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admiralty-xfd · 5 years

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Culmination

This is chapter 14. To start at the beginning click here.

I had to address “Skinner told me,” my all time biggest pet peeve on the show, because god forbid they actually write a scene where Scully gets to tell Mulder the most important thing she’s ever had to tell him. Especially since I believe this particular moment had so much weight and affected their relationship down the road.

Also, Mulder still has a lot of garbage to make up for. Thank god for S11 Mulder, is all I'm saying.

INFORMATION

(The Truth)

MULDER

All roads have led here.

In the end, all he’s left with is this dank, dark jail cell and the knowledge that no matter what he does, the world is going to end, and soon. He knows the timetable and the method. He knows the truth. And what’s worse, he believes it utterly and completely.

As he lies half naked on the cold pavement of the cell, he thinks of Scully, and baby William. He thinks of a future they will not get to have, a future she will be robbed of. Time they all will be robbed of.

They’ve already wasted so much time.

He hated having to act distant with her yesterday. He hopes she understood why he did what he did. He tries to focus on something good, like how incredible she’d looked; she’d let her hair grow out and he was reminded of how she looked the day he met her. But the length of her hair only brought to the painful forefront how long it’s been since they’ve actually laid eyes on each other. Every inch further proof of time passing, wasting away.

It’s been even longer than it had been while he was abducted and dead, and somehow this has been worse because he could feel the time passing, slowly, tediously.

More time spent alone.

He aches to see her again and it’s the first time he knows for sure he will very soon. He wishes it were under better circumstances but if he’s being honest with himself, he’s glad he got caught. He’s relieved he’s been forced to give himself up. He couldn’t take the solitude any longer. If it means facing the music, he will, even if he hates this particular tune. He wants to see his family.

What are you thinking?

About my son. About his mother.

The guard is relentless. He knows they are trying to brainwash him into forgetting what he’s learned. He wishes they could. Now that he knows, he wishes he could un-know it. The irony of learning the truth he’s sought for so long and now wishing he hadn’t learned it at all isn’t lost on him.

His thoughts drift to Clyde Bruckman from all those years ago, and his ability to see the deaths of others. Bruckman couldn’t live with that knowledge and ended his own life. Can Mulder live with knowing exactly when and how every human being on the planet will die?

What will he tell Scully? Will she believe it too? She’s been through so much, he doesn’t want to take away any any more of her happiness. Maybe they’ll make it ten years without her having to know. Maybe he’s just kidding himself.

Will he even get out of his current predicament alive?

He knows the military is responsible for all of this. The secrets they hold are worth killing for, and taking him out wouldn’t be difficult. So why this ridiculous charade? He wonders why they’re bothering to put him through this, why they don’t just kill him. It’s a miracle he’s lasted this long at all.

The government has used him to help them bury the truth before, and they’re doing it again. Spooky Fox Mulder, ranting and raving about apocalyptic alien colonizations would only help their cause, not harm it.

He won’t give them the satisfaction.

The doors to his cell slide open, and the asshole with the nightstick comes back in. He flings an orange jumpsuit at him. “Put that on, you have visitors.”

Please… please let it be her.

He doesn’t know who he’s praying to, but he hopes the prayer is answered. A few minutes pass. And then:

“...Mulder?” Her voice is barely a whisper this time.

He turns around and notices the guard has left them alone, thank god. He does his best Hannibal Lecter.

“I smelled you coming, Clarice.”

Her face is priceless and he wishes he could bottle it but instead he decides to put her out of her misery and laughs.

She exhales, the relief palpable. “Dammit, Mulder, it’s not funny seeing you put on that act.”

“No, that is funny,” he explains. “What’s not funny is what they do to you in here when you don’t put on that act.”

He’s waited too long already, and suddenly it doesn’t matter that they’re in a jail cell, or that Skinner is standing right there, or even that the world is coming to an end. If anything, that knowledge is all Mulder needs to cross over to Scully and kiss her for all she’s worth. He feels her knees go weak as she grabs his head for support. He never wants to stop kissing her again, but eventually they have to. Goddamn Skinner. They shift to a hug, and he envelops her with his arms.

When they finally detach, he goes for Skinner. “C’mere, you big, bald, beautiful man.”

“The only thing you’re gonna be kissing is your sweet ass goodbye, with the trouble you’re in, Mulder,” he grumbles.

“Yeah, I kind of gathered that right around the fiftieth brainwashing session.”

He takes Scully’s hand, kisses it. Holds it close to his heart. The way she’s looking at him now is something he’s never felt worthy of, but it’s there just the same.

Soon Agents Doggett and Reyes show up and the whirlwind of Mulder’s farcical trial begins in earnest.

***

After they discuss his options, the cell clears out but Skinner remains.

“You know none of this really matters, right?” Mulder sighs. “This is only going to end one way.”

“How, Mulder? With you on death row? That’s not gonna happen, not on my watch. I’m not letting Scully go through that again.”

Mulder doesn’t want her to go through that again, either. But his options are pretty limited at the moment.

Skinner leans against the wall and crosses his arms. “Tell me what you need from me.”

Mulder shrugs. “Make our work mean something, Skinner. Anything. Everything Scully and I have uncovered sits in the basement, none of it brought to light because no one will believe it. Maybe someone in that room will hear it.”

Skinner looks uncomfortable. “Why would they listen to me? They already think you’re a joke.”

Mulder sighs and rubs his temples. “Now you’re catching on.”

“Well, what’s their angle then? To discredit you? You’ve already done that for them, year after year. No offense,” he adds.

“None taken.”

“If they wanted to kill you, they’d just kill you. I still don’t understand why you’re standing here at all.”

“This is a perfect opportunity for them. They want me to help them bury their own secrets because they know I’m not going to out them.”

“Why? What do you know, Mulder?”

“Trust me, it’s not something I can put on the official record.”

“So what, you just plan to die with the truth? You’ll only be furthering their own agenda.”

“You don’t get it, Skinner. Nothing you or I can do matters. None of this matters. We hold none of the cards. All we can do is go down fighting.”

Skinner removes his glasses, wipes them on his shirt, puts them back on. “I can’t be a party to you allowing yourself to get put to death, Mulder. I won’t just do nothing.”

“Try my case, then, sir.”

“Maybe something, anything we’ve got would be enough to save your life. Right now that’s all I want to do. The rest of this government conspiracy crap is secondary. I owe it to you, and to Scully.”

Mulder closes his eyes, leans back against the wall. “I don’t know what to do about Scully. I know she won’t give up on me, even though that’s exactly what she should do.”

Skinner doesn’t seem to know what to say to that.

“I know all this seems really important right now. But don’t lose sight of the big picture, of your life. You’ve got an important choice to make, Mulder. Don’t make the wrong one. Trust me.”

He starts to head toward the cell door and Mulder takes that in. He wishes he had a choice. He wishes he knew a way out of this. He can’t think of a good plan because he can’t see an endgame that isn’t tragedy. It’s impossible for him to think about any kind of future right now; with Scully, with William. For him. For anyone. All he can think about is the present.

“Sir? Can you do me another favor?”

“What’s that?”

“Can you ask Scully to bring William?”

Skinner stops, is silent. Silent for a long time. Mulder doesn’t know why but the dread that lurches up inside him is very real and immediate.

“Sir….?”

“I think... you need to talk to Scully about that.”

He starts to panic. “No, Skinner, what happened?” He walks to Skinner and grabs the back of his jacket. “Tell me right now! Is it William? Did something happen to him?”

Oh god, that baby. Scully’s whole world. If something happened to him…

“What is it?!” The terror in Mulder’s voice is enough to get Skinner to turn around. “Tell me!”

Skinner can’t look him in the eye. He shakes his head. “William… is gone.”

Mulder’s heart sinks. His breath stops. Suddenly, everything they have been discussing seems utterly unimportant.

“William is... dead?”

“No, not dead,” Skinner quickly corrects. “But it felt like a death to Scully. Everything just… became too much, it was too dangerous for him. She gave him up anonymously for adoption.”

Mulder stares at Skinner. “When?”

“Couple months ago.”

Mulder’s legs give out and he sinks to the floor, his head in his hands. Everything they’ve gone through, how much Scully wanted that child, all of it gone. He left for nothing. He’s been separated from his family for no reason at all, and even though leaving was meant to protect them all, he failed.

She must have felt so desperate, so alone to make such a decision. Why did he ever leave? The dangers they feared seem so insignificant now.

He didn’t think things could get any worse. He’s never been more wrong in his life.

“I’m sorry, Mulder. I didn’t want to be the one to tell you this.” Mulder can’t look at him. He just wants Skinner to leave before he breaks down completely. “I’m… I’m going to leave you alone, okay? Scully will be back tomorrow. You should talk then.”

Skinner quietly exits the cell.

After the door closes, Mulder bursts into tears. His body is so wracked with uncontrollable sobs he falls to his side and pulls his knees to his chest. He grieves for William, but his grief soon turns to Scully. He loved their child, of course, but the entire time he’s been gone he felt his love for William through his love for her. Every day that passed, every moment he missed, every milestone she must have witnessed, he imagined it through her eyes.

He thinks of her broken heart, again, and feels completely numb.

He doesn’t sleep that night, tormented by desperate cries and fits of wakefulness. He thinks of a night back in Bellefleur, Oregon, where he held Scully in comfort and security and regrets all the choices he subsequently made.

***

She comes to him soon, as he knew she would. Her hand softly touches his shoulder and he wakes.

“Mulder, it’s me.”

He wonders how many more times he’ll get to hear her say that. It can’t be many. He slowly gets up, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. Her face comes into focus and it gives him hope, if only for a moment.

“I need you to talk to me, confide in me, or we’ll lose.”

He doesn’t want to talk about any of this. “We can’t win, Scully. We can only hope to go down fighting.”

“You’re scaring me,” she says, eyes glistening. “Mulder, I’m so scared I’ve just got you back and now I’m going to lose you again.”

“I know what I’m doing.” All he can say is something he knows she won’t accept or appreciate. His eyes are begging her to tell him what he already knows.

“Well, whatever you’re doing… you have no idea how much has already been lost… what I’ve had to do.”

She looks so devastated, so defeated, he can’t make her say the words.

“I do know. Skinner told me.”

She doesn’t look terribly surprised that Skinner told him something she really should have. Maybe she’s relieved that she doesn’t have to see him react. Maybe he’s also relieved she didn’t have to see it. She slowly looks up at him, ashamed.

“Our son, Mulder...” she says, breaking down. It’s as if she hasn’t been able to talk to anyone properly about this decision and maybe she hasn’t. She falls into him, nothing else to do, and the tears come. “I gave him up.”

Mulder holds her, shellshocked. This is an eventuality he never even considered and now here they are. He’s not angry, or disappointed. He’s just overwhelmingly numb about the whole thing.

It feels oddly inevitable that this happened to them. How could it ever have gone differently? Why can’t anything good ever stay that way for them?

“I’m so afraid you could never forgive me,” she whispers into his ear as she cries.

He can’t bear how much responsibility she’s accepting for this turn of events. She made the decision, yes, but if it weren’t for him and the cloud of trouble surrounding him wherever he goes none of this would have happened. Yet again, he feels responsible for her unhappiness and he can’t believe they are back here once again.

“I know you had no choice,” he says. It’s the only thing he can think of to say. He doesn’t know the particulars but he doesn’t have to; he knows Scully had no choice. William meant everything to her, and even though he was only with them for a couple short days, seeing her that happy was enough for Mulder to understand her utter desolation.

This misery is too much to take. All he wants to do is make her feel better and he doesn’t think he can even do that for her.

“I just missed you both so much.”

She hugs him tighter. “God, where have you been? Where have you been hiding?”

“In New Mexico.”

“Doing what?”

His face is buried in her shoulder. “Looking for the truth,” he mumbles. He sounds so dejected but is still trying to make her laugh, and she does. It’s a tiny thing, but it’s something to hold onto in this dark moment.

She pulls away and they look at each other tenderly. He can’t believe how much time they wasted not looking at each other this way, and now the world is ending and everything is complete shit. The only good, pure thing is her face, so he takes it in as long as he possibly can.

“You found something, didn’t you? What did you find?” Scully reverts back into investigative mode, and as much as he wants to tell her something, give her anything she could possibly ask of him, he can’t.

He’s probably going to be put to death. Their child is gone forever. He can’t give her more bad news.

“I can’t tell you.”

“You found something in that facility. That’s what you were doing, right? Mulder, what did you find out there?”

“Scully, I can’t tell you.”

“That doesn’t make sense!” She looks so confused and hurt, he doesn’t want to make her feel that way but if it’s between that and decimating her completely he has to take the former.

“You’ve got to trust me, Scully. I know things it’s better you don’t.”

She looks at him sadly. “I trust you, Mulder. I’ll always trust you. But look around. I don’t know what could possibly be worse than where we already are.”

“I’m trying to protect you the only way I know how.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t need you to do that, Mulder. It’s me. It’s you and me, together. Always. Remember? I want to know what you know.”

“I’m sorry, Scully.” He shakes his head. “I can’t. You are the only person left in the world that I love. I’m never going to do or say anything I know will cause you pain. I just can’t. I won’t. I need you to hear me.”

She looks into his eyes. “I do hear you. But what you’re saying right now is causing me pain, too.”

He has two choices and they’re both impossible. He chooses the one that won’t mean telling her the world is ending and none of this even matters. All he can do is shake his head.

She takes his face in her hands and presses her lips to his, not happy with his decision but accepting it. He covers her hands with his own. When they part again, he wipes a tear from her eye with his thumb.

“I really like your hair.”

She smiles, looks down. “Thanks.”

It seems so trivial, so trite to compliment her hair at a time like this, that he knows how significant the gesture actually is. She kisses him one more time, then takes his hand.

“Try to get some rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She slowly stands up, and he doesn’t release her hand until she’s started walking away. She lets his hand drop, and the cell door slides open, then closed.

He’s never felt more hopeless in his life. He doesn’t have a plan anymore. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. There is no endgame.

If he dies with the truth, maybe she can live with hope.

SCULLY

“I’d rather die.”

I’d rather die.

Words have always been a powerful tool for them. In their work, connecting their minds to each other in a private language, almost a secret shorthand they’d refined. So many words had been uttered between them over the years they almost didn’t need them anymore. One look could floor her in any given circumstance. When words failed them, they’d find a way back to each other. They always have.

But these words have torn her apart.

How could he have said that, to her? How could he not know how those words would make her feel?

Maybe he did know. Maybe he’s given up, on everything. Can she really blame him? His life’s work is on trial, he’s probably getting put to death, and she gave up his only chance at fatherhood. She’s the only thing left he has to live for, and maybe she’s not enough for him.

Maybe she will never be enough for him.

She’s done everything she could to bring him back to her, to keep him alive, and it’s as if he doesn’t even care. He doesn't even want to try. Being alive isn’t worth it to him; not without his quest.

She’s so tired of the quest. All she can think of now are the days and nights she spent missing him, wondering where he was, what he was doing. Watching William get older every day without him. Cursing this fucking quest for taking him away from her, yet again.

She’s always respected the work, always understood the magnitude of the forces against them. She’s always understood the unique position they’ve been in all these years. More than anything, she’s always understood her devotion to him, and she’s never questioned his devotion to her.

What she doesn’t understand, what she may never understand, is this obsession; what it does to him. It takes him far away from her, somewhere she can’t go, somewhere he will not take her. It takes him to a place where he tells her to her face he’d rather die.

He’s never lied to her about who he is, ever. She should have seen something like this coming. The idea he would choose to die for his quest rather than live for her is something she hasn’t had to think about before. She tells herself this isn’t Mulder, this part isn’t him. This is the obsession talking. She hates the obsession now.

Back when they first met it was something about Mulder that drew her to him, something she admired. She was so young then, so eager.

She was so stupid.

After so much sacrifice, so much loss, all she’s been left with is him. All he has is her. What she needs is to be enough for him, and it seems that he’s telling her she isn’t.

I’d rather die.

It breaks her heart. All she needs is him, but he needs more.

You say this is greater than us and maybe it is. But this is us fighting this fight, Mulder, not you. It’s you and me. That’s what I’m fighting for, Mulder. You and me.

The way their relationship progressed has been so unusual, she has no map, no compass to tell her how they should be feeling, and how they should be sharing their pain. And she doesn’t know what to think about how he feels about William. Ever since she made the decision it has weighed on her heart in a way she could never explain to anyone, not even Mulder. The guilt she feels for making Mulder a father and tearing it away from him is only compounded by her own pain and loss. He said what he needed to say, and she could tell he didn’t want her to hurt, but she can’t quite shake the feeling there are things left unsaid between them. It’s much too painful right now to think about.

If he ever gets out of this cell, what will happen next? She will go with him, because she will always go with him. She doesn’t doubt his love for her. She doesn’t think she ever could. But she often wonders when this will all be over; when they can escape this darkness that follows them once and for all. When they can finally be free.

Does he even want to be free?

Maybe falling in love with her threw a wrench into his plans. She may be the hindrance she’s always feared she was after all, just in a way she hadn’t anticipated. Will she ever really know for sure?

Maybe it would have been better if they’d never met. She wonders for the first time in a long time what her life would be like without him, without all of this. She tries, she really tries to picture it.

She can’t. She can’t because she knows the truth: she loves him more than that life. She loves him more than anything in the world.

This is her truth. She hopes it will be enough to set them free.

***

The phone rings, and rings, and rings.

Please answer, Mom. Please.

Scully stands outdoors in the cold, Gibson Praise asleep inside the car. It’s so late, or rather so early, she hopes her mother will answer the phone. They haven’t spoken since she gave William up for adoption. Scully expected the distance to last for some time, and she felt she deserved it. The pain William’s sudden disappearance caused in her mother’s life wasn’t so easily healed.

But she needs to speak to her, now. Or she may never again.

“...Hello?”

“Mom?” Scully’s voice is soft, tentative. “Please don’t hang up, please.”

There is a long silence on the other end of the line. But she doesn’t hang up.

“You don’t have to talk, Mom, and I completely understand if you don’t want to. But I need you to listen, please. This is very important.”

The silence continues. Taking this as a sign of acquiescence, Scully continues.

“I’m… going to be out of touch for awhile, probably a long time. I don’t know how long. Mulder is in trouble. I mean… we both are. So I just need you to know we’re going to have to disappear for awhile.”

She stops for a moment, catches her breath. Even with everything she and Mulder have been through, this is a phone call she never expected to make.

“Are you still there?”

She hears a soft sob, and knows she’s there.

Scully breaks down. “I’m so sorry, Mom… I’m so sorry about everything. I hope you know that. I’d never want to do anything to hurt you, and when I gave up William I did that. And I’ll never stop being sorry for how that hurt you. But you have to understand it hurt me too, more than I can possibly explain.”

After a brief silence, Maggie speaks. “Is Fox all right?”

Scully sniffles, but a smile crosses her face at last. “He’s okay, we both are. It’s just… it’s complicated. Our lives are in danger. The less you know, the better. I need you to trust me.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“They’ll be asking you if I’ve contacted you. Just tell them we haven’t spoken for weeks, that shouldn’t be too hard to do… considering.”

For a moment she hears nothing on the other end.

“Mom? Are you there?”

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to how dangerous this job has become for you, Dana. And I know why you did what you did. You never asked for any of this. But it’s the challenge that God has chosen to give to you both. And I’m relieved that you at least have each other. Please take care of yourselves, sweetheart. And call me when you can. Send my love to Fox.”

Scully waits.

“I love you, Dana.”

Scully grips the phone with both hands and squeezes her eyes shut. She’s just now coming to terms with everything she’s choosing to give up for Mulder.

“I love you too, Mom.”

As she ends the call, she stares at the phone in her hand. She won’t be calling her mother again for a long, long time. She doesn’t know when she will get used to that idea. She removes the SIM card and crushes it with her foot, then throws the cell phone over the guardrail.

Just a few minutes later, another car pulls up and he gets out. In this moment she knows it’s the end of the road. She’s making a choice, to give up everything in her life to be with him.

She knows in her heart she would make this choice every single time.

***

The rain pounds on the windows outside the motel room. It feels chaotic, apocalyptic.

Appropriate.

They lay in bed, holding each other. Their clothes are scattered around them on the floor. They’d both been exhausted, physically spent by the day’s events, but ultimately they were unable to hold back any longer. It had been too long. The aliens may be coming, but they’re both only human, after all.

She knew she’d made the right decision to stay with him; for her there wasn’t really an alternative. The words he’d said in that jail cell hurt, but now she knows why he’d said them. She should have known he was only trying to protect her, as usual. She should have trusted him, like he’d asked. She doesn’t like that she doubted him, but she also doesn’t like how he’d made her feel: powerless, alone. She can’t stand feeling that way, not with him. She hopes he won’t do it again.

Maybe there’s hope.

She’s sure of one thing… she hopes this will all be over soon. She wants nothing more than to slow down, to stop. To get out of the damn car like she told him years ago. She can only hope he wants to do the same.

At least right now they are calm, just for now. Her eyes glance to the window and the rain against the glass reminds her of another night, an important step they’d taken that feels much longer ago than it actually was.

“What are we going to do, Mulder?” she asks him quietly.

“Can we just stay right here? I think I could live with that.” He’s flat on his back, her head resting on his chest.

“The good news is, right now I don’t think we have any other choice.”

“That is good news. Finally.”

They lay quietly and Scully listens to his heart beating.

“Scully, I hope you know that I understand how hard it must have been for you to make this choice. To stay with me. I know what you’re giving up.”

She closes her eyes, holds him tighter. “You don’t know, Mulder. If you did, you’d know it wasn’t a difficult choice for me to make at all.”

He kisses the top of her head. “I don’t deserve you, you know that?”

She knows he’s joking but she reassures him all the same. “Don’t say that. I wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.”

“I’m not joking, Scully. You probably think I am but I’m not.”

“Shut up, Mulder.”

“I’m serious.” He lets the sentiment hang in the air for a moment. “I mean it. I love you more than I think I could ever adequately express.”

“You do a pretty good job trying,” she replies playfully.

“I’ll try again tomorrow. And then again. And then again. It’s not like we have anything else to do.”

“I’ve never been so excited to be so bored.”

The rain patters on the windows. She lazily trails her fingers along his chest. “But…really, what are we going to do?”

“What, you mean about the end of the world as we know it?”

“Yeah, that.”

“I don’t know. We live our lives, I guess?”

A thought occurs to her that she hasn’t yet articulated to him. “Back during my cancer I thought about this a lot. The idea of knowing you have a shelf life is scary, but in a way there’s some comfort to be taken.” She folds her arms across his chest and rests her chin to better face him. “Knowing your time is so limited makes you think about things differently. Makes you appreciate what you have more.”

“I get that, Scully. Not quite in the same way you could, but I get that.” He tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear.

“You do get it in the same way, though. When you thought you were dying, and you never told me. It’s the same thing. 2012 might be the end of the world, but knowing I would lose you would have been the end of my world.”

He’s quiet. She’s not trying to make him feel bad, she doesn’t want him to think she is.

“I was afraid of dying,” she continues, “but I was more afraid of the things I wouldn’t get to do before I did. The regret I had in those moments, that I wasn’t strong enough to even tell you how much you meant to me.”

“But you did. You told me. You were always telling me, Scully. I just couldn’t see it. I refused to see it.”

“And then I got better.”

“And I still didn’t see it.”

She shuts her eyes thoughtfully. “No, you didn’t. But I should have made you see. I should have taken my experience to mean something. Instead I continued to be afraid.”

“I’m afraid now, Scully. I’m afraid the world may actually be headed straight to hell and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.”

“Maybe we can. Even when all hope seemed lost for me, you never gave up. Because of that, you saved my life. Like you said… maybe there’s hope, Mulder.”

He wraps his arms around her and she shifts her body to lay on his. Even though they have so little, they have each other and right now it feels like enough.

She leans down and kisses him deeply. It doesn’t feel possible to be happy knowing everything they’ve lost but she is. In this decidedly abnormal scenario, it’s the most normal she’s felt; the two of them against the world. It always comes back to the two of them, no matter what.

You and me, always.

“Maybe we don’t think about that right now. At least for right now,” he says softly.

She tucks her head underneath his neck and enjoys the warmth of his body underneath hers.

“Okay. How about for a long right now?”

“As long as you want, Scully. Promise.”

He’s slowly running his fingers through her hair, staring at the ceiling. They are quiet for a couple minutes.

“I’m sorry about William,” he suddenly says. “I wish I could have been there for you.”

She bites her lip. This isn’t something she wants to talk about right now. It’s just too hard. The name is painful to even hear. She just holds him and remains silent. He seems to take her cue, and stops talking, dragging his fingers along her back.

“I love you, Mulder. Thanks for not dying today.”

“You’re welcome, Scully. I know this isn’t the life you pictured. I’m sorry I can’t give you that.”

“Well, you’re wrong about that. I always assumed we’d end up busting you out of prison and going on the lam.”

He chuckles. “Me too, actually.”

“This part I did picture, though. You and me, just like this.”

“Well, I’m glad I came through in some way.”

“You always come through. For me, you do.”

As the rain continues to fall outside, she thinks again of their first night together, when everything changed. When they made a decision to move forward without fear, and take a chance.

They’re doing the same now, choosing to live, to fight another day. Of all the ways she’d imagined her life, and even with all the concerns she has about the future, she knows what matters is that they are in this together.

Thanks for reading! Back with more tomorrow.

#msr #txf #msr fanfic #fanfiction #the truth #culmination #god mulder can be a prick #but we love him anyway

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ghostbustermelanieking · 6 years

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praescitum chapter two

chapter one

casefile, season 10, season 11: pre 10x03: mulder and scully meet the weremonster. part of my series that i write as i rewatch the x files.

Summary: As Mulder and Scully adjust to their reassignment to the X-Files and working together in the wake of their separation, they find themselves investigating a small town and a ghost that apparently warns people of bad things to come.

---

two.

october, 2015

Skinner signs off on the Willoughby case, to Mulder's surprise; he'd expected more argument, but it's been a long time since they've done this and he suspects that their boss just wants to get them away from all the DOD attention. He and Scully leave two days after the closure of the Goldman case, and nearly a week since he'd gotten the original call from Deputy Jacobs of Willoughby.

Willoughby is about a ninety minute trip from DC; no sense in flying to somewhere that close. Scully drives. Mulder sits in the passenger seat and fiddles with the radio, tries to figure out how to connect his phone to the Bluetooth, offers tidbits on stories he's heard about this particular ghost. “I'm surprised we never ran into this ghost story back in the day,” Scully says dryly at one point. “Sounds exactly like the kind of cases we used to get all the time.”

“Sounds like it happened just a couple years too late,” Mulder says in the same dry tone, and then mentally winces. He has a lot less resentment for Agent Doggett now than he did fourteen years ago, but he and Scully have had a lot of pain and resentment over those lost years in the past, and the last thing he wants to do is bring that pain back. (He hasn't ever blamed her for those lost years, anyway, not really; how could he? Any resentment he had for her insisting he leave back in 2001 has long faded. They've both suffered enough.)

Scully hums absently in the back of her throat, not commenting on that. “So what's your theory, Mulder? What are you thinking?”

He shrugs a little, casually. “I don't know that I have one yet. I mean, it sounds like the ghost probably exists, seeing as how our colleagues investigated it all those years ago. They must've been called in for something.”

“It could've been a hoax of some sort,” Scully points out. “People capitalizing on a local legend to manipulate people, or… gain publicity…”

“I doubt we would've heard from law enforcement if it were some kind of hoax,” says Mulder. “Besides, how does a missing dog contribute to that theory? Deputy didn't say where the kid saw the dog, but he did mention that the kid was only six, remember? In my experience, kids that age can't lie very convincingly. And I doubt that kid was in an easily accessible place when he saw the ghost, one where he'd be susceptible to a hoax from an outside source. And how could the supposed trickster know about the dog unless they were the one who took it?”

“Who knows,” Scully says with a sigh. “I think we might be overthinking this, Mulder.”

“Oh, I dunno.” He smirks a little at her from the passenger seat. “A lot of simple things we've seen turned out to be more complicated than we expected. You never know.”

“I know about this one,” Scully says at length, halfway annoyed, but she's smiling a little. Just a little as she watches the road, and Mulder feels it in the pit of his chest.

“We'll see,” he says slowly, fiddling with the radio again. He's missed this. He's missed her.

Scully fully smirks and shakes her head. Static bubbles through the speakers as he flips through stations, and they drive on. Mulder thinks he may never want to leave this moment, just he and Scully in the car, driving off to investigate some great mystery. Sitting here now, it almost feels as if nothing has changed.

---

Willoughby is the kind of sleepy little country town that they've both seen a thousand times. A few main streets, lots of farms and suburban houses among the rolling green hills. They pass an old stone church next to a forest, surrounded by houses and small apartment buildings. Mulder leans closer to get a better look and spots a cemetery full of ancient, weathered tombstones. “This town is old, Scully,” he says delightedly. “Perfect setting for a ghost.”

“If the ghost is real.” Scully flips on her turn signal, coasting to a stop at a stop sign. “Which is doubtful.”

“Same old Scully,” Mulder says haughtily, and is relieved to hear her amused scoff from behind him. He watches quaint little Virginia houses flit by until they reach the downtown and the police station.

Inside, they find a receptionist sitting before a cluster of desks and police officers. “Can I help you?” she asks politely.

Scully flashes her shiny new badge. “Agents Mulder and Scully from the FBI, here to see Deputy Kenneth Jacobs.”

The receptionist raises her eyebrows in surprise. “Kenny?” she calls over her shoulder, a tad suspicious.

A bearded man in a uniform rounds a corner and waves a little at them. “Agents Mulder and Scully?”

Mulder nods. “That's what they said,” says the receptionist.

The man steps forward, reaching out to shake their hands. “Kenny Jacobs,” he says by way of introduction. “Glad you could make it—although I've gotta say, I don't remember you from 2002.”

“You're thinking of Agents Doggett and Reyes, the agents assigned to the unit at that time,” Scully says. Her tone is unreadable; Mulder scuffs his shoe against the floor and tries to ignore it.

“Oh, yeah. What happened to them?”

“I'm not sure about Agent Reyes, but last I heard, Agent Doggett is living in Florida. They left the Bureau years ago, but we have plenty of experience ourselves.” Scully offers Jacobs a polite smile.

“I’m Agent Mulder, we spoke on the phone,” says Mulder, reaching out and shaking his hand. “You said there'd been several more sightings since the original one you called me about?”

Deputy Jacobs motions them towards a desk with two chairs pulled up to it. “Yes, sir. Two more, to be exact.”

“We'd like to talk to the people who have seen… it,” Scully says a little awkwardly. “If that's all right. Would the sheriff mind if we talk to his son?”

“Joe? I mentioned that I called you, and he wasn't thrilled—he’s not a big believer in this stuff—but his son, Robbie, got all excited, convinced you all could find his dog. I tried to tell him not to get too excited, but he's all wound up, and Joe agreed to talk to you because of that. They'll be over as soon as Joe picks Robbie up from school.”

They both nod as they take a seat at the desk. “So, Deputy,” Mulder says, mostly out of curiosity. “Have you ever seen the ghost?”

“Can't say that I have,” Jacobs says almost automatically, stroking his beard thoughtfully. “I’ve heard the stories all my life, but I've never seen him. I will say that people who claim to see him usually have events coinciding with it pretty soon after. My grandma once said she saw it the night before her cat passed away.”

“And what does this… specter look like?” Scully speaks stiffly, awkwardly. “Based on the stories?”

“It’s supposed to be a colonial man in a cloak with a lantern. People say it 'lights up the truth’ or whatever. Like I said, I've never seen it, but I really think there's some truth to the story. There's been sightings every now and then throughout my life, and in 2002, there were at least thirty sightings that ended in three people dead. The reason those other agents were called in.”

“And you don't think any of that could be the result of some sort of mania?” Scully asks. “A psychological response to bad luck? A follow-the-crowd mentality?”

“No, ma'am,” says Deputy Jacobs. “I'm inclined not to. There's an entire history of the Willoughby Specter… It's actually part of some book on folklore in Virginia, if you want to check it out.”

“I did a little research and went over the case from 2002, so I'm a little familiar with the phenomenon,” says Mulder.

Deputy Jacobs nods a little in response, his eyes shifting over their shoulders. “Hey, Joe, over here,” he calls out, waving at someone behind them. Mulder turns around to see a man wearing a sheriff's star walking in, holding the hand of a boy in a Spider-Man t-shirt.

“These the FBI agents?” the sheriff asks as they reach the desk. The kid is looking up at them shyly; Scully smiles, the genuine smile she usually gives kids, and waves a little, and he hides behind his father's leg.

“Yes, I'm Agent Mulder, and this is my partner, Agent Scully.” Mulder stands and shakes the man's hand. “Deputy Jacobs said you'd agreed to talk to us?”

“Yeah, let's get this over with. We can talk in my office.” The sheriff motions his son towards a door at the back of the room, and Mulder and Scully follow them into the room.

Inside, the sheriff scoops up his son and places him in his lap. “I’m Joe O’Connell, and this is my son, Robbie,” he says by way of introduction, patting Robbie's back.

“Hi,” Robbie says quietly.

“Hi, Robbie,” Scully says, and Mulder finds himself thinking of Goldman's kids behind glass panels, little girls with the face of Scully's dead sister and babies cradled in her arms. He swallows back the memories, forces himself to focus.

“So, Kenny mentioned he called you in, but he didn't spend a lot of time explaining why. Something to do with my dog and the Willoughby Specter?” Sheriff O’Connell's voice is full of a skepticality that Mulder finds more than familiar; not exactly unfriendly, but not exactly friendly, either.

“Yes, Deputy Jacobs mentioned that Robbie had seen the Willoughby Specter the night before your dog disappeared,” Mulder says, drumming his fingers on his knees.

“I did!” Robbie says excitedly, seeming to perk up at the mention of the ghost. “It was really cool.”

“Do you want to tell us about it, Robbie?” Scully asks gently.

Robbie looks up at his dad, who ruffles his hair and nods. “Go ahead, buddy, it's okay. Tell them the whole story.”

“Okay.” Robbie screws his eyes shut in concentration, before beginning to talk rapidly. “Okay, so cause it's gonna be Halloween at the end of this week, my mommy and I watched the Snoopy Halloween movie the night I saw the ghost. And it wasn't very scary at all. I like Scooby-Doo better. But anyways, we watched Snoopy Halloween, and then Mommy took me upstairs and took me to bed. She made Bear—that’s our dog!—stay downstairs cause he's not supposed to sleep in my room. She tucked me in and said goodnight and turned on my nightlight. And then I went to sleep.” Robbie folds his hands in his lap, serious as Mulder has ever seen a six-year-old, and continues. “I woke up a little later, and then I was looking at my nightlight. It's orange, like jack-o'-lanterns, so it was the right color for Halloween. But it went out! Mommy says the bulb burned out. But there was still a light, like a yellow one that was moving around a lot. It was coming from behind me.”

Entranced in the story, Mulder absently looks up at Sheriff O'Connell and sees that his eyes are wide with astonishment. Not quite belief, but at least astonishment. “You never told me all this, son,” he says. “About the light…”

“You never asked,” Robbie says simply, and Mulder has to hold back a knowing laugh. “Anyways, I saw the light from behind, and so I turned over, and that's when I saw him.”

“You saw the Specter?” Mulder asks. Robbie nods. “Was he scary?”

Robbie starts to nod again, but then changes his mind and shakes his head. “At first, he was. His eyes were really black, and he was wearing a black cape and hat, and his lantern was scary. Like the Headless Horseman! My teacher has a picture book of George Washington stories, and I saw the Headless Horseman, and it's really scary. He was on Scooby-Doo, too. The ghost looked like that, except he had his head. And I was scared at first, and I was gonna scream for Daddy—cause Daddy's a cop, and he's very brave, and I knew he could protect me—but then I kind of felt okay. My great-uncle Theo told me all about the ghost, and he says the ghost is nice. Like an angel! And I said, everyone says he looks scary, how is he an angel, and he said that angels from the Bible look scary, too—” Out of the corner of his eye, Mulder sees Scully purse her lips in a way that makes him think of nephilim and seraphim and her lost daughter. “—and I guess he was right, because the ghost made me feel real good, like an angel. Even though he looked scary. But he wasn't.” Robbie nods confidently.

Scully clears her throat awkwardly. “And… and what happened next, Robbie?”

Robbie's face twists in confusion. “I… I dunno. I think the ghost disappeared, then I fell asleep. And then Daddy woke me up asking if I'd seen Bear.” His lower lip juts out in a pout. “I miss Bear. The ghost is cool, but I wish he hadn't made Bear go away. Can you find Bear for me?”

Mulder blinks, taken aback; he probably should've expected this, but somehow, it had never crossed his mind. “Well, Robbie,” Scully says awkwardly, “we don't really…”

“Cause Uncle Kenny said you were like the Ghostbusters, or the Men In Black. I bet they could find my dog!” Robbie grins, kicking the side of his father's desk.

Sheriff O'Connell bounces his knee up and down and tickles his son's side, sending Robbie into wild giggles. “Hey, Rob? Why don't you go sit at Uncle Kenny's desk and play Angry Birds on my phone? You wanna do that, bud, so I can talk to the FBI agents?”

“Okay!” Robbie jumps down and grabs his father's phone off of his desk. He starts to leave before pausing, turning to address Mulder and Scully. “If you wanna find the ghost, and maybe my dog, you should really talk to Ryan.”

“Ryan?” asks Mulder. “Who's Ryan?”

“He's my babysitter. He sees the ghost every year! Usually when it's cold.” Robbie leans forward and whispers confidently to Scully, in a too-loud rasp, “He's the only one who sees it anymore. No one besides Ryan has seen it since before I was born! Except me. Just me and Ryan.” Robbie grins excitedly. “So he'd probably know. But I told him I saw the ghost, and he wasn't excited. He's the only one in town who doesn't think the ghost is awesome! It's so weird.” He turns around and runs out of the room, clutching the phone in his hand.

Scully turns to Sheriff O'Connell as the door slams behind Robbie. “So, Sheriff,” she says. “What do you make of all this?”

O’Connell rubs at his forehead contemplatively, maybe a little wearily. “I dunno, Agent. I really don't. I've never really believed in the ghost, like most people in this town anymore. The only people who do anymore are the old-timers, the superstitious, and kids; everyone else is sensible. I always thought Robbie would snap out of it, but that Ryan kid wasn't helping anything, filling his head with these stories. My boy doesn't lie, and when he does, he's not good at it, so I don't think he made up that story. I think it might have been a nightmare; the only things that match up are the burned-out lightbulb and the fact that our dog did disappear.” O'Connell grimaces, rubbing a hand over his stubbly face again. “Honestly, agents, I'm starting to think my dog might be dead, or holed up with some other family. He's been gone for a week now, and I know he knows how to get home. I wish Kenny hadn't called y'all in and made a big deal out of nothing.”

“I don't want to give you a false impression, Sheriff, so I'll be straight with you,” Mulder says. “We work on a unit that investigates paranormal phenomenon. That's largely why we're here. Deputy Jacobs mentioned that there'd been other sightings, and we're here to look into those as well.”

O’Connell blinks blearily at them. “I remember a little bit about your unit. Gotta say, I don't see the point in investigating an urban legend.”

“I have to say, I share your sentiment,” Scully says, and Mulder resists the temptation to roll his eyes.

“We just wanna dig a little further,” he says lightly. “Sheriff, can you tell me about this Ryan kid?”

Sheriff O'Connell clears his throat. “Ryan is Willoughby's local celebrity. He's got a tragic past for sure—his parents were murdered by his uncle back in 2002, and everyone around here knows it.”

“2002?” Mulder asks. “Was the crime in conjunction with the multiple Specter sightings?”

“Supposedly—it came up at the trial—but I don't believe a word of it. The uncle, Jared, used his widely known Specter obsession to try and get off. Should've pled guilty by reason of insanity. He's in prison now.”

“Could this Ryan be using his family's past with this alleged Specter for attention?” Scully asks. “How old is he?”

“He's fourteen, and I doubt it. He's supposedly been seeing the ghost since he was four or five. The story got out when his aunt took him to a psychiatrist. Annie Caruthers—nice lady. She's his primary guardian now, and probably the best turn out from that family. Anyway, as a child, Ryan reportedly had horrible nightmares every winter, and told her that he saw a ‘glowing man’. When the story got out on accident, everyone went wild. Said that the boy was being guarded by the ghost cause of what happened to his family. And Ryan insisted the story was true as he got older, so he's gradually gotten more and more famous. 'Cept the kid claims that the ghost is evil, which goes against every version of the legend around here. Pisses people off.” The sheriff has a knowing look on his face, his eyebrows raised. “I don't know that they think the ghost is protecting him anymore.”

“And he's your… babysitter?” Mulder asks.

“Not by my choice. My wife works with Annie, and Robbie was so excited that we hired the kid—loves ghost stories. He seems nice enough on the outside, but, you know. I've never liked the kid. He's good with Robbie, but he seems disrespectful. And between you and me, he's been visiting his Uncle Jared in prison lately. That's a bad influence if I've ever seen one.” O’Connell nods as if convicting the boy. “I told my wife I had a bad feeling about Ryan, so we fired him a couple weeks ago. Amicable enough. We sent our apologies to Annie. But then, my dog disappears and my son starts talking about seeing the Specter?” The sheriff leans closer to add quietly, “Between you and me, our door was standing wide open the morning Bear went missing, and my wife swears she locked everything. So unless Robbie has taken up sleepwalking, then someone unlocked the door from the outside and let our dog out. And Ryan never gave us back his key.”

---

“What do you make of this town, Scully?” Mulder asks as they leave the police station. Robbie waves merrily to them as they exit and Scully waves back, with the same sweetness she always has for kids. Mulder waves, too.

“I’m not sure,” says Scully. “It seems to me like the Willoughby Specter is such a well-known and worshipped phenomenon in this town, that everyone is obsessed with experiencing it.” She pauses decisively, pulling her hair back into a ponytail as they walk back to their car. “But then again, that theory of claiming sightings for attention and local fame really doesn't work in conjunction with the idea that this Ryan is the only one who's seen the ghost for fourteen years. It's possible that the kid is doing it for attention, but then again, why would others not capitalize off of that attention by also claiming sightings?” Scully pauses again, tightening her ponytail. “I don't think Robbie O’Connell is lying. Unless someone coached him—the sheriff being an unlikely candidate for that; I'd say Deputy Jacobs is a possibility, since he's clearly close to the boy, but I don't know what his motive would be… Anyway, there’s no way a six-year-old could concoct a story that complex.”

“Dana Scully,” Mulder says slowly, teasing, “are you saying that you believe in the Willoughby Specter?”

“I most certainly am not,” Scully says, bristling, but she's smiling again. “I'm simply going over the facts. Which aren't even facts, really—the only people we've talked to are Robbie, the sheriff, and the deputy. We'd need to talk to some other people before we make any conclusions.”

“Uh huh.” He makes a face at her.

“I still think the story is bogus,” Scully says defensively. “I just think that there must be something that these people think they're seeing. I don't know how to explain it, but I guarantee you, Mulder, that there is not a ghost haunting people before bad things happen to them.”

“Oh, sure, Scully. So what is your explanation for all of this?”

“I told you. I don't know.” She looks up at him with a certain defensiveness in her eyes. “But I'd say we should talk to the other witnesses and find out.”

Mulder shrugs a little, grins at her. “So we should.”

---

The other witnesses seem to play right into Scully's theory: that this ghost is not real. Maybe even that this is a case of herd mentality: someone besides this Ryan Caruthers claims to see the Specter and everyone else jumps on board. Either way, Mulder truly hates to admit it, but neither of the two people they speak to about seeing the ghost could be considered credible witnesses.

The first is a college student—kid by the name of Mark Johnson—who reminds both Mulder and Scully too much of the teenagers they'd run into on their second case together, or the stoners that had made appearances a couple times on cases they had in 1996 (one of which did involve a missing dog—a dog that unfortunately had belonged to Scully. Mulder hates that he can't remember its name). He speaks in a slow drawl, and stinks of weed so bad that Mulder either wants to laugh or flash his badge, just to freak the kid out. Scully can scarcely keep from rolling her eyes or conducting the entire interview with thick sarcasm; the conversation lasts all of five minutes before she's done.

The second is a girl—also college-aged, whose name is Emma Gibson—who admittedly seems more credible than the other witness, at first. But when she invites them into her self-proclaimed office, they see a paraphernalia of paranormal trinkets: posters of horror movies, a Ouija board on a shelf, the type of equipment Mulder’s seen on more than one paranormal investigation show, and a cluster of true ghost story books. This is the first clue that this witness is not quite reliable. The second is that her story is not very believable—it’s awkward and stilted, like she's coming up with it on the spot, and when she starts talking about the ghost physically dragging her into the woods past the old church and threatening to murder her entire family in a voice “kind of like Darth Vader,” Mulder is inclined to agree with Scully about the idea of follow-the-crowd mentality.

By the time they're finished with the interviews, it's late, already dark and chilly outside. Mulder takes Scully to one of the small-town diners they haven't frequented in years. There's a flurry of Halloween decorations taped to the big glass windows: paper jack-o'-lanterns and skeletons. There is a cartoonish ghost over their table, his oval mouth open in a ghastly black wail. Mulder taps it with his index finger. “I found the Willoughby Specter,” he says dryly, and Scully giggles.

“That's uncharacteristically cynical of you, Mulder,” she says as they sit. “Those last two witnesses get you down?”

“Just a little bit.” He plucks the menu out of its holder and examines it. “I still think Robbie O’Connell had to have seen something. I'm just not sure that the other two did.”

“That's for sure,” Scully agrees. A waitress in an apron comes by and they both order their drinks. As she moves on, Scully adds, “Although I'm becoming convinced that whatever Robbie O’Connell saw was not what he thought it was. Remember, the sheriff said he suspects this Ryan of letting out the dog as revenge for being fired? He had access to Robbie's room. He could've set up some sort of prank.”

“It sounds to me like this Ryan kid is getting treated unfairly,” says Mulder. “Besides, what kind of prank involves a disappearing man in a black cape and lantern coinciding with a burnt-out night light?”

Scully shrugs. “A complex one? It seems like people today can do anything with technology, Mulder. Maybe there was a projector or something.”

“Wow, we are getting old, Scully. You've started throwing around the 'kids these days’ phrase.” She shoots him an annoyed look across the table, and he shrugs right back. “Whatever the case, I think we can agree that Robbie isn't faking. But I guess the question is, what do we do now? Talk to this Ryan kid?”

“Maybe,” says Scully. “But what the hell would be our explanation? Why are we here, Mulder, for that matter? To find Robbie's missing dog? To arrest a kid for stealing the sheriff's dog? To prove the existence of this Specter?”

“Honestly? I have no idea. Likely the latter,” says Mulder. Because he still believes it's real. Of course he believes it's real.

“Except I doubt either of us have any idea how to prove its existence,” Scully says.

“Hey,” he says, shooting her a fake wounded look, and she smirks innocently.

The waitress reappears with their drinks to take their orders, and by the time she's left, their conversation has lost some considerable steam. Scully clears her throat, pulls out her phone to check it and immediately starts to type something into it. “Sorry, just heard from my mom,” she says.

“Is everyone okay?” Mulder asks. He hasn't seen Maggie in months, but he's had some concerns, based off of some comments Scully's made about her ability to get around the house.

“Yeah, she's fine. Just wanted to check in on me.” Scully's fingers fly across the screen at an impressive speed, and Mulder wants to make another joke about kids these days, but he doesn't. “She misses Bill; he's off in Germany on assignment, and she's been taking it hard. Says she misses seeing Matthew. He used to fly up a couple times a year before they left, about a year ago.” The reason goes unspoken: because the other grandchild she was close to was given up just before his first birthday. Mulder swallows awkwardly, looks down at the table.

“But we try to keep in touch,” Scully adds. “We have dinner a couple times a week. I'll probably call her tonight when we get back to the hotel.”

“I'm glad you two are still close,” Mulder offers. (She hadn't seen her mother a lot in the years before he could come back to the surface, and he'll always feel guilty for that.) Scully nods a little, laying her phone face down on the table. Mulder tries a different subject, a pathetic attempt at conversation. “You were really good with Robbie today,” he offers.

He means it as a compliment, but Scully is silent for a few seconds after—just enough time for Mulder to mentally berate himself for bringing up the one topic that has been off-limits for most of their time together. But he's surprised to see a smile spread over Scully's face before she answers. “He was a cute kid, wasn't he?” she says. “Sweet kid. Kind of reminded me a little of you, isn't that weird?”

Mulder is taken aback, but he realizes that Scully must not think of William as a little kid like Robbie anymore. William is fourteen, wherever he is, likely a sullen teenager like this Ryan they keep hearing about. Growing up without them. He gulps anxiously, says, “Is it the proclivity for ghost stories?”

“That must be it.” Scully is grinning at him across the table, and it's one of the more startling things he's seen. (But also one of the most beautiful: Scully's fucking thousand-watt smile.) And then she says something that truly shocks him to the core: “You know, he kind of reminded me of William. Or, you know… who William might've been eight years ago.”

She is acknowledging the trauma between them that they mention so unoften, the heavily avoided subject of their son. It seems so incredible, after years of avoiding the subject, of her getting furious every time he brought it up. This feels like dangerous territory. He takes a deep breath before answering, “Me too,” in a tentative sort of way, because he had thought of William. He couldn't help it.

The truth is this: If it'd been Robbie on his own, he probably would've had some slight flickerings, fleeting thoughts about who William might've been. But seeing Robbie and Scully together, even in their brief interactions, Robbie confiding in Scully specifically, made it worse. Made him hyper-aware of what he could've had, all he'd lost.

(Mulder daydreams sometimes about what it would be like to find William. It's impossible not to. This last case with Goldberg, all those kids in the hospital, he couldn't stop considering the possibilities. What it would mean to Scully, what it would mean to him. Intellectually, he knows they will never get a chance to raise him, or anything like that, but he thinks it'd be enough to know that he was okay. Their son.)

“It's hard not to imagine the person he could've been—the person he is right now,” Scully says softly. “It's hard to think about sometimes, but sometimes I can't help it.” She looks down at the table, her hand flat on the table next to her phone. “Is it the same for you?”

Mulder's eyes stray to her hand. He'd like nothing more than to reach across the table and take it, but he has no idea how she'll react. He held her hand in the car the other night, sitting outside the home she's made without him. He can remember an encounter in a diner not too long ago when he took her hand and she pulled away. He doesn't want to push it. Doesn't want to push her away. He keeps his hands in his lap.

“Yes,” he says, though, a peace offering. The verbal equivalent of taking her hand. “It is.”

Scully smiles wobbily at him across the table. Slides her hand back to curl around her mug. He's tempted to keep going—to ask what she imagines, if she'd like to discuss it more, if she thinks they'll ever see him again—but he doesn't know how. This is dangerous territory. His fingers twitch, like he is longing to reach out and take her hand, but he doesn't move.

---

After dinner, they go back to the local hotel, an old-fashioned inn that looks considerably better than the sad little motel that probably has bed bugs they passed on the way into town. Scully asks for two rooms at the front desk, and Mulder reminds himself that he shouldn't expect anything different. They're not together. They haven't shared a bed in two years.

(He can't help but feel as if he's stuck in the nineties again, awkward and madly in love with his untouchable partner. Except they're both older and smarter and have more history between them. They're married, they lived together for a decade, they have a son out there somewhere. And she loves him, too, or she did once. She told him that she'd always love him. She told him once that this would only be temporary, that she'd come home someday. But he doesn't know what to think now. He wants to believe she'll come home. He wants to believe, but it's hard to know what to believe in anymore.)

(Two hotel rooms. Just like the old days. At least they're side by side.)

Mulder offers to carry her bag, and Scully politely refuses, jabbing him in the side and teasing him a little, and the receptionist winks at them from underneath her jaunty witch’s hat, waves as they walk together to the stairs. Their room is on the third floor, and Mulder is lamenting the lack of an elevator. And then they're standing between the doors of their room, and Mulder remembers how, twenty years ago, he'd make excuses for them to keep working or offer to split a pizza or snacks from the vending machine, just because he wanted to keep hanging out with her. He thinks about doing it now, but what excuse does he have? There's nothing else to investigate.

Scully smiles brightly at him, and it all feels stilted suddenly, like they're putting on a show. He's seen her go to bed angry so many times in the last year or two of their relationship, and it feels impossible that she could be this happy to be with him, here on this dead-end case. “See you tomorrow?” she asks, and he can hardly believe it. If this is the only way he can have her back, for now, he'll take it. The chance to drive into the unknown with her and share small-town diner meals and see her in the morning.

“Bright and early,” he says, unlocking his room. Scully chuckles quietly, and he raises his eyebrows questioningly.

She turns a little red, but explains, “It's just that… that's what you said to me the first time we met. Just before I left. That you'd see me tomorrow, bright and early.”

“How do you remember this things?” he asks in near disbelief, and she chuckles again. He chuckles, too, touches her shoulder, briefly, in some small attempt at intimacy, and starts to turn towards his room—he still has no idea how Scully feels about the way he said goodbye last time, and he certainly doesn't want to push his boundaries. But she surprises him yet again tonight by rising on tiptoes and kissing his cheek this time. “Night, Mulder,” she says in a husky voice. And then she's disappearing into her room, leaving Mulder standing halfway in and halfway out of his doorway with a stunned expression on his face.

Later, he'll be able to hear her pattering around in her room, turning on the TV, calling her mother. The walls in this hotel must be thin as shit. But whatever the case, he finds it comforting: to know she's there and she's all right. It almost feels like being home.

---

Joe O'Connell has never been superstitious, and he's remained un-superstitious throughout all this Willoughby Specter bullshit, as irritating as it all is. (He's not mad at his son, of course. He's mad at that kid Ryan and his fucking ghost stories, at Kenny for making a big deal out of something that was probably a dream or Robbie's imagination, at those two kids who claimed that they also saw the ghost and were probably lying. He's mad at the whole goddamn mania. But he's not mad at Robbie.) He wishes the whole thing would just die down. He resents that the FBI agents, whatever their names are, are here to give his son false hope. He's ready to accept that Bear is gone and just tell Robbie that so they can move on with their lives. Maybe he'll get the boy another dog for Christmas.

But this is before Robbie wakes him up at the crack of dawn the morning after the FBI agents arrive, jumping on top of his stomach and whispering frantically, “Daddy, Daddy, I saw the ghost again!”

Beside him, Bonnie grunts out a dim protest as she turns over; Joe grabs his son and sets him down on the edge of the bed, groaning a little at the pain in his gut. “What happened, Rob?” he asks in a soft voice.

“I saw the ghost!” Robbie is wriggling with excitement, oblivious to his parents’ desire to keep sleeping. “He told me where Bear is! Daddy, you gotta go get him!”

Joe groans, his eyes slipping closed. It isn't that he doesn't believe his son, but it's four a.m. and he'd rather not go on a wild goose chase this early. “Robbie, buddy, I dunno…” he mutters sleepily, ready to tell him to go lie down, and he'll take care of it in a few hours.

“He said it was an abandoned apartment building on Church Street,” Robbie says. “He says someone took Bear there and locked him in.”

And that wakes Joe right up.

Because he knows for a fact that the Caruthers lived on Church Street in a two-apartment building when they were murdered in 2002, and he knows it was put on the market but never sold. And it sounds ridiculous, considering the kid's history, but it seems kind of fitting to him that two members of the Caruthers family would choose the same building to commit their crime.

---

Mulder gets a call from Sheriff O'Connell entirely too early in the morning. He's called to ask a favor—apparently Robbie had another dream about the ghost, telling him where the dog is: an abandoned apartment building on Church Street. “Far as I know,” says O’Connell, “there's only one abandoned apartment building on Church Street. And it's the building that Ryan Caruthers's parents were murdered in.”

Mulder blinks blearily, rubbing at his eyes with the heel of his hand. “So you think…” he says slowly, not entirely awake yet and not completely following what the sheriff is saying.

“I know I said a lot of stuff about this ghost not being real, and I still think that, but…” The sheriff hesitates for a minute before finishing. “I really do think that little shit is involved,” he says. “Revenge for us firing him or something. And that'd be the perfect place to hide Bear if he took him, right? A building he knows is abandoned?”

“Bear?” Mulder asks in confusion.

“Bear,” says O’Connell. “The dog's name is Bear. I'd really appreciate it if you went and took a look.”

Mulder goes. Mostly because it's the best lead they have, and because he wants to know: are the claims legitimate? If the dog is there, than that means there is at least some truth to Robbie's story. It might even prove the existence of the Willoughby Specter, if the ghost just so happened to give Robbie the correct location. He goes, and he texts Scully several times to invite her along. She comes out eventually, her hair strangely wild and her demeanor familiarly sharp, blunted with the impact of being woken before seven o’clock. He pulls through a drive-through and gets them coffee as a peace offering, and her thanks is sincere, but her tone speaks volumes as to her perspective on the whole thing.

By the time they've reached the abandoned apartment building (Willoughby Woods Apartment Building) on Church Street (not entirely hard to find, Sheriff O'Connell had said; just look for the church), Scully has woken up a little more, looks a little less wild and angry. But her attitude towards the case itself does not seem to have improved. “We're out here chasing a dog, Mulder,” she says as they climb out of the car, shivering in the October chill. “Not a criminal. A dog. At six in the morning. ”

“What if it were that dog of yours, Quog?” Mulder asks, hoping he got the name right. He's somewhat annoyed with the case himself, at this point, but his annoyance is mixed with a genuine hope that they find something, some sort of evidence. That this isn't the pointless waste of time Scully said it was, that he's not foolish for believing the word of a six-year-old. Some hope that one of their first cases back isn't total and utter bullshit. “Don't you think that would be worth chasing?”

Scully shoots him a look. “His name was Queequeg,” she says, and Mulder grimaces. (He hadn't gotten the name right.) “And that's not the point, Mulder. How did the ghost tell Robbie where the dog supposedly is? How does that work?”

“I'll remind you that we had two ghosts tell us a lot of things, Christmas Eve of 1998.”

She makes a face at him, partly teasing, partly true malice. (He guesses the memories of the actual haunted house aren't exactly happy ones, although the morning that followed had gone much, much better.) “I'll remind you that whatever happened that night was not real. And this lead feels like a setup. It feels much too convenient.�� They reach the front stoop of the apartment building, and Scully unlocks the dusty door with the key the on-duty officer at the police station had given them. It swings open, the hinges squeaking like the door in a haunted house.

Mulder flips on the flashlight and steps inside. “O’Connell said that the Caruthers's apartment was the one on the first floor,” he says, moving his beam down the dusty, decrepit hallway. There are two doors: one hanging half-open exposing the staircase, and another one with a brass 1 hanging upside down on the door. “Do you still think Ryan Caruthers is responsible? The sheriff suspected that he'd take the dog here.”

“I'm honestly not sure,” Scully says. They start together down the hall towards the apartment door. “I'm guessing you're hoping to find the dog here, though,” she adds. Maybe a little good-naturedly, maybe a little sympathetic.

Mulder throws her a thin, wry smile. He is hoping to find the dog, but he's certainly not looking for sympathy. Not on this subject. “You guessed right.”

The door to the apartment unlocks with the same key as the front door. Inside are bare, empty rooms, a kitchen catty-cornered off from a living room. A window towards the back is broken, a cluster of canned foods and an old blanket in a corner. “It looks like homeless people have been staying here,” Scully says, moving her flashlight across the shell of a home.

Looking down at his feet, standing on the threshold of the apartment, Mulder can see old bloodstains underneath the soles of his shoes and out into the hall, the wood turned pale from where someone tried to bleach it away. He almost shudders. The one thing he knew about home improvement for years, before he bought a house of his own and actually put effort into it, is this: bloodstains don't come up easily. This apartment looks haunted, and not by the Willoughby Specter. By the ghosts of a family torn apart right around the same time that his was. He grimaces, biting back another shudder.

He steps into the apartment himself, angling his flashlight down the hall off to the right. There’s something red-looking and bright on the walls; he jogs across the living room and into the hall to examine and sees jagged words spray-painted there. CURSED CAROTHERS!!! Caruthers is misspelled. “Looks like more than homeless people have been here, Scully,” he calls. He steps inside a large bedroom that must've belonged to the parents; there's more graffiti, some related to the ghost, some not. No dog.

The next room is sadder: painted baby-blue, a old crib on its side on the floor. It feels emptier, somehow. It absurdly makes Mulder want to cry, even though he knows the baby is the one who lived. He tries to stay focused: there's no dog, there, either.

He checks the bathroom and a room that must've been a study, and doesn't find the dog. He checks all the rooms again, even opening the closets, to no avail. Something of disgust is starting to build inside him, mostly aimed at himself. When he reenters the living room, he finds it empty, but Scully reappears a moment later, sticking her head through the front door. “I decided to run upstairs and check the other apartment,” she says, and Mulder is so relieved that she didn't have to see the abandoned nursery that he almost misses what she says next: “Dog's not up there. If he ever was here, he's gone now.” Her eyes are apologetic; there is definitely sympathy now.

Mulder sighs, shaking his head, some strange mix of disappointment and resentment clogging his throat. He probably should've expected something like this based on previous evidence, but a part of him had still hoped the ghost was real. But he supposes that this is the most obvious answer they'll get: it's not. It's a hoax of some sort, or a nightmare, or something, but it probably isn't involved in the disappearance of the dog. He feels foolish, sweat pooling under the wool collar of his coat. “I guess I'll go ahead and call Sheriff O'Connell,” he says. “Let him know we didn't find the dog, and that we're getting out of here. I'm pretty sure he'll agree that there's no reason for us to keep investigating.”

“We don't have to go home right now,” Scully offers half-heartedly. “We could… stay and talk to Ryan Caruthers if you want… We've only been here one night, surely there's still more to investigate...”

“No, Scully, we should go,” says Mulder, defeated. Whatever excitement he'd felt about this case initially is gone, replaced by a general feeling of dismay. The supernatural is less attainable, there is nothing to find in this little town, and his partner pities him. He flips off his flashlight and heads for the door. “You were right from the beginning: this case is a waste of time.”

#xf rewatch #xf fanfic #i wrote this

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mldrgrl · 7 years

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Not Again: Part 2

by: mldrgrl Rating: PG13 Summary: See Part 1

Part 2: Returned Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4

Chapter 5, Day 5:

Scully wakes occasionally through the night, the need to relieve her bladder the main culprit of her restlessness. She sleeps later than usual, having shut off her alarm before she went to bed the night before. She lies in bed and thinks about where she might want to go on the little getaway Mulder’s offered her. The beach sounds nice. Even if she won’t be wearing a suit and she has little tolerance for the sun, it would be nice to smell the salty air and feel an ocean breeze.

It hits her though, as she’s getting dressed, that she is completely unprepared to bring a baby home to this apartment. She has nothing. No onesies, no receiving blankets, no bottles, bibs, crib, nothing. Things like that take time and planning. That’s probably why pregnancy lasted nine months, to give women time to prepare a nursery.

She doesn’t call Mulder ahead of time, she just shows up, knocking on his door at 9am. Not surprisingly, he’s in sweats and a t-shirt when he answers. His hair is spiked up in the back and his eyes are sleepy.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I woke you.”

He yawns and rubs the back of his head. She ducks under his arm to enter his apartment, looking around to see if everything is as she remembers it to be.

“You thought about where you want to go?” he asks.

“Nowhere,” she answers. “I realized that I have nothing for this baby. None of the things I should have. I need to get a crib and...and all the other things.”

“Okay.” He nods and scrubs his face with his hands. “Okay, we’ll go to one of those baby stores and get stuff.”

“I have to get the spare room cleaned out first and paint.”

“You have a spare room?”

“Yeah, across from the bathroom.”

“I always thought that was a closet.”

“No, it’s a spare room. Mostly it’s old textbooks and kind of like a place to store things.”

“Okay, so, paint store first, then baby store.”

“Except I might have to order things and then who knows if they’ll come in time.”

Mulder yawns and scratches the back of his head again. “Have you eaten?”

“Not yet.”

“I’m gonna get dressed and get bagels.”

“And cream cheese?”

“Extra cream cheese with cream cheese on the side,” he says, still scratching the back of his head as he walks away and closes the door to his room.

Only a few minutes later, Mulder emerges in jeans and another t-shirt. He grabs his keys and wallet from the table.

“Stay here, relax, and think about what color paint you want,” he says. “I’ll be back.”

Scully sits back on the couch and closes her eyes. She breathes deeply for a moment. It’s not long before the need to use the bathroom sneaks up on her. She sighs and pushes up from the couch.

Mulder’s bathroom is as cluttered as usual. He’s got a leaky faucet that drips like a metronome. He’s got new towels though, softer than his old ones. She can see that he’s also switched brands of toothpaste and uses the same one she does. Still squeezes from the middle though.

There are file boxes on the floor of Mulder’s bedroom. Probably cases Agent Doggett wouldn’t let him look into. She opens one of them and then drops the lid on the floor when she sees her name on outside of the file.

The cover page is all identifying information. There’s a photo clipped inside that she doesn’t recognize of herself. It looks like a candid. She’s smiling and though it’s a close up of her face, she can make out what looks like a carnival of some sorts in the background past her shoulder.

She flips the page and reads Mulder’s written statement, dated the day after her abduction and witnessed by AD Skinner. He talks about the investigation, mostly, and what they were in the woods in Bellefleur looking for. His handwriting gets a little unsteady when he recounts the moment he witnessed the group disappear.

The next page is the results of a pregnancy test that she ordered and signed for. It’s dated the morning of her abduction. So, she must have known, going out to Bellefleur, that she was pregnant. Her automatic reaction is to touch her stomach apologetically. She’s absolutely sure she didn’t feel there was a danger in going out to Oregon. She never would have put the baby at risk like that.

There’s a memo on Skinner’s letterhead to the HR department requesting that Margaret Scully be removed as emergency contact on her file. She furrows her brow over that, but behind it is a handwritten call log from Skinner’s secretary that indicates the request came from her mother in response to being notified of her disappearance.

The next page is a transcript of an interrogation done by Agent Reyes of Mulder. Her breath catches in her throat as she reads it.

AGENT REYES: You and Agent Scully were close?

AGENT MULDER: Yes, we are close.

AGENT REYES: Right.

AGENT MULDER: To pick up where Agent Doggett left off, yes, we’re more than just partners, though that's been a more recent development in our relationship.

AGENT REYES: How recent?

AGENT MULDER: About four months recent.

AGENT REYES: Why?”

AGENT MULDER: Why what?

AGENT REYES: Why did you decide to become intimate with your partner?

AGENT MULDER: It wasn't so much of a decision as...it just happened.

Her hands are shaking as she closes the file. She holds it to her chest as she gets up and goes back out to the living room. She’s standing in the middle of the room when Mulder comes back with the bagels and as he raises the bag at her with a smile, she holds up the file in her hand.

“You lied to me,” she says.

Mulder glances from the file in her hand to her face. “Scully, I...I didn’t lie.”

“You made me believe something that wasn’t the truth. A lie by omission.”

“No, I never...you didn’t ask. If you had asked me-”

“How the hell am I supposed to ask if you’re the father of my baby?”

“I thought, at the very least, you would know that.”

“Well, I didn’t. I didn’t know anything. And you know everything and you didn’t tell me.”

“I wanted to. God, Scully, I wanted to tell you so badly.”

The jabbing pain Scully felt the night before returns, only a little sharper and more intense. She winces and grabs her side, hunching slightly. Her mind flashes onto another moment in time, of waking up on Mulder’s couch, covered with his Navajo blanket. She’d let it slip to the floor and walked into his bedroom.

“Scully, are you okay?”

Mulder’s arms go around her and he hunches with her, supporting her. She pushes him away and straightens with a small groan.

“Why did you keep it from me?” she asks. “Were you hoping I’d never find out? Do you not want this baby?”

“Jesus, of course I want this baby!” he shouts. “I was hoping you’d remember us on your own. Don’t forget, I know you, Scully. You can’t be told something, you have to see it for yourself. It wouldn’t have been enough for me to tell you about the four months we were together, you’d need proof.”

“I do need proof.”

“And forgive me,” he continues. “But, I didn’t know what to think. Every other abductee that’s come back is only missing a day of memory at most. Whatever process you went through is intended to erase the painful memories, I think. And you lost the entire time we were together. What’s that tell me?”

“I guess we’ll never know.”

The pain gripping her side becomes too intense to bear any longer and she cries out. It brings her to her knees, but Mulder is there, holding her up. He gathers her close and eases her onto the couch, touching her cautiously.

“Call an ambulance,” she whispers. Her chin has begun to tremble, an indication to her that her blood pressure has risen. Her vision starts to swim and she blacks out.

*****

For the second time in a week, Scully wakes up in a hospital. It’s evening, judging by the low light coming through the window, and her room is dim with only the soft light above her bed on. She has a vague recollection of being loaded into an ambulance and being admitted and of Mulder shouting at people.

She’s groggy and knows she doesn’t have all her wits about her, but she feels the baby stir inside her and she thinks that must mean he’s okay. She places her hands on her belly and breathes deeply.

“Hey, you’re awake.”

Scully turns her eyes to the door and sees Mulder enter. He rushes over to her side and puts a hand on her shoulder to keep her down when she tries to sit up. “Don’t strain,” he says.

“Thirsty,” she answers, licking her parched lips.

He pours a cup of water for her and adjusts the bendable straw to her mouth. She drinks what she needs and then tips her head away.

“What happened?” she asks.

“The doctor said it’s a partial abruption,” he answers, taking a seat in the chair next to her bed. “He wants you to rest and he says he’s going to keep you here for a few days to monitor you and the baby.”

She caresses her belly lightly. “He’s okay?”

“You’re both fine.”

“I’m sorry that I-”

“No, I’m sorry,” he interrupts. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“And I should have told you from the beginning, but I just didn’t know how.”

“Quite honestly, Mulder, if the situation was reversed, I don’t know that I would know how either.”

Mulder’s cell phone rings and he fishes it out of his pocket, looks at the display, silences it, and then puts it back in his pocket.

“What is it?” she asks.

“Reyes,” he answers, shaking his head a little.

Her mood changes with the mention of Agent Reyes. Whatever was there between them before her abduction, six months is a long time to wait, and he never gave any indication they’d made promises to each other. If he has feelings for Agent Reyes, she will have to understand.

Scully moves her hands lower on her abdomen and looks up at the ceiling. “Shouldn’t you answer her?”

“She wanted me to take a look at a case she’s working on. We got cut off earlier when I was in the hall. It’s not urgent.”

“You can go.”

He shakes his head.

“Seriously, Mulder, you don’t have to worry about me if that’s what’s stopping you.”

“Of course I’m worried about you. Both of you.”

“I’ll just be resting.”

“I’d rather be here.”

“To do what?”

He purses his lips and cocks his head slightly. “Be here,” he states, like he doesn’t understand the question.

“Take the call. Work the case. I don’t need you.”

The instant the words are out of her mouth, she sees the hurt on his face, but she doesn’t want him there out of a sense of obligation. He’s hesitant to get up, looking at her incredulously, but finally he stands. His arm swings up like he’s going to touch her, but then he curls his hand into a loose fist and drops his arm.

“Call me if you need anything,” he says.

She watches him go and then tips her head back, releasing the tears that had threatened to come just a few minutes ago. They roll down her temples and into her hair.

*****

#i wrote this #xf fanfic #season 8 au #msr #ANGST

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martymulders · 7 years

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Alright, so, I was on this site. And the author of the article was just talking about some ideas they’d like to see happen in season 11 of TXF. Nothing solid, just some ideas. They named off some characters they’d like to see back and, of course, one caught my eye immediately. Here’s the quote:

Krycek. If they can bring back the Lone Gunmen (and waste them in a small cameo) and the Cigarette Smoking Man after being thoroughly napalmed to death somewhere in Arizona, surely production can find a way for Nicholas Lea to make an appearance. Ooh, maybe he’s raising William somewhere in Vancouver B.C. [...]

"Maybe he’s raising William somewhere in Vancouver, B.C.”

MY. FUCKING. BRAIN. EXPLODED.

NOW HEAR ME OUT X-PHILES, OKAY!? JUST HEAR ME OUT. HOW FUCKING AMAZING WOULD THAT BE? VERY AMAZING. Lemme explain. Let this idea sink in, ok?

IMAGINE IF

It turns out that the Van De Kamps were killed a long time ago, either by the remains of the Syndicate or the Rebels or whoever, when William was still a small child--maybe even a toddler. They’ve been looking for him. He’s a very special little boy. They’re not the only ones, though: Krycek’s been looking for him, too. He’s a critical pawn in this game he’s been playing for years and he /wants/ this kid. He /needs/ this kid. Remembering Krycek’s motivations are important here: Mulder says in the show that Krycek, ultimately, wants to achieve the same goal that him and Scully do. He wants to save the world, save himself, but unlike our heroes, he’ll do that through any means necessary. His moral compass isn’t as strong as Mulder’s, he sees morality as a crutch, as something that will get you killed and make you lose. But, in the end, Krycek just wants to stop colonization and bring down the Syndicate the same way.

The day the Van De Kamps are killed, Krycek--as he’s prone to do--is only just a step behind the murderers. He waits in the shadows, he waits for his moment and after the parents are dead (Krycek wouldn’t kill them unless they got in the way, his plan was to take the boy and bolt before they even realized he was gone) he strikes and kills the Syndicate member/Rebel/etc. He takes William to Canada, an isolated shack where they’re away from society. Krycek knows what’s coming and he knows William is the only hope. He’s got to prepare this kid, he’s got to train him.

That’s right. We go full fucking Mr. Miyagi here. He raises William to be a badass, shadow-stalking Alien-hunter. He’s been getting this kid ready for years. Now, Krycek doesn’t want to be a daddy, he’s no interest in being a daddy. He tells the kid about his parents. His real parents: Mulder and Scully. William’s wanted to meet them for a long time but he knows, as Krycek’s told him, that he’s meant for something great and he needs to be ready to face that head-on. For all intents and purposes, Krycek and William are friends. In a sad way, they’re all the other has. They fight together, they hunt together and Krycek’s taught William how to play Poker. Maybe he’s even let William try vodka for the first time.

Mulder and Scully find William (perhaps even, Krycek BRINGS William to them) They’re horrified to learn their son has been in the hands of this rat, this traitor for all these years. It disgusts them, it makes them angry. William is happy to finally meet them--Krycek’s told him stories about them. They’re happy to finally have William... but the rift comes in the form of Krycek. Krycek does nothing to separate the newly-found parents with their son. It’s quite the opposite: It’s Mulder and Scully who want him gone. They don’t trust him, they’ll never trust him and they want William to see the rat bastard that he really is. William lays down a little wisdom of their asses: That was then and this is now, he tells them, whoever he was before that’s not who he is now and William trusts him and William believes in him.

They realize it’s not just about Krycek--it’s about their son. They have to trust in *him*. They do and the four of them (and the rest. Skinner, Reyes and maybe Doggett) solve whatever crazy-ass business is going on in season 10/11. Mulder and Scully have William, William has his parents and Krycek finally finds redemption. End of series. Done.

“That’s great,” you say, “but how would Krycek even still be alive? He got a bullet in the head!” -- as the author said, the CSM got napalmed in the face and that didn’t seem to stop him. There are numerous, canonically-legit ways to bring Krycek back:

He’s a super solider

He’s a clone (or it was a clone they killed)

(and my personal favorite) He has nanobots in him. Remember the nanobots from S.R. 819? They hurt Skinner because Krycek controlled them to his bidding--but what if he had them too and, when left to their own devices, they helped heal the human body? They could push that bullet right out and reconnect the membrane and tissue like *snaps fingers* that. Perhaps his arm too! Or, one could say, that because his arm was removed /before/ the nanobots, the tissue was already dead and unable to revived.

COME THE HELL ON. WOULD THAT NOT BE TOTALLY FUCKING AWESOME!?

We all want Mulder and Scully to get William and, goddamnit, Krycek deserves his redemption! “The Truth” redemption wasn’t enough. REAL redemption.

#IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN #BUT HOW FUCKING COOL WOULD THAT BE!?#at least i have a good fic idea

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ntheclover · 7 years

Text

All Who Enter In

Author: @ntheclover

Rated: R for disturbing imagery

Length: 2k words

Triggers: Death

Thanks for the prompt and beta read from @2moms-0fucks

Why not celebrate the news of season 11 with the abduction and death of Mulder in season 8 and the aftermath he left for those closest to him.

Helena, Montana 7:59pm

“This is not happening!”

First, the uncontrolled sobs consume her body followed by a wave of nausea then narrowed vision; as if she may lose consciousness. The spinning room forces her to lie on her side, pulling her legs toward her chest. Her hands go instinctively to her lower abdomen, to the place where her heart now resides alone with her unborn child. Mulder’s gone… He’s really gone…

Agent John Doggett knows Scully’s unique and terrible kind of pain. It was in a field, much like this one, that a mad man dumped the body of his young son. It is the first thing he thinks about every morning and the last thing that he sees when he closes his eyes at night. The nightmares are always the same: Monica, the uniformed men surrounding the small lifeless body, the look of pity from them all. No one knows what to say to you when you lose a loved one in such a sudden and violent way. Words can’t heal wounds ripped that deep.

He runs after Scully, knowing she is now lost in her own nightmare. Yelling her name as he navigates the dark forest underbrush, he catches a glimpse of her through the trees. She appears to be headed to the compound which is now bathed in a strange bright light. It blinds him temporarily and he has to stop and shield his eyes with his hand. When his vision returns, she is gone.

Once inside the dilapidated building, he searches the faces in the room scanning for a glimpse of red hair. Yelling her name, he grabs the closest person by the shirt collar and asks them if they know where she is. They all point to toward a small room at the back, the one where the man known as Jeremiah once stood. He crosses the threshold and finds her there, collapsed at his feet. “Agent Scully…” His voice little more than a whisper and thick with concern, he reaches down for her.

Her crying grows louder when he tries to pull her up and remove her from her place on the filthy wooden floor. Elbowing at him she cries out wanting to be left alone, for him to just leave her there and go away.

“I’m not leaving you…” she hears his words muffled like he is at the end of a long dark tunnel. Having not had a night of peaceful sleep since Mulder had been taken, her energy finally dissipates as does her desire to keep fighting. She gives in to his embrace and allows him to pick her up and carry her. He cradles her in to his chest where she goes limp and surrenders to the grief.

Monica finds them at the door then staggers back a step, grabbing at the door frame for balance. She can feel their shared anguish slam her in the chest pushing the air from her lungs. John eyes her with concern but she recovers and waves him off. She touches John’s shoulder then brushes an errant lock of hair from Scully’s forehead. Beyond being physically with them she feels helpless, the weight of their combined emotions too heavy. Scully speaks between sobs to her, incoherent at first but after a few attempts she can hear “Mulder…alone…be with…him…”

“He’s not alone, Dana” replies Reyes. “Skinner is with him. He won’t leave him and he wants you to go to your hotel and get some rest.”

Scully lifts her head from her tear soaked spot on Doggett’s jacket and looks at Monica with panicked eyes. “No! I’m not leaving him!” She pushes at John to let her down which he does to keep from dropping her. Monica grabs her wrist and pulls her back.

“Dana, let us take you. There will be investigators that need to photograph the area. You know the protocols and you know what they will need to do. If at any time you want to leave, we leave.”

John takes her other wrist and adds “If I feel it is too much, I’m taking you outta there. You hear me?” Scully numbly nods and wipes at her face, trying to convince them that she is up for this.

After calling in to the local authorities and reporting the death to FBI headquarters, A.D. Skinner walks away from the commotion and leans heavy against the side of a nearby tree. He notices his three agents as they walk down the hill towards the field to the decaying corpse of Special Agent Mulder. The search party is now in recovery mode, surrounding the immediate area with yellow crime scene tape. John and Monica each have Scully by an elbow her eyes red and swollen, her chest still racked with muffled sobs. Her attempt to look strong at this moment doesn’t fool him. He has never seen her so lost.

Skinner turns away from this hell. He had promise Scully she wouldn’t come across her partner dead in a field and that is exactly what fate has delivered. Removing his glasses and bringing his forearm up to his face, he wipes at the trail of a tear that escaped from his eye. He hurts for her, for what they have all been through and for a child that will never know a father. Guilt pulls at him. If had hadn’t lost Mulder in the woods of Oregon, none of this would be happening.

Doggett can feel Scully’s body become tense when they are close enough to see Mulder. Large portable lights are being set up around the area to illuminate the body for pictures and evidence collection. One of the team puts up a hand to stop them from entering.

“Agent Scully, I’m sorry for the loss of your partner, I truly am, but we have established the perimeter and we can’t let you near him until he has been released in to our custody from the local Medical Examiner office.” Monica steadies Scully as she wobbles then addresses the man. “Why are we bringing in the locals? The FBI has a right to jurisdiction and a forensic team in Helena.”

The man shakes his head. “Yeah but we don’t have a medicalegal investigator. Agent Scully is the only FBI examiner we have currently in state and for obvious reasons that is not going to work. Headquarters has asked us to use the local office for initial investigation, bagging and tagging then we are flying him to Quantico for an exam in the morning.”

Scully’s knees begin to buckle, the weight of this reality becoming too much for her. She knows the procedures, how deceased humans are placed in thick plastic body bags with a paper tag looped around their big toe for identification. How they are refrigerated to prevent further decay, the exams and autopsies that follow a suspicious or unexplained death. A pathologist will make a Y incision, then the removal and weighing of organs, tissue samples and stomach contents. There will be blood samples taken and toxicological tests to run. It is her knowledge of these things that almost bring her to her knees once again. The thought of her beautiful Mulder being tossed in a bag and transported like any other body that she had examined over the last ten years breaks her. He was not just anyone. He was hers.

She decides then that his body has been through enough. She stands up with John’s help and focuses on the man who seems to be in charge. “I am Agent Mulder’s Power of Attorney and it has a post death clause that allows me to make his arrangements. His family is Jewish which means he must be buried without an autopsy, without embalming and soon. We are going to let this team come in here, take photos, and collect whatever they need. Then you are going to put Mulder on a plane with me to Quantico where he will be examined with me present. You got that?” Before the man can answer, Skinner places a firm hand on his shoulder. “Do what Agent Scully says, now!”

Quantico Morgue, Washington D.C. 8:15am

Scully stands in an autopsy suite at Quantico, a work space she and Mulder have shared many times over the years. Today, he lays on a metal tray cold and nude before her, Frank the forensic tech is photographing his injuries as she points them out. Having performed the autopsy on Gary, who was found in a field just prior to Mulder, she knows the damage the abduction has caused: trauma from restraints on all four extremities, deep bilateral lacerations to the face, biopsy incisions in the soft pallet and sinus cavity, multiple injection sites and the bisected sternum with scooped bone and tissue missing inside the chest cavity. His once perfect form now shows an advanced state of neglect, dehydration and malnutrition. Without knowing the exact details of the environment his body was held in while missing, it was hard to say when he met his death. With the absence of rigor mortis and the appearance of his skin she thinks it has been two or three days. Her clinical detachment waning, she takes a step back and takes in a few deep breaths in attempt to calm herself.

Dr. Meredith Jenkins is currently the only other female pathologist at Quantico and she is one of the few co-workers Scully socializes with besides Mulder. A.D. Skinner called her at dawn to ensure she would personally work this case. After he and Agent Doggett dropped Scully off this morning they refuse to leave her, holding vigil in the lobby. Grabbing a steaming cup of black coffee, she scans the Field Report and the Report of Investigation Skinner just handed her.

Performing a forensic exam on a fellow agent is always hard and when you know them personally, it is damn near impossible. Witnessing it being done on someone you love-well that qualifies as torture. Dana is a private person but Meredith has spent enough lunch breaks with her to know that Dana Scully loved Fox Mulder in every way there is to love another person.

With a deep sigh she sips her coffee and ponders how she can talk her friend out of putting herself through this. But like all others that know her, she is familiar with Dr. Scully’s large streak of stubborn determination. It would be a lost cause.

She enters the room to find Scully in pathologist mode: scrubs, hair pulled back and donning protective eyewear. Blonde with an athletic build and over six feet tall, she towers over Scully as she places an arm around her shoulders and pulls her in to a comforting side hug. “I was told you wanted to observe the exam.” She pauses then adds, “Dana, do you think this is a good idea?”

Scully stares ahead, her eyes focused on Mulder. She shrugs then responds in a slow and measured tone. “Meredith, I appreciate your concern but I know this case, I know how I want this handled and… I have to be here. I have to be with him every possible second I can be with him. Even if it is here… and I have to wear gloves to touch him, I have to be here.” Tears she thought she had exhausted start down her face causing the tech to pause from taking pictures and stare in uncomfortable silence.

Dr. Jenkins waves him over and takes the camera. “Thanks Frank, you can go now. We can finish this.” Meredith can’t imagine the pain, the living hell Scully has gone through and is standing in the middle of right now. She takes the camera and nods to her friend. “Are you ready for this?” With a deep breath and a long exhale, Scully nods. Together they document the story his body has to tell, a grisly portrait of his sacrifice and last testament to the truth he died trying to find.

Once they have completed the external exam, Scully thanks Dr. Jenkins for her kindness and asks if she can stay with Mulder until the funeral home arrives. There will be a delay, she is told and she has another hour with him. Waiting silent beside his corpse is not an option-she just mentally can’t. She wants to interact with him here in this place one last time and decides to bathe him. An unusual act for a pathologist but it may be their last time alone and she wants to show him one final act of love. After gathering the supplies, she runs warm water through the clear hose then takes his pale hand into her gloved one.

With a sponge and slow delicate motions, she soaps his arms that have held her when she needed comfort, his chest she laid her head on while watching old movies on his couch late at night, his beautiful face and lips that she sees every time she closes her eyes, and his thighs that have that ticklish spot that she loved to kiss. She rinses him then gently washes his hair with the shampoo she keeps in her Quantico locker. She weeps as the lavender scented bubbles swirl down the drain. After drying him with a towel, she removes her latex gloves.

With her hands now bare she runs her finger tips over him, committing the wonderful shapes of Fox Mulder to her memory. Pulling a white sheet from a nearby shelf she lays it over him and places a kiss to his forehead then whispers “goodbye, my love” as the funeral staff arrives to take him away.

#thexfiles #fanfic

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snickerl · 7 years

Text

Pater Vero

an X-Files fanfic

Please forgive me posting this midway through my other story Elixir Vitae but I believe many of your are familiar with the sometimes annoying concept of having more than just one story in the making. As this is the final chapter of this one, I can focus on the other from now on.

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five

Chapter Six

"That was fun!" William exclaims happily, letting himself fall onto the stairs of the porch. He's just outplayed Mulder at a best-of-five basketball challenge from the three-point line. "I wished my dad would shoot hoops with me."

'I am your dad,' Mulder wants to cry out but recollects himself. He's William's biological father, his begetter, his genetic roots, nothing else. A man has to earn the label 'dad', and Walter has done that for William. His own role in his son's life has been so picayune, it's close to non-existent.

"Do you have a hoop at home?" Mulder asks.

"Yes, we do. Dad put it up for my eighth or ninth birthday, I can't remember exactly. He even paved the driveway for me to be able to practice dribbling. It was a loose gravel surface before."

"That was nice of him."

"Yeah, it was. But he never played with me."

"Well, you can't have all the cookies," Mulder supplies. "He's a good dad."

"The best," William adds.

Mulder feels a sting in his heart and reprimands himself for it right away. That's what they always wanted, right? That William had the best adoptive parents in the world? So why does he secretly rejoice over the fact that shooting hoops is something he can do with his boy but not Walter? How come he wants Walter to not be the perfect dad? He feels bad for it but he wishes his son to see something in him he doesn't see in Walter. He craves nothing more but a special place in William's heart.

Simply having these thoughts makes Mulder sick inside. He knows Scully is much more selfless than he can ever be, taking comfort in the knowledge that Helen has been such a good mother to William all these years, that she has loved and cared for William just as she would've done. For Mulder, it's not so easy to accept that he'd been so easily replaced. Well, he hadn't put the bar up very high, so probably anyone would've been a better dad than he. Actually, he can't rule out the idea that the boy was lucky to have been spared a father like him.

He hears William apologize through his bitter contemplation. "Uh, what?"

"Sorry for having called him the best dad. I didn't mean to offend you."

"It's alright, Will," Mulder says, moved by the boy's sympathy but also feeling stupid because of the childish and uncalled for jealousy which had just been invading his thoughts.

Being a good dad means so much more than shooting hoops or making buttered popcorn, Mulder thinks. Walter has given William love and safety, he raised him, cared for him, taught him the lessons of life and protected him against its rigors. He gave him the roots Scully had to cut by giving him up for adoption. He was - and still is - the best dad.

"Did you ever think of having another child?" Mulder hears William ask him.

Mulder needs to collect his thoughts for a moment before he's able to answer. He might have, but he knew Scully would've never been able to cope with it. So he never lost a word about her demanding they care for birth control.

"Not really. Our lives were crazy at the time, totally inappropriate for an infant. We'd have to drag it through the country, buckled up in a car for many hours straight, with no chance to make friends and have fun like a normal child."

"Because you had to hide?"

"Exactly. The kid wouldn't have been able to go to school even."

"That sounds good, though," William says with a grin.

"Oh, Scully would've been a relentless private teacher, of that I'm sure!" Mulder grins back.

William is quiet for a moment, maybe trying to picture being home schooled by Scully.

"Is that what your life was like? I mean driving around the country for hours? Without social interaction? Without fun?"

"More or less," Mulder says.

They interacted and they had fun, but only with each other. It was enough for them at the beginning. They had a lot to catch up on. It was the first time they could act openly on their feelings, and they made the most of it. But as time progressed, isolation took its toll on them, especially on Scully. She missed her family, her mother in particular. And although she never blamed him for her situation, insisting it had been her own decision to join him in his flight, he couldn't help feeling guilty over having inflicted this on her. If William had been with them, it would've only doubled his guilt.

"Are you going to tell me why you and Dana had to hide?"

"Well, it's a very long and complicated story. We got into trouble with very powerful people and I overplayed my hand, made a lot of enemies. They threw me in jail based on false accusations and threatened to never let me out again."

No way is he going to tell him that he was convicted, albeit falsely, of having committed murder and condemned to death by lethal injection. Mulder doubts William would believe what he'd tell him about the survival capability of super-soldiers and an alien-human hybrid race.

Or maybe he would?

"Scully...Dana...she helped me break out of prison."

William's eyes widen. "Cool!"

William's excitement makes Mulder chuckle. Of course, to a sixteen year-old teenager this part of their lives sounds like one big, thrilling adventure story, like a Hollywood blockbuster he'd watch with his friends at the local movie theater. Only that in Hollywood blockbusters, in the end, the good ones obtain the upper hand while the evil ones get what they deserve. In their case, they'd sacrificed so much and had gotten almost nothing in return.

"Yeah, she was pretty cool," Mulder ponders. "She was the coolest babe you can imagine," he raves absentmindedly. William giggles.

Mulder remembers the way Scully took the stand and stood up to the men who put him on trial in that fake courtroom. How her efforts to get him out of there didn't wane a bit no matter how hopeless the endeavor seemed to be. How, after the guilty verdict had been spoken, she sent Reyes, Doggett and Skinner to pull him out of his cell and waited for him at the gates of the military base in the darkness, ready to leave her old life behind and follow him into an unsure future with nothing save the clothes she was wearing.

"Your mother...Dana...was...she simply was..." He lacks the words to describe what she was. She was his life buoy, his guardian angel, his light in the darkness that much is clear, but how can he explain the indefinite scope of his worship and admiration for her to a teenager?

"How come she felt it was okay for herself to live that kind of life with you but at the same time didn't want me to be there?" There's no offense in William's voice, no blame or accusation, only curiosity and urge for knowledge.

"Believe me, Will, she would've wanted you to be there! I bet she daydreamed you were in the back of the car, strapped in your baby seat, as often as I did."

Mulder caught her a few times staring in the rear view mirror at the spot where William's car seat would've been fixed. A cold fist squeezed his heart whenever they were in a grocery store passing the baby food aisle or trying to ignore children's apparel whenever they had to shop for clothes. On William's fourth birthday, he found her standing in front of a little supermarket's cake counter, staring at a cake covered in blue sugar icing, the words 'for our birthday boy' written across in joyful letters. He can't recall how they survived that day.

He shakes his head to dispel the painful flashbacks and continues explaining, "It was okay for her because it was an autonomous decision she made for her own adult life. She had to live with the consequences of her actions, and believe me she did with grim determination. It was not okay for you, though, because you were an independent human being, a little innocent boy having the right to lead a normal life far away from threat, fear, and chase. She couldn't bring herself to decide for you to have a life like ours."

"You could've had another child after you'd settled down in that country house you told me about. It sounds like a place similar to where we live. You were still young enough to have children."

"And do what? Replace you?" Mulder shakes his head. "No, Will, it wouldn't have been fair to the child. We would've put so much hope into it, it could've never lived up to that."

William looks at Mulder his eyes traveling from head to toe. He seems to evaluate the words he's going to say. Finally, he speaks. "You would've made great parents," he says, "I call myself lucky to have been your son."

Have been?

The words feel like a stab in his heart. Mulder takes a sharp inhale.

"I mean," William splutters self-consciously as if what hit Mulder so deeply was written on his forehead, "I still am, right?"

Mulder can't help but answer by pulling William into an embrace, folding his arms around the boy and pressing him to his chest. He kisses his hair and whispers to his scalp, "you are, buddy! You definitely are and always have been!"

Father and son remain entangled for a few moments, tears running down both of their faces. Whereas Mulder is not ashamed of them, he can tell William feels a bit awkward when he brushes them away eagerly with both hands as soon as they break apart.

"Will I see you again?" William asks.

"If you want to, and if your parents are okay with it."

William ponders for a moment, and Mulder can literally see the thoughts flurrying in his head. He furrows his eyebrows and wrinkles his nose just like Scully does when she's racking her brain about something.

"Of course, I want to! I have so many questions for you! And I'm pretty sure my parents won't mind. They helped me with my search for you," he grins sheepishly, "and I think they like you."

"Your parents are wonderful, Will. Don't ever forget that."

"Yeah, they are. Although sometimes I'd like to launch them up into outer space!"

Mulder gives a short, hearty laugh. "I can imagine! Who does not for just once want to launch their parents into outer space?" Mulder, on his part, had wanted to break his birth father's neck more than once, but that's another story.

"What are the X-Files?" William asks in such a casual way as if he was asking about what time it was, taking his father completely off guard.

Mulder chokes violently, hoping he misheard. "What?"

"What. Are. The X-Files?" The boy repeats his question, his voice signaling now that he's determined to get an answer.

"How do you know about them?"

"I Googled you."

Mulder is not an expert when it comes to internet search engines but he doubts that information about the X-Files can be found so easily. Scully's and his work was confidential, classified even within the FBI, how could a sixteen year-old get hold of them?

"And what exactly did you find?" he probes.

"Not much, that's why I asked. I found out that Dana and you worked for a unit called the X-Files for eight years before it was shut down. Interestingly enough, I couldn't find anything else. The only links I was able to follow lead to an organization called MUFON and a somewhat mysterious group under the name of The Lone Gunmen."

Mulder gasps. William found information about his three friends who'd been more than cautious when it came to covering up their tracks? How was that even possible?

"That information is available on the internet?" Mulder can't quite believe it.

"Well...it's not like it lies around there in the open, easy to access for everyone."

"I see. So how did you get hold of it then? You weren't hacking FBI servers, were you? That's a federal offense," Mulder hurries to tell his son.

"No, I didn't."

Mulder heaves a sigh of relief.

"A friend of mine was," the boy admits with a nonchalant grin developing on his face.

Mulder winces.

"Relax, dad, he's really good at it! He knows how to disguise his identity while online. He started hacking the servers of our school when he was ten to get the answers of upcoming exams. He never got caught!" he tells his father, and the pride about his source displayed on his face speaks volumes.

Why is Mulder so surprised anyway? William is their son, Scully's and his. They're both curious people, hungry to solve a mystery when it crosses their path. This is part of their DNA, and they passed it on obviously. William had set his mind on finding information about his birth parents and pursued the quest no matter what with the help of trustworthy friends, just like the younger version of himself. Mulder can't keep the corners of his mouth from rising into a slight smile.

He evaluates the situation. "So, you found out about MUFON and The Lone Gunmen, and you know that your mother and I worked for the X-Files. What else do you want to know?"

"Who were The Lone Gunmen? I read a couple of their magazines. Cool stuff!"

Mulder shakes his head and chuckles. He hasn't thought of them for a while and a part of him is thankful for William having called them back into his mind.

"They were really good friends of mine. Good people I could always rely on." 'Who helped me save your mother several times,' he almost adds. Without them, he would've never been able to retrieve the vial with the chip that cured her cancer, let alone understand what it was.

"And MUFON?"

"MUFON stands for Mutual UFO Network," Mulder explains.

"Aaand?" William probes, clearly aware that Mulder is holding back all the interesting stuff.

"And what?"

"What did you and Dana have to do with it? If the X-Files had anything to do with UFOs and what the Gunmen wrote about, it must have been pretty exciting to work in that field. The paranormal, the occult, the extraterrestrial have always interested me. Maybe I inherited that from you, Fox. I want to know everything about it."

Mulder hesitates to answer because he knows William won't like it, but what can he do?

"I can't tell you, Will."

"Why not?" William asks, disappointment written all over his face.

Mulder inhales deeply. He rakes his hair, jumps up from the stairs and starts pacing the porch.

"Because the information is not good for you! You've got to trust me, buddy, you don't want to know what Dana and I saw while we were working on the X-Files." 'And especially not what happened to us,' he manages to gulp down before the words could leave his mouth.

Mulder knows he sounds patronizing, and he remembers saying something similar to Scully many, many years ago, when he'd found out about the date the world would end and didn't dare to tell her because he thought she wouldn't be able to handle it. He was feeling as bad then as he is now, holding back information from someone who's seeking it so badly. It ate him up how fiercely Scully fought for him, for his life, begging him to open up to her, to help her in saving his life, implying it was not a lone wolf's fight. But how could he have told her that the apocalypse was imminent? That all their sacrifices had been for naught? That they hadn't been able to save a single life? That their son wouldn't live long enough to become a teenager? His heart was bleeding whenever he looked into her eyes, and he knew it would continue doing so as long as he lived, so his life coming to an end in the near future wasn't even such a dreadful idea.

At that moment, his remaining lifespan seemed so unworth living. His quest had been condemned to failure from the start, he'd lost his son, he'd never get out of that prison cell anyway, so why bother? He knew he was disappointing her, but he hoped that somehow she'd be able to lead a happy life after he was gone, in sweet ignorance of what was going to happen December 21st, 2012. He even hoped she'd find love again, with a decent man, not a weirdo like him. He really and truly hoped she'd leave him to his fate, forget him and fall in love with someone else. What a crazy thought that was! The forerunners of his depression had obviously made themselves felt already.

It was the darkest time of his life, the only person with an ability to heal him being Scully. Who else? She pulled him out of that black hole that was his prison cell as well as his mind and enlightened his existence by running with him. He seized every moment with her in the strong belief their world would collapse in 2012, and when it didn't, the hole he was falling into was even darker and deeper than the one he'd already been in. And this time, not even Scully could pull him out of it.

Mulder descended to his past so deeply, he's almost forgotten he's not alone on that porch. William pulls him back to the here and now, whining, "but daaad..."

He said it. He uttered the magic word. Dad. He is a dad. William's dad. And he has Scully in his life. Miraculously, she came back to him. Is this supposed to be the best time of his life now? Have the dark forces had enough with using him as a pawn in their sick plan to rule the world? He's having difficulties embracing the idea.

"What, William? The X-Files are closed and have been for many years. For the better, I guess." He lowers himself on the stairs again, not as close to his son as before.

William is not ready to give in yet. "Your lives are a mystery to me, dad! Yours and mom's! I mean, it seems to me you gave me up because of your work on those files, so wouldn't you say I have a right to know why that happened to me?" He gets really worked up. Now it's him who jolts up, towering over his father. He looks down on him when he goes on pleading his case. "I mean, fuck, if I lost my parents because of those shitty X-Files, I want to know all about them!"

"No expletives, young man!" Mulder says and is instantly dumbfounded by this unexpected outburst of fatherly teaching.

Father and son stare at each other for a moment, then both burst out laughing.

"Sorry," Mulder apologizes, "I don't know where that came from." He props his elbows up on his thighs and buries his head in his hands to keep it from spinning. "Jesus, I thought we closed this chapter years ago."

So many bitter emotions are resurfacing with a vengeance - the fear, the sorrow, the helplessness...the guilt. Somewhere in the back of his head Will's words still resonate.

"Did you really feel like you lost us? I was always under the impression that children who'd been given up loathed their birth parents for it," Mulder mumbles.

William resumes his place next to Mulder who's staring straight ahead, not able to look the boy in the eye. The teenager scoots close and slides his arm around his father's shoulder in a comforting gesture.

"Dad, I told you that I've been raised in the knowledge that I'd been given up for my own good. Walter and Helen have been very stubborn with this. Whenever I doubted myself, asking what was wrong with me that I'd been given up, they told me that I was perfectly okay and given up because I was loved and not because I wasn't. Eventually, I believed them, and as I became older, I was able to understand that only very special people, people who loved their child more than themselves, would do something like this."

Mulder swallows hard. He knows it had been one of Scully's worst fears that William grew up with the idea in his head that he was an unwanted child, unloved and uncared for, given up only to get rid of him. That he would never know how much he meant to his birth parents broke her heart.

At least, Scully had been able to give the child her love for ten long months, whereas he had only been allowed to pamper him for a few weeks. How much of an impression can a man make on his son in a few weeks? Especially if he hadn't known that it'd be all he'd get to spend with him, that he'd never see him again. As dreadful and deplorable as her situation was, Scully could at least seize those last days with him, could do all the things she wanted to do with him one last time. She could say goodbye to William. He was confronted with the fact his son was irretrievably lost at no notice. The missed opportunities, the time he wasted with reading or napping instead of nestling the baby up his chest or tickling his tummy, almost killed him.

"What I didn't understand," William continues, pulling Mulder out of his musings, "and still don't, is how it came to this? What happened to get you into a situation to be forced to give up your child? Obviously, neither of you has ever really gotten over it."

"No, we haven't," Mulder admits in a raspy voice. "Not me, nor you mom."

"Can't you tell me anything, dad? Anything that helps me understand what we had gotten into?"

We. 'We' is the key word. They had gotten William into the heap of shards their lives were at the time. "Don't you see, Will, that the sole reason Scully gave you up was to get you out of that mess? How can I pull you back in now? Knowledge can be an obligation, William. Your mother and I sacrificed a great deal of our lives for what we came to know, the greatest sacrifice of all being you. We don't want you to do the same."

William takes his time to let that sink in. He grinds his teeth. It's difficult for him to leave it there. "We're meeting in this fortress of a house with a fence and no network coverage. I wasn't allowed to tell my friends where I was going for the weekend, that I would be meeting my birth parents. Hell, I don't even know your home address or phone number! So the threat is still there, isn't it?"

"We're not sure. We simply don't want to take a chance," Mulder says powerlessly.

"Wouldn't it be good for me to know what to look out for? To protect myself?" As Mulder doesn't react, obviously lacking an answer, William probes further, "do my parents know what to look out for? Or who?"

"There's no reason for you to be looking out for anything or anyone. You're safe, Will. Your entire family is safe. Believe me, we discussed it a great deal after we got your letter. We evaluated the options and assessed all the risks. Scully would've never agreed to this get-together if it had involved putting you in danger. If we had been worried about your safety, we would've remained where we were...away from you."

William stares at Mulder. The last words hit the boy. His eyes darken and his lips are nothing but a thin line. For a moment Mulder fears he'd say 'I wished you had!', that the recurring pattern of his life once again proves to be well-founded. He's tainting the existence of every human being that crosses his path, and the closer the person is to his heart, the more dire the consequences.

But then his son's eyes assume that glorious blue color he sees in Scully's eyes when her heart is light, when she's cheerful and carefree. He hasn't been allowed to witness her in a state like that too often, the day William was born or when they got married being two of the rare occasions. He's more familiar with the darker shades of blue in her eyes, the blackish, dull blues. Blue in the color of a rain storm or a cloudy day, blue in the color of the deep blue troubled sea. But what he sees in the eyes transfixing him right now is the blue of a serene sky, the azure blue you'd expect at a Riviera beach or at the horizon on a sunny summer day.

"I'm so glad you didn't," William says eventually, voicing what his eyes have been telling Mulder already, grinning widely. "It's kinda cool to have two FBI agents as parents, even though I'm not allowed to tell anybody."

Mulder releases the breath he didn't even realize he was holding. "You know what's really cool?" he asks.

William shakes his head. Mulder turns to him, puts his hands on the boy's shoulders, and looks at him. "To have a son like you. I'm very proud of you." Also with a grin, he adds, "and I can't tell anyone either."

William averts his eyes, blushing profoundly. Mulder feels like telling him how much he loves him, how becoming his father had been the biggest adventure of his life, despite the pain the aftermath of his birth had brought along. How proud he really is to be a father, his father. But he knows he'd be embarrassing him. Kids his age don't really appreciate an open display of affection from their parents. So Mulder decides to keep his mouth shut and simply enjoys the physical closeness. He buries his nose in his son's hair and breathes in his smell.

From the corner of his eye, Mulder sees Scully step out onto the porch. She stops short in her tracks, one hand flies to her mouth, with the other she steadies herself against the banister. Her eyes connect with Mulder's and instantly fill with tears. The joy at having her son back in her life and seeing him in an embrace with his father is so obvious, it gives Mulder a sense of utter contentment. This is what he wanted to achieve, what he wanted to do for Scully. She deserved to be able to make peace with her decision to give William up for adoption. She deserved redemption for her sacrifice, and Mulder is more than happy that he'd managed to give her what she deserved.

But he has to be honest with himself. He's not only done it for her. He suffered from the loss of their son just like she had, felt like an orphaned parent like her, and thought he had, therefore, the right to pursue their reunion.

"Hey, Scully," Mulder makes her presence on the porch known to William, who instantly frees himself out of Mulder's embrace and hastily wipes the tears off his face with his sleeve. As willing as he was to let his father engage him in a hug, he's obviously unwilling to let his mother see his tears.

"Am I intruding?" Scully's voice is smooth as silk, full of love for her two men.

"Not at all," Mulder assures her. "C'mere, sit with us." He holds his now free arm out as an invitation.

Scully places herself on the steps next to William, the three of them sitting like roosting hens. "What were you talking about?" she asks.

"Will wants to know everything about the X-Files," Mulder answers to give William a bit more time to recompose himself.

Scully throws Mulder a worried look. He shakes his head to let her know he didn't tell him anything, at least none of the dreadful aspects of them. Scully nods back, their ability to communicate non-verbally sparing to voice any words. She picks up the thread to give William at least something. "Well, if it weren't for the X-Files, your father and I probably would've never met."

The boy looks up, his interest piqued. "How so?" He looks into his mother's face with still watery eyes. Scully suppresses the urge to cup his face and stroke his cheeks; she's still insecure about how close he wants her.

"I taught forensic pathology at the FBI Academy in Quantico. One day, I was summoned to the headquarters in DC and assigned to work with one Fox Mulder."

"Spooky Mulder, you wanted to say. And you were assigned to spy on me," Mulder interjects, "to provide them with the ammunition to shut the X-Files down!"

"Really, mom?"

"I was, but I didn't do it. Neither the spying, nor the debunking."

"No," Mulder agrees to her, shaking his head in agreement, "no, you didn't."

He's still amazed how fast he learned to trust her. In the course of their very first case in Bellefleur, Oregon, he already decided that this young, tiny, good-looking agent not only had a sharp wit and brisk pace but was also open-minded and willing to listen to him and his theories. He knew that as a working duo they would be like fire and ice - strict rationalism and fact-based science against improvisation guided by instinct and belief in the inexplicable. But he was looking forward to the partnership. He knew this woman would challenge him, would never let him take the easy path, that she would frustrate him, push him to the limit, even annoy him, but there was one thing she'd never do...betray him. She was a truthful, decent person and a good agent, something he couldn't say about all his partners in the past.

"So you didn't like each other in the beginning?" William misinterprets Mulder's testimony.

Scully laughs. "Well, let's say we had our preconceptions about each other, but you know, in our business, you have to learn to trust your partner quickly, otherwise you get into trouble. If you can't rely blindly on the person behind you, they can't be your partner."

"And you learned to trust each other quickly," William concludes.

Mulder throws Scully a knowing look above William's head. "I remember pouring my heart out to you on our very first case, in that dark motel room. You were lying on the bed and I was sitting on the floor, telling you about my sister."

William's jaw drops. "You shared a room on your very first case?"

Scully hurries to set things right. "We weren't sharing a room, I'd just gone over to Mulder's room because I was worried about some marks on my back and wanted him to have a look at them. We had separate rooms, of course," she assures.

"Yeah, we always had separate rooms. Could've saved the Bureau a whole lot of money on travel expenses from a certain point on onward, but your mother was very compliant when it came to sticking to the rules, and the FBI was very clear when it came to interaction between male and female partners out in the field. Actually, showing up in my room after 8pm...in a robe...already was a violation." He winks at William.

"Mulder!"

"What? Isn't it true that you came to me in nothing but your underwear and a thin red robe, exposing your lower back and asking me to look at you?"

Scully gasps and William frantically covers his ears. "Too much information, guys!"

"I was scared to death about what those marks were, what was I supposed to do?" Scully hisses through gritted teeth.

William is obviously amused by his parents' banter but also thankful to get at least some insight into what their lives used to be, even though they are not willing to tell him anything about their cases.

"I take it you trusted him already, mom!"

Scully's features soften. She shares a loving gaze with Mulder, telling both him and her son, "You're right, Will, I did. I trusted him with my life."

"I would've given mine for you," Mulder says, leaving no doubt he means it.

"Wow," William mutters, "sounds like you were a dream couple from the start."

Scully bursts out into a laugh. "Uh, not really, Will!"

"Oh, come on, Scully! They referred to us as Mr. and Mrs. Spooky! If that's not a name for a dream couple, I don't know what is!"

William snorts with laughter.

"You can't be serious, Mulder! We argued over almost every case! You with your tendency to go with wild theories making it impossible to approach any matter rationally and target-oriented."

"And you refusing to think outside the box with your stubborn, smart, pretty, little redhead of yours!" With his last remark, Mulder earns himself the famous Scully eye-roll-and-smirk, but continues nonetheless. "The solve rate skyrocketed as soon as we started working together."

"Going off from where? Zero percent?"

"No!"

"From where, Mulder?" Scully insists, ignoring his obvious displeasure at speaking of the numbers.

"Eight," he admits meekly.

"Exactly. The solve rate of the X-Files was eight percent. Any double digit percentage would be considered a major improvement."

"It was eight point seven, actually, so practically nine. That's almost a double digit, Scully," Mulder pouts. By the end of their first year, they had a solve rate of 75 percent for heaven's sake. They were way above the Bureau average. No matter where they started from - 8, 9 or 10 percent - it was a major improvement, only based on the perfect way they worked together.

Scully is still in a bantering mood. She blows a strand of hair out of her face, throwing her head back in annoyance. "I'm familiar with the rules of rounding up decimal digits, but thank you for clearing that up for me anyway, Mulder!"

William snorts again. "You two are just too cute," he tells them.

"Cute?" Mulder and Scully both cry out in unison, leaving an aghast question mark so huge, William feels the need to elaborate. He's also never skipped out on a verbal duel.

"Funny? Crazy? Loony?" he supplies more adjectives. "Hilarious? Amusing? Entertaining?... Some more? Let's see...Droll? Comical?"

"Great, Mulder! Our son thinks we're some kind of silly lunatics," Scully sighs.

"But he's very eloquent with an ample vocabulary at hand, so it seems," Mulder adds.

"I didn't say you were silly lunatics, mom! Rather a bit freaky maybe, but also sweet in a way. That banter was just immensely funny." He can't hold back another chuckle. After he recomposed himself, being stared at by his speechless parents, he continues in a more serious fashion. "I think you were great partners, both in your professional lives and in your personal lives. I guess you still are. You seem to be like the perfect opposites to each other, but also complementing the other like two very unique pieces of a ten thousand piece jigsaw puzzle that need to be assembled to complete the whole picture. Maybe that's why you've gotten along so well all this time."

Mulder's heart aches because of how well William has understood their dynamics, but it also aches because he has to think back to the time they didn't get along so very well, when the pieces wouldn't fit anymore, no matter how hard they tried to put them together. It was the time his depression had made him a different man, a man who didn't care for her anymore how he used to, who didn't bother pushing her away. A man who didn't trust her anymore.

"I once called your mother my touchstone, William, but there was a time I had forgotten all about it," Mulder shows Scully his contrite face, "and I screwed it up. But..." He licks his lips, then bites the lower one. He inhales deeply. Then, after a short moment of complete stillness, he claps his hands on his thighs and gets up. "...that's in the past. We're here now. Together. With you, Will. And I can't imagine wanting to be anywhere or with anybody else."

William and Scully look at each other for a short moment, then rise also.

"You're right, Mulder. Why muse over past conduct, when what we have right now is just perfect?" She beams at William and puts her arm around her son's waist. Timidly at first, but with more determination when she realizes he lets it happen. "Helen said she wanted to bake some chocolate muffins. Considering how wonderful she cooks, I take it she's a wonderful baker as well."

"Oh, yes!" William exclaims. "Her chocolate muffins are the best! They taste heavenly right out of the oven when the core is still molten," he raves.

"Then why don't we go inside and have a look whether there are some already?" Scully suggests. "I bet you wouldn't say no to boosting your blood sugar level a bit either, Mulder, would you?"

"Nope," Mulder agrees.

"I hope there's some whipped cream, too," William says. "With those chocolate muffins covered with whipped cream and a cup of hot cocoa in front of you, you feel like you're in paradise."

"What are we waiting for then?" Mulder asks, leading the way. When he reaches the knob of the front door with his outstretched hand, William stops in his tracks.

"Uhm, there's one thing I want you to know first." He straightens his back and looks at Scully and Mulder who have turned around, both looking at him with questioning eyes, unsure what to expect.

"What is it, Will?" Mulder asks, and when they don't get an answer, Scully adds a worried, "William?"

"I want you to know that I...I mean, that you...." He coughs and shifts his weight from one foot to the other.

Mulder and Scully share a quick look. She raises her left eyebrow, he shakes his head and shrugs.

"You can tell us everything. Come on, spit it out," Scully tries to encourage him.

William takes a deep inhale once again, then he looks from one to the other and back. "You told me you had to trust each other quickly. I just want you to know that I decided to do the same." He waits a moment for his birth parents' reaction, but as they seem to be petrified, he continues. "I trust you when you tell me that I shouldn't inquire further about the X-Files. I trust you when you tell me that I shouldn't worry about whatever was a threat then is still a threat now. I trust you when you tell me that you protect me. Me, and Walter and Helen."

Mulder lets go of the door knob and takes two strides to close the distance between himself and the boy. He puts his hands on William's shoulders, and says, "It's an honor you place your trust in us, and I swear to God, we will never betray it." He swallows hard. And then he says it, dares to say it although he's terrified he's pushing too hard. "We love you, son."

For a moment, a deafening silence surrounds them. Mulder holds his breath in anticipation of William's reaction, Scully works hard to keep the tears at bay.

After what seems to be an eternity to the somewhat anxious adults, William eventually saves them from their agony. "I love you, too, dad. And you mom," he says loudly and clearly, "you're my second set of parents."

Mulder could swear he hears church bells chiming somewhere in the distance. Has his son really just said that he loved him? He didn't say that he despised him, loathed him, wished he'd never met him. No. The son who he had so many problems with conceding him a place in his life when he was still cared for in his mother's womb said he loved him. Mulder feels the earth move beneath him.

It's Scully yet again who steadies him, helps him to cope with this moment in time which is in line with the moment he learned of her cancer having gone into remission, when she laid baby William into his arms, and when she accepted his proposal. He feels her hand sliding around his waist, pulling him toward her. At the same time, she motions for William to join them in their group hug.

“I had already abandoned all hope of ever being able to hold both of you in my arms. I can't tell you how much this means to me.” Her voice is surprisingly calm and serene.

Both the older as well as the younger of the two men give in to the emotional moment, bend down and rest their heads on the shoulder of the woman who is so much shorter than them. Despite her small frame, she's like a shield between them, helping them to mask how close to tears they actually are. As is always the case, when push comes to shove, women are so much more the master, or more precisely, the mistress of the situation than men.

Mulder allows himself to be infected by her elation.

Scully. His Scully.

She's always been his and will be forever more. He's forgotten by now what his life was even like before he met her. It's almost as if he hadn't existed before she entered his hemisphere.

And now, they are a set of three. Fox, Dana, and William. His family. The Mulders.

How wonderful life is, he thinks and isn't even aware that for the first time since Samantha was taken, he looks into the future utterly optimistic and carefree. He's not worried about a conspiracy, he's not racking his brain about alien-human hybrids, he's not even wasting a single thought about Cancer Man. His heart is light as a feather. He's simply and purely happy.

When they break apart, Mulder looks into two identical sets of crystal clear blue eyes and he sees his whole world reflected in them. This is all he ever needed, all he ever wanted. Nothing else but having the two most important persons, actually the only two important persons in his life with him at a place where nothing and nobody is threatening them.

The three of them remain motionless for a moment, holding hands on the porch. Nobody knows what to say, as there are no words to do justice to the magnitude of this moment. It's Scully who finally breaks the tension.

“As nice as this is, boys, I smell chocolate!” she says, displaying a mischievous grin.

“Me, too,” William chimes in. “I'll ask mom for some whipped cream and hot chocolate.”

The boy severs their connection, but not without a toothy grin on his face. Mulder looks after his son as he disappears inside the house. He's held on to Scully and is taking her other hand now that he is turning to face her.

"Fox?" Scully says when their eyes lock, calling him Fox, maybe for as much as the fifth time in his life.

"Yes?"

"I love you." She throws him a wonderful smile. One that reaches her eyes and lets them shine in the most beautiful color he's ever seen.

"I love you, too, Dana."

She holds out her hand. "Let's go inside and have some chocolate."

He nods, takes her hand and kisses the back of it. He lets her lead him them, following her willingly.

Everywhere.

END

#the Mulders #I love happy endings #msr #why couldn't season 10 end like this?

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scenes-in-between · 5 years

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4-D (Part 1)

“Let me get some plates.” “Plates! For crying out loud, who eats Polish sausage with plates?”

His cell phone trills in his pocket, and he digs it out, swallowing quickly before answering.

“John Doggett.”

“Where are you?” Brad Follmer barks in his ear.

“Sir?”

“We followed you to the alley, but you’re not here. Where did you go? Do you still have eyes on Lukesh?”

“Sir, I’m… afraid you mighta dialed the wrong number. This is Agent Doggett. I’m not on duty today.”

“Damn it, John, going vigilante isn’t going to solve anything. We will make him pay for what he did to her, but we have to do it the right way. Now tell me where you are!”

“I’m…” He flounders, walking toward the kitchen. Maybe Monica will have some idea what on God’s green earth Follmer is talking about?

The kitchen is empty. The hell? There’s only one doorway in and out, and he definitely saw her go in there.

“Monica?” he says, turning in a circle.

He only realizes he’s lowered the hand holding his phone once he registers the sound of Follmer yelling through the tinny speaker somewhere near his hip. He quickly brings the phone back to his ear.

“...isn’t going to bring her back! Do you hear me?! I am ordering you to stand down!”

“Sir, with all due respect, I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. I’m at Agent Reyes’s apartment right now. The one she’s just moved into. If I can… she was here just a second ago.” Leaving the kitchen, he walks back into the front room, holding the phone away again briefly while he shouts. “Monica! Where’d you go?”

“How did you… Her new place in Georgetown? You expect me to believe you got all the way over to Georgetown on foot in five minutes?”

“I’m telling you, I don’t know where you think I was supposed to be this morning, but I’m not--”

He gets to the front door, which is not only closed now but locked, with the deadbolt engaged. He knows for a fact it was standing wide open when he got here.

“I’m… not…”

“Agent Doggett, listen to me. I think you might be in shock. Just tell me where you really are, and I’ll send someone to come get you.”

“Yeah, sir, I’m gonna have to call you back.”

“Wait! Joh--”

He hangs up the phone and hits the speed dial for Monica’s cell number. “Come on, come on, pick up,” he mutters as it rings, ignoring the interrupting beeps as Follmer tries to call him back, then cursing when it goes to voicemail. He hangs up again, and when his phone rings almost immediately -- still Follmer -- he shuts it off entirely, scowling.

The apartment is nice, but it isn’t huge, and he walks through every bit of it. She is nowhere to be found. On his second pass through the kitchen, he notices that the paper bag and the other sausage are both gone. None of this makes any sense. He was here the whole time, and he never saw her leave. It’s like she vanished into thin air, only that’s impossible.

Isn’t it?

***

He’d thought he was so clever, leaving his truck at the Hoover Building this morning and avoiding the nightmare that is Georgetown street parking on a Saturday; now he’s regretting that decision, big time, as he hoofs it the eight blocks to Agent Scully’s place. He hates to bother her on the weekend, but he honestly has no idea where else to go.

His jaw falls open when Mulder answers the door.

Bizarrely, Mulder looks equally surprised to see him. “Agent Doggett, I-- we just heard. Skinner called, and… I assumed you were at the hospital. Scully’s headed there now.”

Hospital? First he’s supposed to be in some alley with Follmer, and now a hospital? He holds up his hands.

“Look, I don’t know what in God’s name is going on here, but I haven’t understood one single word I’ve heard in the last half hour. First Follmer, and now you… and when the hell did you get back, anyway?”

Mulder frowns. "Back from where?"

"How the hell should I know? Agent Scully never said. Told me she had no idea where you went, either."

"And… when was that?"

"Come on, Mulder, cut the crap! You don’t get to just up and take off for five months and then play dumb about it!”

“No, I’m not-- Look, why don’t you come inside for a minute?” Mulder steps back, opening the door wider. “I’m not quite sure what’s going on here, but I’ll call Scully, and we can try to figure this out, all right?”

Doggett wants to argue, but it’s not like he’s got any better ideas at the moment. He walks past Mulder into the living room and immediately notices that it’s been rearranged since the last time he was here. Granted, that was a few weeks ago, but it looks really different, not just in terms of furniture placement but in the piles of papers on the coffee table and the second computer on the desk. It has the distinct look of cohabitation, and not just recent cohabitation, either.

“Wait, how long have you been back?” he asks, turning back toward Mulder. “I just talked to Agent Scully three days ago, and she never said one word about it. But from the looks of this place, I’d say you’ve been here at least a week. Maybe more.”

Mulder closes the front door and looks at him with concern. “You and Agent Reyes had dinner here last weekend. Are you saying you don’t remember that?”

“What are you talking about, dinner? I spent last weekend rebuilding my back deck. Only place I went was the hardware store.”

“That… doesn’t make any sense.”

“You’re telling me! Either I’m dreaming or I’m losing my mind, but not a damned thing is making sense to me right now.” He doesn’t like the careful, almost pitying look Mulder gives him in response. “You think I am losing my mind. I’m telling you, I’m just as sane as I was when I woke up this morning. It’s the whole rest of the world that’s gone nuts.”

“I think,” Mulder says gently, “that we can’t always expect how trauma will affect us.” He walks over to the phone, picks up the handset and starts dialing. “And I also think that Scully will know what to do. Why don’t you sit down?”

Doggett has no desire to sit down, but Mulder walks away before he can argue, going into the bedroom and closing the door. So he paces, instead, trying to put the pieces together from everything that has transpired since Monica left the room to get plates. That was the point where everything went off the rails.

Follmer said something about shock, and now Mulder’s talking about trauma, but it was a completely normal Saturday until Monica disappeared. Did he fall and hit his head? Is he lying unconscious on her floor right now with a brain aneurysm? Wouldn’t he remember something like that happening?

“She’s on her way,” Mulder says, emerging from the bedroom. “She wants me to ask what you remember about this morning. What happened before you came here?”

“I got up, drove into the city, and left my truck at the Hoover Building. Took a cab over to M Street, picked up a couple of Polish sausages from Stachowski’s, and walked to Monica’s new place. We talked for a minute, she went into the kitchen, and that’s when everything went haywire.”

Mulder frowns. “According to Skinner, you and Agent Reyes were on a stakeout this morning with AD Follmer. You don’t remember anything about that?”

“Why in the hell would we be on a stakeout? It’s a Saturday, and even if it weren’t, we don’t have any active cases right now, anyway.”

“But you remember driving to work,” Mulder points out.

“Only because I didn’t want to deal with parking over on this side of town!”

“All right.” Mulder holds up his hands. “So you said Agent Reyes went into the kitchen, and then everything went haywire. What do you mean by that?”

Doggett gives a frustrated sigh, then recounts the whole ridiculous series of events, between Follmer’s call and Monica’s disappearance and how the open front door was closed and deadbolted.

“And before you ask if maybe she went out a different way and I just didn’t see her leave, not a chance. There’s one doorway in and out of that kitchen, and I was standing in front of it the whole time.”

Hearing himself say everything out loud, he knows exactly how insane it all sounds. He’s beginning to have a healthy dose of sympathy for some of the people he’s dealt with during his time on the X-Files. To Mulder’s credit, he’s looking at him more thoughtfully than dismissively.

A faint cry from the other room causes both men to glance toward the bedroom door. Mulder looks at the clock on the wall and gives a wry smile, shaking his head.

“Right on schedule. Kid’s like a Swiss watch these days. Excuse me a minute.”

Resisting the urge to resume pacing, Doggett walks to the kitchen to get himself a glass of water. On the counter beside the coffee maker is a framed photo he’s never seen before; in it, Mulder is holding baby William, who looks to be a couple of months old.

“What the hell?” Doggett murmurs, picking up the frame.

He flips it over and takes the frame apart to extract the photograph, looking for the date printed on the back.

11 Jul 2001

How is that possible? Mulder had been gone, what, six weeks by then? He’s pretty sure Agent Scully, fearful though she was for Mulder’s safety, still would have mentioned it if he’d swung back through town for a visit.

He’s still holding the photograph when Mulder walks into the kitchen with the baby in his arms.

“Explain to me how this is possible,” Doggett says quietly. “How is there a photo of you from July when I am pretty damned sure you were nowhere near here?”

Mulder sets about making a bottle of formula. “You keep talking about my being gone, but the fact is, I never went anywhere.”

Doggett narrows his eyes. “What are you saying, you were just hiding here the whole time? You expect me to believe that?”

“I don’t expect you to believe much of anything,” Mulder says dryly. “But I’m starting to think that whatever’s going on here is more than just trauma-induced memory loss.”

“You know, that’s the second time you’ve mentioned trauma, but I’ve still got no idea what you could possibly mean. This morning has been weird, no question, but unless all of this is one big hallucination because I fell and hit my head or something--”

The front door opens, and he looks up to see Agent Scully walking in, her eyes wide and worried. “John,” she says as her gaze finds his. “How did you get here?”

Things must really be bad if she’s calling me John. “I walked.”

“From Dillon Park?” she asks, brow creased in confusion.

“What? No. From Monica’s apartment.” Exasperation threatens to completely overwhelm him. “Would somebody please start talking sense here? AD Follmer says I’m supposed to be in some alley, Mulder says I’m supposed to be at the hospital, and now you’re talking about Dillon Park. What the hell is going on with everyone today?! How is it possible that my partner disappearing into thin air is not the most confusing thing that’s happened in the last hour?!”

“Disappearing…” Scully looks pained. “John, Monica’s dead. She was killed trying to apprehend a suspect this morning near Dillon Park. You and AD Follmer were watching from the surveillance van.”

“What are you talking about?!” he explodes, and William starts to cry. He shoots an apologetic look over at Mulder, who bounces the baby gently to settle him, and then lowers his voice to continue. “I don’t know who told you that, but not one word of it is true.”

Scully shakes her head sadly. “I’m so sorry, but--”

“I believe you,” Mulder interrupts.

Doggett and Scully both look at him in surprise. “What?”

“Too much doesn’t add up,” he says. “How you got all the way across town so fast. Why you think I’ve been gone for five months.” He glances at Scully as he says this, and her eyes widen; Doggett watches an entire silent conversation pass between them in the course of a few seconds before Mulder turns his attention back to him. “What do you know about the theory of parallel dimensions?”

#x-files fanfic #txf: 4-d #doggettfic #parallel dimension #///#a/n: i know time gets reversed or whatever by the end of the episode #but i wanted to play with what might have happened to 'our' doggett in the parallel world #and the opportunity to write a little 'what if' with mulder and william was too good to pass up ;)

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scenes-in-between · 6 years

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Empedocles (1/3)

“They’re telling us not to worry. They’re running some tests.”

Agent Mulder looks just about as comforted by those words as Doggett feels (which is to say, not comforted in the slightest), but there’s nothing more they can do right now except wait.

It’s still weird as hell, Mulder up and walking around after being dead and buried for months. Not that Doggett has much room to talk; he still doesn’t know what to believe about what may or may not have happened to him in Squamash, but there’s something different and undeniable about seeing with his own eyes what happened with Mulder.

It’s clear, also, that Mulder still doesn’t trust him, let alone like him. They seemed to come to a tentative understanding after the whole debacle at the FSC, but in the couple of weeks since then, they’ve hardly spoken. What few interactions they have had have been civil at best, if not more than a little chilly. Mulder’s not exactly made himself an easy guy to like. He’s cocky and abrasive, and yeah, AD Skinner has asked Doggett to keep in mind what Mulder’s been through, but at a certain point, he has to wonder how much blame can be put on the trauma and how much is just down to personality. Truth be told, he’s still not convinced the guy deserves the unfailing loyalty of someone as genuinely good-hearted as Agent Scully, but he supposes it’s not really his place to say.

“You gentlemen are going to have to clear the hallway,” pipes up a nurse at the desk behind Mulder. “There are chairs down that way where you can wait. The doctor will let you know when there are updates on your friend’s condition.”

Mulder’s jaw muscle bulges and his eyes narrow, and he looks for all the world like he’s going to make them physically drag him away. Doggett gets it -- he’s worried about Agent Scully, too, and has no intention of leaving until he knows she’s going to be okay -- but causing a big scene is only going to end up getting them both kicked out of the hospital altogether.

He is surprised, then, when Mulder turns on his heel without a word and walks in the direction that the nurse pointed.

Doggett hesitates. A month ago, he would’ve been the one anxiously standing guard over Agent Scully’s room; now he can’t help feeling like an intruder, and it stinks. Technically, he’s still her partner, and even if he weren’t, he’s no less her friend than he was before Mulder came back. He’s got every right to be here, to be worried about her, to want to stay and make sure she’s going to be all right.

He very much doubts Mulder will see it that way, though, and he’s got no desire to get into another confrontation with the guy. No way in hell is he leaving, but he’ll find someplace else to sit.

***

Walking into the hospital would have set him on edge even if he weren’t scared to death about Scully and the baby. (Their baby.) But he is scared to death, and between that and the sounds and the smells of this place, the physiological impulse to run away as fast as he can is both undeniable and deeply unhelpful. It’s a flight response held in check by an even stronger unwillingness to leave Scully’s side. Even being this far away from her, just down the hall, makes him anxious.

He leans forward in the chair, resting his elbows on his knees. The phone call from that agent in New Orleans comes to mind, and he seizes it as a momentary source of distraction.

Agent Reyes said she needed his help on a case that somehow involves Agent Doggett. If she had said almost literally anything else, he would have told her no, but this… this may well be the one thing that could possibly grab his attention.

Mulder doesn’t know what Doggett’s story is, but the man is definitely hiding something; of that he’s certain. It’s more than a little suspicious that Doggett ended up getting to the hospital right behind the ambulance. His supposed explanation requires a hell of a coincidence in timing, and what would he have been dropping off at Scully’s in the middle of the day, anyway? It’s not hard to imagine he was surveilling her apartment instead, keeping tabs on her, or maybe even that he’s been tailing Mulder. So if helping Agent Reyes with this case will allow him to find out more about Doggett or where his allegiances lie, it’s worth doing.

But only after the doctors tell him that Scully’s going to be okay.

He glances down the hall toward her room. What if she’s not okay? Before he can stop it, his mind tumbles down a rabbit hole of every possible negative scenario -- Scully pulling through but losing the baby, Scully and the baby both dying, an emergency delivery that she doesn’t survive and leaves him walking out of this hospital a single father. Fuck, he’s barely got a grip on caring for himself right now; how in the hell would he even begin to take care of an infant, all on his own?

He sits up and wipes his damp palms against his thighs, shaking his head and breathing out, hard. He absolutely cannot afford to think like that. She’s going to be okay. She has to be okay.

“Sir?”

Mulder jumps at the nurse’s voice; Jesus, she’s standing right in front of him and he didn’t even see her walk up. He starts to get to his feet.

“What’s happening, is she okay? What did the doctor say?”

The nurse holds out a hand. “They’re still running tests. We don’t know anything yet. I came to ask for your help filling out some forms, since you’re the one who brought her in.”

He wilts back into the chair. “Right, yeah. Okay.”

They’re the same standard intake questions he’s answered a thousand times before. (They really do end up in the hospital way too goddamned often.) Most of Scully’s information is already on file here anyway, so there isn’t much to add, but his heart starts pounding harder as he recounts the symptoms she was having in her apartment and on the ambulance ride. His mouth goes dry recalling how she went quiet and still on the gurney, overwhelmed by the pain or maybe the blood loss; he doesn’t know. God, there was so much blood. In what world is that not a terrible sign?

“We should know more before too long,” the nurse tells him, and he can’t help noticing how she didn’t actually answer the question. “Now, we have a Margaret Scully listed as the emergency contact on file, but we haven’t been able to reach her. Do you know if there’s another number we can try?”

Used to be my name and number on those forms. Guess she hasn’t updated things since I came back to life. If I hadn’t been with her when this happened, would I even know she was in trouble?

“Mrs. Scully is probably still on an airplane right now.” He already asked if Scully wanted him to call her mom while they were waiting for the ambulance, and she told him Maggie left this morning to go visit Bill and Tara out in California. “I don’t know when she’ll be available.”

“And there’s no husband?”

“No, but I’m the f--” he starts to say, and then hesitates. Scully has kept the paternity of this baby pretty close to the vest. The Gunmen obviously know, or guessed, but beyond them, he’s not sure who else is even in the loop. Unless, god forbid, something happens to her, it should probably be Scully’s decision whether to make his involvement in all of this a matter of public record.

“I’m her friend,” he finishes lamely. “But please, if you know anything--”

“As I’ve already told you, I will update you as soon as I have some answers. Okay? Now just sit tight, and I’ll be back with you in a bit.”

He watches her go and resists the urge to get up and pace.

***

Hours pass.

If there’s any word on Scully’s condition, Doggett hasn’t heard it. He wonders if the nurses have forgotten about him.

He’s about to get up and go find someone to ask when Mulder comes walking down the hall. Doggett jumps to his feet.

“How is she, did they let you in to see her?”

Mulder looks startled. “Agent Doggett, you… you’re still here.”

“Of course I’m still here.” Doggett frowns. If Mulder wasn’t coming to give him an update, then where the hell is he going? “Have they told you anything?”

“Yeah, they, uh… Doctor Speake said she’s stable, they got the contractions and the bleeding stopped, but they’re still working on figuring out for sure what happened. They wouldn’t let me see her, but… yeah, it seems like she’s gonna be okay, at least for now.”

“Well, that’s good news, right? I mean, ‘stable’ is always better than the alternative.”

“Yeah, I guess so. Listen, I, um, there’s something I need to do. Are you gonna stick around here, or--?”

“I can stay, sure. I’ll let you know if anything changes.”

Mulder nods, glancing distractedly over Doggett’s shoulder toward the door. He shifts his weight back and forth a few times, like he might change his mind about leaving. Like he can’t trust Doggett to hold down the fort here for however long it takes him to do what he’s got to do.

Doggett sighs. “Look, Mulder, I’m just as worried about her as you are. I promise I’ll call you if her condition changes in any way, all right?”

For a second it looks like Mulder’s about to argue, but he just nods again instead. He throws a curt, “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” over his shoulder as he continues on down the hall.

It’s a weird feeling, being simultaneously judgemental about the fact that Mulder apparently has more important things to do than wait around at the hospital and also profoundly relieved that he’s getting out of here for a little while. On one hand, it feels like things are back to normal, like Doggett’s no longer shoved to the periphery, his friendship and partnership with Agent Scully treated like an afterthought. On the other hand, “back to normal” also means he’s left picking up the pieces while Mulder’s off somewhere else.

Grimacing, he shakes his head. That’s unfair, and he knows it. For all he knows, the guy’s gone back to Scully’s place to bring a bag of her things. Doggett saw his face; he wasn’t thrilled about leaving, and he damn sure wasn’t just assuming Doggett would be there to take up the slack. If anything, his leaving is actually a good sign, an indication that he is willing to trust Doggett at least a little.

And Doggett won’t betray that trust. He turns to head toward the nurses’ station; better make sure they know where to find him in case there’s any news.

#x-files fanfic #txf: empedocles #mulderfic #doggettfic #msr #minor ptsd mention #blood mention #///#heeeeeeey i'm back #yes this is going to be a 3-parter but this is the longest bit (probably)#and i'm optimistic i'll have parts 2 and 3 up in a timely manner #:)

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ghostbustermelanieking · 6 years

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relinquo

s9: post the truth and release, with flashbacks to my struggle ii; references to william and john doe and 4-d. doggett and reyes. part of my series that i write as i rewatch the x files.

Summary: How Doggett and Reyes left the X-Files.

note: this fic arose out of a desire to explore several different things: doggett and reyes’s partnership, what happened to doggett between season 9 and 10, redeeming reyes (because it needed to happen) and exploring why she’s (seemingly) working with csm. (i mostly skimmed over the msii flashbacks, since msii was all undone but reyes is clearly working with csm in s11... i took creative liberties.) i also wanted to explore doggett’s feelings about catching his son’s murderer in release, and how that related to scully’s decision in william (since doggett and scully are two characters who have lost children and confront this fact in two episodes one after the other and it’s never acknowledged!!). mulder and scully aren’t in this fic, but that didn’t stop me from mentioning them five million times.

warning for discussion of doggett’s son’s death.

---

For years, Doggett has associated Monica with the moment he found his son dead. He's always felt like it was unfair to her, after everything they've been through, but the fact remains. He brings her along when he and Barbara meet to scatter Luke's ashes for comfort, but a part of him also feels like he is doing it to reassociate her in his mind with a pleasant memory instead of a horrible one. She is his friend, and it's become easier to be around her as time goes on, enjoyable—he doesn't know what he'd do half the time without a partner like her—but she is also at the center of too many unpleasant memories.

Doggett feels more companionable towards her than he ever has, through the years they've known each other. After the case closed, he and Monica used to meet regularly to review notes on the case, try to find the killer. Out of everyone who worked the case, the NYPD or the FBI, Monica was one of the only people that he felt like really cared about the case. That Luke was more than another number. (He'd even heard rumors, years later, that she'd cried in the bathroom during the case.) Once every few months had become once every year had become once every few years; he'd called her once when he entered the FBI, they'd been on the same task force before, but other than that, they mostly didn't stay in touch. He wouldn't have called Monica a friend before they became partners.

Now, she's undeniably his friend. Now, he's glad to have an ally, a familiar one, in this strange journey that he likely shouldn't be on. Being in the X-Files office has always felt strange, like standing in someone else's shoes (Agent Mulder's, mainly), but it feels even stranger without Scully. Like he's an intruder. Having Monica along for the ride helps.

When Scully and Mulder are gone, disappeared into the night like bandits, the feeling is even worse. It's absurd, but Doggett feels like a ghost, haunting the wrecked shell of the basement office. After he and Monica get back from New Mexico, they clean up the wreckage of the office together, picking it up, filing away the files that weren't stolen. Doggett saves the poster. If he owes Mulder and Scully anything, it's that.

---

But then again, maybe he doesn't owe them anything. Mulder's only ever resented him. Scully became more and more distant as she collapsed into herself, and John used to think that he understood, but that was before Monica told him what she had done. That she'd given the kid away. And Doggett understands the fear of having your kid in danger, hurt, more than most do, but he still cannot comprehend that she gave William up for adoption, the cute little baby who Doggett has held on his lap on occasion when Scully is doing their autopsies for them and recruits him and Monica to watch the kid. (Pains of a single mom.) He'd never said anything, of course, it wasn't his place, but he'd felt unexpected resentment rising in his throat when he heard the news. Selfish envy, that Dana had a son to throw away. They'd gone for drinks, once, the three of them, after they closed Luke's case, and Scully had begun by congratulating him awkwardly and ended in crying all over them both and apologizing repeatedly. He understands and he doesn't; she is mourning a son that she chose to leave. And even though she did it to keep him safe and it's clearly been hell for her, he can't help but be just a little bit jealous that she had a choice to make.

Doggett can't let himself be too mad at Dana, though. He can't. He's only ever known her in varying stages of grief; his initial thought when he'd heard the news about Mulder, when he told her and watched her face crumple with tears, was, Not again. He didn't know how he could support her through another one of Mulder's deaths. (A fucking ridiculous, tragic sentence.) He can't blame Scully because he's had a front seat to too much of this shit. He knows what she's been through. But he knows lost children, too. That is one thing he and Scully and Mulder, even, understand about each other.

Most of the time, Doggett can't decide whether he owes Mulder and Scully or not. He's loyal; everyone from his buddies in the Marines and the NYPD to his co-workers in the FBI have commented on it. The furthest he's strayed from his loyalty has been divorcing Barbara, and that hadn't even been his idea. (She'd needed space, and he gave it to her.) And that loyalty extends to Scully, and Mulder by default. Once his partner, now his friend, and Scully has stuck her neck out for him before. Mulder, too, even. But the two of them have this cliquish air about them, excluding all others unless someone is useful in protecting the other. (Even Skinner has commented on it, and Skinner is more loyal to Mulder and Scully than he is.) It's impossible not to feel like an outlier, even when one of them is gone. That was why Doggett was so grateful when Monica was assigned to the X-Files; finally, a partner that was his.

He and Monica are reassigned to the VCS shortly after Mulder and Scully escape. They are not prosecuted for their role in Mulder's escape. They are kept together as partners, news that Skinner delivers proudly, adding on that he fought for this. He looks surprised when Doggett and Monica only thank him mildly; Doggett figured they'd see each other whether they stayed partners or not. He's all the way home before he realizes: Skinner is used to stick his neck out for Mulder and Scully and their all-consuming partnership. Maybe he even misses them.

It takes weeks upon weeks of no weird-ass cases with ghouls and goblins, no crazy conspiracies, for Doggett to realize that he does, too. In a way.

At least he still has Monica. At least that part of his recent life changes still feels normal.

---

Monica and John end up at her apartment after work one night, beers from the fridge and Polish sausage from the stand John is always raving about. He gives her a funny look in response to her wistful one when he presents the food to her, and she has to catch herself from bringing the whole ordeal with Lukesh up. It's strange, knowing that there's an entirely different reality that no one remembers but her. Another universe, even, where she is dead. She's found X-Files where Mulder reported similar phenomenon, but she never got the chance to ask him about it.

It's bizarre not to have Dana around after all this time, over a year. Part of her missed the excitement, but she missed her friend more than anything. She comments on the unusualness of it, and John bobs his head back and forth in agreement. “Weird not to be waking up in the middle of the night to chase down some alien or something,” he comments.

Monica nods her agreement. She's half-afraid that someone’s going to come after them the way they've been going after Dana and Mulder for years, but she hasn't seen any signs of it yet. She hopes it'll never come to that.

She and John drink their beer and eat their Polish sausage. It's the kind of companionable she can really appreciate.

---

When Monica thinks about it for long enough, she realizes that she's been there when the two people she would currently consider her best friends lost their sons. And remembering that makes her chest sting with sudden guilt.

She's made her peace with Luke Doggett, more or less. She'll always feel guilty about being unable to save Luke before it was too late—and she'll live with the moment where she realized it was room late for the rest of her life, she and John both will—but catching Regali helped alleviate some of her pain in that area. They've done everything that they can do. But William Scully… she didn't even have a hand in that decision, and she still feels some of the guilt for it. She was there, she tried to talk Dana out of it, but she couldn't. And now Dana and Mulder both have to live with that decision. Monica barely knows Fox Mulder, but she also was there when he met his son for the first time, watched him carry Dana and the baby out of that house, and she saw the tremendous look of love on his face. A nervous, devoted father.

Skinner had told them, remorsefully, that he'd told Mulder that Dana had given up William. “I know it was Scully's place, but I couldn't bear him asking about that poor kid,” he'd said. “Knowing that he wouldn't get to see him… But Jesus Christ, the look on his face…” And Monica had felt a little of that guilt. She'd had a chance to stop it.

She knows, intellectually, she couldn't have stopped Dana outside of physically taking the baby away from her. The same way she knows she couldn't have saved Luke. But a small part of her insists there was a chance. She had a chance no one else had.

William isn't the first child Dana has lost, either. She told Monica months ago about a daughter, made without her knowledge or consent, an experiment who died painfully days after Dana found her. This conspiracy that she and John have been roped into chasing, it's taken away both of Dana's children and Dana's sister (the one she said Monica reminds her of) and Mulder's sister and Mulder's parents and countless other horrors Monica has only read about in the Files.

Out of all the agents assigned to the X-Files at one point (even Jeffrey Spender, who Monica only met once, and Diana Fowley, who died before Monica ever arrived), Monica has experienced the least amount of loss. She still has both of her parents. She isn't a parent, and doesn't know if she'll ever want to be one, but nevertheless, she has never lost a child. All of her siblings are alive. She has never been kidnapped or tortured or ended up in the hospital for anything other than a car accident or the expected injuries on cases. It makes her feel bizarrely lucky and guilty at the same time.

She's watched this conspiracy of men and monsters and aliens take so much away from Dana and Mulder and others, and she's only had knowledge of it for a year. And now, with Dana and Mulder gone and the X-Files closed, that should be the end of it, but Monica isn't ready to let it go. When she thinks of William Scully growing up somewhere with someone else's name, when she thinks of lost sisters and daughters and all the times she's seen Dana cry over her lost partner. When she thinks of Dana's friends, the Gunmen, who she liked quite a lot, dead in Arlington. When she thinks of John near death in the hospital because he tried to protect Dana's baby. All of it. She can't walk away from that.

Someone sends a postcard to Monica's apartment. Colorado, snowy mountains even though it's the middle of summer. It reads, simply, Thank you, and is signed with a simple, tiny DS.

“Did you get the postcard from Scully?” John asks her the next day in the parking garage. (Their parking spots are next to each other, close to the basement because their new assignment didn't come with new parking spaces.)

“Yes,” says Monica. “From Colorado.”

“Huh. Mine was from South Dakota.” John stabs the elevator button with the tip of his finger.

“I guess she's trying to cover their tracks,” Monica says as they step into the elevator.

“Hmm.” John rocks back and forth on his heels. “I just don't understand why they don't leave the country like Kersh told 'em too.”

“Maybe it's too late to get over the border,” Monica offers, a little defensive. “Or maybe they… didn't want to leave the search behind just yet.”

John blinks at her in surprise. “Why the hell wouldn't they wanna leave it behind?” he asks, astonished. “After all the danger it's put them in?”

Monica crosses her arms, the elevator dinging as they move up. “Think about it,” she says in a soft voice. “There was a reason Mulder wouldn't testify, try to save his life. And it certainly wasn't to protect this truth he's spoke of. There's something else he found, maybe even something he found worth pursuing.”

John nods, clearly in thought. The door dings again as it slides open, other agents climbing on the elevator. “I just don't see the point,” he says finally, quietly, bending down to speak into her ear. “After all they've both lost.”

The elevator door closes.

---

It's a missing child case that does it. Somehow, Doggett always knew it would be that.

The problem with the Violent Crimes Section is that, well, the crimes are violent. And Doggett has seen a lot in his time, he has a strong stomach and he can handle most things… But the victim reminds him of his son.

Doggett used to use his pain as a motivator, in the mindset of I can help this family, this child, even if I can't help my son. I can bring their child back, or I can bring them the peace I never had. It worked with Billy and Josh Underwood, and with other cases where children are in danger. And he's avoided cases with children as much as possible, but it's inevitable that he's had to work on a few. But this one feels different. After all he's gone through with his son's murder in recent months, looking the bastard who did it in the eye and having him explain why… he doesn't know how he can watch someone else go through this.

He remembers how it felt in Mexico, the gut-wrenching moment when he'd realized that the little boy he dreamt of was dead, had been murdered years and years ago. He hadn't remembered his life, and he's glad he does now, but there was nothing worse than those brief days when he actually thought his son was alive. At home, missing him, worried about him, ready to hug him when he got home. Everything in this past year, finding Luke's murderer and believing Luke was alive and watching everything Dana had gone through with her kid… It's too hard. The picture of Luke on his mantle makes him want to cry, want to throw up.

He calls Barbara in a drunken moment of weakness. She is nice—nicer than he deserves, all things considered. She refuses to reminiscence with him, stops him anytime he says anything like, “Hey, do you remember…”, but she does console him. And finally, she seems to hit the nail on the head in a way that shocks him to the core. “You've been chasing Lukie all this time,” she says. “Never walking away, working in careers that remind you of him. And I never understood that until you found the guy who did it. But John… he's dead now. It's over. We let Luke go. And now… maybe it's time for you to move on.”

John hunches over, his ribs against his knees, rubs at his face with his callused palms. “I just don't want to forget him,” he whispers. Not the way he did in Mexico; a willful sort of forgiving, where he can pretend it never happened, avoid thinking about his son every day so he doesn't feel the pain. It's what he'd silently accused Barbara of, when she pushed him away before finally divorcing him (“I need to forget,” she'd sobbed the night he left, “I can't go on like this.”), when she refused to participate in the investigation because it was too painful for her. He won't accuse her, of course, but he doesn't want to copy her. He can't abandon his son.

“You wouldn't be forgetting him,” Barbara says. “I know you, John. And I haven't forgotten him. Just because I don't let the pain control my life doesn't mean I'm forgetting my son.” Her voice is too rough now, full of pain. A pain that is all too familiar to John.

John rubs his hand over his face, wiping away his tears. “I know you haven't,” he says softly. He doesn't want to have this conversation with her. “Thanks for talking to me, Barb. I'm sorry to bother you.” He reaches up to hang up the phone.

“You need to live your life, John,” Barbara says just before he hangs up. “It doesn't mean you're forgetting Luke. I just want you to be happy.”

“Thank you,” John says softly, and hangs up. He lets the phone fall onto the couch, runs his damp hands through his sweaty hair.

---

Monica knows a little bit about the man that Mulder and Dana call the smoker. CGB Spender, mystery man, a true B-movie villain. Mulder and Jeffrey Spender’s father. Dana has always described him with an overwhelming ounce of disgust, hatred. She's only gotten bits and pieces of their history with the purported smoker, but it's enough to mutually hate this man she's never met. Who she never will meet, because he’s dead. Or so she thought.

She soon finds herself being summoned to a hospital in New Mexico, a couple of months after Mulder and Dana disappear. The hospital won't tell her why, only that a patient wants to see her and they are insistent that it's important. They won't tell her who the patient is. “I'm afraid I'm going to need more information than that,” Monica says cautiously, not wanting to walk straight into another trap.

“I’m afraid we can't give it to you,” says the man on the other end. He pauses for a second before adding, “But I was told to tell you something.”

“And what is that?” Monica asks.

The man waits a few beats before saying, “I was told to tell you that this is about Dana Scully.”

Monica goes. She doesn't think she has a choice, because that could be Dana or Mulder there in that hospital, needing her help. She doesn't tell John, which is silly, but she was told to tell no one. Dana and Mulder trying to cover their tracks, she thinks. It feels nonsensical, considering the fact that they both know John better anyhow, but she still doesn't tell him. She flies out to New Mexico alone, hearing the thud of her heart in her ears. Even with her worry about Dana and Mulder, she finds that she is almost excited; it's been so long since she did anything outside of routine.

Her worry is clearly not necessary. She realizes this as soon as she gets to the hospital and the men with suits usher her in. It's not Dana or Mulder, and the man in that room doesn't need her help. At least not any help that she is willing to offer.

The smoker lies in the hospital bed, burned nearly beyond recognition, is the man she's seen in old, blurry photos stashed in the X-Files. CGB Spender. The man she'd assumed was dead. She remembers, suddenly, the fireball that consumed the pueblos where they found Mulder and Scully; was he in that?

Monica has no idea how the smoker knows her or how he found her, but he had an offer for her. He wants her to join him, he says, in a plan to reshape the Earth radically. He wants to create a virus to counter the apparent planned alien invasion in 2012. He tells her that very few people are actually immune. He tells her that Dana is one of the few who are. He offers her that same immunity in exchange for her help.

Monica is beyond baffled. Even after everything that has happened to her, she never expected to be offered something like this. An opportunity to go over to the dark side, to betray everything they've been working for over the past year. She's astonished, horrified, repulsed. She bites out some angry words, exits the hospital room angrily and lets the door slam behind her. She would never, ever do anything like that, even to save her own life.

She makes it all the way to the hotel before the implications of what Spender has told her sink in. A virus that will wipe out most of Earth's population. An alien invasion scheduled for 2012. The casualties will be horrifying. Do Mulder and Dana know about this?

Monica sits at the little desk in her hotel room, her head spinning. She can't just walk away from this, she has to do something. She has to stop this because now this is so much bigger than Dana and Mulder and Dana's baby and all the other horrible things she's heard about. This is all of mankind.

All she can think is that she has to do something. She has to tell Dana and Mulder. They're the only ones who would know how to deal with this. She calls Skinner, perched on the end of her bed with a cigarette in hand. (She's trying to quit, and the taste of it in the back of her throat makes her think of fucking Spender, begging for cigarettes on what should've been his death bed, but she needs it now, needs to clear her head.) When he picks up, she blurts, “I need to talk to Mulder and Scully.”

Skinner is silent on the other end for a few beats. And then he's saying, “Agent Reyes?” in confusion.

“Yes, this is Agent Reyes,” Monica snaps, taking a drag on her cigarette. “I need to talk to Mulder and Scully.”

Skinner is silent again, maybe in astonishment. “I don't know where they are,” he says finally.

“It's important, sir,” says Monica, the smoke expelling from her mouth in a thin line. “Incredibly important.”

Skinner's voice goes quiet on the line, hissing into the phone. “I can't exactly discuss this with the level of subtly it deserves on this line,” he whispers. “But either way, Reyes, I don't know where they are. Truly. The most I've heard from them is via postcard.”

Monica bites her lower lip, takes another long, burning drag off of the cigarette. She doesn't know who the hell to give this information to if she can't get in touch with Mulder and Scully. Skinner is the obvious option—more obvious than Kersh, at least, who Monica still has some distrust of, even after he helped Mulder escape—but over the phone clearly isn't the best way to do this. And besides that, Skinner has been tied up with trying to find Gibson a safe place to go. She can hardly ask him to do more.

“What do you need to tell Mulder and Scully?” Skinner asks in a hushed voice on the other end. “Agent Reyes?”

Monica swallows. The cigarette is burning up between her fingers. “I can't say on this line, sir,” she says, and hangs up.

She puts out her cigarette and lights another one. She takes her pack outside and sits on the edge of the pool, feet dangling in the water. The moon is out.

For a split second, she imagines Mulder and Dana driving into this hotel, tired and world-weary. She does something she hasn't done in years, since long before the FBI, and plays out wishful scenarios in her head. She helps Dana and Mulder save the world, kill the smoker, clear Mulder's name and get their son back. (Goddamn, that kid was cute, and Dana missed him so much.) The X-Files are reopened. Luke Doggett is found alive, and John is overjoyed. Monica gets a promotion and a nice fucking apartment and a date and maybe that cat her sister is always telling her to get, and everyone gets a happy ending.

Life isn't a movie and Monica is much too old to pretend. She lights another cigarette.

She remembers Leyla Harrison's eagerness, her constant references to Mulder and Scully and her admiration of them. What would Agents Mulder and Scully do? What would John do? Monica tries to imagine. What would Monica Reyes do? There seems to be only one option, but she doesn't know if it's a sacrifice she should make.

Her feet splash the top of the water. She gives up. She goes in and dials John's number.

---

They catch the killer. Doggett feels like he has done nearly nothing to help. Monica is out of town, and he finds himself missing her, her sunny attitude. She'd find a way to make him feel better.

He keeps coming back to what Barbara said on the phone before, about his job. Staying in careers that remind him of Luke. He likes his job, though; it's like a step up from police work, in the same vein of the military. But it's cases like this that always manage to get to him. That bring back the nightmares, the ghost of his son. If he believed in ghosts, that is.

He's sitting at his desk, fiddling with an Empire State Building snow globe Monica had bought for him in a souvenir shop downtown (the irony—but god, he misses the city) when the phone rings. It's Monica, calling from New Mexico, apparently. “Hey, Mon,” he says with pleased surprise. “What are you doing in New Mexico again? I thought your parents were in Arizona.”

“They are,” Monica says. “I'm on a… case. Sort of.”

“Oh.” Doggett turns the snow globe over in his hand. He's wondering why she didn't invite him. He's wondering if this has to do with Mulder and Scully, who they last saw in Arizona. “What kind of case?”

“It's… complicated,” says Monica in a rush. “Listen, John, would you mind coming down here? I need your help with something. And I don't want to discuss it over the phone.”

Doggett’s mouth tenses in surprise, letting the snow globe fall to the table. “Sure, Mon,” he says, sitting back in his chair. “Everything okay? Are you…”

“I'm fine,” Monica says quickly. “I just… I need you out here, if you can make it.”

“Be there by tonight,” Doggett says.

---

Monica meets Doggett at the airport in Roswell. She looks as if she's deep in thought when he sees her, huge sunglasses falling over her face, an unlit cigarette in her hand. But she smiles as he draws closer and he feels a wave of relief. He doesn't have many friends left after he tanked his reputation on the X-Files, but he has Mon, and he's grateful for that. She'd be the reason he stays at the Bureau, or even in DC, if he stays.

When he hears what Monica has to tell him, it feels like it's all inevitable: Barbara's suggestion, the missing child case, finding Luke's killer, the Files closing. Maybe this is all fated to end.

When Monica finishes, they're parked in the parking lot of her hotel, the sun sinking over the desert. The sunset and the sand seems to give everything a red glow; it's making Doggett's head spin. He says slowly to her, “So this… smoker guy…”

“CGB Spender,” Monica supplies.

“Whatever. So this Spender guy… who just happens to be Mulder and Scully's worst enemy and who, by all accounts, should be dead… wants you to join him?” He shakes his head in disbelief. “And you're actually… considering it?”

“I'm not considering joining him,” Monica says, rubbing at the bridge of her nose. She taps a cigarette absently against her leg. (Doggett recognizes the habit almost fondly from years of meeting in increments, Monica insisting she was trying to quit every single time.) “I'm considering infiltrating him. So I can put a stop to his plans and hopefully save the entire human population.”

“The entire human population,” Doggett repeats slowly. “And you believe this… CGB?”

“John, you've seen what these men can do,” she says. “I have no reason not to believe it. I have no choice.”

Doggett rubs a hand across his mouth tiredly. “And you don't think he won't notice you're a double agent? This sounds dangerous, Monica.”

“Part of the job,” Monica says simply. “And besides that, this is bigger than you and me. We're talking about the world here. The good of all mankind.”

Doggett sighs, looking out to the horizon. Sand stretching out for miles. He can see nothing else. “I dunno, Mon,” he says wearily. “I hardly think the two of us are the leading experts on this shit.”

“Skinner doesn't know where Dana and Mulder are, and I didn't want to bring too much suspicion on him,” Monica says. “And I wouldn't trust anyone else with this information.”

“Good instincts.” Doggett sighs, leaning back in his seat. “I dunno, Monica, I dunno. Do you want me to tell you to do it? I dunno if I can tell you to do it. I dunno if I can tell you not to do it.”

“I have a unique opportunity,” Monica says. “I have the knowledge of what these people do, the horrible things they do, and the smoker has no reason to distrust me. I have an in that even Mulder and Dana don't have.”

He laughs quietly. “Well, it sounds like you've already made up your mind.”

“I don't want to do it,” says Monica. “But I think I have to. For my family, for my friends, for the world. For Dana and Mulder and that poor kid of theirs.”

It always comes back to Mulder and Scully. Doggett wipes his mouth, nods a little in understanding.

“I guess I just want you to tell me I'm doing the right thing,” Monica finishes.

“You're too damn noble, Monica. Of course you're doing the right thing. The question is, what'll it cost you? You'd be going deep undercover, betraying your values. Hell, this could take years.”

“I know,” Monica says. “That's more or less what I signed up for, isn't it?”

“I dunno about that.”

She removes her sunglasses and turns to look at him. Drops her box of cigarettes in the cupholder and gives him a small smile. “I hate to leave DC though,” she says. “Brand new apartment and all. And… I'll miss you.”

Doggett smiles back, just a little. “I'll miss you, too,” he says. “Although you might not believe it, Mon, but… I've been thinking about maybe quitting. This may be an opportunity for both of us to move on, Mulder-and-Scully style.”

“Quitting? I never would've expected that from you, John.”

“Neither did I.” Doggett leans against his elbow, shrugging a little. “But this last case… it really shook me up. I couldn't handle it the way I used to be able to. Couldn't stop thinking about Luke. I called Barb and she… she thinks I should move on.” He rubs his face with one hand, tries to scrub it all away. “Not… forget Luke, but move on. Get away from things that remind me of what happened. Try to be happier.”

Monica watches him quietly, fiddles with her sunglasses absently. “Where would you go?” she asks quietly.

“I dunno. Maybe…” Doggett has a sudden memory, painful and joyful at the same time: Luke on a vacation in Florida they took when he was five. His tanned face grinning up at Doggett where they stand in the water, little hands clutching a fishing pole. It's an oddly happy memory. He wants to hold onto this feeling. “Maybe Florida,” he says. “Get some sun. Get back to nature or whatever.”

Monica smiles again, sunny as the Florida sky. “Sounds pretty.”

“I'm sure it is.”

They sit in silence for a minute, the air conditioner humming. The sun sinks below the horizon.

“So… we're going to do this, huh?” Doggett says finally. “Leave it all behind?”

Monica looks down at her tanned hands, reaches for the package of cigarettes again. “Yeah,” she says quietly. “I guess so.”

---

He buys her a drink, his friend, his partner. One last hurrah. It's some cheesy alien-themed bar that Mulder would probably love. A few drinks in, and he's repeating the sentiment to Monica, and she's bursting into giggles. They stay up too late, drinking and joking and goofing off.

He'll miss her. He really will.

Monica drives him to the airport in the morning, the sunglasses sliding back over her nose. “Practicing your covert routine, huh,” Doggett says at baggage claim, and she says, “Guess so.”

She walks him as far as they can go and stops, the two of them standing in awkward silence. Finally, Monica says, “No one can know what I'm doing. What I'm really doing. Let them think I went evil, that I went off the grid or whatever. Not even Skinner; he's surrounded by too many dangerous people.”

Doggett nods. “What about Mulder and Scully?” he asks. “If I ever see them again?” (He's not holding his breath.)

Monica hesitates before agreeing, “Sure. But only because I never want to be on their bad side. Especially not Dana's; she scares the shit out of me.”

They both laugh at that. And then it is silent again, the awkwardness thick in the air. Doggett fidgets with the handle of his suitcase, unsure of what to say or do. But Monica does it for him; she steps forward and wraps her arms around his shoulders, the way she suddenly hugged him months ago when he'd brought Polish sausage to her apartment. He hugs her back on instinct.

“You call me,” he says into her hair. “You need anything, you get into trouble, and you call me. I'll kill that smoking son-of-a-bitch. Probably get a medal for it.”

Monica chuffs out laughter, kisses his cheek gingerly before drawing back. “I'll keep in touch,” she says. “Somehow.”

“Well, good.” Doggett crosses his arms over his chest.

Behind him, they call his flight. He scoops up his suitcase, somewhat reluctantly, and waves a little to Monica. “You be careful, okay?” he instructs her firmly.

“I will.” Monica grins like she isn't about to do something incredibly dangerous (or stupid) and try to save the world. “You have fun in Florida.”

Doggett nods. Turns and walks towards his gate because he's awful at goodbyes. When Dana had left, packing up her stuff just before they went to break Mulder out, he honestly hadn't known what the fuck to say to her. He's horrible at goodbyes.

He's halfway to his gate when Monica calls out, “Hey, John!” from behind him. He turns. She shouts, “You should get a dog!”

“This wouldn't happen to be a joke about my name, would it?” Doggett shouts back. He's heard it all, ever since preschool, for Christ's sake.

“No, you just always seemed like a dog person to me!” Monica calls.

Doggett chuckles in soft surprise. Goddamnit. He really is going to miss her.

---

Monica drives straight to the hospital from the airport. Attempts to put on the persona that she will unknowingly be sporting for years: cold, unfeeling. She feels like she is doing something too significant, changing her entire life. She tells herself it will be worth it. For Dana and John and her family and all of humanity.

She tells the smoker that she will do it, her face blank, her voice hard. “If,” she adds warningly, “I'm guaranteed immunity. Myself and my family and friends.”

The smoker pulls his charred lips upwards in a snake's smile. “We'll see, Monica,” he says. “A few years with me, and you may find you don't care as much anymore.”

Monica keeps her face hard and neutral. Thinks, I will never be as cold and unfeeling as you, you bastard.

She's about the least equipped for any of this. She has the least amount of experience with this conspiracy, the least tragedy in her life. She has less to lose.

And that, Monica Reyes thinks to herself, is exactly why she has to do it.

---

Doggett gives his two-week notice.

Skinner gives him a strange look, somewhere between confusion and disappointment. (Maybe he likes having reckless X-Files agents around, being in the midst of the action. Or maybe he just really misses Mulder and Scully.) “What's going on here?” he whispers to Doggett privately, later. “Does this have anything to do with Agent Reyes’s own resignation? What the hell are you two up to?”

Doggett says, as innocently as possible, “Sir, I'm moving to Florida. I'd like to start a new stage in my life. And as for Agent Reyes…” He lowers his voice and leans in closer, whispers, “Whatever she's doing, it's important.”

That's the most detailed he'll get. He promised Monica.

He moves down to Clearwater, Florida about a month later. Gets a dog because he promised Monica that, too.

The waves crashing across the street from his crappy little house make him think of his son. They scattered his ashes in the Atlantic because Luke loved the water.

---

Four months later, he gets a letter from Monica. It's short, abrupt, but it says she's okay. It says that she's going to try and stop this. It says she'll be in touch.

Enclosed in the envelope is a postcard from South Carolina.

Doggett burns the letter. The postcard he keeps, puts up on the fridge between the postcard from Dana (Washington State) and the old pictures of Luke, sunscreen smeared over his nose as he smiles into the camera.

#i realize not many ppl wanna read about doggett and reyes lol but #on the run msr fic coming soon!!#xf fanfic #xf rewatch #i wrote this #child death mention tw

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scenes-in-between · 6 years

Text

This is Not Happening (3/3)

“It’s too late.” “He needs help!” “Agent Scully!”

Skinner’s chest constricts at the wild desperation in her eyes as Scully turns and sprints away, back toward the compound. Agent Doggett whirls on him almost immediately.

“You didn’t prepare her?! How could you do that to her? How could you let her come out here with even the slightest hope that he’d still be alive? What the hell is wrong with you?!”

Before Skinner can answer, Agent Reyes steps in front of him, holding out her hand. “He tried, John. We both did. She didn’t want to hear it. I think you know how she--”

“Damn it, Monica, you should have tried harder! You should have sat her down and---”

“And would you have listened? If someone had tried to sit you down when we found Luke? Would anything have kept you from thinking that maybe they were wrong and maybe he was okay?”

“This isn’t about me!” Doggett roars, and Skinner finally steps forward.

“All right, Agent, that’s enough,” he says, quietly but firmly.

There is a sudden, bright flash in the sky ahead, and his stomach plummets. Oh, no. Nononono, not her, too. Without even bothering to consider alternative explanations for the light, he shouts Scully’s name and launches into a sprint.

He makes it to the clearing just as the light goes out and the craft speeds away. A sick sense of deja vu almost sends him to his knees, and he stumbles to a stop, his chest and stomach both heaving, bile rising in his throat. Doggett barrels out of the woods behind him, skidding to a halt at his side.

“What’s wrong, why’d you stop?”

“They took her,” he says around gasping breaths.

“What do you mean? Someone took Agent Scully? Who?!”

A chilling but distinctly human howl echoes in the distance, and Doggett takes off again. Skinner’s feet are moving before he even realizes it, combat instincts overtaking the hopelessness that threatens to immobilize him instead. He’s on Doggett’s heels as they get to the door of the cabin, which is already wide open. Inside, people are huddled against the walls, looking shellshocked, many of them crying.

There is a shout from the room where Skinner and Agent Reyes had retrieved Scully not five minutes earlier. He and Doggett are there in a few short strides, just as one of the compound’s armed guards comes flying backward through the doorway.

“You were supposed to protect him!” Scully bellows, and for a moment Skinner just stares in disbelief.

She’s still here. They didn’t take her. Oh my God, she’s still here.

In the next moment, however, she launches herself at the guard, only to be intercepted by Doggett, and Skinner snaps out of his reverie. Dana Scully is a hell of a lot stronger than she looks, and with the addition of adrenaline and her current emotional state, Doggett isn’t going to be able to keep ahold of her any better than the other times he’s already tried to, tonight. Skinner quickly places himself between them and the guard and puts his hands up.

“Easy, Scully. Take it easy.”

“Jeremiah’s gone! They took him! And it’s his fault!” She continues to strain in Doggett’s grip, apparently still intent on getting to the man behind Skinner. To do what, he doesn’t know.

“Dana, listen--”

“No! Do not fucking ‘Dana’ me. Jeremiah was the only one who could save him and now he’s gone. He’s gone!”

She elbows her way free of Doggett and crashes into Skinner’s chest. Immediately, she tries to twist away from him, but he wraps his arms around her and holds fast.

“And what is attacking this man going to accomplish?” he says. “It’s not going to bring Jeremiah back. It’s not going to bring Mulder back.”

The air goes out of her as if she’s been sucker punched. But only for a moment. And then she explodes.

She shoves her hands hard against his chest, suddenly enough to catch him off guard and break his hold on her. Spinning with arms outstretched, she shoves a lamp off an end table, sending it crashing to the ground. The sound of it breaking is buried beneath the guttural cry that comes out of her. Skinner has never seen her like this, not ever. Not when her sister was killed, not when they thought Mulder was dead in a boxcar, never.

“You bastard!” she screams, her body doubled over from the force of it. “He’s dead because of you!”

It’s nothing that hasn’t already been ringing in his own head from the instant he saw Mulder’s body in that field, but it still knocks the wind out of him to hear her say it.

“You told me we would bring him home alive! You lied to me!”

“Agent Scully, you know that’s not true,” Doggett says quietly from behind her, looking stricken. “A.D. Skinner may have been wrong, but he didn’t lie. He hoped we’d find Mulder alive just as much as you did.”

“Shut up,” she barks over her shoulder, but the fight is starting to leave her. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I may not have all the history, but I do know you’re hurting. And whether or not you believe it, I know he’s hurting, too.”

Her defiant gaze locks with his, and Skinner forces himself not to look away. To let her see the devastation he’s feeling, no matter how uncomfortably vulnerable that makes him.

“I’m so sorry,” he croaks, and her face crumples.

She staggers forward, one arm up to ward him off, and hurries past him to the door of the cabin. Outside, she throws up over the porch railing, into the dirt below. Skinner follows, eventually reaching her side and bringing a hand up to rest on her back, rubbing gently as she gasps for breath. Whether or not she meant what she said in the heat of the moment, right now she needs support, and he will be here for her as much as she allows.

Straightening and wiping her mouth on her sleeve, she turns and falls against him, wrapping her arms around his waist. Her whole frame quakes with soundless sobs, much like it did the other night when she confessed her fears under the starlight. He hates that she was right, wishes bitterly that his own hope and belief could have been enough to save Mulder. The guilt he has been carrying since Mulder’s disappearance is compounded by the knowledge that there is nothing in the world he could possibly do now to make things right. To fix his terrible mistake.

“What am I supposed to do, now?” Her words are muffled by his shirt and almost inaudible, but the pain in them is clear as glass.

“You go on,” he says honestly, even though he knows how hard that will be for her to believe right now.

“I don’t know if I can.”

“I won’t pretend it’s easy. But I promise you won’t have to do it alone.”

She doesn’t say anything more for a long, long time.

#x-files fanfic #txf: this is not happening #skinnerfic #angst #vomit cw #i'm sorry about this

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mldrgrl · 7 years

Text

Not Again

by: mldrgrl Rating: PG-13 Summary: See chapter 1

Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14

Chapter 15, Day 169:

Reyes calls Mulder and asks him how quickly he can get to Montana. She doesn’t tell him why, doesn’t want to say over the phone. Doggett is in the hospital under a short quarantine from possible exposure to a biological agent. With no one to make excuses to, he tells her he’ll be there right away.

When Mulder arrives in Helena, Reyes gives him the file of a suspect in custody who was arrested the night before for trespassing on a rancher’s property. While the police were arresting the young man, another call came in from a rancher a few miles away that he’d found a body in a field on his property. No body was recovered, but the neighbor of the rancher spotted two men coming out of the field shortly before the police arrived.

“The boy in custody, Richie Szalay, claims he was chasing a UFO and followed it onto the rancher’s property,” Reyes tells Mulder. “He says his best friend was abducted in Oregon, just a few days before the others.”

“That’s true,” Mulder says, nodding. “I know him. Scully and I met Richie in Bellefleur a few days before the abduction. Gary was already taken at that time.”

“I thought you’d be the best person to interrogate him. He may not know anything about our missing fourteen, but he may still know something.”

“Hello again, Richie,” Mulder says as he enters the interrogation room. “Do you remember me?”

Richie takes a moment and then nods. “The FBI Agent. Scully?”

“Scully’s my partner. I’m Agent Mulder.”

“Oh, right.”

Mulder nods towards Reyes. “You met Agent Reyes. We want to ask you a few questions.”

“I didn’t kill anyone,” Richie says. “I swear!”

“I believe you, Richie. I just want to ask you a few questions.”

“You should be out there looking for Gary. He’s been gone six months and no one’s done anything about it!”

“Believe me, Richie, I can tell you that’s not the case.”

Richie is momentarily subdued, but jittery. His knee bounces constantly and he wrings his hands together under the table. His dark brown hair is greasy and unkempt. There are dark smudges under his eyes. He looks older than his nineteen years. Mulder feels sorry for him. His desperation is palpable.

“You told the officers that picked you up you were chasing a UFO,” Mulder says.

“I’m not crazy.”

“No one thinks you’re crazy.”

“I thought you believed me about Gary.”

“I do believe you, Richie.”

“Agent Mulder and I are here to help you,” Reyes says.

Richie scrunches his face and shakes his head. Mulder can tell Richie is as skeptical and distrusting as he is impatient.

“You can help us help you, Richie,” Mulder says. “And you can start by telling me what you know about that UFO and how you found it.”

“Chat rooms, mostly. I made friends with a few people who track that kind of stuff. One of them is an abductee like Gary. He wanted to help me find him.”

“Do you know how they get their information?”

“Sightings and stuff, I guess.”

“But, those would be after the fact,” Reyes says. “You came to Montana because they told you a UFO would be here. How did they know that?”

“I don’t know. Algorithms?”

“What’s the name of the man who helped you?” Mulder asks.

Richie hesitates. “I don’t know if I should...is he in trouble?”

“He’s not in trouble. Neither are you. You’re being let go with a fine for trespassing, but no charges are being pressed. You’re talking to us of your own free will right now.”

“I can go?”

“You’re free to leave anytime. I’d like it if you stayed for a bit to talk to us though.”

Richie is torn. Mulder can see it in his face. He takes advantage of Richie’s indecision and gets up from his chair to lean against the table in front of the boy.

“You want to help your friend,” Mulder says. “I also want to help your friend, and the rest of the people who went missing in Oregon.”

“Is it true that half of them have already been returned?”

“Where did you hear that?”

“The man in the chat room.” Richie pauses and he shifts his eyes back and forth between Mulder and Reyes. “His screenname is Absalom.”

“Absalom?” Reyes asks, a look of recognition in her eyes when she looks up at Mulder.

“Yeah, I mean...that’s not really a name, you know? It’s what he calls himself. I don’t know his real name.”

By the way Reyes is shifting in her seat, Mulder can tell she’s anxious for the interview to be over. He’s confident that Richie doesn’t really know anything past what he’s told them, so he pushes away from the table and takes his seat again.

“Richie, I’m going to ask you to do me a favor,” Mulder says.

“Okay,” Richie answers.

“Stay in town for a few days. Give your contact information to the Sheriff so we can reach you if we need you.”

“I can only stay until tomorrow. I gotta be back in Oregon by Friday.”

Mulder nods and Richie stands slowly, as though waiting for someone to stop him. When no one does, he heads to the door, taking glances back over his shoulder along the way. He finally rushes out, hastily slamming the door behind him.

“What do you know about Absalom?” Mulder asks Reyes, as soon as the door closes.

“He’s the leader of a doomsday cult. I was part of a team that investigated him a few years back. At that time he had a compound in Baton Rouge where he and his followers were preparing for an alien invasion at the start of the new millennium. He claimed that first Y2K would cripple the world, and while we were trying to rebuild our technologies, an alien army would begin systematically abducting prominent citizens, returning them as super soldiers to eventually wipe out the human race.”

“Hm.” It doesn’t sound that illogical to Mulder. “And what happened?”

“Well, the group disbanded when there was no Y2K. He lost the faith of his followers and just disappeared.”

“But, now he’s back. With apparently credible information on UFO activity.”

“Should we find him? Bring him in?”

“Let’s see if we can’t get him to talk voluntarily.” Mulder already has an idea of who he’ll get to reach out to try to contact Absalom. Who better to speak his language than three like-minded conspiracy theorists in a converted warehouse office?

*****

The gunmen waste no time in finding Absalom and begin sending Mulder archives of newsgroup postings and chat logs they are able dig up. They reach out to him under the guise of official magazine business, requesting an interview of him, and then wait for a response.

In the meantime, Mulder and Reyes drive out to inspect the field where the rancher says he discovered a body. The air is cold and crisp, even though the sun is high. There's still a bit of frost on the ground even though it's midday.

The two agents make separate tracks through the field, parting ways to inspect patches of ground more closely, coming back together to silently ask if they'd found anything. A shake of the head. Not yet.

Mulder is crouched down, running his hand across a line of flattened grass, when Reyes calls his name. He looks up and sees her stand from her own crouch and turn to him. She cocks her head for him to come take a look at whatever she's got. He brushes dirt from his knees as he rises.

“Footprints,” Reyes says, pointing out two sets of tracks that almost seem to overlap each other, but they're pointed in opposite directions.

“If we were carrying something heavy,” Mulder says.

“Like a body?” Reyes interjects.

Mulder nods. “Like a body. Someone would probably be moving backwards.”

“And someone would be moving forwards.”

The tracks are smudged, as though the two individuals were dragging their feet. Mulder follows the backwards steps as they head in the direction of the nearest highway. At one point, he stops, bending to squint at the most clear footprint he can see. He can't be absolutely certain, but he's almost positive the lines in the shoe match the footprints of the other photos.

“That's the same shoe,” Reyes says.

“That's what I was thinking,” Mulder answers. He looks out into the field and turns to check all angles. A hill slopes in the distance to the north. The highway to the south is empty and calm. The neighbors house, the one who reported seeing two men in the field, is about fifty yards to the east.

Something seems to be clicking into place in Mulder's mind. A missing body. Two men. Footprints heading south. The highway. The hill. The land.

“He's not placing the bodies,” Mulder says.

“Who?”

“The man with the shoes. I thought he was placing the bodies in areas they'd be found.”

“What's he doing then?”

“Taking them. Or, trying to.”

“And bringing them back?”

“I think...I think it depends on how bad off the person is who's returned. I think he's...healing them.”

“How?”

“I've seen it before. I need to call Doggett. No, I can't call Doggett, he's still in quarantine. I need to call Skinner and have him pull my files on a man named Jeremiah Smith.”

*****

Skinner is none too pleased that Mulder is in Montana, but not only does he send the files to Mulder, he lets him know in his email that he’ll be on the first flight out to Helena. Mulder shares the material with Reyes in the small conference room the Helena PD has allowed them to utilize. He paces the room, rolling up his shirt sleeves as Reyes reads bits of the file out loud. When she finishes, he turns one of the chairs around and sits backwards, draping his arms over the back.

“I don’t understand how this guy is any different from the bounty hunter,” Reyes says.

“I don’t quite know myself,” Mulder answers. “Only that while they can both take on the forms of anyone they choose, Jeremiah Smith is, at least, a healer. He saves lives, he doesn’t take them.”

“So you think he’s essentially rescuing the abductees after they’re returned. Or, attempting to?”

“It’s the only thing I can think of that makes sense to me right now.”

“How does he know where to find them?”

“I don’t know.” Mulder shrugs and pushes up from the chair in frustration. He puts his hands on his hips and paces the room again.

“Is there a possibility that this is related to the doomsday cult?”

“How so?”

“What if those people weren’t taken by a UFO?”

Mulder gapes at Reyes and shakes his head. “I know what I saw.”

“I know, but hear me out. What if that’s what they wanted you to see? What if Absalom staged the abduction and took these people to reignite the interest in his prophecies. If they’re not coming true organically, he’s going to make it happen.”

“No.” Mulder shakes his head again. “That’s not possible.”

“And what if Absalom is giving the same information to Jeremiah Smith that he gave to Richie Szalay? What if he’s controlling this whole thing?”

Mulder laces his fingers together at the back of his head and puffs his cheeks. He circles the room once and bobs his head a little. He sits down and scratches his bottom lip with his teeth.

“All right,” he says. “Let’s explore that theory. An abduction hoax to regain the trust of his disciples. It’s pretty elaborate, and risky. How has he gotten this far without getting caught? How has he done any of it?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s too much for one person. There’d have to be dozens of people involved. People that would kidnap and torture without asking questions.”

“Like a cult?”

“Like a cult. That still doesn’t explain how they would’ve pulled it off. And I know what I saw.”

“Let’s hope your friends can find Absalom and maybe we can ask.”

*****

Skinner arrives that evening and knocks on Mulder’s motel room. He has a grim look on his face and asks Mulder to take a walk with him. Mulder follows his boss out to the edge of the parking lot, where concrete ends and nothing but the dark expanse of empty fields begins. The stars are as luminous as Mulder has ever seen them, large and bright and plentiful.

“I’ve come to escort you back to DC,” Skinner says, without preamble. “Kersh caught wind of your trip out here.”

“I can’t leave, Walter,” Mulder says. “Not now.”

Skinner rubs the back of his head for a few moments. “What have you really found that’s going to make a difference in the investigation?”

Mulder tells him, briefly, about Reyes’ theory, and about the gunmen working to find Absalom, and the missing body and the footprints in the field. Skinner listens without reacting or asking questions. It’s too cold out for the thin sweater Mulder is wearing and he rubs his arms briskly with both hands.

“What we’ve got right now are seven returned abductees,” Skinner says. “Seven still missing. Half of those returned are dead.”

“I know.”

“And nothing tangible but theories.”

“Even if Reyes’ theory doesn’t pan out, we have a lead with Absalom.”

“Maybe.” Skinner sighs and puts a hand on Mulder’s shoulder and squeezes lightly. “These bodies are appearing rather quickly now. Are you prepared for what might happen?”

Mulder pulls his shoulder away from Skinner’s grasp and crosses his arms tightly across his chest. He looks up at the sky and blinks back the tears that fill his eyes every time he has to think about the worst case scenario.

“I once had a conversation with Scully about starlight,” Mulder says. “How it’s billions of years old and how, even after they’re long dead, their light won’t die. I told her it’s where I thought that souls resided. If I’m wrong about everything else, I hope I’m right about that. Because, I would need to know that whenever I look up, she...”

Mulder lowers his head and bites his lip. His throat has closed too much to continue. Skinner puts an arm around him and squeezes his shoulder again.

“She will be,” Skinner says. “You don’t have to worry about that.”

*****

#i wrote this #xf fanfic #season 8 au #things are happening in montana

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