Chapter 13
STAR LABS
TWO DAYS LATER
"Well, I have to say this much, speaking purely as someone who spent almost as much time in a hospital bed as I did in the field," Mulder said. "You have much better bedside manner than most of the doctors I dealt with."
Scully raised an eyebrow. "Need I remind you how many times I was your doctor?"
"And if you'd been willing to put on that nurse's outfit I had, I'd have been happier with it," Mulder waggled his eyebrows.
In all candor, the flirting going on between the two test subjects was making up for the amount of medical work that Cisco and Caitlin had to do. How much of this was cover for just how terrified the two agents were about what they were going through was hard to say.
Mulder sobered up a little. "You have to understand," he told Barry. "There were far too many occasions over the years where one of us was standing over the other sickbed, unsure if the other was going to live. When it was on my part, Scully usually could be angry because it was due to my carelessness."
"You did ditch me a lot," Scully was sober now. "A lot of the horrible stuff one of us was in so much agony that we couldn't put it in the file. "
"After you were abducted," Barry knew that they had taken her off life support.
"And when I was dying from cancer," Scully said matter-of-factly. "I've had struggles with faith all my life, but near the end I actually asked the family priest to give the anointing."
Mulder nodded. "Which was worse: when I was on the verge of brain death or when you pulled me out of my coffin?"
Even after everything he had seen the last few years – after everything he'd experienced – the matter-of-fact way Mulder discussed his deaths caused Barry to shake a little. Because he'd read Mulder's charts. There was no way he should've survived either experience. His brain had all but died. They had pronounced him dead in a field in New Mexico. There had been no Lazarus pits involved or fake identities. And Mulder was still alive. Scully's remission was even more remarkable – she had made it very clear that no matter how deep that they had to cut, they couldn't do anything to the back of her neck.
Maybe that was the reason they were so willing to put their health on the line.
"There's something I've wondered for nearly twenty years," Scully said slowly. "A thought that comes in and out of my head every time I'm in a situation like this. The last conversation I ever had with Clyde Bruckman."
They all knew who he was and what his power was. "You asked him," Mulder's voice had gone very dry.
"I'd spent eight hours with him and despite my sympathy for his situation, I just didn't believe him," Scully told them. "So just before the shift change, I looked him in the eye and asked: 'How do I die?"
No one was sure what the answer would be. Mulder clearly didn't want to ask. "What did he say?"
"He smiled and just said: 'You don't.'" Scully looked at them. "So I just figured he was joking with me. I'll admit I held on to it all the time I was going through my illness, but I didn't believe him. I still don't." She hesitated. "Except…"
Now everyone was confused. Except, perhaps inevitably, Mulder. "Fellig."
Again bafflement. "We weren't working the X-Files at the time," Scully said.
"Even if we had been, Kersh would've made damn sure it never got there," Mulder sounded angry.
"Care to share with the uninitiated?" Felicity asked.
Scully told them of how during their interval away from the X-Files, she had been called in to work a series of murders in New York that looked like they might have been committed by a crime scene photographer named Alfred Fellig. How after awhile Fellig had told her the reason he was always at the scenes of so many deaths was because he had a way of knowing that people were about to die. How Mulder had ferreted out that Fellig was actually a hundred and fifty years old, had committed two murders in 1931, and had simply walked off his work detail.
All of this compared to some of the shit all of them had seen over the years didn't exactly come as shock. What did was Scully's conversation with Fellig when he told her very bluntly was the reason he kept following around crime was because he wanted to die. That he had been cursed with immortality during an epidemic of yellow fever and had spent the rest of his life searching for…death.
And then Scully told them how it ended – with Peyton Ritter breaking the door down and shooting her in the stomach. When Scully woke up in the hospital, Fellig was dead…from a gunshot wound in the stomach.
"You don't seriously think…" Caitlin said.
"He said the only reason he didn't die was because Death took someone else in his place," Scully told them. "Now you explain to me how I got shot and he died from my injuries. Because I spent my share of sleepless nights trying to come up with a rational explanation. Something I spent the lion's share of my time on the X-Files doing a very good job doing."
Not even Oliver, who had spent time with a man who might well have been immortal, was entirely sure how to deal with this. "Do you have an opinion?" he asked Mulder.
"To be honest I spent most of the time by Scully's bedside coming up with imaginative and painful ways to kill Peyton Ritter," Mulder told them. "I actually considered looking him up a couple of times after I was on the run and trying a few of them out."
Oliver could hardly argue that particular point. "What's he doing these days?" he asked in an almost casual tone.
"Given the track record of so many of our foes, he's probably running the New York field office these days." Mulder hesitated. "You know, I don't think Scully and I have made nearly enough of an effort to keep in touch with our old colleagues."
"Mulder," Scully said in a warning tone.
"You think Felicity would mind just doing a casual background check? See what good old Peyton's been up to the last few years," Mulder now sounded way too cheerful.
"You are not going to track down Peyton Ritter so you can kill him," Scully ordered.
Then before anyone could breathe a sigh of relief, she added: "You are not going to deny me that particular pleasure."
It took a couple of second for that particular remark to land. Mulder understandably took it the best. "But given your fragile condition…"
"If ever there was a time to checking things off my bucket list, it's now," Scully said calmly. "You only get to deal with people who ruined your life."
"You do know I was kind of the main offender in that regard?" Mulder said cheerfully.
"Skinner tells me that Kersh is still at the Bureau."
A big, evil grin crossed Mulder's face. "Really? I thought given everything he put us both through…"
"Dibs on Colton."
Everyone except Oliver was now starting to show increasing looks of alarm. "Should we be at all concerned that our patrons are now planning out a hit list?" Cisco said.
"They're just joking." Alex paused. "Aren't they?"
"We're currently in the process of performing a series of dangerous, biological tests on them," Oliver told them. "I think its okay to let them let off a little steam."
"And when do we worry about it going beyond that?" Barry asked.
"When they start putting names in a book and putting on a hood," Felicity told them. "Just to be safe, make sure their guns are locked up."
FXFXFX
"When are you going to get tired of this?" Covarrubias demanded.
Kara was beginning to get truly irritated. "When you stop putting up a fight."
Marita had been truly angry when she learned what was being planned, and every time Cisco and Caitlin had even approached her, she had started to contort herself in ways that Plasticman would have been impressed with. After the third failed attempt, Kara had come in and physically held her down.
Under other circumstances Kara might've been sympathetic. She'd hadn't liked the idea of human experimentation even before she had learned about the Syndicate's activities. And given that Covarrubias was essentially Patient Zero for the first successful use of the vaccine not to mention who knew how many experiments in the following year, it was understandable that she would be so resistant to having to revisit this. However, when said test subject went on to subjecting other people with the exact same methods, sympathy only went so far. Whatever guilt she was still feeling about how Marita had ended up here in the first place had almost entirely disappeared by now.
"I suppose you must be feeling very proud of yourselves," Covarrubias said. "Superheroes using the big bad conspirator as their guinea pig to save mankind."
"The irony of using your own methods to defeat this threat isn't lost on any of us," Caitlin told them. "It doesn't, however, alleviate for a single moment the monstrosities that you and your ilk have visited among countless numbers of humans and extraterrestrials."
"In other words, if you're looking for sympathy, you came to the wrong place," Kara said.
"I didn't come here voluntarily. I was abducted. Another irony that isn't lost on me," Covarrubias told them. "It doesn't mean I have to like it or even go along with it willingly."
"Fine. Then next time I'll just knock you unconscious." Kara said bluntly. "And if I'm in a good mood, maybe I'll only use half strength. So don't piss me off any more than I already am. Sit in the corner."
By this point Covarrubias was well aware that Supergirl didn't bluff. Meekly, she went into the corner of her cell with her back against the wall.
Cisco lowered the force field and Caitlin and Kara walked in. "You know when you made your offer, I believe there was an understanding as to what happened when I accepted," Marita said as they entered.
"And we intend to keep our word," Kara told them.
"And if you accidentally end up killing me as a result of these tests?" Marita pressed.
"From what I understand from Mulder and Scully, you've already outlived the original Syndicate," Kara started. "You've survived infection with the virus, multiple double-crosses and not being forced to testify at Mulder's trial even though you probably could've saved his life."
"You haven't answered my question."
"I think I have," Kara said flatly. "But if you need me to be literal, given everything you've already been through even before Merlyn took you prisoner, you've been living on borrowed time for a long time. If by some chance that time runs out before you can make one more escape, be grateful for the time you've already gotten."
Marita was clearly unhappy with that answer. "It's not like I've spent all that time in the Bahamas."
"You had more time than most of your colleagues got. That you chose to spend them in Tunis and Kazakhstan isn't our fault either." Caitlin had run out of patience. "Now sit still and shut up."
Marita had been here long enough to know just how risky it might be to piss off a woman who was known in one universe as Killer Frost. She closed her mouth and went limp.
"I realize you see this as prison because, well, it basically is," Cisco said through the loudspeaker. "That doesn't mean your conditions couldn't be improved."
Mulder and Scully had signed off on this approach earlier, which didn't make the group any less nervous about it.
"And what might that be? An upgrade to a ball and chain? Perrier added to my bread and water?"
"You're right about your cell being overkill," Caitlin had changed her tone so abruptly it was kind of impressive. "I mean, even you were to make a break for it, our best friend is the Fastest Man Alive. Realistically, how far do you think you could make it? He spends his spare time trying to become even faster."
"And to be honest, at some point we are going to need this cell for someone who might actually be able to break out of Iron Heights," Kara now sounded nicer. "Really, putting you in here was more to make a point than anything else, and I'm pretty sure it's been driven home."
Marita actually seemed a little puzzled now. "You're going to make another offer I have to take."
"No, this one you can actually make a choice," Kara told her. "I mean if you really want to spend the next several weeks in this particular cell that is up to you. None of us would lose any sleep over it. But unlike your fellow conspirators we are human beings and we would be willing to demonstrate it."
"What would you give me?" Marita asked.
"Dignity and at least some creature comforts," Caitlin told her. "I mean, you'd still be under surveillance, but you'd be allowed to walk around the lab. Sleep in a bed. When I make a Belly Burger run, we'd ask you what you wanted."
Apparently not even an ice cold blonde could resist fast food. "And in return for this generosity, I would have to do what?"
"Nothing you haven't done before," Cisco told her. "Rat out your colleagues. Granted, in this case you'd have to go into much more detail than you ever did when you were 'helping' Mulder, but I think we all know that's basically understood."
Marita considered this. "Why didn't you ask for this before?"
"Because before you would have had no incentive to tell us the truth," Kara told them. "You had nothing to bargain with before. Now you do. I have no doubt the terms are still far more unfavorable than you wanted to deal with, but I can assure you that we have no problem telling you to go to hell if you try negotiating up."
"They've signed off on this deal." 'They' was already understood.
"'They' had to convince us to offer it." Caitlin told them. "My guess is because they're willingly going through everything you are; Mulder and Scully are feeling sympathetic."
"I mean, if it we're strictly up to us, we'd make you share a cell with Grodd," Cisco told them. "Personally, I think they're going a bit soft in their old age."
"Or maybe they're still naïve," Kara said. "They think there's some small, itsy-bitsy smidgen of your soul that you still haven't sold. You'd think they, of all people, would know better by now."
"Is that your superpower? You're going to bore me to death?" Marita said.
"From what I understand, that was the only superpower the Syndicate ever really had," Kara said calmly.
Marita gave a heavy sigh. "I assume you'd put some kind of advanced bracelet on me so you'd know where I am at all time?"
"It's overkill, because there's heavy security and superheroes as guards," Caitlin replied. "Besides, if you even tried to run, we'd lock you in a cell with the Arrow."
"I'd give you three minutes with him before you told us what Alex Krycek liked in bed," Kara said.
Marita visibly shuddered, though whether it was the thought of torture by the Hood or remembering her former lover was a close question. "One condition, if I'm allowed it."
"That depends what it is."
When she gave it, everybody seriously considered just how sane Marita was.
4:32 pm
"She knows she'd be watched at all times," Mulder said slowly.
"And that you'd tell us immediately afterward," Kara repeated. "What kind of power play do you think this is?"
"It's not a power play; it's the illusion of a power play," Oliver said. "That being said, why the hell would she only agree to this if you two were the only ones she talked to?"
Mulder shook his head. "It can't be sentimentality because she has none. And it can't be trust because we have none in her."
"As far as we know, she's the sole remaining link between the old Syndicate and the new one," Scully theorized. "Maybe she knows a secret from him that we might not be as eager to share."
Even Team Flash knew who they were referring to. "You think she'd tell you where he is right now?" Barry asked.
"She's been out of touch with him for weeks; she'd have better luck opening a map of the world to a random page and pointing," Mulder said. "It's more likely she has a couple of secrets from him she thinks would be useful to us. But even if there were, there's nothing he knows that we'd want to hide from you at this point."
"Which brings us back to the original question: why us?" Scully asked. "We're the most immune to whatever bullshit she could try to sell because we know her the best and trust her the least."
"Look this was your idea," Kara told them. "None of us have any problem with leaving her in that cells and treating her like the rat she truly is. You really think she has something valuable; this is her only term."
The partners looked at each other. "What the hell," Mulder said. "There's nothing good on TV anyway. It'll make for some interesting entertainment."
"You're okay with this too?" Barry asked Scully.
"I still haven't properly thanked her for leading Mulder to that field in Oregon," Scully said in a deceptively calm voice. "I may still be recovering from the last procedure, but I'm a pathologist. She tries to bullshit us, I'll remind her how creative I can be with a scalpel."
"You know how much I get a chill when you snap on the latex," Mulder said fondly.
"Is this what foreplay looks like among world-savers in their senior years?" Felicity mumbled.
"Something to look forward to," Oliver said with a smile.
"Miss Smoak, Mr. Queen, we may well be in our dotage, but our hearing is just fine," Scully said only half in jest.
"And as for that part, the two of you should be so lucky," Mulder countered.
Everybody then saw something that not even Felicity had thought would happen: Oliver momentarily reddened.
5:52 P.M.
"Ah, Miss Covarrubias," Mulder said. "Please come in to our humble abode. Would you care for some Jell-O?"
"Part of this deal was for better food," Marita said as she stumbled to her seat.
"Considering we signed off on this deal, you should be grateful we're even listening to you," Scully was in no mood to be playful.
"I know you never trusted me and you have no reason to believe me now," Marita said slowly "but you have to start taking them seriously."
"As if we've spent the last twenty plus years playing patty-cake with them," Mulder dropped his playful tone. "Don't waste your time complaining to us. Your current situation isn't a fraction as bad as ours has been on our best day. All things considered this is the safest we've been in more than a decade."
"Even given their last move?"
"They've known exactly where our headquarters have been for the last few weeks," Mulder pointed out. "I'm not sure how the current Syndicate thinks as opposed to the old guard but both of them are well aware that the more time we're left alone, the greater our advantage becomes."
Covarrubias clearly disagreed with this, but she chose to remain silent.
"Point is, you wanted to talk to us first," Scully's tone, if anything, grew icier. "What do you want to say?"
"You really think you're so clever," Covarrubias told them. "You know that they have eyes everywhere. That every secret you think you have they already knew."
"Blah, blah, blah," Scully said. "One of them told me as much years ago. 'There is no middle of nowhere any more.' It was terrifying then. It wouldn't even make a late night monologue now."
"You're probably safe. What about the people you care about?"
"Aside from the ones your people didn't kill off years ago?" Mulder said bitterly. "The ones that we care about are under twenty-four hour protection. Granted that leaves the millennia old question: 'Who will guard the guards?' Anyway, it's not like the Bureau did a bang up job in the past."
"This isn't exactly groundbreaking," Scully told them. "We know goddamn well that not even a superhero is safe in this world."
"'Everything dies.' It may have been the only thing one of them told me that was true," Mulder said angrily. "And if this is how you plan to convince that this is a worthwhile way to spend time waiting for the next time they decided to drill into our bone marrow, you're not exactly making your best pitch."
Covarrubias heaved a great sigh. "When they took Gibson Praise, did you ever wonder why he didn't just kill Fowley then?"
Mulder barely blinked. "It was part of a larger plan. Leave her alive so that he could have control over the X-Files. He clearly didn't trust his son. Anyway, it only put off the inevitable."
"What makes you so sure it was?"
For the first time Mulder looked a little uncomfortable. "Don't bullshit me." Scully interjected. "I saw her body."
"You've been tracking these people for decades, and you still don't get there methods." Covarrubias said. "How many times were you sure Cancer Man was dead? His son was shot in your office and he testified at your trial three years later. Need I remind you that you were certain your sister was dead until a few months ago?"
Mulder thought for a moment. "Say you're telling the truth. What difference does that make? Diana's actions the last year I knew her were not that of an ally. She didn't adjust her loyalty the first time the Syndicate nearly killed her. I'm willing to bet anything she's doubled down."
Covarrubias didn't bother to deny it.
"So another woman from our past has decided to sign up with the bad guys. Big frigging deal." Mulder said resignedly. "I hardly see why this should merit a one-on-one with us."
"Aren't you the least bit curious what she's been doing the last seventeen years?"
"Finding gullible truth-seekers and convincing them that she's on their side no matter what the evidence suggests?" Mulder spoke as if he were trying not to sound curious.
"Actually she went back to doing exactly what she did before you met up with her in '98. Still not curious?"
"We already know the answer to that," Scully told them. "Investigating MUFON networks. Trying to get information on female abductees."
"I was actually talking to you," Covarrubias told her. "All that time you were trying to find out what happened to Scully those three months she was missing. For more than a year, the person you could have helped you the most was right under your nose."
Color drained from Mulder's face. Scully looked equally shocked. "She was there?"
"It was never her job to supervise. Only to gather information. Maybe the reason she didn't recognize you was because she only knew you as a case file."
"The same could be said for you," Mulder said tightly. "How are you any different from her?"
"I never said I was different or even better. But since I'm here, do you want to know or not?"
Mulder and Scully exchanged another glance. "How much did she know about the tests?" Scully finally asked.
"Her entire job was reporting. In the lion's share of her cases, she was little more than a clock-watcher, reporting how much longer the subjects-"
"Women," Scully interjected.
"…had left. That was, however, only half her job. In the fall of 1997, she began working in conjunction with a series of gynecologist and obstetricians all over the country."
Mulder was pretty sure all the saliva in his mouth had dried up.
"You see, the Syndicate did have a contingency plan. They still wanted to produce a vaccine, but there were still some scientists who thought that the best chance to survive the apocalypse would not come from producing a cure but by creating a generation that would be immune to it."
"Was I targeted?" Scully could barely get the words out.
"The experiments had rendered you barren." Covarrubias actually sounded kinder. "After El Rico, it took months for anything resembling a routine to be realized. Fowley was reestablished overseas. And even if things had been normal, you know how badly the Syndicate manages things. Cassandra Spender was an accident. How could they have known that you would try to conceive a child with one of the doctors we were working with?"
Scully had been undergoing a lot of medical tests that had drained her physically. That wasn't the reason she didn't think she had the strength to stand. "Are you telling me that everything that happened with…our son… was just a coincidence?"
"I'm telling you that no one was supervising Parenti," Covarrubias told them sadly. "No one told him to make you a test subject."
Right now, the only people listening in on this conversation were 'tech support' – Felicity, Cisco, Caitlin and Alex. All of them had read the X-Files, they all knew what had been done to Scully and that she'd had a son with Mulder. But because this part had been purposely kept out of the files, only Alex had known some of the details behind Scully's pregnancy. Not even she had known the real reason why Scully had decided to give her son up for adoption without asking for Mulder's consent.
"I know they did horrible things," Cisco finally said. "But holy crap."
"I never thought I'd have to a background check on my OB-GYN," Felicity said harshly. "And I live in Star City."
"Just when you think they can't stoop any lower," Caitlin agreed. "If the public ever found out about this…"
"They'd never believe it," Felicity said. "If the Daily Planet tried to report this story, they'd sound like the Enquirer."
"Uh guys," Alex said slowly. "We've got a more immediate problem."
Dana Scully was barely five foot two. She was not a metahuman or an alien and had spent the last three days undergoing major medical tests. None of this did anything to nullify maternal instinct, however long it had been inactive. Because in the space of a few seconds, she had leapt off her sickbed, knocked Covarrubias over, and had her hands around the blonde's neck. Mulder had done nothing to stop his partner and given the stare he was aiming at Marita, everyone was relieved that they had taken the precaution of removing the guns from the room.
"We better get in there," Cisco said.
"You really want to get between those two right now?" Felicity asked rhetorically and got on the horn to Diggle.
Mulder had been going through his own level of shock the last minute and by the time he realized what Scully was doing, it took him quite a few seconds to work up the wherewithal to act and the energy to follow through. He was stronger than her, but given the pure rage powering Scully and his own physical condition it took him a major effort to get her off Marita. Even then, it was a very close question whether he could continue to do so. He was relieved when John Diggle was the one who came in about thirty seconds later with Felicity and Alex right behind her to check on Marita.
"Why the hell are you helping her?" Scully said with a rage that Mulder had almost never heard in his partner's voice. "Did you hear what she told us?'
"Yes, we did," Alex said in the voice that had no doubt calmed down far more dire situations than this one. "And under any other circumstances, I might well let you finish what you started. But as much as she deserves it, we can't let you."
"I didn't do anything," Marita rasped out. "Hell, I told you something you needed to know!"
There was truth in that statement. Unfortunately, this was one of the few times that Mulder's honestly thought he could've lived in ignorance of it for the rest of his life. "We knew the Syndicate had a hand in…William," Mulder said. "That's why she gave him up."
"Don't you get it?" Marita asked. "Did you really think the Syndicate was just going to let him disappear? They'd been keeping track of failed test subjects for decades. What makes you think they'd stop watching them now?"
All the strength went out of Mulder's arms and he let Scully go. It was a moot point because simultaneously Scully stopped struggling. "They know where he is," she gasped out as if she had been the one who'd been strangled.
"They've always known where he is," Marita's voice was surprisingly gentle. "If they learned anything after El Rico, it's that you have to have a contingency plan. After you disappeared, they knew that they had to be prepared if you ever became a threat to them again. And you know what a long memory they have."
How could they argue with that? It was one of the few truths they had always known. "And she's the one who's watching him." Mulder said dully.
"Not just him, but yes he's been a priority of hers for the last decade," Marita told them.
Diggle had missed the entirety of the previous conversation, but he'd always been a quick study. "Have they acted yet?" he demanded.
"They had no reason to before," Marita said simply. "Even given the bloodthirsty nature of the Syndicate, they have learned from their mistakes. That said he's not holding them back any more. And you know how unsentimental Luthor and Waller are. They had no problem making a move against Oliver's son; they're not going to have any reason to make one against yours."
To the surprise of everyone Felicity was the one who made the next move. Even though she was even smaller than Scully and had less training, she grabbed Marita's arm – a move that stunned even Diggle.
"I may not have superpowers but I've spent the last four years watching everything Team Arrow has done," she said in a tone so cold it would've stunned anybody who knew her. "I've spent the last few years being abducted and tortured by basically anybody who wants to do something to hurt my friends. So I have a lot of pent-up aggression inside me to work out. And while it goes against my general credo to hurt the sick, I'm a big believer in picking on people your own size which you basically are. So baring all that in mind, I think you need to start telling us everything you know about where Mulder and Scully's son is or you'll wish we hadn't unlocked this door."
Felicity said this in a tone that unnerved Diggle. Marita Covarrubias just shrugged if off.
"You've already made it clear that my life is forfeit if I screw with you," she said calmly, "so to pile it on is overkill. It's also a waste of time and energy. Yes I know where your son is," she told Mulder and Scully, "but it's too late for any of you to do anything about it. No government agency, no metahuman, not even Supergirl could get there fast enough to stop them even if I gave you their exact location this very minute. This isn't cruelty on my part; it's just the truth."
"Did you hear what she just said?" Diggle pointed out.
"They know they can't come at you directly," Marita said as if Diggle hadn't spoken, "so they're going to make a move. My guess is any minute now, you're going to get the phone call you never wanted to get."
Mulder started to move towards Marita, but before he'd gone three steps his cell rang. "Did you arrange this?" he demanded without answering.
Marita shook her head. "Like I said, I just knew it was going to happen."
"Mulder," Scully said.
Acting as if his hand was independent from his brain, he took out his phone. "What?"
"I'm sorry, Fox," said a voice that had once whispered sweet nothings in his ears.
"Diana," he heard himself saying, "don't do this."
"I know it doesn't matter any more, but I swear to you I never thought it would come to this," Diana Fowley said sadly. "In my past life I did everything I could to protect you. I argued against the trial. I told them to let you and Dana get away. And I really hoped you'd just let it go." She paused. "I should have known better."
Mulder found he was on the verge of tears. "Please Diana, if you ever loved me, don't do this."
"You know the sacrifice you would have to make Fox," Diana told him. "You've never been willing to make it before, not for me, not even for Dana. Are you willing to make it for him?"
The entire world was gone. He couldn't even hear Scully. Fourteen years ago, she'd put her son before her own happiness without even consulting him. Now he was being asked to make the same choice. For nearly twenty-five years he'd put the truth before everything he loved – his family, his friends, any chance of happiness with Scully. Hell, he had just spent the last few days willing to sacrifice his health. Hell, how many times had he given his life for his quest? He just couldn't remember anymore. What was the life of a child he'd never known if it meant the planet was safe?
The phone that he'd carried all his life seemed to weigh a ton. He finally found the strength to say seven simple words.
"What do you want me to do?
