Chapter Text
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Scully sighs and takes her gaze away for the computer. She is dealing with IT. She is reading books and visiting her therapist and posting on forums with ironic names that reminds her of the all-female metal bands Melissa used to listen in high school. Really, she is fine. People should have the right to feel blue on Mondays. Or Wednesdays if they are doomed to work in a basement.
Mulder, who lurks at the basements with the same gusto as the most elusive cryptid in their files, strolls into the office with the exuberance of a new born puppy. “New case. Wanna visit an Ohio diner that may or may not exist?”
“No, Mulder. Not particularly. Can it just not exist in DC at least?”
“Actually, it may not exist in DC either.”
It's going to be a long day.
“Quantum mechanics says that an electron can be in a superposition of all possible locations. There’s no such thing as the position of an electron. But when you observe the electron, you see it in one location. This is the fundamental mystery of quantum mechanics. Its description when no one is looking is different from what you see. So whatever you focus your attention on – that becomes your reality.”
“From my uneducated perspective, quantum physics sounds a lot like bullshit.”
“A quantum physicist would probably agree,” Scully chews her lips. The flight was turbulent enough to give her the beginnings of a headache. “Mulder, what are we doing here?”
“Investigating. I think that’s our job.” Cher blares from the speakers and he taps his fingers on the wheel to the beat of the music as he navigates the streets of Bedstring, Ohio. “So, what do you think happened to Lisa Carey? Got sucked into a wormhole?”
“I never said anything about wormholes. And no, Mulder, I think, as sad as it sounds, the most plausible explanation is that she was murdered by her husband.”
“He stuck to his story. Even after all these years. And what about their daughter, Patricia?” He switches the station to classical music. Scully smiles at him gratefully.
“Mulder, Patricia had a troubled life. Expelled from school, a few shoplifting charges that got dropped, drugs. It’s more likely she run away.”
“That’s not what our witness claims.” He parks in front of an old house. The yard is unattended, the porch is dusty, with loose boards. They get out of the car and approach the house that has seen better days. They knock and Martha Hall, a tired old woman, opens the door. They introduce themselves and she reluctantly invites them in.
“I have already talk to the police,” she says, her voice wavering. “They don’t believe me.”
“Mrs Hall, we are here to help,” Mulder says. Scully nods. They know the drill with cases like these. People can protest but they always want to tell their stories, to anyone willing to listen. Sympathy isn’t something either of them have to feign, especially today. It's easy to see how distressed Martha Hall is. “We will do anything in our power to bring your granddaughter back,” he adds.
“Like you brought my daughter back?” she says in a tone that makes them wince. “I have never seen much help from you, people.” They won't apologize for the failure of others, both knowing that failure and patience are the only things sometimes they can offer. “Fine. The sheriff says my Patricia run away. That is not true. Patricia…she is a difficult girl but she isn’t bad. She knows what this would do to me. We don’t get along these days but she loves me in her own way.” Scully searches for a tissue in her pocket and gives it to her. She takes it, blows her nose and continues. “We were out, shopping for groceries when god, I don’t remember what I told her, she got mad at me, as usual, and walked into this diner I have never seen in town before. I turned around to put the bags in the car, giving us both some time to cool off and went after her. And it was gone.”
“Patricia was gone?” Scully clarifies.
“The diner was gone. It had vanished without a trace, like it was never there in the first place. I waited for two days and then drove to the police. They told me I should have come sooner but I know what I saw. I am not crazy.”
“You think she is on drugs?”
“I think she is an old woman who has been though a lot.” Scully takes notice of Patricia’s room. It looks like a typical teenager room, walls full of posters, an unmade bed with messy clothes piled on it and angst radiating from every crevice. Some of the books in the shelves grab her attention.
“Patricia was into physics.” She picks up the most dog-eared book she can find and leafs through it disdainfully. She notices at least three glaring omissions in the first ten pages. What do they teach high school kids these days?
“It could be for a school project,” Mulder says and shows her a jar that has the distinct sour smell of lemons. Are these nails in it? She shudders, thinking of Phaster, the last person she knew that was keeping nails in jars. Her hope is Patricia had procured hers in a less violent way. “Look at this. I think she was practicing witchcraft.”
“Too many books for a simle academic interest. It's worth looking into it but I must warn you: Many teenage girl dabble with magic, Mulder. Not me,” she cuts him off before he starts. “Science was alaways more of my domain, sorry to disappoint you.” The glint in his eyes shows that he isn't particulary disappointed.
“Not hexxing any unfaithful boyfriends?”
“I was more into practical solutions, like slashing their tires,” she smiles sweetly as he stares at her, no doubt trying to figure out if she is joking or not. Let him wonder. “But good call. After we finish here, we should talk to her friends, see if there is any older boyfriend in the picture.” They explore the room silently, each one taking a side, making sure to avoid stepping on each other’s shoes. It's a routine they have long ago perfected it. Their search comes to an end when Scully finds a red notebook in a spare pillowcase. She used to hide her own diary there, too. Not to be shown up, Mulder holds a pack of letters, taken from behind the nightstand’s drawer.
“This is where you hid your Playboys?”
“My Oxford application, really. Dirty letters, condoms. The porn was in the open, no respectable parent wants to go looking further than that.”
Scully sits on the bed and gets busy doing her part of the homework. The diary makes for a sad and interesting read. She always feels a pang of guilt when she invades a victim’s privacy like that, especially when that someone is a kid. Patricia misses her mother, doesn’t get along with anyone in school, hates her father, typical teenager stuff. She has written down curses for her teachers, researched spells for growing taller, sketched runes for protection, a bit more unusual. She has solved physics formulas, drawn diagrams and charts far beyond the comprehension and capabilities of a failing student, okay, that was a bit spooky. Scully doesn’t see any mention of a boyfriend.
“These are all from her father,” Mulder looks up from one of the letters. “She never wrote back. I think the key to finding Patricia is to understand what happened to her mother. We should pay him a visit.” He stands up in front of her, calloused hands resting on his narrow hips. The glasses have made an exciting guest appearance. It’s a distracting sight. Scully shakes her head, focusing on the matter at hand. “What does he say in the letters?”
“The same thing he always claimed. Lisa went to buy breakfast and she vanished. And so did the entire diner.”
Mrs Hall doesn’t know anything about the jar, the books or friends and boyfriends. She looks devastated as she visibly struggles to cope with the fact that for all intents and purposes, she was living with a stranger in her house. Scully puts a comforting hand on her shoulder and thinks that must be the fate of every parent, that sudden moment of realization. She wonders when that happened with her own parents and if she is lucky that she would never get to experience it. Mulder asks about Patricia’s relationship with her father, if she ever visited him in prison. She shakes his head, looking stricken.
“I never believed him. All this time...I thought he killed her. My baby,” she sobs. “Please, find her. Find them.”
As they drive to the prison, Scully calls Skinner and the sheriff department. They should be able to see Don Carey, promptly and without an incident. “Yes, Sir, we think he is involved. We will call you with further details.” She hangs up and turns to Mulder. “The sheriff isn’t happy about us ignoring him.”
“Scully, you heard what Mrs Hall said. They aren’t going to help. And for the record, I don’t think Don Carey is in any way involved with Patricia’s disappearance. He loves his daughter.” he says meaningfully, pointing at the pile of letters on the dashboard. “Someone should at least inform him.”
“Mulder, what did you want me to say? That there is a cursed diner on the loose?” She closes her eyes and rests her head against the window. The headache is back, with a vengeance. The case doesn’t help either, it shapes up to be one of those rabbit holes only Mulder could have discovered. She goes over Patricia’s notebook again. There is something she is missing but can’t figure out. “If we vanish, someone else can inform Skinner.”
“Scully, is everything okay? You sound a bit...tense,” Mulder takes his eyes off the road and looks at her. Scully snorts. If by tense he means acting like a colossal bitch, sure. He is too well-trained to say it aloud.
“I found out that I am infertile,” she tells him the same way her dad taught her how to swim, with all of her limbs and no floaters. “Cancer’s treatments. Or maybe the cancer had nothing to do with it. Who knows?” she shrugs. Her body is an exercise in absurdity, with its microchips and ova that was whisked away into the night.
“Scully, I am sorry,” he takes his hand off the wheel and reaches for hers. Scully gives it to him without hesitating, her thumb tracing the rough edges of his palm. She feels a shock of energy, the result of an imbalance between negative and positive charges, most likely. It doesn’t sting. She lets him go with a last squeeze. Mulder looks like he does when he debates whether he should dazzle her with his theories or let her figure it on her own.
“When this case is over, I want to talk to you about something.”
“Are you going to tell me you are in love with me? Because I know that already.”
Mulder almost crashes the car. “Relax, I am joking,” she looks at him curiously. She is surprised by his reaction. She expected some kind of deflectiom or even pure undulated panic but Mulder looks like he saw a ghost. Which in Mulder’s case, that means something different than the rest of the regular people: Mulder looks excited as hell.
“I thought you would never notice, Scully,” he grins at her and Scully feels butterflies in her stomach, like a teenager. She clears her throat and tries to do her job. “How was Carey convicted without a body?”
“They weren’t exactly the happiest couple. Lisa was threatening to file for divorce and take Patricia and leave. They were fighting all the time and he was heard by multiple witnesses saying he’d rather kill her than being separated from his daughter. It looked bad for him.”
Don Carey looks as well as a man who has spend the last years of his life in prison, proclaiming his innocence, can be expected to look. Scully sees the family resemblance easily enough, both he and Patricia share the same dark, curly hair. “God, it happened to Patricia, too,” he says, running his fingers through his hair. Like Martha Hall, he looks genuinely distressed.
“Mr Carey, tell us what happened to Lisa,” Mulder coaxes him gently.
“Don’t know how many times I told this story. We were dropping Patricia at her mom’s house when Lisa wanted to get some coffee. There was a diner we have never seen before in that part of town. Thought it strange but we were in a hurry. She got out and I took my eyes off her for a second, checking up on Patricia. When I looked again, it was gone, along with my fucking wife.”
“Did Patricia see anything?” Scully asks.
“Patricia was four. Kids that age don’t give a shit about anything they can’t put in their mouths. You don’t have kids, do you?” he scoffs. Scully feels a pang in her chest.
“Mr Carey, Agent Scully is the only one who is willing to hear you out. Don’t insult her,” Mulder snaps at Carey, who looks appropriately chagrined. “Can you remember anything unusual from that day that could help us?”
“Not much to do but going over that day in my head. We were fighting. Lisa was angry with me. I wanted us to move away for a better job and Lisa wanted to stay close to her mother. I was angry at her for taking up smoking again. For going blonde. We were always fighting for something. Nothing strange about that,” he says, shoulders slumped.
“Was Lisa ever involved with magic?”
His eyebrows climb to his hairline. “Like that guy that made the Statue of Liberty disappear?”
“Like Wicca. Paganism. Occultism. Restoration Magic. Necromancy?” Scully is sure that Mulder can keep this up for a while.
“Agent Mulder, we are a Christian family,” he says, scandalized. If he wore pearls, he would had clutched them. Mulder searches his pocket and pulls out the jar. “We found this in Patricia’s bedroom.” Carey looks at it, perplexed. “That looks like a jar of pickles.”
“It’s a spell. Sour jars are a somewhat common practice in Neo-paganism.”
“I am going to die in this hole,” he says, clasping his hands over his head. “Get the fuck out of here.”
“Really, Mulder, necromancy?” Back at the car, Scully shakes her head in amazement. “I want to drive back in town and talk to Patricia’s teachers and classmates tomorrow. I still think there is something about her avid interest in physics.”
“You think there is a magic shop anywhere close? We could give the sheriff a call and ask him.”
“Do that. Maybe there is a charm in here that would help you play nice with the local authorities, for once,” she leafs through the notebook again. That nagging feeling returns. God, she needs something to eat and a shower, stat. She tells Mulder and he offers her his bag of sunflower seeds. She shrugs and accepts. It would do.
“Scully…?”
She ignores him, preoccupied with not getting any shells in her teeth. Mulder’s tongue must be truly magical, a thousand grimoires would not do him justice.
“Scully! Look!”
At the curve of the road, there is a diner. It doesn’t look out of place exactly but it doesn’t look like it connects to the ground, either. It shimmers in the evening shade, reflecting light in a way that it shouldn’t be possible. The door blends into nothing. Mulder gets out of the car, drawn like an idiotic man to a disaster. Scully sighs and follows him. She could go for some greasy meal.
The diner is full of people of all ethnicities. Scully sees three young Chinese girls giggling about something, showing each other their notebooks. A handsome Indian man is drinking his coffee, looking dejected. A couple of dark-skinned women are holding hands, looking deeply at each other’s eyes, ignoring the rest of the word. They take their seat at the nearest booth.
“This is an extremely multi-cultured diner,” Mulder points out snidely.
“Yes,” Scully agrees. She doesn’t appreciate his tone and she won’t even entertain the idea that Mulder is racist. What’s his point?
“Scully, we are in Ohio. This man is wearing a toga,” he gestures at a short man who seems fascinated by the jukebox.
She can admit to herself that it’s a bit strange. “It could be a convention.”
“For Romans?”
“How should I know what geeks are into these days? This is your department. Call the Lone Gunmen.” Mulder pulls out his cell phone and dials a number. He shoves it in her face triumphantly. No signal. “Remember that time you were convinced we stumbled upon a werewolf lair?” she adds, never getting tired of bringing it up.
“That was one time and you promised you would never mention it again. The things that I saw,” he shudders.
The waitress approaches them and makes an extremely well-rehearsed speech. “We serve coffee and pancakes. That’s what we serve. We don’t serve omelets, hash browns, tea, milk, ice cream or anything else. We don’t serve eels, ale, honey-spiced wine, onion soup, potatoes, boiled or otherwise. Take it or leave it.” She drops the pot on the table with force. “On the house.”
“Just coffee, thank you,” Mulder says after a few stunned seconds. So much for the famous Midwestern hospitality, Scully thinks. Mulder pulls a picture of Patricia out of his suit jacket and shows it to the woman. “Have you, by any chance, seen this girl?”
She takes a quick glance at the picture and nods. “Oh yes. She is somewhere around here,” she gestures at the back of the diner. “I think she is catching up with her mother. Nice family.”