Title: Mulder's Creek: 24. Wail
Author: Neoxphile
Author Email: neoxphile@aol.com
Rated: PG
Category: C
Keywords: XF/Dawson's Creek crossover. Alternate universe.
Disclaimer: I claim no ownership to the characters, except those I've created, as they belong to Chris Carter and Kevin Williamson

Summary: A nice old man might be being stalked by a banshee; Mulder learns some things about Sam's past.

Opening Scene-

Scully sits on Mulder's bed, with her knees tucked up near her chin, and her arms wrapped around her legs. "I don't get it, Mulder."

Mulder, who is sprawled in his chair turns his head and looks at her. "You say that like you think I do," he half accuses her.

"Don't you? This is usually your sort of thing. I even thought you would be sort of excited and intrigued," she replies, cocking her head to one side.

Mulder sits up straighter. "Sure. I like ghost stuff, and some part of me is fascinated by this, but I have no idea whatsoever how Spender, who is dead, walked around town, looking as alive as can be, for several months. I don't know if he was a ghost, a zombie, or something else entirely. I don't think anyone has that sort of answer."

"No one?"

"Well...maybe religion does, but Spender doesn't strike me as the Jesus type, does he you?" Mulder asks.

"Definitely not the savior type," Scully agrees. "Although..."

"What?"

"He did perform one miracle while he was back in Capeside," Scully says with a coy smile.

"Which was what?" he asks her with a puzzled look.

"If it wasn't for him, you might never had noticed me," Scully says in a sing-song tone.

"I would have noticed..." Mulder says defensively. "Definitely before we turned 30." Scully giggles at him.

Friday afternoon, Valentine's garage-

"...I heard you say let's go down to normal town.
Let's go down, to normal town.

Right down.

Down, down, down, down-" Reed sings until Krycek abruptly stops playing. "What?" he asks, looking at the other boy.

"It's not you, you are singing and playing as well as could be hoped," Krycek tells him, then turns to glare at Craig's friend Nick, who has joined them for the one song. "Do you think you could get the timing down a bit better?" he asks sarcastically.

"Look, I told you that I play the drums, like Craig does. I can sort of play flute too, but not as well. If you wanted someone better you shouldn't have asked me to play," Nick retorts.

"What's your problem, anyway?" Craig asks, turning his dark eyes onto Krycek.

Reed had noticed that Kryeck had seemed agitated since the beginning of their practice. "Is there something else on your mind besides the song?" he asks.

Krycek smirks at him. "Aren't we as sensitive as advertised." Before Reed can snap at him he makes his confession. "Alright, so... I got us a gig. I kinda wanted things to be perfect with our playing before I told you guys."

"Really?" Craig asks, looking interested. "When? Where?"

"In a couple of weeks. At Pete's Pockets," Krycek tells them.

"At the pool hall?" Craig asks incredulously.

"Yeah. They're trying to clean up their image, so they've converted the room that used to hold the broken pool equipment into a small stage with a dance floor. It looks pretty sweet."

"When do they plan to start offering live music?" Reed asks suspiciously.

"In a couple of weeks."

"We're the guinea pigs?" Craig yelps.

"Well, yeah. Look, we're only 17, we've got to be grateful for any shot we get, right? So maybe things might not go as smoothly for us since we'll be the first ever act, but if people like us, we might gain a following, you know? You're both going to do it, right?" Krycek asks with a pleading look in his eyes. Then he turns to Nick. "I'm sorry I was rude, we need you too if you'll play this song then."

"What the hell. It'll be good to get that first humiliation over with sooner than later," Reed says with a grin. Despite himself Krycek is a fairly decent manager who really seems to have the fledgling band's interests at heart, and Reed admires that.

"Ok, I'm in," Craig finally agrees.

"What the hell," Nick says. "I can humiliate myself for one song."

"Great!" Krycek exclaims. "Let's try this song again, then."

Soon the garage filled once more with the sound of alternative music covers.

Late Sunday morning, en route to church-

Fowley drags her feet as she walks towards the church were she's going to meet Grams to go to brunch. She's not reluctant to go to eat, since her stomach is beginning to growl, but she'd had a spirited "discussion" with Grams over whether or not going to church this morning would make her feel better.

It's not as though she doesn't think that Grams means well, because she's sure Grams does, but it bothers her that the older woman has yet again brought up religion. Grams simply can't seem to accept the fact that Fowley is agnostic. Her lack of religious beliefs are not meant as an affront to her grandmother, it's just how she's come to feel about spirituality.

The thing that strikes her as ironic, as the church comes into view, is that she wishes that going to church could provide her with the comfort that Grams has come to depend on. Though it has been eight days since Spender was laid to rest, her grief is still raw. Even if his death had been more typical, it would still be normal to be depressed. Add having lost him twice...

"Excuse me, Miss." Fowley nearly jumps out of her skin when a hand is placed on her shoulder. "Did you hear it last night?" The speaker, she finds as she whips around, is an elderly man wearing Bermuda shorts, black socks and thick sandals. Fowley thinks he looks harmless despite his fashion statement. "Did you hear them last night?"

"Hear what?" Fowley asks, giving him a confused look.

He looks puzzled too. "I don't rightly know, but whatever it was howled something terrible last night. Right outside my window."

"Maybe it was the wind," Fowley immediately suggests.

"Oh, I thought so too, but I opened the front door and checked. No wind. The trees were still and there was no breeze," he told her.

Fowley nodded, though she didn't remember if there'd been wind or not the night before. Short of a branch being thrown through her window, she wouldn't have noticed if there had been, given the state of her thoughts. "I'm sorry, I don't remember hearing anything unusual."

"That's ok, Miss. I just thought I'd ask," he tells her with a gentle smile. "I know I have no right to ask favors, since you don't know me from Adam, but if you hear them, could you tell me? I live in that house there." He points to a small gray cottage next to the church.

Before she quite knows why, Fowley finds herself saying, "Ok."

He beams at her. "Thank you, Miss. I'll let you go back to what you were doing, since I've taken up so much of your time."

"You're welcome," Fowley calls, spotting Grams walking out of the church. By the time they've walking back that way the man has gone into his house. Fowley glances at it before following Grams towards the restaurant.

Monday morning, Potter home-

Bessie twirls the cord of the phone around her finger as she tries to reason with the woman on the other end of the phone.

"I realize that the policy is designed to make things fair to everyone, but I gave the weeks I would be available, and this isn't one of them...No, I can't call in sick, I run a restaurant...No. I'm the owner, I have to be there to open...Yes, having an on-call manager would be nice, but unless you'd personally like to fund that position...Well, I don't much care for your attitude either. I gave you fair notice about when I would be free to help. Why don't you call another parent? There must be...Yes, but I don't think that would be fair...She's not even an adult anyway....Oh. I suppose I can ask her...No, I'm not going to order her to do it!"

Scully, who only entered the room at the end of the conversation threw Bessie a deer in the headlights look when Bessie gave her an imploring glance. Bessie put her hand over the phone and gave Scully another appealing look. "Scully, I've got a problem."

"What problem?" Scully asks warily.

"I told the preschool when I could be available to chaperon their weekly field trips, and expressly told them I would be able to the first or third Tuesdays of the month because we open for breakfast for certain local festivals."

"But they signed you up for today anyway?" Scully guesses.

"Bingo. And this witch is unrelenting. She wants someone from this family there today," Bessie hisses.

"Alexander is a member of our family," Scully teases.

"Besides him." Bessie sighs. "Somehow they realize that you're a teenager, so they want you to do it."

"Ok," Scully says.

"I told her it's not fair to you, and that I wouldn't force you...What?"

"I said Ok. I'll do it."

"You're a lifesaver, kiddo. Let me tell the witch," Bessie says, and Scully wonders if she intentionally took her hand off the receiver as she said witch. Scully tries not to worry about what she just got herself into.

11am-

Fowley isn't sure why, but she's walking back towards the church with a loaf of banana bread in her hands. She'd asked Grams about the mysterious old man she'd met, and Grams had told her a sad story. Apparently the man's wife had left him thirty years before, taking their two children with her. After that he became depressed, and has been a recluse ever since.

So Fowley baked him a loaf of bread and decided that she was almost obligated to visit him, since she was probably the first person he'd gone out of his way to talk to since before she was born.

As she approaches his door she begins to have second thoughts and worries that she's bothering him, but before she even knocks the door opens. "Oh, hello there, Miss, what brings you by?"

"I was hoping to find someone to share this banana bread with," she says shyly.

"Oh, my favorite! Won't you come in?" And Fowley walks in after a second's hesitance, but instantly decides that it's not the city and he's harmless so she can go in without worry. She finds her city upbringing hard to forget at times.

She follows him into a nice kitchen, and watches as he selects a dull knife to cut the bread. "Oh where are my manners? I never introduced myself. I'm Albert Calhill," he tells her with a smile. "You can call me Albert."

"My name is Fowley Lindley," she replies after catching his expectant look.

"The things they name children these days..." he mutters to himself. "Your grandmother is one of the church ladies, I'm guessing." He cuts them both slices of the bread and slides hers towards her on a blue plate.

For a moment Fowley almost laughs because his saying that makes her think of Dana Carvey. He's probably never seen Saturday Night Live, so she stifles herself. "She is very active in the church," she agrees.

He gives her a sudden intent look. "There's an awful lot of sorrow in your eyes for a slip of a girl like you."

"Oh," she says, looking down at her bread. "My...I lost someone close to me recently, a good friend. He died."

"That's terrible. But you know what they say, the good die young." He replies sadly. "We have to hold on to people tightly, because you never know when they'll be taken from you."

"Yeah, I guess." Fowley doesn't want to talk about it, so she changes the subject." Yesterday you said you heard something howling outside your window, is it gone now?"

"I'm afraid not. The same as before, something wailing terribly outside. I even called animal control last night, and they didn't find anything. Just said it must have been scared off. I think they thought I was just a dithering old fool who imagined things."

"I'm sure they didn't," Fowely says, but she half wonders that herself. However, something is sparked at the back of her mind, and she decides to take a detour on the way home and stop off at the library.

11:30am-

"I wanna pet the sheep."

"No, I wanna pet them!" a second voice insists.

"Me too, me too!" A third voice pipes up.

"No. Can't. Just me," the first speaker arrogantly declares.

"I can pet them too! Tell him I can pet them too!" A small hand tugged on Scully's t-shirt, and she forced herself to grin and bear it.

The entire time they've been at this little farm, which features several petting-zoo exhibits, she's been more refereeing the three small children she'd been assigned to. At first she couldn't figure out why they needed a fourth chaperone, since there were only twelve children in Alexander's class. Then she met the kids, and wished there were a few more chaperons. She was used to one or two small children at a time, and didn't realize that adding just one more child multiplied the problems ten-fold.

"You can all pet the sheep." She declares in a firm voice, and the little boy who insisted he alone could pet them gave her, Alexander, and the little girl in the group a dirty look before pouting. Scully recognizes the gleam in his eye, and decides very quickly to re-arrange how they are grouped. "Hannah, I want you to hold Alex's hand now, ok? It's Jacob's turn to hold my hand."

"Ok!" the little girl pipes up, and lets go of Scully's hand, which is only empty long enough for Scully to grab, but gently, Jacob's hand before he flees. Scully glances over at the girl, who is wearing a sunny smile, and wonders if she was such a cute looking brat at that age. The child looks terribly sweet, but she's caused as much trouble as Jacob, who at least looks the part of a troublemaker.

There's a few moments of peace when they do nothing more annoying to each other than bump into each other while jockeying for a good spot to reach for the placid white sheep who seem quite resigned to being clumsily pawed at by very young children.

Unfortunately for Scully, three-year-olds have very short attention spans and they're soon ready for another argument.

"I wanna pet the ducks."

"No, I wanna pet them!"

"Me too, me too!"

"No, just me!"

Scully grins in spite of herself. For a moment she finds herself imagining what the discussion would have been like had it been her, Doggett and Mulder at age three:

"I wanna pet the ducks!"

"Me too, me too!"

"Nooooo! No ducks! No ducks!"

Then, their poor chaperone would have had her and Doggett hold hands while she tried to coax Mulder out of hiding after he ran away in fright. Doggett probably would have pulled her hair to make her cry, and have been rewarded with a kick in the shins, so the woman, or man perhaps, would have had three crying children on their hands. Of course, she didn't know either of them when they were three, but she thinks her image would have been fairly accurate. Her flight of fancy makes her mood improve. Until she glances at her watch.

1pm Capeside Library-

Fowley casts a nervous glance at the front desk, and feels better when she assures herself that the librarian isn't the woman who used to work in the elementary school's library. She'd been told that that woman was still receiving treatment for her break with reality, but it's always best to double check this sort of thing.

The librarian notices her standing there, and looks up with a smile. "Can I help you?" she asks in a pleasant tone of voice.

Fowley drags her foot across the floor. "I need to look something up, but I'm not sure where to begin."

"Tell me what it is that you're interested in, and maybe I can help you narrow down the search," the librarian replies.

"That'd be great. Ok, so someone told me this story, that involved this 'thing' howling outside his window, and I'm pretty sure that I've heard something like that before."

"Sounds like a banshee to me," the librarian says.

"Oh, you know, that might be it," Fowley tellsher, thinking that it sounds slightly familiar.

"You'll want to look in the non-fiction section on mythical creatures."

"Non-fiction?" Fowley asks, sounding surprised.

"Some people take this sort of thing very seriously. There's a whole study of those sorts of creatures called cyptozoology."

"They study things like bigfoot and the Lockness monster, I take it?" Fowley asks.

"That's right."

"I have a friend who might consider that a good career choice," Fowely says with a grin as she walks towards the non-fiction section.

A half hour later she is wiser for her reading. She realized the moment that the librarian said "banshee" that she'd heard of them before, but she'd forgotten the details. The books filled her in. Banshees, she learned, were a Gaelic legend, and considered a harbinger of death. Banshees were thought to be ethereally beautiful women with long hair, who spent their nights making a noise that would disturb the soundest of sleepers. Some families were prone to having Banshees wailing in expectation of a death. Related to Banshees were another creature of legend, large black dogs that would haunt a property while someone was dying. The dogs, and the banshees, would abandon the family once the death they predicted came about, so families would know that they were safe. At least until they returned.

Fowley closes the book with a frown. She isn't as quick to jump to a supernatural explanation as Mulder, and her pride still stings from the fountain of youth fiasco, but the events of the last couple of weeks had made her somewhat more open-minded to the possibilities. And more afraid, because if Banshees were real...Fowley promises herself to make a through investigation of what's hanging around Mr. Calhill's house.

Wednesday morning Barre Woods-

"You don't think your brother will be insulted that we didn't ask him to come with?" Doggett asks Reyes, who shakes her head.

"He's working today, so it would have been pointless to ask him."

"I don't mean to put him down, but I'm glad it's just you and me. It's too hot for a forced march today."

"Aww, come on, it would be fun to hike hither and yon. Although Krycek isn't with us to fall into the water, so there's a decreased fun quotient," Reyes says with a grin.

"I know you're missing Sandy..." Doggett says, ducking out of the way before adding," I bet you and Scully will be friends with her in the fall. Maybe she'll even asks you two to join the cheer-leading squad."

"Go team go," Reyes says dryly.

"I think you'd look cute in one of those outfits."

"Well, there's always next Halloween."

"Oh! And I could go as a football quarterback," Doggett says, pretending to take the suggestion seriously.

"You," she says fondly.

"What did I do now?" he asks plaintively.

"You're just...You." She smiles.

"And that's a good thing?"

"You bet."

"My, you're easily impressed," he tells her, slipping his arm around her waist.

She just nods her assent, happy that he's a warm, living, presence in her life. For a moment she hopes that Fowley will find someone like that, but the thought flies out the window as Doggett does something silly and distracts her.

Mid-afternoon, Calhill home-

"Hello Fowley, nice to see you." Mr. Calhill says, ushering her into the house.

"I hope you don't mind me dropping by again."

"Oh no, I love the company."

Fowley decides to get right to what's on her mind. "How did you sleep last night?"

He assumes a worried look. "Not so well, truth to be told."

"The wailing again?" she asks, looking sympathetic.

"Yes. It's the darnest thing, though."

"How's that?" Fowley asks.

"Well, I thought about it, and I seem to remember something my father told me when I was very young. My grandfather heard something similar before he died."

Fowley gets a chill. She wonders for a moment if she should tell him about the banshees, but decides that it couldn't have a positive outcome. She would just be worrying him needlessly. "Maybe I could ask my grandmother if I could come over tonight and see if I can figure out what it is that's keeping you up at night." She suggests.

He reaches out with one gnarled, yet soft, hand and pats hers. "I don't think your grandmother would appreciate you being out in the middle of the night looking after an old fool like me."

"She would never think you're a fool," Fowely says, sounding shocked.

"Oh no, Dear, you misunderstand. I'm calling me a fool. I know she would never speak unkindly of me, or most other people for that matter," he says with a soft smile.

"Well, I'm supposed to go with her to Boston tomorrow, but I'll come by Friday, if that's ok with you. Maybe I can help you get to the bottom of this." She declares.

"That's sweet of you. I'll look forward to your visit," he tells her, then they chat for a little while and listen to the ball game on the radio before she has to be on her way home.

Thursday morning, Leary home-

Mulder awakens to a hand shaking his shoulder, and the sound of a crying baby. He slowly opens his eyes and sees his mother standing over his bed. A glance over her shoulder shows that it's eight in the morning.

Swallowing back a yawn, he asks "What's the matter?"

"Mulder, I need some help today. I was going to bring your brother and sister to Sam's Club to do some shopping, but your brother isn't feeling well. He's not really sick, just a typical baby cold, but he's unhappy enough to keep me from taking him shopping."

"What do you need me to do?" he asks, sitting up, and wondering if he's going to be called on to baby-sit a fussy infant. He loves his brother, but a day full of dirty diapers and baby puke is his idea of hell.

Mrs. Leary wrings her hands and looks to the right as though she could see Price through the walls. "I hate to ask this, but could you take your sister with you and do the shopping? I've cut down the list to just groceries."

"You want me to take Sam to Sam's Club?" he asks slowly, still waking up but finding it funny nonetheless.

"Yes, please. I know it's a long drive and you haven't had your license all that long, but you're a good safe driver..." She shrugs, her body language showing her desperation.

"No, it's ok. Hey, Mom, have you ever taken Sam there before?" he asks.

"No, I haven't. Thanks, Sweetie," she says, patting him on the top of the head, which he hates. "You'll drive carefully, won't you?"

"Of course, Mom," he answers absent-mindedly. He is already thinking about what a long drive it is, and how no one who has ever met him or his sister is likely to be in a store 45 minutes away.

"Thanks so much, Mulder," she says, rushing out of his room and towards the now-wailing baby.

Mulder snaps his seatbelt closed, and glances at Sam before they back out of the driveway. "Make yourself comfortable, Sam, it's going to be a long drive."

"Oh boy, can't wait," Sam says.

"You know, when you decide to talk to anyone but me, you're going to get along with Scully and Doggett. They're always sarcastic to me, too."

"And you're not to them?" Sam retorts.

"Ok, ok. Pot, kettle, black, point taken," he says with a smirk.

"So now you're going to ask me more about where I've been and stuff." Sam predicts.

"Good call," he disingenuously praises her.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" she asks. "Begin the interrogation."

Mulder wonders where to start. "Did they treat you ok?"

Out of the corner he catches sight of Sam shrugging. "'Depends on what you mean by 'ok.' I didn't live with a people like in a family, but they didn't starve and beat me if that's what you're worried about."

"Of course I am. We don't know where you've been all your life, just that someone snatched you out of your crib. People who are capable of stealing an infant are capable of anything," Mulder says heatedly.

"I don't know why you're getting mad at me, it's not as though I had any say in it," Sam complains.

Mulder shakes his head slightly. "I'm not mad a you. I'm mad at them. Ok, so you didn't live with a family, so how did you live, then?"

"I don't know a good term for it...you know how people all live together, like at a school or if they're in the army?"

"Like in a dorm or barracks?" Mulder supplies.

"I guess. Sort of like that. Big building with everyone there together. " Sam concludes.

"Who is everyone? Other kidnapped kids, people in charge?"

"Yeah. And doctors and more kids too. But, Mulder, we didn't know that we were kidnapped, you know. And some of the kids weren't, because they were born there. Or their parents didn't want them any more."

Mulder tries to decide which part of what she said to ask about first. "You didn't realize you'd been kidnapped?"

"Nope. I mean, from some of the stuff I read I got the idea that lots of kids live with their parents, but not all of them, because some parents die or don't want their kids. Jubilee from the X-Men comics lived at a school, and it seemed sort of like that where I was. But I don't think it was a school, Mulder. I really don't."

"Why were there doctors, and why were their kids born there?" Mulder asks.

"I'm not sure. Those kids, they couldn't play with us or talk to us. Even when we had classes they were kept apart from us. Or the other way around, maybe, since there were only five or six other kids I could talk to and play with. I think, now that I'm home, that they were like me. Normal kids. The other kids weren't normal, Mulder."

"Not normal how?" Mulder asks as he stops for a red light.

"They could do things. Do things with their minds that most people can't, I think. I only heard a little about it since they kept me separate from them, like I said. I think the doctor's made them."

Mulder gets a sudden chill as he thinks back to the last day school, and how the butterflies had almost seemed to be obeying a command... "Sam, this is really important. Were there any babies there?"

"Yeah, lots. They had a nursery for them on another floor. Why?"

Mulder's grip on the steering wheel tightens. "We'll talk about that some other time, once I've had some time to think about it."

Sam opens her mouth to protest, but instead says, "Ok." If Mulder could have seen her face he would have seen questions written all over it.

"Sam, did you know that you were coming to live with us?" Mulder asks her once he's calmer.

"No. They woke me up one morning, told me to get dressed and come down stairs instead of going to class. Then they put me in car and drove to the airport. I took a plane with one of the teachers. They wouldn't tell me anything at all. Once the plane landed, the teacher rented a car and drove to the hospital. He told me to go up to room 314 and that my real family would be there, and I was going to live with my family from now on. Then he drove off, without so much as looking back to see if I really went into the hospital," Sam explains.

"That must have been very scary," Mulder comments gently.

"It was. I didn't even know I had a family, then I was suddenly meeting my parents and two brothers. No one even told me if it was ok to talk to you people about my past or anything, so I was worried I'd say the wrong thing and be punished for it."

"So you didn't say anything at all."

"It seemed like the smartest idea. If I didn't say anything, I couldn't say the wrong thing, right? "

"Good point," Mulder says. "You know though, I have a feeling that when you start to talk to Mom and Dad, they won't actually ask you a lot of questions about your past."

"Why not? They're been pestering me to talk all summer. Why wouldn't they immediately want me to tell them where I've been?" Sam asks, sounding very puzzled.

Mulder sighs. "The day you came back, when Price was born, I talked to Dad before bed. I asked him the same things I asked you today: where you've been, and who with... and he said he was told that if they only found out that morning that you were coming back, and was told that if he asked questions, they couldn't have you back. And I wasn't ever to ask them again. But he was lying, Sam. He and Mom must have known you were coming home, because they set up the guest room right before Price was born. They told me that Aunt Gwen was coming to stay with us, but I talked to Aunt Gwen. They never even asked her."

"So you think that they're not going to ask because they already know where I was and stuff?" Sam asks.

"I think they might even know why," Mulder says quietly.

"Well, that's more than I know," Sam replies sounding angry.

Mulder wonders what she thinks of their parents, but is afraid to ask. So instead he asks the other question nagging at him. "Sam...what's with the super heroes?"

"Huh?"

"Spiderman, X-men, Batman Beyond...you really seem to like them." Mulder comments.

"Oh. They liked us to read them. I think they said that it encourages 'tolerance'. You know, for the weird kids," Sam replies.

"Sounds like it really worked." Mulder kids, making her laugh.

Friday morning, Cahill house-

Fowley is somewhat surprised that the front door is closed, since Mr. Calhill has a tendency to leave to only keep the screen door closed. She knocks on the front door, and worries when he doesn't answer the door. She walks around to the back door, intending to knock there as well, but then notices that there are no sounds coming from the house at all. The radio is silent for the first time.

Fowley sits on the steps for a moment, feeling guilty and overwhelmed. She should have told him about the banshees so he could try to escape them. The books she read weren't really clear on whether you could out run them, but if she mentioned them, he might have had a shot at trying to get away from them. Now his house was closed up, because he died the day before. She wondered if she walked over to the church if they would at least tell her when the funeral was so she could pay her last respects, not that she deserved to since she wasn't a good friend.

She stands with a sigh and starts walking towards the church. Before she is halfway there a woman comes outside and begins to walk towards her. "Are you Fowley Lindley?" The woman asks.

"Yes." Fowley answers, bracing herself for accusations and guilt-trips.

"Oh good, I was hoping that was you I saw knocking on Mr. Calhill's door. He left a letter for you here at the church. I'll pop in and get it."

A letter? She wonders. How did he have time to write a letter? " Here it is." The woman says, handing Fowley an envelope addressed to her in a slightly spidery hand.

Fowley thanks the woman, and walks back to Mr. Calhill's steps to open the letter.

Dear Fowley,

I'm sorry that I'm going to be missing your visit tomorrow. I saw a doctor this morning, and he explained what I've been hearing for the past several nights. Apparently some mishap has happened to my poor eardrum, and it has made ordinary night sounds become distorted. Once he told me that I realized that I wasn't hearing other things quite normally during the day, but I was so used to the sounds of the radio and so on that I was able to fool myself into thinking the sounds were fine.

I thought about your young friend dying, and got to musing about how it's an even greater tragedy than death to love someone and not let them know it. So once I got home from the doctor's, I did a rather brave thing: I picked up the phone and called my youngest son to tell him I love him.

He and I talked for hours, then he begged me to come live with him, at least until whatever it is I did to my ears heals, although I think the doctor is full of bull but to polite to tell me that I'm imagining things. How would I hurt my ears without knowing it? Anyway, I think my son would like me to live with him from now on, truth to be told. So, by the time you read this letter, I'll be on a plane to his house, seeing him for the first time in five years. I did my boys a disservice by distancing myself after their mother left, so I'm hoping to try to make amends. My older boy is bringing his family for a visit too, so hopefully I'll begin to heal the breach on both fronts at once.

Thank you so much for making an old fool think long and hard about how he wants to spend his remaining days. I've enclosed my address, and I'd love to hear from you if you have the chance to write, dear. My son told me about this newfangled thing called e-mail, over the computer of all things, so maybe you could send a letter that way too, once I know my address.

I hope you find another boy worthy of your love soon. Oh, I know you didn't tell me that the boy who died was someone you loved, but when you get to be as old as me you can tell that sort of thing from the look in someone's eyes. You're a sweet girl, and whoever you end up will be lucky to have you. Take care of yourself.

Love,

Albert Calhill

Fowley puts the letter back into the envelope, and goes home with a happier heart. Instead of killing an old man she helped him see his life in a new way. Not a bad week's work. She decides that she's going to write to him as soon as she gets home so she can promise to keep an open mind and heart where love is concerned, even it's a little scary and hard.

Saturday morning, The Icehouse-

Reed keeps giving Skinner and Scully expectant looks, so, while the two of them do a chore for Bessie out of his sight, they make a quarter bet on how long it will be before he spits out whatever it is that's on his mind.

Skinner wins the bet an hour and a half into their shift. "Hey, uh, are you guys doing anything next weekend?" Reed asks them, sounding shy.

"I don't have any plans," Scully says.

"Me neither." Skinner adds. "Why?"

"Oh...our band has got a small gig next weekend, and I was hoping maybe that you'd come and hear us," Reed says, his face rapidly turning beat red.

"I don't see why not," Scully tells him. "Maybe I can get Mulder to come too. I've been wanting to hear this great voice of yours for myself, anyway." She says, giving Skinner a pointed look that he ignores.

"I'll be there for sure," Skinner says. "For once I'll have an excuse not to watch sports with my dad."

"That's great," Reed says, grinning despite his blush.

Afternoon, Lindley home-

After cutting her sandwich into two rectangles of equal size, Fowley put a handful of chips on her plate, and picked up her glass of cold lemonade. She eyed the frosted brownies, but decided that she should wait to cut herself one until she was ready to eat it, least it get stale.

Grams, who had already brought her lunch to the kitchen table watched her with amusement. As Fowley took her seat she gave the girl a gentle smile. "I heard that your Mr. Calhill is no longer in Capeside."

"You're right. He went to live with one of his sons."

"So...are you glad you got to know him?" Grams asks, giving Fowley a look that makes her wonder if her grandmother is clairvoyant.

"Very glad. I think he and I both benefited from meeting each other. He left me a letter to tell me that I made him think that he should try to get to know his sons again," Fowley explains.

"And what did you get from him?"

"He made me realize that I can get to know someone and lose them without it hurting very badly. Some times the kindest thing you can do is let someone go." Fowley says with a half-smile, silently adding to herself that she can also get close to someone without them dying on her.

"That sounds very valuable indeed," Grams says, returning the smile.

Credits

Produced by CC, KW and Neoxphile

< Voice Over>

This episode of Mulder's Creek featured music from:

Beth Orton ("She cries your name")

Fuel ("Mary pretends")

and

Crazytown ("Drowning")

Stay tuned for scenes from the next Mulder's Creek