"Help Me, Scully" . . . In a forest in West Virginia, Mulder and Scully knelt before an old tree, Mulder hurriedly pushing ferns aside, his fingers grasping at the soft earth beneath the shaded fronds. His hands dug deeper and deeper, more frantic with every parting of the moist clumps of dirt. Scully leaned slightly in, and her voice was worried as her gaze wandered from the anguished expression to his clawing fingers and back again. "Mulder, let's get a team out here."

     Ignoring her, Mulder kept on digging. Scully tried again, "let someone else do this."

     He kept on digging.

     And then he spoke in a voice filled with tremulous need and haunted desperation. "Help me, Scully."

     And he kept on digging.

     Scully paused for a fraction of a moment, her gaze locked on his face for a tortured eternity of mere seconds. Finally, she looked down upon his fingers still frantically burrowing at the moist earth. And then without further thought or words, she leaned in more heavily and her hands were joined in his work, her fingers tossing aside the soil, working in unison with his.

     In silence they continued, digging together. Moments passed and the only noise was the rasping of nails and knuckles on tiny bits of rock and scratchy dirt. At last, they came upon the long-buried material of a young girl's nightgown and then their fingers found and resurrected the shape of a cut heart.

     Mulder sat back on his haunches, devastation clear on his face. Scully could only gaze upon him, feeling his pain become her own.

     "Roache's Rabbit Hole" . . . John Roache fingered the plastic encasing holding a cut cloth heart. He gazed at it a moment before setting the packet on the metal prison table and pushing it towards Mulder.

     "That's your sister," he said softly.

     Gamely trying to control the need, the fear, the anguish he felt, Mulder asked in a tone of near-stoicism, "if that's true, then tell me where."

     "You want to know a lot more than that, don't you?" Roache asked and then immediately answered his own question. "You want to know everything, right." It wasn't a question this time, merely fact. "The big mystery revealed."

     Speaking in a strained tone, Scully spoke, attempting to untangle Roache's weaving of pain around Mulder. "Drop the mind games," she ordered.

     Calmly ignoring her, Roache continued, his gaze locked on Mulder. "I can't just tell you. I know you won't believe me. You want me to show you, you need me to lead you through because after all these years, anything less than that's not gonna satisfy you, right?"

     Mulder met his gaze, but he wore no expression. He did allow a brief, humorless, joyless smile to flit across his face before replying, however.

     "You just wanna get out of here," he stated and then turned away, rising from his chair.

     "You're damn right, I do," Roache vehemently agreed with Mulder's back, "if only for a day or two." His voice lowered, becoming a soft murmur, "I'm realistic." He was silent for a beat, his head bowed, "but more than that," he continued softly, "I can't wait to see your face."

     He looked up just as Mulder turned to face him, impassivity written in every line of his body. At the table, still seated, Scully was his emotion, his anguish, his outrage, her whispered exhalation of "oh, God," his reaction to Roache's inhumanity.

     It was also her own anger and disgust with Roache and on the heels of those feelings came an urgent need to shut down this man who was so attempting to hurt her partner. She rose to her feet in a rush, the metal chair scraping harshly against the floor. In a voice shaking with emotion, she faced Roache, drawing his fire momentarily from Mulder.

     "You're gonna see the inside of your cell instead."

     Roache glanced away from Mulder, his gaze now resting upon his infuriated partner.

     "You're gonna rot there," she pronounced before angrily turning away, muttering "let's go" to Mulder. She opened the door as Roache once more turned to Mulder, a look betraying surprise and a tinge of pride for Mulder at Scully's protective ferocity, before a look of knowing surety crossed his features.

     Without a word, and only a slight tremor of uncertainty evident on his face, Mulder picked up the plastic packet with the cloth heart and turned away from Roache. Scully stood still at the door, holding it open for his exit. He walked out and she followed, allowing it to shut firmly behind her.

     Mulder paused before the window looking in on Roache and he bowed his head, his hands burrowed in his pocket. Scully stood to the side, concern etched on her face.

"You okay?" she asked softly, emotion thickening her voice.

     When Mulder didn't respond but simply stared at Roache through the window, she continued, "Mulder, the last thing we should do is give this man his way on this. If we do, he could string us along forever. I know you appreciate that. There has to be another way to come to the truth."

     At her final words, * the truth,* he turned at last to look at her, nodding softly. And then his gaze once more fell upon Roache.

     Roache who was looking down, his head cradled in his hands and then he looked up, his long fingers creating a vee against his eyes, creating a mask. And then he rose as his fingers fell from his face, as his hands fell from his throat, as his gaze fell from Mulder's, as his back faced Mulder's reflection.

     And Scully gazed upon the resolute image of her partner's face in the glass and she turned her head away, her eyes closing as she understood the futility of her words, her reasoning.

     And still understanding Mulder, she did not know how to stop him from falling headlong into the rabbit hole that John Lee Roache had dug for him.

     "The Gilligan Hug" . . . Mulder sat at his desk in the gloom and dark of the basement office. At a light knock, he looked up and Scully entered. She walked towards him slowly, loving concern on her face as she gazed at him.

     Like a little boy, lost and alone, he looked at her, his hands folded neatly before him, resting on the desk. His eyes followed her movements as she stepped to the side of his desk, standing next to him. She laid a report down as she gave him the results in a soft voice.

     "I got back some lab results. The dye analysis determined that the last heart was manufactured between 1969 and 1974, but beyond that there's nothing more they can tell us. Mulder, it's not Samantha and whoever that little girl really is, we'll find her."

     In a voice deep with despair, weighted down with so much guilt for the past, for the present, he whispered brokenly, "how?," his eyes cast downward.

     "I don't know how," she responded, "but I do know you." And her voice was as confident and sure as her words and when he looked up, looked at her face, into her eyes, he saw the same confidence and surety reflected there, even if he felt none himself. He gazed at her for a moment longer before looking away, his head shaking back and forth, denying any confidence in himself.

     "Why don't you go on home." she suggested gently, "get some sleep." At her words, he looked up again and smiled and he laughed softly.

     Sleep, he was thinking, sleep is what started this whole mess and she read and shared his thought for she smiled as well. Her hand rested upon his shoulder, curving slightly about his neck and she pulled him to her, the smile still on their faces. As his head rested against her abdomen, his arm snaking around her waist, her smile died.

     Worry once more settled over her features. She looked down at his dark head nestled against her breast and the age-old revival of maternal comfort -- evident in every woman's love -- rose up within her. She brought a hand to his tousled locks and her fingers drifted over, smoothing them down.

     On her face was worry, yes, but also regret -- regret, that she could not spare him this pain and helplessness that beyond this small comfort she knew not what to offer. And so with no more words, she moved away. As she left, shutting the door behind her, Mulder sat alone once more, but on his face -- for a few moments at least -- peace and the lingering of a smile remained.