TITLE: Mobius
AUTHOR: L.A. Ward
EMAIL ADDRESS: LAWard@aol.com
URL: www.hometown.aol.com/laward/eclectic.html
DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT: Sure, just let me know.
SPOILER WARNING: Anything through Season 7
including Requiem
RATING: PG-13 (for language)
CLASSIFICATION: X/MSR/A
X-file casefile with Mytharc
MSR
Scully Angst/Mulder Angst
SUMMARY: While investigating the disappearance of
a physicist, Scully finds someone she didn't
expect--Mulder.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Never mine. Wish they were,
but they belong to Chris. Have no money so don't
bother to sue.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I cannot say enough nice things for
the wonderful people who undertook the task of beta
reading. Thanks to all of them, but special thanks to
Shari, Rosemary, and Fran.
******************************************************
"We hover between awareness of being and loss of being.
And the entire reality of memory becomes spectral."
Gaston Bachelard
"The Poetics of Space"
******************************************************
CHAPTER FIVE
Cayuga Medical Center
Ithaca, New York
7:12am
The world felt fuzzy and vague. She knew it was there,
but she couldn't hold onto it. It kept slipping
through her fingers. . .her aching fingers.
Dana Waterston hurt all over.
"Doctor, I think she's coming around," she heard someone
announce.
Dana tried to push herself to a sitting position. She
was the doctor, and there was a patient who needed her
if only she could make her muscles work.
"No," a kind voice said. "You just lay back. You've
been through quite enough, young woman."
She managed to lift one eyelid to see a gray haired
man leaning over her. "What. . .?" Dana croaked.
"From what I know, you walked into a rather unusual
situation. Heroics are all well and good, but if
you aren't careful, you might get yourself killed."
"Heroics?"
"Here," the doctor offered. "Take a drink of water.
That should help."
Cool liquid slid down Dana's throat, and she was
finally capable of opening both of her eyes. "What
happened?" she asked.
"You don't remember throwing yourself into an
electron accelerator to rescue Steven Doerstling?"
Dana blinked. Rescue THE Steven Doerstling? Someone
on the staff had to be making some sort of sick joke.
"No really, what happened?" Dana asked.
The doctor frowned. "What day is it?"
"Monday."
"How many fingers am I holding up?"
"Three."
"What's your name?"
"Dana Scully Water--"
He refilled her glass. "You sound lucid," he announced
and made a note in her chart. "Don't worry about
forgetting the accident. It's relatively common to
lose the memory of a traumatic event leading to a
blackout. Then again after looking at your
rather...shall we say 'eventful' medical history, I
assume you know that."
He returned to her bedside. "I want to reassure you
that all indications are that your baby is fine."
Dana choked on her water. "What?"
"When your medical charts were forwarded to us, I
noticed the tests you had run in Washington. I assumed
this was a high risk pregnancy. I ran an ultrasound,
and, as I said, all indications are that the fetus is
fine."
She was pregnant. Now how in the hell had that
happened? Daniel had had a vasectomy before he had even
met her. He said that he didn't want more children,
and, after witnessing the father he had been, Dana
had decided his decision was a good one. She never
wanted Daniel's child.
So how was she pregnant? For that matter how had she
climbed into an electron accelerator? This was nuts.
Out of this world nuts.
Then Dana remembered the doctor saying her medical
records had been forwarded from Washington.
"Where am I?" she asked.
"Cayuga Medical Center. We're in Ithaca."
New York. Dana felt hysteria rise inside her. This
had to be a dream or nightmare or. . .something. It
had to be anything but what it appeared to be. Short
of starring in an episode of Star Trek, no one
disappeared from one location to miraculously appear
in another. It defied the laws of physics.
A young man stuck his head through the door opening,
"Agent Scully, you awake?"
Dana frowned. He looked to be somewhere around the
age of twenty-four, two days overdue for a shave and
in desperate need of a comb. He was also a complete
stranger.
"When I called you with the b quark data I didn't
think that you'd run out in the middle of the night
to check out CLEO." Then he grinned. "Good thing
you did though. Gotta hand it to the FBI. You pulled
it off. I never thought to see Dr. Doerstling alive
again. Do you get a medal or something for pulling
that off?"
He could as easily have been speaking Greek. Dana had
absolutely no idea what he was talking about.
"Hey, doc," he called just before her doctor left the
room. "Can she go down the hall to see Doerstling?"
The doctor frowned a moment then looked at her, "You
think you're up to it?"
Dana tested her limbs, and they felt sound. "What
were my injuries?" she asked.
"Almost none. Like I said, you're a lucky woman,
Agent Scully. You seem to have come through
without a scratch."
Agent? She reviewed the last few minutes and
remembered the younger man mentioning the FBI. Was
this some bizarre dream brought on by several nights
without sleep and at least one night sitting vigil
over FBI Agent Fox Mulder?
The young man handed her a white terry robe. "It was
in the bathroom," he told her.
While slipping it on, Dana tried to find her center
of gravity as a wave of dizziness washed over her.
"You okay?" the kid asked.
Dana took a deep breath. "I'm fine."
He grinned. "Well then, let's go see Doc Doerstling."
She moved slowly down the hall because her muscles
still ached, but the young stranger assured her they
weren't going far.
"Here we are," he announced as he pushed open the
wide patient room door.
There was an older man with salt and pepper hair and
intelligent brown eyes sitting on a bed with a young
blonde woman attending his every need. "I'm okay,
Lauren," the reassured. Then he raised his head,
and Dana thought he saw her.
"Ah," he said, "the conquering hero."
Dana swallowed her confusion and stepped tentatively
into the room.
The man's eyes narrowed. "Why do I have the feeling
I have the pleasure of greeting Alice just after she
fell down the rabbit hole?"
X X X
Georgetown Memorial Hospital
Washington, D.C.
7:12am
"Sir," Scully said with vast relief as she pushed
open the door to the M.I.C.U. waiting room to find
Assistant Director Walter Skinner standing there.
"I'm glad you're here."
Skinner looked surprised then gratified by
her statement. "I'm sorry I couldn't arrive sooner,
doctor."
Doctor?
Skinner continued, "Since you called saying there was
an intruder in Agent Mulder's room, I've arranged for
a guard."
Scully eyes narrowed. "Mulder is in danger? From
whom?"
Skinner's gaze darted away from her, and he adjusted his
glasses. "I'm not sure." He paused, then took a breath.
"Dr. Waterston, has there been any change in Mulder's
condition?"
Scully ducked her head. How was she supposed to answer
that? She heard someone push open the waiting room door
and looked to see who it was. Then her spine stiffened,
and her chin rose defiantly. So the old bastard wasn't
dead. Why wasn't she surprised?
"Yes, doctor," the Smoking Man said in a quiet rumble.
"Has Mulder's condition improved?" He casually reached
into his pocket, removed a cigarette, and started to
light it.
Scully snatched it out of his hand. "There's no smoking
in the hospital."
She thought she saw amusement in the old man's rheumy
eyes. "Yes, doctor."
Scully glared at Skinner, but he only looked away.
She frowned. What was going on? Skinner was acting
strangely. He was compromised. Scully knew that. He
had confessed it, but she still trusted him. Skinner
had saved hers and Mulder's butts too many times for
her not to trust him. But since he was compromised
Scully had also learned not to depend on him.
She examined the Smoking Man. He wasn't dead, and that
was the only revelation of the last few minutes that
didn't shock her. In fact, the only thing about him
that surprised her was the state of his health. The
last time she had seen him he had been pasty skinned
and had announced that he was dying. Later both
Krycek and Marita Covarrubias described him as being
wheelchair bound and having a trache. . .and that
had been before he was murdered. All in all he
looked miraculously healthy.
Putting on her best poker face, Scully decided to
bluff her way out of this situation. "I'm not
prepared to make any diagnosis at the moment."
She looked at Skinner. "Am I to expect a guard
in the M.I.C.U.?"
Skinner nodded.
When Scully moved to exit, CSM stopped her with
a brush of his hand. "Will you have a prognosis
later today?"
Her eyes glinted with rebellion. "I don't know.
Ask me later today."
Once she left the room Scully took a deep breath.
The world had gone insane. Everything was upside
down and inside out. It was as if she had fallen
into one of those parallel universes that Steven
Doerstling had theorized.
Scully stopped walking and began shaking her head.
No, that was impossible. Things like that didn't
happen. It was the kind of stuff Mulder liked to
talk about but. . .
Mulder.
With renewed purpose Scully walked down the hall.
At the nurses' station she demanded Mulder's
medical chart before returning to his room.
Daniel stood waiting for her. "I read the chart,"
hesaid. "It's a fascinating case, but you're
spending too much time on it. You're making it
personal."
"It is personal."
She saw a muscle jump in Daniel's jaw. Over the
years Scully had forgotten that quirk. Then
again she had forgotten many things about Daniel.
"What is this man to you?" he asked.
She refused to answer. "Why are you still here?"
"I wanted to speak with my wife."
"She isn't here."
Daniel crossed the room. "Dana, I know you're
angry."
"That's where you're wrong. I'm not angry. I
have no reason to be angry, it's just that my
life has nothing to do with yours."
"How can you say that?"
"Because it happens to be true." She wanted him to
go away. Scully didn't know why Daniel thought she
was his wife, and she didn't want to know. She only
wanted him leave. Mulder needed her. "I'm sorry,
Daniel. Whoever it is you're looking for, I'm not
her."
"That's not true."
"It is true." Scully faced him squarely. "You
don't want me. You want an admirer. An admirer with
enough knowledge to be suitably impressed by your
brilliance. I can't do that. I can't be that.
I've never been much of a yes woman. I need a
partner, not an idol."
Daniel's gaze narrowed. "It's him."
She ducked her head. "My relationship with Mulder
has nothing to do with this."
"Your 'relationship'?"
"You aren't listening to me." Scully sighed. "You
never listened to me."
"You're having an affair." Daniel laughed and looked
at her with what Scully thought was disbelief. "All
the time I was feeling guilty, you were fucking
another man."
"Daniel, please--"
He interrupted. "Are you in love with him?"
"Excuse me?"
"It's a simple question." Daniel crossed his arms.
"At least for most people it's simple. Though in your
case perhaps I should rephrase it." He paused. "Do
you allow yourself to love him? I know you always
secretly hated the idea of loving me."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"It's always about control with you. Everything
has to fit your little rules, your unbending ethics."
Daniel walked around Mulder's bed but his gaze never
left Scully. "This won't work, you know. You won't
allow it to work. If your self-righteous morality
hasn't killed it, your need for control will. You
won't allow yourself to need anyone, or at least
you won't allow yourself to BELIEVE that you do.
Deep down you don't trust a soul."
Scully blinked. She wasn't that woman. She wasn't
deluding herself. She simply wasn't the person Daniel
described, and Scully didn't mean that in the sense
that he called her Dana and thought that she was his
wife. It went deeper than that.
It was true that she had used excuses to explain
her distance from her parents. Scully had blamed a
fear of disappointing her father. She had pointed to
the differences between Melissa's mystical nature and
her own more scientific one. She and Bill disagreed,
period, and of course Charlie was better at creating
emotional distance than she was. But that had been a
lifetime ago.
Scully looked at Mulder. Daniel's analysis had some
foundation in truth, but he was wrong in one vital
respect. She trusted Mulder absolutely.
"Do you allow yourself to love him?" Daniel asked.
Scully didn't look in Daniel's direction. "I won't
discuss this with you."
"Typical."
Scully closed her eyes. This was turning into a bad
soap opera. "Could you please go?"
"Yes, I think I will. But one day you'll regret
this."
"I don't think so," she murmured.
After Daniel left Scully looked at Mulder. "And I
don't care if you are catatonic, you're smiling
aren't you?"
Scully reached to pull her hand through her hair
and was surprised to discover it pulled back with
a clip. It wasn't her style. "Mulder, I think
your disappearing act has finally pushed me over
the edge." She sank into the chair next to his
bed. "I've lost my mind."
Scully opened his chart and began reading. It was
ominously familiar. She swallowed convulsively
and reached for his hand. "Mulder," she rasped.
"I hate to tell you this, but you're in big trouble."
Threading her fingers through his she repeated
in an inexpressibly sad voice, "Big trouble."
X X X
Cayuga Medical Center
Ithaca, New York
7:43am
In an almost dreamlike state Dana stepped cautiously
into Steven Doerstling's room.
"Tell me, Agent Scully," Doerstling said, "am I cast in
the role of the Cheshire Cat?"
"I wouldn't know. It's been a very long time since I
read Alice in Wonderland. What exactly does the
Cheshire Cat do?"
He laughed, though Dana wasn't at all sure anything
she had said was amusing. Doerstling looked at Lauren
Rice. "Why don't you and Mike go and have breakfast?
I would like to speak with Agent Scully alone."
"But Doctor," Lauren began to protest.
"Give over, Lauren," Mike said impatiently. "There's
no point in arguing with the man. We'll find an Egg
McMuffin or something." Stilgoe escorted Lauren from
the room.
"Agent Scully, don't hover by the door," Doerstling
admonished. "Come in."
Dana took a single step forward. "Why do you call me
Agent Scully?"
"Aren't you Agent Scully?"
She took a shaky breath. "My maiden name is Scully."
"But you aren't with the FBI?"
"No."
"So you are Alice."
Dana gathered her courage and took two more steps into
the room. "Exactly what rabbit hole do you think I
fell through?"
"You better sit down Ms. . .?"
"Waterston. But Scully will do just as well."
He looked concerned. "You have no idea what has
happened, do you? What am I saying? Of course you
don't." His gaze met hers. "Ms. Waterston, you are
a living breathing example of something that is
completely impossible. And you are a very long way
from home."
"Is this where you tell me to click my heels three
times and say there's no place like home?"
"Wrong story."
"Or the wrong dream?" she asked. "Weren't Alice and
Dorothy only dreaming?"
"This place is real, Ms. Waterston, and so is the place
you were before. They are interdependent worlds."
Dana arched a brow in disbelief. "Worlds? As in the
plural? That's impossible."
He smiled. "So I said."
She shook her head. "No, I mean it's really
impossible. There's no such thing. Alternate
universes? That's the stuff of science fiction,
not real science."
"Most science fiction is based on real science."
"Based and then extrapolated out of all proportion.
Alternate universes do not exist."
"But physics--science--theorizes that they do."
Dana shook her head. "That's theory. It's supposition.
It's not something that actually happens." She
swallowed and was far less certain than she sounded.
"It didn't happen to me."
"But it did."
"I have no proof of that." But even as she said it,
Dana knew it was a lie. She was pregnant, wasn't she?
Pregnant with a child that she didn't remember
conceiving. Dana frowned. "How. . ." She paused and
took a deep breath. "How is what you're proposing
possible?"
"I don't know. And though I don't want to sound
conceited, if I don't know then no one does. Please
sit, Ms. Waterston, we have a great deal to discuss."
****************************************************
"When in dreams I still remember..."
Arthur L. Gilliom
****************************************************
CHAPTER SIX
Georgetown Memorial Hospital
Washington, D.C.
7:43am
Scully's hands shook, but she ignored the tremor. She
walked around the nurses' station, past the charting
kiosk, and into the med prep room. No one stopped her.
No one questioned her right to be there. They didn't
so much as look twice in her direction.
It disturbed her.
In medical school Scully had realized that if you
behaved as though you belonged in staff areas of the
hospital the personnel usually accepted you. But this
was different. These strangers knew her. She should
examine that, but she wouldn't. Not now. Some things
couldn't bear scrutiny, and as far as Scully was
concerned, this was one of them.
Scully didn't plan to ignore what was going on around
her. It was just that her surroundings had no bearing
on the problem at hand. Her first priority was Mulder.
He had a specific medical problem and that had to be
addressed first. She couldn't allow confusion about
her surroundings to distract her. Mulder needed her.
In medicine and in the FBI indecision could prove fatal.
Scully lived with that knowledge every day, and the only
way to deal with it was to have a clear and simple set
of priorities. A person's life came first. In a crisis
situation anything else was superfluous, so Scully
silenced the inner voice that warned her extraordinary
things were happening if only she would stop and notice.
Of course, Mulder would claim inexplicably bizarre
circumstances weren't superfluous.
That was the difference between them--not that Mulder
would ever turn his back on a person in need. It was
just that Mulder started with the idea of proving the
impossible. Scully couldn't do that. She clung to some
semblance of objectivity, and she knew that tendency
frequently drove Mulder up a wall.
Scully had tried to explain it to him. As a scientist
she had to rely on the scientific method--objective
observation, coherent hypotheses, and quantifiable
results. She couldn't allow was her own needs or bias
to influence her choices. Scully wasn't allowed to
predetermine the answer she wanted. Science demanded
that she focus solely on the facts, and because of that
there were questions Scully simply couldn't ask.
Maybe that was why she had found her niche in the
X-Files. Mulder asked those questions for her.
He kept alive that part of herself that science
demanded that she ignore.
But Mulder wasn't here...or at least he hadn't been
here. Now he was, and that in itself was a question
she should reflect upon. Instead--as always--Scully
took action.
She punched a code she had found in Dana Waterston's
pocket PDR into the Pyxis machine, the pharmaceutical
equivalent of a vending machine, and retrieved a
sedative. If Scully claimed what she was about to do
didn't bother her, she would be lying. However after
reading Mulder's chart, Scully had made a decision, and
in good conscience she could not make that decision
alone.
She left the med room and nodded to the nurse. Then
she walked down the hall to Mulder's room. Once
inside Scully took a hypodermic from her pocket. Her
hands still shook as she inserted the needle the
into the small glass vial and drew down the stopper.
Scully had performed this procedure a thousand times,
but this was different. This was Mulder, and Scully
hated what she was about to do. She was about to
inject Mulder with a near fatal dose of a drug for
nothing more than a few moments of lucidity. It was
necessary, but it felt wrong.
Scully looked at him. His face appeared impassive,
yet she knew he was in pain. She remembered
Mulder describing his mental anguish during his
hospitalization last fall. He had been in hell, and
now it was happening again.
Scully's most vivid memory of that period was Mulder
standing in a padded cell screaming her name. Diana
Fowley had barred her from seeing him. Even Diana's
later sacrifices couldn't expunge the bitterness Scully
felt at being denied the chance to help Mulder. He had
needed her.
Now it was happening again, and Diana Fowley was
nowhere to be found. And nothing on earth--or anywhere
else for that matter-- would keep Scully from reaching
Mulder.
She glanced at the EEG, reading the abnormal results
on screen. Something had been removed from Mulder's
brain last year, and now it was back. It was killing
him. Scully could ignore every other horrifyingly
bizarre aspect of her situation. She could place
in some controlled corner of her mind that Daniel
thought she was his wife, that the supposedly deceased
Smoking Man was alive and more well than the last time
she had seen him. Scully could even manage to deal
with both Skinner and the hospital staff believing
she was a neurologist. The thing she could not
ignore, could not deny was that Mulder was dying.
She would not allow that to happen.
Scully tapped the hypodermic needle and approached
the bed.
X X X
There was a flash, a blinding moment of pain, then
a prickling sensation not unlike the phantom pins and
needles felt when a limb that had gone to sleep
suddenly had circulation restored...only this was
a thousand times worse. Agony pierced Mulder's mind and
impaled his consciousness. Then it slowly dissipated,
fizzling like fireworks after a burst of light.
He was free.
Mulder blinked and found himself staring up at two
foot by two foot acoustical ceiling tiles. There
was movement at his side. He turned and saw her.
"Scully," he croaked.
Scully smiled, and it softened the lines and curves
of her face. It gave her a muted glow that seemed
to emanate from somewhere deep within, and when her
smile reached the shadowed depths of her eyes they
turned a pure, crystalline blue.
"You know me?" she asked.
Yes? No? Maybe? Mulder wasn't sure. He didn't know.
He had no memory of her, and yet...
"You were in my dream--on the beach," he rasped.
Something flickered in Scully's eyes. Some complex,
multi-layered emotion that passed over her then
coalesced into a singular sadness.
Mulder reached to comfort her. "Scully..."
She gripped his hand with surprising strength. "We
don't have much time," she told him. "Nowhere near
enough time. You're dying."
He gave a grim smile. "Don't waste time with tact.
Give it to me straight. I can take it."
"I'm sorry--"
"Don't be." Mulder squeezed her hand.
"I didn't tell you this so you could act insanely
brave," Scully snapped. "I'm telling you because I
think there is someone who can save you."
"Does she have red hair?"
"It's the Smoking Man."
He tensed. "No."
"Listen to me--"
"No. You can't trust that black lunged bastard."
"I know that."
"Do you?" Mulder's gaze narrowed. "How? Who are you?"
"Your friend," she vowed. "Always your friend."
He looked down at their clasped hands.
"Mulder..." On her lips his name was little more
than a breath, a sigh. "I know something about what's
wrong with you. I know you can hear what I'm thinking."
He attempted to sit up.
"No," Scully protested and gently pushed him back
against the pillows. "I want you to look at me. I
know you have no reason to trust the Smoking Man.
I'm not asking that you do. I'm asking you to
trust me."
Mulder shook his head.
"Please, Mulder. There are things I can't say. Things
that I don't have time to explain, and even if I
had the time, I don't know that I COULD." Her grip
tightened painfully. "But I need you to understand,
and I need your trust before it's too late."
Mulder gazed at her, and images tumbled through his
head. Her memories? His memories? Mulder wasn't sure.
He couldn't know...No. They couldn't be his memories.
He lived his life alone. Mulder was suspicious of his
superiors and mocked by his co-workers. His sister had
been abducted, his father murdered, and his mother dead
by her own hand. There was no one with whom he shared
a connection or bond.
He had a few friends--Frohike, Langly, Byers--but there
was no confidante. No one who knew his secrets or his
terrible truths. No one who shared his path.
He was alone.
What an incredibly depressing thought. It was true,
but it was still depressing. If he fell off the earth
tomorrow, no one would notice except the FBI payroll
accountant, and no one would care except his fish when
the automatic feeder ran out. Hell, now that Mulder
thought about it, if it wasn't for survival instinct
he had no reason to fight what was happening to him.
So why did he matter to her? And how did he know her?
How could he possibly remember Scully holding out her
hand saying she had been assigned to work on the
X-Files?
Mulder also remembered responding snidely, "I was
under the impression you were sent to spy on me."
Then the memory faded and another took its place.
Wind howled in a low minor chord that resonated with
despair as a blizzard raged in beyond a door. It was
the Arctic Ice Core Project, and Mulder saw himself
holding a gun on a man, a woman...and Scully. "I
don't trust you," Mulder yelled. "I wouldn't turn
my back on any of you."
Again his memory shifted, and Scully alone dared
enter the room where he stood.
"I don't trust them," he had confessed. "But I
WANT to trust you."
Months passed. Or was it seconds? Years? He
didn't know and couldn't tell. Mulder had no
reference point as images sped by. Images so
vivid they seemed real...or were they real? Had
they happened?
Scully lay ill in a hospital bed. Her translucent
skin had lost its glow, and her eyes looked tired
and pained. She was dying. Dying because she had
joined him in peering into the dark corners. Dying
because of him, and yet Scully was willing to
sacrifice more.
"You have to say I'm the one who killed that man,"
Scully urged.
"I can't do that."
"Yes, you can. If I can save you, let me."
Let her sacrifice herself for him? It defied
Mulder's imagination.
Then a miracle happened and Scully recovered. She
hadn't left him, and something inside him that had
come perilously close to breaking remained intact.
Somewhere in the recesses of Mulder's mind he heard
Scully say, "When I met you, you told me that your
sister had been abducted by aliens, and that event
marked you so deeply that nothing else mattered."
YOU matter, Mulder thought.
"I didn't believe you," Scully confessed. "But I
believed in you. I followed you on nothing more
than your faith that the truth was out there. Based
not on fact, not on science, but on your memories.
Memories were all that you had."
Just as memories were all Scully had now. Memories
that came to Mulder in an inexplicable rush. Small
ones. Inconsequential ones. Happy ones.
Scully stood on a chair in his office raising her
face to the sunlight spilling through a skylight as
she relished a creamy white confection.
"Did you bring enough to share with the rest of the
class?" Mulder drawled.
"It's not ice cream," Scully warned. "It's a non-fat
tofutti rice dreamsicle."
Mulder made a face. "I bet the air in my mouth tastes
better than that." He leaned back in his chair,
bracing his feet against the top edge of his desk.
"Scully, you really know how to live it up."
"Oh yeah, and you're mister 'let's squeeze every last
drop out of this sweet life,' aren't you?"
He arched one eyebrow.
Scully shook her head. "Here we are on a beautiful
Saturday morning, and you've got us grabbing life
by the testes."
Mulder almost laughed, and there was a look in Scully's
eyes that said she was onto him. "Let sleeping dogs lie,"
she admonished.
He crossed his arms. "I'm not going to sit idly by as
you hurl clichés at me. Preparation is the father of
inspiration."
"Necessity is the mother of invention."
"The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom."
"Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we may die."
"I scream, you scream, we all scream for non-fat
tofutti rice dreamsicles!" And he pounced, wrestling
her for the ice cream as her crystal clear laughter
echoed in his ears.
Later, at a baseball field Scully crossed the distance
between them. Mulder handed her the bat and wrapped
his arms around her saying the most outrageous things
he could think of.
"You've got to remember," he murmured. "Hips before
hands." Then he touched her and demonstrated what he
meant.
Scully moved in rhythm with him.
"We're going to make contact," Mulder whispered in her
ear. "We aren't going to think. We're just going to
let it fly."
Together they hit the baseball out of the park.
With his arms wrapped around her, Mulder found
himself talking and talking. Nothing he said made
much sense, but somehow it meant everything when
Scully gave a rare, wonderful smile.
"Shut up, Mulder." Her soft voice washed over him.
"I'm playing baseball."
And something fell into place. His jagged edges and
asymmetrical outcroppings found their niche. This
was it. This was where he fit in that inexplicable
jigsaw puzzle of life. Mulder belonged beside her.
Another memory surfaced.
"I never made the world a happier place," he murmured.
Scully took his hand and replied, "Oh, I don't know,
I'm relatively happy."
But happiness slipped from Mulder's grasp as shadows
lengthened and fell across his pathway. The sun
dipped below the horizon, and they stood in the night
darkened halls outside of A.D. Skinner's office. "I
won't lose you," he vowed to Scully, but somehow he
knew that he had.
Scully's gaze filled with an emotion Mulder could not
define but understood completely as he saw himself
through her eyes. Mulder was stunned. He saw his
arrogance and his obsessions. He saw the futility
of his anger and witnessed his carelessness and self
destruction. But--through her--Mulder also saw more.
Scully saw strength in him. She found honor and
compassion. She believed in his integrity, and
valued his quest for truth. Scully saw more in Mulder
than he had ever seen in himself. And though she
knew all of his weaknesses and mistakes, Scully saw
something he had never seen. She saw a man worth
saving...
And there was something more. Something Scully
would not or could not say. Something awful and
terrible and final--something exhilarating, and
miraculous, and true. It was beyond Mulder's reach
and becoming more so by the moment as sanity slipped
from his grasp.
Mulder gripped her hand as the tide of the mental
storm overtook him. Wave after wave of thought
battered him, choked him, and dragged him to murky
depths.
No, Mulder thought. Not yet. Wait! There was something
he had to say.
"Scully," he whispered.
"I'm here."
"I trust you."
And the tide pulled him under.
X X X
A tear slipped down Scully's cheek as she stared at
Mulder and knew without being told that he was no longer
with her. Scully looked at their entwined fingers. Even
now they held one another fiercely, and she didn't want
to let go. Walking away wasn't a choice, but she
couldn't stand still and do nothing. Scully had to
fight for both of them, so she brushed her fingertips
across his lips and said a silent good-bye.
Scully gasped when she opened the door to find a guard
standing in the hall. She nodded to him then made
her way to the nurses' station.
Scully asked the nurse, "Do you remember the man
who was here earlier? The older one with the
cigarettes and the dark suit?"
"Yes."
"Good. When he arrives, I want you to page me.
I don't care what time it is. Page me." Scully
started to walk away.
"Doctor," the nurse called. "What name should I
use when I page you? I mean, who is he?"
"Spender. Just call him Mr. Spender." Scully pushed
through the security doors prepared to make a deal
with the devil.
******************************************************
"I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, sir," said Alice,
"because I'm not myself, you see."
Lewis Carroll
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
******************************************************
CHAPTER SEVEN
Cayuga Medical Center
Ithaca, New York
8:12 am
Dana Waterston stared at her face in the mirror. Only
it wasn't her face...not exactly. She looked thinner.
Her features were slightly more defined, and her hair
was a darker, more fiery red. Dana glanced over her
shoulder. "How?" she asked Dr. Doerstling.
Doerstling was silent for a moment then said, "Grab
the legal pad on the table."
Dana walked across the room.
"Rip out a page," he told her. "Then fold it in half
lengthways. Now fold it again. Make it about an inch
wide." Once she had followed his instructions Doerstling
added, "Now twist one side and bring the two ends
together. What do you have?"
Dana straightened the edges of the paper. "It's a
mobius strip."
"You asked 'how?' That's my best answer." Doerstling
held out his hand, and she placed the strip in it. He
examined it. "A few minutes ago this sheet of paper was
easily defined. It had clear dimensions--a top and a
bottom."
"But a mobius strip only has one side."
"Exactly. A twist erased boundaries. Where once there
was a top and bottom, now there's neither...and both."
He handed her the mobius strip. "A simple action
changed everything."
Dana shook her head as the implications of his statement
struck her and made an unhappy muddle in her head. She
frowned. "Sort of an incomplete explanation,isn't it?"
"A very incomplete explanation, but the best I can do
on short notice."
Dana felt herself questioning whether she had actually
heard what she thought she had. "A simple action
erasing boundaries between dimensions?" Even to her
own ears Dana sounded doubtful...which was good because
that was the way she felt.
"That's it in a nutshell," Doerstling told her.
"I don't believe it."
"You may not believe it, but you're living it."
She WAS living it. Dana wanted to deny it, but she
couldn't. She could look out the window and see trees
and sunlight. She could feel the mobius strip in her
hand. There was nothing vague or indistinct about her
surroundings. This was real.
Doerstling continued, "I also have to confess that I'm
the one who started this mess. It's my fault that you're
here."
Dana approached his bed. "Care to explain how?"
"I would rather not, but I owe you an explanation."
His gaze lifted to hers. "I'm a difficult, arrogant,
and self absorbed man."
"That's quite a confession."
"But a true one." He paused then added, "Arrogance and
self absorption can lead a man to make foolish choices."
Dana wasn't sure how to respond to that.
He looked at the closed door. "You met my assistant
Lauren. She's a very attractive young woman. It
probably shouldn't surprise me that she walked into
my office last week, and I felt desire." Doerstling's
gaze lifted to Dana's. "But it did surprise me--and not
because she's half my age or because in normal
circumstances I would be more attracted to Mike Stilgoe."
Dana looked toward the wheelchair in the corner.
"No," he said softly. "Not even because of the
monster in the corner."
She took a seat next to his bed as Doerstling confessed,
"It didn't take long for me to realize that what I felt
had nothing to do with Lauren and everything to do with
youth. Tell me, Ms. Waterston, do you remember what it
was like to be that age? Do you remember the days
before your path was set? A time when the world was
full of possibilities, and you could do or become
anything?"
Dana almost nodded, but Doerstling didn't seem to need
a reply. With his gaze fixed on some invisible point
in space he said, "Year by year our options become fewer
and change becomes less likely. At some point we realize
that the path we're on is the path we must stay
on. It's too late to change. There isn't enough
time to start over." He looked at her. "Of
course, you haven't reached that point yet. You're
still relatively young."
While that might be true, Dana secretly admitted that
it didn't always feel that way.
"To make a long story short," Doerstling told her. "I
looked at Lauren and it was like looking at all of
the roads I didn't take. What if I had zigged left
instead of zigging right in that motorcycle accident?
What if after the accident I hadn't locked myself in the
physics department?"
He looked at the wheelchair. "I allowed myself to
become a slave to that contraption. Without my
choice, my path was set and there was no going back."
As if he felt her eyes on him, Doerstling snapped, "Don't
look at me with sympathy. It's easy enough for me to
wallow in self pity without your help. That was what I
was doing when I chose the most outrageous form of self
destruction I could imagine."
"The accelerator," Dana realized.
"Yes. The accelerator. You see, I remembered who I had
been before the accident. I was a kid who wanted to push
the boundaries, to attempt the impossible. Explore. I
betrayed that kid, and I owe him."
"To push the limits?"
"It's what I did, isn't it? Who else--other than
yourself--has been insane enough to jump into an
electron accelerator?"
"I didn't jump into an accelerator," Dana insisted.
"Your counterpart did."
"To save you."
Doestling grimaced. "I'm sorry about that. I dragged
both of you into a mess. I ran an unscheduled test
of the CESR and climbed inside it not caring if it
killed me. I simply wanted to do something that had
never been done." He smiled. "You have to admit I
accomplished that quite spectacularly."
"I thought I--" Dana stopped. "That is, I thought
Agent Scully stopped you."
"No, this was the week before. I ran an experiment,
and, like yourself, I became...someone else. Or to be
more precise, I became a version of myself who had
lived a different life. I could walk again, and I
was no longer THE Steven Doerstling." He looked at
the wheelchair. "I had never been introduced to the
monster."
Dana looked at the mobius strip she still held in
her hand. A simple twist had changed everything.
Doerstling looked somewhat amused. "I have to admit
that as soon as I became used to anonymity, I hated
it. Without the monster, my other self never
stopped moving long enough to become 'the' Steven
Doerstling...and I missed the feeling of being THE
Steven Doerstling." He smiled self mockingly. "I
said I was egocentric."
"So what happened?" Dana pressed. "How did I become
involved?"
"While leading another life, I never stopped to think
about what happened to my other self in this one.
Thankfully some men have more conscience than I do."
Doerstling cleared his throat. "From what I've been
told Arnold found my counterpart in the accelerator.
He was was disoriented and understandably perturbed
with suddenly becoming a quadriplegic."
Dana frowned. "Arnold?"
"Arnold Blackwood. A rather pedantic colleague of
mine. I don't know. Perhaps I should give Arnold more
credit. He seems to have a fair grasp of the situation
and kept it secret until he had a chance to run another
round of tests." The professor smiled wanly. "It seems
that Arnold missed 'the' Steven Doerstling and wanted
him back. You have to understand, to Arnold, physics
is everything."
"So you were reported missing while Blackwood hid the
other Doerstling. Meanwhile, Agent Scully was brought
in to investigate."
Doestling nodded. "She must have discovered some clue
because she was caught in the accelerator trying to
rescue my other self."
Dana shook her head in disbelief. "This is fantastic--and
I don't mean that in a 'gee whiz' kind of way. This is
beyond belief."
"I have to protest. It makes a certain amount of
scientific sense."
"Only in theory," Dana argued.
"You're here, aren't you? How theoretical is that?"
"So how do I get back? Another trip through the
accelerator?"
"I wouldn't advise that. We don't know what would
happen."
"It worked before."
"We think," Doestling stressed. "Who knows what happened
to that other me. Did HE make it home successfully?
There are too many unknowns, too many unforeseen
consequences. What if things don't go back to the way
they were before? What if you ended up somewhere else?
Somewhere worse? And then there are the physical dangers.
Jumping into an electron accelerator isn't a reasonable
course of action."
"You did it."
"I was also borderline suicidal, and before you mention
the other version of yourself, she was trying to rescue
me. I wasn't joking when I said it was an act of
heroism." Doerstling looked at Dana intently. "If you
go back into the accelerator it isn't just your own life
you're risking."
Dana's breath caught. How true. She knew Doestling
referred to the alternate version of herself, but Dana's
first thought was of the life growing inside of her.
There was a baby to consider. Could she willingly risk
a child's life? Would her other self wish her to?
Somehow Dana knew Agent Scully would be dead set against
it. Scully would protect her baby above all things. The
child could not be risked in a desperate attempt to
climb out of a rabbit hole.
So now what, Dana thought with dismay. Assume another
woman's life? And do what? Be what? Who was
Dana Scully? Who was the father of this child? And
how would he feel about a stranger taking Dana Scully's
place?
X X X
Washington D.C.
10:58am
Scully sat alone in Dana Waterston's car in a dangerous
neighborhood, but she hardly noticed. She was too
distracted by everything that had happened in the last
few hours. How could she think about anything as
mundane as where she was parked?
When she had exited the hospital and walked into the
physician's parking lot, Scully had realized that
she had no idea what car she was looking for. Luckily
the key chain in her pocket had a remote locking
device so Scully had slowly walked through the
parking lot clicking the button until there was a
beep and a flash of headlights.
Once behind the steering wheel of a black Lexus,
Scully had driven directly to a pharmacy and bought
a pregnancy test. As a general rule, Scully didn't
put much stock in intuition, but she couldn't deny
that even before she took the test she had known
what the result would be.
No baby.
Scully had stared at the pink stick as a dark
emotion washed over her. It was as if that pink
spot embodied every unjust and unfair thing she had
ever experienced--which was ridiculous. It was
nothing more than a simple medical test. It wasn't
the universe saying, "You can have Mulder or the
baby. You can't have both."
Scully shook her head and forced herself into motion.
She didn't like the direction of her thoughts or the
sadness snaking through her. If everything was
spinning out of control, Scully had to do something
to set it right.
She opened the car door, and walked across the street
to enter a small, cluttered pawn shop. A bell rang
as the door closed behind her, and a painfully thin
young man came out of a back room.
"What can I do for you?" he asked distractedly,
glancing over his shoulder to watch the opening
credits of "All My Children" on the television set
in the back room.
"I was looking for a gun."
He pulled his attention from Erica Kane. "Gun?"
He looked at Scully, but his eyes were too vacant
and distracted to look surprised. He walked around
a glass case. "Shotgun or handgun?" he asked.
"Handgun."
"Okay...um...you like any of these?"
He's not familiar with weapons, Scully quickly
concluded. She was virtually certain he knew
little or nothing about guns. She inspected the
weapons in the case. "These two."
He gingerly removed a Beretta 9mm and a Sig Sauer.
Scully took the one he dangled from his fingertips.
Did he think it was going to bite him?
Scully examined the Sig, then reached for the Beretta.
She inspected the safety catch and tested the weapon's
weight in her hand.
"These will do," she said quietly then looked at the
man who once again had his eye on the television in
the back room. "Ammunition?" Scully asked.
His gaze swiveled around. "Huh?"
"Ammunition."
"Oh...uh... Dick keeps that stuff under the counter.
I don't know much about it though." The man pulled
out the drawer. "Um...uh...whaddya want?"
Scully walked around the counter to where the man
crouched and examined the boxes. She pushed one or
two boxes aside before finding what she needed.
Scully handed the boxes to the clerk. "I'll take
these."
He frowned. "Am I...uh...allowed to just sell
these to you? I mean isn't there a waiting period
or something? Forms you've got to fill out?"
Scully had anticipated this. After leaving the
pharmacy she had rummaged through Dana's pocketbook
and found a checkbook with the insignia of a bank
on the checks. Scully had then driven to the bank
and removed a relatively substantial amount of cash
from the Waterston account.
"How much for the guns and the ammunition?" Scully
asked briskly.
He frowned in confusion, then looked at the guns and
the boxes. "Maybe I should call Dick."
Scully starting counting out cash, laying bill after
bill on the glass counter. "I think Dick would be
satisfied with this amount, don't you?"
The clerk's eyes were huge. "Uh...yeah, guess so.
But there's still those forms--"
She laid a hundred dollar bill on top of the stack.
"That should cover it, I think." She paused then
lifted her eyes to his. "Don't you?"
He glanced anxiously toward the back room as if
looking for the aforementioned 'Dick.' When the
man didn't appear, the clerk seemed to come to a
conclusion and picked the money up from the
counter. He folded the cash in half then shoved it
into his back pocket. "What Dick don't know
won't bother him much."
Scully frowned but silently picked up the gun
and the box.
"You know how to shoot that thing?" the clerk asked.
Scully was actually surprised by the question. For
her, carrying a gun was more familiar than carrying
a purse. "I know what I'm doing." Scully nodded to
him and left the pawn shop.
One more law broken in the space of a couple of
hours, Scully thought with mild disgust. Quite a
record for a law officer. She should be ashamed of
herself, but she wasn't--not when Mulder's life hung
in the balance.
After driving for about fifteen minutes Scully turned
the corner at a familiar intersection and found
herself in an area of crumbling warehouses. There
had been an effort for gentrification of the area in
the eighties, but at some point the developers had
cried surrender and allowed the district to sink to
its natural equilibrium--urban grunge.
Scully stopped in front of a non-descript grayish
building of indeterminate age. Nothing distinguished
the building from its neighbors. Everything indicated
that the it was deserted. Scully prayed it wasn't.
X X X
Melvin Frohike sat in front of the security monitor
watching a woman park a Lexus. She was conspicuously
out of place in this neighborhood of seedy shops and
abandoned warehouses.
"Twenty minutes and that car will be stolen," Langly
predicted.
"Fifteen," Frohike countered. "Tops."
Byers asked, "Why is she sitting there without moving?"
Langly stopped chewing his nacho chips long enough to
mumble, "She's probably pulling a map out of the glove
compartment. No way did she mean to end up here."
Salsa fell on his Def Leppard t-shirt. "Damn. I'll
be right back."
Frohike glanced at Byers.
"I did laundry yesterday." Byers assured and screwed
the lid on the jar of salsa. He looked at the monitor
and frowned. "She's staying."
Frohike watched the woman step out of the car and
whistled softly. "A looker."
"What is she doing?"
"Crossing the road."
The woman stopped below their camera and looked up.
"It's almost like she knows we're here," Byers said
breathlessly.
Frohike frowned. "I think she does."
"How?"
"How should I know?" Frohike headed toward the door.
"But a woman in a Lexus does not drive to this part
of town, park her car, walk to the door of what looks
like an abandoned building, and look directly into a
hidden camera without a reason."
"Do we let her in?"
Frohike straightened his slightly faded black t-shirt
and glanced into the mirror. He brushed back his hair
--or rather what was left of his hair--and adjusted his
glasses. "A gentleman does not leave a lady standing
on the doorstep. I thought your mother taught you
manners."
Byers bristled at the insult.
"Just kidding," Frohike added but he wondered why his
buddy wasn't as giddy over this chickadee as he had been
over Susanne Modeski. Then Frohike glanced back at the
monitor and understood. This woman was different. There
was nothing soft or wispy about her. Gravitas. Yeah,
that was the word. She had presence and authority.
Frohike waited, but she didn't fidget or give any
indication that she was the least bit uncomfortable as
she waited for the door to be answered. In fact her face
was almost unreadable, yet somehow she still managed to
communicate impatience...or maybe it was urgency.
Byers unlocked the last of the seven locks on the door.
"Well, hello pretty lady," Frohike drawled.
She stepped over the threshold.
"Is there something we could do for you?" Byers asked.
She looked Frohike dead in the eye. "Yes, you can help
me save Mulder's life."
********************************************************
"The shifts of fortune test the reliability of friends."
Cicero
De Amicitia XVII
********************************************************
CHAPTER EIGHT
Langly entered the room pulling a "Napster rules and
Metallica Sucks!" t-shirt over his head.
Frohike shook his head. "I never thought I'd see the
day."
"What?"
"The shirt."
Langly shrugged. "Screw the RIAA and Ulrich. Music to
the people. Besides, I can to listen Limp Bizkit
instead."
Scully cleared her throat and the Lone Gunmen looked at
her. Having caught their attention she wondered
what she should do next. How could she convince them to
help her when as far as they were concerned she was a
stranger? For one slightly insane moment Scully
considered telling them the truth. Only there was no
rational explanation for what was happening, and she
refused to make an irrational one. The Lone Gunmen
might be paranoid, but they weren't crazy.
"Who are you?" Langly asked.
"Scully."
"Is that like Madonna?"
"What?"
"No first name. No last name, just Scully?"
"My name is Dana Scully," she supplied.
Byers approached her. "Okay, Ms. Scully, who are you,
and why do you think Mulder needs our help?"
Scully paused and thought about what she needed to say.
"I'm Mulder's friend and for the moment I'm also
his doctor."
Frohike frowned. "Doctor?"
Scully nodded. "Mulder is in the M.I.C.U. at Georgetown
Memorial."
"What's wrong with him?"
"Anomalous brain activity." She glanced away. "It's
killing him."
"Shit."
Exactly.
Langly looked confused. "You said we could help him.
How? We're not exactly brain surgeons."
The moment had arrived to convince them to trust her,
but Scully wasn't sure how. She knew a great deal
about them because when stuck on boring stakeouts
Mulder liked to tell stories and the Lone Gunmen could
be depended upon for an amusing anecdote. However
blurting out that she knew private details about their
lives would hardly inspire trust in three conspiracy
nuts. It would scare the crap out of them. So what
was she going to do? What did she have to offer?
"I'm the only chance Mulder has," Scully told them.
The three men looked at one another, and as if by
silent agreement Frohike asked, "Could you excuse
us for a moment?"
Scully nodded and the three men stepped away.
X X X
As soon as they stepped into the back room Byers
asked, "So?"
"So what?" Langley countered. "She didn't say
anything."
"Yes, she did. She said she needed our help."
"Don't go mushy, white collar knight on me," Langly
snapped. "Remember your little Matahari."
Frohike rolled his eyes. "Don't throw Susanne in his
face."
"Fine. Sorry I mentioned her." Langly didn't look too
apologetic. "But what do we know about this woman?
Nothing. We have no idea what she's really up to."
"She said she's Mulder's friend," Byers insisted.
"Are you listening to yourself? Mulder? Friends?"
Byers dropped his gaze to the floor and began
shifting his weight. "You have a point."
"I believe her," Frohike told them.
Langly looked understandably confused. "Why?"
"I don't know." Frohike glanced into the next room and
saw Scully clasp her hands together so tightly that her
knuckles turned white. "I just have this feeling that
she cares about the big guy. A lot."
"A feeling? You're willing to bet your life on a
feeling?" Langly looked shocked.
Frohike didn't answer but walked into the other room.
"I have a few questions," he told her.
Scully squared her shoulders. "Shoot."
"How did you know to come here?"
"Mulder mentioned you." She said it without any
elaboration then looked away.
Frohike's eyes narrowed as he tried to decipher her
body language. "Mulder sent you here?"
"No."
"You just made the decision on your own?"
"Mulder isn't in any condition to send me anywhere.
Besides, I make my own decisions."
Fair enough. "You said Mulder was dying. Exactly how
bad off is he?"
The change in her expression was subtle. If he wasn't
watching her closely, Frohike would have missed it
entirely. It was almost as if a shadow crossed her
face and darkened her eyes. "Mulder slipped into a
coma just before I left the hospital." Scully took a
deep breath. "At his present rate of deterioration
I estimate he has between forty-eight and seventy-two
hours to live."
Scully's gaze locked with his and Frohike thought he
read desperation in her eyes.
He came to a decision. "How can we help?"
Scully reached into her jacket.
"Whoa!" Frohike raised his hands and backed away when
she pulled out a gun.
Scully smiled grimly and offered the firearm butt first.
"For a start, take this."
X X X
Cayuga Medical Center
Ithaca, New York
2:18pm
Dana Waterston sat fully dressed on the hospital bed.
She had been discharged from the hospital, but what she
was supposed to do now?
She had spent the last couple of hours speaking with
the local sheriff convincing him to drop charges against
Arnold Blackwood. She had conceded to Dr. Doerstling's
request to say that Blackwood hadn't known she was in
the accelerator at the time of the experiment. That part
of the statement was true enough. Dana Waterston hadn't
been in the CESR, but Blackwood had known that a--if not
'the'--Steven Doerstling was trapped inside. However,
Blackwood had only been trying to set things right.
He hadn't intended to harm anyone, and despite the
upheaval his actions had caused in her life, Dana
could see no purpose in condemning him.
So now what? Dana looked around the empty hospital room.
Where was she supposed to go? What was she supposed to
do now that she was Special Agent Dana Scully?
The phone rang. Dana reached for the phone on the
bedside table only to realize that wasn't the phone that
was ringing. She stood and searched through the
belongings that a deputy had thoughtfully shipped
from Agent Scully's motel room.
Finding a cell phone Dana tentatively said, "Hello?"
"Scully? Is that you?"
What a loaded question.. "Um, yeah, it's me."
"You're in the hospital again. Are you okay?"
"Yes." Who was this?
"Is anything seriously wrong?"
"No."
"So EVERYTHING--" he emphasized the word "--is okay?
Dana blinked. He's asking about the baby, she
realized. For some reason he wasn't saying it out
loud. Dana didn't know why, but she was sure
that was what he was asking.
"Everything is okay."
She heard the man sigh on the other end of the
phone and wondered if this was the baby's father.
"When will you be released?" he asked.
"I am now. I...uh...I was discharged a few minutes
ago. I was about to leave the hospital." Just as
soon as she figured out where the hell she was
supposed to go.
His voice turned stern and authoritative. "Scully,
I'm used to this shit when you and Mulder work on
a X-File, but I sent you on a missing person case,
an ordinary missing person case. How did you
almost get yourself killed--No. Don't answer that.
Just be standing in front of my desk with a full
report ready at 8am tomorrow morning. Is that
understood?"
"Yes. . .sir," she belatedly added.
"Fine. I'll have my secretary arrange a plane
ticket to be waiting for you at the Tompkins
County Airport."
As the man hung up, Dana finally matched a face
with the voice. Walter Skinner. When he had
mentioned Agent Mulder's name she had made the
association. It seemed impossible that only
yesterday she had stood in the M.I.C.U.
explaining Fox Mulder's dire prognosis to
Mr. Skinner.
Did Scully know Mulder? Was that why Mulder had
seemed eerily familiar when he had been brought
into the E.R.? Was that how he had known her name?
Dana gave a bufuddled shake of her head. She was
overdosing on unexplained phenomena. Dana was a
logical person and everything around her kept
defying logic. For her own peace of mind, she
needed to find answers. But where was she
supposed to start?
Dana pressed her hand against her abdomen and,
not for the first time, noticed that she didn't
wear a ring. Given the fact that everyone
referred to her as Scully, Dana felt she could
safely assume that in this reality she was not
married. Nice. She was sure her father would have
been thrilled. Bill would raise hell about it
and would be on the war path against the father
...whoever the baby's father might be.
Pushing aside the mental image of her brother's
outrage, Dana wondered again how this baby's father
would react to a Dana Scully who wasn't Dana Scully
aat all. That thought alone was enough to bring on
a wave of nausea. Dear God, how was Dana supposed
to make it through this mess?
Dana still pondered that question as she exited
the hospital and ran into the student she had met in
Steven Doerstling's room.
"Agent Scully," Stilgoe called. "Dr. Doerstling asked
me to give you a message."
Dana gave him a questioning look.
Stilgoe looked a little confused. "Doerstling said not
to give up. He's looking for another way out of the
rabbit hole." He frowned. "Does that make any
sense to you?"
"Yes," she answered. "It makes sense. Thank you for
the message."
"Okay then. Um...It's been nice meeting you."
Dana watched the young man walk away then
straightened her shoulders as a taxi stopped by
the curb. As she down in the car, she tried to
prepare herself for what she might find in
Washington, D.C.
X X X
Washington, D.C.
2:20pm
Langly asked, "Who do you want to be?"
Scully lifted her head. "Excuse me?"
"On the credit card, what name do you want?
"I don't think it really matters."
He typed in L-A-R-A C-R-O-F-T. Frohike smacked
him on the head and snapped, "Don't be a butt
munch. Someone will notice that. Put something
inconspicuous on it."
"Mary Smith?"
"Not THAT inconspicuous. Something normal."
Byers announced to the room at large, "I've opened a
bank account in the Caymans." He looked at Scully.
"How much money do you want transferred into it?"
Scully frowned. This felt suspiciously like stealing,
but if she was going to protect Mulder she needed an
untraceable cash flow. "Ten, maybe fifteen thousand."
Byers frowned. "That won't last long." Byers said
for her ears alone, "I think D.C. usually splits
divorce settlements straight down the middle. You're
entitled to half."
Scully shook her head. Dana Waterston might be
eligible for community property, but Dana Scully
didn't have the right to a dime of the Waterstons'
money. Saying a silent apology for burning her
counterpart's bridges, Scully insisted, "Ten
thousand is more than enough." She walked away.
With her back turned, Byers transferred half of
the Waterston's bank account into the one he
had opened in the Caymans.
Frohike approached Scully with a small flat strip
of...something. Scully wasn't sure if it was
plastic, silicon, or metal.
"What is it?" she asked.
"A miniaturized global positioning device. It will
allow us to keep track of you. You should probably
attach it someplace where it won't be detected and
you won't remove like...uh..." He actually managed
to blush.
Scully almost smiled. "Would slipping it into the
underwire of my bra help?"
His skin tone deepened. "Yeah. That'd do it."
"If you'll excuse me." With the Lone Gunmen's
eyes on her back Scully disappeared into the
bathroom.
X X X
Once Scully was out of the room Langly said,
"You know there's one thing I don't understand
about this."
Byers' expression looked like disbelief. "Only
one thing?"
"Okay, a lot of things," Langley conceded. "But
the big thing I don't get is how Mulder ended up
with a doctor that looks like THAT. When I went
in for appendicitis, I ended up with some ugly
faced old man with icebergs for hands. How did
Mulder get so lucky?"
"Lucky? He's dying."
Frohike's eyes stayed glued to the bathroom door.
"And she's willing to risk her life to save him.
Like Langly said, Mulder is a damn lucky dude."
Langly frowned. "Does she really seem like someone
who just happened to cross paths with Mulder?"
Frohike shook his head. "Byers thinks she must be
Mulder's chickadee."
Langly's eyes widened. "Sonofabitch. Mulder's
got a woman and never said anything?"
"Is he supposed to keep us updated on his lovelife?"
"Hey, I don't have one, I'd sort of like to live
vicariously through his." Langley paused. "You
think he was embarrassed to introduce her to us?"
"Three handsome dudes like us? Not a chance."
Byers looked distracted. "I'm still not sure about
this idea of hers. It sounds dangerous."
Frohike reminded him, "She didn't act like she'd
take no for an answer."
"She could get herself killed."
Frohike nodded grimly. "There's nothing we can do
about it. We can't stop her, and we can't take her
place. We couldn't pull it off. We just have to hope
Scully knows what she's doing."
Scully exited the bathroom just her cell phone rang.
"Scully," she answered then amended, "Um. . .I mean,
Dana Waterston speaking."
She nodded at whatever the person on the other end
of the line said. "I'm on my way." She looked at
the Lone Gunmen. "I've got to go."
They walked her to the door.
"Thank you for everything." Scully gazed at
Frohike, and he felt himself standing just a little
bit taller. "And please feed Mulder's fish."
"You bet," Frohike answered to the spot where
Scully had stood only a moment before.
AUTHOR: L.A. Ward
EMAIL ADDRESS: LAWard@aol.com
URL: www.hometown.aol.com/laward/eclectic.html
DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT: Sure, just let me know.
SPOILER WARNING: Anything through Season 7
including Requiem
RATING: PG-13 (for language)
CLASSIFICATION: X/MSR/A
X-file casefile with Mytharc
MSR
Scully Angst/Mulder Angst
SUMMARY: While investigating the disappearance of
a physicist, Scully finds someone she didn't
expect--Mulder.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Never mine. Wish they were,
but they belong to Chris. Have no money so don't
bother to sue.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I cannot say enough nice things for
the wonderful people who undertook the task of beta
reading. Thanks to all of them, but special thanks to
Shari, Rosemary, and Fran.
******************************************************
"We hover between awareness of being and loss of being.
And the entire reality of memory becomes spectral."
Gaston Bachelard
"The Poetics of Space"
******************************************************
CHAPTER FIVE
Cayuga Medical Center
Ithaca, New York
7:12am
The world felt fuzzy and vague. She knew it was there,
but she couldn't hold onto it. It kept slipping
through her fingers. . .her aching fingers.
Dana Waterston hurt all over.
"Doctor, I think she's coming around," she heard someone
announce.
Dana tried to push herself to a sitting position. She
was the doctor, and there was a patient who needed her
if only she could make her muscles work.
"No," a kind voice said. "You just lay back. You've
been through quite enough, young woman."
She managed to lift one eyelid to see a gray haired
man leaning over her. "What. . .?" Dana croaked.
"From what I know, you walked into a rather unusual
situation. Heroics are all well and good, but if
you aren't careful, you might get yourself killed."
"Heroics?"
"Here," the doctor offered. "Take a drink of water.
That should help."
Cool liquid slid down Dana's throat, and she was
finally capable of opening both of her eyes. "What
happened?" she asked.
"You don't remember throwing yourself into an
electron accelerator to rescue Steven Doerstling?"
Dana blinked. Rescue THE Steven Doerstling? Someone
on the staff had to be making some sort of sick joke.
"No really, what happened?" Dana asked.
The doctor frowned. "What day is it?"
"Monday."
"How many fingers am I holding up?"
"Three."
"What's your name?"
"Dana Scully Water--"
He refilled her glass. "You sound lucid," he announced
and made a note in her chart. "Don't worry about
forgetting the accident. It's relatively common to
lose the memory of a traumatic event leading to a
blackout. Then again after looking at your
rather...shall we say 'eventful' medical history, I
assume you know that."
He returned to her bedside. "I want to reassure you
that all indications are that your baby is fine."
Dana choked on her water. "What?"
"When your medical charts were forwarded to us, I
noticed the tests you had run in Washington. I assumed
this was a high risk pregnancy. I ran an ultrasound,
and, as I said, all indications are that the fetus is
fine."
She was pregnant. Now how in the hell had that
happened? Daniel had had a vasectomy before he had even
met her. He said that he didn't want more children,
and, after witnessing the father he had been, Dana
had decided his decision was a good one. She never
wanted Daniel's child.
So how was she pregnant? For that matter how had she
climbed into an electron accelerator? This was nuts.
Out of this world nuts.
Then Dana remembered the doctor saying her medical
records had been forwarded from Washington.
"Where am I?" she asked.
"Cayuga Medical Center. We're in Ithaca."
New York. Dana felt hysteria rise inside her. This
had to be a dream or nightmare or. . .something. It
had to be anything but what it appeared to be. Short
of starring in an episode of Star Trek, no one
disappeared from one location to miraculously appear
in another. It defied the laws of physics.
A young man stuck his head through the door opening,
"Agent Scully, you awake?"
Dana frowned. He looked to be somewhere around the
age of twenty-four, two days overdue for a shave and
in desperate need of a comb. He was also a complete
stranger.
"When I called you with the b quark data I didn't
think that you'd run out in the middle of the night
to check out CLEO." Then he grinned. "Good thing
you did though. Gotta hand it to the FBI. You pulled
it off. I never thought to see Dr. Doerstling alive
again. Do you get a medal or something for pulling
that off?"
He could as easily have been speaking Greek. Dana had
absolutely no idea what he was talking about.
"Hey, doc," he called just before her doctor left the
room. "Can she go down the hall to see Doerstling?"
The doctor frowned a moment then looked at her, "You
think you're up to it?"
Dana tested her limbs, and they felt sound. "What
were my injuries?" she asked.
"Almost none. Like I said, you're a lucky woman,
Agent Scully. You seem to have come through
without a scratch."
Agent? She reviewed the last few minutes and
remembered the younger man mentioning the FBI. Was
this some bizarre dream brought on by several nights
without sleep and at least one night sitting vigil
over FBI Agent Fox Mulder?
The young man handed her a white terry robe. "It was
in the bathroom," he told her.
While slipping it on, Dana tried to find her center
of gravity as a wave of dizziness washed over her.
"You okay?" the kid asked.
Dana took a deep breath. "I'm fine."
He grinned. "Well then, let's go see Doc Doerstling."
She moved slowly down the hall because her muscles
still ached, but the young stranger assured her they
weren't going far.
"Here we are," he announced as he pushed open the
wide patient room door.
There was an older man with salt and pepper hair and
intelligent brown eyes sitting on a bed with a young
blonde woman attending his every need. "I'm okay,
Lauren," the reassured. Then he raised his head,
and Dana thought he saw her.
"Ah," he said, "the conquering hero."
Dana swallowed her confusion and stepped tentatively
into the room.
The man's eyes narrowed. "Why do I have the feeling
I have the pleasure of greeting Alice just after she
fell down the rabbit hole?"
X X X
Georgetown Memorial Hospital
Washington, D.C.
7:12am
"Sir," Scully said with vast relief as she pushed
open the door to the M.I.C.U. waiting room to find
Assistant Director Walter Skinner standing there.
"I'm glad you're here."
Skinner looked surprised then gratified by
her statement. "I'm sorry I couldn't arrive sooner,
doctor."
Doctor?
Skinner continued, "Since you called saying there was
an intruder in Agent Mulder's room, I've arranged for
a guard."
Scully eyes narrowed. "Mulder is in danger? From
whom?"
Skinner's gaze darted away from her, and he adjusted his
glasses. "I'm not sure." He paused, then took a breath.
"Dr. Waterston, has there been any change in Mulder's
condition?"
Scully ducked her head. How was she supposed to answer
that? She heard someone push open the waiting room door
and looked to see who it was. Then her spine stiffened,
and her chin rose defiantly. So the old bastard wasn't
dead. Why wasn't she surprised?
"Yes, doctor," the Smoking Man said in a quiet rumble.
"Has Mulder's condition improved?" He casually reached
into his pocket, removed a cigarette, and started to
light it.
Scully snatched it out of his hand. "There's no smoking
in the hospital."
She thought she saw amusement in the old man's rheumy
eyes. "Yes, doctor."
Scully glared at Skinner, but he only looked away.
She frowned. What was going on? Skinner was acting
strangely. He was compromised. Scully knew that. He
had confessed it, but she still trusted him. Skinner
had saved hers and Mulder's butts too many times for
her not to trust him. But since he was compromised
Scully had also learned not to depend on him.
She examined the Smoking Man. He wasn't dead, and that
was the only revelation of the last few minutes that
didn't shock her. In fact, the only thing about him
that surprised her was the state of his health. The
last time she had seen him he had been pasty skinned
and had announced that he was dying. Later both
Krycek and Marita Covarrubias described him as being
wheelchair bound and having a trache. . .and that
had been before he was murdered. All in all he
looked miraculously healthy.
Putting on her best poker face, Scully decided to
bluff her way out of this situation. "I'm not
prepared to make any diagnosis at the moment."
She looked at Skinner. "Am I to expect a guard
in the M.I.C.U.?"
Skinner nodded.
When Scully moved to exit, CSM stopped her with
a brush of his hand. "Will you have a prognosis
later today?"
Her eyes glinted with rebellion. "I don't know.
Ask me later today."
Once she left the room Scully took a deep breath.
The world had gone insane. Everything was upside
down and inside out. It was as if she had fallen
into one of those parallel universes that Steven
Doerstling had theorized.
Scully stopped walking and began shaking her head.
No, that was impossible. Things like that didn't
happen. It was the kind of stuff Mulder liked to
talk about but. . .
Mulder.
With renewed purpose Scully walked down the hall.
At the nurses' station she demanded Mulder's
medical chart before returning to his room.
Daniel stood waiting for her. "I read the chart,"
hesaid. "It's a fascinating case, but you're
spending too much time on it. You're making it
personal."
"It is personal."
She saw a muscle jump in Daniel's jaw. Over the
years Scully had forgotten that quirk. Then
again she had forgotten many things about Daniel.
"What is this man to you?" he asked.
She refused to answer. "Why are you still here?"
"I wanted to speak with my wife."
"She isn't here."
Daniel crossed the room. "Dana, I know you're
angry."
"That's where you're wrong. I'm not angry. I
have no reason to be angry, it's just that my
life has nothing to do with yours."
"How can you say that?"
"Because it happens to be true." She wanted him to
go away. Scully didn't know why Daniel thought she
was his wife, and she didn't want to know. She only
wanted him leave. Mulder needed her. "I'm sorry,
Daniel. Whoever it is you're looking for, I'm not
her."
"That's not true."
"It is true." Scully faced him squarely. "You
don't want me. You want an admirer. An admirer with
enough knowledge to be suitably impressed by your
brilliance. I can't do that. I can't be that.
I've never been much of a yes woman. I need a
partner, not an idol."
Daniel's gaze narrowed. "It's him."
She ducked her head. "My relationship with Mulder
has nothing to do with this."
"Your 'relationship'?"
"You aren't listening to me." Scully sighed. "You
never listened to me."
"You're having an affair." Daniel laughed and looked
at her with what Scully thought was disbelief. "All
the time I was feeling guilty, you were fucking
another man."
"Daniel, please--"
He interrupted. "Are you in love with him?"
"Excuse me?"
"It's a simple question." Daniel crossed his arms.
"At least for most people it's simple. Though in your
case perhaps I should rephrase it." He paused. "Do
you allow yourself to love him? I know you always
secretly hated the idea of loving me."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"It's always about control with you. Everything
has to fit your little rules, your unbending ethics."
Daniel walked around Mulder's bed but his gaze never
left Scully. "This won't work, you know. You won't
allow it to work. If your self-righteous morality
hasn't killed it, your need for control will. You
won't allow yourself to need anyone, or at least
you won't allow yourself to BELIEVE that you do.
Deep down you don't trust a soul."
Scully blinked. She wasn't that woman. She wasn't
deluding herself. She simply wasn't the person Daniel
described, and Scully didn't mean that in the sense
that he called her Dana and thought that she was his
wife. It went deeper than that.
It was true that she had used excuses to explain
her distance from her parents. Scully had blamed a
fear of disappointing her father. She had pointed to
the differences between Melissa's mystical nature and
her own more scientific one. She and Bill disagreed,
period, and of course Charlie was better at creating
emotional distance than she was. But that had been a
lifetime ago.
Scully looked at Mulder. Daniel's analysis had some
foundation in truth, but he was wrong in one vital
respect. She trusted Mulder absolutely.
"Do you allow yourself to love him?" Daniel asked.
Scully didn't look in Daniel's direction. "I won't
discuss this with you."
"Typical."
Scully closed her eyes. This was turning into a bad
soap opera. "Could you please go?"
"Yes, I think I will. But one day you'll regret
this."
"I don't think so," she murmured.
After Daniel left Scully looked at Mulder. "And I
don't care if you are catatonic, you're smiling
aren't you?"
Scully reached to pull her hand through her hair
and was surprised to discover it pulled back with
a clip. It wasn't her style. "Mulder, I think
your disappearing act has finally pushed me over
the edge." She sank into the chair next to his
bed. "I've lost my mind."
Scully opened his chart and began reading. It was
ominously familiar. She swallowed convulsively
and reached for his hand. "Mulder," she rasped.
"I hate to tell you this, but you're in big trouble."
Threading her fingers through his she repeated
in an inexpressibly sad voice, "Big trouble."
X X X
Cayuga Medical Center
Ithaca, New York
7:43am
In an almost dreamlike state Dana stepped cautiously
into Steven Doerstling's room.
"Tell me, Agent Scully," Doerstling said, "am I cast in
the role of the Cheshire Cat?"
"I wouldn't know. It's been a very long time since I
read Alice in Wonderland. What exactly does the
Cheshire Cat do?"
He laughed, though Dana wasn't at all sure anything
she had said was amusing. Doerstling looked at Lauren
Rice. "Why don't you and Mike go and have breakfast?
I would like to speak with Agent Scully alone."
"But Doctor," Lauren began to protest.
"Give over, Lauren," Mike said impatiently. "There's
no point in arguing with the man. We'll find an Egg
McMuffin or something." Stilgoe escorted Lauren from
the room.
"Agent Scully, don't hover by the door," Doerstling
admonished. "Come in."
Dana took a single step forward. "Why do you call me
Agent Scully?"
"Aren't you Agent Scully?"
She took a shaky breath. "My maiden name is Scully."
"But you aren't with the FBI?"
"No."
"So you are Alice."
Dana gathered her courage and took two more steps into
the room. "Exactly what rabbit hole do you think I
fell through?"
"You better sit down Ms. . .?"
"Waterston. But Scully will do just as well."
He looked concerned. "You have no idea what has
happened, do you? What am I saying? Of course you
don't." His gaze met hers. "Ms. Waterston, you are
a living breathing example of something that is
completely impossible. And you are a very long way
from home."
"Is this where you tell me to click my heels three
times and say there's no place like home?"
"Wrong story."
"Or the wrong dream?" she asked. "Weren't Alice and
Dorothy only dreaming?"
"This place is real, Ms. Waterston, and so is the place
you were before. They are interdependent worlds."
Dana arched a brow in disbelief. "Worlds? As in the
plural? That's impossible."
He smiled. "So I said."
She shook her head. "No, I mean it's really
impossible. There's no such thing. Alternate
universes? That's the stuff of science fiction,
not real science."
"Most science fiction is based on real science."
"Based and then extrapolated out of all proportion.
Alternate universes do not exist."
"But physics--science--theorizes that they do."
Dana shook her head. "That's theory. It's supposition.
It's not something that actually happens." She
swallowed and was far less certain than she sounded.
"It didn't happen to me."
"But it did."
"I have no proof of that." But even as she said it,
Dana knew it was a lie. She was pregnant, wasn't she?
Pregnant with a child that she didn't remember
conceiving. Dana frowned. "How. . ." She paused and
took a deep breath. "How is what you're proposing
possible?"
"I don't know. And though I don't want to sound
conceited, if I don't know then no one does. Please
sit, Ms. Waterston, we have a great deal to discuss."
****************************************************
"When in dreams I still remember..."
Arthur L. Gilliom
****************************************************
CHAPTER SIX
Georgetown Memorial Hospital
Washington, D.C.
7:43am
Scully's hands shook, but she ignored the tremor. She
walked around the nurses' station, past the charting
kiosk, and into the med prep room. No one stopped her.
No one questioned her right to be there. They didn't
so much as look twice in her direction.
It disturbed her.
In medical school Scully had realized that if you
behaved as though you belonged in staff areas of the
hospital the personnel usually accepted you. But this
was different. These strangers knew her. She should
examine that, but she wouldn't. Not now. Some things
couldn't bear scrutiny, and as far as Scully was
concerned, this was one of them.
Scully didn't plan to ignore what was going on around
her. It was just that her surroundings had no bearing
on the problem at hand. Her first priority was Mulder.
He had a specific medical problem and that had to be
addressed first. She couldn't allow confusion about
her surroundings to distract her. Mulder needed her.
In medicine and in the FBI indecision could prove fatal.
Scully lived with that knowledge every day, and the only
way to deal with it was to have a clear and simple set
of priorities. A person's life came first. In a crisis
situation anything else was superfluous, so Scully
silenced the inner voice that warned her extraordinary
things were happening if only she would stop and notice.
Of course, Mulder would claim inexplicably bizarre
circumstances weren't superfluous.
That was the difference between them--not that Mulder
would ever turn his back on a person in need. It was
just that Mulder started with the idea of proving the
impossible. Scully couldn't do that. She clung to some
semblance of objectivity, and she knew that tendency
frequently drove Mulder up a wall.
Scully had tried to explain it to him. As a scientist
she had to rely on the scientific method--objective
observation, coherent hypotheses, and quantifiable
results. She couldn't allow was her own needs or bias
to influence her choices. Scully wasn't allowed to
predetermine the answer she wanted. Science demanded
that she focus solely on the facts, and because of that
there were questions Scully simply couldn't ask.
Maybe that was why she had found her niche in the
X-Files. Mulder asked those questions for her.
He kept alive that part of herself that science
demanded that she ignore.
But Mulder wasn't here...or at least he hadn't been
here. Now he was, and that in itself was a question
she should reflect upon. Instead--as always--Scully
took action.
She punched a code she had found in Dana Waterston's
pocket PDR into the Pyxis machine, the pharmaceutical
equivalent of a vending machine, and retrieved a
sedative. If Scully claimed what she was about to do
didn't bother her, she would be lying. However after
reading Mulder's chart, Scully had made a decision, and
in good conscience she could not make that decision
alone.
She left the med room and nodded to the nurse. Then
she walked down the hall to Mulder's room. Once
inside Scully took a hypodermic from her pocket. Her
hands still shook as she inserted the needle the
into the small glass vial and drew down the stopper.
Scully had performed this procedure a thousand times,
but this was different. This was Mulder, and Scully
hated what she was about to do. She was about to
inject Mulder with a near fatal dose of a drug for
nothing more than a few moments of lucidity. It was
necessary, but it felt wrong.
Scully looked at him. His face appeared impassive,
yet she knew he was in pain. She remembered
Mulder describing his mental anguish during his
hospitalization last fall. He had been in hell, and
now it was happening again.
Scully's most vivid memory of that period was Mulder
standing in a padded cell screaming her name. Diana
Fowley had barred her from seeing him. Even Diana's
later sacrifices couldn't expunge the bitterness Scully
felt at being denied the chance to help Mulder. He had
needed her.
Now it was happening again, and Diana Fowley was
nowhere to be found. And nothing on earth--or anywhere
else for that matter-- would keep Scully from reaching
Mulder.
She glanced at the EEG, reading the abnormal results
on screen. Something had been removed from Mulder's
brain last year, and now it was back. It was killing
him. Scully could ignore every other horrifyingly
bizarre aspect of her situation. She could place
in some controlled corner of her mind that Daniel
thought she was his wife, that the supposedly deceased
Smoking Man was alive and more well than the last time
she had seen him. Scully could even manage to deal
with both Skinner and the hospital staff believing
she was a neurologist. The thing she could not
ignore, could not deny was that Mulder was dying.
She would not allow that to happen.
Scully tapped the hypodermic needle and approached
the bed.
X X X
There was a flash, a blinding moment of pain, then
a prickling sensation not unlike the phantom pins and
needles felt when a limb that had gone to sleep
suddenly had circulation restored...only this was
a thousand times worse. Agony pierced Mulder's mind and
impaled his consciousness. Then it slowly dissipated,
fizzling like fireworks after a burst of light.
He was free.
Mulder blinked and found himself staring up at two
foot by two foot acoustical ceiling tiles. There
was movement at his side. He turned and saw her.
"Scully," he croaked.
Scully smiled, and it softened the lines and curves
of her face. It gave her a muted glow that seemed
to emanate from somewhere deep within, and when her
smile reached the shadowed depths of her eyes they
turned a pure, crystalline blue.
"You know me?" she asked.
Yes? No? Maybe? Mulder wasn't sure. He didn't know.
He had no memory of her, and yet...
"You were in my dream--on the beach," he rasped.
Something flickered in Scully's eyes. Some complex,
multi-layered emotion that passed over her then
coalesced into a singular sadness.
Mulder reached to comfort her. "Scully..."
She gripped his hand with surprising strength. "We
don't have much time," she told him. "Nowhere near
enough time. You're dying."
He gave a grim smile. "Don't waste time with tact.
Give it to me straight. I can take it."
"I'm sorry--"
"Don't be." Mulder squeezed her hand.
"I didn't tell you this so you could act insanely
brave," Scully snapped. "I'm telling you because I
think there is someone who can save you."
"Does she have red hair?"
"It's the Smoking Man."
He tensed. "No."
"Listen to me--"
"No. You can't trust that black lunged bastard."
"I know that."
"Do you?" Mulder's gaze narrowed. "How? Who are you?"
"Your friend," she vowed. "Always your friend."
He looked down at their clasped hands.
"Mulder..." On her lips his name was little more
than a breath, a sigh. "I know something about what's
wrong with you. I know you can hear what I'm thinking."
He attempted to sit up.
"No," Scully protested and gently pushed him back
against the pillows. "I want you to look at me. I
know you have no reason to trust the Smoking Man.
I'm not asking that you do. I'm asking you to
trust me."
Mulder shook his head.
"Please, Mulder. There are things I can't say. Things
that I don't have time to explain, and even if I
had the time, I don't know that I COULD." Her grip
tightened painfully. "But I need you to understand,
and I need your trust before it's too late."
Mulder gazed at her, and images tumbled through his
head. Her memories? His memories? Mulder wasn't sure.
He couldn't know...No. They couldn't be his memories.
He lived his life alone. Mulder was suspicious of his
superiors and mocked by his co-workers. His sister had
been abducted, his father murdered, and his mother dead
by her own hand. There was no one with whom he shared
a connection or bond.
He had a few friends--Frohike, Langly, Byers--but there
was no confidante. No one who knew his secrets or his
terrible truths. No one who shared his path.
He was alone.
What an incredibly depressing thought. It was true,
but it was still depressing. If he fell off the earth
tomorrow, no one would notice except the FBI payroll
accountant, and no one would care except his fish when
the automatic feeder ran out. Hell, now that Mulder
thought about it, if it wasn't for survival instinct
he had no reason to fight what was happening to him.
So why did he matter to her? And how did he know her?
How could he possibly remember Scully holding out her
hand saying she had been assigned to work on the
X-Files?
Mulder also remembered responding snidely, "I was
under the impression you were sent to spy on me."
Then the memory faded and another took its place.
Wind howled in a low minor chord that resonated with
despair as a blizzard raged in beyond a door. It was
the Arctic Ice Core Project, and Mulder saw himself
holding a gun on a man, a woman...and Scully. "I
don't trust you," Mulder yelled. "I wouldn't turn
my back on any of you."
Again his memory shifted, and Scully alone dared
enter the room where he stood.
"I don't trust them," he had confessed. "But I
WANT to trust you."
Months passed. Or was it seconds? Years? He
didn't know and couldn't tell. Mulder had no
reference point as images sped by. Images so
vivid they seemed real...or were they real? Had
they happened?
Scully lay ill in a hospital bed. Her translucent
skin had lost its glow, and her eyes looked tired
and pained. She was dying. Dying because she had
joined him in peering into the dark corners. Dying
because of him, and yet Scully was willing to
sacrifice more.
"You have to say I'm the one who killed that man,"
Scully urged.
"I can't do that."
"Yes, you can. If I can save you, let me."
Let her sacrifice herself for him? It defied
Mulder's imagination.
Then a miracle happened and Scully recovered. She
hadn't left him, and something inside him that had
come perilously close to breaking remained intact.
Somewhere in the recesses of Mulder's mind he heard
Scully say, "When I met you, you told me that your
sister had been abducted by aliens, and that event
marked you so deeply that nothing else mattered."
YOU matter, Mulder thought.
"I didn't believe you," Scully confessed. "But I
believed in you. I followed you on nothing more
than your faith that the truth was out there. Based
not on fact, not on science, but on your memories.
Memories were all that you had."
Just as memories were all Scully had now. Memories
that came to Mulder in an inexplicable rush. Small
ones. Inconsequential ones. Happy ones.
Scully stood on a chair in his office raising her
face to the sunlight spilling through a skylight as
she relished a creamy white confection.
"Did you bring enough to share with the rest of the
class?" Mulder drawled.
"It's not ice cream," Scully warned. "It's a non-fat
tofutti rice dreamsicle."
Mulder made a face. "I bet the air in my mouth tastes
better than that." He leaned back in his chair,
bracing his feet against the top edge of his desk.
"Scully, you really know how to live it up."
"Oh yeah, and you're mister 'let's squeeze every last
drop out of this sweet life,' aren't you?"
He arched one eyebrow.
Scully shook her head. "Here we are on a beautiful
Saturday morning, and you've got us grabbing life
by the testes."
Mulder almost laughed, and there was a look in Scully's
eyes that said she was onto him. "Let sleeping dogs lie,"
she admonished.
He crossed his arms. "I'm not going to sit idly by as
you hurl clichés at me. Preparation is the father of
inspiration."
"Necessity is the mother of invention."
"The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom."
"Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we may die."
"I scream, you scream, we all scream for non-fat
tofutti rice dreamsicles!" And he pounced, wrestling
her for the ice cream as her crystal clear laughter
echoed in his ears.
Later, at a baseball field Scully crossed the distance
between them. Mulder handed her the bat and wrapped
his arms around her saying the most outrageous things
he could think of.
"You've got to remember," he murmured. "Hips before
hands." Then he touched her and demonstrated what he
meant.
Scully moved in rhythm with him.
"We're going to make contact," Mulder whispered in her
ear. "We aren't going to think. We're just going to
let it fly."
Together they hit the baseball out of the park.
With his arms wrapped around her, Mulder found
himself talking and talking. Nothing he said made
much sense, but somehow it meant everything when
Scully gave a rare, wonderful smile.
"Shut up, Mulder." Her soft voice washed over him.
"I'm playing baseball."
And something fell into place. His jagged edges and
asymmetrical outcroppings found their niche. This
was it. This was where he fit in that inexplicable
jigsaw puzzle of life. Mulder belonged beside her.
Another memory surfaced.
"I never made the world a happier place," he murmured.
Scully took his hand and replied, "Oh, I don't know,
I'm relatively happy."
But happiness slipped from Mulder's grasp as shadows
lengthened and fell across his pathway. The sun
dipped below the horizon, and they stood in the night
darkened halls outside of A.D. Skinner's office. "I
won't lose you," he vowed to Scully, but somehow he
knew that he had.
Scully's gaze filled with an emotion Mulder could not
define but understood completely as he saw himself
through her eyes. Mulder was stunned. He saw his
arrogance and his obsessions. He saw the futility
of his anger and witnessed his carelessness and self
destruction. But--through her--Mulder also saw more.
Scully saw strength in him. She found honor and
compassion. She believed in his integrity, and
valued his quest for truth. Scully saw more in Mulder
than he had ever seen in himself. And though she
knew all of his weaknesses and mistakes, Scully saw
something he had never seen. She saw a man worth
saving...
And there was something more. Something Scully
would not or could not say. Something awful and
terrible and final--something exhilarating, and
miraculous, and true. It was beyond Mulder's reach
and becoming more so by the moment as sanity slipped
from his grasp.
Mulder gripped her hand as the tide of the mental
storm overtook him. Wave after wave of thought
battered him, choked him, and dragged him to murky
depths.
No, Mulder thought. Not yet. Wait! There was something
he had to say.
"Scully," he whispered.
"I'm here."
"I trust you."
And the tide pulled him under.
X X X
A tear slipped down Scully's cheek as she stared at
Mulder and knew without being told that he was no longer
with her. Scully looked at their entwined fingers. Even
now they held one another fiercely, and she didn't want
to let go. Walking away wasn't a choice, but she
couldn't stand still and do nothing. Scully had to
fight for both of them, so she brushed her fingertips
across his lips and said a silent good-bye.
Scully gasped when she opened the door to find a guard
standing in the hall. She nodded to him then made
her way to the nurses' station.
Scully asked the nurse, "Do you remember the man
who was here earlier? The older one with the
cigarettes and the dark suit?"
"Yes."
"Good. When he arrives, I want you to page me.
I don't care what time it is. Page me." Scully
started to walk away.
"Doctor," the nurse called. "What name should I
use when I page you? I mean, who is he?"
"Spender. Just call him Mr. Spender." Scully pushed
through the security doors prepared to make a deal
with the devil.
******************************************************
"I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, sir," said Alice,
"because I'm not myself, you see."
Lewis Carroll
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
******************************************************
CHAPTER SEVEN
Cayuga Medical Center
Ithaca, New York
8:12 am
Dana Waterston stared at her face in the mirror. Only
it wasn't her face...not exactly. She looked thinner.
Her features were slightly more defined, and her hair
was a darker, more fiery red. Dana glanced over her
shoulder. "How?" she asked Dr. Doerstling.
Doerstling was silent for a moment then said, "Grab
the legal pad on the table."
Dana walked across the room.
"Rip out a page," he told her. "Then fold it in half
lengthways. Now fold it again. Make it about an inch
wide." Once she had followed his instructions Doerstling
added, "Now twist one side and bring the two ends
together. What do you have?"
Dana straightened the edges of the paper. "It's a
mobius strip."
"You asked 'how?' That's my best answer." Doerstling
held out his hand, and she placed the strip in it. He
examined it. "A few minutes ago this sheet of paper was
easily defined. It had clear dimensions--a top and a
bottom."
"But a mobius strip only has one side."
"Exactly. A twist erased boundaries. Where once there
was a top and bottom, now there's neither...and both."
He handed her the mobius strip. "A simple action
changed everything."
Dana shook her head as the implications of his statement
struck her and made an unhappy muddle in her head. She
frowned. "Sort of an incomplete explanation,isn't it?"
"A very incomplete explanation, but the best I can do
on short notice."
Dana felt herself questioning whether she had actually
heard what she thought she had. "A simple action
erasing boundaries between dimensions?" Even to her
own ears Dana sounded doubtful...which was good because
that was the way she felt.
"That's it in a nutshell," Doerstling told her.
"I don't believe it."
"You may not believe it, but you're living it."
She WAS living it. Dana wanted to deny it, but she
couldn't. She could look out the window and see trees
and sunlight. She could feel the mobius strip in her
hand. There was nothing vague or indistinct about her
surroundings. This was real.
Doerstling continued, "I also have to confess that I'm
the one who started this mess. It's my fault that you're
here."
Dana approached his bed. "Care to explain how?"
"I would rather not, but I owe you an explanation."
His gaze lifted to hers. "I'm a difficult, arrogant,
and self absorbed man."
"That's quite a confession."
"But a true one." He paused then added, "Arrogance and
self absorption can lead a man to make foolish choices."
Dana wasn't sure how to respond to that.
He looked at the closed door. "You met my assistant
Lauren. She's a very attractive young woman. It
probably shouldn't surprise me that she walked into
my office last week, and I felt desire." Doerstling's
gaze lifted to Dana's. "But it did surprise me--and not
because she's half my age or because in normal
circumstances I would be more attracted to Mike Stilgoe."
Dana looked toward the wheelchair in the corner.
"No," he said softly. "Not even because of the
monster in the corner."
She took a seat next to his bed as Doerstling confessed,
"It didn't take long for me to realize that what I felt
had nothing to do with Lauren and everything to do with
youth. Tell me, Ms. Waterston, do you remember what it
was like to be that age? Do you remember the days
before your path was set? A time when the world was
full of possibilities, and you could do or become
anything?"
Dana almost nodded, but Doerstling didn't seem to need
a reply. With his gaze fixed on some invisible point
in space he said, "Year by year our options become fewer
and change becomes less likely. At some point we realize
that the path we're on is the path we must stay
on. It's too late to change. There isn't enough
time to start over." He looked at her. "Of
course, you haven't reached that point yet. You're
still relatively young."
While that might be true, Dana secretly admitted that
it didn't always feel that way.
"To make a long story short," Doerstling told her. "I
looked at Lauren and it was like looking at all of
the roads I didn't take. What if I had zigged left
instead of zigging right in that motorcycle accident?
What if after the accident I hadn't locked myself in the
physics department?"
He looked at the wheelchair. "I allowed myself to
become a slave to that contraption. Without my
choice, my path was set and there was no going back."
As if he felt her eyes on him, Doerstling snapped, "Don't
look at me with sympathy. It's easy enough for me to
wallow in self pity without your help. That was what I
was doing when I chose the most outrageous form of self
destruction I could imagine."
"The accelerator," Dana realized.
"Yes. The accelerator. You see, I remembered who I had
been before the accident. I was a kid who wanted to push
the boundaries, to attempt the impossible. Explore. I
betrayed that kid, and I owe him."
"To push the limits?"
"It's what I did, isn't it? Who else--other than
yourself--has been insane enough to jump into an
electron accelerator?"
"I didn't jump into an accelerator," Dana insisted.
"Your counterpart did."
"To save you."
Doestling grimaced. "I'm sorry about that. I dragged
both of you into a mess. I ran an unscheduled test
of the CESR and climbed inside it not caring if it
killed me. I simply wanted to do something that had
never been done." He smiled. "You have to admit I
accomplished that quite spectacularly."
"I thought I--" Dana stopped. "That is, I thought
Agent Scully stopped you."
"No, this was the week before. I ran an experiment,
and, like yourself, I became...someone else. Or to be
more precise, I became a version of myself who had
lived a different life. I could walk again, and I
was no longer THE Steven Doerstling." He looked at
the wheelchair. "I had never been introduced to the
monster."
Dana looked at the mobius strip she still held in
her hand. A simple twist had changed everything.
Doerstling looked somewhat amused. "I have to admit
that as soon as I became used to anonymity, I hated
it. Without the monster, my other self never
stopped moving long enough to become 'the' Steven
Doerstling...and I missed the feeling of being THE
Steven Doerstling." He smiled self mockingly. "I
said I was egocentric."
"So what happened?" Dana pressed. "How did I become
involved?"
"While leading another life, I never stopped to think
about what happened to my other self in this one.
Thankfully some men have more conscience than I do."
Doerstling cleared his throat. "From what I've been
told Arnold found my counterpart in the accelerator.
He was was disoriented and understandably perturbed
with suddenly becoming a quadriplegic."
Dana frowned. "Arnold?"
"Arnold Blackwood. A rather pedantic colleague of
mine. I don't know. Perhaps I should give Arnold more
credit. He seems to have a fair grasp of the situation
and kept it secret until he had a chance to run another
round of tests." The professor smiled wanly. "It seems
that Arnold missed 'the' Steven Doerstling and wanted
him back. You have to understand, to Arnold, physics
is everything."
"So you were reported missing while Blackwood hid the
other Doerstling. Meanwhile, Agent Scully was brought
in to investigate."
Doestling nodded. "She must have discovered some clue
because she was caught in the accelerator trying to
rescue my other self."
Dana shook her head in disbelief. "This is fantastic--and
I don't mean that in a 'gee whiz' kind of way. This is
beyond belief."
"I have to protest. It makes a certain amount of
scientific sense."
"Only in theory," Dana argued.
"You're here, aren't you? How theoretical is that?"
"So how do I get back? Another trip through the
accelerator?"
"I wouldn't advise that. We don't know what would
happen."
"It worked before."
"We think," Doestling stressed. "Who knows what happened
to that other me. Did HE make it home successfully?
There are too many unknowns, too many unforeseen
consequences. What if things don't go back to the way
they were before? What if you ended up somewhere else?
Somewhere worse? And then there are the physical dangers.
Jumping into an electron accelerator isn't a reasonable
course of action."
"You did it."
"I was also borderline suicidal, and before you mention
the other version of yourself, she was trying to rescue
me. I wasn't joking when I said it was an act of
heroism." Doerstling looked at Dana intently. "If you
go back into the accelerator it isn't just your own life
you're risking."
Dana's breath caught. How true. She knew Doestling
referred to the alternate version of herself, but Dana's
first thought was of the life growing inside of her.
There was a baby to consider. Could she willingly risk
a child's life? Would her other self wish her to?
Somehow Dana knew Agent Scully would be dead set against
it. Scully would protect her baby above all things. The
child could not be risked in a desperate attempt to
climb out of a rabbit hole.
So now what, Dana thought with dismay. Assume another
woman's life? And do what? Be what? Who was
Dana Scully? Who was the father of this child? And
how would he feel about a stranger taking Dana Scully's
place?
X X X
Washington D.C.
10:58am
Scully sat alone in Dana Waterston's car in a dangerous
neighborhood, but she hardly noticed. She was too
distracted by everything that had happened in the last
few hours. How could she think about anything as
mundane as where she was parked?
When she had exited the hospital and walked into the
physician's parking lot, Scully had realized that
she had no idea what car she was looking for. Luckily
the key chain in her pocket had a remote locking
device so Scully had slowly walked through the
parking lot clicking the button until there was a
beep and a flash of headlights.
Once behind the steering wheel of a black Lexus,
Scully had driven directly to a pharmacy and bought
a pregnancy test. As a general rule, Scully didn't
put much stock in intuition, but she couldn't deny
that even before she took the test she had known
what the result would be.
No baby.
Scully had stared at the pink stick as a dark
emotion washed over her. It was as if that pink
spot embodied every unjust and unfair thing she had
ever experienced--which was ridiculous. It was
nothing more than a simple medical test. It wasn't
the universe saying, "You can have Mulder or the
baby. You can't have both."
Scully shook her head and forced herself into motion.
She didn't like the direction of her thoughts or the
sadness snaking through her. If everything was
spinning out of control, Scully had to do something
to set it right.
She opened the car door, and walked across the street
to enter a small, cluttered pawn shop. A bell rang
as the door closed behind her, and a painfully thin
young man came out of a back room.
"What can I do for you?" he asked distractedly,
glancing over his shoulder to watch the opening
credits of "All My Children" on the television set
in the back room.
"I was looking for a gun."
He pulled his attention from Erica Kane. "Gun?"
He looked at Scully, but his eyes were too vacant
and distracted to look surprised. He walked around
a glass case. "Shotgun or handgun?" he asked.
"Handgun."
"Okay...um...you like any of these?"
He's not familiar with weapons, Scully quickly
concluded. She was virtually certain he knew
little or nothing about guns. She inspected the
weapons in the case. "These two."
He gingerly removed a Beretta 9mm and a Sig Sauer.
Scully took the one he dangled from his fingertips.
Did he think it was going to bite him?
Scully examined the Sig, then reached for the Beretta.
She inspected the safety catch and tested the weapon's
weight in her hand.
"These will do," she said quietly then looked at the
man who once again had his eye on the television in
the back room. "Ammunition?" Scully asked.
His gaze swiveled around. "Huh?"
"Ammunition."
"Oh...uh... Dick keeps that stuff under the counter.
I don't know much about it though." The man pulled
out the drawer. "Um...uh...whaddya want?"
Scully walked around the counter to where the man
crouched and examined the boxes. She pushed one or
two boxes aside before finding what she needed.
Scully handed the boxes to the clerk. "I'll take
these."
He frowned. "Am I...uh...allowed to just sell
these to you? I mean isn't there a waiting period
or something? Forms you've got to fill out?"
Scully had anticipated this. After leaving the
pharmacy she had rummaged through Dana's pocketbook
and found a checkbook with the insignia of a bank
on the checks. Scully had then driven to the bank
and removed a relatively substantial amount of cash
from the Waterston account.
"How much for the guns and the ammunition?" Scully
asked briskly.
He frowned in confusion, then looked at the guns and
the boxes. "Maybe I should call Dick."
Scully starting counting out cash, laying bill after
bill on the glass counter. "I think Dick would be
satisfied with this amount, don't you?"
The clerk's eyes were huge. "Uh...yeah, guess so.
But there's still those forms--"
She laid a hundred dollar bill on top of the stack.
"That should cover it, I think." She paused then
lifted her eyes to his. "Don't you?"
He glanced anxiously toward the back room as if
looking for the aforementioned 'Dick.' When the
man didn't appear, the clerk seemed to come to a
conclusion and picked the money up from the
counter. He folded the cash in half then shoved it
into his back pocket. "What Dick don't know
won't bother him much."
Scully frowned but silently picked up the gun
and the box.
"You know how to shoot that thing?" the clerk asked.
Scully was actually surprised by the question. For
her, carrying a gun was more familiar than carrying
a purse. "I know what I'm doing." Scully nodded to
him and left the pawn shop.
One more law broken in the space of a couple of
hours, Scully thought with mild disgust. Quite a
record for a law officer. She should be ashamed of
herself, but she wasn't--not when Mulder's life hung
in the balance.
After driving for about fifteen minutes Scully turned
the corner at a familiar intersection and found
herself in an area of crumbling warehouses. There
had been an effort for gentrification of the area in
the eighties, but at some point the developers had
cried surrender and allowed the district to sink to
its natural equilibrium--urban grunge.
Scully stopped in front of a non-descript grayish
building of indeterminate age. Nothing distinguished
the building from its neighbors. Everything indicated
that the it was deserted. Scully prayed it wasn't.
X X X
Melvin Frohike sat in front of the security monitor
watching a woman park a Lexus. She was conspicuously
out of place in this neighborhood of seedy shops and
abandoned warehouses.
"Twenty minutes and that car will be stolen," Langly
predicted.
"Fifteen," Frohike countered. "Tops."
Byers asked, "Why is she sitting there without moving?"
Langly stopped chewing his nacho chips long enough to
mumble, "She's probably pulling a map out of the glove
compartment. No way did she mean to end up here."
Salsa fell on his Def Leppard t-shirt. "Damn. I'll
be right back."
Frohike glanced at Byers.
"I did laundry yesterday." Byers assured and screwed
the lid on the jar of salsa. He looked at the monitor
and frowned. "She's staying."
Frohike watched the woman step out of the car and
whistled softly. "A looker."
"What is she doing?"
"Crossing the road."
The woman stopped below their camera and looked up.
"It's almost like she knows we're here," Byers said
breathlessly.
Frohike frowned. "I think she does."
"How?"
"How should I know?" Frohike headed toward the door.
"But a woman in a Lexus does not drive to this part
of town, park her car, walk to the door of what looks
like an abandoned building, and look directly into a
hidden camera without a reason."
"Do we let her in?"
Frohike straightened his slightly faded black t-shirt
and glanced into the mirror. He brushed back his hair
--or rather what was left of his hair--and adjusted his
glasses. "A gentleman does not leave a lady standing
on the doorstep. I thought your mother taught you
manners."
Byers bristled at the insult.
"Just kidding," Frohike added but he wondered why his
buddy wasn't as giddy over this chickadee as he had been
over Susanne Modeski. Then Frohike glanced back at the
monitor and understood. This woman was different. There
was nothing soft or wispy about her. Gravitas. Yeah,
that was the word. She had presence and authority.
Frohike waited, but she didn't fidget or give any
indication that she was the least bit uncomfortable as
she waited for the door to be answered. In fact her face
was almost unreadable, yet somehow she still managed to
communicate impatience...or maybe it was urgency.
Byers unlocked the last of the seven locks on the door.
"Well, hello pretty lady," Frohike drawled.
She stepped over the threshold.
"Is there something we could do for you?" Byers asked.
She looked Frohike dead in the eye. "Yes, you can help
me save Mulder's life."
********************************************************
"The shifts of fortune test the reliability of friends."
Cicero
De Amicitia XVII
********************************************************
CHAPTER EIGHT
Langly entered the room pulling a "Napster rules and
Metallica Sucks!" t-shirt over his head.
Frohike shook his head. "I never thought I'd see the
day."
"What?"
"The shirt."
Langly shrugged. "Screw the RIAA and Ulrich. Music to
the people. Besides, I can to listen Limp Bizkit
instead."
Scully cleared her throat and the Lone Gunmen looked at
her. Having caught their attention she wondered
what she should do next. How could she convince them to
help her when as far as they were concerned she was a
stranger? For one slightly insane moment Scully
considered telling them the truth. Only there was no
rational explanation for what was happening, and she
refused to make an irrational one. The Lone Gunmen
might be paranoid, but they weren't crazy.
"Who are you?" Langly asked.
"Scully."
"Is that like Madonna?"
"What?"
"No first name. No last name, just Scully?"
"My name is Dana Scully," she supplied.
Byers approached her. "Okay, Ms. Scully, who are you,
and why do you think Mulder needs our help?"
Scully paused and thought about what she needed to say.
"I'm Mulder's friend and for the moment I'm also
his doctor."
Frohike frowned. "Doctor?"
Scully nodded. "Mulder is in the M.I.C.U. at Georgetown
Memorial."
"What's wrong with him?"
"Anomalous brain activity." She glanced away. "It's
killing him."
"Shit."
Exactly.
Langly looked confused. "You said we could help him.
How? We're not exactly brain surgeons."
The moment had arrived to convince them to trust her,
but Scully wasn't sure how. She knew a great deal
about them because when stuck on boring stakeouts
Mulder liked to tell stories and the Lone Gunmen could
be depended upon for an amusing anecdote. However
blurting out that she knew private details about their
lives would hardly inspire trust in three conspiracy
nuts. It would scare the crap out of them. So what
was she going to do? What did she have to offer?
"I'm the only chance Mulder has," Scully told them.
The three men looked at one another, and as if by
silent agreement Frohike asked, "Could you excuse
us for a moment?"
Scully nodded and the three men stepped away.
X X X
As soon as they stepped into the back room Byers
asked, "So?"
"So what?" Langley countered. "She didn't say
anything."
"Yes, she did. She said she needed our help."
"Don't go mushy, white collar knight on me," Langly
snapped. "Remember your little Matahari."
Frohike rolled his eyes. "Don't throw Susanne in his
face."
"Fine. Sorry I mentioned her." Langly didn't look too
apologetic. "But what do we know about this woman?
Nothing. We have no idea what she's really up to."
"She said she's Mulder's friend," Byers insisted.
"Are you listening to yourself? Mulder? Friends?"
Byers dropped his gaze to the floor and began
shifting his weight. "You have a point."
"I believe her," Frohike told them.
Langly looked understandably confused. "Why?"
"I don't know." Frohike glanced into the next room and
saw Scully clasp her hands together so tightly that her
knuckles turned white. "I just have this feeling that
she cares about the big guy. A lot."
"A feeling? You're willing to bet your life on a
feeling?" Langly looked shocked.
Frohike didn't answer but walked into the other room.
"I have a few questions," he told her.
Scully squared her shoulders. "Shoot."
"How did you know to come here?"
"Mulder mentioned you." She said it without any
elaboration then looked away.
Frohike's eyes narrowed as he tried to decipher her
body language. "Mulder sent you here?"
"No."
"You just made the decision on your own?"
"Mulder isn't in any condition to send me anywhere.
Besides, I make my own decisions."
Fair enough. "You said Mulder was dying. Exactly how
bad off is he?"
The change in her expression was subtle. If he wasn't
watching her closely, Frohike would have missed it
entirely. It was almost as if a shadow crossed her
face and darkened her eyes. "Mulder slipped into a
coma just before I left the hospital." Scully took a
deep breath. "At his present rate of deterioration
I estimate he has between forty-eight and seventy-two
hours to live."
Scully's gaze locked with his and Frohike thought he
read desperation in her eyes.
He came to a decision. "How can we help?"
Scully reached into her jacket.
"Whoa!" Frohike raised his hands and backed away when
she pulled out a gun.
Scully smiled grimly and offered the firearm butt first.
"For a start, take this."
X X X
Cayuga Medical Center
Ithaca, New York
2:18pm
Dana Waterston sat fully dressed on the hospital bed.
She had been discharged from the hospital, but what she
was supposed to do now?
She had spent the last couple of hours speaking with
the local sheriff convincing him to drop charges against
Arnold Blackwood. She had conceded to Dr. Doerstling's
request to say that Blackwood hadn't known she was in
the accelerator at the time of the experiment. That part
of the statement was true enough. Dana Waterston hadn't
been in the CESR, but Blackwood had known that a--if not
'the'--Steven Doerstling was trapped inside. However,
Blackwood had only been trying to set things right.
He hadn't intended to harm anyone, and despite the
upheaval his actions had caused in her life, Dana
could see no purpose in condemning him.
So now what? Dana looked around the empty hospital room.
Where was she supposed to go? What was she supposed to
do now that she was Special Agent Dana Scully?
The phone rang. Dana reached for the phone on the
bedside table only to realize that wasn't the phone that
was ringing. She stood and searched through the
belongings that a deputy had thoughtfully shipped
from Agent Scully's motel room.
Finding a cell phone Dana tentatively said, "Hello?"
"Scully? Is that you?"
What a loaded question.. "Um, yeah, it's me."
"You're in the hospital again. Are you okay?"
"Yes." Who was this?
"Is anything seriously wrong?"
"No."
"So EVERYTHING--" he emphasized the word "--is okay?
Dana blinked. He's asking about the baby, she
realized. For some reason he wasn't saying it out
loud. Dana didn't know why, but she was sure
that was what he was asking.
"Everything is okay."
She heard the man sigh on the other end of the
phone and wondered if this was the baby's father.
"When will you be released?" he asked.
"I am now. I...uh...I was discharged a few minutes
ago. I was about to leave the hospital." Just as
soon as she figured out where the hell she was
supposed to go.
His voice turned stern and authoritative. "Scully,
I'm used to this shit when you and Mulder work on
a X-File, but I sent you on a missing person case,
an ordinary missing person case. How did you
almost get yourself killed--No. Don't answer that.
Just be standing in front of my desk with a full
report ready at 8am tomorrow morning. Is that
understood?"
"Yes. . .sir," she belatedly added.
"Fine. I'll have my secretary arrange a plane
ticket to be waiting for you at the Tompkins
County Airport."
As the man hung up, Dana finally matched a face
with the voice. Walter Skinner. When he had
mentioned Agent Mulder's name she had made the
association. It seemed impossible that only
yesterday she had stood in the M.I.C.U.
explaining Fox Mulder's dire prognosis to
Mr. Skinner.
Did Scully know Mulder? Was that why Mulder had
seemed eerily familiar when he had been brought
into the E.R.? Was that how he had known her name?
Dana gave a bufuddled shake of her head. She was
overdosing on unexplained phenomena. Dana was a
logical person and everything around her kept
defying logic. For her own peace of mind, she
needed to find answers. But where was she
supposed to start?
Dana pressed her hand against her abdomen and,
not for the first time, noticed that she didn't
wear a ring. Given the fact that everyone
referred to her as Scully, Dana felt she could
safely assume that in this reality she was not
married. Nice. She was sure her father would have
been thrilled. Bill would raise hell about it
and would be on the war path against the father
...whoever the baby's father might be.
Pushing aside the mental image of her brother's
outrage, Dana wondered again how this baby's father
would react to a Dana Scully who wasn't Dana Scully
aat all. That thought alone was enough to bring on
a wave of nausea. Dear God, how was Dana supposed
to make it through this mess?
Dana still pondered that question as she exited
the hospital and ran into the student she had met in
Steven Doerstling's room.
"Agent Scully," Stilgoe called. "Dr. Doerstling asked
me to give you a message."
Dana gave him a questioning look.
Stilgoe looked a little confused. "Doerstling said not
to give up. He's looking for another way out of the
rabbit hole." He frowned. "Does that make any
sense to you?"
"Yes," she answered. "It makes sense. Thank you for
the message."
"Okay then. Um...It's been nice meeting you."
Dana watched the young man walk away then
straightened her shoulders as a taxi stopped by
the curb. As she down in the car, she tried to
prepare herself for what she might find in
Washington, D.C.
X X X
Washington, D.C.
2:20pm
Langly asked, "Who do you want to be?"
Scully lifted her head. "Excuse me?"
"On the credit card, what name do you want?
"I don't think it really matters."
He typed in L-A-R-A C-R-O-F-T. Frohike smacked
him on the head and snapped, "Don't be a butt
munch. Someone will notice that. Put something
inconspicuous on it."
"Mary Smith?"
"Not THAT inconspicuous. Something normal."
Byers announced to the room at large, "I've opened a
bank account in the Caymans." He looked at Scully.
"How much money do you want transferred into it?"
Scully frowned. This felt suspiciously like stealing,
but if she was going to protect Mulder she needed an
untraceable cash flow. "Ten, maybe fifteen thousand."
Byers frowned. "That won't last long." Byers said
for her ears alone, "I think D.C. usually splits
divorce settlements straight down the middle. You're
entitled to half."
Scully shook her head. Dana Waterston might be
eligible for community property, but Dana Scully
didn't have the right to a dime of the Waterstons'
money. Saying a silent apology for burning her
counterpart's bridges, Scully insisted, "Ten
thousand is more than enough." She walked away.
With her back turned, Byers transferred half of
the Waterston's bank account into the one he
had opened in the Caymans.
Frohike approached Scully with a small flat strip
of...something. Scully wasn't sure if it was
plastic, silicon, or metal.
"What is it?" she asked.
"A miniaturized global positioning device. It will
allow us to keep track of you. You should probably
attach it someplace where it won't be detected and
you won't remove like...uh..." He actually managed
to blush.
Scully almost smiled. "Would slipping it into the
underwire of my bra help?"
His skin tone deepened. "Yeah. That'd do it."
"If you'll excuse me." With the Lone Gunmen's
eyes on her back Scully disappeared into the
bathroom.
X X X
Once Scully was out of the room Langly said,
"You know there's one thing I don't understand
about this."
Byers' expression looked like disbelief. "Only
one thing?"
"Okay, a lot of things," Langley conceded. "But
the big thing I don't get is how Mulder ended up
with a doctor that looks like THAT. When I went
in for appendicitis, I ended up with some ugly
faced old man with icebergs for hands. How did
Mulder get so lucky?"
"Lucky? He's dying."
Frohike's eyes stayed glued to the bathroom door.
"And she's willing to risk her life to save him.
Like Langly said, Mulder is a damn lucky dude."
Langly frowned. "Does she really seem like someone
who just happened to cross paths with Mulder?"
Frohike shook his head. "Byers thinks she must be
Mulder's chickadee."
Langly's eyes widened. "Sonofabitch. Mulder's
got a woman and never said anything?"
"Is he supposed to keep us updated on his lovelife?"
"Hey, I don't have one, I'd sort of like to live
vicariously through his." Langley paused. "You
think he was embarrassed to introduce her to us?"
"Three handsome dudes like us? Not a chance."
Byers looked distracted. "I'm still not sure about
this idea of hers. It sounds dangerous."
Frohike reminded him, "She didn't act like she'd
take no for an answer."
"She could get herself killed."
Frohike nodded grimly. "There's nothing we can do
about it. We can't stop her, and we can't take her
place. We couldn't pull it off. We just have to hope
Scully knows what she's doing."
Scully exited the bathroom just her cell phone rang.
"Scully," she answered then amended, "Um. . .I mean,
Dana Waterston speaking."
She nodded at whatever the person on the other end
of the line said. "I'm on my way." She looked at
the Lone Gunmen. "I've got to go."
They walked her to the door.
"Thank you for everything." Scully gazed at
Frohike, and he felt himself standing just a little
bit taller. "And please feed Mulder's fish."
"You bet," Frohike answered to the spot where
Scully had stood only a moment before.
