Title: Transference

Author: Luna Laser Captain

Rating: PG-13 for now, potentially R

Categories: X, S, A, MSR, AU

Spoilers: Starts after My Struggle II, but the whole series is definitely game. Know your stuff, people.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. I am just taking the characters for a test drive. If I were CC and Fox, things probably would have played out differently.

Summary: After the light seems poised to take Scully, and Mulder is on the brink of death, one event cancels it all out.

Chapter One

9:12 PM

The flashes of light that had blinded Fox Mulder, and filled his head with an incomprehensible pain, were gone, and now he was sitting in a car, somewhere, in the dark. While his brain felt like a dismal jumble of memories old and new, fighting for their places among his gray matter, which was probably contributing to the dull throb that still existed, his body felt different. It felt better. Better than how he recalled it feeling before the light, maybe even before that. Even though his thoughts weren't clear or settled, he knew that in the moments before the flashing light and pulsing atmosphere, he was on the cusp of death. Had he died? He wasn't too sure, but everything felt too real, so he didn't ponder the question any further.

He struggled to adjust to the darkness, and he noticed a presence beside him in the passenger seat. Slowly, his eyes swept over to the figure next to him. He took stock of his surroundings with his profiler's eye, noting the interior of the older car and the rain pounding against the windshield, making it hard to see what was outside, but sensing that they were on a remote and empty road. Something about the scene, felt like a familiar memory that was trying to surface to his mind's forefront. As he touched the shoulder of the person next to him, he saw the blurry, pained face from the reflection in the passenger window turn to face him, still unclear in the dark, but he still knew who it was.

Scully.

Suddenly the whirring blender of thoughts started to settle allowing more confusion to intrude. He remembered that before the light he was in another car, on a bridge, and that it was not raining. Scully was near him, but not in the car. She had been frantic and concerned over the state he was in, which had been abysmal, in what felt like only moments ago now. He knitted his brows and peered at her through the dark, he thought about turning on the dome lights, but somehow knew that they would not work. As he slowly tried to make out her features and state, she groaned and as she unclenched her eyes, reached for him with frantic arms, cool hands cupping his face.

"Mulder, are you okay? We need to get you to Will…"

Her voice quickly fell off, which Mulder noted sounded different. It was slightly lighter and higher, a difference barely discernible to most, but not to him. The many variations of her voice were etched into his soul for an eternity, and it was that voice, that made Mulder realize where he was, and when he was. His eyes focused, and he saw a face he remembered from another place and another time. It was a Scully's face, but not the one he saw before the light. This Scully, with her auburn hair, wild from the humidity, and her face rounded by youth, was the one from their first case together.

The confusion and concern in her face surely mirrored his own, but he wasn't sure if she had reached the same conclusion, or if he was in the same state of affairs. It felt like it, but he still was not certain if all this was real, or a dream, or some sort of afterlife experience. Though, as he saw the confusion morph back into panic, he quickly decided to respond as if the situation he found himself in was real. He grabbed at her hands that were still on his face and lowered them down keeping them in his grasp. She seemed as if she was staring through him in shock now.

"Scully," he rubbed her hands gently with his own, bringing her focus to his eyes briefly, "What is the last thing you remember?"

Her lips pursed, and her gaze then fell to the rain beating on the window.

After a beat, a hesitant reply came, "The bridge."

"What bridge?" He urged gently.

Scully pulled her hand out of his and rubbed at her forehead. She didn't seem to be recovering as quickly from the event as he was, and it was clear she had yet to reach the same conclusion he had.

"Agent Miller had you, Mulder. You needed more than the vaccine. You were so sick. I was going to lose you. All those people..." It all tumbled out in a stream of random statements as she stared through her surrounding and back at him. Then he saw her face shift, her jaw slack, and her eyes go wide as a realization set in, "Mulder, look at you."

Her voice almost seemed horrified, and he didn't want to scare her anymore than she was. He gently tried to lighten the mood, in the only way he knew how. "I know. Though, before you start pointing fingers, you should look at yourself too," He replied giving her a smirk he hoped she'd find reassuring, or at least annoying, but not terrifying.

She pulled in a quick gasp, eyes going wide as she clamored to pull down the passenger visor and look into the mirror.

"There's no power. No light," he said, pressing into his seat to stretch his legs.

She pulled at her face trying to make out the features in the dark before slamming up the visor and throwing a look his way. "What the hell is going on, Mulder?"

The distress and confusion had now been replaced by annoyance and confusion. Not exactly the outcome he was hoping for, but he would take it. He always hated seeing Scully torn up by fear and sadness on his account. However, this response brought another smile to his face and he felt his own nerves calm some more. Mulder always liked a fired up Scully.

He realized he left her hanging for a moment too long, and struggled to regain ground, "I-I am not sure, but I think I know where we are. When we are."

"When we are? Mulder, last I checked, it was 2016, and the world was falling apart at the seems. You were dying. I saw you! What happened?! What did they do to us?! Where are we?!" She threw her body back into the seat, exasperated and searching his face for answers.

"Scully, I don't think it was them. I don't know what it was, and I don't think that we are in 2016."

She blew a deep breath out, and covered her face with her hands, "When do you think we are then, Mulder, and how did we get here? There. Whatever." The gesture of exasperation was one he recognized well. She would be hard sell.

"Oregon. 1992."

Her hands dropped, and she turned to him. He couldn't see clearly, but he assumed that her eyebrow was just about to her hairline.

"Mulder…"

She said had said his name in a tone that was reserved for when she thought he had completely lost it, and in that moment he did. However, it was not his mind, though he wasn't sure if it was his aching brain bombarded with thoughts trying to reassemble themselves was in the right state entirely, but his patience for her playing skeptic, in this particular circumstance. Now he was the one that blew out an exasperated breath and gripped the steering wheel, before grabbing the car door handle and ejecting his lanky frame out into the downpour. He went around to the back of the old sedan they had both been sitting in, looking down at the pavement through wet, moppy hair. Scully had followed him out and was now standing opposite of him, looking tinier than usual in the oversized coat she was wearing, which was slowly becoming saturated with rain.

He pointed to the ground in front of them, where a large, letter "X" had been sprayed onto the pavement, "Look, Scully."

"Yes, I see, Mulder, but someone could have placed us and this here."

He threw up his hands, "Oh, and made us look twenty some years younger too. Not only did they take the time to cure me, move both of us, but they took the time to use us as guinea pigs for the latest anti-aging treatment. That was very considerate of them. We barely look like we are out puberty."

"Speak for yourself. I think I just heard your voice crack, Mulder," she quipped coyly, in a way that made him realize she sensed his frustration with her and was trying diffuse it some.

He placed his hands on her shoulders, which he noted were trembling, and that she had attempted stop them from doing so once he touched her. Water dripped off her aquiline nose, forming perfect globes before they were plucked away by their own weight and gravity. He looked into her eyes pleadingly.

"Look around, Scully. How does none of this feel familiar to you? Tell me that in this moment, right now, details of our first case together, are not fresher or more familiar that they have been since we worked it. This goes beyond where we are. What we look like. Shit, what we are wearing," Mulder paused and tapped at his head, "It's like there are two of me inside of here. Your Mulder from 2016 and that nutcase you got saddled with in 1992. I think somehow, our conscious has been moved back in time or something else. Please tell me it's not just me losing my mind, Scully."

Mulder felt her grab his wrist and lower his arm, while she pulled away from his gaze. Her response delayed as she seemed to be taking in the scene around them through precipitation, her breath surrounding her like a halo, glowing when a soft bout of lightning attempted to break the clouds in the distance. He watched her scratch her head, pull at her ponytail, and frown.

He recalled something he had once said, either a long time ago or just yesterday, "I'm not crazy, Scully. I have all the same doubts you do."

The shift in her gaze was quick and telling. He could tell that the phrase had struck the chord he was going for, and he knew he wasn't alone with what he was thinking and feeling.

"We lost nine minutes," she said in a reflective, matter-of-fact tone.

He looked at the watch that was on his wrist. He hadn't worn this watch in years. It read just after quarter past nine.

"Yeah, or something like that."

With that they were cast in a dim, red light as the engine of the car rumbled back to life. Scully seemed startled, and he could not help but chuckle at her response. She shot him a look.

"Come on," he said as he headed to the driver's side door.

"Where are we going?" Scully shouted to him as she scrambled for the passenger door.

"To make sure I am not actually crazy."

With that he ducked into the car, and once Scully was at his place beside him, he started back on the slick road ahead through the rhythmic swish of the wipers.