AUTHOR: Katvictory
DISCLAIMERS: They all belong to Chris Carter and Fox, I want nothing. Don't sue.
RATING: R for the series
SUMMARY: After fighting his way back from near death, Mulder still must learn to deal with lingering disabilities and discover how to control his mysterious and often frightening psychic powers. Along the way old secrets are revealed and hidden truths uncovered that affect not only Mulder's and Scully's relationship but the future of the entire planet.
CATEGORIES: Angst, Partly post -colonization,
SPOILERS: We leave CC's universe completely toward the end of the 6th season.
FEEDBACK: dev1025@uswest.net
Note from the author: Eventually this story will be composed of three separate files, each one detailing a different period in this long story. This is File 2.
THE DAMASCUS FILES FILE TWO by Katvictory <><><><><><><><><> CHAPTER FOUR <><><><><><><><><>
FWM Tapes Winter 2003 Wellington Colorado
The problem with putting our idols high upon a pedestal is that unless the base is set on solid ground, even the most steady of stands will tumble; the higher anything is placed, the harder it will hit the ground when it falls.
*****
Kami was right, the progress I made from August to December was pretty amazing. Physically and mentally, I'd recovered by leaps and bounds, but emotionally I had regained only about as much control as an eight year old child. I thought I had found a father to replace the one who left me almost 30 years ago. Hardly a fair position to put a man in, who, at most, could chronologically only qualify as an older brother, but S.A. Wagner did fit the image of the perfect patriarch that I'd formed during my youth.
My dream dad had always been the archetypal man of the old west (Colorado), silver haired, tall, broad shoulders, who sat tall in the saddle. He was a strong, but gentle man. He had raised his motherless children alone - - (Kami and the 'adopted son' who lived back east, that I had never met). My fantasy father was kind and always ready to help those in need (a jobless, homeless woman and a blind, cripple). Top everything off with the fact Wagner lived on a huge spread, that had once been a ranch. Well, the man was just lucky I hadn't started calling him 'Pa'.
Seriously, there's little wonder, after my rebirth, I longed for the guidance and security that one looks to a father to provide. S.A.Wagner, robbed of his son so many years before, accepted the role with a gracious kindness that showed a heart as big as the Colorado skies.
Like all families, my selection of kin by choice had a few secrets hidden in his closet. Sadly, Wagner hadn't just kept these skeletons locked away from the outside world. Scully and I were also among those he'd kept 'in the dark'. My new found, surrogate father's hidden truths were revealed by the arrival of that mysterious, somewhat prodigal son. Alex Krycek visited Wagner that late December day, and afterwards nothing in any of our lives was ever the same. Once exposed, the bright light of truth can't be squelched. Like the promised Biblical Armageddon, that shining heat set off a blaze which would soon consume the world.
End Tape -WSS-
*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X
FROM THE PEN OF - Dana K. Scully December 29, 2001 Sky Watch Bed & Breakfast
I feel as though I'm trapped in a nightmare. I'm stumbling about, desperately seeking to discover what is truly real and what is my own self-deluding fantasy. I'm afraid that might be everything. My life has been nothing more than a gossamer thin facade and everything I allowed myself to believe during these past 2-1/2 years is nothing more than lies.
I have to laugh. It is bitter, and filled with self-contempt. I have let myself play the fool for so very long. So many times, both Mulder and I experienced moments when the nagging doubts about our living situation would squirm free from where we had them so tightly bound. It was only our earnest tag team effort at denial that has kept them sequestered for this long. Looking back in painful disbelief, I see our struggles as a mad dance to avoid the truth, where we each took the lead in turn, frantically trying to stay safe in a haven built of comfortable illusion. First Mulder then I, would put forth that one question, but always we would stop short. It seems we never really wanted to hear the answer.
"Why does Wagner want us here?"
We covered our benefactor's purpose in a cloak we ourselves made for him by accepting every glibly uttered half truth and seemingly sincere deception he put before us. I blame myself for what promises to be our downfall. Truthfully, how can Mulder be held accountable for this? I won't allow myself to escape my culpability by using the excuse of distracted concern over his injuries and illnesses. However, admission and acceptance of guilt won't rectify the situation. I have to discover what is actually happening here; unfortunately, the only way I see to accomplish this task is by direct confrontation.
*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X
"There is frequently heard a loud noise like thunder, which makes the earth tremble, [Indians] state that they seldom go there because [their] children cannot sleep - and conceive it possessed of spirits, who were adverse that men should be near them." William Clark - 1806 Journals
S.A. WAGNER CONVERSATION DECEMBER 30, 2001 -TAPE 1 S.A.Wagner, Fox Mulder, Dana Scully Recorded at Sky Watch Bed & Breakfast Wellington, Colorado Subjects: Sky Watch, Roswell, C.G.B. Spender
(Tape On).
SCULLY - Good idea, keep it running.
S.A.WAGNER - (Laughs). I wouldn't have it any other way, Scully. Get Mulder's recorder set up. Never hurts to have a backup. Oh, (laughs) I guess you already have that covered, huh?
MULDER - (Impatient anger). Just get on with it.
SCULLY - You called us in here. Just say what you have to say.
MULDER - Lay some more lies on us, Wagner.
WAGNER - I never lied, Mulder. I kept things from you. I've covered things up. But you were never lied to.
(Long pause).
You can either sit here now and listen to everything I need to tell you or come back for the tape. I'm probably going to be here most of the night getting this all out, but I have a lot to explain...
MULDER - No shit...
SCULLY - Shut up, Mulder. Let him talk.
MULDER - (Barely audible). Fuck this...
(Long pause. Mulder and Scully have left the room but the tape is left running).
SCULLY - (Out of breath upon her return). You know how you've hurt him? (Pause). Okay, here's his recorder, I'll make sure he hears what you have to say. Speak right into the mike.
WAGNER - (Sigh). You're staying?
SCULLY - I like a good story.
WAGNER - I can promise a long story, Scully. But it's a true story, like I told Mulder, I don't lie.
SCULLY - Just tell it, Wagner.
WAGNER - All right (pause). Ever hear of the Piute Ridge Grasslands?
SCULLY - Yeah, I think it's a national wildlife reserve not far from here, isn't it?
WAGNER - About 20 miles northeast and yes, it's being run as a high plains eco-system project. The government bought that land from my father the year I was born, 1946. I guess that's when my STORY starts. Mid-August of that year dad was out near the butte that overlooks the north side of the area. He was checking out what was left of a shack. It was one of the last of the old line camps left from back in the days when Sky Watch used to run cattle there on the grasslands. He'd heard from an old hand that lived just south of the place that some kids from town had been out there and according to the retired cowboy, "they wuz liquored up and out doin' no good." He was right, the ancient outbuilding had been completely destroyed.
Dad told me the vandalism had made him sick. He felt like driving back to town and kicking some young ass. The boys had destroyed part of my family's heritage. A piece of history was lost to a night of drunken fun and games. Now, my father wasn't a violent man. So he decided a walk might get rid of some of his anger. He hiked out across the plain and had almost made it to the base of the ridge when he spotted the lights. You've got to understand, this was 1946 and Alexander Wagner was a no nonsense, feet on the ground sort of man. I doubt, before that warm summer night, when he had gazed up at the stars, he would have even considered wondering if perhaps someone or something might be looking back. I could be wrong, of course, but I don't believe I am.
It was exactly eighteen minutes from the time my father first noticed the bright object on the horizon, until it set down on the rocky shelf above him. That's what I mean about no nonsense. The man actually had the presence of mind to time this amazing vision. You can bet, if he'd had his camera, there would be clear, perfectly focused, documented proof of alien visitation. As sure as his hands were, he couldn't have taken one of those blurry, maybe it is, maybe it isn't, pictures that the UFOologists display with such pride. Not my father.
The moment he saw the massive craft disappear overhead, he knew he'd seen enough. He'd just made it to our old Ford truck when a dull thud shook the ground, reverberating through the leather soles of his boots. He glanced over to the distant butte and made note of where the strange object had set down. Then, scrambling into his seat, he raced off to inform the authorities. He felt this was his duty as an American.
My father first told me the truth when I was fourteen, though I'd dogged him with questions about the place my entire life. The legends surrounding Piute Ridge had been told to the first white explorers, along with tales of the land to the north that breathed fire. When Clark's man, Colter, explored Yellowstone in 1808, one set of legends was explained. The strange things that go on at Piute Ridge would probably still be nothing more than folklore if those kids had just stayed sober. Sort of amazing to think about how different my life might be right now if one of those teenagers had just said no (laughs).
The stretch of tall-grassed plain that lay beneath the dark, maroon colored ridge was once considered to be sacred ground by the Piute and Pawnee. It was feared, too. The local Native Americans would never cross that lush, fertile land. It was a haunted place of lights and frightening gods who would carry anyone away who was foolish enough to venture there.
You could still hear the stories about the lights while I was growing up. People would always question me about what had happened there, that first year after the war, when my father had sold off our land to the government. To dad, what he had done when he'd turned the matter and our property over to the military had been necessary for the security of our country. He'd never breathed a word to anyone about what had gone on. Loose lips sink ships. But when he thought I was old enough to keep a secret, he told me everything.
Scully, you have to know about the time I grew up in to really understand my relationship with my father AND what led me to do what I did later. I loved my dad but his ideas of "America - love it or leave it" never sat right with my generation's consciousness. We were the children that were going to change the world. President Kennedy had challenged us to be the standard bearers. He told us WE could change the world.
When Dad told me his secret, that the mysterious lights at Piute Ridge were visitations from aliens, and he'd been sworn to secrecy by our government, I was full of indignation that my own father was allowing the truth to be covered up. I called him a hypocrite. He ranted and raved constantly about the oppressive spread of Communism and how the atrocities Stalin had committed in Russia were kept secret from the 'free' world. Yet he believed it was right to keep the people of this country in the dark about what their military was doing in our own back yard. On land that we had previously owned.
It got so we couldn't say two words to each other without one of us getting angry over what the other had said. I don't know, but if it hadn't been dad caving in to the military, I probably would've found something else to argue with him about. Kids always have to have something to rebel against, some way to prove they're different than their parents.
I stewed for two years over what had happened at Piute Ridge. It all came to a head the Summer of 1963. I got to go to Washington, DC because I was the president of Wellington High's Honor Society my senior year. It was Mary Scott, my vice-president and I, plus Coach Ridgely and his wife as chaperones, who made the trip. I felt this was my chance to uncover everything I needed to know about what was really happening at Piute Ridge. I'd laid some ground work with an organization I'd written to about buying information. For a price, I could get proof that the American public was being lied to and oppressed just as much as all the communist countries dad obsessed over.
I'd learned early that my family's fortune was an easy way to get doors to open. You know, I can tell by your expression, Scully, what I just said didn't sit too well with you. It's a fact of life, you know?
SCULLY - Yeah, selling our country's secrets to the highest bidder, nothing wrong with that! Having secrets is wrong in the first place. Bet your mercenary pen pals only sold their product to people like you, good, loyal Americans. I just wonder how you were able to justify doing what you did. Your father only did what he truly believed to be his duty.
WAGNER - You're right, I know. My father might have been a blind, patriotic fool, but I know he never had to hide behind his beliefs to justify his actions. You don't know how many times I've wished I'd never started this self-righteous quest. I paid for the truth all right, the price was my father's trust, my Anna's life...The truth has cost me everyone I've ever loved. Well, everyone except Kami (long pause).
Still, there's a chance that I might have bought us all a future. Look, just let me tell my story. I know it's long, but when I get to the end maybe you'll understand why the truth just might be the only thing that'll save any of us.
Like I said, I'd been setting this up for over a year. I'd sent over $1,000.00 to the contact I'd discovered in, of all places, a John Birch Society news letter. Before you ask, that money was really mine. I didn't sell my dad out behind his back. I'd had my own bank account since I sold my first spring lamb at the county fair when I was eight. That grand was my life's savings. It was the profit plus interest from every animal I raised for ten years, but it bought me what I wanted to know. Hell, it bought me MORE than I wanted to know.
You haven't said anything, but I know what you're thinking and you're right. Thank you for not laughing, Scully. It was pretty naive, but kid's were young a lot longer back then. I didn't realize that secrets like I wanted to know weren't actually bought for such a paltry sum. I didn't know I'd caught someone's eye and was getting a bargain of a lifetime.
I was supposed to get my information on the steps of the Lincoln memorial in broad daylight. I never even saw the person's face, he just passed by me and suddenly there was a book bag in my hand. Not even a brief case. I remember being kind of perturbed because I was a little old to be carrying a book bag, but I'd read enough Ian Fleming to know that after the drop off you just keep moving.
I got back to our hotel room without Coach Ridgely knowing I'd left. Mary and I weren't due to meet up with him and his wife for the tour of landmarks 'til noon. I slipped in and after locking the door, I tore into the satchel. It was the wrong information. I looked through that file, my first file, and my hands began to shake. I was seeing proof of something that I knew was probably going to get me killed. I was going to be dead at seventeen, and it was over information I didn't even want.
SCULLY - What? It wasn't the file on UFOs? What happened?
WAGNER - Well, apparently, the file I was supposed to get got intercepted and this file was my protection. I didn't know this at the time, but I had made a friend somewhere and this person knew I had to be taught a few things, like how to cover my ass. There was a note written on the manila folder that told me I had to do something to protect myself. Somebody already knew I wanted information I wasn't supposed to have, and it wouldn't take them long to figure out that I had this file. There was a list of suggestions and I followed them to the letter.
I immediately left and took a cab to the Smithsonian Institute, where I asked for a woman named Anderson. She knew exactly what I needed, without even being told, a copying machine. She helped me run off these files, then drove me to three different banks. I got three separate safety deposit boxes at each of them. No one blinked an eye, except maybe because I was so young. I put a copy of the file in each box. Then, she took me to the post office where I mailed a note to nine of my classmates, sending them a key. My note just said, "Shaken, not stirred, hang on to the key." My friends were used to me doing strange things, I'm a Wagner. But, you know, they all still had the keys in September.
Miss Anderson got me back to the hotel at supper time. Mary, the coach and his wife were just getting back from the tour and my ass was grass. Ridgely was on the phone with my dad telling him how they'd looked for me all morning and how many dimes he'd wasted calling the hotel. Luckily, the banquet was the next day or I would have been sent home then.
SCULLY - What was in the file?
WAGNER - (Laughs) I finally went over it that night. It was a letter from my unknown, new found friend. It was a record of surveillance done and information collected on a man, a very dangerous man; and proof of a murder, photographs and a detailed autopsy report.
Everything in this file had been put together to make it easy for me to understand. My friend had set it up so that it read like a book. The story opened with a memo written to the evil man by none other than John F. Kennedy . You know this villain as C.G.B. Spender (laughs). You know, Scully, you'd make a better poker player if you didn't have those eyes. They sparkle like sapphires when you know you have something (pauses, then laughs once more). But, then again, they do make a man forget just about everything else, so you probably could make a killing at the tables. Ah-h-h, where was I?
SCULLY - Kennedy's note to Spender?
WAGNER - Okay. The file opens with a short note to Spender telling him that these are his tickets to Los Angeles. The woman in question should not be harmed, just convinced that it would be in the country's best interest if she were to forget she knew him. The President suggested to Spender that he remind the woman of how her little birthday song had caused him quite a bit of trouble at his home and with the press.
Next are some cryptic scribbles from surveillance done of this meeting between Spender and the woman. It seems that the message WAS delivered. The woman was shattered, comfort was given, and the evening ended with the messenger in bed with the recipient. It picks up again with Spender leaving discretely the next morning. This memo is dated June 1, 1962. Marilyn had a little over two months to live.
There were a few more notes scribbled on Spender's visits to the star. Nothing really that fascinating. I found out later that she and DiMaggio were going to remarry in early August, so all the talk about her causing trouble for Kennedy because she still had the hots for him was bogus. At least that's what I thought. She called the President's brother that last night but I don't think it was because she wanted to start trouble. I think it was because she was afraid. From what was in the autopsy report, she had good reason.
It was true that she died of an overdose. What the 'official' report neglects to detail is that there was a needle mark found between the last two toes on her right foot. Spender was so damn clever on this one. He arranged it so no barbiturates were found in her stomach's contents. There wasn't even the tell-tale red dye in her stomach or staining her esophagus. Spender made sure that the rumors would start about the President and Bobby being involved. He made certain the telephone company didn't cover up who Marilyn called that night. Bobby's name was there for everyone to see if they started looking. Still, he'd made it so there was room for doubt as to the President's guilt. No one wanted the office of the chief executive sullied. You see, John F. Kennedy had already lost the support of the 'powers that be'. He had become a liability. He didn't have much longer, either.
The most important piece of information left out of the autopsy was one that just might have politically put a nail in the President's coffin. But I guess Spender hated Kennedy too much to let him take the credit for impregnating the most beautiful woman in the world. C.G.B. Spender knew who the father was of the barely formed fetus that lay in Marilyn Monroe's womb. It wouldn't be the last time the man killed his own child.
I don't have the original file. Only my copies. I must have over fifty now at various sites. What I have on this man could put him away for life and he knows it. But I learned a long time ago, no one stands up to the devil without feeling the heat. I've been burned. My scars are plain if you know where to look.
SCULLY - So you had other dealings with Cancer Man?
WAGNER - I forgot that's what you and Mulder call him (laughs). Alex told me.
SCULLY - (Her tone is bitter) Krycek. Krycek works with that man.
WAGNER - Alex is just keeping an eye on him for me.
SCULLY - (Pause) Mr. Wagner, if you think Krycek works for you, you're a fool. I think Alex works with whoever he thinks is on top at the time. Apparently, that must be you at the moment.
WAGNER - (Long pause) Well, let's hope he's right this time, Scully. I guess it's good news, because from what you say, Alex must be pretty good at picking the right horse...it seems he's played the field a long time.
SCULLY - Go on with your story, Mr.Wagner. I'm starting to believe you.
WAGNER - Good...because I need you and Mulder to trust me...
SCULLY - (Her tone is sharp) I SAID I'm starting to believe you, not trust you.
WAGNER - (Sigh) Well, then I guess I have more talking to do.
There was a letter waiting for me when I got home. I've saved all 'my friend's' letters but the first one. I think I memorized it. I was told that there is 'cancer' in our country that is eating it alive. That there are men who claim to be trying to save the world, but just might be leading us to our final destruction. I was told about a project and a pact; and how this group was experimenting on their own children in order to survive the end of the world. The letter told me that my own arm already bore the mark of selection. I was told that the only hope I had, now that I knew the truth, was to watch, to gather what proof I could, and to wait for the time when I could use the truth as a weapon. My protector said he would let me know when the time came. He signed the letter J.D. Hardin.
SCULLY - (A giggle escapes her). Didn't he write paperback western novels?
WAGNER - (He chuckles). Well, I assume it was an alias, but since my father owned a ranch, I thought it was clever. I always signed my answers that I sent to his Georgetown P.O. Box, Ian Fleming. We wrote each other for years. He was my contact, but even though I never met him, he was my friend. He stopped writing about five years ago. I think he's dead. The rent on the box ran out after two years, so my letters started coming back. I've never found out anymore than his name.
I was already in trouble with my dad for my disappearing act but things got worse. My dad received a visit from a man whose badge said he was Special Agent Charles Spender. I was being accused of attempted espionage. The minute dad heard UFOs mentioned he knew what Spender was saying was true. The man had the letters I'd written, asking how to buy information. He had my canceled money orders. With a grin that made me cringe, C.G.B. Spender began to spin the tale that I had been caught in a sting the government had set up to capture and prosecute communist spies. He assured my dad no charges were going to be pressed.
He said his agency had known all along that the letter writer had to be either someone very naive, very young or very stupid to even make these inquires in such an open manner. They were going to call a halt back when the laughable sum of $1,000.00 for national secrets had actually been sent; but claimed they had played the game out just to see who exactly would show up for the exchange.
I sat squirming in my chair as my father and this murderer laughed about my bargain basement treason. Dad turned to me and told me to get the file. There was no laughter in his eyes, only anger, and I hurried to do as I was told. When I handed the thick manila folder back, Spender laughed and asked my father if he would like to see the bogus file they'd rigged up 'for the kid'? Dad shook his head, suddenly solemn. The lump in my throat was huge. My father couldn't even look at me. His son was a traitor. Spender did meet my eyes; his gaze was dark and full of warning.
"Mr. Wagner, I'm sure the boy has learned his lesson. I wouldn't be too hard on him. How'd you like our little story, son? Did we have you going?"
I looked the devil straight in the eye, nodding, "Yes, sir. I honestly believed everything that this file said, and don't worry, I did learn my lesson." The man's smile disappeared for a brief second. Nothing was said, but everything was understood. By both of us.
The moment passed, and smile back in place, Special Agent Charles Spender turned to my father. "Good, that's what we wanted to do, make sure he learned a lesson. Ah, Mr. Wagner, there is a matter I need to discuss with you. Is there some place private we might talk?"
The file disappeared into a black leather briefcase. I received a glance from my father that told me I was excused. I hurried out of the room. My life changed forever that night. I don't believe dad ever forgave me for my treason and C.G.B. Spender became one of my father's most trusted friends.
How 'bout we take a break for a few minutes?
(S.A.Wagner leaves the room).
(Tape off). -WSS-
*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X
FWM Tapes Winter 2003 Wellington Colorado
Scully found me sitting in the '57 T-bird that had been Wagner's latest acquisition. I do have to admit, some of the things he collected were pretty cool. (Laughter from Mulder and Skinner. When it fades, Mulder's tone grows suddenly bitter). THEY must have taken the cars before you got back. I don't know how long 'til they started the fire. I was in and out of it so I couldn't tell you what all went on (a sharp laugh). Hey, I guess it doesn't matter if it's red or green, these old classic cars just kind of get in your blood, huh?
I'd wandered into the car barn because I'd been stupid enough to leave without my coat. Scully tried to stop me from going out the back door but I think she knew I had to get away to think. About an hour of walking around a backyard in Colorado during December tends to clear the head, especially with nothing on for warmth but jeans and a Bronco jersey. The only thing I had decided for sure was that if I didn't get inside somewhere, I was going to freeze. I spotted the barn and that's where I hid until Scully came to find me. I jumped when she opened the door and climbed in to sit beside me.
There was a moment's silence, but a smile was in her voice when she spoke, "Hey, are we goin' cruising?"
"Only if I get to drive," I murmured. I was feeling a little sheepish about my outburst when I'd left the room. My thoughts were still in turmoil. They had been since she'd told me about Alex Krycek's short visit with Wagner that morning. It was still hard for me to say what was in my head but Scully and I didn't need words most of the time. She knew how I felt, and the feel of her hand, slipping into mine and tightening in a quick squeeze of reassurance, made me smile. She pressed the small cassette player into my other hand.
"You need to listen, then I'd like you to come back to hear the rest of his story." Scully's voice was soft and my first instinct to vehemently refuse her request was tempered by her soothing tone.
I silently nodded I would and she slid the button on. Putting the small speaker to my good ear, I heard the first part of Wagner's tale. Then, I took her hand and followed her inside, eager to find out how it all was going to end.
End Tape -WSS-
<><><><><><><><><> CHAPTER FIVE <><><><><><><><><>
"Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings." -- John F. Kennedy
S.A. WAGNER CONVERSATION - TAPE 2 DECEMBER 30, 2001 S.A.Wagner, Fox Mulder, Dana Scully Recorded at Sky Watch Bed & Breakfast Wellington, Colorado Subjects: The Krycek family, Anna Wagner's death
WAGNER - Well, any questions?
SCULLY - I know this is hard for you...
WAGNER - No, this has been a fucking picnic; wait 'til you hear what's coming.
MULDER - Don't speak to her like that...
SCULLY - Mulder, wait. Let's just all calm down, okay? (Pause) I agree with you, Mr. Wagner. I think we need to hear your story.
WAGNER - Sorry, I'm sorry, Scully. I just haven't thought about a lot of this in a long time. Most of what I'm going to tell you, Kami doesn't even know. I don't want her to know, okay? You'll both promise me that, please?
SCULLY - I won't tell her. She won't hear it from us, Mr. Wagner. Will she, Mulder?
MULDER - (Barely audible) I won't tell Kami. (Louder) I promise. I won't tell Kami.
WAGNER - Thank you (long pause). Well, I started a new tape. Are you okay, Mulder?
MULDER - I'm fine.
WAGNER - Well then, here goes, I guess. C.G.B. Spender became a regular house guest here at Sky Watch. Dad was a die hard Colorado Republican, so most of the conversations I heard were about how they were going to have to make sure that the country saw the light by '64. They didn't talk about much in front of me. I told you, my father didn't trust me after what happened, and since I knew who, no make that WHAT, Spender was, I didn't trust my father.
TRUST. After what happened in Dallas, I think we learned that all that word gets you is dead. Trust. Faith. Hope. 'I had a dream.' 'I dream things that never were and ask, why not?' I wanted to believe, and one by one, the people who told me I should dream were silenced. I started college at Stanford in the fall of 1964. My major was business. I minored in party, and dropped out by 1966. When I returned home in 1967, after the summer of love, my father was already dying. Sky Watch had become a safe house for dispossessed Russian scientists. There were three of them living there with their families. One of the families was the Kryceks.
Nicolai was a quiet man who I never really got to know. He seemed an unlikely match for his wife, Jelena, the shining light. She was beautiful, a woman who made heads turn, and men stare wordlessly in awe as she passed before them, oblivious to how the world perceived her. I don't think Jelena was aware of anything around her except her loneliness and Alexei, her son. The fall I returned home the boy was almost two, and his mother had already chosen the path that would lead to her death.
The Cancer Man, as you two call him, had recruited Nicolai and his countrymen during a visit to the Soviet Union just after Kennedy's assassination. They were supposedly close to success, much closer than our country, in producing an alien/human hybrid. When my friend J.D. wrote to me about this, it always made me laugh. This talk of how close this faction or that group was to creating this wonder of bio-engineering, this hybrid. I always felt like reminding him of the old saying, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Close in their project was another non-viable fetus. Another woman forced to carry a life that either destroyed her body, her mind or her soul. So many times, it was all three. But you'll study the project later; I'll let you both see everything I have on it. I finally got my UFO files, Scully. But let me get back to Jelena, and how Alexei became my son.
I was almost 21 when I fell in love that first time, and as always, my luck held true, because it was with a woman whose heart had been captured by another. Jelena, the name means the guiding light. I walked around the ranch like an enamored school boy, dogging Jelena's every step. It's funny but no one seemed to notice, least of all Nicolai. The young scientist was too wrapped up in his work to notice anything but his research. Foolishly, I believed this was the cause for Jelena's lonely eyes. A husband who had too little time for her. If it had only been that simple.
Nicolai was grateful to anyone who kept his family occupied, because it allowed him to escape to his world of amino acids, proteins and DNA. So I took it upon myself to do the young husband a favor and entertain his wife with my rapier wit and boyish charm. Well, at least Alexei liked me. He thought I was extremely funny. The most I got from the boy's mother was a tolerant smile.
Spender showed up the fourth day after I got home, and I immediately noticed the difference in Jelena. The moment that son of a bitch walked into the room, she came to life. She smiled. Lord, such a smile. It lit her beautiful, wan face and made it glow with an ethereal fire. Her cheeks flushed a dusky rose, and I swallowed back my bitterness over who had brought about the change. She glanced at me, her dark eyes flashing, and the complete knowledge of the situation hit me, crushing me with disillusionment. I watched, my mouth hanging open in stunned shock, as my guiding light retired to her bedroom with the devil, who flashed me a triumphant smile as he closed the door behind them.
Alexei caught my hand and with his mother's grin, led me to my father's easy chair. We spent the afternoon with Horton and the Who, Curious George and The Cat in the Hat. Spender must have slipped out the front door while I was lost in my world of elephants, monkeys and troublesome talking cats. The boy and I only returned to the reality of mundane existence when his mother leaned over us, flashing a broad, breathtaking smile that thrilled both of us to our toes. The small boy and I had bonded, a connection made all the more secure because we both adored the same woman.
By mid-autumn it was more than evident that Jelena was expecting a child. That Nicolai was unperturbed by his wife's pregnancy led me to believe that the new arrival was just another brother or sister for Alexei and not a product of my unrequited love's illicit affair with Spender. I was partially right. The bright eyed toddler who'd stolen my heart, and the child Jelena carried did share the same set of parents, it's just that the science obsessive biochemist wasn't one of them.
I noticed the change in Jelena just after the new year. I first assumed it was due to her advancing condition, but half way through the month I realized that Spender had not put in an appearance since long before Christmas. Nothing I did seemed to break her depression, nor would she speak of the matter to me. I began to worry as she approached the last part of her pregnancy because not even Alexei could rouse her from her lethargy. She wouldn't speak, was not eating , she moved about the house like a wraith. I took over her son's care. Between keeping watch over the two-year old, and nursing my father who was in the last stages of the terminal cancer that would kill him, my time was consumed.
I didn't notice she was missing until almost noon that late March day. Alexei's second birthday was two days away. I was discussing plans for a party with Mrs. Filson, our housekeeper, when it struck me that I hadn't seen Jelena all morning. Nicolai hadn't seen her since he'd gotten up, and a quick check of their room showed the bed was made but there was no sign of Jelena. We called her doctor and the hospital, to no avail. The sheriff was informed, but the report was taken casually, and we were told not to worry.
We got the news just after lunch the next day. She'd been found by the maid at the Fort Collins Motel where she'd checked in alone the day before. It looked as though she'd taken half a bottle of Seconal, drawn a bath, and dressed in a shear pink gown. She'd bought the gown for her planned hospital stay after the birth of the baby. She'd climbed in the tub, and slit the inside of her forearms from the wrists up. The baby was a seven-pound, two-ounce boy. We buried them together at Grandview cemetery. Nicolai granted me guardianship of his son. The Russians left Sky Watch in early May for greener pastures, and better laboratory facilities in Washington, DC. By July, it was just me and Alexei at the ranch. We made do.
(S.A.Wagner leaves the room).
(Tape off). -WSS-
*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X
FWM Tapes Winter 2003 (Exact date unknown)
Ever since I was a child I loved horror novels, and I lived for scary movies. My father never did figure out what happened to his paperback copy of "The Exorcist" that he set on the end table by his easy chair after reading only a few pages. It disappeared, never to be seen again. I'd inherited my craving for hair-raising, bone-chilling entertainment from my dad, if not genetically it was by osmosis. Mom always used to fret that my reading and viewing habits were what caused my nightmares. Even at my worst, as a surly, bitter, smart-mouthed sixteen year old, I never had the heart to tell her that my real life was more frightening than any fiction I'd witnessed. I might have been a book-snatching, disrespectful ass hole as a kid, but I guess I just don't have it in me to be deliberately cruel.
The reason I'm rambling on about this subject is that lying here in the dark tonight, I've been playing the details of Wagner's tapes over and over in my head. His life had so many tragedies it's frightening. I guess it has me contemplating the nature of fear. Even as a child, I never found monsters, or 'ghosties or long legged ghoulies or things that go bump in the night' to be particularly terrifying.
Now, I'll most likely dream tonight about what Wagner talked about or similar events in my life and wake up screaming. I'll probably scare the shit out of Skinner! Terror for me has always been things like the irreversible destruction of a fire stealing a family's home. Watching helplessly while someone you care for suffers. Finding someone you love is gone and knowing that there is nothing you can do, but endure the emptiness that comes from being left alone. That's the one thing I fear most, being left behind.
Tape End -WSS-
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S.A. WAGNER CONVERSATION - TAPE 2 (continued) DECEMBER 30, 2001 S.A.Wagner, Fox Mulder, Dana Scully Recorded at Sky Watch Bed & Breakfast Wellington, Colorado Subjects: The Krycek Family, Anna Wagner's Death
WAGNER - Sorry about that. There was something I needed to do. Did you at least get something to eat and drink while I was gone?
MULDER - We're fine (pause). We can do this tomorrow. You don't have to finish this now.
WAGNER - But I do, Mulder. I have to finish this. Now. We don't have anymore tomorrows left. Just let me get to the end. Okay?
MULDER - (Softly) okay.
WAGNER - (A very long pause as the man composes himself. A deep sigh). It was just Alexei and me for a lot of years. And Mrs. Filson, of course. It reminds me of what Einstein once said when someone asked him to explain his theory: "When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, you think it's a minute; but when you sit on a hot stove for a minute, you think it's two hour's. That's relativity."
What can I say about those years? That they just flew by? Looking back on them, I guess they did. But I remember sometimes how the nights seemed endless because I spent them alone. Still, for the most part it was a good decade, Alex and me batching it. It was very lucrative. You both know me, I'm not a man who obsesses over money. Everything else, but not wealth (laughs). I did have a good string of luck. Hell, it was more than luck. I didn't lie to Spender. I had learned my lesson. While post World War Two America was ruled by industry, the key word for this last quarter of the 20th century has been INFORMATION. With my mentor J.D.'s help, I became a master at knowing where to be, what was needed, and how to get--information. Another zero was added to the Wagner family fortune and it allowed me to pursue my other interests and obsessions.
In the fall of 1978 I met Anna. That's when I bought the studio. I'm sure you know all about it...or are you two too young? (pause, laugh) She was the star of that seventies show, "Butler's Beauties". Remember, the one about the three lovely private eyes who worked for the mystery man, William Butler?
MULDER: Was she the one with the poster?
WAGNER: Yeah, you do remember (laughs). They called it jiggle TV at its finest. The press had a field day with our relationship. The billionaire and the blonde "Butler's Beauties" bimbo. They didn't know either of us, but it was good copy. Actually, we didn't mind. The show's ratings went through the roof, her salary went up six figures, and I am part owner of the network. It paid for our honeymoon. On the surface, our relationship did look suspicious. I was either portrayed as the dense Colorado cowboy billionaire, who'd inherited his fortune and was being played for a sucker by the much younger, conniving starlet wanting to sleep her way to the top. Or they would ignore Anna's education and obvious intelligence, and confuse her with the role she played on the show. She was the big busted, ditzy member of 'Butler's Beauties' whose chest measurement was larger than her IQ. They would print that the much older, billionaire playboy had bought a sex slave and a studio all in one deal.
Anna quit the show the next year and returned with me to Colorado. My big busted, blonde beauty became simply my partner, my lover, my wife and my best friend. There was a little friction with Alex, but he finally seemed to accept our relationship. Like I said before, kids always find something to rebel against. Kami was born in 1981. We found out about the cancer just after she was born.
Anna was nursing Kami when she found the lump. My wife was statuesque and what they used to describe as full-figured. Unfortunately, the tell-tale signs had been missed and she needed more than a lumpectomy. She had a radical mastectomy of both breasts right before Christmas of 1981.
1982 and '83 were spent waging the battle against the disease. It looked like we were winning, but the fight began to take its toll on our relationship. Sometimes I think Spender never sleeps. For almost forty years he has watched me, jumping on each and every chance he has had to make me pay for the knowledge I have of him. Anna and I were in DC attending a benefit for the American Cancer Society. My wife was one of the women being honored during the dinner that evening for her part in helping to bring public awareness to the fight against breast cancer, and the importance of regular self-examination.
(Pause) Anna had been suffering with depression that fall. The chemotherapy had gone well but had left her very tired, the whole second year, she never quite regained her strength. We argued that night, but I thought no one had noticed our troubles. Anna was not the type to air our dirty linen publicly, and I, like my father, tend to keep my cards close to the chest. As far as I know, only one person noticed the strain between us. I left the affair early, right after the dinner, taking a cab back to our hotel alone. Anna didn't return to our room until the next morning.
I was waiting for her when she walked in. She was such a beautiful woman. The stoic strength she showed, struggling against the debilitating treatments during her fight against the cancer, only made her that much more lovely in my eyes. She stood in the entry hallway of our suite, her blue eyes pleading for understanding. I could tell she must have finished the evening drowning the pain and sorrow of our argument and my hurried departure. But I saw by the tearful sadness of her expression something more had happened than a simple night of spiteful drinking. My stomach dropped to somewhere around my knees as I clearly read the remorse in her face that spoke of the vows she'd broken.
I forgave her. How could I not forgive my Anna. The fact that the betrayal happened with my own personal devil somehow made it easier to accept. I knew the man so well. He was always there, waiting for me or mine to suffer a moment's weakness, so he could use it against me. My understanding surprised her, I think, and that black lunged bastard actually helped my marriage in the long run. The lines of communication between Anna and I opened up again after that episode.
We found out Anna was pregnant in January of '84. We acknowledged to each other the fact that the child she carried might not be biologically mine, but I'd raised one of Spender's children before. I'm not one to hold the sins of the father against an innocent. Our worries were more with Anna's health. My wife turned all her energies toward having a successful pregnancy. Her depression lifted. It seemed we had an excellent chance that both mother and baby would make it through to the birth without problems. .
Two days before the due date I left Sky Watch for a quick trip to Denver. I tried to get out of the business luncheon, but to no avail. My journey was a wasted trip, though, because the deal fell through. My meeting had taken twice as long as expected. I called Anna at seven, before I left the city to return home, and she was fine. She laughed with me about something I said, but for the life of me, I can't remember what it was. I only remember that she was in good spirits and that she laughed. I remember the sound of her laughter.
She was in bed when I finally made it to the ranch. Traffic had been tied up by two Fourth of July holiday accidents on I-25, so my 90 minute trip took almost four hours. It was a little before eleven when I unlocked the front door. I didn't think it was odd that Anna was resting, but the fact she'd gone to sleep before I returned did trouble me. I slipped into the darkened room to check on her. The moment I touched her cheek, I knew she was gone. My hand was shaking as I switched on the lamp. No one was ever able to explain how Anna got hold of Mrs. Filson's Soma. Our housekeeper swore she'd never brought the pills with her to work.
(Long pause) Do you mind if we take another break? (machine off).
Tape ends -WSS-
*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X
S.A. WAGNER CONVERSATION - TAPE 3 DECEMBER 31, 2001 S.A.Wagner, Fox Mulder, Dana Scully Recorded at Sky Watch Bed & Breakfast Wellington, Colorado Subjects: Aliens, CGB Spender, Dana Scully and Fox Mulder
WAGNER: Did you get another tape, Mulder?
MULDER: Yeah, Maggie gave me six packages of blank tapes when she gave me this recorder. There's six in each package (soft chuckle).
WAGNER: (Laughs). Maybe she figures since they're the little ones you're gonna have even more trouble keeping track of 'em than the last time.
We're almost done here. I'll try to wrap this up before New Years. I guess all I really need to explain is about what I know concerning Spender and the visitor's and what Alex came to talk to me about yesterday. Well, since it's after 1:00, make that day before yesterday. You two ready to go?
(Mumbled positive replies).
By the time I met my Anna, I had enough proof of C.G.B. Spender's misdeeds. I could have had the man convicted of everything from petty theft to crimes against humanity. Why, I could connect him, even at that time, over twenty years ago, to involvement in at least seventy-five murders. From movie stars, to presidents. From civil rights leaders to white supremacists. Spender always seemed to rid himself of whatever person got in his way. I know of only three people who he either couldn't or wouldn't touch and I am one of them. Spender knows what I have on him. He also knows I learned my lesson well. I have my ass protected. My information lies not only downstairs, but in the possession of over one-hundred different people scattered around the globe. Each one of these kind people know that if they do not hear from me at least once during any given calendar month, they are to go public with all the information I've given them. Spender and I are at an impasse. We have been for almost forty years. That's why I needed to talk to you two.
Alex came to warn me. It seems because of all that happened last year, Mulder's accident in Central America taking him out of the picture. So our visitors from afar have stepped up their plans for 'colonizing' our planet. Mulder, Alex didn't know you were doing as well as you are. No one has paid that much attention to you because everyone thought this time you weren't going to make it back. I thought it was a good plan to let everyone think that. I didn't count on this happening. You see Mulder, you and Scully, because of her connection to you, are the only other people Spender is afraid of crossing.
I have more that I need to tell you two, what's in my "UFO files" for one thing, and how I think you might be able to stop what is supposed to happen. Mulder, I think you need to talk with your mother first. I believe she should be the one to explain the hows and whys of your life to you.
MULDER: My mother doesn't remember anything...
WAGNER: Mulder, the stroke you suffered was probably every bit as severe as your mother's. Haven't things come back to you?
(Murmured reply of agreement).
I think if you let her tell you in her own way, she just might be able to clear up a lot of the questions you have. You've been watched your entire life, Fox Mulder, by a lot of people. Me included. We could tell you so much about yourself...but I think your mother should have that right.
MULDER: You want me to go see my mother? I haven't seen her since before... She never came to see me. Not even the first time, when I was shot. I don't want to see her. (There is the sound of Mulder hurrying to leave).
WAGNER: MULDER, SIT DOWN!
(Pause. Mulder sat down).
Good, you need to listen to me. There are a lot of things we have to do in the next few months; a lot of things we have to face that aren't going to be easy. But we have to face them just the same. You need to give her this chance to come clean, Mulder, to tell her story. You let me tell mine. It's her turn now. You need to listen to her.
SCULLY: (Softly) He's right, Mulder. You should go see your mother. You should hear what she has to say.
MULDER: (Pause) Will you be with me?
SCULLY: Yes, Mulder. Always.
(Machine off). Tape End -WSS-
*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X
FROM THE PEN OF - Dana K. Scully January 1, 2002 Wellington, Colorado
"There is no such thing as chance; and that which seems to us merest accident springs from the deepest source of destiny." -- Shiller
It's only now that I can comprehend the full scope of the tale we heard night before last. As I sit here this morning, watching Mulder sleep beside me, I wonder about the winds of fate that blew us here, to this exact moment in time. How all those events we heard about have reached out and touched us, directing each person under this roof toward this very place.
Starting with that young rancher, just home from the war, standing that night in the tall prairie grass to watch a craft from a distant world. To a beautiful star who shone so brightly but died frightened and alone. To presidents and assassins, Russians and aliens. I guess I should add to the story my own memory of an eager, fresh faced rookie agent walking into a dark basement office, and seeing for the first time this man who is so much a part of me now. It's all connected, all coming together to bring those of us here to our destiny.
Mulder and I leave tomorrow morning. He called his mother and told her we were coming. As always, from what I heard of the call at least, it was an odd, strained conversation between two strangers who just happen to be mother and son. He needs to find some answers. We need to find some answers. Mulder needs to reconcile his past, then perhaps, we can begin to face our future.
<><><><><><><><><> CHAPTER SIX <><><><><><><><><>
FROM THE PEN OF - DANA K SCULLY January 4, 2002, Wellington, Colorado
It has been a long, tiring two days for both Mulder and me and I'm so very glad to be home. Even while he's soundly sleeping, one glance at his face shows the strain he suffered listening to his mother's lengthy, disjointed tale. Still, I believe knowing is better. Knowing has to be better than wondering, right?
The trip seemed worse because after we returned home this evening, he suffered his first seizure in nine months. It was a Grand Mal, but the duration was only just over two minutes. He actually recognized the onset by an aura and was prepared for it. I walked out of the shower and found him lying on the bed. He was about to explain what was happening when it struck. Afterwards, he was able to recall the sensations he experienced just preceding the episode and related them to me. So finally, we just might have a warning of these brain storms if, and when, he has another.
Mulder was still deeply upset that he convulsed; he has been taking his medication religiously. I tried to comfort him by explaining that the episode was most likely triggered by the strain of the trip, and having to deal with his mother and all she'd told him. I even attempted to placate him by mentioning that he should be pleased he has learned to catch the telltale harbinger of an impending seizure by the aura, but he was just too depressed to listen. His head was pounding, his body sore from the spasms and the tiredness was overwhelming. He didn't care to hear the 'good news'. All that matters to him is he suffers from post brain injury induced epilepsy, and probably will for the rest of his life.
He will most likely sleep throughout the night so I thought I'd use this time to go over the tapes we made with his mother. I'll see if I can transcribe them. Perhaps with a bit of "color commentary", and a lot of luck, we just might get a cohesive story out of the rambling remembrances.
*****
We arrived at Teena Mulder's residence early. We had rented a car and come straight from the airport. Mulder seemed in good spirits, perhaps a bit nervous. Not having seen his mother in three years would have been more than enough reason for his nervousness. I reached over as we strolled up the walk and took his hand. The slight squeeze I felt in return was my acknowledgment and thanks. I watched the flash of white teeth begin to worry that full bottom lip, his habit when he's nervous. It was just further proof that this homecoming wasn't something he looked forward to or particularly wanted.
(I am going to have to take the time to watch Nick at Night. My knowledge of seventies television is sorely lacking, and between Mulder and Wagner I'm at a decided disadvantage at understanding their coded references to the pop culture trivia of that time. I know it has something to do with some television show, but why did Mulder laugh when Mr. Wagner yelled out as we boarded our plane, "Good-bye, John Boy")?
I was a bit taken aback when Teena Mulder answered the door. I had not seen the woman in over three years and time has not been kind to her. It seems that her excuses of failing health have been truthful. She was no longer the stately queen I remembered, but a frail, elderly dowager who began to sob when she saw her son.
Mulder actually is in fairly good health now, and the aftereffects of his injuries and illnesses are not THAT noticeable. Well, perhaps they are to a mother who had not seen her son in almost half a decade. Though the scars on his face are gone, the fact that he's missing his left eye is plain to see. He wears a patch to cover the smooth skin that is all that remains of the empty socket. When he walks there is a noticeable limp. His right side is still weak, and he tends to hold that arm close to his body, a telltale sign of his hemiplegia. Mulder is forty now, and his dark hair IS streaked with gray. Still, I find the silver strands strikingly handsome. Even with all he has suffered, the lines of age have not so much attacked his countenance but defined it. If I were only so lucky to be aging as well as Fox Mulder. I hate admitting what gravity and the years are doing to me.
Mulder's response to his mother's tearful fawning over what had happened to him was a thinly masked irritation. As time went on her constant reminder of how he had changed began to take its toll, and wore him down. It got to me, too. By the end of this session, all three of us were emotionally exhausted. That we even returned the next day to finish up the interview shows just how much courage my partner has, and what finding the truth means to him.
Between the two of us we finally were able to get Teena into the living room, and on the right track. We told her what we wanted. After informing her we were recording the interview, we began --
KRISTENA ELIZABETH KUIPERS MULDER CONVERSATION - TAPE 1 JANUARY 2, 2002 Teena Mulder, Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, Greenwich, Connecticut
TEENA - It was January of 1961 when the tests began. I was the first one to "take," so we called the baby Adam. The visitors knew from the start he was a boy. They, of course, planned it that way. Since I was the first, my test was the simplest, and I was the only in vitro, human ovum/hybrid recipient to make it full term. I don't think this was the test they did on Jackie Kennedy. Was it? (She pauses as though she expects an answer from us to this odd question. When none is forthcoming she sighs, then continues). Well, I don't think it was. Her baby lived a few days, and she always said that Jack's DNA was in the child. So it couldn't have been like my test, could it? Because Adam had nothing of Bill in him. (She stops and looks deep into Mulder's eye. He can't see in the dim light of the living room, but he knows she believes she has made visual contact with him. He stares at her intently, trying to make out her expression. Teena grips her son's hand as she speaks). Neither do you, Fox. The visitors did all kind of tests, trying to figure out where you came from. They never did find out for sure, but they knew it wasn't from Bill Mulder.
(Mulder digests this information silently as he slips his hand from her grasp. I have no idea what she is talking about so the first round of questioning begins. Thankfully, this time she is lucid in her replies).
SCULLY - Mrs. Mulder, let me see if I understand you. In January of 1961 you were impregnated by the "visitors". THEY used your ovum and somehow by bioengineering they implanted 2 fetuses into you...
TEENA - No, one baby. They only put Adam in me. There was only one baby at first.
(The implication of what she is saying chills me. I glanced at Mulder and his face is deathly pale. I fear he might have a seizure at hearing this news).
SCULLY - You mean Mulder and Adam were identical twins? (I don't know how I got that sentence out. I'm surprised I was able to respond as quickly as I did). Mulder is an alien/human hybrid?
TEENA - (Laughing) No, of course not. Fox is entirely human.
(She reaches over and pats her son's hand. Mulder allows her this motherly gesture, but his face has taken on a grayish cast that frightens me).
MULDER - Mom, how can this be? You're not making sense here. (His words are fluid, no sign of aphasia. I am so proud of him. But they are spoken in a voice that is breathless and reed thin with strain). If THEY implanted only one fetus, and two were born, then the babies were identical twins. Identical, Mom. If the fetus they implanted was an alien/human hybrid, the second baby, the twin, would have to be, too.
TEENA - Fox William Mulder, I'm not ignorant. I know what the term 'identical twins' means. When they discovered you, the second fetus, that September, THEY were astounded. THEY couldn't believe they had missed seeing you for so long. THEY were so much more advanced than we were, yet nature could still play tricks on THEM. Fox, you were my miracle from the start.
(This time Mulder grimaces at the squeeze she gives his hand, but I don't believe Teena notices).
SCULLY - So you were well into your third trimester when you discovered you were carrying twins? The "visitors" apparently had some type of equipment that disclosed this...
TEENA - Well, that, and the fact one day in my eighth month I suddenly just got utterly HUGE. All in all, though, it wasn't an extremely uncomfortable pregnancy. (She pauses and glances at me. I know she's read the disbelief in my face). Ms. Scully, I assure you I am telling the truth, and I do know what I'm talking about. I might remind you, children usually get their intelligence from their mother's side and Fox is MY son. The visitor's proved that with all their testing. They just couldn't figure out who his father could have been. I believe they tested half of the east coast, from the president down to our gardener and never found a DNA match. What I'm telling you is this - In late January, THEY took one of my ova and through their superior knowledge, fertilized a zygote which THEY implanted in me. In late September, a second fetus was found in my womb. When I came to term, October 13, 1961, I delivered two babies via cesarean section. One, which THEY had named Adam, lived less than a day. THEY wouldn't even let me hold him. I only saw him through the glass, where they took him. When he succumbed, he turned into this green sludge. We were not even left a body to bury.
The second child I named Fox William. He was my son. Mine. I'm the only tie you have here on earth, Fox. You knew that when you were a baby. That's why you spoke to me the moment I first held you. We had that connection, Ms. Scully. I knew my Fox was special from the very beginning. I could hear him in my head. I didn't tell anyone at the start, and when I finally did, when he was three, that's when they took him from me. That's when I lost you, Fox.
(Teena Mulder begins to sob at this point and her son leaves, returning with a glass of water. Mulder offers her a shoulder to cry on. He grabs the hand I place on his own shoulder in comfort, and lightly kisses my palm, letting me know he is grateful I'm there for him. We leave the tape running, but nothing more is said about the past until after lunch, when we finally get the woman back on the subject of Mulder's history. The respite seems to have helped, and once again she picks up the story, almost exactly where she left off).
TEENA - I don't know if carrying Adam "unhinged" me. That seems to be what the general consensus was at the time. I kept knowledge of Fox's gifts to myself, not even telling Bill about them. Especially not telling Bill. You knew, you sensed, Fox, that you should only let me see just how amazing a child you were. Oh, you were being watched closely, by humans and aliens, but all they saw was a toddler that was exceptionally bright, extremely precocious, and somewhat advanced for his age. You knew just when to let it be known you could walk and talk. Early, but not too early. Seven months wasn't terribly young. Eyebrows were raised when you began to read at a little over two years of age, but it wasn't you who let our secret out. It was me. I have only myself to blame.
Things weren't going too well with their little "project". The still births and "un-viable results" were adding up. What happened with Adam and Fox told them that God considered their tests an abomination, but still they continued. I do believe they created a few monsters with their mad little experiments. And what it did to the women varied so, they never knew whether to have a straight jacket ready or if a bullet to the brain would have been more merciful. Maybe it WAS the strain of having Adam or maybe it was trying to hide the ever increasing mental faculties of my miracle child. Regardless, my slip up was so simple it bordered on lunacy. I let my three year old son read the New York Times and he made an off-handed, not very child-like, disparaging remark about the Warren Commission to his "father". How do they say it in the movies? The "jig" was up! They were on to us.
I didn't know it at the time, but Bill called in Spender to do the dirty work. I was taken away and it was February of 1965 before I came back to the real world. It seems that I had been involved in a car accident and my precious baby boy had been almost killed. He was just now coming out of the coma, but sadly, he was severely brain damaged. The strange thing was, I'd never driven a car in my life. You were never the same after that, Fox.
Bill came to the hospital, and informed me that I would be going home soon. I asked him if I'd been injured in this "accident". He told me, "No, only the boy." Apparently, I'd suffered a breakdown, and I was now in a psychiatric hospital. I had been since the "accident", three months before. I told him I wanted to see my son. Bill assured me I would, next week when I went home. I didn't say a word; I was afraid to argue. I was afraid to fight. When I realized what they'd done to you, I knew there was no hope. I stopped fighting back. I stopped caring. I conceived Samantha that month. She wasn't Bill's child, either. The only comfort I found was in the arms of the man who did this to my son. I didn't know, Fox. Spender was Samantha's father. But I didn't know he was the one who hurt you.
(Mulder is sitting at her side, on the arm of her chair. He has his back to his mother as she says these words. I see him stiffen, and a shudder runs through him. But he never turns to face us. Teena Mulder glances at me, a plea for understanding. I can't help her. The interview ends for the day. Mulder and I murmur our good-byes, but the woman doesn't utter another word. She simply slumps in her chair, her eyes haunted, lost in the past).
-DKS-
*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X
FROM THE PEN OF - Dana K. Scully January 5, 2002, Wellington, Colorado
Mulder is still sleeping, and I do believe he's coming down with something. He roused a bit at daybreak, and I took his temperature. It's a little over 100, so he just might be fighting a bug of some kind on top of fatigue. I'll finish my work here, and if he's not better, I'll see if Dr. Raposa will examine him.
That night, back at the motel, we talked over what his mother had told us. Emotionally, Mulder was spent. He was confused, angry, hurt and frightened by what had been revealed. The questions that had been raised bothered us most. Teena Mulder insisted that Mulder's paternity was a riddle that remained unanswered to this day.
"Scully," Mulder sighed, pulling me close as we lay in bed. Sleep would not come even though we both felt exhausted. "Why did I have the feeling when she kept insisting that I was her "miracle child" she was this close to claiming I came from an "immaculate conception" ?"
I smoothed his perpetually contrary bangs off his high, unlined forehead. My chuckle was uneasy at his bordering-on-blasphemous words.
"Well, she did say you just kind of "appeared" in her womb," I agreed.
"I've had my parentage questioned a lot of times in my life, but I've never been accused of being a son of a deity," he grinned.
"We almost have to believe her, Mulder. I mean, she admitted who Samantha's father was." My reply came without thinking, and I instantly regretted it when his grin vanished at the reminder of his sister's paternity.
"He'd told me that time at the diner that he was her father," he murmured softly, his lips close to my ear, head resting against my shoulder. "But he tried to tell me that clone he brought was really her. Scully, how do we know what's true and what's a lie? Even with my mother, is this all just more of their lies? Or are they delusions? Delusions are really big in my family, huh? Some forms of insanity are hereditary. Like mother like son."
I let my fingers play across the soft, warm skin of his cheek, biting my lip at the wetness that I found there. "Mulder, I don't think what she told us were delusions, or lies. I believe her."
His laugh was bitter, "I guess now we're going to have to make it on the strength of your beliefs. Mine are all worn out."
I let my lips brush his brow. "Well, you rest then. It'll be my turn, okay? I'll just have to find the truth that's out there."
I felt his embrace tighten around me, and I drifted to sleep, praying I'll be able to keep my promise.
*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X
The next morning Teena woke us and invited us to breakfast at "the club". Mulder is not one for dining out, and we wanted to keep his public appearances to a minimum, so we declined her offer. Instead, we grabbed something for a brunch that we could take to her house to share. She thought this "a lovely idea." I ignored Mulder's grinning suggestion of pizza, and after a stop at a local deli we arrived at her door, arms laden with a variety of sandwich works.
Teena shooed her son out of the kitchen, and he retired to the living room where he flipped on the television to some football play-off game, leaving the two of us alone.
"Ms. Scully," she began, breaking the silence just as we'd almost finished our meal preparations. "There's a lot I need to tell Fox today. Do you think he'll be able to handle what I have to say? Is he in good enough health to hear all this? He's been through so much; it hurts to see what he's gone through. Does he have to hear what else THEY've done to him, to his family, over the years?"
I studied her face, and read true concern there, but paused, wondering how to answer her. I discarded my initial, bitter reaction, of hot anger that she'd not been there for him while he'd suffered through so much these last few years. My heart melted at a glimpse of the liquid pain in those eyes that were so hauntingly familiar. Mulder had inherited his mother's eyes. I remembered how I used to look into those green, gray-flecked sea mist reflections of his soul. I saw that Teena Mulder's eyes mirrored what was in her heart just like her son's once did. I miss getting lost in his gaze.
"He has to know," I suddenly replied, not knowing where the words were coming from, but certain they were true. "You have to tell him now. We can't wait for a better time. It has to be now, because of what's coming. He has to be ready."
Teena Mulder's whole body shook at hearing my unexpected statement. She quickly nodded and silently pushed through the swinging door, carrying the pitcher of iced tea to the adjoining dining room. Still stunned by the odd reply that had poured out of me unbidden, I grabbed for the tray of sandwiches but had to stop a moment. I willed my hands to cease their trembling, and my knees to have the strength to support me.
I feel a force is driving us forward, on to the future, and I'm frightened, because once more, I'm just along for the ride. Mulder might be the pilot, but I don't know who, or what is navigating for us on this journey. I just hope it's the one to whom I'm directing my prayers for our safety.
We ate, watched the Broncos finally win a play-off game again, and put off the inevitable for as long as we could, but at last the recorders were once more in place and switched on.
KRISTENA ELIZABETH KUIPERS MULDER CONVERSATION - TAPE 2 JANUARY 3, 2002 Teena Mulder, Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, Greenwich, Connecticut
TEENA - Fox, before I go any further, I want to tell you about your father, about Bill Mulder.
MULDER - You said he wasn't my father...
TEENA - Fox William, don't be difficult. He's the only father you ever knew. (Mulder sighs, but allows his mother to continue). I sometimes let my anger at the man's frailties overshadow the fact that he was basically a good, decent human being. And he did love you children. Even if you weren't his blood, he loved you.
MULDER - I loved the way he showed it, Mom. Did he go to the same school of parenting as Joan Crawford?
TEENA - Fox, he wasn't a strong man. When he gave them Samantha, he couldn't face what he'd done. That's why he drank. His guilt ate at him until it consumed him. Just listen to me. Maybe you'll see why I can't hate the man. I despised his weakness; I loathe what he did, what he allowed to happen. But I don't hate Bill Mulder. And I don't want you to, either.
(I've never seen such disgust on Mulder's face as he listens to his mother's speech, and I can tell it is taking every bit of self control he has to stay in the room. His hands shake as he wipes at his face, trying to banish anger, pain, all the emotions that war inside of him. I am amazed at the strength he is showing).
MULDER - (His sigh is weary and the strain makes his voice break). Just tell what you have to tell, Mom. Don't worry about me. Just go on with the story.
TEENA - (She is fighting back tears, but she continues, speaking in a flat, emotionless monotone. She chooses to focus on me as she returns to her tale). I asked no questions; I did just what I was told. A week to the day after I "woke up", C.G.B. Spender showed up at the "Hospital" to bring me home. I didn't know the man, he simply showed up, introduced himself as a friend of Bill's, and told me he had been asked to help out. He explained, claiming he wasn't sure of all the details, only that Bill had gone to see about "our" son's release from the special clinic in Maryland where the child had spent the last three months. He seemed a nice man, quietly soft spoken and unassuming. A good Samaritan and friend to my husband, who knew of our family's tragedy and was extending a helping hand.
I grasped the offered assistance without a second thought. My only excuse to what happened was I believed I'd found someone who cared. Bill was gone that one night. Spender left before his return the next morning. Nothing was said, but I believe my husband knew what had happened almost immediately. Perhaps it was all part of some plan. I don't know.
The "accident" had turned my son back into an infant. Bill told me that he even had to relearn to swallow, but the clinic where he'd been taken specialized in treating traumatic brain injuries. With the right therapy, Fox just might recover. At least, they all had their stories straight. When I saw the thin, frail shell that was left of my miracle child, I cried. I looked for signs of what had supposedly happened to my son. They'd shaved his head; his baby fine ringlet's were gone. In their place was a season's growth of coarse brown hair. I noticed a faint, straight scar just above his hairline. This disappeared completely by the time his sister was born.
Therapists who came to the house to work with him were amazed at the progress he made that summer. It was certainly a testimony to the resilience of children. Fox was just like any other normal child by spring of the next year. He started kindergarten that fall. If you hadn't known what had happened, you wouldn't have thought him different from any of the other 4 and 5 year olds there. I tried not to remember. For the most part, I was successful.
I have pictures, would you like to see them?
(I watch her in stunned silence as she vanishes down the hallway toward the back of the house. Mulder rises stiffly from his seat and disappears in the same direction. Teena returns moments later carrying a huge, leather-bound book. She seems surprised when she notices her son has left the room. With a grin she eases beside me at the table, and begins showing off the photographic memories of her children. We are about a quarter of the way into the scrapbook when Mulder quietly returns to his seat).
Teena - Fox, if you want to join us, there's room.
(I start at her polite offer, amazed that she seems not to remember her son's vision problems. Mulder's face is parchment white and he smiles weakly).
MULDER - ( His tone is a soft, patient murmur). That's okay, Mom, I've seen 'em all before.
(Teena chuckles at his teasing truth. I don't know how much more I can handle of this surreal visit. Between shocking revelations, high intensity emotions, and the mercurial mental state of our hostess, I feel I am stranded in some sort of nightmare dream world. It is not quite over. There is more to come. The pages continue to flip, interrupted only by an occasional pause to lovingly study the memories. Every so often, Teena slips in a comment or asks Mulder a question to which he wearily murmurs some reply she only half hears. The routine stops when we reach the shots of her son's 12th birthday).
TEENA - ...And here you are, here's Sam and Nana. This was right before Nana died...
MULDER - (Mulder's head shoots up and he straightens). That was October of 1973. We stopped by the house on the lake after we took Nana home. What happened there, Mom? You remember now, don't you?
(His mother seems to shrink at his bitterly spoken words and the Mulder Family Album slams shut with a muffled clap. Time stretches out forever while she silently sits, head bowed, studying her hands that lie clasped together atop the big, brown book. Finally she looks up to stare at her son. I've seen THAT look before, in Mulder's eyes. Usually it had been directed at a person who was always surrounded by a haze of smoke. For once, I am grateful that my partner can't see. I think he feels the heat, though).
MULDER - Finish your story, Mom.
TEENA - This is where it ends, isn't it? Okay, Fox. I'll finish my story. Should I start with the nice sweater Nana bought you? Or later when we popped popcorn in the fire place? Is this what you want to hear?
MULDER - Finish, Mom.
(Teena sighs and closes her eyes. The lids look tissue paper thin to me, and her face sags, a bit more on the right. I try to remember if that was the side her stroke affected. She is so tired and frail. I am momentarily frightened I might be seeing the early signs of another one. I can't recall what affects had lingered after her last ICH. Aphasia, but that usually would have left facial paralysis...I'm still searching my memory when she speaks).
TEENA - We'd known this was coming. Bill had approached me the year before with their group's plan. He asked me to choose. I was supposed to pick which of my children to turn over to that bastard. I knew the truth by then, Fox. I knew what he had done. I was on to him. But, smart as he thought he was, he never suspected I was putting one over on him. I'd played my role, the not to tightly wrapped Teena Mulder, social butterfly. State Department wife and premier hostess for agency parties. But all the while I searched for the truth.
God, I hated them for what they'd done to you. To me. I couldn't love you. Either one of you. I was afraid to let myself love my babies. Not when they could take you from me at any time. What would they do to you next time, Fox? And Samantha? They'd made it so I couldn't let myself care. By the time Bill came to me with his plea for me to make a choice, I'd discovered who had actually taken you from me. I'd unmasked the devil. I knew the experiments had taken a new twist. Once I'd found that Bill was just a pawn in the whole giant scheme of things, I could almost forgive him. I began to learn of the group's plan to try to survive the alien's takeover. I agreed with Bill's quest. It meant a chance for survival. I supported him in his work, until I was told I had to donate one of my children to the cause.
His 'honor' made him want me to choose between you and your sister. I was your mother by blood, so I should decide. I refused. I think he decided on you, Fox, because he didn't want me to think his choice had been influenced by my being unfaithful to him. But for some reason his judgment was overruled. That's what we discovered that night after you children had gone to bed. Spender showed up to tell us that Samantha would be the one taken. I assumed it was Spender's way of getting back at me for rebuking him after I'd exposed his deception. The sheer extent of the man's evil nature is only eclipsed by one thing. His ego. But I was wrong about the reasons why I lost a daughter and not a son.
MULDER - (His control is gone and the husky, raw edge to his voice tells me just how close his tears are to the surface). We heard you arguing that night. I remember him being there. Sam and I heard it all. She told me she was afraid. (Mulder's turmoil at these memories keeps him from hearing his mother's statement about making an error in her reasoning as to why Mulder had been spared. I want to continue down this path, but his anguished remembrances push my desires out of my mind and I quickly hurry to his side. He wraps both arms around my waist, pulling me close). Scully, why can I remember this now? It's like it happened yesterday. So much is gone now. Why is that night there? It wasn't before. Not this plain. Not all of it. That was what I saw with the treatments. What I wanted to see. I don't want to see it anymore, Scully.
(He buries his face against my belly, muffling his sobs in shame. I smooth his thick, soft hair, biting back my own tears, suddenly realizing that his sorrow has finally been borne aloud. I find myself wishing I could make the pain of this sensory birth go away. I don't even recall Teena being here until she places the glass of iced tea in her son's hand. Her own eyes are full, but a wisp of a smile tugs at her lips with Mulder's murmured thank you. He drinks half the glass in one gulp, and his expression of sated pleasure makes me giggle. Mulder's chuckles are a bit less free but, at least, the tension eases. I remember the direction the story had started to travel and broach the subject of Teena Mulder's mistake, as we all take our places around the table).
SCULLY - Mrs. Mulder, how were you wrong? Did Spender have another reason to choose Sam? Could it have been he wanted to assure his daughter was going to survive the colonization, if the experiments they planned worked?
TEENA - (Her laugh is bitter). That would mean that Spender loved Samantha, wouldn't it? Or at least, cared about someone other than himself. You have to have a heart and a soul to love, and that man has neither.
I lost my mind when they took Sam. We left the house that night knowing it could happen at anytime. That THEY could take my baby girl from us. Maybe I just never believed THEY were actually going to do it. I wallowed in self-loathing pity, just like Bill. I stayed wrapped up in myself for over a decade. I knew what was happening in my absence, to my marriage, to my husband. To my son. But it wasn't until Fox went to England, that I finally saw past my pain. I didn't hear from my only child for four years. I was hurt and angry. At first it was at this ungrateful ass I raised. Then the truth hit me! I hadn't been a parent to my child in years. Why should he call? Why should he care? What had I shown him?
I began to think about everything that had happened, all the pain THEY caused me. I hated THEM for what THEY'd done. That led me to the question. Just who was it I despised so? I needed to put a face to my rage. I needed to discover the whole truth. I'd made it my duty to find out exactly what was going on. I decided in order to make sense of the tragedy that my life had become, I should go back to when everything had started to go wrong, and track each step that had been taken along the way.
I knew Spender had taken you from me. I knew it was because it had finally been revealed that you were becoming truly special. I'd seen the fear in those around me at your birth. The very fact that you existed confused and frightened both humans and aliens. That's why I tried to keep your development a secret. I'd failed, and my fears were realized. They took you from me. They harmed you, and they tried to make it look like an accident.
I believed before I'd realized the truth, that it was me they were trying to fool. I thought they'd destroyed your specialness, then tried to cover it up with butcher shop, brain surgery made to look like a car accident. I never stopped to think that they couldn't care less if I knew what they had done to you. Finally, after all those years of believing the lies, I asked myself the one question that I should have asked first.
Why didn't they just kill you? I know the answer, Fox. Dealing with a martyr to some trumped up cause would have been simple compared to the problems they've had in dealing with you. They don't kill you, my dear son, because the don't want to anger your father, God.
<><><><><><><><><> CHAPTER SEVEN <><><><><><><><><>
FROM THE PEN OF - DANA K. SCULLY January 5, 2002 Wellington, Colorado
I have a call in to Dr. Raposa. Mulder is ill. His latest symptoms make me believe that the fussy little boy we met on the trip to Connecticut, who would only stop crying while sitting in Mulder's lap, was fussy because he was coming down with strep throat.
When Mulder woke just after noon, his fever was up to 103. I gave him some Ibuprofen. He could hardly get the caplets down so I checked his throat. It was not a pretty sight.
I'm watching his fever closely for it just might have been a hidden trigger to his seizure. I don't remember Mulder feeling that warm, but then I wasn't even thinking he was sick, only stressed and tired. Looking back, Mulder hasn't actually suffered any illnesses where he has run a fever since a slight case of pneumonia while he was in the ICU after his gunshot injury. That must be some kind of record for him. It's amazing. Could it be an aspect of the self-healing power I'd never considered or did Mulder's luck at not catching a bug finally run out?
*****
The results are in and I was right, so it's rest, antibiotics, fever reducers and fluids for the next few days. The thought hit me that it might be wise to call his mother to make sure she wasn't infected with the virus, but I'm getting no answer. I have no idea what her routine is, so I don't know if not being able to reach her weekday evenings is the norm. The few times I've contacted her since Mulder's problems began back in '99, she was always home. The next time Mulder wakes up I'll see if he knows of anyone who might help me reach her.
We'd left her that evening in good spirits; she and Mulder were sharing a warm embrace just before he climbed into the rental. I called before we caught the plane yesterday because she seemed to grow a little fuzzy there toward the end. I might as well finish transcribing that last tape while I have a chance. She could have mentioned something in conversation that would give me a clue if she had plans to be out of the house today. I worry because I had concerns about her health, and the possibility that the strain we were putting her through could cause her to suffer another stroke. I will call again after I finish this. I may wake Mulder if she doesn't answer then and find out if he knows who we might contact.
*****
"The first fully formed men to be created were endowed with intelligence and they knew everything in the world. When they looked they would see everything that was around them, and they constantly contemplated the arch of the sky and the round face of the earth. . .
Then the creator said: "You know everything now, but your children . . . what are we going to do with them? That their sight may only reach what is near them, that they may only see a small part of the face of the earth. . . . Are they not by their nature simple creatures, products of our hands? Do they also have to be gods?" "
The POPOL-VUH of the Mayas-Quiche
KRISTENA ELIZABETH KUIPERS MULDER CONVERSATION JANUARY 3, 2002 - TAPE 2: Teena Mulder, Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, Greenwich, Connecticut
(Teena giggles. It sounds strange to hear girlish laughter coming from this woman and it's not simply because 'sixty something' is too far removed from youth. My mother isn't that much younger than Teena Mulder, and her laughter always reminds me that age is just a state of mind. I don't think Mulder's mother was ever one to laugh so hard her underwear was in danger. After announcing to Mulder that his Father was the same Father I mention when I cross myself, she not only gives a chortle, but her cheeks take on the color of an embarrassed teen. It has been a long, exhausting two-day interview. Mulder is too tired to come up with a glib, smart ass remark to cover his concern as to his mother's mental stability).
MULDER: (His whispered queries are actually plaintive pleas for reassurance that she's sane). Please tell me you're joking. Please, Mom?
TEENA: (Her face falls. She reaches out to touch his hand in comfort). Oh, Fox, I'm sorry. I forgot you've never been able to read me. I was just trying to be clever. You've always taken everything I say so seriously. I was being facetious.
What I was relaying is the irony that the visitors, who are so superior, so above we humans, still have the same beliefs that we all were created by some omnipotent Heavenly Father. They won't admit it, even to themselves, but your existence can't be explained any other way. You can't read those expressionless faces of theirs, but everything they've done in regard to dealing with you proves that they believe you are an act of God.
The child, the experiment that would have been Adam, was meant to be a blending of human and alien. Somehow, right before birth, the fetus split in two -EXACTLY dividing into one fully alien child, and one fully human child. That doesn't happen in nature, even after bioengineering. There ARE certain rules of science that even they can't bend. That cannot be broken. The only way they could explain this mysterious, inexplicable happening is that it was a miracle.
I found out that they still, shamefully, secretly, but ultimately, truly believe that we --both human and "Master Beings" alike, were created by one supreme entity. They reasoned that our creator didn't want our two "races" to mix and even though it went against their conviction that they are the ultimate, superior life forms in this universe, apparently, God feels we humans are his chosen people...because Fox survived. They've watched you, this unexplainable child of the creator, and fear his wrath should something happen to you.
Spender made up the story of the car accident, not to hide what he did to you from me, but from the visitors. He has tried every way he can to discreetly get rid of you, but has never succeeded. I think he's even starting to believe what the aliens do, because you keep rising from the dead, Fox. A second coming in the second millennium. I'm joking, son.
(Her wry grin is mirrored on her son's face).
So, actually, I guess you don't have a father. Genetically, you came only from me. Not a clone, of course, but from my essence. >From my ovum and touched by something divine. For a purpose.
(I believe if Mulder hadn't been so weary he would have run from the room, at hearing his mother's calmly uttered prophecy for his future. Instead, he starts to laugh. His harsh, bitter glee goes on a bit too long, and I feel the need to calm him. His hand on my arm, that I have wrapped around his chest, is tight, almost painful. It's as though he is grasping me tightly to hold on to his own sanity).
MULDER: I don't believe you. (He speaks softly, but his tone is raw).
TEENA: I think you do, Fox. I know Ms. Scully does. I see it in her eyes (pause). I'll tell you what I believe is happening now. It's getting past THIS old woman's bedtime and it has been a long two days. I'm tired (pause).
The visitors are here and like willful children, they want something they can't have. They've tinkered so much with themselves that they no longer know what they are. Everything that God put into us that makes us human, the special gifts of the ability to love, to laugh, to cry, to look around in wonder, they've rid themselves of. They thought those traits were useless baggage, and concentrated instead on cultivating the powers of the mind and lengthening their lives. They wanted to be gods. All powerful and immortal. They never realized that the parts of themselves they so thoughtlessly cast away were the traits our Father most wanted to pass on to his children.
Somehow, they know they've lost something, Fox. They want it back, but they don't really even know what it is. They feel their race is dying. Not literally, like in the science fiction literature (laughs). I don't think they're here to use us as breeders to save a dying race. But, they want what we have. Like a jealous sibling, envious of the parents' favored child.
You were put here to teach your brothers a lesson. You're our only hope.
MULDER: (He has calmed a bit). Why do I feel George Lucas should yell 'cut' about now? Does Scully wind up being my sister here, Mom?
(Teena seems puzzled, then a light comes on as she makes the connection).
TEENA: (Smiles). I only watched that movie once, Fox William. You know I like my Science Fiction pure, in novels.
MULDER: I know, Mom -- 'The movie is never as good as the book'.
(I feel I'm lost during this exchange. Teena Mulder's revelations have me stunned and I'm listening to, but not really hearing, my companion's banter, so my serious inquiries call a halt to their light-hearted exchange).
SCULLY: What is he supposed to do? What can we do? Mulder's supposed to stop these aliens from taking over the world? This is crazy!
(Mother and son turn to face me at my place behind Mulder's chair. Their expressions are at first surprise over my sudden outburst then, in unison, apprehension darkly clouds their faces).
TEENA: I really don't know. I just have this feeling that somehow that's his purpose. That's why Fox was born. I know you think this is the demented rambling of a senile old woman. Maybe I AM crazy; I've had an insane life. I feel that Fox is a "wild card" in the hand we humans were dealt, and I think that's why the aliens fear him. I know there's a boy out there that they fear, too. I don't know his part in this either, but I'm sure you'll run across him sooner or later, if you choose to follow through with this.
SCULLY: I think we have met him. Gibson.
TEENA: Yes, I believe that is his name.
SCULLY: We think THEY have him. THEY've hurt him, too.
TEENA: Oh, no. That poor little boy (pause). But, you see they didn't kill him. THEY're afraid to kill him. That just shows you I might be right in my reasoning, doesn't it?
(Both Mulder and I are lost in thought. I know where my musings are heading, and whether I want to believe it or not, I think Mulder's mother is right).
MULDER: (He finally breaks the silence. His voice is low and sounds as old as time itself). What do you think I should do, Mom?
TEENA: (Sigh) Fox, I know you've found your gifts. Try to develop them. They might not save "us" in the end, but I think you were given powers that will at least keep you alive until you find out what you need to do. Allen Wagner will be able to tell you more about who the enemy is. That will help, too. Still, I think you need to go to the source to really find out what is happening.
MULDER: You mean confront the aliens?
TEENA: (A slight, very Mulder-like grin teases her lips). No, son. I'm telling you, you need to pray. I think somebody up there likes you and might help if you'd just give Him a chance.
(Tape ends) -DKS-
*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X
FWM Tapes Winter 2003 Wellington, Colorado
My mother's smiles were rare. I always felt I had to earn them. Was this wrong? How can I say? She was the only mother I had. I simply know for a brief glimpse of her upturned lips, her eyes glowing warm like some light shimmering beneath a sea, I would have done anything she asked. Because they were so infrequent, I treasure each one I captured in my memory, savoring the knowledge that I'd been given something that she only bestowed on those she considered worthy. What could be so wrong with that?
Tape End -WSS-
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FROM THE PEN OF - DANA K. SCULLY January 25, 2002 Wellington, Colorado
Well, over two weeks have passed since I've found the time to record my thoughts in this chronicle. So much has transpired and the emotions of everyone concerned have run at such a fevered pitch. The days have just sped by, blurring together so I hope I can make a lucid, logical account of them here. I feel the need to at least write an epitaph to a woman who touched so many lives, but had too few left who care enough to mourn her passing.
The evening of the January 4th, Teena Mulder contacted Jerome Phillips, her attorney and old family friend, to schedule a meeting the following day. She wanted to set up some sort of trust fund to assure that after her death, her son would be taken care of should his disabilities incapacitate him. An appointment had been made at the counselor's downtown office for 4:45 P.M. the afternoon of the 5th.
When the hour passed without word from his long time, unfailingly punctual client, Mr. Phillips became concerned. After several vain attempts at telephone contact, the prestigious attorney had driven out to Teena Mulder's home. One look at the house, silently dark on that cold winter's evening, convinced him something was wrong. Jerome's unanswered knocks and gut feeling of dread left him little choice as to how to proceed. Ever cautious, the man placed a call to local law enforcement asking for some available officer to accompany him in entering the home to check on the elderly woman.
His wait was less than an hour, and with two young patrolmen at his side, Mr. Phillips repeatedly knocked loudly on the front door. When the pounding went unheeded, the officer searched for a less direct entry into the home, finally settling on jimmying the kitchen door lock. Teena Mulder's body was discovered in her bedroom. She was dressed for sleep. No lights were on anywhere in the house.
Later that evening Mr. Phillips called to notify her son of his mother's passing. I took the call and was told the initial findings at the scene were pointing to death by unnatural causes. The preliminary cause of death appeared to be an overdose of an undetermined substance combined with alcohol. Memories of Mr. Wagner's tale instantly played across my mind. It was 8:00 P.M., and I had just finished listening to the last of Teena's interview tapes. I'd gone to grab something to drink before completing my task. I decided not to transcribe the last hour of the recording because it was mostly small talk. I'd planned on copying what I have in here, then submitting it to Wagner for entry in his files. I've yet to do that, but it will have to wait. I have too much on my mind right now.
Jerome Phillips was extremely helpful for he had detailed knowledge of his client's affairs. He asked who I was and immediately recognized my name. I believe Mrs. Mulder had told him I was Mulder's "primary care-giver/nurse". I didn't correct him. Though my thoughts were in turmoil from shock, I still had enough wits about me to realize that maintaining the fallacy that Mulder had not recovered from the ICH was very much in our best interest. I also informed the man that I was legally able to handle all of Mulder's affairs which was true. I'd assumed that task when I first came to Colorado in 1999, and we'd never officially changed anything.
I scribbled down the information Mr. Phillips gave me as to where the body was taken, what funeral home would claim it after the autopsy, his phone number and address. I numbly accepted his condolences, and agreed to call him back when my plans, as to taking care of the necessary family business, were finalized. I hung up the phone, feeling oddly disconnected from reality. I knew I needed to go back to the bedroom to tell Mulder the tragic news, but my body just didn't seem to want to function.
Mulder had laughed that last night in Connecticut, when we had discussed his mother's beliefs about his destiny. We'd made love, long and slow, our weariness replacing the heated rush of passion with something more akin to relaxing comfort. Afterwards, there was whispered conversation. I rested against his chest, warm and safe in his embrace. He had convinced me of the absurdity of Teena's claims. Mulder had assured me the role of savior wasn't one he felt he was suited to or particularly wanted.
Standing there in the kitchen, two short days later, I feared that perhaps our destiny was no longer ours to control. That somehow we were now caught up in some grander scheme that had been preordained long ago. In my mind's eye, a scene played out, over and over. It was the image of dominoes falling, one by one, clicking forward to create an intricate design. The vision seemed terrifyingly prophetic and frighteningly unstoppable. With a sigh, I went to awaken Mulder, flipping off the light as I exited the kitchen. The sound echoed in the darkness. It was a loud, haunting click.
*****
The antibiotics had yet to start working. Less than eight hours was hardly enough time for this scientific "magic bullet" to effectively slay the beast - streptococcus. Mulder was still very ill when I told him of his mother's death. It might have been a blessing. Even if he hadn't been so sick, Wagner and I would have tried to convince him that an appearance at his mother's funeral would be a public announcement that he was not the brain damaged invalid we wished our enemies to believe him to be. As it was, he was only able to offer a weak, token protest that I was making the journey back to Connecticut alone.
We really didn't even get to talk until I returned, three days later, on the 9th. Before I left, he barely aroused to take his medication. Upon my return, he confessed that he hadn't even realized I was gone until the day I came home. I was grateful for this knowledge. I had fretted over the thought of him having to face his grief alone the entire time I'd been gone.
The trip was uneventful except for two occurrences, both reminders that Teena Mulder's life had been far from mainstream. Why would her death be any different? The first had been the "guest list" at the woman's funeral. In addition to familiar public faces such as former President George Bush and Senator Ted Kennedy, I spotted our old nemesis, C.G.B. Spender, standing beside her coffin looking suitably forlorn. He saw me, and I read in his face that he noticed Mulder's absence. I do believe a flicker of what I can only describe as relief crossed his face as he silently acknowledged this fact. It took every ounce of control I had not to grin at our deception.
Also present was our former supervisor, (and friend?) Walter Skinner. We only spoke for a moment after the brief graveside service, but I was chilled by the harsh lines of age the years have cut into his once handsome face. (I always thought Skinner was one good looking man). He was much thinner and so very haggard looking. I felt a tug at my conscience when he asked about Mulder's health. He winced when I was forced to reply, "He's about as well as can be expected. He has started to recognize ME, on his GOOD days."
My statement was overheard by the rude individual who actually lit up a cigarette there at the grave. That was why I lied so blatantly. I wish I could think of some way to let Skinner know the truth about Mulder's recovery. I do believe the man has been living in a hell borne of the guilt he feels over his part in the Brotherhood debacle. I think he has suffered far too long. I'm sure Mulder will feel the same when I find the time to talk to him about it. (Note to myself -- Make the time, Dana).
The second occurrence was startling proof that Teena Mulder was not the somewhat addled, still recovering, elderly stroke victim she so cleverly made herself out to be. I was going through Teena's belongings, making arrangements to place them in storage until a time when Mulder and I could decide what to do with them. Jerome Phillips suggested putting the house up for sale immediately because it was a seller's market in the area at this time. I found the one item Mulder had requested me to bring back hidden beneath some towels in the hall linen closet. An odd place to keep a family photo album.
Stuck inside the huge, leather bound book was a small tape. The recording was labeled with only a date and a name -- "Fox, January 4, 2002". I knew Teena had wanted her son to hear what was on this tape. I debated listening to it first, but decided her wishes should be honored; that it was for her son to hear...alone if he wished. Slipping the cassette back in its place inside the album, I carried the final message from a mother to her son home with me.
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RECORDED TELEPHONE CONVERSATION - TEENA MULDER AND MAN (BELIEVED TO BE C.G.B. SPENDER). January 4, 2002
SPENDER - Hello...
TEENA - I saw him...I saw what you did to him! You son of a...
SPENDER - Teena?
TEENA - You know it's me. I saw Fox. I saw what you did to my son!
SPENDER - What do you mean, you saw him? (Calmly patient). Teena, he's in Colorado. You've just had a bad dream...
TEENA - You don't know everything. You don't know everything I do. Allen Wagner flew me out to Sky Watch yesterday. To see my son. I saw him. I know YOU did this to him.
SPENDER - (Pause) He did this to himself, Teena.
TEENA - No, YOU did this to him. You set him up. That's what started all this. YOU made him like he is now. Almost a vegetable. You blew off half his face! It's just like you were holding the gun. You pulled the trigger. This time, you're going to pay. I'm going to make sure of that. When I tell, you're going to pay for everything you've done to him. To me, to my whole family.
SPENDER - Teena, they've already investigated what went down with the Brotherhood. The subcommittee proved Fox...
TEENA - I don't plan on telling the Senate, or Congress, or even that horny puppet you made President. I'm telling THEM, Charles. And I think they'll take me at my word. They know I'VE never lied to THEM. I'm telling THEM everything. Everything you've done, from that first time when Fox was three. When you took my baby's mind. You're going to pay for it all. THEY've had suspicions. Doubts about you. You know THEY have. THEY'll believe me...
SPENDER - Teena, we need to talk. You know what they have planned. Don't do this. You can't want them to win. Let's talk. I can be there in two hours. Please, just give me a chance. For the cause, Teena. You once believed in the cause. This is the final act. Don't let them win. Just talk to me.
TEENA - (Long pause) I'll leave the door open...
Tape ends -WSS-
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FWM Tapes Winter 2003 Wellington, Colorado
Scully never transcribed that tape. Skinner and I found it stuck in a box with her last "FROM THE PEN OF -" journal. I'd only listened to it that one time; that first night when she came home. She must have put both journal and tape away that very night. We have nothing more from her that adds to this story from that point on. So other than what Kami and Skinner can tell, I guess it's now my turn to narrate the final chapters of The Damascus Files 2. It's kind of fitting I suppose, that a mad man will chronicle how the world ends.
My mother's message left us with more questions than it answered. The first and foremost on our list was why had she called Spender? She knew what would happen if she threatened him. She knew he would retaliate. She knew he could not be trusted. Allen Wagner informed us at this time that early last summer she sent him some information to "hold for her". Wagner had never opened the sealed envelopes, but stated her note had said they held "proof to help clear Fox". He assumed it must have told what really happened during my undercover assignment, and had temporarily stored it in the tall, four drawer cabinet he had reserved for members of the Mulder family other than me.
When Wagner went to retrieve it for us after my mother's death, the envelope was gone. Of course, we all suspected only one person of taking files that weren't his and Wagner's "son", Alex Krycek was conveniently no where to be found.
*****
The end of January proved to be no better than the first part, but we did wind up gaining an alliance with an old "friend". Dr. Shelia Raposa had been my physician since my arrival in the emergency room that late winter afternoon almost 3 years before. While primarily a renowned neurosurgeon, she had, in effect, become my "family" doctor of the old school. Scully claims she had often wondered why Dr. Raposa followed through with my every day care to such a degree. That type of hands on, primary care is not common with surgeons who practice such a demanding specialty, for obvious reasons. However, since Scully had worked hand in hand with the woman, throughout my recovery and rehabilitation after my gunshot injury, and to a lesser degree, after my stroke, my partner was not really surprised by the good doctor's visit that last Monday in January.
Dr. Raposa came prepared, determined to get some answers, some kind of explanation as to how she had witnessed a miracle recovery in her patient, not once, but twice. She couldn't quite figure out why I merited such blessings from "the man upstairs". I believe her opening question, sitting there in the living room at Sky Watch was -
"I'm here for some answers. Before I decide if I'm going to continue to help you, I need to know why this man" -- (I was told she cut a hard glance in my direction.) "is not sitting in a wheel chair wearing depends and drooling?"
We told her everything. I think for a doctor, Shelia Raposa had an extremely open mind. I was surprised because some people I've known who have training and beliefs that are grounded in the sciences, took quite a bit longer to convince than one morning. Still, Dr. Raposa had been puzzling over the results of the CT scan I'd undergone upon my return from Central America for almost a year. It seems that after my trip to Guatemala, suddenly the left section of my frontal lobe, which had been almost completely destroyed by the exiting bullet, had increased in mass 100% with healthy brain tissue. This is not an everyday occurrence. In fact, it was impossible.
Dr. Raposa had not seen me since mid-July. When Scully had summoned her to Sky Watch during my recent illness it had been a shock to see how, once again, I'd recovered almost totally from what should have been a severely debilitating brain injury. What had spurred this visit was the question of governmental red tape. The Department of Social Security was demanding an update on my condition in order for me to continue to receive my disability stipend, and for my Medicare Insurance to continue. Dr. Raposa was at a loss as to what to tell them about my current condition. She actually believed there might be an investigation if she told them the truth. I was just this side of being officially brain dead a little over a year ago. It was time for all of us to lay our cards on the table and decide where we should go from here.
I listened to the doctors, Scully and Raposa, discuss me, and though I realized I had rarely been in any condition to join in their conversations before this, my interruption was still sharp, and spoken in a voice that dripped with sarcastic bitterness.
"Do you think you could ask me where I want to go from here?"
The silence that followed my question was so complete it made my ears ring.
Apologies came after a heartbeat from both women, and I raised a hand to quiet them. My emotions were in turmoil. As I've stated before, my recovery was far from complete. Even now I sometime lack control enough to speak without my feelings tying my tongue. In discussing her problems in dealing with the government, Dr. Raposa had inadvertently let some information out that I had not been aware of.
"Why am I on Social Security...What about the bureau...?" My voice broke before I got the words out, and I had to stop, unable to complete my question.
Scully realized immediately that I had never understood the full extent of what had happened as a result of my being labeled insubordinate in my dealings with the Brotherhood. I'd known that I had been made a scapegoat and had been accused of almost causing a Waco-like catastrophe, but I had never sought to find out what the results of the so called investigation had done to my reputation. I found out I had been denied all benefits due me from my years of service at the FBI. In effect, my entire career was wiped out by the lies that had been told against me.
I've had to accept what has been done to me. What I have trouble with is, what THEY, (always THEY,) have done to those I loved. I believe that is what angered me when I found out my career was gone. I came to terms a long time ago with the fact I could never go back to the bureau. I knew from the start, that part of my life was over. But by robbing me of what was due me from my years of service, they have put a hardship on those who care about me. And they have ruined My reputation -- My name. What bothers me about that, is that one of the only things I got from my father, from Bill Mulder is -- My name.
So, my mother got her wish. The gauntlet was picked up. My allies and I began to make plans. We decided we were going to save the world. I wonder now, were we actually the ones who spurred the final destruction?
Tape Ends -WSS-
End Part 2