Chapter 14

It was a sunny and quiet afternoon.

Mulder had taken a taxi to an address a few blocks from Lindentree Inn and walked the rest of the way. He did realize that if he was walking into some kind of trap, his secrecy made it so no one would know what happened to him, but he'd decided to take that risk.

The Lindentree Inn was a small, no-frills hotel just off the highway. He stood for a minute looking at it. What would he find here? Which window was Room 206?

He felt like he was being watched. He saw, or imagined, the blinds on one of the windows flutter, as if someone had just cracked open a blind to peek out.

He kept his eyes on that window as he walked toward the hotel.

There were only two vehicles in the parking lot, and there was no one in the lobby when he entered. He took the stairs to the second floor. The hallway was beige in color, with a rusty red carpet, none too new, that made the interior seem dimmer than it was.

He stopped at room number 206. He took a deep breath.

Was it Scully?

He knocked on the door, and it swung open. It had been slightly ajar.

"Hello?" he called.

There was no answer. He didn't see anyone in the tiny hotel room. It was illuminated only by the low sunlight glowing from the dusty blinds. It looked empty.

He stepped inside, looking for any sign. Maybe this wasn't a meeting, maybe it was just another step, another clue in the treasure hunt.

The door slammed shut.

He turned around and found a gun pointed squarely at him. And behind the gun, in the alcove next to the door…

"Scully!"

She looked different. Her hair was long and dyed dark brown, and her face had more lines, but it was her. It was her face, her eyes staring at him.

"Is it really you?" she asked.

He chuckled. Of course that would be her first thought, after everything they'd encountered in their cases together.

"I don't know. I don't know how to tell if I'm really me," he joked.

She smiled. "Mulder..." She holstered her gun and sprinted to him, wrapping her arms around him as he enfolded her in his.

It was Scully, the real Scully, in his arms again, with her head on his chest. And he felt the way he always did when he held her: he felt whole.

He buried his lips in her hair.

"Mulder, when I heard you were awake, I couldn't believe it."

"How did you know I was awake? Did your mother or Skinner tell you?" He realized the answer even as he asked the question. "Nevermind."

Skinner said it himself: if Scully were alive, she would have contacted him. He never said she hadn't.

"I have so much to tell you."

"Me too." His hands rubbed her back as if trying to pull her even closer.

"Mulder," she whispered his name. After a minute or two, she slowly drew away so she could look into his eyes. Her hands went to his face, roaming over his cheeks and jaw as if to reassure herself he was solid.

He in turn gazed at her, his eyes wandering over every feature of her face. He had so much he wanted to tell her didn't know where to start. So he started with a joke. "Are we done proving we are who we say we are?"

She smiled. "I could check the back of your neck to make sure you don't have a mind-controlling parasite."

"I'll show you mine if you show me yours."

Scully laughed. "I also have these bumps I'd like you to take a look at. I can't decide if they're alien implants or mosquito bites."

Mulder nodded. "You can tell I'm not Eddie Van Blundht because I'm not charming enough, but you can check my blood if you want to make sure I'm not a shape-shifter."

"I'll take my chances," she said.

They both laughed, then grew somber as they looked into each other's eyes.

"I never thought I'd see you again. For fifteen years...Mulder..."

He gazed at her. How was he supposed to tell her that in the fifteen years she'd spent missing him, he'd built a life with her? That they'd had a son? He wanted to kiss her, like he remembered doing a thousand times, but for her it would be their first.

It was hard for him to think about anything right now other than being with her, but he wondered at the precautions she'd taken to meet with him secretly, and what they were going to do next.

"We need to talk," he said.

"Yes."

She sat on the edge of the bed. He sat beside her.

"Why were you so careful about meeting in secret?" he asked.

"I wanted to leave clues only you, only the real Mulder, would pick up on."

"What are you so afraid of? Who have you been hiding from?" He reached out and stroked her cheek. "What happened to you when I was shot? Who took you?"

She turned her head toward his touch.

"You know who took me," she said.

"The Smoking Man."

She nodded. "He was there. I was incapacitated, but I heard him talking. They decided to get me out of the way. I was taken to...a lab. It was like a hospital. They experimented on me." She reached up and ran her finger along her hairline. "They cut into my brain, electrically stimulated different brain regions. They subjected me to tests, mind reading, precognition…"

"How did you get out?"

"There's a secret organization, a group called ZFT. They broke into the hospital. They took us away. They studied us to try to figure out what the conspiracy had been doing, what they were trying to do. When they found out about my background in science, and that I could speak German, they offered me a job."

It fit with everything Nina had told him. "So you took it?"

"On the condition that I could see you. I didn't know what had happened to you. They told me you'd been shot, you were in a coma. I said I had to see you."

"You came and saw me in the hospital."

"I didn't want to believe it. I thought if I could see you, if you could hear my voice, if I could touch you, maybe it would make a difference."

He gazed at her. "Maybe it did. I'm still alive." He took off her necklace and tenderly put it around her neck.

Her fingers closed around the small gold cross, taking comfort in its familiarity. "After that, I contacted Skinner. We met in secret, arranged a way to communicate in coded messages on an internet discussion board. I asked him to check on you, to let me know if there was a change in your condition. Then I took the job for ZFT."

"Did you trust them?"

"No. But I was afraid of what would happen if I didn't join them, I was worried that if the people who took me knew where to find me, they would take me again. ZFT promised me safety. And they promised me answers."

"What answers?"

"They said there's another dimension, another Earth, like this one but with more advanced technology, and that they're planning a war. Our world is endangering theirs, so they're planning to destroy ours. ZFT got me a fake passport, they got me a job as a translator in Germany, and every now and then I translated scientific reports for them, studies and tests they were conducting all over the world to find a way to stop the other universe. The science they were working on was… incredible. And horrifying. Mulder, according to their research, there isn't just one other universe adjacent to ours, there's at least eight, and possibly billions, but this one… something happened that caused that reality to collide with ours. ZFT believed only one could survive."

"'Believed' past-tense. What happened?"

"I don't know. ZFT didn't fully trust me. They only contacted me when they had a job for me; I didn't have a way to contact them. And then they just stopped contacting me. I don't know why. I have no idea what happened to them."

Mulder looked at Scully for a long moment. There was a possibility she was lying, that she had been sent to find out what he knew about Fringe Division.

No. There wasn't even a possibility. This was Scully. He trusted her. If he couldn't trust her, he couldn't trust anything.

But how much would she trust him?

"They were stopped," he said. "ZFT was a terrorist group. They did experiments on human subjects. Maybe they thought they were doing it for the greater good, but that's what all terrorists believe. Their leaders were killed or arrested, or went into hiding after they were exposed. There's an FBI department called Fringe Division. They took over where we left off. They were created to investigate the tests ZFT was doing. They're the ones who brought me out of my coma. They're the reason I'm here. I work with them now."

"Do you trust them, Mulder?"

"Not the way I trust you. But yeah, I trust them enough. Do you trust me?"

She nodded. "Mulder, I've been so afraid for so long. I knew I couldn't trust ZFT, but they were all I had, and when I stopped getting communications from them, I felt so alone. I was terrified. I didn't know what was going to happen. Then two months ago, I felt like something changed. I started dreaming about you. I started feeling like you were with me. I asked Skinner to check on you. He told me you were awake, that he'd spoken to you. He gave me your address. I came here as soon as I could. I'm not afraid anymore." After a pause, she added, "I don't feel like I'm alone anymore."

Mulder gazed at her, then drew toward her slowly. She closed the gap between them, pressing her lips firmly against his. His hand cupped the back of her head, twining his fingers in her hair. Her lips parted, deepening the kiss.

Then she drew back slowly. Her eyes fluttered open. For a long moment, they just looked at each other.

Mulder broke the silence. "I had you," he said.

"Excuse me?" she asked in mock offense, smiling.

"For fifteen years, Scully, I was unconscious in a hospital bed. I was dreaming the whole time. I never questioned that it was real. It was my reality. And you were with me. We were together. Then they woke me up, and I lost you. They told me you'd disappeared fifteen years ago. I felt like the world had been pulled out from under me. Logically, I knew you were probably dead, but I couldn't believe that. I had to find you. But I had no idea where to start looking. Without you, I felt lost. I always have."

She blinked back tears. "Mulder."

He reached for her, and she rested her head on his shoulder as he held her.

Someday he would tell her everything, he would tell her all about their life together that had turned out to just be in his head, he would tell her how much she meant to him, how much he loved her. But in reality they'd been apart for fifteen years, and there were parts of their relationship they would have to rebuild before that could happen.

"Stay with me," he asked. "Tell your story to Fringe Division. They're still trying to figure out how ZFT operated. We can work with them together. Or we could go somewhere else. But whatever happens, I couldn't stand to lose you again."

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Mulder could see the fear in her face, and the longing. They didn't know if the Smoking Man was still alive, if the Conspiracy was still active, but if she came back and came out of hiding, she could see her family again.

She finally nodded. "If you really trust Fringe Division, so do I."

"I do," he said. "So what do we do now?"

She kissed him again.