Ch 4- Confession
July 2012
Scully was always hesitant when Mulder took the girls camping in the yard. For them it was a summer pastime looked forward to all throughout the rest of the year, an event almost venerated. But something about the tradition made Scully feel tremendously insecure, as if Mulder and her girls were open and venerable to whole of the universe. She watched from the doorway as the three grabbed their sleeping bags out of the tent and laid down under the vast expanse of the rising stars.
"Scully, come down here, don't ruin the party!" Mulder called from his place in the grass.
It was dusk and time to choose whether or not to turn in or remain out in the open.
"Yeah mom, come on!" William urged as he ran by, his sleeping bag in hand. Scully watched him as he jotted down the porch steps and into the yard, joining his father and sisters.
"Scully?" Mulder called her name again, causing her to jump.
Her breath caught in her throat and she looked every which way; coming to the painful realization that William was not there with them, but present only in her mind. She cried out woefully, grabbing the railing but her family didn't notice.
"Come on mommy! Join us this time!" Maggie cried, begging her mother to partake.
Maggie and Molly Mulder didn't understand why their mother so fervently disapproved of their summertime campouts. The girls found it irrational for a mother who was otherwise, so loving. Why would she want to deny them one of their greatest joys? At eight though, Maggie was beginning to notice the change in her mother's demeanor when the subject came up, noting that it seemed not to consume her with anger but with trepidation so unsettling that she seemed to become someone else.
It first caught her eye when she was mid-cartwheel, but didn't sink in until she fell; back first, into the grass. Upside down, Maggie watched as her mother hugged herself tightly, uncharacteristically chewing on her thumbnail and staring off into the distance. As an adult, Maggie would look back on that particular moment with the realization that she didn't deny them their joy out of spite… but that she harbored the kind of panic and fear only a mother could hold, and wanted desperately to keep them safe from a truth they didn't know lurked ever presently all around them. A truth she longed to shield them from forever, but was going to change their lives all too soon.
"Daddy's here, it's okay!" Molly assured. "He'll chase all the scary things away."
"What can I say, they think I can do anything!" Mulder laughed, seeming greatly humored by this. "Look it's a rocket ship!" He laughed, taking Molly by surprise, lifting her up high as he fell back into the grass with her. She laughed like crazy, the range of motion almost seeming like a ride to her. "Scully, you coming?" He asked again, not looking in her direction.
Scully watched as he kissed Molly's head, still holding her high above him and Maggie jumped into his embrace as well. Sometimes, she felt like Mulder had been able to move on, unafraid, and live a life with their daughters that she wasn't part of. It was as if a piece of her wasn't there with them, but in limbo somewhere with her lost son, back in a time when it was just the two of them going through hell.
Then there'd been no Mulder there to protect, defend, and help chase the scary things away. Scully figured that the disconnection with her daughters in these moments was her cross to bear, her punishment for not sticking by her infant son. After all that had happened, it shouldn't have been a surprise to her that part of her was lost too: that she could and would never be the same again.
...
September 2015
"No!" Maggie protested, her words almost seeming to shake the car violently as it sped down the highway.
Everyone froze awkwardly amid the preteen girl's angry outburst, almost afraid to move, her parents washed over with shame, her sister oddly unreactive. Scully felt almost numb now that they'd broken the news: it was the same numbness that'd consumed her every time Mulder took the girls out camping. The knowledge that the truth, written out in the stars, and her children were in that close of proximity made her feel like she was freefalling.
"No you can't be serious!" Maggie started to cry. "Mom can we check him into a 24-hour psych ward? You're lying to us! That's not the truth! It's not why you left!" She cried, livid over her father's words. "That can't, that can't be the truth!"
Scully found it ironic that her daughter had such a violent reaction to learning the truth her father had dedicated his entire life to discovering.
"Maggie…" He tried to reason.
"You're lying to me!" She accused shakily.
Mulder and Scully exchanged saddened, defeated glances. They'd considered this moment and tried to plan how it might play out ever since Scully had first gotten pregnant with Maggie. This wasn't how they'd wanted it to go, to say the least, and they weren't even done yet.
"Maggie it's all true." Mulder stared straight ahead at the road, his voice displaying no sense of emotion.
"Is he nice?" Molly asked suddenly, looking up at her mom.
"Who?" Mulder's hand hit the steering wheel in frustration. Scully, who was beside herself, said nothing.
"William." Molly said simply, causing her parents to stop.
While they'd painfully explained to the girls that they had an older brother: they had not once said his name.
"How'd you know his name?" Mulder raised an eyebrow.
"I..." The girl bit her lip. She'd known about her lost brother for a long time now but didn't dare mention it, having understood that only something truly awful could've made her parents give one of them up. "I heard you talking about it once in the middle of the night." She covered. But it wasn't true; she didn't know how she knew, only that she simply did.
Molly had discovered it several years before, back in first grade when she was assigned to construct a family tree and had accidently written him in; hastily erasing his name before it could be discovered. She'd started at the previously marked line for a long time, finding that it almost called out to her and somehow she just knew who he was and that his name had nothing to do with her grandfathers who'd both been called that.
"Let me out of the car!" Maggie begged.
"No!" Mulder and Scully shouted at once.
"Please. This is too much. I don't trust you!" She cried reaching for the door. "I don't..."
Mulder put the child safety lock on the back door and continued down the road despite his daughter's protests. Maggie felt extremely unsettled, almost panicked and didn't know why. Meanwhile, it baffled Scully that one of her daughters would be so reactive and the other so oddly calm about such a huge confession.
"Don't worry, I trust you mommy." Molly whispered in her mother's ear, wrapping her arms around her neck, holding her tight.
"You have a brother." Scully said matter of factly. She clung to Molly for comfort, swallowing the lump in her throat. "Your father and I had to give him up because of the nature of our work at the time..." She took a breath, unsure how she'd even managed saying it out loud and even more worried about how they would explain the rest of their fantastic tale.
"I'm sorry." Molly whispered. "Mommy I'm so sorry."
"You're a doctor, what are you talking about, 'the nature of your work'?"
"Daddy is this why your name used to be Spooky?" Molly asked.
"It would seem that this one knows a bit too much." Mulder remarked. "And that the other doesn't want to believe."
Maggie stopped, the expression making her think about the ratty old poster she'd inherited from him when he left. Belief had always been an odd force in their house: a source of unity and divergence at once. There was her mother, who had strong religious convictions, ones that her father almost completely discounted, and then her father, who'd always strongly encouraged the gift of being able to question the world around and never take anything at face value. Maggie had always felt convicted to heed the former, but practice the latter with a kind of vigor that had made her skeptical, fantastical minded father proud. She'd always trusted his way of thinking, and felt that he was her hero, but this time she thought he'd gone too far.
"Next your going to tell me something crazy about aliens and that those crazy stories…" Maggie stopped, biting her lip.
"That those crazy stories I always told you were true?" Mulder asked.
"No…" Maggie began, shaking her head. "No aliens aren't real!"
"Maggie…"
"No!" She almost started to panic.
"Damn it Mags, enough!" Mulder spat, jamming the breaks.
Scully and the girls screamed as the car came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the road once again. Mulder turned around to face his daughter, studying her as she shook, her eyes wide in fear and disbelief.
"Daddy no." She whispered shaking her head as if she were begging him to tell her it wasn't true.
Something about all of this scared Maggie to the core. She didn't know what it was, but her mother recognized it as a kind of unacknowledged inner knowing.
"Mags." He said quietly, holding out his arms. The confused girl got out of her seat and into her father's embrace as best as she could, anxious to be in his arms even though she was still confused and angry with him.
"Daddy please tell me it's not true." She sobbed, understanding everything now, even what had yet to be explained.
"I love my three girls so much." He said calmly. "I didn't leave you to leave you, or because I was having fun. I left to keep you safe. I changed your name to keep you safe. I left because it was time, because my son was in trouble and I could feel him calling out to me."
He looked at Scully out of the corner of his eye, noting that she was crying silently. She'd felt their son calling out to her every moment since she'd left his side, and for too long the sound had been deafening.
"All those stories I've been telling you since you were tiny, about seeking the truth. About the aliens, the bad guys, the FBI man and woman… it's all true and it's all about mom and me. You see Maggie, I've spent my whole life in the pursuit of the truth and its cost me dearly. I know what its really like to be lied to and it's why I've told the two of you the truth every single day of your lives, whether you knew it or not."
"We never thought we'd tell you this soon." Scully whispered her face buried in Molly's hair. "Or in this way."
Molly could sense her mother's angst and even at eight, possessed the insight that she'd never wanted to include them in this truth.
"But your brother, needs his family's help." Mulder continued.
"Next you're going to tell me I have a sister who needs my help too."
Scully thought her heart stopped for a moment when Maggie spoke, the child's words making her think of her first baby: Emily. Mulder and Scully had agreed long ago that no matter what happened, the girls would find out about their brother, but never their sister.
…
A few minutes after stopping in the middle of the road, Mulder found a spot to park for the night. Maggie was in shock and Molly consumed with wonder but they managed to fall asleep before their parents had even had the time to climb back in the car and zip themselves inside of their shared sleeping bag.
"There's something you're not telling me; isn't there?" Scully whispered, laying her head on his chest.
She closed her eyes, her mind put at ease by the sound of his heart against her ear. If nothing else, tonight would be the first she'd spent in his arms in a full year, and despite the horror the day had brought, and the many questions that lingered in her mind, her time in his embrace would count for everything. She wouldn't admit it, but it always had.
"What makes you say that?" Mulder asked even more quietly.
"You came back for me and the girls so quickly Fox." She spoke, deciding she had to settle the score and know what was truly coming before shutting her eyes.
Mulder looked over, ensuring that the girls were truly asleep but didn't say anything.
"They're in danger aren't they? They'd have to be for you to come like this. Please don't tell me someone wants my babies."
Mulder reached up, brushing her hair out of her face as he looked down intently, lovingly into her eyes. She stared back in awe, her eyes widening, brimming with tears as he pressed his forehead against hers. He sighed, seeing the years of pain and the stress of truth seeking written across her glossy blue globes. He felt shame for all the sorrow he'd brought her: for William, for Emily, and everything else. It was no way to treat the mother of his children, or the love of his life.
He brushed her cheek with his thumb, wanting simply to kiss her, but instead bracing himself for the words that had to follow.
"Oh Scully." He swallowed. "It's not just them. It's us too."
