Chapter 5
When he woke up next, the room was empty, with sunlight reflecting down through a narrow window. Soft music was playing, it sounded like classical music from a vinyl record. He stared at the window, stared at the room.
The bandage was still around his head. There was more pain now, so the meds were wearing off. This was real, he couldn't bring himself to deny it.
He heard the door open, and managed to turn his head just enough to recognize the younger woman—Agent Farnsworth—before the pain made him relax his neck again.
"What is this place?" he asked without looking at her.
"An old lab in a Harvard basement. Long story," she replied.
"What they were telling me...it's true, isn't it?"
"Yes, I'm sorry to say that it is."
"Can I have a mirror?"
Astrid hesitated for a moment, then angled up a dentist's mirror Walter sometimes used during his experiments.
Mulder stared at his reflection. He didn't recognize the person he saw: his hair was gray, his complexion sallow, and his face wrinkled, the skin loose. He looked like his father—the man he'd believed was his father before he'd learned the truth about the Smoking Man... No, what he'd thought had been the truth. Had he really imagined it? The question of his parentage had been on his mind since he'd learned his mother may have had an affair with the Smoking Man, but now the truth was staring him in the face, or staring out from his face: he was the son and spitting image of William Mulder. He might have felt relieved under other circumstances.
If Scully were there.
He reached up slowly and touched his cheek, feeling his hand to confirm it was a mirror and not some sort of illusion.
But it had all seemed so real.
"Has it really been fifteen years?"
"I'm so sorry."
In spite of the pain in his head, he looked away as tears welled in his eyes.
Astrid pretended not to notice. "You must be hungry. Even if you don't feel hungry, you need to eat something. I'll make some chicken soup. Unless you're a vegetarian?"
Mulder chuckled. "I must be hungry," he said. "I haven't eaten solid food in fifteen years. No, I'm not a vegetarian. Chicken soup..." He bit his lip, and couldn't finish.
Astrid didn't press him, but turned her attention to the task of heating up some soup over a Bunson burner.