Chapter 3
St. Vincent's Hospital.
March 13
12:11 p.m.
Scully pulled Mollie's car into the parking garage and found a slot on the third floor. She parked the car and turned off the engine. Mollie had been too shaken up to drive herself, so Scully had volunteered to drive Mollie to the hospital and Mollie had told her she could drive her car so if need be, Mollie had transportation. They had driven in silence except for the occasional direction on where to go from Mollie. Mollie had gotten out of the car at the front door and told Scully to park in the all-day parking garage. Scully had told her she would find her after she parked and drove to the garage.
Scully sighed and opened the door. Mollie kept her VW Jetta spotless. She silently wondered how someone Mollie's age had been able to get a new car. She didn't think
Mollie's family was particularly rich. She locked the car and made her way into the building and up to the front desk.
"May I help you, Miss?" The woman behind the desk asked.
"Yes I need the room number of Ewan O'Brien."
The woman tapped on the keyboard until she found the room number.
"Are you family?" She asked.
"No, but I need to get up there. I brought his daughter up here."
"I'm sorry but he is only allowed family members at this time."
Scully took out her badge and showed it to the woman.
"I need to get up there." Scully repeated.
The woman's eyes lingered on the badge.
"Room 313."
"Thank you." Scully said and deposited her badge back in her pocket and got on the nearest elevator. When she found the room, she saw Mollie sitting on the floor outside it. She looked up when she heard Scully approaching. Scully could see the girl was crying. She squatted down next to her so they were eye level.
"What's wrong? Why are you out here?"
"The doctor came to see...see me before I went in the room. He wanted to tell....he wanted to let me know that my dad had lapsed into a coma when he arrived and that....and that they don't have much hope that he'll wake up."
At this point Mollie was crying profusely, not caring if anyone saw. Scully put her hand on Mollies shoulder and Mollie turned into it. Scully gathered her up into her arms and let the girl cry.
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Mulder had busied himself after Scully had left with Mollie to go to the hospital. He had read over Mollie's school files, only to find that she was an A+ student, never got into trouble. The only thing that did stand out was the outstanding number of absences she had all dating back to when she was 10. Before that she had never missed a day. He noticed the date of the first absence was on April 15th, almost 2 weeks before her mother died in the boating accident. For some reason he believed this could mean something and catalogued it in his memory.
Now he was on his way to the hospital to meet up with Scully. Maybe they could go get some lunch somewhere and discuss the case. He pulled into the parking garage, grabbing a time ticket on the way in. He found where Scully had parked Mollie's VW Jetta and pulled the rental car into the slot next to it. There weren't many cars around now as it was lunch time. He made his way into the building and found a receptionist desk where he obtained the room number and jumped on the elevator. When he found the room, the door was open partially and he heard Scully talking softly and also a muffled sound, like someone crying. Uh-oh that couldn't be good. He pushed the door open and saw Scully and Mollie sitting next to a hospital bed with a middle aged man lying in it, tubes coming out of his nose and mouth. Mollie was crying softly and had her head on Scully's shoulder. Scully was whispering to her and had her arm around Mollie's shoulders. Scully looked up at Mulder, realizing that he was there, then back down at Mollie.
"Mollie, I'm going to go talk to Agent Mulder. I'll be right back." She got up and walked over to Mulder.
"Let's go out in the hall." She whispered and moved passed him into the hallway. He followed and closed the door.
"Not good news, huh?" He asked and looked down at her.
"No, it's not. Her father's in a coma and the doctors have no idea why and they don't believe that he is going to come out of it." She explained.
"God! How much does this girl have to go through?"
"I don't know, but this is crazy! Flukemen, ghosts, past lives, liver-eating brain sucking mutants, even aliens, I can handle, but what is so wrong with this girl that makes it so everyone she loves dies. I mean, can't she just have a moments peace?" Scully pondered and looked at Mulder. He could tell this case meant something to her and was just about to say something to her when....
"What kind of cases do you investigate, exactly?" A voice asked. Mulder and Scully turned back to the door and saw Mollie standing there, her brows furrowed.
"What?" Scully asked obviously not knowing what to say.
"What type of cases? You said something about ghosts and aliens and fukemen." She stepped closer to them.
"Flukemen." Mulder corrected.
"We investigate something called the X-Files. Cases that others think are unsolvable." Scully explained.
"So you investigate weird stuff?"
Scully smiled and nodded. "Yea, yea we do."
"So you hear a lot of crazy stuff from people and you don't think they're loony?"
"No, she only thinks I'm loony." Mulder smiled and Scully shook her head.
"Exactly. But seriously no, I don't think all of them are. Most of them I do, but some are substantial." Scully said.
"Why is there something you want to tell us Mollie?" Mulder prodded.
She looked back into her fathers room and sighed, blinking away tears.
"Yea, but not here. I can't think here." She looked back at Mulder.
"O.K., let's go get some lunch and we can talk there." He suggested.
"O.K., but I didn't bring my purse."
"Don't worry, the bureau will pick it up." He grinned and she visibly relaxed slightly.
"All right." She agreed and went to get her sweater. Then all three left the building to find someplace for lunch.
Bennegin's Restaurant
1:30 p.m.
"Hi there guys. My name is Brittany and I'll be your server today! Can I go ahead and get your drink order?" an annoyingly bubbly blonde girl asked.
"Umm, yea, Iced tea." Mulder said looking over the menu the hostess had given them when she sat the at the table.
"O.K., and for you ladies?" She chirped.
"Water." Scully said absently.
"Water." Mollie said as well.
"O.K., 2 waters and an iced tea. I'll be back in a second with them." Miss Chirpiness squeaked and skipped away.
"Please, take your time." Mollie mumbled and rolled her eyes. Scully bit back a laugh.
"I'm not too hungry, do they have anything small here?" Scully looked over and asked Mollie.
"Not really. I mean even the salads are huge." She replied.
"Well what do you usually get?"
"Usually? The Turkey O'Toole. It's really good. Every time we came here, I would always split it with Tommy..." Her voice trailed off and she swallowed the lump in her throat as the Happiness monster returned with their drinks.
"O.K. guys, here we go. Your iced tea and your waters. All righty, have you guys decided what you want to eat?" She looked over at Scully.
"I guess I'll have the grilled chicken salad with Italian dressing." Scully handed her menu to the girl.
"O.K., and you sir?"
"The, uh, Turkey O'Toole. That sounds good. I'll have that." He said and smiled at Mollie.
"All right, and you miss?"
"I'll just have a regular salad with fat free ranch." Mollie turned towards the girl.
"Wow! I love your accent! Are you, like, from Britain or Australia or something?" The waitress asked enthusiastically.
"I'm Irish." Mollie stated.
"Cool! Can you say my name? Brittany?"
Mollie stared at the girl like she was nuts, but she'd do anything to get the girl away from the table so she could talk to the agents.
"Brittany." She said the girls name, adding some extra accent in with it.
"Oh awesome! That's so cool!" The girl grinned and clapped her hands together. "I'll be back in a few minutes." She turned and ran towards the kitchen. "Elizabeth, there's a girl that speaks Irish out here. She said my name! It was so cool." She yelled as she ran.
Mollies left eyebrow shot up at the same time that Scully's right one did. Mulder couldn't help himself, with the dumb waitress and then synchronized eyebrow lifts, he broke out in hard laughter. Scully and Mollie stared at him and soon Scully joined in and Mollie followed, smiling.
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After the laughter had died down and the food had come, Mollie's face turned serious and Mulder looked over at her.
"Do you want to tell us what it is that's been bothering you?" He asked her. He didn't want to push her but he really needed to know what it was she was hiding.
"Yea, I need to tell someone and you guys seem like you could maybe help since you find out about weird stuff." She shrugged. "I don't know, maybe you'll just think I'm crazy and lock me up in the funny farm or something. Nobody really knows except for Leila, my best friend, the girl that was sleeping next to me in Anatomy." She looked at Scully as she nodded in recognition. "Anyways, I told her that they were gone. They never were though."
Mollie drew her lips into a thin line and looked down at the table.
"They? Who's they?" Scully asked.
"Not who, What. Dreams." Mollie looked over at Scully.
"What kind of dreams?" Mulder spoke up.
"Well, I guess they aren't really dreams. They're more like nightmares. Horrible nightmares. The kind where you wake up sweating from and crying. The kind where you're afraid to fall asleep for fear of what's going to happen in them." Mollie's eyes shone with unshed tears.
Mulder sympathized with her. He still had nightmares about his sister and Scully's abductions. He remembered how hard it was to have them as a kid.
"What happens in them?" Scully pushed.
"People die. My mother, my relatives, Tommy." A tear broke free and ran down her cheek. She quickly wiped it away.
"Well Mollie, that's perfectly normal. Most people have dreams of their loved ones dying." Scully explained to her.
"But do most people see the people die exactly how they die, before they die?"
"What? Are you saying that you had premonitory dreams about these people dying?" Scully crinkled her forehead.
"Yes. And I see how they die before they actually do."
"When did this start happening Mollie?" Mulder asked leaning his forearms on the table.
"A couple of weeks before my mom died." She brushed away another tear.
"Is that why you were absent from school for the first time two weeks before she died?" He asked.
"Yea. I obviously hadn't gotten much sleep the night before so my mom stayed home with me the next day. She told me that it had just been a dream and that nothing was going to take her away from me. That nothing bad was going to happen." Mollie twisted a gold heart ring on her left ring finger as she spoke.
"You said, you see how they die. What do you mean? You didn't know how Tommy died. You had to ask me for the cause of death." Scully pointed out.
"In my dreams, I see things happen to them but it never makes until I find out exactly how they died. I saw my mother pushed off a cliff and disappear into a black sea, and then in real life she drowned. I saw my aunts heart burst out of her chest, she had a massive heart attack the next week." She paused. "I even saw my dog, Buster, all the sudden implode on his right side and then he was run over by a car a couple days after."
"What did you see with Tommy?"
"He melted. Like a fire was coming from the inside out and he just melted away."
"Is that all that happens in your dreams? Just people dying? You don't see anything else?" Mulder questioned.
"Actually no. There's always someone else there with me. Its a woman, with long straight red hair and blue eyes. When she looks at me, its like she's shooting ice at me or something. I think she hates me, but I have no idea who she is. I had a really weird dream last night and the night before. Both the same one. I was standing on this cliff with green luscious grass, overlooking the ocean and then Tommy came up behind me and we kissed and then he actually turned into that woman and she laughed at me and the ground opened and swallowed me. It was so hot, like I was going to hell or something." Her eyes glazed over as she remembered the dreams.
"And the woman is always there?" Mulder asked breaking the trance Mollie had been in.
"Yes, for as long as I can remember, she's been in my dreams. She's not a normal woman either. She, she's always in this old timey dress, like something you'd see in a King Arthur movie."
"Has there ever been anyone else?" Scully asked.
"Yes, but I've never seen her face. I've just caught glimpses of her. She's only been in a few dreams, all of them ones of my dad. I think she might be protecting him from the other lady. I think that's why my dad hasn't been taken from me yet. I don't think the redheaded woman can get him from the other." She never took her eyes off the table.
"Have they ever said their names?" Scully pushed.
"I don't know. I can't remember. I don't think so." She stopped. "That's really all I can tell you right now."
There was a few minutes of silence then Mulder stood up and announced he was going to go pay the bill. After he rounded the corner out of sight, Mollie turned to Scully.
"I didn't tell Agent Mulder everything about the dreams." She admitted quietly.
"What did you leave out?" Scully raised her eyebrow.
"Two nights ago, when I had that dream that Tommy turned into that woman, I saw something. I was standing on the cliff and before Tommy came up to me I saw something shiny on the ground. It was a necklace. I don't know why but when I picked it up, I had this sensation of being safe. Then I dropped it when Tommy came up to me." Mollie paused and Scully wondered what this had to do with anything. Mollie took a deep breath and looked Scully straight in her eyes.
"It was your necklace."
Continued in Chapter 4
St. Vincent's Hospital.
March 13
12:11 p.m.
Scully pulled Mollie's car into the parking garage and found a slot on the third floor. She parked the car and turned off the engine. Mollie had been too shaken up to drive herself, so Scully had volunteered to drive Mollie to the hospital and Mollie had told her she could drive her car so if need be, Mollie had transportation. They had driven in silence except for the occasional direction on where to go from Mollie. Mollie had gotten out of the car at the front door and told Scully to park in the all-day parking garage. Scully had told her she would find her after she parked and drove to the garage.
Scully sighed and opened the door. Mollie kept her VW Jetta spotless. She silently wondered how someone Mollie's age had been able to get a new car. She didn't think
Mollie's family was particularly rich. She locked the car and made her way into the building and up to the front desk.
"May I help you, Miss?" The woman behind the desk asked.
"Yes I need the room number of Ewan O'Brien."
The woman tapped on the keyboard until she found the room number.
"Are you family?" She asked.
"No, but I need to get up there. I brought his daughter up here."
"I'm sorry but he is only allowed family members at this time."
Scully took out her badge and showed it to the woman.
"I need to get up there." Scully repeated.
The woman's eyes lingered on the badge.
"Room 313."
"Thank you." Scully said and deposited her badge back in her pocket and got on the nearest elevator. When she found the room, she saw Mollie sitting on the floor outside it. She looked up when she heard Scully approaching. Scully could see the girl was crying. She squatted down next to her so they were eye level.
"What's wrong? Why are you out here?"
"The doctor came to see...see me before I went in the room. He wanted to tell....he wanted to let me know that my dad had lapsed into a coma when he arrived and that....and that they don't have much hope that he'll wake up."
At this point Mollie was crying profusely, not caring if anyone saw. Scully put her hand on Mollies shoulder and Mollie turned into it. Scully gathered her up into her arms and let the girl cry.
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Mulder had busied himself after Scully had left with Mollie to go to the hospital. He had read over Mollie's school files, only to find that she was an A+ student, never got into trouble. The only thing that did stand out was the outstanding number of absences she had all dating back to when she was 10. Before that she had never missed a day. He noticed the date of the first absence was on April 15th, almost 2 weeks before her mother died in the boating accident. For some reason he believed this could mean something and catalogued it in his memory.
Now he was on his way to the hospital to meet up with Scully. Maybe they could go get some lunch somewhere and discuss the case. He pulled into the parking garage, grabbing a time ticket on the way in. He found where Scully had parked Mollie's VW Jetta and pulled the rental car into the slot next to it. There weren't many cars around now as it was lunch time. He made his way into the building and found a receptionist desk where he obtained the room number and jumped on the elevator. When he found the room, the door was open partially and he heard Scully talking softly and also a muffled sound, like someone crying. Uh-oh that couldn't be good. He pushed the door open and saw Scully and Mollie sitting next to a hospital bed with a middle aged man lying in it, tubes coming out of his nose and mouth. Mollie was crying softly and had her head on Scully's shoulder. Scully was whispering to her and had her arm around Mollie's shoulders. Scully looked up at Mulder, realizing that he was there, then back down at Mollie.
"Mollie, I'm going to go talk to Agent Mulder. I'll be right back." She got up and walked over to Mulder.
"Let's go out in the hall." She whispered and moved passed him into the hallway. He followed and closed the door.
"Not good news, huh?" He asked and looked down at her.
"No, it's not. Her father's in a coma and the doctors have no idea why and they don't believe that he is going to come out of it." She explained.
"God! How much does this girl have to go through?"
"I don't know, but this is crazy! Flukemen, ghosts, past lives, liver-eating brain sucking mutants, even aliens, I can handle, but what is so wrong with this girl that makes it so everyone she loves dies. I mean, can't she just have a moments peace?" Scully pondered and looked at Mulder. He could tell this case meant something to her and was just about to say something to her when....
"What kind of cases do you investigate, exactly?" A voice asked. Mulder and Scully turned back to the door and saw Mollie standing there, her brows furrowed.
"What?" Scully asked obviously not knowing what to say.
"What type of cases? You said something about ghosts and aliens and fukemen." She stepped closer to them.
"Flukemen." Mulder corrected.
"We investigate something called the X-Files. Cases that others think are unsolvable." Scully explained.
"So you investigate weird stuff?"
Scully smiled and nodded. "Yea, yea we do."
"So you hear a lot of crazy stuff from people and you don't think they're loony?"
"No, she only thinks I'm loony." Mulder smiled and Scully shook her head.
"Exactly. But seriously no, I don't think all of them are. Most of them I do, but some are substantial." Scully said.
"Why is there something you want to tell us Mollie?" Mulder prodded.
She looked back into her fathers room and sighed, blinking away tears.
"Yea, but not here. I can't think here." She looked back at Mulder.
"O.K., let's go get some lunch and we can talk there." He suggested.
"O.K., but I didn't bring my purse."
"Don't worry, the bureau will pick it up." He grinned and she visibly relaxed slightly.
"All right." She agreed and went to get her sweater. Then all three left the building to find someplace for lunch.
Bennegin's Restaurant
1:30 p.m.
"Hi there guys. My name is Brittany and I'll be your server today! Can I go ahead and get your drink order?" an annoyingly bubbly blonde girl asked.
"Umm, yea, Iced tea." Mulder said looking over the menu the hostess had given them when she sat the at the table.
"O.K., and for you ladies?" She chirped.
"Water." Scully said absently.
"Water." Mollie said as well.
"O.K., 2 waters and an iced tea. I'll be back in a second with them." Miss Chirpiness squeaked and skipped away.
"Please, take your time." Mollie mumbled and rolled her eyes. Scully bit back a laugh.
"I'm not too hungry, do they have anything small here?" Scully looked over and asked Mollie.
"Not really. I mean even the salads are huge." She replied.
"Well what do you usually get?"
"Usually? The Turkey O'Toole. It's really good. Every time we came here, I would always split it with Tommy..." Her voice trailed off and she swallowed the lump in her throat as the Happiness monster returned with their drinks.
"O.K. guys, here we go. Your iced tea and your waters. All righty, have you guys decided what you want to eat?" She looked over at Scully.
"I guess I'll have the grilled chicken salad with Italian dressing." Scully handed her menu to the girl.
"O.K., and you sir?"
"The, uh, Turkey O'Toole. That sounds good. I'll have that." He said and smiled at Mollie.
"All right, and you miss?"
"I'll just have a regular salad with fat free ranch." Mollie turned towards the girl.
"Wow! I love your accent! Are you, like, from Britain or Australia or something?" The waitress asked enthusiastically.
"I'm Irish." Mollie stated.
"Cool! Can you say my name? Brittany?"
Mollie stared at the girl like she was nuts, but she'd do anything to get the girl away from the table so she could talk to the agents.
"Brittany." She said the girls name, adding some extra accent in with it.
"Oh awesome! That's so cool!" The girl grinned and clapped her hands together. "I'll be back in a few minutes." She turned and ran towards the kitchen. "Elizabeth, there's a girl that speaks Irish out here. She said my name! It was so cool." She yelled as she ran.
Mollies left eyebrow shot up at the same time that Scully's right one did. Mulder couldn't help himself, with the dumb waitress and then synchronized eyebrow lifts, he broke out in hard laughter. Scully and Mollie stared at him and soon Scully joined in and Mollie followed, smiling.
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After the laughter had died down and the food had come, Mollie's face turned serious and Mulder looked over at her.
"Do you want to tell us what it is that's been bothering you?" He asked her. He didn't want to push her but he really needed to know what it was she was hiding.
"Yea, I need to tell someone and you guys seem like you could maybe help since you find out about weird stuff." She shrugged. "I don't know, maybe you'll just think I'm crazy and lock me up in the funny farm or something. Nobody really knows except for Leila, my best friend, the girl that was sleeping next to me in Anatomy." She looked at Scully as she nodded in recognition. "Anyways, I told her that they were gone. They never were though."
Mollie drew her lips into a thin line and looked down at the table.
"They? Who's they?" Scully asked.
"Not who, What. Dreams." Mollie looked over at Scully.
"What kind of dreams?" Mulder spoke up.
"Well, I guess they aren't really dreams. They're more like nightmares. Horrible nightmares. The kind where you wake up sweating from and crying. The kind where you're afraid to fall asleep for fear of what's going to happen in them." Mollie's eyes shone with unshed tears.
Mulder sympathized with her. He still had nightmares about his sister and Scully's abductions. He remembered how hard it was to have them as a kid.
"What happens in them?" Scully pushed.
"People die. My mother, my relatives, Tommy." A tear broke free and ran down her cheek. She quickly wiped it away.
"Well Mollie, that's perfectly normal. Most people have dreams of their loved ones dying." Scully explained to her.
"But do most people see the people die exactly how they die, before they die?"
"What? Are you saying that you had premonitory dreams about these people dying?" Scully crinkled her forehead.
"Yes. And I see how they die before they actually do."
"When did this start happening Mollie?" Mulder asked leaning his forearms on the table.
"A couple of weeks before my mom died." She brushed away another tear.
"Is that why you were absent from school for the first time two weeks before she died?" He asked.
"Yea. I obviously hadn't gotten much sleep the night before so my mom stayed home with me the next day. She told me that it had just been a dream and that nothing was going to take her away from me. That nothing bad was going to happen." Mollie twisted a gold heart ring on her left ring finger as she spoke.
"You said, you see how they die. What do you mean? You didn't know how Tommy died. You had to ask me for the cause of death." Scully pointed out.
"In my dreams, I see things happen to them but it never makes until I find out exactly how they died. I saw my mother pushed off a cliff and disappear into a black sea, and then in real life she drowned. I saw my aunts heart burst out of her chest, she had a massive heart attack the next week." She paused. "I even saw my dog, Buster, all the sudden implode on his right side and then he was run over by a car a couple days after."
"What did you see with Tommy?"
"He melted. Like a fire was coming from the inside out and he just melted away."
"Is that all that happens in your dreams? Just people dying? You don't see anything else?" Mulder questioned.
"Actually no. There's always someone else there with me. Its a woman, with long straight red hair and blue eyes. When she looks at me, its like she's shooting ice at me or something. I think she hates me, but I have no idea who she is. I had a really weird dream last night and the night before. Both the same one. I was standing on this cliff with green luscious grass, overlooking the ocean and then Tommy came up behind me and we kissed and then he actually turned into that woman and she laughed at me and the ground opened and swallowed me. It was so hot, like I was going to hell or something." Her eyes glazed over as she remembered the dreams.
"And the woman is always there?" Mulder asked breaking the trance Mollie had been in.
"Yes, for as long as I can remember, she's been in my dreams. She's not a normal woman either. She, she's always in this old timey dress, like something you'd see in a King Arthur movie."
"Has there ever been anyone else?" Scully asked.
"Yes, but I've never seen her face. I've just caught glimpses of her. She's only been in a few dreams, all of them ones of my dad. I think she might be protecting him from the other lady. I think that's why my dad hasn't been taken from me yet. I don't think the redheaded woman can get him from the other." She never took her eyes off the table.
"Have they ever said their names?" Scully pushed.
"I don't know. I can't remember. I don't think so." She stopped. "That's really all I can tell you right now."
There was a few minutes of silence then Mulder stood up and announced he was going to go pay the bill. After he rounded the corner out of sight, Mollie turned to Scully.
"I didn't tell Agent Mulder everything about the dreams." She admitted quietly.
"What did you leave out?" Scully raised her eyebrow.
"Two nights ago, when I had that dream that Tommy turned into that woman, I saw something. I was standing on the cliff and before Tommy came up to me I saw something shiny on the ground. It was a necklace. I don't know why but when I picked it up, I had this sensation of being safe. Then I dropped it when Tommy came up to me." Mollie paused and Scully wondered what this had to do with anything. Mollie took a deep breath and looked Scully straight in her eyes.
"It was your necklace."
Continued in Chapter 4
