Title: Doli Incapax (1/5) Author: Shirlock Rating: Creepy Category: X/ MSR/ UST Spoilers: None specific Summary: Grieving spouses are mercilessly put out of their misery by an angel of mercy or a demon of destruction? An X-File that can only be solved if Mulder and Scully put paranormal and science together. Timeline: Anytime after Milagro Disclaimer: Most characters belong to Chris Carter, 1013 Productions and Fox. No $ exchanged. Feedback: Is the virtual cash that rings my register! shirlock@pacific.net.sg =================================================================== Part 1 She has openıd the door, she has openıd it wide, She sees the pale corpse on the plain, O, "My true love!" she cried, and sank down by his side-- Never to rise again, O! --Robert Burns Open the door to me, O 7:54pm, Sunday 13th April 1999. St. Martinıs Cemetary, East Virginia Wilma Ross stood at her husbandıs grave, the setting sun cast a long grey shadow from an errant headstone across her sensible Dr. Scholls. She sways a little-- a thin, wan, solitary figure in the midst of a cemetary lost in thought and crushing grief. She is trying to remember Stanley Atwellıs exact look, his words at the altar when he had promised to take care of her until death separated them. Stan had only grimaced slightly when he faltered at his words, "till death us ...do, do us...part." Nothing could have ruined her wedding day. As far as Wilma Ross was concerned-- everything went like clockwork. Nothing could have ruined her mood that sunny Saturday morning just fifteen months ago, because she was getting married to the only man she has ever loved more than life itself. Another tear coursed down her cheek even as she tried in vain to recall the waves of pure joy which had overwhelmed and moved her to silent tears when Stan had slipped the silver band onto her left ring finger. Every emotion she had was a superlative. "I miss you Stan. I wish I never survived the car crash." The thunder rumbles in acquiescence to her gloomy dread of being alive and the forks of lightning light up a starless sky. For a brief white-light moment, the breeze whips up a paroxysm of sadness in her-- the loneliness and grief a vanquishing entity to her hopelessness. She fingers her ringless finger absentmindedly, wondering how, for the hundredth time, a drunk driver could take away every happiness she had ever known in fifteen short minutes. The rustling of the bushes near the ivy-covered entrance didnıt startle her. Not even when the scrooping sounds of feet trampling on leaves and grass when they became loud enough to alert her of a presence. Wilma Ross isnıt afraid of darkness the way normal people are. She had felt the normalcy of life slip away, robbing her of her sanity, her happiness and cause for living in the five short minutes she saw Stanley fight for the breath that leaked out of his lungs like the punctured airbag of their family sedan. As his eyes slowly glazed over and his lids fell, Wilma Ross knew that when the darkness swollowed him, it swollowed her as well. Her finger smoothes over the marmoreal headstone, over the embossed word "love", capitulating to the elegiac coldness that crawls across her skin, into her bones, into her very spirit. She trembles as it cements her to the ground, inpregnanting her with a powerful analgesic as her tears hang on the precipice of her jaw. The first salty tear falls to the ground, releasing the floodgates of heaven to fall in corollary to her misery. She welcomes the darkness now, with a small smile, feels the cool words of comfort echo in the cochlea of her inner ear, beckoning her to sleep the deep sleep of eternal death. The lightning illumines the small cemetary, masking her silhouette as the sonorous thunder announces more of this cleansing rain. =================================================================== Two days later, 8:22am, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Basement office Fox Mulder looked at Dana Scully, who looked at the burly officer sitting across from her. She narrowed her eyes at her partner once more as she took in the way he bit the fleshy inside of his bottom lip. The slightly plump one which seem to hang somewhat poutily when he was being flippant. Her eyes darted back to the square-jawed man dwarfing the arm chair. Detective Greg Mann was sitting upright as if a surf board was shoved down his back. His bright green eyes sparkled in the early morning light as speckles of dust gently floated in the still air around them. His countenance was friendly, but his individual features communicated desperation. His eyes were red--too much caffeine and too little shut-eye. His lips were pulled into a straight line, muscles in his jowl clenching. His nostrils flared gently. He tapped the folder on his knee and returned Agent Scullyıs penetrating gaze. "Itıs not like I believe in the paranormal myself, but, I think Agent Mulderıs profile is all weıve got to go on.This is the fifth victim. We found her in St. Martinıs cemetary in East Virginia yesterday morning." He says finally. "You say victim, but there is no indication that she was victimized." Scully retorts. "That's equivocal," Mulder quips, "but how do you explain five previously healthy people dead at the headstone of their spouseıs grave?" "I canıt." Scully says testily,"but a killer who kills those who are grieving without instrument or weapon?" Her voice took a higher note but she could not tamp down the edge nor the skepticism. She looks at the brawny man, then back at her lanky partner who kept resolutely mum. Detective Mann eyes pan over to meet with Agent Mulderıs innocent gaze and understood this was how their partnership worked. One sets the case in motion; the other finds loopholes; one strikes; the other parries. One spars, the other spurs. The two agents who were as notorious as they were mysterious. Few know about this team and even fewer understood their work in the X-Files Division. Yet everyone talks about them. Mulder had promised the detective they would investigate only if his partner agreed to autopsy the latest victim. For once, he admit- ted he needed her rational, hard scientific facts to give him a better insight into the killer. This was no ordinary killer. No weapon, no pathogen, no sorcery, no traces of anything they could call 'a clue'. Mulder spoke up half-heartedly. "All I'm saying is--it's not normal, Scully. Maybe not paranormal, but certainly =not= normal." "That's just a little verkrampte, even for you, Mulder." She temporized. "This is what Iıve got so far, Scully. Thereıs something about this killer... but I know," he stressed, "I know that he believes what heıs doing is right.The intention is benign, but the technique is diabolical." "The intention is benign?" Scullyıs shoulders sagged. Mulder had promised her this meeting was only going to take half an hour what was more likely several days. "You donıt put up much of a fight if you donıt already want to live. The fact remains, every one of them was grieving. Thatıs how the killer targets them." Mulder continued, chewing the back end of a yellow HB pencil, "but how? Iım hoping you can enlighten us, Scully." Scully picked up the crime scene photos in front of her and studied them again before asking the detective how the latest victim died. "According to the preliminary reports, she died of natural causes." "Natural causes." Scully echoes, hollow with skepticism. The woman in the photograph looked like she had died rather peacefully. Was that a smile left lingering on her lips? The glossy photograph reflected the agent's perplexed face. "Her heart stopped." Mulder says quietly, catching her eye and raising his brows to mimic hers, "just plain ole gave up." "Thatıs not natural, Mulder. She was only twenty-eight." She watches her tanned partner acknowledge her words. He smiles at her choice of words. "We've seen something like this before, Scully." The hulking figure on the armchair fidgets. "I =know= Pusher is dead. And so is his evil twin." She volleys back. "I know that. But before Pusher, wouldn't you have thought it was im- possible? Unnatural? Above normal?" He counters, dropping the HB pencil he had been twirling like a mini baton. Is there a great difference between 'not normal' and 'not natural'? She thinks to herself. "Thatıs why itıs an X-File, Agent Scully." Detective Mann interrupts. "Three women and two men were found dead in cemetaries in three states on the East Coast and one on the West Coast. All five deaths were reported by the caretakers the next day. All healthy until they visited the graves of their loved ones. All died of natural heart failure. There was no physical violence, no other trauma--" "Who was the first victim?" Mulder askes, tugging his chin with a hand which half propped his head upright. "Er, Paige Whittaker. Her son had reported her missing 48 hours after her disappearance. She was found on the third day at her husbandıs grave. The caretaker in Golden Gate Cemetary alerted the SFPD some time last year, near Christmas. It only came to my attention four months ago." Detective Mann read from a dog-earned folder leaning back into his seat to get more comfortable. "When did her husband die?" "Eleven years ago." "So she wasnıt grieving." Scully jumps in, catching the momentary pause in her partner and seizing the chance to show she had been listening. "Well, thatıs hard to determine. She didnıt know he had died eleven years ago. But she did only find out about him recently. He was in 'Nam in '69, POW-ed for six years, then supposedly left for dead. He returned to America some time in '82. He worked as a hired hand at the Chittendon Locks, about ten miles North of downtown Seattle. He was her first husband." "She remarried?" Scully nods once. "He was the first of three." The detective pushes the photos under the lamp so that they could both see them clearly. "According to her son Josh, her son from her second marriage, his mom was very upset after a long-distance phone call from Seattle two days before her disappearance." The three men looked like triplets at first glance, but at closer inspection only appeared that way because of their heavy spectacle frames and similiarly trimmed beards. "So she was found in San Francisco, at her first husbandıs grave?" Scully figured. "Go with it Scully." "And you think someone, or some thing killed her by granting her her deathwish?" "Not my theory, but I like yours better than mine." Mulder says through his crooked grin. She shakes her head, defeated. There was no way this meeting was going to end in the next few minutes unless she gives in to their request. It wasnıt as if she hadnıt paperwork stacked floor to ceiling to finish before the weekend. But maybe, just maybe, she might help solve this case with science. "Okay." She says to the surprise and relief of both men. "When do I begin the autopsy?" End part 1/5 Title: Doli Incapax (2/5) Author: Shirlock Rating: Creepy Category: X/ MSR/ UST Spoilers: None specific Summary: Grieving spouses are mercilessly put out of their misery by an angel of mercy or a demon of destruction? An X-File that can only be solved if Mulder and Scully puts paranormal and science together. Timeline: Anytime after Milagro Disclaimer: All recognisable characters belong to Chris Carter, 1013 Productions and Fox. No $ exchanged. Feedback: Is the virtual cash that rings my register! shirlock@pacific.net.sg =================================================================== "Come to me in the silence of the night; Come in the speaking silence of a dream; Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright As sunlight on a stream; Come back in tears, O memory, hope, love of finished years." Christina Rossetti -Echo ***** 8:50 am, Thursday 17th April 1999. St. Martinıs Cemetary, East Virginia The soil is damp and the air chilly even though the weather forecast promised high 70s by 10am. There is always something about ceme- taries that made the atmosphere crawl with unbidden clamminess and a ghostly presence. Perhaps the brooding oaks and their extra foliage contribute to the eerieness of the watchful dead, but Mulder sensed an oddity about the ground the moment he slipped past the rusty gates. "This is where the latest victimıs body was found?" Mulder asked Detective Mann. "Right there. In front of her husbandıs headstone." Yellow crime scene tape perimetered the area where the crime supposedly took place. "It rained the night she visited, so there werenıt any foot prints to speak of..." "Ghostly entities hardly leave any." Mulder said as-a-matter-of- fact. The good natured detective puckered up his lips and screwed one of his eyes shut as if trying to gauge how to respond. "No, of course not. They float a few inches off the ground." He finally lets his words tumble out. The Special Agent pulls his shoulders back and replies, "you're beginning to sound like my partner." "Well, that's all right then." A smile before returning to the case, the burly detective pops a mint into his mouth. From the marbled headstone, Mulder read "Love conquers all things; let us too, give in to Love." "Conquers all except death." Detective Mann garbled his words while sucking on his mint. "When did they get married?" Mulder asks. Mulder mentally calculated the dates of birth and death. The other man consults his papers and drones, "15 months ago, on 7th of January '98. He was killed in an automobile accident three months into their marriage. Drunk driver ploughed into their sedan when he was dropping her off to work at Center Cross Memorial. She worked there as a night nurse." "What about the others?" Mulder asks, casting a wayward glance at the other headstones. "You mean if they were also newlyweds? No, no. Wallace and Millicent Fredericks were the oldest married couple. Celebrated their forty-first wedding anniversary shortly before she had an accident in her Conneticut home. She died from complications in a local hospital." "How old was her husband?" "Eighty-one. He was found lying on the ground next to her gravestone on her second death anniversary." The big man sighed. "Is it safe to assume Wallace Fredericks loved his wife?" "I think itıs safe to assume that of all of those who died." Detective Mann continues, sensing the Agentıs dilemma, "I spoke to the family members. Every one of them who died at their partnerıs grave were grieving for their loss. I donıt suppose you can validate folks dying of broken hearts, can you?" "Not yet." Mulder smiles wryly. Just then his phone trilled from the inside of his suit pocket. "Should be Scully," he says to the detective before pressing the call button."Yeah. What have you got? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And the others had similiar symptoms? Tricyclic antidepres- sants...No, Iım sure youıve got something there, Scully, if they all had the same psychosis. Look, Iım going back to the precinct. Iım taking the 4:40 Metroliner, can you meet me at my apartment at 8pm?" Wordlessly, he listens to his partner spell out the eveningıs arrangements before saying "8:30 then," and thumbed off the connection. Detective Mann pricked his ears up at the last tell-tale remark. "She works fast," he says, not elaborating on its meaning. "When she says jump, the lab boys ask 'how high'." Mulder slips his phone back into his suit pocket when he suddenly notices something. "Did you see this?" "What?" "This," Mulder points to the headstone and the Detective crouches to inspect the cool surface, not following Mulderıs train of thought. "The dates." Swiping at the mud streaking along the dates, he snaps his attention back at a grinning Mulder. "She died on the same day he did, a year later." For effect, he traces over the embossed numbers - 13th April 1998. Detective Greg Mann lets a quiet air of tension escape his lips. "Shit." =================================================================== Mulderıs apartment, same day. 9:12pm "You *always* order this, Mulder." Mulder chanced a look at Scully knowing that along with the infrequent Scully whine is a knitted brow and a very pouty lower lip. He was privy to her moods for certain types of food but chose to do the one thing that would goad her a bit more into revealing a less professional side. Mulder ignored her which made her scowl even more, the limp pizza cold and unappetizing in her hand. Inwardly, he chalks up a point at seeing his partner in a way that was fast becoming alluring for him. When Scully is not physically satisfied with her meal, she fidgets a lot. "Well, I paid for it." He adds smugly, "besides, you were late." "Only because the fax machine got jammed." With that, she drops her pizza onto the plate and pulls out a plastic folder, choked with large and small documents from her briefcase. It signalled the end of her disagreeable meal. Gingerly she pushes her autopsy report to her partner still in mid-chew. "Wilma Tina Ross." Opening a file with a neatly typewritten column of the toxscreen report, Mulder reads word for word, "large mixture of catecholamines and stored glucose in the liver, bloodstream...depleted leukocytes..." "I called the Community Mental Health Center in Richmond where she was being treated for severe depression. She had lost 15lbs in the first six months following the death of her husband and was treated with Tofranil, an antidepressant. That explains the high levels of adrenaline and noradrenaline in her blood stream. Her peptic ulcer was the result of poor diet and she was diagnosed by her physician to be in the exhaustion stage of the General Adaptation Syndrome." She fidgets once more around her seat to get more comfortable. "Persistent stress leads to a 'disease of adaptionı, weight loss, and a misplaced sense of inappropriate guilt. Nothing out of the ordinary there." Mulder purses his lips, thinking of the mental state of mind the victim was last seen in. "Think she never got over her grief?" Scully nods absentmindedly, ferreting through the enormous pile while she continued, "Psychomotor retardation-" "Scully?" She looks up, surprised to find Mulder regarding her with a curious mixture of admiration and surprise. "What?" "When did you study Psychology?" She drops her gaze and smiles into her lap, the colour of embarassment a warm pinkish hue across her cheeks. "Abnormal Psychology, Mulder. Itıs a hobby, but itıs helpful especially when we have to deal with such cases, which you have to admit, is pretty often." She smiles tentatively, "but hereıs what takes the cake." She pulls out more reports from the bulging folder and leafs through the thermal stack until she finds the one she wants. Mulder takes her preoccupation to study her profile before giving the scattering papers his full attention. "What are they?" He takes a swig of his diet coke. "Hospital records of the other four victims I had their con- sulting GPs faxed to the labs this afternoon." "I thought you said they werenıt victims." "I've changed my mind." She says callously. He gives her a patented SkepticMulder look. "Havenıt you heard? Only the foolish and the dead never change their opinions." Her face was calm but there was an impish look in her eyes. Mulder couldnıt help but grin."So, what made you change your mind?" "Their uncanny similiarities. Peptic ulcers are symptomatic of the fifth victimıs neurosis so I checked for similiar dysthymic disorders in the other victims. Any documents of hospitalisation for treatments or surgery..." Her partner nods, willing her to continue, loosening his paisley tie and leaning back in the sofa. "Apparently, the second victim--Denise Faulkner, fifty- four years old native of New Bedford was being treated for somatoform disorder." "Sheıs a hypochondriac?" "Was. She was given Prozac for three months, and a placebo to curb her phantom ailments. She went through rational emotional therapy for another three months but it only worsened her condition. She was suicidal at one stage. She has two grown-up children in college who gave a statement that their mother was greatly agitated and was prone to outburts two months before her death." "I think itıs survivor guilt-syndrome, Scully. Itıs not well-documented but there are recent cases of prolonged anxiety feeding the sympathetic branch of the nervous system that accelerates heart rate." "But weıre talking about tachycardia, not a full-blown cardiac arrest, Mulder. They donıt have the tell-tale signs of heart attack." "No, Iım sure youıre right, Scully. But I believe in losing the will to live. Foetuses have it." "Youıre talking wilful suicide through voluntarily control- ling involuntary muscles. Mulder-- that just doesnıt happen to one, let alone, five different people." "No, Iım suggesting that the mechanism is suspect, but the desire to die, like a foetusı self-abortion, is real. Holmes and Raheıs scale put death of a spouse at the most stressful life-change experience. I think their inability to express their grief, and accept their partnerıs death was the reason for their ailments, psychosomatic or metaphysical. What I would like to know is what, or who tipped them." Momentarily she lets this information sink in. She picks up a manila folder and empties its contents onto the growing pile of papers. "See here, Paul Samuels, the third reported victim, of Winslow, Maine had duodenal ulcer." "You donıt think the ulcer killed him, do you?" "It would have but it didnıt. But it made fairly certain he suffered a lot for it. This is the strong correlation between all these victims. They were all suffering physically, mentally and spiritually. Ulcers are one of the most painful disorders because they rupture the mucous membrane lining the intestinal, or stomach walls which are very sensitive." "But arenıt they treatable?" "Yes, they are. But he didnıt want to be treated." "He didnıt want to be treated?" The information sank in like a hot coal on butter. "I think he =wanted= to feel pain. He underwent counselling and was getting better until his ulcer--", Scully trailed off. "But he didnıt die from his ulcer." "No. He died the same way as the others. Naturally. Heart failure. I would imagine he died simply as if his batteries ran out." "Alright, so far we agree that all the victims were treated with antidepressants for some form of major depression. Theyıve all had ulcers. They were all suffering one way or another but it doesnıt explain how they died." He summarized, deftly shaking his head. "I have never come across a benevolent entity of death, Scully." "Iım not sure you were so wrong about the angel of mercy, Mulder, although thereıs nothing unreal about it." came the cryptic reply. That remark earned her Mulder's full attention. "This here," she pulls out a new fax, "shows a doctorıs prescription for our latest victim. Motipress is an anxiolytic antidepressant prescribed by one Dr. Linda Westaner. Now, Motipress is an effective drug for anxiety and depression, but she had a case of peptic ulcers. Here, in my toxscreen, I found traces of a synthetic drug called Imgram." "Which in laymanıs language is-?" "A molotov cocktail for severely depressed individuals who have death wishes. What Imgram does is retard the effects of Motipress, creating a heightened sense of psychosis. Itıs called the joydrug- highly experimental. " "And you think the doctors have something to do with their deaths?" "At least with the latest victim. I couldnıt get in touch with Dr. Westaner today, but I wouldnıt be surprised if she resorted to euthanasiac measures." "Why?" "That is probably the only way she could effectively cure Wilma Rossı grief. While Motipress might give her hallucinations, Imgram may be responsible for actually killing her." "Angel of mercy." Mulder intones. Digesting this new evidence he starts to share with his partner what he had uncovered this morning with Detective Mann. It actually made sense, yet it was like a puzzle which fit but revealed a jumbled picture. He got up and started pacing. "That explains one victim, Scully. What about the rest?" "I don't know. I'm--" "...every victim died on their partnerıs death anniversary. Each one of them had guilt feelings. I suppose they relive the guilt at each anniversary when their grief resurfaces and is most acute." *Stride, stride, stride, turn; stride, stride, stride, turn.* She nods encouragingly. "I did some digging," he stopped to see her register his pun with a short roll of her eyes, "and guess what I found?" "A whole lotta dirt?" "In a manner of speaking." He stares at her. "And sea water." End of part 2/5 Title: Doli Incapax (3/5) Author: Shirlock Rating: Creepy Category: X/ MSR/ UST Disclaimer: In part 1 Feedback: Is the virtual cash that rings my register! shirlock@pacific.net.sg =================================================================== "She should have died hereafter; There would have been a time for such a word, To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day. To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And this is heard no more..." - W.Shakespear's Macbeth, Act III, Scene VII ***** Oak Hill Cemetary, 18th April 1999 Washington DC, 8:30pm "That was Detective Mann. Nothing on his side." Mulder says, his voice low and rough as if his had just recovered from a severe bout of laryngitis. From afar, one could hear the rustling of leaves as the wind sweeps through the tree tops. "Um-hmm." She replies, tired eyes still scanning the pages of the evening papers. Mulder doesnıt say another word. In his mind, there was not much he could add to unveil the Mystery of the Dying Spouse as the Herald had facetiously dubbed them. "What are we doing here, Mulder?" Scully keeps her face straight but her lips are doing the winsome half curl. "Why Oak Hill?" "Cos" itıs near a body of water." "There are lots of cemetaries that are near bodies of water. Besides, Rock Creek is not a body of water. It's a creek." "Thatıs true." No further elaboration. Scully cocks her head one side and spikes her eyebrow impatiently. Six hours in the lab teetering over a mind-numbing amount of forensics results has shortened her eight minute fuse to all of ten seconds. "Mulder?" "Hmm?" He chances a look in her direction and winces. Exasperation was leaking out from every pore. He ends her misery by reaching far into the backseat of their car to retrieve a very crumpled Washington Post. "Obituaries can be really interesting, Scully. Some of the things people write in memory of their loved ones." He passes her the papers and shows her what he had found earlier. She drops the papers she was reading before and pulls the broadsheet to reveal the obituary section. "Dearest Elenor. " Scully reads, blinking in the dim light of the car. "The angel of death has been abroad throughout the land, you may almost hear the beating of his wings. Man is a noble animal, splen- did in ashes, and pompous in the grave." "Mulder." A warning, subtle in its subtext but a direct order to quit pussyfooting around. "Heıs quoting John Bright." Mulder says in lieu of an answer. "So the killer is no fan of John Bright. Would you have preferred Shakespeare?" She knits her brow. Mulder pins her with a puzzled look. "What's the connection?" "Heıs it, Scully. He's the next victim. Five papers. I called the Post to find out who he is." "Let me guess--the distraught husband?" "Bingo. Right down to the histrionics he displayed at his sonıs birthday when he broke down. He needed to be sedated. My back ground checking skills have improved thanks to A.D. Kersh. Ernest Wendt, thirty-six, broker for an investment firm for- merly known as Jung and Castell." "Okay, Mulder, say that is true, why single out this particular grieving spouse? What is it about sea water? How did it get into the coffin?" "Call it a gut feeling. I didn't say I could explain it--" "But you =have= a theory." As if it could be possible Mulder could be without one. "Well. I do, but I'm not sure you might want to hear it now." He replies sheepishly. "=When= might I want to hear it?" Scully uses the voice she reserves for felons and other mentally ill criminals. He cringes partially from habit but also partially because she was staring right at him, eyes blazing and her face flushed pink from the cold. For long minutes, they just sat there, watching the waxy ivy leaves tilt towards the moon. Just when she thought he had abandoned all desire for conversation, he startles her by twisting his body to face hers. "How many times, Scully, have you and I stood at the threshhold of death?" She blinks gently, absorbing his tender question even as it gnaws at her own heart, numerous cases where each of them had escaped death's grasp by the skin of their teeth. Starting with Victor Tooms and bookended by Philip Padgett. The latest brush with the horror auteur who could give Stephen King a run for his money, all but reminded her that she's mortal, flesh and blood, and vulnerable to death and dying. Let's not forget her cancer sandwiched between freaks and ubermenschers, she considers dryly. Instead he answers for her. "Too many." Mulder whispers, shaking his head. "Too...damn many." She waits to find the right words to utter but her mind instantly replays images of death's whitened hand clutching at their heels, at her blouse, clawing at his face, in countless blood- splattered rooms, and public roads. The ERs of nearly every hospital within a 10 mile radius in the D.C. area. "Do you believe that when a person grieves deeply, he dies a little?" She saw the question come from his eyes. His soul had found a way to manifest itself in the concavity of his sorrowful hazel eyes. "You think the motive is to alleviate the grief? That's why he kills? So it is an angel of mercy then." "Culturally, there have been many documented instances of powerful spirits who have the ability to grant life or cause death." He continues, "it's all about believing, Scully. How much one wants to continue after someone close dies." She looks in his eyes and knows it had always been about believing. At least for Fox Mulder. He was telling her something else. Something she sixth-sensed was very important, that couldn't be conveyed through words. Flashes of pain and a sweet longing were dancing in the windows of his soul. It first happened after she was returned, in a hospital where she had lain comatose, she had suddenly experienced a memory of an ongoing dream. But she was in no way certain which was the dream and which was the real memory. Her partner, this Fox Mulder had grieved at her bedside once upon a time. Grieved enough to entertain thoughts of personal injury had she not survived? Certainly when she was ra- vaged by the cancerous tumour. Grieved enough to have died a little during each one of her perilous two-way trips to the great beyond? To have bled inside? Her lids grew heavy from the mental assortment of visuals pinballing from the confines of her skull. "Scully? Do you believe love has the power to overcome death?" A sharp intake of breath shocks her system. They said it could never happen, but here she was, proof that it was possible for a living human to forget to breathe. She rubs her tired eyes and shakes off the illusion still dancing at the outer fringes of her subconscious. Her mouth felt like it had been gagged with a handkerchief, so very dry was it that she ran her tongue against her inner cheeks and swollowing before lending voice to what she believes. "I believe I don't have an answer to that question." "You do, however, have answers to other questions. Your autop- sies show that each of the five victims had suffered a lot." She nodded sagely, the wind raising the collar of her wind breaker through the open car window. "And they would have continued terribly had they not died." "Undoubtedly." "But when they did die, they did so peacefully." "Yes," she sighed heavily knowing when her brilliant partner was going to pull out the big Q. "But they weren't treated with the same medication?" He was ruling out euthanasia from a more probable human source and she was slow to admit that that particular avenue of inquiry had indeed been fruitless. "No. Their toxicological screens came back clean. Or relatively clean, if you didn't include the unhealthy amount of Prozac, Lentizol, Detonox, and other antidepressants shared between them. " There was a long silence, punctuated by an even longer period of soundlessness. The kind of unearthly hum that one associates with being in a soundproof room. Almost as if the quietude was the result of emptying the brain of all cogent thought. "Can science explain why, Scully?" "It can't even explain =how= in this case, Mulder." She places a hand on her forehead, masking her eyes momentarily. He stares at her outright and she blinks back carefully. "You know what I think, Scully?" She shakes her head incrementally. "Do I want to?" "No, but you'd miss out on the lamest theory known to womankind." He smiled. She smiled back, grateful for his humour in this place. The thunder rumbles softly. "There's something about the first case that bugs me. The first one which started it all. The one on the West Coast." "The first victim? Paige Whittaker, in San Francisco." "Yes, her. Why the West Coast?" "Her husband was buried on the West Coast." "The correlative evidence is that all the murders were com- mitted on the coasts. In cemetaries near the ocean. In Stanley Atwell's grave was one centimeter of salt water." She shakes her head again, "what you're hinting is that an entity from the unchartered depths of the ocean is responsible for these mysterious killings." "No, what I am saying is, the entity uses the salty sea water to travel." "And what is the $64 million dollar question?" He smiles widely at her and drawing closer, whispers, "I don't know what the question is, but I believe love is the answer." ***** 10:44pm He watches her pinch the bridge of her nose even as he winds up the windows. There is a faint mingling smell of salty sea breeze and the humid tang of inclement weather. The unfore- casted late Spring shower began about ten minutes ago. The crackling static alerts both of them that the other police car has picked up activity outside route 112. "Agents? Red Saturn, single male driver heading your way." "Copy that, Detective. We're going into position." Mulder dropped the hissing walkie-talkie and broke out into quickening steps, glancing once to see if Scully was following. At his elbow, she presses on ahead, every muscle fortified by adrenalin, senses heightened to capture every cicada's chirrup, every distant owl's hoot, every plop of raindrop on fluttering leaves. They take their positions behind large headstones on either sides of the Elenor's grave. Ready, waiting to take on whoever, whatever it was who will put this grieving man out of his misery. The rain pelted down evenly, little water darts which glanced off the waterproof material. The stabbing headlights of a car narrowed its beams on the gravestones which hid the two FBI Agents. They went off suddenly like headlamps popping a fuse. Mulder was stunned by the random thought that Shakespeare's MacBeth would choose to crowd into his consciousness at a moment like this. Peering behind the headstone, he holds his breath and looks over the bouquet of carnations, their heads hung in deference to the sombreity of the venue. A man wearing a white shirt without a tie ambled before the gravestone. His face hung like a rag doll, rainwater mingling with the tears of his face. At the gates, Scully could just make out the muscled frame of the detective. The rain was beginning to fall more heavily and the sounds of unchecked muffled sobbing intensified. She catches Mulder's eye before he mouthed "be careful". She nods once. The depths of this man's despair was carved onto the rain- streaked creases of his face. He dropped to his knees, his palms up offering a query to a bigger god than he, why did it have to happen to him? His family? His mouth moved but no words came out, his sobbing subsiding to a mourneful hitching. Her heart went to this man, whose pain was so acute, so overwhelming, so affecting, it seemed to radiate off him like waves. "I can't live..."were the only words that she caught, but before her eyes, something appeared in the shimmering rain. As if she grew up and out of the sodden cemeterial grounds to stand three feet behind the man. A beautiful creature in a robe of suffused blue, piercing prisms of colour carroming off what looked like the outline of a face. There she was, looking right through this grieving man, at her, into her. She was breath takingly beautiful, the kind of beauty that death has no authority to claim, yet, must have. Because as she stood there boring her watery eyes into the female agent, Dana Scully knew at once that this was not a human. Not flesh. Not blood. Yet this ghostly apparition is sharing time and space with them. Existing. Real. Spiritually engineered. And powerful in a menacing sort of way. All reason fled and fear gripped her hard, paralysing her behind the headstone. But fear hadn't gripped her hard enough to elicit pain, for the next few seconds played out before her like Bill's first black and white 8mm home movie run in slow motion with the sound turned up to full volume. The angel extended her arm, ostensibly to place upon the grieving husband's shoulder. To comfort him? She saw Detective Mann step out of the murky shadows, arms raised. His voice was a gargling noise which her mind supplied must be a warning before he was going to open fire. She felt the whirring move ments to her right, as Mulder launched himself forward to the distraught husband, knocking him over as the gun exploded. The noise it made when it punctured the angel was a seething, bubbly sound. The course of a bullet ripping through water so that it sounded like "pssshhhhtttt" before it made contact with flesh and bone. A more familiar crackle and snap to an even more familiar image of Mulder staggering backwards. Crumpling onto the sacred resting place of Elenor Carmen Wendt. Her heart clenched and held its voluntary beating. Horrified, her eyes widened, accepting the reality that the bullet had struck him squarely in the chest, likely shattering his sternum and lodging probably in the sixth vertebrae after piercing a vital organ like heart or lung. The agent in her jotted down the second-by-second events even as she filed them all away in a chronological order. Detective fires, bullet traverses entity and strikes at her partner. She raises her head to see the Angel of mercy only to find it had transmor- grified into the Grim Reaper with the soot-coloured hood, holding a scythe and watching her through eyeless sockets. Fear gripped her hard enough and this time, she screamed. End of Part 3/5 Title: Doli Incapax (4/5) Author: Shirlock Rating: Creepy Category: X/ MSR/ UST/ ScullyTorture Spoilers: Various Author's notes: There is character death here, but like CC, never believe they're dead until they're really dead. And even then, they may still be undead... Disclaimer: In part 1. Bore yourself silly reading it. Feedback: Is the virtual cash that rings my register! shirlock@pacific.net.sg =================================================================== "All other things, to their destruction draw, Only our love hath no decay; This, no to-morrow hath, nor yesterday Running it never runs from us away, But truly keeps his first, last, everlasting day." - John Donne The Anniversary ***** 20 April 1999 2 days after Mulder's death, Baltimore, Margaret Scully's house. 8:22pm "I'm fine, mom." She recognises the steel in her daughter's voice, probably matching the militant expression she puts on when she's most vulnerable. "Dana. =It's= mom." She tries again. "Yes." Softer. A pause. "I know it's you." Margaret Scully was gripping the receiver of her phone like a vice even though her voice was soft and tender, as only a mother's voice can be. But her eyes glistened with unshed tears; her breathing abnormally slow and measured. The deadened silence was inappropriate, but what can a mother say to her only daughter after all that has happened? The older Scully understood the impracticalities of voicing words that do nothing. Heal nothing. Mean nothing. Be nothing, but amplify the dead air between them. "Dana? I'm so sorry. I just heard from Bill." Mrs. Scully's voice cracked like a potter's clay in a kiln that was too hot. She clamped her hand to her mouth to stifle the tremors building up beneath. Four days in Boston visiting Pastor Bickerstaffe and his ailing wife from another clergy, and =this= happens. Still no sound from the earpiece. "Did you eat? I can come by--" "Mom," her voice was without rancor, but a hint of impatience laced her words, "I've had something. I'm okay. Really. I'm just tired." "Dana, I'm sure you did everything humanly possible." Again, a pause which lasted twenty heartbeats. "Dana?" Her reply is patiently slow. "Yes, mom?" "Call if you need anything. Okay, honey?" "Okay, mom." "I love you." "Me too, mom." And the connection flatlines. ***** Georgetown, Agent Dana Scully's home. She counts the steps from the living room to the bedroom. It takes roughly sixteen steps. She imagines Mulder would probably need ten. Mulder. Mulder was buried at noon today. At Mount Olivet Cemetary--a Jewish cemetary in Northeast Washington. She felt betrayed that he had purchased a burial plot without having told her. Odder still that he died so quickly without saying goodbye. She looks at the phone again, wondering when the next sympathy call was going to come through. She lets it ring once more before picking it up. "Agent Scully?" Walter Skinner. His voice is unmistakably brusque. No sympathy there. "Yes Sir?" She answers just as briskly. Her voice sounds suitably detached. "Sir?" "I didn't see you at the funeral today." Trust Skinner to never beat around the bush. "That's because I wasn't there." She pauses, hearing the disrespect in her reply and amended, "I'm still working on the case, Sir." "I've just read Detective Mann's report, Agent Scully. He filed a dissimiliar report with his precinct. One which cast doubt to yours." Skinner's voice was cautious. "Is there something else you want to tell me?" "What was dissimiliar?" A sigh. "He wasn't aiming at Agent Mulder. He was aiming at something that was about to grab Mr. Wendt from behind. Agent Mulder got in the way because he pushed the intended victim out of harm's way." "Isn't that what I reported?" "All except for the intended target." "Did he say what it was?" "He said it was a person." "I didn't witness any person other than the four of us, Sir." "Are you saying you saw something else =other= than a person, Agent Scully?" "I don't have an answer to that question. Sir." She says then catches herself. Deja-vu. "Agent Scully," there's a tiptoey timbre in his voice, "Are you--" "I'm holding up." She replies automatically. "I'm a little surprised, myself." "Get some sleep tonight. Call if you need anything, Agent." "Yes. Thank you, Sir. I'll be fine." She says before re- placing the phone on its cradle. She walks into the bathroom to scrub off the thin film of makeup on her face. Makeup she doesn't remember putting on this morning. What she had for breakfast, or how she drove herself to the office. She had gone back to the basement to type up that report and basically milled about the office looking at Mulder's books on Angels and Demons, leafing through the thesaurus to see if she could find another word to substitute Grim Reaper, Lucifer, Ghost, Gabriel or Winged Messanger. Weren't they analogous to spirits, and demons? But she did her job. Typed up that report. Went through the toxico- logical reports a couple more times. She decided to bring back the entire casefile to see if there was anything else she had missed. The ominious pile is sitting on the coffee table mocking her lethargy. Mocking her gullibility. The phone rings again, but this time, she lets the answering machine pick it instead. Frohike's voice sounds more mechanical than hers. He sounded drunk, his words slurry and shell-shocked. Shit, he sounded like he was crying. Crying for a lost friend. Again. Even Frohike is crying. Crying salty tears. Why sea water? How could that possibly get into the coffin? The lamest theory Mulder had admitted to having. She looks into the mirror at her reflection, at the tired eyes staring back. Tired and dry. Not a tear. She had underestimated herself, her iron strength after the EMTs had pronounced Mulder dead at 11:59 pm two nights ago. She still can't believe it. She blinks at the woman in the mirror and she blinks back. She looks down to her lips and she entertains a vague feeling her reflection does the same. Then she returns to her eyes. They say the eyes are a window to one's soul. And she had caught a glimpse of Mulder's when he had asked if she believes that when a person grieves deeply, he dies a little? "See, Mulder? I was paying attention." She says aloud. Her eyes are very blue. Just like her father's. She stares into the woman in the mirror and something changes fractionally. The woman in the mirror rolls her blue eyes to her right. Scully blinks back her surprise, squeezing her lids shut, before opening them once more. Her. The angel. Or demon. "Who?" she manages in a hoarse voice. She is the same watery figure from the cemetary. The bathroom light bathes her with a sanctimonious glow. She is old, wizened, and wrinkled beyond belief. Her hair is long and dark, and her eyes are very sunken; pupils large. The whites of her eyes are tinged yellow and her teeth match their sulphuric chroma. She is wearing clothes which aren't familiar. A wraparound sarong but it's wet, so it clings to her papery skin. She looks incredibly dead. Mummifed. Yet she speaks. "My name is Hung." her parched lips open and close like a poorly dubbed foreign movie, not synching very well. She is both frightful to look at and fearsome to gaze into yet Scully couldn't look anywhere else. Her lips move and she entreats, "I can help you." "How?" "Give me." "What do you want?" "Your grief." "Why? How?" "You want him back, don't you?" The jarring noise breaks the spiritual connection and once again, Dana Scully stares back, defiant, and squinting slightly, at her own confused reflection. ***** 21 April 1999 3 days after Mulder's death At the Lone Gunmen's 7:28am "That just doesn't cut any mustard, Langley." Byers scowled. Byers continues tapping away at his computer. Langley was alternatively watching Byers and reading an old issue of The Lone Gunmen. Frohike was stretched out on the couch, eyes closed and fingers entwined over his stomach. "Are you sure it's not another one of those deep undercover assignments they're on?" Byers' fingers stopped their tap-tap-tapping and reasoned. "Scully didn't return our phone calls, and I don't trust Skinner's version of the truth." Frohike merely grunted. "How can we be sure?" Byers shakes his head. "If you had wanted to be sure, you should have gone for his funeral yesterday." Frohike says snittily. "That could still be someone else in the coffin." the bearded man turns around to face his comrades. "You wanna fuckin' dig him out to check?" This time Frohike spits all the venom out. The sound of fans whirring in the computers' CPU pro- vided background noise. The two men are too astounded to react. "Oh crud. I didn't mean--." Frohike blinked his apologies, and his friends granted him their understanding. "I just need some air." When the heavy door was opened, they heard him exclaim with unrestrained emotion, "Scully? Jee-sus, you're freezing!" "How long has she been here?" Langley starts pulling her arms to set her upright. She was wearing a green suede jacket over a turtle neck shirt. She wore khakis that were tapered to the shape of her legs. His companions scramble over to help pull the woman up and onto the couch. She is pale, her eyes are bloodshot and her hair is wild and tangled. Her lips are parched and her teeth are chattering. She looks exhausted, dehydrated, and completely alone. They bring her a clean blanket and a small glass of hot tea. A minute later, she reaches for the drink. "Scully?" Frohike is gentle, but his worry lines creased valleys in his already hollowed-out cheeks. "Come on, you need to warm up. What were you doing camping outside our door?" "Your buzzer is on the fritz." No need to prolong the mystery. She takes another sip before falling back on the cushions. "I need to consult you on something important... something that concerns Agent Mulder." The three of them exchange glances but she catches their question even as they communicated it in silence. "Mulder may not be dead." ***** Fifty minutes later, Scully sits up, pushing the blankets off her with every intention of leaving the Lone Gunmen's Office to find someone else who will listen to her. Believe her. "Just look it up." Scully looks as exasperated as she sounds. Langley humours her and punches into the Vietnam's Veterans of America online search engine. The name Lawrence J. Whittaker, Lt. Colonel blips on screen. A younger version, dark rimmed glasses frames his chiselled face. Dark hair, light brown eyes, a neatly trimmed beard. Ist Infantry Division. Chapter 118, Seattle. Posted to Hanoi in February 1969. When the information is forthcoming, Frohike reads aloud, "Vietnam Daily newspaper Nhan Dan has a 1975 article listing an officer POW-ed from 1969 to 1975 by the Vietcong in Northern Laos.... Vietnam Casualty Search listed him as missing in action until his sudden return to the United States where he died from exposure as a homeless in Seattle a year later. Married, no children." "He was married to our first victim. Paige Whittaker. This was what I had read from the files the detective in charge had." She says, gesturing to the image on screen. "Mulder was right. There's something in the first case we're missing. A link. What did he do from 1975 till 1982? I need you to help me find out." "Scully." Byers shakes his head as he had done throughout her rationalization, "But even if what you say about this first victim is true, your scientific theory won't hold a drop of water; it's a mixture of fantasy and alchemy." But she is determined to believe. "What is sea water?" She straightens up and regards them coolly. "It's contains 84 mineral elements. Same as the 84 in our bodies. a coincidence? 24 of the 84 are essential to life." "What you're positing is that the victims died from a severe electrolyte imbalance." Byers confirms. "And electrolytes are minerals that, when dissolved in the body's fluid becomes electrically charged, right?" Langley adds helpfully. "Now sodium regulates fluid in and out of individual cells," she says excitedly, "classified as an electolyte, sodium sparks nerve impulses, maintains body's alkali/ acid imbalance. So when this spirit touched its victims, it caused a neural short-circuit. Severe enough to stop the heart and shut down the brain." Scully forges towards her goal. "And what you're saying is that these dying spouses could have been saved if the EMTs had been there pronto?" Frohike muses, scratching the three-day old stubble on his cheek. "But even if it were true," Byers interrupts quietly, "Mulder wasn't its victim. He died from a gun shot wound. Through the heart." "I know," Scully murmurs, trying to find the right words to say without sounding like a spigging lunatic. That particular memory is seared in her mind for all eternity. The three of them watch her carefully. "She said she could give him back to me." "Who said?" Frohike asks, his curiosity tented. "Hung." "Who?" "I don't know." She whimpers, lost. Langley exchanges another glance at Byers then catches Frohike's crestfallen expression. Byers pulls her back down onto the sofa and crouches down. He looks up at her and smiles wanly. "Scully. He's gone." Byers caught her elbow and gently rubbed along her arm. " And there's nothing you or any of us can do about it. I'm sorry." "He's not dead." She replies fiercely for someone whose face registers ambivalence. "For the first time, I'm entertaining extreme scientific and paranormal possibilities. I can't explain to you what I feel, or why I feel this is true, but it is. I'm not giving up." With that, she pushes past the lone gunmen and wends her way around the computers and out the front door. "And I'm going to prove it to you, with or without your help." was the last thing she says before the front door slams neatly into the autolock. end 4/5 Title: Doli Incapax (5/5) Author: Shirlock Rating: Creepy/ A few expletives I wouldn't like any young person to think it's okay to use. Category: X/ MSR/ UST Spoilers: Various Disclaimers: In Part 1. Feedback: Is the virtual cash that rings my register! shirlock@pacific.net.sg Dedicated to: Moses, my late husband who had told me to live even as he lay dying. =================================================================== "Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot." - Book of Exodus 21:23 "Greater love hath no man this this; that a man lay down his life for his friends. - NT Luke 15:3 ***** 21 April 1999 Same day 10:53 pm Mount Olivet Cemetary The moon is hung like a picture frame, a little too high and seemingly off-centre to the rest of the landscape. The National Arboretum is right across an exposed culvert which inevitably empties into the Anacostia River. She could smell the crab apple blossoms from where her car is parked. Mount Hamilton is an excellent final resting place even if it wasn't going to be Mulder's. The small white chapel without a tell-tale cross nor spire sits quaintly in the midground between the boxwood perrenials and the protruding headstones. A dusty moth flies drunkenly from the street lamp, plunging into the treated glass of her windshield with a fluttery thud. She watches it clamber about on six legs, going in larger and larger circles until it vanishes onto the roof of her vehicle, only to land once more, trying to get closer to the light inside her car. The night air has a dimension to it, almost as if time could be draped across a struck elm like Dali's melting watches, allowing the long dead to climb out of their caskets and peruse the surrounding calm. A metallic twitter from her jacket on the seat startles her. "Scully." "Agent Scully. Detective Mann. I got some information for you. Where are you now?" "I'm at Mount Olivet." "What are you doing there?" "I'm testing a theory." "Whose?" "Ours. Agent Mulder's and mine." She could hear him fidget in the distinctive vinyl chairs all police stations can never do without. "You called this morning asking me to look into the first victim's family. Specifically the husband who died and was buried out in Seattle-- Lawrence J. Whittaker? I was lucky to find someone who knew him when they were serving the Vietnam War--Second Lieutenant--Vincent Morehouse. He was one of fifteen Americans who were captured by the Vietcong, including Whittaker." "They were held captive for six years."She scans her surroundings. "Right?" "Tortured throughout those six years until their captors were gunned down by US Navy Seals in a top secret maneouver at Site 85. Ever heard of the Tet Offensive? All I was told was eleven out of the fifteen survived. Lawrence Whittaker was last known to be heading towards Hanoi but he never made it there." "He was recaptured?" "No. He remarried." Excited that her reasoning was sound so far, she asks if she was Vietnamese. "As local as local gets apparently. Her father owned a piece of land near Phu Tho. It's a small town. Her name is," papers are shuffled about, "Nguyen Chinh Hung. Though I'm fairly certain my pronounciation is off." "Hung." Scully breathes softly, the remaining pieces of the puzzle few and far between. "Is she dead?" "Well, I never asked." "Can you find out? It's very important, Detective. This small town...is it near the sea?" "Miles away. It's in the mountainous region of Ailao Shan." Mountainous region, her mind whirred. "Did you hear me, Agent Scully?" "Yes, I did " She stammers into the phone, "t...thank you for everything, Detective." "Are you alone, Agent Scully?" The notion frightens her more than she believes. She says nothing because at that precise moment she felt her hairs on her neck prickle against the rising of goose flesh. Alone in the flesh but not alone with the dead. She looks once, very quickly in the mirror, and sees Death's long digits reaching towards her. "Agent Scully? Agent Scul--"she drops the phone and runs into the abyss of the Stygian darkness. ***** Enroute Interstate Highway 50 11: 29 pm "Hey I'm not your squidgey, Byers." Frohike says reluctantly. " But the answer to your question is yes, I remembered to bring it." "Tetchy, tetchy." Langley replies callously, his long mane whipping in the wind. "Shuddup, you Norse freak." The gear shifts with a loud resistance as the old van guns a black cloud of exhaust onto the grimy asphalt. "Look, we're not a fucking ambulance." Frohike says with unveiled contempt. "What do you need all this equipment for?" "What if...what if Mulder isn't dead?" Byers says, eyes pinned onto the large exit signs. "So you're gonna defibrillate him into life, stick a saline IV drip in his arm and wheel him home? It's bollocks. You, of all people--" "Look, I'm not doing it for me. I'm doing it for Mulder and Scully. If it's nothing, I'll pay for the gas and we get a nice trip to the arboretum. " "And if it's something," Langley interrupts, "do we even want to touch him, let alone, resusitate him?" Byers turns to face him briefly before turning back to the nearly deserted roads. Quietly, he says "that's why I asked Frohike if he remembered to bring the machete." ***** There is a sound coming from the ground. Dana Scully scurries onto her hands and feet behind the marmoreal slabs, expecting the long bony hands to telescope out of her car to choke her. The ground is clammy and the smell of putrid, festering mulch wafts from behind the groundkeeper's shed. She pants white billowy clouds of condensation, crawling towards the source of the noise. It is the last grave in the fifth row. She fights the urge not to throw up as her senses are bathed with the earthy smells of life and death. A shovel sticking out of the ground reminds her that her partner was recently buried. The epithet reads Fox William Mulder. 1961-1999. Recently dead. Shot. The eulogy was painfully short, but there were people who turned up to pay their last respects. His mother. Skinner. Even Kersh. They all believed he had died. Why can't she? ...Help. Someone. Help me. "Mulder?" She finds the burial plot and pushes her ear to the ground, angry for being so hopeful, and angry for not wanting to believe. Help. Please. "Mulder? Is that you?" She shouts into the turned soil. ...Scully. Help me. "Hang on, Mulder." She grabs the shovel and starts excavating furiously, tossing the clumps of soil onto the side, her goal nearly 6 feet below the ground. "I'm coming!" Half an hour later, with dirt streaks across her face and perspiration pouring down her cheeks, she rams into something hard. She drops the shovel and uses her hands to swipe away the dirt on top of the coffin. "Mulder?" A thousand fears run alpabetically through her mind. Black arts, satanist rituals, wicca, all through zombies. What is she going to find inside? "Scully. Help me out." His voice is stronger, louder and she gropes around for the shovel once more. He encourages her by pounding on the inside. "Give me." Scully freezes. The shimmering figure is right behind her. Very cautiously, her head pivots to see the angel. Her eyes were bright, angry little dots of red lights. "Your pain. Your grief. I gave him back to you." She was a mirage of standing water, both real and surreal. "I..I..." Hung holds out a watery glove and touches the agent's shoulder. The light in the angel's countenance floods the cemetary, stabbing clear lights of twinkling amber explodes in a spectrum of yellows and reds, mingling with the spear heading lights of a Volkwagon van. Followed by a Ford Explorer hot on its tracks. "Shit!" Byers shouts as he steers the car onto the mud- slicked grassland, watching the light envelop the falling figure of the agent even as his friends stare dumbfounded at the angel of mercy newly transformed. A spectre of pure evil. The sensation of dread and doom cling onto the individual strand of their hair follicles. It disappeared at a batting of an eyelash. Into ground or air, no one can be certain. "I'll never play dungeons and dragons as long as I live," Langley mutters. They dragged their medical equipment out and Langley was left to take the machete and toolbox. The burly figure of Detective Mann stops in mid-stride at the sound of a voice. "Help me, Scully!" Mulder continues to pound. "Holy shit. Mulder's alive?" Greg Mann breaks out into a run and joins the trio at the gravesite. "Where's Agent Scully?" "We're here, Mulder." Langley uses the machete to pry off the lid while Byers and Frohike hover over the still form of Scully. "No pulse." Byers says. "Begin CPR." Frohike lays a hand on Byers, "we need to jumpstart her heart now." "I'll call an ambulance." The detective sprints back towards his vehicle. The two of them exchange glances and move to place the medical equipment next to her just as Langley manages to loosen the last nail on the lid. "Whad'ya know, I'm fuckin' digging Mulder's grave." he says humourlessly. "Mulder better NOT be dead." When the lid was off, Mulder reached out and grabbed the hand offered to him, suprised by its strength and texture. His eyes adjust to the austere black frames and focuses on a cascading halo of straw around his head. "It is you, isn't it, Mulder?"Langley asks. "No, it's the tooth fairy. Who'd you think?" He looks about, understanding at once just where the hell he had been holed up. "Shit." He looks down at himself. He was either dressed for dinner at The Ritz or under these telling circumstances, a funeral. Very likely, his. The back of his pants and suit were soaked. He looked down at the coffin to find the same one centimeter of sea water in it. His mind couldn't keep up with the events which unfolded before him. His partner had been trying to dig him out of his grave. This would have to be Mount Olivet. But why was Scully lying on the ground with Byers and Frohike trying to undress her? While Byers and Frohike had managed to be gentlemenly about loosening the buttons on Scully's blouse without ripping them out, they suddenly halted all movements. Her creamy torso was moonbathed by the crystal orb; they were entranced. As they noticed the absence of rise-and- fall of her chest, they snapped back to reality. "Epinephrine," Byers barks to Frohike who hands him a syringe as Mulder looks on. "Charge up the defib pads, Langley." "Mulder, are you okay?" Frohike gives him a quick glance to see the tall agent nod. "Good, feel like breathing for two?" Byers asks, as he shrugs out of his jacket. Mulder drops to his knees understanding immediately the urgency of his participation. He latched his mouth onto hers, blowing air down her lungs, forcing her to come back, come back from wherever she was. "We've got to dry her up. She's soaked to the skin. They might short out the pads." Byers hesitates, looking over to Frohike, then to Langley. "Mulder?" "Do it." Mulder says between puffs. Byers comply, releasing the catch at the cusp of her breasts, glad that she wore those front clasps rather than those in the back. Taking off his shirt, he wipes off the stray droplets of water from her chest, swollow- ing as he performs his task. "How many minutes?"he pulls his jacket back over his bare shoulders. "Under six." "Ready." Langley calls. "Clear!" The pads shock her limp body off the ground. Byers reaches out for a pulse, but still nothing. "Wait, wait." Frohike stops to collect his thoughts, "Scully told us that the electrolyte imbalance could be caused by too little sodium. When sodium levels are too low, water intoxication develops. Where the lack of sodium outside cells allows water to move from blood to cells. We need to rehydrate her. The saline drip." "No. Not the saline." Byers says "The Lactating Ringers Solution. It's isotonic and contains bicarbonate which counteracts the acidotic condition while rehydrating. We can administer a small dosage in a syringe first." "You're not a doctor, Byers." Frohike says, wishing with all his heart that Byers was. "I know. But Scully is." The bearded man smiles sadly, "she told me to use the LRS if the defibrillators can't start her heart beating again." "You mean," Langley begins, stuttering incre- dulously, "you mean, she knew =this= was going to happen? Shiiiiiit." "How many minutes?" Mulder worries aloud. "Under eight." Langley replies, his face freshly devoid of any other emotion except determination, "Clear!" Once again, her body receives the shock designed to reanimate her heart. "Comeoncomeoncomeon, Scully...don't do this." "Mulder. She's gone." Byers says, seconds after failing to find a pulse. He takes Frohike's jacket and drapes it over her small body. The words flitter into the breeze like the jargon they had used earlier, all meaningless. They stand, watching helplessly as the man before them leans over the shell of her body. "She's not dead...she can't be." The three men turn away, awed by the incredulity that both Mulder and Scully possess the same convictions. Even though they are different, they both had the one thing that fuelled the disparaging natures of their beliefs. Love. Unadulterated, unspoken, and unconditional love for one another. And for everything they did together. It was heartbreaking to watch their friend die another death so soon after he was rescued, but there was no need for false bravados. His long fingers strokes her cheek, knowing she was party to giving him back his life, and for believing in him to go thus far. He lifts his head to stare into the sky, tears pooling in his eyes, watching the pinpoints of light starburst. He looks down once more as the familiar wail of sirens destroy the sanctity of the place. He stares at her individual features. Her crowning glory of red, matted to her skull. Her closed eyes. The stray droplets of water which joins together to form a rivulet of salty tears that caress its way down her cheeks. He watches mesmerized, whispering the words he knew she would want to hear. But more importantly, words he had needed to say. "Scully...love has the power to overcome death. Love has always been our answer. I am alive..." Like a woman bursting out of the surface of a placid lake, she breathes in the deepest breath of life, jolting forward and clinging onto whatever will hold her up from the drowning waters, regurgitating water that had filled her lungs. Mulder envelops her in his arms, and this time, she cries with an abandon she is no longer ashamed of. "We're alive." is all Mulder says. end 5/5 Epilogue FBI Case No. XF061299D-D105 Investigated by: SA Fox Mulder, SA Dana Scully, Dt. Gregory Mann Report by F.W. Mulder SAIC: W. Skinner ***** Dated: 2 May 1999 Case summary: Is there science in paranormal cases where truth can be discovered under a microscope? Or can psychological illness contribute to psychic phenomenon? The mystery of the dying spouses prove the instance where our limits to understand the truth is only as restricted as our interest in keeping those lines firmly drawn. Agent Dana Scully was hospitalised in Kenilworth Medical Center from 21-24 April 1999. They found evidence of sea water in her lungs, with a high natural salt content. She had suffered a circulatory collapse possibly due to pulmonary edema. She was unresponsive for a total of 8 mins 15 seconds, but had CPR performed on her before being defibrillated twice. Her recovery is deemed satis- factory and was released after her body fluids had returned to normal. Detective Greg Mann had managed to recruit a Vietnamese translator working with the office of War Veterans to locate the family of Nguyen Chinh Hung. While not wanting to comment on Lt. Colonel Lawrence J Whittaker's sudden disappearance in 1982, they disclosed the manner of madness their daughter had disintegrated into from that time onwards. She suffered an onslaught of mental illnesses, finally succumbing to physical violence, threatening suicide on two separate occasions. She disappeared on the night of 15th March 1982, and was never heard of, or from again. The family's chief source of income comes from the family-owned salt mines, land inherited along the hilly foothills of Ailao shan in the Bac Phan province. From their narrative, they had mentioned that there is a subterranean salt lake in the caves where their salt mines are. Three days ago, after persuading the family to drag the 2 sq kilometer long briny lake, they found the body of Nguyen Chinh Hung intact and preserved, with a bullet wound in the chest. As for my own mortal flesh wound, while science cannot fully explain the absence of the bullet or any subsequent damage which took my life, we can base the extraordinary events purely on reasonable conjecture. That Nyugen Chinh Hung, suffered from what the early romans called doli incapax--the inability to grieve. Whatever Lawrence Whittaker's reasons for leaving her were, he left an emotionally damaged and confused woman, who managed to cross physical, mental, psychic and spiritual boundaries by being submerged in a salt lake for over 17 years. Appear- ing as visions of angels and demons, I believe the salt that preserved her body, enabled her to cross dimensions, reani- mating life or destroying those with a single touch. What is NaCl? Natural sodium chloride which preserves, heals, and destroys from the amount it is administered. Love had turned into hatred, fuelled by despair and excru- ciating grief, lying in wait only resurfacing to destroy those who have what she once had. The family of the late Nguyen Chinh Hung has finally laid her to rest early this morning, at 1 pm, EST, crema- ting the body and scattering her ashes into the South China Sea. End.