A/N - My house has become the place to hang out for all of the teenagers and pre-teens in the world, it seems. This presented quite a problem for me as my computer is in the middle of the main "let's hang here and annoy the crap out of your parents" area. Still, I'd rather them here than elsewhere. I've invested in noise-cancelling headphones and life is good again.
This chapter was an agonizing labor of love, where I tried to fill my non-x-files followers in on a backstory without overwhelming them with ten years of details. Many stops and starts and deleting and editing. But I'm good with it now, as best as I can be...and now we can get on with things I hope! :) Cheers.
I've made many promises to myself throughout the years that I have broken piece by piece until they were obliterated.
Always trust science, Dana. Find the truth in what's real instead of the inexplicable paranormal. That promise to myself was challenged on my very first case with Mulder, though I denied it for a long time.
Thou does not covet thy partner. That promise was out the window long before I started bending my rules on science.
Coveting is fine. But never act on it. That was a simmering pot that was destined to boil over. It took six years and unimaginable heartache to do so, but Mulder and I were both waiting and ready for it when it happened. Even though it came with doubts, and agonizing starts and stops; even though there are times that I still question that initial, questionable move.
So, yes, I have a litany of broken promises to myself that landed me where I am today. And if I didn't so desperately love the man who brought me on this mind-boggling journey with him, I would have killed him long ago.
But one promise I swore I'd never break for myself or Mulder or anyone else, was this. I swore I would let our son live his life with his adoptive parents and I wouldn't put salt in the open wound that is my heart by trying to find out about him.
I knew the information was out there. I knew the name of his adoptive parents, something I've never told Mulder, which is a fact he'd find both unforgivable and understandable. I just never wanted Mulder's quest to be part of our son's life, and I know deep down that Mulder wouldn't want that either. But he wouldn't be able to help himself when it came to finding our son if he had the information. And then I don't know what would happen.
So I've held the information close to the vest and held myself back from searching, but it's impossible to keep myself from looking now. Armed with the sketch from the witness of the first kidnapping that looks like a perfect combination of my brother Charlie and one missing Fox Mulder, I head to the library.
My fingers shake as I begin typing at the computer. My heart is hammering in my chest and I feel hopelessly confused and alone. Our son would be fifteen now, and I'm thinking that in this world where everyone shares all of their business online, it shouldn't be too hard to find out where he and his family are now.
Only it's not that easy. There are William Van de Kamp's out there, but none of them are our William. And his adoptive parents don't have anything out there either in terms of social media. I start scrolling through news stories with their names, and finally find mention of them back in 2005. It's a short police-blotter article in the local paper in their small Pennsylvania town. About how the Van de Kamp's seemingly up and disappeared. Neighbors were concerned about the family and called the police, but the police saw no foul play. The furniture had been covered, clothing and personal effects were missing from the home, but it was all very organized, like they had packed. After some investigation, the police concluded that there was no crime, that perhaps the Van de Kamps had decided to leave for awhile. One sentence in the article stuck out. A quote from the neighbor, "I know they were upset about what happened at William's preschool, but it's unlike them to take off like this. She would have told me at least. I'm sure of it."
"William," I whisper, tears stinging my eyes. My heart hammers, wondering what could have happened at his preschool when he was four years old.
I'm cut off from FBI resources right now; I don't trust any search Skinner could do for me, nor the Chicago PD. It's possible Prentiss has the resources to conduct a safe search, but digging up my past has also brought to the surface the renewed emotion of fear, that I should trust no one. And even if I could trust her, the very thought of dragging another person down into the catastrophic shithole that is my life is not something I want. I wouldn't wish my life on anyone, and I regret ever calling Clyde Easter.
Taking a shaky breath, I conduct a search on the neighbor's name and secure a phone number before closing out of the browser and exiting the library. I walk quickly down the block, looking for a working payphone I know I probably won't find. The campground was one thing; those phones are maintained because cell phone reception there is spotty. But in the middle of town, those phones that allow me to take out a quarter and make an anonymous call when I need to are nowhere to be found.
In the green space near the library, I see a couple enjoying a picnic dinner in the evening air. They seem friendly enough, so I approach them. "Excuse me, I'm so sorry to interrupt. I've had a hell of a day. I lost my cell phone earlier, and now my car won't start. Would it be possible to borrow your phone to make a couple of calls?"
The man nods amicably, "That is a hell of a day." He hands me his phone.
I point to a nearby tree and say, "I'll just stand right there so I don't interfere with your dinner."
Taking a few steps away, I dial *67 and the woman's number, the neighbor of the Van de Camps. I quickly make up a fake name and introduce myself as a reporter for a local paper. My story is flimsy, but it's the best I can come up with when I'm feeling like the ground has dropped out from beneath me. Yet again.
"I was doing some research about families that I have disappeared because we have a family in our area who has done just that. The police say it looks like they took off on their own, but the neighbors claim they'd never just leave without telling anyone. I came across an article about a similar situation with the Van de Kamps, and your name was in it. I was wondering if you could tell me what the outcome was?
Marcia's voice is friendly, but quiet. "Oh, John and Christina. It turns out the police were right about that one. Christina called me a few days after they left to let me know that they were safe, that John's mother had had a heart attack and passed away, and they'd likely be staying there for a while to take care of her home and belongings."
"So they came back?" I ask.
"No, they didn't. They decided to stay where they were and sold their home here. It's such a tragedy what happened to them. I know people thought there was something strange about their son William; his preschool teacher swore up and down that he could move things without touching them, but I think that's a bunch of malarkey from a woman for whom it wouldn't surprise me if she had a pint before breakfast in the morning. All I remember is the sweet child who liked to come over and smell my roses in the spring. I really liked all of them. Unfortunately they all passed away in a house fire in 2009. They were living in John's mother's old farmhouse outside of Madison, Wisconsin. It was an electrical fire. Such a shame. "
My heart shatters at those words and I'm on the verge of completely dissolving into tears. I shut off the phone without so much as a thank you or goodbye, and return it to the couple. I can't manage to say anything more to them than a quiet, "Thank you," before turning to head back to the library.
The man calls out, "Are you okay?"
I turn and nod. "My husband's coming."
That couldn't be any farther from the truth on so many levels.
William can't be dead. He just can't be. I would have known, I would have felt it.
I trudge slowly back towards the library. A quick search finds the story about the house fire, but I'm not interested in what the article says. I only hone in on what it doesn't say. There is no mention of DNA, no mention of bodies that anyone was able to identify.
Numbly, I close the browser yet again. I take a deep breath and wonder who I could possibly call. I have no answers. A few months after the X-files reopened and I left behind my career in medicine in order to rejoin Mulder on our quest for the truth, I am once again in that place where nothing seems safe.
I am on autopilot. A woman with a broken and frightened heart, a body without a home, a mother without a child. Strangely...sadly...perhaps predictably...I find some comfort in these feelings. It's what I've known most in the past couple of decades.
XXXXX
I remember the first time we ran. We weren't running from bad people; we were running from rumors and a teacher who saw me make the entire contents of a bookshelf take flight. It was the first time anger made me thoughtless, but not the last.
That summer, in a ramshackle farmhouse in Wisconsin, my parents tested me. They weren't afraid of me; they loved me completely. But in order for us to have any sort of life, I needed to be able to control the things that I could make happen. For weeks, I was made to feel frustrated in almost cruel ways, but I knew my parents weren't trying to be cruel. They were trying to make me learn.
They'd buy me candy and then eat it themselves. They'd give me a toy, and then snatch it away at random. They'd promise to take me places and not follow through. My burly father would sometimes trip me and push me down - not to hurt me, but to make me angry.
At first, that house suffered quite a bit. Pictures flew off walls, dishes were smashed, once I managed to stand in the living room and snap the top off the sink in the kitchen, spraying water everywhere.
But I eventually learned. I learned to breathe deep and let the anger out without moving or harming anything. I learned to walk away. I wasn't broken, far from it. At night in my bedroom, I'd test my powers to manipulate inanimate objects - bringing toys to me while I sat in bed, flipping the pages of a book without moving my fingers, flicking off the light in my bedroom while I was cocooned under the covers. I learned from my parents that I had to control myself, that I would be the master of my future if I could master my anger and my abilities.
My situation was not something you could find in a child development book, and my parents simply did the best they could. They never thought of giving up on me, and I learned perseverance from them.
I started kindergarten in the fall, and we managed almost three years of relative normalcy and peace.
The voices started the summer before third grade, hundreds of them suddenly and all at once during a little league tournament. I didn't know what was happening, and to say I freaked out would be putting it mildly. I screamed right there at first base, threw my glove to the ground, and clutched my hands over my ears, but the voices still came.
My coach ran towards me and the cacophony of hundreds of voices at once ceased to the single pinprick of his when he was right in front of me. He put his hand on me, and it was like looking right into his soul, everything played out like a horror movie in my mind.
"You're not supposed to touch little kids like that!" I shouted.
He quickly moved his hand off my arm like that's what I meant. I whipped my head around to look at my friend Ryan who was behind me in left field and then back at coach. "You hurt Ryan!" I shouted. I watched in horror as coach was lifted off his feet and flew through the air before landing hard on the ground near the pitcher.
And then my parents were there, picking me up and whisking me away. I sobbed on my father's shoulders and kept saying that coach was hurting Ryan, that I heard him in his mind. That I saw what he'd done.
They remained silent, but I could hear them, too. "Don't be scared," I sobbed. "I'm sorry."
My father kept me in his arms as my mother made the hour-long drive home. I cried until I passed out, sleep providing me with the silence I so desperately craved. I stirred only when the truck hit the rutted driveway that lead to our house. It was dusk, the wind kicking up dust and making the endless miles of wheat rustle in the hot evening air. And my parents were silent, but they had been discussing disappearing again. I heard them.
"We need to pack," my mother said as she parked the truck in front of the house. Her hand was shaking, but gentle, as she reached across the seat and touched my cheek.
"I don't want to leave!" I shouted, and the sobbing started again. I pulled free from my father's arms, opened the truck door, and took off into the fields, running faster than I ever had, running faster than I ever thought a person could possibly run.
XXXX
The drive back to the hotel is pleasant. I roll down the window in my rental car and take in the evening air, find peace within myself in ways I couldn't quite imagine before seeing Morgan. I feel moderately relaxed for the first time in months. I'd nearly forgotten what it was like to have him as a friend; I'd nearly forgotten how much we truly understood and cared about each other.
He's broken and sad, and I'm broken and lost, but we muddled our way back to equilibrium in many ways in the couple of hours I spent with him.
Talking through the case with him was like old times, even though the evidence we had wasn't something we were used to dealing with. It was still enough to make me feel like I had my feet under me again, a feeling that I'd missed in recent months.
One thing our conversation clarified for me is that I really don't want anyone to know I'm working an X-File - it's not exactly a career boost, and I don't need anymore dings against me right now. I left my laptop, wallet and personal cell phone with Derek, deciding to stick with my burn phone and my fake ID and accompanying credit card completely for the duration of this case.
"Do you mind?" I asked him when I took all things belonging to Emily Prentiss out of my briefcase.
"Not at all," he said with that smile I never really allowed myself to miss. "That means you have to come back."
At that, I grinned and hugged him goodbye. I definitely wanted to come back and visit with him again.
The drive to the hotel takes a little longer than I anticipated because of traffic, so I'm ten minutes late meeting up with Scully. I park my car, grab my new boots and my much lighter briefcase, and head towards her room. My knock on the door is immediately answered. Gone is the woman I met earlier today who seemed wholly worried about Mulder, but consumed with the need to act strong. In her place is a Dana Scully with puffy eyes that flash with fear and anguish, clutching a gun in her hand.
I open my mouth to ask what's wrong, but she pulls me into the hotel room and puts her finger to her lips, indicating that I should be quiet. I glance around the room and notice my suitcase is open and empty; a filled duffle bag is on the bed instead. What the hell?
Scully grabs a wand off the small table in the room with her left hand and starts moving it over my body, looking to see if I'm wired. "Would you mind telling me what the hell is going on?" I ask.
She points to the table where there are several smashed listening devices. "Not here," she whispers.
I close my mouth. Suddenly, I understand why she looks afraid.
She goes over my briefcase and the shoe box with the wand. She sees that I'm missing some electronic devices, namely my laptop, and raises her eyebrow at me. It dawns on me that I'm no longer a schlep of an anonymous helper from London, but a potential suspect in her mind.
She believes in shape shifters and aliens and pretty much every script from every science fiction movie ever made and she just might snap at any time.
"It's okay," I say quietly. It's not quite the truth because this doesn't feel okay at all, but I'm not stupid. She has a gun; I don't.
She nods at the shoe box she's just run the wand over. "Change."
It's a single word that leaves no room for argument. I sit on the edge of the bed and slip my black leather boot off my left foot, and then my right. She keeps a hand on her gun while stuffing my boots into the duffle bag. I don't bother asking for better socks before dragging my new hiking boots on my feet. Her gaze bores into me while I do so, and when I'm bent over tying the second boot, she steps forward and pulls the collar of my shirt down low on my back.
I've had enough of this bullshit. "Seriously. What the fuck?"
Her eyes glance over mine, and then travel my body. "If I asked to prick your finger right now, would you try to kill me? Would you run?" she asks in a deadly calm whisper.
I think of several ways to fight her question, but they seem pointless. She's looking for something, what I'm not sure, but if we can get past her inquisition, maybe we can get on with things. Going back to London because I thought the Dana Scully was a paranoid loon would not earn me any merit badges with Clyde Easter.
I do the one thing I can do. I stick out my arm and offer it up to a blood test. She never lets go of her gun as she wraps a bathroom towel around her nose and mouth. She pulls from her back pocket a needle-prick device. "Think I have diabetes?" I ask with irritation.
She doesn't respond. She pricks my outstretched index finger and it barely bleeds, but it seems to be enough to satisfy her. She drops the towel from around her face. "Grab your bag," she orders, nodding her chin at the brown canvas laying next to my suitcase. She picks up a similar bag and ushers me through the door.
I watch as she uses the towel to wipe down the handle on both sides of the door, which seems odd to me since this hotel room is in in her name. Then it dawns on me that she's trying to protect me; that she's not sure that she can trust me, but if she can, she doesn't want anyone else to know I'm here. My fake ID might say a different name, but my fingerprints will come right back to Emily Prentiss.
Suddenly, my irritation fades and is replaced by a little fear. If I thought this case was strange, it's nothing compared to the paranoia seeping from the pores of one petite Dana Scully.
"Has your car been out of your sight?" she whispers as she closes the hotel door firmly.
"Yes, for a couple of hours," I whisper back. "But if you're worried that someone was able to get inside it, I don't think that's possible."
I think back to the parking area at the rec center, and of the teenagers outside playing basketball on bent hoops and broken backboards. How they stared at me as I got out of the car and I told them I was an old friend of Derek's. How they'd nodded and gotten back to their game. How they were still there in the waning minutes of dusk when I left, and how they whistled and laughed much to my embarrassment when Derek gave me a last hug goodbye with a whispered "Be safe" in my ear.
I shake myself from the memory. "I think if anyone suspicious got near my car, I would have been informed," I tell her.
"Think or know?" she asks.
"Know," I reply. "Unless you think the people who planted listening devices in your hotel room could have blended into Chicago's south side."
She raises an eyebrow and then nods. "Your car then."
When we're inside the car and I start the ignition, she asks, "What were you doing in that area of Chicago?"
"Visiting a friend," I say. Then tack on, "My old partner at the FBI. He's having a rough time right now."
"Did you tell him about the case?"
"Yes," I say honestly. "But don't worry. Derek Morgan would never betray my confidences. Ever. I left my laptop with him. I know you saw it was missing."
Scully lapses into silence and stares out at the darkness through the window. "I recognize his name, but I don't know him. Mulder and I weren't ones to socialize much outside of the basement," she murmurs.
I take the exit to the freeway that will lead us to the campground and keep my mouth shut for a good ten minutes before finally asking, "Would you mind telling me what the hell is going on? Were those listening devices in the room earlier today?"
She turns towards me. "If they were, there would have been no point in trying to make sure not a single print of yours was left in the room; I said your name a few times earlier today. When I returned to the hotel about an hour ago, I noticed that your suitcase had been moved slightly. At first I thought you'd come back, but then I noticed the lamp was in a different place on the nightstand, so I started looking. I checked into that room this morning and never left until you got there. Someone planted those devices after we left this afternoon. But they didn't look for prints. At least I didn't see any dust anywhere, and I looked carefully."
"So you're trying to protect me," I say.
"If you are who you say you are, and I believe you probably are, I certainly don't want you mixed up in this." She pauses and stares at me. "I think you should go home. It would be safer for you."
I glance at her. My instinct is to take her up on her offer, turn the car back towards O'Hare, and just forget the past twenty-four hours ever happened, but she's clearly on the verge of a breakdown. Though I thought my heart had been sufficiently walled off for months from such nuisances as empathy towards a stranger, that empathy is still there, and I can't leave her.
"Thanks for the warning, but I'm good. What did you learn from the witness earlier?"
Scully laughs quietly and mirthlessly. She reaches for her bag in the backseat and pulls out a folder. "What I learned is that who I saw for a brief moment before he took Mulder and who the first witness saw was one in the same. And he has an uncanny resemblance to one of my brothers and Fox Mulder. He looks a little too old, which is a mystery. But I think the young man was...is...my son. Our son, mine and Mulder's. Or at least someone wants me to believe that."
I glance at the sketch in her lap and then back at her face where tears are collecting in her eyes. I sit quietly, mulling over what she's just told me, and take the next exit, pulling into a parking space at a truck stop. Once the car is in park, I turn on the interior light and reach over and pick up the picture in her lap. "He could be anyone," I say softly. "How old would your son be now?"
"Fifteen, " she says quietly while wiping her eyes.
"I don't know too many fifteen years olds who could carry the dead weight of grown man and run with him like you described," I say.
She shakes her head at me. "If that was William, I don't think lifting anything would be too much for him."
I'm about to question that sentiment, but she continues before I get a chance.
"However, according to a newspaper article I found, our son and his adoptive parents died in a house fire back in 2009. I have no way of verifying anything."
She looks at the sketch in my hands and then looks up at me, her mind and heart staging a war that plays out in high definition in her eyes. She takes a deep breath and makes what I can see is a very difficult decision to trust me. "Do you? Do you have a way to look into that house fire without anyone knowing?"
I nod. I have two choices.
I could call Clyde, but for as much as he is a brilliant profiler and seems to procure fake IDs out of thin air, he's an absolute luddite when it comes to computers. The best he could do is a simple Google search on a good day. Which means he'd need to tap into Interpol resources, and that doesn't seem like the right move. If we're under surveillance and Scully is scared enough for me to wipe my prints from a hotel room, using Interpol in any way right now might be dangerous.
My other option has been trying to get in touch with me for months, and calling her wasn't on my agenda for this little trip back to the states, but she's the best and safest option.
I grab my burn phone from the console. "Be prepared for squeals of delight and some rapid fire personal questions directed at me," I say as dial Penelope Garcia's phone number from memory and set the phone on speaker, just so Scully can't question anything.
"Just let me do the talking," I warn right before Garcia answers.
XXXXX
When I was far enough away from the house that I could no longer hear my parents calling for me, I stopped. I wasn't even breathless. I was up on a slight hill, above the wheat, and I could see the peak of the roof of our house. I sat in the dirt and tried to stop my body from shaking. I couldn't figure out what was happening. I stayed crouched down and hidden for over an hour, digging my baseball cleats into the dirt. I felt normal out there with no voices.
The wind carried the sound of a car on our driveway, and I thought it must be my dad in the truck, coming to look for me. But the sound only lasted a moment before it stopped.
Confused, I stood and climbed higher on the hill, until I could see more of our house in the little pathway between the rows and rows of wheat below me. I couldn't see anything, really. I could see the windows on the second story, but that's about it.
Suddenly, in the gathering darkness, there was flash of orange, and a rush of flames that quickly consumed the part of the house I could see.
And then I was running, running back towards home. Shouting and crying, "Mom!" Dad!" "Mommy!"
XXXX
It wasn't him. It wasn't him. It wasn't him.
I chanted that mantra in my mind the entire drive towards the campground. Penelope Garcia - once she'd gotten past the obvious shock of hearing from Prentiss out of the blue, and had asked a few questions about how Prentiss was doing that lead me to many insights about the woman beside me in the car, the very biggest being that she was definitely human and could probably be trusted more than anyone else I had in my life at that moment - had been fast in her research. She bought Prentiss's story hook, line and sinker, about how she was investigating arson cases with an unsub she thought might have originated in the United States before coming to London. Prentiss had one fire in particular she was interested in but didn't want anyone to know she was searching because she felt like there might be a cover-up involved.
What Penelope found was what I had both hoped and feared. Apparently someone commented in the newspaper about William Van de Camp freaking out at a baseball game earlier in the day of the fire.
"It seems way off, Emily. They were found in their beds." Penelope said on the phone. "Your kid freaks out and starts screaming at a baseball game. You whisk him away and drive an hour home. And you go straight to bed and then sleep through an electrical fire that starts about an hour later and burns you to a crisp in your beds? Not likely. No autopsies. And here's the kicker. The bodies didn't end up in the county morgue at all. I'm looking at the paperwork here and someone from Fort McCoy in Wisconsin took possession of the bodies."
"What?" Prentiss whispered on the phone.
She might have been confused, but I wasn't. The Van de Kamps might have been burned to death, but the charred body of the boy found in his bedroom was not my son. The fact that the military was involved scared me to my core about what could have potentially happened to William, but he was alive. I believe that.
Prentiss was quiet on the drive to the campground and she's quiet now as we walk up the path with our bags and a flashlight towards where Mulder and I had set up a tent a few nights ago. She's watching me, though, gazing as my many emotions roll and crest over me, like she understands that I have to work through them in my head before I'm willing to talk more.
We're not actually in the campground proper, but up in a grove of trees where camping is not usually permitted. There is crime scene tape around the area and in terms of the campground, the grove is temporarily closed pending our investigation.
I relieve the two local police officers who have been guarding the area throughout the day. I know this detail of local police help is going to end soon, with no other people having gone missing in several days as far as they know.
They look curiously at Prentiss. "FBI resources from the Chicago field office," I say. "Mulder had a family emergency."
They accept that and make their way down the path, saying they'll be in touch in the morning, but not sure if another day of staking out the area will be assigned.
Prentiss's silence is broken when she asks, "Why are we staying here?"
I shake my head and unzip the tent. Though I have no reason to believe the police officers are anything other than what they are, I reach for the two lanterns in the tent and turn them on. Everything looks exactly as I left it very early this morning. Exactly. No one has disturbed anything in here.
"It's getting cold at night now. When the other people were returned, it was night and they were out of it for awhile, but it was warmer. I'm afraid if Mulder is returned during the night, he might suffer from exposure before he can get himself out of the woods or anyone finds him."
I close my eyes and remember me when I was pregnant, coming upon Mulder's body in woods not that different from these, and he was already seemingly dead. That was the last time he was taken and returned to me, and I can't help reliving those nightmares now.
"Being away from here today was difficult for you," Prentiss says as she steps into the tent and surveys the two sleeping bags that have been zipped together.
Instinctively, I want to tell her it's not what it looks like. Not that it matters. The years Mulder and I spent pretending that we were nothing more than partners and friends seem like another lifetime ago. FBI rumors became reality for most people as soon as my pregnancy became evident, and were completely obliterated when I helped Mulder escape a military prison and ran away with him.
Still, what Prentiss doesn't know is that two nights ago was the first time I'd slept with the comfort and warmth of Mulder's arms around me in several years. Tears fill my eyes and I turn to look at her. I don't cry in front of people. I just don't. Yet here I am, crying in front of a perfect stranger.
Her eyes are soft and sympathetic in the glow of the camping lanterns. "I need you to tell me what you think is going on so I can help you."
I sink to the sleeping bag and she puts down her duffle bag and sits beside me. The tent flap is open and I look out into the dark night. The tears are hot on my face, and I could sob right now, but I hold myself in check, letting the tears fall without accompanying them with gasps or shaky breaths. I'm don't quite know where to begin, but Prentiss is sticking with me, and I need someone to talk to. I'm not good at this. Pre-FBI, I confided in my mother only on very rare occasions. And then one day I landed in the basement office with a man that rocked the very foundation of who I thought I was as a person, and he's been my only confidant for over two decades.
"I'm not sure what's going on. All I know is that I made the decision in 2001, when Mulder was in hiding, to give our son, William, up for adoption. I thought it would be safer for him, that he might get to have a normal life. But William wasn't normal in the typical sense of the word. I thought the things that made him different were cured, for lack of a better term, but I was wrong. I think William can move inanimate objects, I saw him do it as an infant, and I think over time, he regained that ability. I think he's probably very physically strong, and I think maybe he has more powers than I can reasonably guess at. I don't think he died in that house fire. I think he was taken by the military, by enemies Mulder and I are very aware of, but I'm not sure why they waited so long. They probably always knew where he was. I'm not sure what part about William losing it at a baseball game triggered them to stage a fire and take William away, but I think that's exactly what happened."
Prentiss clears her throat. "Powers," she mumbles.
"You think I'm crazy, but you haven't heard the half of it," I respond while I wipe my eyes on my shirt sleeve.
"I'm listening," she says neutrally and calmly.
I am physically and emotionally exhausted and flop back on a pillow. I can't face her eyes, so I close mine. And I open my mouth and tell her everything in condensed, clipped sentences. I tell her about the things I've seen that made me question my beliefs. I tell her about being abducted, about learning about the chip in my neck, about removing it and being diagnosed with cancer. About how Mulder procured another chip that I had implanted again and my cancer immediately went into remission.
I tell her about government conspiracies, my missing ova, a nemesis named Spender, and my glimpses of things that could be nothing other than alien.
I tell her about Mulder being infected with an alien virus once, and then several years later he was abducted once again. I tell her about the bee sting that infected me, and how someone gave Mulder the cure and he literally travelled to the ends of the earth to get to me and cure me.
I tell her about my DNA, which when you dig deep enough has some components that are decidedly not human, and how I suspect Mulder has the same phenomenon coursing through his blood.
All of this is said in a quiet, detached air, and she remains silent, even her breathing is almost silent.
When I get to the absolute kicker in this whole messed up story that is my life, the tears start up again. "Mulder came across some of my ova on a case and took a vial. He didn't tell me about that at first, and when he did tell me it was the worst possible time." I pause. I just can't tell her about a daughter named Emily that I only knew for scant days, so I skip it. "It took me a long time to get over that, and I contemplated leaving him and the X-Files a few times, but I just couldn't. For as much as his choices have driven me to the brink of insanity on several occasions, he would never deliberately hurt me. And when I was done being angry, I asked him to help me, to father a child with me, using the ova he'd procured."
I stop talking and brush my eyes again. I turn my head to the side and inhale into a pillow that still smells faintly of Mulder's shampoo.
"And you had William," Emily says.
I shake my head. "No. The in vitro procedures didn't work. Mulder and I had been through so much by that point, and I think my inability to get pregnant hurt him almost more than it hurt me. And at that momentt, we both just gave up on the pretense that we were only FBI partners and best friends."
I still remember that night in stunning detail when I think about it. How our tears had blended together and then turned to kisses. How his lips felt, how relieved we both were to have finally, finally gotten to that point, how neither of us wanted to voice the fact that the final act of acknowledging the extent of our feelings for each other came at the hands of such devastating news.
My voice is raw when I start speaking again, "Several months later, I was lured into going with Spender with the promise of answers. I think he did something to me during that time. All I know is that I woke up in a bed, in pajamas I didn't own, with no recollection of the evening before. And a few months after that, Mulder was abducted and I found out I was pregnant."
Prentiss is silent enough that I blink my eyes open to look at her, half expecting to find that she'd left the tent and was halfway back to London by now. But she's right there, staring at me.
"Jesus," she breathes.
"Ready to go back to London now?" I ask.
"Hell no," she responds immediately. "I know monsters, Dana," she says seriously, using my first name for the first time. "You just have a different brand of monster you've dealt with. I'm all in."
I don't know why I'm surprised. And I'm not used to feeling grateful, or feeling like I've made a new friend. She doesn't quite believe the extent of everything she's heard, but she believes that I believe it - I can see that in her eyes.
She reaches for my arm and pats my shoulder. "Tomorrow, when it's light out, I'll look at the area where you saw Mulder disappear to see if I notice anything different. And then I think you should hang tight while I go to Fort McCoy and poke around."
I sit up and shake my head. "You can't do that. You don't want to be mixed up in this to that level."
"Emily Prentiss won't be," she says firmly. "Clyde can get me what I need - fake ID, clearances, fake job. He can make sure my fingerprints come back to a fake ID if we need him to. It will be fine and we will solve this."
Why I so desperately want to believe someone I hardly know is beyond me, but I do. I just want someone to fix it; I'm too damn tired to do it myself right now.
"Do you think it was really William that took Mulder?" she asks.
"I don't know," I answer softly. "I only know that I felt like I was completely paralyzed but I managed to squeeze out a word - please - that took all of my effort. And that's when the face of the man holding Mulder changed to look like what could be William. And he told me he was sorry, like he didn't want to take Mulder from me at all. I don't understand it."
"We'll figure it out," Prentiss says firmly. "One of us should stay awake. Why don't you sleep first for a few hours, and then we can trade?"
I'm exhausted having slept not at all last night, but she must be, too. "It's the middle of the night in London. Why don't I take the first shift?" I offer.
She shakes her head. "I'm good. I slept on the plane and had coffee with Derek earlier. I'm wide awake."
I stare at her for a few seconds before bending forward and unzipping my duffle bag. I reach in and hand her Mulder's gun. Either I can trust her and get a few hours of sleep, or she's going to kill me and this misery will all be over. Both seem like acceptable options to me.
Only after she takes the gun and I scoot myself inside the sleeping bag, I realize that finding sleep might not be as easy as I'd hoped. My head is spinning, and one thing Garcia said on the phone swirls to the forefront of my mind.
"I'm sorry about your mother passing away. Mine died recently as well."
I watch Prentiss shrug as she stares out into the night. "Thank you."
"You've cut yourself off from everyone because you don't want to talk about it?" I venture.
She turns to look at me. "Look, I appreciate you being so candid with me because it was necessary for me to understand what I was getting into with this case. But I don't do this. We aren't girls at some sleepaway camp sharing all of our secrets. I don't talk about things like this with anyone. It's just not me."
I falter at the harshness of her words, but nod, turning on my side away from her and burying my nose in Mulder's pillow.
I hear Prentiss sigh. "I'm sorry," she whispers. "My mother and I had unresolved issues that I felt I had time to work on and then time was up abruptly. I haven't wanted to speak with anyone since she died because I've felt out of control…"
She trails off like she was going to say more but stopped herself. I can sort of piece it together. Her mother died. She took her lack of control into the job. She's been making poor choices. Those poor choices landed her in Chicago with me, a woman I'm sure she thinks is crazy on some level. Or all levels.
"But you went to see Derek," I say, just trying to learn this woman a bit better since I'm literally putting my life in her hands once I fall asleep.
"Derek's different. And he's a mess, too, for entirely different reasons. We don't have to talk much to comfort each other," she says softly.
I smile sadly into the pillow. "You two sound like me and Mulder."
"No," Prentiss breathes. "He's a good friend, but that's it."
I can tell by her voice that that's not entirely it and risk words that might get me beat up by a woman who easily could take me. I have no doubt about that. I risk words that I've never uttered to anyone while I try to read her. "It's like Goldilocks. At least that's how I always felt. Searching for that just right. And then one day you find it and it all just fits. Or maybe it was always there but you couldn't admit it. I think maybe that was it. Even though I lost it, even though Mulder and I both did. For a while there, everything was just right and it was amazing. I wouldn't trade it for anything. Even though this is where I ended up."
Nothing but silence is the response, but I hear slightly altered breathing. I open my eyes and see Prentiss slightly illuminated, sitting on the edge of the air mattress, her knees drawn up in front of her, gun in one hand, as she stares out of the tent. Her face shows no emotion.
I wait for several minutes and she doesn't speak. My eyes feel heavy and I'm losing my battle to stay awake. Just when I feel myself slipping off into slumber, I hear whispered words. "But then the bears come home. You might think you've found something just right, but then the bears are there, and you have to run away. That's how the story goes."
I'm about to argue with her, but she's right. Her bears are definitely far different than aliens and a dark government conspiracies.
But the bears always come home.
XXXX
For at least the thousandth time in the ten hours since Emily left the rec center, I second guessed myself.
I'm not sure why it felt right to head back into the rec center after I watched Emily's car pull away and go straight upstairs and towards my razor, but I did. I'm not sure what compelled me to prop a mirror up on the ledge of the sink and shave my head and facial hair until I resembled the Derek Morgan she once knew so well, but I did.
When that was done, I tried to talk myself out of following her. She'd surely be pissed. Hell hath no fury like Emily Prentiss feeling like someone is trying to protect her.
I threw myself onto the futon, and tried to force myself into sleep, but I all could think about was Emily with her arms around me, comforting me without making me feel like she pitied me, which was something I so desperately needed.
And she was out there at some campground, probably willing to throw herself into unimaginable situations because she was on the edge once again, and I couldn't live with it. I couldn't live with the idea of not trying to protect her from herself when she got to a point like this. I've only seen it a couple of times in the past, but each time was more than I could bear, and one time I thought I'd lost her completely.
I tossed and turned on my futon for hours, thinking about her. It was strange how a woman I'd hardly allowed myself to think about for a few years came at me full force in my mind after seeing her again for a couple of hours.
At around three o'clock in the morning, I gave up on sleep. I got up and started hanging sheetrock.
Thirty minutes later, that wasn't doing anything for me. So I showered in the locker room downstairs and came to a decision: I'd head up to the campground and take my chances with what would likely be a very pissed off Emily.
I emailed my mother letting her know that I'd decided to take a few days away from Chicago to gather my thoughts.
I pulled the large lock box out from under the futon and pulled out my personal gun. I put Emily's laptop and passport into that box.
With my comfortable jeans, a shaven face and head, and a gun in my hand, I felt more like myself than I'd ever hoped to feel again.
The drive to the campground took only an hour with absolutely no traffic, and now I'm sitting here in a parking lot just before dawn, looking up the hillside where I know Emily is with Dana Scully in a tent.
I was bored. Maybe that would work as an explanation as to why I'm here. She'd read right through that.
I look at the bag on my passenger seat. I brought you bagels, Emily. Nice to meet you, Scully.
No, Emily would see through that lame ply, too.
Maybe I should just tell her I was worried about her straight up and face the wrath. It's bound to yield better results in the long run than trying to obfuscate with bullshit.
Or maybe I should just turn around and go home and start hanging more sheetrock.
I tap my fingers on the steering wheel and contemplate those two options, the idea of going back to the rec center winning out, when my thoughts are distracted by a large SUV pulling into the parking lot.
Odd. It's 5:30 in the morning.
I watch four men in fatigues emerge from the vehicle, and they are packing heat that my handgun is no match for. My heart starts thrumming as I crouch down in my seat while keeping my eyes on them. This is way wrong.
They gather and look at a map. I watch as one points towards the path that leads to the grove where I know Emily and Scully are camping.
What they don't know or realize is that the path is circuitous, winding this way and that before arriving. Summers where my sisters and I and our cousins played hide and seek in these woods give me the knowledge I need to know the fastest path to Emily is straight up the hill in front of me. And if I'm fast enough, I'll bypass meeting the soldiers as I cross the trail.
It's been over six months since I've run at full tilt in pursuit, but my adrenaline is pumping and I know there is no other choice.
As soon as the soldiers round a curve out of sight, I get out of my car with my gun in hand. My legs pump like I never lost the Derek Morgan I once knew, up the hill and towards where Emily said they were camping, not in pursuit of the soldiers, but to get to Emily and Scully and get them out of there before men with machine guns who have no business in these woods at the crack of dawn get to them.
I run.
XXXX
Just as I was getting close enough to home that I could feel the heat of the flames, an arm in black reached out and snatched me, nearly knocking the wind out of me. The sharp pain of a needle in my arm. Then nothing.
I think about that night almost daily. Fire reminds me. And the burned, charred remnants of an area that was once lush with trees reminds me.
But I'm thinking about it more keenly now than ever before. I'm thinking about it because years after losing my father to a fire, I have been able to touch the man who is my biological father. And soon, I'll be able to touch my biological mother.
I know this isn't really me, not really. And I know the Dana I've known for the past ten years is not really my mom. Both of us exist in this future, but our true selves are on the other side.
With Mulder's eyes - my father's eyes - on the back of figure, I head towards the shimmering light. I'm going back to get my mother and bring her here. My biological mother. She's right there on the other side, and my father has decided that this is best. That she must come with us on this quest to alter the future.
I know her so well without ever having known her.
I can't wait to hug her.
I can't wait to say the word, "Mom" again.