Just You and Me
Electrified by the revelation I had in the chapel – Scully, I owe you this one: haunting one God's temple can save a soul – I was fully back in productive tracks.
On my interpretation of the scribbled clue I've put Skinner's team in motion – bless Walter's soul, and please, Scully's God, help him – and while they were getting information via their proper channels, I came back home, hoping to seek out more leads on my own.
I wasn't that confident to step inside our safe nest, afraid to get overwhelmed and knocked out by the indisputable absence of Scully in the house.
I have to be brave, I have to focus on what I have to do. I have to be brave, I have to focus on what I have to do.
Repeating over and over the mantra in my mind, I enter.
"Don't panic. It's me, Jackson," a loud voice says. "I'm upstairs."
Jackson? William? How could it be?
I'm rushing up the stairs and I find him in the baby room, standing by the crib, squeezing and stroking the doll.
I switch the light on, and I admire him, tall, smiley and incredibly healthy.
"I'm glad you've reconnected with that doll. It was once gifted to you. This toy has a long story, you know. Anyway, I can tell you another time. What are you doing here?"
"Long or short story?"
"I'm running out of time, Will… Jack…er, son. Can I call you Son?"
"Yeah, Daddy Fox. Uh, just Fox?"
"Sure. I… I don't know where to start. Scul… er, Dana, your birth mom, she's pregnant. You'll have a sister, Son. Soon, very soon."
"Sister? Wow, future kickass of a girl!"
"Like her mom, I hope so." And, after a couple of worried seconds, "Hope is what I need right now. Son, Dana and the baby, they–"
"–Are in danger and need help. I know. That's why I'm here, Fox."
"But. How?"
"Can tell you another time… I was able to kinda reach them, and to gather some sort of… explicit sensations. Could lead us to them."
"Then, let's do it together. I've a lead too. Erika Price, the lady you've blown to bits and blood all over the motel room. She's the reason. Bloody revenge, I guess."
"This is all my fault? Once again? I'm so sorry. I–"
"No, no, don't feel guilty. Shit happens. Forget it and come downstairs, we have urgent work to do."
"Fox?"
"Yeah?"
"Just you and me? I'm still on the run, you know. No cops."
"Yeah, just you and me."
Bastard
I was dozing off and on when I fell into a sleep paralysis state and received William's vision – or whatever name I could call it.
Even if this event still puzzles me on several levels, it gives me hope. Hope to be rescued in a matter of hours. Hope that both of us will soon be safe and sound, back home.
Now that I'm completely awake, I don't remember all the details that well, but it was definitely a new kind of connection William was able to set up. I'm certain he knew we were in danger and that he was reaching us on purpose.
I've sent him the spare information I'm almost sure of: I'm in a warehouse, about 10 miles roughly West from the carjack – the abductor didn't even try to blur my senses. I didn't have the user manual for William's communication, yet I felt I had to vocalize a few simple words and that they would get to him, passing along the link he managed to build.
Via that rag doll. Via my baby.
And it's where my mind doesn't need to wander at the present time. I can't indulge in analyzing and rationalizing the hows and the whys, nor imagining how Mulder's theories would explain what had happened. If so, I would go into uncharted territories and dive into unguarded emotions.
I have to remain alert, steady and ready to play my part in our deliverance. I can't risk our lives in any way. There would be time, later on, for explanations of any kind.
I just have to accept the strangeness, as Mulder would. I have to believe, as his open-mind would. Believe that the message was sent and well received.
Via the doll, that rag toy Mulder offered me once and that had been gifted to William when his father went on the run. The doll I've kept during all those years in a cardboard box, but never forget. The doll Mulder and I had put down together on the mattress of the crib, the second the baby room had been finished. As if William was able to feel all of it and sense the emotional weight we've put in.
Via the doll, and for certain via my baby girl, too… But I cannot think about it, about what it means, not now, not here. She's fine, all's fine. I'm fine.
"Now, it's time to play bloody games, lady," shouts a voice from the door that has been kicked open. "To rip off that evil seed of yours from your entrails."
The man switches the light on, then slowly steps toward the corner where Scully lies, seated on a used rug. In his right hand, a large butcher knife, held out as a trophy.
"Please, don't harm my baby. She's done nothing. What do you want? Why are you doing that?" Scully screams, while trying to straighten her upper body.
"To make your freaky murderer of a son sneak out of his game of hide-and-seek."
"My son?"
"Yes, your grown son that killed my mother, Erika Price. He has to pay for it."
"You can't touch me. I'm a federal, they'll find you."
"I know, I know. But I can, I will."
And the man stops, one meter away from Scully, standing over her little frame and grinning like a mad man.
"Don't dare touch me, you bastard!"
