Chapter Four

“You don’t have to answer right away.”  Bill Mulder hastily backtracked.  “I didn’t mean to ask you until I’d shown you everything.”

“Everything?”  Mulder parroted absently still shocked at what his father had asked.  Despite a large part of his mind telling him to say no – just say no right now – he was actually tempted by the offer. 

“It’s time for you to know the worst of it Fox, then I’ll show you the best.”  To Mulder’s continued incredulity, his father smiled at the end of the sentence.  The elder Mulder suddenly turned and walked off from the lakeshore at quite a pace, leaving Mulder to follow him blindly.

XXxxXXxxXXxxXXxx

Scully leant closer to Skinner, who was watching the aliens with a kind of baffled horror.

“There’s something very strange going on here.”  Scully told him. 

Skinner bit back the urge to retort with the sarcastic words “You think?” and instead said:

“How’d you mean?  I thought these were the good guys?” 

Scully looked at him curiously.

“You still think that there are such things as the ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’?”  She asked.

“Well, yeah, I guess..”  Skinner replied, he was not as sure now as he had used to be.  Scully shrugged and then shook her head.

“There’s something wrong here, these aliens…”  She sighed.  “I don’t know but something’s different.”

Graham the alien, still in his human form, detached himself from the small group of gray aliens who had been huddled around a small screen. Scully and Skinner had time to share one last questioning glance before his arrival cut off their privacy.

“We’ve found him.”  Graham said unsmiling.

“Where?”  Scully demanded, anxious and not able to hide it.

“He’s in the James Marshall Institute.” 

“The institute.”  Skinner intoned ominously as he felt a shiver run up his spine.

“Shit!”  Scully swore.  “He just couldn’t leave it alone.” 

“We’ll have to move at once to recover the pyramid.”  Graham told them.

“You mean go inside?”  Skinner hated the scared tone his voice had taken on. He had faced the best (and worst) of the Viet Cong but he was afraid of a place name.  Scully pulled her gun out of a concealed holster on her ankle and checked the clip.  There was one round missing, but there would be enough. Her own fear of the Institute where all this had begun was just as potent as Skinner’s was, but she knew what was stake.  How many lives counted on this…

“Then what’re we waiting for?”  She stated flatly and slammed the clip back into the gun.

XXxxXXxxXXxxXXxx

Mulder stared at the burnt out shell of a large block-like building.  His father kept walking past it but Mulder felt compelled to stop and stare.  He wasn’t even really aware of the bright yellow and orange signs screaming out a message of ‘Danger: Biohazard’. 

“Scully!”  His voice yelled inside his head and then echoed hollowly against the sound of a deep and rumbling explosion. 

Mulder physically flinched against the memory of the blast. 

“Huh!”  His father snorted as he came to stand behind him.  “I was hoping that you wouldn’t remember.” 

“What happened here?”  Mulder demanded, still fixated by the building and the memories just beyond reach.

“Your beloved Agent Scully blew it up.”  His father stated.

“She’s not my beloved!”  Mulder sneered, finally snapping out of the trance of the past.  “I’ve told you, our relationship is none of your business.”  As he finished he turned to look at his father. “But why did she blow up a building?”

Bill Mulder said nothing, he just looked over at the building beyond his son.

“You know, she reminds me of your mother.”  He said at length.

“Scully does?”  Mulder asked, incredulously trying to picture the possible similarities between his pale, weak mother and his fiery, strong partner. 

“Not now obviously,”  His father replied.  “But when we met she was different.”  He sighed deeply and ran his hand through his hair. “You don’t remember her how she used to be, the person I married, well, she disappeared a long time ago.” 

“Dad..”  Mulder began, unsure of why he had spoken and what he had planned to say.

“I need to tell you Fox.  There’s no one else I can tell.” 

“I’ve already told you that I worked for Nevada Black, well, after the attack, I became part of a team of investigators.  We traveled the country interviewing people who claimed they had been the victims of alien abductions.” He smiled wryly.  “That was in the days before it became fashionable.  We took their stories and then we, we tried to convince them that they were not really true.  We had to ensure their silence or it could have had grave implications.”  He looked up at Mulder and smiled, genuinely.  “That’s how I met your mother.”

“She was an abductee?”  Mulder asked with fascination.

“Yes.  She was radiant and alive.  I had seen so much death and suffering, my life was empty and wasted but when she smiled at me the whole world changed.  She was so determined that what she had seen was real, nothing we could say could convince her that it wasn’t.  She practically threw us out.”  He grinned.   “My partner was fuming, but I was in love.”

“I followed her for days, watching from a distance, hiding in the shadows, tracking her movements.  All the time I fell more in love.  She was smart and funny.  She had so many friends, she was so damn popular.  Then one day I pretended to bump into her, she was hostile but I won her over with apologies and offered to buy her coffee.  She was too nice a person to hold a grudge for long, so she agreed.  I told her that I worked for the State Department and that it kept me away for long periods but we managed to meet up often and soon we became friends.  We were married before the year was over.”  

“But nothing worked out as I had planned.  She didn’t breathe life into me, I brought suffering to her.  I was away a lot on business and she started to hate it.  We tried for a family but nothing happened.  We argued more and more.  By then I was involved with the Project, a secret alliance between us and the Russians to build weapons, uh..against..the invasion.  I was given access to the files.” 

He closed his eyes momentarily and turned his face away.  When he turned back to look at Mulder his eyes were glittering dangerously. 

“I found a file on your mother.”

Mulder held his fathers gaze. 

“What did it say?”  Mulder asked.

“That she had been tested upon, that she had been artificially impregnated during an abduction.”  Bill Mulder replied flatly.

“What?”   Mulder gasped the word, but his father barely even heard him.

“I knew they’d done it to other woman, I’d even signed papers to let them.”

“What happened to the baby?”  Mulder asked, his blood running cold in his veins.  Bill Mulder looked up at his son absently, as if lost in another world or perhaps trapped still back in that time.

“They hadn’t perfected the technology at that time to gestate a human foetus outside the womb in the early phases of pregnancy so the mothers had to be repeatedly taken.  I’d been so blind, your mother had been a repeat abductee and I hadn’t even noticed. On one of these abductions they had removed the foetus and placed it into a metabolic deep freeze,”  His face twisted bitterly.  “For re-activation at a later date.”  He sneered the words.

“I went home that night meaning to tell her.  She was smiling when I walked through the door, just the way she’d smiled when we first met.  I couldn’t tell her.  She’d prepared a special dinner, just to tell me that she was pregnant.”

Mulder already stunned expression froze at the blank statement and he opened his mouth to say something but found that he had no words.

“Eight months later, you were born.”  Bill smiled genuinely at Mulder, it seemed like the first genuine smile he had given him in a very long time.  “I didn’t tell your mother about the test and the foetus.  I tried to forget but as I gained more respect in the project I was given more power.  Suddenly all the horrors we enacted, all the deals we made, they were all on my shoulders.  Suddenly everyone was calling it Bill Mulder’s Project.” 

“I tried to use the power to stop the worst of the tests, but there was always someone to talk me out of it.   It was for the good of humanity, they said.  Our only hope was to adapt, they insisted.  Then I found out about what had happened to the baby.”

Mulder watched his father’s face soften as he said the words. 

“She was one of the first to be brought out of stasis.  They were going to place her with a family who would never know what she was.  It was all part of the plan.”  He said the last sentence dismissively, then swallowed hard.  “I..er..” He cleared his throat.  “I..exerted my influence with the group and persuaded them to allow me to become her adoptive father.  Your mother was delighted with the idea.  She loved the little baby the first time she saw her, but then that wasn’t really surprising.  We called her Samantha.”

It was Mulder’s turn to swallow hard, his licked his dried out lips and tried again to find words.  There were none that sprang to mind.  His father continued with a small smile flicking at the corners of his mouth.

“Samantha. So like her mother and brother and so unlike me in every way.  You all made the house felt warm and alive.  It was a haven after the work which was slowly dragging me down.” 

“The technology got more sophisticated and the experiments grew more gruesome as if to keep up with it. The process became so much easier and the abductions so much cleaner to arrange.  I had begun to believe that the power I had gained and the reputation of the family would help to get me out of the project, at least sideline me and take away my guilt, but it didn’t.  It dragged me in further all the time.  There was no choice left.  I told my story to an astonished journalist, gave him evidence of the experiments.  I wasn’t thinking straight.  The story never went to print, the journalist was never found and the evidence disappeared.”

“I got some of what I wanted.  They let me leave the project, but not before they exacted their price.”

“Samantha.”  Mulder stated.

“Yes.  On a unseasonably warm dark night, they took back their merchandise.  Believe me Fox, when I left you in charge that night I didn’t know that they were going to take her.  I thought we were free of them.  I never guessed the cruelty of the men I had supposed to be my friends.  Spender, my partner..” He drew and agitated breath.  “He told your mother that I had chosen for them to take Samantha.  Your mother has never smiled at me since.  Now they’ve told you the same lie and here you are, not smiling at me, not believing me.”

“I know I’ve seemed cold towards you and your mother…”  Bill Mulder continued.

“Try glacial.”  Mulder cut in bitterly, unsure whether he believed this man or not.  His father shrugged and nodded.

“I thought that you would be better off if you never knew the truth.  I wanted to protect you from it.  Silence seemed the better choice, but I always knew that what it really was cowardice and not strength.  I was always too scared of the look on your face, the one I can see right now.” 

Mulder tried to set his expression as a frozen mask but found that he couldn’t.  The questioning frown remained no matter how hard he tried to remove it.  The expression barely covered the sensation of horrified awe which the retelling of the story had created.   

“Everything I’ve done I intended for the best, I wish I could make you believe that.”

“I don’t know what to say to you.”  Mulder replied.  “I can’t let go of the past, all the lies..I can’t believe you now..”

“I know…”  The elder man replied, it must surely have been an attempt at being soothing but it came out too clipped.  He was out of practice at comforting other human beings.   “Fox, I need you to know that I tried to tell you the truth, but I did it the cowards way.  I was too much of a coward to say it to your face.”  He took a deep breath.  “No one else knows this and it will place us all into even greater danger if anyone finds out, but I have to tell you.  I was the one who led you to the X files.  I wanted you to find the truth I couldn’t tell.  So, I sent you the file on Edward Skur.”

“Then Dales’ story…”  Mulder interjected, catching on immediately to his father’s meaning. 

“You went to see him.”  Bill Mulder smiled wryly then shrugged.  “Whatever he told was probably as true as he knew it to be…”

“He told me that you let Edward Skur go, that you were trying to leak information as far back as 1952.” 

“How can a man see everything he did and not develop any sense of paranoia!”  Bill Mulder commented, he sobered abruptly.  “I didn’t know about the implants when I sent you to Dales, but it didn’t matter They knew everything about that incident anyway.”

“Implants?”  Mulder asked ominously.

“I’ll explain everything, but there is more you need to know.  I need to explain, and apologise, for your Agent Scully.”

“What have you done to Scully?  She really is here isn’t she?”  Mulder demanded, anger descending upon him in a black wave.  His father held up a pacifying hand.

“She’s not here, but I can guess where she is.”

“Then tell me…”

“No.”  Bill Mulder stated firmly, then relaxed his face.  “Not yet, in time.  Everything will become clear in time.”

Mulder let out a breath filled with frustration and anger. 

“Alright, what do I need to know about Scully?”  He rolled his eyes skywards in a sarcastic gesture as he waited for the ‘earth-shattering’ information.

“I sent her to you.  I had it arranged with Blevins.”

“Why?”  Mulder asked flatly.

“You needed a partner.  There was no way you were going to survive on your own. We needed someone young and healthy, someone who would be logical and incisive but would not be easily led down the wrong path.  Dana Scully seemed the best choice.  She had all the best scores in her year at the academy and all the right family connections. Good strong naval upbringing, a sense of loyalty and duty to her country.  We choose her out of three potential partners because she was the perfect foil for you.  Patience to temper your impetuousness, reason to your passion, outward fire and social grace to your self-imposed inner exile.  We couldn’t have found a more perfect match.”

“Who’s we?”  Mulder chose to ignore all the statements about his relationship with Scully, mostly because they came far too close to the mark.  “Did Blevins…”

“Oh no, Blevins was utterly out of his league.  Paterson instigated it.”

“Who’s Paterson?”  Mulder asked.

“He was my last faithful contact within the group; my eyes, my ears,” He drew a long breath, then exhaled slowly.  “my friend.”   He looked up and met Mulder’s eyes.  “I believe you knew him as Deep Throat.”  He smiled, remembering.  “A great man.”

This time Mulder’s anger came as a red wave.  It was blinding.

“Is he somewhere alive in here too?”  He sneered, sure that he’d discovered another lie to make a mockery of his deepest held truths.  “Is he one of the ‘undead’ too?”

“No.”  Bill Mulder replied with a truthful shake of his head.  “Only the good die in this world of ours Fox, it would be wise for you to remember that.  The evil men live on, it’s their victory and their punishment.”  

XXxxXXxxXXxxXXxx

One second: reality.  One second:  Infinity.

Whoosh. 

The wave of power.  The light.  Rain.  Snow.  Hailstones.  Meteorites.  Millions of dust particles crashing together.  Atoms colliding and exploding.  Fission.  Energy.  Chaos never ending.  Matter and physics.  Perfect order. 

The noise.  Like pounding pain, but so much rain that it could wash away a city.  Sheet after sheet.  A heartbeat.  Blood flowing around and around.  Comforting.  Heartbeat. 

Baby.  Her baby.  The child in her womb.  A heart beating.  Two heartbeats become as one.  Peace.  She is the baby.  She is the mother. 

Scully floated serenely in the reality of the vision.  The journey was preparing her for the battle.  She knew everything about herself.  Nothing could hurt her now.  Nothing but losing her friends. The dream-like state brought all their faces before her, like a slideshow.

She would fight for the scared Scully they had turned her into. She would fight for the confident Scully she had allowed herself to become.  She would fight for Skinner, who had been punished so much that she had begged until they had erased the memory forever.  She would fight for Mulder’s sister, an innocent victim of a corrupted world.  She would fight for her sister, who had died in her stead.  She would fight for the nameless informants who had given their lives for the cruelest of mistresses, the truth.  She would fight for Pendrell and the might have beens.  She would fight for Queequag, another friend lost in the mist.  She would fight for all the nameless victims of the Syndicate and their compatriots.  She would fight for her life, her friends and her species. 

But, most of all, she would fight for Mulder, because he was the one who had taught her to fight.  Maybe one day he would even be able to remember what he had done for her.

In unreality, she continued to float after the images faded.  The journey would take as long as it needed to.  In the comparative reality of the vortex Scully held tightly onto Skinner’s hand.

Whoosh.  The power of the wave.

Blood.  Raining down around him.  Blood.  Soaking into his clothes.  Nauseating stench of decay.  Rain.  Hailstones.  Meteorites.  Hitting him.  Bruising collisions.  His body ached with bruises.  He stumbled through the jungles of his mind.  Humidity rising.  Blood rain falling.  Rivers with corpses.  Mulder.  Scully.  Sharon.  His baby son, Andrew, who had died minutes into his life. 

Heartbeat.  Blood pulsating.  The hole in his chest expanding.  The woman.  Old woman.  Her hands splay in the blood on his chest.  The hands enter flesh.  Gasp.  Fresh blood.  She smiles.  Hands move.  Heartbeat.  Heart.  Hands move.  His heart in her hands.  His eyes look at it.  Empty chest.  Heartbeat. 

Skinner was wrenched abruptly out of the gruesome vision by the hand holding his pulling violently away.  The images around him faded and he was suddenly in space.  Stars and planets whisked by at an astonishing rate.  Scully’s hand slid out of his.  A lasso of light seemed to glow around her waist.  She fought back towards him.  Her face was a picture of surprise, but as he watched comprehension seemed to dawn.  She stopped struggling against the tether.  However as soon as the knowing look had appeared it was already replaced by fear. 

“Skinner.”  She mouthed soundlessly and he seemed to understand despite the great distance that now separated them.  “It’s a trap.  You’re walking into a trap.” 

Then Scully was gone.

Reality crashed back in.  Skinner hunched into a ball as rain pelted onto his back.  He was reminded of the blood rain from the vision and dared not look for a second. 

“Mr Skinner?”  Graham the alien’s voice asked in a chillingly flat tone.  

Skinner looked up.  Scully was no where to be seen, but she had been right.  It was a trap.  Around him stood a platoon of soldiers with rifles leveled directly down at him.

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