Chapter 2

Wednesday, September 18th, 2013

Dana Scully came through the front door and started taking off her shoes.

"Mulder…Mulder…where are you?"

No answer.

"What the hell! Hey there, Sephie, Where's daddy?" She asked the cat prancing and meowing around her feet. "And I'm guessing he hasn't fed you all day either. Mulder!"

She went into the kitchen, cat in tow, took his food out of the cupboard, and filled his bowl. "What the fuck did he do all day that he couldn't even take two minutes to feed you?"

Lately he had really been getting on her nerves. For the better part of the year he had been doing less and less and leaving everything….the cleaning, the cooking…any household decision…up to her. She knew he was depressed, had been for some time…and because he was so averse to taking any medications, she had gotten him Persephone.

He had no friends, didn't keep in contact with anyone from their former life, and barely wanted to leave the house for any reason anymore. He never ventured further than the local liquor store or their secret spot beside the Singing River.

At first, she was worried, but when he began thwarting any attempt she made to try and help him, she became angry. If he was disgusted with himself and didn't even want to try and rectify the situation…yeah, that was bad enough, but that he wouldn't even try for her sake…that just pissed her off.

She looked in the den…no Mulder. He wasn't in the basement or bathroom either, so she went upstairs. Not in their room, not in the master bathroom, not in the spare room….wait…the door leading to the attic was ajar. She pushed the door open and started up the steps.

He was there, his back to her, sitting with his butt on his heels, surrounded by a couple of shoe boxes. There were some letters and pictures scattered around. He held a picture in his hand.

….and her world started dissolving away.

She had to back against the stair banister to keep from falling. And she said the only word that she could force out of her mouth.

"Mulder…"

He didn't turn to her, but when he spoke, his voice was controlled and very cold. "Why? Why….how could you do this to me….Dana? How long have you known...has this been going on? Were you ever going to tell me?"

He laughed. It sent shivers down Scully's spine.

"You know," he continued, "in my life, I have been shot, stabbed, humiliated, left for dead, actually dead, used, beat up…abducted…. I mean even my own parents lied to me."

He continued. "When I came back from being dead, or in some transitioning state…or whatever the hell that was, I was…confused, but so relieved to see you. I mean the first thing I remember upon waking up is seeing you. And you were the only person in this world I trusted…cared about. Then when it…dawned on me that you were…pregnant…well, at first it was like someone sucker punched me. It was…hard for me to accept that maybe… Anyway, then the pieces started falling together and that sadness became so much…joy! Of course, there was all the turmoil surrounding his birth, even afterwards, but still. When we both held that baby in our arms, for the first time in a long time…a very long time…I felt…complete. And then I went away. The right thing to do…the wrong thing to do…. I'm still not sure I'll ever have the answer to that one. If I had stayed maybe things would have been different for the three of us. But we've hashed and rehashed all that to death, haven't we?"

"I never really blamed you for giving him up, you know that. I know how …hard that was for you. But why, Scully would you do this to me now? You've been keeping in contact with him all this time haven't you….and you never told me! And it's not even that you just didn't tell me, you kept it hidden! Hidden and locked away from me in this damn attic! I came up here looking for something of my mother's and instead found… deceit."

He stood and turned to face her. His face looked calm, but the eyes were wild and maniacal. She noticed the empty vodka bottle that had been hidden while he was sitting. Her legs buckled beneath her and she slipped to the floor.

"He was my son, too, Scully! MY SON TOO! Did you think I wouldn't want to know? Wouldn't want to see him…didn't care! How long…how long? Is that what you were doing when you took your little 'conference trips' out west? Going to visit our son and not telling me? Were you embarrassed to let him know? Were you ashamed of me…ashamed to tell him that his father was a loser, chased from his own life by his demons and other evil people? Old 'Spooky' Mulder's not good enough for his own son?"

Scully found her voice, but could only whisper, "I'm sorry, Fox…sorry…it wasn't like… that. Let me explain…please…"

He put the picture in his hand inside his shirt pocket. "I don't think I can do this anymore…any of this."

And he walked past her and down the stairs.

She wanted to call out after him….go after him, but all the words in her head were stuck there as her throat felt like the Sahara, her legs like lead. She heard the front door open and slam shut, and soon the car engine revving loudly, and the peeling and spinning of tires. She had never been this frightened for him since they had come to live here. She didn't think he'd go far…hoped he wouldn't. In the state he was in, physically and mentally, he shouldn't have been driving anywhere. She sent out a prayer for his safety…if he had an accident and was injured…or worse. Or, god forbid, injured someone else…. She couldn't even digest it.

Scully crawled over to the boxes and letters and, without even looking, knew which picture he had taken. Soon after William's birth, Mulder had arrived one evening with pizza and wings for dinner. He ended up spending the night. Around 3 am, Scully had woke suddenly to find that Mulder was no longer in her bed. Surmising where he had probably went, she tip-toed to William's room. Mulder was gently rocking the little boy, cheeks wet with tears, softly singing to the child…

Sleep, baby, sleep…your father tends the sheep…your mother shakes the dreamland tree, and from it fall sweet dreams for thee. Sleep, baby, sleep….

Scully had slipped quietly back to her room, grabbed her camera, and taken a silent picture of Mulder unawares, lovingly, kissing the top of his son's head. She had made a copy of it and had given it to him in silver frame. Now, she realized that the last time she remembered seeing it was on a night stand in his old apartment…never here in this house.

Sure enough, when she looked through the pictures scattered around where Mulder had been sitting on the attic floor, the original copy was missing. She put everything else back into the boxes and went down to the second floor and lay on her bed. She didn't know what else to do, her whole being felt as though it was anesthetized…all of it with the exception of the one small part that kept chastising her that what did she expect he would do if he ever found out? And had she really thought he never would?

Not once had it been her intention that things should turn out this way. She had found William by accident, really. The year he would have been three years old, she was having lunch in the hospital cafeteria, when the mother of one of her friends from college approached her.

"Dana…Dana Scully is that you?"

She turned to face a rotund lady in a purple pantsuit. "Mrs. Davis? On my god, how are you?"

"Oh, you know, okay except for the normal aches that come with aging. But tell me, is that a name tag I see? Are you employed as a doctor here?"

"I am. How's Amy," she asked of her old roommate.

"Oh doing well. Married that Gaviston boy you all were friends with and she's given me two granddaughters. She works part time now as a social worker for Angel Wings, you know, the adoption agency."

Scully coughed, almost choking on her bite of sandwich. That is the same agency she used for William.

"I see," she replied. "Do you have a number for Amy? I'd like to give her a call sometime. Catch up on….things."

And that's how it all started. Scully knew, whether she wanted to admit it or not, that a plan began to form in her subconscious from that moment on. Three phone calls and two lunch dates later and Dana laid it all out on the table. She knew it was wrong of her to ask...immoral, and definitely illegal, but she just had to know. Before she met Mrs. Davis that fateful day, she hadn't really given it much serious thought. But when the opportunity practically presented itself… Not that she probably couldn't have done it on her own. She had enough ties…a few less with the gunmen gone… but there were always channels. One thing all those years working on the x-files had taught her was how to circumvent the law when the need arose. Or the want. However, the one thing she definitely didn't want was to get her friend in trouble, fired…or worse, so she promised that if somehow it all hit the fan, she would take the fall and leave Amy out of it.

It wasn't as if she hadn't known anything about the Van de Kamp's. She hadn't been given their true name, but she knew they had passed all the adoption agency's rigid standards with flying colors and were in a sound financial situation. And although Scully didn't consider herself a snob, the "sound financial status" of William's new parents helped put her at ease. After all, she didn't want to send her son into something that could potentially land him living destitute.

Now, armed with her newly found knowledge, she learned William's address, the name of his preschool…the names and addresses of his new grandparents. This last part was especially hard. She struggled almost daily with the idea that she had robbed her mother of her grandson. The one thing that had given her a miniscule bit of hope of any of them seeing William again someday, was the knowledge that she had marked "Yes" to the clause on the adoption papers that stated that- "in the future, if William should wish to meet his biological parents, and/or family, would she/they be willing to do so". And, in addition, there was always that nagging sense of guilt hiding away that Mulder had never had a say in any of this. But, then…he hadn't been there, had he?

After about six months into her "surveillance", she had thought that she probably should let Mulder in on it, but something inside always stopped her. She justified her actions by telling herself that Mulder was better off not knowing. And as he rarely ever mentioned William anyway, it was probably better to just let him go on "business as usual" and not open those wounds. At least that's the yarn she told herself. But that "logic" in itself was just stupid; occasionally they did talk about William. Not necessarily in the sense they should go search for him, but what he might be doing or thinking at that particular point in his life. She knew the real reason she had kept all she had learned to herself was a much more self-centered one: if Mulder knew, he may well go talking to the wrong person about it, or worse yet, go barreling out to Wisconsin and ruin everything. And she hated herself for feeling that way. And look where it had landed her anyway…up shit creek with piss for a paddle. And maybe the loss forever of the love and trust of the only man who had ever really mattered; Daniel included.

It was all just too damn much, so she concentrated on emptying her mind of all thought and lay that way for she knew not how long until, finally, she drifted away and slept the sleep of the mentally exhausted.