Title: Life After Mulder (1/6)
Authors: Jennifer Zoromski and Jennifer Weiss
Rating: PG13
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Chris Carter, 1013, and FOX
Summary: Scully deals with life after Mulder is abducted, but then somehow he is returned.
Category: Scully angst, MSR,
Spoilers: "Requiem"
Feedback: Please read and review.
Timeline: This story takes place after I watched "Requiem" in May. The whole eighth season didn't happen the way they wrote it. This is my and Jennifer Weiss's take on the eighth season and beyond.
Authors' Notes: I ( Jen Zoromski) started this fic not long after I watched "Requiem" during the long summer and Jennifer Weiss joined me. We wrote this over at the Message Boards between June 14, 2000 and July 1, 2000. Hope you enjoyJ
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"When the world was falling apart you told me the truth. You are my constant…my touchstone." –Mulder "Sixth Extinction: Amor Fati"
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The light the bright light shines in my eyes. I can't see. It hurts my eyes and then I remember-Mulder is gone: suffering the same fate I had suffered about 6 years ago.
He has been gone for five months. Five long months. I toss and turn in my bed, a bed that could have been both Mulder's and mine. I went back to work after he was abducted, but I couldn't carry on his work with out him there giving me the latest scoop or telling me I must look beyond the realm of science, my safe haven of facts.
Skinner assigned me a new partner because he was guilty that he lost Mulder, my Mulder. Our quest is to find Mulder and bring him home safely. I have a child to think about now. This child is growing inside of me not knowing he or she could be the key to it all. Yes, I'm afraid of what single motherhood will be like, but this child is everything I've hoped and dreamed for.
"Agent Scully I don't want you working. I want you to take a leave of absence. Scully, you're almost seven months pregnant. I don't want to tell you this, but you've got to quit looking for what isn't there. You are risking your life as well as your child's," Skinner told me with sympathy in his voice.
How many times had I told Mulder that and he didn't listen. He still looked for things that did not exist. After he was taken I started questioning my faith and the things I believe in and realize that I do believe in what Mulder said. I was just hiding behind my protective wall of science.
I took a leave of absence then and went and found comfort with my mom. She didn't disappear like so many others I had loved and trusted. She helped me through one of the hardest things in my life. I stayed in my own home; a walking zombie waiting for a revival my child would bring. A destiny that was forever meant for me.
My child entered the world on my 37th birthday. A son that bore the same name of his father-Fox William Mulder Jr., Will for short. My mom held my hand as I saw my red screaming bundle of joy. I realized then the reason I was put on this Earth, to bore a son, Mulder's son. This child I was told later was the key to everything that we had sought after.
When I took my son and held him for the first time I cried tears of joy and sorrow at the same time. Mulder would never get to experience the joy of seeing his only son being born into the world.
I returned to work not long after Will was born. He was a good baby like he could read my thoughts when he cried and knew I told him everything was all right. My mother became a permanent baby-sitter for my son. I didn't want to leave him with any else because I was still having this trust problem. I was more determined to find Mulder than I ever was because my son, his son was here and waiting for the long awaited return.
I had no clue whatsoever as to where to look for Mulder. My new partner thought I was a nut saying aliens abducted Mulder. I was now the believer, the one who now had the quest to define and bring Mulder home.
We went back to where it all began-Oregon. We drove down the highway the same one Mulder and I had drove down almost 9 years earlier. I told my partner to stop and got out of the car. There on the road was the X, the orange X that began all the crazy things I witnessed Mulder doing. I smiled at the thought of so many cases: Him singing the Shaft theme song, being in the woods alone and having to sing Joy to the World to keep awake, pencils falling from the ceiling, and all the other things that I never regarded or thought of before. My new partner, the man of no compassion who stood next to me, laughed at the X and that hurt me. He was laughing at a memory of my beloved Mulder. We went to the woods that had claimed Mulder 9 months earlier. I called out his name, but knew he would never come to me, not yet at least.
Oregon- A place I never thought would mean so much to me. The local authorities where on the lookout for Mulder and all the others who where taken. I knew he wouldn't come back here, but being here brought me closer to him somehow. My new partner has a
personality of a wall and I hate spending any time with him whatsoever. We took a look around, but I wanted to get back home to Will, the only tangible thing that I had left of Mulder.
The year crept by slowly. We investigated some cases, but I found myself taking more and more time off wanting to spend time with my son instead of work. Motherhood changed me so. I dreamt about my son and couldn't wait to hold him and comfort him when he cried. Two months after Will was born I found a connection to Mulder's abduction-Roswell. I know it sounds crazy, but there were people who were abducted from Roswell after the crash in the late 40's. Those people returned four years later. To think this is like Roswell I can't bare to think that Mulder gone for four years. It is almost the one-year anniversary of his disappearance.
I didn't know what I would do for the dreaded anniversary of him being long, but I found that the most ideal thing for me to do was go and pray in, the church I had neglected so much. I prayed to God that night to watch over Mulder and to bring him home. I felt a swift, chilling breeze go through that church and my bones and knew that God answered my prayers, but not as quickly as I would have hoped.
The days are so slow as I think only of Mulder. I wonder if he remembers anything. Is he going through horrible experiences to get home to me? Will he ever be returned?
I had thought that the project that the CSM started long ago had died with him, but I found out that it had been restarted, that there was a threat I could be taken again or that someone I loved dearly would be taken.
Will has been with me for six months, a whole six months. I have been a mother for six months and it seems like forever. I think I have obtained my life mostly except for that desire to see Mulder again, to talk with him, or just to see him smile.
The X-Files were closed once again, but not because we got too close, it was because I had requested it until Mulder got back so my wall partner wouldn't completely ruin it all. I feel as though and eternity has passed, but I know it isn't so.
I still work in Mulder's office, but I won't let my partner move another desk in there. I like the office just the way it is. Skinner is always telling me he's sorry that Mulder was taken and he couldn't stop him. I finally told him, "Sir, I know you could have tried to persuade him, but he wouldn't have listened. Stop blaming yourself and put teams together and try to find him. Two people can't search the whole planet as well as the outer reaches of space." That stunned Skinner because I barely talked to him since that fateful night.
I found something in Will's DNA, that I overlooked and it looked a lot like the inactive string of DNA that was active in Gibson Praise, the one that made it possible for him to read minds. My woman's intuition told me to keep it quite as long as possible because this child was the key to everything.
TO BE CONTINUED…