Charlie and Melissa showed up exactly 35 minutes later, just as they were supposed to. He watched them walk along the road and to the dirt track. But just as they were about to turn and walk down it, Melissa paused suddenly and turned to look in his direction. She stared straight at him, a slight look of recognition on her face before turning again to follow her brother down the dirt track and out of view into the house. Mulder breathed a sigh of relief. It'd worked. Now all he needed to do was meet X and get the hell out of there.
On the drive back into town, Mulder contemplated all the events of the past day that had led up to this. It'd had started out as a normal day and then everything had gone to hell. It seemed to him that always happened when she wasn't around; everything suddenly crashed down around his ears if she wasn't there. He couldn't put his finger on exactly why that was, there were a multitude of things that, when you added them all together meant that his world was a much better place with her in it. His photographic memory recalled all the times he'd come so close to losing her completely; there were far too many of them, he realized.
He pressed down a little harder on the gas, suddenly very anxious to meet X and get back to D.C. to see Scully again. A thought hit him suddenly, like lightening. What if it hadn't worked? What if, for some unknown reason, things didn't return to how they'd been before all this? What if he never got to see her again? The mere thought of that occurrence shook him to his very core; it was utterly inconceivable to him, but he still had to face the fact that it was a possibility.
Mulder shook himself free of these thoughts as he pulled into the curb and parked the car outside the diner where X had left him just this morning. Was that all it had been? A mere few hours? It had felt like a lifetime. Climbing out of the car Mulder shut and locked the door before going inside. He spotted X almost immediately and crossed to the booth he occupied. Wordlessly he slide in across from X. There was a beat of silence before X spoke.
"Did you do it?"
"Yes."
"Did everything go according to plan?"
"Yes. I got rid of him, although I must admit it took a great deal of self restraint for me not to punch the guy in the face."
"And you saw Agent Scully enter the house?"
"Yea, and I waited until her brother and sister came home before I left, just like a good little boy."
"Nice to see this hasn't effected your sense of humor Agent Mulder," X replied sarcastically. "Now when you're quite finished I think we can get out of here."
Both men stood and exited the diner in silence before crossing to the car, X on the driver's side. Once seated inside the car Mulder twisted to buckle his seat belt. As he did so he felt a sharp pain in the back of his neck.
"Ouch!" He whirled back round to face X, who simply placed the keys in the ignition and started the car. "What the hell... was ... that... fo..." Mulder tried to speak but a wave of drowsiness hit him and he slumped back in his seat.
As his eyes closed and the drug began to take its effects he realized he'd never gotten a chance to ask X whether this would definitely have worked or not. And that was the last thing he thought, before he plunged into the depths of unconsciousness.
