Disclaimer in Part One
"YOUR GODDAMN STRICT RATIONALISM KEPT ME HONEST" (PART 3 OF 6)
*Cam*
Mercy Hospital
"Will are you okay?" I ask looking at him. His face is completely white.
"You're what?" he asks again. Not truly believing it.
"Pregnant, Will. A baby. Your baby," I tell him putting an emphasis on my words. I myself don't believe it. We literally broke every single rule that FBI agents are supposed to have when they are working partners.
"Cam, you can't be. How?" he asks again looking very pale. I sure hope he doesn't faint on me. He drags me half way across the country to find an FBI agent that was supposed to be long dead and I find out that he himself is immortal. I still won't believe it.
"Would you like me to explain how all of this happens? Will, you have medical background. I sure hope they taught you how babies were made back in high school health," I say sarcastically.
"No, when? I thought you couldn't have kids," Will replies.
"Apparently I can have them Will."
He drops into the chair next to my hospital bed, placing his head into his hands.
"Are you sure that you aren't dying of cancer or something like that?" he inquires, not believing my diagnosis.
"They've done three blood tests, Will. And besides I've felt like crap for the last three weeks. Would you like me to refresh your memory when we..."
"No...I remember that day. And it wasn't a mistake. Nothing that we have ever done together is a mistake. Cam, it's just that..."
"What Will?" I ask, looking at his worried face.
"I've lived a life before where I wouldn't let anyone in my heart and I still got hurt. I decided at that point in my life when she died that I would never love another. But then you came along and I fell in love with you. It's like Mulder and Scully's story all over again," Will says.
"But we aren't Mulder and Scully, Will, We're Cam and Will. Nothing is going to make you leave the baby or me. Nothing," I tell him trying to reassure him.
"You don't get it. I was the reason that Mulder had to leave my mom. My genetics were too perfect. The aliens wanted me to be their test subject because I was the first to be conceived naturally from two parents that had genetic defects that they implanted in them."
"Not aliens, Will. They don't exist. Don't bring that into this. If this is your way of saying that you're afraid...I'm afraid too. I never expected this, but there must be a reason for this. The aliens wanted you as a test subject? Give me a break," I scoff at him.
This is completely absurd. How could any of this make sense? What have we gotten ourselves into? Will grabs my hand and holds on tightly.
"I will never leave you, Cam, but you've got to trust me right now. The child that is in your womb is special. I don't know how or why it is, but I know it is," he stares at me reading my skeptical look, "And not the kind of special that a parent feels for any miracle that they made. This child is genetically speical."
I shake my head in disbelief. High heels click on the tile outside the hospital door. There are two sets of footsteps echo on the other side of the wall. They stop at my door. A sudden knock comes from the other side.
Mulder and Scully walk through the door, looking just as frazzled as Will, just as pale. A truth that they are holding will forever change my life as well as this unborn child's. In a way it will change everyone's life on the face of the Earth...everyone.
*Scully*
Mulder and I silently open the door to Cam's room. I remember being a situation somewhat like hers, but she has only been on the X-Files for two years. If she is at all like me it will take her about eight years to truly believe what she's been through. When Mulder was abducted and I was left pregnant. I started to believe. I started to look beyond science, beyond my cover that I was always hiding under. Mulder made it easy for me to believe...he gave me the courage to do so.
We also had a trust that was built up over years and years of working together...getting our careers, families, and lives threatened together numerous times. Mulder and I traveled half way around the world looking for one another...not being able to be separate from one another.
As I look at Will and Cam I become scared. I don't know if they have it in them to accept the extreme possibilities. I don't even know if I have it in me to accept the fact that we can choose to live forever or to grow old and die.
"Scully, are you ready?" Mulder asks as we stop right before their door.
"Mulder...I don't know what to say to her. I know what she's going to go through in the nine months ahead, but I don't know if she'll be able to believe. Mulder I don't even truly believe it," I tell him, my voice wavering as I look into his deep hazel eyes.
"Are you jealous, Scully?" Mulder asks playfully, trying to break the dark mood.
"Jealous? Of what?" I inquire not understanding.
"Jealous of Cam. She's pregnant...having our son's baby," Mulder replies winking at me.
"Mulder what are you implying?" I playfully ask.
"What would happen if we took on Spender's plan? Letting ourselves grow old, but having a kid or two," Mulder states, looking at me with such an intensity I don't know if he's playing with me or serious.
"A kid or two, Mulder? The last time I had a kid you went and got abducted," I say still being playful.
He looks down, becoming somewhat melancholy.
"What, Mulder? You're not serious," I tell him.
"Do you really want to live forever, Scully?" Mulder questions, completely serious now.
"No, I don't. I...I don't want to grow old with out you. I don't want to die knowing that you may still be out there living and wondering about me."
"Scully, you aren't planning on dying on me are you?" he asks, taking on his playful dry wit tone again.
"No, Mulder. It's just...I don't know what I want to do," I pause looking at him. Silence passes between us, "Let's just help Will and Cam get through this. Figuring something out that Spender hasn't told us. I'm not going to let that child have to live forever as an experiment of science."
"An X-File, Scully? Like old times?" Mulder asks.
"Like old times," I respond turning the handle of Cam's hospital room, walking into the beginning of the biggest case of our lives. The beginning of the past that both of us left behind 100 years ago.
*Mulder*
Scully turns the doorknob and we both enter Cam's room, silently. I have only met this woman once for...what? Half an hour and she is already a very important key in everything that we are about to investigate, besides the fact that my un-aging son has knocked her up.
"What are you two doing here?" Cam asks looking a little bit shocked.
Scully walks over to Will and places her hand on his shoulder, reassuring him. Their bond is something that I missed when I left all of those years ago. A bond that I should have witnessed. At least I've gotten to meet the mother of my future grandchild.
"Mom," Will starts to say to Scully and then he looks at me, "Mom, Mulder, what is going on?"
The kid has such an innocent look about him. I'm sure that he's witnessed a lot in his lifetime, but he hasn't seen everything that I have. He hasn't experienced leaving the one and only soul mate behind along with your infant son.
"We have reason to believe that the unborn child in Cam's womb is very special," Scully tells Will.
"Special? How?" Cam asks.
Scully looks to me for help.
"We are still investigating that...actually we just started. Didn't we Scully?" I ask grinning at her.
"Just like old times, Mulder. An X-File," she echoes my words from the hallway.
"What do you mean an X-File?" Cam asks. Scared for her life as well as the child's life that grows within her.
"We'd rather wait and tell you once we have more information," I tell her, looking at Scully as I do so. Remembering a time when she screamed at me for not telling her every detail when Doggett and I started to investigate the circumstances behind her own pregnancy and the unborn child that dwelled in her womb.
"Mom, Mulder. Cam and I are not going to be an X-File. Since we are the agents that investigate the X-Files we will not be subject to this," Will says, not understanding. His tone is that of both anger and him being completely scared.
"Will," Cam says touching Will's hand in only a way that soul mates would...much like Scully and I.
"I know, Cam, but I can't accept this. How the hell can you?" he asks now angered that the woman he loves is actually going against her scientific beliefs, opening her mind to more possibilities...they have switched places.
"Tell us what you need us to do," Cam says looking at us...taking charge of her part of what we need...a major part.
*Cam*
I stare at them all standing in my room. Will standing next to me holding my hand, not wanting to let go, Mulder stares at me with some what of an awe. I think he knows that something is definitely going to happen with this child, with me, and definitely with Will. Scully...she in away knows exactly what I'm about to go through and she stares at me with empathy. She knows something that she's not letting on; they both know something that they aren't letting on to.
I had just given my consent...more or less...to have them conduct this investigation. I had read one too many X-files about pregnant women that gave birth to alien babies or babies with abnormalities that neither science nor Scully could explain. I don't believe the aliens, but for some reason I know that this child is special...not only special in the way that a mother thinks her child is special, but special in a way that only Mulder and Scully knew right now.
"When do you start your investigation?" I ask, trying to control my quivering voice.
Mulder and Scully look at one another and then back at Will and I.
"Right now," Mulder finally says.
"What exactly are you going to investigate," I inquire.
"Yeah, Mom, you have no case here, nothing...just a pregnant Cam. The worst thing that could happen is that we'd get reassigned," Will tells them becoming angry with the two people that were amazingly like him.
"Will, this is something more than nothing. And I know where to start," Mulder says, "Scully, we leave for the airport in half an hour."
Scully stares at Mulder in disbelief and then she cracks a smile, obviously Mulder's display of unpredictability has struck a chord with her memory. They must have done this many times before when they were partners at the FBI.
"Excuse me, Mulder?" Scully says playfully.
"You heard me right," He starts, "We are catching a flight out to DC to go rummaging in the X-Files basement."
With that Mulder walks out the door and heads down the hallway.
"Mom, What about us?" Will questions, furiously.
"Come back to DC, once Cam gets out of the hospital," Scully replies as she flies out the door after her lover and ex-partner...well actually this case would make them unofficial partners again. In what...I'm not certain, but it has to be something that will involve a lot of people.
Will literally falls onto the chair next to my bed. He puts his head between his hands.
"Will, are you okay?" I ask him, staring intently, not caring that I'm the one lying in the hospital bed.
"I'm worried, Cam. Worried about you about this child that is going to becoming into our lives," he says sounding very tired and aged beyond his years.
"You don't want the baby?" I say...my voice starting to quiver.
"No...I just don't want this child to come between us," he tells me reaching for my face...cupping it in his hands.
"Will, this baby, our baby is made out of love...our love and it will never come between us. This child will make us stronger...like your parents," I tell him as he pulls me in close for a kiss.
"God, I love you," he says just before he kisses me.
*Scully*
I never ever thought that I'd be following Mulder half way across the country again. The moment he walked out of my life 100 years ago, I thought that I'd never seen the X-Files again; I thought that I'd never have the passion to investigate the unseen, the paranormal.
He sits next to me on the plane, uncharacteristically quiet. Mulder wrings his hands together and his brow his furrowed. I know that look; he's in deep thought, trying to figure something out.
The plane starts its final decent into DC. Mulder looks over at me, breaking his own thinking and he stares out the window...it's been a long time since he's seen DC...a very long time.
"It's grown a lot," he says in awe. This amuses me. Here sits a man that has seen so many unreal things in his life, witnessed so many bizarre events that even he didn't believe, yet he stares out a plane window over Washington DC in complete awe at finally being home again.
"Yeah, Mulder, it usually does in 100 years of growth," I tell him.
The plane lands with out a hitch and we get off, walking quickly to get a cab.
"The FBI is still in the same place isn't it?" Mulder asks.
"Of course. They've just remodeled it a few times," I tell him.
On the cab ride there Mulder just stares out the window, taking in the sites of his once hometown, but as we got closer and closer to the FBI Headquarters, Mulder began to fidget.
Finally, we arrive. Mulder steps out of the car and stares at the building.
"Come on, Mulder, you couldn't have missed it that much. Would you like me to remind you of
some of the times we had in this building doing background checks on farmers when Kirsch was in charge of us, or maybe even all of the times that we got our asses chewed out for investigating everything on the X-Files," I tell him, reminding him of all of the hell that we went through.
"But, Scully, I met you here," Mulder says, grinning at me. He starts toward the building leaving me staring at him with my mouth wide open. What exactly are we getting into here? I hurry after him, my heels clicking rhythmically on the pavement.
*Mulder*
I stare at the FBI Headquarters, 100 years since I last saw this place, 100 years since I said good-bye to the woman that stands next to me staring at me after I told her that I missed this place because I met her here.
I walk away from her and start towards the front door. I walk up to the glass doors and stare in and finally remember that I can't just walk right in. I haven't been here in over 100 years. The security guards are probably the great great grandsons of the ones that I'd joke with on my way to work everyday for the ten years that I worked on the X-Files, seven of them with Scully.
"Scully, how are we supposed to get in?" I ask her.
"Back door, Mulder," she says already starting around the back.
"Of course, how could I forget our secret way in?" I said remembering the times when we'd actually sneak into the FBI Headquarters...well it wasn't sneaking...it was avoiding certain superiors, namely Kirsch.
Surprisingly the door is still here. Scully tries the handle, shaking it. It appears to be stuck.
"Mulder, it's stuck," she says.
"Are you sure that it isn't one of your pranks? Does Dallas ring a bell?" I say, my tone mockingly.
She jiggles the handle and it finally gives.
"Told you I wasn't faking," Scully says starting towards the basement office that we shared for seven years...and Scully was in for a year without me. I can tell you that the years she was without me and I without her were lonely. The years that I worked on the X-Files without Scully, I had other partners of course, but once I met Scully I knew that I was missing something those years without her.
Finally, we get to the office 'William J.F. Mulder' is written on the door. Below his name is Cam's. At least they both get some credit. I never gave that credit to Scully and I've always regretted that.
"Ready? Mulder?" Scully asks, already turning the doorknob.
I stare at her ready for anything that is behind that door. As long as she's with me everything will be fine in the end. I sure hope that that is what it's like for Will and Cam. Our future stands behind the door...and I'm ready for it.
*Will*
Mercy Hospital, Anaheim California
January 22, 2101
Cam looks beautiful today, the way her brown hair falls in front of her...softly. She's packing her bag and we're heading home. I just stare at her for a moment. Cam stands here before me, amazingly all of the things that should be going through my head; all the worries aren't there. Somehow, deep down I know we'll get through this and end up a happy family.
"Oh my god, Will! I didn't even see you standing there," Cam says looking up from her bag startled.
"Sorry, I scared you," I tell her grabbing the bag that sits next to her.
"I'm ready to leave," Cam says as she heads out the door.
I watch her walk out of the door. She walks with such a confidence and I know that that is one of the reasons I love her. I know that she'll make a great mom, but the way that mom and Mulder were acting I think that they know something that I don't. They are hiding something from us both about our child.
"Cam," I yell after her.
She has already made her way down to the end of the hallway. She turns around.
"Will? I thought you were following me," Cam says, laughing at me running after her down the hallway.
"I didn't think you hated hospitals this much," I tell her as I put my arm around her.
"I just want to get home."
"How are you feeling?" I ask knowing that even if she's tired or sore or sick she'll say she's fine.
"I'm...fine," Cam says echoing the words I knew that she'd say.
"I booked us a flight that leaves in half an hour. I took the liberty of packing your stuff up at the motel," I tell her leading her out to the rental car.
"Only you would be the one that would be able to pack my bags," she tells me suddenly looking tired, possibly nauseous. She puts her hand on my shoulders, trying to steady her balance.
"Cam?" I ask, scared.
"I've got to get used to this morning sickness," she finally says.
"Try all day sickness," I tell her trying to hold back my own laughter.
Cam glares at me, but in a playful way. "You do realize you're the one that got me into this situation," she says.
I give her one of my biggest grins and just nod. I help her into the car and we're off to the airport and on to the life that neither one of us knew was possible.
*Cam*
Washington DC
Hours Later
I stare at the city that I have known almost my entire life. Will is sound asleep on my shoulder, snoring lightly. I smile at the fact that we are going to become parents. I know that Will is going to be a great father. He has the skills for it. Last year we had a case that involved five kids that witnessed their parents' murders. I felt so sorry for those kids, but Will just right in there and made friends with them. The way that he looked at them could make anyone's
heart melt.
Watching the DC skyline underneath us as we descend makes my heart jump for a few seconds. I have always hated flying in plane and now that I'm caring for myself and a child that dwells in my womb, I'm ten times as scared.
I shake Will awake and he looks at me groggily, but his eyes give me a puppy dog look. I had noticed that Mulder gave that same look to Scully the first day that they finally saw one another after 100 yeas of waiting. Don't get me wrong I still find it utterly impossible for it to happen.
"Will, we're home," I tell him.
"Great," he says putting his head back on my shoulder.
"Come on. We've got to see what Mulder and Scully have found," I tell him, trying to make him move off of my shoulder.
The plane lands smoothly and people start to file out of the plane.
Will turns his head and looks at me with a look that I know I'll remember for the rest of my life.
"Cam, I don't want you to get involved in this. You're in a fragile state, you have a child to think about now," he tells me.
"Will, I'm pregnant. It's a very normal thing for a woman. I'm not dying of brain cancer. Besides this case involves both of us and I want to be there at your side," I tell him standing firm in my belief that I'm strong enough to continue on.
He stares at my processing my words and then finally he gives me a huge smile.
"It's going to be hard to get you off the case isn't it?"
"What did you expect me to do? I've got to keep an eye on you to make sure that you don't run off with some pretty blonde," I tell him sweetly.
"Pretty blonde? I like brunettes, Italian brunettes to be exact," he leans over and kisses me as I start to stand up, getting off the plane heading onto one of the biggest cases of our lives.
*Mulder*
X-Files Office
January 22, 2101
I haven't seen this office in years! Files line the walls and there are two desks situated in the center, right next to one another. Maybe they realized what a good position that is for 'Battle Ship.'
I look up at the ceiling and to my surprise there are still faint pencil holes in the ceiling where I placed them the days when Scully wasn't here. Those were the days when I was wondering where the hell she could be, jealous of whoever she was with, and dying to know what she was doing.
I look over at the bulletin board and see that Will has carried on the Mulder tradition of having unexplainable photos on the walls. A yellowed poster is curled up still pinned to the wall. I walk over and gingerly unfold it. It screams I WANT TO BELIEVE. How naive was I to want to believe everything? How naive were both Scully and I to believe that we could save and change the world at the same time?
"Mulder, over here! I've found something," Scully whispers, trying not to disturb the ghosts of the past.
"What is it?" I ask her already starting to read the file before she starts to talk.
"Do you remember the case where I ditched you to go with Spender half way across the country?" she asks, thinking I wouldn't remember it.
"I thought I had lost you on that one, Scully. Of course I remember it," I tell her looking at her with the sincerest look I could ever give a woman.
"He told me that he held the key to life in his hands, he held the key to immortality. Mulder, he claimed to have found the Fountain of Youth," she tells me handing over the file as she does so.
"Are you trying to tell me that we've got to find Spender?" I ask already knowing that I'd be packing my bags again...but then again they weren't unpacked.
"Mulder, this is it. He is the man that can help us. Even though he was the devil 100 years ago...we have no one else to turn to. I don't want to live forever, Mulder. I don't think that Will or Cam or their child wants to either," she tells me already grabbing her coat and suitcase.
"Where to?" I ask holding the case file tightly as I follow her out of the office.
"His home, in Maryland," Scully replies.
We are now heading off, searching for the man that we hated, the man that we feared, but now he has become the man that will be able to save us...all of us. I hope.
*Cam*
I stare taking in my breath as Will and I walk closer to the front doors of the J. Edgar Hoover Building. But literally running from the side door is Mulder and Scully. I look at Will and then back at them quickly, deciding that we too would be following them rather quickly.
"Mulder, Scully!" I yell hoping that they'll stop and wait for us.
Scully stops and yells to Mulder to stop. Will and I run up to them, breathlessly. We all stare at one another; breathing hard, not ready to talk just yet.
Finally, Will takes a deep breath in and utters, "Where are you two off to in such a hurry?"
I guess I'd have to laugh at the way that he said that. He sounded like a father scolding his 16 year-old daughter for running off with her older boyfriend.
"We know where to go, we know who to talk to. And this person can fix all of it, hopefully," Scully says already walking towards a car that Mulder anxiously holds the door open to.
"Let's go. It's now or never," Mulder says, pushing us into the back seat of the car.
I watch, as the FBI building becomes a small speck behind us. Everyone is silent, possibly thinking about the task at hand. I stare at Will and then at Mulder. They are so alike, yet so different. I know that Mulder must have felt the way that Will does now. Just the sudden shock and surprise that the woman he loves is expecting his miracle child. I'd have to say that Will was probably more of a miracle that our child because Scully was told that she couldn't have children...Will and I were just hoping that we wouldn't get pregnant.
He looks to be in such a deep thought. All of them do. I wonder what runs through Scully's mind, Mulder's too. They had such a life before and to regain almost everything that they used to have must be an amazing thing for them.
I myself would never want to live forever. Death is one of the beauties of life...you don't have to watch your children grow old and die, or your friends that you knew since they were five. I can't even start to imagine what that must have been like for them. I don't want to grasp the possibility that they are who they say they because of that fact.
We pull up to an abandoned warehouse. Across the street a faded sign reads "Lone Gunmen Publishers". Lone Gunmen? What kind of name is that for a publishing company?
Mulder and Scully appear to be solemn as they get out of the car, staring at the sign across the street, perhaps remembering of a time when life was good...friendship plentiful.
Will grabs my hand tightly, not wanting to let go. I fear that if I ever did let him go neither one of us would be the same.
We are here now, marching towards the man that holds all of our secrets, the mystery to everything and we have nothing to offer, but our pitiful selves. Mulder and Scully have the resentment that I can feel now in the air as we start up the long and spiraling steps...walking towards the answers to it all...to everything...to the truth.
*Mulder*
I never thought that I'd be back here, staring at the Gunmen's place. I remember the years when they helped us on so many cases. I can't even imagine how they comforted Scully after I left. I turn around and stare at the warehouse. Not exactly the best place to live, but in our investigations of the X-Files we found out that during his life he hid out here. This is the only place that I know that he'd be now, waiting for us.
It has always been a cat and mouse game between us. The way that he just stared at Scully and I all of the years, maybe wishing that he had a love like that. I'm convinced now that he had an affair with my mother...one that when she broke it off hurt him for the rest of his life. I hope that
I'm not a product of that affair or Samantha either.
"Mulder, let's go bust this guy," Scully whispers tugging on my hand.
"Let's go," I tell her starting to walk into the warehouse. Cam and Will follow behind us, watching as we, the more experience agents, walk a path that we've walked so many other times.
A creak is heard echoing through the warehouse and all of us stop listening as evil himself descends the stairs, giving him away.
"I was getting worried. I thought that your investigation skills might have gone rusty," he says, taking a cigarette out of his pocket and lighting it.
"You knew we were coming?" Cam innocently pipes up. She has so much to learn about this evil man that is trying to cling to any shred of dignity that he might have left.
Spender looks over the four of us, stopping and staring at Will, "You look a lot like your father, but you've got the stubborn Irish eyes from your mother," he says to Will.
"Who the hell are you?" Will asks getting angry.
"Mulder, you haven't told him yet?" he says looking at me, grinning evilly.
"Will, this man is..." I start trailing off not knowing what to say or how to describe pure evil itself.
"I'm a man of many years, of many lives. One that has died more times than I'd like to count. I hold the secret to everything, to your lives, all of them. The child that dwells within Camille...that child is special...very special," he says, his voice getting softer with every word, sounding like a prophet.
"What about my child?" Cam asks, both scared and defensive.
"Your child, my dear Cam, your child will live forever while Will, and Mulder and Scully have a choice to stop their immortality this child will not, unless..." he stops, teasing all of us. He takes a drag on his cigarette.
"Unless what?" Will questions outraged.
An evil grin comes to his twisted lips. He starts to respond, but closes his mouth...giving us the wait of a lifetime.
CONTINUED IN PART FOUR --