Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He is truly unbelievable sometimes, Scully thought. There were stormclouds rolling in her, threads of electricity flickering in their midst. 

The resounding dismissal she had just let loose upon her partner’s plan for their weekend — chasing unborn crop circles over in England — still hung in the air between them.

“I’ll just cancel your ticket,” was all Mulder said. “Thanks for lunch.” 

He didn’t raise his voice. Didn’t argue any of the points Scully had made. He simply accepted that she wasn’t coming, and went quietly to the door.

But of course, he had given her that look.

Scully stared at him, trying to quell the part of her that actually wouldn’t say no to an airing of grievances right now, an all-cards-on-the-table argument.

“Look, we’re always running,” she said, wanting him to understand. “We’re always chasing the next big thing. Why don’t you ever just stay still?” 

It was impossible to keep the frustration from her voice, and she saw it register on Mulder’s face as he lingered at the doorway.

“I wouldn’t know what I’d be missing,” Mulder replied, an edge in his voice now. Turning, he stalked off down the hall.

Scully slumped on her chair, watching her partner’s slides stutter as his abandoned projector clicked and whirred. The way Mulder had just announced that she would join him, on her weekend, to go investigate a nonsense overseas event that hadn’t even yet occurred….she dug her thumbnails into the carton of half-eaten salad in her hands.

She’d felt a bitter satisfaction in skewering Mulder’s excited rundown of the mysteries plaguing foreign fields with her own take: sneaky farmers who happened to ace geometry in high school. Because why the hell shouldn’t she lose patience with him? 

Here she was, fresh from the morgue, worrying about hospital paperwork on a Saturday, denied so much as ten minutes to herself since finishing late last night and then starting early that morning - all in the name of getting Mulder’s casefile to completion. 

And while she’d sliced, diced, and scribbled reports, what had he been doing? Entertaining himself, from all that she could see. Delving into his folklore hobbies while he relaxed with music in their office, booking them plane tickets to England without even bothering to call and check in with her first. The Fox Mulder Show in high gear. 

Well, he could handle this one on his own.

And yet….and yet. Hearing his footsteps retreat down the hall, the memory of his face, disbelieving and definitely slightly hurt as she’d shut him down fresh in her mind, Scully found herself wavering. Not for the first time, not for the hundredth time. 

Why was he so damned hard to say no to?

With an annoyed sigh, Scully propelled herself off the chair and marched out of the room. “Mulder!” she called.

He was waiting for the elevator at the end of the hall. Turning over his shoulder, he gave Scully a hopeful half-smile. 

Putting her hands on her hips, Scully scowled at him. “You could have just asked me first,” she said as she walked up the hall, still pissed, but as always, unable to stop herself from wanting to follow the leads, follow him into the next adventure. 

Why is our dynamic still so much leader and follower though, even now? Why can’t he just tell me what’s happening, and we decide together?

Mulder looked back at her, all innocence. “So you’ll come?” he asked happily. Watching unreserved jubilation flood Mulder’s face, it was hard to keep her irritation at full boil. 

Maybe, Scully reasoned grumpily, he thinks deciding together is exactly what just took place.

“Can you at least get us onto a later flight, Mulder?” she asked. “What is it, eight hours to London? Less? If I can have a little more time to finish things up here, pack, and take a nap, we’ll still get there well within the timeframe whoever you’re dealing with in England has outlined for any, uh…” She searched for the right word, consciously trying not to be cutting. “Phenomena, to occur.”

Nodding, Mulder took Scully by the shoulders as he moved past her, swapping their places in front of the elevator. “I’ll try and change it now,” he said, eyes alight, already halfway back down the hall towards their office. 

“Mulder - what are you going to tell Skinner?” Scully called. She knew there was no kind of work-related justification they could hang this trip on.

“We have a budget for research and training,” Mulder called back breezily, hovering at the office door. “Just like any other department. This is research, Scully!”

He disappeared from view, and the elevator dinged beside her, its doors gliding back. Shaking her head, already engulfing herself in second guesses, Scully stepped inside. 

Fatigue washed over her as she watched the digital display tick through the ascent to the car-parking level. If I’m going with him, I’m going when I’m ready, or not at all. Tickets be damned, she thought.

~~   ~~   ~~

Scully had just awoken from a deep and restorative sleep after a flurry of report-writing, packing and finally, showering, when her cellphone trilled.

“Scully,” she said groggily, clamping the phone to her skull. 

“Hey, Scully,” Mulder said. “I couldn’t get a later flight. I tried, I’m sorry.” He sounded contrite, but it was secondary to that tone of giddy impatience she knew so well, his evergreen desire to spring into the next case, the next quest. “Could you still make it for five thirty?”

Turning over to check the time, Scully made some lightning internal deliberations. There was an odd sense of a precipice in the moment. But she sighed, and gave a soft hum into the phone. “Yeah. I just have to make a couple of stops, drop in this paperwork,” she said. “I’ll see you at the airport.”

She found Mulder loitering by the international check-in counters. He gave her a lopsided welcome grin, and as she smiled back, the cogs of reality suddenly rolled into gear in Scully’s brain. This wasn’t a case. They weren’t even going to be on US soil. Somehow, Mulder had convinced her to fly to England with him, for something that had nothing at all to do with their work, however he might imagine himself pitching it to Skinner. 

She and her partner were ostensibly researching crop circle phenomena in Avebury, assuming the computer calculations Mulder had been so excited about led to farmland events beyond chasing wild geese. But while they were there, what else would they do? Go visit the area, no doubt. Go out for meals together. Stay somewhere with zero threat of local PD or anyone else they knew turning up with questions or updates. 

It would just be her and Mulder, on what she now realised sounded far more like a holiday than anything else. 

Mulder reached for Scully’s bag, carrying it along with his to the check-in desk. As they handed over their passports and received boarding passes in exchange, Mulder leaned in to bump his shoulder companionably against Scully’s. “Glad you’re coming along after all?” he asked.

For some reason, in the wake of her most recent thoughts, his words set off an echo of the annoyed feelings Scully had had during their exchange at the office that morning. Was Mulder even aware of how his invite…no, summons, on this trip had looked from her point of view? His cocky assumption that she would drop everything to come with him, his failure to let her even draw breath before launching into the next thing on his agenda? 

And yet hadn’t she just gone right along with it, even so?

Dipping her head with a tight smile, she took a couple of strides out in front of Mulder, making him tail her as they progressed through the security queue. 

He caught her arm as they came out the other side and began the walk towards their gate. “Hey - Scully, wait,” he said, drawing her gently around to face him. Scully lifted her chin, brows arched.

“I get it, I should have asked you about the trip. I’m just so used to thinking of us as….as a team.” Something flickered in his eyes. “But…I dunno. Maybe you feel like I’ve dragged you along,” Mulder said. He turned to scan the listings of upcoming departure times, his face shadowing.

“Mulder!” Scully exclaimed, taken aback. “This has nothing to do with us being a team!” She looked up at him, her hand half-lifting to reach for his arm, but he continued to evade her gaze.

Seeing his face, Scully’s mind flashed back to a moment, not so many weeks ago, when she had stood and defended her reasoning for going roadtripping with the Smoking Man, Mulder staring at her with hurt blazing in his eyes. I know we’re not past it yet, she thought. 

And there was still so much more unsaid, unresolved in the invisible tapestry they had slowly woven between them over these past years. An energy that was sometimes more undertow than undercurrent.

Wanting to make peace, she offered her answer to her partner’s original question at the check-in desk. “Mulder…I am glad I’m coming with you.”

Softening, he finally turned back to her, a little sheepish now. “And I’m glad you’re here too, Scully. Really glad,” he said.

Chapter Text

The sky was still silvery-pink with dawn light when the agents walked out of London’s Heathrow Airport, Mulder squinting sleepily as he followed signs for the car rental depot. Feeling hazy with jetlag, Scully admired the beautiful wash of colours slowly spreading out from the horizon, enjoying the expanding glow of her first English sunrise.

“This way,” Mulder said, his voice gravelly with fatigue and the hours of recycled air on board the plane.

“Have you driven on the left before, Mulder?” Scully asked as they walked across the carpark. 

“Have you forgotten that I studied at Oxford, Scully?” Mulder shot back, scoffing good-naturedly. 

“How would I know if you had a car back then?” Scully said, grinning at him.

“Ok yeah, I didn’t. But I did a bit of driving here and there. Exploring when I could,” he said.

“Did you ever go to Avebury?” Scully realised suddenly that she hoped he hadn’t. It would be nice if they could explore the area together, as brand new terrain for them both.

Mulder was shaking his head. “It’s crazy that I didn’t. It’s so close to Oxford. But in my student days, when I was looking for an out-of-town adventure, the call of London was strongest. The countryside is beautiful here though, Scully, you’re going to love it.”

Yawning, Scully nodded. She waited outside the car rental office, watching the sunrise continue to unfurl as Mulder collected their keys, then followed him over to a compact cobalt-blue Ford Fiesta sitting on its own in the lot. Mulder went to open the trunk to throw in their bags, and Scully dropped hers on the ground at his feet before trudging wearily around to the passenger’s side. 

She looked up at Mulder in confusion when he came to stand beside her. “Did you want to drive?” he asked with a little smile, holding out the keys to her.

“Uh…no? You can drive, Mulder,” she replied, frowning slightly at his amused expression. He pointed through the window, still smiling. Scully turned to see the steering wheel there. She was standing on the left-oriented driver’s side. “Oh! Right, sorry.”

They got into the car, with Mulder at the wheel. Scully rubbed her eyes as she flipped the map Mulder passed her around a few times. “Where did you say we’re staying?”

“Marlborough,” Mulder said. “It’s only a few minutes drive from Avebury. I booked a B&B there that’ll do an early check-in for us.”

Tracing the motorway out from Heathrow with her finger, Scully quickly found the small town, eager for a chance to go and get an extra hour or two of rest after the unsettled sleep she had had on the plane. Mulder rolled confidently out onto the road, and after a few minutes of disorientation from sitting on the left side of the car while not driving, Scully relaxed into her seat, watching the sun begin to light up the fields around them.

As Mulder had said, the countryside was truly lovely. The way to Marlborough passed among flowering hedgerows, old stone bridges arching over clear streams and fields dotted with cows and sheep. I really did just fly all the way to England, with Mulder, Scully thought, still processing the detour her weekend had veered onto. 

Although the two of them had travelled outside the US before, this time had a very different feel. Mulder was making a big show of there being something for them to pursue here in England, some link to their wider quest, but she knew that crop circles were, above all, something he wanted to look into for the sheer fun of it.

And he wanted you to come have fun with him, and you shut him down, her inner voice reminded her.

Scully looked out the window. What was work and what was fun where Mulder was concerned was becoming something with increasingly blurred lines. He wasn’t just a colleague anymore, not for a long time now. They were friends, friends that had been through the unimaginable together. But beyond the professional scope of their relationship, she didn’t know what he truly thought or felt about her, about them - even with that indefinable undercurrent tugging away in the background of everything that passed between them. 

And as always, when faced with uncertainty, Scully took her refuge in reason. Despite those little blips in their past where high emotion had seemed like it might cross into something more, despite them sharing a whole language of touch and gesture, an almost-kiss, and even a real kiss, she and Mulder seemed to be locked into an unshakeable status quo. They would plunge side-by-side into danger, treading dark roads of revelation together. They’d move heaven and earth to help each other. Then she would go into the office Monday, Mulder would look up from the next casefile to smile hello, and their standard operating procedure as colleagues resumed.

Mulder pulled the handbrake with a sharp jerk as he parked partway up a little incline on the road into Marlborough. The street was lined with stone cottages, each displaying its own personality by means of bright flower gardens, edging the sidewalk with riotous colours. Plucking a piece of paper from his shirt pocket, he checked the number of the rose-wreathed house they had pulled up at. 

“This is us,” he said. 

“The white cottage there? It’s so… charming,” Scully said, her eyes wandering over the trailing boughs of pink and white roses climbing the house walls. 

She had just caught her jetlag-misted brain in time to stop herself from saying romantic.

Shouldering their bags, the agents made their way up the path to the house, breathing in the sweetness of the herbs thickly planted alongside the mossy cobblestones. The blue-painted front door had a little white sign on it saying “Roseneath” in a golden script. 

To Scully’s relief, the proprietor Gwen, an artsy-looking woman with wild, wiry grey curls, didn’t try to get any conversation going beyond politely showing them around. She led them to two rooms at the end of a little hall in her tidy, white-walled cottage, and handed them each a key. 

“The bathroom is one door along,” she said, pointing back up the hall. “Plenty of hot water. I can cook you some breakfast once you’re up. Enjoy your stay.”

Pushing open her door to see an old brass four-poster bed piled with rose-printed quilts, and thick crimson window-drapes hanging ready to plunge the room into darkness at a tug, Scully let out a satisfied sigh.

“We’ll meet up with my contacts this afternoon,” Mulder began. “We can take the long way, check out some…”

Scully held up a hand. “Sleep first, then plans,” she told him firmly, seeing the same shadows under his eyes she knew hers also bore. Mulder gave her a little salute, smiling, and they both turned to enter their rooms. 

~~   ~~   ~~

A few hours later, rested and bathed, the agents were both comfortably seated at the table in Roseneath’s cosy redbrick kitchen, finishing up a hearty cooked breakfast. Mulder was shuffling through the collection of maps spread across his side of the table. 

“I already spoke to the guys,” he told Scully. “Tomorrow is when it’s all kicking off. So I said we’d meet them in Avebury around say four or five this afternoon — just to check out some of the landmarks there, meet the team, and hear more about what’s been going on.” 

He thumbed through the file balanced on his knees, and pulled out an A4 printed photo of a tiny village, ringed by a large circular trench dug deep into the face of the land, long smoothed over by grass. “Look at this place, Scully. No wonder it’s a hotspot.”

Spearing the last few buttery mushrooms from her plate, Scully watched as Mulder went over the photo, tapping Avebury’s various highlights with a fingertip. “Neolithic henge earthwork. Standing stone circles. And the village sits right on a major ley line alignment.”

“Ley lines?” Scully said, attempting to keep her eyebrows level. “Where towns and churches and monuments all seem to line up across a distance? Aren’t they supposed to be more of a coincidence than anything else?”

“Depends who you ask,” Mulder said, feeling his usual investigative energies now buzzing away again after sleep and strong coffee. “Anyway, we have time for some site-seeing on our way. I was talking to Gwen earlier, while you were getting ready, and she said there’s a few old stately homes in the area that are open for visitors. Wanna start with one of those?”

He was pleased to see some genuine interest come into Scully’s face. “Really, Mulder? I thought you’d already have a whole day’s worth of crop circle touring plotted out for us?” she said, a teasing note putting a lilt into her voice.

Mulder shrugged. “Tomorrow is supposed to be the big one, might as well start strong. Or maybe we’ll catch one or two as we’re driving around, this whole area has been active. But anyway, I thought today we’d focus more on seeing stuff you would like.”

He met Scully’s eyes across the table, noticing her wondering expression. A tiny touch of pink had arisen in her cheeks. 

“Well, ok, sure. I’m ready when you are,” she said, patting her napkin over her lips.

Mulder jingled the car keys in his hand, and found he suddenly couldn’t keep from grinning. Catching his mood, Scully laughed. “As long as you’re still doing the driving, that is.”

Chapter Text

Back in their rental car shortly afterwards, the agents planned out their route. Mulder’s map lay unfolded and at the ready on Scully’s lap. 

“Highglade House is where we’re headed,” Mulder said, sketching a pencil loop around the area of the map Gwen had pointed out to him. He started the car. “It’s not far out of a village called Ethelmere.”

“I’m on it,” Scully said. Glancing at her as she pored over the network of country roads, sun streaking through the car window to set her red hair aflame as they drove, Mulder could see she looked much more engaged with their plans than at any prior point since the prospect of the trip first came up. He felt a pang of regret at the thought of the rocky ground they’d started on. 

Lately, the natural simpatico he always felt with Scully had been pulled a little thin, strained by separation. Not so long ago at all, she’d gone on the road with, unbelievably, Cancerman, completely duped by the slimy blacklunged bastard, and by the sounds of it, nearly killed. Then in the wake of that madness, Skinner had sent him off chasing ravens in Vermont while Scully was on stakeout in DC. And as was so often the case between them, too much had been let go, too much they should have talked about.

He knew his partner had done only what she thought was right, caught like a fly in a web of smoke, but even now, it all seemed nearly too surreal to fathom. 

We need this, Mulder thought, watching the way open out ahead, awaiting discovery, as they drove out of Marlborough. All we need is some time.

With new landscapes blurring by in a blaze of sunshine, exploring the English countryside with his partner and closest friend, it seemed he could nearly feel little fibres reattaching one by one, fusing whatever had been fraying between he and Scully back into accord. She looked happy, he was glad to see, already scanning the wider map and wanting to know what else Gwen had recommended they see. 

After first passing through the small and sleepy village of Ethelmere, Mulder and Scully reached Highglade House close to noon, approaching via a long drive that wound through a patch of woodland. The house appeared suddenly ahead as they rounded a bend, a imposing pale grey two-storey building with tall sash windows, set back on smooth lawn rolled out like a royal carpet before it. Ivy grew over most of the lower face of the house, rambling up to garland a large stone archway in the middle, where two great doors stood open. 

Pulling into an empty gravel carpark off to the right, Mulder sat and looked at the house for a moment. “I don’t think I’ll be able to stomach my apartment anymore once we see inside this place, Scully,” he said. 

Scully nodded in mock sympathy, smiling. “Maybe you’ll get some ideas for a decor upgrade, anyway,” she teased. 

The agents walked up to the house, finding a little counter just inside the main door. A middle-aged man with sandy brown hair was lounging in the chair behind it, reading a book. 

“Ah! Hello, hello!” he said, springing up and straightening his navy suit upon seeing them. “Glad to have you, we’re unusually quiet today.”

“Hi. I hope we didn’t need to phone ahead to arrange a tour of the house today… Rodney?” Mulder asked, spotting a brass name tag on the man’s lapel. 

“Our tour is self-guided,” Rodney said, accepting the credit card Mulder passed him to buy his and Scully’s tickets. “Just keep the little red arrows to your left as you pass through the house.” He held out a folded pamphlet for Scully to take. “Plenty of information for you here, but I’m happy to answer any questions?”

“How old is Highglade?” Mulder asked. From the look of it, he assumed it must have stood there, grand and serene, for maybe hundreds of years. 

“Oh, it’s only a newcomer by the standards of this area,” Rodney said, just a little snootily. “Built mid-nineteenth century. But that’s why it’s so well-preserved.”

“A hundred and fifty years new,” Scully said. “Still a lot of history for the families who lived here, I’m sure.”

“Well, yes and no,” Rodney said. “We understand it was more of a summer home, even in its heyday. And it hasn’t been lived in for a very long time. The previous owner, he was some decades back now, went a bit mad, you see. Quite a sad story. He said his wife simply disappeared one night, that the house was cursed and he’d never live in it again.” 

He gave the agents a confiding smile. “However, local rumour had it that she’d really run off with a lover she’d been seeing over in Ethelmere! He just couldn’t bring himself to believe it, poor man. Dropped dead of a stroke not two years later.”

With his cheery tale concluded, Rodney beamed at his visitors. “Right! You’re heading this way,” he said brightly, gesturing to the long hallway ahead. “Do enjoy.”

Mulder and Scully turned to make their way into the house. “The owners must have had the Midas touch, huh Scully?” Mulder said. The hall walls were covered in silk damask with a glossy gold floral motif, and banner-like tapestries spun from silver and gold threads hung from ceiling to floor midway along. 

Their steps on the polished wood floor were muted by a wide ochre-coloured rug, depicting scenes of a hunt in white all the way down its length. Scully bumped into Mulder as the cleated heel of the sturdy walking boots she’d chosen for the day’s exploring caught in one of the thickly knotted gold tassels running along the rug’s edge. 

“Damnnit!” she hissed, clinging to Mulder’s proffered arm gratefully as she righted herself. 

“That kind of rug was designed more with dainty slippers in mind, I guess,” Mulder said, smiling. 

“Not extra-grip boots,” Scully agreed, treading more carefully. 

Following the arrows, the agents passed in and out of the rooms along the hall. 

“This is amazing. Like stepping into the past,” Scully said, taking in the ornate furniture, elegant damask-covered walls and elaborately moulded ceiling cornices. 

“It’s nice. I couldn’t sprawl out on that satiny recliner thing like I can on my old leather couch though,” Mulder said. 

“That ‘satiny recliner thing’ is called a chaise lounge,” Scully told him, smiling. 

They had reached the parlour, which was an inviting, airy space picked out in soothing tones of green and cream. A series of deep white-plastered alcoves were set into the pale green walls, each containing an oval-backed chair with a wide cushioned seat of seafoam silk. Shelves of ornaments and framed cameos ran along the back wall, and a similar rug to the one in the hall lay over the carpet, this one woven in mint and emerald shades. 

Scully was drawn to a large painting in the far right corner of the room. It showed a beautiful rolling meadow edged by deep forest, the trees painted in legion shades of green. As she stepped towards it, the heel of her boot again hooked into one of the knotted carpet tassels. Mulder turned upon hearing her wince, but was too far away to assist this time as Scully stumbled, arms outstretched, and then crashed bodily into the side of a walnut bookcase set against the wall. 

There was an audible click, and then a light grinding sound. A panel rolled back beside the bookcase, revealing an additional arched white alcove to match the others. 

“Jesus!” Scully muttered, holding her upper arm, which had taken the force of the blow as she’d hit off the bookcase. Straightening, rubbing the sore muscle, she noticed the open space newly revealed in the wall. 

“Hey, look at this!” she called to Mulder. “I wonder why they boarded this one up?”

“Maybe it’s damaged?” Mulder suggested, already crossing the room upon seeing her trip. 

Scully stepped into the alcove. “Don’t think so,” she said, looking up and down the curved inset space. “It looks perfect. No different from the others.”

Mulder squinted at her. The light from the parlour windows was softened by veils of fine lace. Yet sunlight seemed to be hitting the alcove from an impossible angle, making Scully look fuzzy to him, somehow indistinct. He took a step nearer to her, frowning, and felt a sudden bolt of astounded fear as he realised what he was really seeing. 

"Scully! You're…fading!" Mulder cried out. 

Scully turned to him, smirking, an eyeroll ready to offer in response. But at seeing his face, blank with shock, she followed his gaze down over her body. She let out a horrified gasp at seeing the line where the alcove wall met the floor clearly visible through her legs, her limbs hazed over with a fine, flickering static. 

"Scully!" Mulder yelled. With his partner vanishing before his eyes, he did the only thing he could think to do, and lunged to seize Scully's hand as she flung it out in dismay.

Intending to pull her back, he instead felt a sickening drag pulling on him, as though his centre of gravity had dropped through the floor, plunging dizzily down towards the centre of the earth.

Chapter Text

Damp grass pressed against his cheek, a strange smell like iron and salt heavy in his nose. Mulder groaned, feeling as though he had just taken an almighty punch to the gut. 

Gingerly, he lifted his head, finding himself sprawled flat upon the ground in a large clearing, surrounded by forest. Golden afternoon light poured through a perfectly round gap in the treetops overhead, the tall trunks around the edge of the clearing looking black and gloomy by contrast. Mulder's hip and ribs ground against some smooth flat stones as he rolled to his side. 

"Scully?" he mumbled, concern knifing through him as the full memory of what had just happened seared the fogginess in his mind.

He turned his stiff neck to look behind him. "Scully!"

Scully lay on her back at his side, one arm thrown out towards him, blades of short green grass spiking up between her fingers. Her eyes were closed, her face pale among the locks of red hair pooled around her head. 

Wriggling forward on his elbows, Mulder grabbed Scully's hand in both of his. He let out a relieved breath as he passed a thumb over her wrist and found a lively pulse there.

Getting to his knees with a wince, Mulder took his partner by one shoulder, giving her a gentle shake. She made an unhappy sound, her brow tensing. Then with a sudden gasp, her eyes snapped open, her hand flying up to seize Mulder's forearm.

"Mulder!" she breathed, eyes raking over him. "I was...oh…” She turned her head from side to side, bewildered. “Did I faint?"

"We both did, I think. Can you sit up?"

"Mmh…" she murmured, and he scooped an arm under her shoulders to help her.

Scully passed a hand reflexively over her hair, smoothing it, and looked slowly around, her eyes widening.

"Where are we?" she demanded. "And how the hell did we get here?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Mulder said, shrugging. "I only came to a moment before you."

They got to their feet, brushing down their rumpled clothing. Getting a better view over the clearing once upright, Mulder took a few steps across the open space. He saw that the stones he had been lying on were part of an array, set into the earth in a distinctive pattern. They formed a large spiral fanning out from a tight coil in the centre of the clearing, looping around and around to end at the treeline. 

He felt an eerie prickle chase across his shoulders. 

“So, we've been drugged,” Scully said. Coming over to Mulder's side, she reached up to open out his collar. He tilted his head distractedly, letting her check his neck for needle marks.

“Maybe…” he replied.

“Maybe? How else would we have gotten here?” Scully said, her eyes now also tracing the spiral on the ground. "What is this place?"

Mulder stood thoughtfully, his eyes tracking shifting shadows among the trees. "Scully, how much do you remember of what happened before we woke up here?"

“I…” Scully began, halting as confusion flickered over her face. "We were looking around Highglade House. I tripped, and knocked a panel open in the wall."

"And?" Mulder prompted, recognising a very familiar look of reluctance to admit she'd seen something unexplainable appear on his partner's face.

"And, whoever drugged us must have already done it, as we...we then shared a hallucination." Pressing her lips together, Scully lifted her chin.

"What was the hallucination, Scully?" Mulder asked softly. "What did you see?"

She looked away, unable to put words to those terrifying moments of watching her own body fading like smoke on a breeze. 

"Because what I saw," Mulder went on, "is you stepping into a space that had been sealed up, blocked off in a very deliberate way... and as soon as you did, you started vanishing like the Cheshire Cat."

"What are you suggesting, Mulder?" Scully demanded, her confusion putting a snap into her tone. "What else could that be, other than a hallucination? You and I have had far worse.” 

"I don't know," Mulder admitted, holding up his hands placatingly as he recalled the oozing hallucinogenic fungal slime that had once nearly digested the two of them. "But look at this place, Scully. Don't you get a weird feeling here?" He gestured around the clearing, the flood of golden light washing over the spiral of pale stones, making them appear almost luminous. 

"Yes, there's a lot to feel weird about," Scully shot back, still sounding annoyed. "I just woke up in a forest, not one of my favourite places given our track record. I don't know how we got here, and I want to know who the hell is messing with us. I'd quite like to have a weapon on me right now, if I'm honest." 

"Well, let's try and find our way out to the road. Maybe there are trails through the woods," Mulder said. 

"Tell me what it is you're thinking, first," Scully insisted, well-acquainted with the early signs of Mulder in theory-formation mode. "If you think you have some kind of explanation, I'd like to hear it." 

Mulder sighed. "I don’t, Scully. But what we're standing in looks very much like a ceremonial site to me. An ancient glade. And combined with having just seen you nearly do a vanishing act, I'm.... curious what it all means, is all." 

"A glade? You mean in the Bacchanalian sense? Nymphs and satyrs and woodland revelry?" Scully said, eyebrows lifting. 

"More in the druidic sense. Ritual and nature-worship and magic," Mulder explained. 

As he spoke, he felt a light chilly zephyr passing through the clearing, and narrowed his eyes to peer into the treeline once again. He saw Scully rub her arms. She had felt it too. 

Apparently not interested in discussing the potential role of magic in any recent events, she turned on her heel. "Let's go and find the road, Mulder, like you said."

With no idea which direction was best to go, Scully crossed to one side of the glade at random and moved warily into the trees, Mulder following closely behind. Despite how dark the forest had looked from the bright space of the clearing, once their eyes had adjusted, they could easily see their way. Mature oak and yew trees grew thick and tall among the other woodland plants, with afternoon sun-rays filtering down through their branches.

The two walked on for some time, glad they had been dressed for visiting farmland later in the day in comfortable walking boots, jeans and light shirts. They spoke little, silenced by the almost unnatural hush of the forest as they trod its earthy floor. Gradually the denser clusters of trees gave way to bushy undergrowth, more and more light reaching through the thinning treetops overhead. Then at last they reached the edge of the woods, and saw fields of lush green grass rolling away from the treeline. 

“Thank God,” Scully muttered. 

Mulder nodded in general agreement. The reality of the situation was pressing in. They were in a foreign country, already somehow mixed up in strange happenings, and with the day wearing on, how to get back to the car was a question he was keen to have answered.

"Do you think anyone could be following us?" Scully asked him. Shielding his eyes with one hand, he peered across the landscape.

"We won't stick around to find out," he said. "Look, see that grey line over there? That looks like a stone wall. Maybe the road runs alongside it." 

Marching across the large field with renewed energy after escaping the woods, they soon reached the wall. Mulder climbed atop it easily with his height advantage, and reached down to help hoist Scully up beside him. To their disappointment, the other side of the wall revealed nothing but a rough grit track, unsealed, plainly just a private laneway over someone's farmland.

Groaning, Scully hopped down from the wall. "Great," she said. "Which way now?" 

Mulder looked up and down the track, seeing only fields and small clusters of trees in every direction. "It looks like the land dips into a valley this way," he said, pointing to their left. "Maybe there'll be something down there we can't see from here."

Scully hummed agreement. The track must lead to a road somewhere. 

Turning back to the wall, Mulder rummaged among the looser rocks piled atop it. He pulled out a few large stones that were closer to white in colour than grey. 

"What are you doing?" Scully asked. 

"I don't know just how badly lost we are here, Scully. If we have to turn back, we'll at least know exactly where we got onto this track." Mulder dragged some stones out of their place on the top of the wall, and shoved his nearly-white stones into the gap to replace them. Side-by-side, they made a clear section of pale stone that stood out, a light stripe against the darker grey. 

Keeping the wall to their left, the agents set out along the track, the land gradually sloping downhill as they went. Now able to see that there was nothing but peaceful countryside around them, it was all the harder to guess at why anyone would have gone to the trouble of bringing them unconscious to the glade, only to leave them there unguarded.  

The thought of how often, in their experience, the most unlikely explanation had proven to be the one that applied kept rolling around Mulder’s brain. For now, he was ignoring it.

Just as he had been trying to ignore the cold tingle that had been chasing along his spine ever since they left the strange stone spiral in the clearing.

Chapter Text

The sun was beating down as they walked, and Mulder was beginning to really wish for the sunglasses he’d left in the car. Bringing up a hand to rub the back of his too-warm neck, he stopped suddenly, hearing the distinct sound of horse's hooves from up the way behind them. He shot Scully a grin, seeing his relief mirrored in the bright flash of her blue eyes.

As the sound drew nearer, they could hear with it the crunching roll of wheels passing over the track. A moment later, the welcome sight of a horse and cart came into view. Mulder stepped out into the road and began waving immediately, giving the driver plenty of time to see him and slow down.

A little charmed at getting to see a farmer still using a horse and cart in rural England, Mulder and Scully approached with friendly smiles. 

"Sorry to bother you, sir," Scully called up to the driver, a craggy-faced older man in a tweed flatcap and brown, work-stained overalls. "We need your help. We're lost, and we need you to take us to the nearest town, or a house where we can use a phone, please."

Twisting the reins in his hands, the man gawped down at her as if she'd just asked him to fly them to the moon.

He squinted back and forth between Scully and Mulder, suspicion written large across his face, and looked Scully up and down several times in a way that put Mulder on edge. 

"I don't want any trouble," the driver said gruffly, already gathering up his reins to move on. His grey mare huffed through her nose, ears flicking.

"No! No trouble," Mulder said, surprised.  "I'm sorry if we're on your land, sir. We really are lost, and we just need to get to the nearest house to call for some help. Are we anywhere near Highglade?"

"Highglade?" the man asked, half-gesturing back over his left shoulder. "No houses there. You're not far from Braceley now though. I suppose I can take you along a little ways."

He was still staring oddly at them, reluctance visible on his face, but he gave a nod towards the back of the simple wooden cart. Reaching behind his seat, he pulled on something that made the tailgate release. It swung down, opening up the back.

Grinning, Mulder turned to Scully as they stepped in behind the cart. "May I?" he asked gallantly, tilting his head towards the open back. The cart's wooden floor sat high enough above the track that it would take some undignified scrambling on Scully's part to get up to it, so she nodded, smiling back at Mulder as he put his hands to her waist. In an easy movement, he lifted her, and Scully felt herself flushing a little at the feel of his hands upon her, his ready strength.

A moment later, he followed her up, both sitting with their lower legs hanging over the back of the cart, facing out to the road behind. The farmer, peering over his shoulder to check they were settled, clicked to his horse and moved off.

"What did he mean, that there were no houses at Highglade?" Scully whispered to Mulder.

"I don't know. And he was staring at you like you'd just popped out of the ground," Mulder murmured back. He kept his tone light, but the way the old farmer had glared disapprovingly down at his partner had unsettled him. Feeling protective, he turned to check the man still had his eyes on the road, Scully’s shoulder bumping softly against his upper arm with the gentle rock of the cart.

The track rolled away beneath them, the horse's tack jingling over the sedate clop of her hooves. Now that they were on their way back to civilisation, the agents found themselves enjoying the view of the beautiful fields, with meadow flowers nodding in the light breeze. It all looked so natural and untouched, in stark contrast to the faraway concrete clutter of DC. Somewhere high overhead, a skylark was singing, its sweet voice rippling through the warm air. 

The cart wheels creaked as the farmer pulled up his horse outside a large stone gate, formed by two fluted grey pillars, each topped with a stone ball. "Braceley," he said. 

Mulder jumped down from the cart, and gave his hand to Scully as she hopped down to land at his side. They walked around the high cart wheel. "Thank you so much for helping us," Scully said to their impassive rescuer. "Could you just tell us..."

But the farmer, merely giving a curt nod to Mulder, was already rolling on, leaving them at the stone gate without a further glance.

Mulder and Scully shared a grin, suddenly seeing the funny side of how awkwardly the man had behaved.

"I was only going to ask how far we are from the nearest town," Scully said, turning up her palms with a resigned smile. 

“So much for a welcome wagon," Mulder joked.

Scully looked down at the gritty ground beneath her feet. The driveway to Braceley was no more than another dirt track running off the one they stood upon. "Mulder - I thought we were on farmland all this time! This can't be the main road?"

"I guess we're just further out into the country than we knew," Mulder said. "Come on, let's get up to the house and get a police car out here." 

Already feeling dubious over how long it might take a car to inch its way up such a rough narrow road, Scully sighed and followed Mulder up the drive.

Braceley was even more striking than Highglade. It rose before them on an expanse of manicured grass, the sand-pale stone walls inset with alternating sash and diamond-paned windows that caught the light of the sun. A double row of pruned hedges made a neat green band around the perimeter of the house, with a little collection of what looked like barns and stables off the right. Behind a line of trees to the left of the house, there appeared to be a large garden. 

Mulder and Scully looked at each other, impressed. “Was Braceley one of the places Gwen mentioned?” Scully asked as they ascended the flight of stone stairs up to the front of the house. 

“I don’t recall that name,” Mulder said. “But she told me these old homes are nearly all open to the public now - they’re just too expensive to run as private residences anymore.”

They had reached the top of the steps. Not seeing any obvious visitor’s entrance, Mulder took hold of the enormous brass ring on the huge wooden front door, and struck three booming raps. A moment later, the door opened, and a grey-haired man came forth, his rigid shoulders square in a long black suit jacket. A grey waistcoat and crisp white shirt and cravat completed his old-fashioned butler’s outfit.

Appreciating the authenticity, Mulder grinned at him. "Hi. I'm glad you're open. Would it be alright if we came in to use your phone? We uh, got a bit lost while exploring the area."

The man at the door was staring at him, his expression so very similar to that of the farmer that Scully felt uneasy. Were people really so unwelcoming out here in the countryside?

"If you are looking for work," the butler said, his voice ice cold, "you may enquire at the back of the house. But I fear we currently have no requirements for any..." - his eyes scathed over Mulder's clothes and boots - "...labourers."

"Labourers? No... we're not looking for work!" Mulder said. "Like I said, we just need to use your phone please, sir?"

The butler, a sneer on his face, was beginning to push the door closed, and Mulder, in angry surprise, put out his foot to block him. "Hey, come on! We've walked a long way and we just need a little help, alright?" 

A light female voice came from behind the door. "Eldon? What is it, who's there?"

"Vagrants, here seeking work, my lady," the man replied frostily, not taking his eyes from Mulder and Scully. "I'm sending them off."

"We are not vagrants!" Scully cried. "We are American travellers, and we're lost! Would you just give us a moment to explain, please?"

The door opened wider, and a slight blonde woman with a young face and a sunny expression wriggled past the butler and into the doorway. "Miss Beaumont!" he said to her warningly, lifting a hand as if to take her by the arm, but only going so far as to hover.

"You're really from America?" she asked Scully, her eyes shining.

"Yes. We're here on vaca... on holiday," Scully corrected herself, anxious that there be no more misunderstandings in this utterly bewildering conversation.

The woman seemed to glow with delight. "How exotic! It is my dearest wish to travel, to see anything of the world at all, but most especially America."

Just as the farmer and the butler had done, she swept her eyes over Scully's clothing, but her expression was more curiosity than disdain. "And this is how women dress in America?” She wrinkled her nose in puzzlement. “Like.... like men?"

Scully looked at the woman's dress. Like the butler's, it was an outfit from another time. Her long, dusky pink dress was gathered in just under her breasts in the empire-line style, the neck dipping low, with little cap sleeves at the shoulders. 

"Uhh... yes," Scully said, knowing that what women wore in the US was no different to what they wore in the UK. Was this some gimmick for tourists visiting Braceley, sticking to character as if they were in a period drama? Or had they wandered into some rich country lady's private fantasy world? 

"Miss Beaumont!" the butler implored again, in a tense undertone. 

In no mood to play along with either scenario, Scully moved to bring the conversation back to reality. 

"Miss Beaumont, my partner and I were drugged, taken against our will and left in the forest up the road earlier today. We're tired, and we could really use..." 

"Oh, how dreadful! There are brigands at every turn," Miss Beaumont gasped, her clear blue eyes going round with shock and pity. “What an unhappy welcome you have received to Wiltshire, I am sorry to hear of it.” She looked from Scully to Mulder, seeming to be making a decision. “You must come in and rest for a moment.” 

Miss Beaumont turned to her butler, whose mouth was opening and closing in silent protest. “Eldon, escort our visitors to the drawing room and call for refreshments." 

Eldon’s face was a picture of disapproval. But at Miss Beaumont’s glare, he turned to do as he was bid. Scully shot a relieved look up at Mulder, and was surprised to see a guardedness in his expression, more caution than relief.

Well, we’re out of options for now, Scully thought, discreetly patting her sleeve along her damp hairline.

They were entering the unknown with these two eccentrics, clearly. But with a glass of water and hopefully a cup of coffee hanging in the balance, she was ready to take her chances.

Chapter Text

The four of them made a little procession through the grand archways of a beautiful ivory-coloured hall. Scully’s eyes caught on the high ceiling, with its elaborate plaster motifs and series of small chandeliers dripping in crystal. 

Eldon opened a door to their left, and stood back, reluctantly showing them into an elegant sitting room, decorated in white, grey and silver tones with splashes of teal upholstery. 

Gesturing graciously towards a plump wooden-legged couch covered in blue-green silk, Miss Beaumont smiled at her guests. She suddenly looked a little shy, and Scully realised she couldn't be much older than her early twenties. 

"I'm more thrilled than you can imagine to meet visitors all the way from America, here, at Braceley," the young woman burst out once Mulder and Scully sat down, conscious of their dusty clothes against the rich fabric. "It is endlessly quiet here in the country. I hope you would not find it an imposition if I were to ask you to share just a little about your travels with me?" 

"Miss Beaumont," Mulder began politely. "We’ll be happy to tell you whatever you'd like to know. But as my partner mentioned to you, we were drugged earlier today. It would very much set my mind at rest if I could ask you a few questions to ensure our reason has not been in any way... uh...compromised." 

Scully looked at him in astonishment, but Miss Beaumont nodded agreeably. 

"Of course!" she said, settling herself a little in her chair.

"Firstly, could you tell us the date?" Mulder asked. 

"The date today? Certainly, it is May the 1st, in the Year of our Lord, 1819," their hostess rattled off. She looked amused at his question. 

Scully's eyes flashed again to Mulder's, annoyed. How far was this woman going to take the period-drama parlour games? 

"Miss Beaumont, I need to make you aware that we are federal agents," she began, her tone crisp, but Mulder cut her off.

"Scully.... just... hang on." He thought for a moment, then asked, "Who is the current leader of your country?"

Miss Beaumont smiled, but answered readily. "Prince George, the Prince of Wales, is our good regent."

Sensing Scully fizzing with irritation beside him, Mulder turned to her, and the angry response she had been about to give their host died in her throat. To her surprise, her partner had a strangely closed look on his face. 

An expression not a million miles removed from one Mulder had once named his "panic face". 

He cannot possibly be buying any of this!

Miss Beaumont rose gracefully from her chair. "You do both look so very tired and careworn," she said sympathetically. "I will go see where Eldon has gotten to with arranging your refreshments. He can be a little…obstinate.”

Sweeping from the room, she closed the door quietly behind her. 

Scully spun to Mulder in the same instant. "Mulder, what the hell are you doing? You actually want to spur her on with this bygone days crap when we haven't even laid eyes on a phone yet?" she hissed. 

Mulder rubbed a hand over his chin, looking slowly around the drawing room as he weighed his words. "What if she's telling the truth?" he said quietly. 

Scully stared at him, her stomach dropping at the realisation he was serious. Her hand twitched in her lap, wanting to make its way into her partner's hair to check for injuries. She still had no idea what had been done to them earlier. Had Mulder been dosed with something that put him into a heightened state of suggestibility? 

"Mulder, listen to me," she said, trying to keep her tone calm, reasonable. "Something strange happened to us earlier today, and we need to find out what. But I need you to stay focussed, ok? Stay with me. I can't have you being suckered into all this..." She waved a hand around the room, with its sumptuous furnishings and glinting crystal candle-holders. "Whatever this is."

"Scully, just look at this place. Really look,” Mulder said. “Do you see any signs of electricity, anywhere at all?” He gestured to the mantlepiece capping the grey marble fireplace to their left. “Oil lamps. Melted candles everywhere. Did you see a telephone wire or power line anywhere outside the house? In the road? Any sign that cars ever pass this way?" 

"Mulder, none of that means anything!" Scullly snapped, frightened by how readily Mulder was being pulled in. "So okay, they've gone to some effort to make it look realistic for tourists!"

"Do you know what I saw when the charming Miss B was bringing us through?" Mulder said, his voice low and serious. "A door popped open right in the middle of the hallway wall, just for a moment. There was a maid inside, carrying a chamber pot."

"Mulder, have you lost your mind?" 

"She was inside the damn wall, Scully! In a servant’s passage — she nearly fainted when she caught my eye. That’s already weird. And I don't care how realistic anyone wants to be, there's not a chance you'd have tourists paying to stay in a fancy place like this and signing up to use chamber pots."

He pressed on as Scully gaped at him. 

"But even if we call all of that circumstantial, at Highglade today, I watched you just about evaporate in front of me. You were fading into thin air, Scully. I grabbed your hand, and something caught hold of me at the sternum and yanked down on me like...like..."

"Like an anchor off the side of a boat," Scully said, the words leaving her lips in spite of herself, barely above a whisper. 

Mulder nodded. "Exactly."

"Mulder, this... this cannot be what you think it is. It isn't possible." 

"If it isn't, this will all come to nothing, Eldon will walk in with a phone for us to use and we'll be on our way. But Scully... if it is, if we really somehow fell through time... we have to make this work out for us here at Braceley. We've got the clothes we stand up in, and nothing more." 

The image of Eldon trying to turn them away at the door flashed into Scully's mind. Vagrants, he had said, nearly spitting the words as he looked down his nose at them. Chilled, she put a hand to her stomach, now rumbling with hunger. No matter what era they were in, she didn't want to be pushed back out into the empty countryside, with no clue which way to go and not a penny in her pocket as the day edged toward evening. 

"You're actually scaring me, Mulder," Scully said unhappily. "I don't know what the hell's going on, but... I guess for now we'd better just play along with it." 

The door creaked softly as Miss Beaumont re-entered the room. Her eyes sparkled with tears, and her cheeks were flushed.

"I'm so sorry to leave you alone so long," she said, her voice shaking. "My father hasn't been well, and he's just had a very bad turn. And ohh... I forgot all about your tea.." Putting a hand to her face, she let out a sob. 

Scully was on her feet in an instant, crossing to the young woman's side. Concerned, she laid a hand on her shoulder. "Can I help at all? I'm a medical doctor." 

Miss Beaumont stared at her, startled despite her upset. "Whatever can you mean, you're a doctor?" 

Scully looked helplessly at Mulder. "Medicine has lately become a field some American women may choose to practice in," he said smoothly, going to their hostess's other side. "I can assure you, if your father is in need of any care, he would be in the most capable hands if you’d like my partner to check him over." 

Miss Beaumont looked into Scully's face, a sudden hope shining in her eyes. "Are you in earnest?" she said shakily. "You practice medicine?" 

“Yes, I do," Scully said gently. 

“There is no doctor nearer than a full days' ride," Miss Beaumont said, her tears spilling over anew. "I told Father we should remain in London until he was stronger, but he wouldn't stay another moment."

Scully couldn't help scrutinising her, wondering if this was all part of a wild fantasy act. But Mulder's words about falling through time were still ringing in her ears. It was utter madness, and yet... how could this woman be sobbing over her ill father but talking nonsense about days of riding, instead of calling him an ambulance? 

Focusing only on the issue at hand, Scully thought fast. Whatever was going on at Braceley, Mulder was right, they should tread carefully. "Perhaps it would, uh, confuse your father to hear of a female doctor. Why don't I check him over, and then my partner can give him my instructions?" 

"Yes, oh certainly yes...please, come this way. I cannot thank you enough," Miss Beaumont said, turning back towards the hallway at once. 

Mulder and Scully followed her through the door, stealing glances at their opulent surroundings as she led them further along the hall and then up a flight of polished wooden stairs with white bannisters. Scully scoured the ivory damask-covered walls with her eyes, looking for power points, wires, or bulbs, but found nothing she could point out to Mulder as a sign of modernity. 

At the end of the upstairs hallway, Miss Beaumont paused, placing a hand over her heart as she appeared to compose herself. Then, opening the door, she called in a light, gentle voice. “Papa? I have good news, I have brought a doctor to see you.”

She went ahead in a sweep of soft pink skirts. Exchanging a wary look behind her back, the agents hovered for a moment at the doorway, and then stepped into the room.

Chapter Text

It was dim and stuffy in Mr Beaumont’s chamber, an uninviting space made more sombre by the dark tones of the aubergine rug, heavy mahogany dressers and walls shaded a deep crimson. Propped up on pillows, the grey-haired man looked thin and frail in the weak light sharding through the curtains and over his huge bed in the corner of the room. 

The table at his bedside was cluttered with an array of small glass bottles with cork stoppers, used handkerchiefs strewn in little knots on the floor below. He had a purpling bruise on his right temple, beaded lightly with blood. 

Preparing himself for a little thinking on his feet, Mulder went over to the bedside. “Mr Beaumont? I'm Dr Mulder. This is my...uh...assistant, Miss Scully, whom I will be instructing in your examination today." The man's bleary eyes flitted uncertainly back and forth between the two of them, and he gave a weak nod. 

“May I?” Mulder asked, not waiting for an answer as he turned towards the window, throwing back the curtains so Scully could see better. 

"Tell me to check his temperature," Scully told him in the faintest whisper. Mulder called out her instruction, and she stealthily picked up one of the little bottles from the bedside table to examine as she leaned in to lay a hand upon the elder gentleman's forehead. Sniffing the bottle, then squinting at the label, she stared at it for a moment, astounded. 

It was a vial of laudanum. 

Placing it back down, she turned her attention to their patient. There was no point trying to keep Mulder's instructions in line with any hazy notions she had of nineteenth-century medicine. And besides, Scully thought, if they really had been in that era, a doctor’s word would be law, however mysterious. 

Miss Beaumont watched, looking anxious, as the newly-qualified Dr Mulder told Miss Scully to lay her head down to listen to her father's heart, to time the pulse in his wrist, to have him sit up and take deep breaths in and out while the pair of them listened intently, before performing various other physical investigations. 

Finally, following a murmured conversation with Scully a few paces back from the bed, Mulder returned to Mr Beaumont's side. 

"Sir, how often are you dosing yourself with these medicines?" Mulder asked, gesturing to the glass bottles.

"Whenever I feel a turn coming on," the older man replied. 

Scully muttered something soft and low, and Mulder asked, "What are these turns, exactly?" 

"My head aches. The... the room spins, I cannot see clearly. Often, I fall to the floor," Mr Beaumont mumbled, touching his fingers to the bruise on his head. 

Mulder nodded sagely. "I believe you have a condition called low blood pressure. Taking laudanum when you have a turn will make you feel much worse, not better. You are not to take it any longer," he said imperiously, starting to enjoy himself in his new role. "Drink plenty of water each day, and have salty broths with your meals. Take your time when you stand up or sit down." 

Glancing at Scully to silently verify he hadn't missed anything, he went on. "Miss Scully will give my instructions to your cooks on what is best for you to eat.”

"Yes, thank you, Doctor," the gentleman said, reaching out a shaky hand to clasp Mulder's gratefully. 

Miss Beaumont led her guests from the room. A little way down the hall, she paused, her eyes flitting back to her father's closed door. Then, turning to Scully, she visibly steeled herself. 

"Will he... will my father die from the low blood pressure?" she asked, terror plain upon her pretty face. 

"No, he won't," Scully said quickly, realising she should have made this clear. "At his time in life, new health issues can always emerge, but the blood pressure is something that, in his case, should be manageable. Get all that laudanum out of his room though. People can become reliant upon it."

Miss Beaumont gave a tense little nod, and then burst into tears of relief, throwing her arms around Scully. "Thank you so much," she wept. 

"I'm happy we could help," Scully said, touched by this effusive reaction. She patted Miss Beaumont's back reassuringly, and then, in the moment of realising the young woman's total sincerity, the entire picture suddenly crystallised in Scully's mind. The glade. The horse and cart. The time-capsule house, the olden-day clothing, a frail and sickly man dosing himself from dainty laudanum-bottles. 

Her heart going ice-cold in her chest, Scully realised she was starting to believe. 

~~   ~~   ~~

"You will of course stop and dine with me?" Miss Beaumont asked as they descended the stairs. Scully had gone very quiet, Mulder noticed, so he accepted politely, and with some relief. He was starving, their breakfast at Roseneath feeling as though it had been three lifetimes ago.

"Is there somewhere we can wash up?" Mulder asked, holding up his hands.

"Yes, of course, this way," Miss Beaumont said. As she showed Mulder to a little side room where a basin and ewer of water stood on a wooden bench, she took Scully's arm. 

"Miss Scully, might I speak with you for a moment?" 

Scully stepped aside, nodding to Mulder to go on ahead. 

Miss Beaumont guided her to sit down in a pretty alcove in the wall, inlaid with intricate plaster moldings and fitted with rose-embroidered seats. Picking nervously at the silver brocade trim along the edge of her seat, Miss Beaumont cast her eyes down. 

"Miss Scully, I would never wish you to think me ungrateful, but... I'm afraid I must ask. Why is it that you don't go by your husband's name? Why does he call you 'Miss'?" 

Momentarily gobsmacked, Scully floundered. "I...uh..."

The young woman looked up at her, her blue eyes suddenly piercing. 

Oh God, what is this mess we're in? Scully thought. 

"Mulder is not my husband," she said, internally wincing at the shocked look on Miss Beaumont’s face. 

"But, you call each other partner? So he is not kin to you?" 

Scully licked her dry lips. She had every understanding of what the situation would look like to a woman of the 1800s, if that was truly what their hostess was. But in her exhaustion, still bewildered by the day’s events and now put on the spot, her mind struggled to produce any response that would sound reasonable. 

"I do not at all wish to embarrass you," Miss Beaumont went on, her own cheeks glowing bright pink. "But Miss Scully, if you are travelling alone, with a man who is not your husband... I could be as good as ruined simply for having you in my house. Already there is a frenzy of talk among my servants regarding your arrival here. Eldon thought it most reckless of me to have invited you in, which, I confess, it rather was.”

Scully found herself actually feeling quite embarrassed under the kind young woman's pitying scrutiny. Unable to give her defense from a modern viewpoint which, she was increasingly fearing, did not yet exist, it was oddly mortifying to think that the decorous Miss Beaumont might consider her some kind of fallen woman. 

Desperate, knowing her and Mulder's dinner and, if they were lucky, a place to rest for the night depended on it, she began to try and stitch a story together. 

"Mulder and I are colleagues - we work together. That’s why I call him partner," she began. 

"Yet - he is not a doctor?" Miss Beaumont questioned. 

"No, his field is... I suppose you would say, more academic. Research."

“You say that you are a doctor, and Mr Mulder an academic,” Miss Beaumont said. “But earlier, you told me you were federal agents. I will admit my confusion as to what this means.” She paused, clearly now a little wary. “And my hope that my ignorance does not act against me.”

Best to keep as close to the truth as possible, Scully thought. 

"We both belong to a kind of.... society... that helps people who have been the victims of, uh, deception, or foul play," she explained, improvising wildly to fit their story into language a sheltered young lady (sheltered, but certainly not stupid, Scully was realising) might understand. "We use our respective skills to help with enquiries when, uh…people appointed locally haven't been successful. Mulder and I travelled here as part of an investigation on behalf of farmers who'd had their crops damaged and destroyed on a wide scale, by persons unknown. But we did also want to visit England, so our trip was intended to be a holiday of a sort."

"And this is federal work you do, with this society?" Miss Beaumont asked, intrigued, and apparently accepting Scully's artfully worded suggestion that they had been travelling with their "society", not alone. 

"I'm sure it seems strange," Scully said, cautious of leaning too hard on the excuse that things were different in America. "That's the nature of our work, really. Assisting in matters that may have a less obvious conclusion." 

"And do you believe it was as a result of your investigations that you and Mr Mulder were….abducted?" Miss Beaumont asked, her expression now as fascinated as it had been upon hearing she had Americans at her front door earlier that afternoon. 

"It's hard to say. Mulder has many theories about it all," Scully said, trying to tactfully guide the conversation towards rejoining her partner. 

Miss Beaumont sprung to her feet. "How terribly rude you must think me, questioning you like this when you must be so tired and hungry. Please, come along this way."    

They met Mulder hovering a little awkwardly just inside the dining room, which he had wandered on down to find. Eldon stood silently in the corner opposite the door, giving him a look of frank disapproval. Scully darted to the washroom to do her own quick cleanup, and the three of them were all soon seated at the dining table, clustered at one end of a long stretch of snowy white linen tablecloth, set out with twinkling crystal candle-holders. 

Mulder looked around, considering the yawning gulf between dining at a table like this every night, and his own home dinners - slumped back on the couch, a plate balanced on his knees, surfing TV channels for a decent movie. The dining room walls were patterned with a motif of unfurling ruby-coloured leaves on a cream background, reaching up to meet a white coving reflecting the same design. The room was well lit by tall windows spanning one wall, framed by heavy drapes in a champagne-pink shade.

"Miss Scully has just been telling me about the society you belong to, and your investigations. It seems a very noble use of your time, to help others in this way,” Miss Beaumont said to him as Eldon waved in a little procession of servants carrying covered dishes from a door at the far end of the table.

Not knowing exactly what Scully had told her, Mulder simply smiled, leaning back to allow his plate to be filled, and feeling somewhat uncomfortable with the process. "We're glad to be able to do it,” he said.

Miss Beaumont paused for a moment as if measuring her words, her eyes following Eldon and the servants from the room. "She also said that you had hoped to make your trip something of a holiday. If that is the case, and if your investigation is not extremely pressing... I wondered if I might perhaps ask you both to stay with me for a little time?" 

Scully looked at her in surprise. She could hear from the quaver in the woman’s voice that she was again close to tears. 

"That’s uh… such a kind invitation," she stalled, glancing at Mulder, who was subtly nodding at her. 

"How feeble I am today!" Miss Beaumont said, giving a rueful laugh as she touched her fingers to the damp corners of her eyes. "You must please allow me to explain myself. These past months have been a time of much sadness for my family."  

She took in a breath, straightening in her chair. "Last winter, my older brother Frederick passed away after a short illness. Since his loss, my poor mother has had no peace in herself. She finds she cannot rest, lest the thoughts of his passing overwhelm her. She is visiting our cousins in the Midlands presently, but we expect her home soon, perhaps as soon as tomorrow.” Her voice softened. “As for my father, Frederick's loss has seemed to age him ten years."

"I’m sure you feel something of that too," Mulder said, thinking back to one long-ago night he had entered as a boy, and left with both his sister and his childhood forever lost to him. 

Miss Beaumont nodded. "I feel as though I was only a child when Frederick passed, running around with not a thought in my head. He was so wise, and had everything so well-managed. And now he's gone, and both Mama and Papa are so changed…" 

She sighed. "Where there were four of us, now not one remains as we once were."

Feeling a great empathy for the young woman, Scully reached across the table to take her hand. "I lost my sister only a few years ago," she said gently.

"And I lost mine when I was young," Mulder added. 

Miss Beaumont let herself ease from her stiff posture, a look of relief on her face. "Then you know every sorrow I have felt," she said quietly, looking from Mulder to Scully. The three of them sat in a brief shared silence, remembering the siblings they had each loved so much.

Despite the unexpected warmth of the moment, Scully felt a sense of disorientation ripple over her. If all of this is real, she thought, Miss Beaumont’s brother is not even a year dead. But Mulder and I…

The madness of it crowded in, making her feel breathless, almost faint. Mulder and I are grieving sisters lost to us over a hundred years before them ever being born.

Chapter Text

"Miss Beaumont, we would be very pleased to stay a little while with you, if you're sure it wouldn't be an inconvenience," Mulder said, reading agreement on Scully’s face at a quick glance. "I must say I am curious to know why you would offer us your hospitality after such a short acquaintance, though?" 

Already he could hear himself dropping into the young woman’s more formal way of speaking.

"I often feel myself very alone," she said simply. "I meet no one new that my mother has not arranged for me to meet, as she grows ever more fixated on securing my connection with my brother now gone. We have visitors to pass the hours with in superficial talk of picnics, music, weddings. I find I cannot take much interest in such things, while I yet feel grief’s shadow.”

She looked intently from Mulder to Scully. "My place now must be with my family, and perhaps the chance to travel will never be mine. But I would so love to hear about where you come from — to learn of anything at all beyond Braceley and the ton." 

"We arrived in strange circumstances, as you know. And there are still questions we need answers to," Mulder said. “But…” he glanced at Scully again, conscious of their mutual dependence on the conversation going just right. "It’s true that we hoped to spend some time visiting the countryside here.”

"I will do all I can to help you find your answers," Miss Beaumont assured him. Her eyes lowered, briefly studying the casual shirts her guests wore. "And in my first act of helpfulness, I must ask that you let me find you both clothing that will not immediately make you a spectacle anywhere you go." 

"We couldn't..." Scully began, but their hostess held up a hand to quell her protest, smiling. 

"You will do me a service," she said. "It would be nice to see poor Frederick's clothing put to use. And my mother orders more dresses than I could ever hope to wear." 

The maids came in quietly to clear the table, and Mulder saw the way their eyes beaded at Scully. The sooner she had something less conspicuous to wear, the better, he thought. Their luck could change again at any moment. 

Miss Beaumont had been watching the reactions too. Once the maids had gone, she leaned forward to look earnestly at her guests. 

"A final suggestion. Pray do not mention your society to others you meet here. I will demand to know all you are willing to tell me of it," she said merrily, "but if you wish to earn the trust of all you may speak to, no story shall serve you better than that of a respectable doctor, doing good wherever he goes." 

She looked apologetically at Scully. "Or she. But Miss Scully, I rather fear my good neighbours, like my father, take comfort in the familiar where medical matters are concerned."

Scully gave a tight smile. The chill of her deepening fear that maybe this insane timeslide really had taken place just as it appeared kept rolling over her. It had gone way past the point of a joke, or a bit of tourist entertainment. And yet, how the hell could she and Mulder have simply slipped between centuries?

“I can continue to act as an assistant while we’re here,” she replied. “And please, call me Dana,” she went on. “My partner prefers to go by Mulder.” 

Miss Beaumont looked a little surprised, and Scully wondered if she had again unwittingly veered into improper territory. But the young woman smiled at her offer of familiarity. “Then…you must both call me Helena,” she said shyly.

“Helena, could you tell us a bit more about this area?” Mulder asked. “Are we anywhere near a city? Even a town?”

“The village of Ethelmere is not far at all, only a short journey,” Helena told him. 

“Ethelmere?” Scully asked quickly. “So we are still very near to Highglade House, then?” Relief coursed through her. If they could get back to the house, maybe that would at least provide a starting point for figuring all of this out.

Helena was looking at her with lifted brows. “Highglade House?” she said. “There is nothing at all at Highglade. It is but a patch of forest.” 

Scully looked desperately to Mulder. He had his elbows propped on the table, hands to his chin as he chewed the end of a thumb thoughtfully. 

“Helena, some of the questions we’ll need to ask may not make much sense to you, but — is there anything unusual about Highglade?” he asked. “Any….odd stories you’ve heard?” 

“It’s old forest, I believe,” Helena replied. “Some of the land has been cleared - my grandfather once mentioned a larger woodland being there when he was a boy.” She gave a little laugh. “We went picnicking there last summer, but my Irish maid became quite overwrought and said she’d never go near it again.”

“Why not?” Mulder asked, seeing Scully lean forward from the corner of his eye, just as he had done.

“Oh, I couldn’t tell you! She is simply brimful of superstition. The nonsense we’ve had out of her over things like salt being spilled, a cracked mirror… I sometimes worry it isn’t quite Christian of her to fuss over such matters,” Helena said, shaking her head. 

Making a mental note to track down and interview this maid as soon as possible, Mulder nodded sympathetically. 

“No doubt your travel companions will be most concerned over your absence by now,” Helena said. “You will want to arrange to send word to them, I’m sure. Where was it you were visiting, before you were abducted today?” she asked. Her eyes were sharp and curious as they flicked between her two guests.

Scully thought frantically. Avebury was far too close to name, too easy for their kind hostess to offer to convey them to. London was too distant for them to have been taken from and brought all the way here…

“We set out with our companions from Oxford,” she said, thinking that was at least somewhere Mulder knew. “And more than that, I’m afraid we cannot tell you, Helena. I know you will understand why the people we assist would expect us to say nothing of their personal matters to anyone else. Just as if you had called us here to help you with a problem, particularly something that could involve criminal elements, the thought of your friends and neighbours knowing your troubles would be…upsetting, I’m sure.”

Helena’s eyes were huge. “Just exactly so,” she agreed. “I’m very sorry. I only meant to try and help you find your quickest route back to your party.”

Mulder smiled reassuringly. “You’ve said nothing wrong at all. Please don’t worry. We can take care of everything ourselves, now that you’ve been so kind as to offer for us to stay.”

“I feel utterly selfish for my motivations,” Helena confessed, her shoulders drooping. “I wanted company, stories from the Americas and the comfort of knowing you could help my dear father. While all your own thoughts are of how best to serve others.” 

“Helena, if not for your thoughtfulness, Mulder and I would likely be sleeping in a field tonight,” Scully said. “I really can’t think of what would serve me better than a warm bed right now.” It was still early in the evening, but Scully could feel a monstrous fatigue settling over her, borne of jetlag, shock, and having to do so much thinking on the spot.

“Of course,” Helena said, immediately taking the hint. “I will have the maids prepare you rooms.”

She went out into the hall, leaving the door standing open behind her. Hearing hushed voices and footsteps passing outside, and uncertain if they could themselves be overheard, the agents sat in silence at the end of the long table, expecting each approaching step to be Helena’s.

“Scully…” Mulder finally began.

Scully looked at him, reading a swirl of thoughts and feelings in his face, in the way his eyes locked on hers. Knowing what he must want to know above all, she reached out to take his hand, letting his fingers slip from her grasp a moment later.

“It’s alright, Mulder. I’m fine,” she lied.

~~   ~~   ~~

With rooms now awaiting them, Scully and Mulder soon found themselves shepherded along the hall and up the stairs by two maids in plain grey muslin dresses. Standing at the foot of the stairs, Helena called up her wishes for them to sleep well and not feel that they should rise too early. 

Ushered into her room by one of the maids, Scully looked around with interest. To the left of the chamber was a large wooden four-poster bed with a forget-me-not quilt. A luxurious chair with a robin’s-egg satin seat stood at the end of it, leaves and flowering vines carved into its walnut arms and legs. A wide, squat rosewood dresser sat under the window on the wall facing her, and the right wall had a small empty fireplace and a wardrobe set into it. 

Although the evening was still light outside, the maid went across to touch the lit candle she had brought with her to a fat, slow-burning candle on the mantel over the fireplace, warming the room’s cream walls to a flickering gold around it.

“Thank you,” Scully called as the maid left the room. She went over to stand before the open wardrobe doors, seeing the outlines of several dresses in soft pastel tones hanging within. They had, she assumed, been freshly picked out for her from among Helena’s surplus. She ran her fingers over the rich fabrics, tugging one or two gowns towards her to examine the minutely embroidered designs worked into their long skirts. 

None of this feels real, Scully thought distantly, gliding her hand down a length of palest coral silk. It was hard to even picture herself wearing something so floaty and fine. 

And impossible to imagine appearing in front of Mulder in it. 

The dresses were beautiful, but the image they evoked of a world so entirely unknown, a world she was about to try and navigate, seemed suddenly overwhelming. The breathless near-panic she had felt at the dining table rose up in her again, and she closed the wardrobe hastily, crossing to the window in search of another distraction.

A yellow cotton nightdress had been placed atop the dresser there, neatly folded. Feeling the weight of fatigue heavy upon her, Scully toed off her boots. Stripping down, she tossed her jeans and shirt onto the satin chair, slipping into the loose, cool nightdress gratefully. Curious, she pulled out one of the wide dresser drawers, finding a mixture of white cotton garments inside that appeared to be underlayers. No corsets, at least, she thought with relief.

Her exploration of the room complete, she turned towards the bed. Spying for the first time the edge of a discreetly placed porcelain chamberpot that had been tucked underneath it, she prepared to face a particularly jarring facet of her new reality with a mixture of horror and resignation.

She had at last put out her candle and settled herself into bed, lying wide-eyed and restless despite her exhaustion, when two very faint raps sounded on the door. A second later, Mulder slipped into her room. "Scully?" he whispered.

"Mulder! Quick, close the door!" she hissed. Nothing could be worse right now than someone seeing them alone together, sneaking around in the dark, if it risked them being turned out into the road after all.

Mulder eased the door quietly shut, and came over to her bedside. Relieved to see him despite her concern, Scully had to press her hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh at noticing what he was wearing - a loose white cotton nightshirt, the hem coming only to knee-length on his long lean legs. She saw the flash of his teeth in the now fading light from the window as he registered her amusement.

"Ok, not my best look. But it's actually very comfortable," Mulder said.

"You shouldn't be here," she told him as he came to perch on the edge of her bed. "If the servants are literally in the walls of this house, you never know who might be watching." 

"I’m not sure how easily we may get another chance to speak alone," Mulder said. He hesitated. "Scully, are you still in any doubt about all of this? About us somehow having landed at a point in time before Highglade House was ever built?" 

Scully pressed her fingers to her temples. "There's still no definite proof," she said, reluctant even now to fully commit herself. "And I'm still hoping that this is all going to turn out to be some kind of wild joke. But...I don't think Helena is lying, or that she's crazy, or that she would let her father go without medical attention if it was available." 

She paused, thinking of the way the Smoking Man had so remorselessly played her with his sad voice and empty promises of medical miracles. "Some recent events, however, have led me to think I can't necessarily trust my own character judgement. And Mulder…” Scully stared helplessly at her partner in the half-darkness. “If it’s true…it’s all just so utterly mindblowing.”

“It’s beyond comprehension,” Mulder agreed. “But we have to figure out our plan now, Scully. Are we going to try and get back to the glade tomorrow? See if... I don't know. See if anything happens, once we're back there?" 

"Maybe we should," Scully said. "But what if nothing happens at the glade? Do you think Helena would accept us just turning up here again afterwards? She thought we were married. I had to tell her we came here with an investigative society and we were only travelling alone together because we got separated from our companions." 

"You think she'd find it unseemly, if we went off on our own?" Mulder said. 

"I know she would. She was worried she could be ruined just for having us here, until I spun us a cover story," Scully told him. 

Mulder sighed. Already he was kicking himself for not having immediately said he and Scully were husband and wife. Now, everything they did would have to be carefully cloaked in propriety. 

"Ok. Then we need to talk to the maid Helena mentioned," he said. "She must know something about Highglade, if she was that spooked by it." 

"Yeah, and it sounds as though the family history in this area goes back at least a couple of generations.  Maybe Helena's father will have heard something?" Scully said.

"We'll keep up his treatment, and we'll mention that you love spooky stories," Mulder said, grinning. "See what he has to tell you."

"Why am I the one that likes spooky stories?" Scully objected. 

"Scully, I'm a very important, busy doctor," Mulder said. "I don't have time for nonsense like that." 

Grinning, she shoved at him with her knee through the bedcovers. "Get out of here, before I scream that there's a strange man in my chambers." 

Mulder got to his feet. “We’re going to figure this out,” he said. He paused for a second, then placed his hand lightly on her knee, wanting to smooth a thread he knew was still a little tangled between them. “And Scully…it’s not that you’re a bad judge of character. You just wanted to believe the best of someone. But nothing could have redeemed him.” 

“It was a mistake, I know,” Scully answered softly. “But I guess I can say, one made for the right reasons.” 

Mulder gave her knee a tiny squeeze, then moved to the door. “Sleep well, Miss Scully,” he said, and slipped out into the hall like a phantom.