#Doggett: hey that guy hit me with his car

[newesthope]

Doggett being the only one to question why everybody trusts Krycek is like the only guy in a musical who asks why everybody keeps bursting into song

[no-reply95]

Jealous Guys

Something I’ve been thinking about for a while now is the different ways jealousy manifested for John and Paul over the course of their friendship.

I’m going to look at John and Paul in turn and have a look at some of the key ways jealousy appeared, before, during and after the Beatles period. This will be a looooong post so if you want to go on deep dive keep reading below.

John

Jealousy was something that John acknowledged as a big part of his personality, as far as I’m aware, he only acknowledged his jealousy publicly in terms of his relationship with Yoko but I believe jealousy was a feature of all of John’s major relationships. John’s first real partnership was with Pete Shotton, his childhood best friend, and Pete has outlined how John’s jealousy and possessiveness was a feature in their friendship with them falling out when Pete first started showing interest in girls and with John acting out when Pete started to spend more time with other friends, instead of him, here Pete recounts John’s reflection on this period of their friendship:

“Years later John confessed to having felt acutely jealous throughout that interlude: “I was scared shitless I’d lost you after our fight in science class, when you starting playing with David Jones. I really thought I’d gone too far with you that time.“

Pete Shotton, John Lennon: In My Life , 1983

Pete’s recollections establish a pattern in John’s life of acting out due to a fear of abandonment and losing those who are closest to him so it’s not surprising that once John had formed a strong bond with Paul that would stir similar fears in him. 

Below I’ve categorised the groups of people that were the focus of John’s jealousy and have picked one person from each group as an example:

Family - Jim McCartney

Paul’s family was and continues to be a big part of his life. From the outset of their friendship, John was made aware of how important Jim was to Paul and vice versa. John and Paul had to skip school to hang out together because Jim wouldn’t have John in their house initially and John confessed his resentment of Jim’s influence over Paul’s life. It appears that after some time John grew tired of having to contend with Jim for the position of the most important person in Paul’s life, and this culminated in John giving Paul a pseudo ultimatum as John discussed in 1971:

“But Paul would always give in to his dad. His dad told him to get a job, he fucking dropped the group and started working on the fucking lorries, saying, "I need a steady career." We couldn't believe it… “So I told him on the phone, "Either come or you're out." So he had to make a decision between me and his dad then, and in the end he chose me”

St. Regis Hotel interview, Sept. 5, 1971

Friends - Mal Evans

Throughout the active years of the band it was typical of them to refer to each other as their best friends and, given the lives they led, I think the simple fact that no one else could understand what it was like to be a Beatle would have meant they all shared a special bond. However, they all had friendships outside of the band and this was something that could cause issues for John when it came to Paul.

According to Tune In, Mal initially became friends with Paul during the band's initial shows at the Cavern Club then, after a suggestion from George, Mal became a part of the Beatles entourage thereafter. Mal had friendships with all the Beatles, as part of their inner circle, but from his comments it appears John took umbrage with the closeness of Mal’s friendship with Paul:

“Paul would suddenly come in with this circle saying, “This is Magical Mystery Tour, will you write that bit?” And I was choked that he’d arranged it all with Mal anyway, for a kickoff, and had all this idea going”

St. Regis Hotel interview, Sept. 5, 1971

Mal also comes up when John discusses his recollections of the writing of Eleanor Rigby:

“So rather than ask me, “John, do these lyrics—” Because by that period, he didn’t want to say that – to me. Okay? So what he would say was, “Hey, you guys, finish off the lyrics,”... “ Now, I sat there with Mal Evans, a road manager who was a telephone installer, and Neil Aspinall, who was a not-completed student accountant who became our road manager. And I was insulted and hurt that he’d thrown it out in the air”...” There might be a version that they contributed, but there isn’t a line in there that they put in.“

Playboy interview, David Sheff 1980

John’s discomfort with the closeness of Paul’s relationship with Mal was something that wasn’t lost on Mal’s wife Lil:

“He was always at their beck and call. He was a nice fella to have around, so much so that it could provoke little jealousies within the band. When I met Yoko years after Mal died, she said John had told her he’d been very jealous at one point of Mal’s relationship with Paul.”

Lil Evans interview with Ray Connolly, 2005

Love interests - Linda McCartney

Throughout their friendship both John and Paul had quite a few love interests, which (to varying degrees) prompted jealousy between them.

Although John displayed jealousy of a few of Paul’s love interests this was no more apparent than with Paul’s first wife Linda McCartney, which is confirmed by both John’s words and actions regarding Linda and her partnership with Paul:

“"Then Klein informed Lennon that McCartney had secretly been increasing his stake in Northern Songs. ‘John flew into a rage,’ recalled Apple executive Peter Brown. ‘At one point I thought he was really going to hit Paul, but he managed to calm himself down.’ One unconfirmed report of this meeting had Lennon leaping towards Linda McCartney, his fists raised in her face"

Peter Doggett, You Never Give Me Your Money

"Int: When did you first meet her [Linda]? John: The first time I saw her was after that press conference to announce Apple in America. We were just going back to the airport and she was in the car with us. I didn't think she was particularly attractive, I wondered what he was bothering having her in the car for. A bit too tweedy, you know. But she sat in the car and took photographs and that was it. And the next minute she's married him."

St. Regis Hotel interview, Sept. 5, 1971

“I was reading your letter and wondering what middle aged cranky Beatle fan wrote it... "What the hell—it’s Linda! . . . Linda— if you don’t care what I say—shut up!—let Paul write—or whatever.”

"Of course, the money angle is important—to all of us—especially after all the petty shit that came from your insane family/in laws—and GOD HELP YOU OUT, PAUL—see you in two years—I reckon you’ll be out then"

Draft letter from John Lennon to Linda McCartney, circa 1971

"The presumption is a) the Beatles would get together again or are even thinking about it and b) if they got together, John and Yoko split, Paul and Linda split"

John (with Yoko) talks to John Fielding on Weekend World, 1973

"John often speculated on why Paul and Linda remained married while, at the same time, resenting their evident happiness, to the extent that he had Green do a tarot reading to ensure him that Paul and Linda were really secretly miserable and were going to divorce within a year"

According to Fred Seaman and John Green, source

Paul

Of course jealousy wasn't a one-way street in the Lennon-McCartney relationship. Unlike with John, for Paul I'm focusing more on the key people I believe his jealousy, regarding John, was directed to:

Stuart Sutcliffe

John met Stu at Art College and struck up a really close friendship with him. At the point that John met Stu, John had already become friends with Paul so Paul felt threatened when Stu entered the picture:

"When he [Stu] came into the band, around Christmas of 1959, we were a little jealous of him; it was something I didn’t deal with very well. We were always slightly jealous of John’s other friendships.

When Stuart came in, it felt as if he was taking the position away from George and me. We had to take a bit of a back seat."

Paul McCartney, Anthology 2000

"Paul was saying something about Stu’s girl – he was jealous because she was a great girl, and Stu hit him, on stage. And Stu wasn’t a violent guy at all."

John Lennon, 1967 Anthology 2000

"I looked up to Stu. I depended on him to tell me the truth. Stu would tell me if something was good and I’d believe him. We were awful to him sometimes. Especially Paul, always picking on him. I used to explain afterwards that we didn’t dislike him, really."

John Lennon, The Beatles Hunter Davies 1968

Yoko Ono

Of all the relationships I've already discussed, the relationship and jealousy displayed from Paul towards Yoko is probably the most widely discussed in Beatles historiography and general discourse. From the official start of Yoko's relationship with John in 1968 it was clear that Paul resented her presence in John's life and her proximity to the band:

"He even sent them [John and Yoko] a hate letter once, unsigned, typed. I brought it in with the morning mail. Paul put most of his fan mail in a big basket and let it sit for weeks, but John and Yoko opened every piece. When they got to the anonymous note, they looked puzzled, looking at each other with genuine pain in their eyes. ‘You and your Jap tart think you’re hot shit’, it said."

Francie Schwartz, Body Count 1972

"Cause she’s [Yoko] very much to do with it from John’s angle, that’s the thing, you know. And I – the thing is that I – there’s— Again, like, there’s always only two answers. One is to fight it, and fight her, and try and get The Beatles back to four people without Yoko, and sort of ask her to sit down at the board meetings. Or else, the other thing is to just realize that she’s there, you know. And he’s not gonna sort of – split with her, just for our sakes."

Paul McCartney, Let It Be Sessions, 1969

"I told John on the phone the other day that at the beginning of last year I was annoyed with him. I was jealous because of Yoko, and afraid about the break-up of a great musical partnership. It’s taken me a year to realise that they were in love. Just like Linda and me."

Paul McCartney, interview with Ray Connolly, 1970

What are the similarities and differences in the way jealousy manifested for John and Paul?

I think it's obvious but bears repeating that both John and Paul displayed jealousy towards other people who they felt would threaten their relationship so that's central to all the instances I have flagged, Jim, Mal, Linda, Stu, Yoko all posed real or imagined threats to John and Paul's partnership.

However, you'll note that I included more sources to display John's jealousy regarding Paul and that I categorised John's jealousy targets whereas I only pulled out two key individuals for Paul, this isn't to say that John was more jealous than Paul was, as jealousy isn't something you can quantify, but to highlight my opinion that Paul's jealousy regarding John was more targeted than John's jealousy regarding Paul. I think what stands out to me is that, I think generally Stu and Yoko are held up as the prime examples of Paul's jealousy of other people getting close to John, as far as we know, Paul never had significant issues with other people who formed close relationships with John like Pete Shotton, Cynthia Lennon, Magic Alex etc., why was that? I think that Paul was more threatened when he felt that John was replacing him so by bringing Stu into the band (even though he wasn't a musician) and Yoko into the studio (one instance where Paul was especially hurt was when John gave Paul's line in The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill to Yoko to sing), Paul perhaps felt that his place as John's primary collaborator was in jeopardy and that he could lose a partnership that had become central to his self-worth as a person - that, I believe, was when his jealousy was most likely to rise to the fore. John, on the other hand, had a much wider range of targets when it came to jealousy regarding Paul, why was John jealous of Linda? Linda wasn't trying to replace John as Paul's collaborator, if anything she wanted the Lennon-McCartney partnership to be stronger. Why was John jealous of Mal? Mal wasn't a musician, Mal was a huge fan of the band and constantly worked to fulfil their requests, so why was John so threatened by his friendship with Paul? For me, John's jealousy regarding Paul was more than just a fear of directly being replaced, I believe John's jealousy was fundamentally triggered by a fear of abandonment. I think the childhood trauma John experienced, of being left by both his parents, meant that whenever any of his close friendships and relationships were threatened, or he felt that someone close to him may leave him, he would act out. John fell out with his childhood best friend Pete when he got a girlfriend, John hit Cynthia when he saw her dancing with Stu, John was rude to several of Paul's love interests and ultimately John never fully accepted Paul's relationship with Linda because, although he could see that she could offer Paul the family life he always wanted, John didn't want Linda to take Paul away and give him a family that meant that Paul would no longer be able to prioritise John in his life as he had in the past.

Ultimately, we'll never know all the ways that jealousy factored into John and Paul's relationship with each other and those around them, as I'm sure it impacted several relationships in more complex ways than I can articulate (i.e. I suspect jealousy played a part in Paul's initial resentment of Brian but they grew closer over time so maybe Paul's jealousy lessened over time or Brian became less of a threat?). I do think it's important to consider that jealousy was present on both sides and was likely a factor in the breakdown of John and Paul's relationship, the breakdown of the Beatles and was a continued factor in disrupting reconciliations between John and Paul into the 70s and 1980.

[ghostbustermelanieking]

snow in april (chapter 6 of 8)

deadalive au, casefile

one /// two /// three /// four /// five

warning for general eeriness, discussion/slight depiction of death, temporary death of a child

They didn't get very far. Of course they didn't, that would be too easy. There was a roadblock and scattered members of the police department were there. “Can't let you go any further,” the officer who stopped them told them regretfully.

“And why is that?” Scully said coldly.

The officer flicked his eyes over to the passenger seat, the woman in it, and gulped. “Roads too bad,” he said.

“We'll take our chances,” Mulder snapped, reaching for the gear shift.

“I-I can't let you do that, sir,” the man stammered. “Sheriff's orders.”

“We're FBI.” Scully presented her badge.

A man with a gargantuan mustache who was wearing the sheriff's badge came up to the car. “Ma'am, I'm afraid it doesn't matter who you are. You can't leave.”

“Where's Deputy Haswell?” Mulder demanded. “I want to speak to Deputy Haswell.”

“She's out. Resigned,” the awkward officer said. The sheriff shot him a look, and he slunk off, quietly.

“Hey, Sheriff, I know these guys,” said a man who Mulder recognized as the friend Haswell had called in, the one who had said it wasn't Calvert. Jeff something - Renner, maybe. Funny, he thought darkly, he's acknowledging us more than he did at Haswell’s. “Agents… Mulder and Sully, right?”

“Scully,” Scully corrected him sharply. Her voice was colder than the temperature outside.

“Right.” Jeff leaned on the car like they were old buddies, an apologetic look on his face. “Listen, guys, I'm sure you're real anxious to get home, but I'm afraid we can't let you through. You could crash, get killed, and I'm sure you don't want that with a little one on the way.”

“We're not concerned about crashing, I've had plenty of experience driving in the snow,” Mulder said shortly. “Besides, won't the weather be warmer further down the mountain? It's April.”

Jeff shrugged, a picture of innocence. “Don't know what to tell you.”

“There must be another road,” Scully said.

The sheriff shook his head. “This here's the only way out, unless you want to walk.”

“You can't keep us here,” she hissed, fierce and furious. “That's unlawful imprisonment.”

“No one's being imprisoned,” the sheriff said, his voice taking on a menacing tone. “Not yet, at least.” He lifted his jacket, just slightly, so that Mulder could clearly see his gun.

A wave of nausea rolled over Mulder, and he shifted the car into reverse. “Good decision, Agent Mulder,” Jeff said cheerfully. “Everyone will be safer this way.”

Somehow I doubt that, Mulder thought viciously, turning the car around. As he turned, he saw Calvert in a look.black winter coat, standing near the road block. He offered Mulder a small smile. Mulder looked away.

“What are we going to do?” Scully whispered as soon as the window was up and they were driving the other way, back towards Calvert Pass. “We can't stay here, and we can't walk.”

“We need help,” Mulder said, clutching the wheel tightly so his hands wouldn't shake. “We need to go to Haswell's, I think she's our best option for getting out of here.”

“I don't know that we can trust Haswell.”

“I don't know that we have a choice,” he said. Scully bit her lip and nodded. “I think you should call Doggett. At the very least, he could come up with backup, right?”

Scully nodded again, jaw clenched. Her hands were pressed together in her lap. “Hey,” he said softly, letting go of the wheel with one hand to brush her shoulder. “It's going to be okay.”

Scully turned to look at him. Her face was grave, hands pressed to her stomach in a way that could only be described as protective. “I have a bad feeling, Mulder,” she said. “I don't know how to describe it, but I do.”

---

They got to Haswell's quickly. Mulder came around the door to help Scully, and she made a face at him, and he said, “Please, Scully,” quietly, and she sighed and grabbed his arm to walk up to the porch.

Haswell looked a little surprised to see them. Actually, she looked kind of frazzled in general - in pajama bottoms and a ragged band t-shirt, hair in a frizzing ponytail, eyes a little wild. “Agents,” she said, opening the door a little wider.

“My field trip got canceled,” Lyla announced when they came in the door. She was sitting on the stairs with a book balanced on her lap. “Because of the stupid snow. That's why Anna’s at school and I'm not.”

“We need your help,” Scully was saying to Haswell, frantic.

“It was to the water treatment plant,” Lyla said. “I had to do a stupid report. It was established in 1974.”

“They won't let us leave town. We saw something last night, it came in our house looking for Mulder, and we tried to leave town but they wouldn’t let us,” Scully said, her hand tightening around his arm.

Haswell closed her eyes in misery. “I was afraid of something like this,” she muttered. “I knew this would happen, it's goddamn inevitable.”

“What do you mean?” Mulder said sharply. (It seemed clear to him, in the moment, that Scully was right about Haswell being suspicious, and he should've seen it from the beginning. He'd made wrong choice after wrong choice after wrong choice, and now they were in danger because of it.)

Haswell turned to look at her daughter, who was staring at them with interest. “Lyla, go to your room and play,” she said. The little girl's eyes widened and she scrambled to her feet and ran up the stairs. “Come into the kitchen,” Haswell said to Scully and Mulder, motioning them forward. They didn't have any choice, it seemed, but to follow.

In the kitchen, Haswell paced back and forth. She grabbed an egg-smeared pan from the stove and started scrubbing it over the sink. “I wasn't going to get you involved in this, you know,” she said, scrubbing furiously.

Mulder and Scully sat down at the table. He reached for her hand underneath it, and she slid her fingers into his seamlessly.

“I've always felt guilty when these things happen, because who the hell wouldn't. I'm a cop who doesn't save people.” She turned on the water, a hard spray. “But I've learned to let it go. Take the statement and move on. Have a good life with my daughters. I was never interested in their damn agenda, and I didn't know what they'd do to me if I tried to stop it.”

“Mari…” Scully started, warily, squeezing his hand.

The pan hit the bottom of the sink, soapy water splattering the countertop, and Haswell turned to them. Her face was slightly softer than before. “I know you don't trust me right now,” she said. “You have the right. But you have to understand how long I've been living with this. Since 1987. That's a lot of guilt, you know. I go away to school, to become a police officer, and I come back and learn what my town has come to. It's a hard thing to live with. I couldn't leave before because my parents were here and they were dying, and then I couldn't leave because I had two little girls established here and my husband buried here. So I've been trying to figure out how to deal with it for years. Because I know someday they'll try to recruit my daughters for their little club, and I don't want that for them. I want to save all those nice people who shouldn't have to die. Again.”

Mulder shuddered, his fingers tightening around Scully's. She knew from the beginning, she'd been playing them. “Haswell, just tell us the truth,” he said. “What the hell is going on here?”

“You want to know the truth?” Haswell snapped. “I've been trying to protect you. I thought maybe if you dug enough you'd put the pieces together, but it's too dangerous and this is bigger than the two of you. I thought if I played dumb and gave you Calvert as a starting point that you'd eventually figure it all out, find out what they were doing, but that didn't happen because you made yourself a fucking target. You want the goddamn truth?”

It's out there, Mulder wanted to crack, but thought better of it. He always had the absurd instinct to make jokes in dire situations and they never went down well.

“The truth is that people die in this town, and it's no accident. And everyone knows about it and never does a damn thing. The truth is that the person who killed Cara and Kyle Roberts was trying to bring them back to life,” Haswell hissed.

Mulder froze, heart in his throat. Scully's fingernails dug into his jacket. Of course, he thought. Of course I find a case and it's goddamn necromancy. Just his fucking luck.

“It never works,” Haswell said. “It never fucking works and the responsible party never learns, they're like goddamn children. They keep killing and killing and hoping for a different result, but they never get it. And no one can say a thing to them about it because they all think they're doing the right thing for this town.”

“Mari,” Scully said softly. She still had a firm grip on his sleeve. “Who's involved? How far up does this go?”

“Stay here,” Haswell growled. “I'll fix this, I'll tell them you were faking at your appointment, Agent Mulder, and then maybe they'll let you go. Then maybe you can send someone back to fix this godforsaken town. Stay here and watch my kid - Anna's at school, she’s going home with a friend, so you don't have to worry about her - and I'll be back.” She turned and stormed out the door before either of them could protest.

Mulder gulped. The lump in his throat was growing larger, suffocating, and he felt like he was going to be sick. “I wasn't faking,” he whispered.

---

They tried to put together the pieces. Mulder got out a pad of paper and scribbled down everything they knew - the victim's names and dates of death (including the original three outliers), details of their encounters with the scarecrows, everything Haswell had said before she left. It wasn't much, not enough to make a comprehensive theory. “Haswell claimed that people have been killing tourists in an attempt to bring them back to life,” Scully said, hunching over the paper. “And everyone just… knows about it and does nothing?”

“Calvert has to be involved,” said Mulder. “Because Haswell said she'd hoped we'd put the pieces together starting with Calvert, so he has to be involved.”

“A cult? A group of people in the town who believe they can bring people back to life? This could be a necromancy version of Dudley, Arkansas,” Scully muttered.

There did seem to be several similarities. Mulder suddenly remembered her face washed out in firelight, her mouth taped and her eyes filled with fear, and he shuddered. “Something similar to a cult would make sense,” he said out loud. “Haswell didn't want to be involved in it, but she also couldn't get away from it or report it because these are the townspeople she's lived around forever. And she possibly can't leave because they won't let her.”

“She might’ve resigned in an attempt to get away,” Scully pointed out.

“I think this is the last straw and she hoped that we'd be able to get her out with our credentials, bring some justice to this fucked up place. She probably just didn't expect one of us to fit the M.O.”

“So they lure people here… either through Calvert’s counseling service, or the blackout, or both… and they kill these people who have recently died and come back to life, in the hopes that… what, that it'll happen again?” Scully sounded slightly disgusted.

“And the scarecrows is where they go when they don't come back to life,” Mulder said. “It's like Anna said - he traps the souls of his patients forever.”

Scully didn't point out how ridiculous that sounded. She just said, “Mulder, there are more than seventeen scarecrows.”

He was surprised she had counted; he'd been too busy being generally terrified by them. “Maybe there's more than seventeen victims. They started with uninvolved townspeople… maybe they kept going.”

“Or maybe the extras are for future victims,” Scully said softly. She was looking at him.

Some slight nausea overtook him. You can’t escape this, Cara Roberts had said. You have to come back to the ground. But he would escape it; he had to.

Haswell didn't come back for a couple hours. “I think we should be worried,” Scully said. “If the bits and pieces of her story are true, then we can assume the townspeople will be hostile if she goes against them.”

“And if she was trying to trick us, was working against us, then she probably wouldn't have left us babysitting her kid,” said Mulder. He got up from the table, digging into his pocket for his keys. “I'm going after her.”

“No, you're not. You have no idea where she went, and besides that, we have Lyla here.”

“You stay with Lyla. I'll go.”

“You are not going alone,” she hissed angrily. “You have no idea what you're facing, and we only have one gun between us."

He sat back down; he wasn't going to argue, and he wasn't going to put Scully in danger, or Haswell’s kid.

Scully called The New Partner. “Agent Doggett? It's Scully,” she said, and Mulder was ridiculously happy she referred to him as Agent. “No, I'm fine, we both are. For now. But I don't know how much longer we'll be that way.” She paused uncertainly. “Listen, we ended up in a town in North Carolina called Calvert Pass. We were trapped here by the snow, and now the townspeople won't let us leave. We… Agent Doggett?”

Mulder tugged her sleeve. “What happened, did he hang up?”

“Agent Doggett? Doggett, are you there?” Scully spoke frantically into the phone, clutching it tightly in her hand like a lifeline. (It was a lifeline: theirs.) Even pressed against her ear, he could hear the crackle of static. “Doggett!” She groaned with frustration suddenly, letting the phone drop onto the table. “Call got cut off,” she lamented. She grabbed the phone and started punching in buttons. “It's dead,” she confirmed.

“Try Haswell's, I'll change your batteries,” Mulder directed. But a battery change didn't do anything, and Haswell's  cell was dormant as well. There was no way to reach anyone on the outside.

“Can they do this? Control our phones like this?” Scully whispered, horrified. Neither of them knew.

There didn't seem to be anything left to do but make lunch for Lyla. She came down, asking where her mom was, and Mulder lied and told her work, and Scully offered her lunch. She spread peanut butter over bread and cut it into triangles. Mulder watched in a mesmerized kind of way, tried to imagine her doing that with her kid. (No, wait, their kid.) She's going to get out of here, he told himself. No matter what happens to me, she will get out of here.

“When will Mommy be back?” Lyla asked softly when Scully put her plate in front of her.

“I don't know, sweetie. I'm sure it'll be soon,” Scully said.

The kid nodded, looking down at her plate in dejection and poking at her sandwich. Mulder thought of a distraction, a way to take their minds off of it all, and said, “Hey, you said you had to write a report, right? For the field trip you didn't go on?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You wanna show us the report? Scully… Dana’s a teacher, she could give you some pointers.” Apparently, Scully got his drift and nodded, smiling down at Lyla.

Lyla shrugged her shoulders, but she got to her feet and went back to her room, reappearing a few minutes later with a couple of sheets of large-lined notebook paper stapled together. She read her report seriously, in a voice that trembled with the obvious fear she had for her mother. When she was finished, they offered their compliments, and Lyla offered her a wobbly smile before heading off to watch television.

“You're pretty good with kids,” Mulder said when she was gone. It was the kind of thing he'd always thought and never said, because her daughter was dead and the IVF didn't work. But she was pregnant now and he could say that. (And nothing was going to happen to her, even now, so he really could say that.)

Scully murmured something like thanks, her head leaning against his shoulder.

Guilt was choking him, building thickly in his chest. “I'm sorry, Scully,” he mumbled into her hair. “I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I got involved in this, I'm sorry I didn't listen to you, that I put you in danger…”

“Mulder…”

“I'm sorry I left you. I'm sorry I walked into that fucking light because I was curious about what was on the other side. I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was dying.” He was on a role, had eight years of stuff to apologize for.

“Mulder.” Her hand pressed into his chest, and he stopped. “You didn't know,” she said softly. “You couldn't have known. They lured you here, so we would've been in danger either way. You probably saved us by digging into the Roberts murders, made us more aware of the possibilities.”

“Still,” he said softly. “It was stupid.”

“It was,” she replied, turning her face into his neck. “I won't deny you did some dumb things, and I want to talk about it later. But I was unfair these past few days. I haven't been considering what you've been going through as much as I should have and I was too harsh the other night.”

“You were telling the truth,” he said. “You're entitled to your feelings, Scully, most of the time you don't even let me know how you feel about things…”

“Hush.” She pulled away to look in the eye, cupped his cheek. “We need to talk, and we will. But there's no sense in starting an argument now. We're going to get out of here.”

His hand moved up to cover hers. “And you're going to be a mom.”

She swallowed, turned her hand over in his and took it. “We're going to be parents,” she said, squeezing it. “If that's what you want.”

It was what he'd wanted since the IVF, since she'd awkwardly asked him to be the donor. He leaned in, resting his chin against her hair, not letting go of her hand. “It's what I want,” he whispered, and she pulled their hands up to her mouth and kissed the back of his.

They would get out of here, and so would the Haswells. They had to.

---

It was freezing outside, and Anna was walking home alone.

Her friend’s father had been upset at dinner, something about the roadblock and the “goddamn FBI agents”. Penny and her little brother had been staring at him like they didn’t know him, and Penny’s mother had touched him on the arm and said, “Dear, not at the table… or in front of guests,” with a pointed look at Anna.

And Anna had thought about her mom, her request to move, her strange dream last night. Her dream-dad’s order for her to run. And she’d felt the need to get home right away, an unexplainable need crawling around under her skin. “I have to go,” she’d said, standing and walking quickly to the coat rack by the door. She didn’t even bother with getting her bag, just bundled up and ran. And now she was walking home alone.

The woods were almost absurdly dark, like something out of that stupid Robert Frost poem she had to memorize for school. Lovely, dark and deep, or whatever. Anna shivered, shoving her hands further into her pockets. And then she heard a strange voice, low and whispering: “Anna…”

Anna turned, startled, looking around. “Penny?” she demanded. No answer.

It had definitely been a woman’s voice. “Mom?” she called. “Lyla?” No answer. Must’ve been just the wind, she thought furiously, even though it was a horror movie cliche, and started running.

“Anna Rose Haswell…”

Anna ducked behind a tree, heart pounding. She pressed her shoulder against it, trying to catch her breath. Don't let them see you, is what everyone says. If they see you, it's over. She held her breath, pressing herself against the bark, trying to shrink into herself. Something silver stuck up out of the snow: a lighter. She snatched it up, the closest thing to an actual weapon she had; it was cold in her hand.

A very distinct sound echoed in her ears, she knew it from watching the scarecrows walk a dozen times. It was the sound of a straw hand scraping against the bark of the tree. She pressed her back against the tree, shutting her eyes, and tried not to scream.

More scraping, more rustling. Breathe in, breathe out, Anna instructed herself, trying to stay calm. And then the voice again: “Anna?”

She opened her eyes and found herself surrounded by the scarecrows. Blank button eyes, beaked nose, stitched smile. She screamed. One stepped towards her, and her fingers fumbled on the lighter until they found the right spot and a tiny flame popped up. She thrust it forward, onto the straw hand.

The scarecrow made an inhuman sound and stumbled backwards, waving its flaming arm. It brushed up against another scarecrow’s arm and that one went up in flames. The cycle repeated itself, several others going up. Anna turned, frantic, and thrust the flame at a few others. As more went up in flames, she ran, past them towards her house, dropping the lighter in the snow.

“Anna?”

She froze, boots skidding in the snow. This voice was different, familiar. She whirled around, tears falling, looking for the source. “Anna Banana?” the voice said again.

She turned and found the scarecrow that the voice was coming from. It wasn't burning yet, and it was looking at her. Not malevolently. She sniffled. It couldn't be. It couldn't be, but it had to be. “Daddy?”

“I have to show you something, baby,” he said. “I'm sorry.” And Anna's vision went fuzzy at the edges.

Her father was hunched over a limp little girl - her - on the banks of a river. Please, you have to help me, you have to save her, he begged, and Anna saw Dr. Calvert all of a sudden, standing behind him with his hands in his pockets, a grave look on his face.

I can't, he said sadly. I'm not allowed.

Please. He was crying, cradling the girl who was Anna in his lap. You can't do this, she's my daughter.

I can't, Calvert said again. I can't help you.

Her dad sobbed, hunching over her. He was whispering - No, no, no - and stroking her hair. Calvert looked away, like it was hard to watch. They stood there on the banks for a minute before Calvert stepped forward, putting a hand on her father's shoulder. Calm down, take a deep breath, he said. Here, drink some water. He handed her father a canister.

Goddamnit, I don't want water, her dad hissed. My daughter is dead… god, please. He was rocking her back and forth.

Robert, Calvert said quietly. He sat beside them on the bank. Just drink some water. It'll make you feel better.

Her dad made a terrible face, snatched the cannister from his hands and gulped a few mouthfuls before throwing it aside. There. Are you fucking happy now, Terrence? He hugged her - Anna - close, kissing her head. It won't bring my little girl back.

But it would; a minute later, Anna started moving. She bucked in her father's arms, coughing up the water harshly. Calvert scrambled back in surprise; her dad smoothed her wet hair back. Anna took raspy, trembling breaths, finally whispering, Daddy?

Her dad gathered his daughter up in his arms, hugging her tightly. Oh, baby, it's okay, he whispered. Just breathe, Anna, just breathe.

The scene shifted. The same place, different people. Calvert stood to the side. She was sitting on the bench seat of a picnic table with a beach towel around her shoulders, a young Jeff beside her. The reverend, younger, standing in front of her dad. Confronting him. Just tell me what happened and this will all be over.

I can't tell you what happened because I don't know! I'm not a part of your goddamn cult, Reverend, I don't know how I saved her. She was dead and then she was alive. Her father was agitated, turning away from the reverend towards Anna.

You don't know what happened. The reverend's voice was dangerous.

I don't.

The reverend moved forward and shoved him to the ground in one swift move. You have to know! he roared, leaning over her dad. Tell me what happened, tell me how you did it. It's not fair that my wife gets to stay dead and your daughter gets to come back!

Daddy? Anna called from a distance away. Jeff looked concerned; he pulled her onto his lap, covering her eyes.

What the hell, Sam? Let me the fuck up! her dad shouted. I don't know how it happened and I don't care! You're all crazy, this should've ended years ago!

The reverend groped for something, his hand landing on a rock. He raised it over his head. Jeff lifted Anna and turned her away, You don't need to see this, squirt, and the reverend looked down at him. Tell me, he said quietly.

Her dad's eyes widened. Don't do anything stupid, Sam, I told you I don't know…

The reverend’s hand descended.

Anna screamed. She screamed at the top of her lungs, sobbing hard, her eyes screwed shut. “I'm so sorry, baby,” her father said through the scarecrow. “I'm sorry, but I had to do that, you had to remember. Your mom is in danger. She's in Calvert’s house. You need to go get help for her, and then you need to leave town.”

“Mom's in trouble?” she whimpered, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand.

“Yes, sweetie. I'm sorry to tell you this way. Just go get help and it'll be okay.”

She looked at the ground, didn't want to look at the thing that was talking for her father. “Okay,” she said. “I will. I love you, Daddy.”

“I love you, too, sweetie.” When she looked up, the scarecrow was walking away. She turned and ran the other way, wiping tears from her face.

---

By dinnertime, Haswell still hadn’t come back. It was getting dark, and Mulder and Scully were sitting in the living room with Lyla, watching another rerun of I Love Lucy. Lyla was coloring on the floor, laughing halfheartedly and occasionally at the TV. Scully was quiet, half-napping with her head on Mulder's shoulder. And then they heard the scream; a piercing, screeching scream.

Scully jolted up beside him. “Mulder, what was that?”

“I don't know, I don't know,” he said frantically. Lyla was looking up at them with wide, teary eyes. Please don't let it be Haswell, he thought.

“That's what Anna sounds like when she screams,” Lyla said, voice shifting towards tears. “I've heard it.” She hugged a throw pillow like a stuffed animal, terrified.

“Oh my god,” Scully breathed, turning to look at him. “Mulder…”

“Stay here, I'll go check,” he said, getting to his feet. Worry passed over Scully’s face, and he said, “It'll be fine, I promise.” He was talking to both of them, and he hoped it was true.

It felt like the temperature had dropped another twenty degrees outside - the temperature hit him like a ton of bricks. He shivered and grabbed his coat from the coat rack, wrapping it around him. “Anna!” he shouted into the cold and wind. There was no answer.

He picked his way down the frozen front path, past their car and to the main road, looking it up and down. “Anna?” he shouted. His voice came echoing back to him from the trees. Down the road, by an empty fence where the line of scarecrows should be, a small, dark-headed figure turned her head before ducking behind the fence.

Against his better judgement, likely, Mulder took off running. His feet slipped a few times on the snow and ice, but he managed not to fall. He reached Calvert’s house within the space of a few minutes. All the lights were off; the glass panels in the door to Calvert’s makeshift waiting room had paper taped over it.

The fence looked too empty; he tried not to dwell on where the scarecrows were. He shoved at the gate. Anna was crouched between a tree and the fence, somewhat out of sight of the house. “Anna?” he hissed, going to where she’d be in earshot.

“My mom’s in there,” Anna said darkly, urgently. “I have to save her.”

“What?”

“They murdered my dad! They murdered my dad and now they have my mom…” Her voice cracked and she wiped her eyes with the pads of her fingers.

“Whoa, slow down.” Mulder held up a hand, trying to calm her down. “Take some deep breaths and tell me what happened. It's okay.”

“It is not okay,” she said fiercely. “I remember now. I remember the day my father died. The reverend bashed his head in with a rock from the river. Reverend Greene, I've always hated him but I didn't know why. Jeff was watching. He picked me up and carried me away so I wouldn't have to watch.”

Reverend Greene. He recognized the name, and suddenly realized why: the first victim, Matilda Greene, had been found and called in by her husband, Samuel Greene, the local reverend. There were blocky chunks of text blacked out in the file, the same as in the file for the second and third victims. And the second and third victims had been found by one and the same: Samuel Greene.

“My dad, my dad, he… told me. Through the scarecrows. I set them on fire,” Anna hiccupped, and she pointed towards the woods where a faint glow was coming. “He showed me, I saw it. And he told me they had my mom in here. I have to save her. Right now, I have to save her.”

Mulder's mind was racing, but he didn't have time to dwell. “Anna, listen. Listen to me.” His tone was unusually stern, and she turned to him in surprise. “I’ll go in. I’ll get your mom. I'll save her. You need to go back to the house where it’s safe. My partner, Scully, is there with Lyla, she'll protect you. You need to be there for your sister. I'll bring your mom home.”

Stunned into silence, Anna nodded. Her eyes were wide and watering, her cheeks red from the cold and aggressive wind.

“Go on,” Mulder said. “Run and don’t look back.”

She started to turn, stopped. “Promise you'll bring her home?”

He gulped. “I promise.”

She nodded, wiping her eyes. She slid under the fence and took off running without looking back.

Mulder breathed a small sigh of relief and began creeping towards Calvert’s without a second thought.

The house stayed silent, the scarecrows stayed still. He went to the front door, directly, and grabbed the doorknob. The door swung inwards effortlessly. Okay, Mulder thought. This is basically the beginning of a horror movie. And because he’d always basically been a victim in a horror movie who’d managed to survive the films, he kept going.

The halls were dark, darker than the time he’d snuck around in the house before. Mulder fumbled in his coat for his penlight and found it somewhere in an inside pocket. The tiny beam didn’t do much to ward off the dark; he moved it from item to item to try and gage his surroundings, moved forward quietly. He reached for his gun for his free hand before he remembered he didn't have it. Scully has the gun, he thought. She'll be able to protect herself and the girls. That seemed more important than anything.

He kept going down the dark hallway, the tiny light enveloped in his palm. He passed the table with the book on it, and froze when he saw it was open.

The same scrawl was on the new page: FBI agent, claims to have drowned while being waterboarded by drug dealers that held him captive for three months and was resuscitated by his partner. Researching into him to confirm. Something different about him. From Alexandria, claims no immediate family. Claimed staying in town with aunt, really staying in cabins with pregnant woman (aforementioned partner pictured above). And above the words was the picture, the one of him and Scully at a crime scene that had been featured in the article done on them a few years ago. Press for the stupid fucking movie, Federman had sent reporters sniffing around for a straight week. The picture he’d cut out and pinned up in their office. The only picture of them together in existence, as far as he knew.

Mulder felt nauseous. The weight of it all almost brought him to his knees. Scully. They knew she was here, they must’ve known what she meant to him. And that put her in danger. Fuck, why had he brought them here? He’d probably never forgive himself for that if they got out of here. (When, he corrected himself furiously, because they always got out. They'd get away this time, too.)

He forced himself to keep going, the pen light obscured in his shaking palm. Finding Haswell and getting out was the most important thing at the moment. He went up the stairs, floorboards creaking under his feet. He heard a muffled moan from behind a door. “Haswell?” he whispered, moving the pen light towards the noise.

The moan grew louder, along with several hard kicks to the door. He fumbled for the doorknob and yanked it open, revealed Haswell bound to a chair inside, her mouth taped shut.

“My god,” he muttered, dropping down to free her. He had to pull her out of the room - closet, really - because there was no extra space inside. He pulled the tape off as gently as he could. “Haswell… Mari… are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said impatiently, voice wobbly. “The girls, Mulder… are the girls okay? I heard Anna screaming...”

“They’re fine, they’re fine,” he said, undoing the knots at her ankles. “They’re both back at the house, Scully’s with them. Anna had a run-in with the scarecrows, she says, but she's fine… she said that the reverend killed her father, she said the scarecrows showed her…”

Haswell made a choking sound. “They killed my husband,” she whispered. “I heard them talking about it. And I never knew, never thought to look…”

“It’s okay.” His fingers slipped uselessly at the ropes around her wrists, and he kept working at loosening them. “Once we get out of here, we’ll send people in. They won’t get away with this.”

“They’re targeting you, Mulder,” she whispered. The ropes fell to the ground in a coil. He stood and helped her to her feet. She was gazing at him seriously in the dark. “It’s not safe…”

“I know, I know,” he said. “We’re going to get out of here. Is there anyone in the house?”

“I don’t know.”

They turned together towards the staircase and started cautiously downstairs. “What happened?” he whispered.

“I went to Jeff’s to try and talk things over with him. He drugged me, and I woke up here, in the closet. I don’t know who all’s been here, I’ve just heard people talking. My asshole reverend, the one who murdered my husband. Jeff. Calvert. They mentioned you a lot.”

“Who's involved in this?” They hit the bottom floor, Haswell stumbling a little; Mulder steadied her.

“I don't know, I never went to the meetings because I didn't believe in the cause. Dozens and dozens, but… I never knew how many people in my personal life… my doctor, my kid’s elementary school teachers…”

“What is the cause, Mari? What's going on here?”

She turned to face him, dark eyes dead serious in the absence of light. “A long time ago, the people of this town had powers,” she said seriously. “In my lifetime, even. I used to make things float across the room, make it stop raining if I wanted to play outside…  Those powers started fading out of nowhere, after hundreds of years; people who already had them were weakened, my kids don't have them at all. Some have stayed around, weakly, the telekinesis and the weather stayed, but necromancy has faded completely. It was always the strongest and the hardest to use. They wanted to bring it back, they… They've been killing people who've had NDEs to try and bring them back to life, find out how to restore the power.”

Mulder's jaw clenched. “I lied,” he said. There was a burst of pain along his skull and he staggered, woozy. “I was dead a week ago.”

Haswell's eyes widened. And somewhere behind them, a floorboard creaked under a shoe.

Go! Haswell mouthed, motioning him wildly towards the exit. She was running, faster than him; he tried to keep up but his head was spinning, his gait wobbly. He felt a little like he was going to faint. Powers, he remembered Haswell saying. Some have stayed around, weakly. He had to get out of there.

The door swung open, exposing the night and stars and chilling wind. Haswell stepped out on the step and turned back to see him. It was so close, he was almost there, almost there…

The door slammed shut.

Mulder turned, dizzy, and saw Jeff standing behind him. His hand was up, aimed towards the door. Telekinesis, he thought distantly.

“I'm sorry, Agent Mulder,” Jeff said, as the floor came up to meet him. “But I think you really do have a better chance than the rest.”

Everything went black.

---

Dr. Tom Henderson was a man of simple needs. He was old-fashioned, he liked to smoke a pipe in the evenings. He always shared dinner with his wife, Lucinda. They watched Jeopardy every single night that he was home. On the nights he wasn't, Lucinda would watch without him and write down the questions she hadn't known the answers to and quiz him over breakfast the next morning. It was the simplest existence possible, he thought. Aside from some shadowy candle-lit nights and a few major surgeries (and one snowy night years ago, with a man taking his last breaths as he held his hands out before him, his heartbeats in his ears), there was no excitement in his life.

No one called during dinner. So when the phone rang over roast chicken, they both knew what it was. Dr. Henderson went to answer, and said simply, “I'll be there immediately,” before hanging up.

“Again?” Lucinda lamented, looking at him over her spectacles. “The last one wasn't even a week ago!”

“What can I say except it looks like it's going to be a good year.” He scooped up his plate from the table.

“They never happen in sequence like this,” she noted.

“It's an unusual situation, Lu. It happens.” He set his plate in the sink, paused before continuing. “But I've heard it's different this time.”

“Oh? How so?”

“The guy was dead for a lot longer than any of the others. Heard he was buried, even. So that should increase the chances of a successful resurrection.”

“Oh. And who's turn is it this time?” Lucinda said mildly.

“That kid Renner. He's invested in the cause, but has always followed the rules. Old-timers first, those who spent years with their powers.” Dr. Henderson kissed his wife on the cheek. “Dinner was delicious, sweetheart. I wish you'd come with me.”

“I don't have the stomach for that stuff. You know that.” She pushed her peas around her plate. “You have a good time, though. And be careful.”