"What! That can't be right! She's alive, I saw her yesterday."
"I don't know what to tell you man," Langley replied, clicking once more with the mouse. This time a copy of a death certificate, signed by a coroner, filled the screen. Mulder's eyes scanned the information. Name, date of birth, father and mother's names were all correct. The date of death was listed as January 23rd 1980. Mulder shook his head.
"That's not right. I knew her as a woman. This girl died when she was 15." Langley shrugged.
"I did some more checking, searching for any information I could about Dana Scully and I found this." Another click of the mouse brought up a newspaper article with an accompanying picture.
Mulder leaned over to get a better look at the picture. It was of a girl, she wasn't more than fifteen or sixteen. Her auburn hair was up in a pony tail. She was stood in front of a tree laughing. But Mulder couldn't deny that it was Scully. The eyes, the face were exactly the same, except younger looking. Mulder's eyes, meanwhile scanned the rest of the screen and the article.
His face fell when he read the headline. 'Local teenager brutally murdered.' The second heading read 'Police still searching for killer.' Mulder skimmed through the story; killed in her home, killer stabbed her twice in the stomach and chest before slitting her throat, found by her brother Charlie and sister Melissa who came home an hour later. Mulder closed his eyes. He couldn't read anymore.
"We're sorry man. Did you know her?" Langley offered. Mulder simply shook his head.
"This isn't right, this never happened. I knew her. But not as a girl as a woman. You three knew her. She's my partner at the FBI. She, she..." He couldn't find the words. How was this happening? There had to be some kind of mistake. He knew one person who would know for sure. Without another word to the Gunmen, Mulder left the apartment.
Pulling up outside the house, Mulder killed the engine and stepped out of the car. He walked up the gravel path to the front door and pressed the bell. A few moments later the door swung open. He blinked, shocked when he saw who was standing there.
"Can I help you?" Melissa Scully asked, leaning slightly against the door jam. Mulder decided against the approach he'd taken with Skinner and the Gunmen, that had proved more trouble than it was worth. He was going to have to think on his feet.
"Yes, my name is Special Agent Fox Mulder with the FBI." He pulled out his badge and showed it to her. "Would it be possible to speak with Mrs Scully?"
"Sure, come in." She withdrew to let him enter, shutting the door behind him. She walked through the house and out into the garden. Mulder followed her obediently, still shocked at seeing her again, though he hid it well. His thoughts were broken by Melissa's voice. "Mom? There's someone here to see you." Turning to Mulder, she continued. "Can I ask what this is about?" Before he had a chance to reply her face changed and she spoke again.
"This is about Dana isn't it? I can feel it." By now Mrs Scully had walked over from where she'd been weeding and smiled at Mulder, speaking before he had a chance to respond to Melissa's last question.
"Hello. What can I do for you?"
"Mrs Scully, I'm Special Agent Fox Mulder with the FBI..." Mrs Scully stopped him before he could continue.
"Is it about Dana? Is that why you're here?" The only thing Mulder could think of to say was yes. He wanted to find out as much about this as he could, then figure out how the hell this was happening.
"The case has been passed on to the Bureau and I'm in charge of it now. Mrs Scully, if it's not too painful, could you explain to me everything that happened?" The older woman nodded, gesturing for him to follow her inside. They walked into the kitchen and sat down at the table, Melissa positioning herself beside her mother.
"Now Mrs Scully, if it's possible, could you tell me everything about the day that... it happened?" Mulder didn't know how else to say it; the whole experience was too bizarre.
Mrs Scully nodded and took a moment before she started to speak.
"It was January 23rd. Exactly a month before Dana's sixteenth birthday. I was out that afternoon, I'd told her that morning that I would be. I'd offered to help at our local church. It was redecorating after a terrible fire. Melissa told Dana that she'd be home late as well. She had to go to the library to do some research and was going to wait for Charlie, their younger brother, after his soccer practice. So the children left for school and I worked around the house till about 1:30 before leaving to go to the church. A neighbor offered to give me a ride. I was there all afternoon until I got the call from the police at about 6..."
At this point Mrs Scully's voice broke. She took a deep breath to try and compose herself and then continued. "I went home straight away to find the place swarming with police. Then a detective came over and told me that my baby girl was dead." Her voice broke completely then and she began to cry. Melissa placed an arm around her mother's shoulders, trying her best to comfort her. Mrs Scully then looked up from the table and fixed her eyes with Mulder's, tears still streaming down her cheeks.
"Eighteen years on and the pain is still exactly the same as the day that detective told me." She excused herself before standing and walking out of the room, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief. Melissa remained seated, the emotion evident on her face. After a minute or two of silence she spoke.
"I suppose you'll want to talk to me," she stated simply, her eyes staring straight ahead. Mulder cleared his throat slightly before replying; Mrs Scully's emotional account had gotten to him more than he would've liked.
"Yes, please. If you're up to it. I realize this must be very painful for you, having to go over it all again." She smiled weakly.
"It starts out pretty much the same as my mom's account. Until after school. I met my brother Charlie outside school at about 4:30. Soccer practice had just finished. We walked to the bus stop and caught the 4:42 bus home. It stops a little way up from our house so we walked from the stop. When we got home we noticed how quiet it was, which was strange. We knew D was..." She paused a second, realizing she'd used her sister's nickname and smiled sadly before correcting herself and continuing.
"We knew Dana was home so we were surprised that we couldn't hear music coming from her bedroom. She always had to have music on. She thought the house was too quiet without it. And she was right. We opened the door and went inside and the first thing we noticed was that the table in the hall had been broken. We walked along the hall and into the living room. Things were broken and knocked over. Then Charlie noticed the blood. There was a trail on the carpet leading to behind the couch. There was even some smeared up a wall.
We walked behind the couch and found her lying there. Her throat was cut and there was blood everywhere, all over the carpet, all over her sweater and on her face. There was some in her hair as well as her jeans. I didn't know what else to do so I phoned for an ambulance. It showed up about 10 minutes later with a police car. They pronounced her dead at the scene. That's all I know."
At some point while she'd been speaking Melissa had started crying, but her voice hadn't altered in the slightest. She wiped away the tears with the back of her hand before she spoke again. "She was my baby sister Agent Mulder, and some monster stole her from us. She'd planned to become a doctor after she graduated high school. She never even got to go to her prom. Please promise me you'll try and get to the bottom of this. Please. My mother needs some closure, as do the rest of the family. Our father died a few years ago never knowing who was responsible for the death of his little girl. I don't want the same thing to happen to my mother."
"I will try my very hardest." Mulder stood up to leave. He couldn't stay there anymore, he had to get out. The grief in the house was choking him. "I will keep you updated on my investigations," he threw over his shoulder as he left the house, before climbing back into his car and heading home.
What the hell had happened here? Everyone believing Scully was dead, Melissa being alive. It was too confusing to even comprehend. As he drove it suddenly hit him how much he was missing Scully being there with him. If this had been a case she would've been sat next to him in the passenger seat of the car, discussing with him the events that had just unfolded in the house.
Instead he was riding alone in the car, and it had been her family he'd seen. A wave of sadness swept over him as he realized just how much he took her for granted. He was so sure that she would always be there that it seemed incomprehensible that she might not be. He had to get to the bottom of this.
