Chapter Three

All other information in first chapter.

Please R&R:)

*****

I race into Mulder's room my heart pounding. I fear the worst. But then I see him. Sitting there on the bed with a smirk on his face, trying not to laugh.

"What? This thing got uncomfortable on my chest...I didn't think I needed it any more," Mulder says...in his sarcastic tone that I had grown to love in the other life. I look at him, completely shocked.

I race to his bedside not remembering that it is not the same Mulder that I had once known and been married too. I take him in my arms and hug him. "Mulder, don't do that to me," I say trying to keep the tears from forming in my eyes.

"I've only met you once before and you act like you know me," Mulder whispers. I pull away quickly from the embrace that I had started, realizing my mistake.

"I'm sorry," I barely utter.

He looks at me. His beautiful hazel eyes looking into my soul. I can tell that Mulder is thinking of something, trying to put together everything that has happened.

"This seems really strange, but I feel some sort of connection to you. Like I've known you much longer than a few hours...more like a lifetime," Mulder finally says.

I stare at him and then I start to cry. And I never cry. Mulder looks at me shocked.

"What? What is it Scully?" Mulder tries to comfort me.

Through the tears I see a tiny flame in his eyes, a flame of the man that he once was to me in a different life. Looking at that flame that is imbedded deep in his eyes makes something click within my own soul and I stop crying.

"Mulder, I think I know who killed your wife and son and I know exactly how you'll track him down," I inform him.

"Who?" Mulder asks looking in my eyes for the truth. A truth that we are both desperately after.

J. Edgar Hoover Building
Washington DC
June 3, 1991

I silently walk down the deserted hallway that I once remember as the office that Mulder and I worked in. I reach the door that and stop abruptly looking at it.

There is no name on the door. I start to turn the doorknob, but the door opens quickly and before me stands a man that I know, a man that had become my friend during the six months that Mulder was missing. There before me stood Agent Doggett, looking at me with is beady blue eyes.

"They said that somebody would be coming down here," he tells me gruffly.

"Agent Doggett? What are you doing down here?" I question wanting to know what a skeptical man like him is doing down in the X-Files office.

"I'm not an agent, Agent...what is your name?" he asks.

"Scully, Dana Scully," I tell him.

"Agent Scully, I'm a police officer with the DCPD. I'm here down in this office looking for a file. They said that they'd send someone down here to help me," he says going back in through the open door.

I follow him through the door. My breath gets caught in my throat as I look at the tiny office. It is completely packed with crap. Tons and tons of files are all over the shelves and flooded onto the desk. "I WANT TO BELIEVE" screams to be read on the bulletin board and I smile. Someone had that poster down here long before Mulder ever did. It brings back so many memories that I had started to forget.

"I wasn't sent down here to help you. I'm a new agent with the FBI and I was curious...I was taking a tour of the basement," I tell him making an excuse for being down in the office.

"Well, Agent Scully, maybe you should help me. You probably know more about these files than I would."

"What exactly are you looking for?" I question.

"A case that involves an abduction," he says bluntly starting to shift through the files.

"An alien abduction?" I ask, not believing that he's looking for that.

"No, not an alien abduction," he says annoyed, "A kidnapping case of little girls. We think that we've found the kidnapper."

I start to look through the files and see that they are indeed X-Files. Tons that I have never ever seen. Some that I bet Mulder wouldn't even believe.

"I don't think that you will find those files down here. These are files that deal with the paranormal," I tell Doggett starting to leave the office.

"Yeah you are right. Thanks for your help," Doggett says leaving the office. I watch him go and shake my head. He too had chosen a different life. I couldn't believe that. He probably was never part of the military or the NYPD.

I start to look through the files and shake my head. Tons of files from the 1940's of alien abductions. If Mulder was the Mulder that he once was he'd be all over these cases. Devouring them, learning from them, trying to find his sister, but he doesn't have a sister that was abducted by aliens in this life.

Thinking of Mulder...I remember that I have to go and pick him up at the hospital. I walk over the I WANT TO BELIEVE poster and carefully roll it up taking it with me. I walk out of the door, turning off the lights behind me. Walking away from the office I spent years in, but then I remember that those years haven't existed yet. I am more determined now than ever before to find the truth...to return to my other life and save Mulder...and to hold my little boy in my arms again. It all seems like a dream. A dream that I want to wake up from.

J. Edgar Hoover Building
Washington DC
June 8, 1991

"Scully, Why is this so important and why am I blindfolded?" Mulder asks annoyed.

"We are almost there," I tell him guiding him around boxes and files that are scattered throughout the basement hallway. I'm leading Mulder in the X-Files office.

"Why am I letting you, a person that I barely know, take me somewhere blindfolded. I'll probably get jumped or something. You do realize that I work for the CIA, don't you?" Mulder asks, using his sarcastic tone that I love.

"Believe me Mulder I don't think that you will get jumped in this kind of place. You'd better not at least," I reassure him.

We finally reach the X-Files office. I pause before the door, taking a deep breath before I open it. I slowly open the door as it creaks slightly. The room is completely dark. I take off Mulder's blindfold and then quickly turn on the lights.

I watch his face as he stares around the room, taking in the atmosphere of this very room. The room is clean. Two small desks sit in the middle of the room. A huge bulletin board with pictures of aliens, monsters, and doctor charts cling to the cork. The office is basically the same way that I remembered it. The same way that I had left it in 2002, but I had restored it to that.

"What is this?" Mulder asked amazed.

"Do you recognize it at all Mulder?" I ask, hoping maybe that deep down he knows about this office...remembers it from another life.

He stares...again looking, taking in the small basement office. I watch him and I can see that in his beautiful hazel the spark that I saw before in the hospital. Maybe he, too, is having a glimpse of the life he could have led, but doesn't know it yet.

"Scully, This seems so familiar and I don't know why it does. Before this day I've never placed my foot inside the FBI building, but for some reason I feel like I've been here before...right here. Spent a lot of time here. I know that this may sound strange coming from the mouth of CIA agent, but this has to mean something, something very big," Mulder says, completely and entirely sincere.

"Mulder, you don't know how much I've wanted to hear you say that," I tell him trying to not run up and hug him.

I watch him as he starts to walk around the room. Looking at every little thing and then he picks up a file, an x-file and starts to read. I watch as his brow furrows as he reads deeper and deeper into the file. I'm experiencing history here...watching Mulder read his first X-File. Watching him makes me want to start our long awaited quest for the truth. It makes me want to go home again and see my baby boy. I just about break down in tears, wanting to touch my son again, my little miracle, my William.

"What?" Mulder asks looking up at me concerned.

"Nothing, I'm fine," I whisper looking at Mulder, uttering my famous 'I'm fine' phrase for the first time...and that probably won't be the last time.

"Let's go," Mulder says taking a few files with him to read and to devour.

Scully Home
June 15, 1991

I walk quickly up to my parents' front door. Everything is quiet. The sun has just begun to set and my parents wanted to see me. I knock on the door, but I hear no movement from within the house. And there are no lights on inside. I knock again, but still nothing.

"Mom? Dad?" I anxiously call out to my parents. I try the door, but it is locked. I walk around the back of the home, trying the other door, but I do not prevail.

I run back to my car, now desperate and reach for my newly purchased cell phone. I dial quickly and hear the phone ringing...ringing. "Come on, Mulder pick up," I say to myself.

But he doesn't.

Leaves crunch behind me. I turn and see the man that I despised in the other life as well as this one. Before me stood the smoking man. To see him twice in less than a month both surprised and scared me.

"Where are my parents?" I ask, trying to stay calm.

"They are safe," he says taking out a Morely and lighting it up.

"Where are they?" I hiss at him. Wanting to find my parents.

He smiles...his lips pulled up in a smirk. "Dana, you don't trust me. Why is it so hard to?" He whispers...with his evil voice.

"I can't trust the devil," I pause looking at him, wanting to see my parents, "Where are my parents?"

He starts to walk off.

"ANSWER ME!" I scream after him. He stops abruptly and turns to face me.

"I only want what's best for everyone," he replies, his mouth turning up into an evil smirk again. He takes a drag on his cigarette.

"You only want the thing that's best for your sorry self," I spit the words out.

"Why do you think Mulder trusts you?" he asks.

I glare at him. I don't want to respond.

"He trusts you because he wants something from you. He wants something that now one else can give him," he answers for me.

"I don't believe you. I can't believe you," I reply...whispering.

He laughs his evil laugh and walks away from me. All of the possibilities that he has stirred in my head are unbelievable. I start to wonder if maybe he is right. I start to doubt the Mulder I knew and love I start to doubt the Mulder that I know now.