Title: The Rescue Part 1 of ?
Author: Fatcat
Rating: PG (or less)
Category: X File/MSR
Spoilers: Everything up to November 5, 2000.
Summary: Tomorrow night everyone will know Chris Carters story. This is my Season 8 answers.
Disclaimer: So you think you're the only ones with answers, Mr. Carter? Thanks again to FOX, 1013 and all those others for the use of their characters. I hope it continues to be fun during season 8 and 9.
Feed back always appreciated.
Dana Scully slowly walked the last few steps to the door of her office. She hesitated in front of the locked door and looked at the nameplates on the door.
Fox Mulder, Special Agent
Dana Scully, Special Agent.
She raised her fingers to trace his name. It seemed so long ago that she had first laid eyes on this nameplate. The name she had heard for years. He had a reputation for brilliance and eccentricity from the beginning of his career. She had her own nameplate up there now. She had her own reputation—and right now it was fueling the rumor mill as fast as her waistline was growing.
She realized the phone in the office was ringing and quickly unlocked the door and answered it.
"Scully."
"Ah! Ms. Scully. This is Mr. Mulder's interior decorator. I need to meet with you to discuss the fabric swatches for the new couch in the living room."
"Decorator? Is this you Frohike? I don't…"
"Perhaps you remember meeting me when I was doing his bedroom. We had an interesting discussion about the mirror over the waterbed. Would tonight at the "Jose's Taco World" near his apartment be convenient? Say 6:00pm.? I have another client waiting for me. See you there."
The phone went dead.
Scully stood glaring at the phone until she realized her feet hurt. She was definitely going to have to get some more comfortable shoes. Right after she killed Frohike.
She pulled out her cell phone and dialed the number for the Lone Gunmen.
"Hello." Byers answered.
"Hi, it's me. Turn off the tape." She waited.
"Hi, Dana. What can I do for you?"
"Is Frohike there?"
"Yeah, he's been working with Langley for the last two hours on our latest edition of the newsletter. I'll get him."
"Hey, Agent Scully, what's up?" Frohike's gravelly voice came on the phone.
"Frohike, did you just call me and ask me to go to "Jose's Taco World" for supper?"
"No, but if you have a craving, I'm always up for Mexican food." Frohike quickly responded.
"No, I couldn't touch Mexican food right now. I do, however, want you three to get over to Mulder's apartment as quickly as possible. I just had a very strange call and I'm going to need your assistance. Bring your van and the standard surveillance equipment." Scully would say no more on an unsecured phone line.
She quickly put the files she had been working on back in her briefcase. As a second thought, she put extra ammunition in the bag before she quickly exited the office and drove to Alexandria.
She was parked outside Mulder's apartment for about ten minutes when she saw the van circle the block and park in the alley. She got out of her car and went in the front door with her key. She met Frohike and Byers in the hall and drew her gun as she quickly opened the door to Mulder's apartment.
A middle-aged man sat in the middle of Mulder's couch, watching a video.
"Your boyfriend has pretty smutty taste. It took me three months to convince my wife I really wanted to watch these videos with her after we switched back. I've got to hand it to him; it really perked up my married life. Hello, Agent Scully. I see you have a bun in the oven. Mulder's I hope."
"Who are you and how do you know my name?" Dana said as she pointed her weapon at his heart. "Turn off the set and slowly put your hands up behind your head."
"Search the apartment guys." Dana said to the two LGM.
"I wasn't sure you would get my hint. I wasn't on a secure line so I couldn't take a chance of giving you even my first name. I have a life too, such as it is, Agent Scully. I don't want it to end any faster than necessary. I'm taking a great risk just being here right now."
"What do you want?" Scully curtly spat out. She didn't like this man—he seemed to know too much about her and her life for her own comfort.
"I heard Mulder was gone. I want to help." Morris looked sheepish. "I know that sounds weird coming from a stranger, but I feel I owe Mulder, and you, somehow. Look, things have been better between my wife and me ever since that time and I…I just want to try to help him."
"Help him? How do you even know him? What time? Certainly, if you are one of his friends you have heard that Mulder has been missing since last May. What information could you possible have about someone you don't even know?"
Frohike and Byers reentered the room. Frohike crossed over to the radio and turned on some music to cover their conversation, just in case. Dana smiled at him as he returned and stood behind her next to Byers.
"Can I put my hands down now, Dana? If you let me get my I.D. from my coat pocket, I think I can begin to explain everything. Don't shoot, okay?" Morris slowly lowered his arms.
"You look like you could use a seat, too. Come on, you have two protectors. Have a seat. I know my wife got tired very quickly when she was pregnant."
Dana moved to set down across from him but did not lower her gun. She motioned for Byers to get his I.D. He brought it to her and raised incredulous eyes to the intruder's face.
"You? You're with The Company?"
She pulled out her cell phone with her left hand and called Langley.
"Is it all clear?"
"Yeah, there's no surveillance equipment within a three block radius except for some guy taping his girlfriend cheating on him."
"Thanks." Dana ended the call and turned back to Morris. "I'm going to lower my gun, but I still have the safety off. Don't try anything. What do you want with me?"
"I know where Mulder is."
If he had pulled the pin on a hand grenade, the stranger couldn't have shocked the three occupants of the room more.
"How would you know where he is?" Dana finally asked.
The stranger began to explain: "My name is Morris Fletcher. I met both you and your partner previously in the desert around Area 51. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Due to a spatial anomaly in the time warp continuum created by a cloaked aircraft that was being tested there, Mulder and I had traded bodies. For several days I had access to Mulder's single life and Mulder was stuck in my marriage. I toyed with the idea of never going back to my life until I saw my wife. She was so jealous of you Scully, she was breathing fire. The man she knew as me wanted only you. She actually cried when she thought she had lost me to you. I'll never forget how I felt, knowing she loved me that much after all the years and all the crap I've put her through…."
The stranger was quiet for a while, lost in memories.
"Well, I knew I had to intervene and get my life back. When you and I met with the other agents in the desert to try to reverse the process, for some reason, I was the only one that didn't forget the previous few days. Do you remember now, Dana? I was the one who cleaned out Mulder's bedroom and bought the waterbed. You thought it was the same man you always knew and were very confused."
Dana remembered clearly the incident he was referring to. She could still remember how dirty she felt when he had tried to seduce her as they had laid on the waterbed looking at the mirrors above. It hadn't felt like Mulder and she wanted nothing to do with him. Now she knew the truth and realized he had been thinking it must be a done deal between her and Mulder. The revulsion she had felt had almost ruined everything between her and Mulder that had developed later.
"Why should I believe you?" Dana asked raising the gun slightly.
Morris raised his hands and started to squirm. "You know I'm telling the truth. I could tell you knew I wasn't Mulder as soon as I opened my mouth."
"Where is he?" Dana whispered. Everyone in the room could see she was at her breaking point.
"Dana, please. I'll tell you. I'll tell you everything; I just need a map to show you at the same time. The location doesn't have a name. It's a secret installation disguised by an abandoned mining operation outside Beckley, West Virginia. I was in the assigned security force that unloaded all the "abductee's" collected. They are undergoing brainwashing even as we speak. They all are being given memories of the "testing" and appearance of the "aliens". They will remember the pain and their abductors so completely they will never be convinced otherwise."
"Why? Why are they doing this to Mulder, to all those people?" Dana whispered.
"Why?" Morris spat, "Because they can."
End part 1 of ?
