The Moonlight Hotel

152 Evergreen Ave.

Advance, VA

11:37 PM

Doggett and Scully went by the Thompson house twice trying to get a hold of Caitlin. She was out with friends 'mourning', so after the second try, with their stomachs empty, the agents decided to call it a night. They stopped by a fast food restaurant for a burger or two then settled in to their rooms at the only hotel in town.

Scully could have used these quiet moments to relax or even watch a little TV, but she sat on the end of the bed typing away at her laptop, the screen getting a blurrier with each passing moment. Her eyelids were gaining weight, and she rubbed sleep out of her eyes every now and then. There was no sound in the room except for the steady clicks of her fingers dancing over the keyboard and the occasional crunching of potato chips in her mouth. She did not know why, but for some reason the baby had a strange craving for sour cream and onion Lays.

Scully paused for a moment, and she looked over the crime scene and autopsy pictures she had scattered across the bed. There was a lot of information she needed to get down, and it helped her to organize her thoughts if she typed the crime report as she went along with the case. When she turned her attention back to the screen, her eye immediately caught the flashing message that told her she had a new email.

Curious, she opened up her inbox to see what had arrived. It was her personal account, and she usually did not get much email. That happens when one doesn't have many friends. She opened the message, and it read:

To: Dana Scully (dscully@brasnet.org)

From: "Sex God" Ringo Langly (joeylives@fethcom.net)

Subject: Hot Spots

Byers just got word that there is a hot bed of UFO activity in the Midwest right now. Most of it seems to be centered around Missouri, but there seems to be some of it down in Arkansas as well. I always take Arkansas sightings with a grain of salt (they tend to get anal probing confused with…okay, I don't have a punchline…). Anyway, we're heading over there to see if we can pick up anything on Mulder. Just thought I'd let you know that we haven't given up on our buddy yet.

-Langly

Scully smiled weakly. What few friends she did have were loyal ones, at least. Still, that did not ease the emptiness inside her. It wouldn't change the fact that her best friend was still missing. Her eyelids were still heavy as boulders, and she let them close for a moment. As she did, she laughed at her weakness. She could almost feel him right there with her…

"Sleep well?" Scully asked. She was standing in Doggett's motel room as he straightened his tie in the mirror.

"Well enough," he replied. He struggled and fought with the knot, and the knot kept winning.

"That's good," Scully said.

"Aw, damn it," Doggett said, yanking the tie off his neck. "Will you excuse me for a moment?" he said.

"Sure," Scully replied as Doggett walked into the bathroom. He shut the door behind him, but she could still hear his muffled swearing through it. She chuckled at her partner and sat down on the bed. His room was about as nice as hers, which is to say it wasn't that nice at all. At least it was clean, which is more than she could say for a lot of hotel rooms she had been in over the years. It was funny though; she could always tell when a room had high smoker traffic, because the cigarette smell would never go away.

Wait…she thought. The cigarette smell was strong, awfully strong. It was too strong for it to be days, or even hours old. Over the years, she had developed an anxiety over cigarette smoke, and she was alert as the hairs of her neck stood on end. She glanced around the room suspiciously, and immediately her eyes fell on the ashtray on the nightstand. The tray was covered in ashes, and a cigarette was still smoldering in it.

"Doggett, I didn't know you smoked," Scully said. She had moved over to the bathroom door, but she did not take her eyes off the smoking cigarette.

"I don't," Doggett called back.

"Well, who was just in here smoking?" Scully asked.

"Uh, no one. No one's been in my room unless the maid came in while I went for a morning jog."

No maid would put out a cigarette in a guest's room. No maid would discard her empty carton in the trash without taking the bag out either. Scully realized this as her eyes fell into the brown tin. On top of some tissues and a paper towel was an empty cigarette box. The brand?

They were Morleys.

"Where the hell is he?" Scully muttered, looking around the room again. He obviously wasn't in there anymore, and she stormed into the hall, her eyes darting back and forth, left and right, all around trying to catch sight of the demon. "Where the hell are you?" she muttered again. The hotel lobby was empty except for the receptionist; there weren't many people staying at the hotel. Scully walked up the woman behind the desk and, frantic, asked, "Did you see a man just now smoking a cigarette?" She noticed the smoldering butt in the ashtray.

"He went that way, Agent Scully," the woman said, pointing towards the doors. Scully almost kicked them down as she stepped outside like a hurricane battering against a helpless coastal town.

"All right, where are you?" Scully asked. The cold morning breeze didn't answer her, so she shouted again. "Where the hell are you, you cigarette-smoking-son-of-a-bitch?"

"Why, I'm right here, Dana." The voice was like spiders crawling down the back of your neck as you sit in a dark abandoned barn, waiting for day to break because you're scared of what's in the night. It was the voice of a manipulative dictator, a child tearing the wings off flies, and the serpent that tempted Eve.

"What the hell do you want?" Scully asked, turning around slowly. Her stare was cold, intense, and her hand itched to reach for her gun and wipe that smug grin off his cigarette puffing face.

"I want only what you want. For you to be happy." He drug on the cigarette, the smoke billowing around his head like a warped, twisted halo.

"How about you give me a good reason not to kill you where you stand?"

"All right," he said coolly. "Look behind you."

"This is some kind of trick."

"No. No trick, Agent Scully. Just look."

Scully, suspicious, knew better than to trust him, to trust Lucifer after his fall. But his craft was manipulation; he was a master of it. By tempting her curiosity, he got her eyes to glance over her shoulder. "What the…?" she muttered, staring up at what had once been the hotel. Now, instead of the Moonlight Hotel, she saw a government building--sleek, metallic, black glass all around it. It seemed to stretch up for miles and miles and touch the surface of the sun.

As she stood, staring in awe and disbelief, the smoking man walked up to her and placed his hand gently on her shoulder, as if he was comforting a small child. "You know, Mulder's in there."

"You lie. You're a liar," Scully said. She defied the lump in her throat and kept her voice from cracking.

"No, I'm not. I'm telling you the truth. The truth, Agent Scully, isn't that what you still seek? Isn't that what Mulder has devoted—squandered—his life to finding? Why, what would he think if you turned your back on something you have both suffered so much for?" His voice had a practiced rhythm to it, as if he dreamed night and day of just messing with her head and turning her life upside down.

"What's this about?"

"I told you. It's about your happiness, Dana. Having Mulder back will make you happy, won't it? Go to the fifteenth floor. He's at the end of the hall."

"It's a trap."

"It's the truth. If I was you, I wouldn't keep him waiting." The smoking man took a long, eternal drag on his cigarette before he added, "He might not be there for long."

For one of the few times in her life, Agent Scully threw all rational thought aside, and she bolted through the doors of the building. She could see no people in sight, and she knew she had just walked into a trap, but that did not matter to her as her feet landed on the flight of stairs that seemed to twist and wind upwards for eternity. She ran up them, neither her high heels nor her ever-growing belly slowing her down in the least. Even though each flight she passed made the burdensome baby inside of her feel heavier and heavier, she kept going until finally, exhausted and panting, she reached the fifteenth floor.

At the end of the hallway, some thirty feet from her, she could see a shadow. It was a man, but she could not make out his face. He was Mulder's height though, and he was standing the way Mulder always stood. His body twitched when she laid eyes on him, and she knew he recognized her too.

"Mulder!" she shouted, and suddenly her strength was renewed. "Mulder, I'm here!" She began running again, stumbling as she went but she kept going, towards the figure at the end of the hall. With each step she took, with each gasping breath she drew in, the figure, the man she knew was Mulder, kept getting farther and farther away. Still, she pressed on. After much persistence, it seemed he was getting nearer. She was almost there, but he was still cloaked in shadows. She ran faster, and finally she was getting somewhere. She reached her hand out to touch his, and he reached out his in return. She was almost there. She could almost touch him.

"No!" she shouted. "No, damn it, no!" she shouted as hands, hands like snakes choking a mouse grabbed her and drug her backwards down the hall. "No!" she pleaded. All the hands belonged to men dressed as doctors. She did not recognize any of them, and she didn't care what they wanted. "No! I want to see him! I need to see him!" she shouted at them. "Damn it, can't you understand me?" she shouted right in one of the men's faces.

"I can understand you, Dana, but who are you talking about?" the doctor asked.

"I'm talking about him!" she said. She looked up to where the figure was standing, and she realized he was gone. Like a snowflake melting in her hand, he was there, and then he wasn't. "No," she gasped. "No, this can't be. This can't be real. This isn't happening," she muttered, biting her lip as all of her hope died a slow and agonizing death.

"Shh, Dana, it's all right," another man reassured her. He was dressed as a doctor too. "You're just having hallucinations from the drugs we gave you. You'll be fine. We're just going to take you to the delivery room and get your baby to you safe and sound."

"What are you…" Scully started to ask, but then she looked down. Her belly had swollen in size to three times what it had been, and she realized she was on a stretcher being carted into a white washed, empty looking room. The men stood around her, scaring her and terrifying her beyond words, but they all assured her everything would be all right. Everything would be fine, they said over and over until it no longer sounded like words.

"Come on, Dana, push!" a nurse said.

Pain unlike any Scully had felt before overcame her. Not knowing what else to do, she did as she was told. It was like someone had taken a wrench, shoved it inside of her, and started pulling at whatever it could get a hold of. She pushed for all she was worth, and each time it felt like everything inside of her was going to come out with the baby. Then, as quickly as it began, it was all over.

"Oh, what a lovely little boy you have, Mom," the nurse said as she wrapped the baby in blankets.

Scully laughed and cried at the same time. There was her baby, safe and sound, being cleaned up by the nurse. "Can I…can I hold him?" she asked. Each passing second seemed like a lifetime as long as the baby was not in her arms.

"Yes, of course," the nurse said, smiling like the sweetest of angels. She handed the tiny bundle to Scully, and the new mother cried. She was so happy. She knew it would be a blessed occasion, but she had no idea she would feel like this. It was the happiest single moment in her entire life, and she stared down at her precious little miracle with such awe and amazement. Just holding him in her arms was unlike anything she had ever experienced, and that made her cry even harder.

"I promise, I'll do my best to raise and take care of you, little one. I'll love you and cherish you forever," she said, stumbling over the words as she choked on tears. She began to pull the blanket away so she could marvel at his tiny, perfect face. "I love you, son," she said, and she pulled the blanket away.

Staring back at her were two bulbous, cat like eyes. They were black, black as oil, and they made it clear that this baby had no soul. The baby, seemingly producing it out of thin air, lit up a cigarette and stuck it in his mouth. "I love you too, Mom," he said, and laughed like a maniac howling at the moon.

Scully shrieked as she popped up from her bed. She almost knocked her laptop to the floor. Her shirt and pants were stuck to her body with cold sweat, and her arms and legs trembled and shook all over. She rubbed her head and sighed. "It was all a dream, Dana," she said, realizing she had dozed off while working. She glanced at the clock and saw it was getting close to one in the morning. "It was all a dream," she said once more, even though she knew no words could stop her heart from beating up her chest. She reached over to her nightstand, her hand searching for the cup of water she had set there several hours earlier. Her hands fumbled the cup, and it dropped to the floor. It was empty.

"That's okay. I wanted a Pepsi anyway," she muttered, and she stood up. When she did, she noticed that on the nightstand, somebody had left a map of the small town. She didn't waste any time over it, and she made sure her key was in her pocket, and she stepped out into the hall.

"Good morning, Agent Scully," a half-dead Doggett said.

"Hello," she replied. "What are you doing out here?"

"I couldn't sleep and thought I could go for a Pepsi. Yourself?"

"Same thing. Why couldn't you sleep?"

Doggett sighed. "Nightmare. You?"

"Same thing," Scully said. She wanted to smile. They said nothing as they both walked down the hall. They each felt less sluggish with each step, and they were fully alert by the time they came back their doors with Pepsis in hand.

"You know, there's not really much point in us going back to our rooms to lose a battle to insomnia," Scully said as Doggett was trying to find his key. "I could really use some fresh air."

"You read my mind," Doggett said with a smile. "Where do you want to go?"

Remembering the map and what Jason told her, Scully smiled back at him. "Oh, I have an idea."