You may be right about the need for editing. Honestly, I probably skim more fic than I read these days. Most of us don't have the editing skills of a professional at our beck and call. I thought the ending was too long, for sure. I didn't need all of the Mulder/Scully relationship stuff at the back end, but at the time, that was probably a fic writer's bread and butter. Today, a beta might suggest she cut that back, wa--ay back. But she created real suspense. I mean, this was a really creepy story. I did wonder at how and why an FBI agent would call in someone from Washington to investigate the disappearance of his kid, "unofficially." But there was a lot of hand-waving of a similar nature in canon. A lot, a lot, a lot.