tulpa51

[tulpa51]

alright, I've been thinking about this forever and I can't decide. so what's the general opinion?

[tulpa51]

ok you’re all welcome and loved here but u can’t. call it sculder

#it’s msr #always has been #always will be #please respect the tradition #we didn’t do portmanteaus in 1993 #msr

[tulpa51]

The X-Files 5.14 | “The Red and the Black”

#the x files #mulder and scully #msr #the red and the black

[tulpa51]

MSR knowing everything about each other since day 1.

#msr #the x files

[tulpa51]

#x files fan art

[tulpa51]

Then all the choices would then lead to this very moment. One wrong turn and we wouldn't be sitting here together. Now, that says a lot. THE X FILES | S07E017, ’All Things’

#the x files #mulder and scully #msr #all things

[tulpa51]

From The X-Files Museum

[tulpa51]

Dancing the Tandava (10/10)

We've reached the end. Thank you for all your kind words, likes, and reblogs. I'm so happy you enjoyed this story and I'm thankful this fandom is still alive and kicking <3

[on Ao3] @today-in-fic

Geneva, Switzerland 2023

The rumbling stops abruptly. Mulder opens his eyes and sees that light, both from the fluorescent overhead and the window, has returned to the room. He’s still huddled under the desk with Scully and Hannah but there’s no longer any debris strewn on the floor.

“What the hell was that?” Scully says, her voice taking on the high-pitched tone he knows she only uses when she’s faced with something she truly can’t explain.

Equally baffled, he shrugs as the three of them get up from the floor. They’re in the same office as they were before, but there’s no sign the room was just rocked by a seismic quake. Instead, the desk is neatly organized. The messy piles of paper are gone, along with the bael tree in the corner of the room.

“Look at this,” Hannah says, holding up a framed photo on the desk. Bellona is in the picture alongside an olive-skinned woman around his age and three teenagers who must be their children. All five are dressed in hiking gear, smiling atop a mountain.

Mulder tries the door again and this time it opens easily. Hannah and Scully follow him out into the hallway. There’s no sign of Bellona or any of his followers. The door closes behind them and he notices the nameplate bearing Bellona’s name is gone and is replaced with one that reads “Dr. Samita Shah.”

Hannah and Scully spot the nameplate as well and the three of them stare at each other in bewilderment.

“We should check the collider tunnel,” Hannah says.

Hannah doesn’t have the authority to access the LHC tunnel as an intern, but after a few texts to her friend Emmanuelle from the control center, she’s able to swipe her ID card at the ATLAS entry point. Her card grants her access to the elevator, too. The giant elevator lurches into action and they begin their long descent hundreds of feet underground.

The elevator opens into the tunnel that houses the LHC. There’s a narrow walkway along the side of the curved wall, tracing the body of the collider that extends for miles ahead of them.

Mulder spots movement up ahead and the three of them sprint down the walkway toward the shadowy shape.

“It’s William,” Scully shouts as they get closer. Mulder steps aside to let her reach William first.

Their son is on his hands and knees with his head bowed.

“Don’t move,” Scully cautions, as she checks him for signs of injury. “Did you hit your head?”

“No, I don’t think so,” he says. “I’m okay.”

Mulder joins Scully as they gently help him up to his feet. “I’m in the LHC tunnel? At CERN?” He asks.

“Yeah, buddy,” Mulder says.

“And it’s 2023?”

Mulder confirms the year for him as Scully keeps a firm grip on William’s forearm, both to keep him steady and ensure he won’t disappear again.

“Mom,” William pulls her into a hug. “You saved the world.”

“She has a habit of doing that,” Mulder says, embracing both of them.. He’s reminded of the night William was born, finding Scully and the baby in that dilapidated room, and feeling so overwhelmed by fear and love. His heart hammers as he squeezes his family tighter, unwilling to let them go.

“William!” He hears Hannah shouting and heading towards them.

William frees himself of his parents’ grasp and runs past them along the walkway to meet Hannah. Mulder and Scully watch as Hannah goes to hug him but William takes her face in his hands and kisses her on the lips. They can see Hannah’s shock melting into joy as she grabs him around the waist and draws him in closer. Their lips draw apart but their faces stay close as they whisper to each other. Mulder can’t hear everything they’re saying but he can make out a few “missed yous” and “love yous”

“They make a good team,” Scully says quietly.

“They remind me of us. I guess declarations of love following near-death time-travel experiences run in the family.”

She smirks at him but rises on her tip toes to kiss his cheek, imprinting the spot where she once landed a right hook on a ghost ship. Her lips are warm and soft on his skin, a far gentler sensation than the one her sharp knuckles left back in 1939.

William turns back towards them and calls out, “Let’s get out here.”

William and Hannah walk back to the elevator holding hands. Mulder smiles at Scully, happy to see the relief in her eyes, then guides her in the direction they came from with his hand on the small of her back.

***

Once Scully feels confident that William doesn’t have a head injury or other serious physical damage from his disappearance, the foursome make their way to CERN’s Restaurant 1 cafeteria for dinner. William fills them in on his trip to Camp Hero in 1993. A Google search on Hannah’s phone fails to turn up any articles on Samita Shah’s death. Instead, she’s currently listed as a visiting scientist at CERN, on a one-year fellowship while her husband, Vincent Bellona, continues his work as a tenured physics professor at Princeton.

“It worked, mom,” William says to Scully, smiling. “You convinced Dr. Shah not to join the project.”

“Apparently,” Scully says. “But what I don’t understand is, why do we have no memory of this? If we were able to change the past by altering Shah and Bellona’s timeline, why don’t dad and I remember meeting you in the past? Or any of this happening in 1993?”

“They must’ve wiped our memory before we left Camp Hero,” Mulder says. “The military had that technology back then. They did it to me at Ellens Air Base on one of our very first cases together.”

“Or we could be dealing with a multiverse scenario,” Hannah says.

William looks at her agape. “We must be if you’re seriously proposing that. I think I like you even more in this universe.”

“Ha, ha,” Hannah intones sarcastically and William winks back at her.

“Anyway, I can’t believe how young the two of you looked,” William says to his parents in between bites of his burger. “And even though you were just partners, I could totally tell you liked each other. It was kind of cute.”

“Oh, William,” Scully says. “I can only imagine which ridiculous suit I was wearing, or what tie your dad had on. We must’ve seemed terminally uncool.”

“Well, I wouldn’t really call you guys cool now,” William counters. Mulder playfully flicks a piece of paper straw wrapper at his son. William adeptly dodges it and the balled-up paper flies over this shoulder.

Hannah pokes Wiliam’s bicep with her finger. “Don’t tease them,” she says. “Your parents are awesome. Look how they helped me find you, and how they helped you back in 1993 when they didn’t even know you.”

“They got to know me,” William says, smiling wryly at Mulder. “It took my mom a little more time to believe me, but she got there.”

Scully glances down and Mulder rests a hand on her thigh trying to comfort her. “I wouldn’t have expected any less,” he says.

“It’s just that now—” Scully starts, her voice breaking as a breath catches in her throat. “I couldn’t imagine life without you. We were so scared when you disappeared.”

The mood of the table sombers until William stands up and comes around to the other side to hug his mother. Still seated, she rests her head against his stomach and embraces him around the waist. “I would love you in any universe,” she whispers, pulling back slightly to wipe tears from her eyes.

“I know,” William says, smoothing down her auburn hair. “I think we’d always recognize each other. You too, dad.” He smiles at Mulder then over the table at Hannah. “And you too, Hannah.” Across their trays of half-eaten food, Mulder sees Hannah blushing.

Since finding out William had disappeared, Mulder’s been running on adrenaline, not giving himself a moment to pause and consider the possibility that they’d never see their son again. Now, the relief washes over him like a crashing wave and he doesn’t fight the tears as they come.

So much has changed in thirty years since a skeptical, red-headed spy sauntered into his office haughty with the confidence that comes from never seeing the supposedly immutable laws of nature mutate before your eyes. They tested and challenged each other and forged an elemental bond that couldn’t be shattered with all the energy the world’s largest particle accelerator could muster.

So much has changed for the better. They have a miracle of a son. He just heard Scully essentially admit to believing in alternate universes, although he has no intention of pointing that out to her. He hasn’t abandoned his quest for answers, but he’s found that unraveling the mysteries of the universe can coexist with loving and being loved. It’s more than he ever thought he deserved, and it’s all he could ever want for his son.

#x files fanfic

[tulpa51]

Dancing the Tandava (9/10)

[on Ao3] @today-in-fic

Princeton, New Jersey 1993

On the drive up to Princeton, Scully listens to Mulder and William discuss classic science-fiction movies and their 21st century reboots. She wishes she could share their easy connection but her shock and disbelief intervenes. It feels unfair that William has this intimate knowledge of her as a mother but she knows so little about him. He is the product of her body and years of her nurturing and yet she feels a gap separating herself from him that she can’t quite bridge.

William is intelligent, kind, and curious. He’s soft-spoken and patient, but confident with a sense of humor. He’s exactly the type of young man she’d be proud to have as a son thirty years from now. The DNA test she ordered and reviewed herself proves William is her son and Mulder is his father, which means that at some point in the future, she and Mulder get together. And, since it seems like they’ve been parenting William as a couple, they manage to stay together. It’s a possibility that intrigues and terrifies her.

On the highway, she closes her eyes and tries to imagine Mulder as her husband and William as their grown son. As William describes the expanded universe of Star Wars prequels and sequels to Mulder who peppers him with questions, she can see the three of them naturally easing into these roles. But she and Mulder have never even kissed, let alone done anything that would result in the conception of a child. As much as she finds herself drawn to Mulder, she can’t imagine this single-minded man leaving his quest behind to live a quiet, domestic life.

“Scully, can you believe this?” Mulder asks, calling her back into her body. “George Lucas bastardized the entire metaphysical beauty of the Force with these, what are they called, William?”

“Midi-chlorians,” Williams says from the backseat.

“Midi-chlorians,” Mulder says, shaking his head dismissively. “You sure you want to go back to the future? It sounds pretty grim.”

“It has its ups and downs,” William says. “There’s someone I want to see.”

“Oh, yeah?” Mulder asks, flashing William a grin in the rearview mirror.

“My friend, Hannah. I mentioned her,” William says shyly. “I just miss her I guess.”

Scully peeks in the mirror and sees a blush spreading across William’s cheeks. He may have Mulder’s nose and lanky frame, but with her light coloring he can’t hide his embarrassment any better than she can. She turns to smile at Mulder and finds he’s already giving her a toothy grin. He’s proud of his son, she thinks, and she’s starting to feel pride bubble up within herself.

***

A flash of their badges grants Mulder and Scully access to the building that houses Princeton’s physics department. Scully catches William smiling, clearly impressed by how willingly the building’s security guard yields to his parents’ authority.

As soon as the elevator opens to the floor of Bellona’s office, they hear a man and woman arguing. Mulder raises a hand to hold Scully and William back from stepping forward so they can listen without being noticed.

“This is insane, Samita,” the man shouts. “Why would you want to give up the research you’re passionate about to work for the government on something so secretive they can’t even tell you what it is?”

“That’s exactly why I need to do it,” the woman responds. “This is the cutting edge of quantum research. What I learn on this project could revolutionize the entire field. It could be detecting dark matter, or even finding ways to utilize it. We’re making such small steps now, imagine if we could take a giant leap forward—what we could possibly learn if we had unlimited resources.”

“Resources from the military-industrial complex! You came here to unlock the mysteries of the universe, the origins of why we’re all here. And now you want to leave to work on what’s most likely a weapon that could kill millions?”

Their argument continues but their voices are lower now and Scully can’t hear what they’re saying. She looks to Mulder but he’s just as focused on trying to make out what Bellona and his wife are discussing. Scully wonders what line of questioning they’ll actually take once they get to Bellona. Knowing Mulder, he’ll probably come straight out and ask if he has plans to craft a time machine thirty years from now.

“I’m not going to let you hold me back,” Shah cries out. Her shout is followed by the sound of a door slamming.

Ballona huffs and heads toward them in the hallway. He’s a slight man with dark hair and glasses. As he makes his way to them, Mulder whispers to William, “Is that him?” and William nods.

“Dr. Bellona?” Scully says. “We’re Special Agents Scully and Mulder with the FBI and we have some questions for you.”

“Samita,” Bellona calls back. “Your friends the feds are here!”

With an exasperated sigh, Shah reopens her office door and comes to meet them in the hallway.

“Dr. Samita Shah,” she says, reaching out her hand to Scully. “How can I help you?”

“You don’t know them?” Bellona asks incredulously. “I assumed these were some of your government pals.”

Shah glares at him with ice in her deep brown eyes.

“Are you working on a government project?” Mulder asks.

“I’m considering it,” Shah says guardedly. “I was offered a contract by the department of defense. Are you here on their behalf?”

“No, Dr. Shah,” Scully says. “We’re actually here to speak with your husband.”

“Well, this will be a quick conversation,” Bellona snaps. “No, I’m not interested in collaborating with you.”

“Dr. Shah, do you know the nature of the project you’ve been asked to assist on?” Mulder asks. “Or where you’d be stationed?”

“I haven’t been fully briefed yet, no,” she says. “But I’d be working at Camp Hero on Long Island. It’s an older military base that’s being recommissioned for this project.”

Scully freezes and locks eyes with Mulder. She can see William looking at her wide-eyed in her peripheral vision.

“We need to visit that base,” Mulder says. “Would you be able to get access?”

Shah squints. “I believe I could. Let me make a call.”

She turns around and walks back to her office, leaving Mulder, Scully, and William with Bellona in the hall.

“Dr. Bellona, are you familiar with the Hindu god Shiva?” William asks. Scully looks at him nervously, unsure where he’s going with this.

“You’re better off asking Samita than me. Her family is Hindu,” he says. “But I’m familiar with the broad strokes. Lord Shiva is one of the religion’s three primary deities. He’s known as The Destroyer, but he’s associated with creation as well. You’ll often see him depicted dancing the tandava, a brisk choreography that has the power to create or destroy the universe.”

“I’m sorry,” he pauses. “Who are you? And what does this have to do with me and Samita?”

“Um, my name is William,” he says. “I’m…assisting on this case.” Bellona gives Mulder and Scully a questioning look but they don’t dispute William’s claim, so he goes on. “Is there any connection you can think of between Shiva and your research? Or with the project Dr. Shah is working on?”

“No, not really,” Bellona says. After a pause, he adds, “Well, in a very abstract sense, the tandava mirrors the dynamic movement of particles in quantum mechanics. Heisenberg even said quantum physics will make more sense to those who’ve read the Vedic texts. But, in practice, no, there’s no link.”

“What about if you were working on a particle accelerator? Would it be relevant then?” William continues.

“I suppose you could make the leap to connecting an accelerator’s capability to recreate the original conditions of the universe’s formation to Shiva’s role in the cyclic creation, destruction, and re-creation of the universe, but it’s quite the leap. And even the world’s largest particle accelerators haven’t even been able to confirm, yet alone re-create, the existence of subatomic particles such as the Higgs boson that are essential to that theory. Besides, it would take a real megalomaniac—or someone with nothing to lose—to want that kind of power for himself.”

Someone with nothing to lose. The words echo in Scully’s mind. “Dr. Bellona, could you give my colleagues and I a moment?” she asks.

“Sure,” he says. “I’ll go check on Samita.”

Once the three of them are alone in the hallway, Mulder turns to Scully and asks what’s on her mind.

“William, you mentioned in the car that Bellona and Shah aren’t still married in 2023, right?” she asks.

William nods.

“And have you heard of a Dr. Samita Shah working in the field? She already has an impressive resume and it’s hard to believe that she wouldn’t be leading a world-class quantum mechanics lab thirty years from now.”

“No, I’ve never heard of her. And I do follow this stuff pretty closely,” he says.

“Then I wonder if something happened to her at some point, something terrible that led Bellona to become the very type of megalomaniac he’s describing. With the advantage of an additional thirty years of advancements in the field of quantum physics plus a far more powerful particle accelerator, he could be dangerous.”

Mulder and William both stare at her and she can see them processing her theory.

“So you think Bellona, in 2023, either sees himself as a modern-day Shiva or is trying to harness Shiva’s energy to destroy the world?” Mulder asks tentatively. She realizes it’s typically the type of theory he would posit but the pieces are starting to fall into place. Besides, the results of the DNA test can’t be denied.

“I do,” she replies. “And I think our best hope for stopping him is making sure nothing happens to Dr. Shah.”

“How can we do that?” Mulder asks. “What do you think happened to her?”

“I don’t know,” she admits. “It might have to do with William, or Camp Hero. There must be a reason he appeared when and where he did.”

“I think we all need to make a trip to Camp Hero,” Mulder suggests. Scully and William nod in agreement.

They hear a door open and Shah and Bellona return from the office.

“Okay,” Shah says. “I spoke to my contact at Camp Hero and I can go up and meet with them today. I didn’t ask about bringing any visitors, but I can try to get you in.”

Mulder, Scully, and William follow Shah and Bellona downstairs. “Follow us,” Shah says before they separate and head to their cars.

Scully trails behind Mulder and William, watching them walk in step. Nearly equal in height, their strides match and their mannerisms are almost perfectly mirrored. The doubts she had about William’s origin are evaporating, even if she didn’t have concrete DNA evidence to prove his parentage. She’s desperate to know what changes in her life over the next thirty years lead her to becoming the mother of this bright young man—and Mulder’s partner in more ways than one. Learning that information, though, she knows, won’t replace the experience of living through it all. Her only hope of getting to see firsthand what the future holds is to ensure William’s safe passage back to his version of 2023, even if it means having to say goodbye to him now.

***

As Shah’s guests, Mulder, Scully, and William get a much warmer reception at Camp Hero than they did on their first visit. As they drive through the gate behind Shah and Bellona’s car, Mulder smirks at the guard in his post. Scully smiles but keeps her eyes focused in her lap in embarrassment.

They follow Bellona and Shah to a squat, square building next to a taller one that’s capped by the radar dish. The walls of both buildings are tagged with bubbly graffiti letters and it appears as if the site hasn’t been active in years. Except for a few military vehicles, the parking lot is abandoned. Weeds poke through gaps in the pavement.

A uniformed man in his 50s greets them at the door. He’s stocky and solid, built like a refrigerator, with a thick, but neatly trimmed mustache.

“Dr. Shah, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” he says. “I’m General Jenkins, we spoke on the phone. You’ll have to excuse the desolate atmosphere around here. We’re just starting to get the base up and operational again, but we should have everything you need to begin your work.”

They follow Jenkins through a concrete hallway with a lingering mildew smell. Switch boxes and rusted-over equipment line the walls. Jenkins leads them to an unmarked door that he opens by keying in a four-digit code. Inside are rows of workstations with computers, but no people.

Jenkins guides Bellona and Shah to one of the desktop computers, booting it up to demonstrate something to them while Mulder, Scully, and William survey the scene.

“That’s the door I came through,” William says, pointing to a thick, metal door with a round vault closure at the other end of the room. “There’s a tunnel behind there.”

“The Phoenix III tunnel,” Mulder says. “That must be the entrance to the wormhole.”

Mulder and William glance at Scully, waiting for her to debunk the theory. In light of everything she’s seen, though, and as much as she doesn’t want to admit it, Mulder’s explanation makes more sense than anything else she can think of.

“Any idea how we can reopen the wormhole?” William asks.

“There must be a localized disruption in spacetime,” Scully thinks aloud, trying to reconcile her understanding of the laws of physics with William’s unbelievable appearance. “Two, actually. One here caused by whatever military technology—”

“Extraterrestrial technology,” Mulder interjects.

“—whatever technology they’re using, and one at CERN in 2023 that Dr. Bellona created with the large hadron collider. If they’re both activated at the same time, the wormhole will open and William, or whoever is in the tunnel at that time, will be able to travel between the two locations.”

“Bellona is going to try it again,” William says. “I just remembered he said he was doing a ‘test run,’ so it must have been for another experiment, possibly even a more powerful one.”

“Then we have to get them to activate the time tunnel here,” Mulder adds.

“But how?” William asks.

“Dr. Shah,” Scully says. “They want her to work on this project. She can ask them to demonstrate the technology before she commits.”

“It’s worth a shot,” Mulder says.

They agree it’d be best for Scully, as a scientist, to appeal to Shah and ask if she’ll go along with the plan. She takes a deep breath, then goes to pull Shah away from Bellona and Jenkins. Without explaining her time travel theory—she doesn’t want the other woman to think she’s insane—she manages to convince Shah to request a demonstration from Jenkins.

“I don’t know what you’re expecting to see,” Jenkins says after listening to Shah’s request. “I’ve seen the technicians run the experiment a few times and it just looks like gibberish on a computer screen to me. Of course, we can’t declassify any sensitive information until you’ve signed the necessary paperwork, but if you want to watch a technician press a few buttons on the computer, be my guest. Let me get our technician.”

Jenkins leaves the room and returns a few minutes later with a tall, thin man with a goatee. The man nods at William, who gives him a look of recognition in return.

“You know him?” Scully asks.

“He was here the night I turned up,” he says quietly to her.

“How can I help?” The man asks.

“Whatever experiment you were running the night William appeared, I need you to recreate those exact conditions and repeat the coordinates,” Scully instructs him.

“I just push the buttons,” the goateed man says, resigned, and takes up position at one of the desktop computers.

“And I’ll go in the tunnel,” William says.

“No one goes in there,” Jenkins barks.

“Sir, with all due respect,” the technician says. “I think it’d be in our best interest if he does go. He’s the one I told you about who turned up here the other night? If your concern is maintaining the secrecy of the project, I don’t think you’d want him hanging around.”

Jenkins nods. Scully thinks that it ultimately doesn't matter whether the technician truly cares about William’s return or only in hiding any evidence of time travel. Either way, their only chance of getting William back where he belongs is getting him in that tunnel.

William heads toward the vault door and Scully instinctively walks beside him. Even if she can’t understand or explain how he came to be, she’s suddenly acutely aware that she doesn’t want to lose her son. She feels the need to hold him in her arms and protect him.

When they’re directly in front of the door William turns to her and says, “You have to convince Shah not to work on this project. She has to stay at Princeton or else something will happen to her and it’ll send Bellona down the path to destroy the world in 2023.”

“I don’t know if I can do that,” she says.

“Yes, you can, mom,” he insists, taking her hands in his. “Explain to her that she isn’t going to find any answers here. These researchers only want to use her for her abilities and then they’ll dispose of her to keep their work secret. You and dad told me you’ve seen things like this over the years. Shadow government projects with no respect for human life. I have a feeling that’s what’s going on here. She’ll listen to you.”

“I’ll try,” she says, squeezing his hands. Even though his eyes are as blue as her own, she sees so much of Mulder in his gaze—his desire to believe, even in her, and the trust he puts in her.

William lets go of her hands. He twists the vault door open and peers into the darkness.

“Wait,” Scully hears herself say the word before she thinks it.

She feels both William and Mulder’s eyes on her now. Mulder crosses the room to stand beside them.

“What if something goes wrong and you end up not returning to 2023…or never existing at all?” She steps closer to William and grabs onto his hands again. “I don’t want to risk losing you.”

“Mom,” William's voice catches in his throat. “It’s going to work. You figured everything out yourself. I need to get back. I’ll see you…in the future.”

She takes him into her arms and hugs him tight, closing her eyes to allow the smell and feel of him to surround her. Her son is brave and loyal like his father. For the first time since she saw him, she senses a deep bond between them that transcends time and logic. It’s an instinctual love like she’s never felt before. Like a birth she has no recollection of, she feels a physical pain as their bodies separate and she releases him from her hold.

She watches as Mulder hugs him next, knowing the link between them is just as strong. “You’ve got this, buddy,” Mulder says to his son, tapping him on the back before letting him go.

“We’ll see him again one day,” Mulder whispers to Scully, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. His weight feels warm and safe against hers, and she eases into him.

“I can’t wait,” Scully murmurs. Despite her fears, she smiles. Tears stream down her face as William disappears down the tunnel.

#x files fanfic

[tulpa51]

Dancing the Tandava (8/10)

[on Ao3] @today-in-fic

Geneva, Switzerland 2023

Mulder has a lifetime of experience with one too-smart-for-her-own-good petite woman staring him down like he’s lost his mind, but he isn’t used to two of them. And yet that’s the situation he finds himself in back at William’s apartment with both Scully and Hannah raising their eyebrows in unison as he explains his theory.

“He does know that wormholes are purely hypothetical, right?” Hannah says to Scully, with a mixture of disbelief and fear. “That they don’t actually exist?”

“Hypothetical is a relative term for Mulder,” Scully answers. “But yes, he should be fully aware that there’s no such thing as a traversable wormhole through which one could travel in time.”

Mulder steps toward her impatiently and says, “I’ve heard dozens of reports of time travel experiments at Camp Hero. If that’s where Bellona’s wife, Samita, disappeared, she could be caught in temporal purgatory. Bellona has figured out how to harness the large hadron collider to open up a portal between now and 1993 when she disappeared. I haven’t worked out why he’s sent William back there, but it could be in exchange for her, or even as a test to see if it works.”

Hannah’s face remains frozen in shock while Scully reaches out her hand to grip Mulder’s wrist.

“Mulder,” she starts. “All I want is to find our son, and I know that’s what you want, too. But don’t you think it’s more likely that Bellona killed his wife and tried to do the same to William?”

He shakes his head. Their son is alive. If he knows anything, he knows that. “Hannah, you said they never found Samita’s body. She was just presumed dead.”

“That’s right,” Hannah says quietly. “But, still—”

“And you mentioned Bellona ran an unusual experiment the night William went missing,” he interrupts. “I think that was him activating the wormhole, opening the portal into time.”

“Mulder, stop,” Scully nearly shouts at him. “Even if what you’re implying is possible, which it most certainly is not, Bellona would somehow need to generate enough energy to essentially create a black hole. He only managed to operate the collider at 15 TeV, right, Hannah? If I remember my physics correctly, that's still orders of magnitude smaller than what would be required for what Mulder’s suggesting.”

“You’re right,” Hannah says “It would need to be on the level of Planck energy.”

“Which I assume is…a lot?” Mulder asks.

“Uh, yeah,” says Hannah. “You’d need electrovolts in the area of 10 to the 19-billionth power. We’re only dealing with a few trillion here.”

Mulder nods as he processes her words. “Maybe that has something to do with his ritual at the Shiva statue. Maybe he’s attempting to harness an ancient, cosmic energy that surpasses anything you can create in a lab. We need to talk to Bellona again.”

“I don’t know what else you expect to get out of him,” Scully says, sounding defeated.

“He’s motivated by love, Scully, just like us. He wants his wife back and we want our son. I think we can appeal to him that way.”

Eager to confront Bellona again, he turns and opens the door, trusting Scully and Hannah will follow him.

Outside the apartment building, Scully tugs on his hand and pulls him toward her. “Can we have a moment?” He sees her eyes are welling with tears and her chin is wrinkled with worry.

“Sure,” he responds. “Hannah, go on ahead. We’ll catch up.”

Once the younger woman is out of earshot, he turns to Scully. “What’s up?”

She bites down on her lower lip and blinks slowly. “I think we need to be prepared to not find William alive.”

“No.” The word comes out louder than he intends it to and she gasps. He takes both of her hands in his and leans closer. “Scully, I refuse to believe that, and I know you better than to think you’d give up so soon. Whatever has happened to him, we’re going figure it out and we’re going to find him.”

“I just don’t—” she starts but a flood of tears interrupts her and her chest heaves.

He pulls her in close to him, feeling her muscles spasm through her thin jacket as her tears dampen his sweater. “It’s going to be okay,” he whispers into her hair. He kisses the top of her head and slowly strokes her back to soothe her.

“How are you so calm?”

“One of us has to be.” He sighs and feels her laughing softly against his chest. “And because I know William. He’s smarter than both of us combined. He’s probably going to find us before we find him.”

Scully takes a deep breath. She stands up straight, still holding his hands. “You really think he was sent back to 1993? Do you think he’d look for us?”

“Could you imagine how we’d react if he found us?” Mulder smiles. “We barely knew each other back then. Do you think you’d believe we have a son in the future?”

“No,” she chuckles, squeezing her eyes shut as she lowers her gaze to the ground. “Not a chance. But you would. You’d believe him.”

“If it meant I’d have a shot at getting with you one day, I wouldn’t need much proof.”

She laughs in earnest now. “Really? In 1993, you would have wanted that? With those horrible suits I used to wear?”

“Oh come on, I’ve told you before,” he smiles at her. “You were adorable back then. Still are.”

She looks up at him with a smile and he kisses her tenderly.

“We’re going to find him,” he affirms.

She nods and dries her eyes on the sleeve of her jacket. Up ahead, Hannah has stopped to wait for them. He gives Scully’s hands a reassuring squeeze and then they start walking to meet their son’s best friend.

***

Mulder doesn’t bother to knock at Bellona’s door, just angrily twists the knob. It’s locked, though, and doesn’t budge, so he pounds on it harshly. There’s no answer.

“Damn it,” he hisses under his breath. He rests his fist on the door and bows his head in frustration and helplessness.

“Mulder,” he hears Scully whisper as she brings a hand to his back. “Someone’s coming.”

He pivots around and sees Bellona approaching from the other end of the hallway. As soon as Bellona spots the three of them at his office door, he turns in the other direction. Mulder sprints to catch him, hearing Hannah and Scully in pursuit behind him.

When he’s in arm’s distance, he reaches out and grabs the scientist by the shoulder.

“Stop,” Mulder shouts. Bellona turns to face him and the two nearly collide.

“I know what you’re doing,” Mulder says, stepping closer to Bellona to overshadow the shorter man. “You’re trying to get your wife back. You opened up a wormhole with the LHC that links back to 1993 when your wife disappeared.”

Bellona scoffs. “What you’re saying is ludicrous. My wife is dead.”

“You don’t know that,” Mulder counters. “They never found a body, and she disappeared at Camp Hero where the CIA was experimenting with time travel.”

“You know the capacities of the LHC, Hannah,” Bellona says, turning to Hannah, who, along with Scully, is now right behind Mulder. “Tell him none of this is possible.”

Hannah frowns, looking between the two men and back at Scully. “I did,” she says. “But this doesn’t add up. You did something to William.”

“I’m sorry about your son,” Bellona says to Mulder. “But I know the limits of science. That’s how my wife, Samita, died. She was recruited by the defense department to take part in an experiment that would push the known barriers of everything we know about particle physics—”

“A time travel experiment,” Mulder insists.

“No,” Bellona cries in frustration. “That’s preposterous.”

“What was the project then?” Scully asks anxiously.

“I never found out,” Bellona says, suddenly wistful. “I assume it was some sort of weapon, based on the resources the government was throwing around and the level of secrecy surrounding it. Probably something so powerful it would make the hydrogen bomb look like a hand grenade. They wouldn’t even tell Samita the full details until she arrived at Camp Hero. And then she died soon after. I assume it was during a test, but I hit a wall with the defense department whenever I tried to get any answers.”

“But then what are you doing?” Hannah begs, her voice hoarse with anger and fear. “What did William see you doing at the Shiva statue? And how did you get the LHC to run at 15 TeV?”

Bellona stares at her quizzically then shakes his head and pats his hands at his sides. “Oh, what does it matter,” he says quietly, almost to himself, glazing not at Mulder, Scully, and Hannah but at the ceiling above him. “It’ll all be over soon anyway. There’s no use hiding it anymore.”

He pauses, then stares at the three of them.

“We’re in a cosmic cycle of creation and destruction,” Bellona continues. “Look at the havoc humanity has brought to this planet: nuclear weapons, ecological devastation, genocide. Even this very establishment we hail as a pinnacle of science holds the keys to our destruction. Like Lord Shiva, we’ve danced our way into existence and can dance ourselves into extinction. The LHC doesn’t just give us the power to understand the Big Bang—it gives us the power to recreate it. My group has that opportunity now, to enter a new cycle, one free of evil and hate.”

“But in restarting the universe, you will destroy everything that already exists,” Mulder says.

“And even if you did, the laws of nature suggest that humanity, or a species very much like it, would evolve in exactly the same manner,” adds Scully. “Not to mention none of this is even possible,

“It may be,” Hannah says and the others turn to look at her.

She points accusingly at Bellona. “That’s the experiment you’ve been working on, isn’t it? It’s how you were able to get the LHC to run at 15 TeV. You want to generate enough energy to create a new Big Bang. You were testing it when Wiliam went missing and—wait,” she pauses, furrowing her brow in thought. “Mulder might be right, too. You didn’t generate enough energy to re-condense all matter in the universe but you did open up a wormhole. That’s where William is. That’s why there’s no evidence of him leaving the tunnel.”

“I couldn’t tell you where he is if I wanted to,” Bellona says. “But he was going to question my group’s project and I couldn’t have that.”

“What’s this group you’re talking about?” Hannah asks. “No one at CERN would ever condone such an insane idea.”

“No,” Bellona smiles. “But true believers would.”

As he finishes speaking, a door opens behind them and Mulder turns to see a small crowd of people teeming out of Bellona’s office. They must’ve been in there when he knocked on the door but he hadn’t heard a sound from the other side. Mulder recognizes one of them as the taxi driver with the Shiva medallion. “You!” He calls out after him.

The driver smiles menacingly as he approaches along with the rest of the group. There are roughly a dozen of them in total and once they reach Mulder, Scully, and Hannah, they easily outnumber them. Two of the men grip Mulder’s arms from either side as others in the group take hold of Hannah and Scully. They shout and writhe in protest but they’re unable to fight off Bellona’s lackeys who drag them down the hall and back into his office. After the three of them are forced inside, Bellona slams the door.

Mulder lunges at the doorknob, trying to force it open, but it doesn’t give.

“I guess these are the people William saw gathered with Bellona at the Shiva statue,” Hannah says as they hear the door locking from the outside.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Scully says. “Even though Shiva is associated with destruction in Hinduism, he’s a peaceful god. Destruction in this sense doesn’t even have a malevolent connotation. It's part of a natural cycle of death and rebirth.”

“Scully, you’re a Christian,” Mulder replies. “You should know that anyone can twist the idea of a benevolent god into an evil idol to serve their own purposes. I doubt Bellona or his followers are well-versed in Hinduism at all. They’ve just latched onto this idea of cosmic circles of creation and destruction and are using it to justify their apocalyptic plan. It’s a death cult. Just like Heaven’s Gate or Jonestown, only this time they plan on taking the rest of the planet with them.”

“Well then we better figure out how to stop him,” Hannah says despondently.

Mulder jams his shoulder up against the door but it’s heavy and isn’t opening. Even though it’s selfish, he feels more concerned about never seeing William again than Bellona bringing about the end of the universe. He looks to Scully who’s currently shuffling through the papers on Bellona’s desk with Hannah, trying to find anything that can help them. She glances back at him and he can see the fear in her oceanic eyes.

“Find anything?” he asks.

“No,” Hannah says without lifting her eyes off the desk. “These calculations do seem to indicate Bellona’s attempting to launch particles through the accelerator at faster rates than we’ve ever achieved before, but there’s no evidence to suggest it’ll work.”

“He might be tapping into a deeper, more powerful spiritual force,” Mulder says. “That could explain his ritual at the Shiva statue.”

Slumped back against the door, Mulder contemplates their predicament. He thought he’d had his fill of homicidal maniacs for one lifetime and had no intention of ever dragging his son into a mess like this. That was the bargain he and Scully had made after William’s birth. They’d leave the monster chasing to Doggett and Reyes in exchange for giving their son a normal life. He should have known that oftentimes, though, it’s the monsters that chase them.

He feels a subtle vibration on the ground underneath him. Scully and Hannah feel it, too, and they stop their frantic searching and lock eyes with each other.

“Not a lot of earthquake action in Geneva, huh?” he asks.

“No,” Hannah shakes her head.

“And no chance we’re right above a subway line?”

“The only thing below us is the collider tunnel,” Hannah says, her voice starting to shake along with the rest of the room. “Whatever Bellona is planning, it must be starting.”

The electricity cuts out with a sputter. The fluorescent lights overhead flicker off, leaving them in darkness except for the dim afternoon light filtering in through the small window. As the shaking becomes more violent, books and equipment start tumbling off the office shelves. Mulder rushes to Scully and Hannah, wrapping them both in his arms as they duck for cover underneath Bellona’s desk.

“William’s our only hope, now,” Mulder shouts to be heard over the clamor of crashing objects and vigorous rumbling.

“What do you mean?” Scully yells back.

“If he really did get sent back to 1993, he might figure out how to stop Bellona back then. He has the power to change the future.”

Scully looks up at him, scared but hopeful. As he moves to hold her closer, the light from the window flickers out, as if the sun itself has lost power.

#x files fanfic

[tulpa51]

Dancing the Tandava (7/10)

[on Ao3] @today-in-fic

Washington, DC 1993

Since William has no identification, money, or place of residence in 1993, Mulder lets him stay at his apartment while they figure out what to do next. As he accompanies his parents on the drive to the airport and the shuttle flight from New York back to DC, he’s tickled by how different they were years before he was born. He only knows them as his happily married, domesticated parents, not these young FBI agents who barely know each other.

Even though they aren’t together together yet, he can see the sparks flying between them. It oddly reminds him of his relationship with Hannah. They’ve stayed up all night talking but have never done more than hug. She’s beautiful and makes him think. He’s considered telling her how he feels about her, but he was scared it would ruin their friendship. Watching his parents now, he doesn’t feel as afraid. As his dad unlocks the door to his apartment, William decides if he makes it back to 2023 he’s going to tell Hannah about his feelings.

Seeing his father’s old apartment thrills William. There’s the leather couch covered by a Navajo blanket and the fish tank from the basement of his childhood home. He tries not to think about it, but he suspects there’s a chance he was conceived on that couch based on the way his parents lock eyes over it. He glances over at the bookshelf and sees familiar titles on parapsychology, cryptozoology, and mythology. Some of these made the cut and are still in his parents’ house in Virginia, but others he’s never seen. He imagines his parents going through the bookshelf two decades ago, deciding which ones were still relevant and which ones they should give away.

Everything else in the apartment is the stuff of legends. This is the setting of all the stories his parents told him of late nights poring crime scene photos trying to break a case or watching old movies and debating the patriotic merits of butter on popcorn.

“This is so cool,” he says, unable to suppress a grin. “I’ve heard so much about this place.”

“About my apartment?” His dad sounds skeptical.

“Yeah,” he says. “This is where you lived before I was born, right? And then we all lived at mom’s old apartment for a little bit before moving into our house. Can we go see mom’s place? I’ve seen pictures from when I was a baby, but I don’t remember it.”

“Um, sure. We’ll see when she’s around. William, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Are Agent Scully and I a couple in your time?”

“Of course,” William laughs. “You’re crazy about each other. It’s actually kind of gross sometimes.”

“Are we married?”

“Yeah. You didn’t get married until after I was born, but you told me that you’d been together for a while beforehand.”

Mulder’s quiet as he takes this all in.

“I really shouldn’t say anything else, you know, Back to the Future and everything. Don’t want to accidentally scrub myself out of existence. Remember we used to watch that all the time when I was a kid?”

“I—” his dad starts.

“Oh yeah,” William says, dejected. “Sorry, I keep forgetting.”

“It’s okay, buddy,” his dad says. Buddy. It’s what his dad always calls him. “I don’t remember. But I can imagine if I had a kid I’d want to watch that with him. What about Plan 9 From Outer Space? The Wrath of Khan?”

“Yup,” William says, smiling. “I was Spock for Halloween three years in a row when I was little. None of the other kids had any idea who I was. That was before the J.J. Abrams reboot and everything.”

“They did a reboot? Was it any good?”

“It was okay,” William says. “I liked it. But you said there was too much action.”

His dad grins as he sits down on the couch and invites William to sit next to him. The leather feels squeaky, not as soft and broken-in as he remembers it.

“Mom doesn’t believe me, does she?” William asks.

“She’s coming around to it,” Mulder says.

William shouldn’t be surprised. His mother, the doctor and scientist, has always been the skeptical one but it still crushes him whenever she gives him a cold stare without any recognition. Where’s the mom who read him stories, soothed his nightmares, and helped him with his homework? The one who learned all the rules of baseball and basketball so she could cheer him on during his high school games and listened excitedly when he talked about everything he was learning in his college physics classes? He’s glad his dad, at least, believes him, even though he has no memories of his entire life.

“Am I a good father?” His dad asks hesitantly, and William turns back to face him.

The question confuses him. He always thought fatherhood came naturally to his dad. He remembers hours of playing with Star Trek action figures and building Legos on the floor of their living room as a kid, playing catch and practicing fielding ground balls in their backyard until sunset.

“You’re the best,” he says as if he’s confirming the sky is blue.

His dad turns away and he thinks he sees tears in the corner of his eyes.

“Does that surprise you?” William asks. Growing up, his dad was his hero. He never suspected he had any doubts about being a father.

“Honestly, a little,” Mulder says. “You mentioned my sister, Samantha. I can’t imagine myself settling down and living this life with Scully, and with you, unless I found out what happened to her. Do I ever find her?”

William knows this part of the story—how, a little over a year before he was born, his parents learned Samantha died at 14 years old—but now he starts putting together the pieces. His father needed to get closure before allowing himself to commit fully to his mother and, eventually, to him.

“You’ll find out what happened,” he promises. “You’ll get your answers.”

He sees the pain in his dad’s eyes, how he wants so badly to ask William to tell him the truth, but William can’t bring himself to do it.

“Back to the Future, right?” William says. “I can’t mess up the past.”

“Alright, Marty McFly,” his dad says, his mood lightened. “Let’s work on figuring out how you got here. And how to get you back where you belong. You mentioned this Dr. Bellona. Any hint where he might be working now?”

“I don’t know,” William says. “We can Google him.”

“What’s a Google?” His dad’s puzzled face makes William laugh.

“Sorry,” he says. “I keep forgetting it’s not 2023 anymore. It’s a search engine on the internet. Do you even have internet access?”

“Not personally, but I know some guys who do.”

“The Gunmen?” William perks up. He loved spending time with his dad’s trio of offbeat friends growing up. They always let him play with their latest piece of technology and shared wild stories about his parents from before he was born.

“You know them?”

“Frohike, Langly, and Byers are basically my uncles,” he says and his dad smiles. “They’re awesome.”

“Want to go pay them a visit in 1993?”

***

The Gunmen’s headquarters hasn’t changed much in thirty years. The technology has evolved but it’s just as grungy, overstuffed with audiovisual equipment, and somewhat malodorous as he remembers. Apparently, none of the three have updated their wardrobes in decades either. William recognizes Frohike’s leather jacket and fingerless gloves, Langly’s Dead Kennedys t-shirt, and Byers’s funereal suit.

“Guys, this is William,” his dad says as they come inside. “William, you know the guys.”

The three men look around at each other and then back at William.

“He knows us?” Byers asks Mulder.

“Tell them,” Mulder says, nodding at William. “They’ll believe you.”

“I’m Mulder’s son. And Scully’s. I’m from the year 2023.”

Despite Mulder’s assurance, all three Gunmen start laughing nervously.

“I don’t know what’s harder to believe,” Frohike says. “That Mulder knocked up Scully or that you’re from the future.”

“He appeared at Camp Hero,” Mulder says and the guys stop laughing.

“No way,” Langly says. “Did you see the Delta T antenna? That’s what they use to bend time. It’s supposed to have technology the military stole from extraterrestrials from the Orion constellation.”

“Well, the Delta T antenna can bend time,” Byers adds, “but it’s probably not what allowed you to travel back from the future. That was likely the Phoenix III tunnel.”

“Yeah,” says Frohike. “Do you remember a tunnel that descended deep underground? The CIA has supposedly been throwing homeless people down there just to see what happens, and they come back saying they walked out onto Civil War battlegrounds.”

“He’s a little hazy on how exactly he got here, but we think we know who’s behind this,” Mulder interjects.

“Dr. Vincent Bellona,” William says. “He’s at CERN now. That’s where I was working before I came here, but I think if we find where he is now we might be able to figure out what happened to me.”

“You’re working at CERN?” Byers asks. “Impressive. Must be Agent Scully’s influence.”

“Think you guys could look him up on the ‘net?” Mulder asks.

“On it,” Frohike says as he rolls a chair over to a desktop computer. “Vincent Bellona. Looks like he’s a post-doc at Princeton, specializing in high-energy physics. And—this is interesting—he’s got a hot wife who’s even more accomplished than he is.”

“Oh, let’s see the wife,” Langly says.

“Samita Shah,” Frohike reads off the computer screen. William looks and sees a photo of a younger version of Bellona (with a full-head of hair) next to a pretty South Asian woman with long, dark hair cascading over one shoulder. They’re both in lab coats. The picture is above an article titled “Quantum Leap of Love: Meet the Physics Department’s New Power Couple.” Skimming the article, he learns that Bellona and his wife came to Princeton together to research W and Z bosons, although Shah’s list of publications appears to be twice as long as her husband’s.

“Did Bellona ever mention his wife to you?” Mulder asks.

“No,” William says. “I didn’t think he had one. He doesn’t wear a ring anyway. They must not be together anymore.”

“Frohike, can you print this out?” Mulder says, then turns to William. “What do you say we pick up Scully and then go see what Bellona’s up to at Princeton?”

***

On the drive to Scully’s apartment, William sneaks glances at his father from the passenger seat. While his mom’s face has thinned out over the years, his father seems narrower in 1993, less solid. They’re both free of wrinkles and the gray hair that he knows his mom dyes to hide, and look more like his peers than his parents. He imagines how worried they must be in 2023 when they come to visit him. Hopefully, they’re able to get in touch with Hannah. He told her what he saw Dr. Bellona doing at the Shiva statue and she knows that Bellona called him in last night, so he hopes she’s making the same logical leaps.

More than anything, he wants to talk to Hannah. He knows they could figure out what’s going on. But she doesn’t exist yet. He doesn’t know if her parents have even met. If he doesn’t get back to 2023, he’ll be 30 when she’s born—if he doesn’t manage to screw up the space-time continuum so much that she’s never born at all. The thought of a world without her in it doesn’t feel worth returning to.

William’s dad knocks on the door of his mom’s apartment. She opens the door in jeans, a flannel shirt, and small, round glasses. She looks like she could’ve been in one of his classes at MIT.

“Scully, we have a lead on Dr. Bellona. He’s teaching at Princeton currently. We have to go see him.”

“Mulder, slow down,” his mom says, her face scrunched in concern. “Can we have a word alone?”

William watches as his dad follows his mom into the kitchen. Her apartment is much more familiar than his dad’s. Even though they moved out when he was a few months old, he’s seen photos of his dad holding him in front of the wood bookshelf in the living room, and one of himself as a chubby-cheeked infant with both his parents on the same sofa he sits on now.

His parents are speaking softly, but he can still hear them from where he sits.

“The preliminary DNA test results came back and they’re surprising, to say the least.” William hears his mother opening an envelope and handling papers. “They appear to confirm William’s claims.”

“Scully, you know how accurate these tests are. What’s the likelihood that we aren’t his parents with these results? Less than 10 percent?”

“Even smaller,” she says. “Mulder, this is completely impossible.”

“At this point, it’s more impossible that he’s not telling the truth. You’re a scientist. If you had to testify in court, wouldn’t you say this objectively proves we’re his parents?”

“If I didn’t know the context, sure,” she says. “But this is actually not possible. It has to be a statistical anomaly.”

“A walking, talking statistical anomaly with your eyes and my nose?”

“Mulder, it’s easy to see patterns when you’re looking for them. A lot of people have blue eyes and, well, distinguished profiles.”

“Distinguished? Thanks, Scully.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Come on Scully, talk to him. He knows things about us. I think he’s a little upset you don’t believe him. You’re his mom after all.”

He hears her sigh and then they both come back to join him in the living room.

“William,” his mom starts. She’s turned towards him but her eyes are on the envelope in her hands and not him. “According to the preliminary DNA analysis, what you’re saying is true. Agent Mulder is your father and I, somehow, am your mother. I don’t know how to explain that, but these tests are extremely unlikely to be wrong.”

“I know,” William says. “I told you I was telling the truth.”

She finally faces him and he can see the bewilderment in her eyes. He has to remind himself that this is his mother in 1993. There’s so much she has neither seen nor experienced yet. He knows about her abduction and about Emily. By the time his parents left the X-Files, her name was attached to one of the thickest files in the office, but at this moment he worries that his being here feels like a violation to her.

“It’s a lot to take in,” Mulder says, filling the silence as Scully continues to stare at William, examining him.

“Maybe if we talk to Dr. Bellona, we can find out how to get me back where I belong. I realize this must be weird for both of you.”

His mother nods sadly, looking down at her hands interlaced in front of her. “I think that would be for the best.”

He smiles with his lips tightly shut and nods in agreement, but inside his stomach churns. He wants to reach out and hug her, let her smooth his hair down with her gentle touch like she did when he was little and not feeling well. His heart aches knowing he’s little more than a stranger to her.

#x files fanfic

[tulpa51]

Dancing the Tandava (6/10)

[on Ao3] @today-in-fic

Geneva, Switzerland 2023

As a scientist, Scully is thrilled to see the inner workings of CERN where leading researchers from around the world are uncovering the building blocks of the universe. As a mother, she’s filled with pride that William is among the brightest minds decoding these mysteries. She didn’t expect that the first time she’d walk these hallowed halls, though, would be while trying to find her missing son.

The hallways and offices of CERN look uncharacteristically dated for such a cutting-edge facility, Most of the structures were erected in the 1950s and have an underwhelming, dull and gray aesthetic. As she follows Hannah to Dr. Bellona’s office, Scully wonders if the facilities would feel more inspiring if she wasn’t so despondent.

Alongside her, Mulder has slipped into his investigator skin, all of his senses heightened as they search for William. It’s been so long since they played these roles that she’s nervous they’ve forgotten how. She hasn’t felt this way since the days before William’s birth when it seemed as if a threat to her unborn child lurked around every corner. But after William was born—completely normal, although no less miraculous—the shadowy forces retreated.

She taught at Quantico for a few years before leaving the Bureau altogether to practice medicine full-time. Mulder refused to grovel to Kersh for his old job after getting fired, and instead became an adjunct professor of criminal psychology, a role that left him with enough time to research the occasional cryptid. Thanks to skillful diplomacy on Skinner’s behalf, the X-Files remained open with Doggett and Reyes at the helm and Mulder and Scully serving as unofficial consultants. They’ve been living a normal life for the past 22 years. Scully didn’t expect the darkness to find them once again.

She hasn’t had a chance to bring it up to Mulder yet, but she’s terrified that someone from their past has come back to target William. She’s already berating herself for letting her guard down and failing to properly warn her son.

During William’s childhood, she and Mulder tried to straddle the line between caution and paranoia. They didn’t want their son to grow up in fear and, after several years of nothing nefarious happening, it felt easier to relax. By the time he went away to college, their worries weren’t any more extreme than any other loving parents’ concerns. When he announced that he’d been accepted into CERN’s internship program, they never questioned his safety living abroad.

It helped that he’d be going with Hannah. William claims they’re only friends, but he doesn’t talk about any of his other friends as often or with as much admiration. When Hannah came to visit them over the summer, Scully noticed how she and William could communicate with just a glance or a gesture across the dinner table. It was as if an electric charge passed between the two of them and anyone who came close enough could feel the buzz. Mulder insists to her that they must be dating but if their friendship does grow into something more, Scully knows it will have to happen on its own time.

When they reach Bellona’s office, Mulder knocks on the door and starts turning the knob before hearing an answer.

Bellona, a pale man who looks like he’s in his early 60s with dark sideburns and a balding crown, rises from his desk chair as the three of them enter the room. His office is small and drab with cinderblock walls and a small window. There's a laptop on his desk alongside messy piles of papers.

“Are you Dr. Bellona?” Mulder asks.

“Yes,” he says. “Can I help you?”

“I’m Fox Mulder and this is my wife Dr. Dana Scully. Our son, William Mulder, is missing and I believe you might have something to do with that.”

Bellona tilts his head at them but his eyes don’t give anything away. “I’m sorry to hear about your son. But I can assure you I have nothing to do with whatever might have happened to him.”

“You were the last person to see him,” Hannah chimes in. “You called him in last night to assist with a collider run.”

“Oh yes, of course,” Bellona says, smiling. “I needed assistance with a project and Dr. Farber mentioned I could borrow one of his promising young interns. He helped me with calibrating a magnet on the LHC and then he left before we did the run. I assume he went back home. It was late, after all.”

“But no one saw him leave,” Hannah says firmly. “The entire facility was locked down because he was missing in the tunnel.”

“You’re one of Farber’s interns, too, right?” Bellona asks.

“Yes, I’m Hannah Schwartz.”

“I thought so,” Bellona says. “I’ve seen you around. Then you should know as well as I do that no one can go missing in that tunnel. The facilities team did a full sweep but didn’t find him so, as I said, we assumed he went home and continued with the run.”

“There are security cameras all over the place,” Mulder says, gesturing to one in the hallway right outside Bellona’s office. “And yet none of them picked up on him leaving last night and he never showed up at his apartment.”

Scully knows he’s bluffing. Without their FBI credentials it would be impossible to access the security footage, but Mulder is eager to push Bellona.

Bellona shrugs. “I don’t know what to tell you. CERN has an excellent security team. I’m sure they’ll be able to assist you.”

There’s a tall, potted tree in the corner behind Bellona’s desk. Nearly reaching ceiling height, it leans toward the room’s only window. The tree has green, three-pronged leaves that look similar to the ones they found at the foot of the Shiva statue. She makes eye contact with Mulder, who’s also noticed it and he nods.

“That’s an interesting plant,” Mulder says, pointing it out. “Happen to know its name?”

“It’s a bael tree,” Bellona says. “It has spiritual significance in Hinduism. When a former colleague of mine from Kolkata, came to work at CERN, his mother smuggled some bael seeds into his luggage when she learned they didn’t grow in Switzerland. Once his research stint was over, the tree had gotten too big to bring back to India so he entrusted it to me.”

“So it’s likely the only one of its kind around here, right?” Mulder continues.

“I’d imagine there aren’t many. It’s a tree that typically prefers a more tropical climate, but this one is stubborn and seems to tolerate my space heater and the occasional sunlight that filters in.”

“That’s strange, though,” Hannah says, “because we found some very similar leaves around the Shiva statue on campus. I remember noticing them because they looked out of place. Any idea how they could have gotten there?”

Scully’s impressed by Hannah’s questioning. She’s giving enough for Bellona to know they’re on to him without showing all their cards. It’s a technique she used on cases before and it worked more than a handful of times.

But Bellona doesn’t bite. “No reason I can think of. Anything else I can help you folks with?”

Scully wishes she still had her badge and gun. As an FBI agent, she had the power to make people talk. Now she feels helpless. Glancing over at Mulder, she sees his gaze locked on Bellona. They both know this man is responsible for their son’s disappearance but they don’t have the authority to detain him. Instead, they have to accept his lies and leave his office empty-handed.

***

Without any other leads to go on, they decide to let Hannah get some rest. They walk back to the apartment with her to pick up their luggage, and then leave to go check into their hotel and try looking into Bellona’s background.

Scully finally lets herself break down when they make it to their room. Sitting at the foot of the bed, she rests her head in her hands and starts to cry.

“Oh, Scully,” Mulder says gently, coming to sit next to her and taking her into his arms. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to find him.”

“You don’t know that,” she says between sobs. “We don’t know what happened.”

Mulder rubs her back and she tucks the crown of her head under his chin. No matter what calamity they find themselves in, she always feels safe in his embrace.

“What if this is our fault?” she asks. “What if someone is trying to get to us through him?”

“Why now after so many years?”

She shrugs against his chest and he kisses the top of her head.

“We’re going to find him,” he repeats. “I promise.”

His words shouldn’t soothe her, but they do. Mulder promised she wouldn’t die of cancer and that their son would be born safe and healthy. He makes these vows based on nothing but the power of his beliefs and he hasn’t been wrong yet. This is the man who went to Antarctica to save her life. If William is out there, she trusts the two of them will do everything they can to find him.

“I did some more research on the bael tree on the ride over here,” he says. “Offering bael leaves to Shiva in worship is traditionally considered very auspicious. The three-pronged leaf represents Shiva’s three functions—creation, preservation, and destruction. So it makes sense that Bellona would be scattering them around the statue”

The leaf is still in Scully’s jacket pocket from when Hannah handed it over to her near the statue. She leans away from Mulder to retrieve it, tracing its edges with her fingers.

“But why would he lie about it?” She asks. “There’s nothing wrong with making a religious offering."

“I don’t think that’s all he’s hiding, Scully. He knows what happened last night and I have a feeling it has to do with whatever he was doing by that statue. I think William saw something he wasn’t supposed to see.”

“By that logic, wouldn’t it mean,” Scully hesitates. “That Bellona would try to get rid of William?”

“We can’t think like that. There’s no evidence he’s been hurt in any way.”

There’s no body. She knows that’s what he means. She’s thinking the same thing. The old statistics on missing persons race through her mind. The more time goes by, the less likely they are to find him alive. She leans into Mulder’s chest and lets him wrap his arms around her again.

“What’s our next move?” she asks, her words muffled against his shirt. “Should we involve local law enforcement? Even if we were still with the FBI, we’d have no jurisdiction here.”

“I want to find out more about Bellona. He’s obviously lying. But I want to know why.” She can feel his larynx moving against her forehead as he speaks, and she can hear the wheels of his mind turning.

Her phone vibrates in her pocket, startling her. Mulder lets her go so she can answer. Hannah’s name is on the screen. They’d exchanged numbers before parting ways at the apartment.

“Hannah?”

“Dana,” Hannah’s strained voice utters on the other end. Scully can tell in the short time they’ve been apart she hadn’t gotten any rest. “I think I found something.”

“What did you find?” She asks. Mulder gives her a concerned look. “Wait, Hannah, I’m putting you on speaker so William’s dad can hear you, too.”

“Okay, so,” Hannah continues, “I started Googling Bellona and apparently he had a wife, a Dr. Samita Shah, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances thirty years ago. She was a physicist, too, and she was working at a military lab in the U.S. in 1993 when she suddenly went missing.”

“Did they ever find her?” Scully asks, her voice full of desperation.

“It doesn’t look like it. It seems that she was presumed dead,” Hananh says. “Oh god, what if he did the same thing to her that he did to William?”

“Where was the lab?” Mulder asks.

“Um, it was out on Long Island. In Montauk.”

Mulder twitches with alertness, like a bloodhound who’s caught a whiff of its prey. “Camp Hero?” he asks. Scully’s never heard of the place.

“Yeah,” says Hannah. “How did you know?”

“Hannah, Scully and I are going to go back and ask Dr. Bellona some more questions. We’ll call you as soon as we’re done.”

“No,” the voice on the other end says. “I’m coming with you.”

They agree to pick her up before returning to Bellona’s office and Scully hangs up the phone. “What’s Camp Hero, Mulder?”

“Come on,” he says, standing up from the bed. “I’ll explain on the way.”

#x files fanfic

[tulpa51]

Dancing the Tandava (5/10)

[on Ao3] @today-in-fic

Long Island, NY 1993

They fly as far as a small airport in Islip, near the middle of Long Island, but still have to drive another hour and a half to reach Montauk.

Scully’s been quiet on the flight over, no doubt digesting the news from the phone call he received earlier in their office. He has to admit, the idea of the two of them one day having a son who’s visiting them from the future is a little far-fetched, but he’s heard the lore about Camp Hero and is eager to see it for himself.

“You were a Navy brat, Scully,” he says, breaking the silence. “Have you ever heard about the Philadelphia experiment?”

“I’ve heard about the cream cheese,” she says, absentmindedly gazing out the passenger window.

“Well,” he goes on, “in 1943 a Navy destroyer, the USS Eldridge, disappeared from a Philadelphia shipyard. It reappeared in Norfolk, Virginia, more than 200 miles away with no evidence of how it got there. The crew members weren’t as lucky—some were never found and others were discovered physically fused to the walls of the ship. It’s suspected that the Navy was testing out extraterrestrial technology, possibly stolen from the Nazis, that could make ships invisible to radar detection. Of course, the Navy maintains no such experiment was ever conducted, and no living crew members have any recollection of the event.”

“You think that has something to do with this case?” she asks.

“Apparently, the military continued experiments using this same technology at Camp Hero. I’ve heard stories of a foot of snow falling in the middle of a hot, August afternoon in Montauk, or residents experiencing episodes of mass mind control with dozens of unrelated people feeling sudden surges of anger or sadness simultaneously. Plus, there are reports of a time tunnel in Camp Hero that researchers have used to go forward or backward in time.”

Scully turns to face him. “And that’s where you think this guy came from?”

“I guess we’ll see.” Mulder shrugs, cracking a sunflower seed in his teeth. “Do you ever think about having children, Scully?” He chews hard, hoping the personal question hasn’t crossed a boundary.

“Well, sure,” she hesitates, staring at her hands in her lap. “But I’d like to be further along in my career and, well, with a significant other. What about you?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “In an ideal world, I think it would be nice to have a family, but I didn’t have a great childhood myself and I’m not sure I had the best parenting models. Besides, the instability of this job isn’t conducive to settling down. I think you’d be a great mom, though.”

Scully laughs.

“I’m serious, Scully. You’re patient, caring, and you’ve kept me out of trouble so far which is no easy feat.”

“I suppose being your partner is pretty good practice for parenting,” she says.

Her warm smile encourages him to test the limits even more. “I know we’ve only been working together for a few months, but I think we have a good rapport. I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility that one day our friendship evolves into something more and that we have a child together.”

Scully doesn’t respond and he regrets his words. It’s a step too far. She probably doesn’t consider him as anything more than a coworker and, to be honest, he’s only now realizing he sees her as a friend. When she first walked into his office, she was a curiosity to him—a spy with the confidence to rewrite Einstein; the intestinal fortitude to dissect a corpse, handle its oozing organs, and walk away hungry for lunch; and constellations of freckles on her cheeks that she hides under makeup but that delight him whenever he catches a glimpse of them.

He tried to keep his guard up around her, but he’s slowly learning to trust her loyalty. At first, he didn’t expect her to last long on the X-Files but recently he’s been hoping she sticks around.

“Sorry,” he says after another beat of silence on her end. “I didn’t mean to imply or insinuate anything. I’m sure if you do have children one day it’ll be with some hotshot surgeon or the future head of the FBI, not your crackpot partner.”

“I assume there have been worse cases of Stockholm Syndrome,” she says, grinning at him.

“Stockholm Syndrome? Really, Scully?” He smiles back at her in relief that she’s playfully teasing him and isn’t totally repelled by his comments.

“I’m kidding,” she replies. “I enjoy working with you, Mulder. In just a few months I’ve seen things that have tested my beliefs in concepts I’ve considered to be invariables, and you’ve taught me the power of maintaining an open mind—even if our theories don’t always align. And sure, it’s not possible to say where we'll be a decade from now, but it’s also not possible to travel backwards in time. This is just someone playing a prank on us.”

He nods and turns his attention back to the road unfolding in front of them. As they get closer, the highway narrows to two lanes lined with bare trees. Finally, they turn off onto a dirt road, eventually reaching a tall, barbed wire fence with a guardpost outside. In the distance, he can see the radar tower from his file.

A uniformed officer leans out of the post to inspect their vehicle. “Can I help you?” he asks.

“Agents Mulder and Scully with the FBI,” Mulder says as he shows his badge. “We received a phone call that there’s a young man here asking to speak with us.”

“One moment,” he says.

As the guard goes back inside his post and picks up a phone, Mulder turns to Scully. “Doesn’t seem so decommissioned after all?” he asks with a smile.

Before she can respond, the guard turns his attention back to them. “They’re bringing him out now.”

“We can’t enter the base?” Mulder asks.

“No sir,” the guard says. “This area is restricted to authorized personnel only. The person who asked for you, we would have arrested him ourselves for trespassing if the bureau wasn’t taking care of it.”

Mulder doesn’t add that the FBI hasn’t sanctioned any of the day’s activity. He convinced Scully to claim they were responding to a missing person report when they requested their travel expenses, but they didn’t elaborate on where this person had gone missing from—or who he claimed to be.

“We can’t come in and take a look around?” Mulder presses. “We’ve been told this man has appeared under mysterious circumstances and it would assist with our investigation.”

The guard shakes his head gruffly. On the other side of the gate, another military officer approaches escorting a younger man in handcuffs. As they get closer, Mulder feels a shock of recognition. The handcuffed man could pass for him in his Oxford days. They share the same long, lean frame, bulbous nose, and angular jawline. He feels Scully turning toward him but he can’t take his eyes off this young man. Once they reach the gate, the guard enters the post and presses a button to open it just wide enough for the office and the young man to pass through. The military officer pushes the handcuffed man in front of him towards Mulder and Scully’s rental car.

“You want him cuffed?” he asks.

“Um, no,” Scully says absently, her mind working to process what she sees.

The young man is smiling at them now as if he recognizes them. In his eyes, Mulder sees Scully’s bright blue irises.

“Whatever,” the officer says. He unlocks the handcuffs and guides the young man into the backseat of the car. “Now you all need to get out of here. Authorized personnel only.”

“We’ve heard,” Mulder says, although he’s looking at the young man’s face in the rear view mirror and not at the officer. He’s cataloging his features, assigning some to Scully and some to himself. The resemblance is uncanny.

As Mulder turns the car around and starts pulling away their passenger exclaims, “This is crazy! You guys look so young!”

“I’m sorry,” Scully says. “Do we know you?”

“Mom, it’s me, it’s William,” he says, confused. “Oh shit, it’s 1993. I don’t exist yet. But listen, it’s me, William, your son. Mom, you’re a doctor, you have two brothers, Bill and Charlie, and had—have—a sister, Melissa. Your mom’s name is Maggie and your father’s name is Bill. Dad, you had a sister Samantha who went missing when you were a kid. Your parents are Teena and Bill. You two used to—well I guess, as of now, still do—work at the FBI investigating paranormal cases in the X-Files department.”

“This is all public information,” Scully says, although Mulder can hear the doubt creeping into her usually confident delivery. “You could have researched us. We don’t have a child together.”

“No, not yet you don’t,” he says. “I’m not surprised you don’t believe me. But I can prove it. You can do a DNA test, right? Wait, can you do a DNA test in 1993?”

“Yes, I can do that. And I’m confident that the results will prove that you’re lying.”

“Look, I have pictures of the three of us together on my phone. Shit, I don’t have my phone with me.”

“You have pictures on a phone?” Scully asks doubtfully.

William falls quiet in the backseat. Mulder catches his sad eyes in the mirror.

“Let’s go somewhere we can talk and figure this out,” Mulder says.

Back on the highway, they find a chrome-sided diner. Mulder and Scully secure a booth while William excuses himself to use the bathroom.

Mulder can only sit and grin dumbfoundedly at Scully.

“What?” Scully asks, exacerbated.

“You see it, don’t you?” He asks. “You have to admit the resemblance is undeniable.”

“It’s the power of suggestion,” she counters angrily. “We were told he was our son, so we’re looking for similarities. If anything, this could be a setup. Maybe someone found this guy, who looks a little bit like both of us, and is using him to lure us into something.”

“That doesn’t add up. They’d have to be assuming we would believe in this whole time travel angle as well.”

“Mulder,” she sighs. “You do believe William, or whoever he is, traveled back in time.”

“I’m not ready to rule it out,” he replies. “You’ll do the DNA test. That’ll give us some answers. Let’s hear what he has to say in the meantime.”

From across the diner Mulder sees William emerging from the restroom. “Your parents are right down at that end, hun,” a waitress tells him, pointing in their general direction.

Mulder glances at Scully and she rolls her eyes.

William slides into the booth across from them, still smiling wide, with Scully’s blue eyes lit up on his face.

“I can’t believe this,” he says with excitement in this voice. “You guys used to tell me about going to all these random diners while you were on the road for cases and now I’m getting to see it myself. How long have you two been working together now? Did you find Tooms yet? That was one of your first cases, right?”

“Slow down,” Scully says. “We need you to tell us who you are and where you came from.”

William laughs. “I feel like I should be the one asking you two that,” he says playfully.

“Give us the benefit of the doubt here, William,” Mulder says.

“Okay, well, where do I start? I’m your son, William Scully Mulder, I was born on May 20, 2001. I’m currently a research intern at CERN in Geneva. You two were actually supposed to come visit me today—well, 2023 today. I was assisting this physicist with an experiment on the large hadron collider when all of a sudden things got hazy and I came to in some sort of tunnel at that military base you picked me up from.”

“The large what?” Mulder asks.

“The large hadron collider,” Scully answers. “It’s a particle accelerator but it doesn’t exist. International scientists have proposed plans for its development, but right now the only particle accelerator at CERN is the large electron–positron collider.”

“Yeah,” William nods. “But the LEP was dismantled like 20 years ago to make room for the LHC, which is magnitudes more powerful. Mom, you’ll love this. They discovered the Higgs boson in 2012.”

He’s interrupted by the waitress who comes to take their order.

Scully starts to speak but William reaches out his hand to stop her.

“Watch,” he says. “I know what you want. Mom, you probably think the crispy chicken sandwich sounds good but you’ll order the Greek salad, no feta cheese, with dressing on the side. Dad, you’re going to get the Reuben with fries. And two black coffees.”

Mulder turns to glance at Scully, befuddled.

“Sounds like your kid’s got you down pat,” the waitress says. “And what about you, young man?”

“Um, I’ll have the crispy chicken sandwich—you can have a bite, mom—and an iced tea.”

As the waitress walks away, William asks, “Do you believe me now? Dad, you probably have a bag of sunflower seeds in your pocket that you’ll snack on before the food comes.”

Mulder laughs, pulling out an opened bag of seeds. William reaches over and takes one, opening the shell with his teeth, mirroring the movement Mulder knows he does himself.

“Well, before we eat, I’d like to take a sample of your saliva for a DNA test,” says Scully. “You can take a lucky guess on our lunch orders but genetics don’t lie.”

As she opens her briefcase to get testing swabs and evidence bags, Mulder sees a look of resigned disappointment flash across William’s face. It’s as if he’s sad Scully won’t believe him, but also not surprised.

“May I?” Scully asks, pointing an elongated Q-tip in William’s direction. “Just a cheek swab.”

He nods and opens his mouth, letting Scully get a sample of his saliva and zip it into an evidence bag. She does the same for Mulder, and then herself, before packing all three plastic bags into her briefcase.

“I can drop these off at the nearest field office and have them start sequencing the DNA.”

“Why don’t you tell us how you think you got here,” Mulder says.

“I told you,” William starts impatiently. “I was working on the collider with Dr. Bellona—wait, shit, it must have been Dr. Bellona.”

Mulder and Scully stare at him in confusion.

“He’s a physicist at CERN,” William continues. “His office is next door to Dr. Farber who I actually work for, but he called me in last night to assist on a project. That’s kind of weird, for an intern to work directly on the LHC, but it’s not even the weirdest part. Dad, you’re going to love this.”

Mulder leans in across the table. He can’t help but feel drawn to William’s energy.

“When I was coming back from work yesterday it was just getting dark and I saw Dr. Bellona outside this statue near my apartment. It’s a big statue of the Hindu god Shiva. And Bellona wasn’t alone. He was with about a dozen other people and leading them in a chant. I couldn’t make out any of the words but I also saw he was scattering something on the ground as he chanted. And I kind of stopped to look because it seemed so odd, and then Bellona saw me and he gave me this ice-cold stare. It was kind of creepy, actually. Then, just a couple of hours later, he calls me in to assist on an LHC run. That’s strange, right?”

Mulder looks over at Scully, her brow furrowed as she tries to make sense of the story.

“Did you tell anyone what you saw?” Mulder asks.

“Just Hannah, but she wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“Who’s Hannah?” Scully asks.

William’s about to answer when the waitress comes and sets their plates down in front of them. He waits for her to walk away to continue.

“She’s, um, my friend, and my roommate. We went to MIT together and we both got internships at CERN. She’s the best. You guys met her last summer, and you really liked her. And like I said, she didn’t tell anyone about the Bellona thing. We were together the whole time in between me seeing him and when he called.”

“So you suspect this Dr. Bellona caught you witnessing something you weren’t supposed to see and then, to keep you quiet, sent you back in time?” Scully asks hesitantly.

“It’s possible,” he says.

“It’s really not,” Scully responds wearily.

WIlliam shrugs and takes a sip of his iced tea. “I know it sounds crazy, but dad, back me up here. You must’ve heard about something like this happening before. Maybe in one of your cases?”

“Physicists have theorized about wormholes and time loops—” Mulder starts.

“Yeah, of course, like Stephen Hawking,” William interrupts. “He said the possibility of time travel was more likely than the existence of God. And mom, didn’t you even write about it in your senior thesis?”

Mulder smiles and turns toward Scully. “That’s what I said, mom,” he says.

“Well, as I explained to Agent Mulder, time travel is only a theory, and even if it were somehow possible, the human body wouldn’t be able to withstand the extreme forces and temperatures that would be required to create a transversable wormhole and manipulate space-time.”

“And yet, here I am.”

Mulder makes eye contact with William from across the table. William flashes a smirk at him that, if it didn’t come from a face with Scully’s eyes, could be like looking in a mirror.

“How old is this Dr. Bellona?” he asks William.

“I don’t know,” he says in between bites of his sandwich. “Probably around your age, 60-something.”

Scully stifles a laugh.

“Well,” says Mulder. “Then he must be around our age now, too. Maybe we can track him down and see if he plans on creating a time machine thirty years from now. Any idea where he might be in 1993?”

“I don’t know,” William says. “He’s American, which narrows it down a little. I know that’s not much, but it’s not all that common at CERN so at least we’ll be sticking within your jurisdiction.”

He holds out his half-eaten sandwich to Scully. “It’s really good, mom. You sure you don’t want a bite?”

Mulder watches as she squints at William, then slowly reaches out to take the sandwich. He winks at William who smiles back.

#x files fanfic

[tulpa51]

Dancing the Tandava (4/10)

[on Ao3] @today-in-fic

Geneva, Switzerland 2023

Hannah forgets William’s parents were coming to visit until she hears knocking on the door. She’s been up all night in a panic and is so tightly wound that the sound of the knock makes her whole body flinch.

Last night, she and William had been watching a movie on his laptop, both lying face down in his bed, propped up on their elbows. He has a nearly encyclopedic knowledge of old sci-fi and horror B-movies, and, after learning she’d never seen Plan 9 From Outer Space or Attack of the 50-Foot Woman, he’s made it his personal mission to expand her horizons. As aspiring physicists, they’ve made a game out of poking holes in the films' plots, but she can tell he genuinely enjoyed them.

They were midway through The Thing when William got a call. Dr. Bellona needed his assistance immediately for a special project at the large hadron collider. She heard William agree to come into the lab even though it didn’t make any sense. They were both research interns for Dr. Farber, whose office was next door to Bellona’s. Besides, interns aren’t certified or trained to work directly on the collider, and they’re never urgently needed at 9 p.m.

“Bellona?” she asked. “Didn’t you say you saw him doing something weird near the Shiva statue on your way home today?”

“Yeah,” William replied, getting out of bed. “I guess now I can ask him what he was up to.”

Hannah had a bad feeling. She bit her lower lip and tried to resist the impulse to pull him back onto the bed as he rose up.

She watched as he pulled a thick navy sweater over his gray t-shirt. A thin line of his toned abdomen peeked out as he lifted up his arms and she forced herself to look away. William is her best friend, the first person she’d ever met who could keep up with her in debates about loop quantum gravity. He’s also undeniably hot: Tall and lean, with piercing blue eyes, and a strong jawline. She teases him for being a jock because he played varsity basketball and baseball in high school, but she secretly appreciates his body as much as his mind.

They’re only friends, though—and roommates and co-workers but nothing more. They don’t talk about their dating lives, although based on how much time he spends either with her or at the lab she can’t imagine his is any more exciting than her own non-existent one. Sure, she feels an electric jolt whenever his hand grazes hers, but William Mulder could probably get any girl he wants. Well, maybe if he toned down his own nerdiness a little.

“I’ll be back soon,” he said, leaving her alone on his bed. Hannah groaned in protest but she could already hear the apartment door shutting behind him.

She waited up for him to return. An hour, then two, then three. She texted and called him but he didn’t respond. Finally at 1 a.m. she pulled a puffy coat over her pajamas, slipped on a pair of boots, and marched down to the ATLAS facility at CERN where she and William worked. She tapped her key card to the sensor at the door but it lit up red and didn’t open. When it failed two more times, she knocked at the door, getting the attention of a security guard she hadn’t seen before.

“Can I help you?” he asked, poking his head out the door into the cold night air.

“Um, I left something at my desk. I just wanted to come pick it up.”

“You’ll have to come back in the morning,” the security guard said sternly. “There’s been an incident and the entire facility is on lockdown.”

“An incident?” she asked, scrunching her brow in concern. It seemed too quiet for there to have been an accident at the facility. There were no sirens or crowds assembled. “What kind of incident?”

“Not sure,” he said. “But someone’s gone missing in the collider tunnel.”

“Missing?” she asked. It wasn’t possible. The large hadron collider was housed in an underground tunnel made of reinforced concrete. It was huge, nearly 17 miles in circumference, but entirely enclosed. There was nowhere for someone to go missing.

The guard just shrugged and started pulling the door closed.

“Wait—” she said, yanking the glass door back open. “Who is it?”

“An intern, they think,” he said. Then he shut the door.

Hannah’s bad feeling got a lot worse.

Back at the apartment, she spent the rest of the night texting other interns in their cohort to see if anyone knew what had happened, but everyone was either asleep or equally clueless.

When she heard the knock at the door she perked up, thinking it was William and he’d forgotten his keys. She didn’t expect to see his parents there instead. She met them once before, when she stayed at their home for a weekend over the summer. William’s mother, from whom he inherited his eyes and coloring, was a doctor and scientist, the kind of accomplished and serious woman she hoped to one day become herself. His father, who looked nearly exactly like an older version of William, was funny and, as William warned, did tell some strange stories but she found them fascinating. Hannah sat aghast as Mr. Mulder recalled a liver-eating monster, a telekinetic killer, and satanic PTA members. William and his mom only rolled their eyes, clearly having heard (or, in Dr. Scully’s case, lived through) these tales before.

Now, she watches as William’s mother’s face drops when she tells her he’s gone.

“Where is he?” his father shouts, cutting through her shock.

Hannah tries to answer, but she only starts crying harder. Dr. Scully drapes an arm around her and leads her to the living room sofa. The coffee table is cluttered with her and William’s books and notebooks and the remains of their takeout dinner from the night before. They would have cleaned up after the movie but then William was called away.

Hannah buries her head in her hands, trying to slow her hyperventilation, as Wlliam’s mom sits down next to her, rubbing her back. She’s ashamed to be such an emotional mess in front of them, but she can’t help it.

“Mulder, why don’t you get Hannah a glass of water?” Dr. Scully asks softly. William’s parents call each other by their last names, a holdover from their days as FBI partners. He said it was embarrassing, but she thinks it’s sweet.

Mulder returns with the water and Hannah sips it slowly.

“Hannah, can you tell us what happened?” Dr. Scully asks gently, still with a calming hand on her back.

Hannah takes a deep breath, trying to steady herself.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Scully,” she says.

“Dana,” William’s mom interrupts. “You can call me Dana.”

“Okay,” Hannah continues. “He was called in last night to assist on a project with the large hadron collider, but he never came back. I went down to our worksite and they told me he’d gone missing inside the LHC tunnel. But that’s impossible. The tunnel is fully enclosed.”

She pauses to wipe the tears off her face with her sweatshirt sleeve. “I think this physicist Dr. Bellona has something to do with it. William saw him yesterday leading some sort of ritual outside the Shiva statue and then he was the one who called William last night.”

“What Shiva statue?” Mulder asks, his eyes darting from Hannah to his wife.

“Um, there’s a statue of the Hindu god Shiva right behind our building. Apparently, Dr. Bellona was chanting and scattering something there with these other people and he kind of stared down William when he saw him.”

“We have to go see that statue,” Mulder says, already headed to the door. His frenetic energy reminds her of William when he’s excited about a new idea.

“Is that okay, Hannah?” William’s mom asks. “Can you come show it to us?”

She guides them outside to a courtyard in between her apartment and the neighboring office building. There, on a granite podium, stands a giant brass model of a majestic Shiva dancing in a fiery halo. He has one foot on the back of a smaller being, and the other raised in the air in celebration.

“This is it,” she says. “It was a gift from the Indian government. What do you think Bellona was doing here?”

Mulder steps forward to examine the statue.

“I don’t know,” he says, rubbing his fingers along the engraved plaque on its base. “But I saw this same symbol earlier this morning in the taxi that took us here from the airport. The driver had a medallion hanging from his mirror that looked exactly like this.”

“It’s probably a coincidence,” Dana says. “But I have to admit, it’s odd. Why is there a religious statue at a scientific center?”

“There are parallels between the story of Shiva dancing the universe into existence and the movement of subatomic particles,” Hannah answers. As a self-proclaimed atheist, she’d asked herself the same question upon coming to CERN, confident that all answers could be found in science. But the more she learns about particle physics, the more mysterious the world seems. “Carl Sagan called Shiva’s cosmic dance the most elegant and sublime representation of the creation of the universe.”

“She quotes Sagan,” Mulder says, smiling. “No wonder William likes you so much.”

Hannah blushes. Glancing down, she spots a green, trifoliate leaf on the pebbled ground. It’s bright with two smaller leaflets and a longer, wider one in the middle, and stands out against the gray of the stones on the walkway. As she looks around on the ground, she sees a few more dispersed around the statue.

“Look at this,” she says, bending down to pick it up. “Maybe Bellona was scattering leaves.”

“Let me see,” Dana says, reaching over to take the leaf from Hannah. “It looks like it’s from a citrus plant, possibly tropical. I don’t think it’s from anything that grows around here.”

“Hannah!” a French-accented voice calls out and all three of them turn around.

It’s Emmanuelle Toussaint, a young French engineer who works in the LHC control center. Hannah had met her at a cocktail reception for women at CERN and the two had become friendly. If there really was an incident with the LHC, Emanuelle would know about it.

“Did you hear what happened?” Emmanuelle asks, striding over to the statue near Hannah and William’s parents.

“To William?” Hannah blurts out desperately.

Emmanuelle looks confused. “No,” she says. “The LHC operated at 15 TeV last night.”

“That’s physically impossible,” Hannah says under her breath.

You don’t need to tell me that,” Emanuelle responds excitedly. “I saw it with my own eyes from the control center, though. We’ve calibrated and recalibrated every detector and we’re still getting the same reading.”

“Scully, I might need some translating here,” Mulder leans over to Dana to whisper.

“I don’t think I understand what’s going on either,” she says.

“The collider has a maximum total collision energy of 14 TeV, or teraelectronvolts per beam. It’s only ever operated at 13 TeV, though, and achieving 15 TeV would require physical upgrades that are years away,” Hannah explains.

“Sorry,” she continues. “Emmanuelle, these are William’s parents, and,” she pauses. “William went missing last night.”

“Oh my goodness,” Emmanuelle gasps, bringing a thin hand to her mouth. “That was him with Dr. Bellona.”

“What happened?” Dana asks.

“Dr. Bellona was the one running the experiment last night. There’s footage of him inside the tunnel working on a calibration with someone else. I didn’t realize it was William with him. Then, there was a power surge and we lost connection to the cameras. When they came back online, Bellona was still there but William wasn’t.”

“Where could he have gone?” Hannah asks.

“I don’t know,” Emmanuelle continues. “But Dr. Bellona called the control room and wanted us to begin the collider run. We obviously can’t do that if anyone is still in the tunnel and, since we didn’t see William exit, we couldn’t start the collider. We locked down the facility and had the technicians do a full sweep of the tunnel. No one was there. Bellona insisted William had exited with him and had gone home, and since there was no sign of him in the tunnel, we figured he was telling the truth. That’s when we started the experiment and the LHC hit 15 TeV.”

“But William didn’t come home,” Hannah says quietly.

“What would happen if the collider ran while he was inside the tunnel?” Mulder asks.

Hannah glances at Emmanuelle. They both know it would be instantly fatal for anyone to be exposed to the high voltage and intense magnetic fields generated by a run of the particle accelerator. Hannah’s heart thumps hard in her chest.

“It is impossible,” Emmanuelle says, shaking her head. “We would never run an experiment with anyone inside. There are too many safety protocols in place. And no one was inside at the time. I don’t know where William went, but I can promise you he was not in the tunnel.”

“I think we need to talk to this Dr. Bellona,” says Dana.

#x files fanfic

[tulpa51]

Dancing the Tandava (3/10)

[on Ao3] @today-in-fic

Washington, D.C. 1993

It’s only a few months into her assignment on the X-Files and Scully has made it a point to arrive at the office on time. Still, her perplexing partner always manages to get there first. It’s as if he sleeps in this underground lair or he’s afraid to leave her alone in his sacred space. Neither would shock her.

She doesn’t have a handle on Mulder quite yet. His intelligence fascinates and intimidates her. Trying to keep up with his mental leaps leaves her breathless. His ideas are out there, but his hunches are correct an eerie amount of the time. The unexplainable phenomena she’s seen piques her innate curiosity even though none of it fits into her framework of the coherent, reassuringly knowable universe.

He has every right to treat her with disdain. He had her number as a spy (albeit an unwilling and increasingly disobedient one) from their first meeting, and her doubting nature and innate need to play by the book only slows him down. But he seems truly interested in her thoughts and ideas even if they don’t align with his own. She was mortified when she nearly stripped in front of him on their first case to show him the marks on her back, but he never made her feel embarrassed.

Her job is to keep tabs on him but the more cases they investigate together, the more inclined she feels to protect him and his work. Her loyalty is slowly shifting from the establishments she’s long unquestionably trusted to Mulder and his singular quest.

When she shows up this crisp November morning, he’s already at his desk thumbing through a file. He’s wearing thin, wire-framed glasses and a tie with a dizzying, Escher-esque maroon and olive pattern. She thinks he’s handsome, then pushes the thought away. Getting involved with superiors and co-workers is a habit she’s actively trying to break.

“Morning, Scully,” he says, without looking up.

“Morning,” she replies, coming to sit across from him. “Anything interesting?” She gestures to the file on the desk.

“That depends,” he says, taking off his reading glasses and making eye contact with her. This boyish smile and the gleam behind his eyes are already familiar to her. They’re signs he’s found a case that’ll likely lead them into trouble. It both scares and excites her. “How interested are you in the Fouke monster, a.k.a. the Southern Sasquatch, a.k.a. the Swamp Stalker?”

“I have to admit it’s never crossed my mind,” she says.

“Oh, Scully.” His smile widens. “You’re in for a treat.” He turns the file around so she can read it. The first thing she notices is an amateur sketch of a Bigfoot-like creature with red eyes.

“A giant, hairy creature first spotted in Fouke, Arkansas, in the mid-nineteenth century, the Fouke monster has been described as being over 10-feet tall with glowing blood-red eyes. In 1971, Bobby and Elizabeth Ford of Fouke reported that the creature had broken into their home. A neighbor actually shot at it, and supposedly made contact, but it wandered off into the night. That was the last sighting, until a week ago when a group of teenagers camping out at nearby Boggy Creek say he got into their tent and stole all of their rations, including two family-size bags of Doritos.”

“Is Doritos theft a federal crime?” she asks him with a raised eyebrow. He better have more evidence than the shaky testimony of some teenagers to go off. “Or do you just want to go Sasquatch hunting?”

“By the tone of your voice I can tell you’ve never had the pleasure of goin’ squatchin,’' he says, his hazel eyes lighting up as they meet hers. It’s almost enough to make her blush.

The shrill ringing of the phone on his desk interrupts them before she can respond.

“Mulder,” he answers. She can hear the garbled sound of a male voice on the other end of the line.

“My what?” Mulder shouts into the phone, startling her. “Who is he?...Okay, we’ll be there as soon as we can.”

He hangs up the phone and turns his attention back to her. “Change of plans,” he says. “The Fouke monster will have to wait. We’re headed to Montauk. East End of Long Island.”

While she’s partly relieved she won’t have to interview a bunch of stoned teenagers about their alleged monster sighting, the rapid shift in Mulder’s attention gives her whiplash.

“What’s in Montauk?” she asks.

“A historic lighthouse, the shark hunter who inspired Jaws, and actually decent surfing for the East Coast,” he says, grinning at her.

“And yet why do I suspect you aren’t going to ask me to pack a wetsuit?” she asks.

He gives her a shoulder shrug and a pouty lower lip. “I wouldn’t stop you.”

“Seriously, Mulder,” she says, starting to lose her patience. “Why are we going to Montauk?”

“A disoriented young man has appeared at a decommissioned army base and specifically asked to speak with us.” He’s already up out of his chair digging through a filing cabinet.

“Did he mention what he’s so desperate to talk to us about?” she asks, trying to see what files he’s gathering.

“He says he’s from the future. The year 2023 to be exact.”

Scully laughs. “Mulder, that’s ridiculous. He’s probably some UFO fanatic who wants to meet you.”

Mulder shakes his head. He’s taking this seriously. “I think you overestimate my popularity,” he says.

“What about Max Fenig? He said he’d been following your work for years and that he’s not the only one.”

“Well, no one else has ever claimed to be my son before,” Mulder says. “Or that you’re his mother.”

She’s immediately taken back. Mulder has proposed a lot of improbable theories and ideas during their partnership, but this one might be the most ludicrous. He’s already grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair but Scully raises her hand to stop him.

“Mulder, wait,” she insists. “I don’t have to tell you how ridiculous that is. While I can’t speak for you, I know I don’t have a child, and I can say with total certainty that we’ve never had one together. Besides, you said ‘young man.’ How old is he?”

“I don’t know,” Mulder responds. “The officer said early 20s. He didn’t have any identification with him.”

“We were children ourselves 20 years ago,” she says, barely resisting an eye roll. “I can all but guarantee you this is someone pulling a prank.”

“I’m inclined to agree with you,” Mulder says. “But I have a feeling we should check this out. It’s not just what he said, it’s where he turned up.”

“Montauk?” she asks, confused.

“Not just anywhere in Montauk. At Camp Hero.”

“Yes, a decommissioned army base as you said,” she repeats.

“A supposedly decommissioned army base,” he grins. “CIA operatives at Camp Hero have reportedly been using extraterrestrial technology for experiments on everything from mind control and weather manipulation to the creation of wormholes for time travel. The project allegedly shut down in the 1980s when the base closed, but I’ve heard rumors that the work never stopped.”

He flips a file open on the desk facing her. Inside is a black and white photo of a giant radar tower and a hand-drawn blueprint of a building with rooms labeled “hypnosis lab” and “carrier oscillator.”

She tilts her head at him and squints. This is a lot, even for Mulder.

“So your theory is that you and I have a son who’s traveled back in time to—what? Come say hi?” she asks.

Mulder shrugs. “You said it yourself in your thesis: ‘Although common sense may rule out the possibility of time travel, the laws of quantum physics certainly do not.’”

If she did believe in time travel, this would be the perfect moment to return to her undergraduate days and choose a new thesis topic for her future partner to one day quote back to her.

“I know what I wrote, Mulder,” she says. “But that was a theoretical argument not a practical one. I was discussing the possibility of time dilation, an expanding or contracting of relative time as it’s experienced. There’s no science or technology that would actually allow someone to move forward or backward in time.”

“No science or technology that we know of yet,” he counters. “Let’s see what our boy cooked up in 2023.”

There is always the option not to leave with him—to stay in the office and write up a report while he goes chasing what is almost certainly a dead end—but she knows she’ll never choose that door. Instead, she retrieves her coat from the hook on the back of the office door and follows her frustrating, beguiling partner.

#x files fanfic

[tulpa51]

Dancing the Tandava (2/10)

[on Ao3] @today-in-fic

Geneva, Switzerland 2023

Their plane touches down just as the sun is rising. It’s a smooth landing that Scully manages to sleep through even as the wheels bounce on the tarmac. Mulder smiles to himself. Thirty years and some things never change.

A lot has changed, though. Thirty years ago they would have been on a domestic flight headed to an anonymous town in the middle of the country to track down the latest unexplained phenomenon to catch his attention. He would have been hesitant to wake her up, unsure if he had permission to touch her. Now, they’re visiting their 22-year-old son a few months into his prestigious research internship at CERN. They have wedding bands on their hands instead of guns holstered to their hips; hard-earned wrinkles on their faces marking their years of fighting in the darkness.

Now, he knows the best way to wake Scully up after a long flight is a gentle kiss on the smooth skin of her cheek while brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. Her hair is longer than it was when they first met and he likes how it curls softly when it hits her shoulders. She sleeps peacefully, free of the threats that once loomed over them. He loved the sharp lines of her work suits, the expensive sartorial armor she used to steel herself against the world, but he likes the softer fabrics she’s embraced recently even more. In their narrow airplane seats, he’s soothed by the gentle brush of her oxblood cashmere sweater against his forearm. So much has changed for the better.

“We’ve arrived,” he whispers in her ear, his lips grazing the thin ridges of cartilage.

“Mmm, that was fast,” she says, rubbing her eyes.

“Maybe for you,” he smiles. “For those of us who didn’t conk out the second the fasten seat belt light turned off, it was an eight-hour flight across the Atlantic with disappointing film options.”

“They didn’t have The Lazarus Bowl?” she asks, grinning.

He grimaces at her and stands up to retrieve their luggage. His knees are creakier than they used to be. He knows his back will be sore in a few hours once his muscles realize they’ve been stuck in an uncomfortable airline seat for hours. At least he travels with his own personal physician who can work out the knots with her delicate but strong hands.

“I can’t wait to see William,” Scully says as she rises to meet him and stretches her arms overhead. “It’s probably too early to check into our hotel. Why don’t we stop by his apartment first and see if we can catch him before he leaves for work?”

“Maybe let him know we’re on the way so we don’t catch him in flagrante with Hannah.”

“Mulder,” she sighs, following him down the jetway and into the terminal. “They’re just friends.”

“You’re right, Scully. Two good-looking, intelligent, young adults who work together and have palpable chemistry between them can never go from friends to something more.”

“I’ll text him,” she concedes.

William and his friend Hannah Schwartz had a spirited academic rivalry in MIT’s undergraduate physics department and it was almost unheard of when they were both offered internships at CERN. It made sense for the two to share an apartment when they moved abroad.

Hannah had come to stay with them for a weekend over the summer. She’s a petite, whip-smart brunette from New York City who, Mulder could tell, drives William wild. As they were waiting for her arrival Mulder watched William anxiously refreshing the Amtrak website tracking her train’s progress on his laptop. Mulder hadn’t seen his son that excited since the Christmas mornings of his childhood.

Even though Mulder and Scully assured William they didn’t mind if they shared his bedroom, he insisted on sleeping on the living room couch and giving Hannah his bed. He told Mulder it “wasn’t like that” between them and all his father could do was take his word for it. Mulder knew from personal experience that some relationships can’t be rushed, but he hoped, for his son’s sake, that William didn’t take the better part of a decade to realize what was right in front of him.

In the airport, Mulder pretends to impress Scully with his high school French, pronouncing all the words on the signs (even though they’re paired with English translations) in an exaggerated accent, and Scully pretends to be impressed.

“Mon amour,” she purrs.

It’s fun to travel with her without the mystery of a case hanging over their head. Even when William was growing up they didn’t vacation much, as if subconsciously making up for a lifetime on the road. They spent a few Christmases with her brother’s family in San Diego and although Bill never exactly warmed to Mulder, the two men reached a detente. It helped that William was a cute kid who got along with his cousins—and that Scully shot daggers with her eyes if Bill dared to be less than perfectly cordial to Mulder.

Outside the airport, they navigate to a taxi stand and give the driver William’s address.

“You two scientists?” the driver asks with a hint of a Swiss accent. He’s a gruff older man with a black leather jacket and bony knuckles.

“My wife here is,” Mulder says, beaming at Scully. “Why?”

“You’re headed to CERN. Figure you’re visiting physicists. Lots of them pass through here.”

“Our son is a research intern,” Scully says. “We’re going to visit him.”

“Must be a smart kid,” the driver responds, turning onto the highway. “Strange stuff going on there, though.”

“Strange how?” Mulder pipes in.

“I don’t know,” the driver shakes his head. “But you hear things. Like they’re making new black holes that could eat us all up or trying to recreate how the universe was formed in that collider thing. Seems like messing with God’s business to me.”

“It’s fascinating research,” Scully says leaning forward. “But the large hadron collider is extremely safe. The particle experimentation is occurring on a subatomic scale. I can assure you there’s no risk of a black hole forming.”

The driver nods. “Anyway, that stuff’s all above my head. Like I said, your kid must be pretty smart.”

“We’re certainly proud of him,” says Mulder. He winks at Scully and she smiles at him in return. They’re both so proud of William—their miracle baby who, scientifically speaking, shouldn’t exist had grown into a curious kid, a bright if slightly awkward teenager, and now a young man with interests and passions of his own. It’s certainly not something either of them would have imagined when they met, and it’s more than they could have ever hoped for when they first dreamed of having a child together.

A glint of sunlight catches on a small gold medallion hanging from the rear view window. Mulder looks closer and notices it depicts the Hindu god Shiva dancing in a circle of flames. He turns to Scully to check if she sees it too, but she’s nervously thumbing at her phone.

“Hmm, he hasn’t written back yet,” Scully says.

“He’s probably busy getting ready,” Mulder reassures her, resting his hand on her thigh. She clasps her hand on top of his.

William still hasn’t texted Scully when they pull up to a square building striped with gray and white brick that matches the address they gave the driver. Mulder pays the driver and retrieves their luggage from the trunk.

“Did you notice his Shiva medallion?” Mulder asks as they make their way through the parking lot.

“His what?”

“The driver had a little gold Shiva symbol hanging from his rear view mirror. You know, the four-armed Hindu god whose cosmic dance supposedly created the universe—and has the power to destroy it.”

“No, Mulder, I didn’t notice it. Should I have?”

Mulder shrugs. “I dunno. Just seemed a little odd for a guy who seemed intent on mentioning the work of a singular god.”

“He probably doesn’t even know what it symbolizes. Or maybe it’s not his car?” she says impatiently. “I’m much more concerned about seeing William.”

William’s building is exclusively for temporary CERN employees and there’s a bustle of activity in the lobby. They overhear conversations in a mix of languages, picking up the occasional technical English term dropped in. Mulder feels the contagious energy of youth and intellectual curiosity. He looks at Scully, knowing she feels it, too. They ride the elevator up to William’s floor and knock on the door.

There’s no answer. Scully glances at Mulder with concern and knocks again.

This time, Hannah opens the door, her cheeks red and her eyes ringed with tears. She’s wearing sweats and her frizzy hair is tied in a knot on top of her head.

“Hannah,” Scully says, squinting with concern. “What’s wrong?”

Hannah whimpers, fresh tears streaming down her cheeks. “William’s gone.”

#x files fanfic

[tulpa51]

Dancing the Tandava (1/10)

Finally realized this isn't going to get any better the longer I sit on it. Not a WIP, I'll be posting a chapter per day.

AU Post-Existence

[on Ao3] @today-in-fic

CHAPTER 1

He’s calibrating a magnet on the external casing of the particle accelerator when his vision suddenly blurs and the curved walls of the tunnel start spinning. He folds over himself, nausea building in his stomach, and he squeezes his eyes shut to make the revolutions stop. The white hard hat on his head tumbles to the ground, hitting the concrete floor with a clink. It’s as if he’s gone from sober to blackout drunk in seconds but he hasn’t had a drop to drink.

As quickly as the vertigo came on, the nausea and dizziness disappear. He comes to on his hands and knees with his fingers tingling. Shaking off his wrists to restore circulation, he stands up straight and opens his eyes. The acid that had been bubbling up his throat seems to have settled although his skin is still vibrating from the burst of adrenaline. Once he’s found his footing he realizes he’s no longer in the large hadron collider tunnel.

The blue and silver body of the collider is gone and the well-lit concrete corridor has been replaced by a pitch-dark space that smells of mildew. He reaches around to get his bearings and his hands find hard, cold walls on either side of him. The space is narrow and he can reach the walls on either side with his arms extended. He steps forward and notices the ground below him is slanted. Assuming that he’s underground from the complete lack of light, he walks in the uphill direction until he hits a smooth, metal door. There’s no handle or knob but he can feel the seams where the door meets the walls on either side.

“Help!” He shouts as he pounds against the door. It’s a thick layer of metal, though, and he fears no one will hear him. Panic builds within him.

Soon, he hears twisting on the other side of the door. It opens with a hiss as the hermetic seal breaks. There’s a tall, thin man with a goatee and a lab coat staring at him.

“How the hell’d you get in here?” the man barks.

“I’m not sure,” he answers softly, sweeping his eyes around the room trying to pick up any clues as to where he is.

He’s in a lab. But it’s not any lab at CERN. Instead of cutting-edge technology, there’s bulky equipment that looks like it’s from the previous century, like in one of the old science fiction movies he used to watch with his dad. There are rows of workstations, bare-bones metal desks paired with tall stools upholstered in peeling faux leather. With the exception of the man staring at him accusingly, the lab is abandoned.

There’s a calendar hanging on the cinder block wall with a photo of a stunning blonde woman in a revealing red bikini reclining on the beach. Her swimsuit isn’t leaving much to the imagination, and he thinks to himself that it doesn’t really seem appropriate for a workplace. Then he sees the month the calendar is turned to: November 1993.

“Um, what year is it?” he asks.

The man squints at him. “You fucking with me, kid?”

“Is it 1993?”

“Was the last time I checked.”

“Oh shit.” His stomach drops.

The man laughs. “You’re telling me. Between the World Trade Center bombing and that nutjob in Waco, I think it’s fair to say we’re all ready for this year to be over.”

He’s too confused to speak and just stares straight at the man.

“You’re looking a little shell-shocked. You from the army department? I don’t know what kind of crap they’re doing over there but those guys are always walking around looking like they don’t know what day it is.”

The man’s words wash over him but he can’t make meaning out of them. This can’t be real. He pats his jeans pockets looking for his phone but it’s not there. Of course it isn’t, he thinks. He left it upstairs in a locker with his wallet. No phones are permitted in the collider tunnel because of the risk that electromagnetic signals could interfere with the sensors and detectors inside.

“Can I borrow your phone?” he asks.

“Be my guest,” the man says with a sweeping gesture inviting him to come to his workstation.

It’s an old landline phone with a coiled cord. He picks it up to dial but realizes he doesn’t have any numbers memorized.

“Listen,” he says, hanging up the phone. “This is going to sound a little crazy but I need you to get in touch with the FBI and contact Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.”

“Um, okay,” the man says with uncertainty. “You report to them?”

“No,” he shakes his head. “They’re my parents.”

#x files fanfic