DISCLAIMER: All characters are the property

of Chris Carter, FOX and all the others. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

I believe

I didn't even know when the last time I slept was. I didn't care. I don't sleep when my partner is in danger, when she's missing. Again. I failed her again…

No, I wouldn't sleep, not until I begin hallucinating, not until my hallucinations knock me down. But before that happened, my last thoughts were not about my partner, but my sister. What if, I thought, what if I was taken instead of her? None of this would be happening…

It should have been me…

I blanked out. Not on my bed, not even on my couch, but on the floor. As if I deserved better! I drifted away, but not into sleep. No, the place I found myself in was some kind of a parallel universe. A universe in which Samantha was never abducted, I was. Universe in which I didn't exist…

Scully. She existed. I saw her walking through FBI corridors, looking just the same as she did on the day I met her. She seemed to be going to the same destination as well. Basement office, my office. The X files. I saw her opening the door, stepping in.

"Agent Mulder? I've been assigned to work with you!"

Her voice! Her voice brought me back to that same day, but as it happened back in my original universe, in my memories. I was having a bad day, contemplating-about-writing-a-letter-of-resignation type of the day. I didn't even raise my head when she penetrated my office, just like perverted alien penetrates his abductees' noses, reaching for their brain. That's how much it hurt me. I did everything I could to prevent it from happening, but just like a scared pre-teenage girl sold to a harem I had no right to participate in decisions about my fate. I was force-partnered.

"This is a dangerous job, agent Mulder," Skinner told me earlier: "Too dangerous to do it alone. And part of my job is to ensure safety of my agents, to make sure all of them have someone to watch their back. ALL of them, agent Mulder! Even those who decide to bury themselves in the basement for a lost cause."

"With all due respect, sir," I responded: "The very nature of working on the X files demands solitary work."

Skinner gave me one of his that's-bullshit-and-you-know-it looks: "Agent Mulder, if you plan to continue your career in the FBI you will have to learn to be a team-player…"

"Or what?!" I snapped: "You'll fire me?"

"I won't have to," Skinner assured me: "But I will be out there to identify your body!"

"That's fine with me," I answered: "As long as you don't show up on my funeral!"

I turned around and started to walk towards the door, but before I reached them something else came to my mind.

"Who is this Scully anyway?" I turned back to my boss: "I want all the available information about her. I want to know everything! And I mean EVERYTHING!"

"Like what?" Skinner stared at me.

"Like…" I had to think fast: "Like when was she kissed for the first time…?"

"You'll have to ask her personally. I don't think there are records about that."

"…and how long it lasted!"

By this point we were talking at the same time.

"I don't think even she can tell you that," Skinner continued.

"Or," I suggested: "Whose spy is she? I would be happy with just that little piece of information."

"Not everything is a conspiracy, agent Mulder," Skinner sighed: "Agent Scully is bright, young, ambitious woman, fresh from Academy. She deserves a chance."

"To hell with that!" I concluded, exiting his office.

But wait! Wait! In this parallel, Mulder-less universe, who the hell is Scully introducing herself to? Did she just say… Agent Mulder?!

Young woman, approximately Scully's age, stood up from my, I mean someone's,desk, approached my partn…, I mean Scully, with a warm smile and honestly-nice-to-meet-you attitude. She looked familiar, very familiar, almost like… And she said Mulder…

Oh my god!

Oh… my… god!

She looked like my mother!

To be precise, she looked like my mother used to look when she was young, when I was just a kid. How the hell did my mother, in her young version nonetheless, ended up working on the X files?! What is wrong with this universe?

I looked around the office, trying to make some sense of what was happening. There was a big poster, hanging on the same wall as my UFO poster in original universe. Only this one didn't say I WANT TO BELIEVE. This one was saying: I BELIEVE. There was no flying saucer on it, but a huge red heart. In the center of the heart one picture was pinned, a picture of my sister and me when we were kids. My hearth ached when I saw the picture. Why is it there? Did something happen to Samantha in this universe, too? Even though it was me who got abducted here, not her? Is that why my mother is working on the X files? Is she looking for Samantha, here, in the universe where I am too long gone to be the one who is searching?

I looked down at the desk and name plate on it.

Samantha Mulder.

I froze. This isn't my young mother, this is my all grown up sister! She's alive. She's well.

She's ok!

But the picture on the poster? If Samantha is not missing, why is that picture hanging there?

Suddenly it hit me. It hit me hard, breathtakingly!

It was my picture. She became an FBI agent because… She found the X files because… because…

Because she was looking for me!

As much as I tried, I couldn't really dislike Scully. As much as I tried to intimidate her, she always stood her ground. She didn't run away demanding reassignment. She didn't call me Spooky or treat me as a lost cause.

If she really was a spy, she was damn good at hiding it. And as much as I tried, I couldn't keep believing that she was…

Silently, she became my partner. I realized it when her father died and she came to work that day. She called my office the night before and left me a message that she might be late for work, but I didn't believe that she would come at all. I was surprised to see her and I told her that.

Damn it, Mulder, I thought immediately, your partner just lost a father and that's the best you can say to her?

Did I just think of her as my partner?

"How are you Dana?" I asked her. There, that's better. Or is it?

She was surprised, I never called her by her first name before. I couldn't say if she was glad or annoyed by it. We went on talking about case, relieved to be engaged in a familiar conversation. I filled her with necessary information about a recent crime and as I was about to leave office for a while, I finally found the right words.

"I'm sorry about your father."

As simple as that.

Well, maybe not so simple after all. She insisted on following me to prison where we questioned a dangerous murderer who claimed to be channeling information. I exposed him as a fraud, but Scully followed his clues anyway, putting herself in great danger.

"I thought that you'd be pleased that I'd opened myself to extreme possibilities," she told me at the verge of tears when I confronted her about it.

Where was that coming from? Since when did she care about pleasing me? When did she start to seek my approval?

Was she starting to see me as a partner, too?

At that point I wanted to hug her, I wanted to comfort her. But how could I? We were colleagues, not friends. It could be seen as harassment. Even if she welcomed my embrace, it could easily end up with us rolling on her hotel bed, fucking up everything in our careers that we worked so hard for.

Samantha didn't have that problem. Professional relationships are so much easier between two heterosexual individuals of the same sex. Of course, not doubting your partner's motives for joining you helps too.

Samantha never doubted Scully, at least not in this parallel universe. They became good friends soon after they started working together.

When Scully's father died in this universe, she didn't leave a message for her partner, she called her on her private phone instead, waking her up, and Samantha was soon at her place, all warm and friendly, with all the right words and hugs.

It's so much easier without the damn sexual tension!

Or is it? Maybe it's just that Samantha is much better person than I am in my universe, than I would be in her universe, or any other possible universe… I blamed her abduction for my fucked-up-ness, but she wasn't fucked up without me. She put other people before her work, while I trusted nobody, blindly dedicated to my quest. She believed in love, while I was chasing aliens.

I hoped, I desperately hoped that in her universe there are no stronger forces than love, because in mine I have no doubt that love is weak…

"I hope you know," Scully told me: "That I will consider it more than just a professional loss if you decide to quit."

I said nothing. I pushed her away. I refused to talk to her after they closed the X files for the first time, believing even a little chat would put us both in great danger. I tried to go on with my life without her, but she wouldn't let me.

She called me paranoid, but unfortunately I was right. She got abducted and returned almost dead, with no hope of recovering. Somehow, though, she pulled through. We didn't know what happened to her, but it marked us for life, not only in partnership, but in, what was beginning to seem, unbreakable friendship.

Did that happen in the parallel universe as well? Unfortunately, it did. Did it affect my sister as strongly as it affected me? It did. Did she end up in stranger's bed, like I did? Unfortunately, she didn't.

She ended up in bed with her new partner.

Did she get the same new partner as I did? Damn it, she did!

Did she refuse to accept this new partner? Damn her, she didn't! She welcomed him with open arms and full trust.

"Go home agent Mulder," Skinner told her when Scully went missing and she insisted on looking for her: "You are too close to this case. If we need your help we will call you. Now you need to get some sleep."

"Make sure that she does," he continued, turning to Krycek. Alex Krycek.

Oh, Krycek obeyed, he certainly did! He took agent Mulder to bed, but not for sleeping. He had another cure in mind, and agent Mulder welcomed it with open arms, and even more open heart.

I wanted to yell, to scream, to kill him, to destroy the whole damn apartment. But I couldn't do anything at all, since it was the universe in which I didn't exist.

Don't do it Samantha! I begged in my non-existing mind.

He's not your friend! He's not your partner! He's a damn spy! He killed my father! He will kill your father! Don't do it, sis! Don't trust him! Remember what Deep Throat said, trust no one? He was right, Samantha! Don't do it… Please…

I didn't exist. And my sister was sleeping with my enemy.

By the time Scully was returned, Krycek was already gone. Samantha was left heartbroken, but she tried not to show it. She had to be strong for her partner.

"I love you like a sister," she said gently to Scully, stroking her hair.

"She is a great sister," Melissa smiled: "Do you have a sister, Sam?"

"I had a brother," Samantha said sadly: "His name was Fox. But he is long gone by now. I don't even know if he's dead or alive. I don't think I ever will."

Melissa hugged her and they both started to cry, for the woman dying in the bed next to them, for the long lost brother who, I was sure, Melissa could feel in the room with them.

My sister: a hugger, a lover… Scully's sister, still alive and strong and beautiful and smart… Is it possible, could it be possible that she doesn't have to die in this universe?

"Tell her to stay away from Krycek," I whispered to Melissa's ear, but though she could feel my pain, she couldn't hear my warning.

I didn't exist.

Few weeks after she recovered, Scully came to Samantha's apartment.

"I want you to take this," she said to her friend, in a more-than-serious not-taking-no-for-an-answer voice.

Samantha opened the bag and looked inside, taking a little box out of it. Pregnancy test. Pregnancy test? She looked at Scully in disbelief.

"I am not pregnant!" she cried, horrified at the idea.

"Then there's no harm in taking it," Scully said, not taking her eyes off of her.

"There's no use, either!" Samantha objected.

"Mulder, please," Scully pleaded: "Do it for me, ok? I'm your doctor and your symptoms are worrying me." She squeezed her hand in reassurance: "I am also your friend. Whatever the result, we will deal with it together."

Finally, Samantha nodded. She looked pale and terrified. She took the box and went to the bathroom, and then they sat in the living room and silently waited.

"Mulder, you're pregnant," Scully said with a sigh, placing the test back on a coffee table. Samantha fell into her arms, crying uncontrollably. Scully held her without words, without questions. They never talked about it, but Scully was able to figure it out. She saw the way Samantha looked at Krycek. She saw how she blushed when he was around. Scully didn't know whether to be happy or worried for her friend. Samantha for sure didn't date much and it was nice to see her finally falling for someone, but did it have to be her partner? It can't be a good idea to become intimate with your partner, can it? Judging by the tears, it certainly wasn't. Especially when your partner turns out to be working for your enemies, or when he disappears without a trace.

"You don't have to keep it," Scully said gently: "You know that."

"Fox…" Samantha whispered in her shoulder.

"What?" Scully couldn't understand her.

Samantha pulled out from her embrace and looked her in the eyes. "Fox," she smiled: "I will call him Fox."

Abortion was out of question.

"You were right," Scully told me after Melissa's death: "There is no justice."

"I don't think this is about justice, Scully," I told her.

"Then what is it about?" she asked me hopelessly.

"I think it's about something we have no personal choice in," I told her, feeling Melissa in the room with us, feeling her agreeing with me, for once: "I think it's about fate."

I asked Scully if she is sure about going back to work, but what I was really asking was if she would stay with me. We both lost so much because of our work, and it didn't make much sense to either of us. Now she lost a sister too. Now I lost a father too. Now we knew each other's pain more personally, more painfully than ever.

I hugged her, signing our deal with an embrace, a deal to stay together, to follow our fate. They say god doesn't give you more pain than you can handle, but what he's given us was way more than we could ever handle without each other. I desperately leaned on her, just as she did on me. She was mine, I was hers, and it had to be that way. We could have left the FBI then and drive off at sunset, spending the rest of our lives getting drunk and talking about aliens and science to anyone who would listen. She could have gone back to being a doctor, but then I would have to be her patient. I could have settled down and started raising a family, but it would have to be with her. We could have chosen another path, maybe, possibly, if fate would allow it, but we had to stay together.

We chose to stick with the X files, not because it was the best choice, maybe it wasn't even a good one, but it was the only thing we knew…

Did it happen in the parallel universe? Yes. The circumstances were not the same, yet they resulted in my father's death just the same. Samantha's father was killed by Krycek, while Samantha was giving birth to his daughter. He killed our mother too, since in this universe our parents stayed together. Scully was in tears when she came to tell her.

"I named her Alex," Samantha smiled, holding her newborn baby.

Scully closed her eyes in pain: "You don't want to do that, Mulder."

"I do, Scully, I do," Samantha whispered: "I need him to know she's his. I believe he can change, I believe she can change him. I… I still love him, Dana…"

"Put the baby down, Mulder," Scully said: "Something terrible happened and it won't be easy for you to hear what I have to say."

"No," Samantha refused, moving the baby closer to her chest and holding her protectively: "Whatever it is, Alex stays with me!"

"Samantha, your parents were shot today," Scully finally managed to say: "They… They are both dead. The shooter was likely Krycek. There's still not enough evidence, but… I will look for him myself! I will find him! I'm sorry, Mulder. I'm so sorry…"

"No…" Samantha cried softly, taken by surprise, in a state of too great of a shock to fully understand the impact of Scully's words: "Mum… Dad… No… Alex… He couldn't… He wouldn't… No! No!"

Her sobs were getting faster, her screams louder, as the meaning of those words started to unfold in their full, enormous, dark emptiness.

Little Alex Mulder cried in her arms as well, as if she could understand the dark fate bestowed upon her. I felt for that baby, as the little pieces of her future started to unfold in front of me. My niece! My beautiful niece, who will never know her grandparents or her uncle, whose only family will be her mother and Scully, who will become her godmother and treat her as her own child, especially after she learns that she can't have children of her own. A child that will have to live with her father's name, her enemy's name, because her mother will refuse to stop believing in love, because she will somehow manage to forgive him everything…

I hate you for that, Samantha; I hate you for your stupid, unreasonable love and forgiveness. And I love you for it, I love you so much that it hurts.

I can't share you world view. I can't share your beliefs, sister. I don't believe in love, not the way you do. But I believe in you…

I believe in you, Samantha, I whispered as I was waking up, back in my apartment, back on my living room's floor, with a headache and cold shivers in my body.

Was it a dream? Or is there really a parallel universe in which I was abducted instead of my sister? If any of this experience is true, then the similar things happening in both universes must imply existence of fate. Melissa had to die in both of them. My father had to die in both of them. But what about my mother, then? Krycek killed her only in one universe, not in both of them. Why did she have a different fate? Did she somehow do something to change it?

What did it all mean?

Maybe it was just my wild imagination, bringing together people I lost, people I care about most in the world. Maybe. After all, I didn't even try to see what happened to me in that universe, I didn't have the slightest desire to find out who abducted me and why. I only wanted to know what happened to my women.

Damn! Why did I wish for a universe in which I was taken instead of my sister, in which I was unable to be there for her, to help her, to protect her? Why didn't I wish for universe in which nobody was taken? Why, even in my wildest hallucinations, I couldn't picture a life of happiness?

I somehow managed to stand up and go to the bathroom. I turned on the cold water and washed my face. I looked in the mirror and noticed that I'm smiling. She would be looking for me! Samantha would be looking for me! And Scully would be looking for me with her, even if she had never met me…

And I will keep looking for them. No matter the cost. Not matter how hopeless it seems.

I love you, Samantha, I said to my mirror.

I love you, too, Scully, I added.

That love that was driving your decisions, Samantha… The love you refused to give up no matter how deeply it failed you. I want to believe in that love, too. I want to believe!

I love you Alex! (No, Krycek, not you!)

I turned away from the mirror, fiercely shaking my head. No! I had to pull myself together. I had to find Scully. Love wasn't going to find her. Love can't save the world, I can't afford to give into that shit, not now! I have to find my partner!

I went back to my living room, thinking hard about what my next actions should be, but all I was able to come up with was to bang my head against the wall…