November 1
A shrill ringing woke Mulder out of a sleep he hadn't remembered that he'd fallen into. He groped for the source of the noise with one hand, and managed to grab a fist full of fur instead of plastic. Soothing the startled cat with one hand, he finally managed to answer the phone with the other.
"Hello?" he asked groggily. It hadn't occurred to him yet to even wonder who might be calling him. A bleary-eyed glance at the red numbers of his digital alarm clock revealed that it was actually after nine a.m. already, so not quite the obscene hour he imagined after all.
"Mulder?"
"Oh, hey Scully." He swallowed down a yawn. "What's up?"
"There was something I wanted to ask you last night, but I didn't get around to it..." The shy tone to her voice had him feeling more alert than he had, and he sat up straighter in bed, curious to know what she was about to say to him. After a lingering pause she seemed to screw up her courage and blurted out, "Would you consider having Thanksgiving dinner with the kids, Mom, and me?"
Although he wanted to tell her yes, he paused, thinking about the message he'd come home to the night before. Scully must have taken his hesitation as him trying to find a way to let her down easy, because she began to speak nervously. "I'm sorry, it's probably too soon. I should have thought-"
"No, it's not too soon," he interrupted gently, and she came to a stop. "I'd love to spend Thanksgiving with you guys. The only problem is that I've been asked to go to Wisconsin the Tuesday of that week and I don't know if I'll make it back on time."
"Oh." Instead of nervous she now sounded confused. "What's in Wisconsin?"
"Answers, I hope," Mulder admitted. "I finally heard back from another returnee, and he's agreed to speak with me if I go there that day."
"Wow."
"Yeah."
Dempsey apparently tired of him paying attention to the phone because he flicked his tail across Mulder's nose and nearly made him sneeze. As he was gently pushing the cat away, he wondered if it would be a bad time to request that Scully come over and feed the cat while he was away.
"Mulder..." she paused, and he waited to see what she'd finally say. "Do you want me to go with you?"
"I do," Mulder blurted out, and then had to keep himself from smacking his forehead. "But I don't want to put you out having to arrange childcare while we're gone."
"We can bring them with us," she suggested, and he detected a hint of unexpected eagerness to her tone. Maybe she was also tiring of the uncertainty, he reflected, and was happy to help him move forward. Knowing Scully, she'd feel that was regardless of whether or not she actually believed that his 'missing' child existed.
As kind as that was, he didn't want to disrupt her life on his behalf. "But what if we don't get back in time?" he asked, hoping to sound practical. "Even though I plan to fly, the timeline is still iffy. Throw in an unexpected flight delay, and we might be stranded for a day or more. I'd feel like a heel if you missed Thanksgiving at your mother's."
Scully began to speak without needing to pause to think out what she wanted to say. "Mulder, you're right. Thanksgiving is about family. And you are family too." His eyes began to well up when she said this, but he was pleased that he didn't embarrass himself by making a telling sound. Instead, he listened intently. "You missed three sets of holidays. I think my mother can deal with the possibility of her missing one with us."
"Are you sure you really want to come with me?" Mulder asked, blushing a little when his voice broke on the final word. Being that obvious about his desire for her to go with him hadn't been his goal.
"Absolutely," she declared. "If there's any chance of you getting to find out things you need to, I want to be there."
As pleased as this made him, he did hesitate again. "The man I'm going to speak to, he doesn't really want me to even see him myself. I think I have to ask him if it's okay if I bring someone with me." He shut his eyes, hoping that she wouldn't tell him never mind, it was too much of a risk to think that an uncooperative person would accept her presence.
"That's understandable, he doesn't know you, and he's never even spoken to me. If he doesn't feel comfortable with me and the kids being there, we'll wait at the hotel room. Then you can tell us what he said as soon as you get back."
Okay," he found himself saying. "I'll give him a call, and then look for a flight so I can book us tickets. Oh, and a hotel room."
"Do you want to split the costs, Mulder?" she asked hesitantly.
Apparently the price of the plane tickets had finally occurred to her. "No," he said, hoping that his tone was reassuring. "You're doing this for me, and um... Well, when I checked my bank accounts before I entered the hospital and also I found out that, uh, the investments that I made after selling my parents' homes did quite well. Not just the interest on money I kept in the bank, but stocks too. So, don't worry at all about plane tickets or the hotel room. Okay?"
"Okay," she agreed.
"Right. Then it's settled," Mulder told her, fairly confident that she wouldn't disagree.
"I guess I'll let you make your phone call, and you'll let me know the details once you've booked our flight and room," Scully suggested.
"Absolutely. I'll talk to you soon."
"Bye. Love you."
"Love you too," he said, feeling a bit dazed. He continued to hold the phone until he heard the dial tone. Then he put it down and looked at Dempsey.
"Hey buddy, what would you say about staying with my friend Walter? He's a nice guy, sort of. I think you like him."
Dempsey merely gave him a narrow eyed glaze.
"All right then. Unless you object, I'm going to ask him." Mulder realized that this nonsensical conversation was just him stalling for time before he called either the man who intended to speak to him or Skinner. Honestly, he didn't know which conversation was going to be more uncomfortable.
Mulder chose to speak to the person who had left the message first and get it over with. Not, he told himself, because he was afraid that Skinner would reject his request. Worse came to worst he could ask the gunmen to look after his furball. Actually, he really would rather that not have to happen. It seemed like they were more likely to accidentally let Dempsey out, or let him electrocute himself on one of their not-quite-finished toys.
He shook his head, hoping to make the image flee. Cat tail flambé was not a pretty sight, even in one's mind's eye.
Not knowing the returnee's name made him a little nervous, and as he listened to the phone ring, he began to worry that it had been a mistake to tell Scully about him before he talked to him. For all he knew the man might change his mind, or worse, might have been playing a hurtful prank on him. He wished he had already been awake when she'd called so he would have had the presence of mind to wait to discuss it with her.
Doubts were beginning to get overwhelming when the ringtone cut off and a suspicious voice asked "who is this?"
"Um. Fox Mulder. You left a message on my machine while I was out last night." He fidgeted nervously, trying to tell if he was speaking to the same person or not. Would the speaker snap that he had no idea what he was talking about?
"Oh. You." His voice didn't hold a trace of warmth or welcome, but at least he wasn't pretending not to have a clue why he was calling. "I figured I'd hear back from you."
"Right, so... what should I call you?" Mulder blurted out. There had to be a smoother way to ask, he berated himself. "Um, sorry," he mumbled almost inaudibly.
"Spencer Braeburn." The man on the other end of the line paused. "So, are you for real?"
"Am I for real?" Mulder repeated, confused.
"I mean, are you a reporter? Just trying to wind up a crazy? Or are you really one of us?"
"I'm one of the crazies," Mulder said firmly. It almost made him laugh to put it that way, but not because he really thought it was funny, and the laughter would have been the sort he'd heard echoing in the halls of a psych ward far less nice than the site of his last hospitalization. "I got abducted a little over three years ago, and let go in August. Now I'm just trying to find answers."
"Oh." Spencer paused again. "I probably shouldn't, but I actually believe you."
"Thanks, I guess." After a moment, he asked, "You're really okay with me coming to speak to you the Tuesday before Thanksgiving?"
"Yes. I'm not going to talk about this crap over the phone-"
"I understand. I just wanted to make sure you hadn't changed your mind before I made travel arrangements," Mulder patiently assured him. As they spoke he imagined Spencer as a high-strung little man, sort of a cross between Frohike and Rick Moranis.
"I said I'd speak to you in person and I will."
"Okay, but there's one other thing I wanted to check with you." Sweat began to bead on his forehead as he hoped desperately that Spencer wouldn't yell at him or hang up on him for his audacity. "Is it okay if my girlfriend comes with me when I speak to you? She's okay with staying behind if the idea makes you uncomfortable-"
"How long has she been your girlfriend?" Spencer asked.
"I'm not sure how to an-"
"I mean, was she with you? Before?" The way he stressed the last word finally clued Mulder into what Spenser was really asking.
"Oh, yeah."
"And does she know?"
"What happened to me? Sure."
"Okay. You can bring her."
"Great," Mulder blurted out. He honestly hadn't anticipated the man consenting, so it was hard to say something more intelligent. "Then I'll book our flights and our room then."
"Right. I'll talk to you then," Spencer said in a way that was obviously meant to convey that he wasn't going to tolerate more calls from Mulder before they spoke in person.
"Thank you."
After he hung up with Spencer, it turned out that asking Skinner to watch his cat was easier than he thought it would be. The only sticky part was explaining how he actually had acquired said cat... On the plus side, Skinner had also reluctantly agreed to also take Dempsey in temporarily if the landlord got wind of his presence and demanded he be removed from the apartment.
All in all, Mulder felt much better after both conversations than he'd even hoped to.
Thanksgiving Week 2003 – Sunday
It was after nine and Scully had two suitcases open on her bed. One of them already had the kids' stuff in it, which she had grabbed out of their dressers before putting them both to bed. Somehow it had been easier to pack for them than to pack for herself.
"What are you doing?" a confused voice asked.
She turned to see Tommy standing in the doorway, hair standing up staticky, and rubbing his eyes with one fist. "I thought you were sleeping."
"I was. But I had a dream." He didn't cry or explain, so Scully decided that it hadn't been a nightmare. Tommy looked at the open suitcases on the bed. "Are we going somewhere?"
"Yes."
He took a few clumsy steps towards her, and she wondered if he would even remember this conversation in the morning. "Where?"
"We're going to a state called Wisconsin," she said brightly, now wondering if he had ever heard the state's name before. Somehow she doubted it.
"But what about school?" Tommy asked. Then he yawned very loudly.
Scully reached down and picked him up, setting him on the bed. "Tommy, you're not going to go to school this week."
"I'm not? Is there going to be snow?"
For a moment she wondered what he meant by this, but finally realized he figured she meant a snow day or, apparently three. "No. At least I hope not. School will be open until Wednesday, but we're going on a trip instead."
"But why?" Tommy asked, beginning to sound whiny. He wasn't often, but overtiredness was a trigger for it in him.
That was a good question, she thought. "Well, you know how Mulder was gone for a long time, right?"
Tommy was apparently too tired to answer, so he just nodded.
"Sometimes when bad things happen to us we feel like they haven't ended all the way," Scully explained. "Grown-ups call that a lack of closure. Sometimes, though, we can do things that make us feel better so we can get closure. Then, we can move past the bad things and start to enjoy life again."
Her small son sighed. "I don't know what any of that means."
Sitting down beside him, Scully reached over and hugged him. "Mulder needs to talk to a man who might have some answers for him about what happened to him while he was gone. We're going to go with them because it's a long trip, and we don't want him to be lonely."
"Okay."
Scully couldn't help but feel somewhat amused. "Okay?"
"Yeah." Her son thought for a moment. "How're we going to get to Wis...Wis..."
"Wisconsin," Scully supplied. "We're going to take a plane."
"We've never done that before," Tommy remarked, and she couldn't tell if he thought the idea was good or scary.
"You and Grace probably don't remember being on a plane, but you have been once. But it's okay, I've flown a lot."
"Oh. Can I get a glass of water before I go back to bed?" Tommy asked, apparently not too concerned about their mode of transportation after all.
"Yes you may, as long as you go to the bathroom before you go to bed too."
"Uh huh," he agreed, and wandered back out of the room.
"Note to self," Scully mumbled while she pulled more clothes out of her drawers. "Philosophic talk is meaningless to five-year-olds."
She supposed that she should have realized that her son's question had begged for a direct answer, a literal explanation of why they were going from one place to another, and that he wouldn't understand answers about motives. However, she herself was spending a great deal of time wondering about the intangible rewards the Mulder hope to gain from his trip, and speculating on the odds of him getting them. More than anything she hoped that he would come away from his trip feeling better. But it was hard to believe that the odds would be in his favor.
Later
Unfortunately, Scully wasn't the only person having doubts. Across town, Mulder sat awake in his empty apartment, wishing more than anything that Skinner hadn't already come and taken the cat to his house. Maybe having Dempsey sitting on his lap would fail to drive away his misgivings, but it couldn't have been worse.
He was supposed to get up and meet Scully in less than seven hours, but he couldn't recall a time (at least on Earth, his mind helpfully reminds him) when he'd had a harder time sleeping after discovering his sister's fate. All he kept dwelling on was the worry that not only was he going to be wasting his own time going to see Spenser, he'd be wasting Scully's too. And dragging two little kids half way across the country hardly seemed fair to them, either. He wanted to learn to be a good father, but it seemed like he was getting off to a selfish start. But on the other hand, there wasn't just Grace and Tommy to think about...
"And what do you expect to happen, anyway?" he growled to himself. "For Spenser to hold out a baby and say 'hey, is this kid yours? We wondered who he belonged to.' You idiot."
Groaning loudly, he threw himself out of bed and went to the living room. He didn't have any particular hope that he'd fall asleep there if he couldn't in his bed, but his body was beginning to ache from staying in one position too long under the covers.
A rerun of COPS at least gave him something else to focus on, even if it didn't induce drowsiness. It was also nice to see people running around half-naked who had clearly made worse life choices than his current ones.
The shrill ring of his phone pulled him out of his stupor, and he wondered if anyone would answer this time. Someone had called three times in the past two weeks and hung up without leaving a message, so the hiss of tape was the only sound the answering machine picked up when he played the message. A not-too-small part of him worried that it was Spencer calling to cancel, but he wanted to believe that he'd have the decency to speak to him about it. All the other calls had come in when he wasn't home, so he wondered if picking up the call would make a difference to the caller.
"Hello?" Mulder asked. He wanted to ask if it was Spenser but he didn't. The thought that it could be someone who wanted to hurt him or even something, bubbled up too, but he more or less successfully pushed it away.
For several seconds no one spoke on the other end of the line this time either, and he almost hung up, but something made him decide not to. After a few seconds of rustling, Mulder heard an indignant grunt, and then a feminine voice began to speak to him. "I'm so sorry, Sir. He got the phone without anyone noticing."
"He who?" Mulder asked curiously. It seemed unlikely that it was Spencer unless he'd cracked and needed to be heavily medicated, so Mulder was able to be more interested than concerned about changes to his trip.
"Tim," the woman said. "He's got a list of phone numbers here and apparently called you at random."
For a moment Mulder was thrown, but then he realized who had called him. "Wait, I know Tim."
"You do?" The woman definitely sounded skeptical.
"Sure. We were in therapy together," he explained. Either he was wrong and she'd say that this Tim hadn't been in the hospital, or he was right and she'd know what he was talking about. "We were friendly there."
"Oh," she said after a moment. "I didn't know he had made any friends here, other than that Mark boy who comes on visitor's day."
"Surprise," Mulder replied dryly. Due to her comment about Mark's supposed youth had him mentally revising his image of her to include gray hair and wire-rim glasses. "Is it okay if we talk for a while? Since he went to all the trouble of looking up my new number." As he said that, he wondered if the three messages he'd gotten that week with no one speaking on them had also been Tim, not Spenser nerving himself up to talk to him about not coming after all. He hoped so.
"It'd be an awfully one-sided conversation," the woman blurted out.
"I realize that he has autism and is virtually non-verbal," Mulder told her, thinking about how he'd only heard Tim speak twice the entire time he'd known him. "I can talk, and he can listen. That must have been what he had in mind when he called me."
"Okay," the woman said reluctantly.
"Can it be a private conversation?" Mulder pressed.
For a moment he thought that she was going to object, and he could imagine her throwing her hands up in the air as she said "Why not." Of course she would have dropped the phone if she did that.
There was no way to know if the woman, who he assumed was a nurse at Dolby considering that it was the only 'here' that likely had his new phone number for Tim to find, would keep her word but he really hoped that she would. Still, the paranoia that remained his sometimes companion despite out-patient therapy and medication reminded him not to say too much: Tim would never tell his secrets, but he couldn't count on them not being overheard.
So he didn't spill them. "Hey Tim, it's Fox. How are you doing, buddy?" He waited several seconds, wondering if Tim would ever respond. The young man didn't say anything, but Mulder could hear him breathing. "I'm happy that you decided that you should give me a call. I've wondered how you were too."
Not often enough, perhaps, but Tim crossed his mind now and then. Mostly he wondered if he'd gotten well enough to go back to Dolby, and it seemed he had. Not well enough to go home, but he was going in the right direction it seemed.
"Mark comes to see you, huh? Maybe I should too," he added.
There was a soft noise, and he almost thought it was a "yuh" but nothing else got said, so he wasn't convinced it had been real and not his imagination.
"I'll tell you what, I'll come by sometime next week, and you can decide if you want to see me then." After another pause, Mulder spoke again. "You know, I'm actually glad that you called me tonight. I'm working hard to get better too, but I know you know it's not easy. Tonight's been rough for me. I'm guessing that tonight hasn't gone your way either."
More gentle breathing was the only indication that Tim was still on the line. It was actually comforting in a way, and despite the fact that Tim didn't really talk, the call didn't feel like a waste of time to Mulder.
"What did they keep telling us in those group meetings?" he asked the nearly silent man. "That we can only take things one day at a time? I'll tell you, Tim, there are times when a whole week seems to try to get me all at once."
This evoked a laugh.
It was so unexpected that Mulder actually dropped the phone for a second, but thankfully it didn't disconnect the call when the phone landed in his lap. If it had seemed sinister he would have hung up immediately and assumed that he'd been the victim of a prank, but it was the exact sort of laugh he would have expected from a man Tim's age.
Encouraged, he went on. "I'm pretty sure tomorrow's sitting at my kitchen table, and Tuesday's making a mess of my bathroom." There was a bit more laughter at this, and Mulder grinned to himself. "I'm planning to fight back, though."
Tim continued to laugh, but Mulder's smile faded a little. There really was only one way to fight back, he realized. It was to tell the doubts to go jump in a lake and get on with the week ahead. Maybe he couldn't keep himself from worrying about what could go wrong with everything from Spenser refusing to answer the door to getting snowed in out in Wisconsin until Saturday, but he could keep those worries from dictating what he did. Or didn't do, since he was fairly certain that his problem would be more inaction than taking the wrong actions.
There was more rustling and eventually the nurse came back on the line. "Tim needs to go to bed now." Her voice left no room for argument, but also held the expectation that Mulder might try to argue anyway. It left him wondering if she would have still thought so if he hadn't mentioned how he knew Tim.
"All right." For a moment Mulder wrestled with whether or not he should tell her that Tim was getting past staff on a regular basis to use the phone since he was now fairly certain that Tim had been the one calling and not saying anything rather than Spencer. But using a phone was rather innocuous a misdeed and he didn't really want to be responsible for the young man's existence becoming even more constrained over something so trivial, so instead he asked, "When I was in-patient I was allowed to have a phone in my room. Can Tim as well?"
"If someone pays for it," she replied, a hint of disdain in her tone.
"Okay, good to know," Mulder said, wondering if he could figure out from his bills how much that service had cost. Maybe it would be cheaper to buy Tim a prepaid cell phone. "Let me say goodnight, please."
"Okay."
Once he was sure the phone was back Tim's hands he said goodnight. Not long after that Mulder discovered that he actually was tired enough to sleep after all.
Thanksgiving Week – Monday
Before she got the kids out of bed Scully checked her email and made sure that none of the messages to her students letting them know that classes would be canceled for the week had bounced. The last thing she needed while she was gone was to get a peevish voicemail complaining that one of the agents-in-training hadn't realized that class was canceled.
Coffee hadn't made her feel much more alert than she had when she'd stumbled out of bed the hour before, and she was somewhat scandalized to be awake that early on a Monday morning when she didn't plan to go into work, so she was feeling rather ill-equipped to deal with Grace's typical morning conniption. So, feeling both lazy and inspired, Scully decided to see if she could dress her without waking her the way she had when she had still been a baby. To her surprise, it more or less worked.
Tommy of course got ready without much complaining, and he seemed to sense that she wasn't having a good morning so far because he kept his questions to the minimum. Instead, as soon as he put his shoes on, he sat quietly on the couch until she noticed him.
It was only when she was about to open her mouth to suggest that they leave that she discovered a fatal flaw to her plans. Having a sleeping, completely pliant, three-year-old in her arms didn't leave her a free hand for the luggage. As it was, she was going to have a difficult time just locking the door behind them.
Looking at her son, she gave him a weak smile. "Hey... Do you think you could pull our luggage?"
The little boy gave the suitcases a skeptical look. "Are there wheels? Or is it like a sled? There's no snow. And you said you didn't want any," he added, apparently remembering their conversation from the night before after all.
"There are wheels," Scully assured him. "And, you see how I put bungee cords to keep the bags together? That means they'll stay together when you pull on them." Or so she hoped. It wasn't that difficult to imagine that they might break apart if he thumped them too hard into a corner or doorframe. "There is even a handle," she said, using the hand that wasn't supporting Grace to quickly pull the handle out before she dropped the girl.
"Unh huh." Tommy took the handle and was able to move them without too much trouble.
To her relief, she managed to lock up, and they made their way all the way to the elevator without any incidences. Fortunately, Mulder was already in the lobby when they got down there, and he would be able to put the luggage in the vehicle for her.
"Hey," Mulder said in greeting, and then his eyes went to Grace. "She's out like a light huh?"
Tommy wrinkled his nose. "Lights are light up. That saying is silly."
"No argument from me," Mulder assured him.
"Then why did you say it?" Tommy wanted to know.
"Tommy, do you really want me to give you a lecture on the topic of social niceties and why we say things because we're expected to make conversation?" Mulder asked mildly.
Tommy's eyes widened. "No, that's okay," he said quickly. His reaction had Scully wondering what sort of person his new kindergarten teacher was. She'd only met the woman once and from this and a few other things Tommy had said, she thought the woman might be one of those who lectured a lot. She'd had more than her share of that sort of teacher herself growing up.
Mulder patted Tommy on the head and took the handle to Scully's suitcase from him. "All right then."
They had decided that they would take Scully's car because she had the car seats already in it, and they would leave Mulder's car in her spot. The building manager had already been informed that a strange vehicle would be there in her space, and had been given Mulder's license plate number, so hopefully the car would be there unmolested when they returned.
As soon as Grace was strapped into her car seat she woke up, stared at Scully, and gave her a sleepy, puzzled smile. "The car can fly?"
"What?" Scully asked blankly.
"You said we're flyin." Grace looked out the window, apparently taking stock of her new surroundings. "We not there yet."
Until that moment Scully had no idea that Grace had been out of bed the night before too, but she must have overheard her conversation with Tommy. It made her wonder when Grace had developed the skill of getting out of bed without waking the house up. There were good things about that, but having a stealthier child could be a disaster too.
"Not flying in the car, dummy," Tommy groaned from the booster seat next to Grace. "On a plane!"
"Tommy, that's not nice," Scully said warningly before giving her daughter a reassuring smile. "We are going to go on a plane, but first we need to drive to the airport. That's where the planes live when they're not flying somewhere else."
"Oh," Grace said before shoving her thumb in her mouth.
"Grace," Mulder said to get her attention. "After we go on the plane we're going to drive a different car to the hotel too."
The child nodded briefly, then closed her eyes again. Shrugging, Mulder and Scully both got into the car too. The drive was brief, but they found that they had to wake Grace up when they got to the airport anyway.