Author's Notes:
I revised and edited it as much as I could, but I am not a native English speaker,
so if you see any mistakes regarding grammar and misuse of a word, I am sorry/please tell me so I can fix it!

This is (for now) the only fully written fanfiction for my HP/XF AU.
Headcanons, fanarts and more on the link in my profile.

On the night she finally retrieved her own thoughts and will, she only thought of running. Some stood in her way, but not for long – they were there standing in her way for years already, and she would not tolerate it anymore. The first thing she noticed when she stepped out of the building, running like a racehorse, was the cool air of the night against her skin. She was used to being cold, but that was way too much for her.

Yet, her feet never stopped moving her across the yard. Some guards tried to shoot her - they fell limp in their watchtowers right away. She was able to pass by some of them without being noticed, somehow. She didnt understand that, but didn't complain either.

She ran into the dark, through the trees, hurting her feet so badly that later she would barely be able to stand. But she kept going on, not yet feeling it, the absolute terror and other kinds of pain still so sharp in her that the wounds on her feet for running on rocks and the cuts on her knees for falling down and the ones on her hands for pushing branches away from her path were mere papercuts to her in that moment.

She heard their voices yelling, and the explosions as they tried to hit her down with spells, but the trees and the rocky slope were in her favour, helping her out silently. A couple of times, she felt a soft impact around her as if she was caught inside an invisible wave, but they didn't hurt her. She was also moving in a weird way she could not explain, sometimes looking forward to get to somewhere right in front of her the fastest she could, and in a second, there she was.

She kept running down that mountainside, wishing to be somewhere else, anywhere but there.

As if a genie had granted her wish, she was engulfed by the darkness for a couple of seconds and suddenly she was in a place that looked completely different. Her wounded feet hit the snow, the cold getting inside her skin painfully as she looked around at unknown trees.

The air smelled slightly different, too. The screams and the footsteps behind her ceased and everything was deadly quiet. She held herself, her arms around her bony torso - when she broke out of the facility, she was wearing nothing but her thin gown, and felt terribly cold in that midwinter's snow. She was lost and had no idea of where she was.

But that voice she knew so well was there in her head, still calling her name. And with it, a hundred of other voices that were not like that first one, and that were also not hers were talking nonstop in her brain in languages she could not understand.

She panicked, gripping her head between her hands, overwhelmed by the feeling of having her mind so crowded she felt as if she was about to explode. She sat on the snow, unable to stand on her wounded feet any longer. Warm tears came out, the fear and the cold shaking her weak body with iron hands.

However, she had her mind back.

After all this time, and even with her brain overflowing with voices she could not understand, her mind was now crystal clear without the spells, it was her own at last and not even the extreme cold and crippling fear could ever take that away from her.

Thinking hard about what she was going to do next and what she needed to know, she inhaled the frozen air, slowly. The burning sensation in her lungs waking her up and calming her down, little by little. She sat like that for a while, trying to solve this puzzle: she paid attention to the voices, and one by one, she heard what they were saying and silenced them out of her head right away. Soon, they were all silenced for good and everything was clear, clearer than ever.

Somehow, she was able to understand the whispers. They told her things she wanted to know, and things she never wanted to see again, but they were mostly used in her favor.

The voices told her it was December 29, 1995; she was somewhere in Albania, in the middle of a forsaken by the gods forest.

She heard about Magic, Muggles, house chores not done in time, songs she didn't remember listening to in radio stations.

She heard of things she felt she shouldn't know.

She heard comforting thoughts next to a fireplace, and the desperate thoughts of hunger.

The feelings of real people, somewhere nearby.

At that point she was shivering so badly she felt her fingers and toes slowly going numb with the cold and wished she had real warm clothes on her, a thick cloak, pants – and once more and as mysteriously as her escape into this frozen forest, a large red coat and black thick pants showed up on her body, from anywhere she could explain.

Warm and her mind now silent and see-through, she slowly began to understand what was happening and just as slowly, the memories of all those years, clouded by all sorts of spells and potions and other horrors she could not name were being retrieved by her tired brain.

With a shiver that was not related to the winter air, she remembered the tests and the people around her talking about the magic. It was all magic, of her own doing. That made sense to her, even though she could not remember that magic could only be done with wands and potions and special artifacts on 90% of the times and with most magical people.

She could not realize yet at that very moment, minutes after her very improbable escape, what the testers actually did to her. She could barely understand who she was, in first place.

It was slow but and it took almost her entire life and constant tries, but she was finally free from them. Sitting in the snow, her bare feet wrapped in her coat, she was vaguely remembering things from before that, before the facility. A group of people, like very thin, frail ghosts coming back from her own past.

She could not see their faces.

She turned her attention to that voice inside her mind that was still calling and calling her faintly, but nonstop over all these years. It was very clear now that she had no one else but herself in her own mind. That voice was the sole reason why she knew she had a name at all. Somehow she knew she was not just "intercepting" that voice like she did with all the others a few minutes ago. They were different from that voice she heard constantly and she knew that it was her name, and that voice was calling for her and not someone else.

She had just escaped very dangerous people, and was lost somewhere in the wilderness. She had no choices, and nowhere to go. That was her only chance.

She closed her eyes and concentrated.

And she wished again, feeling that sensation of being engulfed by complete darkness for a few seconds before seeing a faint light come through her eyelids, at the same time she touched the floor, still sitting like she was on the forest's snow.

There was no snow where she was, and the cold was suddenly replaced by warmth. She hesitated for a few seconds, ready to fight and run again if necessary, and opened her eyes.

She was inside a tiny place, a house. It was nicely warm in there, and somehow cozy, way different from the facility and the room/cell she slept in since she was a small child. There was a blue fishtank in a corner, and next to it a desk full of papers, quills and a typewriter; she could hear a nighttime announcer on the radio near her, talking about the music they would play that night in their show.

However, she tilted her head with curiosity - not about the fishes or the typewriter or the radio, but about the man sound asleep in the couch.

She carefully approached him, walking on her knees, not wanting him to wake up. That voice that called her for years in a whisper was so very clear now - and was coming from him. It was so clear he could have been speaking to her right now if he was not sleeping, his arms crossed against his chest. Now closer, she saw his eyes were moving fast underneath his lids.

She paused for a second and instinctively closed her own eyes, and as effortlessly as breathing she felt her mind traveling the space between them and submerge inside his dream.

There she saw the faded memory of a little girl with ribbons in her hair, looking at her very displeased. A voice chattered from a radio, a different and older voice and a different radio from before.

"Do we have to listen to this, Fox?"

When she looked down, her hands were the ones of a child and when she spoke, her voice was the one of a young boy.

"'The Magician' comes on at 9.", she said in the boy's voice.

"Mom and Dad said I could listen to the show, butt munch". The little girl looked extremely angry.

"They are next door at the Galbrands. They left me in charge". She answered back automatically in that voice that was not hers, and the little girl simply looked angrily at her.

She knew what was coming next. She quickly recoiled from that dream-memory that, she realized, was also hers.

She opened her eyes and looked down at the man, frowning softly in his sleep.

She knew why.

"Fox", she called softly, speaking for the first time since the last test she performed two nights previously. Her voice sounded unused, child-like, even though she was in her late twenties.

His frown grew deeper.

"Fox. Wake up.", she insisted

"What is it, Scully?", he muttered, eyes still closed and not fully awake.

"It is Samantha, Fox. I-I… I am here."

As if he was struck by lightning, his eyes flew open in surprise and shock, looking up at her as if she was a ghost – she pretty much looked like one. She heard his thoughts full of fear and retreated quickly, her sore feet aching against the rug.

He drew out his wand instantly and swiftly with the practice of an auror, even though she didn't know any of that yet.

"Who the hell are you and how did you get in?" She could hear him say, but she could hear everything he was thinking as well.

"No no no, not again"

"Not another one"

"I am so sick of this"

Out of self-defense, she panicked for a couple of seconds, considering if she should attack him like she did to the people before, but something inside her stopped her right in time. She knew she could kill him in a snap of two fingers – the recent escape from the facility was still hammering against her mind.

But if that man was the owner of the voice calling her, and if that dream-memory he just had was also a memory of her own, if all of this was true, he was the only one that could help her. If all of it was the truth, he was her only brother.

She looked up at him and lifted her hands, showing she meant no harm.

"Please, I don't want to hurt you".

He snorted with disdain at the answer.

"Yeah yeah and I am Babbitty Rabbitty's Cackling Stump. Answer my question. Who – are – you?", he pointed the wand harder and stepped closer to her.

"It's me, Fox. S-Samantha. Your sister".

"Well, get in the line then. There was a bunch before you telling me the same thing."

"But it is me now. It is really me."

"Oh, is it? Prove it.", he sounded fed up with it in special, more than having his home broke in by some strange woman.

She looked up at him saddly. He was her only chance to escape - she knew she would have to hide from those people, forever. He was also her only chance to find out who she really was. She tried her best to remember something, anything.

"I don't have all night long. Prove it, or I will kill you right there. I am sick and tired of the Ministry's mindgames to affect me, always bringing me someone to play as my dead sister. I've had enough of this bullshit already."

Samantha closed her eyes, but didn't go for his memories of them this time.

She went down into her own memories, hidden in forgotten corners she didn't have access during all these years due to mind control. She did the same thing she did to him just now when he was asleep, except she did it to herself.

She recoiled inside her own remaining recollections, concentrating as much as she could.

After a few seconds she was able to see something in her mind's eye – the memory was worn-out and failed here and there like a very old photograph, but it was there: the sight of a beach on a clear, sunny day. She saw her own knees in front of her for she was sitting on the sand, with old wounds on them from falling on them constantly. She saw her own little, child hands in front of her, holding a sandwich, and a small Fox sitting by her side, also holding a sandwich in his hands, their brooms laid nearby as they were only sitting there, talking about something she could not understand.

It was the best she could do for now, though.

When she opened her eyes again, he was staring at her with a curious expression on him – there was suspicious and surprise on his face. And a small hint of fear.

"W…what the fuck was that?" – he asked, not even blinking as he stared at her in confusion. He lifted his wand a bit more. Seeing confusion on her expression as well, he added. "Your eyes… glowed under your lids. Just now. I've never seen anything like that. And trust me, I've seen some pretty weird shit in my life."

"I was remembering", she replied sincerely, still not fully understanding what really happened to her. "I remembered you and I on the beach near our house, when we were little… how we would always fly there on our brooms to play. We brought sandwiches with us, couldn't see what kind though…"

Mulder let his wand fall slowly.

The only person he ever told about those memories was Scully. He never mentioned it to anyone else, or wrote about it, nothing like that. However, he was still hesitant about this strange woman - she displayed some kind of power or magical disease he never heard of or read about anywhere.

Glowing pupils isn't something one can just do with the flick of a wand – and she had none on her.

She also said she was "remembering" - she could somehow be trespassing his Occlumency powers to see those memories of him and his sister together in the beach.

Occlumency was a skill that he and the other Aurors were absolutely required to have and use everyday and to be no less than outstanding at. His apartment was protected by a massive amount of spells, some of them not even known to the public and some were exclusive for members of the Ministry to use, and were very specific regarding who they let in.

On the other hand, the strange woman claiming to be Samantha didn't have wands on her, as he called them to him with nonverbal spells, and overall was not displaying an aggressive behaviour – she was sitting on the floor, probably because of her injured feet, and held her hands where he could see them.

It could all be part of her plan of course, but he was also good at finding those things out.

"Please, Fox… I don't want to hurt you. I-I need help"

He put his wand down, but still paying attention to any kind of suspicious behaviours.

"If you try anything, I have 26 ways and a half ways of blowing you up without saying a single word and that take me only 3 seconds to perform. Am I clear?" she nodded quietly. "Sit down there and tell me who are you, and what do you want from me."

He pointed at the couch on her side, and she did as he told. She haven't sat on a couch since she was a child, probably.

"They are after me. I… I escaped."

"From where?"

"I don't know"

He sighed, impatient.

"Who is after you, then?"

"The people from the Purity Control".

His eyes widened. She was not sure what that meant yet, but remembered the people talking sometimes, something about the "Purity Control", "the Project".

Now able to fully use her brain she was slowly remembering things she saw and experienced in the labs; and her eyes glowing as she used her power to remember, and seeing a little bit of Fox's memories and thoughts about her, she was able to recognize that they somehow meddled with her magic and how she uses it.

She was starting to understand something was not normal about it - about her.

"What do you mean….? How the Purity Control is involved in this?", he knew very little about it, but he knew they were involved in several abductions and tests he and Scully investigated. But they didn't know why exactly.

"It is all very strange and confuse to me yet… I-I am not sure what happened to me in there. The only things I can tell for sure is that they experimented on me, tested me. I was kept under control, all day, everyday, so I wouldn't run away from them."

"But you did run away."

Mulder still seemed skeptical about her being Samantha, but seemed to believe she has been tested – her overall appearence kind of helped on that. She seemed tall and was painfully, painfully thin, her skin so pale she was almost glowing. She looked translucent even, her gaunt face framed by a long, dark plait and sober, thick, deep red robes. Dark circles spread from under her blue eyes and besides the fresh wounds she had, thin lines scared across her face, neck, hands and feet. Apart from the wounds and some dirt on her feet and arms, she seemed to be clean.

She looked tired and as if recovering from a severe illness; she looked younger than she should be, underdevelopped but strangely aged at the same time. Seeing that woman, pale and thin, made him both feel sorry for her, and made very dark memories come back to him, of when Scully looked just like that.

He tossed away such thoughts. He absolutely hated to remember that.

"Yes… somehow I've escaped."

"What was different this time? If you were being mind-controlled, how did you escape that?"

She paused for a while, trying to find the words.

"I think I got used to it. After years, I started to learn it, what was keeping me from actually think. And learned how to dodge it, inside my head."

She was describing some things he'd learned along the years – reports of missing people claiming they were held captive, tested, controlled. An unavoidable control of their minds, until they were returned some time after that. They were mostly Muggles, Muggle-borns, half-bloods, and sometimes squibs – Scully was taken the previous year, they think exactly because she was a Muggle-born.

Blood status didn't matter to Mulder personally, but if that was really their pattern, why Samantha was taken? The Mulders were considered a "pure-blood" family (until Fox Mulder came in dwelling with Muggles, for his father's and grandparents' distaste, whose opinion didn't matter at all to him, anyway), and no Muggles in the family tree for generations. If she was really Samantha, that made no sense at all. And this woman didn't seem to know much about why she was captured in first place, either.

"There is history of captive people overcoming Imperius Curses over time. But that usually take from a couple of months to years, depending on the person. That's what probably happened to you… huh…hm, Sam."

It was probably rude to call someone a nickname when you are not really close to them. And he probably sounded cynical even though it wasn't his intention, but he was not ready to call her "Samantha". He didn't know if she was a Samantha at all, to begin with.

But he had to call her something, and she didn't seem to mind it, anyway. Mulder could be imagining things, but her serious face seemed to lighten up just a little bit when she heard him call her like that.

"So… How did you escape?"

She immediately frowned, not quite ready to go back to the facility, but she had to.

"I was being prepared for another test. They would take all of my blood out again to… do stuff with it."

She said nothing, but could hear him as he asked himself if that was even possible.

She lifted her sleeves up and showed scars on her arms – scars on top of other scars, where her main veins should be, where needles pierced through her skin for years, day after day.

He was good at hidding his true feelings, but she knew he was shocked. Sam had a grim expression on her and he had no reply for that.

"They had equipments and potions and other stuff to keep me alive meanwhile"

She rolled her sleeves down, clearly upset. Her mood had quickly changed and that didn't go unoticed by Mulder – he simply nodded in agreement, letting her go on with her story.

"It is not the only horrible thing they used to do to me. Anyway… They took my blood out to make experiments with it." And then she added, more certain of it by the minute "I think… to enhance it, to make it… better somehow?"

Suddenly it all made sense to Mulder. The last piece of the puzzle.

They were only taking Muggles and Muggle-related wizards and witches… to make a "better" wizard or witch. "Purity Control" suddenly made all the sense to him, and he felt nauseous – even though he considered that alternative before, it was too horrid to be truth, it couldn't be true.

Most of the abductees he has talked to that were the real deal or somehow connected to the Purity Control did not return with anything different in particular, except for a mark on their necks that can only be seen with special spells that he had developped himself for that specific end, for some of the returned had claimed they were marked there even though nothing could be seen in a first glance. That, and the fact Sneakoscopes would always go crazy around them – Scully hated it so much.

However, a few of them presented some curious characteristics – wizards and witches that were exclusive wand-users suddenly were able to cast smaller spells without it; Muggles and Squibs that had not even a drop of magic in them, being able to move or transfigure small objects.

Scully was actually included in that list – she was not an Animagus before the abduction but had to register herself as one after she was returned, as she soon found out she was able to turn herself into a golden eagle, all of a sudden. That, and a few other powers she was still finding out.

They always thought it was some kind of consequence of the abductions, a non-desired aftermath of the tests, and not the actual expected result of them.

It made sense why this woman was so experimented and tested with, and explained why she had glowing eyes. On the moment she was remembering (or so she said) he could tell she was performing some kind of magic even though she had no wand on her – which is not impossible, but it is extremely rare, even more combined with her glowing eyes.

This piece of information was more revealing than anything else before it. He now knows their reasons and what they actually want to do. And it was all gruesome to the very core of it. Even if that woman was not Samantha Mulder, she would have to be protected under seven keys and all the Fidelius Charms he could give her.

"I knew I was aware of myself again.", she continued, after a long pause. "Slowly, I became aware I was being controlled by them, and tonight, something sparkled inside me. I just wanted them to leave me alone. I wanted to be left alone. I was tired of everything they did to me, all the pain. I wanted them dead. And… a-and some of them died, I think."

Mulder felt the cold hand of fear on his chest, realizing that if she wanted him dead, she would have done that a long time ago.

"All of them?"

"No, just the bunch that wanted to take me to the blood test. And some that were shooting me. I was able to run from them, I wanted them out of my way and they were knocked out. When I reached the outside, I ran into the forest and wished I was far away, and so it happened. I heard… voices… that told me I was in a forest in a place called Albania, it was snowy and cold so I wished for clothes and here they are".

She grabbed the front of her red, thick robe. She was barefoot nonetheless, probably forgetting to conjure shoes – someone in Albania would probably be finding out in that exact minute that their favorite red robe and pants had mysteriously disappeared.

"You were Apparating from one place to another." He explained. "And these voices you told me… What were they saying?", he knew this was a dangerous realm: hearing voices means you might be hearing ghosts, you could have been cursed, Legilimency, or… something else.

"They were talking stuff. Mundane stuff, mostly. 'have to stack the logs', 'I need to call Mike', 'I forgot my purse'. Some of them were really, really bad things… And… other things I wouldn't want to repeat…". Her blush was evident against her paleness, and Mulder knew it right away. "I think I was reading minds of people."

"Yes. That's called Legilimency. You were most likely reading the minds of people somewhere near the forest. That would mean your skill is of great power. I knew a boy that had such power, once."

He noticed she was getting more relaxed again, once the subject went away from the facility that was helding her hostage, to explanations of what was actually happening to her.

"Why did you come here, from all places you could have gone?", he asked.

"I heard you too. For years before the escape."

He tilted his head in curiousity, on the same way she did when she saw him asleep in the couch even though he had no way of knowing that yet.

"What do you mean?"

"I heard you call my name. Over and over. That's why I knew my name was Samantha when I was a teen, I don't know how old I was. I think it started when I began to learn how to dodge the controlling spells… They never called me by my name, they never called me anything at all. But sometimes… I heard you, and I knew it was me you were calling. Sometimes your voice would go away, but it always came back. It.. it was very comforting."

If that's true, he thought, her Legilimency skills are way more powerful than Gibson Praise's and boy, he is powerful. And if she was hearing him and not anyone way closer she could have been listening to, that could actually mean…

He shook the thought away.

"So… how did you get here?

"I… 'wished'… to go to the person behind that voice. When I opened my eyes, I was here."

Mulder stared at her, speechless.

"You simply… Apparated here?"

"I think so?"

"You can't simply just Apparate in here! It is…"he sighed "…well, it should be impossible. This place is guarded with things not even the Ministry knows about…"

She simply shrugged softly, not knowing what to say. It wasn't often one would hear Fox Mulder say something is really impossible - but he was extremely worried about this woman wandering around. If she could Apparate in his appartment, she could probably do anything.

He tried to read her mind using his own Legilimency skills, but he somehow was not able to – her Occlumency was way stronger than his power, which kinda worried him as well. However, if all of what she said was true, and he could see some of it in the story, he needed to hide her immediately.

Specially if… if she was indeed Samantha, his place would be the first they would want to search her for. He stood up right away, looking down at her.

"Sam… I have to be honest with you and say I am still not convinced you are my sister. However, I do believe in your story, that you were locked away against your will, that you were tested, tortured. And I do believe you need help to hide, and I will do that. I need to get help to do that though, and I need you to trust them, too. Ok?", his voice sounded genuine and calm to her.

Sam just looked up towards him, not very satisfied about more people knowing her whereabouts, but she had no better choice and just nodded in affirmation.

Mulder drew out his wand again and pointed it towards his window - a luminous silver fox bursted out of its end, running free through the window's glass and into the night. She watched in awe the animal made of light disappearing in the darkness.

About fifteen minutes later, a very short woman with contradicting explosive red hair and piercing, glacial blue eyes Apparated in the middle of the room.

"I'm sorry for taking so long, I had to leave Kevin with my mother."

Sam looked at her, confused by the previous information that no one could Apparate in the appartment and yet, there the red-haired woman was; Sam looked at Mulder, her head tilted. Mulder understood the question in her eyes.

"Scully is the exception."

The woman Scully turned to look at Sam, at first with what seemed to her a hint of arrogance, but as soon as she realized how weak and ill-looking Sam was, how wounded her feet and hands were, she softened her expression to genuine concern for the girl. She looked at Mulder and formulated the question in her mind, letting him read it.

What happened to her? And who is she…?

We should get going, it is not safe for her to stay here., he answered her Legilimency back with his own. Let's go to the boys, we will tell you everything when we get there, and maybe you can also take a look at her, she seems to be in a a pretty bad shape.

They turned back to Sam, she was staring at them, her head slightly tilted.

"Let's go. We are taking you to somewhere safe.", he said.

She tried to get on her feet but was unable to. Seeing the pain in her eyes, Scully drew her wand and soon Sam was standing, floating a couple of centimeters away from the floor. She smiled weakily in gratitude at her and held her hands together in front of her body, waiting.

The girl…- or woman? Her age seemed pretty ambiguous – was almost as tall as Mulder. And not only that… Scully noticed that they looked awfully similar now that they were side by side, even with the girl's pale, scarred skin and bony figure; they carried the same face shape, same nose, same lips. Even the same tiny, squinty eyes, except the woman's were blue and not soft green like Mulder's.

Mulder politely asked Sam for permission before he held her arm, as they prepared to Apparate to The Lone Wanderers' headquarters.

Scully frowned slightly as she realized who that could be, but said nothing. She would hear their explanations and wait for the turn of events.

She only wished that this time, that woman was who she actually claimed to be.