Chapter Seven
All other information in chapter one
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Hours Later
Middle of No Where
England
Mulder sits silently watching the road, driving rather quickly. His mind is not in this vehicle, I don't even think that it is in this country.
The sun starts to set, throwing its beautiful orange and yellow to the darkening skies. I look out at the countryside. Not much is out here. You could kill some one out here and no one would ever hear the scream, find the body. Just thinking that makes chills go up my spine.
"Mulder, Are you okay?" I finally ask breaking the long and unending silence.
Mulder stares ahead at the road, obviously thinking.
"What I said back there about what I thought happened to you and to my mother; it's a hunch. And that's all it is," Mulder says.
"Would you care to tell me what that hunch is?" I ask, wanting to know what is going on inside his brain.
"Scully...It's just a hunch. But..." Mulder stops talking, searching for words. "Trust me, Scully. I can't tell you now."
The silence falls on the car once again. Nothing. I hate the silence. It is the worst thing. You never know what the other person is thinking. Especially, Mulder. In the other life we could just look at one another and know immediately what the other was thinking, feeling, but I'm afraid that we haven't gotten those looks down yet. Heck, it took us almost four years to get the first ones down.
A huge house looms in the distance. It's mammoth shadow cast on the green yard in front. Both Mulder and I intake our breathes quickly, not believing it.
A blank look comes over Mulder's face. I can tell instantly that something is wrong.
"Mulder?" I question in my doctor tone.
He takes his eyes off the road and looks at me blankly, his eyes searching. "I've been here before," he whispers.
I stare at Mulder completely shocked. "What are you talking about, Mulder? You couldn't have been here before," I tell him, not believing myself.
Mulder pulls the car up next a huge tree at the end of the long drive way. He turns off the car and starts to get out. I place my hand on his shoulder, trying to get an answer out of him.
He just looks over at me; his eyes full of fear. We both get out of the car. The sun had finally gone down and the darkness was starting to set in.
The huge house looms over us as we get closer and closer, trying to go quietly. Nothing appears to be inside and there are no lights on.
"Looks like nobody's home," Mulder says in his monotone voice.
We reach the massive door and stop.
"Mulder you don't have to do this," I tell him.
"But I have to," Mulder responds.
I raise my fist to knock on the door, but Mulder pulls out something to pick the lock.
"Mulder...you could lose your job for that," I nag.
"Nobody's home, Scully. Besides the guy has the same last name as me. He must a relative. Just think of it as bending the rules a little," he whispers as he picks the lock.
"Bending the rules gets you in trouble," I mumble under my breath.
He opens the door. The smell of a mold greets our awaiting nostrils. I stare at the huge opening way in the house. Everything is covered in sheets, nothing...no one is here.
"Mulder?" I ask.
Mulder walks further into the house. I scurry behind him, not wanting to be alone in the entryway.
He silently walks up the stairs, his memory leading him to a small room. My heels click in the wooden hallway. Too loud for my comfort. Mulder reaches the dresser and opens up the second drawer from the bottom. Nothing appears to be in the drawer.
"Mulder what are you doing?" I ask looking over his shoulder.
He lifts up a wooden plank from the drawer and reaches for the object beneath it.
"Scully, how would I have known that was there if I'd never been here before?"
I start wondering the exact same thing as Mulder starts to page through the photo album, a history that neither one of us knew existed.
Mulder pages through the photo album. It has pictures of Mulder as a young boy, each year a picture of him growing more and more into the man he is. There are newspaper clippings from his early high school basketball days and finally clippings from college news and the CIA. It is a scrapbook of his life. It ends with a picture of his family, taken less than three months ago.
He puts the book down and continues to dig through the drawer. He pulls out another scrapbook and opens the cover.
"Scully," he says averting my attention to him.
I look at the scrapbook and see that it is one for me. It starts with baby pictures, follows me through my childhood, and high school, straight through my academic career at med school and even Quantico.
"Mulder how can that be?" I ask him.
Mulder puts the scrapbook down and sits staring at the wall, thinking trying to put everything together.
"CRASH!" Something falls out in the hall. Both Mulder and I look up from our dazes, reaching instinctively for our guns. I pull mine out and walk carefully to the bedroom door, my weapon poised and ready to fire.
A man appears in front of the door.
"I'm with the FBI and I'm armed. Walk out of the shadow slowly," I tell the man forcefully.
The man puts up his arms in self-defense, "Please don't shoot. I'm not going to harm you," the man says with a British accent.
Mulder puts down his gun first and walks over to the man. The man steps into the light and shows his distinct features. He has unmistakable hazel eyes and a nose slightly larger than normal. His hair is graying around the temples, but I could definitely tell that the man was related to Mulder.
"Who are you?" Mulder asks, most likely seeing the resemblance.
The room is completely quiet. All three of us holding our breathes for the answer that we didn't expect to be coming.
"Fox...I'm your father," the man barely whispers.
Mulder and I stare at the man, tons of questions going through both of our minds, including what exactly this man was doing here and why there are two scrapbooks, one for each of us.
"How is that possible?" Mulder asks the man standing in front of him.
"Fox, I don't think I need to explain to you the process of the birds and the bees," the man says with a thick British accent.
I try to hold back some sort of a laugh, but I can't help myself.
"Scully, what exactly do you find so amusing?" Mulder asks getting madder by the second.
"I...um...I can see where you get your sense of humor from," I tell him.
"Dana Scully, I'm pleased to meet you finally," Mulder's so called dad tells me.
"How do you know who I am?" I question, getting paranoid.
He chuckles and walks slowly over to draped chair in the corner.
"Ah," he starts like an a storyteller about to tell his greatest story ever told, "I've been watching your career from the day that you started the FBI, even before in medical school. You have always seemed to be an intriguing person and I always wanted to know more about the woman that my son would become involved with," he stops hacking a cough that could wake the dead from a peaceful slumber.
"Are you all right, sir?" I question.
Mulder still hasn't said much. He just looks at the man in awe. Most likely trying to find any resemblance to him. I can see Mulder in the man's face, especially around the nose. And the eyes...those are Mulder's captivating hazel orbs.
Mulder's father gets up and walks over to Mulder. Mulder backs away from the man and holds up the scrap book in self-defense.
"What is this? What do you want from me?" Mulder asks screaming at the man.
"Fox, I'm dying," he reveals.
"Why do you think I care? Why have you led us on this wild goose chase into England?" inquires Mulder.
"I didn't lead you on this goose chase. I never asked you to come. I didn't leave the clues. I just knew you were coming," Mulder's father finishes.
"How inviting," Mulder mumbles.
"I want you to carry on the family legacy," the old man whispers.
"Which is what? A damn conspiracy that in the end will kill off any family that I have left, including Scully, my partner that I trust with my life?" Mulder spits out at the man.
"You get your spit fire from your mother," the man says, remembering the times.
"My mother is still alive," states Mulder.
"No she's not and you know it. That woman that you've called 'mom' for all these years was just a cover-up of the conspiracy, the work against my life's crusade," he says prophetically.
"Which is what?" I ask breaking the tension between the two men.
"Medical experiments with alien human hybrids," the man says with a twinkle in his deep hazel eyes.
Another page of the book has been opened, another page in this long glimpse that will no doubted lead me to the very end of my own quest, of Mulder's quest which involves the people that he and I so desperately fought against in the other life. Mulder's blood splattered on their tainted hands. This was the beginning of something that neither Mulder nor I knew was coming...it was the beginning of the end.
Mulder and I glare at the smoking man. I can't believe this man. He just seems to love coming and going as he pleases all over the world.
"What is this all about?" Mulder's father asks somewhat shocked at Mulder's reaction to the smoking man.
"Sir, Mulder has somewhat of a history with this man, as do I, but it is a bad history," I inform his father.
The smoking man takes a drag on his cigarette. He is way to calm, too content for the work that he does. I study the man that stands before me. He once told Mulder that he watched presidents die and he was not afraid to die, but if he died then the truth would die with him.
"Fox, Dana, you are so close to the end of this," The smoking man hoarsely says.
"I don't understand," Mulder states, "How can we be almost to the end of this? There is so much more to investigate, so much more to see."
"Don't you understand, Mulder, this is all in your head," the man says, his lips curling in a somewhat wicked smile.
"All in my head?" Mulder asks sarcastically. "Just like this entire place? Or maybe even Scully?"
I look at Mulder hard, trying to figure out just what exactly is going on here. If this is all in Mulder's head, then what am I doing here? I can't believe that this would all be in either on of our heads.
"What do you mean?" I ask the smoking man.
Mulder's father suddenly fades from the room much like a ghost fading from the darkened old picture that was long ago taken.
"Dana, you know exactly what I mean," he says, his voice quivering.
The entire rooms starts to spin and I become lightheaded. My legs collapse beneath my body and I feel myself falling to the ground. I watch as Mulder disappears from my view for the final time.
The smoking man stands over me, laughing at the misfortune of my life, the life that I had come to know.
Suddenly the room goes completely black.
All is still. My body floats through both time and space into an unknown world. A bright light hovers over my head and I struggle to open my eyes.
"Scully?" Mulder's voice breaks through the fog.
I start to come to, my body completely tired. Beeping of the machines takes on a rhythmic pattern. I don't want to open my eyes. It takes too much strength, a strength that I can't seem to find in my body.
"C'mon Scully," Mulder whispers.
I finally open my eyes. He is blurry at first, but I can see his beautiful facial features and his burning hazel eyes. Mulder begins to smile, it broadening as I open my eyes further.
"Mulder?" I whisper, my voice very hoarse.
"Yeah, I'm here," he reassures.
I begin to look around. The room looks a lot like Mulder's room in 2003, the one that he died in. I strain to look out of the window and see that there is snow on the ground and some more snow slowly falling.
"Where am I?" I ask not completely understanding.
"In Georgetown. You passed out in our kitchen and hit your head. I rushed to the hospital and I almost lost you. Will is at your mom's," Mulder tells me.
I'm back to the future.
"You look like you are in a daze, Scully," Mulder says looking at me and laughing.
"I had a really strange dream; you died and I went back in time to try and go through life with the man that you could have been."
"Was he as good looking as I am?" he asks, still laughing.
"He was cuter," I tease.
I stare into Mulder's eyes and realize that I would love this man in any life, including one that I was thrown into. Him and I were always meant to be. In this life and the next. He will always be my soul mate, my partner to the very end. I smile at Mulder. All is well now and I'm happy to be home. I'm going to embrace this life and live it to the fullest and I sure hope Mulder and I will together.
"Hey Scully?" Mulder playfully asks.
"What?"
"Do you remember the time when I was dead?"
"Yeah, that was a strange situation," We both laugh. All is well now. Mulder is a friend that has left footsteps on my heart.
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FIN