Title: A Man Who...: Family Tree
Author: DC Luder
Disclaimer: FM, DS, MS, WS belong to them crazy CC and Co. out in LA.
Summary: Enter the Skinman……………
I should have never let him go up there. Especially alone. Lord only knows what trouble he has already gotten himself into, wandering about her town, taking flowers to her house. Where she lived happily married and as a mother of one.
In the last few years, I had remained dormant in Mulder's quest to find Scully. And when compared to his search for his long lost sister, this search was driven by more than the love of another. But the need he had for her. He needed to see her, to make sure that his recovery wasn't all a dream. Or a nightmare.
He had been forced into retirement after his return six years ago for the Bureau was too stupefied to know what else to do. They claimed he was a liability, with unknown abuse or trauma done to him. I had been at the hearing when they asked for his badge and weapon. He sat quietly, barely three months after his hospitalization. The scars on his face stood out clearly. Pitifully. He was pale and considerably thinner than he usually was, which made his suit hang loosely on his frame.
And he just sat there quietly, perhaps the most uncharacteristic thing I had ever witnessed of him. Never had he just taken a beating. Usually he stood in an outrage and was ready to dish it out just as it was being served to him.
Instead he nodded softly and walked up to the committee desk and laid his badge on the table. And then his gun. He nodded again and shuffled to the door, leaving each being in the room utterly shocked. It was then that I had realized that whatever "they" had done to him was no match to him finding out that Scully had left DC.
For Mulder's sake, and for my own conscience, I remained close to him in the following months. I snagged him a consultation position at the Bureau that would allow him income and minimal work hours. To keep tabs on him, I accompanied him to dinner and bars often, to make sure he didn't overdose himself on alcohol and that he made it home safe. He had definitely slipped into a depressed funk. I could recall drunken rambles of suicide, murdering aliens and how his life was ruined. His aggression also increased through the months. I arrived at his apartment one day to find everything strewn about, books ripped and dead fish lying in a broken tank.
So I ended up taking him in for professional help. The doctor's declared him to have post-traumatic distress disorder, which accounted for the uncanny behavior and violence that melted down into depression. He needed to be supervised so that in case he became seriously delusional he didn't hurt himself or any others.
They put him on Prozac and a sedative to maintain his insomnia, which I knew he had suffered from for quite some time. He moved into my apartment for the first few months and stayed in bed quite a lot.
After the initial adaptation period, he moved back to his place, sober ad serious about working and also looking for Scully. I had tried to convince him to put it out of his mind, but I was no match for his reason.
He claimed he just needed to know for sure.
Not even two weeks after he had left, Mulder found her. He had shown up at my apartment, stumbling drunk and crying out Scully's name. I had ushered him in quickly, trying to calm him. I had finally found out what Scully had to go through whenever he decided to show up, unannounced in the middle of the night. I set him up with strong coffee and tried to get him to rationally explain what had happened. He simply sputtered and withdrew a tattered printout and handed it to me.
I quickly read the information and began to realize why Mulder was so upset.
It was a page off of the Scully website, designed by Scully's sister-in-law. As I studied the names of the family tree, it hit me like ice water. The offspring of William and Margaret Scully were typed out in calligraphy: Bill, Melissa, Charlie and Dana. Under each of them, was their own family. Bill was married and had two children. Melissa was listed as deceased. Charlie was married with one child and Dana…
Scully was married and had a child?
After Mulder's abduction, Scully became aggressive for his search. However, time went on and authorities practically gave up and declared him dead. What weak and distant family he had left agreed and had a funeral service for him.
Scully had shut down deep inside that day. At the funeral, she barely shed a tear and was silent throughout. Afterwards, when I had walked her to the car, she told me that she was quitting the FBI and that she was going to move away. I had attempted to question her motives but she had brushed me off.
Just as Mulder had when he told me that he was going to go and visit Scully and her new family.
He had called me last night after I had checked in on him. Told all about his introduction to the Baker clan, with the exception of the child. I could tell by his voice that he was emotional, but I was unable to determine if he was depressed or angry, for his voice in both scenarios are eerily calm.
I had been debating since tat call whether or not to go up to New York and to help Mulder return home safe. He had only been there for two days and already he had gotten in a fistfight with Scully's husband and had a breakfast date with Scully. Of which he hasn't called me about. I dialed his cell phone and was greeted with his voice mail. I left a brief message for him to call me before hanging up.
Maybe everything was all right. Maybe the whole family had accepted Mulder and they were having a late dinner. Passing dishes and smiling, telling stories about their adventures in the FBI.
Of course this was Mulder.
Nothing could ever be so simple. Throughout the two decades that I have known him, he has never done anything simple and pleasant. Anyone that had ever met him could vouch for that, even if they were his friends.
I sat back on my couch, Labatt's in one hand and the remote in the other. News was too repetitive, info-mercials were too mind numbing and the sports were overpopulated with steroids. My retirement form the FBI was in three years. Since it was overstaffed with new rookies, I was denied the option of working past my retirement. Not that I didn't mind. I had been with the Bureau for most of my professional life, a few years more of rest and relaxation replacing paperwork and haggard meetings weren't going to harm me.
But Mulder's link to the FBI rested on my shoulders. Of course he could rely on the few agents that supported him and his work as a consultant, but the new and improved Federal Bureau of Investigation had no room for Mulder's uncanny ability to crack unsolvable cases and profile raging madmen. Now it was all technology and spiffed up agents wearing Armani.
Maybe it would be best if Mulder worked outside of the Bureau, if not as a moonlighting private investigator than perhaps he could return to psychology and open a small practice. Help lost children find their way again.
He sure needed something to fret over other than the life he cold have had with Scully.
We all needed something to drive towards. For me, it had been success. I had reached it, by becoming the Director of the FBI four years ago. For Mulder it had been many things. It had been his quest to find his sister, to reveal the truth, to prove to the world that there were other forms of life outside of this planet. After he had moved past those goals, he finally settled on the one he would never be able to obtain.
Happiness.
Scully made him happy, whether he ever knew it or not. Their bickering ways were flirtatious and challenging to one another. Their arguments were fueled by knowledge and dedication. Their love…
Was lost.
And as much as Mulder deeply wanted to revive a spirit, some ghosts are better left alone. His presence in the Baker residence was surely bringing out ghosts for Scully. Perhaps ones that she had buried six years ago at Mulder's funeral. Ones that she thought she would have never seen again.
I set the remote down and let the beer bottle fall from my fingers and on to the carpeting. As foam spilled from its lips, I cradled my head, with my hands.
I recalled the little Scully family tree that Mulder had given me that night so long ago. How the name of Scully's child had been faded from being touched. Mulder hand handled the paper so extensively that it was nearly ruined, but only in the boy's name. William.
Had this been the child he had dreamed of one day siring? Had he thought that his name would be inserted where David Baker's now sat? Was he going to New York to see that the family tree was true?
Or was he going to saw off a branch in order to climb into the position next to Scully?
Mulder had rarely expressed violence to strangers, and mostly only to criminals or to those who had harmed his life significantly. But that was before the abduction. This Baker had taken his love away from Mulder, the crime of all crimes.
And if wasn't taking his medications… On top of any drinking…
I wondered if he had even told Scully about his condition. Knowing Mulder, he had not.
My form rose suddenly and walked to my bedroom. I grabbed a bag from my closet and began to snatch clothes from my closet and dresser drawers. Three things crossed my mind as I hastily packed the small carry-on bag.
What were the odds of getting a flight into Syracuse at eight-thirty at night…
Dave Baker had punched Mulder last night.
And Mulder still possessed a concealed weapon.
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"I made this!"
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