Title: What He Knew
Author: Gillian Leigh
Summary: What if Skinner had been abducted instead of Mulder? What would it mean for the X-Files and for Mulder and Scully themselves? Why would he have been abducted in the first place? Post-Requiem.
Disclaimer: They're not mine. If they were, would I be writing this?!
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Scully poured the milk into Mulder's coffee and looked at it longingly. That was the hardest thing to adjust to. She could live without alcohol, but she missed her coffee dreadfully, and decaf just wasn't the same. Sighing, she stirred his coffee and carried it and Doggett's coffee into the living room, handing the mugs to the men.
"None for you, Scully?" Mulder questioned, taking a sip of his coffee.
"My tea water's heating up," she replied.
"Still not allowed to have caffeine?" Doggett queried, looking pointedly at Scully. It took a moment for her to remember her conversation with Doggett in the hospital corridor when Mulder was ill.
"Nope," she replied. "And I can't have any for a few months either..." Doggett nodded and smiled to himself.
"What is it?" Mulder asked, regarding him peculiarly.
"Nothing," Doggett replied. "Just remembering something." He thought back to when his ex-wife had been pregnant with their son, Luke. He noticed similarities between her behavior and Scully's, and was sure that he knew Scully's secret. No caffeine, frequent bathroom trips, turning green at the sight of anything other than simple toast at breakfast. Looking at the two of them, Mulder and Scully, together, he had no doubt in his mind who the baby's father was either. "Let's get down to business," he said. "You were going to fill me in on what you meant when you said that Skinner was 'in on it since the beginning'." He sipped his coffee and studied the two of them. Scully was the first to speak.
"Five years ago, I was taken from my home by a man named Duane Barry, who believed that he had been abducted by aliens multiple times. He didn't want to be taken again and tested, so he believed that if he brought someone new, someone who had not been taken before, that the aliens would be content and leave him alone. He chose me. He watched me, staked out my apartment, and one night when I was home alone, he broke in and kidnapped me." She paused to gauge Doggett's reaction. His eyes were focused on her, as he listening intently, and his coffee cup remained in his hand, the chilling liquid already forgotten. "He took me to a place called Skyland Mountain. There I was taken by what Duane Barry believed to be aliens. Mulder and I later discovered that I was taken by members of a conspiratorial group, a shadow government, who did tests on me. These tests, though I still have only vague memories of them, left me clinging to life, barren and with a chip in my neck.
"The chip which I discovered three years ago and had removed. Its removal gave me cancer; and inoperable brain tumor. The cancer went into remission only after a chip was once again placed in my neck. The microchip is the link between my cancer and Mulder's." Doggett's eyebrows rose.
"Scully was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, a nasopharyngeal mass between the wall over her sinoidal sinus and superior conchae. My diagnosis is the same."
"Exactly the same?" Doggett questioned.
"Down to the letter," Mulder replied. "An exam by the doctor in the hospital in Arizona showed a recently healed incision just under the hairline on the back of my neck. There is evidence of the removal of a chip like Scully's."
"But you said that Scully's cancer was a result of the tests done on her during her abduction... you were never abducted, Agent Mulder..." Doggett argued reasonably. Mulder nodded.
"I wasn't missing for months like Scully was, but I had a troubling experience in the beginning of last year. I was admitted to the hospital with a brain disorder that the doctors could not identify, and several days into my hospital stay I went missing. When Scully found me later, I had had brain surgery performed on me, and I was in pretty rough shape. We think that the chip in my neck was removed during this round of surgery, and that this cancer is the result."
"Did you know that you had the chip before then?" Doggett asked. Mulder looked over at Scully, who was dozing on the couch, and then back at him.
"No. That's also troubling. We don't know when the chip was inserted, or where it came from..." Doggett shook his head. They expected him to believe this?! "I understand that you probably don't believe a word of anything that we just said, but if you read the X-Files, it's all there. Every word of it and more," Mulder added.
"That picture of Skinner was taken in the place where Mulder's brain was operated on. He told me, while Mulder was missing, that he had no idea where he was or what had happened to him. But if he got inside that facility, he had the means to gain entry and the knowledge that Mulder was being held there," Scully interjected sleepily. Doggett nodded.
"I understand," he said. "And in light of what you have just told me, and the photos I've received, I'm beginning to think that maybe these men, the ones in the photos with Skinner, are responsible for his disappearance."
"It's possible that they're involved," Mulder conceded. "But we should talk about this in the morning." He glanced over at Scully, who was sound asleep on the couch.
"Alright," Doggett said, rising up off the couch. Mulder handed the folders to him, and shook his hand. "I'll drop by your office tomorrow afternoon to see about those photos."
"See you at work," Mulder said, walking Doggett to the door.
"Thank Agent Scully for the coffee and hospitality," Doggett said, walking out the door. Mulder closed it behind him and walked over to the couch, gently lifting Scully off of it. He was reminded of the more sound state of sleep her pregnancy brought on when she didn't even stir as he carried her into her bedroom. He set her down on her side of the bed, and debated whether or not he would be spending the night. Scully preferred to have him stay with her because she was worried that he might experience some kind of complications from his cancer. She stirred when he tugged off one of her shoes.
"Mulder?" she murmured.
"Bed time," he said, pulling off her other shoe.
"Oh," she said, waking up a little more. "You don't have to do that... Just get me a nightgown, please." He obliged and pulled his favorite, her teal colored satin negligee out of the drawer and handed it to her. Before she could pull it over her head, he took the opportunity to admire her figure, and smiled when he could see the defined bump that was their baby. She changed into her sleepwear, and crawled under the covers. She was out like a light as soon as her head hit the pillow.
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Author's Notes: I apologize that it's so short, but I wanted to give you at least one more chapter, but I'm planning on taking a break. I've got a terrible case of writer's block. Hopefully my trip to the Jersey shore next week will help get me out of this funk. I have to apologize, because I know chapters have been a long time in between all along with this one, but at the moment I have no inspiration at all for this, so I'm going to put it on the back burner rather than pulling it totally off the sight or pushing through and writing totally crappy chapters.