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Title: Watcher
Author: Kris in Seattle Summary: A young blind/deaf/mute girl is able to communicate with her dead twin sister. October 2, 1992
An elderly woman, Mrs. Lori Santo, walked into a bedroom that looked as though it belonged to a small little girl. Pink hearts adorned the walls and a large china doll collection occupied a small bay window. Two small beds utilized either side of the room while one girl sat on the one in front the window. "Jeane? Jean, honey, why didn't you answer when I called you?" Asked Lori. The child, Jeane, was engrossed in playing with one of the china dolls, which had blonde hair, just like Jeane. Jeane didn't look up from the doll. "Jeane?" Lori taped her gently on the shoulder and the girl looked up. "Yes, Grandma?" "What on earth where you doing, child?" Lori questioned. Jeane glanced back down at her doll. "I was talking." Lori eyed at the girl strangely. "Talking? To who?" Jeane held up the doll. "To Katie." The woman's eyes went wide for a moment before she sat down on the bed next to her granddaughter. "Now, Jeane, you know that your twin sister Katie died last year. We've been over this before; you can not talk to Katie, because she isn't here. And besides, that doll doesn't even look like Katie. See, she has brown eyes and Katie had blue, while you have green." The girl gazed at the doll and said nothing. "Now, I'm going to go finish dinner up and I'll call for you and for pity's sake, come this time I call." And with that, Lori left Jeane to her dolls. Sometime later, Lori was in the kitchen. She walked into the living room where a large elderly man, Charles Santo, was sitting and reading the newspaper. "Charlie, dinner's ready. Could you call Jeane?" Lori asked. "Sure." Charlie replied in a voice that reminded Lori of gravel. "Jeane! Dinner's ready!" Charlie got up and entered into the dining room and quickly settled into his seat just as Lori began to bring out the plates and other kitchenware. Everything was out when Lori noticed Jeane's absence. "Jeane! Jeane Lemures, dinner is at the table and yet you are not!" Lori waited for a moment before she headed back towards Jeane's room, passing by a small baby grand piano. She opened the door and began. "Jeane, I told you-" Lori could only stare as she saw Jeane simply staring at the wall. She looked at her eyes to find that they had a white glaze over them. "Jeane!" Lori cried out, but Jeane didn't even blink at her grandmother's outburst. Lori fell to her knees as she took hold of the girls' shoulders. A quiet and muffled moan came from the girl's throat at the disturbance, but nothing more. Lori turned and yelled toward the living room. "Charlie! Call the hospital!" July 21, 2001
Dana Scully entered the basement office carrying her briefcase and the jacket to her otherwise, professional looking dress suit, to find Mulder already set to work with his usual clutter of case files already creating a small mountain on his desk. He had his sleeves rolled up and his tie half jerked off as if to express his own regards about the insane summer heat that would soon be arriving. He started toward her, never once looking up from the file. "Scully, I've found this case-" She warded him off with an upraised hand. "Mulder, it's too early and too hot for me to deal with another social call from the paranormal. I mean, I haven't even had my coffee yet." Mulder turned and when he faced her again, he handed her a cup of coffee. "One cream, no sugar, right?" Scully took the paper cup regretfully, cursing her misfortune of having been stuck in traffic and arriving late to this. She took a sip and almost gagged. "Mulder, it's cold!" He ignored her outburst. "Okay, now that you're caffeined up, the case. It's about this fourteen-year-old girl who lives in Holms, Georgia. She can play the piano like no other, Scully." Scully gave him a puzzled look. "Mulder, what does this have to do with the paranormal? People do play pianos all the time. In this wonderful place called the Real World." Mulder set the file down on his desk where it was soon to be lost. "Well, the Real World aside, it's not that she *plays* the piano, but rather *how* she came to play it." Scully shook her head but decided to indulge her partner. "Okay, then *how* did she come to play the piano?" "What do you have to be able to do in order to play a musical instrument, Scully? You have to be able to read music, so you have to be able to see; you have to be able to hear what you're playing, so you have to be able to hear." Scully was clueless as to what he was getting at. "Yeah? So?" "That's the thing, Scully. This girl, Jeane Lemures, she can't do either of those. She's blind deaf and mute." Triumph ringed in his voice. "Ludwig von Beethoven played piano as well, Mulder and he was deaf by the age of thirty." Scully said. "Yes, but he wasn't deaf before he began to play. The thing that makes this case paranormal is that this Jeane has never seen, heard or read music." Mulder explained. "Never heard music?" "She became a blind/deaf/mute at the age of four." Scully shook her head. "She'd have to have heard some music at some point." "Actually, no. She lived with her grandparents who were very strict, religiously. No music in the house, other than church hymns. And the grandmother never let Jeane out of the house." Scully sighed, knowing when to just quit. "So, when do we go?" Mulder smiled his victory at hand. He slapped an airline ticket into her palm. "Nine thirty this very morning, Scully. We should end up in Atlanta around noon and then drive to Holms." Mulder picked up the case file and started past her. Scully glanced at the ticket and grabbed her briefcase and made her own way towards the door and flicked off the lights. "I suppose that tomorrow is another day." She muttered. Maple Leaf Drive
"What's the address?" Scully asked. "Uh, it should be 1008." Mulder replied. Scully looked over at a large white two-story house with gold numbers in the formation of '1008'. "Looks like our guys." Mulder spotted an elderly woman exit the house and watched as she began to water her flowers. "Let's roll." Mulder and Scully exited their rental vehicle and walked up to the woman. "Excuse me, Mrs. Santo?" The woman looked up. "If I've told you people once, I've told you a thousand times, I don't want no encyclopedias. Now leave an old woman be." "Ma'am I think you have us mistaken. I'm FBI Special Agent Mulder and this is Special Agent Scully." Mulder introduced them. "FBI? What is this all about?" The woman asked. "Mrs. Santo, we were wanting to ask you about your granddaughter, Jeane-" Scully was cut off by the woman. "Shush, speak none about that out here. Come in, come in." Mrs. Santo set down the watering can and started towards the house as Scully and Mulder followed. "Oh, I am dreadfully sorry," Mrs. Santo apologized as they entered the remarkable beautiful house. "I didn't introduce myself. I'm Ms. Lori Santo." "'Ms.'?" Scully asked. "Yes, my husband, Charlie, died a few years ago. Heart failure. And you are?" Lori asked politely. "I'm Fox Mulder and this is Dana Scully." Mulder said. Lori looked thoughtful. "'Fox', what a peculiar name. But imaginative none the less. And 'Dana' is such an elegant name." She was cut off by the sound of several piano chords being strung as the first notes of Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata' resounded in the house. "Jeane," Lori started into another room while Mulder and Scully followed her. There at the bench of a small baby grand piano sat a young fourteen year old girl, whose long blonde hair cascaded down her shoulders. She wore a simple outfit of shorts and a pink T-shirt. No music sat on the piano, as if the girl was playing the piece by memory. Her eyes were shut and she paid them no mind when they entered the large living room. Lori turned to them. "If you haven't already guessed, this is Jeane, my granddaughter." "How did this all happen, Ms. Santo?" Mulder asked. Lori began to pace the room. "I'm not really sure. It's only just Jeane and I here, now that Charlie is gone. About a year ago, I was upstairs, getting ready for bed and I suddenly hear the piano playing! Mozart no less! So I ventured downstairs to see what was going on and there she was, Mr. Mulder. Playing Mozart as if she had studied it her whole life." "You're saying she had never played the piano before." Mulder said. "I'm saying that she never touched that piano in her life until then!" Lori said. Meanwhile, Scully looked about the room and her eyes fell upon several pictures of two little blonde haired girls about the age of two. "Does Jeane have a twin?" Lori looked over at the picture that Scully was indicating. "Had. Jeane had twin sister, Katie. She died in a car accident with her mother and her father when Jeane and she were only three. Their parents lived with me even before Jeane and Katie were even thought of. And I've had Jeane ever since." "Ms. Santo, is it true that you never allowed music in your house when Jeane lived with you?" Mulder inquired. "The only music Charlie allowed in the house was hymns. He didn't approve of the music of the times, especially the rock music. He was convinced that it was from the devil. So that's the only reason we even have the piano. I would play and we would sing hymns, never could I play Beethoven or Mozart or Chopin. Even the hymns that Beethoven wrote. Charlie would never allow it." Lori told them. "Thank you, Ms. Santo. Would you let me know if anything happens? Here's the number of our hotel that we'll be staying at and here's my cell phone if we're not at the hotel." Mulder handed her a card with the information on it. She looked it over quickly. "Of course, but I don't know what would happen. This is a pretty sleepy town, compared to Atlanta." "Thank you, Ms. Santo." Scully said as they left the house. As soon as they were out of hearing range from the house, Scully opened the passenger side door. "So, what do you think of that?" Mulder turned to look at the house as he spoke. "I think she's channeling or something." "Wait wait wait… channeling like… what?" Scully inquired. He now turned to face her as they spoke over the roof of the Taurus. "I think that Jeane Lemures is channeling Mozart, among other great piano composers." "You're telling me that this involves ghosts?" Scully said in her tone of usual disbelief. "Actually, I think they prefer the term 'apparitions'." He turned to take a quick glance at the house before turning back to look at his partner. "Why, what's so weird about that?" Scully shook her head as she got into the car. "Nothing." 1013 Anderson Street
"Yes, sir, we are at the-" Scully looked over at the tag on her hotel towel. "- Sea Carter Hotel outside of Holms… yes, yes sir, I know. I'm not sure sir, but we will find a way to justify the expense. Yes sir." Scully placed the phone back in its cradle right as Mulder burst through her hotel door. Scully glared at him. "Mulder, don't you know how to knock? What if I had been indecent?" He gave her a smile and a raised eyebrow. "Then I guess we'd be indecent together." Scully rolled her eyes at his crude joke as he continued. "Have you talked to Skin-man?" "Yes, I have. I've managed to cover both of our asses on this little side adventure. We're going to have to come up with some kind of way to cover the expense for coming down here, Mulder. And you know AD Skinner hates you calling him that." "What? Me and the Skin-man are like this." He said, crossing his fingers. Scully rolled her eyes. "Have you heard anything from Ms. Santo?" "Uh, no. I was going to ask you the same thing." Mulder said. "Mulder, what are we doing here? I mean, so this girl can play the piano blind, deaf and mute. Other strange things like that have occurred." Scully said, attempting to reason with her overzealous partner. "Give me one example." Mulder countered. She looked at him for a moment before her phone rang. She reached over and picked up the receiver. "Scully. Ms. Santo?" She gave Mulder a peculiar glance. "Uh, yes ma'am, we'll be over right away." Scully quickly hung up the phone and turned to her partner. "Ms. Santo can't find Jeane anywhere in the house. She appears to be missing." Maple Leaf Drive
Mulder and Scully pulled up to the Santo house as Lori came running out. "I can't find her anywhere in the house! I've searched for her high and low and there's still no sign of her!" "Ms. Santo, please calm down. We'll find Jeane." Scully said, trying to reassure the elderly woman. They entered the house and Ms. Santo led them up the stairs. "I couldn't believe it when I saw it with my very own eyes, Miss Scully, Mr. Mulder, but When I was getting ready for bed when I heard the piano again. Only this time it was coming from Jeane's room. I came in to see if she was okay and I found her doll collection like this." She stopped in front of a door with a wooden sign with the name 'Jeane' painted on it. She let the door swing open to reveal a normal teenager's room. Tons of china dolls lined the walls on parallel shelves. Only the dolls were all the same, dressed exactly as Jeane had been that day, blue eyed and blonde hair. Scully reached up and picked up one of the dolls. "Ms. Santo, is this-" Ms. Santo shook her head. "No, but if she were still alive, Katie would look just like that doll." Meanwhile, Mulder was looking out Jeane's bedroom window that faced what appeared to be a dark and deep wood. "Ms. Santo, how deep are the woods behind your residence?" "I'm not sure. They extend a ways back before… oh my God, the swamp. What if Jeane…?" Lori left the question in the air as she and the FBI agents quickly exited the house and sprinted into the woods. "Jeane!" Mulder called out, knowing that it was pointless to call out to a deaf girl, but it made him feel as if he were doing something and helped tear away from the helpless feeling that was building inside him. If she was hurt, there would be no way for them to find her; she couldn't call out for help, she couldn't hear them she couldn't even see them coming for her. "Jeane!!!" "Mulder!!!" Scully. Mulder turned 90 degrees to his left and ran towards her voice. "Scully!" "Mulder! We've found her!" Mulder stopped short when he saw exactly how they found her. Enclosed in a bright green light stood Jeane and… a mirror image of herself. Scully and Mulder looked on in wonder. "Ka-Katie?" Lori stammered as she stepped forward. Both Jeane and Katie looked over at their grandmother and smiled. Jeane could see! Jeane and Katie turned back towards each other and Ms. Santo along with the two FBI agents watched as Katie's lips moved, forming words that none of them could hear, but Jeane seemed to understand perfectly. She leaned forward and hugged Katie and suddenly the glow dissipated along with the ghost of Katie and Jeane fell to the ground, unconscious. Lori fell to her knees and held her granddaughter and cried softly. Holms Community Hospital
"Jeane seems to be just fine. She can see, hear and speak again perfectly." Scully said, looking at Jeane Lemures medical chart, amazed at the girl's rapid recovery. "You don't get it, Scully," Mulder said, leaning against the wall of the hospital outside Jeane Lemures' room. "Katie gave up everything for her sister. Her entire existence so that Jeane could do everything that she could." Scully looked at him almost incredulously. "You're saying that her dead sister, Katie, dead for 10 years now, gave Jeane her sight, her hearing and her speech? Mulder, that's insane." "Is it? Is it really that spooky?" Mulder asked his fellow agent. "Twenty years ago if someone would have suggested anything about a World Wide Web, people would have thought them crazy. Is it that crazy to believe in an afterlife?" "Well, whether it be a specter or a simple reenactment of the three of Jeane's basic senses, she's in perfect health. And," Scully set the medical chart in its holder outside Jeane's room, next to Mulder. "She intends to become a concert pianist." "So I guess channeling Beethoven wasn't so bad after all, eh G-Woman?" Mulder joked as they walked down the hallway towards the ever-glowing red EXIT sign. "Let's get back to Washington, G-Man, before Skinner has us out of that basement office for good." Scully said. End. Author's Notes: Okay, I had this idea going on in my mind for a long time, I just wasn't too sure about writing an X-Files fanfic. But, you gotta start somewhere. There are a couple of kind of inside things about the fanfic that I thought I'd let whoever read this find out. Thanks for reading! The story was originally called "Jeane". The date, October 2th, is the birthday of one of my good friends, Don. The name 'Santo' means 'holy' in Spanish. 'Lemures' means 'ghosts' in Latin. July 21 is my birthday. The quote from Scully "I suppose that tomorrow is another day." is a variation of the quote that Scarlet O'Hara said in Margret Mitchell's 'Gone with the Wind', which was set in Atlanta, Georiga. The address 1008 is the birthday of my best friend, Kristy, who was born on 10/08/84. The address 1013 is, of course Chris Carter's birthday as well as the name of his production company and the street name, Anderson, is obviously named in honour of Gillian Anderson. The Sea Carter Hotel (as in C. Carter) was named for Chris Carter, the creator of The X-Files. The dolls that are the replicas of Katie are based on a china doll that my own cousin, Taryn, has. The time, 1:21 is my cousin, Kimberly's birthday.
find more of my fic here:
http://www.fanfiction.net/u/17307/kris_in_seattle
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