He should be horrified, and he is - in the same way he supposes I was drugged and caged by a serial killer is horrifying, distantly and with the knowledge that he survived it. Look what they've each come through, how close a call they each had. His arm tightens around her in a little squeeze.

But the thing that overtakes any sense of worry for her, eased along by the fact that she's here and apparently fine, is where she trails off. "Your alleged abilities. Have you been holding out on me this whole time, Scully? I could have been getting my psychic readings for free."

Everything else, they'll come back to. Her suspicions regarding ritualized death aren't unfounded; it's the right time period, if a strange choice of subject for a New Ager. He'd always held the assumption they eschewed Christianity for the most part. But there's time for that, and for digging into the details.