Ghosts

Five thousand four hundred and thirty-six, five thousand four hundred and thirty-seven, five thousand four hundred and thirty-eight, five thousand four hundred and thirty-nine…

A car passes by, honking, and she wonders what the hell for, until she realizes she's not walking on the sidewalk anymore and it all makes sense for some seconds. She goes back to the safety of the sidewalk and tries to start counting her steps again, but where did she stop?

Luckily, she'll reach her destination soon because she feels the blisters starting to hurt her soles. Where is she going again? Oh yes, to the only place she can call home these days, the only place that isn't empty or full of ghosts.

She laughs because a skeptic talking about ghosts sounds really absurd to her ears.

But there are ghosts, ghosts everywhere she looks, more ghosts than she ever thought she could possibly see one day, more ghosts than she thought she could handle. And there is this one ghost in particular that won't leave her alone, that will haunt her dreams, that will be around every corner, in a stranger's cologne that smells like his, in every corner of her lonely apartment where they once made love, in that spot in her back that holds a stupid tattoo and that is also his spot. She sees his ghost in every damn file she has to go through every fucking day.

She is usually strong, usually able to get her shit together, so it scares the hell out of her that a phone call asking for Mulder leaves her like this. It's the pregnancy hormones, she tells herself, even though deep down she knows that she's just human, that she's just reacting to things as some other people do. She tries to tell herself that it's okay to be sad when a loved one dies, that it's okay to be sad when she is forced to say it out loud.

She's tired, and her tiredness doesn't come from having walked miles already or from the small extra weight she's carrying in her womb; it's coming from her thoughts that won't leave her alone, much like the ghost of Mulder hanging around and suffocating her. She wants to let go, she really does, but how can she do that? How can she let go of the only person that made her believe in the idea of soulmates? How can she let go when part of him is inside of her, growing by the day, showing not only her, but soon the whole wide world, that he'll never be truly gone? How can she forget?

She doesn't want to forget, not in a million years does she want to forget. She wants to remember his face as it was, his hair falling over his face when it got too long and he didn't care to cut it for a few weeks, the crack of his beloved sunflower seeds between his teeth. If she closes her eyes, she can almost listen. And she does close her eyes for a moment, hearing the cars go by and remembering those hours and hours on the road chasing after monsters in the dark, the hours that annoyed the hell out of her sometimes, but hours that inevitably made her fall in love with him. Desperately, irrevocably.

She opens her eyes again because she has to keep moving. It is the reason why she started counting her steps in the first place, because counting her steps helps her focus. But now she has to start again and she's tired. She can't continue. She doesn't even know how she is still being able to put one foot in front of the other and push her way forwards one more mile, then another, then another… It's almost as if he is here with her, walking by her side and saying, 'you can do this, Scully, just one more step. I believe in you.'

Maybe he is walking by her side; maybe she is just not able to see him. Isn't that what they're always saying, that those who die are never really lost to us? Or maybe he is not dead at all. Maybe she has just fallen into a parallel universe by mistake and he's dead in this reality but not in hers. Maybe the presence she feels is really him, but in her real reality, a reality where she is missing and he's looking for her because he doesn't know she's gone to a parallel universe.

Please find me, Mulder. I know you're smart, you're going to solve this case and we'll get back to each other. Then I'll stop caring about the FBI, about stupid regulations, about my fear of loving you so hard I can hardly breathe. We can live together, we can raise our baby, we can be a happy family. Please, Mulder, just find me.

She feels tears sting her eyes and allows them to fall along with some sobs. The baby is not big enough yet to kick, but she knows it is what it would do if it could. Her baby is just as restless as she is without the one who helped her give it life, the one who helped give her life. Isn't it ironic that the one who gave so much life is now dead?

She rubs her stomach as she takes another step, and then another, and then another. At least there is some comfort, at least there is a reason for her to keep walking.

Keep moving on, keep moving on, the fetus in her womb is saying.

How is this possible? How is it possible that she's going to have a baby? How is it possible that she's going to have a baby with Mulder? How is it possible that years of her prayers have been answered? How is it possible that she found herself in a parallel universe, even though she doesn't believe parallel universes actually exist? How is it possible that Mulder is gone?

She hasn't been to the cemetery to see him a while. Maybe she should go and check if he is still there one of these days.

The familiar lights in front of her mom's apartment blink and she's brought to reality. How has she walked this far? How long has she been walking? Is it wise doing something crazy like this while pregnant? Her knowledge of medicine fails her, she can't remember much. What she does remember is having walked like this only once in her life, in the beginning of their partnership, when she thought Mulder was dead and that her career at the FBI had been destroyed. Isn't it funny that Mulder has always been the only one to make her walk like this?

Now that she is here everything seems stupid, she shouldn't have come, what was she thinking when she left her apartment? Will her mother understand? Will she understand why she walked here or that she is not really her daughter, but an exact copy living in a world where she doesn't belong?

She rings the bell anyway, and, surprisingly, the sound of the ringing is comforting. It reminds her of Halloween, of Christmas, of Bill being hard on Mulder during Thanksgiving, the only celebration they got to spend together.

Mulder. It all always comes back to Mulder.

The steps coming towards the door distract her, and it's good not to think about Mulder for 5 whole seconds.

When Maggie opens the door, her face is full of concern, almost as if she has seen a ghost. Maybe she has seen a ghost, because that's probably what she looks like. She is a living ghost chasing a dead ghost. It sounds like something Edgar Allan Poe would like to hear about. She chuckles at the thought, before realizing she hasn't yet said a word since her mom opened the door.

She suddenly doesn't know why she came, or why she's thinking of ghosts and parallel universes and all those things that don't usually make sense to her. She almost steps back and walks away, but Maggie's arms are wide open, seeming welcoming. So, she walks into them, hugs her mom like she's the last precious thing on Earth, cries on her shoulder as she caresses her hair and pulls her inside, closing the door behind them.

"I know it hurts, Dana, I know it hurts."

She cries harder, because she knows her mom knows what she is going through. She lost Ahab, after all.

It takes a few minutes for her to recollect herself, or at least to stop sobbing.

She doesn't realize she is speaking until the second question is out.

"Does it ever get easy, mom? Does it ever feel like you're not in a parallel universe? Because right now, the only explanation I have is that I am in a parallel universe and that my timeline is all wrong. I want to go back, mom, I so badly want to go back! I need this timeline to be restored, do you think it's going to happen any time soon?"

She is aware that she sounds crazy, but she doesn't care.

She feels Maggie's tears on her hair as she tries to shush her, to calm her in that healing way that only mothers have the power to do. She wonders if Maggie is scared to see her like this for she was never one to show her feelings at all. She hopes she isn't. She also hopes she is at least half as good to her child as her mother is to her. Her child and her mother are all she has now.

She is so immersed in her tears and the welcoming hug that she almost forgets her questions. But the answer comes and makes her remember.

"The pain never goes away, Dana, but you learn to live with it. You learn that the good memories are powerful, and that they can outweigh the pain most times if you hold on to them long enough."

Her mom pauses, and the ten-second silence is almost too much to bear. She needs words to fill the void she's feeling right now. But Maggie knows, she always knows, so she continues.

"Tell me about him."

She is guided to her mother's comforting couch and, before she knows it, words are spilling from her mouth, from her wounds, from her broken heart that will probably never be mended.

"I hate him for dying. I hate him for making me love him this much. I hate that I didn't get the chance to say that I love him."

Maggie rubs her arm, understanding, a weak smile on her lips as she listens.

And words flow out of her in a way she isn't expecting. Her angry and painful words at some point become stories of how they met, of things he believed in and she found ridiculous, of moments when he made her laugh, of moments when she made him laugh, of moments of happiness she just knows she'll never feel again.

She talks and talks and talks and talks. She talks until she's exhausted and Maggie takes her up to her old room.

She sleeps it all off and stops thinking she is in a parallel universe. She sleeps it all off and realizes that her heart is a little lighter, a little warmer when she wakes up. She sleeps it all off and feels Mulder's presence all around her. She feels his presence and says another prayer for his soul. She says another prayer for a miracle just in case there is someone listening.