I know my tagline is no angst, but I'm going to suspend that for this story because I've been wanting to write about this episode (One Son) but have been putting it off because it's a bit too angsty. Recently, it got stuck in my head and refused to even let me sleep so I couldn't put it off any longer. I have it completely written but I broke it into FOUR separate chapters to keep your eyes from bleeding from so much text! While this first chapter paints Mulder in a justifiably bad light, this story isn't a total bash fest; trust me, you'll like where I'm going with this.
I feel like the original writers did an injustice to Scully (as usual) by having her just shrug this episode off and continue on like it didn't matter. There should have been some personal blowback from Mulder's actions in this episode and the fact that there wasn't, frankly, makes Scully look weak and masochistic.
Everyone has their breaking point, and this was Scully's. I hope you enjoy.
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Forging A New Path
I don't own The X Files or its characters. The X Files is the property of Chris Carter, and is not my intellectual property. There is no financial gain made from this nor will any be sought. This is for entertainment purposes only.
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Chapter 1 by AnarchyX-Phile
"You ask me to trust no one and yet you trust her on simple faith."
"Because you've given me no reason here to do otherwise."
"Well then, I can't help you anymore."
"Scully, you're making this personal."
"Because it is personal, Mulder. Because without the FBI, personal interest is all that I have. And if you take that away, then there is no reason for me to continue."
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That had been three days ago, and it didn't get any easier for Scully to remember Mulder's words. He hadn't apologized—she had known he wouldn't but she still prayed that he would. She had managed to avoid him after their meeting with Kersh and Skinner, feigning a stomach bug followed by a headache but she knew he wasn't going to stay away much longer. Try as she may—and truly, she had tried her best—she couldn't forgive him. Not this time. It was one time too many.
How many nights of sleep had she given him? How many holidays had she missed with her family because he pulled her away on a case? How many weeks had she spent in the hospital because of situations he put her in? She knew it was a dangerous job, but no other agent landed in the hospital more than she did.
She looked around her empty apartment and felt her throat tighten as a tear streamed down her cheek. How many men had she turned down for him? She knew it was unfair to blame him for her non-existent personal life, but she couldn't help it. For six years, Mulder had dangled a carrot in front of her, giving her just enough of a taste to keep her interested, to keep her loyal. He had once blamed himself that she didn't have a family of her own—and now she blamed him too.
Making it personal? Of course it was personal! How did he not understand that? After six years of giving up everything for him, he threw her away for Diana Fowley. Without hesitation. She had laid her life on the line more times than she could count, for him. She couldn't remember the number of times she had lost her job because of his stunts, if Skinner hadn't been on their side, she damn sure wouldn't have her badge right now. She had always trusted him even when all the evidence told her not to. No matter how he wounded her, she was always by his side, patiently waiting for him to dole out appreciation that never came.
She used to be strong, a pillar of independence; how could she have let this happen? How could she have thrown away so much of her own identity for someone else? When had she become so weak and submissive? Looking back at some of her behavior over the last few years, she was utter embarrassed at her lack of self-respect. She was no longer the woman her parents raised her to be—but she could be her again.
Her face was swollen and hot from all the tears and she brought her hands up and pressed her palms against her cheeks to try and cool them down, but it didn't help. She reached for the phone and sobbed when her finger automatically went to speed-dial #1, Mulder; she pressed #2 and waited anxiously for her mother to answer. Each ring broke her heart a little more and more and when Maggie finally answered, all she could do was cry.
"Dana, honey. Is that you?" She tried her best to answer and thankfully Maggie was able to understand. "What's the matter? Are you hurt?"
"Mom, I... I can't do this anymore."
"Do what? Dana? What are you talking about?" It was obvious that she was frightening Maggie and she hated herself for doing that. A mother must care so much about her child—and in that moment, Scully was terribly jealous of the life her mother had.
"Mom, I have to leave." She heard herself say.
"Honey, try and calm down. I'm coming over, I'll be there in ten minutes and you can explain everything to me. You know I've always kept you safe, I can do that now." A few miles away, Margaret Scully was throwing on her coat over her pajamas before leaving her house and jumping in her car. She was so worried about Dana that she couldn't even remember driving to her apartment or running up the stairs. When she rounded the corner, her heart stopped when she saw Dana leaning against the front door jam as she waited on her.
Maggie rushed to her and wrapped one arm around her back while her other hand closed and locked the door behind them. Once she had gotten both of them seated on the couch, she wiped her daughter's face dry and began blowing cool air against her red face. "What's upset you?" She asked; she knew it had something to do with Fox, there was nothing else in this world that could upset her daughter like that man could.
"I can't stay here mom, I can't live this life anymore... it's killing me." Scully clawed at her mother's pants leg, trying to get closer to her so she could wrap her arms around her. How long had it been since she received comfort from someone who loved her? She couldn't remember and that made her cry harder.
"What's killing you, honey?" Maggie asked soothingly, tightening their embrace and cupping the back of Dana's head, running her fingers through her tangled hair. She had seen her daughter at her worst, but tonight she saw something in her daughter's eyes that she had never seen before: hopelessness. She had always been a fighter and her broke her heart to see her utterly defeated.
"Mulder... he... Mom, he doesn't trust me, he didn't even choose me. After everything... he wouldn't even choose me." She sobbed, burying her head in Maggie's shoulder. Maggie began rocking them back and forth, trying to set up a rhythm even though Dana was fighting her a bit; she knew the motion would help her relax but Dana would have to accept the motherly gesture first—and Dana so hated showing weakness. "He said that... right to my face, Mom. In front of our friends. I hate him."
"Oh sweetheart, you don't mean that."
"I do. I hate him. So much it makes me sick." She said, wanting so much for her mother to understand the depth of her pain. "As much as I loved him, that's how much I hate him now. I can't work with him anymore, I don't ever want to see him again. I've given him so much and all he does is take even more from me. I can't look at his face without hearing those words, Mom. Over and over and over again; every time I close my eyes, he's there laughing at me. Poor pathetic Dana Scully...not even Dana... just Scully. It's eating me up, it's killing me, Mom." Her head fell against Maggie's shoulder and her chest began jumping sporadically as she sobbed.
Maggie squeezed her tighter and closed her eyes. "I don't want you to live in pain. If you can't get over this, then we'll leave."
"We?"
"There's nothing keeping me in DC except for you, honey. I'll go where you go, you won't ever be alone. You are never alone." Maggie leaned back out of their embrace to see Dana's face. "Do you want to leave? Really leave? This is a huge decision and it won't be easy. Fox won't let you go, he'll go crazy looking for you. He'll find you, you know that."
"He won't. Not now, he doesn't need me anymore. And it won't matter if he does look, he won't find me." Maggie must have looked unconvinced because Dana began struggling to explain an FBI protocol in the midst of her sobbing. "There are measures set up in the event an agent needs to disappear. It's not common but it is available under extreme circumstances. It's a new life, a new chance. Something I won't ever have if I stay here. There's nothing keeping me here either, Mom. Just you."
Maggie nodded sadly and hugged her again, "don't make any decisions right now. Try and sleep tonight. In the morning, if you're still set on going through with it, we'll pack up and leave. Okay?" Scully nodded her head and kissed Maggie's cheek. "And listen. Poor pathetic Dana Scully doesn't exist—you're the strongest woman I've ever seen. Do you understand me?" Scully shook her head but Maggie didn't press the issue, now wasn't the time.
As soon as she got Dana calmed down and asleep on the couch, Maggie made a loop through the apartment and started cleaning as she tried to sort her thoughts and emotions. She had half a mind to call Fox right now and demand to know what happened—him not 'choosing' Dana didn't make sense without context—but she didn't want to betray Dana's trust, especially right now when she was most vulnerable.
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After two hours, the apartment was spotless but Maggie was still too antsy to settle in for the night. Maybe a walk would do both of them good? She walked into the living room and stared down at her sleeping baby; the only daughter she had left. Her heart ached knowing how long she must have held this turmoil inside before it broke through the surface and shattered her.
She was just getting ready to wake her up when Dana bolted upright on the couch and sucked in a deep, tortured breath. Maggie rushed to her side and pushed the hair from her eyes, "it was just a dream, I'm here. You're loved. I'm here." She whispered into her ear, like she had when Dana was growing up. She wrapped her arms around her and held her tightly while Dana finished waking up enough to calm herself down.
"I hate him, mom" she whispered in agony, her chin jumping uncontrollably with emotion as she fought back tears. "Other people don't hurt like this, do they?" She asked, truly wondering if love was always this hard.
"No, baby. Love shouldn't hurt, at least not like this. Was there... a reason he trusted this other person over you?"
Scully shook her head and pressed her hands against her ears to keep from hearing Mulder's words again. Maggie nodded her head and began rocking her again; and as much as Maggie loved Fox, in that moment, she hated him as much as her daughter did. Maybe even more. She may not fully understand the situation but she did know two things: Fox Mulder did not understand women at all, and his and Dana's relationship had been destined to fail from the beginning.
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Four hours later, Scully crept out of her bedroom and silently made her way to the front door. There was too much that needed to be done and she couldn't wait until morning. Luckily she knew her apartment better in the dark than she did in the light and Maggie never even heard a floorboard creak as Scully slipped into a black trench coat and tiptoed out the front door.
She was exhausted and would have preferred taking a cab but she would have had to call one at this late hour and likely would end up stranded once she was ready to come back home. So she wearily climbed into her car, cranked the engine, and smacked her cheeks softly to try and wake herself up enough to drive safely. There wouldn't be too many people on the roads at this hour. It was safer that way.
Ten minutes later, she pulled her car into an upscale neighborhood; she imagined herself living inside one of the many windows and how different her life would have been if she had made just a few different choices. Medicine instead of government work, homicide instead of the X Files. Her imaginary life ended abruptly when her eyes landed on the address she was looking for and her real life crashed back over her. She parked and ran into the apartment building, barreling up the stairs so fast that she nearly lost her footing.
When she reached the right door, she lifted her fist and started pounding on the wood, picturing it was Mulder's chest as she pounded some sense into him. It didn't work, it never did. After a few minutes, the door ripped open and Scully dropped her hand down with an apologetic look on her face.
"Agent Scully, this had better be important." A.D. Skinner said as he quickly tied his robe belt around himself.
She opened her mouth and got ready to spit out her code word—the one word that would change the rest of her life. How could one word mean so much? But then again, there was nothing more powerful than words; working in X Files had taught her that. In the end, usually all they had left were words. "Riviera."
She watched Skinner's eyes grow big and if she had been physically capable of it, she might have laughed. But she couldn't laugh. Not right now. "Come in." He said, stepping to the side and pulling her in by grabbing her shoulder. "Are you sure?" He asked, turning on an overhead light and facing her head-on so that he could see her face. He was checking her pupils to see if she was under the influence.
"Riviera."
He sighed heavily not only at the amount of paperwork that he would now have to do but due to the fact that he was losing an agent he truly did have the utmost respect for. "Okay. I'll make it happen. We'll meet at 1757 Ninth Street. Tomorrow morning at 4:37. Be ready to board a plane immediately after."
"Two tickets, my mother is coming."
"Okay, but I can't provide her with documentation. You understand that? I can only do you."
"I know, I'll take care of her." She wanted to say thank you, but this wasn't exactly a situation that called for gratitude.
She turned to leave the apartment but stopped when she felt him tap her on the shoulder and clear his throat. "Does Agent Mulder know?" She turned her head until she could see him out of the corner of her eye. She shook her head and watched him try and hide his shocked expression. "I'll see you tomorrow then. Don't be late."
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Her next stop brought back a tidal wave of memories, memories that stung harder and harder with every passing day. Funny, bad memories usually didn't work that way. But then again, Mulder was atypical so it made sense that memories of him would also work differently than the rest of the world.
She stepped out of the car and the gravel driveway mixed with her utter exhaustion made her footing uneasy as she worked her way to the building. When she reached the large metal door, she glanced at her wrist and then growled annoyingly when she realized she had forgotten her watch at home. She didn't think it was 5:00 yet but the Gunmen were just going to have to get over it, she needed to hurry back before her mother woke up at 7:00. She banged on the metal door as hard as she could and then rang the doorbell, looking up at the video camera pointing down at her face as though she could telepathically tell Frohike to hurry up and open the door.
As soon as the door cracked open, she shoved her way into the building. "I'm sorry to come by so early, but it's an emergency." She walked into their office and dropped her jacket on a desk chair before turning to see who had let her in. Langley. "I'm going to need Byers and Frohike too. They don't have to dress first, I'm in a bit of a hurry." She cringed when he just yawned and rubbed his eyes. "I'm really sorry, I just couldn't put this off."
"I'll go get them. Coffee pot is over there if you want some." He said as he shuffled off towards the back section of the building she'd never seen before. While she waited, her eyes flicked over to the place where Mulder had stood as he broke her heart... broke her spirit. Her eyes began stinging so she swiped annoyingly at them and went into the kitchen to make the boys a pot of coffee.
Her hands were shaking wildly as she tried pouring a pitcher of water into the coffee maker and a good bit of the water spilled and splashed onto the floor but she had managed to get enough into the maker to cover three cups of coffee so she counted that as a success. Life without Fox Mulder. What was that going to be like? She could hardly remember a time when he wasn't in her life... a time when he wasn't her life.
She swallowed nervously and turned around when she heard the men drag themselves into the kitchen. She wished she could repay them for what they were about to do, but there was nothing good enough for a repayment. She apologized again for getting them out of bed, but then decided that it was probably best to just dive in. Straight into the deep end. With an anchor tied to her foot. But she would survive. She always did.
"I need to disappear, to become untraceable."
"For how long?" Frohike asked, perking up slightly at the disturbing thought of not having her around for a while.
"Forever." Frohike's forehead wrinkled in confusion, like he didn't quite understand the concept of forever. He opened his mouth and she could already see his lips forming the word and she stopped him. "Mulder doesn't know and he can't know where I'm going."
He looked dejected but he nodded his head. Honestly, he didn't blame her for wanting to leave. The Gunmen had talked about it from time to time and had marveled at her loyalty to Mulder. After the incident with Diana Fowley, Frohike would have been more surprised—and frankly a bit disappointed—had she stayed with Mulder.
It had taken all of his willpower not to punch Mulder in the face when he had looked into Scully's eyes and chose Diana over her. He would always choose Scully last and Frohike couldn't wrap his head around that. He would give anything in this world or the next to be in Mulder's shoes; to have a woman as talented and beautiful as Dana Scully look at him the way she looked at Mulder. Frohike would do anything for her, even if it meant never seeing her again.
"We can do it." Byers said, giving Frohike a sad, comforting look before walking into their office and booting up all their computers. "We'll all work separately so none of us know the full details of where you'll be. So if one of us talks... not all the pertinent information is leaked."
"I'm getting a new identity from the FBI tomorrow morning. I need another one from you in case... someone figures out the FBI's new identity. I also need a new identity for my mother. Margret Scully." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a slip of paper, "these are our bank account numbers, can you have all the funds in both accounts transferred into something that's untraceable?"
"I can open up an offshore account and funnel all the money into it." Byers said as his fingers began flying across his keyboard. "Use cash for everything, if you've got to have a credit card, get a prepaid card."
Langley sat down at his computer, "I'm going to wipe all your current data from the system, it'll be like you never existed." Scully nodded her head and turned away, unable to stop the tears from falling. Her life...gone with a keystroke. "I'll flag your name too so if anyone tries to find you or dig into your disappearance, we'll know about it."
"I'll make your new identity, give you some credit history and education. Want to stay in the medical field?" Frohike asked, hopping up in his chair and taking a large swallow of coffee before he began typing on his keyboard too.
"Yes, I want to keep my qualifications the same. Minus the FBI, of course."
Over the next two hours, they completely erased Dana Scully from every system they could think of and reinserted Katherine Newgate, M.D. Recently divorced and relocating with her widowed mother, Shannon Howard. They made her a driver's licenses, social security card, passport, birth certificate, even notarized divorce settlement papers.
They bundled up all information, went over her new identity again, and gave her a list of instructions. "Thank you, I know Mulder is going to make your lives hell for a while but... well, I have to do this. I'm sorry, if there was another way..."
Frohike shook his head and walked up to her, giving her a brief hug and handing her an envelope. "It's all the cash we had in the safe, it's not much but it'll hold you over until all your banking is in order."
"No, I can't take this."
"You're taking it. It's collecting dust here and you need it. You can pay us back if you're ever in DC again."
"Or Vegas," Byers chuckled as he stuck his hand out for her to shake but she shook her head and gave him a hug as well.
"Langley, you get one too," she said as she waved him. He shuffled over with an uneasy grin on his face, like he expected Mulder to burst down the door the moment he put his hands on Scully. But no one busted through the door.
"If you need to contact us, use this phone. Keep it turned off unless you call us. I've saved each of our numbers in the phone, if any other number calls this phone, don't answer it. Turn it off, remove the battery, and microwave it." Byers said, handing her a package with a burner phone and a charger.
"Popcorn setting works perfectly," Langley joked, trying to lighten the heaviness that had settled over the room during the last 2 hours.
"You can mail anything you want to us to this address. It's all monitored. Once you know where the FBI is sending you, we'll set you up a PO Box to receive our mail from. Any mail you get from us, microwave it as soon as you can in case any trackers have been added to the envelope during transit."
A week ago, she would have asked if they had a tinfoil hat for her to wear as well, but she knew how far Mulder went when he became obsessed with finding someone, and it didn't seem like a stretch of the imagination that he would try and track her mail if he had the chance.
"Did you want to leave him a note or anything?" Frohike asked, rubbing the back of his neck uneasily.
"No. There's nothing I want to write him." She said, gathering up everything and walking slowly to the door. "But, tell him... tell him this was my choice."