Title: A New Beginning

Author: Willow25

Rating: PG

Category: Post-Ep Alternate Ending, veering into Alternate Universe, MSR Established

Spoilers: Closure, or at least most of it.

Summary: Mulder and Scully find a different kind of "Closure".

Disclaimer: Unless someone out there is in desperate need of a writer who can shamelessly swipe characters developed by others and bend them to her will I'm not making any money on this. Big shocker, right? We all know who they belong to. I bow to the God that is Carter.

Feedback/Reviews/Criticism: Would be very much appreciated, indeed.


Scully stood on the doorstep of Arbutus Roy's house, close beside Harold Piller. She turned to glance at Mulder, leaning on the hood of the car. Sucking up her courage, Scully rang the doorbell with trembling fingers. So much was riding on this moment, Mulder's future happiness as well as hers.

She had long ago realized that their fates were intertwined, hers and Samantha's. It had never been this critical, though. She and Mulder had become lovers, and in the physical expression of their love their bond had strengthened, although neither would have believed it possible. What began as an attachment born of empathy and physical attraction had grown into a bond that connected them on a sub-atomic level. They felt with the same heart, the same soul. They would never have any peace without finding his sister.

The door opened to reveal a rail-thin woman in her thirties, with shoulder length dirty blond hair and green eyes. Scully judged her to be about 5'7". The blond looked worried that there were people on her doorstep, and tangled her hands in her skirts, unintentionally raising her hem to expose bare feet, toes clenching the carpet. Scully spoke up, before the woman had a chance to say anything. "We're looking for Arbutus Ray. Is she home?"

The woman smiled sadly. "I'm sorry, she passed away three months ago. I'm her daughter, Kayla; is there something I can help you with?"

Scully's face registered surprise at discovering Ms. Roy had a daughter. From the information they'd found at the hospital (she still didn't want to know how Mulder got his hands on the employee records), Ms. Ray had been single and childless when she would have come into contact with Samantha. This woman would have been teenaged herself at the time. Scully felt Mulder approach from behind her. He'd seen the woman at the door, and Scully's reaction to her, and his curiosity was piqued enough to draw him up the slight incline of the walk.

Mulder stepped forward to address the blond woman. "We're from the FBI. We were looking for a young girl your mother treated in 1979, a Jane Doe. We thought she might be able to tell us where the girl had gone, possibly give us a better description. We're looking into a new lead on an old missing person's case. Did your mother ever say anything to you about her work?" Mulder was doing his best to be neutral, but something about this woman seemed familiar to him; it was all he could do to keep himself from dragging her to the nearest hospital to demand blood tests. The part of him which recklessly followed hunches knew that this was Samantha. He tried to give Scully a little mental nudge to check out his feeling, but she was ignoring him and there was nothing he could do about it.

The woman at the door met Scully's eyes, avoiding Mulder as much as she could without being rude. "I'm sorry; my mother never spoke about her patients to me; I didn't even live with her at that time, so there's really nothing I can tell you. I'm sorry." She paused, and Mulder was surprised when she gave them a hesitant smile rather than the cool dismissal he'd been expecting. "We're in the process of going through her things so we can sell the house. If I come across anything which might help you, I could give you a call." She forced out a hesitant smile.

Scully reached out towards the woman, handing her a business card. "We would very much appreciate that. We're sorry about your mother."

Kayla nodded and took the business card from Scully, putting it into her pocket. Just then a little girl came running around the corner towards the door. Mulder felt like he'd been sucker punched in the stomach, his gasp audible to all of them. The girl looked just like Samantha as a child, with her curly brown hair, her pudgy cheeks, and her dimpled smile. Scully also recognized the resemblance. She turned her worried gaze on Mulder, knowing what he thought, and silently requesting that he keep his thoughts to himself if he wanted any more cooperation from the obviously shy and nervous woman before them.

"Mommy, who're they?" The girl came up to Kayla and extended her little arms to her. Her mother obliged by picking her up.

Settling the child on her hip, she turned her gaze to the agents. "I'm sorry about that. This is my daughter, Marissa. Missy, these people are looking for a little girl who ran away."

The little girl turned her eyes on them. "I'm the only girl we have here."

Scully smiled. "Well, thank you. How old are you?"

Missy held up three fingers proudly. "I'm three. My birthday was in February. How are you going to find the girl? Is she in trouble?" Missy was looking straight at Scully, oblivious to the two men.

"No, she's not in trouble, but she has an older brother who misses her very much, so we're just going to have to keep looking." Scully tried to keep up a happy face for the little girl, but the thought of Mulder continuing his search this way scared her. He'd said this was the end of the road; but would it really end here, or would he push forward with heightened intensity at this apparent dead end. They could only take so much more of this stress level before they started to crack, and there was no end to their quest in sight.

Missy held out her little hand to Scully, and Scully took it. The little girl stared at her harder, almost as if she was looking into her head. "She's not a little girl. The girl you're looking for is all grown up. But she's scared of her family. She doesn't remember them; just pieces, scary things."

Scully heard Mulder's intake of breath as another harsh gasp just behind her. Suddenly, all Scully wanted to do was get away from here, to get back to DC with Mulder and sort things out alone, on her own turf. Gently, Scully took her hand back from the child with his sister's face and her sister's nickname. Why did the simplest cases turn complex when they worked on them?

"Thank you, Marissa." Scully looked up into Kayla's troubled face. "We're sorry to bother you, ma'am. If you find anything that might help us find her, please, don't hesitate to call." The woman nodded, and Scully turned away, grabbing Mulder to force him back to the car quietly. Harold followed silently, having nothing to add to the situation.

Mulder's excited, slightly hysterical murmur erupted just as they reached the car. "Scully, did you see that little girl? She was obviously my sister's daughter. I'm an uncle. Did you get a headache or feel nauseous or lightheaded when Marissa held your hand? Do you think...?"

Scully turned to face Mulder as they stopped near the driver's side door. "Mulder, the fact that Arbutus Ray has a granddaughter who bears a superficial resemblance to Samantha means nothing. We still have only circumstantial information to link Samantha to this place, or these people. Now, we are going to get in the car and drive away. When we get back to DC and get some rest, we'll sort this whole thing out." Scully walked around to the passenger door and got in, oblivious to Mulder's frustration.

Kayla Ray-Davis watched as the agents got into the car and drove away. She clenched her daughter tightly to her chest, worried that she had done something wrong. A strange sense of recognition had come over her when she saw the taller man approach the house, but she didn't know how to tell them anything without sounding crazy. Marissa squirmed in her arms, pulling away until she could look up into her mother's face. "Mommy, why'd you lie to those people?"


Scully sank onto the bed in her hotel room, and flopped onto her back, drained of strength. She turned her head to watch Mulder enter through the connecting door, lowering his tee shirt as he wandered towards her. His voice was almost a whisper when he finally spoke, but she heard him anyway. "Scully, I've been thinking about something. What if Marissa was right? What if Sam's scared to be found? Maybe what they did to her was so horrible, she doesn't want to be found?"

Scully closed her eyes, unable to look at the pain and worry on his face, yet equally unable to ignore his feelings as she shared them, too tired to block him out. "Would it matter; after all you've lost to find her? Don't you just want to know?"

Mulder sighed, and lay on the bed beside her. "Maybe finding her isn't the important part." Mulder brushed a hand across her forehead, his eyes unfocused as he pieced together his sentence. "Maybe just knowing she exists somehow, somewhere, is enough. After all, I haven't lost everything. I still have you." Scully opened her eyes and met Mulder's teary gaze. "Maybe it's time to let go."