Chapter Five: Fathers and Sons
Mulder grabbed the Bactine bottle from the first aid kit once again. "Hey Scully, I don't want the gash on your back getting infected," he said quietly, gently. He held up the antiseptic for affect.
Scully nodded, "But can we eat first?"
"Of course, of course," Mulder gibbered as he rolled the cart to the bed on which Scully sat. He handed Scully her platter of food, which she placed in front of her crossed legs. She waited for Mulder to sit next to her with his food before she began eating. Mulder silently held up his hamburger in the air, tipping it towards Scully as he would a glass of wine. Scully leaned back against the headboard as she thoughtfully chewed.
"Mulder?"
"Hmm?" Mulder asked around the food in his mouth.
"What have you been up to? You know, for the past five years?"
Mulder stared at her. He swallowed his food slowly. "Well, a lot, I guess."
Scully watched him patiently, waiting for him to continue.
He really did not want to bring up his own past, now that he had seen what she had dealt with.
Scully noticed his hesitation, "Come on, Mulder, it's about time I hear something good."
Mulder smiled weakly at his ex-partner. He gulped half of his milk before answering.
"Well, in the past five years, a lot has happened," he repeated himself. "The X Files blew wide open about, oh, three years ago, but that's another story. Anyway, I was promoted to Assistant Director of VCU, which now encompasses the X Files Division. I have sixty agents working under me, six of which are part of the X Files. I have a son; his name is Sam and he is almost four years old."
"Oh," Scully said quietly, not understanding the tightness of her chest, "Are you married?"
Mulder shook his head. "No. Still Livin' Single," he joked.
Scully released the breath of air, her chest loosening. It must have been jealousy, she mused. That makes no sense, though, because…well because of a lot. Namely, her dysfunctional but otherwise existent marriage. The fact that she had not seen him in over four years. Everything.
Scully smiled briefly. "Where is Sam's mother?" she managed to squeak, hoping Mulder did not hear her voice crack.
"I..uh, don't know," Mulder admitted.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry. I should have known it was a touchy sub-"
"No, no. Don't apologize. It's not a touchy subject. It's," Mulder paused to scratch the back of his neck absently, "not really a subject at all. I'll explain it someday. It's a long story."
"I don't have anywhere to go," she stated.
"Uh, okay. Back in 2001, the big turning point of all this, I came across a genetic testing facility with rumored connections to the Syndicate. They, um, had been manipulating DNA to create another type of alien human hybrid that would make a supreme race, immune to the black oil. Anyway, they were getting the test DNA from, well actually, we never figured out where most of it came from. My first guess was alien abductees, so I immediately searched for any use of your DNA.
"What I came across was a huge group of embryos and infants that the scientists were exposing to the product DNA. The FBI tried to resurrect the embryos, but they seemed to suffer the most damage from the exposure. The children, on the other hand, were relatively unscathed. We gathered all the children—there were about a dozen or so—and ran their descriptions through the Missing Persons, but none of them could be identified. It was as if these kids had come from nowhere. Not that I had expected anything less.
"I cross-referenced the DNA of the remaining ten children—two of them had died in the meantime—against yours. None of them matched yours. I was really disappointed. Meanwhile, the FBI assigned a team to gather and record all the evidence. The lab housed an extensive library of information on its experiments. Included in these were files on each of the test subjects—the children. At first, these files made no sense, even to the Lone Gunmen. As I was reading the files, I noticed the header for each was a ten-digit number. Cross-referencing that in the lab's database came up with a set of Social Security Numbers. Most of these ended up dead ends, the person connected with the number either dead or missing. A lot of times the numbers were faulty: ones that had not been used in years.
"Three of the numbers actually led anywhere. They gave us insight into the past of these children. Unfortunately, no one connected with the owners of the Social Security Numbers could be reached. All of these kids were left orphans. The third Social Security Number, though, belonged to my father. I was floored. I had not realized his ties into the Syndicate had gone that deep. I spent a long time trying to grasp all of this information. It was a hard couple of days. I was trying to decide what I should do with this newfound knowledge. It's funny, Scully. All these years I was a slave to the truth, but when I actually had the opportunity to grasp and accept the truth, I was scared."
Scully spoke up, "That's understandable. I mean, when you devote your whole life to a cause, it's scary to think that maybe you were wrong. That maybe you won't like the truth."
Mulder smiled and squeezed her folded hands in response, the leftovers of their dinners discarded to the foot of the bed catching his eyes. Slowly, he stood and placed the plates on the rolling cart. More relaxed than earlier, Scully slipped under the comforter. Mulder leaned against the side of the bed before dragging his briefcase with him. He pulled out a small photo album, the kind that comes with a developed roll of film. Mulder handed it to her over his head.
"Considering what happened to you with Emily and my father's involvement in the experiments, however absent, I thought that maybe this boy, the one connected with this file, was somehow my sister's child. I mean, even though she disappeared when she was eight, I wondered if they had manipulated her DNA and combined it with another to create this boy. I went through the same process you did with Emily and your sister's DNA, not recognizing the irony except through hindsight. Twenty-twenty, right? Well anyway, I came to the conclusion, much like you had, that it was my DNA, not my sister's, that went into the creation of this boy.
"Oh, wait, let me backtrack. During all this, the FBI had decided to name these children and place them in a special sector of the foster-care program that required extensive background checks and training for the foster parents. This was done directly through the FBI rather than Social Services. I had, at the time, believed this boy to be offspring of Samantha, so I requested Samson as his name. Because of my personal connections to the child and the case, I got them to wait on his last name. But anyway, his name is Samson like, well, Sam's son. Not very creative, but I didn't know what else to do. It wasn't exactly my top concern.
"Okay, so I did as recommended and had Sam's DNA compared to mine. 95% chance that I was indeed the father. No records of any mother-donor, though I did try to find it. I even tested Sam's against Diana's, Marita Covarrubias', and even Cassandra Spender's. All came back negative. Eventually, I stopped looking. Once I got legal custody of Sam, it didn't seem to matter. I was lucky that I stumbled across Sam they way I had. Because I was an FBI agent and it was the FBI that was conducting the foster-care assignments, it was easy to gain custody. After the sixth month trial period, I was granted full adoptive custody.
"Anyway, that was three years ago. I've had Sam since then."
Scully smiled. "He's a very cute boy. Where is he now?"
Mulder laughed, "With the guys. It seems that, with the exception of Byers, it took them longer to master the art of babysitting than it did with the art of computer-hacking, but they're experts by now."
Scully's smile stretched as a yawn escaped her lips. Mulder glanced at his watch. "Scully, you must be tired."
Scully nodded.
"Do you want me to get you some clothes?"
She nodded again.
Mulder walked over to her suitcase and pulled out a rolled-up T-shirt. As he picked it up, though, a smaller article of clothing fell to the floor. He scooped to pick it up as Scully sat up in protest. His name fell dead upon her lips as he held up the small infant sleeper. His eyes widened; Scully's face fell.
"I didn't know that you could…" Mulder trailed off, not knowing exactly what to say. Scully reached out her hand as he brought the small outfit to her. She rubbed the fabric between her thumb and forefinger absently.
"Neither did I. About a year ago, I was surprised with pregnancy. Both me and my…er, husband, were astonished. I, though, was the only one happy about the situation. Jack never outright said that he was displeased, but he wasn't pleased. Make sense? Anyway, I went to the doctor; everything was fine. It seemed like my earlier condition had never even existed. At my first doctor's visit of my second trimester, I learned the sex of the baby. I was going to have a baby boy. I was so happy, I could barely contain it. My marriage, even back then, was in shambles. I think I just stayed because I had nothing else to do. But, like you said, that's another story. I stopped at the mall on the way home. I must have spent hours walking through the baby departments of each department store. I felt like somehow I now had a right to carefully examine each outfit. People smiled at me. I was showing and everything. Finally, I picked this outfit.
Anyway, a week later, Jack and I got in a fight. One thing led to another and he pushed me down the stairs. I…" Tears interrupted her. Mulder moved from the place beside the bed to beside her on the bed. He pulled her close with one protective arm around her shoulders and one gentle hand holding hers. "Miscarriage," was all she could manage.
"Shhh, shhh," Mulder hushed as he kissed her hair.
"Scully, I'm sorry. I didn't know," Mulder felt guilty for bragging about his son, oblivious to Scully.
"No, I'm happy for you, Mulder. And I'm recovering. I'm okay."
"You've been through a lot tonight," he spoke after her quiet tears had subsided. "I think we should turn in."
Scully nodded. Mulder went into the bathroom to brush his teeth and give her privacy to change. He returned to the main room. After making sure Scully was in bed, he turned of the lights and retired himself.
Mulder lie on his back, staring into the darkness. The knot in his stomach grew as he contemplated and analyzed everything Scully had told him. He could not seem to grasp it all. An hour later, he heard Scully stirring in bed. Through the darkness, he could barely decipher the figure walking towards him, though he knew it was Scully.
"Mulder," Scully knelt down in front of the bed. Mulder turned on his side to face her.
Her voice cracked when she repeated his name, "Mulder? Can I sleep with you?"
Mulder pulled back the covers and scooted towards the wall, allowing her space. Like a small child, she climbed onto the bed and under the blankets. She faced him for a moment. "I couldn't sleep," she offered before turning around, her back to him.
Mulder rubbed her arm; "It's okay. Neither could I."
Scully made a weird noise as she tried to suppress a sob. Mulder moved towards the middle of the bed and pulled her close with an arm around her waist. He held her protectively, like a father would hold his feverish child, listening to her breaths evening out as she succumbed to fatigue. Then, Mulder closed his eyes and fell into a light slumber, leaving his concerns for tomorrow.
A/N: I can't believe how awful I am at timely updates. You would think that now that I have NOTHING to do, I would update all the time. Of course, my muse was on strike with the arrival of my own bank account. I know own my own Visa. (Well, it's not so much a credit card as a check card, but it's all the same.) I went out and bought a book on writing, thus coaxing my muse back into the padded walls of its cell. HeHe. I'm baaack!