Time
Warp
Part One: December 24, 2000, A street in Phoenix, Arizona, 2:35 pm
Lawrence Anderson was
upset. Mind you, he had a reason to be. Just days earlier, his ten-year-old son
was killed when a bomb leveled the courthouse in Phoenix where the fifth grade
class was having a field trip. Lawrence had taken a young clerk hostage in a
convenience store. "Let the girl go, and we'll talk," said Agent Scully, who
just happened to be there investigating some tales of a monster that was said
to steal the souls of local high school students. "We won't negotiate until we
have her."
"Come on, Mr. Anderson.
We'll give you anything you want. Just let her go," said Agent Mulder
fervently.
"Anything?" asked Anderson.
"Anything."
"I want my son back, you
bastards!" Anderson sprayed the crowd with bullets, two hitting Scully in the
chest. The force knocked her to the pavement.
"Hang on, Scully. You can
do it!" pleaded Mulder, his hazel eyes filling with tears. "You can do it!"
"If this is dying," thought
Scully, "this isn't bad." She began to lose consciousness and spin faster and
faster until…
Part Two: December 24, 1993, Scully residence, 11:15 am
Melissa and Dana Scully
were sitting by the Christmas tree, wrapping last minute gifts. Dana looked
into Melissa's eyes and continued the conversation, "Missy, I just don't know.
Some people are telling me to join. They say it's the greatest honor to be
recruited. I'd be part of the nations best, and other people are telling me to
stay in medicine. It was what I was born for. Don't waste all that training and
skill."
"Dana, you can't know
exactly what to do all of the time," Melissa gently chided. "Let's go watch the
kids sledding in the park. It will make you feel better." Dana agreed and the
two sisters bundled up and headed for the neighborhood park. She and her sister
watched the adorable little children fly down the steep slope as they
reminisced about their younger days. Suddenly, a child, no older than six, slid
into the road in the path of a moving car. Dana watched in horror as the car
collided with the tiny child. Dana ran to the boy yelling, "Move back, I'm a
doctor!" The crowds parted for her and she yelled for someone to call an
ambulance. Dana bent down and felt for a pulse. It was weak, but there. She
kept him warm and conscious until the ambulance arrived. When Dana got back
home, she went straight up to her room and tore up her application to the FBI.
Part Three: December 24, 1994, FBI basement office, 11:21 pm
Someone is typing on a
computer. There is a knock on the door. "Mr. Mulder, it's Christmas Eve. Aren't
you going home?" shouted a janitor through the door.
"Pretty soon, Bernie,
pretty soon," replied Mulder. Bernie wandered away mumbling. On the computer
screen there is a picture and FBI agent profile of a beautiful brunette. Name:
Alexis Phoenix Martin, Sex: Female, Height: 5'8'', Weight: 150, Hair color
Brown, Eye color Blue, Profile: Graduated from University of Washington with a
double major in criminal justice and anthropology with a minor in biology. Has a Masters degree from George Washington
University in forensics with a focus in anthropology. Recruited into the FBI.
Spent two years teaching at Quantico. Now working on the X-Files. Mulder
sighed, yawned, and put on his coat.
Part Four: December 24, 1995, Sifton residence, 6:20 pm
"Honey, I'm home," Dana
said as she walked in the door. Her arms were laden down with boxes, and she
was very pregnant. There's no answer. She sighed as she thought about her life.
She feels as if she's missing something. It's not work. After years of
struggle, she's the head of the pediatric ER. She loves the challenge and joys
that come with saving young lives. It's not religion. It's not her marriage.
She fell in love with Barry Sifton the day she saw him. Her family was
wonderful. She had twin boys, Matthew and Keegan, and another baby on the way.
She couldn't put a finger on it, but she knew something wasn't there. She
walked downstairs and saw Barry wrestling with the three-year-old boys. She
smiled to herself. Barry sold real estate and was home more often than she, so
he was often the primary care giver. He was never too tired to wrestle with the
boys or play horsey.
"What took you so long? I
thought Nathaniel James had decided to come two weeks early, and you forgot to
tell me," Barry said as Keegan jumped on his back.
"You mean Melissa Kathryn.
The nurses gave me a 'surprise' shower." Dana crawled onto the Barca lounger
and fell asleep. She awoke a few hours later to see Barry watching her sleep.
She had a look of urgency on her face. "Barry, it's time." Barry and Dana got
Keegan and Matthew into the minivan and dropped them off and Grandma
Margaret's. Barry continued the drive to the hospital.
Hours later, at 11:59 pm, a
beautiful baby girl was born. Because of her nearly Christmas birth, she was
named Noelle Christine. She weighed in at eight pounds, four ounces and
measured twenty-three inches. She had red hair and blue eyes like her mother,
but was tall with curly hair like her father. As Dana and Barry looked at their
new baby, they decided that she was the most beautiful thing imaginable.
Part Five: December 24, 1996, A DC hospital, 9:05 pm
Mulder sat in the plastic
hospital chair numb to the world. People kept coming up and wishing him
sympathy. He recognized a few faces here and there. His boss, Skinner and Alexis's
parents, but mostly it was just a blur of words and faces. "Tragic thing." "So
sorry." "What a shame, beautiful girl like that."
Finally, Mulder just
couldn't take it anymore and he left. He walked all night, the night after she
died. He walked onto the street and hailed a cab. The cab took him to the FBI
where he walked to the basement. It was where he first met her. She commanded
attention wherever she walked. The first time Mulder laid eyes on her, he
sneered; she looked more Hollywood than FBI. She was supposed to keep him in
line. With fondness, Mulder remembered their first year. Usually, the first
year is the time for partners to build trust. With her, it was Alex being Alex,
and Mulder realizing that she was the most perfect person in the whole world.
He then walked to her apartment's parking lot. It was there that he had
realized he loved her. They were in his car in her parking lot when it had
begun to rain. He jumped out in the rain and tore off his coat. Alexis yelled
at him, "Come back in here. You'll catch your death."
He began to laugh like a
maniac, "I love you!" he had shouted with passion, "I love everything about
you. I love how your nose freckles if you've been in the sun too long and the
fact that you kick my ass in horse every time we play. I love the fact that you
throw my porn away every time you come over and the fact that you always have
sunflower seeds in your car, just in case. I love the fact that your favorite
book is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I love how great you are with
kids. I love the fact that I'm out in the rain shouting out my love for you. I
love you, Alexis Phoenix, will you marry me?" She had laughed and said yes, but
that was four months ago.
Mulder then walked another
block to a 7-11 that was still draped with crime scene tape. It was here that a
person, for less than seventy dollars and a pack of Morleys, had robbed him of
everything of value in his life. It was there on that sidewalk where Mulder
finally let his tears loose.
Part Six: December 24, 1997, Dana's bedroom 1:05 am
Dana awoke with a start.
She had had that dream again. She had been having it twice a week since Barry
died. It began with her walking quickly down an unfamiliar street. She was
chasing something just out of her reach. Tonight, she had almost caught it when
a thick fog shrouded the street. As soon as the fog was breathed into her
lungs, she had begun to asphyxiate, and she had fallen to the sidewalk amid the
crowd of rushing people. That was when she woke up. Dana couldn't go back to
sleep so she lay in bed thinking. She had been feeling so empty lately. She
knew some of it was from Barry's unexpected death, but she couldn't shake the
feeling she was in the wrong place. She as long as she could remember she had
felt this way, but Barry and the kids distracted her. Now that Barry was gone
and Matthew, Keegan, and Noelle were at their grandmothers she felt her
misplacement completely. And also, that feeling that a part of her was missing
was growing bigger and bigger. Dana fell to her knees and prayed, "Please God,
tell me what's wrong!"
Part Seven: December 24, 1998, Mulder's bedroom, 3:04 am
Mulder awoke with a gasp.
He had had that dream again. He was walking down an unfamiliar street when a
thick fog poured down and he was unable to breathe. Mulder rolled out of bed
leaving the leggy blond beside him, asleep. Since Alex had died, Mulder felt
that a part of him was missing. No, he couldn't lie, even to himself. A piece
of him was missing even before she had died. That empty piece gnawed at the
rest of him, making the whole bigger and bigger. First, he had tried filling
the whole with work he supposed he still did that, working past the point of
exhaustion. Then it had been booze. Mulder laughed ironically as he remembered
that time. He guessed he just wasn't cut out to be an alcoholic. The feeling of
being in the wrong place stayed with him until he passed out. All he got from
alcohol was a killer hangover that wreaked havoc on his basketball game. Now it
was women, a new one, almost half his age, every month. Sara, Makayla, Marie,
Katie, Shawna, and now Fawn. They made him feel better for about a week and a
half, and then he began feeling worse and worse, so he broke it off, and the
cycle would start all over again. Mulder walked to the window and contemplated
jumping out. Then he thought of his funeral. Yes, some people would come, and
maybe even cry. Surely his latest women and his acquaintances at the bureau
would come, but no one would truly miss him. His father had been dead for
almost six years and his mother died of cancer in September. Mulder decided it
was more painful to die with no one caring than to live. At least while he was
alive, there was a possibility of it changing.
Part Eight: December 24, 1999, A hotel in Salt Lake City, UT, 5:05 pm
Dana was sitting on a
chair, her eyes red and her cheeks streaked with tears, but she was no longer
crying. Dana contemplated how her tears and thought of the last few months.
Several months after Barry's death, she knew she had to leave DC. She and the
kids flew west. They had ended up in San Jose, California. Dana had gotten a
great position in a local hospital, and she was able to afford private school
tuition for her sons. It had been in February 1998 when things had started to
go bad. Noelle, ever the rambunctious two-year-old, had become lethargic and
started to get nosebleeds and huge bruises. As a doctor, Dana knew these could
be signs of leukemia. She took Noelle into the hospital's world-renowned
pediatric oncologist for tests. The tests confirmed her worst fears. They began
treatment immediately. Noelle seemed to be getting better, but they weren't
sure. Two weeks before Christmas 1999, Noelle went in for her final battery of
tests. Dana didn't know when the test results would be back, but she hoped
before Christmas. She had sent Matthew and Keegan to stay with her mother back
east while she waited for the results. They were due back late December 23,
just in time for Christmas. On that night Dana had gotten the call every mother
dreads; her sons' plane had crashed while landing at Salt Lake City's airport,
no survivors. Dana spent that Christmas Eve in a dinghy hotel in the worst part
of Salt Lake City, holding her daughter and crying. Even though Noelle was too
young to understand what was happening, she knew something was wrong and wouldn't
stop crying. At about 9:30 that night, Dana had finally gotten Noelle asleep,
and she sat, alone in her thoughts. Her cell phone rang, and she knew she
needed to answer it. There was something in some dimly lit corner in her mind
that told her to pick up her phone. Finally, she gave into the temptation and
scratchedly said, "Hello?"
"Dr. Scully, I'm with
Halcyon labs, and I hate to bother you this late on Christmas Eve, but we got
your daughters test results back, and I figured you'd want to know right away.
Noelle is in full remission. You have a very healthy daughter. Merry Christmas,
Dr. Scully." For, the first time in what seemed like forever, Dana smiled
beneath the tears.
Part Nine: December 24, 2000, A street in Los Angeles, 12:00 pm
A strangely familiar street
lies in front of them. They are coming from two different directions, still
pinpricks in the distance to each other when the fog rolls in. It's fog like
they only have in LA. Thick, blinding, choking; almost malleable in its state.
Everyone else on the street stops or slows. They try ineffectively to swipe
away the thick fog. Not those two. They just keep moving, faster and faster.
Now they are running. They don't know why they're running. To be able to stop
running, they would give anything. The fog makes their eyes water and their
noses burn, but they still keep running. Through their physical pain, they feel
their lives filling up, piece by piece, like a giant jigsaw puzzle. They begin
to feel like they belong. Finally, they run into each other. Never have they
met, but they embrace like long-lost lovers. As soon as they touch, their world
begins to spin, and they are deposited in a strangely familiar place.
Part Ten: December 24, 2000, A street in Phoenix, Arizona, 2:35 pm
Lawrence Anderson was
upset. Mind you, he had a reason to be. Just days earlier, his ten-year-old son
was killed when a bomb leveled the courthouse in Phoenix where the fifth grade
class was having a field trip. Lawrence had taken a young clerk hostage in a
convenience store. "Let the girl go, and we'll talk," said Agent Scully, who
just happened to be there investigating some tales of a monster that was said
to steal the souls of local high school students. "We won't negotiate until we
have her."
"Come on, Mr. Anderson.
We'll give you anything you want. Just let her go," said Agent Mulder
fervently.
"Mulder, let me talk. Mr.
Anderson," Scully said, words were pouring out of her mouth from some unknown
source, "Mr. Anderson, I know what it's like to lose a child. A child you've
held and comforted when they're sick. I know the great joy and pain a child can
give you. Joy in life pain in death. Please, Mr. Anderson. Killing is not the
answer. You just perpetuate the vicious cycle. Mr. Anderson, put the gun down."
Mulder and Scully see it at
the same time. His shoulders slump; his weapon falls to the ground, useless. He
begins to weep. "I want my son back." He calmly allows Mulder to put him in
handcuffs and lead him to the squad car.
"Scully, that was the most
heartfelt thing I've ever heard. It was just beautiful. Was that about Emily?"
"I guess, so. It just felt
like something else, some other child. Like some other part of me that I don't
even know about was speaking to that man. I just don't know."
Mulder laughed, "Who are
you and what have you done with my partner? Is Scully the skeptic saying she
had a, gasp, past life?!"
"Shut up, Mulder."
A/N By the way, I originally wrote this before we knew anything about
the pregnancy, and all developments between the second half of season 7 and all
of season 8. This story is more true to my first draft than the original posted
on ffn.net.
