Part 3
"Fox Mulder.. my name is Fox Mulder" Mulder muttered to himself as he packed the few belongings he had with him-a change of clothes provided by Scully-and waited to be discharged from the hospital. He'd been there a little over two weeks, undergoing treatment for his various injuries and therapy to help with the amnesia. While the injuries had healed and the therapy had helped his rebuild his store of general knowledge, his entire life remained a total blank.
The doctors had asked for the help of his co-workers in the FBI, and while Skinner and Dana Scully seemed willing to help him, she was close to having her baby and could not spend all that much time with him. The Assistant Director was also busy these days. Not that they totally ignored him, either. One of them visited every day, but Mulder got the feeling they were uncomfortable talking to him. And Dana always seemed about to cry. She never stayed long.
Mulder felt sorry for her. He could tell that they had once been close friends, and he wished more than anything that he could remember their past. His past, he corrected as he flagged down a cab.
"Where to, mister?" the cabbie asked, and Mulder handed him a slip of paper with an address written. This was where Dana Scully and Walter Skinner said he lived--an apartment not far from the Bureau. They'd kept his apartment for him while he was sick, he'd been told, and religiously fed his fish.
I have fish, he thought, wondering what kind they were and how long he'd had them.
*x*x*x*x*
An hour later, Mulder sat staring at his fish, watching them swim round and round in their tank. He fed them a little fish food, and watched as they gobbled it.
"Did you miss me?" he asked them, not really expecting--or getting, for that matter--an answer. "Didn't think so," he muttered, looking around the apartment. He decided to so a little exploring. Maybe seeing the place where he'd lived most of his former life would help jog his memory.
The apartment was sparsely decorated: black leather couch, television, radio, a rather extensive collection of video tapes--some of them clearly pornographic and most of them in boxes from the local video store--a few books here and there, nothing special. The bedroom was the real shocker. It was piled high with cardboard boxes and other unused bits of furniture. Underneath it all, in the center of the room was a deflated waterbed.
"Weird..." Mulder breathed. He didn't know what to make of it, and he wondered what kind of person could live in a place so devoid of homey touches. It was as if his former self had only slept here and had not really *lived* there.
He'd have to go through all this stuff, he realized, but a more immediate concern was his growling stomach. "I really should go pick up some groceries now," he said to no one in particular. "Car...." he muttered. "I don't even know if I have a car to drive."
*x*x*x*x*
"I'm glad you came into see me, Mulder," Skinner said as he ushered Mulder into his office.
"Yeah, well, you said you knew what happened to my car," Mulder told him. "Though, for the life of me, I can't figure out why you made it sound like a big secret."
Skinner frowned a little. "No, you wouldn't, I suppose. Mulder... maybe you ought to sit down."
"Okay." Mulder sat.
Skinner started by asking what he remembered about why he was in the hospital.
"Nothing... it's all just this black void," Mulder told him.
"I see... " said Skinner. "You have no idea how hard this makes what I have to tell you."
"Just say it," Mulder told him. He was beginning to get annoyed with the man who was supposed to be his friend and boss.
"You weren't sick, Mulder. You were dead."
"Dead?"
"Yeah, dead. For over a month. And then you just came back to life."
If this was some kind of joke, it wasn't very funny. "What does this have to do with my car?"
"You're car was impounded when we thought you'd been abduc--" Skinner stopped himself suddenly. "It was sold after you'd been declared dead."
"When you thought I'd been... what? Abducted? Like by aliens?" Mulder couldn't believe what he was hearing. All this time he'd been thinking this Skinner guy was a sane man. "Is this some kind of joke?"
"It's no joke. You're free to talk with Agent Scully if you wish. She'll tell you the truth. In fact, I wish you would go down there. Maybe seeing your old office might help straighten you out."
"Down where?" Mulder asked.
"To the X-Files..."