textfiles/sf/XFILES/twl7

This story is PG 13 for some adult situations.  There is a somewhat 
steamy, (though NOT explicit,) dream encounter between Mulder 
and Scully, so if that sort of thing gives you fits - even as a dream - 
you can skip that part.  This is not a "romance" in the accepted sense, 
however, so please feel otherwise safe in proceeding.

Thank you to Tish Sears for all the editing help!

Comments welcome, critique encouraged, flames humbly accepted.

"Those Who Love" is posted in seven parts, all parts posted on 
September 5, 1995.

Fox Mulder, and Dana Scully are the property of Ten Thirteen 
Productions, lovingly borrowed without permission, and without 
any intent to infringe, annoy or otherwise upset.  The rest of the 
characters are mine.

*****************************************************
THOSE WHO LOVE - Part 7

	Finally calling it quits, the agents grabbed a quick supper, 
then headed back to the motel.  Scully knew that Mulder was wired 
and wanted to talk, but she was frankly beat, and suddenly a little 
unnerved over the events of the last few days.  Finding Hendricksen's 
body, and the attendant confusion that followed, had sufficiently 
subdued the memory of her dream the night before, and her vision in 
the upper story of the Colter house, but now that night had fallen, 
she found herself remembering, and she wanted to be alone to think.  
Besides that, what little sleep she had gotten the night before had not 
been very restful.  She bid him goodnight at her door, and got ready 
for bed. Despite her weariness though, sleep was a long time in 
coming, and it was troubled when she finally did manage to drift off.
	She dreamed, again, of the Colter homestead.  Even as the 
dream rose up before her, some rational sense in her conscious mind 
acknowledged that she should not be too surprised at that; the place 
had been heavy on her mind, and her activities all day.  Like a visitor, 
her awareness approached the house from the road, moving up the 
now mowed lawn, toward the front door, around to the back, 
opened, and went inside.  That piece of her conscious mind that was 
still aware smiled wryly; she could not have had this dream the night 
before, of course, because she had not yet been inside.
	Like a ghost, she drifted through the passageway, and saw the 
herbs hanging from the wooden pegs that Mulder had pointed out.  
Somehow she knew they had been drying there all winter, and that 
the supply was now almost depleted.  She passed into the kitchen, 
and was aware, even though she could not really smell them, of the 
aromas of hot, savory food cooking.  And the sweet, decaying smell 
of terminal illness.  Scully's dream sense lead her to the room behind 
the fireplace.   The horror hit her almost as soon as she passed 
through the door.
	The airless, windowless room was lit only by a single oil 
lamp.  Jeremiah Colter lay on a narrow bed, pushed up against the 
wall of the room.  His face was white, and covered with livid pox.   
His breathing was shallow, stuttering, and Scully knew he was not 
long for the world.  He was delirious, now, barely conscious, and 
beyond suffering.  That had not been the case earlier, and Scully was 
aware of the ravages of fever, of the horrible irritation of the pox, of 
the headache, muscle cramps and thirst that had tormented Jeremiah 
up until the day before.
	Beside him sat Catherine Hewlett.  No longer the fresh-faced 
buxom girl she had seen in her dream the night before, Scully saw 
that Catherine had lost weight, that her rosy complexion was wan, 
now, and sagging with weariness and despair.  Her once shiny black 
hair was dull, and simply bound at the back of her neck by a cord.  
And Scully could also see what Catherine did not yet know, that the 
girl herself had contracted small pox from her fiance, and would be 
dead, herself, within weeks.  
	Catherine was alone in the house, except for Jeremiah.  It was 
spring, and spring planting could not wait on the dying.  As could not 
the meal cooking in the next room; the men would be back from the 
fields in a matter of hours, and would need that fuel.  Scully 
recognized sulfur burning in a bucket, which she knew had been 
believed to purify "putrid air," and a few salves and ointments, but 
there was nothing in the room that she would have identified as 
particularly effective in treating disease.  She also recognized the 
cutting fleam and brass bleeding bowl for the inevitable bloodletting 
that she had read about, and seen examples of, in her medical 
training, but had never really wanted to acknowledge were actually 
used.  Scully shook her head, and considered the miracle of anyone 
surviving the medical practices of that day.  She considered further 
and it occurred to her that the real miracle lay in the fact that 
*anyone* survived a small pox epidemic, what with the dead and 
dying left so close to the living, to their quarters and their food.
	For all of that, however, Scully was most struck by the 
sudden realization that Catherine had done well, in nursing Jeremiah, 
that she had done all that was humanly possible under the 
circumstances, and that, had she lived in another time, the girl would 
have made one hell of a doctor.  She had good instincts and a 
genuine talent for healing the sick.  Scully knew that the girl had 
fought strenuously against the barbaric, naive practices of the day, 
had refused to have Jeremiah bled, had thrown away the heavy 
blankets that made him sweat and caused the pox to itch and ooze 
unbearably.  She had concocted drying poultices from the herbs 
hanging in the passageway, and had watched over him day and night.  
	Scully felt a strange affection for the girl, an affinity for who 
Catherine Hewlett might have been. With a heartbreaking sense of 
shock, Scully realized that, had he been less weak from his overland 
journey from the prisoner-of-war encampment on Long Island, 
Jeremiah Colter would probably have survived his illness, given his 
fiance's watchful, and knowledgeable care.  But as it was, he was too 
ill, and too weak, and he would not survive.  And lacking the will to 
survive without him, neither would Catherine.
	A terrible, gloaming despair descended upon Scully, in her 
sleep, pressing on her chest, and making it difficult to draw a breath.  
She pitched restlessly, and almost awoke.  The dream faded, and 
nearly disappeared as she half sat up in semi- consciousness, and 
tossed her head.  Murmuring, she lay back down, and drew a deep 
shuddering breath.  Sleep closed over her again, and with it, the 
persistent dream returned.
	Scully saw herself standing in the yard, beside the house.  A 
terrible howl of agony, of grief, tore at her from inside, and she knew 
that Jeremiah was dead.  She could hear Catherine's screams of 
denial, saw the girl tear from the house and throw herself down into 
the yard.  Catherine wept for several minutes.  Then she stood up 
slowly and walked toward the middle of the yard, where an iron bar 
hung suspended from a tree limb.  She picked up a clapper and 
struck the bar several times, calling the others from the field.  Then 
turning, she looked around, as if unable to decide what to do next.  
She walked to the well.  Pulling the cover off, she gazed into the dark 
interior, and for a moment, Scully was afraid the girl would cast 
herself down. Catherine pulled a ring from her finger, the ring that 
Jeremiah had given her to symbolize their engagement, and threw it 
down into the bottom of the well.  She sank down onto the ground, 
and sobbed softly.  Even as she sat there weak with grief, Scully 
could also feel the fever burning in her, and knew that fever would be 
a full blown illness in a matter of days.  In less than two weeks, 
Catherine Hewlett would be dead.  The knowledge staggered her.
	Scully became aware of a shift, a change in point of view.  It 
was not as if she was suddenly transported, as she had been the other 
night, into the awareness of the dream.  Rather she suddenly realized 
that it was not a dream after all, not in the sense of it being a figment 
of her imagination.  She had not been not imagining Jeremiah Colter 
and Catherine Hewlett, she was being *shown*.  The girl on the 
ground by the well head was not a dream image, but a manifestation, 
and Scully knew that she was being told the true story of events, as 
they happened, by one who had been there.  Catherine Hewlett 
looked up, her eyes swollen from crying, and Scully felt a jolt as the 
girl's look went right through her.  She heard Catherine's words echo 
in her head:
	-  Look at me, know me, know who I am.  This is what comes 
of fearful denial.  This is what comes of complacent acceptance of 
society's rules.  See me.  Think of your own self, and consider *my* 
fate...



	Scully opened her eyes and sat up.  Her hands were shaking, 
and she was soaked with sweat.  She felt as if Catherine's own fever 
burned in her.  She got up and went into the bathroom, splashed cold 
water on her face.  She returned to bed, but sat up for a while, afraid 
to fall asleep again.  Nature prevailed, however, she was simply too 
tired, and she eventually fell asleep.
	And dreamed.  This time, however, the dream was benign.  
Merely a snap-shot of the Colter farm as she had visited it that day.  
Of the well.  The well upon which she had dreamed of Mulder, the 
well down which Catherine had thrown her ring.  The well, 
something about the well.  She felt as if Catherine was still there, in 
the background, trying to tell her something, trying to give her some 
gift.  To make her understand.  The well.  Something about the well.
	The dream faded, slowly, and Scully sank into oblivion.



	J. (Jamal) Gallagher never thought the day would come when 
he would be forced to live in his car, but that was exactly were he 
had spent the last twenty-four hours since he had shot and killed 
Leslie Hendricksen on the grounds of the Colter farm.
	Disposing of Hendricksen's car had not proved too difficult.  
The Cumberland marsh was a huge body of water.  It was also a 
watershed area, and so almost completely deserted.  It had been a 
simple enough processes to take the keys Hendricksen had left in the 
ignition, drive the sedan down one of the dirt public access roads to 
the water, release the hand brake, and let the car slide into the marsh. 
 
He had debated, as he watched the vehicle sink into the water, that 
perhaps he should have thrown Hendricksen's body into it after all, 
but it was too late for that, and anyway, there was no way he had 
been about to carry that mutilated and bleeding corpse all the way 
down to the road.  The body would just have to stay were it was, 
nobody was going to walking around up there, anyway.
	That had been his first miscalculation.  His second came with 
the realization, as he watched Hendricksen's car disappear into the 
murk, that he was six or seven miles away from his own vehicle, 
without any other means of transportation.  He was going to have to 
walk back.
	It took him hours, alternately walking, and hiding in ditches 
as the odd car came by, so when he arrived, dirty, foot sore and tired, 
back at his corvette, it was almost sunrise.  He needed to find 
somewhere he could get some sleep.  That's when his next problem 
occurred to him.  He had no place to go.
	He could not go back to his apartment in the city.  By now, 
his "bosses" would be looking for him, he should have checked in 
hours earlier.  There was bound to be someone sitting on his sofa at 
that moment, waiting for him to return.  Neither could he check into 
some motel, not in the state he was in.  He could have gotten into his 
car and just driven away, but he did not want to put too much 
distance between himself and the cocaine.  He thought about 
climbing back up the hill and simply retrieving it, but the truth was, 
he was exhausted.  He was a city boy, he was not used to the kind of 
physical effort he had exerted that night, and he had to rest, or he 
was going to collapse.  So he drove around until he found something 
that looked like a deserted side road going up into the woods, and 
drove up it until he was sure he was out of sight.  Then he dropped 
the seat back, and fell asleep.  
	He slept for close to eighteen hours.  When he finally awoke, 
it was pitch black outside, and he was starving.   He spent nearly an 
hour deliberating what to do. 
	He would go back to that farm and retrieve the cocaine, that 
much was clear.  He had been a fool to leave it.  Then he would drive 
west, and south, and try to contact some old friends of his near the 
New York boarder.  He knew people down there who would help 
him.  He was sure of that.  For a price, they would sell their own 
sisters.  And then it was drive straight through until he drove right 
into the Pacific Ocean, all the way to California.  That was the most 
distance he could put between himself and the Springfield mob.
	But first he needed to eat.  He put the Corvette in gear, and 
headed for the interstate, and an all night McDonald's he knew there.  
And that was where he learned of his forth, and perhaps most serious 
miscalculation.  Somebody had already found, and identified, 
Hendricksen's body.  He heard the two kids manning the drive-
through talking about it.
	"What's that?" he asked the boy who handed him his burger 
and fries.  "What are you talking about in there?"
	The kid just looked at him. 
	"Nothin'. Just another body found out at the Colter place, 
that's all," the boy replied.  "Fourth one.  Only this one had it's face 
blown off.  Couple of cops found it this morning.  Guy was some 
drug dealer."
	The kid shrugged.  Gallagher struggled to keep his 
composure, glad that it was night, and that his face was shadowed.  
He was sure his expression would give him away.
	"They have any idea who did it?" he asked, as he handed the 
kid a twenty.  The boy shook his head.
	"If they do, they ain't sayin'.  Just that it appears to be drug 
related, and may be a mob hit.  Beats me.  I would never have figured 
Cumberland to be anyplace the mob would bother with..."
	Gallagher had heard enough.  He threw the Corvette into gear 
and drove away quickly, leaving the baffled young man holding his 
change.
	He drove around in circles for hours.  The truth of the matter 
was, Gallagher was an amateur, little more than a school boy when it 
came to the real world of the drug trade.  He had never considered 
the fact that he might someday need to get away fast, and therefore 
had no plans.  Nor did he have the intestinal fortitude to deal 
rationally with his predicament.  He was terrified, and terror made 
him stupid.  He could not think what to do.  He knew only that he 
needed to retrieve that cocaine, as soon as he could, and get out of 
there.  Not only would he need it, now, to fund his get away, it was 
evidence against him with the cops, as well.  His fingerprints were 
bound to be all over that backpack.  He struggled to remember if he 
had touched Hendricksen's body.  He did not think he had, but he 
had certainly touched his car.  It would only be a matter of time, 
now, before the cops thought to drag the marsh for it.  He wondered 
if the swamp water would wash fingerprints away.
	He knew he needed to get the cocaine, but it was well into 
morning before he could work up the nerve to go back to the farm.  
He hated the idea of going back there during the light, but he also 
knew he could not wait another day.  He had to get it, and then he 
had to get out of there.  That was all there was to it.  
	As a precaution, he parked the Corvette in the woods some 
distance away.  Cursing his shortsightedness in throwing away his 
gun, he took the switchblade out of the glovebox of his car and 
shoved it in his pocket.  Of course, he would not need it, there would 
be no one there, but it made him feel better, having it.  He walked 
back, staying off the road as much as he could.  Blessedly, there was 
little traffic.



	"I want to go back there,"  Scully said over breakfast the next 
morning.  Mulder just looked at her in surprise.  
	"Why?" 
	"I'm not sure," Scully admitted, looking distressed.  "I just 
have a funny feeling about it."  She sighed.  "I had a dream last night, 
about that old well.  I can't figure it out.  But maybe I saw something, 
yesterday, that I didn't realize I was seeing, something that registered 
as important and is coming back to haunt my unconscious thought.  I 
just feel that I need to go back there, and look."
	Mulder smiled a little at her use of terminology, but he took 
the suggestion very seriously.  They both knew that such things 
happened; cases *were* occasionally solved because some bit of 
data, otherwise disregarded, was sorted into sense in the unconscious 
mind.  Some of his best inspirations came that way.
	"Okay," he agreed.  "Finish up, and we'll go."
	Scully tossed back her coffee and stood up.
	Laughing at her single-minded eagerness, Mulder signaled the 
waitress, and settled their bill.



	J. (Jamal) Gallagher struggled up the weed filled little hill. It 
amazed that he had been able to negotiate the nasty undergrowth at 
night, in the dark; there in the morning light he was barely able to get 
his feet in front of him for the tangle of brush and creepers.  He came 
up on the wrong side of the house, and could not see the well.  
Momentary panic took him, until he realized his error, and started 
around.
	He heard the voices, long before he saw the two people 
heading up the hill toward him, a man and a woman walking at a 
determined pace.  He struggled to control his panic, and tried to 
figure out what to do.  Creeping slowly around the house, he moved 
his body until he could just see the two of them coming up the hill.  
Cops, he knew they were cops, some street instinct told him, deep in 
his gut.  He truely cursed, now, whatever panic had caused him to 
throw his gun down that well.  He was virtually unarmed, and unable 
to defend himself.  Well, he still had his knife.  He patted it, in his 
pocket, then froze in place, and watched the agents as they headed 
toward the well.  



	Mulder watched Scully as she eyed the well, hanging back to 
give her room and mental space, trusting her instincts to bring her to 
whatever it was she remembered seeing.  He did not have long to 
wait.
	"Mulder, look at this."
	Coming to her side, Mulder looked where she was pointing.
	"That well cover's been moved.  Recently. See how the weeds 
are torn around it, but they're still green?"
	Mulder nodded, smiling at her in admiration.  He pulled a 
glove out of his pocket.
	"Let's have a look..."  
	Drawing carefully, he pulled the stone lid to one side.  Scully 
leaned over the well opening, ignoring a weird sense of deja vu that 
suddenly assailed her, and looked inside.  The air was cool, but dry; 
there was no water in the well.  Her eyes grew gradually accustomed 
to the darkness, and she saw the iron hook, and the straps hanging 
over it.
	"There."  She pointed, and Mulder reached in, grasping the 
straps and pulling the attached leather backpack out of the well.  He 
raised an eyebrow at her, then dropped the heavy pack onto the 
ground and unzipped it.  Reaching inside, he slowly removed a clear 
plastic bag filled with glittering white powder.  He looked at Scully 
and smiled.
	"Very good, Agent Scully," he praised, meaning it.  Scully 
smiled.
	"What do you want to bet there's a murder weapon sitting at 
the bottom of that well, too?" she suggested.  Mulder nodded in 
agreement as he stuffed the bag of cocaine back into the backpack 
and zipped it closed.
	"What do you guess this stuff is worth?" he asked.
	Scully was about to offer speculation on the answer when a 
crash behind them made them jump and turn.



	Gallagher did not wait until the agents had the well cover off 
before he sought more secure refuge.  Creeping slowly back, he 
moved along the back side of the house, until he found a hatchway 
leading to the basement.  He pulled slowly, and the rotten wood 
easily gave way.  He slipped through the opening, somehow feeling 
secure that, once inside, he would be safer than while out of doors.  
Naive, perhaps, and foolish, but to a man raised in the city, indoors 
was safer than out in the woods.  Gallagher dropped to the basement 
floor, and was immediately engulfed in darkness.  He had dropped 
through a coal shoot.  Cursing under his breath, he stumbled across 
the floor, and tried to adjust his eyes to the dim light that filtered 
through one or two small basement windows.  His eyes did not 
adjust in time, however, for him to miss colliding with the small 
tower of old milking cans and buckets.  The whole thing down with a 
loud crash.



	"What the hell was that?" Mulder demanded.
	Scully put her hand up to stem further questions, and they 
both strained to listen.   There was another sound of crashing.
	"It came from inside the house.  Someone's in there."
	Mulder nodded, and drew his weapon.  He still had 
Bowman's key, and, with Scully beside him with her weapon drawn, 
he unlocked the side door and the two of them went inside.  Mulder 
gestured Scully back toward the rear of the house.  He moved toward 
the front. 
	Scully stepped carefully into the large kitchen.  The bare 
room had few places to hide, and it took her only moments to check 
those places, including the fireplace flu, and she thought, almost 
smiling, the small bread ovens.  Well, one never knew.  She raised 
her weapon, and counted three, then ducked around the corner into 
the borning room.  Empty, and she was too pre-occupied to even 
remember how she had dreamed of Jeremiah's last moments in it, the 
night before.  Coming out again, she passed through the hallway into 
the modern kitchen at the far rear of the house.  She was so intent on 
her destination that she did not see the man pressed back in the 
shadows of the alcove leading to the basement stairs.  She never 
knew what hit her, when Gallagher brought the board down on her 
head from behind.  Her gun went skidding out of sight, into a split 
between the floor boards, as she sank to the floor.  Gallagher tried to 
reach it, could not, and cursed his luck again.  He took a deep breath, 
and moved slowly toward the sounds coming from the front room. 



	Mulder moved through the front parlor slowly, carefully, 
weapon at ready, but there was little need.  The small front rooms of 
the house were completely bare, no cabinetry, no closets, no place to 
hide.  He glanced up the chimney in the room where the fireplace 
was still open, but there was nothing to see.  He was looking up the 
stairs toward the second floor when a movement caught him out of 
the corner of his eye and he turned his head just in time to see 
Gallagher careening toward him.  
	He did not have time to react before the other man caught 
him in the chest, sending his gun flying, and bringing him to the 
floor.  Mulder grunted, and rolled, getting himself free of Gallagher, 
and sitting up quickly.  He just spotted his gun as Gallagher's fist 
connected with his jaw.  Rolling away, he braced himself  for 
Gallagher's pounce, and when it came, caught the other man in the 
belly with his knee, and sent him flying over his head, and down.  
	Struggling to orient himself, Mulder stood up shakily.  He 
heard the soft "shick" sound of the switchblade opening before he 
saw the knife gleaming in Gallagher's hand.  He saw that his gun was 
too far away to reach, and looked around for another weapon as 
Gallagher struggled to his feet again.  His eyes fell on the small pile 
of 
loose bricks, just two or three, that lay on the floor by the hearth, and 
he dove for one, but two late.  Gallagher launched himself at Mulder 
once more, the momentum carrying them both across the room.  
They crashed into the wall and fell to the floor, Gallagher sitting on 
Mulder's chest.  He hit him in the jaw hard, once, twice, Mulder was 
nearly unconscious, and totally unable to help himself as the third 
blow fell and knocked him senseless.  Gallagher raised his knife.
	In the back kitchen, Scully struggled to her feet.  Rubbing the 
bruised spot on the back of her head, she looked around quickly for 
her missing gun, then raced forward into the front of the house 
without it, drawn by the urgency of the sounds coming from the 
rooms there.  She came through the doorway just in time to see 
Gallagher's knife plunging toward Mulder's heart.
	It happened as if in slow motion, like some bad movie 
technique meant to create suspense.  The knife descended, and 
Scully screamed.  And then she saw her, saw Catherine Hewlett 
standing by the fireplace, saw her stoop and pick up the brick.  Saw 
the brick fly through the air and hit Gallagher in the side of the head. 
 
Saw Gallagher fall to one side, his knife dropping away, useless.
	Scully stared at the ghost of Catherine Hewlett.  The dark 
haired beauty merely nodded.  She gestured at Mulder.  Scully 
looked back at her partner, stirring helplessly on the floor.  She 
rushed to his side, taking only a moment only to slam cuffs on 
Gallagher, and haul his body out of the way.  She dropped to her 
knees beside Mulder, and took his face in both her hands.
	" 'M all right," he mumbled blearily.  She shushed him, and 
examined the bruises on his head and face.  Nothing seemed too 
serious.
	Scully was breathing hard, and although she did not realize it, 
tears streamed down her face.  So close, bare fractions of a second 
and Mulder would have been dead.  She looked back to the place 
where she had seen Catherine Hewlett, and was astonished to see the 
ghost still standing there, nodding serenely.  She pulled Mulder 
closer, resting his upper body in her lap.  The ghost nodded gently.
	- Remember me, a voice said in Scully's head, a voice she 
"recognized" as Catherine's.  - Think about who you are and what 
you want, and remember me.  Know thyself, Dana Scully.  Don't be 
afraid to reach into your heart, no matter what the consequences.  
Remember *my* fate, and don't let my fate become yours.
	And Catherine Hewlett disappeared.
	Scully let out a short, stunned breath.  She pulled Mulder 
closer still, and cradled his head against her chest.  He stirred weakly 
as she stroked his hair.  Then she wrapped both arms around him, 
and pressed her face against the top of his head.


EPILOGUE

	When Chief Rydell finally arrived on the scene to pick up the 
assailant, he seemed wholly pleased by what he found.  He told 
Mulder that the man's name was Jamal Gallagher, and that he was 
known to be a front man for the Springfield, Massachusetts, mob.  If 
they could break the man into confessing, which was something 
about which Rydell seemed assured, he would provide a significant 
link to his bosses.  Mulder left Rydell and his men to take Gallagher 
away, and went to look for Scully, who had wandered off after she 
had bandaged his forehead.  He found her in the yard on the other 
side of the house, squatting down in the tall weeds.
	"Scully.  What are you looking at?"
	He leaned down and looked over her shoulder.  She had 
parted the grass, and was gazing down at an upright fieldstone 
marker.  He could barely make out the words carved there, worn as 
they were by time:  Catherine Hewlett.
	"You found her grave?"
	Scully nodded and stood up.
	"Yeah."  she exhaled softly.  "It was right where Bowman 
said it would be."  She hugged her arms, and looked down at the 
stone.  Mulder nodded.
	"I just talked to Bowman, he came up with the cops.  The 
man must live by his scanner.  I don't suppose this town has seen this 
much excitement in years,"  Mulder said.  "Anyway, he told me that 
the Cumberland County Historical Society has made him an offer on 
the house, and he's going to take it.  They are going to restore the old 
place, and open it up as a public landmark.  So I don't think there will 
be any more deaths on the Colter farm.  At least not ghostly related 
ones."  
	He had meant the words to be lighthearted and reassuring, 
but Scully only nodded.  Mulder frowned, watching her.  He wanted 
to ask her what had happened inside the house.  Somehow her 
explanation to him about hitting Gallagher with that brick just did not 
ring true.  Something made him hesitate, though.
	"You okay?" he finally asked.
	Scully took a deep breath and nodded.
	"Yeah, I'm fine."
	"No, you're not,"  Mulder countered, knowing better.  
"What's wrong?"
	Scully shrugged.
	"I don't know," she replied.  She sighed down at Catherine's 
grave.  "To love, yet to never have touched.  To spend eternity 
searching, and regretting..."  Her voice was soft,  almost mournful 
with yearning.  She shook her head.
	"I wonder if they'll ever find peace," she said.
	If Mulder was surprised at Scully's seeming acceptance of the 
reality of the Colter farm ghosts, he did say.  He frowned at her in 
puzzlement, then his expression softed, and he smiled thoughtfully.
	"Maybe peace isn't what they're looking for," he simply 
replied.
	Scully looked up into his eyes.  For a long moment, their 
gazes joined and held.  Scully's lips parted slightly, as if in question, 
and Mulder inclined his head toward her, as if willing her to ask.  
	One of the policeman called out to them.  Scully smiled, and 
then she let the question go.   She nodded out in the direction of  the 
road.
	"You all set?" she asked.  Mulder nodded in agreement. 
	"Yeah, whenever you're ready," he exhaled, collecting 
himself.  Scully sighed.  
	"I'm ready.  Let's go."