Northern Lights
by Joyce
October 2001

Much to my surprise, this story turned into an X-Files/Due South crossover. 1013 Productions owns Fox Mulder and Walter Skinner while Alliance lays claim to Benton Fraser and Diefenbaker. I intend no infringement, nor am I making any money off of this story -- I'm just taking the characters out for a spin. Everyone else belongs to me. This story may NOT be archived anywhere either in part or in whole without my permission. If you are sensitive to profanity, be warned -- Mulder doesn't use heck, drat, or shucks a whole lot.

Summary: Mulder investigates a mysterious disappearance in the White Mountains.

Author's notes are at the end.

 

X-Files Office
Friday Afternoon
February 4, 2000
 

Special Agent Fox Mulder leaned back in his chair and contemplated the dart-riddled poster of Godzilla on the ceiling. Stretching, he felt several muscles in his shoulders and neck pop. He'd just finished the meticulous job of piecing the last of his burnt files back together and tried to enjoy a sense of accomplishment, but felt drained and empty instead. It was too damn quiet.

Hell, it's been too damn quiet for six fucking weeks.

Automatically, he flinched away from the reason for that quiet. For five weeks he'd tried to avoid even thinking about Scully, but he still found her present in all the small moments of his days. Shit, maybe it's time I just admitted that she's gone and get on with my life. Profiler, profile yourself.

Harsh words, but maybe it was time he listened to them. Skinner had quit trying to prod him into taking time off. The silence from Skinner on the subject of Scully was making him nervous. Mulder cautiously wondered what new tactic the A.D was going to try next. Skinner wasn't a man who gave up easily. All the more reason to deal with the problem before Skinner got really creative. Still staring up at the monster tacked to his ceiling, Mulder began to analyze what had gone wrong.

He didn't need to pull out her letter to remember her words -- he couldn't forget them, just as he couldn't forget her.

                I'm tired, Mulder. I've given too much. I need to find out if there's
                anything left of me before I'm simply swallowed up. Please, don't
                try to contact me. When I'm ready, I'll call you.

Short and to the point while being suitably vague and accusing -- that was Special Agent Dana Scully, his partner for over five years. Naturally, he'd ignored her request and tried to call her. Her mother had been equally brusque. Maggie's words were burnt into his memory. He remembered her cold, flat tone as she told him that the family would appreciate it if he respected Dana's wishes. She sounded as if she blamed him, which might make sense depending on just how Scully explained her decision to leave the FBI.

Idly twirling a dart around his fingers, Mulder wished he'd been a bit more sensitive to how deeply shocked Scully was by her cold-blooded killing of Donny Pfaster. It had never occurred to him that Scully wasn't aware of the darkness that lurked inside each of them, waiting for the right moment to emerge. He understood her reasons, even sympathized, but the fact remained that Scully either had to admit that she was capable of such an act, or else fall back on the belief that she'd been possessed by the devil. In the immediate aftermath of the killing and the onslaught of police, he'd dismissed her quiet comment about wondering who was talking to her, God or the devil as a simple case of shock. It wasn't the first time he’d misread her, but apparently it would be the last.

She had expressed a desire to be alone during her week-long suspension while the shooting underwent a routine investigation by the OPR. Now, Mulder realized that abiding by her wishes had been a mistake. He thrived on being alone to work through his emotional problems; Scully didn't. He wondered what conclusion she'd come to that prompted the letter to him and the curt letter of resignation she'd sent to Skinner barely twenty-four hours after OPR had cleared her for duty.

Failing at telephone contact, he'd made one last attempt to reach her; the letter was returned unopened. The message was clear: the Scully family had circled the wagons around her and as far as they were concerned, he was the enemy. It was probably easier for them to believe that he was responsible for everything that had happened to her. That left Scully as an innocent victim rather than a knowing participant in his madness. In a way they were right, but he'd always believed that Scully accepted the risks and stayed with him by choice. When did she lose faith in me . . . in us? That hurt more than he ever imagined it would. He loved Scully, but now he realized that she'd never really believed in his love and might have been unable to tell him that she didn't feel the same way in return.

At least he knew she was safe. Frohike had been very understanding and very efficient. His report was terse but clear -- two weeks after her resignation, Scully had checked into a remote retreat house in the hills of western Pennsylvania for counseling. Mulder had checked up on the reputation of the retreat and found it impeccable -- not a hint of cigarette smoke within five square miles. Cancer Man was good, but corrupting an entire order of Benedictine nuns might be a bit beyond his capabilities. It was an unsatisfactory ending, but Mulder could see the seeds of her decision stretching back for several years. Having lost her faith in science, her government, and herself, all she had left was her religious faith.

"I hope you find what you're looking for. Just remember that I'm always a phone call away," he whispered to the air over by the table she used whenever she needed to work in his office. If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine he heard her soft repressive tsk that she used whenever he indulged in whimsy. She’d left a part of herself behind and Mulder held her memory as a talisman against the times when he might feel too isolated to continue. She had believed in him, once. Together they had challenged a global conspiracy. He owed it to her to continue to try to find the answers about what was done to her, as well as what happened to his sister.

Scully had been an invisible presence on the two cases he'd investigated since she left. She'd have loved this last one. He missed running outlandishly exaggerated theories past Scully just to see her eyebrows arch with disbelief or hear her gleefully puncture holes in the theories. Mulder smiled as he recalled telling a crestfallen sheriff that instead of Bigfoot roaming the woods and stealing a Congressman's prize hog, that he had local kids making a horror movie and a hog rustling that ended up as an impromptu barbecue. Skinner owed him one for that case, but he thought he could understand that Skinner was trying to find something he could sink his teeth into.

Looking at the facts, Mulder came to the only conclusion he could -- it was high time he stopped moping around the office waiting to hear Scully's heels clicking down the hallway and got back to being the FBI's most unwanted investigator of the weird. He'd gone it alone before; he could do it again -- once he got over this feeling that part of him had been amputated with a dull knife.

He recalled a comment he once made to Scully, "if I quit, they win." Guess it’s time I took my own advice. With one last long groaning sigh, he sat back up and tried to decide which of the unopened envelopes in the large stack on the edge of his desk needed his immediate attention.

The ringing of the phone came as a relief. Even his tried and true tabloids were coming up dry and empty on plausible weird happenings. As he reached for the phone, he considered the possibility that someone had declared February to be a holiday for anything remotely resembling an X-File. Even he couldn’t come up with a realistic pitch for investigating most of these stories. A few phone calls to his contacts had eliminated the two least fantastic stories. He wondered if Scully had ever realized just how much prep work he put into a case before he sprung it at her. She probably believed he just stuck his finger on a tabloid page and randomly picked a weird event. If she’d paid closer attention, she might have figured out that he did a lot of background checks before he ever brought up the case. There was more than one reason he attended all those paranormal conferences – cultivation of good, reliable sources didn’t just happen accidentally.

"Mulder."

"Agent Mulder, this is Kim. Assistant Director Skinner would like to see you in his office in ten minutes."

Mulder leaned his head back to stare accusingly at Godzilla. What’s Skinner up to now? We just had our weekly pep talk two days ago.

"Sure," he replied after briefly entertaining the temptation to just say no. It wasn’t fair to Kim to put her in the middle of his frustration with Skinner’s efforts to chivvy him out of his depression. After he hung up the phone, he tried to work up the necessary enthusiasm to convince Skinner that he wasn't brooding down here.

All these files and not a single damn case I could even attempt to run past Skinner without looking desperate.

As the elevator took him up the three flights to Skinner's floor, he wondered how long it would take before Skinner started assigning him to Violent Crimes. He might be out of the loop as far as advancement and inter-office politics were concerned, but he still had considerable contacts in the gossip mill. Word was that certain high-level people were pushing for the shutdown of the X-Files again and the forced return of one hotshot profiler back to active duty. He'd quit before he'd go back to Violent Crimes full-time, but he preferred not to be maneuvered into that last-stand position. He might be able to parlay some leeway in keeping the X-Files open in return for the occasional consulting job if push came to shove. What few people realized was that he could play politics when it suited him, which was rarely. How did they think he got the X-Files opened in the first place? It never failed to amuse him just how blind most people were -- give them an overt image and few ever thought to look beneath the mask. Unfortunately, Skinner was one of those rare people.

"Go right on in, Agent Mulder," Kim said with a warm smile. Mulder had the feeling that she wanted to say something more, perhaps to express her sympathy, but she merely nodded and went back to her work.

Thank you. Mulder gave her a nod in return and opened the door, pausing only to mentally brace himself for whatever Skinner had planned for him.

"Come in, Agent Mulder." Skinner was in one of his brusque moods which could either mean he had some very unpleasant news to relay, or else he was trying to cover up his delight in being able to spring a difficult case on his most difficult subordinate. Reading Skinner was like making sense out of an encrypted note -- it was possible, but not easy.

Mulder slouched in his usual chair and tried not to feel a pang at the sight of the empty chair beside his. Even when he had faced Skinner alone in the past five years, he always felt Scully's invisible presence at his side. He was beginning to realize that Scully was going to be a phantom presence for a long time to come.

"I have a request for . . . ." Skinner paused and picked up a letter from his desk and read from it. Mulder couldn't swear to it, but he thought he saw Skinner's lip twitch. "Quote, ‘Your agent who investigates weird stuff like this,' unquote." Skinner finally let go with a smile as he handed the letter to Mulder. "I can't think of anyone else who fits this description, can you, Agent Mulder?" Skinner asked with a decided lilt in his voice.

Mulder took the two-page letter and held it as gingerly as if it were a bomb.

"It won't bite, Agent Mulder. It might even be a genuine X-File, or just a simple case of murder, but the local agent who was called in has confirmed that he considers it to be more than just murder and the local sheriff told me over the phone that he'd accept any answers up to and including, quote 'aliens, Bigfoot, or any of kind of foot,’ unquote. I'll admit, his written request lacks a certain formality, but that shouldn't bother you. He's included the bare bones of the case, which he admits is just about all he has. Any questions?"

"Wouldn't Siberia be a lot less expensive?" Mulder snapped.

"Probably, but much less cost effective -- we don't have a bureau office in Siberia. However, we have one in Manchester and a crime to solve in Camlyn. You will either confirm that this is a case of murder, or provide some reason to believe the boy's wild story that the girl vanished in front of his eyes."

"What story?" Mulder asked, intrigued in spite of his attempt to remain indifferent to the lure Skinner was dragging in front of him.

"Read the letter and talk to the boy. The sheriff appears to be considering the boy's story. Unfortunately, the girl's father is not. The situation is volatile; I expect you to find the truth before the situation deteriorates. The local agent will meet you at the airport in Manchester and get you to north to Camlyn. The boy is either a murderer, or someone stuck with an impossible story. This is what you're good at, Mulder," Skinner added quietly.

Mulder glared at him for a moment, but saw no pity, or even sympathy, just understanding. That was almost harder to bear. Pity he could snarl at, but understanding cut too close to the truth -- he felt lost without Scully.

"Next time, sir, could you find a really interesting case somewhere in the Florida Keys?" Mulder replied sarcastically. He wasn't ready to talk about losing Scully, not yet, but he knew that when he did, it would be to Skinner.

"I'm not letting you anywhere near the Bermuda Triangle, again, Mulder," Skinner said flatly. His eyes flashed in a smile for an instant, almost too fast for Mulder to catch.

"One thing more. The father is a Canadian national who maintains a winter home in Camlyn. Try to get along with our northern neighbors," Skinner asked in an odd tone that suggested there had already been expressions of concern coming from Canada. At Mulder's puzzled look, Skinner shook his head as he glanced around the room.

"I'll practice my Canadian, sir, and I promise I won't annoy the Mounties," Mulder quipped as he nodded to show he understood Skinner's warning. This case was bigger than it looked, but Skinner wanted everything kept low-key. It didn't surprise Mulder that Skinner believed his office was bugged. He did a complete sweep of his own office and his apartment at least once a week now; he hadn’t found anything yet, but couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched.

"Just find out what happened, Mulder. Agent Hobbs has been instructed to be your back-up. He's young, but he's open-minded and a good agent."

"I don't need a wet nurse," Mulder protested, dismissing the need for anyone to act as back-up for him. "I've worked alone before."

"This is not an option, Agent Mulder. Agent Hobbs is there to help you. Try not to lose him."

Mulder tried to stare down Skinner, but grudgingly gave in when it became clear that this wasn't going to be a point of debate. "Then he’d better be able to keep up, sir," he snapped as he turned and stalked out of the office. As much as he hated the idea of another agent dogging his heels, he couldn't help but be intrigued by the idea that this case was far more important than it appeared on the surface.

==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Mulder poured himself a cup of coffee before sitting down to read the sheriff's report. It was terse, but covered the basics.

So why do I feel as if the sheriff is only putting down a quarter of what he knows, or suspects?

The facts were simple enough. Four days ago, Jason Fairfax and Lisa Quatrain went hiking into the nearby mountains. By Jason's own admission, he and Lisa argued and she stalked off angrily. Jason refused to say what they argued about, only that it was a matter between him and Lisa. After an hour he said he got concerned and went after her. He found her up on one of the bluffs, and then she vanished in front of his eyes. The sheriff stated that he put several search teams out with no luck. Jason refused to admit to harming Lisa and insisted that she just vanished. Lisa's father was pressing for a charge of murder and had pulled the strings necessary to get the FBI called in to provide for ‘an impartial, intelligent investigation’.

Mulder reread the request for his services and wondered where this sheriff had heard of him. Skinner was right, this case was more than it appeared. Reading between the lines, Mulder suspected that the sheriff believed Jason's story and was more than happy to have outsiders deal with an angry and influential father.

Turning to his files, Mulder searched for any information on strange happenings in New Hampshire, particularly the northern section that included the town of Camlyn. It was nearly an hour before he found a reference to an incident one hundred years ago that could be an exact match to the current case. Only in this case, a young man disappeared in the mountains while exploring a peculiar structure known locally as the Round Table. His friends insisted that one minute he was there, and then they saw him fade away in front of their eyes. An exhaustive search of the area turned up nothing. The mystery was never solved, the official the story was that the young man had slipped and fallen off the mountain. There was also a strong suggestion that alcohol had played a role.

Mulder rechecked the sheriff's letter, but it gave no precise location where Jason saw Lisa disappear. No doubt a story this mysterious event had been passed down over the years until it became a local legend. It might explain the sheriff's willingness to believe Jason. Alien abduction didn't appear to fit the facts of the case, but he'd know more when he actually talked with Jason. Meanwhile, there were plenty of cases to check where people just vanished into thin air to check. He made a note to ask the sheriff if anyone had heard Lisa's voice when they were searching the area. There were so many possibilities, including, Mulder conceded, that the boy had murdered his girlfriend and was depending on the old legend to get him off. Interviewing Jason was his first priority.

Mulder spent the remainder of the afternoon going through case files involving mysterious disappearances, making notes in an old file folder to take along with him. The nineteenth-century case involving the disappearance of two children in the middle of a field appeared to be particularly applicable to his current case. Unfortunately, that disappearance was never solved. Mulder didn't think the elder Quatrain would accept a dimensional wrinkle in time and space as a viable explanation for his daughter's disappearance.

Quatrain apparently had influence and was prepared to use it. This suggested that he might be more than a simple Canadian businessman with a fondness for the New Hampshire hills in winter. Perhaps a discreet background check might turn up something interesting. A routine check turned up nothing out of the ordinary, but his profiler's sixth sense was suggesting a deeper, more covert check would be in order.

"Gertie's Bar and Grill."

"It's me, Frohike," Mulder said patiently. His friends were going through an extremely paranoid stage right now and were carefully screening all their calls. At least they hadn't suggested secret code words, although he wouldn't be surprised if that was the next step. He refused to speculate on what trouble they'd gotten themselves into through their persistent attempts to hack into secret government databases.

"It better be," Frohike responded in an irritated tone.

"Catch you at a bad time?"

"Not really. One of our programs crashed and Byers and Langly are arguing over whether it was just a systems failure or whether we were hacked. They kept me up all night trying to mediate."

"Who won?" Mulder asked with a chuckle. Frohike, for all his paranoia, was probably the most stable member of the Lone Gunmen.

"At 3 o'clock, I declared it a draw and told them both to shut up and let me get some sleep. Personally, I think one of our firewalls crashed and some kid wandered in and tweaked a few things. If it was the government, they sure missed a hell of a lot of very interesting stuff. I don't think they're that incompetent."

"Are all your computers down?" Mulder asked, trying to cover his disappointment. He wanted a very illicit search done and didn't want it traced back to him if his supposition was correct.

"Nah, just Langly's super drive. My computer is perfectly fine because I turn mine off at night."

Mulder suspected that the emphasis on those last words was not meant for him. No doubt Langly was catching hell from his rival and Frohike wasn't about to pass up a chance to place another sly poke at his carelessness.

"I want you to find out everything you can on a Mr. Quatrain. He's a Canadian citizen who owns property in Camlyn, New Hampshire. I need this by tonight. You can send an email to my home address."

"Quatrain from Canada via Camlyn. Gotcha. You got a case?" Frohike sounded excited.

"Yeah, and I'm supposed to be up in Camlyn tomorrow. Thanks. I owe you one."

"You owe us a lot, but who's counting?" Frohike said seriously. "Take care, Mulder. If you need help, just holler."

"Will do. Tell Langly I hope his computer gets better. If I have time, I'll send it a get-well card," Mulder quipped as he hung up. The guys were oddballs, but he knew of few other people he'd trust as much in a crunch.

Gathering up his notes and loading his laptop with assorted files, Mulder headed home. His normal get-away bag was going to have to be repacked. There was no way he was going to parade around a small town in northern New Hampshire in a suit, FBI protocol be damned. He'd take one, just in case he had to appear in court, but the situation called for warmth and comfort, not the FBI uniform suit.

Later, relaxing in front of the TV waiting for Frohike's e-mail, Mulder wondered what Scully would have thought of this case. He missed picking up the phone to surprise her with a new case. She'd grumble, even complain about running off after shadows and improbable stories told by people desperate to avoid responsibility for a crime, but he'd always believed she secretly enjoyed their work. When did she stop enjoying the mysteries and begin regarding them as threats to her belief in science and her faith? Maybe she never fully recovered from being infected with the alien virus. Perhaps that was the final straw, the one thing she could not deny however much she tried. She was willing to lie to protect her science; she had sacrificed him before the FBI board of inquiry rather than even concede that what happened to her was outside the boundaries of accepted scientific laws. At the time he resented her betrayal, but now he suspected he should have been warned that she had drawn a line in the sand. He'd never seen it.

The theme music to "The Twilight Zone" startled him out of his bleak reverie, alerting him that he had mail. It was almost midnight, but Frohike had finally come through. Mulder shied away from thinking about getting to the airport at six o'clock tomorrow morning. He could always sleep on the plane if he had to.

Frohike's information was brief and posed more questions than it answered. Peter Quatrain was a naturalized Canadian citizen, born in Jamaica. He’d served in the Canadian Navy, rising to the rank of Commander in charge of deployment and tactical movement of ships to support ground operations. Frohike had highlighted the years and inserted his own comment beside them. "In Nam. One of the covert boys." Now, that was interesting. Mulder couldn't recall if Canada had their equivalent of the Special Forces or the Seals, but he thought it highly likely. Whatever Quatrain did was apparently so secret it didn't even appear on his official records. Mulder was even more curious about Frohike's assumption. The dates certainly covered part of the Vietnam War years, but there was nothing to suggest Vietnam as his place of service. There were times when Mulder realized just how little he actually knew about Frohike. His friend had his secrets and Mulder never felt he could pry into them. What had led Frohike to draw this conclusion?

Other than his mysterious military service record, Quatrain's life appeared to be an open book. He was the CEO of a large multinational nonprofit corporation involved in distributing relief aid and medical supplies to developing countries. His corporation had on call some of the finest rescue and medical teams on call, prepared to jet out to all parts of the world in a matter of hours.

Frohike had included several articles from various Canadian newspapers and magazines describing Quatrain's fund-raising skills and his use of his military experience to achieve a high level of efficiency and success. He was popular, successful, and a minor player in Canada's political game. Glancing at a photograph in one of the articles, Mulder saw a tall, grave-looking light-skinned black man staring out from behind wire-rimmed glasses. His official bio included the names of countries his corporation had assisted; an impressive list, spanning nearly thirty years. Below the list, Frohike added his personal comment, limited to two words that didn't make sense until Mulder tracked them down in a slang dictionary -- wild geese.

Frohike gave no explanation, but carefully going back over the list, Mulder could see how the conclusion could be drawn. Countries in desperate need of aid were also usually countries in need of mercenary troops. There was no proof that Quatrain was a mercenary, only Frohike's terse supposition. Was Quatrain a mercenary using a benevolent, and effective, aid organization as cover, or did he have official sanction for covert activities mingled in with genuine aid? Or was he, as his bio suggested, simply a benevolent corporate CEO? Whatever he was, this information put a whole new wrinkle in the case.

Peter Quatrain obviously had resources of his own to call in if the case didn't go his way. It was also likely that he had enemies who might consider his daughter a very valuable hostage. How far was Quatrain willing to go to find or protect his daughter? If his daughter had simply vanished, would Quatrain be willing to accept a paranormal explanation? If the sheriff had told him he'd requested help from Washington, then Mulder suspected that by this time Quatrain knew who was coming.

Mulder sent off a quick acknowledgement to Frohike before downloading the information to a disk. Retiring to his couch, he considered how this new information would affect the case. His initial theories that the case was a simple murder, suicide, or the result of paranormal activity were still valid, but Quatrain's background complicated matters. Frohike would have warned him if he'd stumbled across any hint that Quatrain was involved with the Consortium, or what was left of it. Still, it was possible that someone in the Consortium, or an independent cartel, might have an interest in bringing Quatrain and his organization under their control. None of the articles about Quatrain mentioned a wife, much less a daughter, so Mulder could speculate that he was either a man who valued his privacy, a widower, or someone who had reason to fear that his family could be used against him.

He wondered if Skinner suspected that this case was more complex than it appeared. Mulder trusted Skinner not to deliberately set him up, but the A.D. wasn't above sending him into a situation that required an unconventional approach. There were times when he felt Skinner's confidence in his ability to think on his feet and negotiate around seemingly impossible obstacles to be misplaced. He wasn't the most diplomatic of agents, so why was Skinner sending him into a situation best suited for one of the FBI's proven brown-nosers? Scully normally handled the diplomatic end of their cases. He usually lost patience early on with people who refused to consider all possibilities. Mulder wondered if this was Skinner's way of telling him to brush up on his social skills? Somehow, he doubted if Skinner was willing to risk an international incident just to make a point, or at least he hoped so.

After setting the alarm, Mulder forced his mind away from the case and tried to go to sleep. He fell asleep confident that his subconscious would be able to sort out the few facts he knew and put them into some kind of order by the time he woke up. Instead, he dreamed he was chasing an elusive fact through snowy mountains and tangled forests, always just a step or two behind it, but never quite catching up to it. He woke up with the familiar feeling of irritable frustration he remembered from his profiling days -- he had the facts, he just wasn't putting them in the right order because he'd mislaid one of the vital corner pieces. Experience told him to shove the problem away and let it simmer in the back of his mind. Sooner or later the piece would fall into place -- perhaps once he had a few more of the pieces of the puzzle to play with.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Manchester Airport
Saturday, 11:30 a.m.

The parka which had seemed so out of place in D.C.'s balmy 50-degree weather, looked highly appropriate as Mulder glanced out at the snow swirling past the terminal windows. The Manchester airport was crowded with people in colorful parkas carrying ski bags and moving purposefully towards the exits with the determination of lemmings going for the edge of the cliff. Mulder prided himself on being good at most sports, but after one disastrous venture on the slopes, he'd decided that the trees held all the advantages.

Amid the colorful plumage of slope-bound skiers, Agent Hobbs stood out like a swallow among a pride of peacocks in his regulation FBI suit. As he approached, Mulder took a closer look and carefully smothered a smile. The suit was all prim and proper, but Hobbs was wearing snow boots trimmed with a broad neon yellow stripe. Apparently his devotion to FBI protocol stopped short of getting his feet wet or cold.

"Agent Mulder, welcome to New Hampshire," the tall, lean black man said cheerfully as he stepped forward to greet him. Mulder extended a hand and, after an almost imperceptible hesitation, Hobbs took it. If he hadn't been paying close attention, Mulder might have missed the wary flinch Hobbs gave when their hands met.

Now who's been filling his head with wild stories?

"I don't bite, Agent Hobbs," Mulder assured him with a smile. To his surprise, Hobbs looked flustered and released his hand.

"Sorry, sir," he said as he abruptly led the way towards the baggage claim area.

Giving Hobbs time to collect his wits, Mulder followed him and tried to fit the official bio to the actual man. Hobbs was only a few years younger than he was; a scholarly-looking man with glasses, but with a prestigious reputation attached to his name before he arrived in New Hampshire. Actually, Hobbs was as much a mystery as the case they were investigating. He had come into the FBI with double masters in criminal justice and Middle Eastern archaeology and had led his class in Quantico in crime scene analysis. Like Mulder, Horatio Hobbs was considered a golden boy and had easily landed a plum assignment to the San Francisco field office. Reading between the lines, Mulder sensed that Hobbs had been on the fast track for an ASAC position when an automobile accident sidelined him for six months. Three months after returning to duty, Hobbs had put in for a transfer to the New Hampshire field office, effectively burying himself in the boondocks. Since then, his record was filled with routine and ordinary accomplishments.

Everything Mulder had read suggested that Hobbs had been a bright, energetic, even innovative agent who had been headed for big things. He found himself wondering what had happened.

"We'll be taking a commuter plane north to Berlin when the snow lets up a bit. I left my Jeep at the Berlin airport. Camlyn is about a two hours' drive northwest from there. Unless the roads are really bad, I'd say we'll get there in time for dinner," Hobbs said in a studied casual tone.

Mulder gave him credit for trying to bridge over the odd incident by simply ignoring it. He'd done that on more than one occasion. Curiously, he found himself liking Hobbs. Upon reflection, Mulder wasn't sure the flinch was due to meeting Spooky Mulder. He noticed that Hobbs carefully avoided touching things -- moving stuff out of his way with his arm or leg rather than doing the simple act of just shoving it away with his hands. When they headed outside to cross over to the smaller commuter terminal, Hobbs pulled on a pair of thin leather gloves and almost visibly relaxed.

Odd. Hobbs doesn't seem like the fastidious sort.

"What can you tell me about this case? I've read the sheriff's report and terse takes on a whole new meaning," Mulder said as they finally reached the warmth of the commuter terminal. He wanted to learn more about the case, but right now he wanted to pry loose Hobbs' reserve and find the real agent behind the skittishness. The snow showed no signs of letting up, which meant that they were going to be here for a while. He might as well try to get to know his temporary partner.

"Not much, sir. I think the sheriff covered what we know adequately," Hobbs replied shortly, rebuffing the proffered opening. Mulder wasn't particularly over-sensitive, but it was clear that Hobbs had a problem, possibly with working with the FBI's premiere spook agent. He could either allow Hobbs to maintain this stiff, impersonal distance between them, or he could try to force the issue. Both options had potential for creating a nasty situation. Personally, he would just as soon let Hobbs keep his distance; he didn't want or need a partner. He'd worked alone before and done very well.

And what about Jason? his errant conscience reminded him. Shit, Mulder grumbled to himself as he realized that he occupied an uncomfortable position between the proverbial rock and a hard place. His natural inclination was to isolate himself, to deal with the aching absence of his partner by not dealing with even a temporary substitute. That's what he wanted to do and Hobbs was offering him the perfect opening, but two non-cooperating FBI agents was not going to help solve this case. If this case did prove to have a paranormal explanation, he was going to need Hobbs to run interference.

"Cut the sirs, Agent Hobbs. It's either Agent Mulder or just plain Mulder. I'm not sure what you've heard . . . ." Mulder started in a slightly impatient tone. He was used to his reputation, but that didn’t mean he liked being treated as an oddity.

"It's not that, sir," Hobbs interrupted brusquely. "It's not that I won't give you more details. It's because there are none to give. As for my impressions, I'll be glad to share them with you after you've had a look at the place and talked with the witnesses. However, I don't want to contaminate the evidence," he went on to explain in a crisp tone.

Well, that's clear enough. He wants to see Spooky Mulder in action before he commits himself. Mulder grumbled quietly to himself about being the one expected to argue for the weird theories and take all the subsequent heat from disbelieving, and usually irate, local officials who wanted a plain simple answer. Once in awhile, he wouldn't mind company out there on the firing line, but he understood Hobbs' reluctance to play the Bureau fool.

"And it's Hobbs, Mulder," he added with a smile.

Mulder did a quick re-evaluation of his assessment of Hobbs. The man was more complex than his surfaces attitudes suggested. He didn't like being brushed off, but he could understand Hobbs' logic. For most agents, the more they knew in advance, the more likely they were to try to make the evidence fit their pre-conceived theories. Scully was a lot like that, Mulder admitted ruefully. She was very fond of her preconceived theories and gave them up reluctantly. On the other hand, he reveled in getting as many different opinions and theories as he could. He formed lots of theories in the process of working on a case and discarded them as easily as leftover liver when new data shifted his perception of what happened. If pushed to explain how he came up with some of his theories, he’d be hard pressed. He operated on a mixture of intuition, a keen awareness of body language, and a thorough grounding in forensic psychology. One of his Quantico instructors had bluntly told him that he’d have been burned as a warlock in earlier times. That comment, and Patterson’s expectation that he could act as some sort of oracle, bothered him. He was just a keen observer with an open mind and a willingness to entertain extreme possibilities.

"OK, Hobbs, tell me what are the chances that the Canadians are going to be involved?" Mulder asked casually, determined to start over and give Hobbs the benefit of the doubt.. The last thing he wanted to do was deal with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It was going to be hard enough trying to peddle a paranormal explanation to a local sheriff and Hobbs without having to worry about satisfying one of the super-professional Mounties. Mulder had made light of the prospect to Skinner, but after reading Quatrain's file, it didn't seem quite as humorous.

"About fifty-fifty, I'd say. Quatrain is kicking up quite a fuss. He doesn't seem to think much of Camlyn's sheriff. My arrival apparently staved off a major confrontation," Hobbs said awkwardly. "I'm afraid I was a disappointment. That's when Sheriff Thurgood informed Quatrain that he was calling in an expert from the FBI headquarters. He became much more cooperative after that."

So, am I a convenient diversionary tactic to take the heat off the local sheriff, or does this Sheriff Thurgood actually believe that there's something more than a simple murder or kidnapping behind this disappearance?

"I'm going to see when our plane is going to take off. Can I bring you some coffee?" Hobbs was clearly changing the subject. Apparently he was quite serious about not giving out any of his impressions or conclusions about the case. Mulder doubted if Hobbs was aware of just how much he really had said.

"Sure, although what I'd really like about now is some food. From the looks of the plane sitting outside, I doubt if they serve lunch," Mulder said, looking dubiously at the small prop plane gathering snow on the tarmac. It was painted a canary yellow with a bright red tail. It looked like an exotic bird who'd landed in New Hampshire by mistake.

The better to find it when it crashes, Mulder thought bleakly. Flying didn't bother him -- crashing into the side of a mountain did.

"Well, the pilot might have some peanuts he'd be willing to share with you," Hobbs cracked with a straight face that crumbled into a grin at Mulder's crestfallen expression. "Let me see how much longer the delay will be. If we have an hour, there’s a small restaurant in the terminal that serves passably good food." Hobbs headed off to the small desk across the room without waiting for an answer.

Mulder leaned back and stretched his legs out as he considered the stray bits and pieces of data he'd just gleaned. Hobbs was a difficult man to categorize, but he appeared to be intelligent, possibly willing to think outside the box, and definitely had diplomatic tendencies with a strong stubborn streak. He could be a very interesting man to work with, once they got past his refusal to commit to any opinion about the case. On the surface, his reticence might be taken as playing it safe, letting Mulder take all the flak while he stayed quietly in the background, but Mulder was beginning to realize that Hobbs wasn't going to be that easy to categorize and dismiss.

On the bright side, from the little Hobbs did say, Mulder suspected that he was in agreement with the sheriff that something didn't seem right about the easy explanations for Lisa Quatrain's disappearance. Hobbs also appeared to be impressed by the sheriff and very unimpressed by Quatrain. The sheriff's letter had been extremely blunt; he wanted someone used to investigating unusual phenomena, so that was probably a strong hint as to the sheriff’s feelings about the situation.

Now, to add to the problem, they were likely to be paid a visit by some representative of the Canadian government, who probably would not react well to Spooky Mulder's theories. It was looking more and more likely that he was going to be caught between the sheriff and Hobbs, Quatrain, and whoever the Canadians sent down to "assist" in the investigation. Well, he was used to being in the hot seat; he'd survive. Whether Quatrain and the Canadians, much less Hobbs' ASAC, would accept his findings was another matter. Despite the allure of a really good paranormal case, Mulder hoped for Lisa's and Jason's sakes that the explanation was a simple one and that Lisa would be found unharmed. He was doubtful, but he always hoped for a happy ending.

"Good news, Mulder. The pilot thinks he can get the plane off the ground in about an hour and a half. He even promised to get us there with a minimum of bouncing if we brought him back a beef on rye."

To Mulder's surprise, Hobbs did not appear to be joking.

"Relax, Mulder. I know the pilot. Hell, I've flown with him so often we're on a first name basis. He's good. He's also hungry. My mother always told me that if I had to bribe someone, bribe them with food -- that way there's no evidence," he said with an innocent look.

"Sounds like advice some of our politicians should have taken. I don't think that one beef sandwich will strain my professional ethics," Mulder quipped with a smile.

"Harry said he'd have them page us if he gets the plane ready sooner. Come on. The place will be crowded, but I can probably wrangle us a table in the corner."

"Let me guess, you know the owner?" Mulder asked

"Nah, the waitress," Hobbs shot back as he led the way back outside to the main terminal.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

By the time they'd finished lunch and headed back to the tarmac, it was nearly two o'clock. As far as Mulder could tell, the snow hadn't let up, but the clerk at the desk in the commuter terminal waved them towards the door leading to the tarmac.

A very young-looking assistant took Mulder's bag and slung it effortlessly into the cargo hold. Mulder looked at Hobbs and raised an eyebrow. If that was their pilot, he wanted to see at least a high school diploma.

Hobbs chuckled and shook his head. "Harry's always taking on extra help. He says he went into this business to fly planes, not sling luggage around. Since it's his plane, he gets to set the rules."

Mulder could sympathize with Harry's point of view. He’d entered the FBI to investigate crime and help people, but there were times when he spent more time in filling out reports and attending obligatory meetings than in fieldwork.

There were only two other passengers; businessmen from the looks of it. When Mulder and Hobbs entered along with a gust of icy wind, they never even looked up. They just spread their hands across the papers to keep them grounded and ignored the newcomers.

"Harry, got your sandwich," Hobbs yelled towards the cockpit. Apparently unconcerned by the snow blowing around the plane, he motioned Mulder towards two seats across the aisle from each other. "Might as well be comfortable. Once this plane takes off, conversations just aren't worth the trouble."

Mulder nodded and debated whether to shed his parka or not. From the looks of it, this plane wasn't long on the amenities. Hobbs had already peeled out of his coat and the other two men were sitting in suits, so Mulder decided that whatever else it lacked, the plane probably had a decent heating system.

"It's about time," a voice said behind Mulder. Mulder turned to look at their pilot. He wasn't sure what he was expecting, but a long-haired youngish-looking man who looked amused and peeved at the same time wasn't it. Apparently aware that he was under scrutiny, Harry turned to look at Mulder then grinned. "Relax, I can't afford to crash this bird -- I still owe money on her," he said in a low voice that rippled with his amusement.

Turning the to rest of the passengers, he went on to announce in a cavalierly cheerful voice, "We'll be taking off in about ten minutes, or as soon as I finish lunch. I figure we should reach Berlin in about an hour and a half with the tail wind we're gonna hit when we get airborne. So relax, take a nap, and just leave the driving to me. Backseat drivers will be let out to walk the rest of the way."

Mulder watched Harry head back to the cockpit, taking bites out of the sandwich as he went. Despite his cavalier attitude, there was something about him that radiated confidence and a capacity for handling any crisis that arose.

"Harry's been flying all over New Hampshire for as long as I've been here. He's a bit odd, but he says that New England was founded by eccentrics who didn't want anyone telling them what to do and he's a man who believes in tradition. In any event, he's flown through some of the worst weather this area can produce. If anyone can get us to Berlin in one piece in this snow, Harry can," Hobbs said confidently.

"Why the rush?" Mulder couldn't help asking. As eager as he was to reach the crime scene, he sensed that Hobbs was willing to fly into the teeth of a blizzard rather than waste more time getting back to Camlyn. What on earth was Hobbs not telling him? He was poised on the brink of applying some direct pressure on him to cough up more information when the plane's engines started. Even muffled by the cabin walls, Mulder was overwhelmed by the noise of the twin prop engines revving up. Hobbs shrugged and mouthed 'I told you so' before stretching out across the two seats. Using his parka for a pillow, he made it quite clear that he intended to use the time for a nap. Frustrated in his effort to get information out of Hobbs, Mulder stretched out his legs across the empty seat and decided to use the time to ponder Hobbs' odd reaction to this case. There wasn't much he could do about the case until he had more information, but profiling Hobbs would be enough to occupy his mind for the flight.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

3:30 p.m. Berlin Airport
 

"I told you Harry was good," Hobbs pointed out as he and Mulder headed out towards the parking lot. A light, icy rain , falling from low, leaden skies, made walking treacherous. Mulder walked carefully across the icy pavement. It wasn't very often he survived a landing that resembled a long, slow skid across ice. The plane had ended up nose-to-nose with a large snow bank, but as Hobbs kept saying, Harry was good. They'd rattled and shook, but once he touched down, Harry maneuvered the plane like he landed on ice-slick runways everyday.

"So you did," Mulder admitted in a voice a bit shakier than he would like. He wasn't normally bothered by rough landings, but landing on ice was a new experience and not one he wanted to repeat.

"OK, so that was above-and-beyond-the-call-of-duty good," Hobbs conceded. "I've flown with Harry for years and I don't think I ever saw him so shaky after a landing before."

Mulder suppressed the urge to groan. From his perspective, Harry had looked jauntily indifferent to the perilous landing.

I've been away from New England too long. I've forgotten how to read phlegmatic.

"The car's over there. This sleet is going to delay us a bit, but I'm still hoping to reach Camlyn by seven, at the latest."

"Will the sheriff be on duty tonight?" Mulder asked. Now that they were within a stone's throw of the crime scene, he was impatient to begin talking with the people who might be able to give him some answers.

"No, but he said to call him when we got in. I've already booked you at the bed and breakfast inn." Hobbs paused then continued uncertainly, "If I can make a suggestion?"

Mulder nodded for him to continue.

"Eat dinner first. Sarah’s cooking is an experience not to be missed," he advised with a grin. "Besides, it’ll give you a chance to talk to her and get a feel for the people up here. I thought I was used to New Englanders, but up here, they're an entirely different breed."

Mulder considered Hobbs' advice. Getting a feel for the local atmosphere was probably a good idea, Mulder didn't want to waste time eating when he could be talking with Jason or the sheriff. He gave Hobbs a non-committal grunt and followed him to the car. He remained silent for the next hour considering the situation. After a few anxious looks, Hobbs gave up and drove in silence.

"I'll compromise -- invite the sheriff to dinner. That way I can placate our hostess, eat dinner, and talk with the sheriff all at the same time," Mulder offered at last.

"Perfect," Hobbs exclaimed with a relieved grin. "When we get closer, I'll call the sheriff and give him our ETA and tell him to meet us at the B&B for dinner. Wish I'd thought of that," he added ruefully.

"Well, I can't very well go hiking out to the crime scene at night, so I'd prefer to get the interviews with the sheriff and Jason out of the way tonight." Mulder lapsed back into silence as he considered the inherent problems of investigating a case in a small town. Keeping a lid on new facts was going to be next to impossible, but he was determined to try to operate with a minimum of gossip flying about. Gossip could be useful in an investigation, but it could also create problems; people began remembering events that never occurred. Hopefully, the sheriff could give him a good feel for the town.

"We’re getting to the tricky part of the drive, so if you don't mind, I'll pay close attention to the road," Hobbs said apologetically.

Mulder took the hint. It was getting dark, but it was still light enough to see that the narrow, unlit two-lane road they were on was covered with packed snow that made it difficult to see where the road was. With a steep embankment on one side and a heavily forested slope on the other, Mulder had no desire to distract Hobbs. Getting to Dead Horse, Alaska had been easier than this trip, he reflected.

The sound of Hobbs' voice making dinner arrangements with the sheriff roused Mulder from an unplanned nap. Checking his watch, he was relieved to note that he'd only zoned out for about a half an hour.

"We should reach Camlyn in about forty-five minutes. The sheriff reports that the roads get better about ten miles from here. He said he'll meet us at the B&B. I think he wants to talk to you about as badly as you want to talk to him, Mulder," Hobbs added with just the suspicion of a chuckle in his voice.

Mulder decided to ignore Hobbs' amusement at his eagerness. Mulder was used to this kind of reaction. He'd never learned to adopt the reserved attitude most agents used to keep from seeming like over-eager hounds on a trail. Contrary to popular belief, he did care what other people thought of him -- he just didn't let it affect how he approached a case. Mulder felt the slight twitchy feeling he always got before a hard case -- like a runner's twitch just before launching into a marathon. One of the reasons he enjoyed bantering so much with Scully in the early days of a case was because that helped calm the jittery feeling of nerves and brain shifting into high gear.

Wonder how Hobbs would react to a few bad jokes?

Mulder discarded the idea as quickly as it occurred, but it reminded him again of how used to Scully he'd become. Now he was facing his first real case without her and he was going to have to readjust all the patterns of thought and reaction he’d come to depend on over the past six years. "It will be good for me, I guess," he muttered softly to himself. I was getting too predictable, he thought as they rounded a hairpin curve to see the dim lights of a fair-sized village about five miles away.

"Camlyn," Hobbs said.

Mulder looked at the small island of lights in the middle of the wide expanse of darkness and felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. There was some allusion he was making subconsciously, but he couldn't put his finger on what it was. If his subconscious was getting bored enough to create allusions, then it was high time he gave it something substantial to deal with, he decided as Hobbs pulled the Jeep into a parking lot beside a classic clapboard two-story New England farmhouse. A softly illuminated sign by the front walk welcomed them to the Hemlock Inn.

The porch was bare, but Mulder could envision rockers set out for the summer visitors. If his sense of direction hadn’t completely deserted him, the porch faced west towards the mountains. The front door opened into a narrow hallway which led to a parlor that had been converted into a reception area.

"Welcome, gentlemen. You must be Agent Mulder. I'm Sarah Godfrey, the owner and chief cook and bottle-washer here," Sarah said in a pleasant alto voice. To Mulder's surprise, she swung around from behind the desk in an effortless move that spoke of long experience in manipulating her wheelchair around obstacles. When she was close enough, she stretched out her hand in greeting. Mulder took it and was surprised by the strength in her handclasp. Sarah looked to be in her mid-sixties, but her eyes struck Mulder as being perpetually youthful. Her energy, even confined by a wheelchair, was electric.

"Well met, Agent Mulder. Welcome to my home. Dinner will be slightly delayed. Sheriff Thurgood called and said he was tied up with a traffic accident, so I decided to set dinner back an hour to give you both some time to settle in.. Agent Hobbs, if you will show Agent Mulder to the Captain's Room, I'll set out some appetizers to tide you over until the sheriff arrives."

"No problem," Hobbs assured her as he headed up the stairs. Mulder glanced around the reception area which was probably once the formal parlor. A pamphlet rack caught his eye and he went over to see if it might contain anything useful. At this stage of an investigation, he was open to all sorts of stray information that might pop up. Scully had often chided him for not keeping his attention focused on the case and he’d never quite managed to convince her that these supposedly irrelevant facts were important.

"Camlyn: A Short History of the Back of Beyond" by Sarah Godfrey.

Opening it, Mulder quickly scanned the first page. It appeared to be a somewhat casual history of the town with a bit of gossip and legend interspersed as filler.

"Take it, Agent Mulder. Normally I charge a dollar for it, but I'll consider it my contribution owards young Fairfax's defense fund."

"Thank you, Mrs. Godfrey," Mulder replied as he carefully slipped the pamphlet in his pocket.

"It's Sarah to my guests. I'm not long on formality. Other than meal times, it's pretty much a come and go as you please place. If you need anything, just call. If I can't come, my son is in and about. Now, get comfortable. We're expecting snow later tonight, but you're here now and safe; it can come in its own time," Sarah said as she spun her wheelchair around in a circle and headed for the back of the house.

Mulder followed Hobbs upstairs absently. His sixth sense was telling him that one of the people he needed to have a long talk with was Sarah. Coincidences were the lifeblood of most of his investigations and he'd learned to let them take the lead. In almost every case, somebody he didn't expect would show up with the vital pieces of information he needed if he had the wits to recognize them. If Sarah was the local historian, then he definitely needed to talk with her.

"Is Sarah one of the people you've interviewed?" he asked casually as they reached the second floor.

Hobbs gave him a sheepish, apologetic look and ushered him to his room without answering. Mulder grumbled, but accepted that Hobbs was going to be stubborn about this non-interference dictate of his. What in the world had provoked this kind of unease in Hobbs? He was young, but not as inexperienced as Skinner had led him to believe. What on earth had happened to shake an experienced field agent this badly?

I'm getting a very bad feeling about this case.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

The room Hobbs guided him to had the basic amenities, but not much else. At least the bed was comfortable and roomy enough to stretch out on, Mulder decided after trying it out. It was too dark to see much out the window, but he could see heavy flakes of snow drifting down through the lights. His Antarctic gear was going to come in handy after all. Unpacking was a simple affair. He hung his suit in the closet and threw the rest of his clothes in the dresser drawers. After shoving his suitcase under the high bed, he settled into the only chair in the room, an old wooden rocker, to read the pamphlet.

As the title suggested, the pamphlet was short, but surprisingly informative. Camlyn had been founded nearly three hundred years ago by people who appeared to have been looking for someplace where no one could tell them what to believe or how to act. Sarah was blunt about the fact that it took a three-day debate before the settlement decided to support the Revolutionary War or whether to secede from the New Hampshire Grants in protest. The town had produced no local heroes and seemed intent on minding its own business throughout its long history. Despite the lack of heroes, Mulder detected a certain pride in local eccentrics who sprang up from time to time.

The most prominent was Galen Hatherford, a local man who went east in 1744 to be educated and returned ten years later full of very strange notions. The fact that he’d also returned a very wealthy man was cause for much speculation and gossip since he'd left with barely a farthing to his name. Hatherford's obsession appeared to be King Arthur and he was convinced that New Hampshire was the Avalon referred to in the old stories. Unable to prove this theory, Hatherford had decided to make it so on his own and towards that end imported stonemasons and builders to re-create the legendary Round Table high up in the mountains. He’d even imported stone from England to give his dream more authenticity. The construction had cost him his fortune, and apparently his life. The money ran out before he could complete the project. When the masons came to him to collect their overdue pay, Hatherford was gone. The last time anyone could recollect seeing him was the day before when he passed by a local herdsman on the trail up to the Table.

There were other eccentrics, but none who captured the town's imagination quite like Hatherford. Mulder wondered what stories Sarah did not include in her pamphlet. There was no mention of the mysterious disappearance of the young man at the Round Table a hundred years ago. In fact, Mulder discovered that Sarah had not included directions to the Round Table. Rereading the pamphlet very carefully, looking for subtle nuances, Mulder realized that Sarah had given the impression that the Round Table was either inaccessible or else was simply no longer there.

Interesting. Stones just don't get up and walk away, or at least I hope they don't. One hundred years ago the Table was there, if my files are correct. I'm willing to bet that when I get to talk to the sheriff that I'll find that Lisa Quatrain disappeared somewhere near that very same Table.

Sarah had just moved to the number three spot on his interview list. In fact, depending on whether the sheriff would let him talk to Jason tonight, she might be number two. Looking around for an electrical outlet for his laptop, Mulder was surprised to find an accessible phone jack as well. Obviously Sarah was keeping up with the demands of the modern tourist trade. This house might be nearly three hundred years old, according to the pamphlet, but Sarah was definitely firmly planted in the twentieth-century.

Going online, Mulder checked the chat room normally occupied by the Gunmen when they were online and found it empty. Balked at actually explaining his request to them, he sent off a quick email asking them to send him a map of any magnetic lines that crossed Camlyn or the surrounding counties. Ley lines didn't play quite as important a role in North America as they did in Britain and Europe, but it wouldn't hurt to check them out. Strange things could happen on these magnetic lines whether you believed in them or not. Mulder was a wary agnostic when it came to ley lines. He'd read too much to disbelieve, but the logic of the happenings seemed more random than he felt comfortable with. If Hatherford had attempted to recreate Arthur's Round Table smack on top of a powerful ley line, it could be a clue worth following.

A gong sounded somewhere below and he heard Hobbs' door open. It didn't take a trained FBI agent to deduce that dinner was served.

"That's the dinner bell, Mulder," Hobbs called to him from the hall.

"I'll be right down," Mulder replied as he pulled on a sweater over his flannel shirt. Showtime, he thought as he cloaked himself in his usual sardonic, brusque attitude. It usually irritated people, but it was very effective in deflating the astonished disbelief and anger from the local law when he started suggesting paranormal theories.

"Agent Mulder, glad to meet you." A tall, wiry man wearing a dark brown uniform stepped forward to greet him as he stepped into the parlor. His accent was hard to place -- there were a lot of regional variants competing for dominance. He was older than Mulder expected and had a ready, open smile; the sort that invites confidences from criminals. Mulder made a mental note not to underestimate this man.

Mulder smiled back and shook his hand. He could feel the sheriff sizing him up, piecing together what he saw with what he might have heard. It was a scrutiny Mulder was used to. He never quite seemed to be what the local police expected. One of these days he was going to have to see just what the FBI sent out in his official bio; it might make very entertaining reading.

"Gentleman, dinner is served," Sarah called from the next room. The dining room was large enough for the two trestle tables running down the middle of the room. The fire in the mammoth fireplace chased the chill off the stone walls without turning the room into an oven.

"Food's on the table. Serve yourself. I'll bring in dessert and coffee when you're ready. Meanwhile, make yourselves at home. Jasper, you let these gentlemen eat before you start in with your questions," Sarah said with a stern look at the sheriff, who just laughed.

"I'm hungry, too, Sarah. The case isn't going anywhere. You'll know it all soon enough," he assured her with a shooing motion.

With a hrumph quickly followed by a smile, Sarah wheeled herself through a swinging door. Mulder caught a brief glimpse of a short hallway and suspected she had retreated to the kitchen.

"There isn't much that goes on in this town that Sarah doesn't find out about eventually. I think it would save time if we just made her the editor of the town paper, but she won't have it. Now, Agents, there's dinner to attend to. Let's settle ourselves with some food before we try to make sense out of this case. The facts aren't going anywhere. They can wait a mite longer without doing any harm."

Mulder wanted to protest, but he caught Hobbs' slight shake of the head. Apparently this sheriff was going to be as stubborn as Hobbs in deciding when and how to dole out information. For a brief second Mulder felt his temper rise, but clamped down it on before it could escape. He'd let the sheriff tell him the story in his own way. There would be plenty of time for angry exchanges once they started fielding theories. Of course, that didn't mean that he couldn't pump the sheriff for details about the history of the town. With luck, he could lead the conversation around to old legends and be on the case before the sheriff realized what was happening.

"How long have you lived here, Sheriff?" Mulder asked as he dished out a large helping of stew and dumplings.

"Born and raised here. Left at twenty to see the world." The sheriff gave a reminiscent chuckle. "Came back twenty years later once I stopped and caught my breath long enough to realize I was homesick for these mountains. Been here ever since."

Mulder thoughtfully ate a few mouthfuls of an excellent stew as he tried to figure out a way to steer the conversation towards the Round Table. When he looked up, he met the sheriff's eyes and saw sympathy.

"I know -- you're impatient to begin, but I'm not being stubborn just to prove I can be," the sheriff said calmly. Mulder absently cataloged his body language was relaxed, almost deliberately non-confrontational. Apparently the sheriff didn’t feel he had to establish his dominance. Mulder found this almost as intriguing as the continued stonewalling.

"I promised Quatrain that I wouldn't infect you with my outlandish notions. Hobbs here had to give him that same promise before he'd back off from calling in his own private investigation team. We have enough people stumbling around on this case; I don't need any more outsiders. I've heard of you from a man I consider reliable and figured that you stood the best chance of making sense out of this case. I’ll admit, I also hoped Quatrain would listen to you." The sheriff gave him a catlike grin that suggested he had less exemplary motives.

Mulder considered this new information and wondered what on earth Sheriff Thurgood had told Quatrain to prompt that sort of reaction. Hobbs kept his eyes on his food, but Mulder caught the hint of a sheepish smile. So, failing to get the answer he wanted out of the sheriff and Hobbs, they were offering up a fresh sacrifice in the form of an FBI agent from the Hoover Building itself? Mulder wondered when Quatrain would figure out that he'd been had.

"Did you tell Quatrain what unit I work out of?" Mulder asked curiously.

"Nah, but he knows it now and he's not a happy man. Another reason I was late was because Quatrain was telling me exactly what he thought of me, you, and the entire American law enforcement community. Come tomorrow morning, we're going to have company." Thurgood looked resigned to having yet another outsider horning in on his case.

"He didn't?" Hobbs asked in a miserable voice.

"He did. The RCMP is sending an observer to assist us in facilitating our investigation. I have direct orders from the Governor to be nice to him. Quatrain is making a damn nuisance of himself, but I suppose that's how he gets things done his way. Well, I'm not going to railroad a boy until I have proof and Quatrain and his Mountie can just swallow that whole and deal with it," Thurgood said in a disgusted tone as he viciously buttered a roll that came apart in his hands. Looking down at the dismembered bread, Thurgood shook his head. "OK, it's been a long day. Agent Mulder, let's just eat and let me get my imagination off of throwing Quatrain in the nearest snow-bank to cool off. I refuse to let him ruin one of Sarah's dinners."

"If the case is off-limits for discussion, how about telling me all you know about the Round Table?" Mulder asked hopefully.

"Damn it, you are good. Jim-Jim said you could pull a theory straight out of thin air," the sheriff said as he shook his head. His expression was a curious mixture of satisfaction and amused awe. Mulder had to think for a moment to place the name. It didn't seem likely that a sheriff in a small town in northwestern New Hampshire would know the sheriff in a Florida circus town, but it appeared that there was more to Sheriff Thurgood than met the eye.

Thurgood chuckled when he saw the look of puzzlement on Mulder's face. "I was a circus roustabout for about five years. Wintered down in Gibsonton. We talk now and then. I remembered him mentioning some hotshot FBI agent who wasn't phased a bit by the weird and had an open mind. He gave me your name when I told him that weird wouldn't begin to describe this case. That's about as much as I want to tell you until you've talked with Jason and seen the place. Sarah could probably tell you every legend that's grown up around that place better than me. I'll let you pump her for the stories over coffee and dessert." Thurgood shook his head as Mulder started to protest.

"Agent Mulder, Quatrain is just waiting for a chance to get Jason moved to the next county where the sheriff doesn't know him and might be a mite more inclined to be impressed by Quatrain's view of his own importance. I'm not going to let that happen just to satisfy your curiosity," he added with a stern note of finality in his voice. His expression was sympathetic, but that didn't help Mulder's growing frustration at the brick wall the sheriff and Hobbs kept throwing up in front of him.

Mulder was tempted to storm out of the room, but throwing his temper around wasn't going to get him the answers he wanted. He didn’t lose his temper easily, but running into official roadblocks, however well-intentioned tended to irritate him. He found himself automatically disliking Quatrain before he even met him. That could be a problem, he acknowledged ruefully. He had an instinctive dislike of powerful men who tried to bulldoze their way through everyone else's rights to get what they wanted. Proving to these type of men that not everyone could be pushed around or bought had become something of a hobby for him and the subject of more than one discussion with Skinner over the meaning and practice of the art of diplomacy..

As he worked his way mechanically through a dinner that deserved better,, Mulder considered what Thurgood had said and came to the conclusion that both he and Hobbs were genuinely uneasy about this case. Judging from what Thurgood told him about Quatrain, it would have been very easy to just dismiss Jason's story and let Quatrain have his vengeance. Thurgood struck him as a man who was just New England stubborn enough to buck Quatrain, but not without good reason.

"When can I talk to Jason?" Mulder asked, although he was beginning to suspect he knew what the answer would be.

I'm getting psychic, or else getting used to Thurgood's stonewalling.

"Tonight, if you absolutely have to, but tomorrow morning would be better. Jason's nervous as hell about telling his story to a big-city FBI agent, so I gave him some herb tea to calm him down. I wasn't expecting you to want to hit the ground running, especially in this weather. You could talk to him, but by now he's probably so relaxed I'm not sure you'd get much sense out of him. Besides, I'm going to be gone all morning fetching that Mountie. You'll have the boy all to yourself and both of you will have had the benefit of a good night's sleep." Thurgood sounded so reasonable Mulder was sure there was a flaw in his argument, but he couldn't find one.

"Sheriff, have you ever considered taking up chess?" Mulder asked in an exasperated tone while he nodded his concession to the sheriff's maneuver.

Thurgood laughed sympathetically. "Yeah, I have, but I'm so erratic that I drive any player who knows what they're doing nuts." He turned serious. "Agent Mulder, I'm not trying to be difficult. You have a reputation as a damn good profiler and as a man who understands that not every solution can be fit into a nice, prefab box. Quatrain knows this and I don't want to give him the slightest excuse for claiming I entered into collusion with you to fix up an outlandish explanation for his daughter's disappearance. You have the bare facts of the case in my report. You can talk to Sarah about the Round Table. I suspect that by tomorrow, you'll already have a theory. I'm not saying it's the right one, just that you will need to keep an open mind and my opinions will only get in your way."

"Sheriff, you have the nicest way of telling me to just shut up and cooperate with your plan that I've ever encountered. I don't like it, but I'll accept your limitations, for now. However," Mulder said in a calm, serious tone, "in exchange for my cooperation tonight, I will expect your full cooperation tomorrow."

"Fair enough. Now, I'm ready for dessert. Sarah makes a blueberry pie that I consider to border on the edge of bribery. Let's call her in and I'll sit back and let her tell you everything I promised Quatrain I wouldn't mention," Thurgood said with a mischievous smile. Off to one side, Mulder heard Hobbs sigh with relief as the tension level in the room plummeted. Mulder had noticed he had been very quiet. It had been a smart move and showed a keen sense of strategy. Mulder knew that if both men had started in on the stonewalling that he would have felt cornered and reacted with the brusque lack of diplomacy he was famous for.

Thurgood was also a lot smarter than Quatrain realized. He might hold to his exact word, but that didn't mean he had to stop a gracious hostess from telling Mulder about the Round Table legends. Mulder smiled, unaware of just how feline he looked. If the Mountie Quatrain was importing proved to be as easy to maneuver around, then this case just might be workable.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Now don't go filling Agent Mulder's head with the notion that I'm some sort of local oracle, Jasper Thurgood," Sarah said in a reproving tone as she passed out plates of blueberry pie topped with mounds of ice cream. "There's nobody that knows the whole story behind that Table, 'cepting maybe Galen Hatherford."

"Your pamphlet mentioned that he was obsessed with King Arthur," Mulder commented as he leaned forward eagerly. Finally, maybe someone is going to answer a few questions.

"Eat your pie before it gets cold, Agent Mulder. I'm not going anywhere and neither is the story," Sarah replied nodding at his plate. "You eat, I'll talk. That way you'll know what questions to ask when I'm done. Can't guarantee I'll have the answers, but I'm always interested in the questions," she added with a smile. Mulder tried to stare her down, but finally gave up with a good-natured shrug and forked a bite of pie. One question, one bite of pie -- I can make this work.

"Galen Hatherford was the son of a farmer who got a bit above himself in these parts. His father decided to play squire and that meant his son had to be better educated than anyone else around, including the minister. There were some who claimed they knew that no good would come of such English pretensions, but that's just folks talking about someone trying to take on airs."

Mulder ate another bite of pie. One part of his brain registered the fact that it was good, but he was more anxious to hear the rest of the story than in the fact that his taste buds were having an orgy. Sarah's voice had taken on an almost hypnotic rhythm, which Mulder recognized as a gifted storyteller's way of drawing her audience into the story.

"Galen never explained what happened to turn him from a plain boy of mediocre intelligence into someone obsessed with a fantasy. Nor did he bother explaining how he left a poor man and came back a very wealthy one. My best guess is that he fell in with smugglers, but how a back-country mountain boy would do that is one of the many mysteries of this story."

"How long was he gone?" Mulder asked, ignoring the fact that he'd been asked not to interrupt. This wasn't only a story, but was quite possibly the foundation of the case he'd been asked to investigate.

Sarah sighed and shook her head.. Giving him an indulgent look, she responded, "About twelve years, with nary a letter the entire time. Time enough to earn a fortune, providing you aren't too terribly particular in how you earn it."

"Your pamphlet said that he was obsessed with the idea that New Hampshire was King Arthur's Avalon. Did he ever explain what his reasons were?" Mulder asked, absently eating another bite of pie as he waited for the answer.

"Apparently he tried explaining his theories to a lot of people, but no one bothered to write them down. Galen might have kept a journal, but nothing was ever found except a lot of ashes in his fireplace when the constable finally went to check on him four days after he was last seen." Sarah stopped and abruptly wheeled over to the windows. It was too dark to see anything, but she seemed to be staring at something. Her mood seemed heavy, even distant.

"So he just decided to recreate King Arthur's Round Table here in Camlyn. It fits, I suppose," Mulder conceded as his mind started chasing off after scattered pieces of the puzzle. It was easy to get distracted by interesting tangents at this stage of an investigation. The trick was to figure out what was the main trail and what were merely intriguing diversions.

"Good catch, Agent Mulder," Thurgood commented. Hobbs gave him a puzzled look. "Camlyn is another name for Camelot. I think I told you that the men who settled this town were different from most of the folks who came to New England for religious reasons. Our ancestors were looking for a place where no one could tell them what to think or how to pray. It took them a hundred years, but they finally ran out of civilization and came to rest here. Some wit among them decided that this was the place no one thought could exist, like Camelot at the time."

"And promptly became the most disputatious group of people who ever tried to live together," Sarah added with a laugh. Her quicksilver mood changing back to the relaxed story-teller, but Mulder sensed the dark mood of a moment ago wasn't entirely gone, just very well hidden.

"Towns aren't usually created by serious individualists, but our ancestors certainly were contrary enough to try. All in all, we haven't done too badly," Thurgood conceded with a chuckle.

"Have you been to the last few town meetings?" Sarah asked with an exasperated snort.

"Back to King Arthur," Mulder prompted, trying to avoid letting the conversation veer off into town politics. While interesting, he didn't think his investigation involved the town elders, yet.

"Not much more to tell. Galen decided to recreate King Arthur's Round Table up in the mountains. Bought the land and hired local stonemasons to carve the table out of native granite. Then he decided to import stones from England to complete the project. He was gone another three years before he returned with several rough-hewn stones. By this time, no local man would go near the Table, so Galen had to import stonemasons from Down East. By the time the English stones were set in place, Galen had run out of money to pay the stonecutters. He disappeared. Some folks think he ran off, but most think he picked a convenient place and jumped to his death rather than see his dream collapse."

"You said no local man would go near the Table, why?" Mulder pounced on the point. This felt important.

"The usual stories combined with the local legends of the mountains. The native people who were here when our ancestors arrived told stories about the mountain spirits who jealously guarded their secrets against intruders. A couple of accidents, a few travelers who operated on whiskey courage and pretty soon we had our very own legends of hauntings and mysterious happenings in the mountains on dark of the moon, full moon, or blue moon nights," Sarah said with a perfectly straight face that dissolved into a smile. "Local story-tellers wanting to keep people entertained on long winter nights for the most part."

"What about the least part?" Mulder asked. He sensed there were layers on meaning in Sarah's story. She might sound dismissive, but the look she gave out of the window suggested that she wasn't as much of a skeptic as she wanted him to believe. Mulder recalled that this side of the house faced the mountains. He wondered what she saw in the darkness.

"'The Northern Lights have seen queer sights. . . ," Sarah said in a soft voice as she turned back towards the window.

"The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold," Hobbs added, then stopped abruptly with an embarrassed look at Mulder.

"I have to wonder what Robert Service ran into up there in the Yukon," Sarah said quietly. "Those mountains are strange and odd things happened up there to the unwary. Mountains are like cats -- skittish and inclined to go their own way. I think Galen disturbed something that has never gone back to sleep." Sarah spoke so softly Mulder had to strain to hear her.

"Now you see my problem, Agent Mulder," Thurgood said. "I was born and raised here. I've heard those same stories all my life and I've walked in those mountains after dark. I can't be sure whether I'm inclined to believe Jason because those stories are in my blood, or whether I believe him because there isn't any other logical explanation."

"Mulder, I . . ." Hobbs stopped and visibly tried to choose his words carefully. "I can't explain why right now, but I'm in something of the same boat as the sheriff. You're an outsider. Even if you're already inclined to believe in the paranormal, you don't necessarily believe in this paranormal." Hobbs' tone verged on pleading, but there was a note of obstinacy as well.

Mulder suspected that if he pushed Hobbs to explain that he would find himself nose-to-nose with a brick wall. Hobbs was shaping up to be as stubborn as he was. Mulder was impressed. Few people, even Scully, read him so well. Yes, he did believe in the paranormal and believed that more odd happenings occurred than were admitted to, but he didn't give the paranormal carte blanche as an excuse for everything unusual that happened. Very often, there were mundane explanations, if a bit on the odd side, for events. The trick was knowing how to tell the difference.

"So, I know enough to be dangerous, but not enough to be considered influenced. Fair enough. I'll talk to Jason in the morning, sheriff. Then I want to see this Round Table," Mulder said bluntly.

"If the weather permits, I'll take you there myself," Thurgood promised. "I hope this Mountie doesn't mind a bit of exercise," he added in a disgruntled tone.

So, I'm not the only one who would rather not have an RCMP observer dogging my step.

"Agent Hobbs, how's your Canadian?" Mulder asked with a sigh. If he had to put up with a Mountie, he wanted someone along to distract him. He hated the look that invariably came over by-the-book cops' faces when he started mentioning phenomena not covered in the U.S. Code.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Hemlock Inn
Early morning, February 6
 

It was still dark when Mulder awoke to the heavy rumble of a snowplow on the road outside. To his surprise, he discovered that at some point he had actually crawled under the covers. The bed was littered with notes scrawled on yellow paper that now fluttered to the floor as he turned over. They bore the evidence of a restless night spent trying to make sense of the few facts he had while researching the various legends of Arthur's Round Table. No wonder his dreams had been a confusion of conventional knights and shadowy Celtic heroes blended together. Nothing resembling a possible theory had emerged from the dreams, except a feeling that the answer was in there somewhere.

Groggily, Mulder got up. There were times he felt that not sleeping at all on cases was better than this half-rested, half-frustrated limbo he often found himself in. The best he could do right now was absorb as many of the facts of the case as possible until fact and supposition came together and formed a pattern he could work from. All he had now was suspicions and they weren’t even enough to float one of his initial way-out-there theories. Besides, without Scully around to look disapproving and skeptical, a lot of the fun had gone out of creating them.

By the time he'd showered and dressed, he could hear Hobbs moving around in the room next door. Going over to the window, Mulder looked out at the landscape lit by the first dawn light and was relieved to see that it had stopped snowing. The mountains were hulking dark masses looming against the western sky, almost obscured by low-hanging clouds. Unless the day cleared up, he doubted if the sheriff was going to be amenable to taking him for a hike to the crime scene.

"Shit," Mulder muttered helplessly. Even the weather seemed to be conspiring against him. If he didn't know better, he'd swear someone was tampering with the weather. Defiantly, he pulled on his hiking boots. Given half a chance, he was going to get up to the crime scene. Without even a photo to work with he felt like he was trying to piece together bits of fog. Hopefully, his interview with Jason would provide him with some solid ground on which to build some theories.

"Morning, Agent Mulder," Sarah greeted him cheerfully from behind the front desk. "Breakfast is on the sideboard. If you want anything you don't see, just holler."

Mulder nodded absently. Right now all he wanted was coffee, hot and strong, to chase the cobwebs out of his mind. He prided himself on being able to wake up clear-headed and alert, but this morning he felt mentally clogged up.

"Oh, Jasper called. You can see the Fairfax boy any time after 8."

Mulder grumbled under his breath at the delay. He supposed it was only fair to give the boy a chance to eat breakfast and get ready to talk with another stranger about what happened. Still, he wondered why Thurgood was being so solicitous about the boy and reluctantly could begin to see why Quatrain might feel the sheriff was prejudiced. Personally, he much preferred interviewing unprepared, hungry, and nervous suspects -- interesting truths slipped out when the interviewee didn't have time to get prepared for the interview.

After the first long sip of coffee, Mulder began believing in divine providence again. The coffee was not only strong, but had a caffeine kick sufficient to shake him out of his doldrums. Now, a little more than half awake, he allowed himself to be lured over to the sideboard to investigate Sarah's idea of breakfast. Normally he was content with a bagel and coffee, but the smell of fresh, hot cinnamon rolls and the sight of steaming pancakes strongly suggested stoking up for a hard day. He had an hour to kill so he might as well indulge.

"Morning," Hobbs said as he walked in and headed straight for the sideboard. "If I stay here much longer, I'm never going to be able to go back to granola bars and coffee for breakfast," he said with a rueful look at the heaping plate of potatoes, eggs, pancakes and muffins he carried to the table.

Mulder noticed that Hobbs carefully balanced the plate on his arm, while carrying a mug of coffee in his other hand. Hobbs wasn't wearing gloves this morning. For that matter, Mulder didn’t recall the other agent wearing them last night at dinner, but he suspected that as soon as Hobbs could do so without insulting anyone, the gloves would come back on. This glove fetish posed a minor mystery that intrigued Mulder, but he refused to allow himself to be distracted by this particular irrelevancy.

"We get to see Jason at 8. I presume that Thurgood is already on his way to the airport to pick up the Canadian observer," Mulder commented randomly. Energized by coffee and food, his mind was beginning to shift into high gear. The Gunmen had given him some interesting background history of the area, as well as some highly intriguing news about Quatrain's recent activities. The question now was whether he should share this information with Hobbs, or give him tit-for-tat and withhold the information until after he talked with Jason.

"Let's hope Harry can make it through; there's a major storm front moving in." Hobbs sounded apologetic.

"Shit," Mulder grumbled. There were only so many dead ends he could cope with before he started running out of patience. The problem was, he couldn’t be certain that the dead-ends weren’t part of the mystery he had to solve. At this point, he wasn’t sure where this case began and where it ended.

"The mountains are uneasy. They don't like having their secrets exposed." Sarah's calm alto voice from the window startled both men.

"Are you suggesting that the mountains are deliberately delaying us?" Mulder asked curiously. Hobbs had a look that could best be described as a mix of total disbelief and nervousness. At Mulder's question, he glanced quickly back and forth between him and Sarah and started to say something before closing his mouth.

"I'm not suggesting anything of the sort, young man. I'm just saying that these mountains like to keep their secrets and have been doing it for centuries. You're an outsider. So's Quatrain."

"I just want the truth, Sarah," Mulder replied earnestly. Despite her ominous words, Mulder didn't sense that Sarah was giving them a warning; she was simply stating the facts as she believed them.

"Just don't want it too badly, Agent Mulder. I don't *know* what happened up there on Blackthorn Mountain, but something has been disturbed and it's still waiting out there," Sarah said quietly. Abruptly she laughed. "Just listen to me go on. I'm beginning to sound like Gloria down at the Crescent Moon Tea Room. Next thing you know, I'll be casting your horoscopes and reading your palms," she said with a chuckle. "Too much time for sitting and thinking in the winter. No wonder we New Englanders are always fighting the Devil -- it beats being bored to death up here in the snow." With that, Sarah wheeled around and headed for the kitchen before Mulder could say a word.

Mulder simply stared after her, unawares that he was dripping maple syrup off a forkful of pancake onto the tablecloth. The sternly rational investigative side of him said that Sarah was a born storyteller who certainly knew how to set her listeners' hair on end. On another level, he sensed that she had given him a warning and perhaps another clue to fit into the puzzle. The books he’d found on the bookshelves in his room had been suspiciously informative now that he thought about it. There were odd legends about the White Mountains stretching back for generations -- legends that Sarah obviously knew. One of the research trails he'd followed until the wee hours last night had been chasing the legends surrounding mountains and mountain worship. Nothing about this case suggested the occult, but he'd run into odd cults that had grown up in isolated communities before. The more he knew, the better able he'd be to separate what things looked like and what they actually were.

"I'm awake, now," Hobbs said in a shaky voice. "Is this what you deal with on a regular basis?" he asked cautiously.

"Let's go talk to Jason Fairfax," Mulder suggested, avoiding giving Hobbs an answer to his question. He didn't want to go into what he believed and what he thought Sarah was trying to tell him until he'd had a chance to think about what she'd said. She was a strange woman, but he sensed no malice or subterfuge from her. In fact, she had appeared to be a little taken aback by her own frankness.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Coos County Jail
Later that morning