
just in back and to the side of the altar. "This is the Reverend's
study. If you'll excuse me for a moment."
With that, the secretary rapped softly on the door.
Then, without waiting for a reply, opened it and peered inside.
"Reverend Weaver. I'm =so= sorry to disturb you,
but there are two people here who have asked to speak with
you. They say it's urgent."
For a moment nothing more was said. Scully glanced
over at her partner. He gazed back, wry humor reflected in his
hazel eyes, and shrugged. She smiled in return.
"Very well," said a deep voice from inside the unseen
room. "Send them in, Beverly."
Bev turned around, and flashed the agents an anxious
smile. "Not long," she cautioned in a strained yet quiet voice.
"Not long," Mulder promised, that lethal smile venturing
forth once more like a weapon.
Mulder's promise seemed to placate Bev, who with a nod,
left them, her quick steps thudding lightly on the carpeted surface
as she retreated in the direction of the vestibule.
Scully tilted her head as if to say 'let's go,' and stepping
in front of Mulder, entered the study.
The room was tiny, almost claustrophobically so, and
windowless. Its only illumination came from the lighted mirror
before which Reverend Weaver sat. A collection of notes lay
before him, as did a variety of grooming items--comb, brush, razor,
shaving cream. His head was bowed, though whether it was in
prayer, she couldn't say. However, whatever the cause of his
distraction, it allowed her the opportunity to study the gentleman.
Although she had his vital statistics in his file along with his DMV
photo, neither had fully prepared Scully for the man himself. She
was surprised to find him smaller than she had imagined, and at
first glance, more fragile. He was a wiry man, thin shouldered,
small-boned. The reports they had placed him at sixty, and his
shock of thick white hair testified as to the validity of that
information. His face was strong with clearly delineated bones,
flyaway eyebrows that arched over deeply set eyes, a wide
hard mouth, and a blade of a nose. By contrast, the hands
clasped tightly in front of him were almost dainty, in much the
same way as those of a surgeon or concert pianist. Long fingers,
smooth skin only lightly marred by age spots and protruding
veins. Yet, despite his seemingly delicate appearance, both
agents could sense a kind of energy surrounding the man,
humming in a field around him like a swarm of insects on a still
summer day.
"Reverend Weaver?" Mulder began politely, after
looking to Scully with a raised brow.
Weaver finally lifted his eyes.
So gray as to appear nearly translucent, they locked
with Scully's in the mirror.
And grew wide. The Reverend noticeably paled,
shock and a kind of horror reflected in his gaze.
"Oh my dear Lord," he murmured fervently, his hands
clenching more tightly, his eyes round and moist.
"Kimberly."
* * * * * * * *
Continued in Part V
===========================================================================
From: krasch@delphi.com
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: *NEW* "No Greater Love" (5/13) by K. Rasch
Date: Mon, 3 Jun 96 05:18:53 -0500
"No Greater Love" (5/13)
By Karen Rasch
krasch@delphi.com
Here we go again. Thanks for hanging in there.
================================================
"Sir?"
Dana Scully directed her worried gaze at her partner
for an instant before returning it to the stricken snowy-haired
man sitting before her. For his part, the Reverend didn't speak,
but instead merely stared back at her reflection as if mesmerized.
Her eyes held his, their expression warm, gentle, yet clearly
puzzled by his reaction. Finally, after a half a dozen intensely
uncomfortable seconds, Weaver hung his head, shaking it
slightly as if erasing a thought, his breath exhaling on a sigh.
"Forgive me. I'm sorry. It's just that--"
"Is this your daughter, Reverend Weaver?"
Fox Mulder took a step forward and pointed to a small
snapshot which lay tucked into the lower right-hand corner of
the makeup mirror's frame at an angle which had hidden it from
Scully's view. The older man hesitated a moment, then briefly
nodded.
"May I?" Mulder asked politely, gesturing to the
photograph. Again, Weaver waited for just a split second before
responding. Then, saying not a word, he carefully loosed the
picture from its resting place and handed it over his shoulder to
the tall dark-haired agent standing behind him. That done, he
buried his head in his hands and, remaining silent, closed his
eyes as if unable to bear the sight of the two strangers a moment
longer.
Scully crossed in back of the Reverend, and head
bowed alongside her partner's, studied with Mulder the
photograph cradled in his hand.
So this was Kimberly Weaver.
She reacted to the picture with an echo of the same
surprise that Weaver had apparently suffered upon seeing her
enter his chambers.
The girl smiling up at the two F.B.I. agents looked
nothing like the young woman in the file the agents had which
carried her name.
And yet bore slightly more than a passing resemblance
to the auburn-haired woman gazing down at her photo so closely.
No wonder Reverend Weaver had reacted as if he had
seen a ghost.
Scully examined the picture carefully, the way a lover
might scrutinize their beloved's face upon leave-taking, doing her
best to imprint the features upon her memory. To know them,
in the hope of discovering why someone might have wanted
this girl's life ended. Ironically, once she spent a few moments
communing with the snapshot, Scully recognized that while
there were similarities between the dead coed and herself, the
likeness was not so pronounced as to cause more than casual
comment.
Except when filtered through the eyes of the girl's
apparently still grieving father.
"I had thought that Kim had brown hair," Scully
murmured, not realizing until she heard the words hanging
leaden in the air that she had uttered them aloud.
At that, Weaver lifted his head, his eyes rheumy,
their shadowed depths glistening in the vanity light. "She did.
At one time. Kim was rarely satisfied . . . with anything. Her
hair included. She liked to experiment. Some were more
successful than others. That, however, . . . that is the color
God intended."
Scully looked closely at the picture once more. It
showed a brightly smiling young woman perched on the
bough of a tree, one arm outstretched, grabbing hold of the
branch above for balance. Sunlight glanced off a shoulder
length fall of hair only a shade or two lighter than Scully's
auburn tresses. But, where her own hair glowed with copper
highlights, Kimberly's flashed blonde. A strawberry blonde
that when coupled with the freckles sprinkled liberally across
her small upturned nose reminded the agent far more of a
distaff Huckleberry Finn, than a younger version of herself.
The girl in the photograph's large blue eyes twinkled with the
same sense of mischievous humor that enlivened ol' Huck, and
the way she was dressed--jeans cut off right at the knee;
a denim blouse whose shirttails were tied at the waist; her bare
lower legs and feet, both besmudged with grime, brought to
mind an unaffected kind of innocence which Scully feared she
herself had lost many long years before. Still, judging from the
photo, she and Kimberly shared a similar size and shape. And,
what was more, the girl's heart-shaped face with its stubborn
little chin and gently sloping cheekbones were reminiscent of
Scully's own. She understood how, even if only for a moment,
the girl's father might have believed himself to be visited from
beyond.
"She was a lovely girl, Reverend Weaver," Mulder
murmured unexpectedly. So wrapped up had she been in her
contemplation of the deceased Ms. Weaver that Scully had very
nearly forgotten her partner stood beside her.
"Yes," Weaver agreed softly, warily watching the two
people standing behind him in the mirror, his eyes having lost
some of their glassiness. "Yes, she was lovely."
With a look over at Scully to make certain she agreed,
Mulder handed the photograph back to its owner. The Reverend
took it almost reverently, stared at it a moment, then laid it
carefully on the make-up table, ultimately placing his hand atop
it as if to protect it.
"Who are you?" he asked finally, his voice calmer than
before, its tone low and rich.
"We're with the F.B.I. I'm Special Agent Dana Scully,
this is Special Agent Fox Mulder."
The agents stepped forward then, unconsciously
flanking Weaver between them as they offered up their badges for
his perusal.
"F.B.I.? " Weaver said in some confusion as he turned
from side to side, pinning first one then the other agent with his
gaze. "What would the F.B.I. want here?"
"We want to find out why Pine Grove's murder rate has
skyrocketed in the past couple of months," Mulder drawled mildly
as he leaned a hip against the Reverend's dressing table and
crossed his arms, the gesture silently conveying that he planned
on being there awhile.
"Murder?" Weaver challenged, his eyes unreadable,
his voice stronger still. "And just who exactly has been murdered
here?"
"Some people think perhaps your daughter may have
been," Scully said softly, meeting the challenge Weaver raised
with her usual one-two punch of strength and calm.
Weaver held her eyes for a long wordless moment, his
frank and steady gaze revealing nothing to Scully. Nothing
other than whatever the older man might be, he was no fool.
Intelligence gleamed in those eyes. And a certain steely strength.
She knew that despite his years, the Reverend would without
question prove a steadfast ally. And a most formidable foe.
At long last he spoke. His voice, in defiance of its
hushed tone, rang to her ears firm and true. "My daughter was
not murdered."
"You sound awfully certain of that, Reverend," Mulder
interjected with a dip of his head and a quirk of his lips. Scully
saw her partner's eyes measuring the man before him, taking in
the Reverend's conservative brown suit with its stark white shirt
and matching tie; his lean wiry form, which had grown stooped
from a combination of care and age; his pale gaunt face, where
papery skin and fierce ice gray eyes coexisted in a kind of uneasy
truce.
And found him lacking. A figure not to respect, but to
suspect. And perhaps, just perhaps, worthy of the smallest
measure of disdain.
She wondered just what it was that Mulder saw, what
flaw he noted and recorded in that immense filofax he called his
mind which caused him to doubt Weaver. While at the same time
she strove to discern just what it was that urged her to believe in
the Reverend, to assure her that this was a man of integrity and
honor.
"I am certain, Agent Mulder," Weaver replied quietly.
"My child was not murdered."
"Do you believe she committed suicide?"
Mulder's cool question visibly pierced something in the
Reverend, the older man's eyes reflecting his horror at the very
thought. "No! Good heavens, no. Kimberly would never do that."
"So, are you saying Kim's death was an accident?"
Scully asked, partially because she truly wanted to hear the
answer to her question and partially because she thought the
query might somehow soothe the man by taking his mind off the
images her partner's inquiry had induced.
Her ploy seemed to work.
"Yes," Weaver affirmed with a nod. "Kim's death was
an accident. A terrible, tragic accident."
"What about Mark Halprin and Roy Cullins?" Mulder
asked a bit more forcefully than Scully thought was really
necessary. "Were those deaths accidents as well?"
Weaver shrugged, although his eyes plainly stated that
he saw the question as far from casual. "Not that I know of. From
what I understand it's believed that those men died of natural
causes."
"That's the official verdict, yes," Scully murmured, her
eyes stealing to Mulder's for just an instant.
"Well then, Agents Scully and Mulder, it would appear
that you have no murders to solve," Weaver said briskly, pushing
away from his place at the vanity and crossing to a clothes rack in
the room's far corner where he pulled down a deep gold colored
robe and began to slip it over his suit.
"So it would appear," Mulder allowed dryly, standing
upright once more, his hands now going to his overcoat pockets.
"But not everyone believes the official story."
Weaver glanced at the agents while his fingers busily
closed the robe's hidden fastenings, the vaguest hint of rueful
amusement glinting in his eyes. "You sound as if you've been
talking with Terry Halprin."
Mulder almost noticeably grimaced. "Not yet. Although
not for lack of trying."
Weaver's amusement grew. "Ah. Sheriff Lowry then."
"How did you--" Scully began.
"He is afraid of me, you know," Weaver said
conversationally, his robe now closed, his hands straightening
his shirt cuffs beneath it.
"Lowry?" Scully asked.
"Both, actually," Weaver said, his eyes sliding away from
hers for the first time. "Lowry and Halprin, both."
"Do they have reason to be?" Mulder inquired intently,
taking a step towards his partner in a way that struck Scully as
oddly protective.
For a moment, Weaver said nothing, but instead merely
went about smoothing his collar and tie beneath his vestments,
his gaze focused on the two agents opposite him as he did so.
Then he spoke, quietly, crisply. "No. Neither man has anything
to fear from me."
Mulder nodded and glanced down at his partner. She
met his eyes, and knew instantly what he was thinking. Mulder
wasn't satisfied. Not by a long shot.
Seemingly unconcerned, Reverend Weaver crossed to
a small bookcase placed halfway between the vanity and clothes
rack. There he picked up a thick battered bible, checked the
passage marked by the thin red grosgrain ribbon dangling from
its page, shut the book with a barely audible thud, and turned
to face his two visitors once more.
"Will you be staying for the service, agents?" he
asked in a manner which suggested he was already fairly
certain of the answer to his query.
"Wouldn't miss it for the world," Mulder said dryly.
Weaver nodded. "Good. Newcomers are always
welcome. You've picked a fine Sunday for it. Given your
reason for coming to our community, I believe you'll find
today's sermon of particular interest."
"Oh? And why is that?" Scully asked mildly.
"The topic," Weaver replied simply, a rueful sort of
humor warming his cool, fog-colored eyes. "Today I'll be
discussing the wages of sin, and its effect on a man's immortal
soul."
* * * * * * * *
If Mulder didn't stop fidgeting, Scully was going to
have to slug him.
Honestly, she thought, glancing sideways at her
partner, the man was just like a little boy who had been dressed
in his Sunday best, had his hair slicked down, that last smudge
of dirt smoothed away from his chin by his mother's thumb,
only to suffer the final indignity--being dragged unceremoniously
to church when he would much rather have been at home with his
toys.
The thought made her smile.
Then, he sighed. A gusty put-upon sigh.
"I thought you 'wouldn't miss this for the world'", she
reminded him softly without looking at him, the indulgent smile
still curving her lips
"It was all bluff, Scully," he whispered back, leaning in
so closely to speak the words that she felt her hair dance along
the curve of her cheek, his breath its partner. "I was putting up
a brave front for our friend, the Reverend."
"Oh really? Funny--I could have sworn you seemed
anything but friendly," she remarked in a low voice, an eyebrow
arched to underline the comment.
They sat shoulder-to-shoulder in a pew near the back
of The Church of Christ's Mercy. The rows in front of them had
been steadily filling during the twenty minutes they had sat
waiting for that Sunday's service to begin. Strangely, neither of
them had felt compelled to speak while they had waited. Part of
their shared reticence no doubt stemmed from their desire to keep
from being overheard. After all, Bev had been bustling around
the place like a bumblebee making certain all was in order. Choir
members had wandered in to set up music. Acolytes had lit
candles. And ushers had done their last minute cataloguing of
collection plates and missals. Now, as they were minutes away
from the start of service, the agents' own pew had filled to
capacity as well. Thus, not only giving them still more reason to
keep quiet, but also crowding the two government employees
rather tightly together, forcing the right side of Scully's body
flush up against Mulder's left. And yet, despite these very valid
excuses for remaining mum, it felt, at least to Scully, like the real
reason why Mulder and she were silent was because they weren't
really certain what they had to say. Speaking for herself, she
recognized that instead of providing any insight regarding their
current case, their brief interview with the Reverend had only
served to muddy her theories regarding the investigation.
She heard Mulder give a muffled snort. "Oh come on,
Scully," he muttered near her ear. "You mean to tell me you
actually believe that everything is on the up and up with that
guy?"
"What do you mean?"
"Didn't you get the feeling that he wasn't telling us
the whole story?"
At that, she turned to look at the man beside her.
And found that their faces were way too close for
casual conversation.
For just half a breath she let herself merely look him.
Focus on the extraordinary mosaic of color that composed the
hazel of his eyes.
Then, she glanced away, silently cursing her skin's
fairness. At times such as these she felt quite certain it was
only the Irish who blushed.
"I got the feeling that he was still mourning the loss of
his daughter," she whispered, her eyes remaining safely trained
on the pew in front of her.
"No, it was more than that."
She felt his arm tense alongside of her, recognizing
instinctively that his physical reaction wasn't rooted in anger
as much as in frustration. A need to know. A desire to get to
the bottom of this and all mysteries.
She shook her head with a touch of astonishment.
Good grief. Was she really so attuned to this man that the mere
flexing of a muscle was enough to convey to her his frame of
mind?
The answer was yes. Yes, of course.
She had to smile once more, although anyone noting
the curving of her lips would have seen little in the way of humor
in it. Instead, a mild chagrin was more reflected there.
As if there was any question as to just how aware she
was of Fox Mulder and his physicality.
After all, the man's touch was in some divinely warped
way concurrently one of the great joys and banes of their
partnership.
Still mulling over that far from recent revelation, she
chanced a quick peek at him. Mulder was gazing intently at her
profile as if awaiting a response, that blasted smile he had earlier
used to such great effect with poor Bev flirting with his lips, and
by extension, with her. Scully cocked an eyebrow at him, hoping
the gesture would do. She couldn't come up with anything better
at just that moment. Not when he was looking at her like that.
A guilty little shiver shimmered down from her shoulders
to her lap. Damn. Why did the one man who could raise her pulse
rate with a simple glance have to be the single male on the planet
who was absolutely positively off-limits?
Oh this is good, Dana. Excellent time to brood over just
what precisely you and your partner have between you. Right
in the middle of a case. Well done. Very professional.
Well, it's his fault, argued some rather testy little part of
her personality. After all, how was she supposed to ignore the
man when he was always . . . *there*. Watching her. Sitting up
in bed, blinking at her sleepily, naked to the waist. . . .
Oh, don't go there, Dana. Not in church.
Okay, she thought as a little rush of heat lapped at
her insides like a tongue of flame. Keep it clean. After all,
the intimacy which for all intents and purposes defined the
relationship she and Mulder shared was only tenuously
anchored in the sensual. The physical connection that she
often found herself craving was, in fact, far more mundane. His
warm sure grasp on her forearm. The way he had of placing a
gentle hand on her back when they walked together, almost as
if he were guiding her, supporting her. It was funny, really. She
had never been a "touchy" person per se; not like Melissa had
been. It wasn't that she disliked being touched. Not at all.
Instead, it was more a matter of manners, of trying to place
another person's comfort before her own. After all, she was a
woman who valued her privacy. She certainly, in no way,
wanted to compromise anyone else's personal space.
But Mulder had no such compunction. At least, not
with her. In fact, sometimes she actually got the impression
that he looked for opportunities to touch her. Perhaps even set
about creating them. Had it been any other man in the Bureau
whom she suspected of such scheming she would have called
him on it long ago. What self-respecting woman of the nineties
wouldn't? That sort of behavior was supposed to have gone
out of style a decade or two ago.
And yet she said nothing. How could she? Truth be
told, she reveled in it. In the abbreviated snatches of intimacy
she always managed to rationalize away before they grew too
risky to her peace of mind. Part of her knew that the pleasure
to be had by indulging in such lapses in professionalism had a
whiff of decadence about it. Still, she found it impossible to
deny herself such small comforts. Or thrills. Or improbable
minglings of both. She looked forward to them, even as she
wondered what they might all be leading to.
"Penny for your thoughts."
She actually felt the warmth of his breath this time
against the sensitive patch of skin just below her ear. Tingles
of awareness vibrated from the spot. Radiating down her arms,
into her fingertips, raising goose bumps in their wake.
"Sorry, Mulder," she murmured in a husky voice,
determined not to let his nearness undo her entirely. "But, I
don't come that cheap."
She felt his quick short chuckle pulse noiselessly
through his body. But whatever clever retort her partner might
have been formulating was instantly swept away by a deep
booming organ chord followed shortly after by the piercing
sound of a soprano voice warbling out the lyrics to a hymn
Scully thought she vaguely recognized.
Sunday service had begun.
* * * * * * * *
Well, Ginny was certainly right about one thing, Mulder
mused.
You go to church at Christ's Mercy, and you see quite
a show.
And he had come to that conclusion before even one
measly little miracle had been performed, he thought drolly.
Longing to stretch his crowded extremities, Mulder stole
a look in his partner's direction. Scully appeared far more patient
than he with the proceedings. She kept her eyes trained politely
on the pulpit before them, listening intently to the man standing
atop it. With her gaze otherwise engaged, Mulder let his linger a
moment, a smile gently molding his lips as it very nearly always
did when he contemplated his partner, conscious thought in no
way controlling the reaction. Finally, relinquishing with a sigh
his particularly pleasant but unfortunately inappropriate focus
of attention, he returned his regard to the matter at hand. So
far, they had been entertained by a wildly energetic choir, the
witnessing of four earnest parishioners, and the ecstatic cries
of believers as they punctuated the proceedings by
spontaneously praising the Lord with downright unnerving
intensity.
And through it all, Reverend Weaver had presided over
the festivities. His calm firm voice leading his congregation in
prayer, introducing the next speaker, and generally keeping
the service running like a well oiled machine.
"My brothers and sisters, I'd like to have a few words
with you today."
Mulder sat up a bit taller in his seat. The church
member who had just been speaking had stepped down.
Reverend Weaver now towered over his congregation at the
pulpit.
"Friends, one of the most troubling issues facing any
faith is the question of sin. How to avoid it, how to ask
forgiveness of God when a sin is committed, and finally, how
to find the courage within yourself to pay the recompense
demanded for your transgression."
The minister's voice was low and powerful, his words
measured and syncopated, their music manipulated for maximum
effect the way the sections of an orchestra ebbed and flowed
beneath a conductor's baton.
"And make no mistake, dear ones. Recompense is
always demanded. And must needs be given. Our God is a fair
and loving father. But like all good parents He knows that to
spare the rod is to spoil the child. So, for our own good, He
strives to keep us in line. Keep us on the straight and narrow.
And believe me, that is the way the road to heaven runs. Its
path is rocky and fraught with distractions. But God wants us
to reach our destination. He wants us to sit beside Him in the
Kingdom of Heaven. He wants us to keep on that path. And
the best way for Him to lead His children home is with discipline."
Hmm, Mulder thought. This was getting interesting.
For one whimsical moment he wondered if a man's sermon might
be admissible in a court of law. He tried to catch Scully's eye,
wanting to get her reaction to this. Although her gaze flickered
in his direction, she wouldn't meet his scrutiny directly. He felt
certain she simply didn't want to give him the satisfaction.
"For it is with discipline that we learn, grow stronger.
God wants this for us. He wants us to become better. Closer to
Him and His image. So, as merciful as He is, as kind and
compassionate a deity as every member of this church knows
Him to be, when one of His children disobeys His law, the Law of
God. That child must be punished."
Mulder felt Scully take a deep long breath beside him,
almost as if she were trying to calm herself, or perhaps push
away some disturbing unwanted emotion. He didn't blame her.
The Reverend's words were beginning to get to him as well.
"And you can't escape it. No matter how clever you
might be. Oh, you think you'll be the exception. And believe me,
you won't be the first to think that. The sinner always believes
that he is the one who will escape God's judgment. That his deed
was done while the Lord blinked."
Mulder's ears perked, his near perfect memory rewinding
to a conversation earlier that morning, one where his partner had
quoted for him the words that had supposedly been spoken by
a dead man.
"But the Almighty's eyes never shut. He sees all. And
punishes those who defy His teachings."
Mulder bent his head to Scully's, so close that a single
strand of her hair wound up teasing his lower lip, clinging to the
trace of moisture there.
"Hey Scully, what d'ya know," he whispered. "It's the
voice of God."
He saw her back stiffen ever so slightly at his words.
But before she even had the opportunity to look at him, a voice
rang out from just behind them.
"What's the matter, Reverend? Did'ja get worried that
maybe God wasn't doing His job? So you thought you'd give Him
a hand, and kill Mark and Roy for Him."
The agents shifted swiftly in their seats, looking over
their shoulders. There, at the rear entrance to the church,
stood a tall lanky man with curling medium brown hair, flashing
dark eyes and an enormous handlebar mustache. He wore jeans,
a plain white shirt and navy windbreaker. Raindrops glistened on
his longish locks. His color was high. Stubble speckled his jaw.
Mulder noted the way fear wrestled with belligerence in the man's
stance. He appeared to be spoiling for a fight, even as he worried
about its outcome.
For a breathless moment, Weaver said nothing, instead
merely gazing down the center aisle at the interloper from his
pulpit. No one moved. Then the silence which had reigned since
the stranger had entered shattered. Low humming voices quickly
built in intensity and volume as the church's occupants murmured
amongst themselves as to the visitor and his damning claims.
The man in the back of the church stoked the rapidly
crescendoing speculation.
"So how about it, Reverend? Does God always get His
employees to do His dirty work? Or do you just get off on it?"
At that, Weaver paled, swaying almost imperceptibly
from his place so high above the crowd. For an instant, Mulder
feared that the older man might lose his balance and go tumbling
from his perch. But, somehow he retained his composure.
Gripping the edges of the lectern so tightly that the agents could
make out his whitened knuckles from where they sat, he said in a
slow clear voice, "Welcome, Mr. Halprin. It's so nice to see you
here."
* * * * * * * *
Continued in Part VI
===========================================================================
From: krasch@delphi.com
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: *NEW* "No Greater Love" (6/13) by K. Rasch
Date: Mon, 3 Jun 96 05:19:35 -0500
"No Greater Love" (6/13)
by Karen Rasch
krasch@delphi.com
We just keep chugging along. Hope you 're enjoying this.
================================================
"No. You're not happy to see me, Reverend. In fact, I'm
the last person in the world you want to see."
Weaver swallowed hard, his adam's apple bobbing like a
buoy, his gaze wary. And yet he continued to look his accuser
steadily in the eye. "Why would you say that?"
"Because I know the truth."
"We both know the truth. Don't we, Mr. Halprin?"
Upon hearing the Reverend's quietly spoken query,
Terry Halprin's eyes grew wide and a touch more wild.
Breathing raggedly, his fists bunched, he took a threatening
step forward. An usher reached out a hand to impede his
progress. But the man was easily old enough to be Halprin's
father, and was no match for the younger man's strength. With
a mere shrug of his shoulder, Halprin loosed his arm from the
would-be security guard's grasp.
Intently watching the scene develop, Scully feared the
worst. And judging the situation would with all probability
rapidly escalate beyond mere name-calling, made to leave the
pew and circle back around behind Halprin.
"Wait. I'll go," Mulder muttered in her ear, his hand
firmly restraining her in her seat as he scrambled out past her
and down the church's side aisle. At first annoyed by her
partner's high-handedness, Scully quickly saw the advantage
to be had by one of them remaining in the pew. This way,
should Halprin charge the pulpit she could easily dash down
the aisle parallel to his and intercept him. She sincerely hoped
such action would prove unnecessary.
"Listen to me, you bastard," Halprin gritted out, his
body strung so tightly that Scully could clearly see from where
she sat the tendons cording in his neck. "I came here today, in
front of all these people, to make =sure= they found out just
what kind of a man you really are."
"Then you've wasted your morning," the Reverend said
softly, his eyes leaving Halprin's for the first time to slowly scan
his congregation. "These people know me better than anyone.
They know the kind of man I am."
"Like hell they do," Halprin sneered, taking another
step forward so that he now stood even with the church's next
to the last row of pews. Mulder had managed to wind his way
around to just behind the intruder, keeping himself outside the
periphery of Halprin's vision. Scully saw her partner glance in
her direction. Get ready, the look warned. She placed her hand
on her hip holster.
"These people don't know you at all," Halprin continued,
his voice rough and insinuating, spittle dotting his moustache.
"You've snowed them just like you've snowed everyone in this
town. Making them think you're a 'man of God'. Making them
believe you're some sort of healer. Well, I know better, Weaver.
And I'm telling you, and I'm telling them--You're nothing but a
fraud!"
"Mr. Halprin--"
"YOU KILLED MY BROTHER, YOU SON OF A BITCH!!"
Halprin roared suddenly, surging forward a few steps more,
swaying on his feet with the power of the emotions churning
inside him. Scully noted that Mulder was only a few feet away
from him now, waiting. Unable to gauge whether Halprin might
be armed, it appeared that the agent was biding his time, not
wanting to force a confrontation unless it was absolutely
necessary. Not when there was a church full of people who
might have to pay the price for an error in judgment. People
whose questioning eyes darted back and forth between the man
they had chosen as their spiritual leader and the man who in no
uncertain terms condemned that choice as not only foolish but
obscene.
"You killed him," Halprin repeated, his volume lower,
but his voice still anguished, his eyes glittering now with unshed
tears. "And soon . . . soon you're going to kill me too."
"Mr. Halprin," Reverend Weaver said, leaning in over
his lectern as if to in some small way bring himself closer to the
man hurtling obscenities in his direction, accusing him of
unspeakable crimes. "I give you my word. I will not harm you.
Not now. Not ever."
For a moment, Halprin considered Weaver's words,
weighing whether to believe them. And in the end, declined to
trust. "No, man. No way. I've seen what you can do. I know
what you're capable of."
Weaver sighed wearily, and for an instant looked
heavenward. When his eyes engaged Halprin's once more they
swam with regret and a horrible kind of knowledge, a burden
that bowed his body far more than age. "Mr. Halprin, you
have no idea what I'm capable of."
Halprin staggered back a bit, unsteady on his feet, his
complexion paling. "You heard that! You heard it. He's
threatening me! That bastard is threatening me! And you--
you people are all my witnesses!! When I'm dead, remember--
he's the one who will have done it!! He's the one who
murdered Mark and Roy and now me. God . . . He's going
to kill me, and there's nothing you or anybody here can do
to protect me!!"
Halprin was ranting now. Turning in small semi-
circles as he indulged in his own little bout of impromptu
preaching. The people sitting around him were frozen, not
knowing how to react. Several church members who had been
fortunate enough to be sitting near the rear of the sanctuary
had taken the opportunity to slip through the back door once
Halprin had safely passed them by. Those who remained sat
pinned in their seats, fear and a sort of morbid fascination
compelling them to stay.
"No . . . nobody can protect me but myself. Nobody
but me," Halprin mumbled, slowly making his way up the aisle
towards Weaver. "I've gotta look out for myself. Gotta keep
you from doing to me what you did to poor Mark . . ."
Halprin had only crossed perhaps a third of the way
towards the pulpit when he stopped suddenly, almost as if he
had fallen into a momentary stupor, or in some bizarre way had
gotten lost. Shaking his head slightly, he reached inside his
jacket. From his vantage point, Mulder couldn't tell what Halprin
was searching for. Unwilling to take any chances, he decided it
was finally time to make his move. The agent silently trotted up
the carpeted walkway until he was only little more than an arms'
length away from his target. Pausing only an instant, he tackled
Halprin with a flying leap, sending the man face first onto the
floor, his arms pinned beneath him.
Scully stood immediately. "Everyone, please remain
seated and remain calm." She grabbed her i.d. from her coat
pocket and held it aloft. "Federal Bureau of Investigation, the
situation is under control. But I must ask you to remain in your
seats."
She strode briskly around the back of the congregation
towards her partner, passing Bev along the way. "Bev, call
Sheriff Lowry for me, will you? Tell him to get somebody out here
=now=."
The little woman nodded nervously and turned on her
heel, anxious to do as she was bidden.
"You all right, Mulder?" Scully asked in a husky voice
as she reached his side, her gun drawn and pointed at the fallen
man who twisted and rolled at her feet, muttering obscenities.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Mulder replied as he struggled with
Halprin, his knee pressing into the small of the man's back while
he simultaneously snapped handcuffs on his wrists. "I'm not so
sure about our pal Halprins's traveling liquor cabinet, however."
Before Mulder had even finished his sentence, Scully's
nose wrinkled at the sour odor rising up from beneath Halprin's
prone body. Seeing that he was at long last safely restrained,
she helped Mulder pull the man from the floor. He staggered
upright, swaying just a bit, the front of his shirt and windbreaker
stained just like the rug upon which he had so recently laid with
what appeared to be Johnny Walker's finest.
"God, it's a wonder he didn't impale himself on a piece
of glass," she murmured as she bent down to examine the shards.
"It would have been better if I had," Halprin insisted
heatedly, staring down at her through bloodshot eyes. "It's all
over for me, anyway. I'm a dead man. I told you that."
"Come on, Mr. Halprin," Mulder urged quietly, his grasp
tight around the man's upper arms as he impelled him towards the
back of the church. "You've bothered these nice people long
enough. Why don't you just calm down, and we'll go someplace
where we can talk. Someplace quiet. Like the sheriff's office."
"You've gotta do something, man."
Having witnessed no softening in Scully's eyes when he
once more relayed his plight, Halprin turned his attention to
Mulder, whispering hoarsely at the agent from behind his carefully
groomed mustache as he stumbled along side of him. "You're
the feds. If anyone can do anything it would be you."
Mulder's lips quirked as he shot Scully a look over his
shoulder. "And just what would you like us to do for you, Mr.
Halprin?"
"Kill him. Kill Weaver. Kill him before he has the
chance to kill anyone else."
Scully's eyes widened with a combination of
amazement and revulsion as she trailed behind.
"Sorry, can't help you there," Mulder murmured dryly,
as he half-dragged, half-pushed Halprin along before him.
"Our Murder for Hire Department just got closed down due to
budget cuts. You know those darn Republicans--always
looking for a way to pinch pennies."
"Mulder, why don't you take him out front and wait
for the sheriff," Scully said softly once they were clear of the
pews and prying eyes and ears, her hand resting lightly on
partner's shoulder to gain his attention. She received it
instantly. "I think maybe I should hang around here for a bit
in case the Reverend runs into any more trouble."
Mulder raised a skeptical brow. "You afraid these
folks might suddenly turn ugly, Scully?"
She shrugged a bit helplessly. "I don't know. They
seem quiet enough, I suppose. But still, I have a feeling it
wouldn't take much to have this whole thing blow up in our
faces. I'd just . . . I'd feel better if I kept an eye on things for a
bit."
Mulder looked at her a moment before nodding. "All
right. That's probably not a bad idea." He crossed the
vestibule and peered out through a pane of glass in one of
the church's front doors. "It looks like the rain has let up for
now. I'll take Halprin outside." Retaining his hold on the man
in question with one hand, he dug around in his trench coat
pocket with the other. "Here, take the keys. I'll ride into town
with whoever Lowry sends. Pick me up when you can."
"Thanks," she said with a small smile. "I won't be
long. I want to hear what Mr. Halprin has to say just as much
as you do."
"I've said all I'm going to say," Halprin muttered
sullenly, resting his head against the door frame with a
weariness that suggested his Dutch courage had finally run
out. "I ain't talking to anybody about anything until I've had
the chance to talk to my lawyer."
"Sounds familiar," Mulder intoned wryly, pulling the
other man from his place against the wall and guiding him
through the open door. "Go on back in, Scully. Everything's
under control here."
"Okay. Thanks, Mulder."
With one last look at her partner leading away a
rather subdued Terry Halprin, Scully returned to stand at the
back of the sanctuary.
And found that the quiet which had prevailed since
Halprin had disrupted that morning's service had shattered.
The room buzzed like an oversized honeycomb--
questions flying, theories bandied, accusations lobbed like
hand grenades.
<"That Terry Halprin has never been anything but
trouble.""Did you see the look in his eyes?""It's the drink that
does it. The Reverend was right. First, Kim. Now, Terry.""Did
you notice he never denied it? Reverend Weaver never once
said that he didn't kill Mark and Roy.""Gettin' so a person can't
even go to church anymore without havin' to put up with
hooligans!""Oh yeah? Well, I heard he killed Kim because she
was pregnant.""I don't care what anybody says. I don't believe
a word of it.">
Scully stood stone still at the back of the congregation,
letting the sights and sounds roll over her. Not everyone was
staying to debate the events which had just occurred. Mothers
and fathers were bundling their children into their coats and
leading them up the aisle, past her. Husbands and wives,
grandmothers with their handbags over their arms, teenagers
dressed as they would never have dreamed of showing up for
class all filed by as well, heads bent towards each other in heated
discussion as they tried to make sense out of what they had just
witnessed. Their troubled eyes conveyed their doubts and
concern to the red-haired F.B.I. agent far more powerfully than
did the snatches of conversation reverberating within the church
walls.
"Reverend, just what is going on here?"
Scully slipped into the last pew on the aisle, straining
her neck to see just who precisely had at long last voiced the
question she knew had been on everyone's minds. After
craning over the heads of the faithful who still half filled the
church's sanctuary, she spied the speaker. He was middle-aged,
stocky, possessed of less hair than more, his tanned face wind-
lined. Those sitting around her fell silent once more in
anticipation of the question's answer.
"We've stood by you, Reverend. Supported you. Told
the gossips to keep their opinions to themselves. But now, I
think you owe us an explanation."
"John," Weaver began quietly, his discomfiture evident
in the tenseness of his posture, the thin seam of his lips, the
furrowing of his brow. "I've told you before--."
"No, Reverend. That's just it," said a tall thin blond-
haired woman who sat three rows in front of the first speaker,
shaking her head sadly. "You haven't told us anything."
The rumble of murmurs began again. Slowly. Quietly.
But with a fierce sort of undercurrent throbbing beneath the
still rational questioning. Scully was glad that she had stayed.
"How come it's just those boys from Backroads who
have died? Seems mighty peculiar to me that first you tell us
the place needs to be shut down, and then suddenly its owners
are dropping like flies," opined an older gentleman with round
wire-rimmed glasses and tufts of hair sprouting from above each
ear.
"I just want to hear you say you didn't do it,"
stammered a slender brown-haired young man with freckles
and earnest blue eyes as he surged to his feet, tightly gripping
the pew in front of him as if for courage. "I just want to hear
you say the words."
Weaver hesitated just a half a heartbeat, his gaze
flickering to the bible before him.
"The Reverend doesn't have to say anything."
All heads swiveled to the center of the sanctuary.
There, a pale gaunt figure of a man spoke as he struggled to
his feet, aided by a cane and the strong right arm of a woman
with short curly black hair who looked to Scully as if she might
be the man's wife. Once standing, he looked up unguardedly at
Weaver, trust shining in his eyes. For a moment no one moved.
The effort to remain standing obviously taxed the man. He
swayed precariously. The woman beside him remained seated,
although both hands were outstretched as if she were making
ready to catch him should his balance fail.
"You don't owe us any explanation, Reverend," the
man said with a small smile as he awkwardly left his pew and
began a slow tortuous trip up the church's center aisle. "I know
a man like you could never hurt another living soul."
Weaver said nothing, clearly moved by the man's
profession of faith. The reverend's eyes glistened with emotion
as he watched his champion's progress towards him. For their
part, the congregation quieted once more, curious about their
leader''s unexpected supporter.
"I don't think I know you, friend," Weaver said softly
as he stepped down from the pulpit and, with measured step,
made his way to the man. "Have you ever been to our church
before?"
Sweat beaded on the other man's brow. Muffled
sounds of pain and effort escaped his lips. But he kept on
shuffling to the front of the church, leaning heavily on his cane.
"No, sir. I'm not from around here. My name is Decker. Martin
Decker."
"Welcome, Martin," Weaver said simply, meeting the
man at the second row of pews and clasping his hand in greeting.
"We're glad that you're here."
"Not as glad as I am," Martin countered, attempting a
smile that ended in a grimace. Scully wondered what was wrong
with the man. She found it difficult to tell from where she was
seated. But, given the man's wasted physique and lack of mobility,
she knew that whatever was afflicting him, it was serious.
Leaning his cane against the nearest pew, Decker clung
to Weaver's forearms, using them for support as he lowered
himself to his knees. "You've got to help me, Reverend," he said
in a low rough voice. "I've come a long way. I'm a sick man, and
I need your help."
Weaver nervously licked his lips, then rested his hands
on the other man's shoulders. "Martin--" he began hesitantly.
"Reverend, please," Decker pleaded, his grip tightening
on the reverend's arms.
Scully silently damned her view of the action. She
couldn't see Weaver's face clearly from her post at the back of
sanctuary. But, whatever the reverend's visage was revealing
to poor sick Mr. Decker, it provided him little comfort.
"I've been to doctors, Reverend," Decker continued in
a hushed plaintive voice that barely carried to Scully's ears.
"They tell me there's nothing they can do. I've got a wife. I've
got a family. I don't want to die. You've got to help me. Help
make me better."
Still, Weaver hesitated, torn by some inner dilemma
Scully could only guess at. Then finally, he laid his hand on
the hair of the man who knelt before him, caressing the strands
lightly as one would to soothe a child. "All right," he said with
a small nod, his voice deep and calm. "Bow your head, Martin,
and pray with me."
Decker did as he was instructed, clasping his shaking
hands tightly in his lap. Weaver took a deep breath, then
closed his eyes, focusing his concentration.
Scully could feel the change. The barely discernible
hum of energy she had earlier sensed surrounding Weaver in
his study intensified. The air around her pulsed with it. Her
skin tingled. The hair on the back of her neck stood quite
literally on end. Her throat was suddenly leeched of all moisture.
Fascinated, she looked around her. Although equally enthralled,
the congregation seemed to find none of this odd. Half of them
had lowered their eyes in an imitation of Decker's posture,
apparently lending their own prayers to the effort. The other
half serenely watched the proceedings, their faces aglow with
anticipation and awe.
Weaver's hands hovered over Decker, just barely
grazing the man's shoulders and head.
"Brothers and sisters, let us pray," the Reverend
intoned solemnly, his head thrown back, his eyes still sealed
shut.
"This man comes before us today asking for my help,
asking for the Lord Almighty's help in casting out of his weary
body this dreadful disease. This plague that weakens him, that
threatens his very life."
From various corners of the congregation came
muffled "Amens" and other murmured entreaties for God's
assistance. The divisiveness that had threatened to cleave
the group only moments before had vanished as the church's
occupants found themselves now united against a common
enemy.
"And so, dear Lord, we come to You. Asking for Your
blessing on this man. Asking for Your assistance, Your love,
Your might to do the impossible. To heal this man. To make
him whole once more. To return him to his family as he once
was. Free of sickness. Free of disease."
More privately offered prayers were mumbled. Some
parishioners began to slowly rock in their seats, their faces
closed in concentration. One woman across the aisle from
Scully wept freely. Much to her amazement, the agent found
herself on the verge of tears. She couldn't help it. She didn't
know where exactly it came from but some something, some
*power* had entered the church's confines that morning. It
ebbed and flowed, winding its way through those assembled;
its center, the Reverend.
Weaver's hands were now away from Martin Decker's
trembling form. The reverend's arms were open, palms up, as
if he meant to capture the raw energy swirling around him, to
cage it in the hopes of channeling it to his own end.
"Help me, Lord," Weaver entreated, swaying slightly,
his eyes still closed, a smile of ecstasy lighting his face. "Help
me to do Your work. Help me to heal this man. I ask this of You,
Lord. In Your name."
With this last invocation, Weaver's eyes flew open, his
hands swooping down onto Decker's head. The stricken man's
back arched, his shoulders and head tilting back. Decker's teeth
closed sharply on his lower lip, a small sound of surprise and
what sounded to Scully like pain trickled from his mouth.
Weaver kept his hands where they were, his eyes boring
into Decker's. For an endless succession of seconds it felt to
Scully as if the entire sanctuary held its breath. No one dared
twitch. Instead, they waited. Every pair of eyes focused on the
whip lean man in the golden robe whose very essence seemed to
be pouring into the crouched figure before him.
Suddenly, Decker cried out, a strangled choking sound
that snapped Scully out of her silent contemplation of the
apparent miracle taking place before her very eyes. She started
just as Decker crumpled to a broken heap at the front of the
congregation. Seemingly rooted to the spot, Weaver didn't
move. He stood stunned, staring down unblinking at the man
at his feet. Finally, his hand quivering ever so slightly, he
reached down and gently rolled Decker onto his back. The
man's eyes were open.
And unseeing.
"Oh no!" Weaver mumbled brokenly. "Oh, dear God,
no!"
Scully ran up the aisle, past people who were just
beginning to stir in confusion in their seats. She got to Decker
quickly, and bent down to search for a pulse, a heartbeat,
anything.
And found no sign of life.
Questions silently piling on top of one another, she
glanced up at the Reverend. He was backing away in shock,
his horror at the situation, a living breathing thing.
"Oh, no . . ." Weaver murmured as he inched further
and further away, tears streaking his cheeks. "I've killed him.
I've killed him just like the others."
* * * * * * * *
Continued in Part VII
===========================================================================
From: krasch@delphi.com
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: *NEW* "No Greater Love" (7/13) by K. Rasch
Date: Mon, 3 Jun 96 05:20:13 -0500
No Greater Love (7/ 13)
by Karen Rasch
krasch@delphi.com
We've hit the halfway point now. Hang in there. :) As I've
said before, check out Chapter 1 for all the official stuff. This
is just story.
================================================
Fatigue not withstanding, Mulder felt better than he had
all week. Without question better than he had since climbing
aboard that 727 and leaving DC behind.
God, he was close. Like a bloodhound trailing a scent,
he could smell it. Could sense it. Knew that he was within a hair's
breadth of getting that break their case so desperately needed.
Was perhaps, in fact, only minutes away from having the
Reverend Andrew Weaver confess to three killings.
Four, if you counted the unfortunate Mr. Decker.
Truth be told, Mulder hadn't expected it to take this long.
When the Reverend had chosen to be questioned without the
advisement of an attorney, the agent had thought Weaver
planned on simply admitting his guilt, on finally coming clean
as to his role in the deaths the agents had been sent to
investigate. Such a turnaround on Weaver's part had seemed
to Mulder certainly not beyond the realm of possibility. Most
especially when Scully had shared with him the frantic words the
Reverend had muttered upon Decker's demise.
"My god, Scully!" Mulder had enthused, his hazel eyes
wide with surprise and pleasure. "You mean to tell me Weaver
confessed? He admitted to killing Halprin and the rest of them?"
Scully had shaken her head. "No, Mulder. I mean
nothing of the kind. The man was in shock. I doubt he even
had any idea what he was saying."
"All the more reason to take his words seriously,"
Mulder had insisted, leaning into his partner's shuttered face
to drive home his point. "If he really was in shock, his defenses
would have been down. He might have finally been unable to
keep up the pretense, to keep up the lies."
"Mulder, the only one who's certain Reverend Weaver
is lying is you. Besides, I'm the only person who heard it. It
would never hold up in a court of law. We still need proof."
Much as it pained him to admit it, Mulder had to
acknowledge that not everyone shared his certainty as to the
Reverend's guilt. After Scully had accompanied Weaver back
to the sheriff's office, then headed to Jefferson City to perform
the autopsy on Decker, Mulder had been left to question the
Reverend on his own, Lowry and his deputies merely serving
as audience. While the local law enforcement in no way impeded
his interrogation, Mulder could sense their reticence, their
apprehension regarding the proceedings. This only infuriated
him further. Christ! Weaver had motive (granted, it was slight
and did not extend to all four victims), he had opportunity, it
certainly appeared he had the necessary skill, and with his own
words he had admitted his culpability to a federal agent.
So why did everyone continue to resist the idea of the
man's guilt?
Frustrated, Mulder ran his hands through his hair,
pacing like a convict himself in the cramped room housing
Weaver, a table with two chairs, and the increasingly concerned
Sheriff Lowry. Mulder's suit coat had long since been discarded,
his tie loosened, his sleeves rolled to just below his elbows.
Despite the restless energy fueling his movement, the afternoon
had proven long and tedious. Fatigue was beginning to creep in.
He could use another cup of coffee. Still, the sense of impending
victory heartened him. He returned his attention to the white-
haired man seated at the table.
"So let's go over this again, Reverend," Mulder began
for what had to be the tenth time. "You had never met Martin
Decker before today?"
"No," Weaver confirmed, looking far worse for wear
than did the agent standing before him, every one of his sixty
years accounted for in the lines of his face. "As I told you, Mr.
Decker was a newcomer to our church."
"So why did you decide to heal him?"
"I beg your pardon?"
Mulder smiled. He was employing classic interrogation
technique. Lull the accused into a false sense of security by
repeatedly asking him the same simple questions. Then spring
something unexpected on him. This was a new tack. Perhaps it
would lead to something. "Agent Scully did some checking, as
did Sheriff Lowry and his men. According to your parishioners,
this was the first such healing you had attempted in weeks. In
fact, most folks say you haven't performed one of your usual
miracles since the death of your daughter."
Weaver shrugged, not meeting Mulder's eyes. "I . . .
my daughter's death had taken quite a toll on me. Healing is also
rather taxing. I , um . . . I didn't feel I was ready. That I was able."
"Is that what happened today, do you think?" Mulder
asked intently, not really wanting to give the man an out, and yet
curious in spite of himself. "Do you think that maybe you weren't
up to the physical strain of curing Mr. Decker, and consequently
the whole thing backfired?"
The Reverend sat silent for a moment, seemingly focused
inward, his hands slowly clenching and unclenching. "No. No,
I don't think that's what happened."
Mulder nodded, his look speculative, then with a smooth
yet strangely abrupt motion, he pulled out the chair across from
Weaver and straddling it, sat facing the Reverend, his elbows
resting on the seat's back. "So how does this whole healing
thing work, Reverend Weaver?"
Weaver started. "What do you mean, how does it work?"
"How do you do it? What's the trick?"
Weaver blanched; Mulder's purposeful lack of sensitivity
succeeding in getting a reaction. Now, if he could just keep the
man off balance long enough to admit to the unthinkable.
His breathing rapid and a bit uneven, the Reverend
somehow managed to pull himself together, and after a moment,
answered quietly, "It's no trick, Agent Mulder. I do what I do
through the grace of God."
"He's responsible for your success then?"
"Yes, of course He is."
"So, why did He turn His back on you today? Why
did your God forsake you?"
"Agent Mulder, may I have a word with you?"
So intent had the three men in the interrogation room
been on Mulder's rather risky line of questioning that they had
failed to note the near silent opening of the door. Scully stood
there, trench hanging uncinched from her shoulders, her battered
briefcase clutched tightly in her fist, surveying without expression
the scene before her. Mulder knew without having to ask that
she had been privy to his most recent inquiries. The disapproval
carved in her features assured him of that unfortunate fact.
God! Mulder felt like a kid who had just gotten caught
pulling the wings off of flies. He wasn't at all certain as to the
wisdom regarding his current course of questioning. Much
as he intrinsically distrusted the Reverend, Mulder recognized
that he was hammering away at the bedrock of Weaver's world
view. Asking a man of the cloth if he knew the reason as to why
his deity had deserted him wasn't exactly fighting fair.
But--Hell!
They had four unsolved deaths. Four deaths with one
link to them: Reverend Andrew Weaver. Plus, they had another
man, a man who until the death of his brother had never had a
moment's trouble with the law, so positive that said Reverend
was out to murder him that he had been reduced to making a
public spectacle of himself.
And more importantly, Mulder =knew= with a certainty
that made his teeth ache that Weaver was hiding something.
Something big. Something important. Something that would
blow this case wide open.
If he could just get the man to spill it.
So, if Mulder had to play dirty, had to ask the tough
questions, had push the Reverend to his own personal breaking
point, he was willing to do so.
But, that didn't mean the agent was proud of himself.
Especially not when he saw the look in his partner's eye.
To compound the problem and his guilt, Scully looked
beyond exhausted. She had been in Jefferson City for hours.
Judging by the strain around her pensive blue eyes, the
autopsy had not been a easy one.
Mulder excused himself from the room and joined her
in the hall.
"You want to tell me what that was all about?" she
asked quietly, all too well aware of the potential audience they
had for their conversation.
"What do you mean?" Mulder feinted, not quite meeting
her eyes as he leaned his own tired body against the hallway
wall.
"I think you know what I mean, Mulder."
"I'm questioning the suspect, Scully. Just like any
good agent is trained to do."
"I would have thought that any trained agent would
have had better luck *identifying* the suspect."
"Excuse me?"
They were glaring at each other now, Mulder
slouched against the standard institutional-grey painted wall,
Scully standing nearly on tiptoe, her chin tipped up belligerently.
"Last I checked, it was Terry Halprin we were seeking
to press charges against," she reminded the man before her.
"Drunk and Disorderly, and Resisting Arrest are just two of the
offenses that spring to mind."
Gnawing on his lip while he viewed with narrowed eyes
the storm roiling in his partner's gaze, Mulder refused to rise to
the bait. "We did charge Halprin. For those crimes and a couple
of others."
"And?" Scully asked, prodding, her hands fisted on her
hips in a way that made her briefcase stand out like a wing.
"=And=, he posted bail and cleared out of here. It's not
like the guy is an ax-murderer, Scully. We had nothing to hold
him on. We ended up booking him on little more than
misdemeanors."
At that, she glanced away, scuffing the linoleum
beneath her feet while she strove to reconcile her partner's take
on the case with her own. "What did he say when you questioned
him?"
"Not much. True to his word, the guy refused to give us
the time of day until his lawyer got here. Once he arrived, it
was like someone had turned off a switch inside Halprin. He had
nothing to say except the official party line--'He was drunk.
The strain of losing his brother, and now apparently his business
had gotten to him. He snapped. It won't happen again.' One of
Lowry's men took down his official statement. You can read it if
you want."
"What do you mean, 'his business'?" Scully asked, her
brow creased.
"According to Halprin's lawyer, that was what was
behind the guy's trip to Columbia yesterday. It seems that the
bank holding the mortgage on Backroads is getting a wee bit
nervous over the scandal surrounding the place--not to mention
the sudden drop-off in revenue. They're putting pressure on him.
Apparently, there's even talk of foreclosing."
"News like that would give him even more reason to
want to harm Reverend Weaver," Scully murmured thoughtfully.
Mulder snorted in derision. "Scully, the person we
need to worry about =is= Weaver. Halprin is more a threat to
himself than anyone else."
"Mulder, I think you're wrong--"
But, Mulder wasn't listening. Instead, his voice rose
with a mixture of excitement and frustration as he cut off her
objections. "Scully, Weaver is the key to this. To =everything=.
He is the only link between the four deaths. One of the dead men
quoted the guy's words of doom to his mother just before he was
killed. Hell, given the Reverend's behavior today--all the innuendo,
the dodging of questions--the man did just about everything but
confess--"
"That's just it, Mulder," Scully countered heatedly, her
own voice climbing in volume. "He did everything =but=
confess. What he said to me came out of a state of shock. He
had just seen a man die before him. A man for whose death he
felt responsible. I don't think you can hold him accountable for
anything he might have said at that moment in time."
"A man for whose death he =was= responsible,"
Mulder muttered stubbornly, his eyes dipping away from hers
to study the black and white speckled floor at his feet, his
hand coming up to wearily rub the back of his neck.
Scully shook her head. "Not this time."
"What do you mean?"
She reached into her briefcase, and passed to her
partner a folder. "Martin Decker was in the advanced stages
of stomach cancer. So advanced, in fact, that it had spread
throughout his abdomen, affecting nearly all his major organs.
Sad though it is to say, I doubt that even on his best day
Reverend Weaver could have done anything for the man. I'm
surprised poor Mr. Decker lasted as long as he did."
"Are you sure?"
Scully scowled in indignation. "What do you mean
'am I sure'? What you have in your hand are his medical records,
faxed to me by his physician in St. Louis. Believe me, Mulder--
Decker was a very sick man long before he came to Pine Grove."
Mulder leafed through the file in his hand, not really
looking at it. "Couldn't Decker's illness have been exacerbated
by something Weaver did? Some manipulation of his body's
chemistry."
"To what purpose, Mulder?" Scully asked, her voice
just this side of a roar. "Why would the Reverend do something
like that in a church full of witnesses? What could he hope to
achieve?"
"I don't know," Mulder said tightly, choosing to
dramatically drop his voice in volume to emphasize his point
rather than trying to top his partner. "It just seems awfully
convenient to me that Decker managed to keep himself alive
until the very moment that Weaver got his hands on him."
Scully shook her head, her lips thinned in annoyance.
"Mulder, I think you're grasping at straws here. You're so
desperate to pin these deaths on Weaver that you're willing
to ascribe to him any of a number of implausible motives."
"=I'm= grasping at straws?" Mulder sputtered in
disbelief. "=You're=--"
"Everything all right out here, folks?" Sheriff Lowry
asked mildly as he stepped into the hallway, clearly able to tell
from a cursory glance at Scully's flushed cheeks and Mulder's
rigid shoulders that everything between the two was far from
all right. "You about ready to wrap up, Agent Mulder? I think
we've kept the Reverend here as long as we can without charging
him."
Scully swung her gaze from Lowry, who stood behind
her just outside the interrogation room's doorway, to her partner.
"You haven't charged him with anything?"
Mulder felt as if he had shrunk to about a half an inch
in height. And yet he answered the petite redhead with laudable
calm. "Not yet."
"Because you *know* we have nothing to hold him
on," Scully accused, the fire in her eyes threatening to leap out
and singe the man opposite her.
"Not yet," Mulder repeated doggedly, his cool a
marked contrast to her heat. "Which is why I was questioning
him."
"Enough is enough, Mulder. You've been at this for
hours and gotten nowhere," Scully gritted out, her arms rising
and falling at her sides in pure exasperation. "The next thing
you know Weaver will have you up on harassment charges.
To tell you the truth, I don't understand why the man has put
up with it this long."
Mulder could feel his golden opportunity to solve
their case draining away from him like water through a colander.
Much as part of him understood Scully's reservations about the
way he had chosen to handle things, another part of him wanted
to strangle her. Why couldn't she trust him on this? Why couldn't
she let him go with it, follow it through to the end? She had
never squelched his unorthodox methods before. Just what the
hell was so different this time?
Unaware of the turmoil eating away at the insides of
the man before her like acid, Scully turned her attention back to
Sheriff Lowry. Laying a hand on his arm, she asked softly,
"Sheriff would you see that Reverend Weaver is released and
given a ride home? Thank him, and tell him that if we need
anything further we'll let him know."
Lowry nodded, offering the female agent a charming
smile, plainly glad to at last be able to set the Reverend free.
"You've got it, Agent Scully. I'll have one of my men take care
of it."
Scully nodded as well, a slight smile warming her lips.
"Thanks, Sheriff Lowry. I appreciate it."
Mulder felt the dark cloud which had been slowly but
steadily descending upon him turn one shade blacker and miles
more dense. Saying nothing, he watched as his partner smiled
up at the handsome sandy-haired sheriff looming over her in a
manner she usually reserved for him, her small hand still setting
lightly on the man's arm. For his part, Lowry beamed down at the
female agent, his pleasure at being on the receiving end of
Scully's approval blatantly obvious.
But it was what happened next that turned Mulder
nearly homicidal.
Lowry hesitated just an instant, then took his hand
and placed it on Scully's back. Low. Right about where Mulder
usually rested his. The gesture seemed way too familiar to
Mulder. And the fact that Scully allowed it, painfully telling.
"Uh, Agent Scully . . . you sure everything is okay
here?" the tall good-looking man asked diffidently, his
worried eyes flickering to Mulder's stone still form and back
again. "I mean--"
"Everything is just peachy, Sheriff," Mulder said
softly, yet with an edge that would with all probability have
cut through glass. "So why don't you be a good boy, and do
as Agent Scully suggested. Get Weaver out of here."
And still, Lowry refused to budge. Not until he got
a small nod from Scully. Reluctantly, he retreated back into
the interrogation room.
Leaving the two agents alone to silently stare at each
other.
Mulder reacted first.
Not even really knowing where he planned on taking
her, he reached out and firmly grasped Scully's arm just above
the elbow.
"Come here."
Offering no resistance, she followed him, her briefcase
thudding lightly against her hip as she strove to keep up with
her partner's longer stride. Giving her no explanation for his
actions, Mulder stalked blindly down the corridor. His eyes
scanned the walls on either side of them with an almost furtive
intensity. At long last, he paused before the hallway's final door,
which resided along side the office water fountain. Noting the
portal was labeled simply "Storage," Mulder considered a
moment, then tried the knob. It turned easily in his hand.
Saying not a word, he ushered Scully into the room, and closed
the door behind them.
Once inside, it was evident the word "storage" referred
to the vast array of what looked to be official documents the room
housed. File cabinets lined all four walls, obscuring the lone
window granting the chamber light. Only a single scarred table
and chair relieved the decor's monotony. Mulder crossed to these,
and leaning against the chair's back, folded his arms over his
chest, regarding Scully with undiluted indignation shining in his
eyes.
"Would you mind telling me why you just sabotaged
an afternoon of my work?"
Her eyes widened in shock. "You're accusing =me=
of trying to undermine you?"
Damn, he thought in consternation. It sounded so
much worse when the words came out of her mouth.
"Maybe not purposefully," he allowed with a small
shrug. "But the end result is the same. Weaver is walking."
She took a step towards him, her posture so taut that
Mulder wondered for an instant if she might be in danger
of snapping in two. "As well he should, Mulder. I've said it
once, and I'll say it again: We don't have a case against him."
"But I might have," he insisted, surging forward from
his resting place to meet her toe to toe. "I might have gotten a
confession out of him, if you had just trusted me enough to see
this through to the end."
One slim auburn brow arched dangerously. "Oh. So,
this is about trust now is it, Mulder?" she asked softly.
"It's always about trust, Scully."
She just looked at him for a beat, then cocked her head,
her voice no less fierce for the hushed tone blanketing it. "Did
you ever stop to think, Mulder, that it's perhaps you who doesn't
trust me?"
He jerked back almost as if she had slapped him.
"What are you talking about?"
She pressed her advantage, taking a step still closer to
him. "I'm talking about how ever since you got it into your head
that Weaver is guilty you haven't listened to a word I've had to
say to the contrary."
"That's bullshit, Scully. I've listened to you every step
of the way. Hell, you're as much responsible for this conclusion
as I am. More, even. You were the one who discovered the
irregularities in Halprin and Cullins' deaths, you were the one
who found out about the destruction of Kimberly's remains, you
were the one Weaver admitted his guilt to--"
"I was the one who told you I don't believe Weaver is
a cold-blooded murderer."
"You don't believe?" he repeated, incredulity contorting
his features. "And so I'm supposed to turn a blind eye to the
evidence?"
"No," she told him quietly, her eyes flashing tiny blue
sparks. "You're supposed to respect my judgment and my
intuition. Just like any good partner would."
Mulder's jaw tightened so viciously that his ears popped.
"Oh, so suddenly you don't like the kind of partner I am
to you?" he demanded in a low voice, the words barely stumbling
past his lips.
She paused for an instant, as if mentally editing her reply.
Then finally, her eyes shadowed, she allowed honesty to carry the
day.
"At this moment, Mulder . . . no. I don't like the kind of
partner you're being."
Mulder staggered with the force of her words, feeling
their effect as keenly as if they were razor edged blades slicing
through his very flesh rather than mere nouns and verbs.
And needing, even if only for a instant, to hurt her as
badly as she had just wounded him.
"Well, you know something, Scully," he muttered darkly,
his hands on his hips as he turned away from her to pace without
direction in a tiny square, the emotions he had churning inside
him fairly screaming for a physical outlet. "I can't rewire my mind
to placate you, you know? I can't pretend to believe something--
or even =not= believe it--just so you can feel safe or just."
"I never--"
He rounded on her. "Yes. Yes, you do! Even though
you may not know it, every time the going gets a little weird, I
can see it in your eyes. You're hoping against all hope that you
can prove me wrong. That you'll have the dubious honor of
proving to me that my theories, my concerns are nothing more
than my imagination working overtime."
Scully shook her head, her brow knitted, obviously
disturbed by what he suggested. "Mulder, that's not true--"
"Sure it is, Scully," Mulder said with a wave of his hand
and a mockery of a smile on his lips. "You know it is. I mean,
come on--you can't stand there with a straight face and tell me
that you actually hope that one day we'll finally stumble across
a downed U.F.O. You don't really *want* to find evidence of
extra-terrestrials, or mutants, or humans with some sort of
heightened psychic sense. You don't want that."
He stared at her, daring her to contradict him. She didn't.
But, instead of feeling triumphant, her silence only made him sad.
Angry that his tirade should seemingly be having a more adverse
affect on him than on her, Mulder plunged on.
"You don't believe, Scully. You never have. You follow
along because I ask you to. Not because you think the work has
value or meaning. You're only here because of me."
She continued to stand before him, slim and pale in the
hazy late afternoon light that filtered in through the room's venetian
blinds. Yet, despite the shadows surrounding them, her eyes
seemed overly bright to Mulder's way of thinking. Unnaturally
so.
Almost as if she sensed his train of thought, she blinked.
Once. Then, again. Her hand clutched her briefcase so tightly
that he could see her knuckles' every crease, every hollow. Her
teeth worried her lower lip for the space of a breath. Finally, she
spoke. Softly. The words leaden with hurt.
And truth.
"That's right, Mulder. I do it for you."
Then, saying nothing more, she turned gracefully
on her heel, and left him.
And Mulder realized with a kind of awful blinding
clarity that the one who had committed the unthinkable
that day wasn't Weaver at all.
It was himself.
* * * * * * * *
Continued in Part VIII
===========================================================================
From: krasch@delphi.com
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: *NEW* "No Greater Love" (8/13) by K. Rasch
Date: Mon, 3 Jun 96 05:27:53 -0500
No Greater Love (8/13)
by Karen Rasch
krasch@delphi.com
All comments and criticism are welcome. Please send them to
the above address. Thanks.
================================================
He found her sitting on Twin Orchards' porch swing.
Just seeing her there when the house rolled into view,
small and slight, the cool evening air lifting strands of her auburn
hair so that they floated around her face like smoke, eased some
immeasurable burden that had settled in the pit of his stomach.
Heavy like granite. Sour like bile. Irrational though he knew it
was, some little niggling part of what had been, until recently,
his painfully overactive conscience had been taunting him with
the fear that when Dana Scully had turned and walked out of
that cluttered storeroom, she had, in fact, walked out of his life.
For good.
She didn't move when the squad car that served as
Mulder's limousine made the turn into the bed and breakfast's
property and crunched slowly up the gravel drive. Instead, she
continued to look off into the west, her gaze seemingly focused
on the milky shades of pink and blue and purple that leaked
through the puffy gray clouds which lingered still, the cool
watercolor palette signaling the close of day, although no sun
could be witnessed to make the act official.
Mulder's eyes clung to her for as long as she remained
in sight, willing her not to leave her solitary berth, not to walk
away again. Not until he could fix things. Could make them
right once more.
However the hell he was going to do that.
The agent glanced over at the deputy behind the wheel.
The young man in uniform kept his eyes trained front as they
approached the sprawling farmhouse before them with the same
deliberate speed they had maintained the entire journey.
Mulder grimly mused that perhaps they would reach
the top of the drive a mite faster if he just got out and pushed.
Of course, the only speed that would truly satisfy him
at that point would by necessity involve a sonic boom.
And that would surely startle Scully.
So he waited, hands fisted in his lap, jaw clenched.
It was just that it had taken so damned long for him to
get to her. Once he had realized just how horribly wrong their
conversation had gone, Mulder had set about finding a way to
catch up with his runaway partner. But before he could leave
the sheriff's office, paperwork had to be processed so that
Weaver could be released. Then, he had to scout up a ride, a
task that had wound up being easier said than done. A willing
chauffeur had proven difficult to locate, their very scarcity
suggesting to Mulder that perhaps his pal Lowry had somehow
contrived to contribute to the agent's misery. Finally, however,
Deputy Harrelson had come back from his dinner break, and
offered to take Mulder back to his lodgings.
But nearly two hours had passed.
Enough time for Scully's hurt to harden into hatred.
Finally, the car reached the b & b's front steps. With
a nod and a murmur of thanks, Mulder sprang from the auto,
his suit coat draped over his arm, his tie shoved in the jacket's
pocket, struggling with every molecule he possessed to keep
from bounding up the stairs and dashing around the corner of
the wraparound veranda to his partner's side. Taking a deep
breath, he instead forced himself to walk. Slowly. Like an adult.
With each step, he could hear the air as it flowed unevenly into
his lungs, could feel the steady, rapid pounding of his blood
against the paper thin skin at his temples. Somewhere between
the car and the stairs his mouth had gone horridly dry. And
his legs felt . . . funny. Rubbery, as they did sometimes after
he had indulged in a particularly strenuous run.
When at last he turned the corner and Scully came into
view, Mulder realized with a dollop of ironic humor that it
appeared that she actually had been running. She was dressed
in navy blue sweat pants, cross-trainers, and a gray Quantico
T-shirt. Her hair was pulled back in a loose pony-tail, the brightly
colored strands he had witnessed hovering around her face
defiantly escaping its confines. She sat with both legs on the
swing's seat, one knee pointing straight up, her arms looped
loosely around it, her other leg bent and laying flat so that it
curled around her body. Mulder recognized without conscious
thought that this was a Scully he didn't know very well. Had
thus far had only a fleeting acquaintance with. The young
woman before him didn't have a tailored suit for armor or a
medical degree for identity. Her gun was probably somewhere
floors away, tucked safely out of sight in a drawer; her badge,
no more useful than a stage prop given their current situation,
stowed nearby. No. The usual things that Mulder thought of
as defining this woman he called his partner were missing. Now,
she wasn't Special Agent Doctor Dana Scully. At that moment,
she was simply a woman. A friend. Someone he had come to
care for. More deeply than he would ever have believed possible
on that day not so long ago when she had sauntered into his
office, eyes bright with intelligence and humor.
And he had accused her of being sent to spy on him.
He hesitated there, on the imaginary threshold, so
close to where he wanted to be and yet so unsure as to how to
take those final few steps. As to how he should approach Scully
when everything about her telegraphed her desire to be left alone.
Much as he wanted to respect her wishes, he could no more leave
this yawning chasm between them unbridged than he could
suddenly start collecting his paycheck from Cancerman and his
shadowy cohorts. He had to cross that last short yet seemingly
endless expanse between them. Had to go to her.
Perhaps she had been listening to the light thudding of
his tread against the porch's weathered boards, or had felt the
force of his eyes, unwavering and unblinking as they studied her
profile. Or perhaps she had simply known. Had felt his presence,
his energy, his heat beside her.
Because she turned to look up at him. Her eyes admitted
no surprise upon seeing who stood nearby. But instead shone
with gentle sadness, their color more heart-stoppingly blue than
he could ever remember having seen it before. Her gaze was wary,
but not unwelcoming. And certainly not accusing.
Not like he had been afraid it might be.
Not like he believed he deserved.
Discovering with a touch of wonder that his fears were
apparently unfounded, Mulder allowed himself to hope.
They merely watched each other for a time. She didn't
ask him to sit down, and he didn't feel he had yet earned the right
to ask. So, he waited.
Just because the rain had ended didn't mean the wind
had. The night was cool, not bone-chillingly so, but brisk. Mulder
was comfortable in his shirtsleeves. However, when a particularly
strong gust whipped against the house with a strength that set
the flower baskets dangling from the overhang to spinning, Scully
hunched slightly against the onslaught, hugging her leg more
tightly as if for warmth. Mulder didn't hesitate. He crossed to
her and gently settled his suit jacket over her shoulders, his
fingers just barely brushing against the tops of her arms as he
did so. She favored him with a ghost of a smile.
"Thanks."
The single softly spoken word was all the invitation he
needed to join her on the swing.
And so they sat. Side by side. Close. But not touching.
Saying nothing. While Mulder was content to follow his partner's
lead, he ruefully recognized that this silence wasn't as comfortable
as those they usually shared. At least not for him. Instead, this
one served as prelude to a discussion he knew he would be
unable to sidestep. A talk he understood they had to have, and
yet was not looking forward to. He had never been any good at
that heart-to-heart stuff. To be frank, it scared the shit out of
him. The opportunity for hurt was just too great.
"Pretty, isn't it," Scully murmured after a bit, indicating
with a small lift of her chin the rolling landscape laid out before
them like a lush green carpet.
Mulder glanced for just an instant at the countryside
stretching out and away from Twin Orchards. And yet his
apparent disinterest was in no way a criticism of the scenery.
He knew what he would see, had already taken in the view from
inside the b & b. The establishment commanded what had to be
one of the finest vistas in the county, overlooking fields arranged
like checkerboard squares. The neighboring farms and farm
animals appeared so distant from this vantage that they looked
like a child's toys scattered on a playroom floor. The silver
winding river that Ginny had told them earlier contributed to
Twin Orchard's livelihood and the property's own stand of fruit
trees decorated that imaginary child's domain with a flair not
even Martha Stewart could match. But none of it was nearly
compelling enough to tempt Mulder's interest at that point in
time, and his eyes quickly returned to his partner's face.
"Beautiful."
She turned to look at him once more, regarding him
solemnly, her eyes searching his. At first Scully said nothing.
Then, she quietly admitted, "I don't know what to say to you."
Mulder shook his head, his lips thinning in self-directed
annoyance. "You don't have to say anything. I'm the one who
should be talking."
"So talk."
A wry smile pulled up the corner of his mouth. Leave
it to Scully to cut to the chase.
Still a bit unsure as to how to proceed, he rubbed his
hand restlessly over the side of his face, from his cheekbone
down to his jaw while he got his thoughts in order. He could
feel the slight bristle of whiskers poking through his skin. It
reminded him just how long a day it had been, how very much
had transpired.
And how through his own selfishness he had
destroyed the opportunity to share with the most important
person in his life his impressions regarding that Sunday's
events. To kick them around. To mull it all over. To revel in
the rush to be had by witnessing his ideas transform when
coming into contact with hers, and hers with his; until the
theories they held, the course of action they plotted were no
longer merely Scully's or his, but =theirs=. God, even though he
had only been deprived of that outlet, that bond for a few hours,
he missed it like an amputee must a lost limb. And with a
sudden surge of resolve Mulder knew there was simply no way
he could allow this rift to continue a moment longer.
No way in hell.
"Scully, I was out of line back there," he began in a
low voice, for all his good intentions, still unable to meet her
eyes just yet, choosing instead to watch the wind chase a few
errant leaves around the b & b's grounds. "What I said at the
sheriff's office . . . it came out of frustration and fatigue. I had
no right to take it out on you, to accuse you of those things.
No right at all."
"What about the truth?"
Mulder swung his startled eyes in her direction. Geez.
He knew he wasn't exactly a pro in the apology department, but
he had meant what he had just said. Had intended it with a
kind of heartfelt sincerity that didn't particularly come easy to a
guy whose chief line of defense against the cold cruel world was
a quip and a self-deprecating smile. Maybe that was the problem.
Maybe he was so rusty when it came to expressing something
real, some true emotion or sentiment, that even with the purest
motives the words registered as false.
Then, he got a good look at Scully's face. She was the
one having trouble meeting his eyes now. Her lips twisted as
she absent-mindedly rubbed her cheek against the lapel of the
suit jacket enveloping her. The one that belonged to him.
"I would think that after all this time, Mulder, we would
be able to tell each other the truth. And you should never have
to apologize for that."
Although he was still having trouble pinpointing exactly
to what she was referring, Mulder sensed that he alone was not
the cause of the melancholy gripping the woman next to him.
"What do you mean?" he asked softly, turning slightly
to face her more fully, his arm resting on the back of the swing so
that his hand shadowed her shoulder.
She hesitated for a moment, a wistful smile tugging at
her lips, her eyes flickering front again, away from his. "I mean
that while you came down pretty hard on me this afternoon,
your words weren't entirely without merit."
"Scully, don't you even *try* to take any of this on
yourself," he warned, a surprised chuckle escaping him. "I'm
the one at fault here."
She looked at him, that fragile smile still in place. "You
may be to blame for overreacting, Mulder. But, I've given this a
lot of thought. And some of the stuff you said . . . about my not
wanting to come face to face with the very thing that defines the
X-Files . . . that hit home."
Mulder nodded just the tiniest amount. "All right. But
that still doesn't give me the right to use the things that frighten
you or fly in the face of what you believe as some sort of weapon."
Scully nodded in return, one brow arched a bit as if in
agreement. Her fingers came up to grip the opening of the suit
coat and pull it more snugly around her. Tipping back her head
so that it rested against the back of the swing and Mulder's hand,
she said, "Have I ever told you what it was like growing up in a
military family, Mulder?"
"I don't think so."
She smiled a touch more broadly. "It was . . . different.
Or at least, I guess it was. After all, it's my only childhood
experience."
She glanced over at him. He was fascinated by the
turn their conversation was taking and smiled his encouragement.
"What I remember most was moving around a lot. Every
couple of years we'd change bases. Sometimes even more often."
Her eyes narrowed as if she were trying to view once
more from a distance pictures long stored in the vault of her
memory, snapshots she had forgotten she owned. "That got
to be hard sometimes, you know? You'd just get used to one
school, one set of friends, and it would be time to pull up
stakes again."
"I bet it drew your family closer together," Mulder
ventured quietly.
She turned her head to look at him, the action gliding
her cheek against his wrist. "It did," she said, her small smile
widening in appreciation of his insight. "Even with my father
having to be away for weeks--sometimes months--at a time.
The family was close. Missy was my best friend."
Mulder felt his heart wrench. After all, he too had lost
a sister. The only difference was that he still held out hope of
Samantha's return. Scully's face was resting on his hand. Raising
his index finger just a fraction, he let it slip over her cheek. Softly.
Gently. Just the back of it over her downy skin. Hoping to say
with the caress all the things he felt so inadequately able to
express with words.
Scully sat as if transfixed by his touch. Absolutely still.
Her eyes locked on his. Her lips parted ever so slightly. For his
part, Mulder continued the slow slide against her skin longer than
he knew he probably should; realizing he should quit, that the
action tiptoed into some very dangerous territory, and yet, unable
to stop himself. There was something about the moment that
made him loath to give it up.
Finally Scully blinked, and breathed in a great shuddering
breath.
And it was over.
She bent her head forward once more. Away from
temptation.
"What I'm trying to say, Mulder, is that I didn't have
many constants in my life. None of us did. The only thing we
could count on to always be there was each other."
Upon hearing her words, he yearned to reach out to
her again. He knew from first-hand experience how bleak the
sort of isolation she described could be.
"And the Church."
Mulder felt his sense of kinship with his partner
suddenly dissolve.
"Why the Church?" he asked, puzzled.
She cocked her head, looking at him from over her
shoulder. "The Catholic Church is pretty much the same no matter
where you go, Mulder." She smiled at him dryly, her eyes alight
with humor. "Now, some people may see that as limiting. But
when I was growing up, I found the whole thing rather comforting
instead."
"How so?"
She shrugged slightly. "We'd wind up in a new town,
have a new base layout to master, new friends to make, teachers
to figure out. Then, come Sunday we'd all troop out in our best
clothes, and like magic, everything was familiar. Same prayers,
same hymns, same ritual. It was like coming home."
"And home was important?" Mulder asked softly,
beginning to understand how his strong confident partner might
once have longed for a sense of belonging, of community.
"Yeah," she said with a nod, a measure of bittersweet
surprise evident on her face. "I wasn't aware of it at the time,
but in retrospect, I guess it was."
"What about now?"
Scully shook her head ruefully. "Now . . . now is . . .
different. Or it was."
Mulder frowned. "I'm not following."
She smiled with self-deprecation, then turned on the
swing to face him fully, her knees bent, tenting the jacket, both
feet flat on the seat. "My love affair with the Catholic Church
didn't last much past junior high, Mulder. Although I was never
as much a rebel as Missy, there came a time when piling into
the family car and driving to Sunday Mass lost its appeal."
Mulder grinned at the disgruntled tone in her voice.
"So I began not to go to church as regularly," she said
lightly. "By the time I went away to college I had basically
stopped going altogether. Real life intervened. I had stuff to
do on a Sunday morning."
"Like trying to sleep away the excesses of a Saturday
night?" Mulder teased.
Her brow arched, her smile echoing the mischievous
look in her eyes. "*You'll* never know, Mulder."
He dipped his head, graciously surrendering the point,
his smile matching hers.
"Finally, I had narrowed down my attendance to Easter
and Christmas. And even then, only going because it made my
parents happy."
She rested her chin on her knees, pausing for a moment,
suggesting to Mulder that whatever was to come was harder to
share, less simple, more intimate.
"I had gotten to the point where I didn't feel I needed
that anymore, Mulder, you know? I didn't *need* religion.
Didn't feel as if it spoke to me anymore. I had my life, my studies,
my friends. I mean--who had time for it? It felt as if all those
hours spent sitting in a pew beside my mom and dad had
belonged to someone else. To the person I was. Not the
person I had become."
Mulder nodded. "And now?"
"Now . . . ," she repeated softly, her gaze floating
down, turning inward. "Now, so much has happened in my
life. Just in the past three years. My family has . . . well,
scattered. I mean, what with my dad and Missy being gone,
and the guys living so far away--it's like that thing, that
haven that I had always believed would be there, isn't anymore."
"You've still got your mom," he reminded her gently.
She smiled. "Yeah. I know I do. She's great, isn't
she? But, she's just one person. And she's had so much to
deal with herself the last few years that I hate to burden her
anymore than I have to."
He nodded again, in total agreement with his partner
as to the strength and character of her mother. He felt certain
that during the time Scully was missing he would quite simply
have splintered into a million self-loathing little pieces were it
not for Margaret Scully's repeated calm assurances that he
personally was not at fault, and that one day he would find her
daughter.
"I need something, Mulder," Scully whispered hoarsely,
her fingers sliding along the opening of the jacket, her eyes
following their motion, her brow wrinkled. "I need something
that reminds me that not all the rules have changed. That there
is still right and wrong. That the virtuous are rewarded, and
that evil can and will be stopped."
Mulder chose to say nothing, sensing that she needed
to vent this more than she needed his opinion on the subject.
She shook her head, smiling with a touch of
embarrassment. "Listen to me . . . I guess what I'm trying to
say is that lately I've found myself looking for an anchor.
Something to hold on to. And so, . . . I've found myself
considering God."
Mulder cocked his head thoughtfully. "Have you
started going to Mass again?"
His partner chuckled. "No. Much as I know it would
pain my mother to hear this, the Catholic Church just doesn't
do it for me anymore. Their policies towards women are right
out of the Middle Ages, Mulder!"
He echoed her laughter. "You'll get no argument from
me."
They just smiled at each other for a time. Then, she
spoke once more. "No. It isn't about the institution, you know?
I'm not really looking to attend services someplace. I just need
to get in touch with my spirituality again. To remember that we're
all more than just flesh and bones. And I guess that Reverend
Weaver feeds into that. I want to believe that he is somehow
touched by God. That miracles really do occur. I need that hope
sometimes when all the cross and double-cross gets to be too
much. Can you understand that? Or even more importantly,
can you accept it?"
Mulder nodded, his lips still curved in a subtle smile.
What a joke. Scully was worried that he would be unable to
accept her need for miracles? He hoped for a miracle everyday.
The only difference was that he really didn't believe his would
come through divine intervention. And yet, he hoped for his
partner's sake that hers would. That God would answer all her
prayers.
Hell. All this talk of God made him want to offer up a
prayer or two of his own. Not only had he gotten his partner
back with an ease that stunned him, but she had chosen to
share with him that evening thoughts and emotions he knew
she had kept secret from the rest of the world. The knowledge
humbled him. Life was good. In fact, he was feeling so
fortunate at that moment, so positively lucky, that he wondered
if he shouldn't go right out and buy a lottery ticket. Maybe he
was on a roll.
"What about you, Mulder?"
"Hmm?" Her softly spoken query had startled him out
of his musings.
"How do you cope?" she asked, her eyes gravely
regarding him.
"Well, some people would argue that I don't," Mulder
offered wryly, that familiar discomfort pricking now that the
focus had shifted to him.
"Forget it," she murmured, ducking her head and her
eyes, but not before he saw them tinged with disappointment.
"No, Scully," he said swiftly, his fingers sliding
beneath her chin to raise her gaze level with his once more.
"I don't want to."
She looked at him for a good long moment, her blue
eyes shining in the twilight. And Mulder knew that he was lost.
Much as he would normally rather crawl across hot coals than
talk about the kinds of things that Scully had just so freely been
sharing with him, he could sense that this was a night for
opening up. For confidences. For intimacies. It wouldn't be
the first time. Scully and he had enjoyed this sort of interlude
before. Hell, even on their first case together, when she had
laid clad only in her bathrobe and underwear on his motel bed
and he had sat close by on the floor beside her telling her about
Samantha, and the reasons for his single-minded pursuit of the
truth, they had known they could trust each other. And yet,
somewhere along the line they had each forgotten the potency
of that connection. The power of it. Not that they had ever
stopped believing in it. Or each other. Not for a second. But
rather, their very desire to protect each other had made each of
them wary of turning to their partner for support. They had made
the mistake of equating vulnerability with weakness. And so
instead of reaching out, they had each burrowed inside
themselves, put up walls. Scully had taken the first step
towards pulling down some of those barriers. And now, it was
his turn to raze a few more
"You talked about needing an anchor, Scully," he
began with some hesitancy, his hand dropping away from her
face, his eyes scanning the horizon. The gray sky had turned
black with the coming of night, the transition having taken place
without fanfare, almost as if nightfall had entered as a thief
stealing away with day. If he squinted, he could just make out
a star twinkling in the northwest. Perhaps all this wind was
blowing some better weather their way. "You mentioned how
you feel like you need something to hold on to. Something to
remind you what's . . . real. What's true."
She listened without speaking, watching him intently.
"Well, you see, I haven't ever really felt that need. I
don't have that void in my life. Not anymore. Not since I've had
you."
He turned to look at her then, and had to swallow the
urge to chuckle over the look of utter astonishment on her face.
"I mean, it isn't exactly 'The Wind Beneath My Wings',
Scully," he said lightly, hoping against all hope that he hadn't let
slip too much. "But the sentiment is sincere just the same."
Silence wiggled awkwardly between them for a time.
Then, she softly spoke. "It's funny that you should
think of me as your anchor, Mulder. You see . . . the same
thought had occurred to me. Only the connotation wasn't
particularly a positive one."
"How do you mean?"
She shrugged, not meeting his eyes. "I don't know. I
guess sometimes I've worried that I might be holding you back.
It must be grating for you to be working with someone who is
always looking to disprove your theories. I've wondered if,
despite your assurances to the contrary, my inability or . . .
unwillingness to believe might be getting to you."
His eyes went wide with amazement. "Scully, how
could you even think that?"
She glared at him, thoroughly disgruntled, the look
leavened with humor. "Well, Mulder what in the world do you
=expect= me to think?! You continue to ditch me every chance
you get."
"I do not--"
"You =do=," she insisted. "All the time. Hell, you even
took off to Hong Kong without me."
Mulder could swear he could feel a blush creeping across
his cheeks. "That's not fair, Scully. I called you. There just wasn't
time for anything else."
She shook her head, all amusement banished from her face.
"This isn't about my hurt feelings, Mulder. This is about your
nearly being killed. Not just in that car crash with Krycek. But
on the train with that guy who claimed he was NSA. Even when
you took off after that sub in the Arctic Circle."
Scully had a point, he had to admit. It seemed that every
time they separated, his predisposition towards injury worsened
alarmingly.
"You're not a stupid man," she continued quietly, her eyes
blazing into his. "Surely, you know that our chances for survival
are greater together than apart. So, I figure there has to be another
reason why you continue to take off without me. Your wanting to
be free of me and my skepticism seemed as good an explanation
as any."
Mulder knew he had really maneuvered himself into a
corner this time. What could he tell her? That at least half the
reason he left her behind from time to time came out of a desire
to protect her? Scully would murder him if she discovered that
little secret. And, to be honest, he couldn't say that he would
blame her. If he ever found out that she was pulling something
like that on him, he knew the urge to handcuff her to him would
be overwhelming. No, he couldn't give away the game. But,
he could admit another reason. One no less honest. And yet,
somehow far more revealing.
"Scully, the last thing I want is to be 'free' of you," he
told her in a hushed voice, leaning towards her as if to impress
upon her the truth embedded in his words. They sat facing
each other, their faces so near that he could feel her breath
against his cheek. "It's just . . . habit, I think, more than
anything."
"Habit?"
He chuckled ruefully, glancing away. "Yeah. Habit.
I've . . . um, I've been alone for so long. Had nobody to rely on
except myself, no one to count on, that I've just gotten used to
following my instincts, you know? I've never had anyone I had
to be accountable to before. Well, . . . no one I've *wanted* to
be accountable to."
Smiling softly, Scully slipped her hand out from beneath
the coat and laid it on his. "I don't want to be your keeper, Mulder.
Just your partner."
He gave her his very best leer. "Ah, but Scully--there's
nobody I'd rather be kept by than you."
She squeezed his hand. "I couldn't afford you. Not on
what the government pays me."
The porch light popped on, blinding the pair.
"Ow!" Mulder yelped.
"I think Ginny is trying to tell us something," Scully
murmured as, keeping her hand in his, she tugged Mulder up
from the swing. "Come on. You're probably turning into a
popsicle by now anyway."
"Ooh, Scully--you just gave me an opening it's going
to kill me to walk away from"
"Try, Mulder. If you know what's good for you, try."
* * * * * * * *
Continued in Part IX
===========================================================================
From: krasch@delphi.com
Newsgroups: alt.tv.x-files.creative
Subject: *NEW* "No Greater Love (9/13) by K. Rasch
Date: Mon, 3 Jun 96 05:28:42 -0500
No Greater Love (9/13)
by Karen Rasch
krasch@delphi.com
We're inching our way home. I hope you're enjoying the ride.
================================================
The following morning, Scully had to stifle the urge to
skip down the stairs from her room. She felt good. Beyond good.
Great. Fantastic. The tension that had been hanging like a pall
over their investigation had finally lifted.
Leaving her and her partner behind.
Together.
Even though she doubted that Mulder would ever fully
understand the things that had been motivating her of late, at
least she now knew that he was aware of them. And better still,
his actions the night before had assured her that he respected
her beliefs. And that was all she had ever asked of him. They
didn't have to mirror each other. To parrot each other's view,
each other's tenets. In fact, the vast majority of their strength
as a team came as a result of their differences, not their
similarities. She had no desire to change him, to make him as
reliant on fact and reason as she. She liked him the way he was.
The way he looked at that moment as he smiled up at
her from the breakfast table.
"Hey, Scully. Sleep well?"
"Like a baby," she said blithely as she strode to sit
across from him, then poured herself a cup of coffee.
Mulder looked as if he had also had a deep and
dreamless night's sleep. The circles that so regularly
shadowed his expressive hazel eyes were missing. His
entire countenance seemed more relaxed, more at ease.
Smiling her approval, she noted not for the first time that
her partner was a handsome man.
"I've been sitting here making a few notes as to
what I think we need to follow up on," he told her, slipping
his glasses from his face and laying them on the table next
to a legal pad filled with scribblings.
"I want to go to Columbia," she told him simply
after taking a sip of her coffee.
He smiled quizzically. "Okay. Any particular
reason why?"
She nodded. "Yeah. I've been thinking. About the
case and some of the stuff you and I talked about last night."
Mulder's smile turned warmer. "And you've
obviously made a connection I've missed?"
The fact that the man with whom she worked so closely
applauded her catching something that had eluded him instead
of feeling defensive about it made her smile want to widen into
a full-fledged grin. "I guess we'll see. It just occurred to me
that this entire case hinges on Kimberly Weaver."
"How so?"
Scully leaned her elbows on the table, steepling her
fingers. "Well, think about it. It all started with her death.
It's almost as if her dying set the whole thing in motion.
Now, you believe that her father has turned killer out of some
need for vengeance--"
"Although I now see that my hunch could use a little
substantiation."
Mulder looked at her, his expression mild, but his eyes
watching her closely. His remark wasn't meant casually. Scully
realized that the man across from her had just admitted the
need for proof as a sort of peace offering, an olive branch to
soothe some of the hurt he had engendered the day before.
She smiled at him, her eyes shining, gladly accepting his gesture.
"Maybe we'll find it in Columbia. I just think that we
may have overlooked a key element. It seems we've talked to
everyone in Pine Grove about Kim, and yet we haven't spoken
to those who knew her best."
"Her classmates?"
"Yes," she said, her hands coming down to rest on
the tabletop near his. "I mean--I know how I changed when I
went away to school. It's only natural. You run into new
people, new experiences. Getting an education doesn't just
mean what you learn in the classroom. I know I didn't share
with my parents half the stuff that went on."
"Ooh, keep talking Scully, and I'll have some juicy
stories to share with your mom," Mulder said, leaning back
in his chair with a chuckle.
She chose to ignore him, even though the corner of
her mouth did quirk at the playful threat. "What I mean is
that, helpful though the good citizens of Pine Grove have no
doubt been, the young woman who grew up here and the
young woman who spent the last six months of her life away
from here were not the same person. They couldn't have been."
Mulder nodded. "It's late in the semester though,
isn't it? Are classes still even in session?"
"Classes where?" Ginny asked as she breezed in
through the kitchen door, a tray laden with food in her hands.
"The University of Missouri," Scully said, stifling the
urge to help the woman maneuver her burden. In the end, their
breakfast made it to the table without mishap.
"Oh, they should be starting finals this week," Ginny
said as she served them. "My sister Brenda works for the English
Department. She's one of their admins. She was saying just this
weekend how the professors she works for are dreading having to
grade all those essay tests."
Scully glanced at Mulder. He grinned back at her. She
had a feeling her partner might have once dreaded a few of those
essay tests himself.
"All right," the red-haired agent said with satisfaction
as she picked up her fork and surveyed the feast laid out before
her with a touch of dismay. "After breakfast I say we hit the road
and see what Kimberly Weaver's friends can tell us about her."
* * * * * * * *
The time was 10:50, and Mulder and Scully leaned against
the concrete border running the perimeter of Ellis Library's lawn.
They were on the campus of the University of Missouri. Before
they had left Twin Orchards, they had made calls to the Dean of
Student's Office and the Office of the Registrar. After convincing
the powers-that-be of who they were and why they were asking
the questions they were, the agents had managed to get MU's
hierarchy to release the name of Kimberly Weaver's roommate.
Luck was with them. The girl was still on campus, and had
agreed to meet them at 11:00 before heading off to a study group.
The two visitors watched the students scurrying past
them, most clad in shorts, sandals, the ever-present backpack
strapped to their shoulders. Some wore Walk-Mans, others were
trying their luck with in-line skates. Many looked worried. It
was finals week, after all.
The weather had turned warm once more, the sky an
egalitarian mixture of clouds and sun. Scully felt overdressed in
her black pants suit with its matching blazer. Mulder was faring
no better in his navy suit. Try though they might to blend in,
they were both obviously interlopers.
"I think this may be her," Mulder murmured softly in
her ear.
Scully too had noted the girl. They had agreed to
meet in front of the library. To facilitate matters, the agents
had given their descriptions. The young woman in question
had done likewise. The dark-haired girl walking slowly towards
them certainly fit the bill. She was of medium height, her hair
hanging down to nearly her waist and held back from her eyes
by a wide cloth band. She had a round face with large intelligent
brown eyes and a mobile mouth. She wore little to no make-up,
shorts, strappy sandals, a T-shirt featuring a rock band Scully
didn't recognize, and a menswear vest over that. A collection
of silver necklaces in various lengths circled her neck. Hiked
onto her shoulder was the ubiquitous backpack.
"Amy Larson?" Scully asked tentatively.
The girl gave them a nervous smile. "Yeah. You must
be the feds."
"What gave us away?" Mulder murmured dryly, as
following Scully's lead he reached out and clasped Amy's hand
in greeting.
"Thank you for sparing us a few minutes," Scully said
as the threesome strolled to a nearby bench. "We realize this
probably isn't the best time for distractions."
They sat, Amy settled between the two agents. "It's
not that big a deal," the student said, shrugging. "I've only
got three finals. And the toughest isn't until Thursday.
Besides, you said this was about Kim. And she's more
important than any test."
Scully liked the girl immediately.
"What can you tell us about Kim, Amy?" Mulder
asked quietly.
The brunette hesitated for a moment, playing instead
with the strap of her pack which she had dumped at her feet.
"Kim was . . . special, you know?"
"Special in what way?" Scully inquired quietly after it
appeared the girl wasn't going to continue.
Amy flattened her lips, apparently in self-directed
exasperation. "I'm sorry. It's just that it's tough to explain. I
liked Kim. A lot. We got to be close. Not that I thought we
would at first."
"Why's that?" Mulder asked with a gentle smile.
Amy smiled dryly back at him. "Well, first off is the
age thing. I'm 21. I'm a transfer student so because not all
my credits counted, I'm only a sophomore. But still--when I
found out I was going to have a freshman for a roommate I
wanted to open my veins."
Scully smiled. "I take it everything worked out?"
"Yeah," Amy said softly, her expression going from
wry amusement to barely masked grief with alarming speed.
"Yeah, it did. Kim wasn't anything like I thought she'd be.
Well--that's not true. In a lot of ways she was the stereotypical
preacher's kid."
"What do you mean?" Scully asked, glancing at
Mulder to see if he understood the reference, and gratified to
learn that he was as in the dark as she.
Amy turned from one agent to the other, clearly
enjoying their befuddlement. "I take it you've never spent a
lot of time around kids with ministers for fathers?"
"Can't say I've had the pleasure," Mulder said mildly.
Amy grinned. "Well, I have--if you want to call it
that. Before I came to Mizzou I spent two years at Iowa
Wesleyan."
Scully shook her head. "I'm not following."
"It's a Methodist school," Amy explained patiently.
"Children of Methodist ministers attend for free."
"So there were a lot of them?" Mulder surmised.
"Tons," Amy confirmed succinctly. "And let me tell
you--the minute you get those kids away from their parents
they are just trouble waiting to happen."
"A bit wild, are they?" Mulder asked with a smile.
Amy raised an eyebrow. "Try a *lot*. Ministers' kids
are amazing. It's like all those years of having to be good, of
trying to live up to the standards set by their families takes its
toll. They're just dying for a way to let off a little steam."
"And this is how Kimberly was?" Scully inquired,
remembering how Sheriff Lowry had mentioned that Weaver's
daughter had possessed a wild streak.
Amy grimaced slightly as if struggling to find the
proper words. Then, her eyes softened, her lips curving fondly.
"Yes and no. I mean--yeah, Kim had this need to break loose,
try new things. But the ways she chose to rebel were so . . .
lame . . . that I wound up laughing at her half the time instead of
being worried."
"How so?" Scully asked, yearning to get a clearer
picture of the young woman who had been Kimberly Weaver.
Amy chewed on her lip, thinking. "Well, there was her
hair."
"She colored it, right?" Scully prompted, peering over
the girl's bowed head to meet her partner's eyes.
Amy chuckled. "Yeah. With that temporary stuff. I
think it all washed out after like the second day. I told her it
was commitment-free rebellion. And the reason she did it was
so bizarre."
"Bizarre how?" Mulder asked.
"She did it to go and have her driver's license photo
taken," Amy said, some residual disbelief coloring her statement.
"Isn't that goofy? She said she wanted an official document
recording the moment. I mean--how weird is that? She was
always doing stuff like that. Stuff that appealed to her own
warped sense of humor, but made no sense to the rest of us."
"Stuff like what?" Scully asked, intrigued now, trying
to reconcile all the different versions of Kimberly Weaver she
and Mulder had thus far uncovered.
"Well, she'd borrow my clothes," Amy said, searching
for examples. "Not that that's weird, or even unusual. But,
she'd pick the funkiest things out of my closet. The stuff I
had picked up at flea markets or thrift stores, and wear them
when we'd go out. But she'd never =buy= anything like that.
Never. I tried to get her to go downtown with me to The Closet
--it's this place where you can pick up the most amazing bargains.
Great clothes. But she wouldn't go. She'd say, 'You pick out
some stuff and I'll see what I like'."
"Still that fear of commitment?" Mulder ventured wryly.
Amy shook her head, a shrug accompanying the gesture.
"I guess. It's as if she liked the *idea* of doing something new,
something forbidden, but then had trouble on the follow-through."
"What about parties, boys?" Scully asked carefully, not
wanting to offend the dead girl's friend. "Did she go out much?"
"All the time," Amy said without hesitation, a smile
flickering across her lips as a memory sprang to life. "I told it
was my duty as her roommate to see that she got drunk at least
once her freshman year."
"And did she?" Mulder inquired, his amusement at
Amy's quest evident.
Surprise crossed the girl's brow as she recalled. "No.
No, I don't think I ever even saw her tipsy. To tell you the truth,
I'm not sure why she let me drag her along. She never really
seemed to enjoy herself."
"How's that?" Mulder asked.
"Well, these parties usually fit a pattern, you know?"
Amy said, her hands punctuating her explanation. "We'd go.
Kim would grab a beer, and then nurse it the entire evening.
That's it. One beer. I mean--what kind of party is that? What
used to make me even more crazy was that she would go off
in a corner somewhere with the one guy or girl nobody else
wanted to talk to, and spend the entire night chatting with
them."
"So, she wasn't seeing anyone?" Scully asked.
"There was no one special she was going out with?"
"Not at first," Amy said hesitantly. "Not through
most of first semester. Then, right before Thanksgiving
break she started going out with JJ."
"JJ?" Mulder repeated.
"Jeff Jefferson," Amy clarified, her mouth twisting
wryly. "Is that not the name of a future president of the Young
Republicans?"
Scully chuckled. "And this Jeff is a student here?"
"Yeah," Amy said with a nod. "Sophomore. He's a
Sigma Pi. Third string quarterback. Cute, I guess. Not a bad
guy for a football player."
Mulder smiled at Amy's assessment of her friend's
beau. "What can you tell us about him, about their relationship?"
Amy shrugged with a measure of apology. "Not all
that much. As close as we were, Kim kept a lot of things to
herself. I think the whole boyfriend thing was new to her. Still,
she seemed happy. They were together all the time. He seemed
to treat her well, and that's all I cared about. Then, she went
home for Christmas break."
"What happened then?" Scully asked, intrigued by the
girl's doomsday tone of voice.
Amy hesitated. "Well, I never got the whole story,
only bits and pieces. But, from what Kim told me, her dad didn't
exactly approve of JJ."
Scully caught Mulder's eye. The interest she saw
there mirrored her own.
"I mean, I know her father wasn't crazy about Kim
going away to school in the first place. And then when she
came home after one semester and reported that she had a
football playing frat boy for a boyfriend--"
Amy let her voice trail off meaningfully.
"Her father went ballistic," Mulder finished dryly.
The coed nodded. "Exactly. I don't know the details,
but Kim said they had a huge fight. Apparently, it ended with
Reverend Weaver forbidding her to see JJ again."
"And did she stop seeing him?" Scully inquired.
Amy shook her head ruefully. "Not a chance. That
little spark of rebellion just burned out of control. She started
staying out later. Studying less. She even stopped going home
on the weekends. She'd do that before, you know? Drive down
every couple of Fridays. But not anymore. Drove her dad
=nuts=. And then when he heard she was hanging out at that
bar near her house--"
"Backroads?" Mulder asked quickly.
"Yeah, I think so," Amy said, her brow furrowed as
she tried to recall the information the agent sought. "It's some
dive outside Pine Grove. A roadhouse, Kim said."
"And she went there alone?" Scully inquired intently.
"Oh god, no!" Amy said laughing. "She hadn't gone
=that= crazy! She'd meet some friends from home there. They'd
missed her when she stopped visiting like she had, and had
called her up. I think the whole pseudo-rebellion thing kicked in
again. From what she said, the guys at this Backroads weren't
too thorough about carding. She'd drive down. Meet her
friends. Sometimes with JJ, sometimes without. The whole
set-up appealed to her. You know--flaunting her 'badness'
right in her daddy's backyard."
"Amy, did Kim ever tell you she was frightened of
her father?" Mulder asked with deceptive nonchalance.
"Afraid perhaps of what he might do if he found out about
her running around."
The brunette laughed once more, the sound tinged
with sadness. "No. That was what was so stupid about it, you
know? She wasn't afraid of her dad. She loved him. More than
anything. But, she wasn't just his little girl anymore. And it
frustrated her that he couldn't get past that."
She picked up her pack once more, hugging it to her
chest. "Kim was a good person. And she was my friend. I miss
her."
Scully laid her hand gently on the girl's arm. "What
do you think happened at that motel, Amy? Do you think Kim
might have tried to kill herself?"
"No," Amy replied fiercely, her eyes shining with tears.
"No way. Kim wouldn't do that. It would go against everything
she believed in. Besides, she had no reason to. She and JJ were
still together. In fact, he was the one she got the motel room for."
"Excuse me?" Mulder said quickly, leaning in towards
the girl.
Amy said nothing for a moment, clearly struggling with
her sense of loyalty to her dead friend. "Um . . . Kim and JJ had
never been . . . intimate. I know this because she asked me
about birth control. She told me she was a virgin and was a
little overwhelmed by the whole thing."
"So I take it she was considering changing that about
herself?" Scully guessed.
"Yeah," Amy said with a grimace, her fingers picking
at the trim on her backpack. "JJ had been after her about it for
awhile. It was the one thing about him that drove me nuts. He
should've known that with a girl like Kim he couldn't rush
something like that."
"So, that night at the motel--was that their first time?"
Mulder asked with as much delicacy as he could muster.
"As far as I know," Amy said with a rueful shrug,
apparently a bit embarrassed about the subject they were
discussing. "I know that Kim prepared for it like it was. She
went to Planned Parenthood, the whole nine yards."
"Do you know what happened, Amy?" Scully asked
quietly, knowing how painful this must be for Kimberly's friend,
but determined to forge on regardless.
Amy wouldn't look at them. "No. Nobody knows that
except Kim and JJ."
Finally, she raised her eyes, pinning Scully with a
solemn stare. "But I'll tell you this--whatever did happen, it
just about destroyed JJ. He's changed since Kim died. He
started skipping class, stopped turning in homework. I think
he's spent nearly every day this semester drunk off his ass.
From what I hear, if he doesn't pull out a minor miracle with
finals, he's out of here."
Scully met Mulder's eyes once more. So, they had
another suspect to add to the list. Although, if JJ was to blame
for Kim's death, she couldn't fathom how Halprin and Cullins
fit into the picture.
"Well, thank you for your time, Amy," Mulder said,
standing. "You've been a great help."
Amy stood as well, her eyes bright. "That's okay. I
was happy to do it."
"Do you know where we can find this JJ?" Scully
asked as she came to stand beside her partner, facing Amy.
"He should be at the house, I'd think," Amy said
with a shrug. "He's got that same final I do on Thursday,
so he should still be on campus."
The agents murmured their thanks again, then started
to turn and walk away.
"Hey!" Amy called after them, indecision painted on
her face. "Look--despite what I said, I don't think JJ is at fault
here. I really don't."
"Why's that?" Mulder asked.
Amy gestured weakly. "Look, I'll admit there were
times when Jeff and his frat boy friends would get on my nerves.
But, he cared for Kim, you know? He wouldn't do anything to
hurt her."
Scully nodded. Nothing intentional perhaps, she
thought. But, what if something had happened in that motel
room? Something neither of the young people were prepared
for.
Something that left one of them dead, and the other
self-destructing.
* * * * * * * *
The two agents had no trouble tracking down the
Sigma Pi house. It sat on the northern edge of Greek-town,
music blaring from the brick structure's open windows.
Striding briskly up the walk, they ran into a short, red-
haired student sporting shades and a straggly goatee.
"Excuse me," Mulder said politely. "We're looking for
a Jeff Jefferson."
"JJ?" the young man inquired. "What do you guys
want with him?"
With a glance at her partner, Scully pulled her i.d. from
her purse, Mulder followed suit, extricating his from his jacket
pocket. "We just want to ask him a few questions."
The red-head's eyes grew wide. "Feds! Wow. Cool.
Uh . . . come on in."
Saying nothing more, he turned and headed back up
the building's front steps. Mulder and Scully tagged along
behind.
"Hey, JJ! Somebody here to see you!" the young man
bellowed up the stairs. A couple of his fraternity brothers
wandered by, eyeing their guests curiously.
"Tell him to go away!" instructed a listless voice from
floors above.
"It's not a 'him', it's a 'them'," corrected the guy at the
bottom of the stairs. "And I think you're gonna want to talk to
these folks, J-Man. They're here on official business."
A few seconds passed, then an unshaven face peered
down at the trio. "What are you talking about?"
"JJ, we're with the F.B.I.," Mulder said calmly, holding
up his badge although it was doubtful whether it could be seen
from that distance. "We need to talk to you regarding Kim
Weaver."
Scully could see the young man above her sway. For
one alarming moment she wondered if he might lose his breakfast.
On them. Finally however, he merely nodded with weary
resignation.
"I'll be right down."
* * * * * * * *
"I killed Kim."
Scully glanced in astonishment at her partner. Welcome
though it was to hear a confession, she found it hard to believe
that the tall slender young man seated across from her was a killer.
He just didn't have that edge.
They had sequestered themselves in the fraternity
house's study lounge. Although finals were in progress, it was
early in the day and the week. They had only had to kick out a
couple of Jeff's brothers. Mulder, Jeff, and she were currently
gathered around a sturdy round study table that sat in the
room's bay window. Jeff found it impossible to meet the eyes
of the people on either side of him. Instead, his gaze remained
fixed on the street outside.
"Why did you kill her, JJ?" Mulder asked quietly.
That got Jeff's eyes to swing back into the room.
"Not literally, man. I could never do that. But I might as well
have. I'm the reason she's dead."
With a compassionate eye, Scully studied the young
man. He looked horrible. Worn. Thin. Haunted blue eyes
sunken into their sockets. His dark blond hair hung dull and
without shape. She found it difficult to imagine that just this
past season, this boy had suited up as a Missouri Tiger. He
didn't look as if he had the strength necessary to lift the
shoulder pads.
"Do you believe Kim committed suicide?" Scully asked,
her voice pitched low.
Anguish pooled in his eyes. "Don't you? I mean what
else could it be? It's not like anybody would want to murder her.
Not Kim."
"What about an accidental overdose?" Mulder asked
reasonably.
Jeff grimaced. "Kim didn't even take aspirin. She
didn't have a prescription for that stuff. If she was taking it, it
was for a very specific reason."
"So where did she get it, JJ?" Mulder inquired intently.
Jeff shook his head. "I have no idea. She didn't have
it when I was there. Not that I know of."
"How was she when you were there?" Scully asked,
knowing this line of questioning would prove difficult for the
young man, that remembering that night in any detail would
undoubtedly pain him, but needing to hear his answers just the
same. "How did you leave her?"
"Crying," Jeff said shortly, his own self-loathing
evident. "Crying and begging me not to go."
Scully watched as his hands fisted. Nervously they
began bouncing on the tabletop, almost as if he wanted to
punch something, someone, anyone.
But most especially himself.
"JJ," she said softly, laying her hand on his wrist to
calm him, to remind him they were there. "What happened that
night?"
The young man glanced from agent to agent, his
misery palpable within the quiet closed room. Finally, taking
a deep ragged breath, he began.
"Kim and I had been going out together for about
four months. I liked her. I mean, really liked her. She was
different. She made me laugh. I liked spending time with her.
She seemed to like me too. I mean--her dad . . . he had a fit that
we were going out. But it didn't seem to bother Kim. She told
him he was just going to have to deal with it."
Pausing, he stared unmoving at his hands for a time,
then he continued.
"So, . . . I figured that any girl who is going to go
behind her dad's back--especially a girl like Kim . . . well, she
must care about me, right? She must want to have more than
just a casual relationship."
"Did you ask Kim to sleep with you?" Mulder asked
quietly, sensing perhaps that the subject was too awkward for
the boy to broach on his own, particularly before a woman he
didn't know.
Jeff paled. "Uh . . . yeah. I mean--who wouldn't? Kim
was beautiful. And I knew she was . . . interested. But . . . she
just . . . she just had trouble with it, you know?"
"Did you force her, JJ?" Scully asked in a hushed
voice, the very thought sending ice water through her veins.
Jeff braced his hands against the table as if he were
planning to push away and bolt. "Shit! No! God--that's just it.
We never did it. Never! I swear."
"You're saying that you and Kim got the motel room,
made your plans, and then she was unable to go through with
it?" Mulder queried, his eyes flickering to Scully's.
"Yes!" Jeff said with a degree of desperation. "You've
got to believe me, man. To this day, I don't know what happened.
We were fine, you know? Everything was going great. Then, it
started to get . . . physical, and Kim just froze up on me. She
panicked. Said she couldn't, you know? And . . . I lost it."
"What do you mean?" Scully asked.
Jeff shook his head, disgust dripping from his voice.
"I called her a tease. I didn't really mean it. I was just angry,
and . . . disappointed. But I was harsh, you know? Way over
the line. I said some things . . . . And she started crying. And
that just made me angrier. So, . . . I left. I left her there. It
couldn't have been much later than 9:00. And a few hours later
. . . she was dead."
"Did you tell this to the police, JJ?" Mulder asked, his
eyes thoughtful.
Jeff laughed, no amusement in the sound. "No. The
motel room was in Kim's name. Nobody even knew we were there
together. At least, I don't think they did. I haven't talked about
this with anyone. Well, . . . except Kim's father."
Scully's adrenaline went into overdrive. "You told
Reverend Weaver about this?"
Jeff smiled bitterly. "Yeah. How ironic is that? The
guy came here after Kim died. He was so lost, you know? So
. . . empty. I knew how he felt. He said he wanted to make peace
after losing Kim. After both of us losing her. And I couldn't just
sit here and say nothing." Tears began to trickle from the boy's
eyes. "I couldn't lie to him. I owed him that much. I owed her.
So . . . I told him."
Mulder placed his hand on the young man's shoulder.
"What did the Reverend do after that, JJ? Do you know?"
The question seemed to confuse the boy. He hesitated
for a moment, trying to catch his breath, and struggling to wipe
his eyes with the hem of his T-shirt. "Um . . . I don't know. He
didn't say much. He did ask me where the Holiday Inn was."
"The motel where Kim died?" Scully asked, although
she suspected she already knew the answer.
"Yeah," Jeff said with a hopeless shrug of his
shoulders. "Isn't that weird? Why would he ask me something
like that?"
I don't know, but I think we need to find out, Scully
thought with a touch of rueful amusement. And to do that,
she was going to have to ask poor suffering Jeff Jefferson the
very same question.
* * * * * * * *
Continued in Part X
===========================================================================
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 lung full 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 had 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.
<No. No. Please. I'll do anything. Give anything.
Anything. Anything at all. Anything but this. Oh God. Not her.
Not now. Not like this. Oh my God. Why? Why would you do
this? Hurt her. Take her. How could you? Christ. Please.>
"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 translucent. Her
lips had taken on a bluish 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 accommodate 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 clich�s.
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 arm'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= <g>) 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 untoward 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 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 unforgivable 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 Reverend'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 life force. 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 manifest, he knew something was at work.
And besides, at that instant, details were irrelevant.
Then, something began to change. Alter. At first,
almost imperceptibly. 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
across 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 into 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 conscious 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." 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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