The chill in the room was familiar, not like the bitter winds or snows of winter but like a breeze crossing your bare wet skin. Mulder lay naked, exposed and vulnerable on a stone slab, his breaths were shallow and hard, a young woman and a little Emily, no more than 6 years old, entered the doorless room via a seemingly invisible panel in the wall. Emily went straight for his face with a damp cloth. She wiped his face whispering words of comfort while the woman, whose face was obscured by her long dark curls, placed a clean white cloth over his manhood. The action was simple but achingly beautiful. As they were leaving, Emily stood on her tipy toes to kiss his forehead. Mulders eyes fluttered open. Seeing her in front of him, he gasped and tried to sit up, causing him to grunt in pain.
"It's ok. The less you move the sooner you'll go numb." Emily informed him.
"Emily?" He asked. Having spent the last three years with no one but Samantha Emily had forgotten who she was and childishly tilted her head to indicate her confusion. "Oh kiddo, you look just like your mother." He told her making her eyes light up and a smile dance across her face. "Sweetie, where are we?" He asked with trepidation. "You know my momma? My real momma, my Scully Momma?" She asked.
"Yeah, she's my best friend in the whole wide world." It appeared as if Emily grew two inches from pure joy of hearing of her mother. "She is so beautiful and funny and perfect. And Emily," he whispered. "Can I tell you a secret?" She nodded enthusiastically, leaning in closer to hear. "I love her more than the stars and the moon, more than the earth and the sky. I love her a lot." Emily's giggled erupted into full blown laughter. "Shhh" the woman called. "They'll hear us." Emily turned back to answer Mulders question. "We're at the new facility with the soldiers. They wanna make you one. We've been working to try and make a stop so you can't be but we aren't there yet." Emily looked a little disappointed which broke the heart of all onlookers.
"What did you say her name was?" The brunette asked from the corner of the room. "Emily." He replied. "Emily Christine Sim. The most beautiful girl in the world."
"Not Scully?" The mysterious woman asked.
Addressing Emily he responded "your mom was taken away to a place that was a lot like this. The people who ran that place separated you from her. And then because you survived, they didn't know what to do with you, they gave you to a family who were gonna take care of you. Do you remember them kiddo?" Emily nodded. "That's when I first got sick."
"Yeah. Things got messy for a bit because they wanted to protect you from any experimental medical treatments. That's when your mom found you." "Yeah at Christmas." She added with a smile to his story. "Yeah."
"Ok Emily, time to go." The brunette called, clearly uncomfortable in the situation. Mulder wondered if she was a soldier. "No a little bit longer. Please? I don't even know his name" She begged. "Fine."
"Excuse me sir," Emily asked in her politest voice, "what's your name?"
"Fox Mulder." He replied. "And are you my Daddy?" She asked. "No kiddo." He replied crestfallen. "You are what was termed a hybrid. You don't have a human father."
"Is that why I'm sick?" She asked quickly, conscious that the brunette was about to sweep her away. "I think so." He replied.
"We can come back Emily. But right now we've gotta go before someone finds us."
"Ok. I'll see you soon Daddy." She kisses his forehead and skips out after the woman beaming with joy.
Things go a bit foggy, but they're still in the chilly room when things come back into focus.
The focus settles on Mulder, seemingly alone in the room. Emily was hidden away, pretending to sleep, in the far corner of the room when Spender walked in. Mulder was awake. Wide awake. "She died." He stated. "I watched it happen. I went to her funeral. I held her mother while she grieved." Emotion was devoid from his tone.
"Well we couldn't let Dr Scully interfere with the tests. This child is a miracle. None of the others survived." Spender had crept so far coward now their faces were mere inches apart. "Besides. She's just so cute." With a hideous toothy grin he walked towards the door, passed the 'sleeping' Emily and stroked her hair. When the door closes Emily stands.
"Daddy," Emily comes over shyly, wiping the tears from her eyes. "I mean Mr Mulder. Can I ask you a science question?" Mulder smiles against the pins in his face. "Yes Miss Scully." She grins. "Um, I wanna know how a daddy does? How he becomes a Daddy." She says sternly. "And don't leave anything out." She adds hurriedly. He sighs, a grimace on his face. "For science?" "Yep."
"Well." Scully would kill him if she ever found out he'd had this conversation with her little girl. "Do you know what cells are?"
"Well yeah, I help Samantha in the lab." She replies like its the silliest question in the world, like every 6 year old knows about cells and gametes and chromosomes. "What I wanna know is how do I get an X sperm cell. If I can split it into individual chromosomes I can clone the cell to form a cure."
"I thought you were 6" Mulder says stunned.
"I am. November 10 1994." She replies, unsure of its relevance. "How do I get a sperm cell. Samantha said I had to ask you."
"Ok wait, I know it's a long shot but is this Samantha character, is she the smoker mans daughter?"
"Yeah." Says Emily "but she doesn't ever talk to him or about him." She was getting frustrated "how do I get some sperm made?"
"The sperm cell, the one the baby needs, has to come from a man." Pausing to steady his breaths. "A man in love." He adds shyly. Emily ponders this for a moment. "A man in love." She repeats pensively. "And you love my Momma." He's not sure where this is going but he hopes he does "Can I have your sperm cell?" She asks, an innocent curiosity. "To split I mean." He looks at her face, pale and sickly, he tells himself it's just bad lighting but he knows better. "Of course you can kiddo." He says with a smile. Her whole face lights up at the prospect.
The fog returns, revealing Samantha, her face still obscured. "It's gonna hurt like hell when I reattach all this stuff." "I'm gonna bring you home Samantha." He says it more to assure himself than her. "This is my home Fox, it's all I've known for almost 12 years." He yelps when she reattaches the pins, his stifled screams come out like sex noises and he can't help but be embarrassed. He's just had the best masturbation session of his life and is now naked and tied down to a metal slab while his little sister, his beautiful innocent little sister, leans over his exposed, tested on, scared body. "Well, you'll have a niece in 48 hours." He says trying not only to divert her attention but to justify the thoughts he'd had of Scully not 10 minutes ago. "She looks just like Scully you know, I think you'd really like her. Scully that is. She's a lot like you. She teases me a lot and drives me crazy." He stops, unsure of what to say to the object of his life long search. What to to do when your faced with the end, when you've caught the thing you've been chasing for twenty years. Samantha smiles, just grateful he's in front of her. She had missed him. She had told Geoffrey about him as kids but he'd insisted that 'Fox' must've been imaginary. She sat down by his head and rested with him.
The fog came in dense now, all encasing, intense, suffocating.
"You saved her." Neither removed their hands from his face, holding on to the life they could've had. "She's alive and healthy and safe because of you." Scully's glassy eyes spilled with silent tears. "I have a daughter?" Mulder whispered in disbelief. "A 21 year old daughter... And Samantha... She's alive?" He couldn't believe what he had just seen. Scully removed her hand from against Williams face and moved her chair to be sitting parallel to Mulder's and she pulled him close to her chest. They sobbed together for a moment. William was uncomfortable. Misunderstanding their tears as those of regret of loosing their children rather than the joy of finding them alive and safe.
William fidgeted in his chair turning the page of his folio. "This is the five of us. We get one day a week of outside play. And earlier this year Scully 5's birthday was on an free day so we went and played baseball and chased the girls around the quad. It was a lot of fun. So I drew it. Us. It was the day Emily decided we could break out." They looked down at the drawing. It was so perfect, he had captured every tiny detail. It was as if they were looking at a black and white photograph. "They're gonna need names." His parents looked at each other with hopeful eyes. They were bringing their babies home.