Dreamcatcher 4
Ally

Brackenhurst Learning Facility for Extraordinary Children Cleveland, Ohio May 3rd 1999. 8:35p.m.

Scully battled her expression for as long as she could, knowing instinctively that Mulder's eyes were on her. In the six plus years they had been working together, she had gained a certain measure of open-mindedness toward what she had seen and experienced, and slowly, slowly, her grip on the rationale of science was slowly being torn from her grasp.

Despite that, though, Dana Scully the pragmatist, the *scientist* still hovered in the background, ready to pounce, to offer a practical solution to whatever madness was on the agenda that week.

And then she felt it. The merest pull on the left side of her face as her eyebrow made its slow ascent into incredulity. A reaction totally beyond her control and an expression she knew her partner could read like a book.

{What *is* that look, Scully?}

{{I'd have thought that after five years you'd know *exactly* what that look is, Mulder.}}

A look of incredulous disbelief. Sarcasm. The patented Dana Scully *look*. And she hated it. Hated to be so predictable in front of her partner.

Swallowing, she rearranged her features into their usual neutrally interested expression.

"Miss Brackenhurst, you say that Elisabeth...Lilly *knew* that she was going to die? That she saw it in her *dreams*?"

Julia raised a tear-streaked face to regard the agent in front of her.

"I don't know what I'm saying. I know how crazy it sounds. I'm not a stupid woman, Agent Scully. I know the difference between fantasy and reality, and at the time, as I said, we...*I* chalked it up to an overactive imagination at work."

She dropped her head and studied her hands. "Now, after all that's happened, I'm not so sure. I just want it to stop."

Mulder coughed slightly, as if to remind the two women of his presence.

"What about the child who's missing now?" His eidetic memory searched for a second through the dark recesses of his brain. "Deborah Hollis? Did she experience the same nightmares?"

Julia shook her head. "No. If anything she slept deeply. One of those kids always first to bed and last up in the morning. For a while it worried us, but she was fine during the day, so we put it down to a growing child needing to regain her energy. Debby was...*is* a unique child in many respects."

"How so?"

Julia smiled slightly. "She was possibly the most precocious child we have ever had here. Very confident. Outgoing. Well liked amongst her peers. Her IQ registers her at genius level. She *loves* to learn. But at the same time she is very much the little girl. Always around the horses. The kind of child you just *want* to be with..."

She shook her head as tears once again threatened to spill from her cool grey eyes.

"Oh, God, I'm sorry. I just can't believe this is happening. Not here, not anywhere."

Mulder glanced across at Scully, sending an unspoken message to his partner.

{This is getting us nowhere.}

The merest nod from her and Mulder rose to his feet. "Can you show us the rooms they slept in?"

His words seemed to allow Julia to regain at least some of her lost composure, and she swiped a hand over her face, smearing the tears that still lingered on her cheeks.

"Of course. I'm sorry. Please follow me."

*************

Scully felt as though she had stepped into one of those schoolgirl novels of her childhood. Complete with midnight feasts and ghost stories. The dorm was large, airy. Wood paneled with colorful scatter rugs strewn carelessly across its surface. Six small beds. Pine headboards. Each sporting a different colored comforter and various assortments of plush toys. A small night stand stood by each bed. A lamp to match the comforter for late night reading by insomniac mini-geniuses. A nice room. A safe room. A room where little girls could giggle into the night before falling into sweet childhood slumber.

A room where at least one of those little girls had been ripped from her dreams and taken to...to...

Scully wasn't sure. Not yet. But it would come. Eventually.

Mulder was prowling the area, like a tiger locked in a cage. Scully could almost see the gears whirring in his head as he tried to get a *feel* for his surroundings. It had taken her a long time to feel comfortable with her partner's strange submersion into a crime scene. To watch him sink into the horror was both fascinating and frightening.

Mulder had lived in dark places for most of his life, and recently Scully had begun to wonder how much more he could take before one day the horror came back to haunt him. To haunt them. Every crime, every death, seemed to take a greater toll on him, and his recovery time had gone from a few hours to a couple of days. During those times, she would leave him alone, having learned long ago that only Mulder could rid himself of the dark places. Her help was neither needed nor appreciated.

"Is this room still in use?"

He had paused by one of the beds, this one a stark contrast to the others. No brightly colored comforter here. Only a striped mattress. Brand new and unused.

Julia shook her head. "No. We closed it immediately after...after Lilly was found. The girls who slept here were moved into other dorms. It wasn't difficult to find the space. Over a quarter of the students have already been removed by their parents. I don't blame them for being scared. We're all scared."

"And the child who found the body?"

Mulder winced at the word, and immediately wished he could pull it back. *Bodies* were found in abandoned warehouses, by fast-running rivers, in burnt-out vehicles. Not a word he enjoyed linking to bright-eyed nine year olds with swinging pigtails.

Only he seemed to have a reaction to the word, though. He shivered. "It was Debby wasn't it?"

Scully started. She was used to Mulder's leaps of logic, although how he had arrived at that conclusion was a mystery. The name of the child had not been included in the initial reports, although there was a transcript of the psychologist-aided interview. She had assumed that due to the age of the child, privacy had been respected.

"Mulder?"

He heard the question in her tone and shrugged, indicating to her that his hunch was just that. A hunch.

A *correct* hunch.

Julia wrapped her arms protectively across her chest. "Yes. She was the one. I thought you would know that."

Mulder nodded curtly and Scully mentally translated the nod.

{Interview over.}

{Information gathered.}

{Time to leave.}

"Thank you for your time, Miss Brackenhurst."

She indicated Mulder who was staring intently at the colorful mobile that hung from the ceiling above Lilly's bed.

"We'll be in touch."

"Can I take this?"

Julia followed his finger with her eyes as it came to rest on the tasseled edges of the mobile. Feeling suddenly that she should refuse, but was unable to generate a good reason for doing so. Just a lingering protectiveness over the dead child's' possessions. God knows, she hadn't had many and Julia felt like she was violating the child's trust by allowing the last reminder of her to be removed from the room.

"I don't know...I don't think..."

Scully had no idea what was going on in her partner's mind, but one look at the burning intensity in his eyes caused her to step forward and lay a silencing hand on Julia's arm.

"We won't damage it. As soon as we're done we'll return it to you."

Julia looked from one to other, confusion evident, and then she merely shrugged.

"Certainly. If you think it's relevant to your investigation."

"Thank you."

Carefully, Mulder reached up and unhooked the mobile from its fixing. He gazed at it almost reverently, tracing one long finger across the intricate pattern of colored thread and beads.

He locked eyes with Scully. "We should go."

Turning, he followed Julia Brackenhurst toward the exit, but paused long enough to pull Scully closer to him, leaning slightly so his words would be only heard by her. She felt his breath tickle her neck as the whisper reached her, hearing the words but not really understanding.

"Dreamcatcher."

She frowned, indicating the information meant little to her, but Mulder simply allowed his hand to settle in the center of her back as he guided her gently forward toward the door. The pressure of his fingers told her all she needed to know.

{Not now. I'll explain when we're out of here.}

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