He comes around faster than the others, which doesn't surprise me. The first five men I kidnapped took a good hour before they woke up from the ordeal of coming through the portal with me. Fox Mulder starts groaning in just under thirty minutes. I'd quickly regained my strength after bringing Mulder through, probably because touching someone for whom I knew his whole story didn't exhaust me like the memories and feelings that rush at me when I touch a stranger. I was was able to let her out of the iron box before Mulder stirred, but she's still in the bedroom, hiding. I think it's best for me to do the talking first.
"Mulder," I say, the name feeling thickly emotional rolling off my tongue. After all these years of waiting, after all the planning, I'm having huge second thoughts about this whole plan. But I promised her, and I followed through, and now we have to deal with it.
Mulder struggles against his bindings before blinking open his eyes. For the first time, another person is seeing the inside of our home and not some vision I'm implanting in their minds. I'm in the shadows, on the other side of the small kitchen, my face obscured, but his eyes lock on my figure before quickly flicking to other areas of our underground sanctuary. He struggles against his bonds again. "Who are you? What do you want from me?" he demands through clenched teeth.
"I'm not going to hurt you. We need your help. I'm going to explain, and then, when you're calm, I'm going to untie you."
He takes in my figure and I'm about to step out of the shadows when I'm distracted.
Both of our heads turn at the sound of footsteps. "No," I cry out. "Not yet!" But she doesn't stop walking down the dim hall towards Mulder, and I know it's no use to try and fight her. She's heard his voice after all this time, and she needs to see him, and maybe it's better this way, will make him believe and understand more quickly.
So I don't stop her. I stand and watch as she limps into the light and stands before Mulder. His eyebrows raise and his face takes on a look of both panic, fear and confusion. His breathing quickens and I can actually see the pulse thrumming on the side of his neck. His eyes absorb her mostly gray hair, her eyes, her face that is wrinkled and covered partially in burn scars, and then finds her eyes again.
She's crying. She reaches a hand out towards him and touches his cheek. He's too shocked to flinch. Tears fill his own eyes.
"Mulder," she whispers in a quivering voice.
"Scully?" he asks while shaking his head, not believing what he's seeing, and certainly not understanding.
Yes, Scully. His Scully, just ten years into a horrific future, aged more quickly by the stress of their lives and living without Mulder, and burned by the fires that consumed the planet nine years ago.
Of all the things I loathed growing up, playing Marco Polo was absolutely near the top of the list. While my siblings seemed to enjoy the game of it on any military base that came equipped with a pool, I was the consummate, compassionate loser. I felt sorry for those who blinded themselves with seemingly closed eyes while they searched, letting them tag me. "Dana's it!" they would shout with glee.
And, unable to cheat, I was the one who would then search for what seemed like endless hours as "it," eyes tightly closed, following the rules.
It's both prophetic and ironic and heartbreaking that I've spent the better part of twenty-three years playing a mind-fuck game of Marco Polo with one Fox Mulder. Blinded by people who don't play by the rules, ensnared by government conspiracies and alien DNA and my own inability to ever let Mulder go, I am once again stuck without him. I don't even know where to start looking. I never wanted to live this heartache again; the fact that I'm not certifiable yet is a miracle.
I've chosen anger over tears. And I've chosen to keep Mulder's current disappearance under wraps. We've barely gotten the X-Files back, and we are finding some semblance of normalcy with each other again. I want to find him and get back to our normal, which is a misnomer by most people's standards, but good enough for me.
This time it was me calling Skinner to let him know that I watched Mulder disappear right before my eyes. But there's more to it than what I was willing to share over the phone; something so unbelievably frightening and confusing that I can't put it into words.
"Give me seventy-two hours," I implored Skinner after Mulder had been gone for twenty-four, past the point when the other people who'd gone missing outside Jellystone Campground were returned. We both believed that if the FBI became aware that Fox Mulder was missing, yet again, they'd close the X-Files just as abruptly as they'd reopened them.
"You're going to need help," Skinner said.
He wasn't wrong there. I was working with the local police department and making up lies as to why Mulder wasn't around. I was spinning my wheels, looking over the case files and not seeing things clearly because I was too emotionally involved. I needed a second set of eyes and ears to talk to the previous abductees and the witnesses one more time, because my judgement was undoubtedly clouded. I needed to confirm what I wasn't yet willing to admit to anyone. I needed someone to talk to to keep my own sanity in check.
Unfortunately most of the help I could have relied upon in the past was now dead. Most, but maybe not all. "I have an idea," I responded before disconnecting with Skinner.
I'm not sure that Clyde Easter was totally listening when I called him from a payphone at the campground late yesterday morning, asking if he could help me. I never could get a read on that man. I'd met him only a few times when he'd been in DC on business and Mulder had dragged me along to meet Clyde for dinner. They'd been pleasant evenings, but Clyde seemed to read into Mulder and me a lot more than we were willing to admit to ourselves or each other the first and second time we met up with him. The third and last time I saw Clyde, when Mulder and I had finally taken the plunge and crossed that line that we both knew we'd inevitably cross one day, Clyde graced us with sly, knowing grins. But to his credit, he didn't say anything.
After that, Mulder was gone. And then we were both gone. I wasn't sure how much Clyde new of the past seventeen or so years since I'd last seen him. But he was someone Mulder had trusted to a point, and the first person I thought of on my very short list of "Who to call when Mulder is missing."
He was distracted when I called him. I could hear radio chatter in the background.
"What do you mean Mulder's missing?" he asked.
"He's gone," I sighed into the phone while blinking against the sting of tears in my eyes. "I need an extra set of eyes on this."
"And the FBI won't help you?" he asked.
"I...it's just that…" I tried to explain the delicacy of the situation, but was cut off by Clyde murmuring in my ear. "Jesus, Emily. What the fuck does she think she's doing? Damn it!"
Heavy breathing, more radio chatter, the unmistakable sound of gunfire. My heart skittered as it always had since 1997 when someone mentioned the name Emily.
"Clyde?" I implored quietly.
"I can send you some help. I'll fly her out under a different name. I don't want anyone knowing Interpol is helping with an X-Files' investigation. I'm sorry."
"Who?" I asked, my eyes wandering back up towards the thick green trees and the hillside where I'd last seen Mulder. When I'd called Clyde, I was hoping he could come.
"Emily Prentiss. I can email you some information about her. I'll fly her out tomorrow morning."
Numbly, I breathed out one of the many email accounts Mulder and I used that didn't come back to our names or the FBI. I told Clyde the name of the hotel where Prentiss could find me, figuring it would be better for a first meeting than a tent.
Last night, I stayed in the tent again, just in case Mulder was returned. I clutched the pillow he had used, finding the scent of him still lingering there. And I cried, thinking about how we'd been arguing right before he disappeared.
Just when I finally was getting him back, emotionally, he disappeared again.
My dreams last night were of a young man in a red baseball cap and sunglasses, holding Mulder in his arms. With a face that hadn't quite grown into his nose, and auburn facial hair that grew in the uneven patches of someone who was barely through puberty.
It's impossible. It's a hoax or an implanted vision. It can't be real. That's what I told myself when I left the campground in the hands of two local police officers who were patrolling because of the people who had been missing. I assured them we would handle the stake out tonight. I just wasn't specific about who the "we" was. They don't know Mulder is missing and the "we" in question includes myself and the head of UK Interpol.
I shake my head and look around the hotel room I'm currently in, thumbing through the pages of a file from Clyde I printed out at the library this morning. Emily Prentiss. She should be here any minute. By all accounts, she's an incredible agent, but I'm rethinking bringing someone else into this. Yesterday, I was desperate and devastated and angry. Today, I'm thinking that the most likely scenario here is that Mulder might be returned to me again, perhaps barely alive, and I'd best just go home and wait for however long that takes, as I'm so used to doing.
"Marco?" I mumble to myself as I look at the ID picture of a beautiful woman whose file indicates she can kick some serious ass.
In answer, there's a light tap on the hotel room door.
I sigh and stand and open it. And I'm met with a woman with dark brown eyes that could see through you, and an expression that hovers somewhere on the edges of curious, resigned and pissed off as hell.
"Agent Prentiss," I say as I stick out my hand.
She shakes it and says, "Emily is fine."
I nod and swallow past the dryness in my throat. Probably starting off our conversation by telling her that I had my ova ripped out of me a little over two decades ago which resulted in a daughter named Emily that I never even knew I had until I found her on her deathbed would not be the way to start this conversation.
"How about Prentiss. You can call me Scully," I manage.
She towers over me and surveys my face and stature. "I'm sorry you drew the short straw," I find myself saying.
At that, she smirks and shrugs. Apparently I've passed her initial inspection. She walks into my hotel room with her suitcase and briefcase. She surveys her file that's open on the small table in the corner of the room but she doesn't say anything.
Placing her briefcase on the table and leaving her bag on the floor, she sits in one of the chairs around the small table in the hotel room and slides her file towards herself. "I see Clyde's sent you the Reader's Digest condensed version."
I sit opposite her, trying to come up with some way to start a conversation. I'm the rational one when it comes to talking to other people in law enforcement, but if I want her help, I'm going to have to fess up to some outlandish things here and just hope she doesn't run from the room and call 911 to place me on a 72 hour psych hold. "You have an impressive record," I say.
She looks at me, one eyebrow raised. "It can't be a secret to you that I didn't land myself here because of what's in that file, but because of what's not in it. I'm being punished for my behavior lately, so let's get on with it. What have you got and what do you need from me?"
I stare at her for a few seconds before sliding a much thicker manila folder from my bag. I flip it open, take a breath and start from the beginning.
"Mulder and I got here six days ago after hearing about two disappearances that took place three days apart. The men taken were returned to the place they were taken, naked, twenty-four hours later, with no memory of where they'd been or who had taken them. Only sketchy recollections of a bright room and white lights. While we were interviewing them, another man went missing from the same general area, and he was also returned twenty-four hours later. Mulder and I were at the campground when he was returned, but didn't see anyone besides the victim. We were able to track down two other people who had similar experiences, victims number one and two, but they never went to the police."
I flip the pictures of the victims on the table, all young men in their twenties, in order of when they went missing and when they were returned.
"Were they harmed?" Prentiss asks.
I shake my head, "No. They were even fed and given water according to the physical examinations I gave the the last three victims. But they have no memory of eating or drinking. No marks, no abrasions, no signs of assault of any kind."
"And now Agent Mulder is gone," she says.
"Yes, two mornings ago," I reply.
She looks at me sharply. "Five people all taken and returned within twenty-four hours, but it's been over forty-eight for Mulder. Why?"
Anger and sadness rise within me. Because of what I told Mulder from the very beginning. That this all felt like a trap.
"I think Mulder may have been the target all along," I say without blinking.
"You think someone set up five kidnappings in order to lure you here?" she asks with a hint of disbelief in her voice.
"Yes," I say firmly. "I don't think it was any mistake that he and I were in those woods two days ago. Especially now."
"What do you mean?" she asks.
I pull out four more pictures from my back, artists sketches based on what the witnesses saw. "In every case except the first, there was a witness who experienced something similar to what I experienced when Mulder was taken. A feeling of numbness, falling to the ground, unable to move or talk. They got a good look at the unsub. This is who the witness of the second kidnapping saw, and this is what the witness of the third kidnapping saw." I stop the monotony of where I'm going with this and just lay out the pictures.
Prentiss sees it right away, shaking her head slightly. "They all saw someone who looked like the previous kidnapping victim." She looks back up. "How do you explain that?"
"Mulder and I have seen something like this before. People who can change their appearance or people who can make you see something other than what is actually there."
"And what did you see?" she asks me without skipping a beat.
"The fifth kidnapping victim, but then for a second I saw what looked like someone else..." That's as far as I'm willing to go for now. "He said he was sorry before he disappeared with Mulder. And by disappear, I mean vanished into thin air. He was running up the hill with Mulder in his arms like he weighed nothing, and then he jumped. There was a flash of light and static in the air for a moment, and then I could move again and they were both gone."
I close my eyes briefly, seeing Mulder and I there in the woods. Me raising my voice because he'd snuck out of the tent while I was still sleeping and my heart was hammering in fear by the time I found him zipping up near a tree away from our tent. I was livid. When I'd agreed that we should investigate, it was with much trepidation, and he'd promised that he wouldn't leave my side. And I'd been right to be worried. Because seconds after I found him after relieving himself and started laying into him for leaving the tent without telling me, there was a static charge in the air that made my hair stand on end, and then minutes later, a man was there and I was on the ground, unable to move.
When I open my eyes again, Prentiss is studying my face intently. I feel myself flush slightly under her scrutiny, but to her credit, she doesn't laugh at me or look at me incredulously. It actually surprises me. She's taking this seriously, even if there's a part of her that likely thinks I'm crazy.
"What do you think the flash of light was?" she asks carefully.
"Not anything I've ever seen before," I reply quietly.
"No witness for the first kidnapping victim? That seems wrong," she says after a few seconds.
I nod. "I know. And that's where I'd like to start. I'm hoping someone new can get that first victim to open up, because he swears he was out there alone when he disappeared, but I don't think that can be true. This unsub wanted to be seen. He wanted us to catch wind of the disappearances as quickly as possible and compel us to get here. "
She looks at the pictures on the table and then back up at me. "You think you somehow caught a glimpse of the unsub's real face, and you think that whomever the mystery first witness saw is what the unsub actually looks like. You want to see if they match."
I nod and Prentiss stands. "Then let's go. Getting people to talk happens to be a something I can do well. Even now."
I'm not entirely sure what she means by that, but it's clear based on what I overheard in the background when I spoke to Clyde on the phone and what she's trying to convey now is that she was serious when she said she was being punished by being sent to help me. For someone who likely believes anything paranormal is a crock of shit, she's behaving professionally and admirably.
"Thank you," I say to her as I stand.
I've been keeping on my stoic mask for two days now, but something cracks under her gaze. She seems to see a hell of a lot more than most people do because her face softens at the look in my eyes and she smiles, dramatically changing the seriousness of her face. "You're welcome. We'll find him," she says confidently.
I desperately want to believe her.
"Do you need a bag?" the salesperson asks cheerfully.
I shake my head. "No thank you." I pick up the hiking boots in their shoe box and take my receipt. Apparently, I'm going for a little trip to the woods and the shoes I packed won't cut it. Joy.
I'm half tempted to dump the shoe box in the trashcan outside the sporting goods store, take the fake ID Clyde gave me, and just disappear. I put up a good front when I worked with Dana Scully earlier today, but I still feel like I'm conducting an investigation in the middle of a steeping pile of unbelievable bullshit.
Still, I'm hoping to get my job back when this is all over, at least long enough to reestablish a little bit of dignity in my career. And no matter how I feel about this particular investigation, it's plain to see that Scully is devastated and desperate no matter how hard she's trying to hide it. It's also as plain as the nose on my face that she's not telling me everything yet, but I won't run out on her. I'm going to play this game to its finish, and I'm going to do it with the mindset of a profiler and follow along with whatever wild theory Dana Scully believes until we find Fox Mulder.
"Flashing lights and people disappearing into thin air," I mutter as I open the door to the rental car. "People who can change what their face looks like," I growl to myself as I toss the shoes on the floor in front of the passenger seat and slam the door closed again.
The one good thing that came from this afternoon is that the first kidnapping victim finally cracked and told us about his girlfriend, who is seventeen and had lied to her parents about staying with a friend's family for the weekend when in fact she was off getting busy with her twenty-one year old boyfriend in the woods. We cornered her when her high school got out for the day, and once she realized that we would not be speaking with her parents, and that her boyfriend would not get in trouble because she had reached the age of consent, she finally admitted to what she saw in the woods a couple of weeks ago.
Now Scully is with the young woman and a sketch artist at the local precinct and I'm out shopping for apparel more suitable for a tent than a hotel. It's only four o'clock in Chicago, but my body on its London time says ten o'clock at night. I'm starving and I have a few hours before I'm supposed to meet Scully back at the hotel and we drive to the campground together. She said she had a few errands of her own to run, whatever that means.
I bite nervously at my lower lip and glance at my laptop in the passenger seat and open it, looking at the email message that is still open on my screen. When I first got on the plane this morning in London, a bit of nostalgia and guilt gnawed at me, knowing I was heading back towards the United States. I might not have been going to DC, but I still missed my friends that I'd been ignoring for months. I went back through my email once the flight was in the air and started reading all the messages from the team since I'd last seen them. I breezed past the condolence messages about my mom passing away. I cringed at Hotch's email that I never answered, asking me if I wanted the team there at the funeral. The messages were frequent for awhile, and then slowly tapered off the longer I didn't answer. JJ's final email came about six weeks ago, saying that she was there for me if I needed to talk, that she missed me and was worried about me.
Garcia kept up with emails about once a week, just checking in, and about a month ago, she sent an email about what was going on with Morgan that made my stomach plummet and tears fill my eyes. That poor, amazing man.
He's been in the back of my mind ever since I read Garcia's words. The fact that we're both coincidentally in the Chicago area hasn't escaped me. Nor has that fact that according to Garcia, he's fixing up the rec center where he was abused for so many years and is in hibernation from talking to the team, much like I am. I don't know if what he's doing is therapeutic or some sentence of self-imposed flagellation; if I had to guess, I'd say it was a combination of the two. Regardless, I can barely stand even the idea of what he must be feeling and living right now.
I glance at my watch and then at the GPS unit in the rental car where I plugged in the address to the rec center before I even left the airport. I'm not supposed to meet up with Scully for three hours. I have time. I'm not sure he'll be happy to see me, but if he doesn't want me there, I'll just leave. After all my time in these past months spent avoiding people, I'm suddenly almost desperate to see him.
I glance at the burger place next to the sporting goods store and smile slightly, remembering when it was Morgan and me partnered and investigating a case; better times when we'd stop to grab a bite to eat, discuss actual behavioral science, not flashing lights and people who can seemingly change their appearance.
Clyde didn't want anyone to know I'm here, because he doesn't want Interpol mixed up with the X-Files. I can't say I blame him. And Scully doesn't want anyone to know Mulder is missing just yet. But if there's one person I can trust unequivocally, it's Derek Morgan. And I miss my friend.
He calls her Dana almost right away, needing to differentiate between the future version of the woman he loves and the present version. That's fine, since I mostly call her Dana as well. Mostly.
I watch Mulder check her over for several minutes while she stands mutely in the dim kitchen without flinching. He lifts her shirt to find the scars and faded tattoo he knows are on her body. He lifts the back of her hair to feel for the subdermal implant. He studies her hands. He brushes his finger over the mole on her face.
Only when the physical exam is over does he start with the questions, being methodical like I knew he would be, keeping the questions to when they were first partnered together, before the implant was placed in her, when they might have been able to have whispered secrets. One question after another, and she eventually sinks down in the chair, answering softly, clasping his hand in hers. He seems to forget I'm even in the room for awhile, they both do.
Finally, his questions come to an end and he looks towards me again, curious, if cautious, still not believing but willing to listen. I step out of the shadows fully and face him. He blinks at my face, studying me for a long time before nodding, his lips quivering and tears in his eyes for the briefest moment. Ultimately, though, he controls his emotions well while I explain as best as I understand about how any of this is possible.
I then launch into my nightmarish story, which eventually becomes his nightmare. As I'm telling it, Dana keeps one hand in his and one hand reaches for mine. "I know, Mulder," she whispers. "It's like your sister. I'm so sorry."
It nearly breaks him, having to listen to everything that happened to me over the years; he puts his head down on the table and sobs, apologizing to me, apologizing to Dana.
When I finish speaking, silence descends over the room for several seconds, the only sound his ragged breathing. Suddenly, he stands from the chair and bangs his fist on the table, making us jump. "I can't leave Scully again! You get her, and I'll help you. Whatever this is, if it's real or just an illusion, my life is with her, not you," he says, pointing at Dana, his tone softening when he looks at her face. "You know what I mean," he whispers. "You know she's back there going crazy right now."
"I know," I chime in. "We both do. But it weakens me when I bring people through to our side. It's not so bad returning them. But when I bring people in, I'm weak for awhile and I can't shield her or the chip in her neck. They'll find her. So if I bring your Scully through, you need to understand that you're going to have to put her in an iron box with a version of herself ten years in the future for many hours until I'm fully functioning again. And if she wakes up before we can take her out of there, imagine what that will be like for her."
Mulder looks horrified at the thought. He grimaces and looks down. "I can't leave her out there alone. I promised her I'd never do that to her again."
"You did, Mulder" Dana responds. "He'll go get her, but he needs to rest for a couple of days before he's strong enough to do that. And we need to think about how he's going to approach her so she doesn't think she's woken up buried alive with her aged doppelganger."