Helen Minton's home
Farmington, NM
Thursday, 11:30 am

Alan Gillespie's phone call had gotten them in the door, but staying there proved to be another matter entirely. Helen Minton invited them into her living room with all the warmth of a Marine drill sergeant reviewing a new batch of recruits.

"Alan is a good man. I'm seeing you because he asked me to. Where else this goes is up to you." She had sat them down on her overstuffed sofa, then pulled up a straight-backed chair to face them, arms folded over her chest.

Scully resisted an urge to fidget under the woman's intense gaze. "Agent Gillespie thinks very highly of you."

That almost teased a smile from her. "We've had some good long talks over the years. He's the only person I know in this town who doesn't think I'm a little crazy. Even my kids," she waved at the framed photographs occupying every level surface, "aren't too sure. That's why I don't talk about it anymore."

Mulder leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. "But you'll tell us."

The woman studied him closely for a moment. "This isn't just a missing persons case to you, is it? Alan said you were in the hospital. That something had happened to you."

"Mrs. Minton, we don't know what happened to him. We were hoping you might be able to shed some light on that."

"I might. Maybe you could tell me why I should."

Mulder answered for both of them. "Last Friday, I came out here to help a friend. Four days ago, I woke up back in my apartment with no idea who I am. The doctors can't tell me why. I'm hoping you can."

There was a wistfulness in his eyes that made Scully's throat ache. It wasn't lost on Helen, either. The woman leaned toward him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "You may not want to know."

There was no hesitation in his answer. "I want my life back."

Helen gave his shoulder a squeeze and sat back. "I'm not sure this is going to make you feel any better, but I'll tell you what I know."

She told the story in a voice that was almost defiant, but her eyes gave away how important it was to her that they believe. Scully had always thought Mulder owned that approach. Seeing him on the receiving end this time was more upsetting than she could ever have anticipated.

Helen had been camping that summer night fifty years in the past, with friends from school. It was the last weekend before they were to begin their senior year in high school, and even the relative innocence of that era allowed for a bit of mischief, it seemed. The girls had brought some beer along, and soon everyone but Helen had been sound asleep... or passed out, depending on your definition.

"I wasn't ready to sleep, so I went for a walk. I'd meant to stay near the camp, but the night was so lovely and warm that I wandered too far. By the time I realized I couldn't see the camp any longer, it was too late. I was afraid if I kept looking, I'd just get more lost, so I sat down to wait for the sunrise. The next thing I knew, it was broad daylight, and everyone was gone." She shrugged. "That's all I remembered for nearly thirty years, until the night my husband died."

"Thirty years?" Mulder's shocked whisper needed no explanation. "It took thirty years before you remembered?"

Helen reached over and gave his hand a pat. "Your situation is very different."

"How do you know that?" There was both hope and defeat in his voice.

"You'll see in a moment," she told him, then resumed her narrative. "I walked to the road, expecting that I would have to find my own way back to town. A car came by a short time later, and that's when I found out I'd been missing for five days. I couldn't believe it. See, I was the first one this happened to, so no one could understand how I'd stayed alive out there for all that time with no food or water."

"And you think people understand it now?" Scully asked.

"Maybe 'understand' is the wrong word. I think they've come to accept that it happens, and that the people who return will never be able to tell them the details." She snorted. "I can, of course, but no one wants to hear it. Except Alan Gillespie. And now you."

She gave Mulder a long, tender look that Scully found oddly disturbing. then resumed her story. "I was taken by men who looked like you and me, but they weren't like us. They didn't speak, but I could hear them thinking. Not in words so much as feelings. Impressions. I knew they weren't going to kill me, and I knew they were afraid of something. One of the other abductees. A young man who was lying on a table next to mine."

Beside her on the couch, Mulder sighed audibly. "Aliens? You're saying you were abducted by aliens?" There was no mistaking the disbelief in his tone.

Helen frowned at him. "What did you think I was going to tell you? You know of anyone on this planet who can erase inconvenient memories?"

Sadly, they did. Or, Scully did. Mulder was merely taking her word for it. He looked at her now, eyebrows raised as if to say 'Go on. Tell her'. She turned to Helen. "Yes, I do."

Mulder's eyebrows climbed even higher. His body language said he was more than ready to leave.

Helen's frown was aimed at Scully now. "You haven't heard the rest of it. I assure you, these people weren't people. The man I mentioned? The one on the table next to me? Well, he was one of them, too, but different. Like I said, they were afraid of him."

Scully put a placating hand on Mulder's left knee to keep him in his seat. He crossed his arms over his chest, his jaw set in a very familiar way. If the situation hadn't been so deadly serious, she might have appreciated the irony a little more. "Can you remember why they were afraid of him?"

Mulder snorted beside her. Helen ignored him, truly addressing herself to Scully for the first time. "There are good aliens and bad ones. He was one of the bad ones. They seemed to have a hard time deciding which kind he was at first. Until they put him on the table, and it changed. Then, they did something to him that they wouldn't let me see. They put me to sleep, but I still heard him screaming."

"I need some air." Mulder brushed off her hand and stood up. Before either of them could react, he walked out the door, letting the screen slam behind him as he stomped off the porch.

"Let him go," Helen told her when Scully started to get up. "There are some things I need to tell you that he shouldn't hear anyway."

Scully felt in her pocket for the car keys. At least he wouldn't get very far. She turned back to Helen. "What things?"

"In a minute." She studied Scully's face for a moment. "I need to know what your relationship is to Agent Mulder."

It was the last thing Scully had expected, and her surprise made her bluster. "I don't see how that's relevant."

"Get down off that high horse. If it wasn't important, I wouldn't ask. Before this happened to him, were you close? Were you lovers?" Her gaze never wavered, and her tone was gentle, but insistent.

"We were very close." That was as far as she was prepared to go.

Helen studied her closely, then her expression softened. "I see. I'm sorry, dear." She reached out and touched Scully's cheek so kindly that it brought tears to her eyes. "It's hard, isn't it? Knowing he may never remember what you had together?"

Scully looked away, blinking furiously. "You said the table changed. Tell me about that."

"The metal was smooth until they put him on it, and then it wasn't. It turned dark and... bumpy. Twisted, I guess. That's when they put me to sleep. When I woke up, the table was back the way it had been, all smooth, and the other man was gone."

Scully's mouth went dry. "Did you talk to Eric before he disappeared?"

Helen's surprise seemed genuine. "Me? Good heavens, no."

"Then you didn't see the... artifact he found?"

The woman's eyes narrowed. "What kind of artifact?"

"A ring. Eric never showed it to anyone, but he told several people about it. He said it changed when he picked it up. He said men were chasing him for it. That's why he called Mulder."

"He found it in the desert."

It wasn't a question, but Scully answered it anyway. "Yes."

"That's how they identify each other. Their ships are made of it. I don't know why the other aliens use it, too, but it's why some UFO stories talk about smooth shapes and others about dark, contorted ones."

Scully stared at her. "How can you possibly know this?"

"They communicate telepathically. Every thought is shared, not just the ones they use to direct their test subjects. Maybe I got to hear so much because the bad alien was there. Maybe they're always that open, and I just happen to have lived long enough to remember." She got up from her chair and moved to the couch, taking both of Scully's hands in her own. "You must never go back out there, and you must never let him go back. If you believe nothing else that I've said, please believe that. You're disturbing something you can't begin to understand, and the next time, I think they'll have no choice but to kill you both."

The urgency in her voice and in her eyes made Scully's blood run cold. "Disturbing what? You have to tell me."

"The only reason we haven't been run off this planet is that the good aliens keep it from happening. They came here to do research, millennia ago, but they were followed. They stayed to keep us safe, but I've sensed a change over the years. Almost as if they've begun to wonder how much effort we're really worth."

"You're still... in contact with them?"

"I sense them sometimes. More over the past few days than ever before. I think that's because of you and your friend, but I don't know why."

"If you can still communicate with them, maybe you could persuade them to undo what they've done to Mulder."

Helen must have heard the plaintive hope in her voice. She shook her head sadly. "I can't do that."

"How do you know? Won't you even try?"

"This is the part I didn't want him to hear. The aliens can't give him his memory back because they didn't take it in the first place."

Scully actually shivered. "What are you saying?"

"That's why I asked you how well you knew him. I think you sense the truth yourself, but you don't want to believe it."

"I don't know what you mean." But she did. She'd wondered if he wouldn't be better off this way. Was it so much of a stretch to think he might not have wanted it for himself, even unconsciously?

Helen seemed to read her thoughts. "What man wouldn't be tempted by the possibility of a new life?"

Scully shook her head. "Not this man. He would never do this deliberately. His work... our work... is too important to both of us. You're wrong." She stood up, wishing desperately that she believed it herself.

"Wait." Helen rose from the couch and caught up with Scully at the door. "You have to let him find his own way, even if that way doesn't include you. It's not just your own life that depends on it. Or his. It's all of us."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"I think you know that it does."

She found Mulder across the road, sitting at the tree-shaded end of a long wooden dock with his bare feet submerged in the river. His shoes and socks sat next to him. When Scully approached, he said nothing, but reached over to move his shoes so she could sit down. His gaze remained fixed on the opposite bank. It was a long time before either of them spoke.

"So, what did she tell you?"

Scully leaned forward, trying to see his eyes. "She said if we go out there again, we'll probably be killed."

"Do you believe her?" He was definitely avoiding her eyes.

Long pause. "I don't know."

Mulder looked at her then. "Agent Gillespie called. They found Eric Hosteen's body about an hour ago. In this river, a few miles downstream." He kicked at the water, splashing surprisingly cold droplets on her bare legs. "They think he killed himself."

"He didn't."

Beat. "I know."

"I want to do the autopsy."

Mulder sighed, then pulled his feet out of the water and stood up. Scully's shoes were still on her feet, dangling a good foot above the water. She accepted the hand he offered and let him pull her up. "We'll talk later," he told her softly, but the words felt like a physical blow. There was something in his eyes that squeezed her heart.

She handed him the keys without a word and followed him back to the Jeep. The ride to the sheriff's office passed in chilly silence.

The sheriff was considerably less subtle than Alan Gillespie had been. He greeted them at the door with, "You've been in my town for four days, and this is the first time I hear about it?" He shook Mulder's hand with enough force to make him wince. Then he stalked back to his office, apparently expecting them to follow.

They found him standing at his desk, dialing the phone. He jabbed the air in the direction of two chairs facing it. Scully took her cue from Mulder and remained standing. The sheriff, whose name she still didn't know, barked into the receiver. "Yeah, they're here... He is?" He straightened noticeably. "Well, tell him I'll send a car around to pick him up... Yeah, twenty minutes." He hung up the phone and turned to the two agents. "Your boss is here, and he's not happy."

This was not news to Scully, but Mulder gave her a mildly surprised frown. "I thought you were going to call him."

It was completely unlike him to call her on something in front of a stranger. "I didn't have a chance." She could feel the flush in her cheeks as she turned to the sheriff. "I'd like to perform the autopsy on Eric Hosteen's body. Could someone take me to him?"

The man shrugged. "Sure, why not?" He picked up the phone, tossing a sarcastic look her way. "Anything else?"

Mulder shifted next to her. "I'd like a ride back to the motel, if it's no trouble."

"No, Mulder. You take the Jeep. I'll get a ride back later."

He nodded and left the room without further comment.

The body was at the hospital morgue. Not surprisingly, the autopsy revealed very little. There was water in the lungs and no sign of physical trauma. She x-rayed the body for implants almost as an afterthought. There was nothing. Eric Hosteen drowned in five feet of water, less than a dozen feet from shore. She took blood samples to have a tox screen run, knowing the results would be negative.

And if he'd had the ring with him when he went in the water, it was gone.

When she got back to the sheriff's office, Walter Skinner's booming voice sounded from the other side of the closed office door. Scully sagged into a chair to wait for the inevitable.

Virtually every decision she'd made since Monday morning had been wrong. She had disregarded Skinner's caution and brought Mulder out here, nearly costing him his life. She had ignored her own instincts and not told him what she really believed. She had taken him to see Helen Minton without preparing him for the story she knew he would hear. And she'd let him go back to the motel alone. To brood, as only Mulder could.

The door burst open and Walter Skinner's forbidding bulk came toward her. She saw Sheriff what's-his-name come out after him, looking very much like a man who'd just been raked over the coals.

"Agent Scully, we're through here." The kindness in his voice stunned her.

"Agent Mulder has the car."

He just looked at her and pushed open the door. She followed him out into the late afternoon sunlight, shielding her eyes against the glare. There was a black SUV parked in front of the building which she assumed to be his car. Sitting next to it, obscured from her view when she'd come in, was the Jeep.

"Sir, that's our Jeep. Mulder must still be here."

Skinner reached into his pocket and pulled out the keys to the Jeep. He dropped them into her hand.

A ball of ice formed in the pit of her stomach. "I don't understand."

He sighed heavily and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I drove him to the airport about an hour ago. Scully, he's gone."

* * *
Continued in Chapter 10