Title: Mulder's Other Baby
Author: Neoxphile
Feedback: Sure! neoxphileaol.com (But not just to tell me I'm crazy. I know)
Website: R
Category: After a few pages you can decide for yourself.
Spoilers: Anything is fair game, takes place two years after "The Truth"
Note: This fic is going to assume that the May abduction date given in " The Gift" is another CC & Co goof like the date Samantha died given in "The Truth." For purposes of this fic at least, Mulder was abducted at the end of August 2000, returned late March 2001, and William was born May 20th, 2001.
Summary: Mulder finally tells Scully about his other child.
July 4th, 2004
They were experimenting with making fireworks look like something.
A spaceship shaped burst of light filled the night sky. Then another a second later, this one like a dragon. As the fireworks faded from the night sky, Mulder looked at Scully and realized it was time to confess. He'd been putting it off for years, and he just couldn't bear the burden of secrecy any longer.
He didn't say much on the way home, which made Scully give him several concerned glances on the ride home. When he didn't make any stupid jokes as they got ready for bed, her concerned doubled. "Mulder, what's wrong?"
Mulder sighed. It was now or never. "Dana. There's something I've never told you."
His use of her first name worried her but she tried not to let it show. " What?"
"I have a son." He said softly.
Scully's concern didn't leave her face. Her first thought was that the brain problem he had was back. "I know Mulder, William is my son too." She said carefully. "I miss him too, and hope to get him back as badly as you do."
Mulder stubbornly shook his head, rejecting what she said. "I don't mean William."
"Oh." She said, shock making her stupid. Never in a million years did she expect for him to make a confession of that nature to her. "How old?" She asked in a small voice. If the boy were born before she met him, it would be ok. At least that was the lie she immediately told herself.
"Three and a half." He replied, not looking her in the eye. "He'll be four in January. New Years day."
The answer devastated her. Their son was only five months younger. That meant that she and whomever this other child's mother was were pregnant at the same time. She fixed him with an accusatory glance. How could he have taken up with her, after all that time, if he was with someone who was already pregnant? Even if it was a one night stand, he should have mentioned it. And how did a man who was almost never involved end up in relationships with two women at the same time? She wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer. "Do you ever see him?" She asked, feeling suddenly jealous of the possibility.
"Never." He said sadly. If she was any less angry she might have felt pity for a man who didn't know either of his children.
"Oh." She looked away.
"Scully, please. I'm not telling you this to hurt you, it's just that it's too much to keep the secret from you any longer. I never told you because I thought you'd be horrified...but things have changed, and I need you to know." Mulder gave her puppy dog eyes, and she wanted to hit him.
"If you feel you must..." She icily agreed. The theory she had about a one- night stand seemed more viable now, especially if he thought it would horrify her. She was suddenly glad that he'd gotten an AIDS test amongst all the other blood work they did on him. Settling sullenly against the headboard, she waited to hear a story about another woman. She only hoped she'd find a way to forgive him after hearing it.
Nodding resignedly, Mulder began to spin his tale. "It all started when I went back to Oregon-"
"You were involved with someone up there? How long did that go on?" Scully asked, thinking suspiciously of Theresa Hasckel. But her baby had been a girl, she thought, and probably four by now.
Mulder ignored her. "When I went back there, to the woods where we'd found Billy Miles, I knew with a sudden sureness that I was mistaken that they wanted you. They wanted me. Helpless to resist, I was drawn to a spot out in the woods. Others were gathered there, and we all knew. They were coming for us. I hear Skinner yell for me, but they were already there, and I already felt so far away so I couldn't respond-"
"Mulder, that's the story about how you were abducted by aliens. I thought you were going to tell me about how it is that you managed to father another son." Scully complained.
"I will, if you stop interrupting me." Mulder said, sounding much less contrite. "Anyway, I was out in the woods with all those other people, when they sucked us up into the ship. I'd always imagined that you'd slowly float in a tractor beam, but it wasn't like that at all. One instant I was on the ground with the others, bathed in light, and the next I was on the ship being man-handled by two grays."
"Were they shape-shifters?" Scully asked. She still didn't know why he was telling her about his abduction, but since he'd never shared the details before, she wasn't about to demand that he stick to the initial topic.
"No. Just your standard garden variety grays. I'll tell you, with those big almond eyes of theirs you'd think they'd be nicer than the ABH, but they were just as evil. It didn't seem so at first, because they were actually almost nice to us as we got onto the ship."
"Nice how?"
"They showed us each to a room. Well, we each had a roommate, but it the accommodations were better than most of the immigrants to the US had a hundred years ago. Nice rooms. No TV though, just music. I didn't care much for it because it was that new-agy techo stuff Reyes used to like so much-"
"Better than the whale songs." Scully muttered.
"My roommate seemed to like it. It was hard to tell for sure though, since she wasn't human."
Scully's indignation flared at the word 'she'. "Was she a gray?"
"No, actually, she was a calf. She looked a lot like the cow that fell into my hotel room that one time. I never got to ask her if they were related, because, well, cows don't speak. At least not English. And the grays didn't seem inclined to translate." Mulder told her.
Scully looked at him like he was insane. "Your roommate was a cow? Did she sleep in the other bed?"
"Of course not." Mulder replied indignantly. "There was only one bed. And before you ask, we didn't share it. There was a single bed for me, and a stall for her. It wasn't as bad as you would think, bunking with a cow. She had nice eyes, reminded me of Diana for some reason-"
"You said they were nice 'at first'. Does that mean that they weren't nice to you all along?" Scully interrupted to ask even though she knew the answer already. She didn't want to hear about Fowley because she wasn't the mother of this other son given when she'd died, even if she did remind Mulder of a cow. Not that she wanted to hear much more about the young cow either.
Pain filled his hazel eyes. "They...tortured us."
"Oh Mulder, I know, your cheeks..." She was flooded with pity, even though she was still angry with him.
He shook his head. "No, not that. There were worse things than that. I would have gladly let them poke more wires into my face if that would have kept them from doing what they did to us... it was so horrible."
"I'm sorry." Scully said, even though she didn't know what she was apologizing for.
His voice dropped to a whisper. "They made...us play on a game show."
"A game show?" She asked, trying to look concerned rather than laugh at him. What was so wrong with a game show?
"Yes, a game show. It didn't make any sense! It was a quiz show, but the questions were bizarre. Things like 'guess a square' , ' what's the speed of dark?' 'a tadpole or a frisbee if the swallow's unladen?' and 'what color would it be?' I guess I should have been thankful that the host asked them in English, but he didn't open his mouth to speak, which was eerie. Almost as eerie as the fact that he was wearing a sweater vest and a red bowtie.
Even in English, we couldn't answer any of the 'questions.' And it was even worse for the cows. I said the grays didn't feel like translating, but I'm pretty sure they didn't even know bovine. The cow answering would moo out what was probably a very reasonable answer, and they'd just frown and dump a bucket of catsup on them. People might think that cows don't understand the implications, but I assure you, had you looked into their big liquid eyes, you'd know that they did. Fortunately, they gave up on having cows as contestants before they got to my roommate." He said, looking horrified. " It was the losing that was the worst."
"What happened to the contestants who lost?" Scully asked, wondering if she had the number to a good shrink handy. She'd gone to school with several people who taking that career path, so surely one of them was accepting new patients.
"If the contestant was one of the unfortunate cows, they were thrown out the ship's hatch after losing once. I think they were just disappointed that the cows weren't working out the way they thought they would. Watching the turkeys being thrown out of a helicopter on WKRP can't compare to the poor cows. Given their weight they simply exploded upon impact. It was horrible."
"Did any humans lose?"
"I did." Mulder said, swallowing hard.
"Well, since it doesn't look like they threw you out of the ship, what did they do to you?"
Mulder didn't answer. Instead he remembered. Cold and naked. Strapped down to a table, screaming at the cruel grays to leave him alone, whimpering as a long fingered hand reached for his genitals...
"I don't know if I can tell you, Scully."
"You have to." She insisted.
He sighed. "It depended on how many games you lost. The first time you lost they locked you in a room with a TV for 24 hours. At first I thought that it was just for a break or a treat. Then the TV turned on... it was chick flicks! And there was no off button, or volume button. You can't sleep through Waiting to Exhale playing a full volume. You just can't. Of course, that was just the first round. Things got much worse after that."
Scully gave him a sympathetic look. She knew that he truly considered sitting through any movie with Whitney Houston in it to be torture, so she couldn't begin to imagine what he would consider "much worse."