TITLE:   Conhouse - Chapter Nineteen

e-mail Address:  ErinStone1@aol.com
RATING: anywhere from PG to NC-17 - it's a crap shoot
CATEGORY:  Scully/Slash
SPOILERS: None
Keywords:  Scully Slash/Other Romance
Archiving:  You bet - just let me know where.

Disclaimer: Fox, Chris Carter and 1013 own them ALL, ***except Lena Conhouse,
she's mine, and of course, Wanda, who is mine in the literal sense.***

Comments are welcomed. Please send them to ErinStone1@AOL.com


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

Mulder and Scully stood over the bed. Lena was out cold, breathing deeply with
a slight smile on her face.

"Should we wake her?" Mulder turned to Scully.

"Probably not. Mr. Conhouse said she'd needs to rest and I would have to
concur with him."

"What now?"

"Wait, I guess." She continued to stare at Lena. "You know Mulder, Steve was
cryptic about the trip. Maybe he meant it metaphorically."

"Do you really believe that Scully?" Mulder asked as he made his way out of
the bedroom and toward the front door. Scully followed.

"No."

"I didn't think so. Seems to me that he knows something we don't."

"If a trip is in our immediate future Skinner will have to be notified."

"True." Mulder smiled at her. "Best of luck."

"Meaning that I will have to handle it?"

"Dad always did like you best Scully."

She sighed, looking at him sternly. "Why is it that I am always the one to
deliver bad news to him Mulder?"

"It's not such bad news. Think about it. He's been after us to take time off
for the last 5 years."

"Which is precisely why he'll be wondering what we're up to. We never take
time off, and we never take anyone with us. Remember that Lena also reports to
him. What will he think when the three of us take time off all at once? And -
as if that weren't enough, Lena is fairly new in the DC bureau. She may not
even have vacation time available. She's looking at a leave of absence. This
is not good Mulder. Not good."

"Not true Scully. When he gets the final report on the Cook case he'll think
that Lena was nearly killed trying to save Ruthie. That's worth at least a
month of recovery time for her, don't you think?"

She just stared at him.

"You're doing a whole lot of worrying before knowing all the facts."

"One of us has too."

"You want me to talk to him?" Mulder made the offer fully knowing that it
would be declined.

"Absolutely not."

"Ok, it's your call. In the meantime, what's the plan?"

"You go to work and file the Cook case report with Skinner. Tell him I'm
keeping an eye on Lena's recovery process. If he asks where she was admittedˇ
I don't know what tell you. Stall, I guessˇ change the subject, you're good at
that." Scully smirked at him. "I'll stay here with Conhouse. If she tells me
anything about the alleged trip I'll call you. For now I'd like to make sure
she gets some rest and doesn't wake up to an empty apartment."

"Okay. Talk to you later."

Scully looked at him as he opened the door to leave. Suddenly she got panicky.
"Mulder, come here after work, ok?"

He stopped in his tracks, concerned with the tone of her voice. "You're not
worried, are you Scully?"

"Not worried, exactly, justˇ out of my element."

Mulder smiled at her sympathetically. "Talk to her Scully. She's still the
person you, well," he looked down to the floor and back up to her, "Talk to
her."

She looked at him for a long moment, mildly embarrassed by her display of
concern. "You know that? I mean, with certainty?"

He could tell that she was looking for confirmation. She wanted him to have
=felt= that everything was really okay. She wanted him to make the
unreasonable =reasonable=.  She wanted him to =know= it, the way he knew that
all his other obscure beliefs were true.

He narrowed his eyes and gave her his best square-jaw eye-to-eye look, "I know
Scully. I know."

She sighed deeply. "Thank you," and smiled quickly before turning back to the
bedroom.

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

Mulder sat at his desk typing the final case report on the murder/kidnapping.
He had padded the brutality that Cook had wreaked on Lena, although he was
certain that the brutality would have been more than enough to keep a normal
human out of commission for well over a month.

His mind kept wandering to Mr. Conhouse's comment about him being one of his
'favorites'. His favorite what?

It was making him crazy and he had to fight the urge to break a land-speed
record getting back to Scully's to talk to Lena.

He considered inanely that he should be happy being an angel's favorite
=something=. The thought made him shake his head. These were strange days
indeed.

His phone rang.

"Mulder."

"It's me. Are you done with the report yet?"

"I'm hunt and peck, remember?"

"I'm calling to ask a favor."

"And what would that be?"

Scully was whispering. "I'd like you to email me the names of all the  X-Files
that concern angels."

Mulder pursed his lips. "Just the names of the files?"

"Yeah. I can pull them up from here, I just need to know the case file names."

"Why?"

"I need to be 'in my element' Mulder. I'd like to educate myself."

"Didn't you learn all there is to know about angels in Catholic school?"

"Not this kind of angel."

"I'll do it now."

"From memory?"

"Is there any other way?" Mulder was smiling into the receiver.

"Thank you." And she hung up.

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

Scully spent the morning in a chair next to the bed with Wanda asleep on the
floor beside her. Her laptop was perched on her lap. She looked up angels on
the internet with her various search engines. Most of the sites were what
Scully would consider fluff, full of pictures of round faced cherubs and women
in flowing robes with wings. She finally found one site in particular that
seemed to be the most comprehensive.


______________________________________________________
1.Angels were created by God:

 Thou, Lord alone has made heaven, the heaven of heavens,
 with all their host,(angels) the earth, and all things
 that are therein, the seas and all that is therein, and
 thou preservest them all! And the host of heaven worships
 thee.(Nehem:9-6)
 For by him were all things created that are in heaven, and
 that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be
 thrones, dominions, principalities, or powers, all things
 were created by Him, and for Him.(Coloss:1:l6)

2. Method of origin
Angels were created by a special act of God, they did not evolve.

Praise ye him all his angels, praise ye him all his hosts(angels) Let them
praise the name of the Lord, for he commanded and they were created.
(Psalml48:2,5).

Their number was fixed at creation. They neither reproduce or die.

Jesus talking about the resurrection said: For in the resurrection they
neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in
heaven. (Mathew22:30)
Neither can they die anymore: for they are equal unto the angels.

3. Time of origin.
Before the earth was, the angels were already created.

Where were thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare if thou has
understanding. When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God
shouted for joy? (Job 38:1,4,7)

4. Purpose of existence
They were created to glorify Christ.
And again when he brought in the first begotten (Jesus)
into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him.
(Hebrews:1:6)
Thou art worthy, O Lord to receive glory and honour, and power: for thou hast
created all things, and for thy pleasure thy are and were created.
(Revel4:11).

___________________________________________

Well - that told her the sum total of 'not much'. She knew this information to
be true as far as Catholicism was concerned, but how true was it in relation
to Lena?

The woman can die, she'd told Scully as much. She knew she was telling her the
truth.

Scully considered that mixed races occurred constantly. So why not an
angel/human mix? 'So what I have here', Scully thought to herself, staring at
a still sleeping Lena, 'is a hybrid?' Does that mean that some time in the
past an angel seduced a human and they bore a child? Wouldn't that, in it's
own definition, be a sin against god?


Her e-mail chimed and she read a list of 3 file names that Mulder had sent
her. Scully pulled each file alphabetically, taking in the details of the
three X-files that dealt with supposed 'angels'. Unfortunately, they told her
what she was already aware ofˇ

The case of the boy with stigmata, and the smell of roses on the body of his
physically deformed, bald guardian. She remembered that he seemed to not be
suffering from decomposition or rigger. And the odd smile on his faceˇ

The other two files were equally odd and not forthcoming with any information
useful to her. They were very old cases of angelic intervention in the life of
two different families.

In one, a miraculous medical recovery of a young girl. In the other, a family
was saved from starvation on their desolated ranch in January by a stranger
who never resurfaced. Nothing much to go on there.  Maybe Mulder knew more.
She'd have to quiz him later.

She glanced at Lena. Bruises that seemed permanent additions on her face the
night before now faded nearly away. It had been 4 hours since her father had
been there, and she seemed from all outward appearances to be nearly healed.

Amazing.

The color and classic lines of her cheekbones and chin were back, making her
look stunning against the white bed sheets.

Scully set her laptop on the nightstand and crawled into bed next to the
sleeping woman. After a moment's hesitation, she wrapped her arms around her,
pulling her to her chest.

"Lena?"

"Yes?"

"You're awake? How do you feel?"

"New." Lena murmured against her chest. "Another hour, I need another hour.
Stay with me?"

Scully squeezed her in answer and drifted off to sleep beside her.


End - Chapter Nineteen