Title: Remember When?: Friend of Ours
Author: Jen Zoromski
All other information is in the first chapter.
Author's Note: Thanks so much for the wonderful feedback -- its great to know that you are all still reading this and liking it (because that's always a bonus). Well here's some more of the story -- a lot more back story for the characters in this one -- enjoy!
******
Bethesda Nursing Home
June 10, 2052
"Dana? Are you awake?" Catherine whispers as she stands in the entrance of the room.
Looking into the room Catherine can see that Dana Scully is very much awake, but she is deeply engrossed in looking at her photo album. Pictures from a time when she knew who she was and what she stood for and she knew that she wasn't going to forget to eat or what happened to her years earlier. Those were better days for her and she smiles at the thought.
"Maybe we should come back later," a gruff voice whispers behind Catherine.
"Jack, you've got to listen to this woman's story, its fascinating and it might help to explain why everything is so hush-hush about my grandparents."
Jack Doggett at twenty six years of age bears a striking resemblance to his grandfather -- with piercing blue eyes -- the only difference is his raven black hair -- the same hair that his own father possessed years before.
"Kate, I know that this is important to you, but how much information does this woman know?"
"She knows things that nobody else does," Catherine tells him forcefully.
"Like?"
"Why are you being so stubborn? This is Dana Scully -- thee Dana Scully from the X-Files. Her last name is Mulder. Does that ring any bells?"
"Mulder and Scully -- Agents who worked at the Bureau over fifty years ago -- both are supposed to be dead, Kate. She's a woman with Alzheimer's -- how much can she remember?" he asks her skeptically.
"Jack, why are you being so cynical?"
"I don't know, Kate, maybe I'm trying to be more like you," Jack replies sarcastically. In the last few years -- both of them had taken on particular roles -- one skeptical, the other the believer, and in taking on these roles they went against what either one was raised with.
Jack was raised by a father who was amazed by Jack's grandfather -- never believing in half of the things that his mother talked about. From a very young age Jack would sit and listen to Grandma Monica's stories and they fascinated him. She would talk about working on the X-Files and from the age of six he became determined to see if these files still existed. A couple of years ago he found his 'holy grail.'
"Jack," Catherine says looking up at him with her hazel eyes, "I'm taking a step -- I'm believing -- something you've wanted me to do ever since you tried to convince me to join you on the X-files."
Catherine's mother on the other hand was a believer in miracles -- having been told all of her life that she was one and that she had a miracle as well in Catherine. At the age of four, after her mother's death, Catherine decided that miracles did not happen based on fate or chance, but rather they were made by people -- doctors. Her uncle would tell her of her mysterious grandmother who was a doctor, but as Catherine got older the stories of her grandparents diminished.
"Fine."
They walk into the room side by side. There is something about their relationship that is different from many others -- they have immense chemistry -- not sexual chemistry, but the kind of chemistry that could almost resemble the early years of Mulder and Scully's relationship.
Dana Scully does not look up from the photo album. She instead stares down at a picture of a bald man with glasses sitting next to a very pretty red head -- not Scully -- but rather someone she recognizes -- someone from her days at the FBI. The couple is smiling at the photographer as she holds onto a tiny infant. Next to the picture once again in Scully's hand writing is an inscription: Walter Skinner and Amy Fitzgerald with Sergei Skinner, 2 months. December 25, 2002.
"Dana?" Catherine questions again.
Dana finally looks up at the pair and is startled to see the young man standing next to Catherine.
"Oh my God," she whispers.
"Dana, this is my friend Jack Doggett -- he's the one who I was telling you about -- the one who has the off stream project in the FBI."
"It's like seeing a ghost," Dana replies.
"It's nice to meet you, Mrs. Mulder," Jack tells her politely.
The cool spring air filled with the scent of blooming flowers floats through the air as Scully sits outside on the porch swing. She's sixty-one years old and amazingly she still feels good.
Mulder walks out of the front door onto their porch -- on the porch of a home that they built ten years before. It is a small house with a master bedroom and two guest bedrooms -- ideally their children's rooms -- the children they never got to raise.
He sits down next to Scully, placing his arm around her.
"Megan just called," Mulder tells her as he starts to rock the swing.
"Is everything all right?" Scully inquires, becoming concerned.
"She didn't say."
"Mulder --"
"Megan said she was coming over if we didn't mind."
"I hope everything's all right."
"She's our daughter, Scully, she'll make it through anything," Mulder responds rubbing her shoulder, calmingly.
They sit in silence for a long time. Nothing needs to be said as both Mulder and Scully sit, thinking about what could be wrong with Megan, nothing positive or good coming to mind.
Thoughts of the cancer returning, thoughts that Megan might be dying, go through both of their heads. Not thoughts of weddings, or house ownership, or the idea that maybe she'll be moving back home with John and Monica who only live a mile away still raising sixteen year old Marc.
Finally, Megan's car pulls up and she gets out followed by a tall, handsome man of twenty-three.
"Dana, Fox, you remember Sergei?" Megan asks as the young couple walk up the steps of the porch.
"Of course," Mulder responds, "How's your dad doing?"
"He decided to move back to Washington. Even though he's going on seventy-five, he's still extremely involved with the Bureau."
"That doesn't surprise me," Mulder laughs, trying to break the tension.
"Why don't we sit in the house?" Scully suggests standing up and leading the way.
They head into the living room and the young couple sits down on the couch -- Sergei's arm is protectively around Megan's shoulders.
Mulder and Scully sit down to face them.
"So what's going on?" Mulder finally asks.
"I'm having a hard time believing it -- I think we both are, but umm --" Megan pauses, grabbing a hold of Sergei's hand both of them have huge smiles on their faces, "We're pregnant."
Relief washes over both Mulder and Scully -- too many times had they thought that something was wrong with their daughter, that she was dying. And then Scully looks at her shocked.
"But I thought you were barren."
"So did I, but miracles happen everyday. Maybe the doctors were wrong after the cancer went away. Maybe they tested me wrong."
"Have you told Monica and John?" Scully asks.
"Actually I wanted you and Fox to be the first to know -- since you are my parents."
"Mrs. Mulder?" Catherine asks.
"I'm sorry?" Scully replies, looking at Jack and Catherine who stand in front of her.
"I've seen this picture before," Catherine tells her, indicating the picture of Skinner, Amy, and baby Sergei.
"Where?" Scully asks.
"My mother showed me a picture of my grandparents on my father's side when I was three."
It is quiet in the room -- no one speaks.
"Your father disappeared months before you were born --" Scully says breaking the silence.
"How did you know that?" Catherine inquires, wide eyed.
"I think I remember it."
Catherine shoots Jack an 'I told you so' look.
"Is there anything else?"
Scully grimaces as she tries to remember more, but nothing comes to her -- at least nothing that can be put into words.
It is uncharacteristically cold for the end of May. Scully looks around the small cemetery -- the finality of it seeming so real. She hates cemeteries -- always has. Mulder stands next to her.
The coffin holds a mangled body -- one that was found weeks after he went missing.
Next to Mulder and Scully stands Monica and John. Monica has her arm protectively around Megan -- sobbing. A bond that has been there since Megan was an infant. It then hits Scully that Monica has something she will never have -- the experience of raising her children. Even now at twenty-three and twenty-five her children still went to Monica and John -- they knew the truth of their biological parents, but a decade and a half of parenting can not be erased at the revelation of their true parents.
Seventy-five year old Walter Skinner stares at the coffin, not wanting to believe who is really in there.
"Today we commit the body of Sergei James Skinner into the ground -- his soul is not dead, but rather returned to live with our heavenly father," the minister starts.
Scully looks away from the coffin and stares at the rolling cemetery hill with graves speckled across the green.
"Mulder," she whispers into his ear, "Evil is still at work."
Mulder leans in and responds, "What are you talking about?"
"It's still happening."
Mulder and Scully's eyes meet -- they are both at a realization that maybe their crusade to keep Armageddon from happening is far from over. People are still dying for the cause, Sergei was taken by them. Not because of what he possesses, but rather because of who is father is.
"If that's true Scully, then neither Meg nor Will are safe," Mulder whispers back.
"They'll be safe if we disappear out of their lives."
"So where were you in your story?" Jack inquires, wanting to hear the spectacular story that Catherine has been telling him about.
"We were being followed by someone."
"Who?" Catherine asks.
"Kate, let her talk," Jack scolds.
"Thank-you," Scully replies giving Jack a small smile, "The person was someone who we never in a million years thought we'd see. Someone who was sent on the run by the man who loved her -- to protect their child."
Catherine points to the photo of Skinner and Amy, "It was her, wasn't it?"
"Skinner's assistant, Amy, was seven months pregnant with their child and in as much danger as either one of us were."
"He wanted collateral?" Catherine asks.
"I guess you could call it that, but he wanted to make sure that Amy and their child was safe and he couldn't do that while underground working on the vaccine."
"She was already seven months pregnant? Didn't it pose a threat to her before that?"
"Skinner instructed her to get as far away from Washington DC as she could months before, but her mother was very sick and she needed to come home. In doing that she became a target -- a way for the shadow government and the aliens to get to Skinner."
"So what happened?" Catherine inquires.
"We got to see a friend of ours."
TBC
*****
A/N: well I didn't know Skinner's assistant's name so I just gave her a name…lol… I guess I have the power to do that. Anyways…there's more to come. Please R&R!
