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Title: Sfumato Author's Notes: Okay, so this is why I said I'd never say never to writing another fanfic, although I still want to go back and erase the author's notes as the end of "Something". (blushes) Honestly, at the time I wrote "Something" I felt I was finished with fanfic. I received a lot of feedback on "The Marionette Rebellion" and had toyed with writing a sequel, but I was very busy at that time, and the Muse, well, let's just say she was on what seemed to be an unending vacation. I knew if I ever wrote another fanfic, that it would be a sequel to "The Marionette Rebellion." That's a special story to me for a lot of different reasons, and I left some parts of the story open so I could explore them, if I ever decided to write a sequel. Anyway, to make a long story longer, the Muse has been harassing me nonstop. I'm still very busy; in fact, I'm in the middle of midterms. I don't know what in hell I'm doing. I've tried to ignore the little monster, but she's very persistent. So, here we are, and here I am, and here is the sequel to "The Marionette Rebellion." If you haven't read "The Marionette Rebellion", this fic will not make sense to you. Please note: "Sfumato" picks up seven years after the events at the end "The Marionette Rebellion." Summary: His sanity is slipping away by the handfuls. (Sequel to "The Marionette Rebellion") -Prologue- Bangor, Maine He sits on the couch in their living room, the quietness of their home rankling his already ragged nerve endings. Scully is at work, her counterpart at the Penobscot County Medical Examiner's Office called just before dawn, requesting that she autopsy the body of a missing child found dead around 4:00 am this morning. They had each taken three days off from work, and this their second day off, was supposed to be spent further renovating the kitchen, however, she was assisting the lead investigator on this case, and so despite the fact she was officially on vacation, she'd hurriedly dressed in the shadows, as the sun had shyly begun to cast its rays into their bedroom, after the call had come that a man jogging had found the body of eight-year-old Cammie Watkins. Mulder would have been the lead investigator on the case, he and Scully working in tandem, had he not been leading the investigation of eight young women who'd gone missing, vanishing it would seem, out of thin air from their bedrooms in the middle of the night. That investigation had been ongoing for three months prior to the disappearance of Lacey Tillman, Tiffany Long, and Rachel Stanton. His leads on a killer had run cold, and finally, he had been forced to put the case aside. Scully's absence forces him to face what he's been ignoring for the last three months. His subconscious reaches around with icy, cold fingers, strangling his conscious with knowledge of what he fears to be true. Over the last week, he has realized, much to his horror, that the two cases he and Scully have been working on have been a distraction, fabricated by men he'd hoped were long dead. Hope and William are on a field trip to Washington D.C. with other classmates from their private school, and as much as he wants them home, he knows it is better if they are not. He gropes for his wallet, and pulls it out of his back pocket. He stares at it for a moment, running his hands over textured leather and worn edges, and then he unfolds his wallet, noting the picture of William and Hope taken two summers ago, when both were gap-toothed, and tanned from spending two and a half weeks in California. Finally, he pulls out a small business card from behind his driver's license. He lets his fingers trace over the black embossment, then picks up the phone and dials Deputy Director Skinner's number. His lungs ache with the effort it takes to breathe; all he feels is the weight of realization in his chest. Skinner answers on the third ring, and Mulder walks to the refrigerator, reading over the itinerary for his son and daughter's field trip. Mulder and Skinner exchange "hellos" and "how are you doings." Mulder tells Skinner he needs a favor. He informs Skinner that today both William and Hope are at the Holocaust Museum, and that he needs him to take a few trusted agents, go and pick up Hope and William and take them into protective custody. Mulder explains that he will be on the first flight out of Bangor in the morning, but that he has to take care of something at home, and not to let William or Hope out of his sight until he arrives. Skinner does not question Mulder's instructions, he simply answers that it is done; Mulder says thank you, and then disconnects the call. William has a pager for emergencies, which he is to keep on his person at all times, considering his parents' past involvement with shadowy conspirators, lunatics, aliens, and what not. Scully and Mulder have been honest with Hope and William about why they have to be more careful than other children around strangers. They know why their parents are overprotective, but still they yearn to be normal kids, and do normal kid things, so they bought William a pager, with the agreement that Hope would go everywhere William went, and that his pager would never be turned off. They were trying to allow them to be normal, whatever that was. It was after much argument and debate that Scully had convinced Mulder to allow their children to go on this field trip. Mulder instructed William to take his pager, and stay by his sister's side at all times. William had agreed, and albeit reluctantly, so had Mulder. William could sense danger, he knew things about people, he was careful around strangers, and he was fiercely protective of Hope, but still Mulder had worried, and now he realized the reasons why. He calls to memory William's pager number, punches the numbers into the keypad of the phone, and then enters one of the many combinations of numbers that will tell William he and Hope are in danger. They've been over these numbers many times. He'd made William and Hope memorize the numbers, what they meant, what they were supposed to do if these numbers ever appeared in digital glory across the inky gray screen of William's pager. Mulder had prayed so hard he'd never have to use them. He can't help the cloak of fear that wraps itself around him. The uncertainty of what the night holds causes his stomach to roil indignantly, and he can't help wishing he'd realized the truth of their present situation months earlier. He falls onto the brown leather loveseat, and waits for Scully to return home, dreading the inevitable confrontation. It seems as if time has stopped, that he has traveled through an invisible portal, and he is functioning in another dimension where everything is upside down. For three months he has felt as if something with Scully was off kilter. Just looking at the individual changes wouldn't be enough to signal alarm, but when taking in everything as a whole, the truth mockingly stares him in the face. It looks directly into his eyes, and it is unforgiving. He lowers his head into his hands, closes his eyes, and begins to reexamine the changes in Scully. She walks differently, she treats William and Hope differently, she is distant, tired all the time, she is less passionate when making love, she doesn't like for him to see her naked anymore, their intimate time always shared in the safety of darkness. He should have known. He wants to believe that he is overreacting, that he is tired, and that his turning 49 last month has made him nostalgic for the past, although the present isn't bad. He feels he has pinpointed the night in which the change in Scully occurred. Because of their past, because of all the shared loss, and because of their children, they'd become extraordinarily considerate of one another when they were going to be late coming home, or if either of their planned schedules were altered in any way. There were phone calls made to set minds at ease. There were reassurances given. They'd never really talked about it, but it was as much of a mutual need as it was a mutual agreement. A respect for all they'd been through had prompted them to be cognizant about the amount of worry when faced with bright lights, and meetings than ran late. It was their way of paying respect to their old life while simultaneously living their new one. Three months ago, however, Scully had called to say she was running late, and wouldn't be home until 8:00 pm. Mulder had mumbled an acknowledgment while trying to intervene in an argument William and Hope were having over the remote, and he and Scully had said goodbye with the sound of children bickering in the background. Dinnertime came and went, Hope and William abandoned their stations in front of the television, in favor of going outside to play basketball. Dusk crept slowly across the lawn, William and Hope tired of their game of basketball, clambering inside, and taking up the chess game they'd begun a month earlier. Mulder had logged onto the computer, going over for the hundredth time his field notes on the missing young women in Bangor, and before he knew it, Hope and William were saying 'where's Mom, anyway?' He remembers looking at his watch, so self absorbed he'd been in his case, he hadn't realized hours had passed, that it was 10:00 pm, and that Scully had still not returned home. Immediately panic had set it; she'd never been this late coming home before. He'd called her cell phone and had gotten her voicemail, he'd called her office and gotten her voicemail, he'd looked out the window to see empty space where her car should've been. He'd paced the floor long after he'd assured William and Hope that everything was fine, subsequently hurrying them off to bed. He'd cursed her in his mind for making him worry, yet when she'd come home, looking bedraggled, and beyond tired, all he could do was say thank you to the heavens. She'd said she'd gotten hung up at work, and that she'd gotten into a car accident, that had left her unscathed, but her new car not as lucky as she. After surveying the damage done to her car, they'd gone back inside, and she'd rubbed her stomach saying she was hungry. Relief had washed over Mulder, soothing away the worry he'd experienced in the preceding hours, and they had gone into his office, and made slow, gentle love on the plush taupe carpet in front of his desk. The sex had been good, there had been no denying that, but Mulder had felt, even then, that Scully seemed closed off. A key turns in the lock, wrenching Mulder from his reverie. The door swings open, hitting the wall with a thud, and Scully stumbles in, trying to maintain control of her briefcase and a bag of Chinese take-out. She kicks the door shut with a black, heel clad foot, and walks briskly to the kitchen. Paint cans, rollers, and stacks of blue tape litter the kitchen counters. Mulder approaches Scully from behind, and says, "Here, let me take that." He takes the bag of take-out, and sets it on the counter. Scully drops her briefcase onto the floor. He turns her around to face him. "You look tired, Mulder," she says, her words lost against his cheek, as she presses a kiss on his jaw. He brings his hands to her waist, noting the small changes, the subtle differences. Emotions bubble to the surface, spilling over onto his cheeks, and Scully pulls back, confusion etched in the lines around her eyes. "What is it, Mulder? Are you all right?" she asks, her voice deepened by concern. "Let's go upstairs," he says. He knows he will hate himself for this, but he has to be sure, he has to make sure his overactive imagination isn't playing tricks on him. Scully follows him so willingly, eyes wide with concern, that for a moment he believes he has made up everything. Upon entering their bedroom, he turns on the two lamps that sit atop nightstands on either side of their bed. Scully continues to stand at the end of the bed, looking at him as if he's lost his mind. For the first time he hopes he has. Mulder kisses her so, so passionately. He doesn't want it to be true: his wishes are kisses, and oh, how he wishes that at the end of this night they will laugh at the absurdity of his thoughts. They continue to kiss, and Mulder keeps his eyes trained on Scully's face, not allowing his eyes to close and enjoy the moment like he usually does. Scully's eyes, however, remain closed. Long, auburn lashes fan out against her porcelain white skin. His pulse quickens, his breathing becomes more erratic, and he simply has to know. He has to know for sure he tells himself. He begins to unbutton her blouse, and her eyebrows knit together. She tries to speak, but the words are lost as he smothers her mouth with his own. He pushes the blouse off her shoulders, her eyes open, and she turns, starting to walk toward the lamp on her side of the bed. "Leave them on tonight," he says. "Mulder, I'd really rather turn them off, and light some candles instead," Scully says. "I said leave the lights on," Mulder says forcefully. "Okay, if it's such a big deal," she replies. He unbuttons and unzips her slacks, letting his hands wander over her hips, the slacks drop and pool at her feet. He steps back, and looks at her body: every scar, every subtle peak and valley, the flare of her hips, her round breasts, the matching black brassiere and panties. "God, you are so beautiful," he says. "I've missed you so much today, Scully," he whispers into her ear, then kisses her cheek, and pushes her gently down onto the bed. She lies down, her arms crossed above her head, and Mulder wraps his hands around her wrists, effectively pinning her to cotton sheets that already smell so much like them. The scent of sex makes him weak. "Do you remember the first time we made love, Scully? That first night, in your bed, the scent of us so strong in the air. God, I was happy that night. Happier than I'd ever been in my entire life. I loved that you got up in the middle of the night and cooked me breakfast. That was one of the best nights of my life," he whispers, his breath hot against her ear. "It was one of the best nights of my life, too," Scully intones neutrally, not sure where his trip down memory lane is heading. Mulder sighs audibly, his breath caressing Scully's cheek, and she closes her eyes. He releases her wrists, and takes her face in his hands; his weight on top of her is suffocating. He does not care. His sanity is slipping away by the handfuls. He rests his forehead against hers, and breathes heavily in and out several times. One of his hands stays on her face, the other goes to his side, and retrieves his gun from its holster. He does not open his eyes as he presses the gun to her temple. "Mulder, what the hell are you doing?" Scully yells. Her eyes convey such fear. He cannot hide from the truth any longer. He opens his eyes and sees the barrel of the gun biting into the soft flesh of her temple. It will undoubtedly leave a mark. She is so vulnerable he thinks to himself. Tears have begun to make their way down Scully's cheeks. She is trembling with fear. Mulder caresses her cheek with his hand and her temple with his gun. He doesn't want to say the words because then it will be true, and because then his greatest nightmare will be real. He cannot stay silent any longer, because he loves Scully so much, and because he wants her back. "Where the fuck is Scully?" "Mulder, what are you-" Scully starts as Mulder cuts her off. "Don't even fucking think about lying to me," he says, releasing the safety on his gun. "You tell me where she is right fucking now, or I'm going to blow your fucking head off." "Mulder, have you lost your mind? Please don't do this, Mulder," Scully begs. Her eyes make him waver for a moment. She's so damned convincing. "Scully and I first made love in my bed, in my Apartment, and she has never gotten up in the middle of the night to cook breakfast for me, although I did for her once." Glancing down at her obvious state of undress, Scully's lips curve upward, forming a wicked smile. She writhes beneath him before lifting her gaze to meet his. "We were beginning to wonder if you were ever going to figure out that you've been fucking the wrong woman." Chapter 1 It had all been so perfect for a while. They'd had seven years in which to build their lives and become comfortable raising their children. They'd been so happy. It was the little things that had made him happy: the way Hope always fell asleep in his lap while listening to Scully read bedtime stories; William's unabashed adoration of his mother; the fact that William thought no one could tell a story like his father; Mulder teaching his son and daughter to play basketball; nights of laughter giving way to passion as Scully and Mulder danced their way into the bedroom, falling onto the bed, and making up for lost time. After the first few years, it had ceased to be about lost time and more about reveling in the love of a lifetime. Contentment had been found in the easy smiles of his children and in holding her hand. It wasn't always easy; there were times they'd hidden themselves in their work, but reminiscent of their previous life, they'd always found their way back to one another. Sometimes it had been in the bedroom, sometimes it had been as they watched their children play, sometimes it had been when she'd run her fingers through his hair, for no particular reason. He realizes that it doesn't matter what he gave up all those years ago, it was never an assurance of their safety. He knew it then, as surely as he knows it now; the affirmation has just been seven years in the making. He doesn't regret the last seven years; he doesn't regret the last seventeen years. He only wishes he could relive the last three months. "Who are you?" Mulder rasps. The barrel of his gun glides across her cheek like a lover's caress, so deceptively soft, playing out like some macabre love scene. The woman beneath him laughs and shakes her head, "Apparently, not the woman you assumed me to be." He can't believe it although he knows it is true and this woman this whore beneath him is laughing at him as his tears drop off his cheeks onto her bare chest a few tears darkening her already black satin bra and she is rocking her hips against his and laughing and laughing about how he's been a good fuck and how Dana Scully is going to be livid when she finds out he's been fucking another woman and then she says she thinks he likes her better than Dana Scully anyway and she'll stay if he wants her to and he's never hit a woman and she looks so much like Scully but her eyes her eyes aren't exactly Scully's eyes if he looks close enough he can't see his Scully's soul in these eyes and Oh God Oh God he should have known and now she is laughing again and she is grabbing his cock and he is shaking with such rage and he can't help it and Oh God it feels good when the butt of his gun makes contact with her face and the skin on her cheek splits open like a smile and he hears himself say you fucking bitch and God it feels so good to see her bleed because he is bleeding out and he thinks maybe just maybe if he can make her bleed enough she will disappear and this will be a nightmare and he will wake up with his Scully's gentle hands rubbing his back telling him that everything is fine but this woman keeps laughing and Mulder feels such pain he knows that he has to be awake and he doesn't know where Scully is but he's fucked and hit a woman that looks so much like her he can't really tell the difference except when he looks for his Scully's soul in her eyes and he realizes it is nowhere to be found and he feels sick and he realizes she was not afraid when he hit her and there was no fear or surprise and he knows she is only afraid that her secret has been revealed but she continues to laugh and he knows Scully would have been afraid because he would have never hit his Scully and then his mind wanders and he struggles for control and then his thoughts are a mixture of obscene and pure as he thinks about this woman going down on him last weekend and that William got an 'A' on his science project a month ago and that Hope has been having unexplained nightmares for the past three months and Scully has been robbed of it all and he is so filled with rage that his gun makes contact with her cheek again and the jagged smile on her face only spreads wider. "Don't ever fucking touch me again," Mulder whispers against her cheek. Mulder values very few things in his life; the first thing on that short list is his relationship with Scully. To know that he's been unfaithful to her, however unwittingly, makes him want to eat his own gun. For a brief moment, he considers it, because he doesn't want to see the look in his Scully's eyes when she is made aware of his betrayal. But then he closes his eyes, thinks of his Scully and their children, and he can't do it. "Where is she?" Mulder questions vehemently. "Wouldn't you like to know," the woman replies, licking at the blood that has begun to gather at the corner of her mouth. "Is she dead?" he asks, reluctantly. "No, but when you find her, death will have been kinder than what she's been forced to endure," the woman laughs. "Go to hell," Mulder says, pressing the gun hard against her bloodied cheek. He clenches the soft cotton sheets on his and Scully's bed. His knuckles are impossibly white against the too white sheets and he grapples for the control needed not to hit her again. "I'll save you a spot. Oh, wait, I suspect you're already there," the woman whispers. He resists the urge to strangle the life out of her. Raising himself up off the bed, he picks up her clothes, throws them at her, and orders her to get dressed. Suddenly, he is so tired, more tired at this moment than in all the years before. His arm, which has held his gun poised at the woman's head, falls to his side, and he breathes unevenly. "Why?" he asks. "You'll know soon enough," the woman answers, her face serious, no hint of her earlier sarcasm. "Who are you? Why did you do this to us?" Mulder asks pitifully. "We all have our little quests, Mulder. I've been studying Dana Scully so long that I almost grew to like her. Almost," she laughs. "It was easy to study her movements, she's so predictable, dependable, so damn good. She wears her love for you like a badge of honor on her chest. She's got a dozen purple hearts, and ladders of expertise; commendations decorate her like a second skin. She's spent the last seven years shining her medals every morning, pinning them to her crisp black suits, and walking through life as if she is a veteran of some long forgotten war, in which she alone found and brought home the Rosetta stone. "It wasn't difficult to want what she had. Modern technology took care of the rest," she says, and then absently brushes her hand over her cheek. The phone rings causing Mulder to physically startle. He raises his arm and points the gun at the woman who looks like Scully but isn't; she raises her hands in mock surrender, and he reaches for the phone with his free hand. "Daddy, I got your message," William's voice informs him. Mulder tries to determine if there is any fear in his son's inflection, but Mulder is presently traveling at break-neck speed towards insanity, and try as he might, he is barely functioning within the realm of reality. "Is Hope there with you?" Mulder asks. The woman that isn't Scully looks bored. "Yes, she's right here, Dad. She's scared. What's going on?" William asks, and it is then that Mulder realizes his son is afraid. "I can't talk right now, William. Remember the numbers, William. Remember what we've discussed. I know you're scared, son, but everything is going to be fine," Mulder says, wishing he believed it. "Walter Skinner is here, Dad. He wants us to go with him. Is that okay? Tell me what to do, Dad," William says. "Do what he says, William. I'll be there as soon as possible." Mulder tries to be reassuring, but ultimately, the catch in his voice has revealed his own fear. Mulder is about to hang up when William asks the one question he cannot answer truthfully, the one question that undoes him, the question running ninety miles an hour through his own mind, "Is Mom okay?" He hates that his lie is so effortless, "She's fine, son." Mulder and Scully have become adept at blocking their emotions when speaking to their children, especially when interacting with William. Their son cannot help that he has an extraordinary gift to read people's emotions, bordering on reading their minds. Mulder is not sure if he's managed to keep the truth hidden behind a wall William cannot infiltrate. "I have to go now. I love you, Dad." William's voice gives nothing away. "I love you, William, and Hope. Tell Hope I love her, too." "I will; I will. I'm hanging up now, Dad. Please come and get us soon." "I'll be there soon, William," Mulder says, and then he hears the soft click that ends their connection. He turns to the woman who is not Scully, takes a deep breath, and walks the small expanse of space that separates them. With more force than necessary, he pushes her into the wall, and presses the gun to the middle of her forehead, vaguely noticing that she has not bothered to put on her clothes. "Take me to Scully right now, or I'm going to kill you." He knows if he has to kill her, the knowledge that she is not Scully won't erase the nightmares of him killing someone who looks so much like the woman he loves. She pushes him away from her, and he stumbles back, the gun still trained towards her head. She saunters forward, beginning to offer what he prays is a location. A moment later, a bullet splinters the bedroom window and shatters her skull, splattering blood and brain matter on the opposite wall. Mulder wonders if the fear he saw in her eyes earlier was, instead, resignation to her fate. The phone rings, and he steps over the woman who is not Scully to answer its call. He isn't surprised when the requisite sinister voice on the other end of the line asks him if he wants to know where he can find Scully. There is no rhyme or reason for the madness. The same man that hired the woman bleeding out on his bedroom carpet is probably responsible for her death, and there will never be a satisfactory explanation as to why all this has happened. Mulder pleads with the man to tell him where Scully is being held. The man huffs, as if offended, and says she isn't being held against her will. Mulder asks again where he can find his Scully; there is a pause that seems to last for hours, and then the man instructs Mulder to turn around. Mulder does as told, and finds Scully leaning against the frame of the door, a terrified expression masking her face. Mulder simultaneously drops the gun and phone on the floor, wondering how much of this horror she's witnessed. He notes the rope dangling from her left wrist, the skin beneath it raw and crusted with blood. Her face is a map of bruises that leads him to the pain in her eyes. "What did you see?" he asks. "Everything," she says softly. He nods and tries not to fall apart when she turns and exits the bedroom. Her footfalls are barely audible as she descends eighteen hardwood stairs; the creak of the front door opening echoes like a thousand phantom moans, the softness of it closing, absolutely deafening. Chapter 2 They are making shadow puppets with their hands. The door that connects their room to Skinner's is ajar. Skinner snores loudly in his sleep and they look at one another and try not to laugh. Hope rolls onto her side and stares at her brother. "I know your secret," Hope says. "What secret?" William asks. An alligator dances on the ceiling. "I didn't know until you asked Daddy if Mommy was okay Most of the time I can't read anyone, especially you, but it made you angry when he lied to you, and then I knew your secret." "You don't know anything, short stuff," William says. A butterfly flaps its wings against the wall. "How could you not tell him, Will?" Hope asks. Tears spill out of her blue eyes and she sits up on the bed. The butterfly flutters its way across the motel curtains, then stills, and disappears. "I'm tired, Hope. Let's go to sleep," William says. William pulls the scratchy blanket up to his chin and pretends to sleep. Hope's tears fall until sleep claims her. The November night chills Dana Scully to the bone. A forceful gust of wind prickles her cheeks, causing her to grimace as the cold magnifies the pain in her jaw. She fumbles with the rope still clinging to her wrist, and breaks open a scab when she finally succeeds in loosening its hold on her. Her wrists are mottled with purple bruises, raw pink rings circle them like bracelets, but at least she is free. She begins to count backwards from ten; she thinks she might make it to seven. Ten, nine, eight, seven- Mulder yanks open the door in the nick of time. Her gaze travels then length of his body several times. They stare at each other with a mixture of joy and sadness vying for residence in their hearts. He wraps his arms around himself to ward off the cold. She leans back against his car; he walks over to her, and holds out his hand. "I thought you might be cold," he says. She is cold, and so she takes the proffered promise of warmth, sliding into his jacket as she has done so many times before. She is engulfed in a sea of navy blue twill. The arms are too long and the bottom edge brushes her kneecaps. It smells like a woman who isn't her. She takes it off and walks around the parked cars in the driveway, to the side yard, and deposits the jacket into the trashcan used for weeds and dead grass. He watches her and doesn't comment. "It smelled like her," Scully says as she repositions herself against the car. Mulder looks skyward and prays for a miracle. "Are Hope and William okay?" she asks. "Yeah, they're fine. Skinner is with them. I'm going to pick them up tomorrow in D.C.," Mulder replies. Scully shifts against the car and glances up at Mulder. "You hit her," she says. "I've never seen you strike a woman; I didn't think you had it in you." He bites down on the inside of his cheek. Unable to defend himself, he nods, and doesn't know how to feel about his lack of remorse. All he can think is that she deserved it. "I'm glad you did," she says softly. "Where have you been, Scully?" He has so many questions and decides to start with the most obvious. "Not surfing the galaxy if that's what you were thinking," she laughs. "Who did this to you?" he asks, gently brushing his hand over the bruises on her face. He pretends not to notice when she winces and leans away from him. "No one you know," is all she says in response. He gathers that she doesn't know who did this to her either; at least not by name or previous association. "What's the last thing you remember, Scully? When were you last home?" he questions. "A month ago," she answers. "A month ago?" "Yeah." "That can't be right, Scully. I've done nothing but think about this for the past two days and that cannot be right." He's agitated and the concrete driveway is rough against the bottoms of his bare feet. "How long do you think I've been gone, Mulder?" she asks without looking at him. "The night you-" he squeezes his eyes shut and tries to untangle his pronouns. "She called one night and said she was going to be late. Hours after she said she'd be home she came in and told me she'd been held up at work, and that she'd been involved in a car accident. That night alone wouldn't have made me suspect anything was wrong. In fact, there were days I thought I was losing my mind because one day the clues were there and the next day they weren't. That night sticks out most in my mind, though. She had that car accident three months ago, Scully. You've been gone for three months." Scully wistfully nods and gazes down the street of their suburban neighborhood. Streetlights are staggered down either side of the road and cast shadowy light in the otherwise dark night. Cars line the curb in front of Taylor and Michael Greggs' house; they must be having a party. The Greggs' always throw one hell of a party. When Scully and Mulder first moved into the neighborhood Taylor invited them over for dinner. William and Michael Jr. hit it off and have been best friends ever since. Taylor has a great recipe for pasta salad. Scully remembers the Christmas party Taylor and Mike threw last year. Both she and Mulder had a little too much to drink. Taylor, however, was laughing-hysterically-stumbling-around drunk. Towards the end of the night, Taylor had thrown an arm around her shoulder, and whispered in her ear that Scully had the perfect life. How quickly things change. She doesn't look at him as she begins to speak, "She must have called you that night. She was probably trying to buy some time. She knew if she didn't call that you'd come looking for me. Dara was created so that you wouldn't look for me when I went missing. They couldn't have you interfering in their plans." She pauses in her exposition, disbelief working its way into every pore of her being, the hurt so encompassing that she slides down the cold metal of the car behind her and sits down on the driveway. Looking down at her wrists, she continues on, "It was me that night, Mulder. I was the one who had the car accident. It was me on the floor in your office. It was me-" she stops when she sees the look on his face. She gives him a moment to absorb what she's said. Let it sink in slowly she thinks to herself; it will be easier that way. "They were returning -me- that night, Mulder." "What? What the hell do you mean they were returning you? I'm an old man now, Scully. You're going to have to draw a diagram or something because I have no idea what is going on." "I didn't either until a month ago," she says. Her jawbone aches. The man she's referred to as Son-of-a-bitch for the past month, tried to cop a feel two weeks ago. She kicked him so hard in the balls he didn't come visit her for almost five days. When he deigned to grace her with his presence he made sure she knew how he felt about having his manhood kicked up into his throat. She smiles now, because getting the shit beaten out of her aside, he didn't try to touch her again. "They've been taking me intermittently since February, Mulder. They were returning me that night." Scully closes her eyes the past month an unending horror show playing behind her eyelids. She doesn't want to think about it, but to try and think about anything else is futile. Only in the last month has she begun to remember the previous abductions. She thinks of them as trial runs, rehearsals for the main event. A month ago they decided the master plan had worked. They'd integrated Dara into hers and Mulder's lives and Dara was ready for her award winning performance. The switch was successful and they had Scully all to themselves with no fear of interference by Fox Mulder. Three days into her month of captivity, and an onslaught of previously forgotten but now remembered memories in her grasp, she'd curled herself into a ball and tried to pretend it wasn't true. When Mother Fucker had come for her later that day, and drug her kicking and screaming to an all too familiar room where they performed test after test on her, it had been harder to deny. Mother Fucker, as she liked to call him, had to pick her up off the table when they were done, because she was unable to walk. He half threw her into her room, which for all intents and purposes was her jail cell. She'd emptied the contents of her stomach into a brown, plastic trashcan, and tried to focus on Mulder. Despite what they'd been telling her, she knew that Mulder would look for her, and that he would find her. He always did. Hours later there had been a soft rap, rap, rap on her door. Usually people didn't knock; she remembers thinking that. She'd forced herself off the bed, and smoothed back her hair. She remembers opening the door and looking in a mirror. The woman introduced herself as Dara, and laughed about how men were so creative in science, yet so boring when it came to the details. Dara, Dana, Dara, Dana. She remembers thinking Mulder might not be looking for her after all. Dara had circled her like a wolf smelling fresh meat. It wasn't long before she took a bite. 'You have a great family, Dana,' Dara sneered. A shit-eating grin had spread across her face. Scully remembers standing there like an idiot just nodding and staring. 'Hope is such a sweet little girl. Your son is pussy whipped, though. He's got that Oedipal complex down cold.' The force of Scully's hand against Dara's cheek had caused Dara's entire body to turn in time with the blow. Immediately Son-of-a-bitch had come in and restrained Scully. Profanities and threats fell from Scully's mouth, but it didn't matter, Dara had the upper hand and they both knew it. With Dara's next words, she'd only further proved the point. 'You must hate that your DNA helped create me. You must hate that somewhere in the darkest recesses of your nucleotides, there is something as evil as I am, just waiting to be born. You must hate the fact that I've been fucking Mulder since February. He doesn't even know the difference between us, Dana. Just accept that you aren't as, what was the catch phrase? One in five-billion as he thought you were.' She hadn't really believed Dara until tonight. Yes, they've been taking me since February, Scully thinks to herself. "At first, it was just for a day or two. They'd study me and she'd study you, and then they'd drug me so I wouldn't remember anything. Through post-hypnotic suggestion they'd force feed me all that I'd missed here at home, no one being the wiser," Scully stands up, the ground too cold for her to remain sitting, and resumes her earlier position against the car. "In the months before, when they'd take me for shorter spans of time, they would inject me with something. It was analogous to a truth serum multiplied by a million. Every time they took me, they'd get just a little bit more. They have been monitoring us for years, although I suspect their reasoning for monitoring us when we worked on the x files was for a different reason. What they wanted from me were the details that weren't in those files: how you take your coffee, what we talk about in bed, nicknames for the children, how I feel about you, that sort of thing. They wanted you to believe Dara was me so that you wouldn't come looking for me. Apparently, you are, to them, a formidable opponent," Scully smiles in spite of the direness of the situation, in agreement with her tormentors on that point. "During one of my longer stays, after the car accident, before they abducted me a month ago, I must have figured out what they were doing. I heard them talking about us, and referring to Project Raven. I think that triggered my memory. My recollection is still hazy, but I remember working to guard a few precious memories. I'd tell myself over and over that they couldn't have this or that one; I focused on a few, although I remember focusing on one more than the others. That's why she didn't know, Mulder. That's why she agreed with you about our first night together. She hadn't been given that memory so she had to trust you on blind faith." Mulder looks away, his eyes full of unshed tears, his hands fisting at his sides. "Earlier tonight they tied me up, blindfolded me, drove for a while, and finally dumped me in the front yard. The house was so quiet when I got home. I didn't think you were here at first, and then I heard movement upstairs. By the way, where is Spark?" Scully asks, curious. Click, click, click. She had fooled him, but not the fucking dog. How perversely pathetic. "Spark was run over in front of the house three weeks and four days ago," Mulder says, his fist making contact with the hood of his car. He remembers how upset Dara pretended to be. God, she had been so convincing. Scully lets out a gasp and murmurs a soft "damn it." Her voice is thick with emotion as she begins to speak again, "Anyway, I heard you yell at her to leave the lights on. I didn't know what to think so I walked up the stairs, turned the corner and started into the bedroom. You were undressing her-" "I'm sorry, Scully. I-" "It doesn't matter. You thought she was me," Scully says brusquely. "Actually, I was proving to myself that she wasn't you. You have to understand that I thought I was losing my mind, and I didn't want to hurt you by questioning who you were. I was testing her, and Scully, it does matter," Mulder retorts. "I don't want to talk about it anymore. We need to pack; we have to go pick up Hope and William tomorrow." "Scully, we have to talk about this," Mulder starts, before Scully interrupts him. "I said it doesn't matter. It's not your fault and no one is going to blame you but yourself," she says. "Scully, you need to be taken to a hospital. Let me take care of you." Mulder moves towards her, wanting to touch her so badly his fingers are tingling. She sidesteps him and starts towards their house. "I'm fine, Mulder. A little bruised, but otherwise I'm fine," she says over her shoulder. He decides to let it go for the moment. Glancing upwards, he sees the lights still on in their bedroom, "What are we going to do about Dara?" he asks. Scully stops her trek through the front yard and turns around, her gaze unwavering as she answers him, "You are going to bury her." "Why did they do this, Scully? Do you know why?" Mulder asks. Desperation is pulling him in every possible direction. Pale moonlight bathes her face; her expression is a mixture of amusement and despair. "Don't you know, Mulder? In a little over a year aliens are coming to take over this great planet of ours. Somewhere along the way, the men who have spent decades facilitating that very event were double-crossed. They want to survive. I was infected with the alien virus and lived to tell the tale. I've been to Africa and have seen an alien ship; I've held portions of omnipotence in the palm of my hand. I've seen things that were dead come alive again. I was barren and gave life to two children. I am the Holy Grail to their survival," she laughs at the absurdity of it all. She turns and goes inside without looking back. He stands in the driveway, eyes turned toward the stars, wondering if in a year the sky will fall, and then sighs, because for him it already has. Chapter 3 He finds her standing over Dara's corpse. The smell of death hangs heavy in the air; a bitter, metallic scent that invades his body and settles heavily in his stomach like bad wine. Some semblance of awareness makes its way into his shock-addled brain. "Scully, until we find out what's going on, maybe you shouldn't stand in front of the window," he says. She visibly startles at the sound of his voice. Mulder thinks he sees her nod, although she doesn't turn around to face him. Their earlier carelessness irritates him. Years ago they would have hit the floor first and asked questions later. Instinct would have taken precedence over emotion. He thinks they have been so long removed from the war that they have grown accustomed to being ruled by something other than fear. All in all not a bad trade, but he doesn't want their carelessness to rob them of everything they have worked so hard to attain. "Scully, I have a question," Mulder says. Slowly, he walks up behind her, lays his hands on her shoulders, and then turns her towards him and away from the carnage. She shrugs his hands away. "Scully, why do you think they let you go? Why after all this time?" "I don't know, Mulder. Two men came for me earlier today and tied me up, blindfolded me, and dropped me here," she replies. "I already told you that." "Something isn't adding up-" Mulder starts. "I assume they were finished running tests on me. Perhaps they'd found what they were looking for," she shrugs noncommittally. "Dara was a loose cannon waiting to go off. They probably didn't want to deal with the ramifications of who and what she was. She was created to serve an agenda and once she was finished, they were finished with her. No loose ends, no ties to them, and they'll get away with it as always." He doesn't have anything to say in response. Scully walks over to their shared walk-in closet. She stands in front of her clothes, gently letting her hands trail over tailored suits and a pair of threadbare jeans. "I suppose she wore my clothes," she laughs. It's not a question so he doesn't comment. Scully moves into the bathroom and slides her hands over the marble countertop. A hairdryer is precariously perched on the edge of the counter. Thigh highs are draped over the glass enclosed shower. A pair of black, Prada pumps is hiding in the corner. She remembers when she bought them. She and Mulder had taken the children to New York during Christmas break last year, so they could expose them to some culture, as she had put it to Mulder. Scully had seen the shoes in the window of the Prada store on Fifth Avenue. She'd gone inside the store, picked them up, and had fondled the smooth lines and curves of the very nearly perfect shoe. Mulder had cringed when he'd fondled the price tag. She'd mouthed "Armani suits" at him and he'd smiled. She'd happily marched to the counter and whipped out her credit card. There is nothing like a good pair of shoes. Later That Day, Hope had begged to see a production of "Annie" that was playing Off-Off-Off Broadway. They all gave in; none of them could say no to Hope. After they returned home from New York, Hope had walked around the house for weeks singing "Tomorrow". It had been boys against girls as William and Mulder ganged up on her and tried to tickle her into promising she would stop singing the song. Scully had taken Hope's side and wrestled Mulder and William off Hope onto the floor. Hope had danced behind the couch and sung her heart out. That had been in January. She wondered whose side Dara took when she came into their lives. Scully slams her hands down on the countertop and whirls around to face him, "How could you think she was me?" she yells, pointing in the general direction of Dara's corpse. "How could you?" Reasonable explanations flutter through his mind, not sounding quite as reasonable when he sees the pain of his purported betrayal in Scully's eyes. "Scully, I thought something was wrong. We'd both been so busy with our respective cases that we'd hardly seen each other, and when we did, and you I mean she was acting strange, I chalked it up to tiredness or stress over the case. I did figure it out, though. I knew she wasn't you." "Took you long enough," she says under her breath. Anger fuels him and he rushes her so they are toe to toe, "You think this is easy for me? She's taken over your life, she's been playing mother to our children, she tricked me into bed!" Looking away from her, he sees his reflection in the bathroom mirror, fury shining brightly in his eyes. "I'm sorry for what atrocities I know you've suffered at the hands of these bastards, but you aren't the only one that has suffered, Scully; we've all suffered as a result of this." "You don't know the meaning of suffering," she says, leveling her gaze against his. "You don't know what it's like to come home after surviving hell and see your lover in bed with another woman. You don't know how I feel about missing even more of my son's life, and that another woman has been kissing my daughter goodnight." Like lightning striking, it comes back to her that he does know, at least to some extent. He was gone for months only to come back and find her enormously pregnant with their son; he left again, and their son was gone. She supposes that he can fathom how she feels, but anger and hurt combine to create a certain kind of destructive rage, and even as the next words leave her mouth, she knows she shouldn't say them. "Or maybe you've just forgotten. Maybe it's easier for you to forget so that you can live with it all. I can't forget, though." "Cruelty doesn't become you, Scully," he says and walks away. They've never talked about the aftermath of his miraculous resurrection. There were so many issues to face all those years ago, that everything surrounding his abduction was pushed to the backburner in favor of her safety and the safety of their child. Then Hope was born and they busied themselves with raising their two children and creating something resembling a normal life. Days have turned into years and they've still never found the words, but the emotions so long buried gurgle to the surface like lava, and finally it all boils over, unstoppable in its wrath. "That's right, Mulder. Walk away! You are so damn good at walking away. That's what you did after your abduction. You treated me like a second-class citizen and practically ran from me for months. I've forgotten how self-absorbed you can be. I'm still here, though, as always." "I could barely get close enough to you with John Doggett shadowing your every move, and you defending him at every given opportunity, and then there was Skinner with his whispered concern for you, Dana," he says, emphasizing her first name. "It seemed to me that you had more men in your life than you could handle. They may not have been in your bed, but they'd damn sure taken my place. I was bowing out gracefully and trying to allow you to make the decision that was right for you." "You were being a coward," she retorts. "I'm going to ignore that because if I reply it will definitely not be anything you want to hear." The muscles in his jaw twitch and he runs a hand through his hair. "Why in hell are we discussing this now?" "Because we've never talked about it. We shove everything under the proverbial rug, and go on without ever dealing with the ramifications of anything that has happened to us. I'm tired of turning the other cheek and pretending like I'm okay with people fucking with our lives. I'm so tired of being an instrument whereby evil men further their cause by violating me over and over again." Her voice peaks and then valleys. Emotions flicker across her face so quickly that he doesn't catch their meaning. Bile pushes its way up into his throat. "What are you saying, Scully? Did someone lay his hands on you in that way? Did one of those men force himself on you?" His earlier anger and frustration is gone. Now, there is only her and this moment, and those who have hurt her. He will kill them eventually; of that, he has no doubt. "Someone tried to but I rearranged his balls and he never touched me again," she says. Frustration and pain line her face; their marks even more apparent than her bruises. "They have violated me in the way that they have touched my body, tortured it, and taken from it without my consent. Violating someone isn't about sexual gratification; it's about power. They exert their power over me to the point that I am helpless. They have violated me for years, and I've gone on without saying much, but I'm tired of keeping it inside. I used to think if I kept it inside that you'd see me as your brave Scully, and that if I talked about it that you would see me as weak. Now I know that I didn't talk about it because I was weak; it takes more courage to face what they've done than to ignore it." Her hands come up to her face and she hides behind them as if embarrassed by her confession. He hangs his head as if ashamed that he's failed to acknowledge what they've been through. "They performed horrible tests, Mulder. It's not like with my first abduction; I remember everything this time." "What kinds of tests? What were they looking for?" he questions. "The were looking for that part of me that would save them. There was no part of me that was left untouched, Mulder. They examined every part of me and took samples of everything you could ever imagine and some things you probably won't want to. They even cut my damn nails," she laughs. The attempt at humor is gone, and suddenly she is very serious, a desperate edge to her voice, "Whatever it is they were looking for, I hope my body didn't betray me, and give it to them." She slides to the floor and the tears begin to fall. Mulder is by her side in an instant, and wraps his arms around her, murmuring comfort in her ear. She flinches when he rubs her back and he tells her not to be afraid and that he won't hurt her. She looks down to the floor and something like shame passes across her face. He can't describe the way it changes her, only that it has, and he hates with renewed passion what these men have done to her, to all of them. He rubs his hands over her back again, testing to see if it's his touch or pain that causes her to shy away from him. Her eyes are closed and her mouth is clamped shut when she hisses as a result of what is definitely physical pain. He tips her head up towards him and tells her to open her eyes. He promises not to hurt her, but that he has to check her injuries. She closes her eyes again and nods her head in assent. She's wearing blue scrubs, and so there is no way to check her injuries but to remove the scrub shirt, which will leave her completely bare to him. He gets up and grabs one of his t-shirts off a hanger in the closet. He hands it to her with the hope that she will retain some semblance of control over the situation. She clutches it to her chest like a dying man would the Bible on his deathbed. "I'm going to take this shirt off now, Scully," he says. Her only acknowledgement to his having spoken is when she gently lays his t-shirt in her lap. Slowly, he begins to remove the over-sized top portion of the scrub ensemble over her head. When it is completely off, she clutches his t-shirt to her breasts, covering them from view. "Shit," he says. Her back is a rainbow of old and new bruises. The bottoms of the scrubs hang low on her hips, obviously too large for her small frame, a square, raw patch of skin peeks up from the waistband. He can't even imagine what they did that would leave behind such an angry wound. There are five, small, oval marks on the inside of each of her biceps. "What the hell is this, Scully?" he asks, not wanting to think about the implications. "I never stopped fighting, Mulder," she says and then she is in his arms again, and her small, bruised body has never felt so good. "Sometimes they'd give me a mild sedative before the tests, to make me more compliant, but I always fought, Mulder. I didn't want to help them. They've taken so much from us, I didn't want to help them take more," she says. "Who did this to you," he says quietly. She doesn't answer because she can't. They were faces that smiled at her pain, bodies that moved in sterile rooms as she screamed, and strong arms that held her down when she fought. They were men who beat her when she resisted. They were the bitter laughter in her ears after they sanctimoniously informed her time and time again that Mulder wasn't looking for her. She shakes her head and is startled when Mulder wrenches away from her. "Who did this to you?" he yells. She is afraid for him, not of him, when she sees the look in his eyes. She knows that look. He won't rest until he finds out who did this to her. She's seen it before, but not for a long time. She knows that his justice will, in his mind, exorcise whatever guilt he may have in regard to this whole situation. Avenging the victim is easier than dealing with the pain. "I don't know, Mulder," she answers. "Do you think you could remember where they kept you? Do you know where they were keeping you?" "No," she replies solemnly. "Damn it!" he yells and half-heartedly punches the wall. Quietly, Scully rises to her feet, still clutching Mulder's t-shirt to her breasts, and makes her way to his side of their shared closet. She pulls a loose fitting long-sleeved shirt off its hanger and exits the bedroom without a word. Mulder hears a door open and close in the hall signaling she is making use of their guest bathroom for the evening. He looks over at Dara; her eyes are wide open, and her lips are blue. Some unknown verbal exchange will remain forever on the tip of her tongue. Despite the hatred he feels for this dead woman, he doesn't want to bury her. She looks too much like Scully. He supposes this is his punishment for failing to realize sooner that she wasn't. "Hope, wake up!" William murmurs frantically. William gets out of his bed, walks to the edge of Hope's bed, and tries to rouse his sister. He gently shakes her but she is caught in the clutches of her nightmare and continues to alternately whimper and cry out. William begins to shake her more insistently, begging her away from whatever it is that frightens her, prodding her to awaken. Finally, her eyes open, and William's body goes slack in relief. "What was that all about, Hope?" Before she can answer, Skinner stumbles into their room, squinting his eyes, and mumbles, "what's wrong?" "She just had a nightmare, Mr. Skinner. She's okay now." "You sure?" Skinner questions. "Yeah, she's okay now," William assures. Skinner stumbles out the way he entered. William turns back to his sister, the look on her face causing his small body to tense. "You okay, short stuff?" William asks. "It's the same dream, Will," she says, grasping his hand. "The one about running?" "Yeah, that one," she says. Damp, brown curls frame her face, and she trembles as the remnants of her dream fade away. "It's okay, Hope. Everything will be okay," William says. He pushes on her shoulder and she scoots over on the bed. William lies down beside her. "Will you tell me a story," she asks. William is practicing to be as good a storyteller as his father. Hope is always a more than willing audience to his tales of heroes and far away galaxies. "Which one?" William asks, yawning. "Anything," Hope answers, mirroring William's yawn. William ruminates for a few moments, mentally flipping through the stories in his mind, and then decides on the one he knows to be her favorite. Hope turns on her side, facing him, and closes her eyes. "There was once a little girl named Emily and because evil men wanted to steal her beauty, she traveled to a faraway place called Heaven, where she would be beautiful forever. She was so sad she had to leave planet earth, though, that she developed a magic passageway so she could visit earth whenever she was lonely. It was perfect because only she could travel in the passageway: no bad guys allowed," William pauses and looks over to Hope who has already fallen asleep. He is tired and it is becoming harder for him to keep his eyes open, but he continues telling the story, and doesn't stop until he comes to the end, where everyone lives happily ever after. He remembers back to the early years of their partnership, an encounter in a Warehouse, where Scully shot herself in the head. It wasn't her then either, he laughs without humor, but he remembers being completely off kilter for weeks in the wake of seeing her drop dead on a concrete floor. If he thought that was a nightmare, then this must be hell. His palms are blistered from the continuous friction of the shovel against his hands as he dug into the earth. She looked so much like Scully. Upon entering their house, he becomes aware immediately, of the absolute quietness. He begins searching for Scully. As he goes from room to room only to discover the emptiness it contains, he begins to feel alarmed. "Scully!" he calls out. "I'm in the office," he hears faintly. He takes the stairs two at a time and finds her sitting at his desk. "Is it done?" she asks. "Yeah," he answers. "Any problems on the home front while I was gone?" "No," she says. "I don't expect there to be any either. I assume they've finished playing doctor. At least for the time being." Quietly, she pushes a legal pad across the desk. She puts a finger to her lips and glances up and around, indicating she thinks the house might be bugged. Nodding, he turns the yellow legal pad over. After he's finished reading her request, he looks up at her in disbelief, and somberly nods his head. She holds up a paper bag and rises from her position behind the desk. He notices that she has dressed in anticipation of his compliance. He opens the back door, and gestures for her to go ahead of him. Scully steps out onto the deck, and Mulder closes the door behind him as he joins her outside. They begin to make their way into the woods behind the house. Mulder drapes his arm around her shoulders and she does not pull away. He breaks open the pen and allows the ink to spill into the container. She holds a flashlight in her hand, shining the light down on him. "Are you sure about this, Scully?" "Yes," is all she says. He uncaps the needle and dips it into the ink. She bends her neck to the left and brushes the hair away from her face. "Right here," she says, pointing to a place right at her hairline. She hands him the penlight and he puts it into his mouth, holding it in place with his teeth. He palms the needle and soaks a cotton ball in alcohol. She shivers when he brushes it across her skin. He brings his hand up to her nape. The needle is poised at her hairline. Blue ink shines on its tip. He tells her it might hurt. She already knows it will. She's been marked before, although that was done in a moment of recklessness, and has since been removed. She knows this mark will be forever. The needle bites into her flesh like a thousand little teeth. Pain subsides for a moment. He dips the needle into the makeshift inkwell and the needle sinks its teeth into her again. They are not married in the eyes of the law. There has never been a ceremony. Their marriage has been born, like a child, brought into being by anguished cries, and then realized in secret moments, and finally an embraced happiness. No rings have ever been worn, or for that matter, offered. He asked once if she wanted them to be married, after Hope was born, and she said it wasn't necessary. He never brought it up again. As the pain ebbs and flows, she thinks there should be a fire, with tribal men dancing around, indicative of some kind of primitive marriage ritual. Warm hands caress her neck. She's dreamt about them for the past month. When he is finished, he stares at his handiwork. "It's done," he whispers in her ear. "I tried to make it blend in like you said, Scully." To anyone else it might look like a vein: something necessary that carries blood to her heart. She supposes his mark is somewhat like that. He is like that to her. Necessary. Vital. A small blue line, less than an inch long throbs beneath a veil of auburn hair. No one can copy this. Her scars are available for the entire world to see, but this mark, will remain their secret. "I'm sorry I hurt you," he says. "I know you are," she sighs. "You know there were other women before you," he says, drawing in a breath. "But Scully, I spent my life looking for you, that's why nothing ever lasted. I knew there was something better out there for me. I wasn't sure I'd ever find it, but I knew it was out there, waiting for me. What I'm trying to say is that you are it for me. There were other women before you, but there will never be a woman after you. No one could ever measure up, baby. And this whole thing with Dara, even though I didn't know, it was wrong, and I'm sorry that I've hurt you." She melts into him. "You are my soul mate, Scully." He brushes the hair away from her ear, finding his mark, and places a whisper of a kiss atop it. A sob breaks loose and shatters the quiet that surrounds them. A hundred different variations of "I'm sorry" fall from his lips. She takes them all in the palm of her hand, and presses kisses to each and every one. Pulling away, she turns in the direction of their house, and begins to walk the short distance home. He stands in place, the remnants of a primitive ceremony, scattered around him. She stops, her back to him, and holds out her hand. He gathers up the bits and pieces of their ceremony and rushes to her side. Forgiveness is found in a tangle of fingers. They arrive home within a few minutes, and as they stand together on the deck, Scully says she wants some time alone. Mulder nods and tells her he's going to clean up their bedroom. The back door shuts softly behind him, leaving her feeling slightly vulnerable, and beyond lonely. She needs this time, though, to regain her footing. A cast iron chimenea is nestled in the corner of the deck. Scully remembers it fondly; she and Mulder curled up on the built in seats of their low deck, the chimenea giving off warmth on an otherwise cold Bangor night. They would look up at the stars, and being in each other's arms made those stars beautiful again. Scully lifts the lid of a sturdy wooden box and retrieves the long stemmed matches it contains. She walks to the back door and opens the brown, paper bag Mulder dropped before going inside. Finding the yellow legal pad that has settled to the bottom, she tears off the first few sheets of paper and throws them into the chimenea. Upon striking the match, an eerie orange glow throws off color in the otherwise murky night. The match lands silently on top of the paper, and slowly, it all begins to burn. Yellow pieces of paper writhe as the fire begins to eat at it. Her words turn to face her, one last time, before being consumed: You've got to do this, Mulder. I never want you to doubt who I am again. I want you to always know it's me. Finally, the fire has its way, yellow is turned to black, and her words are ashes. She goes inside long enough to dispose of the bag and its contents. She shoves it under a rind of a cantaloupe and expired loaf of French bread. After her task is complete, she goes back outside, and watches as the fire begins to tease its way up the side of a partially charcoaled piece of wood. It's a cold night, and so she wraps her arms around her body, Mulder's shirt not an entirely appropriate barrier against the elements. Pulling the sleeves down, she covers the marks on her wrists. She's practicing for tomorrow. She doesn't want to frighten her children. Make-up, she hopes, will cover most of the bruising on her face. Leaves rustle to her left, and suddenly she senses that she isn't alone. A man begins to appear from the shadows, and the knot in her stomach grows tighter when she realizes she recognizes him. It's the man that has haunted her for the past month; the man who laughed at her helplessness; the man whose fists bruised her face. "Jesus, there you are, Dara. I've been staking out the place for the last half hour! Where the hell have you been, and why aren't you answering your fucking phone?" Scully is frozen in place, rendered speechless, completely helpless without a way to defend herself. She already knows he is much stronger than she. "I'm sorry," she says. Immediately, her hands go to her face, trying to cover the bruising there. She hopes the darkness will serve her well, at least for a few moments. She hopes he doesn't notice the way her voice hitches with each syllable. "What are you doing here?" "Well, haven't I got a story for you. Seems like Dana had a fucking Good Samaritan after all. Four motherfuckers broke into the lab earlier and stole her right out from under our fucking noses. Sebastian has everyone out looking for her. You need to make up an excuse for lover boy and come with me. Sebastian wants to see you. Plans have changed, Dara." "I can't leave right now," Scully says. She pulls at the sleeves of her shirt and pins the edges between her palm and the tips of her fingers. "Don't be a fucking bitch about it, Dara. The boss wants to see you, now come on," he says. Scully barely has time to register that he's moved, and before she can even react, he's got her by the arm, and is dragging her around the side of the house towards a dark colored sedan. "What do you think you're doing?" She's surprised at how calm his voice is. The man holding her arm falters and turns around at the sound of Mulder's voice. The man looks to Scully and realization dawns. A break in the trees allows moonlight to filter through, and as pale light illuminates her face, it also reveals her bruises. Dara doesn't have bruises, but Dana does. She can almost hear the thought circulate through his brain. "What the fuck?" he says, and his grip on her arm becomes tighter. Mulder has his gun out from behind his back and is pointing it at the man before Scully has time to blink. "I'm going to count to three and you're going to release her, or I'm going to blow your head off," Mulder says. His arm doesn't falter and neither does his voice. He begins walking toward them, "One, two-" Scully feels herself being pushed toward Mulder as the man that held her begins to run. Mulder catches her in his arms, and says "Stop, or I'll shoot you in the fucking back you coward", and the man stops, his arms raised above his head. Scully stands off to the side fairly shocked at the recent turn of events. Mulder is busy dragging her tormentor towards the woods. Scully runs to catch up, and as she comes closer, she hears Mulder asking the man a question. "Are you the one that hurt her?" he asks. The man stands stone silent and is visibly afraid. Mulder backhands him and the man drops to his knees. "Did you hear what I said you son of a bitch?" Mulder yells. "Mulder-" Scully starts. Mulder turns his head slightly to look at her. In his peripheral vision, he watches the man now bleeding heavily from his lower lip. Mulder keeps his gun trained on the man directly in front of him, and brings his hand to Scully's face. "Did he do this to you? Is he the one that hurt you so badly?" His hand is so gentle against her bruised flesh. "Scully, did he do this to you?" Mulder asks more insistently. Her shaky exhale is the only answer he needs. Positioning Scully behind him, he raises himself up to his full height. Broad shoulders, muscles defined from working in the yard and running every morning, resolve steeled from so many years of loving Scully. "Stand up you piece of shit," Mulder says. His hand falls away from Scully's face; the hand holding the gun is steady and trained on its target. He stares at the man now standing before him. "You took Scully away from me. You took away the person I love most in the world, the person who has been faithful to me in spite of myself, and you made me betray her by putting someone else in my bed. You took her away from our children. You tortured and beat her; you bruised her beautiful face. You have robbed us of memories we can never get back, you have robbed us of happiness, you have robbed us of the peace we have fought so long to have," Mulder pauses, his free hand fisting at his side, "and now you are going to pay for it all." Chapter 4 "What's your name?" "Why do you want to know?" "It doesn't seem right for me to kill you without knowing your name," Mulder says. "Oh, well, in that case, my name is Paul. You wanna shake hands now?" "No," Mulder huffs. "With a name like Fox , I had plenty of time to contemplate all the other names out there I might want for my own, instead of the one I had. I spent an entire summer poring over books, looking at names and their meanings. Paul, huh? Latin, derives from Paulus, and means small. It's always small men who commit the most heinous crimes. You know why, Paul? Because when they were in elementary school, they were awkward and lonely. Your father was a drunk, probably went to the store for milk and never came back; your mother was physically abusive, given your predilection for hitting women. In middle school, you were smart but also an outcast. The two most influential things in your life were fear and weakness; by the time you were ten, you'd mastered both, and in turn, they'd mastered you. You had terrible acne and really believed that masturbating would cause blindness. You were nothing short of pathetic. In high school, you were the only one that didn't go to prom, because you couldn't get a date; it was a relief, though, because you couldn't afford it anyway. You graduated from high school and went to college. After you graduated from college, you were hired for a meaningless management position, probably in a Warehouse setting. After about ten months on the job, maybe a little longer, your boss called you into his office and confirmed that you were as pathetic as an adult as you had been as a child, and proceeded to fire you. After being fired, you worked odd jobs that never paid worth shit, and started frequenting bars to pick up women, and there, Paul, is where you met the man you now work for. You thought it would be easy cash, and at first, you enjoyed the feeling of importance, of being a part of something dangerous, but then after some vigilante mission, which you thought would curry favor with the boss, you realized how powerless you were, because he sent another one of his lackeys to beat the shit out of you. Fear, Paul, it's all over you like an old friend. You do this because, now, you can't do anything else. You're in too deep, and yet, you probably don't realize how in the thick of it you really are. Am I getting it right so far, Paul?" Paul's mouth is hanging open, catching flies, effectively confirming everything Mulder just said. "There are a few discrepancies, but who am I to argue?" he replies, flippantly. Mulder scowls. "Yeah, that's basically it," Paul says. "I'm going to tell you a little something about irony, Paul. Listen carefully: your entire life has been one pitiful attempt after another to gain power over the weak, to put in place all those schoolyard bullies, abusive parents, and bosses that fired you. You crave power because you've never been powerful. You've used and abused and betrayed everything that was good, right, and true; you've sold your soul to the devil for what you thought would make you something other than small, and now here you are at the end of your life, still at the mercy of someone else." Mulder pauses, his forefinger applying gentle pressure to the trigger, "Tell me Paul, are you sorry?" "Sorry for what?" Paul asks, swallowing noticeably. "For everything you've done - to me, to my children, but most importantly, to her," Mulder says, tilting his head toward Scully. "Yeah, I'm sorry," Paul answers, and there is the slightest bit of sarcasm in his tone. "Good," Mulder retorts. The kickback from the gun causes Mulder's arm to fly upward, a little toward heaven, before it falls, a little toward hell. "What's going on?" "We've got trouble," Sebastian says. "What kind of trouble?" "The kind that requires the last resort. Dara is out of the picture; Dana Scully has returned home." "How do you know?" "Kennedy tailed Fox Mulder from his house to an isolated spot off I-95. He witnessed him bury something; after Mulder left, he uncovered a grave and discovered Dara, shot once through the head," Sebastian explains. "I can only assume he is behind Dana's extrication from our premises." "What do you want to do?" "You know what has to be done. We prepared for this eventuality," Sebastian says, shifting the phone to his left ear. "Where are they?" "Washington D.C.," Sebastian says, "Funny if you think about it," he comments. "Hope, wake up," William murmurs. "What is it, Will?" Hope asks, rubbing her eyes. "We have to go," William says. "What?" "It's not safe here; we have to go now," he says in a panicked voice. "How do you know?" He pauses, and answers honestly, not understanding, but believing, "I don't know how I know. It's just - I know it's not safe for us here." "Okay, Will. Where are we going, though?" "Hope, I need to ask you something. Is this like your dream?" Hope sits up in bed. Smoothing down her flannel pajamas, she begins to fidget with one of the red buttons, and then squeezes her eyes shut. "In my dream, it was Mommy who woke me up, and she told me we had to go real fast, that we had to leave our house. Will, Daddy is never in my dream, he is never with us when we are running; it's always just you, me, and Mommy. Now, though, it's just you and me. Do you think Mommy and Daddy are okay?" "I know they are okay, Hope. They are both okay, but we need to go right now," William says, briefly hugging his sister. "Are we going to tell Mr. Skinner?" Hope grasps William's hand and holds on to it tightly. "I don't know yet," he says, gently squeezes her hand, and then lets it fall between the two of them. "I think we should," she mumbles. "Just get your duffel bag; throw everything in there. Let me think about this for a minute." Hope goes to her duffel bag and begins rolling her clothes into tight little balls. She spots the doll her daddy gave her last Christmas; the hair is brown and curly like hers; the dress is periwinkle with a lace fringe at the bottom; on the bottom of the doll's right foot is the embroidered word "love" and on the left foot is "daddy." "Hey William, can I take my doll?" she says, pointing toward the bed. "Of course, Hope," William says, looking for all the world like a man trapped in a boy's body. "Of course you can take your doll." Scully stares blankly at Mulder. A muffled sob reverberates around them and she breathes in metallic air. "I can't kill you, Paul. Do you know why?" Mulder asks. Paul shakes his head indicating he doesn't understand. "I can't kill you because then I'd be you, and it's not high on my list of priorities to be a good for nothing, piece of shit excuse for a human being." Paul nods in agreement, and lifts his hand to his ear, where he's sure the bullet scraped on its way by. His hand comes up dry, nothing to show for his brush with death. Mulder informs Paul that he is going to tell he and Scully everything he knows about Scully's abduction and the creation of the recently deceased Dara. Paul bows his head in defeat. The clincher, the most fucking ironic fact of all, the words Mulder will hear and not want to believe, is that Paul knows nothing. He tells them that he was hired by Sebastian Crenshaw five years ago, and that at first, he was a security man at a Warehouse. He doesn't know what they were doing inside. Silence and lack of curiosity were well paid for. Five nights a week for four years, he guarded a ubiquitous Warehouse in Virginia. Only twenty-three people had access; he knew them all by name, by physical appearance, something Crenshaw had insisted on. There was a shoot on sight policy for anyone else who dared to approach the building. He could handle that, he says, it was good money after all. In November of last year there was a change in venue, they were moving the operation to Maine, and Sebastian offered to let him tag along. He didn't have many friends and both his parents are dead, so he agreed to relocate. He turns to Scully, "I first met you in February of this year," Paul states. Scully looks away. Paul continues to explain that he was assigned inside duties once they moved to Maine, and that in February, his assignment was to watch over Scully. He admits that he knew Dara, and knew that she was living Dana Scully's life, but the only reason given was that Scully was involved in government work, and that she knew things that Sebastian needed to know. He guarded Scully seven times before her abduction a month ago. He never asked why they performed tests on her; he says that he didn't want to know. He just did what he was told. He tells them that they'll never get to Sebastian Crenshaw, but that his right hand man is Darren Kennedy, and that he knows all about what has been going on. Kennedy would tell him stuff from time to time, but nothing important, just mundane things. Dawn begins to peek through the trees, the remnants of night fading slowly away. Both Mulder and Scully are surprised that so much time has passed since Scully first returned home; it seems like minutes but in a way it feels like days. It is almost too much to take in. Paul rambles on about Sebastian, and hurriedly states that he was forced to do and say a lot of things. He says he never really wanted to hurt Scully. Mulder glares at his blatant attempt to shirk responsibility. Scully laughs. "Don't insult my intelligence, or hers," he says, pointing to Scully. "We're going to go inside now, and while I've spared you so far, don't do anything stupid. I want to kill you more than you can possibly imagine. And another thing, don't even so much as look at Scully," Mulder says. "Yeah, okay," Paul answers submissively. Mulder motions for Paul to walk ahead of him, he and Scully trail behind their captive, and they slip easily into their partnership of years ago. "Open it," Mulder says, when Paul reaches the back door. He does, and as they move inside, Mulder tells Paul to sit on the couch. Without Mulder having to ask, Scully goes to Mulder's office to retrieve his handcuffs. She glances at his desk; his badge and wallet are near the corner; the wallet is open and she stares for a few seconds at the picture of Hope and William it contains. She has missed them so much. Her life is a shambles, she thinks, and the only consolation at this moment is her children. They are the embodiment of everything good and pure. She has missed Hope's antics, and the way Hope's spirit makes her feel alive; she has missed William fingers gliding over ivory, playing Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata", the absolute contentment of it lulling her to sleep on lazy Sunday afternoons. "Scully?" Mulder calls to her. She clears her throat, "Yeah, I'm coming," she says, wiping the tears from her eyes. Mulder cuffs Paul as tight as he can. He hopes the cuffs dig into the tender flesh of his wrists; he hopes Paul's wrists will, in the end, look and hurt as badly as Scully's. Scully sits off to the side, in an overstuffed chair, her body folding in on itself. Except to answer him a few moments ago, she hasn't spoken since Mulder fired the gun, and now she sits quietly, pondering all that has happened. Mulder paces the kitchen, his gun now tucked in the waistband of his jeans, while he mulls over what their next move will be. The phone rings, breaking the silence, startling them all from their respective contemplation. Mulder grabs his cell phone off the kitchen counter, "Hello," he says. "Uh, Fox Mulder?" "Yes, this is he," Mulder answers. "Uh, yes, Mr. Mulder, this is Special Agent Michael Browning, FBI, D.C.," the man says. "Yes, why are you calling me, Agent Browning?" Mulder questions. Scully automatically looks toward Mulder at the mention of Agent Browning. She mouths, "What's wrong?" Mulder looks past her and stares at the end table to the right of the couch. Two silver frames sit on top of the table, smooth metal outlining William and Hope's school pictures from last year. Scully follows Mulder's gaze and glances at the pictures of their children. "Well, Mr. Mulder, I assisted Deputy Director Skinner in locating and subsequently picking up your children yesterday. I was assigned detail in the parking lot of the motel where we were holding your children until your arrival later this afternoon. There was some commotion here a little while ago, and so I went to check in with Skinner. Have you spoken with Deputy Director Skinner recently?" "No," he says, bowing his head, and Mulder doesn't know whether he's answering the question or addressing the implication of the situation. The desperate edge in his voice leads him to believe it is the latter. "That's what we were afraid of, Mr. Mulder. No one has been able to locate Walter Skinner, or your children. We've been looking for almost an hour. What drew our attention was shots fired, Mr. Mulder. William, Hope, and Deputy Director Skinner have seemingly vanished into thin air. We've got several agents working to find them, but frankly, we don't know what was so important about having them in protective custody to begin with. The Deputy Director said their safety was top priority and that we were to follow his orders without question. We need you to advise us on the threat against them so we can better formulate our response." "How did you get this number?" "Excuse me?" "I asked how you got this number," Mulder says. "In your children's room, there was a piece of paper that had 'Call Dad' scribbled across the top, and this number written beneath it," Agent Browning explains. "Agent Browning, they're in trouble, I'll be there as soon as possible. Call me at this number if you need anything, and for now, just keep looking for them until I arrive," Mulder says, and hangs up the phone. It is a moment before he can face Scully. Already, he can hear her murmured protests. When their eyes finally meet, she is shaking her head and chanting 'no', as tears stream down her cheeks. The soft curves of her body begin to blur; her shirt slowly blends with the fabric of the chair in which she sits; she is distorted by his ocean of unshed tears. He picks up a coffee mug, throws it at the wall opposite him, and it shatters, falling in pieces to the floor. Scully's soft murmuring is drowned out by a noise so loud it startles him. The sounds of heartache echo all around him, a guttural, anguished cry pierces his soul, and it is only when he gasps for breath and focuses on Scully, that he realizes he's been screaming. Chapter 5 They are presently forty-four miles outside of D.C.. After calling the airlines and finding no immediately available flights to Washington National, they'd flung themselves in the car and begun the long drive. Silence has reined, the radio a muted distraction, the sounds of three people breathing the only other interruption for hundreds of miles. Paul sits quietly in the back seat; his bruised and battered face throbs, his discomfort obvious. Mulder's impatience and worry tap against the steering wheel. Occasionally, he casts sidelong glances at Scully. She remains steadfast in her resolve to watch the scenery blur by in a mishmash of colors and textures. They've only stopped once, for gas and an unavoidable bathroom break. They are without luggage, having had no time to pack anything before they left. It's just as well, Scully thinks to herself, she had planned on burning her clothes and replacing her wardrobe anyway. As memories flutter through her brain, all warm images of the last seven years that make her heart ache, she tries to focus on something else. Try as she might she can only replay the events of early morning, when the birds were chirping as dawn broke through the trees, revealing a brilliant blue sky, promising a gloriously beautiful day. After the call came, about her missing children and the gunshots fired in their vicinity, she saw the morning through a filter of desperation and barely concealed rage. Suddenly, as if someone had turned out the light on the earth, the sky wasn't as blue, everything seemed dark, and the only sound was that of her life crashing down around her. Ideally, morning brings with it hazy, blue light, lazy yawns, and a certain sense of peace. Everything is new in the morning; that fight you've had the night before is tempered by eight uninterrupted hours of sleep; the absolute fatigue you felt as a result of working for twelve hours straight, eight of which were spent standing, is replaced by awareness; frustration over things not going exactly right in the weeks before is replaced by opportunity; the past is lost in the night, the future found in glances across cotton sheets, heads resting on plump, down pillows. Essentially, mornings are new beginnings. That wasn't the case this morning, though. Scully and Mulder hadn't had time to rest, their bed is blood stained, and she hasn't looked across the white ocean of sheets at his morning-rumpled hair in over a month. Mulder spent the night burying for all intents and purposes, Scully's twin; they'd engaged in a kind of ritual where Mulder had tattooed forever where skin and hair collide; a facet of forgiveness, or at least understanding had been found; murder had been contemplated, and it had all ended or begun, depending on the view, with dawn bringing forth news of missing children. Scully is not sure she can survive if something happens to her children; not when she knows the joy of having children without tragedy shadowing their every move; not now that she knows the feel of William and Hope in bed with she and Mulder, an oversized, shared bowl of sugary cereal between them, Saturday morning cartoons enrapturing them with simplicity, giving way to the most innocent laughter; not now that she knows that William and Hope have made everything, every last horrific tragedy, worth all the pain when the end result was having them be safe, whole, hers and Mulder's brilliant boy, and sweet, sweet girl. Scully's murmured protests and Mulder's screams had found the other in the space that separated their physical beings, as always their pain and grief joining to become one, forming what heartache would sound like if it were an auditory thing instead of a simple word. Paul had sat and watched with wide eyes, his pulse pounding like a jackhammer beneath his skin; he had felt it in his stomach and in his skull. The unnaturally fast rhythm vibrating off his bones, fear pressing down hard, his pulse quickening as the screams turned to silence. Paul's handcuffs had clinked together, and sounded impossibly loud, when compared to Scully's mumbled "no, Oh God no, no." She had been on the brink of hyperventilating in her grief, although Paul had not even considered telling her so. Paul had hoped all this talk of misplaced children in danger, was a huge mistake, because there is nothing that incites anger like harm to a child. Fucking around with a grown woman had been one thing, but helpless kids are another, and he isn't without his principles after all. Mulder was on top of Paul like a bolt of lightening, blurry in the swiftness in which he crossed the room, and suddenly the situation had violently, irrevocably exploded into something beyond all manageability. Paul had been fearful for his life as well he should have been. Harming Scully was enough to make Mulder want to kill Paul even as righteousness had won over vengeance; threatening Mulder and Scully's children was enough for Mulder to kill Paul without question. Everyone has a breaking point. Fists had knifed through the air, an avalanche of anger unleashed on one man, threats reverberating in every direction. Paul had tried to fight Mulder, but Mulder's adrenaline had kicked in, and he was unstoppable in his wrath. Scully had risen from her chair, and gone to Mulder, reaction dulled by pain. The anger and despair radiating from him had been impenetrable. Scully had shifted back and forth to avoid his fists and elbows. "Damn you! If anything happens to them, I'll kill you! I swear to God I'll kill you!" "Mulder, stop it," she'd said calmly. He hadn't heard her. "Where are they? Tell me where they are! Who is after them?" "Mulder, listen to me, we need to see if he can tell us anything. Stop it, Mulder, for just a minute," she'd said, more forcefully than before. She tried to pull his arms away, and even though she is a strong woman, she had known she would have been unable to stop him from beating Paul to death if that had been his chosen path. His back had rippled underneath her hand, every muscle in motion, as she had continued to plead with him to stop his assault. A momentary pause, and Mulder had looked at her with a questioning expression, one that caused his forehead to wrinkle. She'd scowled at him, disturbed by his newfound propensity for violence, and the amount of anger in him. She'd calmed somewhat when she realized most of it was because of what had been done to her, to them. "You need to calm down, Mulder. We aren't going to solve anything this way." Gratefulness, or some close emotional relative, had passed over Paul's face. Scully had moved toward Paul, leaned down and whispered, "Don't think you're off the hook you son of a bitch. If I find out you had anything to do with this, I'll kill you myself." Mulder's voice pricks her consciousness, and the remembrance of early morning, joins the blur of roadside distractions. "Do you need to stop, Scully? Before we get to D.C.?" he asks. "No," she says. Going to the bathroom is not a top priority when her children are missing, undoubtedly frightened, possibly in the hands of mad men. His hand creeps across the seat, hesitant in its slow push toward her, and when it makes contact with her hand, and fingers clutch at her own, she feels a pang of guilt that she allows her hand to continue resting limply on her thigh. The clink, clink, clink of handcuffs reminds her Paul is in the car with them. Mulder continues to palm the steering wheel, his fingers intermittently tapping out an indeterminable rhythm, and Scully continues to stare out the window, the blur of their journey never-ending. There are no witnesses, no leads, and no pathways to their children. Paul was handed over to the FBI, specifically Agent Browning, to be questioned for his role in Scully's kidnapping, and any possible knowledge about the whereabouts of their children. Paul maintains innocence on that front. Deep down Mulder knows he is a dead end, although he is glad to be rid of him, and hopes he will serve a long prison sentence for his role in Scully's month long captivity and torture. He hopes Paul will suffer, wherever he is, whatever happens to him. It has been a little over twenty-four hours since the call came that their children were missing. Twelve hours had been spent driving; three hours at the crime scene, or lack thereof, going over every room, questioning every person in the motel, searching the immediate area; four hours at the Hoover building in the confines of Skinner's office, questioning Paul, discussing a plan of action with Agent Browning; the remaining hours spent searching the streets of D.C. looking for a clue, hoping that Skinner, William, and Hope would materialize on a street corner, in a grocery store, anywhere, as long as they were safe. No one had materialized, and Mulder's cell phone had rung only once, Agent Browning wanting to inform them of Paul's official incarceration, booking, and continued cries of innocence in regard to William and Hope. Apparently, he had coughed up the location where Scully had been held for the last month, and Browning further informed Mulder that he had directed three agents, along with the local Bangor PD to investigate that building, now considered a crime scene. She had been just over ten miles away from their home. They hadn't wanted to stop, but their bodies had rebelled, and their eyes had begun to close of their own accord. After stopping by a twenty-four hour drugstore and buying the essentials, they'd checked into a motel, not wanting to rest but admitting they needed it. Scully has been in the bathroom for twenty-five minutes; Mulder is sprawled on the bed and idly clicks the remote; early morning television whirls by. He is trying to be patient, but he is also tired, which makes the attempt at patience even more challenging. Ultimately, he loses the battle. "Scully, you okay in there?" he calls out. She doesn't answer, not that he really expected her to. The motel curtains are drawn tightly together, the panels overlapping, the room immune to the light outside. He slowly rises from the bed, procrastinating, and rubs the edges of his skull with the tips of his fingers. He walks to the bathroom, leans against the door, and listens for movement. He hears none. So as not to startle her, he slowly opens the bathroom door, calling her name as he does so. He finds her, nude, sitting on the side of the bathtub, her head in her hands. "Scully," he calls to her softly. Still, she doesn't answer him. Her nudity reveals more of the horror of her abduction. Bruises, he thinks, cover her from head to toe. Her once fine-china skin is now purple and red and green and yellow, and wholly unrecognizable to him. He wonders about the square patch of skin missing from her hip. It is red, raw, angry. It physically hurts him to look at her, and so, he turns away. "Scully, are you all right?" he asks, looking at the floor. He is tired, scared, needy, and so his feet propel him to the side of bathtub, and he hovers over her. Standing becomes too much of an effort; the toilet provides an adequate respite. He is eye level with her now, or he would be, if she were looking at him. Her injuries beckon him, and he surveys her again, the sweep of his eyes over her battered body no less horrific the second time around. He touches her shoulder and she cartoonishly jumps off the tub. "Jesus, you scared me, Mulder," she gasps. "I'm sorry," he replies. "I'll be out in a minute, just give me a minute," she says, covering as much of herself as possible from view. He walks out of the bathroom, leaving the door cracked, the snick of it closing rings in his ears as he resumes his earlier position on the bed. When she finally emerges from the bathroom, she is wearing only the shirt she had on earlier, and she finds it hard to meet his gaze. "I'm not sure what to do," he confesses. She looks at him for a moment, and then lowers herself onto the bed, "Me either," she says, fumbling with the bedside alarm clock. "We'll rest for a few hours, then we'll go over everything again, try to figure this out," she says, putting the alarm clock down, turning it to face the bed. "Scully, what happened to your hip?" he blurts out. "Now is not the time to talk about this," she says. He nods and heads toward the bathroom. He stands under the spray of water until it turns cold, and by the time he exits the bathroom, Scully is asleep. He lies down beside her, their bodies inches apart, not touching. John Denver is serenading her. They're in a Warehouse, he's slouched on a barstool, smiling, singing, "come let me love you, come love me again." He frowns when she does not smile in return. She opens her eyes, John Denver disappears, but his song is still with her. She reaches over, slaps at the alarm clock, and his voice is silenced. She is not quite awake, and so she lies back down, curling up against Mulder's side. He pulls her tightly, desperately against him, and she basks in the sensation of it. That is when she remembers, remembers that she's been too long without his touch, and that Hope and William are missing. Her movements are quick and precise as she untangles herself from his embrace, sits up, and rubs at her eyes. She tries to be nonchalant when she finally looks at him, but his eyes are focused on her with extraordinary intensity. "Sorry about that," she says, waving her hand over the bed. "Why are you sorry?" he asks. "Now isn't the time, William and Hope are all that matter now," she says under her breath, moving to rise from the bed. "All of it matters," he says. His grip is strong on her forearm, and the pain in his eyes haunts her, as she jerks her arm away from him. "We need to get up, get dressed, and concentrate on finding our children, Mulder." "You told me twenty-four hours ago that we never deal with anything. You were right. You won't be able to avoid me forever, Scully," he says, getting out of bed, disappearing into the bathroom. "I'm going to take a shower and try to wake up," he says, peering out of the bathroom, a towel haphazardly slung over his shoulder. She hears the water being turned on, strong at first, the sound changing as the showerhead leaks forth its pitiful dribble. Longingly, she looks at his side of the bed, picks up the pillow that cradled his head for five blessed hours, and buries her face in the yielding fabric that still contains some small part of him. Chapter 6 His cell phone rings as he's towel drying his air. He trips over his shoes and rams his hip into the corner of the dresser in an effort to answer the call before it goes to voice mail. Finally, on the third ring he answers, "Fox Mulder." Agent Browning is on the other end of the line, mumbling his way toward an explanation about something. Browning tells him that there is no news about his children, but the three agents he'd sent to Bangor have reported in, and there is some disturbing news he needs to pass on to Mulder. Scully peeks out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around her too-thin body, and mouths 'who is it'. Mulder covers the phone with the palm of his hand, and whispers that it's Browning and there is no news, yet, about William, Hope, and Skinner. Her chin touches her chest and the door to the bathroom closes. Browning is off course muttering incoherently about evidence that isn't useful evidence but horrific evidence in nature, nonetheless. Mulder is cautiously confident in Browning's abilities because Skinner handpicked him for the original assignment of protecting Hope and William although, presently, Mulder is not all that impressed with his communication skills. Browning continues to beat around the bush until Mulder asks him what in hell is going on. "There are tapes, Mr. Mulder, of Dana Scully's captivity," Browning's voice hitches up a notch, "The tests, beatings, someone who looks like a twin of Dana's; it's all on tape," he states unequivocally. "What the hell is going on?" Browning asks. "Have you seen the tapes yet?" "No, but the agent leading the investigation in Bangor, Carol Dumas, has viewed several of them, and she said," he pauses, "she said she'd seen a lot of humanity at its worst, but that," he trails off. "It's bad, Mr. Mulder." "Did she ID anyone on the tapes?" Mulder asks. He can't think about Scully's abduction right now; it's too overwhelming. "She did ID Paul Chisolm, aka Paul Davidson, aka Paul Sams. Other than that, only two other faces are shown on the tapes; a man who might be one Darren Kennedy that Sams has mentioned to several of my investigators, and a woman who could be Dana Scully's twin sister. There are others visible on the tapes, but their faces are obscured, either masked in what appears to be some kind of OR setting, or nothing but the back of a head. We're going to have the tapes analyzed, though, and do a frame by frame to see if we can pull anything of value. Agent Dumas is going to have one of the officers in Bangor pull an image of the man and woman, and upload it to us, to see if Sams can give a positive ID," Browning explains. "I can't get into this right now, but I know who the woman is, and you probably don't want to know. She can't help us with this investigation. Concentrate on the man, and see if you can get Sams to talk," Mulder says. After hesitating for a moment, Agent Browning agrees to Mulder's request. Browning conveys his wariness about the disturbing nature of this case and the lack of information. Mulder assures him that Deputy Director Skinner will give him a full debriefing whenever he surfaces, but that the convolution of the details makes it impossible to explain the situation in its entirety at the present time. Mulder tells him he and Scully will meet him at the Hoover building in fifteen minutes, and then ends the phone call. He walks over to the faux-leather chair in the corner of the room, and sits down, contemplating what he is going to tell Scully. Soon enough, Scully exits the bathroom; a cloud of steam trails languidly behind her. After Mulder had taken his shower, Scully announced that she was going to take a quick shower in an effort to shake off some of her fatigue, although, she still looks completely exhausted. Her movements are efficient as always, but there is a hesitance when she reaches down to put on her shoes, and he doesn't miss the grimace that turns down the corners of her mouth when she straightens into a normal standing position. "You okay, Scully?" he asks. "Sore," she says, finger combing wet hair. The back of her shirt is wet, and because it was borrowed from his closet, it hangs nearly to her knees, the cuffs rolled multiple times at her wrists. He realizes the irony in that he misses her even though she is standing right in front of him. It's strange the things he thinks of when his world is in shambles around him. He misses the way she is playful with him, in bed, or sometimes just because. He misses the way their lives were before some sick fuck decided to start experimenting on Scully. He misses the way his children looked up at him on any given day, with innocence, and faith, and complete assurance that all was right in the world. He misses it even more because none of it will be the same for quite a while, and he longs for those times, because they are so far removed from his reality at the present moment. "I need to talk to you," Mulder says. "We need to get on over to the Hoover building, Mulder. We've taken too much time as it is," Scully rebuffs. "Sit down, Scully. We need to talk," Mulder insists. She doesn't sit down, and he's glad that she isn't so defeated, that she would take orders from him. Hands on her hips, and she looks ready to strangle him. "There's no time to dance around the issue, but I wanted you to know, I need to tell you something before we go to the Hoover building. Browning informed me that his agents went to the Warehouse where you were being held, and Scully, it would appear that some of your time, your abduction that is, was captured on videotape." She looks away, but only for a moment, "Okay, well, are you ready to go now?" she asks. They leave the motel room without another word passing between them. They arrive at the Hoover building just after 11:00 am. After signing in and obtaining their visitor passes, they make their way to Agent Browning's office. He is there to greet them; he shakes both Mulder and Scully's hands. Mulder notices the way he stares at Scully, and by the set of Scully's jaw, she notices it as well. Browning maintains that Paul Sams is a dead end, and that the bureau, and the three FBI agents that have questioned him, remain convinced that he knows nothing regarding Hope and William's disappearance. "He's spilled his guts about everything he knows, which isn't much, but he's scared, and if he knew anything about your children, Mr. Mulder, he would have said so by now," Browning assures. "Please, just Mulder will be fine," Mulder says, glancing at a picture of two boys on Browning's desk. "Are those your kids?" he asks. "Yeah," Browning answers. "When you were assigned to this detail, what exactly did Skinner tell you?" "He said that many years ago he had supervised two of the finest agents in the bureau, and that their work in a now defunct department, often led them into danger. He explained that the two of you had decided to get a life and had been living peacefully away from your previous work and the bureau for about seven years. He informed me with a hefty sense of regret that you had two children in danger because, more than likely, the past was catching up with you. He said that we would protect those children no matter what," Browning replies. Mulder glances at Scully but she is looking out the window. "You're an FBI agent, and as you know we have a long history in law enforcement. We all know the pull to be involved in the investigation, but at the same time, we're parents," Mulder pauses, collects his thoughts, "What would you do, Agent Browning, if it were your children that were missing?" Mulder asks. Immediately, Browning looks uncomfortable at hearing Mulder's question. He stares at the picture on his desk, "I'd probably do what you've been doing; searching, consulting with the FBI and the locals, worrying about my kids. The thing is we don't know if someone has them or if they are with Deputy Director Skinner, and running from whomever it is that is after them. I was thinking about that this morning, actually, and I was going to ask you, if they are running, where would they run to?" he asks. "Home," Mulder and Scully answer simultaneously, and they hate that they haven't thought about it in the past thirty-two hours. "If they were able, they would come home, to us," Scully adds. "I know it's hard, because you both have a long history in law enforcement, and that complicates things when you're the parents of missing children, because you feel a duty to be involved, but I think it might be best if you go home, and see if they turn up there," Browning says. "We'll keep our eyes and ears open around here. I've got two agents working the scene, again, just in case we missed anything. We've tried to contact Skinner, but have been unsuccessful. We may not know what's going on, but Skinner informed us of the seriousness of William and Hope's safety, and we all want to bring your children home." Silence descends on the room. Mulder realizes that his old contacts and informants, are either dead, or are unreachable. The one man he and Scully have depended on for information over the years is missing along with William and Hope. There is a sense of helplessness that eats away at any parent of a missing child, but for Mulder and Scully, it is multiplied a hundred fold. They have always been the ones to solve the unsolvable, find the truth in a lie, protect the innocent and prosecute the guilty. Now, though, there are no leads, no ghostly informants waiting in the shadows, no trail to follow. There is nothing but the space between two parents and their children, and yet, they have no idea how to find them. Mulder is overwhelmed with worry for his children, for Scully, for what their lives will be like after all is said and done. Scully is worried beyond all measure, and consumed by anger, and somehow the two have canceled each other out, and now she feels nothing except numb and empty. "Could we have a few minutes alone?" Mulder asks. Browning agrees and offers to let them confer in his office. Both Mulder and Scully give Browning their thanks, and the young agent lopes out of the room. "We need to split up," Scully says as the door to the office closes. "I'll go home and start looking for the kids there, you can stay here, and see if you can come up with anything on this end." "No," Mulder states, shaking his head. "What do you mean 'No'?" she asks. "Scully, there are men that are looking for you, and I don't think it's a good idea if we split up right now," he says. Scully begins to pace the small office and stops in front of the moderately sized window. The view of the street below offers nothing but an overhead angle on the cars passing by, and the miniaturized people going on about their lives, knowing nothing of the tragedy three stories up. Scully's arms are crossed and her body aches more than she is letting on. She is tired in every way possible. She has to be the one, though, that her children find at home. After being forcibly removed from them for so long, she has to be the one they first see, when, not if, they return home. They can't desert their search in D.C. entirely. It's not how they operate, and it would feel too much like abandonment if they both left Washington. She tells Mulder this, and she knows by his lack of response, that he cannot argue with her. She's always been the logic to his passion, the calm to his storm. Her voice, with its soothing timbre, and convincing lilt, has almost always been able to convince him of things he'd rather not agree to. "I'll drive you to the airport, okay?" "Okay." An airline ticket purchased only five hours from the time of departure costs a small fortune. Scully sits holding what should be a 14 karat gold engraved boarding pass in her hand, bends it back and forth, looks anywhere but at Mulder. He notices and says nothing. An overly animated flight attendant announces that Scully's flight will be boarding shortly. When Scully dares to glance at Mulder, he doesn't see her, because he is looking in the opposite direction toward her plane. There is no luggage to gather, or to serve as a distraction, so Scully focuses on checking over her boarding information for the hundredth time. "I don't know if we're doing the right thing by splitting up, but there's not exactly a guidebook on how to handle the situation when your children are missing, so please just be careful," Mulder says, breaking the silence. "I love you, Scully," he whispers. He runs his fingers through her hair, and then his movements become more deliberate. Scully realizes his purpose, and the way he emphasized 'you'. His forever mark had been forgotten in the wake of William and Hope's disappearance. It's funny how something begins to hurt as soon as you remember it should. It's as if her heart had stopped beating, and with four simple words, it has been shocked to life again, the joy and pain of living resuming with its rhythm. Mulder kisses her behind her ear, and because it feels so damn good, she pulls away. Mulder's head drops to her shoulder, and she feels the urge to shake him off, but doesn't because she thinks it would be cruel. The cheery flight attendant announces that Flight 913 to Bangor is boarding. Mulder groans. Scully sighs. They both rise from their seats and awkwardly look at one another. Scully brushes a tiny speck of dust off her shirt. Mulder steeples his fingers and vaguely remembers some long ago rhyme that involved a church and people. With all his courage gathered, he holds her as tightly as he can without hurting or frightening her, and kisses her on the lips. She gives in to him, and he is reminded how easy it is to lose himself in Scully, to be able to forget everything when she lets him love her without reservation. He ends the kiss, because he doesn't want Scully to have to pull away again, and he hates when he looks at her and sees relief. "Be careful, Scully. If there's any trouble, you call me right away, and I'll be there. You go down to the station, and have one of the guys look after you until I can get there to protect you myself. We'll work all this out and we'll all be together again soon," Mulder says. Scully nods but doesn't speak. She turns away from him and walks two steps towards her gate. She stops and turns around, walks back to Mulder, and closes her eyes. She fumbles for his hand, finally palming it with her own, and brings it up to her face. They stand there for several minutes, his hand cradling her face. She doesn't open her eyes, but the tears trail down her cheeks just the same, and Mulder doesn't try to stop his own tears from spilling over. Finally, Scully releases his hand, and boards the plane without looking back. "Mom, tell me about when you met Daddy." "What do you want to know?" Scully asks her daughter. "Did you love each other right away?" Hope asks, settling into her mother's arms. Scully turns off the television, and puts her arms around her daughter, pulls the blanket over both of them. "No," Scully laughs. "Daddy was a lot different when I first met him, Hope." "Different how, Mommy?" "Daddy liked to be alone a lot. He was very, what's a good word, focused. Yes, he was very focused on his work," Scully says. "What was his work before what he does now when he goes to work?" "It's similar in principle. He looked for clues to solve crimes, to put bad people in jail, and help good people. Daddy's sister was taken by bad people, though, Hope, and he spent a long time looking for her." "What was her name?" "Samantha." "Did he find her?" "Yes." "Can we visit her?" "No, Hope, we can't." "Why not?" "Because she's in Heaven." "She died?" "Yes." "Was Daddy sad?" "In a way, but he was also happy that he'd found her, and that in finding her, he found peace." "What does peace feel like?" "That's a hard one, Hope. You always ask good questions," Scully smiles. "Peace isn't exactly like feeling happy, but it's similar to feeling like everything is okay. Remember when you missed a word on your spelling test last week?" "Yes." "Remember when you got home, you were crying, and Daddy took you for a walk and bought you an ice-cream at the corner store?" "Yes, I remember. I felt better." "Did it make the fact that you missed a word on your spelling test go away?" "No." "But Daddy helped you get past that, right? He made you smile and laugh even though you didn't get a hundred percent on your test, he helped you see that an 'A' was okay, right?" "Yeah, but Daddy always makes me feel better when I'm sad." "That's sort of what Daddy's peace was like, sweetheart. Even though he was sad that his sister, Samantha, was in Heaven, he was happy that she was safe and that he'd finally found her." "Does everyone go to Heaven, Mommy?" "No, not everyone." "Will I go to Heaven?" "Not for a long time, Hope." Scully shifts in her seat. The remnants of her long-ago conversation with Hope fade back into her memory. The captain announces that they will begin their descent into Bangor in fifteen minutes. Scully pulls a small wallet from her pocket. After swiping a credit card through the slot next to the airphone, Scully punches numbers into the keypad. On the second ring, a woman answers with a hurried, "Hello?" "Hey Taylor, it's Dana," Scully says. "Hey Dana, I've been meaning to call you. I was wondering why you and Mulder weren't at the party the other night! You didn't even call us back, and then you were no-shows, you aren't mad at me about anything are you?" "No," Scully answers. "Listen, Taylor, I need a favor. I don't even really know where to begin," Scully says, trying to keep the tears at bay. "Something has happened and the kids are missing. I'm on a flight back from Washington D.C., and I need for you to pick me up from the airport." "What time?" Taylor asks. "My flight lands at 8:50. I don't have any luggage, though, so I should be outside by 9:10 or so," Scully answers. "I'm flying American." "I'm on my way," Taylor says and hangs up the phone without saying goodbye. Scully takes a deep breath and replaces the airphone in its cradle. Her ears pop as the cabin pressure changes, and the plane begins its gradual descent. As soon as the plane lands, Scully bolts from her seat, and elbows her way through the throng of passengers. A flight attendant approaches her and asks her to please slow down. Scully explains that she can't slow down because her children are missing. The flight attendant looks stunned, and helps Scully to the front of the cabin. Scully jogs up the ramp toward the gate and breaks into a full run once she is in the airport. She doesn't stop until she has to for an escalator. She runs up the steps toward the automatic door that leads to the outside of the airport, and begins frantically scanning the cars and crowd for her friend. She hears Taylor before she sees her. Before she can process what direction Taylor's voice is coming from she is enveloped in a hug. Questions spill from Taylor's mouth as Scully pulls away and sees Taylor's tears. Taylor leads Scully to her car and they speed off without any questions being answered. "God, Dana, what is going on?" "It's complicated, Taylor. Basically, my past is catching up with me," Scully says. "What do you mean?" Taylor asks, one hand on the steering wheel, the other pressing down the turn signal. "You know Mulder and I used to work for the FBI. We were involved in some dangerous work from time to time, and there were men, who didn't appreciate Mulder and I exposing some of the illegal activities they were involved in." Scully wonders how to explain a global conspiracy to her friend. They've tried to be honest with their friends, but they've never offered any unnecessary details about the life they lived before they moved to Bangor. "I think some associates of these men are after the children. I'm not sure if they have them or not, but the kids were in D.C. on their field trip, and there was an incident. Mulder called our old boss and asked him to protect them until we could go to D.C. and pick them up, but something happened, and now our boss and the kids are missing." "Jesus, Dana," Taylor comments. "What are you doing now? What's the plan?" she asks. "Mulder is in D.C. searching for leads, and I flew back to Bangor in case the kids make their way back home," Scully explains. "Do we need to make flyers? Do we need to do a neighborhood search?" Taylor asks. "No, not yet. I know this probably doesn't make sense to you, Taylor, but it's better if we keep this quiet for right now. I don't want to draw any more attention to the children. Do you understand what I'm saying?" "You don't want any more of these bastards snooping around if you can help it," Taylor says. "Yeah, that's pretty much it," Scully sighs. "Thanks for picking me up." "Oh Dana, it's nothing. I only wish I would've known sooner," Taylor says. "If you could drop me by the house, I'd really appreciate it," Scully comments. "Do you think you should be alone?" Taylor questions. "I need to be alone right now, Taylor. I'm sorry to drop all this on you, but I promise as soon as I know anything, or if I need anything, I'll call you." They are quiet for several minutes. Taylor feels unable to offer any words of comfort and that any more questions, at this point, are inappropriate. She does give Scully's hand a squeeze. The two women smile at one another, and Scully is reminded again, why for all intents and purposes, Taylor is the best friend she's ever had. Taylor has always seemed to sense when Scully needs her space. She's a good friend but she's not pushy; she's fun and full of energy; she's trustworthy and loyal. Scully holds on to Taylor's hand until they pull up in Scully and Mulder's driveway. They exchange an awkward goodbye and Taylor reminds Scully that she is across the street should she need anything. Scully gives a tight-lipped smile in response and closes the car door. Taylor's car gives a whine as she pulls out of the driveway. Scully goes to the front door and pulls her keys out of her pocket, opens the door, and enters her home. After she flips on a light she walks to the kitchen, surveys the home improvement materials strewn everywhere, and deposits her keys and small wallet on the counter. Hitting something seems like a good idea, screaming vies for its place in her rage, and so she gives in to both. An empty ache is all she's left with when her tirade comes to an end. "Put your hands behind your head and turn around," a gruff male voice instructs. She recognizes the voice and begins to pray. "Turn around slowly," the man says again. "Skinner, thank God," Scully says, turning around. "Who are you? What's your name? Where is Dana Scully?" "Skinner, it's me, Scully," she tries to explain. "I know exactly who you are, now tell me right now, where is Dana Scully!" Skinner commands. William materializes from behind Skinner's large frame. Skinner chides William for not following directions and staying upstairs, mumbling how William is just like his father. William stares intently at Scully and then closes his eyes. Scully begins to move toward William but Skinner orders her to stay still and points the gun at her head for added emphasis. "It's her," William says, running to his mother. "Mom, I've missed you so much," he says, hugging her will all his might. She bends down to his level to hold her son in her arms, and Skinner lowers his gun. Scully hears footsteps on the stairs and sees Hope turn the corner behind Skinner. Hope stops when she reaches Skinner's side and grasps as much of Skinner's hand as she can with her tiny fingers. Scully holds her arms out but Hope looks to Skinner and then William. "It's Mom, Hope. It's really her." William smiles widely. Hope runs to her mother, knocking her off balance, and mother and children fall to the floor in a tangle of flailing arms and legs. For a moment, they laugh, and before long, all three of them are crying. Scully peppers their faces with kisses and enfolds them both in her arms. "We can't stay here, Mom," William says, pretending not to cry. "Why not, William?" Scully asks, glancing at her boss from another life. "It's not safe, we have to leave now," William says. "We were waiting for you and Daddy, but we need to go somewhere else right now, Mom." A delayed reaction, a sudden realization, and Scully processes Skinner and William's words from a few minutes earlier, "Why did the two of you think I was someone other than Dana Scully?" she asks, looking first at Skinner, and then at William, "What did you mean, William, by 'it's her'?" "Now is not the time, Dana, we'll explain everything later," Skinner says by way of explanation. Scully reluctantly agrees. After William continues to insist on the need to leave their home, Scully agrees, and tells the children to get a duffel bag from the hall closet, and pack a few clothes while she calls Daddy. William finishes gathering his clothes first, enters Hope's room, and plops down on the bed. Hope is putting an extra pair of tennis shoes in the canvas bag when William touches her arm, "In your dream, Hope, did we get away from whoever it is we were running from?" he asks. "I don't know, Will, I always wake up before I find out how it ends," she replies. Chapter 7 Fate is a fickle woman. It stands to reason that if you wash your car on Saturday it will rain on Sunday. If you plant roses on a lazy Sunday afternoon, by Monday morning, there will be some freakishly out of season early morning frost. Then there are times when fate lets you hang on by a thread, so that you can find your destiny: your soul mate and two children. It sort of cancels out that raining-on-my-just-washed-car complaint. Today, fate is not smiling all that kindly on Fox Mulder, and the mere mortal Mulder is trying not to curse everything that moves. Good 'ole Mother Earth and Fate have conspired against him: Washington D.C. is under a light blanket of snow. Mulder felt the first slight prickle of flakes as he was walking into Washington National Airport. After waiting in line for twenty-five minutes, the ticket agent informs him of what he already knows but had hoped wasn't true: all flights are delayed indefinitely because of the escalating storm. The snow flurries are in the process of become a full-fledged blizzard. He turns and leaves the airport, gets into his car, and begins the long haul toward Bangor on I-95. William and Hope are safe with Scully and Skinner. No details. Scully was cryptic as ever with her, 'I just can't be at home right now,' and Mulder wonders where they might have gone. He knows they will go to a motel; the only problem is he doesn't know which one, and Scully was right not to tell him, anyone could have been listening in on their phone call. He ruminates over the possibilities and narrows it down to three. Right now, it doesn't matter to Mulder; he just wants to hold his children and Scully. There is knowing and there is seeing, touching, and holding. There is no substitute for the latter. A billboard advertisement for an auto parts store creates a domino effect in his mind that ends with a thought about chains for his tires. As the giant sign for the store comes into view, a few exits ahead of him, he decides to stop because he doesn't want to be stranded indefinitely, or be away from his children any longer than he has to. A little over 600 miles away, Scully settles William and Hope into a motel bed, and looks pointedly at William, "We need to talk tomorrow, William" "Okay," William says, unable to look at his mother. "Everything will be all right, son," Scully whispers in his ear. She kisses his cheek and tells both William and Hope that she loves them. She paid for two rooms upon their arrival, one for Skinner, and one for Scully, William, and Hope. William is on the edge of the double bed shared with his sister, and Hope is inching in his direction. Scully glances at the other bed, and knows whether she is in it or not, it will be empty. Scully leans across William and kisses Hope on the tip of her nose. They smile at one another and Hope closes her eyes. As Scully moves off the bed, she feels William tug at her jacket, "I've missed you so much, Mom," he says. His eyes are full of unshed tears, the blue of his eyes, a mirror of her own. She doesn't understand how he could know what has happened over the past months, or the details of exactly what he thinks he knows, but it's not important right now. "I've missed you, too, William. I love you," she says. He sniffles out an, "I'm sorry, Mom." She tells him they will talk about it in the morning. After pulling the blanket over the shoulders of her children, she rises from the bed, and steps out the door of their motel room. Skinner is waiting for her; he'd said they needed to talk. He looks at her like he did a lifetime ago when she was dying of cancer, all sad eyes filled with pity, a little something like righteous conflict making him seem more dangerous than she remembers. Or, maybe that danger has always been there, it's just she's grown up, faced her little-girl denials, and knows what men are thinking when they look at her that way. She hates when anyone except Mulder looks at her that way; he's the only one who is allowed to crowd her space in his odd broody and protective manner, eyes lust filled, sure he will go home with her at night. He should be here instead of Skinner, although Mulder would probably have a few choice words for Skinner if he saw the look in his eyes, even though her old bosssavior can't help the way he looks at her. We don't choose who we love, whether they return the sentiment or not. She'd be lying if she said she didn't know how Skinner felt about her, and she's not as good at pretending as she once was. No man sells his soul to the devil for mere infatuation; only love causes that kind of insanity. She doesn't know why she's thinking about all of this now; perhaps, it is because she hasn't seen Skinner in close to five years, and she's forgotten the way he focuses on her lips when he thinks she's not looking. Scully turns her eyes to the stars, like she did a thousand years ago, when they discussed starlight, and held onto each other because at that time, there was no one else who could understand. William sleeps in a bed now, instead of her womb, and Hope is a tangible entity, instead of just a wish - the familiarity of the situation, despite the obvious passage of time, and the changes that have occurred since that long ago night, still set her on edge. Mulder is somewhere too far away, her children are in danger, Skinner has a vaguely guilty look in his eyes, and she feels just as helpless and alone as she did all those years ago. Skinner and Scully avoid eye contact for as long as possible, neither do they speak. Finally, Scully breaks the silence, "Thank you for watching over William and Hope," she says. "A man came to my motel room, knocked, and I opened because I thought it was one of my agents. The man pulled a gun, and I pushed him out of the room, and slammed the door in his face. I went to the kids' room and woke them up, told them to get their shoes on, and as the man was breaking my door down, we exited through the sliding glass patio door. Lucky for us we were on the ground floor. I made sure to keep the kids in front of me; the bastard shot at me, but missed. I stole a car and drove to Lariat. We rented a car and drove to Bangor," Skinner says. "We've been waiting for you, trying to keep quiet. I didn't answer my phone because I didn't know how deep this went. William lost his pager somewhere along the way, he's really worried about that, Scully." "It's okay," Scully says, not looking at Skinner, eying a car pulling into the motel parking lot. The lights are blinding, she and Skinner close their eyes, and turn away. Skinner brings his hand to Scully's face; she flinches as he pushes her hair behind her ear. "Who did this to you?" he grinds out, gesturing at the yellowed bruising on her cheekbone. She shakes her head, fighting the tears she knows will come if she talks about her abduction, fighting to keep it all together. Skinner seems to understand and changes the subject. "What did you tell Mulder when you called him earlier?" he asks. "I told him to never give up on a miracle," Scully smiles sadly. Skinner eyebrows her, a question hangs between them, though no words have been spoken. "It means everything is okay. He's on his way back to Bangor." "I'll stay with you until he arrives," Skinner asserts. "What has William told you about what's been going on for the past few months?" Scully asks. "I'll tell you if you want me to, but I'd rather you heard it from William," Skinner answers. "We can talk tomorrow, after you've had a chance to talk to him." Scully nods, the moment between she and Skinner turns awkward, and they go back to watching the stars. Finally, Skinner tells her it's good to see her, although he wishes it were under better circumstances. She quietly agrees. He tells her to get some sleep, that they will discuss everything in the morning. His hand brushes across her shoulders as he makes his way inside the motel room beside the one she, Hope, and William are sharing. She stands, for a few minutes, watching the stars, sipping on her secret-pain cocktail. It's in equal parts with a splash of helplessness thrown in for good measure. Two shooting stars streak across the sky and a little bit of hope sparks in Scully's eyes: She wishes for Mulder's safe return home, as she has too many times before, and that her little fractured family can be put back together again. Her next wish, that she feel anything besides nothing, is on the tip of her tongue, but no others stars fall and eventually she gives up waiting and goes back inside. Three hours pass and still she is staring at the ceiling. She's tossed and turned and turned and tossed and the bed is so fucking uncomfortable Mulder is not with her and God all this fucking pain and what does William know that he doesn't want to tell her and if she's honest she doesn't want to hear it and damn there's a spring from the bed poking her right in the middle of her back. The clock on the bedside table reads 2:51; she thinks to herself that whether Mulder had to drive or fly, he should make it to Bangor by around ten o'clock this morning. Only seven hours and nine minutes to go. "Mom?" asks William, "Are you awake?" "Yeah, I'm awake, William," Scully answers. "Are you mad at me, Mom? Scully turns over in her bed, and looks at William. Hope is still asleep so Scully brings her finger up to her mouth, indicating for William to keep quiet, and slowly rises from the bed. She whispers for William to put on a jacket and his shoes and they will go outside to talk. Mother and son stumble around in the dark, slip on shoes and don jackets, quietly step outside their motel room, and sit on the curb directly in front of the door to their room. William sits hunched over with his arms hugging his body. Scully wraps an arm around her son and draws him to her. Theirs is a relationship wrapped up in miracles, a dash of heartache, and a bond unbreakable because of it all. It is easy and effortless for her to be a mother as a whole, although she struggles with the details at times, and children are all about details. It's something like a catch-22, but the rewards far outweigh any heartache, and something like a smile, a hug, or a head resting on a mother's shoulder make the details all worthwhile. The love for her children is equal, but William is her first born, her miracle baby boy who she gave away, and who was returned to her. There is something humbling in that. "Why don't you tell me what's going on, William," Scully states in her best mother-voice. "Are you mad at me?" William asks. "No, I'm not mad at you William," Scully reassures. "Things have been happening that I don't understand, Mama," William says tearfully. "Tell me, Little Mulder," she says, and William smiles. It's been a term of endearment between them for years now. When William was about five years old, he'd asked Scully why she called Daddy by his last name, and she told him it was because the name Mulder was special, and it meant she and Daddy had a different love than most people, the kind that never ended. William had looked up at his mother and asked if she would call him Mulder, too. She said he could be "Little Mulder," if Daddy didn't mind. "I know you," he pauses, sniffs, and finally continues, "haven't been at home for a while. I know there was a woman at home pretending to be you, but she wasn't," William says. "How do you know, William?" Scully asks, pulling away from William, looking into his eyes. William looks down at the ground and props his elbows on his knees. He tells Scully that three weeks ago he confronted the woman living at their house, and told her he knew she wasn't his mother. She tried to deny it, but William was insistent, and finally she admitted it. "She told me you would come back eventually, and everything would be fine, but if I told Daddy she wasn't you, then she would kill you and take Daddy from us, too," William says, kicking at some loose pebbles of asphalt. "William," Scully sighs, and shakes her head. "I'm so sorry, William, that you have had to deal with all of this. You did the right thing, and I am not angry with you, not at all." "I want to be honest, Mom, about everything, but I don't want you to be afraid of me," William says. "I could never be afraid of you, William," Scully assures. "You were when I was a baby. You were afraid because I wasn't like other kids," William says, barely above a whisper. Scully looks at William in disbelief. She and Mulder have never discussed William's infancy, except to tell him that he went to live with another family for a while, because it hadn't been safe, at the time, to live with his parents. She's never told him about the details of just how special he was as a baby, though. Even she and Mulder have barely skimmed the surface on what went on with William after he left her and their three-day-old son, all those years ago. She realizes she hasn't said anything, and that William is looking at her, taking her silence for agreement. "I was never afraid of you, William, never. There were times, however, I was afraid for you, because of your gifts," Scully says. The words come tumbling out of his mouth as a confession, a relief, "I can't read people's minds exactly but I can read their feelings. I don't know how to explain it, Mom. It's like I can't read their exact thoughts, but I know if they are happy, or sad, or lying. Sometimes, it's more than that, and I can read a feeling that leads me to a thought, and sometimes, it's just a feeling without a person attached to it. You and Daddy have always known that I had ways of knowing how people felt, and that's why you've always been so careful around me with what you are feeling; when you are trying to keep how you feel from me it's like a door closing. The other woman couldn't do that, though. I couldn't read her thoughts but I knew she was evil and because of that, she couldn't be you. I'm sorry I couldn't help you, Mom," William says, crying without shame. Scully takes William in her arms and tells him everything is okay, that she loves him, that it's not his fault. He cries longer than she imagined he would, and they sit on the curb, the air cold and crisp around them, holding on tightly to one another. Scully opens the door to her soul, the part where the love for William, Hope, and Mulder is carefully guarded, so William will know she is telling the truth. At first, she doesn't think it has made a difference, and then all at once William pulls away and looks at her with such awe. He looks at her with the eyes of a little boy who knows the full reality of a mother's love; the trickle of tears ends, and he lays his head in Scully's lap, his knowledge of that kind of love a comfort to him. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, so says Isaac Newton. "Mom?" William looks up at Scully with a different kind of awe than a few moments ago. "Yes?" she says, smiling down at William. The look in his eyes causes her to lose her focus, and the glancing communication she has shared with Mulder for so many years, is suddenly hanging between mother and son. "I know-" William stops when he sees tears in his mother's eyes. Scully shakes her head, indicating she doesn't want him to continue, and so he sits and waits, wishing the past year never happened. 'Do over,' he wants to say. "Have you told anyone else?" she asks. "No, I didn't know until just now," he answers. She looks away from him, hating herself for burdening her son in this way, "You cannot tell your father," she says, wiping her eyes. "I know," William answers. Scully is nervous, the door to her tightly held emotions isn't quite closed. He's never really considered that his mother was afraid of anything; he's never considered that behind her brilliant smile and comforting words was so much pain. The door closes; William is immensely grateful, and sighs in relief. "I'm sorry to have to ask you to keep something from your father, you know how much we are opposed to being dishonest, but the situation necessitates it right now. William, all he would do is feel helpless and worry himself sick. You know how he gets about all of us, how he worries," Scully tries to explain, the words sounding like nothing but what they are: a justification for having her son keep a secret from his father. "I know he loves us, and he worries about us, but Daddy acts different when he thinks you're hurt, or sick, or just sad," William says. "What do you mean, William?" Scully asks. "I know you think I'm just a kid, but I see the way he looks at you, and I see the way Mike's dad looks at Mrs. Greggs, and it isn't the same. He loves you more than anyone, Mom, we all know that," William says, and seems sad by his admission. "Daddy doesn't love you any less than he loves me, Little Mulder, it's just different. Sometimes I think it scares him how much he loves us, and so he tries to pull back from it just a little bit, because it's so overwhelming," Scully says. "We're his family, and he's given up a lot to keep us safe and together. The sun rises and sets on you and Hope," Scully smiles. "And the stars shine when he's with you," William smiles in return. He has no idea how his words affect her, the wisdom laced with innocence that only Mulder's son could possess. No matter how mature William is, no matter how wise and intelligent, he is still a little boy worried about his mother, about his life returning to some semblance of normalcy. "When are you going to tell Daddy? What are we going to do? Is everything going to be okay?" The questions spill from his lips, and Scully sits quietly, unwilling to lie and unable to answer. "I don't know, William," she says, after a long pause. They sit for an indeterminable amount of time, side by side, the coldness of the night settling deep in their bones. A few flakes of snow begin to fall, land in William's soft, brown hair, and remain there until they melt away. Eventually, without speaking, Scully stands up and pulls William up with her. They share a hug before they enter their motel room. Scully takes off her shoes and lines them up neatly in front of the dresser. She slides in between cool sheets; William sits on the edge of the bed he is sharing with Hope, his shoes thump-thump on the floor. Scully closes her eyes. At some time during the early morning before dawn, William and Hope migrate to her bed, and for a moment, she feels warm inside. Chapter 8 For nine straight years, Bangor has been voted one of the top ten cities in the United States to raise a family: low crime, clean aired suburbia at its best, although with the recent murders, Bangor is probably off the top ten list. In any case, the top ten version of Bangor had been one of the plusses for Mulder and Scully when they'd moved there almost eight years ago. They weren't West Coast people, they were looking for a nice place to raise their family, and they couldn't stay in D.C. - okay, so it happened more because Mulder had blindfolded Scully, laid a map in front of her, and told her to pushpin her way to their next home. They had been feeling spontaneous and were full of reckless abandon while pondering their newfound freedom. Scully had push-pinned Bangor, and they'd moved out of the safe house the next week, William toddling all the way, Hope gurgling her sweet, baby sounds. As Bangor had come into view, the sun had cast its contentment in a mishmash of colors, bright and forgiving hues of orange, pink, red, and blue. The inside of the car had been cozy and warm, the children fast asleep in their car seats; it had been peaceful. Mulder and Scully had held hands as if they were at the top of a roller coaster, the journey to the top behind them, all the best parts out in the distance in front of them: it had sprawled out in front of them like a lush, green promise, all fertile land and clear, brilliant sky. They'd rented a house for a year, then bought a home once all was well with the legal world and they were sure there were no shadows lurking at night. It was a beginning based on truth, honesty, and a love that had survived against all the odds. William and Hope emerged from infancy to toddlerhood, and finally into two beautiful people ever growing toward the teenage years, with adulthood looming not so far off in the distance. Time, when looking back, passes by so quickly. Mulder and Scully have grown older and more in love. In the car, whenever they drive to a movie or the Whig and Courier Pub, they still hold hands. They are still on the ride of their lives, and all the best parts are still in the distance in front of them, everything getting better with age and all. Mulder hopes that is the case anyway, that for now they have hit a momentary bump that has robbed them of their contentment, but everything will be smoother and better after this unexpected turn of events is resolved. The snow and ice have appropriately replaced the green promise they encountered that first day when driving in to Bangor. The weather always seems to complicate an already complicated situation, reflect an abysmal day, or shine on a good day. Just once, Mulder would like to be in a shitty mood, and have the sun shine. Maybe, just maybe, it would change everything. As it stands, the wind is spitting flakes of snow against the windshield, it's cold, and the sun is hiding behind a gray cloud that looks a little too much like an alien head for Mulder's liking. It's always the last place you look. Mulder had three motels in mind, and he's already been to the other two, not finding her car, this was to be the last stop. The last place on his list, the Main Street Inn, and here her car sits in the snow-covered parking lot. He is forced to park a good distance from Scully's car, because the lot is full, the weather having forced several motorists off the road. Mulder is just about to get out of his car when he sees Skinner emerge from a motel room, turn sideways, and knock on the door immediately to his right. Scully opens the door, turns around and says something over her shoulder, and then steps outside. Scully and Skinner begin discussing something; Scully looks tired and Skinner looks uncomfortable. Scully is the bastion of restrained calm. Skinner seems more perturbed as the seconds go by. Shaking her head, Scully turns around, and begins to open the motel room door. Skinner reaches over her shoulder with his big, bulky arm, and closes the door, puts his free hand on her arm. Scully jerks away from Skinner and begins speaking more loudly than before. Mulder doesn't realize he's gotten out of the car, instinct has begun to kick in, and he stealthily moves toward Scully. Skinner insinuates himself in front Scully, effectively trapping her, no doubt trying to calm her down, and Scully moves to walk away. Skinner makes a sudden move, probably frustrated by Scully's stubbornness, and Scully's hands fly up to protect her body from the blows she fears will follow. Skinner looks horrified that she could be afraid of him. Mulder feels something primal unfurl deep in his gut. Skinner is a hulking Neanderthal and Scully is his tiny, bruised lover. All he can think is: remove your fucking hands from her person. He's across the parking lot and calling out to Scully before she can slap Skinner for his impropriety, although in truth Skinner has done nothing wrong. Even still, Scully looks relieved and, if possible, even more stressed now than she has been over the last few days. William and Hope emerge from the motel room before any words are exchanged between the three adults present, and then Mulder's children are in his arms; the places that are labeled William and Hope in his heart are full once again, his shoulders feel lighter, and for several minutes Mulder feels whole. As quickly as that sensation washes over him, Mulder sees Scully glance at Skinner, shake her head when Skinner begins to offer what probably is an apology, and then she glances back at Mulder, and tries to smile. Scully leaves Hope and William to Mulder, the conversation with Skinner conveniently interrupted and unfinished, and goes back inside her motel room. She hears the excited squeals of her children as they hug their father, and the sound of the door the next motel room over being pushed closed. It isn't long before Mulder enters their motel room, Hope wrapped around him like a monkey, William walking beside his father. Mulder puts Hope down, and turns around to shut the door. Scully feels the walls closing in on her. It is too much, her family, everyone looking at her, wanting her to fix everything. Their sad faces and eyes full of longing pull her in a thousand different directions: Hope wants Scully to be soft and comforting, William wants her to be strong again, Mulder wants her the way she's always been. The air is heavy with tension and silence. William looks guilty, but remains quiet, his secret tearing at the child in him. Hope smiles blankly at Mulder, pretends to know nothing, yet worriedly looks over at William every few seconds. Mulder smiles back at Hope, but his eyes and his attention are pulled toward Scully, the force of her undeniable, as it has always been. Scully feels like she can't catch her breath. The room is too small. Not enough oxygen. Too many people. Can't breathe. She bisects the room from North to South when she launches herself toward the door, opens it, and barely makes it to the parking lot in time to vomit. She can hear Mulder behind her, as he tells the children to stay inside, turn on some cartoons, Mom is fine, and then there is the sound of water running, and some indeterminable time later she feels a cool cloth on the back of her neck. Her humiliation is complete when Mulder's hands hold back her hair so she can vomit again if need be. He is intuiting her weakness instead of her strength. She is lost inside herself, and she wonders not for the first time, if strength for her is a facade, and weakness is truth. She hopes that this indignity is a one-time occurrence even as her stomach churns. She sits down on the curb; the snow is cold against her legs, the warmth of her body melts the flakes, seeps into her jeans, makes her shiver. The curtains in Skinner's motel room sway back and forth when she is finally able to look back; the door to her own motel room remains open. Despite their father's instruction, William and Hope stand in the doorway looking at her with fear and uncertainty. Scully looks up at Mulder and nods toward the doorway, and he is gone, mumbling a fatherly reprimand at William and Hope, though there is no real anger in his words. If the ground could split apart and swallow her whole at this moment, she thinks she would gladly accept the reprieve. She would allow herself to be taken into the depths of the earth where she would be appropriated time to deal with her secrets and her pain, and then the ground could split apart again, and let her exit her refuge once she was healed. Even healing, for her, is a secret thing. "Do you want to tell me what is going on, Scully?" Mulder asks. His voice is pleading, with a tired edge to it, and a desperate yearning that probably reflects all that he feels inside. Want is very different than should, and because Scully does, most of the time, what she should, she begins relaying to Mulder her conversations with William. Scully lays the washcloth on the ground beside her; the neck of her sweater is damp and irritating against her skin. Mulder sits down beside her, takes it all in stride except when she gets to the part about William's confession, his gifts, and then Mulder's jaw twitches, and he looks far off into the distance. Scully thinks to herself, 'I have searched that horizon, and you will find nothing that is of any comfort there', but she says nothing. She also conveniently leaves out the part where she asked their son to keep secrets from his father. Mulder nods and looks at her, scoots closer so that their hips touch, and then asks, "Now, do you want to tell me what's going on with you, Scully?" "The past few days have been nothing short of terrifying Mulder, not to mention the past few months, that's what is going on with me," she answers. He drapes his arm around her, she allows herself to lean into him, then his lips are pressed against her temple, he pulls her into his lap, and the concrete scrapes against her jeans. The muffled sound of scraping is nails down a chalkboard, and Scully jerks spasmodically, then pulls away. "Damn it," Mulder mumbles. "Why can't you just talk to me? Why are you hiding from me, Scully? Are you still angry about Dara? Then please yell at me if it will make you feel better, or cry, or show some damn emotion. Are you scared of the men who abducted you? Then tell me, talk to me, cry on my shoulder. Are you afraid for the children? It's okay, I am, too, but we will protect them, the two of us, together. I'm here, Scully, and you don't have to go through any of this alone." "We need to rectify this situation, Mulder. We need to ensure the safety of our family; there will be plenty of time to deal with the ramifications of all that has happened, after we ensure that it will not happen again," Scully says. "I hate when you go logical on me. It's impossible to argue when you are rationally avoiding the real issue," Mulder retorts, and rises from the ground. "You're right about one thing, though, there will be plenty of time to deal with all that has happened once this situation is taken care of," Mulder says. Scully rises from her position on the ground, and stands facing Mulder, shoulders tense because of the nearness of him. He pulls her into his arms, brushes the hair away from her ear, finds a tiny blue line, and presses his lips to her skin, "I love you," he whispers. She would have pushed him away had he not let her go first. "I'm going to take care of this," Mulder assures. Suddenly it is ten, twelve, fifteen years ago, she is young and naive, and Mulder is trudging off without her, almost dying, and she is wearing her glasses typing up a field report she doesn't understand, while in the back of her mind all she can think about is him, that he is leaving, always leaving her, and she is always, always afraid he won't come home. "What do you mean by that, Mulder?" she asks, trying to sound calm, strong, levelheaded. "I want you to let Skinner put you and the kids in protective custody, and I am going to find the men that abducted you, find out the reasons why, make sure they never try to do it again," Mulder explains. "I don't," Scully stutters, "I'd rather you not do that," she says, finally. "I know, Scully, but I have to do this. We can't hope that this situation will resolve itself, or feign ignorance about how deep this might go. The stakes are so high," Mulder says, nodding his head toward the motel room, where William and Hope are. Scully is at a loss for words, it is too much, everything that has happened. She feels the world spinning, and then her vision tunnels, white starbursts explode against the inky canvas, Mulder's voice is a distant echo, and she is reaching out for anything so that she doesn't fall. Strong arms come around her, and she is grateful, and ashamed, and needy, and pain-filled. She and Mulder sit on the cold, cement curb together, and he tells her to take deep breaths. The darkness fades away, and then there is only Mulder, looking at her with tenderness in his eyes. Scully thinks she should tell Mulder everything, at this moment, when he is holding her so closely to his heart, but she doesn't. "I got up too fast, and I have barely eaten in two days. Sorry about that," Scully mumbles, and Mulder politely half-smiles. "Are you okay, Scully? Is something wrong, have you told me everything?" he asks, dismissing her explanation. This isn't their usual routine; they usually dance around the issues. Mulder pretends ignorance about any weakness, pain, or insecurity she might have, until of course she's ready to talk about it, if she's ever ready to talk about it, and even then they just sort of spit and shake hands, promise to be there for each other, and then Scully spends most of her energies working things out in her own time. More often than not, Mulder will come to her if he is having a problem with something, talk to her, and she will advise him, hold him, or make love to him, and in the blue light of morning, he will feel better. Scully, however, retreats, buries herself in work or projects around the house, takes extra long baths, gets a little rougher in bed, but rarely speaks the words, "I need you, Mulder, help me." No, that's not her style, and for Mulder to alter their routine throws her completely off balance. For now she lies, because for her, there are no other options, "Yes, Mulder, you know everything. I'm having a difficult time, though, because of the children. Everything will be fine," she says, easily. Mulder doesn't believe her, but he doesn't have the strength to call her a liar. Instead, he sits hip to hip with her, and pretends that everything will be fine. Love and denial often go hand in hand. The problems didn't start until they were getting ready for bed. After lunch for four, Skinner having bowed out gracefully, Mulder had gone back to the Mulder-Scully home, checked out the house, made sure his and Scully's bedroom was cleaned up, and then had called Scully to bring the children home. They'd spent the day decompressing, alternately resting and eating, saying nothing about recent events. It was decided that everyone needed one day to regain his or her bearings, and that everything else could be dealt with tomorrow. Skinner had accompanied them home; Mulder had led Skinner to the guest bedroom, and asked him to stay the night. As the day wore on, Hope had gone to her room, and curled up in bed with a few books, and a raggedy doll that had belonged to an aunt she'd never met. William had played Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata at Scully's request. Mulder and Skinner had conspired in a corner of the kitchen, each man quieting and looking at Scully the three times she passed through. Eventually, Skinner had excused himself and gone to bed, Mulder and Scully tucked in Hope and William, and they were left only with each other for company. The first slightly disconcerting incident was when Mulder was taking off his jeans, getting ready for bed, and Scully entered their shared bedroom with an armful of garbage bags. She'd ripped most of her clothes off their hangers, and had begun shoving them into the garbage bags. "She wore my clothes," was Scully's only explanation. After her clothes, Scully had attacked the bed, and had stuffed sheets, comforter, and pillows into the trash bags, finally settling on the trashcan when the comforter refused to be contained by the bags. Similar words were offered as explanation, "She slept in our bed." It was one of those moments where reality is so insane that he wanted to laugh, because all he could think of was Goldilocks and the Three Bears. And then, as quickly as he'd wanted to laugh, he'd felt as violated as Scully must've been feeling. Hell, he had not only been violated, he'd also been given the role of unwilling accomplice, although, he suspected Scully rarely considered the "unwilling" part of unwilling accomplice. Thinking about it made is head hurt. He tried to hold her, but she pushed him away, although she had dressed in one of his shirts for bed. The bed had been made up with an odd concoction of old sheets and blankets, after Mulder had assured Scully that Dara had never touched the aforementioned linens. Scully might not realize it now, but they were going to have to move, because Dara had lived in their house as Scully would have lived, and there were very few things she didn't touch. Mulder replays the night's events again and again, trying to decipher any clue, trying to keep his mind off the nearness of Scully. Currently, Scully is as close to the edge of the bed as possible, and trying to sleep. Without warning, she rolls over, and lays her head on Mulder's chest. "I'm sorry," she says. "I'm so sorry, Mulder." "What are you sorry about?" he asks. "This is my fault, all of this," she answers. "No, Scully, this isn't your fault." He believes it, although his voice seems unconvincing to his own ears, because he is distracted and wonders why she would think it is her fault. He holds her close to him, one arm around her shoulder, the other arm around her waist. He is grateful that she is letting him be near her, and then he realizes she is asleep. It is not long before he gives in to exhaustion as well, and he sleeps soundly through the night. Morning brings with it blinding sun, and as he wakes up, Mulder realizes the sheets are cold. He gets out of bed, and searches his and Scully's room, he checks on the children, he creeps down the stairs, searches the kitchen, office, family room. He opens the door to the deck, searches for any sign of her, but she is nowhere to be found. Chapter 9 She had known he was smiling. The children were fast asleep, no doubt dreaming of sugarplums and Santa, in bed early for the following day's festivities. The night finally belonged to them. Empty wine glasses had been abandoned on the nightstand, the only light in their airy bedroom was what managed to slither through delicate lace curtains. His hand rested on her knee and then without warning or permission began traveling northward. She was under him, and he liked it that way, because it felt like possession. There were so few times he could truly possess her. She knew he liked the feeling, so she let him have his secrets, just as she had hers. Her nails clawed down his back until her hands traveled up and over the curve of his ass. She took hold and pulled him toward her. He came willingly, but then again, he always had. His kisses tasted earthy, like a vineyard hundreds of years old, and his back was damp. A drop of perspiration trickled off the tip of his nose onto the valley between her breasts. His mouth left a wet trail from her cheek to her breasts in order to lap it up. Sliding into her was as effortless as loving her. He'd told her that and she'd felt undone. 'Only you,' he'd said. Those words had given her a sense of belonging, and she has never forgotten the way his breath puffed against her cheek, or the way she tingled to the tips of her toes upon his admission. He'd pounded into her until he was spent and sated, then trapped her with the weight of his own body, and she let him. Strong arms surrounded her, held her, and loved her. A whisper in her ear, 'How much I love you - it should be a sin,' he'd said forcefully, passionately. Intense, he'd always been so intense with her, almost desperate. 'Promise me forever?' he'd asked, as he lay on top of her. 'Forever,' she'd said, without a moment's hesitation. Her answer was always the same. A smile had illuminated his face. He possessed her and she surrendered. In the bedroom, things were often simple, and reality always seemed farther away than it was. It isn't pain, not really, but her heart feels it and her head knows what is happening. That makes it hurt just enough that she whimpers, and then with self-control refined over a lifetime, she stifles the built-up rage inside her body. Screaming is not an option, so she grits her teeth, and tries to think about Mulder. She tries to maintain her focus on last Christmas, and one intoxicating night filled with Merlot and lovemaking, but the ache of the situation is too distracting, and reality is a lightning rod of pain up her spine. She wishes Mulder were here. He can't be, though, not now. Scully stares at the ceiling until it blurs, and then she realizes she is crying, the tears pooling behind her earlobes. Someone hands her a tissue. She dabs at her face and clenches the tissue in her hand. Not knowing what else to do, she continues to stare at the ceiling, and tries to connect with Mulder telepathically. She begs him to come to her, rescue her, tell her everything will be fine. He doesn't come and she reminds herself, as the pain lessens, that she never believed in telepathy anyway. She wanted to, though, just this one time. Okay, so maybe there have been a few times over the years, she's wanted to believe. The bruises on her face are fading, she thinks to herself, and then rubs her jaw with her knuckles. Shadows are all that remain, so much so that if you passed her by, you'd have to look twice to be sure of what you thought you saw. Battered woman - car accident - attempted purse snatching. People mumble and speculate, but none of them are right, because no one says - global conspiracy to prevent aliens from colonizing planet because human co-conspirators were stupid and have been double-crossed and now want to survive no matter what the cost. She wonders if it was Paul's first or final blow, if it was Mother Nature, stress, or the unending tests she was forced to endure. She had begged them to stop, pleaded with them to let her go, screamed that she be spared, at least for a little while. She had told them the fetus was too small, that it would cause her pregnancy to become unstable. They didn't care, though, they just wanted their samples, and their cure, and an assurance of survival regardless of what was to come. Her baby was an added bonus, a bonus that in their minds was expendable, as long as they got what they wanted. Cells, blood, and amniotic fluid were as good as a full-term baby with less fuss. That's what the gray-haired man had said as Scully had been tied to a table and had a needle inserted into her abdomen. As the needle pierced her barely swollen stomach, she'd laid still, hoping her little baby was tucked up in a corner of its safe place. One night without protection was insanity for a forty-five year old woman and a forty-eight-year-old man, but they'd been buzzed and happy. They'd always been a step behind the norm. Scully said it was okay, and Mulder had said, "If it's meant to be, it will be." They were having a mid-life crisis together, and instead of having plastic surgery and buying blondes and red sports cars, they were trying to make a baby. It was now or never again. They loved both their children - William was a miracle and Hope was an unexpected blessing - but this child was to be a child of choice. It didn't happen, and most days, it was a repressed want. Tubal ligation, a vasectomy, permanent sterilization, all loomed in the distance, age having reared its head and declared Mulder and Scully past the point of having another child. Or not. It wasn't meant to be that December, but the following October, another Scully-Mulder miracle had been conceived. Scully is fairly certain the conception fell on Mulder's birthday, after a bottle of Bordeaux, between the sheets, and somewhere around when Mulder whispered hard in her ear, "God, Scully, do I have to wear a condom tonight? This feels so fucking good, baby." They'd abandoned birth control pills after Hope was conceived, and so in the heat of passion, Mulder hadn't worn a condom, and they'd conceived one final miracle. She's glad it was she and not Dara on that night; she feels nauseous at the thought. Scully pushes thoughts of Dara out of her mind, grips the thin hospital gown in her fists, squeezes her eyes shut, and mourns for a miracle lost. She wants nothing more than to fall into Mulder's arms, whisper her sorrow, and have him kiss away her pain. Guilt settles deep in her belly, where her baby should be, and fills all the empty spaces. She hates herself for not being able to sustain the life inside of her. Guilt seeps from her pores, burns her skin, makes her hate surviving Them when her child could not. After checking into a motel, she lies on a lumpy bed, and curls up in a fetal position. She's cold but she's sweating, her brain feels swollen and tired, and her eyes close of their own accord. Weak is how she feels, in every way possible, made even worse when a twinge of pain causes her body to shake violently and all she can do is call out to him. "This isn't helping, Mulder," Skinner says. He's been trying to calm down Mulder, to no avail. "You're damn right this isn't helping; nothing is helping me right now," Mulder answers. "I don't understand this! Why now? Why, after all this time? Everything was fine," he stammers out, and continues pacing the length of the kitchen. "I don't know, Mulder. It does stand to reason that she left of her own accord, though, seeing as there was no forcible entry, and no sign of a struggle," Skinner reminds him. "No one has seen her, and the PD told me the Warehouse is still empty," Mulder says, slamming down the phone. "She's simply vanished. Again," he finishes. "I can't leave because I'm left wondering if this is a trap to get to the kids, but I should be out there, looking for her," Mulder pauses, wants to scream and bleed himself of his helplessness, his frustration. William and Hope sit on the stairs and listen to their father and Skinner volley reasons back and forth. Reasons as to why their mother is gone without a trace. Hope sniffles and curls into a ball. William has rarely had a negative thought about his mother, but at this moment, he almost hates her. He hates that his heart feels like it's going to explode, and that his stomach is threatening to show him his dinner from a few hours ago. That thought breaks him, and he begins to cry as well, right there on the stairs beside his baby sister. It isn't long before Mulder rounds the corner and sees them sitting there. "What are you doing? I thought I told you to go upstairs and get ready for bed! You shouldn't have been listening to my conversation with Skinner," Mulder shouts. He is angry - angry that Scully was kidnapped, angry that Dara took her place, angry that Scully was hurt so badly, angry that his children are in danger, and angry that Scully is gone again. "I'm sorry kids," he says, tears welling up in his eyes. "I'm so sorry." He turns around and clears the antique Victorian buffet that stands in the hall between the kitchen and the staircase. The piece itself had been a gift from Mulder to Scully after he'd seen her eyeing it in an antique shop. A lamp hits the floor and shatters. William and Hope jump and Hope cries out. They run to their father when he opens his arms to them. "I'm so sorry," he intones. "I'm so sorry." Morning light rests its sharp, blue fingers on all three of them. She stands in the doorway, watching, taking them in. William is hugging the right side, Mulder is in the middle, and Hope is curled up beside Daddy, her head resting on his arm. Exhaustion is etched on their faces, a familiar crease mars each brow, fear is their shared blanket. "Mulder," she whispers, as she leans over Hope, and brushes Mulder's face with the tips of her fingers. Suddenly, he is wide-eyed, sitting bolt upright in bed, and his fingers are digging painfully into her biceps. "Who the hell are you?" he asks. Hope and William awaken equally wide-eyed, and glance back and forth from mother to father, confusion and apprehension digging into all the innocent places it shouldn't be. "Skinner!" Mulder yells. Scully flinches and steps back. "Mom?" William says, looking at her face. Blue eyes much like her own travel from her face to her stomach. A fleeting glance passes between mother and son and she shakes her head in the negative. He knows her secret is no more, and tears threaten to spill over onto his cheeks, but he gets out of bed and goes to his own room before she knows whether they do or not. "Mommy?" Hope cries, and then flings herself into Scully's waiting arms. Mulder pulls Hope back into his own embrace, and continues to hold Scully by the arm none too gently. Skinner enters the bedroom with his gun in hand. He takes one look at Scully, then looks at Mulder, an eyebrow raised in question. "Watch the kids for a little bit," Mulder says. "You're coming with me," he nods to Scully, squeezes her arm even tighter, and drags her out of the bedroom. "You're hurting me," Scully says evenly. "If you aren't Scully, I'll know soon enough, and I won't care if I'm hurting you. If you are Scully, I'll know soon enough, and," his grip lessens, and he leaves the rest of the sentence unfinished. After leading Scully down the stairs, Mulder corners her against a wall, and parts the hair behind her ear. A thin blue line stands out at her hairline. "Scully, what are you doing to me? Where have you been?" he asks. Scully is trapped between his arms, and his head thuds against the wall, as she tries to formulate a lie that will pass for truth. "I just needed some time to myself," she answers. "You could have left a note, or called me. We've been worried, Scully. The kids were scared to death, and I have been a complete bastard to everyone since yesterday morning, when I woke up alone," Mulder retorts. "I'm sorry-" "Did I hurt you? Oh God, did I hurt you? I'm so sorry, Scully. I don't know what I'm doing anymore. I think I'm finally losing my fucking mind," Mulder says. His words reverberate off the wall. "I'm fine," Scully answers. "Are you sure?" Mulder asks. Hands cup her head, auburngold hair spills through his fingers, sweat beads on his upper lip. "God, I was scared I wouldn't get you back this time. Don't ever fucking do that to me again," he says, staring into her eyes. His lips descend on hers. Before she can say yes or no or don't stop, his tongue enters her mouth, and she yields to its gentle exploration. Its feel is soft, apprehensive, and fulfilling. Her tongue pushes back, touches his, and there is rediscovery in the slow seduction of soft mouths, wet lips, souls that are aching and soothed in the same moment. One hand travels to her hip to pull her against him, and in his passion, her belly is slammed hard against his body. Her muffled cry is lost in his mouth. It could be the baby, or the guilt, or the shame at everything she's been through, everything she's lost. Regardless, her belly is on fire, and she bends slightly to relieve the pain. "You okay, Scully?" Mulder asks. Unable to catch her breath, incapable of speech, Scully nods. Mulder looks perplexed and then reads her ending their kiss as regret for it happening. A mumbled "damn" escapes his lips, he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and then turns the corner and climbs the stairs. The sound of footsteps stops on number seven, and then the sound begins again, only this time, in descent. He walks right up to her, turns her head as gently as he can, and kisses the mark he put on her not so long ago. "I love you, and I won't be made to feel guilty for wanting to show you. If you're angry about Dara, then tell me, or scream at me, or whatever it is that will make you feel better. Don't leave, though. Don't shut me out and scare the shit out of the kids and me. Skinner is going to stay with you and the kids today, and I'm going to go and check out the Warehouse where you were being held. I want to get to the bottom of this, find out who is on our trail, and figure out a way to solve the problem so we can go on with our lives," he says. "I'll go with you to the Warehouse." "Absolutely not, Scully. You are going to stay here with Skinner, and I am going to check out the Warehouse. I also need to check in with Randy at the station. Agent Browning mentioned they had some information. You stay here today, and rest, and when I come home tonight, we'll sit down and go over everything," Mulder says. "If that's what you want," Scully murmurs. "What I want is for you to stop lying to me about what has happened to you, Scully. I am a trained psychologist, in case you've forgotten. I may not be able to decipher your symptomatic behavior to its rightful conclusion as far as details are concerned, but I know more happened to you than you're letting on. Hell, I could tell that by the marks all over your body, and those are nothing compared to the look in your eyes. You're good at hiding from me, hiding your pain, and I accepted that a long time ago, as frustrating as it is. When you're ready, I'm here, until then, I'll be waiting." With that, Mulder turns around, and climbs the stairs. Scully hears him assure Skinner she is who she says she is, and then she makes her way to the kitchen. She pours herself a cup of coffee, the fix of caffeine is immediate, and the warm drink tastes good after having to go without it for so long. She feels a little lightheaded, feels a little lost. She wants to feel Mulder so desperately, yet she can't allow him inside, so she shuts down and retreats to a far off place, where she is lost, without a map, or a compass, or a star to guide her. The bay window is a portal to the outside world, made vivid by the light, bright and promising. Her fingers slide down the cool windowpane, and her eyes squint against the sun, as she searches for a way home. Chapter 10 As he lopes through the station, he has an odd sense that his co-workers are at a carnival, and he is the main attraction. Hairy beast-man, swallower of knives, tattooed wonder boy, seer of the unseen. His mind lightning bolts from one thought to the next, twisting and turning as it is apt to do, until he begins humming, He Moved Through The Fair. He is disturbed beyond measure at what his subconscious throws at him and, in this moment, he knows one thing for certain: At least half of the Penobscot County Police Department has seen the tapes of Scully's captivity. Welcome to my world, he thinks to himself, such as it is. Desks too full of clutter squat randomly throughout the large building. Chief Randy Owens waves to Mulder from across the vast space, motioning Mulder to join him in his office. Chief Owens is a distinguished man with his salt and pepper beard, broad shoulders, and sincere blue eyes. Picking up his pace, Mulder half waves to a couple of his friends, accepts the pitiful stares that are cast his way, and finally makes his way to the older man's office. Randy claps Mulder on the back, and says, "Hey, come on in." "Hey, Randy," Mulder responds. "I came by to see if you've got any new leads on Scully's kidnapping. Anything from the Warehouse? Michael Browning leach anymore information from Paul Sams?" he asks. "First things first, Mulder. How is Dana?" Randy asks. "She's as good as can be expected in a situation like this. The kids are struggling, but we'll be fine," Mulder assures. Sweaty palms are shoved into the pockets of his jeans. "The FBI has been tight-lipped about the entire kidnapping, wouldn't tell the locals anything, not the least of which was how long Dana was held in that God-forsaken place," Randy comments. "Too long," Mulder hedges. "She was held there too long." "There have been rumors, you know, about a woman who was posing as Dana. Is any of that true?" Randy questions. "You shouldn't believe everything you hear," Mulder says, pacing the small office. Randy nods, unconvinced. "Yeah, okay then. We've pulled the requisite hair, fiber, and fingerprints, although, only Dana's and Paul Sams' have been identified. The other prints and hair samples have not been identified at this time. FBI ran the unidentified prints, but turned up nada. The Warehouse looks like a hospital on the inside; someone paid a fortune to buy and renovate the place. I've pulled the shipping manifests for trucks that delivered equipment and supplies there, nothing odd in and of itself, except the supplies were actually being used in the Warehouse. Like I said, it looks like a hospital on the inside, with a complete branch for research, although, no one knows what kind of research. Drivers of the trucks report they don't remember anything unusual, but we still have two more men we need to question. I checked with surrounding businesses and residences, but no one reported anything unusual going on there. No one really paid much attention, either. The Warehouse is set off the road a bit, not much immediately in its vicinity, so they wouldn't really have known if anything was going on anyway," Randy says. "I want to go out there," Mulder states definitively. "I thought you probably would, Mulder, but you can't go out in any official capacity. Normally, I wouldn't let a family member go to a crime scene like this, but I know you'll go anyway, just know that you are not, in any way, a part of this investigation," Randy says. Mulder nods. Knowing the rules and abiding by the rules are two entirely separate matters. "Hey Mulder, there is something else I need to tell you," Randy states nervously. Mulder looks up, wary about the seriousness of Randy's tone, "Go ahead," Mulder prompts. "I don't know how to tell you this, but I want you to stay calm, okay?" "I make no promises," Mulder chuffs. "Figures," Randy says. He looks at his desk, studies a picture of he and his wife digging their toes into the sand in front of the Santa Monica pier five years ago, remembers a day last summer when Dana was off work, but Mulder wasn't quite as lucky. She'd come to the station around noon, wearing a cotton sundress, and had offered to take Mulder to lunch. Everyone had noticed her that day. She could melt the paint off a car with that glare of hers, launch the space shuttle off her eyebrow when Mulder spouted a harebrained theory, outshoot almost any man on the force, but she'd looked like an angel that day, and seemed almost as untouchable. Later, much later, after her scent had dissipated and her fellow co-workers had regained their sense of propriety, there were mumblings of 'how beautiful.' She had this way about her, a way of making people forget she was a woman. She was beautiful, no one failed to notice, but her competence had a way of intimidating some of the boys in blue. That day, though, she was all woman, and everyone saw it, including Randy Owens. She was soft, small, and precious; he scrubs his beard with his thumb, wishes he were somewhere else. He begins his recitation of the facts devoid of emotion, "We assisted the FBI in gathering evidence from the Warehouse; it appears that whoever was there left in a hurry. We gathered quite a bit of evidence from the research portion of the Warehouse, and the results of DNA testing came back this morning. In storage bins, on microscope slides, in glass vials, were different forms of Dana's DNA. Some of it was blood, there was a," Randy pauses, feels nauseous, and tries to collect himself. Dana is his colleague, his friend, and tears threaten to spill over onto his cheeks. Traitorous little bastards. "God, Mulder, this is very difficult," he states, clearing his throat. "Go on," Mulder says, gritting his teeth, thinking about Scully. "There were what appeared to be fingernail clippings, hair samples, urine samples, and skin grafts," Randy says. "They were studying her, but we don't know why," he finishes, bewildered. "Has she gone to the hospital, Mulder?" Randy questions. "Shit," Mulder murmurs. His arms are crossed and the muscle in his jaw is tense and his heart is breaking for his Scully. "No, no she hasn't, she won't," Mulder answers. Owens lets it go, familiar with the behavioral patterns of victims of violent crimes, knowing he can't force Dana Scully to do anything she doesn't want to do. "Dana's vials were labeled with her name, and were given top priority. There were other vials of blood, fluid, and DNA material, but we haven't been able to identify it. FBI ran all DNA through CODIS, but so far, nothing has come of it. It's human, but that is about all we know. More extensive testing is being done to determine exactly what we've got, and the results of that testing should be available in a couple of days. The FBI is working on that now, as they have more resources at their disposal, than we have at ours," Randy explains. "Why would anyone want to do something like this? This isn't your garden variety, lone serial killer preying on unsuspecting women; this was a group of people working together, preying on one specific person, so far as we know right now, anyway." "I don't know why anyone would do this," Mulder says. He is surprised by the truthfulness of his statement, despite his knowledge of what lies in the past. Mulder knows about conspiracies, betrayals, and murders, but he doesn't truly understand why any one person would commit their life to the destruction of so many. "Did you see the tapes?" Mulder asks, pushing the information Randy has just given him to a dark corner of his mind. "Tapes?" Randy asks. "Don't bullshit me, Chief, not about this," Mulder says. "I saw less than a minute of surveillance feed, and that was enough to know I didn't want to see more," Randy sighs. "Bad?" questions Mulder. "You have no idea," Randy says. Mulder nods, exits the office, and thinks to himself, 'I do have an idea. The real live version of what survived that horror show is sitting at home with a warm cup of coffee in hand, trying not to fall apart.' Randy follows him out of the office, stops him, questions still on his mind. "Hey, Mulder, what did you do for the FBI? There was some talk about chasing UFO's or something," he asks in a hushed tone. "Me? I was a nobody," Mulder replies. "What about Dana? Didn't she work for the FBI, too? What'd she do?" Randy continues, trying to make sense of it all. "She made me a somebody," Mulder says softly, reverently, and then turns around and leaves, because that is all he can do. William has been avoiding her like the plague. He's been stalking around the house in all his glory, slamming doors, furrowing eyebrows, and refusing to speak to her. Scully has been relieved. She doesn't want to talk about her lost little baby. Another sibling that William and Hope will never know. What happened to her is unspeakable and what has been lost is beyond her ability to fathom. Later. She will deal with it all later. "Mom?" William asks. Scully startles, turns around, "Yes?" "What happened to the baby?" he asks. Scully looks down at her socked feet, searches, searches for something that she doesn't find. "The baby died, William," she says. "Did you tell Dad yet?" he persists. "No, I haven't told him yet, William," she sighs. She looks at him, his face tense, troubled blue eyes, filled with pain. "Come over here and sit with me," she says, taking his hand, leading him to the couch. They sit companionably, hip to hip, not speaking. Scully puts her arm around William, pulls him closer to her. "I was wrong, Little Mulder, to ask you to keep a secret from your father. I won't ask you to do it again," she vows, and kisses the crown of his head. He still has the baby-boy curl in his hair from when he was two years old; she closes her eyes, breathes in what is left of the baby in him, and knows he is growing up. "I love you so much, William." "I'm sad about the baby," he says. "I am, too," Scully agrees, and they hold onto one another. William cries, for the baby, for all that has transpired over the past few days, the past year even, and Scully comforts her son. He thought he was ready to see the place where his life had changed so dramatically. The Warehouse had been cordoned off with yellow police tape, some of it has pulled loose from its bonds now, and flaps in the lazy wind blowing in off the Atlantic. As he was driving out I-95 towards the Warehouse, there had been small businesses, the requisite fast food joints, and then, slowly, civilization seemed to taper off, and the entrance to the Warehouse had appeared on his left-hand side. He would have missed the entrance had he not been looking for it; it was that unremarkable. Ironic how something so life changing can be so ordinary. He half expected there to be a black cloud hanging overhead, the earth split open, hell's fire licking its way up the sides of the building. Worn leather rubs his jaw as he shrugs his shoulders to ward off the chill. Ominous, the building stands amidst the wooded area, and calls to him. He heeds its call, and puts one foot in front of the other, as always. Upon entering, it's not at all what he envisioned. There are no dank corners with dead mice and chewed on boxes, no damp air that makes his lungs hurt, no maniac cackling over a loud speaker. Instead, the inside resembles what Chief Owens said it would: a hospital. It's blinding white, and order, and sterile, and out of place back here off the beaten path, woods on either side. The telltale signs of fingerprint dust dirty the surfaces of countertops, door handles, and office furniture. A lone, artificial Ficus tree sits off in the corner, a silent observer to all the goings on. If only trees could talk. Automatic doors grant him entrance to a long hallway, white, sterile doors on either side. He peeks in door after door: linen closet, janitorial closet, ubiquitous hospital machinery closet, lounge. This last one bothers him the most. That people could have just tortured Scully and then sat down to read the latest copy of Newsweek while munching on M&Ms and sipping Coke makes him want to scream. And so, he does, until his throat is raw, until he can't scream anymore. Scully and William are still sitting on the couch when they hear the thud-thud-thud of footsteps down the stairs. Skinner materializes before them, out of breath, "I was on my cell upstairs, checking messages, and I saw a car coming down the street. Parked a few houses up, one man, armed, heading this way. I recognize him from D.C.," he says. "Where's Hope?" Scully asks William. "She's upstairs in her room, taking a nap," William answers. It flashes before him then, all of Hope's nightmares, and her tales of running. The sound of his mother and Skinner talking fades into the background, and his ears ring just as Walter Skinner's blue shirt bleeds red. Scully lunges toward the phone sitting on the counter, pulls William away from the window, calls out "Mulder," and the voice-automated phone dials his cellular number. She hears it ring, "Mulder," he answers. "Mulder!" she screams. "We need your help! They found me; someone just shot Skinner through the window," she shouts, and then there is only the sound of a dial tone. Her head is suddenly, painfully jerked backward, "Fucking bitch," a man says, a gun and phone cord in one hand, a fistful of her hair in the other. "You bastard, let me go," Scully yells, trying to kick the unseen man in the balls. His hand pulls harder at her hair, and she is sure her scalp will be bruised and bloody by the time this ordeal is over. "Mom!" she hears William scream. A gun barrel presses against the base of her skull. Immediately, she stops struggling, giving into defeat for this one moment. The sounds around her are the stuff nightmares are made of: William sobbing, her captor congratulating himself on subduing a woman less than half his size, Skinner grunting through his pain. She pretends to faint, and it works enough for her to knock the gun out of the intruder's hand. "Fuck," he says as it skitters across the floor. Scully whirls around, punches him in the face, and yells for William to go upstairs and get Hope, get out of the house. Momentary distraction leaves her at a disadvantage and consequently she is backhanded across the face. She doesn't scream, or cry out, just grits her teeth as she acquaints herself with amber hardwood. "Now stop fighting, and come with me. No one else has to get hurt," the man says, hovering over her, his breath one rapid-fire pant after the other. From her position on the floor, she looks up at the man with a split lip, the man so sure she will leave this house willingly, and formulates a fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants plan. "Okay," she says, and lets him help her to her feet. The man smiles. Inwardly, so does she. "Mom?" William asks. His voice is tentative, apprehensive, and Scully realizes the hulking form in front of her is blocking the view of her son. The man turns at the sound of the voice behind him, and when he does, Scully is afforded a view of William. He is holding a gun. "Mom," he says, licking his lips, "you don't have to go with him," he chokes out, as though he's been running a great distance. Both his small hands grip the gun's handle, and it's less wobbly than she would have expected it to be. "You're just a little boy, you have no idea what you're doing, now give me the gun," the man says. William laughs nervously, "Screw you," he says, and looks a little too much like his father than Scully cares for at this moment. "William, I want you to walk around the couch, and come over here to me. I want you to bring me the gun, William," Scully commands. "He was going to take you away from us again, Mom. He was going to hurt you, he did hurt you!" William says, cries, desperately. Another gunshot echoes inside the house -a house that for so long held the sounds of laughter, happiness, children growing up, of innocence, a family living a normal lifeand all that once was, fades away.
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