Author's Note:
What follows is the third and final part of Cursing Miracles, which is set in a non-canon season 8 and beyond that contains elements of canon mythology. While you could read this and not have read parts I and II, it will probably make more sense if you have.
Spoiler rich summary of parts I and II to jog your memory: Mulder is abducted just as Scully finds that she is pregnant. She is assigned a new partner: Agent Troy. Mulder returns months after William is born, and awkwardness ensues until she agrees to quit the X-Files and marry him. Scully and Mulder take William to start a new life, but Scully is troubled by Mulder's strange normality and lack of obsession. Their home is trashed and they're visited by Krycek, who tells them they're not safe. Scully demands to know the truth and Mulder confesses that he's seen the time line for the end of the world. They return to D.C., where they shack up with the LGM, investigating super soldiers. Mulder is shot in a facility with Krycek at his side. He survives surgery and tells Scully that William is not safe.
PART THREE
Chapter One
Mulder entered the mostly empty apartment and nearly tripped over a wire placed across his path.
"Careful," Scully advised from behind him.
"Hey, dude!" someone called from behind the ajar apartment door.
As Scully pulled the door shut behind her, Langley was revealed sprawled on the floor, holding the other end of the wire on which Mulder had almost tripped.
"Home already, hombre?" another voice questioned from behind the sofa—the lone piece of furniture in the empty room.
Frohike's head popped up from behind the sofa, revealing the source of the phantom voice.
"What the hell are you two doing here?" Mulder asked good-naturedly.
Scully ushered him into the room, taking the bags from him that he had insisted on carrying up from the street. He knew it was ridiculous to make such demands: Scully's raised brow at his insistence was proof enough that she thought so as well. But, he'd felt powerless in the hospital and was only trying to gain some of that power back.
"Just finishing up with your security system," Frohike explained.
"Sit down, Mulder," Scully said, gesturing towards the sofa.
Mulder complied, awkwardly arranging himself on the leather cushions. It didn't escape him that she must have purchased this leather sofa while he was laid up, thinking of his taste. They hadn't furnished their previous home—it had come furnished; but in the back of her mind she mustn't have forgotten his sofa. Maybe there would be other little reminders of their life before. He glanced around the apartment Scully had rented for them. It was spacious with hardwood floors and bright white walls. Light streamed in from behind him through the large windows that looked out over the street. They weren't far from Scully's old address. She must have liked the area if she had chosen it again for their new home. Other than this cursory glance, Mulder knew nothing about the apartment or her decision to rent it: all she'd told him was that there was enough room for William to have his own bedroom.
"I didn't think you'd be home for a while yet," Langley said as he continued to grope along the floor in his black concert t-shirt and black jeans, tucking the wire into the white baseboard with a flathead screwdriver.
"You know insurance. Couple of days and you're out on your ass," Mulder joked.
"He's a quick healer," Scully supplied.
Unexplainably quick, she had informed him in the car. 'Be thankful,' she'd advised him. There had been no need: he was already more than thankful. Every time he had escaped death before, he had returned to his somewhat imperfect existence. Now he had Scully. Really had her. They had each other and they had William. Yes, the world was possibly infested with super soldiers working to bring about the end of the world as they knew it, but that was all in the details.
She stood hands on hips, giving Mulder a silent appraisal. He figured she was assessing whether or not she needed to insist that he go directly to bed.
"You didn't pick up the bambino?" Frohike asked before standing up and walking over to the laptop that was set up in the corner on a large cardboard box.
"My mother is bringing him by this afternoon," Scully said before disappearing from the room.
It seemed that Scully had decided to give him a pass on bed rest for the time being. Let him commune with the boys for a few minutes before instituting a strict regime of rest.
"I'd have liked to see the little man," Langley said, sitting back on his heels.
Byers was clearly the responsible one, but Langley seemed to be the fondest of William. It was still somewhat baffling to Mulder, despite having seen it for himself.
"We'll see if that does it," Frohike said as he tapped away at the keyboard with his fingerless-gloved hands. "Check the connection, Langley."
"It's good to go," Langley replied, peering down at the wire. "How you feeling, man?" Langley asked, blinking at Mulder from behind his black frames.
Mulder rubbed at his bandaged chest.
"Sore as shit."
"I wouldn't complain: You have a hot nurse," Frohike opined.
Mulder chuckled to himself. "I wouldn't let her hear you call her that if I were you," Mulder warned Frohike.
"Call me what?" Scully asked, reentering the room with a glass of water and a handful of pills.
"Nothing," all three men mumbled.
Scully gave Mulder a suspicious look as she handed him the pills and the glass. Mulder took the proffered items, but paused before tossing his medication back. The sunbeams were lighting up Scully's face in the most distracting way. Her skin looked like polished alabaster: an apparently hard and smooth surface, yet soft enough to be scratched by a fingernail.
"What?" she asked.
"Nothing," he replied once more, swallowing the pills dutifully.
He was just happy to see her again. Every time he woke up in the hospital he was thankful that he hadn't bled out in that warehouse. He wasn't sure that there would be a next life, but Scully and William were here in this life, making it the place he wanted to be.
"Smells like victory," Frohike said, gazing at the laptop screen.
"Excellent," Langley said as he stood up and came to join Frohike at the pseudo work station. "That didn't take long."
Scully looked at her watch. Mulder imagined that she was calculating the hours these two had already been here.
"Everything all set?" she asked.
"This place is tighter than a steel drum," Frohike pronounced. "Nobody can make a move in here without our being aware of it."
Mulder watched as Frohike pointed around the room at the multitude of hidden cameras and sensors that the men had spent the day installing. Running his tongue over his teeth in contemplation as Frohike admired his handiwork, Mulder turned to shoot Scully a look, trying to convey his surprise.
'Why would you agree to live under the surveillance of this crack team?'
A tinny cell phone ringtone erupted in the room, playing the chorus from "Yellow Submarine" and interrupting Scully and Mulder's silent exchange. The noise seemed unbearably loud to Mulder as it rebounded off of the broad hard surfaces of the unfurnished room.
Frohike reached into the pocket of his black leather jacket and pulled out a phone that he flipped open. "Hey, man. You reading this?" he asked. He glanced over his shoulder at the rest of the group, "It's Byers." He made a couple of quick keystrokes. "Of course it works. You know my kung-fu's the best!" Frohike closed the laptop with a satisfied click. "The system is working back at base," he informed the group. Frohike's face soured, "Hey, we're already leaving. Don't get your panties in a bunch." Frohike closed and re-pocketed the phone. "Come on, Langley. Byers doesn't want us to bother the happy family," Frohike commanded, his wounded irritation evident in his tone and cross face.
"No bother," Scully said quickly. "I should get Mulder to bed though."
Frohike winked at Mulder from behind Scully's back and Langley pushed his glasses further up his nose, smiling crookedly. Scully was unaware of the display of immaturity going on behind her back.
"Course. Gotta get him back to one hundred percent," Frohike exclaimed, over-emphasizing each word with some amusement. "We'll call, if anything seems amiss on our monitors."
"Mmm…thanks again," Scully said.
Mulder could just see her profile. She looked somewhat unsure about how thankful she actually was.
"Bye, boys," Mulder called after them as Scully escorted them out the door. "They're going to keep calling here," Mulder said as their footsteps became inaudible.
"I know," she replied with a sigh.
"Why did you let them trick this place out? No one moves without them knowing it? In fact,Byers probably just heard that. Wave to the cameras, Scully," Mulder said with a sarcastic wave.
"I didn't like the alternative."
"Which is what? Gunned down in our sleep?" he asked with a lopsided grin.
Scully raised one brow at him, pursing her lips. "You should be in bed."
"I thought you'd never ask." Mulder leaned forward, bracing himself on his knees for a moment, as he prepared for the pain that would shoot through his chest upon standing up. "Show me the way, doc."
Scully gestured towards the hallway and Mulder stood upright only pausing for a second to breathe through the pain. He knew the medication she had given him would begin to deaden the fiery sensation within the next few minutes, but for now all of this movement was exquisite torture.
He followed her through the hallway and into their bedroom. All that was there was a bed frame and mattress: that was all he currently needed.
He glanced up at the ceiling. "Did they install video cameras in here?"
"No," Scully replied as she went to the made bed and began to pull back the covers for him.
"So, someone could potentially make a move in here and the freaky deaky Musketeers wouldn't know about it," Mulder said, sitting himself down on the bed and kicking his shoes off.
"I had to draw the line somewhere."
"Good thinking, Mrs. Mulder."
Scully eyes went heavenward, as he knew they would at his use of her married name.
"It might surprise you to know that I don't care to star in a peepshow," he finished, sliding into the bed.
He drew in breath slowly, allowing himself to sink into the softness of the mattress. It felt as if his bones were melting. Maybe the medicine was already at work in his bloodstream.
Scully sat on the edge of the bed, causing it to sag slightly. "No cameras or sensors in the bathroom either. That took some convincing: Frohike wanted to be really thorough."
"I bet he did," Mulder chuckled. "I still feel a bit like the Tralfamadorians have put me in their zoo."
"And I'm your Montana Wildhack, hmm?" Scully asked with a slight smile.
She was humoring his penchant for somewhat pretentious literary allusion. It wouldn't be as much fun if Scully wasn't always able to keep apace with him. She was beautiful, but her intelligence really made his engine hum.
Scully ran her fingers lightly over his forehead. Her touch was supernaturally soothing to him. It could be a damn X-File that with one touch she could either ignite him like a match or calm him like a cool breeze.
"You should go to sleep. I'll wake you when my mom gets here with William."
"Actually, I want to talk to you about William before he gets home."
Scully tilted her head, biting her lip. "Okay."
"I don't think he's safe."
"Mulder, he'll be okay. He's going to be with us and my mom is going to help. We'll make it work."
Mulder gripped Scully's forearm tightly. "No, you have to hear me out. When I was alone with Krycek, he said something to me…he said that William isn't safe, because he's…special."
Scully's face immediately drained of all color. "What do you mean: special?"
"That's what he said. He said William is developing differently and they're interested in him or they're threatened by him. Krycek said he isn't safe."
Scully pulled out of Mulder's grip, setting her jaw. "Krycek is a liar. He left you to die."
"What if he isn't lying about this?" Mulder shut his eyes to the notion of losing William. "I can't take that chance."
Scully stood up and stalked away from the bed, turning her back on Mulder.
"How would they know that he was special?" she asked quietly.
"How do they know anything?" Mulder answered wearily.
Scully failed to respond and Mulder felt the silence descend upon him like a heavy blanket pressing against his sore chest.
Scully stood, staring at the wall and weighing her words carefully. She had avoided saying certain things out loud, because if she said them, they might come true. She wanted William to be normal. For his sake. So, she had to choose her words with the utmost care—she couldn't condemn William through the verbalization of her fears.
"He is special," she finally stated, still failing to turn from the wall. "He shouldn't even be here. I was…I am infertile."
"That would be enough to peak their interest," Mulder admitted.
It would be. And maybe, at this point, that was all they knew. A barren woman had given birth to a baby without the aid of medical science. Medicine had failed her in that regard, but something else had intervened. Something beyond the understanding of man. That might be enough to make them think that William was special and want to submit him to their tests.
Except, she had her suspicions that William wasn't only extraordinary due to his unlikely conception.
Scully turned to face Mulder. He was watching her with the gaze he wore when she felt certain he could see inside her mind. He'd been marginally successful reading her thoughts over the years. If he could just read them now, she'd be spared actually having to voice them.
"Were you tortured?" she asked in a measured tone.
His brows knit together in confusion. "What?"
"When you were abducted, were you tortured?" she asked firmly.
"You really want to talk about that?" he asked in a low voice.
She had avoided asking him about his experience. She'd told herself that they should live in the present; that she shouldn't ask him to dredge up painful memories; that she might not be able to handle what he would have to say.
Scully took a step towards the bed. "I told you once that I had dreams while you were missing…visions…I saw you being tortured. Were you?"
Mulder lay silent for a moment. Scully watched him move his fingers mindlessly over the covers.
"There were…procedures," he finally conceded.
She took another step forward, feeling emboldened by her confessions. "I saw everything. When I was pregnant, I wasn't dreaming about you—I was seeing you." Her voice rose slightly as she spoke, and she saw her anxiety mirrored in Mulder's countenance.
"Scully…what are you saying?"
He was confused. She wasn't supposed to be the one who believed in these sorts of things. She was the one who was supposed to scoff at the idea of manipulated men that couldn't be killed and aliens descending on their planet with plans to make us their slaves. Circumstances had forced her to consider the impossible.
"I'm saying that something about carrying William made me…more open to psychic knowledge or…or connected us—you and me—in a way that wouldn't otherwise have been possible."
"Psychic knowledge?" Mulder repeated slowly.
The words echoed slightly in the expanse of the mostly empty room, bringing home their absurdity in hollow reverberation.
"Mulder, the visions stopped the moment I had William. I couldn't see you anymore. I thought it might mean you were dead."
Scully looked down at her feet, controlling her breathing. She didn't want to lose control. The past few weeks had been too emotional. She felt as if her insides had been torn apart and sewn back together by an unskilled surgeon.
Regaining her composure, she met Mulder's gaze. She wanted him to say something. Either confirm her suspicions or tell her she was crazy, since she wasn't sure herself anymore. She needed him to come to a conclusion, and his conclusions had been maddeningly accurate over the years.
"Well?" she asked, trying to force him into weighing in on her admission.
He swallowed, "You think the difference was William?"
"Yes."
He nodded. "You know what you're suggesting?"
"I haven't the vaguest," she admitted, shaking her head.
"Fair enough. Anything since then? Has there been anything to make you think that William is different?"
Scully sat back down on the edge of the bed. "He's a normal baby in most regards," she hedged.
"He reaches all of his developmental stages at the appropriate times," Mulder said in agreement, parroting back the information she had given him regarding their child.
"His physical and verbal development is normal," she admitted.
"But?" Mulder asked.
"I've noticed some emotional and social…peculiarities," she admitted.
As the words left her mouth, she covered her face with her hands.
"Come here," Mulder urged her, reaching out.
Scully complied, stretching out on the bed and working herself into the crook of Mulder's arm. She drew in a deep breath as he stroked her head.
"They're the kind of things that make my mother comment on what a good baby he is," Scully said, wiping her nose with the back of her hand.
"There's such a thing as too good?"
"Maybe. I think he is more responsive to our emotions than he should be. If I'm upset, he's fussy. If you're angry, he's rigid."
Mulder laced his fingers in her hair, massaging her scalp. "That doesn't seem strange. Child psychologists believe children to be very emotionally responsive to their environment…even at this stage of development."
"Mulder, I started to notice a little while ago that William picked up on these things even when he was separated from the actual source."
"You've lost me," he admitted.
"You cut yourself downstairs and he started crying upstairs. I got in that fender bender and you didn't hear my phone call, because he was throwing a temper tantrum."
"That could be coincidence."
She knew he was trying to calm her down. He could read the tension in her body language. She didn't have to tell him that she was afraid for him to know it. It might make her uncomfortable, but she was convinced that William's behavior, taken as a whole, was not likely to be the result of coincidence.
"How often does he act like that? Cry and carry on?" she insisted.
"Not often," Mulder acknowledged.
"And…my mother said that William was inconsolable the afternoon you were shot. She couldn't calm him down until right before I phoned and said you were out of surgery. He couldn't have been responding to her distress, because she didn't even know anything was wrong."
Mulder remained silent.
"He is unnaturally calm. He seems to know what's going on around him, when he shouldn't have a clue. Every time I leave him with my mother, he should cry and fuss. He should be demonstrating a natural attachment to me that expresses itself in fear and dependence. But, he's calm. He knows I'm coming back, Mulder. Or he knows why I'm leaving. He understands." The words began to spill quickly from her lips. "When I went to pick him up the other day, my mother said that he'd crawled to the window and pulled himself upright when I drove up outside, so she knew I was there before I rang the bell."
"He heard the car," Mulder interrupted her stream of evidence.
"He knew I was coming, Mulder," she insisted. "You haven't noticed anything?" she pressed.
Mulder said nothing.
"I want him to be normal, Mulder. But if you're right and they already suspect that he isn't…then this is worse than I thought."
"He shouldn't be with your mother," Mulder said quietly.
"Who else can we leave him with?"
"In another situation, he'd just be a normal kid. We draw attention to him. Even if he is completely normal, there are going to be questions. And what would your mother do if someone burst through the door with the intention of taking William?"
"Who else is better equipped to protect him than us, Mulder?"
"I just want him to have a chance at a normal childhood." He paused, because Scully wasn't going to like what he had to say. He'd been considering the possibility since he woke up in that hospital bed. "Maybe he should stay with your brother's family for a while?"
"Bill?" Scully asked, sitting upright. She looked at him as if he'd grown a second head.
"He'd have other kids to play with. Tara seems nice."
"You've got to be kidding me. Bill can't stand you, Mulder."
"I'm well aware of that."
The next time they met, he fully expected Bill to deck him. But, maybe he had it coming.
"I'm not sending William to live with them. He'd say awful things about you in front of William."
"No, he wouldn't. He's always just been worried about you."
"We disappeared, Mulder. We took William and disappeared in a puff of smoke. I haven't even called Bill since we came back. He probably blames it all on you. You've lost your mind," she said, getting up and leaving the room.
Mulder began counting silently to himself, waiting for Scully to reenter the room in a temper, so as to continue her rant. He only got up to sixteen.
She strode into the room and planted herself in front of the bed with her arms crossed, her cheeks becoming bright pink. "We're the only people that can keep William safe. We're his parents. He belongs with us."
Mulder understood the strong pull to keep William within their arms' reach. Maybe it wasn't just selfishness, maybe she was right. Maybe he wasn't safe unless he was with them. Maybe he was already marked. If he really was special, as Scully suspected, there wasn't a home in the world where William could hope to be normal and go unmolested.
"I want him here too," Mulder insisted.
Scully let her arms drop from her chest. "He'll be here soon," she responded quietly. She shifted her weight on her feet. "I couldn't bear it, Mulder."
"Forget I even suggested it."