Chapter I
Her auburn hair is the first thing I see of her. It's not done the usual way. It's not neatly blow-dried in an effort to get rid of the frizz but has obviously been neglected. It falls oddly onto her shoulders in untamed curls, but it reflects the light of the afternoon sun as it always does when she sits on our porch with a cup of tea after a tough day, watching the sun go down.
I instantly know it's her.
Her hair is quite a bit longer since the last time I saw her about three months ago before she had once again been taken from me. This time by a psychopath we'd been chasing together, not by alien colonists, nor by a bunch of governmental conspirators.
I'd been asked by the FBI to help out with my profiling skills to hunt down a serial killer and, of course, I had to drag her into the case with me. She'd been working as a doctor in the children's ward at the local hospital close to where we'd settled down. She'd put the FBI behind her for good, hell, why hadn't I let her? Well, I know the answer to that question: I simply didn't know how to work on a case alone anymore, without discussing it with her and seeking her advice. And, as was expected, she had given me the final hint I needed to put the pieces of the puzzle together and identify the guy. I still don't understand how I could've been so blind and not see that the killer had turned the tables and had started stalking me. It hadn't even occurred to me that he might change the favorited target he'd been pursuing until then - brunette, rather plump women - to a petite, slender redhead. I, acclaimed profiler Spooky Mulder, had overlooked that taking away the person I simply couldn't live without, might be the killer's next move to react against me.
One day, when I came home, I found the kitchen devastated with no sign of Scully whatsoever. Even a mind not as capable of profiling as mine would've been able to tell that a battle had taken place. There were shards of glass and china on the kitchen floor, drawers had been pulled out where she must've looked for some kind of weapon to use on her attacker. The forensic team found a kitchen knife underneath the coffee table covered in blood that wasn't hers. Scully wouldn't give in just like that, of course, she'd fought for her life. Two chairs in the living room had been knocked over and the pillows that are always sitting in an orderly fashion on the couch, carefully arranged by Scully herself, had been scattered on the floor, one of them with blood stains that turned out to be hers later on.
I've been looking for her in every corner of this goddamn country ever since, had turned every stone, had looked into in every hole and on top of every mountain, with no trace whatsoever leading to her. I followed every lead, no matter how lukewarm it was. Skinner told me to leave it to him and his team, and I knew he'd move heaven and hell to find his former agent, he'd always had a soft spot for her, but I just couldn't sit at home by the phone twiddling my thumbs when in the meanwhile my Scully was held hostage by an unhinged psychopath known for the brutal way he abused women.
And then, finally, after three months in which I ceased to feel alive myself, driven by my fears and sense of foreboding, I received a phone call last night from a place called Pratt & Miller Neuropsychiatric Clinic, Philadelphia, PA.
"Agent Mulder, a woman has been checked into our facility who might be the one you're looking for," a friendly female voice told me.
I took the first plane out of Des Moines, where I'd talked to an inmate who claimed to have shared a cell with the killer years ago but had turned out to be a copycat seeking for attention. The call saved him from experiencing my fist in his face for having wasted my precious time.
So I'm standing in the clinic head's office now, following the man's index finger which is pointing outside in the direction to where a woman is sitting on a white wooden bench, her back turned toward us. One short glimpse at her from behind is enough for me to recognize her. Her hair, her stature, the way she's sitting there with her elbows propped up on her thighs, is all Scully.
She's alive!
Thank God, she's alive!
"We don't have really good news for you about her current condition, though, Agent Mulder. She has total amnesia. She doesn't recall anything, not her name, her age, her residence, her profession, how she got to the place where she was found," Doctor Pratt, one of the two name givers of this institution, tells me.
"Drop the Agent, please. I'm here as her husband, not as her co-worker," I say.
How can he say that this is no good news? It's the best news I can think of!
I've got her back in one piece. For whatever reason, the mad man who abducted her chose not to kill her like he killed all his other victims. Maybe she was just not his type after all. Instead, he abandoned her in a parking lot of a grocery store in a rural village at night, dressed in nothing but a thin shirt and sweat pants. That's what the police report says. She was found in the morning by the first employees arriving to open up the store. She was sitting on a bench, disoriented and mute, so they called the police and an ambulance. She was brought into a hospital, stayed for two days, then the physician in charge committed her to the psychiatric institution of doctors Pratt and Miller.
"How long has she been here?" I ask.
How many days of seeing her have I already missed?
"For ten days now. It took the police that long to check all the missing person reports."
"Will she get better?"
"Difficult to say as we don't know what exactly caused the amnesia. An external impact, like a hit on the head, for example, could be an explanation, or an accident, maybe a drug. Amnesia can also be triggered by a mental trauma, when a person has seen or experienced things the psyche cannot cope with, so it shuts the memory down for protection."
I groan. It causes me physical pain just to think about what that psychopath might have done to her.
"She might regain her memory tomorrow but it might also take a year," Doctor Pratt continues. "She might remember everything all at once or piece by piece at one step a time."
"Is it also possible she'll never get it back?"
"I'm afraid complete permanent amnesia is a possibility, yes. I'm sorry that I don't have better news for you, Mr. Mulder."
"Is she hurt otherwise?"
"No, we haven't found a single scratch or bruise. No broken limbs, no internal injuries. Not even a lump on her head. She was hypothermic when she was found, but not physically harmed."
"This man, the one who kidnapped her, he…he's a brutal rapist."
I hold my breath.
"She was checked through thoroughly at the hospital before she came here and there were no signs she'd been raped. Of course, we cannot really tell for the entire time she was under this man's control. There is a somewhat fresh small scar on her upper arm which might have been from a stab with a knife but other than that, physically she's perfectly healthy. All we're worried about is her memory."
Throughout the entire conversation with Doctor Pratt, my eyes are glued to her back as she's sitting on a bench outside in the sun. She lives. That's the most important thing. I don't care if she remembers me, recognizes me, recalls what we are to each other. At least not for now. She lives. That's what I prayed for, and my prayers have been answered.
After I've listened to all of Doctor Pratt's deliberations of Scully's state of health, of her prognosis and the things I'm supposed to be doing to help her and the things I'm not, I have to see her. I cannot wait any longer, so I excuse myself and am walking toward her now, closing the gap between us with every hesitant step. I'm thrilled but also terrified, for I don't know what to expect.
"Excuse me," I address her gently in order not to startle her. I point to the spot next to her on the bench. "Is this seat taken?"
She turns her head and looks at me and my heart skips a beat.
Oh my, there's not the slightest hint of recognition in her beautiful, bottomless, blue eyes. She looks at me as if I were a total stranger, but she smiles and my knees threaten to buckle.
"Uh, no," she answers, "have a seat."
I sit next to her, not as close as I want to but close enough for me to feel her proximity. It's so hard not to pull her into an embrace, kiss her, ask her where she's been, and tell her I love her.
I'm a bit sobered when I realize she doesn't really take note of me sitting with her on this bench. She stares at something in the distance, her face expressionless, her body absolutely still. I try to figure out what she's looking at. Is it the birch tree? Or the little white pavilion by the pond? Is it the sky she's looking at, scattered clouds drifting by?
"Are you a patient or a visitor?" I try to start a conversation.
She turns her head once again and looks at me. Jesus, how I feared to never see that lovely face again.
"A patient. You?"
"Visitor."
"I see."
"My name is Mulder, Fox Mulder."
"Nice to meet you, Fox."
Oh my God, how strange that sounds. She's called me Fox maybe three times for all the years we've been together. If I needed one more proof that she doesn't know who I am, it would be her calling me Fox.
"And yours?"
I bite my tongue when I see how discomforting my question is for her.
You're an idiot, Mulder! What did Doctor Pratt tell you? Don't upset her! And the first thing you do is upsetting her.
She focusses on whatever she focussed on before, squints, then clears her throat.
"Kelly…they call me Kelly. As a matter of fact, I don't know my name." She looks at me again, apologetically shrugging her shoulders. "Amnesia."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
"Yeah, well, there's reason to hope for the memory to come back. Who are you visiting?"
She obviously doesn't want to talk about it any further.
"My…wife," I answer, and the answer burns a hole into my heart.
"What's her name?" she asks me, and it's hard to accept the seriousness in her voice. She really doesn't have a clue who she is.
I've been bold enough to hope that my mere presence would awaken some memories. As if it were impossible to forget me, as if what we've had was powerful enough to be a wonder weapon against hard pathological facts.
What we HAVE! Mulder, would you not talk about her as if your time was up! She's sitting right in front of you!
She's alive, her beautiful body unharmed. How often have I seen her bruised, scratched, beaten up, intoxicated, stabbed, shot?
"Dana, her name is Dana," I finally answer her question.
"Nice name," she says, displaying no remembrance at all. "Do you have kids?"
Oh no!
If there's one thing I don't want her to remember it's the grief and pain connected to the loss of her child. But what can I do? I have to answer her question and I remember Doctor Pratt's instruction not to tell any lies.
"A son."
"What's his name?"
Don't, Scully! Please, don't!
"William."
I can hardly voice his name.
She stiffens for a moment, frowning. She looks at me, and I can read from her face that the sound of her son's name does something to her. It seems to ring a bell deep inside her.
"William," she murmurs. "Will-iam."
She lets the two syllables slowly roll off her tongue.
"Is something wrong, Kelly?"
Speaking out the name feels awkward, although I called her so many fake names when we were on the run: Sandra, Melanie, Trish, Jennifer, Claudia… Never Kelly, though.
"I don't know. The name…William…it sounds familiar somehow, but I can't pinpoint it. Never mind."
She shakes her head as if to get rid of whatever it was that prompted that kind of reaction from her.
"So, your name is Fox. Are you cunning and sly like a fox, always trying to trick others and getting away with it?"
The corners of her mouth rise in a slightly teasing smile.
"Where did you get this from?" I ask.
"Isn't that how the fox is portrayed in fables, legends, fairy tales, myths?"
I am surprised.
"You remember what the fox is portrayed in literature but you don't remember your own name?"
"Personal memories are saved at one part of the brain and general knowledge at another. It seems that my brain is affected where the personal memory lies. Heavily affected."
She speaks in this no-nonsense fashion to me, mechanically reciting medical facts like she's done hundreds of times before. I'm so familiar with this scientific tone of voice that it soothes my aching heart for a moment before I realize how cruel it is to see that brilliant brain of hers cut off of the most basic information we all share as human beings, our ability to know who we are.
"Did the doctors tell you that?"
"Actually, now that you're asking…no, they didn't." She frowns. "I…simply seem to know." She looks at me with a puzzled expression on her face. "How's that possible?"
"You might be a medical doctor yourself," I can't keep myself from telling her although Doctor Pratt warned me not to talk her into anything, but this is just too obvious. Science-Scully is in there.
She tilts her head. "Maybe." She sighs again, "if only I knew."
"I'm sorry, I didn't intend to upset you," I tell her, and Doctor Pratt.
"You're not upsetting me. Actually, I enjoy talking to someone else but my psychiatrist."
"The pleasure is all mine."
"Won't Dana be upset when she finds out you've been spending time with another woman instead of being at her bedside?"
"Who?"
"Dana, your wife? You told me you were visiting your wife," she explains to me so matter-of-factly that the hair stands up at the back of my neck.
I AM visiting my wife, I want to cry out, I'm sitting right in front of her! But, of course, I can't. It might push her down to an even deeper state of oblivion Doctor Pratt told me. It might scare her, confuse her, overwhelm her.
"Uh, Dana, my wife. Right," I answer instead. "Uh, no, she's getting a treatment right now." I glance at my watch. "Which is about to be finished in a few minutes, I'm afraid."
On the one hand, I want to sit here with her forever, on the other, I fear this conversation might get out of hand.
"You better go and pick her up. Take her for a stroll through the park. It's a wonderful afternoon." She closes her eyes and inhales deeply. "I love the spring. Nature is coming back to life, the greens are so intense, the air is crisp, and the sunlight is so bright and clear."
I know you do, I almost whisper.
If I could, I would take her hand and lead her to the park for an afternoon stroll around the pond. She would feed the duck, her hair would shine as hauntingly beautiful as the foliage in the fall, we would walk arm in arm, and share a kiss every now and then.
Oh, how I want to take you her for a walk just now!
"Goodbye, Fox," she says holding her hand out for me to shake.
"Maybe we can continue this some other time?" I propose and take her hand, electrified by the sensation of her tiny hand in mine. I had already feared I wouldn't be able to touch her ever again.
"Maybe. I'll be here for quite some time, I suppose." She smiles at me, weakly, but she smiles. "Go see your wife, Fox. I bet she's waiting for you."
I hate to let her go. I hate to return to my motel room without her, to leave her behind believing nobody knows who she is.
It's been a start, though. We can work on this. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I'll be back and I will make sure we run into each other again. And the day after tomorrow, and the day after that. I will come here day after day as long as it takes to get her back completely, not only her body but also her mind.
"Take care…Kelly," I say, and speaking out the name leaves a bitter taste on my tongue.
"Goodbye, Fox. It was nice meeting you." She throws me a non-committal smile.
Nice. It might have been nice for you, it was exhilarating for me.
And heart-breaking.
