Chapter 6: Scully’s Mother
Sometime in the future.
Mulder Summer House
Quonochontaug, Rhode Island
He stood silently watching the house burn and all the fragments of the past that went with it. A wave of regret washed over him, not for the past but for the people who had lived in this house. He’d loved them as if they had been his own family.
“This wasn’t necessary.” A voice said angrily from beside him.
“This was not my choice.” He said flatly, dropping the cigarette to the floor and stubbing it out with his toe.
“Damn you!” She said stepping closer to him. He turned to face her with his icy expression intact.
“You above all people should know that the success of the project is more important than individual lives.”
“How can you say that after being responsible for the deaths of most of my family?”
“Their role in the project was over long ago.”
“So kill me too then.” She returned, just as icily. “You should have done it a long time ago.”
“The time is coming Samantha.” He turned away from her and walked towards a waiting helicopter.
Samantha closed her eyes and concentrated but after a moment she gave up.
< “Dammit Fox, where are you?” > It was no use, whatever it was that caused them to be able to communicate was definitely off the air. Maybe he was blocking her out.
Samantha watched impotently as the wind from the ascending helicopter added oxygen to the fire that was ripping the house apart. Tears sparkled in her eyes and she allowed herself to let out the pain that she had kept in for all these years. She would not have another chance to cry. The time was fast approaching when everyone’s tears would be meaningless.
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The Living Room
Margaret Scully’s Residence
Mulder and Scully lay curled against each other on the thin couch. With eyes closed, they both tried not to think about anything except how good it felt to be alive and to be together.
“I love you.” Mulder said softly into the silence and Scully smiled against his neck and pressed a kiss to the spot where her mouth rested.
“Don’t leave me ever again Mulder.” She whispered and he swallowed convulsively.
“I’ll do my best,” He turned so he could look at her, she craned her neck to see into his eyes. “but I can’t promise Scully. I know you feel patronised by it, but I just want to protect you.” Scully smiled a genuine, full smile.
“You’re arrogant, over bearing, borderline-psychotic and patronising Mulder, but I love you and wherever you go I’ll be right beside you, probably attempting to cover your ass. Haven’t you noticed Mulder that it’s more like *me* protecting *you* most of the time?”
“No, I just let you think that in order to make you feel useful.” He commented, barely concealing a grin. Scully lunged for his throat and they struggled playfully, falling onto the floor but continuing the play fight.
They stopped with them both lying on their sides, breathing heavily, and smiled into each others eyes. Mulder raised a hand and cupped her chin. His mouth was met halfway by hers and they exchanged a honey-sweet kiss.
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The Kitchen
Margaret Scully’s Residence
Maggie Scully rinsed the cup out under the stream of warm water and bit her lip. Tears threatened in her eyes as the years rolled back in her mind and she saw the image of Rebecca Mulder waving at her from deck of the summer house as the speedboat zoomed past. She remembered laughing as the wind caught in her long dark hair and wrapped it in front of her eyes, blotting out her view of Rebecca. She remembered the bounce of the boat as it cut through the waves, the way she had stumbled with the motion. She could almost feel the small, strong hand that clasped on her arm and could clearly recall the concerned face of the young boy in the boat with her. Fox Mulder was a spoilt child in those years but he’d always had a good heart. She’d always liked Fox, but she hadn’t been surprised when he hadn’t recognised her. He’d been very young and she’d looked very different in those days. She’d been very different, all bristling youth full of ideas that she could have her job and her family and everything would be just fine. The world wouldn’t end in *her* lifetime after all, but then she hadn’t thought about life as continuing after the age of forty. The shrill call of the telephone cut off her reminiscences and she jumped to pick it up before it disturbed Fox and Dana.
“Hello?” There was no answer and the knot of fear, which had been forming in her stomach since her conversation with Rebecca, increased it’s pressure. “Hello?” She asked again, more warily.
“Hello Maggie.” A soft masculine voice answered at length. Maggie gasped.
“Oh my God!” It was a day for revelations. The man’s throaty chuckle aided Maggie in regaining her cool. “What do you want?” She demanded.
“Your daughter’s there, isn’t she? Along with Fox Mulder.”
“No.” Maggie answered a little too sharply and the man laughed again.
“It’s here Maggie. The time is here and now.”
“But..” Fear washed over in pulsating waves and she had to fight for words. <Now? It’s now..?>
“I told you that you couldn’t outrun it.” The soft voice which permeated her nightmares persisted and she wanted to slam down the receiver, but she couldn’t. She needed information to help Fox and Dana get away from the danger this man posed for them. That is, if it wasn’t already too late to get away from any of them. From out of nowhere she found her voice.
“Listen to me, you bastard, you hurt either Fox or Dana and you’ll answer to me.” The man laughed again.
“What will you do to me Maggie? What *can* you do?” It was Maggie’s turn to laugh, then her face froze and the laughter stopped abruptly.
“Base of the neck.” She stated simply and she fancied that she heard the man at the end of the line gasp in shock.
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Margaret Scully’s Residence
Mulder and Scully came down the stairs, still adjusting their clothes, and sneaking like naughty teenagers who didn’t want their parents to catch them. They stopped mid-way to indulge a long deep kiss that neither wanted to end, before working their way into the kitchen. Maggie Scully wasn’t there and the house was unnaturally silent. They exchanged a wary look and their hands automatically went for the guns that weren’t there. Mulder took the lead as they crept down the corridor and peered into the living room. Maggie Scully was sitting on the couch staring fixedly into space. Tactfully Mulder made a heavy footfall but, instead of informing her of their presence, it alarmed her and she jumped. Her expression as she turned in the direction of the doorway was one of extreme fear, quickly it was replaced by relief but Scully felt her stomach knot painfully. Maggie stood up and rushed over to them with a wide, fake, smile.
“I didn’t want to disturb you, but I think it’s time for you to leave.” She said firmly. Mulder attempted a smile.
“Are you trying to get rid of us Mrs. Scully?” He asked with a stab at humour. Maggie lowered her head and sighed lightly, then raised it sharply to pin Mulder with a burning look. “What’s happened?” Mulder asked.
“I think that I saw some men moving around outside.” She said, but Mulder realised that she was lying. Something else had happened. He physically and mentally blocked off his concerns from Scully.
< “Fox!” > Samantha screamed suddenly in his head, penetrating the block. < “He’s after you. You’re not safe where you are.” >
“Your mom’s right.” He said to Scully. “We’ve stayed here too long. We should go.”
“Where to?” Scully asked.
“Byers has arranged a car and some ID for us. They’ve left them in a car park about a mile from here.” Mulder informed her, then smiled. “By the way, Frohike sends his love.”
They set about preparing to leave. Maggie went into the kitchen and was preparing a thermos when Fox joined her. She smiled limply at him but he didn’t return it.
“Where’s Dana?” Maggie asked.
“She’s checking her arm.” Mulder said flatly. “What happened?” Maggie swallowed and looked up at him.
“I got a phone call from someone I’d rather you and Dana didn’t meet.”
“Who?”
“Someone I used to work with. He knows that you’re here and that means he’s coming to get you.”
“Who is he?” Mulder was getting impatient.
“I can’t tell you his name. I can’t give you that much power over him. I’m bound by old promises and loyalties.” She clamped her hand over her mouth. “Shit!” She said vehemently between her fingers and Mulder was shocked that she had actually sworn. “I had hoped..” She took her hand away. “I literally can’t tell you his name Fox, not because I don’t know it, but because I can’t say it.”
Mulder was about to ask her to explain but Scully entered the kitchen and dumped her bag onto the countertop.
“How’s your arm?” Maggie asked and Scully frowned.
“The wound’s already sealed up. I’m..It’s *not* supposed to heal that fast.” She shook her head.
“You’ve always been a fast healer.” Maggie Scully lied reassuringly to her daughter, whilst exchanging a wary look with Mulder behind her back. They headed for the door.
Scully turned to her mother with a sad smile.
“I don’t know when we’ll be back..” She tailed off but Maggie smiled through her tears and enfolded her daughter into her arms.
“You and Melissa were my special little ones. My little girls. Now I’m going to have lost both of you.” She sobbed into Scully’s neck. Mulder bit his lip at the word ‘special’ and at the word ‘girls’. <She’s not going to tell her> Mulder thought painfully. <That means that it’ll be down to me>
“You haven’t lost me.” Scully told her mother. “I’ll be back. I love you mom.”
“I love you sweetheart.” The hug became fierce and Mulder had to finally gesture them apart.
“Come on Dana, it’s time to go.” He spoke gently. Scully nodded and broke the contact, but her mother clasped onto her hands and looked directly into her eyes.
“I’m sorry Dana. I didn’t have to..I wish I could change..don’t forget how I much I love you.” She hugged her again, but she pulled back this time.
“Mom?” Scully questioned puzzled by her words.
“Just go.” Maggie said softly, through her tears. She turned to Mulder and hugged him, he reciprocated the contact and kissed her forehead. “Take care Fox.” She said seriously. “Nobody is ever who they appear to be. Remember that.” Mulder nodded and smiled sadly.
“I will Mrs. Scully.”
“You called me Maggie once.” She told him.
“I remember.” He said with a smile. Maggie looked over at Scully, who was curious at the exchange. “You take care of this one Dana. He needs you more than he’ll ever admit.”
“I need him too mom.” Dana said with a half-smile playing at the edges of her lips.
“Okay. You better go.” Maggie insisted. Mulder lowered his head near to her ear.
“Bye Aunt Mags.” He said quietly, so that Scully didn’t hear and kissed her cheek. Then they left the house, sneaking away towards the tree line several metres from the kitchen door. They waved and disappeared into the foliage.
Maggie stood in the frame of the kitchen door for a moment and recalled the young boy she’d said goodbye to early in the morning – ironically – on New Years Day 1964, 36 years earlier. He’d only been a little over two years old. They were on the deck of the Vineyard house, she had sat down to be on a level with him and because her stomach had been so large by then that she couldn’t stand for long. Also heavily pregnant Rebecca had stood inside by the window, smiling sadly as she watched them. Bill Mulder, always forceful but now looking at Maggie in a different light, was in the doorway with his brother Gerald standing behind him. And Robert too, smiling but still looking like a ghost in the pale moonlight. Threats were disguised with warm smiles and the truth was hidden by the thin spectre of endlessly talking voices. The house had looked so lovely and warm decorated by garlands of lights and candles. William Scully had stood waiting for his wife to leave the place for the last time, but he only saw the lights and didn’t know why Maggie didn’t want to come back here. The lights disguised the rotting, maggot-ridden and infected core of the gathering. The dark secrets at the centre of the Mulder family which, Maggie had suspected even then, would tear the family apart. She had touched the child’s face and told him that she wouldn’t be coming back. She’d suspected that he didn’t understand what she meant, but she had kissed his cheek and he had smiled sweetly at her. Then he’d said the words.
“Bye Aunt Mags.”
Maggie closed the kitchen, wishing that it was that easy to close the door on her memories.
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Outside Margaret Scully’s Residence
He smiled as he saw the two figures leave the house. They were an unmistakable couple, even at this distance.
“Should we follow them sir?” The black clothed man standing next to him asked. He placed the end of his cigarette into his mouth and slowly inhaled. The young man appeared to become impatient. “Sir?” He blew the smoke out slowly.
“No.”
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The Living Room
Margaret Scully’s Residence
Maggie watched from the window as Fox and Dana disappeared into the darkness of the woodland. She turned back sharply as the door of the house was broken open. The black clothed men that burst into the living room leveled rifles at her but she stood there as defiantly as her daughter would have. The cigarette smoking man walked past the other men towards her and she set her spine even straighter.
“Where are they?” He demanded.
“I don’t know what you mean.” She told him firmly. He regarded her steadily, betraying no emotion.
“Where have they gone?” He asked flatly.
“You have no power over me anymore Robert.” She said softly. The man’s eyes snapped to hers. The world narrowed to the two of them
The man turned away and ordered the soldiers out of the room angrily. “Nothing more than a bully!” She said when they were gone. “I always knew that this is what you would become.” Maggie spat at him. He lit a cigarette with slightly shaking fingers and drew sharply off it.
“Did you now?” He asked with a calm that did not match the nervous play of his fingers on the cigarette. “Where are they?”
“Where you’ll never find them.” Her voice was firm. The man laughed.
“There’s no such place.” He said quietly, turning back to face her. “The years haven’t changed you at all Maggie.”
“You’re wrong Robert. The quiet little mouse who thought you were a god disappeared a long time ago.”
“Yes, she left us for a husband who was never there and a horde of children who would desert her too.”
“I have a loving family, what do you have?”
“This isn’t about me.” He paused to place the cigarette in his mouth. “Where are they?” He asked again.
“So that you can kill them?”
“You’re stalling because you think that it will give them time to get away.” He said softly, crossing to her. Maggie laughed.
“Is that what I’m doing?” She asked silkily. He placed his right hand around her neck, under her hair, gently pressing, searching, over the base of her neck. Maggie repressed a shiver and swallowed with difficulty. She hated him, at least that’s what she kept repeating to herself.
“Why did you leave Maggie? I gave you everything that you wanted. I was offering you the Earth.” His fingers continued their search.
“And what about your price! You would have destroyed *me* the way you destroyed Bill and Rebecca!” She stated sarcastically. His fingers brushed over a rough spot on her neck and pressed painfully.
“You know what that is don’t you Maggie?” He asked maliciously. Maggie set her expression.
“I know what it is. I’m an abductee.” She swallowed what felt like a golf ball. “Why didn’t you just kill me? Why didn’t you just kill Dana?”
“It wasn’t the right time.”
“Was it Melissa’s time?” She asked angrily.
“Individual lives are not important Maggie, you know that. The project is all that matters. Dana will have her moment. She has an important part to play.” He said softly.
“This is all *your* doing!” Maggie spat viscously and turned angrily out of his grasp. “I *begged* Dana not to join the FBI. I knew it was your hand behind it.” She glared at him. “Why her?” She demanded and he smiled thinly.
“Because I need her.”
“And Fox?” Maggie asked with wide-eyes.
“I need him too.” He stated, with a trace of a smile. “Together they will help me to decide the new order.”
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Mulder and Scully ran through the trees and the darkness, occasionally tripping but scrambling to their feet and carrying on.
“They’re not following us.” Scully gasped out. Her jeans were ripped in places and her hair hung in limp strands against her face, which was smeared with mud.
“They must have seen us leave.” Mulder said between gasping breaths. His hair fell onto his forehead in damp bunches and he brushed it back firmly, but it insisted on falling forwards. His clothes and shoes were all caked in mud. “They weren’t looking for us!” He said suddenly and turned to Scully in horror. Her brow creased, which caused the mud caked there to crack.
“What then? Why would they come to my mother’s house? She’s of no interest to them.”
< “To kill her.” > Mulder thought in shock, forgetting to mask it from her. Scully heard it and assumed it was her own thought. It seemed to her that comprehension dawned.
“Mom!” She exclaimed and made as if to head back in the direction of the house. Mulder grabbed her arm and pulled her against him. “It’s my fault. If it wasn’t for me..” She sobbed into his chest.
“No.” He said, shaking his head.
Mulder set her away from him and looked at her seriously.
“Scully.” He began nervously. “Your mother was involved in the project.” The tears dried up and Scully’s expression set into a cold mask.
“No.” She said with determination.
“Before you were born she helped collect the data in the medical files.”
“She was a secretary for a law firm! She told me she was!” Scully insisted and Mulder spoke softly, calmly to her.
“She was my father’s assistant.” Unbelievably, Scully’s eyes grew wider. “She left when she was pregnant with you.”
A light suddenly switched on beyond the woods and a helicopter flew above them. Mulder and Scully dived for cover behind a bush. The helicopter circled overhead but the search light never touched them.
“Why does it keep circling this spot? Heat sensing equipment?” Mulder whispered directly into Scully’s ear. Scully froze. Her hands went to the base of his neck and traced over the skin. She couldn’t see anything but she did come across a small patch of rough skin, with a hard lump underneath it. Mulder turned to face her and took in her stunned expression. She swallowed.
“*That’s* how they found us.” She said flatly and Mulder’s hand went to his own neck. He could feel it. The implant attaching directly into his mind. Mapping his every thought and transmitting it to his enemies.
“Dammit! They set us up!” He exclaimed roughly and stood up. He went out from behind the bush to stand in the open.
“Mulder!” Scully hissed as he stepped out into the bright glow of the helicopter’s searchlight. Scully swallowed the bile that rose in her throat. Why couldn’t she have just been a normal person living in blissful ignorance of all this? Why did she have to be involved?
Scully frowned and the pieces began to fall together in her mind.
<”She left when she was pregnant with you.”>
<”I couldn’t have children..so I went to him.”>
<“My special little ones. My little girls.”>
<”They were attempting to create an alien-human hybrid.”>
<”Your mother was involved in the project.”>
<”You have more to do with all this than you realize.”>
<”I didn’t need to…I wish that I could change..”>
“My god.” Scully whispered, this time it was truly comprehension dawning. She looked up and found Mulder’s eyes turned in her direction. She stood up so that she was visible to him.
< “I’m sorry Scully. I wanted to tell you.” > Mulder’s voice inside her head.
< “That’s how we could seem to talk without words.” > She amazed herself as she thought the words to him. < “Just like you and Samantha.” > She smiled sadly.
< “Do you believe yet?” > His hair was being blown about violently as the helicopter got nearer and, even rain splattered, covered in mud and blown by the harsh wind, he was still the most attractive man that she had ever seen.
< “Doctor Blockhead was right. The future is just like you. Just like us. Whatever we are.” > Her tone was resigned.
< “Unless we can do something to stop it.” > Mulder insisted and Scully smiled. < “Come on..Dana, we can’t give up.” >
< “Alright.” > She answered with a wider smile. She ran out to stand with him and face whatever fate held for them.
Mulder looked down at her. Saw the tears on her face. Felt the tears on his own face.
“It was rigged from the start.” He told her as the helicopter came nearer to landing.
“I know.” She said softly. Their lips met in a gentle kiss. Scully smiled. “I still can’t say it softly. I love you.” Her tone was fierce and proud and angry. He smiled sadly.
“I love you too.”
The helicopter landed and the man with the cigarette jumped out. He came over to them. Mulder and Scully stepped closer to each other and linked hands firmly.
“Well, I’m glad you see that it’s easier to just give in.”
“Actually, I thought that I’d tried that.” Mulder drawled sardonically.
“Never deal with the devil, Fox.” The cigarette smoking man smiled ironically.
All three of them jumped as a loud buzzing noise sounded behind them. Even as the noise stopped, the night was filled with the sound of a loud explosion. Mulder and Scully stared into the sky as it lit up, almost as bright as day. Cancerman smiled thinly.
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Quonochontaug, Rhode Island
Sitting on the grass watching the house burn itself out to embers, Samantha felt unusual vibrations permeate her mind. Communications danced at the edges of her consciousness. Her lips twisted bitterly as she checked her watch.
“I guess it’s time.” She murmured she watched the unnatural light descend towards her.
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